by Jim C. Hines
Wolf sagged back in her cot. “I’ll apologize, all right? I didn’t know they were . . . what do you call that? Eggstrating? I’ll bring Grom one of those methane slushees from the mess. The thing put up a hell of a fight for their size. I can respect that.” She shook her hand in mock pain.
The cell door slid open, just as a ten-minute countdown popped up in the corner of Mops’ monocle. “Move ass, Technician. We’ve got a jump coming up.”
Wolf’s belongings were standard issue. Where the guards and soldiers carried sidearms and ammo and restraints in their equipment harnesses, SHS personnel were loaded down with an array of hand tools and cleaning supplies, from high-pressure canisters of disinfectants, paints, and sealants to more specialized items like ultraviolet lighting for spotting shed Glacidae spines.
Wolf brought her monocle to her left eye socket. It jumped into place with a faint click, secured by the magnets implanted beneath the skin.
“Do you want to be sent back to Earth?” Mops asked in a low voice.
“And miss the chance to scrape slime from the water circ filters in the captain’s quarters every week?” Wolf asked bitterly.
“You need to grow the hell up, Technician. I know you’re unhappy here, but you can’t solve every problem by punching it.”
“Course not.” Wolf tightened the last of her harness straps. “That’s why we have blasters and batons.”
Four egg-shaped indentations slid open in the back wall of the cell as Tzu converted the interior to a jump chamber. Tzu and Williams stepped through the doorway.
Mops gave Wolf a weary shove. “Hook yourself in. We’ll sort the rest out after the mission.”
Mops settled into the last vacant pod and raised her hands. The attachment points locked into matching mechanisms on her harness and tightened her into place. “Doc, what’s the status on the rest of the team?”
“Monroe and Kumar are both secure in acceleration chambers B-11 and D-4, respectively.”
Mops relaxed, letting the gelatinous padding of the acceleration pod mold itself to her body. Like practically everything else, the pod, the gel, and the acceleration rings were Krakau inventions. Technically, even humanity was a Krakau invention. They were the ones who’d figured out how to restore the feral remnants of humanity. To reconstruct Earth culture and a Human language.
“This distress call, you think it’s pirates?” asked Wolf.
“They’re Nusurans,” said Tzu. “Probably started fooling around, got distracted, and crashed into an asteroid.”
While she waited, Mops had Doc call up the ever-growing backlog of repairs, inspections, routine maintenance, and emergency cleanups assigned to her team. A backlog that was about to get even longer. With every A-ring jump, there were always a handful of people who suddenly lost the contents of their stomachs. The lucky ones lost said contents through their mouths.
Mops had never been able to fully wrap her brain around A-ring technology. The Krakau had developed it a hundred and fifty years ago, opening the galaxy to interstellar travel and communication. From the reading she’d done, the rings were similar in some respects to old human jet engine technology. Where a jet engine compressed and accelerated airflow, A-rings gravitationally compressed space itself. Essentially, they pinched the universe, then shot the ship through like a pellet from a space-time slingshot.
The Pufferfish carried thirty A-rings. From a distance, they looked like an enormous white hose coiled around the bow. Each ring could be launched and expanded to allow the ship to pass through. The rings were only a meter or so deep, but the Pufferfish would traverse the equivalent of hundreds of kilometers in that single relativistic meter.
A hundred kilometers was nothing in interstellar terms. What mattered was the acceleration the ship gained in the process. As the A-ring disintegrated from the amount of energy being channeled, it sent the ship ahead at many times the speed of light.
Human scientists had believed light speed was an absolute limit. Of course, human science also used to believe meat transformed into maggots, the Earth was the center of the universe, and cholera could be treated with a tobacco smoke enema.
Mops had once written to the Technological Advancement Council, asking about relativity and the light speed barrier. The rather brusque reply explained that light speed was an absolute barrier. Any object traveling at the speed of light would be instantly destroyed. Which was why they used the A-rings to skip past that barrier and accelerate directly to faster-than-light speed.
It had been a remarkably unilluminating response.
The countdown approached zero. Mops closed her eyes, exhaled hard, and tightened her core as she felt herself slammed hard against the back of her pod. Inertial manipulation and the loopholes of relativity kept the crew from being instantly transformed into lumps of bloody jam, but technology could only do so much.
Three things happened more-or-less simultaneously. The Pufferfish leaped through interstellar space, thumbing its nose at primitive human science. The A-ring disintegrated in a flash of light and radiation. And everyone on board passed the hell out.
Mops’ monocle noted it was roughly one hour after deceleration as she awoke. She blinked her dry, gritty eyes and stretched tingling limbs. A pungent, sour smell filled the air. At least one person had puked during the jump or, more likely, during the deceleration at the end. She touched her chin to make sure it hadn’t been her.
“Sorry, Lieutenant.” Private Tzu’s face was pale and sweaty. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and grimaced. The pods were supposed to vacuum any misdirected bodily fluids, but they never got it all.
“This will help.” Mops opened a compressed sanitizing sponge from a pouch on her harness. It expanded automatically as she tossed it to the private. “Doc, tag that pod for a full scrub down.”
“Done.”
Before she could say anything more, the lights turned green, and a Battle Stations alert flashed on her monocle.
For Mops and her team, that meant stay the hell out of the way and let the more essential personnel get where they needed to be. She asked Doc for a status report while the guards stumbled out of the acceleration chamber. Tzu nodded gratefully as she left, still sponging off the front of her uniform.
“We’re getting the normal list of cleanup requests, but it doesn’t look like anything vital broke during the jump.”
“Good. Relay the following assignments. Kumar, I want you in Medical. If we get casualties, they’ll need help with cleanup and sterilization so that the med team can focus on patching people up. Monroe—get down to Engineering and coordinate with Lieutenant Lee to monitor and prioritize any repairs.”
Monroe cut in. “With permission, I’d like to make sure all nonessential plumbing is locked down first. It’s supposed to happen automatically, but some of those valves are overdue for maintenance and replacement. I once saw a lucky shot burst a ship’s pipes and flood two decks with several hundred liters of partially frozen sewage. No way I’m wading through a mess like that again.”
“Good thinking.” Lieutenant Junior Grade Marilyn Monroe was ex-infantry, and had transferred to SHS after a Prodryan grenade tore up a third of his body. He’d been Mops’ second-in-command for more than a year now. “Report to Engineering when you’re finished.”
“Let me guess,” Wolf muttered, turning to go. “Post-jump puke duty for me.”
Mops caught her arm. “You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you. Right now, that means the aft battle hub. I’ll dispatch you from there if necessary.”
Wolf’s face brightened. “Yes, sir!”
“Once the fighting’s over, then you’re on post-jump puke cleanup.”
Mops ducked into Battle Hub Three, one of several reinforced rooms at the core of the ship. Three other human officers sat in front of hardwired terminals. Mops steered Wolf toward a vacant seat. “Stay there, and don’t tou
ch anything.”
Mops sat beside Lieutenant Tambo from Engineering. The chair magnetized itself to the back of her harness to secure her in place. Once she was settled, the screen expanded and curved to fill most of her vision. In the center was a tactical display of the Pufferfish. Mops’ team appeared as small blue dots. She checked to confirm everyone was at their assigned station, then focused on the bigger picture.
A second display showed them to be in the outskirts of the Andromeda 12 system, approximately 260 million kilometers out from the star, and 100 million kilometers “above” the orbital plane. They’d traversed almost thirty light-years in the ninety-minute jump.
Two small Prodryan ships hovered over a Nusuran freighter between the fourth and fifth planets, both of which were home to fledgling Nusuran colonies. The freighter looked like a bloated metal maggot, while the Prodryan ships were more like broad-winged gnats.
“That’s all?” Wolf sounded disappointed as she peered at Mops’ screen.
Tambo snorted. “You were hoping for another Siege of Avloka?”
It was almost twenty-five years since the EMC had freed the Krakau colony of Avloka from the Prodryan occupation. Fewer than half the human soldiers had survived that four-month war, but the Prodryan forces on the planet were utterly destroyed. It was the first time the galaxy had seen a large-scale human army in action.
“Just seems like a waste,” said Wolf. “An EMC cruiser for two little fighters? How long until we reach them?”
Mops pointed to the display. “We’re coming in at point-zero-eight. That’s around eighty-five million kilometers per hour. We’re still decelerating, but we should be close enough to engage directly in ninety minutes or so.”
“Ninety minutes?” Wolf sagged in her chair. “They’ll have gutted the freighter and be long gone.”
“You’d be surprised,” said Tambo. “It takes time to get clear and calculate a jump out of the system, and we’ve got a lot more speed. Even if they started accelerating the second they detected us, we’d have a decent chance of getting within missile range.”
“And it’s not like Prodryans to run from a fight,” added Mops. “Even a hopeless one.”
“We’ll have this cleaned up before the command crew wakes up from their nap,” said Wolf, sounding torn between pride and disappointment.
Other species were more susceptible to damage from A-ring jumps, requiring additional medical preparations and time to recover. The Glacidae would start coming around in another few hours. The Krakau would be the last to awaken from their “nap.”
Mops pointed to the second Prodryan ship. “Looks like one of the Prodryans docked with the Nusurans. They might be taking hostages.”
Wolf nodded, her attention fixed on the screen. Mops couldn’t recall ever seeing her this focused.
“The Pufferfish library has a whole section on Earth military history,” Mops suggested. “Land, sea, and air battles. I can recommend some titles if you’d like.”
Wolf scoffed. “A bunch of primitive humans running around with gunpowder projectiles and swords, riding elephants against giant wooden horses and tanks? No thanks.”
Wolf’s tangled impression of Earth history hurt Mops’ brain. “How about something simpler. Doc, upload a copy of Sun Tzu to Wolf’s monocle.” She lowered her voice, speaking so only the AI would hear. “Preferably a version with lots of pictures.”
Within twenty minutes, it was clear the Prodryans planned to fight. The closer fighter had begun accelerating toward the Pufferfish, spitting a swarm of green dots across the empty space between the ships.
“Missile barrage.” Excitement raised the pitch of Wolf’s words.
Tambo chuckled. “At this range, they might as well try to piss out of a gravity well.”
“They’re too eager.” Mops’ pointed look in Wolf’s direction was wasted. Wolf had eyes only for the battle unfolding on the screen.
The Pufferfish’s countermeasures had no trouble taking out the barrage. Guidance jamming sent most of the missiles veering away to detonate in empty space. The ship’s interceptor flares had plenty of time to track and set off the rest.
A few minutes later, the Pufferfish fired a single plasma beam. At this range, it missed by more than a kilometer, but it seemed to enrage the Prodryans. Which was probably the point. Prodryans acted on instinct, especially when under stress. Another barrage of missiles flew toward the Pufferfish, to be dispatched as easily as the first.
A faint wave of vertigo told her the Pufferfish had begun approach maneuvers, angling for a clearer shot at the Prodryan fighter that would keep the freighter out of the line of fire. Mops double-checked water storage and the greenhouses, making sure the acceleration hadn’t exceeded the tanks’ tolerance. It wouldn’t be the first time her team had dealt with a spill in the middle of battle.
“What’s that second fighter doing?” Mops muttered. It wasn’t like a Prodryan to pass up a fight. They should have broken away from the freighter by now to join the attack on the Pufferfish, leaving a handful of soldiers behind to supervise their hostages. Instead, the fighter was using maneuvering thrusters to keep the freighter positioned between them and the Pufferfish.
“Hiding behind the Nusurans,” said Wolf. “Cowards.”
More missiles came at the Pufferfish, though this barrage was thinner than the others. They couldn’t have many missiles left. Once again, countermeasures made short work of them, though one got close enough for a bit of shrapnel to strike the front of the ship.
Mops checked the damage report. “Doc, tag air duct sections 153L through 157L for inspection when this is over.”
The Pufferfish twisted to one side, A-guns firing. The smaller A-rings in the guns accelerated fist-sized projectiles to only half the speed of light, but that was more than enough to tear through anything they hit. Green lines appeared on the screen to show the path of each shot. Three misses tracked through empty space. The fourth and fifth shots drilled through the Prodryan fighter.
Decompression and a small explosion sent the fighter tumbling out of control. Escape pods burst away like sparks from a firework.
“What’s so important about that freighter?” Mops frowned. “And where the hell do those escape pods think they’re going?” At this distance, it would take the pods several days to reach the nearest planet.
“Probably hoping we’ll round them up when we finish their friends,” said Tambo.
“When’s the last time you heard of a Prodryan choosing capture over death in combat?” The pods had blossomed in all directions when they fled their doomed ship, but they didn’t appear to be heading anywhere. They just sat there, waiting. . . .
She reached for the console, keying in a comm request to the combat bridge. “BC Cervantes, this is Lieutenant Adamopoulos.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
“The Prodryans know EMC protocol and procedures. They know we won’t fire on enemy escape pods. I’ll bet my library they’re creeping toward us, hoping we don’t notice until they’re close enough for a kamikaze run.”
A long pause. “Confirmed. It’s slow and subtle, but they’re all heading this way. I’ll have gunnery team two track ’em and fire the moment we confirm hostile action.”
Wolf stared at Mops, her forehead wrinkled, her mouth open in confusion.
“Any suggestions for that second fighter?” asked Cervantes. “Even docked with the freighter, they’re more maneuverable than we are.”
“Shoot through the freighter,” she said.
This pause stretched out even longer. “Did I hear you correctly, Lieutenant?”
Mops touched her screen, zooming in on the Nusuran freighter. “The Prodryans are tethered to the Nusurans’ cargo bay. An A-gun shot through the bay shouldn’t hit any vital systems. The Prodryans probably cleared the Nusurans out of the way. Even if they’ve got a few hostages tied
up in the cargo bay, brief depressurization won’t bother them. Nusurans take naked spacewalks for fun.”
“This isn’t covered in our combat plan.”
“Or you could sit around and wait for Captain Brandenburg to wake up. How many Nusurans do you think the pirates will kill in that time? Mops out.” She sat back to watch.
“What the freeze-dried shit was that?” Wolf whispered, leaning over Mops’ shoulder. “Since when does SHS give tactical advice to the ship’s Battle Captain?”
“When you’ve served longer and observed more battles than anyone else on the ship, people tend to listen.” Mops shoved Wolf’s face back from her own without looking away from the screen. The escape pods had begun accelerating. Moments later, the Pufferfish launched a series of missiles to intercept. The missiles detonated just before reaching the incoming pods, spraying them with a directional shower of shrapnel. At that range, she doubted anyone could have survived.
The remaining fighter continued to keep the Nusuran freighter between itself and the Pufferfish. Ninety seconds later, a streak of light flickered from Pufferfish weapons pod three, marking the shot of a single A-gun. Air and debris erupted from the freighter. Both ships lurched, and the docking tunnel connecting the two broke away. Cargo spilled into space. The spray stopped seconds later as the freighter’s emergency systems sealed the ruptures, but by then the Prodryan fighter was peeling around to attack. An attack Battle Captain Cervantes should be more than capable of squashing.
“What in the depths are you doing in SHS?” asked Wolf. “You could be up there directing battles, or leading infantry, or—”
“Maybe.” Mops shrugged and sat back to watch the rest of the battle play out. “But then who would keep the ship clean?”
In Earth year 2144, nine years before the Krakau arrived on Earth, a delegation from the fledgling Krakau Alliance met with four Prodryan military leaders to negotiate a truce. Their efforts failed, but records of the exchange offer insight into ongoing Prodryan hostilities. An excerpt from the transcript, translated into Human, follows.