Sisterhood of Suns: Pallas Athena

by Martin Schiller

  Lilith sat up, blinking in disorientation for a moment. “Yes?” she asked.

  A holo of Katrinn appeared. “Lily, I’m sorry to bother you, but we have an emergency. We’ll need you in the conference room.”

  “I’ll be topside straightaway,” Lilith answered, already moving towards her closet. Well, she thought, at least I got to enjoy a little more of a day off. It was better than nothing at all, and the price that one paid for being the Commander.

  Katrinn and the rest of the Athena’s command staff were waiting for Lilith when she arrived. A holo of Erin taur Minna of the Artemis and Commander bel Sarra of the Demeter hovered behind the assembly like a pair of ghosts. Everyone’s expression was grim and businesslike, which meant that something big had come up.

  The only exception was Erin, who flashed Lilith a wide grin that exposed her canines. With the exception of those who had become acclimatized to the customs of the greater Sisterhood, Nemesian women generally only ‘smiled’ as a response to a threat, or in anticipation of combat. Whatever this was about, it was not only serious, but a bloody fight was probably going to be a component.

  Lilith took her seat. “What do we have?”

  “Sagana Territory, Demeter System,” Katrinn ordered. A holo of the star system appeared in mid-air over the dark baaka-wood table. “Center on Persephone.”

  The holo changed to a close-up of the tiny Class G planet. Lilith saw that it was sparsely settled, boasting only one central town called Newhearth, and a few outlying settlements that dotted its otherwise untamed surface.

  “Star Service Field Headquarters in Almaran picked up a distress call from some colonists,” Katrinn stated, “and they requested that we respond and investigate. In the message they sent, the colonists said that Hriss raiders had attacked them, but they didn’t know how large a force was involved.’

  “The message is a week old, and we were lucky to get it. The colony’s emergency distress beacon was either never launched, or it got lost in Null. According to Field, the message was sent out as a burst transmission from a weather satellite that the raiders missed. One of our ships just happened to be scanning that sector and picked it up.”

  “That’s luck all right,” Lilith agreed. But whether the colonists’ good fortune had held after that was the question. Ever since the War of the Prophet had ended ten standard years earlier, the defeated Hriss Imperium had unofficially encouraged their semi-independent Clans to roam into Sisterhood space at will, attacking merchant convoys, or raiding outlying systems like Persephone.

  Although there were exceptions to the rule, such raiders didn’t tend to loiter. They got what they came for and they left. With seven days already gone, the odds were high that the battle group wouldn’t find anything but wreckage, dead bodies, and a planet stripped down to bare earth.

  “Let’s see the message.”

  The star system disappeared and a badly modulated transmission replaced it. The woman in the holo looked tired, and a bloody bandage covered her forehead.

  “This is Dr. Sharra n’Terri of the Newhearth Colony on the planet Persephone in the Demeter system,” the woman said. “Please, if anyone is out there listening to this, we need help! We’ve managed to gather a few survivors together and hide, but I don’t know how long we have. The Hriss have invaded us—they destroyed our main communications complex and the Living Center.’

  “Please, come and help us. They’ve been shooting anyone they’ve found. I can’t tell you where we are; they might be listening to this, but we’ll hold on as long as we can and watch for you. Once we know we’re safe, we’ll send another signal. Please, send help now.” The message ended there.

  “Demeter system,” Lilith requested. “Wide view.” The system reappeared over the table and enlarged itself.

  She studied it for a long moment and then turned to Col. Marya Lislsdaater. Lislsdaater was commander of the 115th Marine Combat Regiment. She would be in charge of any ground operations, and her troopers would be tasked with rendering aid to the survivors. And if the battle group got lucky and the raiders had overstayed their visit, they would also deal with any hostile ground units. “What is your state of readiness?” Lilith asked her.

  “We’re all set, Commander,” Lisldaater reported, “We will be able to field the entire regiment, along with some armor support. I also have a Marauder team that I’d like to send out ahead of my force to recon the area and secure any survivors.”

  “We’ll certainly do what we can to accommodate them, Colonel,” Lilith promised. She knew, without having to ask, that the Marauder team would also be dropping off a few spybots on its way in. This would give the battle group some valuable advance intel to work with.

  She addressed the Ships Senior Medical Officer next. “How is your department doing?”

  “My staff is standing by,” Dr. elle’ Kaari responded. The Nyxian’s expression was unreadable beneath her black, full body Qada-robe, but her tone was somber.

  “We can set up an extra ward in the enlisted mess hall, and we have enough supplies on-hand to treat the entire territory if we have to. I also have some of my staff assigned to follow the Marines when they go downside.”

  Lilith nodded in approval. “We’re going to treat this as an active incursion until we learn otherwise.”

  The captains of the Artemis and the Demeter indicated their understanding. Standard procedure for an active incursion called for the battle group to go into stealth mode just before it re-entered normal space. Its exit-point from Null would also be well outside the orbit of the last planet.

  This would make its signature minimal, if not impossible for any enemy sensors to detect--if there were still any enemies to be concerned with. Although the low probability of an engagement might have enticed a less experienced Commander to choose speed over stealth, Lilith knew better. She had spent too many years patrolling the Sisterhood’s frontier zones to rush in blindly. In the face of an unknown, prudence was always her preference.

  She leaned back in her chair and steepled her fingers. “All right, we sound as if we’re as prepared as we could be under the circumstances. How soon can we be under weigh?”

  “Within the hour, Commander,” Mearinn d’Rann answered.

  “Good. Let’s prepare for transit.”

  ***

  As soon as the ComTechs had reported that all ships were ready, Lilith signaled her Helmsmistress, Caleda bel Tridis and her two assistants. “You have the ship, Helmsmistress.”

  Caleda adjusted the oversized psiever headset that she was wearing and went to work, starting the sequence for the transit to Null. “Routing power from the main generators to the Pavilitas,” she announced, her transmission sounding over the entire bridge. “Pavilita generators coming on line and powering-up.”

  Next to her, one of her assistants, and also a trained psi, was calling up a computer-generated image of the stars as they would appear several AU’s out from the limits of the Demeter system.

  “Astrographic visualization complete. Pavilita generators at one-hundred-percent,” Caleda stated as the holo appeared in front of her station. The Helmsmistress looked up at the display and taking a breath, sent herself into a deep trance. With trained precision, she quickly memorized the star-patterns until the entire array of heavenly bodies was firmly in her mind as a whole, unbroken concept.

  Holding this image in her consciousness, she reached out with her thoughts through her psiever, down through the ship into the Pavilita generators. Psionic receivers within the devices responded immediately, translating her mental impulses into coherent signals. The energies that had gathered in the psionic generators began to change as Caleda wove them into the configuration that she desired.

  Her assistants had been waiting for this moment, watching their mistress and sensing her progress through their own psievers.

  “Secondary wings online,” one of the assistant helmswomen said and then when Caleda was ready, “Discharging Pavlitas to the collector wings.�
�

  A deep hum resonated through the Athena’s massive frame as the power transferred over. Sensors outside the ship showed the stern wings crackling with lightning as they were flooded with power from the Pavlitas. Caleda was unaffected by all this; her mind stayed with the energy, continuing to command its form as it played out over the huge wing surfaces.

  “Boosting the signal,” her assistant continued. The drone deepened and just as the vibrations became uncomfortable, Caleda spoke in a distant voice.

  “I am ready.” With this, the collector wings discharged, their energies flashing along the sides of the warship to another pair at the bow. The power gathered there for a microsecond, and then it coalesced into two brilliant spears of sapphire light that stabbed out from the wingtips into the void.

  Several kilometers away, the beams met, and the fabric of space began to buckle and distort under their onslaught. Then a misty rift opened up, widening until it was large enough to accommodate the Athena and her companions.

  The hole that had been created opened up onto an entirely different universe; a non-place that women called Null. And on its opposite side, would be the normal universe, and their destination.

  Caleda came out of her trance at this point. “Returning power to standard engines. All ahead, half,” she said.

  Then she turned around and addressed Lilith, “Commander, the Artemis and the Demeter have fallen in-line and are following us in. I calculate a two hour transit.”

  “Well done, Helmswoman,” Lilith answered. She rotated her chair to face Fire Control directly. “I want all defensive batteries online as we make the cross-over. Sound general quarters.”

  The senior fire controller nodded, and an alert tone began to wail throughout every corner of the ship. Simultaneously, overhead illumination winked off, replaced by red battle-lights.

  As Battle Group Golden entered the gate and left the normal universe behind, the temperature aboard the Athena plummeted immediately. No one knew exactly why this effect occurred, although there were many theories. One thing was certain however. Hell was not hot, but freezing cold.

  “Adjust environmental levels to compensate,” Lilith requested, reorienting her chair. The techs over at the EviroCom station were already doing this, but it was standard protocol for the Commander to issue the order. In a few moments, temperatures rose again.

  Satisfied, Lilith focused her attention on one of the sitscreens. Unlike normal space, Nullspace was not empty. Instead, the Athena’s main displays were filled with a seemingly endless panorama of roiling cloud forms painted every color of the spectrum. Mysterious flashes of energy permeated their depths, revealing hidden layers of unknown gases with actinic bursts of light. Occasionally, discharges of what would have been ball lightning in the normal universe, danced across the cloud banks in an almost lifelike ballet of light. To the uninitiated, it seemed to be an idyllic panorama of fantastic beauty, but neither Lilith, nor her crew, were fooled in the slightest.

  Their wariness was justified. The battle group had just crested a magenta and gold bank of gases, when a feeling of total malice washed over everyone on the bridge. It was a pure undiluted loathing that they all felt on a visceral level – something utterly foreign to the world of matter, and more alien than the strangest of races that lived in the galaxy that they called home.

  It also carried a taint that was ancient beyond reckoning, a corruption that had been born before matter had ever been created. And although she had felt this unholy presence many times, a shiver still went down Lilith’s spine. Something dark, on both a material and spiritual level, was moving through the clouds. It was an Indweller.

  The Athena’s sensors spotted the thing and relayed information about the target. “Indie located at 280.30.10 mark 70, paralleling our course,” a NavTech announced. Lilith glanced over at Fire Control again, and the senior controller answered her unspoken question.

  “We have a solution, Commander. Monitoring the Indie.” As the woman announced this, a soul-piercing screech of rage sounded across the murky gulf, penetrating the hull. Then a mass of black plasma flew out of the mists, coming straight for them.

  “Fire!” Lilith barked. Fire Control responded with the Athena’s forward facing guns and the plasma-ball exploded halfway to the ship, but the Indweller was not finished with its assault. With another hellish shriek, it burst out of the clouds, revealing itself, a huge formless blob of dark not-matter.

  Spreading its lightless form wide, it flattened out into an immense black curtain that was larger than the entire battle group combined. For those aboard with any psi talents, it radiated a palpable and absolute hatred of them and wanted nothing less than their utter destruction.

  As the thing closed the distance, the corners of its body curled over and oozed outwards, stretching into angry tendrils that reached out for the ships. When they made contact with the Athena, energy levels across the boards began to drain dramatically.

  “Route power to grav field!” Lilith ordered. The temperature had dropped again, and her breath misted the air. “Fire Control, all forward guns to bear--fire!”

  The Athena’s defensive batteries let loose with everything they had, focusing their destructive power onto one point on the Indies’ irregular shape. The being collapsed in on itself with a demonic howl of pain and immediately retreated back into the clouds.

  “Good work, ladies,” Lilith said, signaling to EnviroCon to bring the heat back up again. “That looked like an old one. Let’s hope it doesn’t have any relatives lurking about. Stay sharp.”

  But the Indweller had been alone, and it made no reappearance. It had had enough, and had decided to go off and sulk. For the next hour and a half, the battle group’s transit was as peaceful as Null could be and Lilith allowed herself to relax a bit.

  She even managed to enjoy the vista. Absent the monstrous creatures that inhabited it, she had always found Nullspace itself to be rather beautiful. In its own nightmarish way.

  Then Navcom interrupted her. “Commander, we have a vessel ahead, bearing 340.029.70 mark 34. She appears to be dead in space, and not answering our hails.”

  The sitscreens displayed a close-up of the ship. Its transponder was out, but in a few moments, the Athena’s computers had matched the pitted hull with a ship that it had on record. The Sabrina was her name, out of Calaphis in the Solara Elant, and according to the computer, the merchanter had been missing for the last two standard years.

  This was no surprise. Although merchanters travelled with armed escort vessels through Null, there was always the careless Captain who strayed too far from the protection of the convoys’ guns and fell prey to the Indwellers.

  “Any signs of life, Navcom?” Lilith asked.

  “No, ma’am, nothing reads on our sensors,” the tech replied.

  Lilith suppressed a shudder. “Very well. Amend the ships file to read ‘found derelict in Null. All hands presumed lost.’”

  If a ship was unfortunate enough to become engulfed by the Indwellers, it lost most of its energy and quickly became helpless. And once the Indies got inside its hull, anything alive inside of it died.

  Scientists who had studied the phenomenon claimed that such deaths were instantaneous, caused by the complete cessation of bioelectrical activity. But in all her years as a Commander, she’d heard too many crewwomen screaming in agony to believe such patent nonsense. Whatever the Indies did once they got to the crew was neither instant, nor painless.

  “Let’s move on, helm.” she said grimly. “We have a colony to rescue.”

  The battle group accelerated and moved away from the Sabrina, leaving her and her crew of ghosts alone in their mist-shrouded grave.

  ***

  With one minute remaining to the transit through Null, the helm signaled Lilith. “Commander, approaching our exit into normal space.” Ahead of them, the mists were thinning, and she could see stars beginning to appear on the sitscreens.

  Lilith patched herself through to the Artem
is and the Demeter, “All ships, this is the Athena. Switch to stealth mode. Silent running until contact.”

  At that, all three ships went invisible. From there on out, the battle group would be running silent, listening with passive sensors for the first signs of their enemy.

  The Helmswoman had done her job well, Lilith reflected. The battle group exited Null 29.5 AU’s out from their destination, or nearly 4,413,200,000 kilometers. At such a distance, it was highly unlikely that the invaders had noticed their re-entry into normal space.

  Even so, she knew that they had a lengthy trip ahead of them; at their maximum speed, one-sixth light, it would be over eight hours before they reached Persephone. That was a long time to be sneaking through open space, and there was always the chance that the raiders had seeded passive mines or sensors throughout the system.

  If they ran into one, and if it detected them, the odds were that they would survive the encounter, but their quarry would have enough warning to make an escape. Whispering a prayer to the Lady, Lilith fervently hoped that this would not occur. She had been in too many situations where they had arrived just in time to find their opponents gone, with nothing but their murderous handiwork left behind. Calling up a cup of tea from her command chair, she settled in to wait.

  Six hours passed without incident and Katrinn was just coming on duty to relieve her, when Navcom alerted them that they had something.

  “Commander, we have a track on a target in orbit over Persephone.”

  “Give me what you have,” Lilith requested.

  “It’s not much at this range, ma’am, but it’s definitely one ship,” the Mariner informed her. “From the data, my best guess would be a Hilla-Class light cruiser. I don’t see anything else parked over the planet, or in near space. My Hriss’ka isn’t the greatest, but they seem to be talking to shuttles making trips to the surface. Nothing that sounds like they know about us.”

  “Well, Lily, it looks like you were right about them being Hriss,” Katrinn remarked. “One light cruiser, eh? She probably just has a few fighters running picket-duty. That’s a small raid by anyone’s standards.”