The Prodigal Sun

by Sean Williams

  In her ear:

  Over the com: “Hard landing in approximately one minute. The cargo doors will be open. Be ready to disembark. Try to put as much distance as possible between yourselves and the lander. That or some large objects.”

  And again in her ear:

 

 

  “Twenty seconds to impact,” it said over the com.

  Roche braced herself yet again. The lander swayed extravagantly, but she noticed that the vertical component of the glide remained smooth. The Box had full control. Still, she was glad there was no viewing portal. Better not to see what was happening outside.

  Then came a frightening few seconds of silence—no slewing, no whining of the airfoils, just waiting for impact. She didn’t know what was worse.

  the Box said to her.

  Then they hit.

  Roche was thrown against her harness with such force that it felt as if the couch would tear loose from its mountings. A long, terrible scream of ripping metal shrieked through the cabin; smoke suddenly filled the air. Anything not secured ricocheted around the cockpit.

  Something clipped the side of Roche’s skull, making her head ring. She closed her eyes and tried not to scream.

  Cane called out something, but his words were lost in the noise.

  The lander bounced once, twice, then careened violently to the right. Another lurch—this time upward, giving the impression that the craft was about to tip end over end. Sparks and blue flame erupted about them as the control panels and monitors exploded simultaneously. A series of small slews and lurches, a long dull grinding noise—

  Then nothing but smoke.

  “Evacuate immediately,” the Box said into the ringing silence. Roche wasn’t sure whether it was in her ear or over the com, but she needed no further prompting.

  “Okay,” she gasped, slipping the clasps on her harness. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Cane reached across her and freed her rear clasps. Before she could move, he was doing the same for a badly dazed Veden. Roche couldn’t help but marvel at him. He had been out of his harness almost instantly; with no sense of undue rush, he was moving faster than she could manage with all her Armada training.

  “Help him out of here,” she ordered as Veden stumbled, disoriented. Cane put an arm around the Eckandi’s shoulders and guided him to the airlock.

  Roche tucked the Box under her left arm, slid off the couch, and helped Maii to her feet. The Surin shrugged her hand away; the smoke in the air made her cough, but otherwise she was unharmed.

  Maii whispered in her mind,

  Roche smiled to herself. “That way,” she said, and started the girl forward. “Just keep moving. I won’t be far behind.”

  Cane and Veden had already vanished. It was hard to tell through the thickening smoke exactly where she was. Something exploded with a crump beyond a bulkhead, showering her with sparks and temporarily blinding her. She had to rely on her hands to guide her along. At the storeroom, she stopped and tried the door.

  “How long, Box?”

 

  “I know, I know. But we need those supplies.”

  The door to the storeroom had jammed shut, the frame warped by the impact. She kicked it open and stumbled through. The smoke was thicker in the tiny room, and the heat more oppressive. More sparks showered in a stream from one corner, burning her exposed skin. She clutched randomly at containers and, gagging upon the suffocating fumes, quickly thrust them into a plastic sack.

 

  “Okay,” she said, coughing. “I hear you.” Shrugging the half-empty sack over a shoulder, she hastened out of the room and through the cockpit. Halfway to the airlock, her foot tangled in a strip of burning insulation, making her stumble. Barely had she regained her feet when she felt strong hands clutch at her shoulders.

  “Roche!” Cane’s voice bellowed in her ear, straining to be heard over the rising rumble from the depleted fuel tanks. “Come on!”

  Unable to reply, Roche let herself be hauled through the lander. As they crossed the lip of the airlock, her legs gave out entirely, sending her tumbling forward. As one, she and Cane fell down the steep egress ramp and onto rocky ground.

  Maii was at their side immediately, pulling Cane to his feet. Roche had landed heavily beneath him, with the Box crushed up against her ribs. She had a bad feeling that one or more of them was broken. She reached for Maii’s hand and heard Cane shout from somewhere above them: “I’ll carry her! You get clear!”

  Roche’s head was swimming now. She was aware of Cane standing over her, and of his powerful arms dragging her upright. Pain shot across her chest as he lifted her onto his shoulders.

  “The sack,” she tried to say. If he replied, she didn’t hear.

  The pain increased when he started to run, but she fought against unconsciousness as long as she could. A loud explosion slapped the world behind her, and a flash of heat seared one side of her face—and then, finally, she blacked out.

  PART TWO:

  HOUGHTON’S CROSS

  5

  DBMP Ana Vereine

  ‘954.10.30 EN

  1225

  Down through the complex matrix of information that represented the Dato Marauder, Ana Vereine, the soul of Captain Uri Kajic flew like an electric bird of prey—

  feeling

  —the hull humming with energy, singing like vibrating glass—

  seeing

  —sensors alive with light and radiation, feeding a constant stream of tactical and telemetry data directly to his nervous system—

  tasting

  —the drive mix: potent and powerful, exactly the right texture of elements at exactly the right temperature—

  hearing

  —the babble of voices chanting an epiphany to the process that was war and the great metal beasts that served its purpose—

  dreaming

  —of a faceless woman whose very presence threatened his existence in some vague, unstated manner.

  While the remains of his body lay in its fluid-filled coffin, attended by patient machines, the various networks and subroutines implanted in the tissues of his brain ticked over without rest. From spinal column to cerebrum, every ganglion of his nervous system had been rewired to interface with some aspect of the ship. As a result, only part of his mind slept while the remainder continued its perpetual chores of monitoring the ship’s activities.

  His previous life—before the slow-jump accident and the operation—had been completely forgotten. Erased by surgery. The wire net lacing his plastic skull caught any ghosts long before they could disturb his thoughts, waking or unconscious. On every level of his being, he was the captain of the Ana Vereine—capable, efficient, and, above all, loyal. His dreams were always of the ship, his new body, and his mission; the never-ending flow of information from the Ana Vereine rarely allowed him anything else. Most filtered through his subconscious without ever requiring further attention, although occasionally certain elements of a dream would catch his interest and linger longer than normal.

  Such as this threatening, faceless woman...

  He had no doubts that the dream was a warning, and that the woman was his second in command, Atalia Makaev. Since the beginning of the mission she had been undermining his leadership at every opportunity. Not overtly—that would constitute treason—but certainly subtly. It was in the things she said, the way she said them, and the manner in which she looked at him. Everything was a threat to his authority.

  He had been designed and rebuilt to lead. Any challenge to that was a challenge to the very core of his being.

 
A soft but insistent alarm purred through his coffin, distracting him from his reverie. The image of the woman faded almost immediately, although he was unable to free himself of the apprehension that the dream had brought.

  Focusing his thoughts on the specific rather than the general, Kajic glanced at the message. Makaev, with an uncanny sense of timing, had summoned him.

  His sensory input jumped from sensors scattered across the ship to the two task-specific cameras mounted on the bridge command dais. They swung to focus on the position Makaev usually occupied, but found it empty. Belatedly studying the summons in detail, he discovered her in the command module, a small niche used for privacy at the rear of the bridge.

  Changing his position took less will than the blink of an eyelid. His hologram faded from the bridge and reappeared in the module, where Makaev stood watching him with her hands folded behind her back, her lips parted in a slight and narrow smile.

  “News, sir.” Her voice was brisk and businesslike, a sharp contrast to the way his brain presently felt. The hormone delivery systems of his life support needed tuning again, he guessed. He nodded, gesturing for her to continue.

  “Our mole in DAOC flight control reports that the shuttle has crash-landed in a region to the north of Port Parvati, under cover of mountains.”

  He stared at her, momentarily disoriented.

  priority gold-one

  “What shuttle?” He quickly accessed the relevant data that had collected in his “memory” banks during his artificial slumber, waiting for him to find the opportunity to review it. There was nothing Makaev could tell him that wasn’t already there, but a lesson in respect and humility wouldn’t hurt the woman.

  She inclined her head with an expression that approximated genuine bafflement. “I’m sorry, sir. I assumed you were observing—”

  “You don’t assume anything, Commander,” he snapped, scowling. “I have been resting for the last three hours, and therefore disconnected from virtually all data input.”

  “I had no idea—”

  He interrupted her again. “Don’t play the fool with me, Commander.”

  “Sir, I swear...” She faltered. Then, more surely: “All information regarding your bodily needs and/or states of mind is restricted, and no inferior officer may access your network without reasonable cause. Given the nature of this mission, the only acceptable cause would be that your actions had somehow threatened its success. Anything else would be regarded as mutiny.” She added, “Sir.”

  Kajic studied her carefully. The expression on her face was one of concern, but he was suspicious of what lay underneath—of what intentions her thoughts kept hidden.

  “I’m aware of the regulations, Commander,” he said distractedly. “Nevertheless, there is a back door in my life-support program. I found it in the mainframe two days ago.” He hesitated before voicing his suspicions. “Someone has been monitoring me.”

  The crease in her brow was slight and forced. “A back door? But who—? I mean, why would there be such a thing?”

  “To spy on me, of course. To make sure I behave.” His image leaned closer to Makaev. “And please, Commander, if you must play the fool, then do it with more conviction.”

  Makaev’s back straightened, and she met the stare of the hologram evenly and without flinching. “I have no knowledge of what you speak, sir,” she said. “Clearly the leak must have been placed there before we left Jralevsky Minor.”

  Kajic allowed himself a wry grin. “Clearly.”

  “Whoever is behind it must be somehow involved in the design of your program itself.”

  “Or somebody opposed to it.” He shrugged. “One of the conservatives, perhaps.”

  Kajic, although he had been deep in the surgical process at the time, was aware of the controversy the Andermahr Experiment had caused. While extremes of genetic modification remained illegal, the Ethnarch’s Military Presidium still had a keen interest in bettering its troops. The long-dead Ataman Ana Vereine—after whom the Marauder was named, and who had begun the research centuries ago—had desired captains who were as much a part of their ships as was the anchor drive, an integral, reliable system rather than a merely flesh-and-blood addition to it.

  Kajic was the first prototype of a radical new technique, one that had the potential to transform the Ethnarch’s Military Presidium into an unopposable force across the region. Naturally, there would be resistance to the idea. Those sympathetic to the cause of coexistence, and those who believed the process itself to be an immoral perversion of the “natural” Pristine state, would be eager to see the project fail.

  “I’m still being tested,” he said, almost to himself. Despite all the implants, and his three unalterable priorities—which, even now, throbbed in his mind like guilt—he still wasn’t completely trusted.

  And if he failed to complete the mission—and thereby failed the test—what would happen to him? Would he be excised from the ship and thrown out with the scraps? Of what possible use would a man such as he be—one flayed and twisted, unable even to live without the aid of expensive machines?

  capture Al and Roche with as much stealth as possible

  Priority C stabbed at his thoughts like a physical pain, an ache in his left temple. In this, at least, he had failed—and whoever was watching him knew it too.

  But the mission wasn’t lost yet. Priorities A and B remained to be fulfilled. If he could only do so quickly enough, he could salvage his honor.

  Focus, he told himself, dispensing with his doubts. Focus.

  Makaev hadn’t moved during the split second it took him to think the situation through. She denied knowing about the back door. Perhaps it was true, although he doubted it. She may not have been directly involved, but she must surely have been aware of the monitoring taking place.

  He sighed. “We can discuss this later. For now, though, tell me about this shuttle.”

  “It seems that it escaped the destruction of the COE frigate under cover of the debris,” she explained, her face carefully deadpan. “The Paladin moved to intercept, but it managed to evade them.”

  “You said it crashed,” said Kajic. “Were there any survivors?”

  “Unknown at this stage, but unlikely. The explosion was detectable from orbit.”

  Kajic mulled this over. “Any progress yet in the wreckage of the frigate?”

  Makaev shook her head. “The dispersal pattern of the fragments has been thoroughly mapped and studied— twice—but our scanners and probes have failed to locate the AI.”

  “So it must have been in the shuttle.”

  “That conclusion seems obvious, sir.”

  Kajic glanced sharply at his second in command, but her face was still stonily blank.

  “Has the wreckage of the shuttle been investigated?” he asked.

  “Not yet. A search party is on its way as we speak. The authorities at Port Parvati assure me that no detail will escape their attention.”

  “Have you told them what we’re looking for?”

  “Of course not, sir. They are simply to study the wreckage and convey the data to us.”

  “At considerable expense, no doubt.” The Port Parvati wardens were voracious—and if there was one thing Kajic hated, it was fighting a war with money—but there was no other option. His future, if not his life, might well depend on their help.

  Kajic’s instincts continued to nag at him. He felt that he was in danger of letting success slip through his fingers unless he acted decisively.

  at all costs

  If the AI wasn’t in the wreckage of the Midnight, then it must have escaped in the shuttle. The Espionage Corps had, however, reported that in its present form the AI wasn’t able to move itself. Its escape must therefore have been facilitated by someone else. And as it was also known to be secure-cuffed to the wrist of a COE Intelligence agent...

  “Instruct them to expand the search,” he said. “Tell them we are looking for survivors.”

  “Sir?”

&nbs
p; “We have underestimated our opponent, Atalia.”

  “Opponent?” Atalia Makaev could not conceal her bemusement. “Sir, we have no opponent. The Midnight and the shuttle which escaped from it were totally destroyed. It is just a matter of searching through the wreckage and retrieving the AI.”

  “I’ll wager that the AI will not be found.”

  Makaev frowned. “Sir, may I ask what you are basing this assumption on? Have you access to information I have not been privy to?” There was a hint of mockery in her voice.

  “Call it a gut feeling,” said Kajic. Then, seeing his second in command’s expression of disbelief, he added, “Inform the search party that we are looking for a Commander Morgan Roche, and have her image relayed down to them.”

  “The AI’s courier?”

  “We have unwittingly locked horns with a formidable enemy, Atalia.” He nodded thoughtfully as something else occurred to him. “And I think we have found the cause of the Midnight’s destruction.”

  “But, sir,” said Makaev, annoyance flaring in her eyes, her voice. “Proctor Klose was the only one who could have—”

  “That is what we are meant to believe, Commander. In the same way we were meant to believe that nothing could have survived the destruction of the frigate; and in the same way we are now meant to believe that there are no survivors from the shuttle. But all the while we search that wreckage, the further away she gets.” He set his gaze firmly upon her. “Commander, I want the search for survivors extended immediately. Roche must not elude us!”

  “Sir.” Makaev straightened her posture and snapped a salute. Nevertheless, Kajic detected cynicism in her tone. “I will convey your request to Warden Delcasalle. If there are any survivors, they will be found.”

  “Indeed they will, Commander. And this time you will keep me informed.”

  “Yes, sir.” Makaev turned away as Kajic’s image faded. While the bridge staff attended to their duties, he retired to his usual pattern of overall monitoring, letting his thoughts surf the vast sea of data crashing mercilessly on the sands of his mind.