El killed the comm. “Right,” she said. “Hope?”
“Working,” said the Engineer. “Okay, we’re good. No, we’re not. Yes, we’re good.”
“Which is it?” said Nate. As he spoke, the Bridge flickered, ancient machinery coming to life. The surface rippled, one minute showing the other side of the cavern, the next a starry expanse elsewhere in the universe.
“We’re good,” said Hope. “For about thirty-eight seconds. Easy. Get through the ring, and we’re away. This Bridge is old. One-way trip. I think the wormhole fabrication matrix is overloaded.”
“Algernon’s still here,” said Nate. “We need more than thirty-eight seconds.”
“Thirty-four, now,” said Hope. “Well, that’s all we’ve got.”
“I’ve got a plan,” said El. She clicked the comm back on. “Algernon?”
“There appears to be a problem with the Bridge stability,” he said. “The wormhole fabrication matrix is fluxing.”
“I knew it,” said Hope.
“You all need to shut up,” said El. She was powering the Tyche toward a rocky wall, but flying in an arc, bringing them around to kiss the inner surface. “I’ll go through the Bridge.”
“I’m still here,” said Algernon.
“Do you trust me?” said El. “Algernon. I’ve got your dead girl’s arm bolted to my side. I promise we’ll come back for you.”
“Within twenty-seven seconds?”
“Yes.”
“I trust you, Elspeth Roussel.”
“Do exactly what I say,” said El. Nate watched, eyes widening as she keyed her console, the Tyche skimming the inside of the cavern, close enough to kiss. Rockets chased, one or two crashing and burning, but plenty enough left to tear the Tyche to pieces.
The Tyche gave a small groan as El curved the ship around to face the Bridge. The gateway between stars beckoned. Nate closed his comm. “El? We can’t leave him here.”
“Not going to,” she said. She gave him a glance. “Cap, I’ve got this.”
Through the Bridge, Nate saw the Ezeroc homeworld, a muddy-brown mistake that hung in the hard black. The Tyche’s sensitive eyes saw the hulks and husks of dead starships still in orbit, the remains of Earth’s last armada against the roaches. El frowned. “Hope?”
“You’ve got Hope.”
“Give me that one,” said El. The holo highlighted another ship about the Tyche’s tonnage, an Old Empire lifter.
“The drive’s aren’t good for much,” said Hope.
“The drives are just fine,” said El. Seventeen seconds.
The ship lurched through the Bridge, the inside of Mercury giving way to the hard black. Ahead, the tiny bright light of a drive plume as the Old Empire lifter brought itself online, Hope’s previous work to allow the Tyche into the combat network paying itself forward.
“Hold onto something,” said El. She looked at her arm. “Don’t fight it, huh? No problem.”
The Tyche shuddered as the ship curved through space. They pulled up and over the Bridge, rockets sailing through, now locked on the other Old Empire ship. Nate winced. The other ship could have been a home like his Tyche, now just bait.
El wasn’t done. She brought the Tyche around to the other side of the Bridge, Mercury’s inside cavern coming into view as they looped around the Bridge. She lined the ship up with the Bridge, then spun it, initiating a breaking burn. “This will hurt a little,” she said, then pushed the throttles forward.
The Tyche shuddered hard, a vibration that felt like a hammer on Nate’s skull, everything rattling. Something crashed from the ready room, and one panel on Nate’s console went dark for a second. The bridge holo flickered like crazy, reporting EXCESSIVE G THRUST CREW SAFETY WARNING. Nate felt like he would black out, acceleration couch or no, and then they were through.
“Get in,” croaked El. Seven seconds.
Another alarm blared as the Bridge fired more rockets at them. Algernon said, “I’m in.”
El slammed the throttles forward again. The Tyche nosed out of the Bridge into the space around the Ezeroc’s old homeworld.
Two seconds.
The Bridge fluttered, then snapped shut, nothing but empty space visible through the ring. A missile was caught in the middle as the wormhole collapsed, severing it cleaner than a surgical laser’s cut.
They’d made it. They were safe.
If, by safe, you meant in your greatest enemy’s home system, a cracked planet below, and a bunch of insects hungry for revenge. Nate rubbed sweat from his brow. “This will be great.”
• • •
Things were like how they’d been last time Nate arrived here. It wasn’t the derelict ships in orbit, some of them alien. It wasn’t the smoldering remains of the Ezeroc homeworld, firestorms raging across the surface. No sir, the whole fire-in-the-sky thing was brand spanking new.
Truth: the planet looked better than when the Republic Navy had dropped enough nukes to make the thing glow for generations. Now, it was … back to being a ball.
“That’s not good,” said Nate.
“You what?” said El, attention on a hundred tiny details. The beauty of command, Nate reflected, was having staff to deal with the minutiae.
“The planet,” said Nate. “It’s a planet again. When we left, it was an expanding sphere of rocks that used to be a planet.”
“Gravity,” said El.
“Don’t be silly,” said Hope, the comm bright with her voice. “Yes, that would happen, but in a lot of years.”
“My point,” said Nate. He gestured out the windscreen, palm up in a see? motion. “That is a roughly spherical ball of fuckery. And before the Empire got punched in the face, no one reported it. So, that planet is new. The Ezeroc built a whole new planet where their old one used to be.”
“I get you,” said El. “It’s not our most material concern.” She tapped on her console, bringing up telemetry on the flight deck holo. “Here. We’re this tiny dot. The other dots are Old Empire ships, drifting and being general pains in the asses. But those things? Everything you see in an angry red hue is a ship we don’t know about and definitely don’t control.”
Nate checked the holo. “That’s a lot of dots.”
“They’re more or less headed our way,” said El.
“It doesn’t change the mission,” said Nate. “Some of those will be Ezeroc. Some of those will be AI. We need to find the Judge.”
“I’ve found the Judge,” said Algernon. “It is broadcasting on the command frequency Service-class units would listen to.” The holo cleared, bringing up a visual representation of a tightly-packed EM wave. “It is on the surface of the planet.”
“I’ve seen that before, at Paloma,” said El. “They were broadcasting the same damn thing.”
“Ignoring your inability to understand the frequency, and thus know what it says, you are probably correct,” said Algernon. “It is a general-purpose waveform.”
“It instructs them to do stuff,” said El. “Like an autofactory.”
“How quaint,” said Algernon. “‘Stuff.’”
“Where is it?” said Nate. “We need to go disrupt things some. Also, stop hacking my ship. The flight deck holo is for the flight crew.”
“I’m not one of your crew,” said Algernon.
“Kinda my point,” said Nate. “But just this once, keep going. Where are they?”
“Here,” said Algernon. “As humans fancy things, bottom third of the planet. For the sake of convenience, I have applied meridians to the planet’s overlay, so we can all communicate effectively.” The holo updated with latitude and longitude lines, a bright green blip highlighting the location of the Judge.
“Seems convenient they put it there, asking for us to come down.” Nate rubbed his chin. “Feels like a trap.”
“Of course it’s a trap,” said Algernon. “The Judge will be under the surface. On the surface will be several milspec guardian mechs. Not to mention the Ezeroc, who call this planet home. Our pri
ze is in the middle of all that fuckery.” The machine paused. “I like that word.”
“Let’s go unfuck it, then,” said Nate. “I think we’re all missing something important.”
Grace leaned in through the flight deck airlock. “My father.”
“Or his team,” said Nate. “I can’t imagine them laying something like this out for just anyone to find.”
“We’re ahead, though,” said Grace. “We used a Bridge unknown to him, arriving here without him being able to respond, let alone predict. He’ll have a standard garrison, not an entire fleet.”
“Three hundred and forty-nine,” said El.
“What?” said Grace.
“His so-called standard garrison is three hundred and forty-nine starships,” she said. “They are coming for us, while we dick about up here, trying to work out what to do.” The Helm nudged the controls, the Tyche ready and willing. The rumble of thrust thrummed the hull. “I figure while you work out what to do, I’ll land the ship.”
Kohl joined Grace at the airlock. “You get me and Ebony down there, we’ll clear a path,” he said. “Been looking forward to kicking more ass. Last few hours have been boring.”
“Boring?” said Nate.
“Boring,” said Kohl. “Anyway, I’m getting suited up. Let me know who to punch.” He walked away. Nate could hear him and Ebony talking as they went aft, Kohl saying something like it’ll be fun and Ebony saying something like are you nuts.
“I suggest you leave the military constructs to me,” said Algernon. “Your frail forms will be no match for them. Since observing October Kohl’s approach to problem solving, I believe I have a pattern that will allow a smaller unit like myself to achieve victory against a mech without significant cost.”
Nate nodded. “Makes sense.”
“What?”
“Makes sense,” said Nate. “Way I figure it, you’re kind of like the peak of machine evolution. You’ve already taken one of these things out. Best leave it to the pros.”
“That’s remarkably open-minded of you,” said Algernon. “Are you a genetic experiment?”
“Not that I know of,” said Nate. He closed his eyes for a moment. What would be great was a glimpse of the future. A sign of which way to go. His special gift let him see some of the things to come. The closer to happening they were, the more … real they felt. Fighting was immediate, and he could see ghost outlines of his opponents. But further ahead? The future was vague, as delicate as spiderweb against his face in the dark. You could feel something there, but no matter how much arm-waving you did, you could never quite get a hand on it.
This situation had a lot of cobwebs. A million strands of possibility, a hundred things that could impact the future in a thousand ways. One set of strands lit brighter than the rest. The implication of what would happen if they tried to merely settle on the crust. Death, a burning rain of debris hitting the surface of the Ezeroc world.
Nate cleared his throat, keeping his eyes closed. “We need a diversion.”
“We need armor,” said El.
“Both,” said Grace.
“That one,” said Nate, his arm stabbing out. He opened his eyes, sighting down his finger. He pointed at the Tyche’s holo stage, a tiny dot among the remains of a mighty human fleet. At the end of his finger, a small corvette. The Memory.
El brought RADAR and LIDAR to bear. “It’s a ruined piece of junk,” she said.
“It’ll fly,” said Nate.
“Reactors are offline,” said Hope. “It won’t hold air.”
“It’ll fly,” said Nate, again.
Grace leaned forward, squinting at the holo. “At least a third of the hull is missing.”
“It’ll fly,” said Algernon. “I believe I have a sense of the plan. It is exciting.”
“Oh God,” said El.
“A third of the hull,” said Nate. “Reactors offline. Ruined.”
“Yes,” said El.
“No transponder,” said Nate. “No energy signature. Nothing to detect. Aft sheared clean off.”
“No,” said El. “We’re not doing that.”
“Yes, we are,” said Nate.
“No way,” said El.
“Hell,” said Nate. “This is easy flying. I’ll do it.”
“What are we doing?” said Hope.
“We’re going to die,” said El.
• • •
The hard part was getting to the planet. Surviving the trip would be tricky. A drive plume was signal enough, but with advanced telemetry, it would be easy enough to track their transponder, borrowed or not. They’d get shot, and not just once or twice. There would be impacts from torpedoes, the hard black lanced with railgun fire.
The Tyche wasn’t very big. Just a heavy lifter, tossed out by a war that didn’t need her anymore. Her design was old, a flying wing that let the ship fly in atmosphere as easily as the hard black.
Nate remembered his conversation with Scotty Reid, an Engineer who liked the old hulls. How he’d upgraded the ship’s reactor. Weapons and armor too, making the ship stronger nose to tail. More power for the drives, that kind of thing. Scotty Reid had no doubt been returned to the component atoms from whence he came after the Mercenary jumped to certain doom in the Paloma System, but his legacy remained. One ex-war heavy lifter upgraded and good to go.
Step one. Nose the ship into the remains of the Memory.
Step two. Get the front of the Tyche against an interior superstructure component. Didn’t much matter what it was.
Step three. Light the fires, using the Memory as armor and camouflage for their trip to the Ezeroc world.
“You’re insane, and I say that with love,” said El. She was guiding the Tyche toward the Memory anyway. “There’s a bunch of things that’ll go wrong.”
“Could go wrong. Could, El.” Nate sighed. “We fly with a goddess. Don’t forget it.”
“Luck is a thing you shouldn’t rely on,” said El. “What if we get lodged in the wreckage? We’ll be pulled to our doom. Die in a big ball of fire.”
“Might happen,” agreed Nate.
“Or, what if the enemy work out where we are inside the Memory’s hull? Fish in a barrel. We can’t maneuver in there.”
“I’ll allow it’s a risk,” said Nate. He ran a hand over his console. My good girl. “We’ll be fine.”
“The meat sock Helm is correct,” said Algernon. “The risks are high.”
“Thank you, Algernon,” said El. “See? Even the professor agrees.”
“However,” said Algernon, his voice clear on the comm, “the risks of not doing this are higher. I estimate a less than one percent chance of clearing the debris field without taking unexpected and exciting inbound fire. The useful part of the captain’s plan is machine predictive models do not cope well with wild card elements.”
“I think he’s talking about you,” said El. “‘Wild card elements.’”
“El,” said Nate. “People are counting on us. People like us, and people like him.” He jerked a thumb behind him, to the ready room where Algernon waited. “It’d be churlish to run and hide on the eve of victory. Also, we have Grace, who can wrestle starships out of the sky with a thought.”
“I feel I lack data,” said Algernon. “Can you run that last past me again?”
“Got you,” said El. “We’re doing this?”
“We’re doing this.”
“We’re going to die,” said El. “But at least it will be an original death.” She clicked the ship-wide comm. “Helm to Tyche. Preparing for combat burn. All crew and smartass robots are to secure their persons on an acceleration couch. Burn in three, two, one, mark.” On her mark, the Tyche roared, Nate slammed back into his acceleration couch.
“El,” he wheezed. “This feels like five Gs.”
“Seven,” she said. “Going for nine.”
“We’ll crash into the Memory,” said Nate.
“You do your job,” she said, then gasped air. “And I’ll do mine. Eigh
t Gs. Nine. Locked.”
Algernon’s cheery voice came over the comm. “If you stroke out, Elspeth Roussel, I will pilot the ship.”
“Over my dead body,” said El, golden hand working in tandem with her flesh and blood one.
“That is what I said,” said Algernon.
“El?” said Nate. “El, the Memory,” he pointed with his golden arm, perfectly able to work in high thrust, as the remains of the Old Empire corvette flashed by off their port bow, “is back there.”
“We’re not doing it your way,” said El. “Tangos on our six.” Her hands worked the sticks, the Tyche shuddering into a curve back the way she’d come. Not only nine gravities of thrust behind them, but another nine pressing down on them as centrifugal force, that mythical enemy that gave joy to centrifuges, tried to squeeze Nate’s eyes out the bottom of his feet.
“Why aren’t we firing?” said Nate.
“Your job,” she gasped.
“Oh,” said Nate. His teeth felt like they were grinding themselves together. He worked his console, bringing the PDCs online. They were shiny and new, after Scotty Reid’s work. Tungsten for summertime rain, and railguns for the dirty work in the dark. The bridge holo marked all three hundred and forty-nine hostile targets, showing polyhedral AI craft alongside more typical Ezeroc asteroids. The smallest AI craft were tetrahedrons, the triangular pyramids dwarfed by the largest, a massive thirty-sided triacontahedron. The Tyche marked them, tagging them as UNKNOWN ENEMY VESSELS, and moved onto the Ezeroc ships. The ship knew more about these, having drawn down on them in gunfights before. HOSTILE ALIEN PRESENCE, the ship said. ENEMY TONNAGE EXCEEDS ENGAGEMENT PARAMETERS.
You’ll be fine, thought Nate. You’ve looked after us so well for so many years. Now it’s our turn to make sure you can make it down without a scratch on you.
There was a whine-chunk as a rail PDC fired automatically at something the Tyche saw, the tremor Nate expected lost against the stresses already running through the ship. He brought up all the weapons. The PDCs, sure, but the new particle cannon mounted underneath the ship.
“I need you to hit one,” said El. “Just one. But more is better.”
“Fly straight,” said Nate. A salvo of white-bright railgun fire chattered across space, missing them by mere meters. “Belay that order. Fly like a crazy person.”
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