The warrants he applied for had been granted and more. He’d never asked for one on Asteria reasoning that nobody would give him permission to peak at a Clone Prince’s personal cruiser. He was wrong. Someone on Lakedaemia was worried about the current state of Syracuse Principality and it’s Prince.
One bright spark shone out in an otherwise dark situation. CID had sent a full Customs squadron to support him, though, they were two weeks away. Customs cutters were no match for a warship like Asteria, but ignoring or destroying them would only result in a heavier force being sent. CID were pressuring wrongdoers to reveal themselves by trying to cover their tracks. Unfortunately for Dardanus, they were using him to do it.
Arborlis looked shrewdly at the younger man “Well, you’re in right up to the neck aren’t you”.
Chapter 13
Cartwright’s eyebrows knitted in concentration. Off the hangar, an unusually large tunnel lead deeper into the rock face. It seemed to have power feeds far in excess of the requirements for an unused storage space. The video feeds from the pack of dog drones were inconclusive. She’d have to go look herself.
Cartwright strode off, her tool-mule following and Athena sliding along like a shadow behind. The Hippeis and the Paras put up a defensive perimeter as the engineer worked.
Via mind’s eye, Armstrong received a tentative “Corp?”.
He replied the same way, “Yes Charlie”.
“Isn’t it odd for the Chief Engineer to be down here?”.
Armstrong shook his head, less noticeable in armour “Nope”.
“Why not?”
“You know much about our Lieutenant Cartwright’s history before she was posted to Tor Station? Or her family for that matter?”.
“Not really Corp”.
“Well, her granddaddy was airborne like us”.
“What’s that go to do with this?”
“She was KEW Branch before her tour of Tor”.
A simple “Fair enough” flashed back.
Cartwright examined the ground, she felt at home sneaking through the passages of an old scientific outpost. Clearly something hostile had taken out the defences, quick and clean. Her mind wandered.
Astronautical engineering had never really been Cartwright’s intended career path, command even less so. She was surprised to find herself enjoying her temporary role on Dreadnought. She’d also found the exposure to command and taking watch, to be interesting. Cartwright was surprised to find she wanted to do more.
Her posting to Tor Station was like sending Isambard Brunel one-hundred years forward in time to see all his inventions had ended up in junk yard. Finding ways to keep the ships at or near combat readiness had been her only opportunity to be creative. Her previous posting had been to the King’s Engineering Works Branch. Within KEW Branch, ‘Cartwright’s contraptions’ had occupied a niche sitting somewhere between unmatched ingenuity and mind boggling oddity.
Like so many before, pride and love had been her undoing. The Laurentian Star Kingdom was, by and large, a very free society. You could be and do pretty much what you wanted as long as it didn’t impinge on someone else’s rights to live life. The few limits it did have were set in stone, coated in ship’s armour, then buried in the core of gas giant. Never to be interfered with.
Her last project had started out innocently enough. Her grandfather, the late Brigadier Frederick Cartwright, had been the model Orbital Paratrooper. It was as unsafe a calling as remained in a Kingdom where workplace safety was largely solved through the use of drones, molecular extrusion and space based manufacturing.
He’d survived his century of service, without a scratch. Despite three major wars, two Blight crusades, a handful of interstellar incidents and a number of unacknowledged foreign interventions. As a girl, Cartwright could still picture him on Remembrance days when he wore his dress uniform, his medals gleamed in the sun and jangled like a one-man band as he walked.
He’d had a family, at little later than some, seen his own children go off to complete their own centuries, come back and start families. He’d grown old and he’d passed on. The end had been slower than average. It had taken him a couple of years, but he had died in his sleep. In the paras’ the joke was that death wouldn’t have dared show up whilst he was awake. The truth was part stubbornness and part family. He still enjoyed the company of his wife, his children and his grandchildren.
His youngest granddaughter had come of age and gone out into Laurentian society just as Frederick was slowing down. Hannah, had been looking at ways of improving the intelligence that guided combat machinery. A smarter drone, might save Para lives she’d thought. Initially, she’d played around with partial recordings of the minds of the most successful living soldiers. Then she’d found a way to model them. At first it was just an expert system with real experience to call on.
However, as her grandfather deteriorated, she been unable to resist adding a little of him to her experiments. As she’d added more memories, more of his mind state, she’d had less room for the experiences of other subjects. But a lot of those were repetitive content anyway.
Eventually he had died as well as anyone could, having lived a full life leaving behind a big family. Cartwright had moved through her grief and continued her work.
Then months later, one afternoon, she’d compiled the software for the latest iteration of a humanoid combat drone, instead of the usual bland text of an initial status report, a message chimed in her mind’s eye from an unidentified sender “Oh dear girl! What have you done?”. The shock had her jumping up so fast she bashed her head on the shelf behind.
Afterwards she knew exactly what had happened. Her drive to make a soldier’s life safer, had intermingled with her grief. She swore to herself she hadn’t intended to, but she couldn’t really make herself believe it. Copying whole human minds inside machines was beyond banned. If dealt with in a criminal court, her sentence would have been exile. Her body would have been flensed of all cellular implants, including her mind’s eye. Then, she’d have been put on the one way drop to Barbary, the penal colony of Albion, Avalon’s twin planet.
Inside the top of KEW branch, there was consternation and more quietly, admiration. Beyond that, few knew of her and they were mostly admirers. The Muses of Avalon cherished creative minds in their human partners. They decided that her ideas were inspired, but not to be repeated. Cartwright’s labour of love was not destroyed, but hidden just in case it was needed in the future.
A cabal of senior KEW branch Officers and a sympathetic Muse had her posted her off to the back of beyond, Tor Station, passing it off as a standard unofficial punishment posting for a less controversial transgression. Her time in KEW Branch had left many indelible experiences. Infiltrating enemy held territory, neutralising defences and the examining unfamiliar equipment was fairly normal.
Cartwright cut short her nostalgia and dragged her focus to the task at hand.
Her hands ran over the tunnel walls, sensors in the gloves detecting powerful magnets, in long thin rails inside the wall. The only breaks were occasional alcoves set back into the tunnel wall. With that kind of power, a lot of heavy kit could be moved around easily on maglevs. So where was it now? Why build it then leave it empty.
She walked further down the tunnel, the tool-mule lumbering along behind, whilst the dog drones rushed ahead. The lighting gave out and the tunnel started to twist and turn.
Eventually she and the drone pack arrived at where the map identified was the tunnel’s terminus. Instead she found a hatchway the sized of the tunnel, wedged open. The remains of the largest Blight construct she had seen was jammed in the hatch mechanism, keeping it open by force, like the galaxy’s worst door to door salesman.
Someone had used a current from the mag rails to damage the construct. Cartwright and her small team weren’t so far behind after all. If the base’s defenders had fallen back into the unofficial area, they might even now be still fighting.
The only problem now, Cartw
right pondered, was how deep does the rabbit hole go?
The small formation continued on foot for a few minutes before coming across maintenance depot set back from the main tunnel. Sitting inside was a large repair locomotive, looking rounded and aerodynamic. Like a science fiction rocket from the early days of space travel. It was designed to run under its own power, the batteries leaving little room for passengers. It was a bright green, with yellow lines following the major features of its structure. The name Percy was inexpertly scrawled on one side.
It didn’t take much coercion to start it up and move out onto the track. The control systems were easily subverted with a dose of Laurentian nanites and some percussive maintenance. Cartwright had taken the driver’s chair for her own. The rest had distributed themselves around in various niches. The tool-mule was strapped to the flatbed. Dog drones had clamped themselves to a multitude of surfaces all along the locomotive.
Even as they set off, nobody missed the significance that there has been room for three more such machines in the depot.
For what seemed like hours, the little engine pulled them deeper and deeper into the bowels of the planet. Cartwright’s view from the driver’s seat didn’t allow enough warning to stop on the emergency brake if they will to avoid taking fire. As the track flattened out a small pack of dog drones were rushed ahead.
What they found surprised the whole group, the Hippeis most of all. The Laurentians were shocked only to find an unexpected but familiar presence. The Hippeis had clearly never seen such a sight before. The tunnel opened out into a well-lit underground cavern filled with two-thousand metres of ancient starship. The great hull had a glorious metallic shine along the whole elongated teardrop. She looked like they’d found the body of Dreadnought’s ancestor in a burial mound. Work lights sparkled off it like stars in the night sky. Excavations continued. It was clear, there was more to find down here.
Avalon had such a facility itself, buried deep under the black wall mountain range near the capital city, White Spire. Every Laurentian knew of it, though it was not spoken of to outsiders. Many had toured some of it. Generations of Laurentian engineers had toiled inside it, bringing their civilisation to the cutting edge of human technology, then racing them past. By most reckoning Laurentia had hundreds of years of technological advantage over the majority of other human cultures. This facility was a threat to all that. Worse, it could jump the Blight forward too.
All members of the landing team suddenly remembered that they weren’t one side, but two. Each began conspicuously forming up to watch the other as much as for an outside threat. The sounds of heavy weapons fire from far below distracted them.
Down at the base of the starship, a dwindling band of Lakedaemians conducted a fighting retreat. They fell back in good order, but their shrinking numbers spoke of the battle’s ferocity. Divided into elements of two, each moving, holding in cover and firing in turn. Chasing them were a haphazard collection of biological and technological aberrations. Each strain and infestation of it gathered random victims and constructs, built up over the years and reflecting their history of each. Blight constructs built to fight lumbered forward, some rolling on wheels, others hovering, others shambling on some repulsive approximation of legs. Still more sniped from cover. A very few looked human, apart from their mechanical gait.
Cartwright could see the minor Lakedaemian force was taking casualties. She linked to her tool-mule via her mind’s eye, selecting targets. Its legs splayed out and spikes on its feet rammed into the ground. A short stubby barrel slid out between its shoulder blades. Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Three bursts of smart missiles shot out in mortar mode. They arched up to the roof of the cavern, then dived straight at the shuffling hordes. The Blight constructs were devastated.
The Hippeis indicated over the shared channel, that they had communication with the defensive force. The tool-mule fired more rounds of smart missiles, this time in seeker mode. The swept around the cavern and the access tunnels. Where Blight was found, they detonated. Shredded machines lay in pieces all around. They had not expected to be attacked from behind.
But a worse sight was the infected human corpses. Armour, blood and flesh was peeled back, revealing the horrifying progress of the Blight infection below. Bones and nerves were usually infected early in the process. The transformed material was hardier than regular flesh. Fatal injuries still killed, but a horrifying blend of man and machine was left behind in corpse form.
Ypodekaneas Andreou, stepped off the access ramp and dropped down over one hundred metres. Small jets built into his armour fired and he slowed. He fell into a crouch as his feet touched down near the party of defenders. The other Hippeis swiftly followed. The Laurentians paused and made sure some degree of trust had set in before following.
The soldier commanding the forlorn Lakedaemian defenders appeared to be a Ypolochagos. Equivalent to a High Guard Lieutenant. He seemed initially unwilling to cooperate with Andreou, perhaps suspecting infiltration by Blight infestations or because Andreou was equivalent to a mere Lance-Corporal.
The Ypodekaneas switched to a private encrypted channel to negotiate with the superior officer. Cartwright, via her mind’s eye, used some of her tool-mule’s excess processing power and eavesdropped on their conversation. The other Hippeis moved into cover and pointed the muzzles of their weapons out over the approaches to their impromptu position. Athena, Armstrong, Thresher and Lincoln all followed.
Andreou was speaking in rapid paced Lakonic. The Ypolochagos lived up to the reputation of his nation and made laconic replies in the same language. The translator function in her mind’s eye provided the gist of their conversation.
“We’ve just smoked the entire attacking force, Sir, it would have been easy to do the same to you instead and push forward past your position”.
“Ypodekaneas, I don’t know you or these people. You’re not coming in”.
“My Yponavarchos has given me clear orders. I have passed them to you. Respectfully, you will comply”.
“Ypodekaneas, you are to leave. Now. I won’t warn you again”.
As that sentence ended, Andreou turned, as if to leave, but his left arm snaked out, two 50 cm long needles glowing and arcing at the ends snapped out of his armoured fist as it swung back. The tips pierced the visor on the Ypolochagos’ suit helmet. Andreou’s hand continued forward and the glowing tips punched out through the back of the helmet. A mild smell of burning meat filled the air. Smoke billowed off the needles. Andreou withdrew his arm and the needles sheathed themselves back into his armour.
The Ypolochagos collapsed to the floor, lifeless.
Andreou returned to a wide broadcast. “Anyone else?”. He paused “No. Well who’s next ranking soldier?”.
If it was possible to shuffle in an armoured suit, the soldier who spoke next would have. He reluctantly approached Andreou. Saluted. “Ypodekaneas Abronychus, Dekaneas. I hear and obey”.
Chapter 14
Whilst the landing party were out of contact down on the planet, Dreadnought’s Commander was attempting to improve diplomatic relations with the highest ranking Lakedaemon representative in the Socotra System. Magnus had left Flight Lieutenant Jones to take the watch.
His office had been transformed. The desk and chairs had been subsumed into the deck. They had been replaced by an elegant, simple dining table and two sumptuous chairs. Large enough for professional distance, small enough to encourage easy conversation.
Admiral Hecate was escorted up from the diplomatic deck to join him for a meal. Humans had changed a lot since they had run around Lost Terra with stone spears, but the breaking of bread with strangers was still the ultimate icebreaker.
He’d invited her up, partly as a courtesy to a visiting dignitary and partly to try and save his own career. A grateful Lakedaemon Admiral would be a powerful ally showing he’d preserved the Kingdom’s foreign policy.
Able Engineer Bryant had dropped the Admiral off, then discretely withdrawn.
; She glanced around the room. The walls were light. The display case in one corner was empty. Some of the wall sections were showing images. Pictures of Dreadnought, the space outside, a sunset vista, a huge ring in the sky. The cabin seemed impersonal. Like it had not been moved into yet.
“Ma’am, welcome to my day cabin” he gestured to a seat opposite and poured them both drinks. “Please join me for a meal”.
“Thank you, Commander Magnus. Dreadnought is a marvel to me”.
She paused and looked pained “Lycurgus was a luxurious ship, for us at any rate. Dreadnought is like a flying spa”.
The mention of her recently lost flagship was clearly keenly felt, from her grimace.
“Our Battlecruisers were designed to stay out on long patrols. A home as well as a ship”.
It was his turn to allow a little deeply held regret show “I always hoped to fly an exploration mission either back towards the Orion arm or rimward”.
“Explorer first, warrior second?”.
“Every true warrior understands the true price of war, Admiral”.
“You saved my life, my remaining crew’s lives” she paused thoughtfully “It may cost you a career. Call me Persephone”.
“Call me Lennard then”.
Hecate impulsively tapped her glass against his.
Magnus continued “I might end up resident in Barbary Colony if this turns out wrong. Will you face a court martial for loosing your Battlegroup?”.
The Syracuse Deception Page 10