by Letts,Jason
“No, I believe the destruction of the planet was incidental, relative to the overarching goal of eliminating humanity,” Lala said, turning her head to the crater. While she was emotionless, Loris found the idea maddening. For Brina, it produced a worried tremor in her voice.
“But you just said we’re safe from them, right?”
“She said they hadn’t gotten here yet,” Stayed spoke up. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat. The bomb they planted didn’t finish the job, the only option left is to come and do it themselves.”
The scary concept had no effect on Lala.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Unless we can figure out what these probes are meant to communicate, we have no way of knowing the situation we face. I’ve been developing some calculations, but let me see what you came up with.”
Brina smiled over her shoulder as Lala led her into the Balboa. Loris was disappointed to miss out on being a part of the conversation, but it turned out their talk was only just the beginning. They made a dozen trips to and from the new probe over the course of the day. It wasn’t until the sun began to set that the two women were ready to report. One was grinning from ear to ear while the other looked like she was sleeping with her eyes open.
“Our psychologist has a knack for figuring out how even aliens think,” Lala said. “It was an interesting proposition that the runes were built off of musical notes. That wasn’t correct, and neither was the idea that the complexity of the runes conveyed meaning in a straightforward way, but she was right that there’s a similarity between how music sheets and these symbols are structured.
“But numbers are the language of the universe, not letters, and I’ve attempted to decipher the probes using lengths of time like the known age of the universe and the planet. Using Ms. Morse’s pattern, I can state with authority that the first probe communicates simply the exact time that the Earth was destroyed.”
“What does the new one say?” someone gathered among them asked.
Riki Lala sucked her lip.
“The new probe references a date roughly eleven months in the future, at which time it would be reasonable to infer some kind of attack. Again, I have no way of knowing precisely what will happen or who sent this, but considering it would take us four months to reach Detonus, either they need time to prepare or they are unable to travel as quickly as we can.
“Regardless of which it is, we’ve made some more observations about the probe while it was in flight. It was sent almost instantly after the Magellan arrived in orbit around the planet, traveling at a speed previously thought impossible. It came from Detonus, as the other did. My belief is that the material composing this probe is a physical manifestation of space-time, and that the runes are transported through it like a portal. Moving any sort of life at this speed is unfathomable.”
The reaction of the growing crowd grew in intensity until they were nearly unruly. Even those who hadn’t been there when the Earth was destroyed had a visceral sense of the danger they faced.
“Eleven months?” someone shouted.
“Eleven months and seventeen days until some event will happen here.”
“What are we supposed to do? We’ve got to get off of Nova,” more shouts called.
Lala glanced about, these questions moving away from her area of expertise and getting closer to Loris’s.
“The Magellan has a maximum capacity of sixteen hundred. The closest habitable planet would take over four months to reach,” she said.
It didn’t need to be said that those timeframes meant that evacuating the ten thousand residents of Nova was not an option. The vast majority of them would be here at the time designated by the probe, and they stood to be wiped out. But Loris knew the line of thinking that called for them to flee missed the point now even more so than it did after the destruction of Earth.
Loris stepped forward and took to the platform alongside Brina and Lala, who quickly gave up fielding an increasing number of anxious questions.
“The time for running away is over. We are being hunted to extermination by an alien force that will not stop until they have finished what they started. It doesn’t matter if we leave the probes behind. It doesn’t matter if we find a new planet to go to. They will continue to relentlessly come after us.
“It’s time we do what we should’ve done in the first place. We gather our strength, we put together a plan, and we deliver justice on their home world. There’s got to be a way. With any luck, we’ll be back before the probe’s date to let the rest of you know you can stop worrying. Humanity’s best are among us now, and we will not fail.”
The reaction was muted as Loris looked out at those gathered. Many of them had only arrived on the planet the day before, but their eyes shone with resolve and determination. There was only one way forward, and they would give it all they’ve got.
The challenges were obvious. The enemy on Detonus had advanced technology and a population stretching into the billions. One space station with a fleet of five medium-sized ships would have to take them on.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s move out,” Stayed said, clapping his hands to drive them. “Go, go, go.”
The crowd broke into action, and Loris headed inside the Balboa to put a plan in motion for extracting all of the military officers. If any of the Magellan’s civilians wanted off, now was the time. He’d barely reached the console when he noticed Brina had followed him in.
“We can have some more of your things brought down,” he said. The Novan rules had been thrown out the window.
“No, I’m coming with you. I want to be there when it happens, for the sake of everyone I’ve lost and for you.”
He got up and turned to her, surprised that she was willing to take the risks.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Neither do I, but I want to face those uncertainties head on, and it helps if the people close to me feel the same way,” she said.
Loris noticed that they were standing very close. The light from the console gave her beautiful brown hair a green sheen in places.
“It sounds like you’re living for revenge.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Maybe not just revenge.”
She stepped closer and leaned in. The kiss lasted only a moment, soft and sweet but enough to fill Loris with hope. It was hard not to think that everything would work out after that.
Before long the Hudson was set to take them back to the Magellan, where they’d spend the next several months searching for clues about how to proceed as they got closer to Detonus. Panic and Lopez were alongside him as he strapped in and prepared for departure.
“I’m going to miss bivouacking around out in the jungle,” Lopez said.
“I think you’re confusing that with bushwhacking,” Panic said. “As for me, I’ve never wanted to leave somewhere so badly in all my life. Those little flies were nesting in my hair. I’d use boiling water to get clean at this point.”
They took off for the Magellan, and Loris immediately felt a sense of comfort being back in space. It almost felt like home, or it was at least somewhere that made sense to him with predictable rules and dangers. The same couldn’t be said for the society built by the Novans, which was akin to walking around blindfolded all the time just for the heck of it.
Loris did take a consolation gift though. Out a window he could see the exhumed Space Mole ascending alongside them. It was an older ship, but Loris wanted to dock it at the USF Cook’s station and see if they could upgrade it during the journey. It had the potential to come in handy.
A short time later, the large, key-shaped station drifted into view. Some who’d been on Nova as long as Loris even broke out into cheers over the sight. It was like seeing a friend after a regrettable absence. After docking, everyone on board headed for the airlock and emerged into the crowded bay, which reminded Loris of the first time he’d boarded the Magellan. Sonia Firth, Kelly Reid, Atsushi Yamaguchi, and Mar
ta Aylward were all there. The sight of those who’d turned their backs on Loris was painful, but there were bigger grievances that needed to be nursed now.
“So who’s in charge around here now?” Stayed asked loudly. “I’m not sure if you heard, but our old friend Armand Iotache was ready to turn this station into scrap. Seems a good thing he didn’t get the chance now, and the whole deal of playing a Unified traitor didn’t work out well for him in the end.”
Some of the chiefs had enough integrity to appear embarrassed.
“I can vouch in painful detail how Loris Roderick has long been researching this assault on Detonus, even when doing so defied any hint of reason or logic,” Riki Lala said. From her, that was as close to a compliment as he was likely to get.
“Commander Roderick!” Panic shouted. She put one hand in the air and another on his shoulder. Cheers rang out from those returning from the planet that quickly spread to those who’d remained on the station.
“Let me extend my apologies,” Chief Yamaguchi said. “Know that we never intended to hurt you.”
“I understand why many of you got behind Iotache. It made sense to come here. The day will come when we’ll need to decide on a new home, and Nova may very well be it. We need to put that past behind us and focus on the task at hand,” Loris said.
“Are you giving the order for the station to depart?” Kelly Reid said, but Loris shook his head.
“My first order is for a little change of decorum, specifically in the concourse area. We’ve had some special decorations that have outlived their usefulness. Can you please jettison the probe and put it into orbit around Nova? I hope the beings on Detonus don’t mind unexpected guests.”
CHAPTER 14
Months of space travel passed, each day bringing the fight of their lives closer and closer. Loris was proud of the crew for working tirelessly in preparation of what was to come, but he couldn’t rest easy for a second. Nearly every thought was consumed with the need to be stronger, smarter, better. It helped when they were finally in range of their long-range scanners and could begin to get a more-detailed picture of where they were headed than the spectrophotometer provided.
Loris and Stayed met with groups from the military and research teams to analyze the new data in the conference room. A model of the solar system, including Detonus, appeared above the chip table. Five planets revolved around a sun. Interestingly, another planet with a habitable environment orbited the sun from the same distance as Detonus but at about the exact opposite end.
“We have little more than a few weeks before we arrive at our destination and come face to face with our enemies. What have we learned that we can use to win?”
Yamaguchi adjusted the model to zoom in on Detonus.
“We’re beginning to detect a highly advanced civilization with a number of stations orbiting around the dwarf planet that are each larger than the Magellan but with no engines to speak of. Smaller vessels in the area number in the thousands. It’s impossible for us to appraise the capability of their weapons or means of resistance until they’re put into use.”
“Understood,” Loris said. “Their advantage is the same as ours. They don’t know what our ships are capable of. With any luck most of those ships are non-military, and when they get a taste of the Cortes, it may shock the rest of them enough to give us a chance.”
Riki Lala appeared unconvinced.
“If they had a mind to, they could destroy everything we have by sending ships to crash into us, and it wouldn’t even put a dent in their numbers. But something I’ve noticed is that the planet is radiating gamma rays at an astonishingly high frequency from a single point on the surface that is then reflected around the planet through a number of mirrored arrays. My hypothesis is that all of these space vessels are unmanned or at least fully controlled by this one gamma station, and knocking it out would neutralize them.”
The model zoomed in further to reveal a hazy glimpse of the gamma station, which looked like a giant flashlight towering above some nearby structures. Adjusting to view the gamma rays, the model showed a red and yellow beam streaming out into space to one of the arrays and then filtering out in every direction around the planet.
“The planet looks incredibly barren. All brown and dark red,” Stayed observed.
“It is. Remember, there’s no oxygen on the planet, just gaseous and liquid methane. Plant life as we know it doesn’t exist here. Instead the dominant life forms on Detonus appear to get their sustenance from fungus and mold growing on bare ground.”
“Delicious,” Loris said dryly. “Do we have any sense of what they look like? What does a creature look like that is made out of carbon like us but breathes methane and eats mold?”
“Because of our perspective, getting a look at any of them is impossible. Faint traces of their movements suggest that they have a humanoid form but might be more comfortable on all fours and have a tendency to stay low to the ground,” she said.
“Can we get back to the gamma station? Is there any reason to believe we’d have trouble disabling it if we got close enough?” Loris asked.
“In my estimation,” if we made it past the orbiting stations, which appear heavily armed, and got to the surface, there wouldn’t be anything we couldn’t do. I’m not detecting much in the way of defenses at all, but what I do see are incredible attempts to shape landmasses into colossal nesting circles that must’ve taken thousands of years to create. We’re talking about a very old civilization here that has apparently never felt threatened at home.”
“Well, they’re about to, and catching them off guard will be crucial. What about our approach through the nebula?” Loris asked.
“Any benefit from that is likely to dissipate very soon. It’s a common misconception that nebula can be something to hide in, but in reality they are too faint for the eye to see, whether up close or at a distance. They show up in our spectroscopes, which would be unlikely to distinguish an approaching ship anyway. For our purposes, going through the nebula is simply the shortest route to our destination, and we’ll know that we’ve been spotted when the stations or vessels adjust their formations to confront us,” Lala said.
Loris leaned back in his chair and covered his mouth with his hand. He looked over at Stayed, who was holding his arms and glaring at the model. When he saw Loris looking at him, he shook his head.
“We’ve only got one chance to do this. You don’t get to be an old civilization by being caught with your pants down for long.”
Pondering what would produce the best outcome, Loris searched for anything else that they could use to their advantage.
“Do we know where they are launching the probes from?” he asked.
“Yes, and in fact we’ve seen several more go out since getting in range. They are coming out of some underground facility here at this launch point,” Yamaguchi said.
“It looks relatively close to the gamma station. We could confuse them by making it seem like we’re going for the probe launch site. But what I’d like to do is slow down near the edge of the solar system, where we would have the Cortes and the Balboa detach. They’d approach Detonus from a different angle while the Magellan became the focus of the aliens’ response.
“Back in the academy I used to play around with what I called a systems-off maneuver, ramping up speed and then cutting the engines to coast in to my target. There’s enough meteor presence in the area that they’d be unlikely to notice a couple more floating heaps.”
Loris smiled, pleased that some of the ideas he’d developed in his early days were finding new life.
“But with everything off, there’d be no way to detect when enemy ships had turned to engage,” Yamaguchi said, a note of alarm in his voice. “The Magellan wouldn’t even be able to tell them they were surrounded. You’d have literally nothing to tell you what’s going on other than looking out the windows.”
“It’s a risk. There’s no doubt about it, but the chance to put the best two ships in our flee
t knee deep in their territory without detection isn’t going to happen by any other means. It’ll be up to the Magellan and the rest of the fleet to provide a worthwhile distraction, making it seem like we’re on the attack while really keeping a safe distance.”
Yamaguchi kept his mouth closed and nodded slightly.
“I think it could work,” Stayed said. “It’s bold and has the potential to end the fight before it’s even started. Then we can sort out what we want to do with them after their space fleet has been turned into a floating junk yard. The only question is who’s going to pilot those ships. I’ll take one.”
“I’ll take the other,” Loris said. “I’ve got a good feel for when to turn the power back on, and I couldn’t ask anyone to try to pull this off if I wasn’t willing to do it myself.”
It was the night before the mission was set to begin, and Loris attempted to escape from the feeling of anxiety pervading the station by going to one of his favorite spots, a simulator where he could practice his aim and run through different scenarios for the upcoming fight. He used to spend time in one of these every day before he’d taken the job on board the Magellan, but now even after months of practice he still felt that time on Nova had dulled his skills.
The simulator was designed to look like the cockpit of the Cortes, a short space barely larger than a closet that was expected to hold four crew members. But in the simulator he was responsible for everything. For fun he went through some of the classic challenges the Unified fleet had fought against the Silica. The Cortes was such an improvement that it proved too easy, so Loris found a way to modify the program to make it seem like he was flying one of the old C38’s.
In the relics that were in service around the time when the Silica first arrived, the plasma cannons had such a narrow blast radius and seemingly eternal recharge time that there was almost no margin for error. Loris watched the monitor as Silica ships emerged in their typical swarm formation. Strafing them was usually enough to throw them off and get in a few clean shots. One managed to get in close before Loris blasted it at point-blank range. Getting a glimpse at the ship, he marveled that the Silica hadn’t managed to improve their technology at all since they’d first attacked Earth.