The Ascendant Stars

by Cobley, Michael

  Greg was thoughtful. ‘Actually, I think I know what this is all about.’ And when he told Berg, realisation dawned in the Tygran’s eyes.

  Sure enough, nearly thirty-five minutes later Ash was back and asking for Greg.

  ‘And how’s it going, Mr Ash?’ he said as he hurried onto the bridge. ‘As you can see, I’m back in my serious civvy gear, complete with snazzy long black coat. I’ve had a shower, or tornado-fogblast as it should be called, and I’ve had one o’ they wee stimpills as well – which work, by the way. This is the most awake I’ve been for over a week, so … when do I get to meet the vice-admiral?’

  Ash glared at him. ‘How did you know … ’

  ‘Aye, well, that’ll be one of my special archaeologist superpowers, the power of deduction, don’t ye know!’

  Greg grinned at Berg, who was striving to keep a straight face.

  ‘I trust that you’ll keep your witticisms to yourself when you meet Vice-Admiral Ngassa,’ Ash said, stone-faced. ‘When we spoke with him just minutes ago he insisted on speaking with a Darien representative, which means you. When you meet him, emphasise that all of us here have come together as an informal alliance for the sole purpose of defending Darien, and its moon. Be sure that he understands this.’

  ‘I shall. Anything else?’

  ‘It would be helpful to learn of his expectations of what the Hegemony fleet will do when it arrives. Before this he was the previous supreme commander of Earthsphere forces in the Yamanon Domain so he’s had experience of the Hegemony military from working alongside them.’

  Greg took it all in, nodding. ‘Righto, I get the picture. And don’t worry about my attitude – I shall be the soul of sober diplomacy.’

  Ash’s stare was almost unreadable.

  ‘Once you and Lieutenant Berg are in the shuttle and declamped we will send you encrypted coordinates for the rendezvous with the vice-admiral’s pinnace. You’ll dock with it, go aboard and conduct the meeting there.’

  Greg smiled brightly. ‘We’re on our way.’

  To a rerun of that blether we had with Braddock, sounds like, he thought as he hurried after Berg.

  Less than half an hour later they were approaching the rendezvous coordinates and the sleek vessel waiting there. They docked with a transfer conduit jutting from the starboard flank. Greg and Berg were greeted on the other side of the hatch by an armed escort, three Earthsphere marines in ceremonial black and blue uniforms. Along a grey and red passage they were taken to a small room where a tall officer in formal black rose from a table scattered with documents, facing them.

  ‘Gentlemen, thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘I am Lieutenant Commander Neville, adjutant and chief of staff to the vice-admiral. Which of you is Greg Cameron?’

  Smiling, Greg raised a hand. Neville nodded then turned to Berg.

  ‘So you must be the Ezgara officer,’ he said. ‘There have been wild theories for some time that the Ezgara commandos were actually a Human splinter group of some kind. Now we’re hearing a remarkable rumour that they are actually descended from one of the three lost colonies. Is this so?’

  Berg had maintained a neutral expression thus far, to the point where Greg suspected some degree of dislike beneath the surface.

  ‘With respect, sir,’ he said, ‘I am under specific orders not to discuss these matters.’

  The adjutant gazed at Berg for a motionless second before nodding.

  ‘Of course. Understandable.’ He turned his attention back to Greg. ‘Now that you are here, we can go through.’

  Neville crossed to a second door, opened it and ushered them in.

  The conference room had soft carpeting, elaborate uplighting and a substantial oval table surface in pale, polished wood. Four triangular windows with rounded corners were spaced along the outer bulkhead, affording a view of the stars and the wisps and veils of the deepzone. A lanky, brown-skinned man in a formal steel-blue uniform was standing at one of them, drinking from a glass. He looked round as they entered, introductions were made, hands were shaken.

  ‘It is a pleasure to finally meet someone from Darien,’ said Vice-Admiral Ngassa as he gestured them to sit. ‘The newspipes have been full of stories and docudramas about your world but very little is of use in a situation like this.’

  ‘Well, Vice-Admiral, if there’s anything you need to know about Darien, especially anything archaeologically based, I’m definitely your man,’ Greg said. ‘Mind you, I have a few questions, myself.’

  ‘That’s fair, Mr Cameron,’ Ngassa said. ‘Firstly, please understand what we are here for. My orders require me to place my forces in near-Darien space for the purposes of protection and security. The president has invoked the “duty of legacy” principle, which essentially means that Earthsphere can assume responsibility for the external political relationships and negotiations of a Human community or colony if its civilian authority is unable to carry them out for itself.’

  ‘Aye, well I guess that would be a fair description of the state of things the now,’ Greg said.

  ‘And in the light of my orders, we are faced with the problem of the various warships currently in orbit around Darien. Can you tell me why they’re here?’

  Greg nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I can. Ye see, they’re not the problem – but they are here because of the problem or rather the threat posed by the imminent arrival of a large Hegemony fleet. And when I say large, I mean gigantic, going by what I’ve heard. So basically, they have come together in an informal alliance for the purpose of defending Darien.’

  Ngassa nodded calmly, taking it all in.

  ‘I can see that, Mr Cameron, and accepting such aid is understandable in the circumstances. However, the real problem, I’m afraid, could be the Imisil.’

  ‘The Imisil … are the real problem?’

  The vice-admiral gave a slightly pained nod.

  ‘The Hegemony and the Imisil have had … some unfortunate clashes in the past. If they were to leave the system within the next two hours it would make for more relaxed negotiations when the Hegemony fleet arrives.’

  ‘Well, ye know, it’s funny but our relationship with the Imisil seems to be just fine,’ Greg said. ‘But I’ll certainly pass that on to the joint command, although you should realise that they’ll be looking for some guarantees in return, no planetary bombardment, no atmospheric destabilisation, no attempt at ground invasion, that sorta thing. That would be a great starting point, I think.’ He leaned back a little. ‘Mind you, I have to say – with great respect, by the way – that there seems to be a wee question hanging over your own fleet’s integrity, so to speak. We got the impression that you’ve had a few … problems yourself.’

  Ngassa gave a dismissive gesture. ‘Minor disciplinary matters, nothing more … ’

  ‘Officers and captains refusing direct orders, officers and captains being shot dead or thrown in the brig, using loyal ships to corral whole ships that have gone rogue – stop me if any o’ this is sounding a wee bit familiar … ’

  ‘Mr Cameron!’ said the adjutant angrily.

  ‘It’s all right, Neville,’ said the vice-admiral. ‘Your information is quite accurate, Mr Cameron, and courtesy of the Imisil, I expect.’

  ‘They do have some rather fine sensor technology, I’m led to believe.’

  Just then, the adjutant took a datapad from his waist clip, wordlessly indicated it to the vice-admiral, who nodded. The adjutant rose from the table and left by the main door, the data-pad raised to one ear.

  ‘As I said, Mr Cameron, a disciplinary problem,’ Ngassa continued. ‘Admittedly, the nature and timing of it is worrying but the situation is firmly under control.’

  ‘I see, sir,’ said Greg. ‘So you’ve locked up everyone with an AI implant, then.’

  Ngassa gave him a mildly incredulous look. ‘I’m sorry but that would be an extreme and irrational response – it would deprive my ships of scores of capable officers and crew who have proved their loyalty beyond question.’

&nb
sp; Greg nodded, exchanging a brief look with Berg.

  ‘Well, I can see your point,’ he said. ‘Sounds sensible. So I guess you have folk on your own staff who have implants … ’ He gestured. ‘Perhaps even yourself?’

  Ngassa smiled and shook his head. ‘My parents were a little old-fashioned and disapproved of the practice and by the time I was old enough to decide for myself I found that I just didn’t care for the idea. And yes, some of my staff are equipped with implants, like my adjutant, Neville. Why do you ask?’

  That was when the adjutant Neville entered the room carrying a beam pistol.

  ‘Hands on your heads,’ he said. ‘Over to the wall.’

  ‘What the stinking hell are you doing, Neville?’ said the vice-admiral with stunned anger. ‘Are you a traitor too?’

  ‘Do as I said,’ Neville said, suddenly shifting his aim to cover Greg and Berg. ‘No heroics. Do it.’

  Greg linked his hands and put them behind his head then moved towards the bulkhead. Berg didn’t move.

  ‘So how is Neville?’ Berg said. ‘Is he even in there any more?’

  The adjutant’s mouth twitched into a half-smile. ‘Not for quite some time. Hands on your head and move!’

  Berg clasped his hands behind his head, took a step and paused, glancing over at the doorway. ‘Well, about time! … ’

  The adjutant laughed. ‘Moron – I know there’s no one … ’

  And Berg’s hand whipped out from behind his head and hurled a small spinning object. It flashed straight towards Neville’s right shoulder and since he was holding the gun with his right hand his reflex avoidance motion pushed his aim off for just a moment, long enough for Berg to launch himself in a flying lunge.

  Neville managed to fire off a burst before he and Berg went down in a tangle of flailing legs and savage punches. Greg and the vice-admiral had leaped forward the moment after Berg made his move. The adjutant proved remarkably strong and it took the three of them to disarm him and hold him down. After repeated shouts, two guards appeared and provided restraints with which they were able to immobilise their prisoner.

  ‘You should release me,’ said the adjutant. ‘It would be in your best interests.’

  ‘You are going back to stand trial for mutiny,’ said Ngassa, wiping his face with a napkin from the table.

  The adjutant laughed. ‘What a delightful race Humans are. Malleable, useful, and never dull. I remember how trusting you used to be back when all you had was that half-trashed planet and a few primitive colonies … ’

  ‘You don’t seem that worried about your situation,’ said Greg. ‘If I was a betting man, I’d say that you really are an AI with a link to some bolthole out in hyperspace. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’

  ‘You’d win the bet, man of Darien. You are an interesting batch, growing up without any guidance or constrictions, wolflings some of my colleagues call you, a pure-strain control group, in a way … ’

  Suddenly alarms were sounding out in the corridors, an insistent metallic sound that made the adjutant laugh.

  ‘Judgement has come and the punishment will be harsh … ’

  A communicator node on the conference table also started chiming so Ngassa leaned forward to thumb it and a small holoscreen appeared, showing an officer in a pilot couch.

  ‘Captain, what’s happening?’

  ‘Vice-Admiral, vessels have started appearing in hundred-strong formations spaced around the system. We estimate total numbers approaching two thousand … idents are showing as the Hegemony, sir.’

  ‘Any communication from them?’

  ‘None, sir, but that’s not the worst – eight of our ships have broken formation, including the two under guard, and are heading towards one of the Hegemony formations.’

  ‘As am I,’ said the AI-possessed adjutant, who then slumped forward in his chair. For a second everyone was still, staring. Suddenly the adjutant’s head came up as his entire body went into a muscle-straining spasm, a locked rigidity. Greg saw a tracery of dark lines creeping up the neck towards the scalp. One of the guards looked away, and when the adjutant went wholly limp the head rolled to one side to reveal eyes that were charred pits.

  ‘Captain,’ Ngassa said over the holocomm link, ‘get us back to the flagship without delay – in fact tell Commander Paxton to get under way towards us and we’ll rendezvous … ’ Pausing, he looked at Berg. ‘Dammit, man, you’ve been injured! Field treatment for this man.’

  ‘Sir, I am not wounded,’ Berg said, pulling aside the singed edges of the slash in his uniform to reveal a line of bubbly melt across the surface of a protective vest. ‘Semi-ablative subarmour, sir.’

  ‘More to you than meets the eye, Lieutenant,’ said Ngassa, who then cast a disdainful look at his former adjutant. ‘So whatever was using Neville has fled?’

  Berg nodded. ‘The AIs with the Hegemony fleet will now know that you’re aboard this vessel. And that we are too.’

  ‘In which case,’ Greg added, ‘it might be prudent for us to take our shuttle back to our ship.’

  ‘I’m … anxious about putting your lives at risk, gentlemen,’ Ngassa said. ‘No, I’d rather you stayed with us. Once aboard my flagship we will microjump straight to Darien and let you rejoin—’

  ‘Sir! – sir, the Hegemony formations have just microjumped in unison!’ said the pinnace captain from the holocomm. ‘They have reappeared at half their original distance from Darien, and still in that encircling array.’

  ‘Tightening the noose,’ Ngassa snarled. ‘And still no word from them?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘Get me Paxton.’ A second later a rugged-looking officer appeared in the holopanel. ‘Commander, I want you to order the fleet to microjump to Darien vicinity immediately!’

  Ngassa’s second-in-command was startled. ‘Now, sir? Before we get you aboard? We’re only three minutes … ’

  ‘Now, Paxton. Then I want you to use what I’m about to dictate – This is Vice-Admiral Ngassa. In accordance with the orders of the president of the Earthsphere alliance, the colony and planet of Darien is declared to be a provisional protectorate and is therefore under the administrative protection and guidance of the Darien Expeditionary Force, Vice-Admiral Ngassa commanding. All grievances and disputes will be heard by a commission consisting of myself and three judicial appointees. In addition, all communications and requests should be made on the main ES navy channel. Thank you for your attention. – Now have Central Comms widecast that on repeat, and put it out on tiernet channels as well, understand?’

  ‘Yes sir, and we’re less than a minute away.’

  Greg glanced at Berg, who was taking it all with typical Tygran composure.

  ‘So … where does that put us, overall?’

  Berg frowned. ‘We have the Starfire and the Silverlance, the Imisil have five ships, the Vox H are down to seventeen, and the vice-admiral brought sixty, minus the eight defectors, plus the Retributor … ’

  ‘So you don’t think that the Hegemony are going to play nice and be diplomatic?’

  The Tygran raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not really their strong point.’

  ‘So how many all told?’

  ‘Eighty-four, while the Hegemony armada consists of a reported two thousand vessels.’

  Greg almost laughed. ‘Is that what’s known as a crushing superiority?’

  ‘In some circles, yes.’

  ‘Ye know, when we get back to the Starfire I’ll have to lay hands on a set of that handy subarmour of yours.’

  Berg’s smile was bleak. ‘I think we’ll need something a bit stronger than that.’

  CHEL

  Sitting on a dusty stone plinth in the gloom of the roothouse, he let the wandering sight of his Seer eyes stretch itself out along the rootways, the underground interlinkage laid down by their most ancient forebears. Many of the essence strands had long since rotted away but the Artificer Uvovo teams had worked wonders with a variety of vines and roots brought from the
daughter-forests. And their hard work was evident at many other roothouses scattered across the hills, the forests and the coastal plain. Days upon days of effort had borne their fruit, yet with the warpwell subverted and the return of the Legion of Avatars looking more than likely, could it all have been a waste?

  Back when the Ancients still had corporeal form, this world, Umara, the dense forests of Segrana-That-Was, generated webs of power capable of defending the entire planet against attacks from near space. Greater nodes oversaw primary nodes, each of which gathered in an array of roothouses, hundreds, thousands. But all that Cheluvahar had to muster against the hostile forces building in the heavens, and against the flesh-and-machine horrors soon to emerge from Giant’s Shoulder, was a single secondary node and nineteen roothouses.

  When the Zyradin transported him here from Tusk Mountain, it had been unswerving in its insistence that Chel prepare the nodes, the roothouses and the Artificer Uvovo for battle. And not long afterwards he had a visitation from the Pathmaster, his spectral form appearing even more tenuous and fragile than before and his voice sounding scratchy and broken, like a cluster of insects.

  I agreed to come here, he had told the ancient, ancient remnant of the long-past forebear. I agreed to prepare for battle, and the only reason I’m able to do so is the healing that I received from a vudron. Not due to anything you said or did.

  The Pathmaster’s thin, vaporous presence, his eyes in shadow, had smiled and nodded. A faint sibilant voice said, Understanding is seldom understood …

  Then it had faded away, like threads of smoke dissolving in the air. Immediately Chel had felt ashamed at the blinkered anger of his response and now, sitting here, he felt a sting of regret. Could that have been the Pathmaster’s last fleeting words to the living before finally merging with the Eternal?

  Seated on the stone plinth, his eyes were closed yet his Seer sight ranged forth from the roothouse, from this secondary node, drawn along the essence strands, dividing when they divided, spreading to join with the other roothouses from which the entwining web spread further. The Zyradin motes that he brought were doing their work. He could sense the slow gyring pulse of the planet, rising from hard and compacted depths to the thin uncertain crust over which organic life existed like a frail bubble. Yet it was frail organic minds that had learned how to harness the pulsing gyre of those colossal inner energies. And as Chel’s awareness expanded across the web of connections he could feel those energies, feel the ancient webs respond to them, opening to them, drawing on them.