Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest)

by VanDyke, David

  “But it maneuvered.”

  “Yes, sir,” responded Okuda at Helm. “Data from the Temasek shows it was almost at rest relative to the star when it was first detected, and then accelerated slowly just after a patrolling fighter shone a ranging laser at it. It’s stopped accelerating now, though, and it will be over fifteen hours before it reaches Reta.”

  General Kullorg laughed, and said in his thick, rumbling accent, “Why we have hurried, then?”

  Absen laughed as well, to let the bridge crew know the Hippo was genuinely amused.

  To humans, the huge aliens tended to come across as rather sinister and intimidating, but he had learned they actually looked at life with an enormous sense of humor. Of course, he was only acquainted with their military and ruling classes of Sekoi Blends – what the Meme called Underlings – and not the pure natives of Afrana.

  The Hippos called their planet Koio. Sighing, Absen thought once again that it was almost like having four races instead of two – humans, Hippos, and the devolved-Meme Blends of each.

  “To answer that, I’m sure Master-Helm Okuda would tell us that we don’t know how fast this thing can move. Perhaps it’s coming in slow as a sign of peaceful intent, giving us time to check it out. Commander Johnstone,” Absen said, turning toward the CyberComm station, “I presume you have some kind of hailing package prepared?”

  “Yes, sir. I dug out the First Contact protocols and used them as a template. It has files that build up a language from mathematics in several different formats, including digital, analog, visual, logic code and so on. Then it tells them the basics of who humans are, who Sekoi are, and emphasizes that we are not Meme, and asks who they are. There is a parallel file in Meme code in case they understand that.”

  Absen looked at his Hippo counterpart, who nodded. “Send the package.”

  “Aye, sir. Package sent. We are over six light-minutes away.”

  “Then we have minimum twelve agonizing minutes to entertain us,” boomed the General. Taking out a cigar the size of a rolling pin, he asked, “Does anyone here like the smoke?”

  It was Absen’s turn to laugh. “Crank up the scrubbers,” he ordered as he took out his lighter and the last packet he had of precious Earth-packed cigarillos. After this, it would be harsh native-grown Sekoi tobacco. Perhaps he could get them to roll some small enough for humans.

  More than thirteen smoky minutes passed before they heard any response. Abruptly Johnstone put a hand to his head, at first a psychosomatic gesture as information flowed into his link. It became more real as pain blossomed in his cranium, causing him to convulsively yank out his link connections. Eyes streaming, his fingers flew rapidly over his console. “Information attack!” he barked. “Unlink! Shutting down…oh, hell.”

  Linked bridge crew yanked theirs out also and went to manual control. Master Helmsman Okuda was slower than the rest, too accustomed to the medusa above his head that held his multiple cables. Convulsions rippled through his body and his eyes rolled up.

  While others sat there stunned, Chief Steward Tobias, Absen’s bodyguard, reacted with cybernetic speed. Leaping into the helmsman’s cockpit, he ripped the cluster of fibers from Okuda’s skull-plugs, immediately hauling him up and laying him down onto the deck. Blood trickled from the sockets.

  “What just happened?” Captain Mirza snapped.

  “That ship out there sent a sophisticated multilevel info-viral assault,” Johnstone replied. “I’ve shut down all wideband comms and initiated ICE throughout our systems, but…” Suddenly the bridge lurched and swung on its gimbals, and the gravplates flickered, causing everyone to grab for stanchions.

  “Buckle in,” Absen ordered, sitting down at an empty station. “General, I suggest you wedge yourself into the corner there as best you can.”

  “We’re moving,” Ford called from Weapons. Without a helmsman, his console became automatic backup for maneuvering. “I have no control,” he growled, slamming at the buttons.

  Chapter Three

  Trissk donned his prized possession – a functioning vacuum suit older than he was, much patched – and tested its seals. Another layer of plastic tape closed off a pinhole and then it puffed up around him before he lowered the pressure once again. It will hold long enough.

  Behind him Chirom paced restlessly; in that impatience the two Ryss seemed alike. “You are sure Desolator will not interfere?”

  “I am sure of nothing, Elder. I only know I have ventured into this area many times to salvage equipment and it has never paid me any mind. It is the best location to emplace the communicator.”

  “Then let’s be about it. We cannot afford to have anyone discover us.”

  Trissk stared at Chirom in surprise. “No one knows of this place…correct? You did not tell anyone?”

  The elder shook his mane.

  “Then have courage, Elder,” Trissk said with youthful confidence. “We do this for the Five Clans. You must go now.” Sealing his helmet, he waved Chirom back through the pressure door that would serve as a crude airlock. After the elder closed the hatch, they both twisted the locking handles that sealed Trissk in the room.

  On the other side a large hatch hulked. This one was held in place only by the atmospheric pressure in the room, but that condition soon changed as Trissk opened the manual air evacuation valve. A criminal waste of oxygen, nevertheless it was the only way he knew to cross into the damaged, airless parts of the ship.

  Once the air leaked into space, the door came open easily, and he stood looking at an angle into the emptiness below. To the left and right he saw the cross-sections of decks and the great vertical gash where long ago Meme hypers had torn a huge rent. About forty-five degrees of sky were visible, which was insufficient for his purposes.

  Dragging the heavy, jury-rigged communication module carefully with its spool of trailing cable, Trissk stepped over the threshold and set his boot onto the deck outside. Another careful pull and he was able to tip the comm over the lip of the doorway. Now it was a matter of delicate maneuvering of the machine, over and what felt like down. With the ship spinning, centrifugal force made outward and downward the same. He walked step by careful step across broken and twisted decks, stanchions, supports and machinery until he reached the edge of the armor.

  This was as far as he could go without risking a fall outward into space, even with magnetic boots. Desolator’s outer shielding contained very little ferrous metal, except for some exotic superconductor sheathing. Most of it comprised a neutronium-carbon crystal alloy stronger than either, so Trissk would have to set up the communicator here. He estimated almost half the sky was visible, wheeling slowly as the great ship spun. It would have to do.

  Magnets held the machine to the wall while he squeezed adhesive from a tube to set it in place. Another irreplaceable resource, he thought. This is why we must make contact with someone, else the Clans slowly die inside this insane wandering wreck. Eventually the food, the spare parts, even the heat will run out, and then we will eat each other as we did in the Days of Defeat. I refuse to let that happen.

  Adjusting the transceiver for maximum field of view, he switched the device on and hurried back to reverse the exit process. As old as the suit was, he never knew when it would spring another leak.

  He found Chirom back in the workshop, tapping at the keyboard of Trissk’s control computer. He suppressed a flash of irritation at this intrusion; he had to trust the elder now or everyone there was doomed anyway. Five hundred or so Ryss represented barely enough genetic diversity to rebuild their race, and though many such groups had loaded themselves aboard every available ship as their home system finally fell to the Meme, no one knew whether any others had survived.

  Perhaps the only Ryss in the entire universe lived here.

  “It looks to be working,” Chirom said. “I am no technologist but I can read a screen. Everything but the arc directly to the front and rear is visible at least some of the time. Unfortunately, the most likely area for the sys
tem dwellers to be is directly ahead.”

  “Let me,” Trissk said, taking over the stool when Chirom stood up. Precise finger-taps quickly brought up a detection overlay. “There. That is an artificial source, at this comet. They must have a sensor station there.”

  “Why hasn’t Desolator destroyed it?”

  “Why does Desolator do anything?” Trissk retorted, then turned to look the elder in the face. “Should I send a signal?”

  Indecision fluttered through Chirom’s whiskers. “It’s not our signal that concerns me. What will Desolator do if a foreign entity sends a response?”

  “Try to take it over with a code attack, as it has in the past. But I have a plan. My signal will reach the foreign communicator first, and attempt to inoculate it with an unbreakable encryption.”

  “You can do such a thing?”

  Trissk lowered his eyes. “I am not sure…but I believe so.”

  “And what if the encryption is not unbreakable?”

  “Then we have lost nothing, and Desolator will control another machine. Elder, we must try. We have too long been afraid to take risks.”

  Chirom looked oddly at Trissk for a long moment. “You are much like your dam, you know,” he said. “Brave, intelligent, and headstrong.”

  “You knew her well?”

  “Well enough. She glorified me once, when it was her time.”

  Trissk’s eyes brightened and he searched the other male’s face. “Then you could be…”

  “Your sire? No, the timing is not correct, and in any case it is unseemly to speak of such things,” Chirom said stiffly. “But your dam was special. Had she lived, things might have gone differently.”

  “Tell me –”

  “Not now. Prepare your transmission and send it. Then I must get back or I will be missed, if I am not already.”

  “Yes, Elder.” Trissk clamped down on his curiosity and uploaded the file to the transceiver, then entered the command to send. “Done. It will take fourteen or fifteen smallspans.”

  “I will go, then, and return when I can. If there is news…come seek me out, discreetly.” As he left, Chirom bowed to Trissk as if to an equal, a shocking thing.

  He could be a great leader, Trissk thought, if only others would listen to him. But part of leadership is making that happen. What is it that makes people listen? Thoughts of politics consumed the time it took for the signal to go and return.

  ***

  “Sound General Quarters, information-attack protocols,” Mirza called. “Get engineering teams to take manual control of the engines and weapons; lock out all computer controls until they are scrubbed. Sensors, can you show us what’s going on?”

  Tanaka shook his head. “With bridge computers offline the holotank is down. All I have is opticals. I’m trying to get some basic radar and lidar plots…”

  “Keep on it,” Mirza encouraged. “Johnstone?”

  Without looking Rick Johnstone replied, “Sir, I locked down the bridge computers. The rogue commands seem to be coming from the auxiliary bridge, and I can’t make contact with anyone there. I suggest you send a security team. Anyone linked there might have been compromised by the info-virus.” Gingerly he pushed his plug back in.

  “The bridges are made to be hard to get into,” Absen mused. “Might want to start some engineers working on severing their data connections.”

  Mirza acknowledged, “Yes, Admiral. Perhaps Tobias can take charge of that? Pass the word to the Marines.” Nodding, the Steward raced off. “And get a medic up here to see to Okuda.”

  A man with the red-and-white caduceus arrived a moment later, and began attending the helmsman.

  “I have some video now,” called Tanaka. The bridge’s main flatscreen flickered to life, showing empty space. Jerkily the camera panned until the attacking ship was centered, tiny in the vastness of space. It zoomed in stages until the enormous vessel filled their view, spinning slowly around its long axis.

  “Aux bridge has been isolated,” Johnstone called from CyberComm. “We should have control back.”

  Abruptly klaxons whooped throughout Conquest, and consoles lit up with warning lights. “Energy attack,” snapped Ford. “From the Krugh!”

  “What?” General Kullorg was on his feet in an instant, staring at the man at the Weapons station.

  “Krugh has fired on us, sir,” he repeated without looking. “I’m rolling the ship,” he went on. Doing so was a standard defensive tactic to spread any hits across more armor.

  “It must be the info-viral attack,” Johnstone said, his eyes still closed. “I’ve cleaned up most of our systems…I’ll try to help Krugh.”

  “Shall I return fire?” Ford asked. Then, “Dammit, we need a helmsman.”

  “I can function,” Okuda rasped from the deck. Painfully he rolled over and sat on the edge of his cockpit, feet dangling inside. “Just help me down.”

  The medic started to object until Kullorg reached over and grasped the back of Okuda’s skinsuit, gently but effortlessly lowering him into his seat, as if with a small child.

  “Leave him be,” Absen said to the medic. “Just stand by.”

  “Thanks,” the helmsman gasped, opening a small compartment and taking out an auto-injector. Grunting, he jammed the thing into his thigh, flooding his body with emergency battle-stimulant. Running his hands across his manual controls, he soon seemed his usual imperturbable self, save only the beads of sweat on his bald head.

  “Captain, Krugh is still firing on us, though only with its main particle cannon. We’re taking significant armor damage and we’ve lost several secondary systems, two point defense lasers, a shotgun…and three casualties.”

  “I must speak with them,” Kullorg rumbled.

  “That won’t help, sir,” objected Johnstone. “The ship is obviously not under their own control. I am sure they are doing everything they can. And Sekoi don’t use links or implanted cybernetics, so their minds are not at risk, only their computers. Unfortunately it looks like the enemy virus went through them almost without opposition. Sir,” he addressed the Hippo general, “do you know why that might be?”

  Kullorg’s expression became unreadable. “I have suspicion.” He exchanged glances with Admiral Absen, who nodded. “Perhaps ship is of a race enemy to the Meme. If so, our computers would be familiar targets, as software is based on Meme code.”

  “Seems reasonable. Johnstone, any chance of you shutting down Krugh’s weapons systems?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.” Johnstone’s voice drifted into irony. “I never designed a viral attack against our allies.”

  “Captain,” Absen said, exchanging glances with the General then turning to Mirza, “we have to take out Krugh’s particle beam, and be ready to selectively target their other weapons if they are used against us.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Mirze replied. “Ford, do it. Take out their primary. Minimum force.”

  “With pleasure,” he muttered. Kullorg took a deep breath of anger, and Ford cursed himself for his comment. Whatever his feelings about the Hippos, they were still allies. “Firing coordinated laser strike."

  More than twenty times the size of Krugh, with weapons to match, it took only one point-blank blast of Conquest’s beams to vaporize the offending weapon. “Ene – ah, engagement successful,” Ford reported, keeping his eyes on his boards.

  “I have comms traffic from Krugh…they say they should have manual control of all systems within twenty minutes,” Johnstone reported.

  Suddenly the holotank flickered to life, and the bridge watch let out a collective sigh of relief, though the display took several minutes rebooting and populating with its iconic symbology. Once its rebuild was complete, it became obvious that the enemy ship was accelerating, but slowly.

  “Do you think that’s the limit of its drive power?” Absen asked.

  “At a guess, probably,” Okuda answered. “The heat readings seem to indicate only a limited amount of energy available; it has just one fusion drive
operating, at partial capacity. By comparison, Conquest has six main drives and thirty-six maneuvering thrusters. A ship that size should have at least as many.”

  “What does ‘limited amount of energy’ mean, say, in comparison to Conquest?” Absen asked.

  “Roughly comparable to ours. By estimate that ship should be about twenty times Conquest’s mass.”

  “So five percent of their full capacity.”

  “Unless they’re playing possum,” grumbled Ford, always the contrarian.

  “Possum, what is this possum?” Kullorg asked.

  “He means they might be concealing some capability,” the Admiral answered. “How could it have even gotten here at such a slow speed? When it was first sighted it was almost at rest relative to the star, but there was no deceleration flare detected.”

  “Perhaps it just drifted in to the system over the past few weeks?”

  “No, we would have seen something that big,” Tanaka at Sensors replied. “We have active radar sweeps of the entire sphere, updated every thirty hours or so. That’s the window – it had to have arrived within the last thirty hours, and gotten two thirds of the way in from the edge of the stellar wind bubble before being seen. Something doesn’t add up.”

  “Some kind of cloaking technology?” Mirza speculated.

  Absen shook his head. “Unlikely with so much damage. What about a cyber attack on our sensor nets? Can we be sure of our own information?”

  “I’ve been running diagnostics,” Johnstone replied. “If that was it, I can’t detect it.”

  “What matters it?” Kullorg rumbled. “It is enemy. Once Krugh is under full control we must attack.”

  Absen chewed his inner cheek, thinking. “We have a lot of time to decide that, General. Humans have elaborate first contact protocols and decision trees based on everything our intelligence services think of. Jumping to conclusions could invite a battle we do not need. Perhaps the cyber-attack was just their attempt to communicate and understand us. Perhaps it’s an automated system programmed to attack everything it encounters. Perhaps…we just don’t know.”