Dragon Quadrant (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  “Carvalho and O’Keefe, I want you two positioned at the end of the corridor. Make sure none of the buzzards come bursting out of the duct work.”

  “They won’t,” Megat said. His voice was thick, phlegmy, like a man with a deep chest cold. “The birds who boarded this ship were the spacefarers, and they can’t handle the gravity on a world like this. Only the harvesters come down to high-gravity planets.”

  “So you’re admitting it?” Tolvern asked. “No lies about how you were running for freedom and just happened to find a starship? How you slipped through the battle undetected thanks to a lucky break or two?”

  Megat let out a low, bitter chuckle that became first a cough and then an unstoppable hacking that went on and on until he eventually brought up a mass of lumpy green mucous that looked like slugs mixed with green oatmeal. After spitting it to the floor, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at her again.

  “That’s exactly how it started. Me, running for freedom.” He shook his head. “Djikstra told me when he let me out that he had a ship hidden in the area and needed a copilot, someone with my skills. If I helped him, he’d drop me off among one of the Singaporean refugee camps on Samborondón.”

  “What kind of idiot are you?” Tolvern said. “Your battle station was hidden all these years. How would Djikstra possibly have a ship stashed nearby without your knowledge?”

  “He had a plausible story, or semi-plausible. But also, I wanted to believe. Of course it sounds ludicrous now, but I wanted it to be true, and so it was.”

  This, Tolvern could understand. When Djikstra came on board Blackbeard with a tale about how to contact the Singaporean battle station, she’d overlooked the obvious discrepancies in his story, how he’d claimed to be alone on a ship after leading a group of nonexistent refugees, not one of whom had survived. Blackbeard was far from friendly systems, battered and desperate, and Tolvern simply wanted the story to be true.

  “So now you know that Djikstra is a liar,” she said.

  “He’s a liar for a reason. And that reason is up here.” Megat tapped his head. “I’d have been a liar a few days ago too. Too late for that now, I’m lost and done for.”

  He stopped and coughed again. This time, the coughing went on for so long that after he’d hocked up a mass of phlegm, he bent over and puked. A thin, watery vomit came up at first, but soon it was nothing but dry heaves.

  “Cap’n,” Capp called from the hallway. “Time is running out.”

  Tolvern looked down to see a line of water creeping into the room and sloshing against her boot as the floodwater entered the open ship and continued to rise. Megat was still puking, and Tolvern tried the com link, not expecting an answer, but Smythe came on.

  “Damn it, Smythe, you picked one hell of a time to bring the system down for testing.”

  “Sorry, sir,” he said. “You didn’t go out to Morpho by yourself, did you? There are giant toads—some of them got into the yard somehow. Ate two of Rodriguez’s crew before they could be killed.”

  “I know all about the toads,” Tolvern said impatiently. “Tell Rodriguez we need one of the big trucks out here as soon as possible. The small truck is underwater, and Morpho is filling up and may just sink into the mud.”

  “Yes, sir. Did you get the fugitives?”

  “I’ll explain later.” She pulled out her computer and tapped at the screen. “Sending you our coordinates now.”

  She cut the line. The water level had risen a good inch just while she was on the call. It pushed excrement from the hallways and floated the soiled clothing and sheets on the floor. Megat stared at the rising water with an unreadable expression.

  “I was ready to fight back, you know,” he said. “I had my gun in hand when the birds boarded the ship. Was going to unload on them, kill as many of the vermin as I could, then pull the pin on a grenade and blow myself to hell. I wasn’t a coward, I wasn’t going to surrender or hide.”

  “Whatever else you are, you aren’t a coward. I’ll agree with that much. That was obvious from your stupid revolt on Sentinel 3.”

  “It was stupid.” He managed a weak chuckle. “I wish I could take that back, believe me. Life under that spineless fool Li is still life. And fighting the birds, not working for them.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Djikstra hit me from behind. He’d come with me into the bay as the lance overtook us. Said he was going to fight to the death by my side, but he bashed me on the skull with the butt of his gun as soon as I turned my back. I woke up strapped to a bench and one of the birds standing over me.” Megat shuddered. “Bright green and red plumage—one of the queen commanders. Thought she was going to eat me alive. If only I had been so lucky.

  “Two of the gray birds pried open my mouth with their claws. The queen commander lowered her beak to my mouth. I thought she was going to tear out my tongue. I’m not so brave that I didn’t scream. Instead, she dripped her saliva into me. It tasted sweet, did you know that? Like condensed milk, you know? I tried to spit it out, but some of it went down my throat.”

  Tolvern was horrified, yet fascinated at the same time.

  “Then I got sick, vomiting. Soon, I could hear, literally hear a bird cawing in my head. You know that jeering sound a crow makes? Like that. Only I could understand somehow. Not the words, but my body knew what to do. ‘Set these coordinates in the nav computer. Put this amount of thrust.’ That sort of thing.”

  “It controls your mind?”

  “You ever hear of those wasps that lay eggs in caterpillars? First, the larvae eat the caterpillars from the inside, then the victim protects the larvae from predators even as they chew their way out. That’s what I would have done, too. Killed to protect the creature that did this to me.”

  Tolvern had tightened her grip on the rifle through all of this, and though Megat looked feeble and dying, she was going to take no chances. Now she slid her finger over to the trigger, convinced he was about to spring at her.

  “Would have?” she asked. “Or still would?”

  Megat managed a wan smile. “It’s gone, Tolvern—they’ve left my head. Now that I’m dying, there’s no point. Happened to Djikstra two days ago, he got his mind back. Too late for him, of course. I locked him up in his quarters under orders from the birds. A few hours ago, when I came down from orbit, I finally got sick enough that they left me alone, too. I came down to let Djikstra out. Well, to kill him before killing myself. Turns out, he was already dead.”

  “Why did Apex send you here? Was it to pave the way for the buzzards to invade?”

  “I don’t know. I think they want spies in human space. Turns out their mind control isn’t that good—they can parasitize us, all right, but not without killing the host. Not yet.” A thin smile. “I expect they’re working on that.”

  “Cap’n,” Capp called from the hallway. “We gonna get out of here?”

  The water was halfway up Tolvern’s boots and caking them with the filth. She didn’t think she was in danger. Boykin took spit directly in the face. The buzzards pried open Megat’s mouth so the queen could drip saliva down his throat. Tolvern wasn’t going to catch an infection because of a little dirty water.

  The bigger worry was that the ship would sink into the mud, or that the floodwater would rise so quickly they wouldn’t be able to escape. But if they did run outside, what then? Carvalho’s truck was surely submerged by now. They’d have to climb on top of Morpho and wait for Rodriguez to rescue them before the ship went under.

  “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” she said. “I’ve got the gist of it, you can tell me the rest later.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Sure you are. There might be a cure, you never know.”

  “You don’t need to lie.” He started coughing again, but this time got it under control. “The birds have changed the chemistry of my brain. Burned new channels to control me. No medical science can fix that.”
<
br />   “You’re no doctor, and neither am I. I’ll put you in stasis and let someone take a look at you. At the very least, you might help us figure out what they’re doing so we can protect others in the future.”

  This got through to him, or seemed to, and he looked contemplative for a moment. Then his expression hardened, and she saw the arrogance, the unyielding nature of the man who’d tried to take over the battle station so as to maintain his faith in staying eternally hidden, even against all evidence to the contrary.

  He reached around and pulled out something that had been hidden behind his back. It was a grenade.

  Tolvern stiffened, but he held up his other hand as if to show he meant no harm. “No!” he said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  She relaxed a little, but kept an eye on the door, ready to dive for the corridor. “You don’t have to kill yourself.”

  “Why? Will you do it for me?”

  “Megat, listen to me. You can help us. Isn’t that worth staying alive a little longer?”

  “What does it matter?” he asked bitterly. “My home world is dead, and a harvester ship is picking over the corpse. Yes, I know what’s going on—we had no trouble picking up news from the refugee colonies on Samborondón, and Apex didn’t care if we found out or not. If Singapore is gone, what reason is there for living?”

  “There are the other human colonies, and the Hroom. Sentient people, civilized. Hundreds of inhabited worlds that will fall to Apex.”

  “Let them burn. Let the whole galaxy burn to a cinder. It’s nothing to me. Now go, before I change my mind and kill us both.”

  “I won’t let you do it.” Tolvern lifted her rifle and pointed it at his chest. He had the grenade, yes, but his hand wasn’t on the pin. “Put it down or I’ll kill you and we’ll study your brain anyway.”

  “You all right in there, Cap’n?”

  “Perfectly fine, Lieutenant. I’ve got this under control.”

  Capp’s voice got louder. “I heard raised voices, I— Oh. Bloody hell, a grenade.”

  “Go back into the hall, Capp.”

  “Aye, Cap’n.”

  Sweat was pouring down Megat’s temples. He suppressed a cough. As soon as he broke into another fit, she’d rush in and grab the grenade. The water came midway up her calf now. Time to get out. But first, something occurred to her.

  “How did you say they communicated with you? They gave you orders directly to your brain?”

  “Yes. Squawking in my brain—I didn’t understand the words, but my body did. It responded, and I could figure out later what had happened.”

  “One command per behavior? Or like a conversation with your body?”

  “Like a conversation. Move here, now do this. It doesn’t matter. Let me die with dignity, Tolvern.”

  “You’re still protecting their secret, you know. You’re going to blow yourself to pieces so my scientists can’t study what the buzzard spit did to your head.”

  “You won’t learn anything from my brain.”

  “I already did,” she said. The wheels were turning rapidly now. “Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. That is the speed of any non-subspace communication, and I don’t think you have a subspace communicator installed in your brain. How many times have I had a conversation with someone where I wait and wait for a response as the signal crosses a million miles of space? But a queen commander spits in your mouth and a few days later can jerk you around like a puppet on strings. From a distance?”

  Megat only stared at first, but then horror dawned on his face.

  “Right, so now you understand,” she said. “That means the buzzards are here already, aren’t they? Maybe not right here on this ship, but close enough. And I’ll bet they’re still talking to you.”

  “No.”

  “In that case, prove it. Drop the grenade in the water.”

  He moved. Not his hands, not for the grenade. Instead he reared back his head, spittle glistening on his lips. He cleared his throat.

  Tolvern lifted the gun and fired. Megat jerked backward. A wad of slimy green snot oozed out of his mouth. It had been intended for her.

  Capp burst into the room, gun drawn and shouting. She took in Megat, blood draining from a hole in his chest, then looked at the captain, eyes wide.

  Tolvern didn’t have a chance to respond before her com link opened, with Smythe on the other end. His voice was high and frightened sounding.

  “Captain! There’s a bloody Apex harvester ship in orbit!”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Admiral Drake kept his ships cloaked as they approached the Apex fleet. The lances were harassing a large refugee fleet, composed of several dozen ships, that had been sneaking along through the debris left by numerous battles in the Padang System. Most of the refugee vessels were small freighters or merchant frigates. One ship looked like a war junk with an undersized engine that had been stripped of weapon systems. Finally, came a cluster of huge barges, five hundred meters long, of the kind that usually traveled in escorted convoys.

  Unfortunately, there were no escorts. A handful of ships had deck guns and small lasers, but Apex picked at these threats and took them out one by one. Lances destroyed a small torpedo-boat-like vessel, then attacked a merchant frigate with a deck gun. It tried to target enemy ships as they swooped in from all angles, toying with it, but failed to score any hits. The lances kept playing with it, harassing it.

  Soon, Apex had driven the frigate away from the rest of the fleet. None of the other ships came to its aid, but continued their full-speed flight. The faster ships began to outpace the slower ones as all discipline was lost.

  “It’s like a herd of caribou,” Manx said, “sacrificing a sick herd mate to a pack of ravenous wolves while they make a run for it.”

  “It will do them little good in the end,” Drake said. “These particular wolves are never sated.” Something occurred to him. “And we’re doing the same thing, aren’t we? Using the death of that ship to shield us. Throck, how long until we’re in range?”

  Throckmorton called down to the gunnery to find out, and soon came back with an answer. “We can fire the crotalus batteries now, if you’d like, sir. They’re already within range.”

  “Sir,” Manx said, “if the crotalus batteries can fire, that means our missile frigates are also within range.”

  Drake considered. “We’re still too far away to inflict damage, but we might scatter them.”

  “Shall I give the order, sir?” Throckmorton asked.

  “No, hold fire and keep cloaked.” He turned to his pilot. “Continue on course. The longer we stay undetected, the better.”

  “You’re a ruthless one, aren’t you?” Koh said. “You’ll let that frigate die to buy a few minutes.”

  The Singaporean had come back onto the bridge while the merchant ship fought for its life, and now stood two paces off from the tech officers, watching the big viewscreen and gnawing on her thumb.

  “Ruthless would be letting your whole civilization die to buy time,” Drake said. “This is the simple matter of expedience in a combat situation. I’m going to win this battle, and that’s going to save a whole lot more lives than whoever is on that frigate.”

  His words sounded bolder than he felt as he watched the final struggles of the frigate play out. Its gun stopped firing, either damaged or out of ammunition. A lance made a short jump and drifted in behind almost casually as it let off short pulses of energy at the frigate’s engine. It was a calculated attack, designed to cripple, not destroy. The frigate made one attempt to evade, and then plasma gushed out like blood from a wound. A lance came in and harpooned it.

  Curses sounded across Dreadnought’s bridge. Koh said something in Chinese, her voice a wail of pain. One of the young ensigns at the defense grid computer muttered a prayer in Old Earth English.

  Three small pods blasted out of the side of the frigate as the lance came in, launching in random directions. Another lance went after these and snared them one by one. Stay
on board or flee—there was no escape for the crew and passengers of the doomed frigate.

  How many refugees had packed inside? It was easy to imagine their terror as the birds came screaming in to take their prisoners. Men, women, children, the young and the old, even infants—the buzzards would show no mercy.

  The rest of the enemy ships continued after the refugee fleet. No other human ships fired. Maybe they couldn’t—Apex lances had destroyed or disabled several by now—or maybe they were terrified of revealing themselves and making themselves the new target. Either way, the lances attacked unopposed.

  About thirty minutes later, Drake checked the range with tech officers and the specialists at the defense grid computer, then nodded at Manx. “Call the barracks. I want a hundred marines brought out of stasis. Get them armed and in defensive positions.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As Manx got on the com, Drake called down to the gunnery. “Dryfus, this is the admiral.”

  “Yes, my lord?”

  “Sir is good enough. I want all hands in ten minutes. Do you remember what I said about the torpedoes?”

  “Yes, sir. Fire the Mark-IVs at close range only.”

  “They’re for repelling boarding attempts. I’m bringing marines out of stasis, but I don’t want to take chances if those buzzards harpoon us.”

  “The Mark-IVs are old, sir, but they still pack a helluva punch, and the worst damage is the kind you inflict on yourself. We shoot at that range . . . it’s going to feel like shooting off leeches with a pistol, sir.”

  “Understood,” Drake said, “but we can take a few blows, even the self-inflicted kind. You will keep those boarders away, am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On the one hand, Drake itched to test his marines against Apex in armed combat. He might learn some valuable things about how the enemy fought. But this was a naval battle—Dreadnought’s gun would be the deciding factor, not her marines.

  Lloyd spoke up from the tech console. “The defense grid says fifteen minutes until we can fire the medium-range ordnance. All of our missile frigates are in range already. The torpedo boats can make a charge at any moment.”