Confluence 2: Remanence

by Jennifer Foehner Wells

  It was going be a single short jump. There was no use speculating on how this would play out, but she hoped that they would find these kuboderans in much the same state that Brai had been in, eager to help look for their own kind, though she knew that might not be the case. Every kuboderan was an individual and would have their own ideas about how they wanted to go forward. She would do her best to honor that.

  “Quasador Dux Jane Holloway, the jump drive is at the ready. Checking all critical systems now,” Brai intoned formally to the entire anipraxia network, while underneath he vibrated with an undercurrent of excitement.

  Jane mentally touched the minds of each individual aboard to make certain everyone was linked and ready. Alan, Ron, Ajaya, Jaross, and Ryliuk were all on the bridge, and the systems they monitored were green for go. In the background, connected but not directly assisting, Schlewan, Tinor, and Pledor waited and watched nearby.

  Jane was a little nervous. The jumps taxed her and were painful. She didn’t want to show weakness in front of the sectilians, especially Ryliuk and Pledor.

  She let Brai see those thoughts but no one else. She had become adept at choosing which thoughts to share while keeping others private. It seemed as though there were several layers in her mind that she could use depending on prevailing conditions—complete privacy, sharing with Brai, or sharing at another level with others either individually or as a group. She’d learned to default to keeping things just between herself and Brai unless she had something specific to share with the rest.

  Brai’s mental voice rumbled, “All systems ready, Qua’dux. Awaiting your command.”

  Jane inhaled sharply and gritted her teeth, focusing all of her attention on the impending jump. “Initiate jump sequence.”

  He didn’t have to confirm because she could feel him set the operation in motion. His connection to the ship was stronger now. The squillae lent support in bridging the connection between his implants and the neural-electric pathways of the ship. His signal engaged the wormhole drive and she felt it roar to life.

  Through the viewscreen she saw the invisible swirl instantly form, smearing the stars behind it. Pressure built in her head. She concentrated doggedly. Her heart pounded once, twice…she blinked…and they were through.

  An entirely new set of stars came into focus.

  It had happened so fast she’d missed traversing the short tunnel when she blinked.

  She let out her breath, huffed and puffed for a moment, trying to get her bearings. She was gripped in a moment of disorientation. It passed quickly.

  “Report,” she ordered. She almost didn’t believe that the jump had gone off as it should have. It was too different from the journey to Sectilius—it was too easy.

  “Tech Deck systems nominal,” Alan said. Similar reports echoed from the rest of the crew.

  “What about our location?” she asked.

  “Location confirmed, Qua’dux,” Brai said smugly before turning his attention elsewhere.

  A smile quirked her lips for just a second. “Scan the system.”

  “Scanning.”

  Jaross said, “I’m detecting the chemical signature of a sectilian ship between the orbits of the third and fourth planets.”

  “Is it the Quisapetta?” Jane asked.

  “Unknown,” Jaross replied.

  Ryliuk said, “There is no identification beacon broadcasting on any frequency.”

  “Plot a course,” Jane told Brai. “Let’s go see. Maybe Kai’Negli turned it off to conserve resources.” Never mind that such an action wouldn’t make sense—above everything else, he should want to be found.

  The ship moved swiftly through the system, passing an asteroid belt but not seeing another planet except a single red rock from a distance.

  A flicker of unease came through the connection with Brai. It felt like deja vu. He didn’t sense the presence of any kuboderan, though he should have well before now. Despair surged inside him, then was quickly tamped down.

  What was left of the Quisapetta came into view. Scattered debris, blackened from an explosion, had fallen into its own orbit around this star.

  47

  Jane commanded the viewscreen to zoom in on a quadrant of the destruction and watched the pallid body of a kuboderan easily twice the size of Brai slowly float by, surrounded by huge irregularly shaped shards of ice. Kai’Negli, surely. Half of his arms were severed partially or completely, the rest curled protectively around himself in death.

  Brai choked out, “It would be unwise to approach any closer with the escutcheon in its current state.”

  “Release a probe,” Jane said.

  “Damn it. I was afraid of this,” Alan muttered.

  Jane stared at the debris field in disbelief. The ship had been obliterated. “Who would do this?”

  Ron shook his head at his station in front of her. “Maybe whoever planted the bad squillae?”

  Alan huffed. “It could have been anyone pissed that there were zombie plague-infested ships left all over known space. They’d view it as risky to just leave them floating around. Better to eliminate the threat.”

  “Why not help them?” Tinor asked in a quiet voice.

  “Did anyone help the Sectilius?” Alan asked. “All we know is that someone, probably from this Sentient Alliance we know nothing about, dropped atomic bombs in the atmospheres of Atielle and Sectilia to kill the nanites and all the technology on the surface—but no one ever went in to help them. They just quarantined the entire system and forgot about them. Left them to survive or die.”

  The probe glided through the wreckage, gathering data.

  Jane frowned. “Are there squillae in the wreckage?”

  “Negative,” Brai announced. “None detected.”

  “We need to know more. Is the probe picking up any information that could help us glean anything about this ship’s attacker?”

  “Still processing data,” Brai replied.

  Jane walked to the front of the bridge to visually inspect the wreckage at high magnification on the viewscreen. She called Ron up to look at it with her, since he had extensive ballistics experience from his past work as a Marine.

  He pointed at what she thought of as the underside of the hammerhead-shark-shaped ship, toward the tail. “Looks like primary impact was here. It just ripped her open in one shot. That’s some heavy-duty ordnance, QD.”

  Jane nodded. “The ship wasn’t moving. Because of the yoke, Kai’Negli couldn’t fight back or take evasive maneuvers.”

  Ron grimaced. “He was a sitting duck.”

  Ron gestured at another chunk floating nearby. The remains of the kuboderan’s habitat were exposed in that section. Ice with a pearly iridescence flowed in knobby shapes into a multidirectional waterfall from every edge of the tank’s remains. “You see this? This isn’t from the explosion. It’s too regular. These are straight lines. This happened after the explosion. Someone wanted to make sure there were no survivors and they knew exactly where to cut.”

  That was so disturbing. What would prompt someone to do that?

  Ron turned his attention back to the primary impact site and pointed at a blackened, jagged segment of the hull. “We should get a sample of this material for analysis. Can the probe cut off a small piece?”

  Jane thought about it. The probe was a scientific sampling tool, but it was primarily designed to siphon, scoop, or drill. “No. It doesn’t have the tools to cut into something of this nature. This is outside the scope of its intended purpose.”

  Jaross stood. “With your permission, Qua’dux, I’d like to take a shuttle in closer, obtain samples to see if I can gather any additional forensic information.”

  Schlewan chimed in. “I would go as well.”

  Ajaya said, “I’ll go too.”

  Jane held up a hand before anyone else volunteered. She consulted privately with Brai. “How risky would that be?”

  Brai labored over some calculations. “The risk is minimal. Jaross has completed the simu
lated shuttle-pilot training course and has field experience. She displays an innate aptitude.”

  Jane sat back in the command chair. These three were qualified to analyze just about anything. Far more than she was herself. She nodded. “You three. That’s it. Gather what you need and leave when ready. Take no risks.”

  The three volunteers left the bridge. Alan half turned in his seat and sent her a thought along with a mock baleful glance. “You know I wanted to go, too.”

  Jane sighed. She’d expected this. “You didn’t stand up fast enough.”

  He turned back around. “Fair enough. I already got to do a spacewalk, anyway.”

  “Yes. Thank goodness you survived it.”

  “I lead a charmed life like that.” He sniffed. “I’ll just be here, looking over this data, then.”

  They launched the shuttle. Jane stood with arms folded, resisting the urge to pace, and watched the small craft as it maneuvered through the wreckage. Jaross narrated every action as she executed it. She was calm and self-assured. She pulled up alongside the spot Ron had pointed out. Ajaya opened the rear hatch, outfitted in the same kind of suit Alan had worn on his spacewalk, brandishing a sectilian laser cutting arc. She proceeded to hack off a piece of the outer hull at the edge of the blast zone.

  She pulled herself back inside the shuttle. They began to repressurize the cabin.

  A bright blast whited out the viewscreen.

  Jane gasped and flew to the front of the bridge to stare in horror as the tiny ship was flung away from the larger one.

  “Jaross, report!”

  Jaross didn’t reply.

  Jane turned to Alan. “Show me the interior cameras.”

  The view on the screen changed almost instantly.

  It was chaos. The ship was tumbling. People were injured. There was a gaping hole in the rear compartment. Jaross and Schlewan were tethered but Ajaya was being tossed around in the rear compartment.

  Jaross still looked calm, but she was struggling to get the ship under control.

  They’d survived the blast because they hadn’t yet repressurized and removed their masks. If they hadn’t had supplemental air, they would have died from the breach alone. Beyond that, if the shuttle had repressurized then Ajaya, still untethered, would have been sucked out into the explosion.

  The bridge was silent as everyone watched the shuttle narrowly miss a collision with a large piece of the destroyed ship.

  “How can we help them?” Jane asked aloud. No one replied. Suddenly it occurred to her. She closed her eyes and commanded Brai to create a tight link with Jaross. Now she could see what Jaross could see.

  Jane gave Jaross terse instructions on how to regain control based solely on instinctive impulses. Jaross followed them without question and was able to pull the ship out of its spiral. That allowed Schlewan to attend to Ajaya as they limped back to the Speroancora.

  As soon as the smaller ship was back aboard, Jane gave the order to put some distance between them and the wreckage. She raced for the door to the bridge. She had to get a stretcher to the cargo bay where Jaross had landed the ship. She sent a message to Tinor to meet her there.

  “QD?” Ron was standing. His normally calm expression had slipped away. His jaw was clenched tight. His hands were balled into fists. “Permission to accompany you?”

  “I need your eyes and ears here. Keep a tight link to me. Schlewan is working on her. She’s in the best hands possible. I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

  He nodded and returned to his station.

  48

  Jane took a seat at the head of the table in the crew dining hall. It was the closest they were going to get to a conference room on this ship. Alan sat next to her on one side. Jaross sat herself stiffly on the other side. She was battered but not badly enough for the screening device to recommend sanalabrius immersion.

  Ajaya had not been so lucky. She’d barely survived. She’d lost a lot of blood when the piece of the wreckage she’d cut from the Quisapetta had punctured her abdomen. Thankfully she’d been wearing a skintight pressure suit, so the injury hadn’t resulted in loss of air or she’d have been dead in seconds. Though she was covered in burns and bruises and had several fractures from being tossed around in the shuttle, she’d never let go of the fragment of the other ship. She would be out of commission for a long while.

  Jane acknowledged each of the crew members in turn as they took a seat. “We’re here to discuss what happened and what we’ll do next.”

  Without hesitation, Alan said, “We blow that shit up before we do anything else.”

  Pledor grunted. “Why would we do that?”

  Alan didn’t bother to look at Pledor, but he did answer. “It’s booby-trapped throughout. Anyone else who gets close to that thing is going to get hurt.”

  “Why didn’t you detect the bombs before we put people in such close proximity?” Pledor asked.

  Alan blinked. “Because we didn’t know what we were looking for. The bombs are made from everyday objects on board a ship. After the explosion I was able to go back into the probe’s scans, pick out where the origin of the explosion was, and then search the rest of the ship for those kinds of devices.”

  Pledor looked like he was formulating another cynical question, but Ron leaned forward to say, “I’m confident I can trigger a chain reaction with just a single missile. That should remove most, if not all, the risk to anyone else who stumbles on this.”

  Jane glanced at Alan. He was nodding in agreement.

  Pledor wouldn’t be silenced for long. “That’s a waste. We may need those munitions at a later date, if we encounter a Swarm pod. That’s what they’re meant for. Defense under threat. This is an uninhabited system. It’s unlikely anyone will stumble on it.”

  Pledor had clearly been studying his ship history.

  “The Quisapetta was here. We’re here. Ships come here.” Alan’s voice was starting to rise.

  Jane held up a hand. “I agree with Alan. We should remove the danger. We’ll work out the particulars when we’re finished here. But there is something else we need to discuss. Something that doesn’t make sense. Alan, please tell everyone what your team found when you analyzed the piece of the Quisapetta that Ajaya removed.”

  Alan nodded. “In short, the Quisapetta was blown up by another sectilian vessel.”

  Everyone but Jane and the engineers looked surprised.

  “How is that possible?” Pledor demanded.

  “No idea. We’ve been working under the assumption that the plague affected every sectilian ship. Now it’s looking like we may have a civil war on our hands.”

  “Impossible, impossible, impossible,” Schlewan said sternly.

  “Were there opposing factions on either planet that were radical in any way?” Jane asked.

  The sectilians looked at each other skeptically. Jaross spoke. “Certainly there were disagreements, but that is not the way of our people. We look for solutions, not warfare.”

  “We would not murder our own in this way,” Schlewan said. “When some of our colonies were destroyed by the Swarm there was a widespread referendum. Our people are determined to always present a united front. We declared that we would never, never, never fight amongst ourselves again.”

  Tinor said, “Every child is trained this way in the schoolroom. We do not harm our own.”

  “Okay,” Jane said. “Do you have another explanation?”

  Ryliuk put his hands out flat on the table in front of him. “They must have done it to themselves during the madness of the infection.”

  “Nope,” Alan said. “The residue left behind from the explosion indicates the missile came from a category-six warship. The Quisapetta is the same category as the Speroancora—class four. It doesn’t carry those kinds of missiles.”

  “Not warship,” Pledor corrected. “Defense ship. Those ships were created to defend against the Swarm.”

  “Well if it looks like a warship and it quacks like a warship…” Alan q
uipped.

  Ron leaned forward. “They didn’t just blow a hole in the Quisapetta. Once they split her open, they used laser weapons to cut open the tank so they could kill the kuboderan.”

  “How strange and cruel,” Tinor said softly.

  “This had to happen during the plague—it creates a madness. I can summon no other explanation,” Jaross said.

  Ryliuk coughed. “We should return to Sectilius space.”

  Silence fell.

  Ron looked at Ryliuk skeptically. “Why would we do that?”

  Ryliuk shifted in his seat and glanced toward Jane, though his gaze fell short of meeting her eyes. “We should recruit a larger crew. We could have lost thirty percent of our number to the shuttle sortie.”

  “But we didn’t,” Ron said.

  “No, we didn’t,” Jaross agreed. “We should continue on.”

  Tinor leaned forward earnestly. “We only have one data point. We need to gather more information.”

  Pledor huffed. “It’s too soon to turn back. Nothing has changed.”

  Jane concealed the surprise that threatened to pass over her features from hearing Pledor side with the humans and Jaross. Jane knew through Brai that Tinor and Schlewan agreed with them as well.

  “It’s settled then,” Jane said and rose. “We’ll blow up what’s left of the Quisapetta and jump to the next target, the Crastinatra—‘The Black Tomorrow.’”

  49

  They blew up the Quisapetta. Then they watched it burn from a distance. Ron had not been exaggerating when he’d said he could pick a spot that would create a chain reaction. Once it started blowing up, it didn’t stop until most of the fragments were annihilated.

  It felt like a funeral. Brai was struggling to manage his emotions. The general mood on the ship was somber.

  When it seemed as though there was nothing left to do, they jumped to the next destination on the list. Like the last jump, this one was fairly easy, but it was also short.