“So what’s the plan this time?” Lee asked. “Your last one seemed to involve my ship flying into the heart of a star and blowing ourselves up to close a portal. I think you even mentioned there was another fleet heading towards the portal. I’m guessing it’s the remainder of the Barathist and Ixloab fleet? Have you got any better ideas, because that one is pretty terrible.”
“I…” Chang fell silent.
“I thought so,” Henry replied. “The great Admiral Chang finally ran out of ideas. He always has a backup plan, but not today. He’s going to take us all back there and burn with the rest of us.”
“I … I don’t want anyone else to die but—”
“No one else is going to die if I can help it,” Lee said, surprising both men. “You might not have a plan, but I do.”
“Lee?” Henry said, raising a hand before Lee slapped it away.
“I have a plan and I’m willing to bet it’s already working,” Lee said. “You’re not the only one who can plan, Ronald.”
“I don’t understand,” Chang said, looking from Henry to Lee. “There is no other choice. We have to close this portal and we have to do it soon before—”
“We’re going to close the portal and they’re going to be waiting for us,” Lee said as he stepped past Henry to the door. “The only thing they haven’t figured out yet is what I can do with my tools.”
Lee stepped up and activated the door. As it slid aside, Lee looked back at Chang, who looked astounded at the captain’s words. It took only a few moments before another figure stepped into view. She was small and athletic but full of knowledge and expertise. As she stepped into the room, Lee waved a hand in the young woman’s direction.
“Gentlemen, may I present to you our secret weapon,” Lee said. “Ms. Kama Yu.”
“Why?”
Alice stood in the open doorway of the guest quarters and stared at the little alien. She had grown used to the creature’s white-on-white eyes a long time ago, but this time they seemed to be empty. It looked into her eyes for a long time, gauging her responses. After a long moment, it turned its head away, flinging the thin projections hanging from its skull around to hide its noseless face.
“Why are you doing this?” Alice asked again. “You don’t need to do this. We can fight the Gizzeen. We can find another way.”
“Your life is about fighting, isn’t it?” the creature said suddenly. “You have fought your whole life and do not know of another way.”
“I…” Alice stammered at the sudden change in topic. “I am not really a fighter. I was a mechanic for a long time. I tried to fix things.”
“Were the things you tried to fix broken?” asked the Engineer. “Did you break these things?”
“No, most of the time I fixed things other people broke,” she answered.
“Then you never broke any of them yourself?”
“Well, there were a few things that I…” she answered, trying to make sense of the question. “Of course I broke a few things, but I always fixed them.”
“What about the things of yours that were broken by others?” the creature asked, floating silently to a nearby couch and settling in. “Did you fix these things?”
“Look,” Alice began, becoming angry at the nonsense questions. “I don’t see what this has to do with you wanting to commit suicide.”
The creature did not respond. For a time it simply looked back at her expectantly. Alice waited for an answer but none came. She finally decided the creature had fallen asleep before it tilted its head at her.
“Did you not understand the question?”
“Did I fix things other people broke?” Alice said. “Of course I did. Even if those things were mine and others broke them, I still fixed them. What’s this got to do with anything?”
“I can fix you, since I was the one who broke you,” the creature said, startling her into stunned silence. “You are broken and I can fix it. Should I?”
“What?” Alice replied, shaking slightly at the question. “You can … fix me?”
“We were the ones who put the information into your head that is causing you pain. I can fix this. Should I?”
“Yes,” she replied, suddenly giddy about having the data removed. “Yes, please. I don’t want it in there anymore. It hurts.”
“Then it is fixed,” the creature replied without moving. “Now do you understand?”
Alice stared. For a moment she refused to understand. When she tried to think about the trans-dimensional physics she had been burdened with, it had always caused her a relapse. This time she tried to remember slowly, gingerly. When nothing came, she pushed her mind further. When the data still refused, she felt tears bloom in her eyes. It was finally over. She wanted to run over and kiss the creature for relieving her of the information, but she paused. It had asked her a question.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice slightly weaker. “Thank you for this. You asked me a question, though. Do I understand what?”
“It was your question. You asked us why,” the creature said. “Do you understand why now?”
“No,” she replied. “I still don’t think I do. This isn’t fixing an engine or repairing a mind. You’re talking about killing yourself as an act of what, repentance?”
“You are a fighter pilot, correct?”
“Yes, now,” Alice said. “Lee taught me so I could help defend the ship.”
“You put your life in danger every time you fly out,” the creature asked. “Why is what we are doing different?”
“You’re about to kill yourself,” she said, exasperated. “There is no coming back. When I am out there, there’s a chance I might die but there’s a chance I might come back too. You’re going to die.”
“What is death?” the creature asked. “Our kind does not understand. There is existence on this plane and there is not on this plane. Either way, we are here.”
“Are you saying you can’t die?”
“We do not know what to die is, so we cannot say. The device will implode and we may cease on this plane. Either way, there is always a chance we won’t.”
“You won’t,” Alice said. “Death is forever.”
“Was it for you?” the Engineer replied.
“I wasn’t dead,” she replied. “You arranged for me to live.”
“But to those who loved you, it was the same thing.”
“But…” she said, trying to form a thought. “Wait … I don’t think I understand.”
“You are a fighter pilot,” the creature said. “When you exit this ship, you fly away. You find a target and you eliminate the target. It is what you do.”
“Yes,” she said, confused.
“We are doing the same. Our target is a mistake we have made and we are fixing it. No difference.”
“But…” For a moment she lapsed into a sullen silence. “Are you saying this is how you are planning on fixing this? By dying or sacrificing yourself or something?”
“Isn’t that how you sacrifice yourself when you fly away?” it said in return. “Please, now we need to concentrate to get ready. You may go back to being a fighter pilot again and not worrying about fixing our mistakes.”
Alice waited but the creature did not move again. Eventually, she stepped back out the open door and into the quiet hall. It had called her a fighter pilot, which she had once dreamed of becoming. So much had happened to her she had begun to think she was something else. She had a lot to think about before the morning and the beginning of a battle. She walked the corridors until she found herself at the place where she thought best. The landing bay echoed with laughter as she climbed into her fighter. Before she sealed herself in, she looked at the wall of tools nearby and wondered when she had stopped considering herself a mechanic.
27
1…
Sol System – Asteroid Belt
The Barathist captain stared out at the image projected on the view screen. They had been travelling for weeks in a convoy of ships comprised
of his fellow Vadne faithful, Ixloab pigs, and a few dozen ships representing the incomprehensible Octopod race. The distaste he felt towards his fellow travelers was set aside by the sight on the screen.
A vortex of energy, normally circular with streaks of blue energy and brown globules beyond, was electrified with golden streaks and rapid fluctuations of the energy flux inside. Tendrils of exotic particles reached from beyond the edges of the vortex, grasping at empty space and threatening to swat at his ship. He looked to the monitor at his right arm and stared at the readings. According to the scanner, there was nothing wrong with the vortex in front of his ship. According to his eyes, however, something was very wrong indeed.
“Navigator, read the message again,” the captain ordered. “I don’t believe the information within.”
“Proceed to Omega through M-space vortex. Passage will clear. Follow and prepare for battle.”
“Are you sure your command of the Terran tongue is clear?” the captain asked. “The language is so imprecise. You believe it says the way is clear, but it does not appear as if this is a fact.”
“The message is clear,” the navigator replied. “The turbulence has begun to abate. It may be clear in only a few more moments. Do you see? The tendrils are withdrawing.”
The captain looked back to the big screen, shaking his head slightly and smoothing down his gray blue crest. As he watched, the tendrils of blue energy began to withdraw back inside the vortex. Beyond the opening of the portal, he could see the blue-brown nothingness beyond and the swaying rhythm of interdimensional currents. The passage did seem to have cleared, but he was still wary. They had been told passage through M-space would be forbidden until they were much closer to their Omega site and the battle to come. The message was verified as authentic and the encoding was as it should have been, but the captain felt he was being led behind a string to a trap.
“Order through the frigates,” the captain said. “I want to make sure before we commit anything larger.”
“Yes, Captain,” replied the communications officer.
The quiet sounds and scents of his bridge belied the thin tendril of fear he sensed in the air. The crew was nervous in the face of the unknown. Their reasons for making this journey were undefined but they were loyal nonetheless. If their own kind had betrayed the humans, it would be their duty to fix the mistakes of the others. As he watched, the smaller ships passed through the translation edge of the vortex.
“Signal reads strong,” the comm officer announced. “Frigates are reporting minimal turbulence inside and a clear path to the Omega site.”
“Well then,” the captain said, feeling less courageous than he wanted to sound. “Order the fleet inside and prepare the ship.”
The crew moved as one, operating the shields and minding the engines as the vast interstitial engines drew them onwards into the miasma of M-space. As they passed through the horizon of energy, the captain issued the order the crew had been waiting for. It would prepare the ship and get all of them in the right mental frame. As soon as the words formed in his mouth, the captain felt the first tremors of turbulence from the surrounding energy. He urgently wanted to wait, but gave the order anyway. It was the only thing he knew to do.
“Battle stations!”
Battleship Resolute
M-space passage was a turbulent mess. Resolute’s modified engines were screaming under Lee’s feet as they pushed through the tempest towards their target. Behind him, the sound of data pads clattering to the deck joined the rattling of the deck plates and the bulkheads. As he gripped his chair arms tighter, another jolt nearly unseated Josh Goldstein at the navigational console. He held tight to the edge of the panel, though, and kept the ship on course despite the sudden jerks from outside.
“Kama,” Lee shouted over the noise. “Is Kongo still with us?”
“Communications are down,” Kama said, managing to keep her voice calm while still shouting back. “I’m not getting anything but static. I can’t even get telemetry from our own antennae. I’ll let you know.”
“Sensors?” Lee called over his shoulder. “Have you got them?”
“No sir,” the young woman replied. “I think there was a … I don’t really know what I’m seeing.”
“Give me a visual of whatever you’ve got out there,” Lee ordered, staring at the static on the screen hard, hoping to see something recognizable. “How much more time?”
“A few more seconds, sir,” Goldstein replied. “Maybe ten. I can’t get much from the navigational system. I can’t believe we’re ahead of it.”
“Stay focused, Josh,” Lee replied, seeing a new image form on the screen. “I think we’ve found our stop.”
The static on the screen resolved into the most amazing sight Lee had ever seen. He used to stare out the simulated windows of ships traveling in M-space to see the blue-brown void outside. He used to believe the awesome vision of interstitial space between dimensions was one of the most beautiful things man would ever see. The sight before him immediately replaced that thought with something new. The placid floating globules of brown energy moving from one area to another had been replaced with a swirling image from hell. When he had been a child, his father had taken him to visit relatives in Oklahoma during the height of tornado season. One of the twisters had touched down just outside of the town and he had chanced to be outside long enough to see it. What he saw now was similar, but in swirls of color and light millions of kilometers in breadth moving across his view.
“That’s not possible,” Goldstein said from the console ahead, echoing what everyone was thinking. “There’s no up or down or anything in M-space.”
“No up or down,” Lee replied. “There is an across. I think that’s the portal we’re going to be closing. Prepare to translate out of M-space.”
Josh shook his head, snapping out of the reverie and focusing on his console. He tapped the keys to open an exit portal from the void and watched as a maw opened ahead. Instead of the familiar black of space, however, there was only more blue on the other side. The cataract energy looked like a spiraled oil painting across the opening. As they made the translation into open space, instead of the fiery corona of burning energy particles surrounding the ship there was only a ripple in the space ahead of them. Lights across the bridge began to blink on after their rough ride through M-space. The crew began to check their statuses and report back. The ship had weathered the ride intact, but nerves were on edge. The ride was just the beginning of their trouble.
“Kongo?” Lee asked. “Did they make it?”
“Aye, sir,” Kama reported with a slight smile. “I’m reading her telemetry and she’s reporting all systems operational.”
“Kongo is two-hundred kilometers to starboard at seventy-eight degrees,” the sensor officer reported. “Long range scanners are coming back on-line. I’ve almost got a navigational fix.”
“Send it to the chair when you get it,” Lee ordered. “I wanna see what home looks like. Josh, execute maneuvers and take us into formation with Kongo.”
“Aye,” Goldstein said, tapping keys and moving the ship. “It’s just like moving through Enxy.”
“That was the plan,” Admiral Chang’s voice came from behind Lee. “Our early readings suggested similar magnetic distortions. That’s why I sent you there to train.”
“Sir!” the sensor officer shouted from behind. “I’ve got readings of enemy movements. They’ve spotted us.”
“Are you sure this thing you’ve done will work?” Chang asked, leaning heavily on the crutch Doctor Demsiri had provided. “It wasn’t part of my plan and I don’t know if—”
“Your plan got us this far,” Lee replied. “I’ve got it from here. Kama, inform the load crew to get ready and have the Demons prep for takeoff.”
Kama’s voice was a whisper as she called to the launch bay. The plan was to load the device into the small shuttle they had used to transport up from the mining colony. The Demons would provide cover until t
he plain-faced woman could pilot the implosion device close enough to launch. He had grave doubts about the plan himself, but wouldn’t ever reveal them to Chang. Alice had stayed up half the night trying to convince him of what he already knew. Allowing the Engineer to sacrifice itself wasn’t noble, it was one of the worst things he had ever ordered, but it was also the only chance they had. He wasn’t sure if the little creature was being courageous or cowardly in its mission. Either way, they were too far along to stop now. The Gizzeen were an imminent threat which needed to be taken out now before more of them could cross over. The ships nearest the portal would be the weakest but also the most numerous. Lee needed every piece of his plan to work.
“Show me,” Lee ordered, pulling up the smaller holographic display on his chair. “How many?”
“At least three dozen,” the woman replied. “Various sizes and configuration, but all Gizzeen. They’re moving to intercept.”
“Cal…” Lee turned to the Octopod. “Weapons ready?”
“Affirmative,” the creature replied. “Plasma cannons are hot and missile systems active. I am also reading Kongo’s systems on line. They are preparing the Vadne bolts.”
“Good, accelerate and get ready for the maneuver. Give me a timer heads-up. Countdown to arrival.”
A small countdown timer appeared at his elbow. On the projections, nearly forty ships were moving directly at Resolute and Kongo. The green dots representing the two Alliance ships moved faster towards the oncoming enemy. Lee nearly held his breath as they came within weapons range of the Gizzeen. The first blue bolts erupted from the alien vessels and slammed into Resolute’s shields. The ship trembled under the impacts as more and more of the beams poured into the shields systems, strengthening them slightly with each hit. Lee watched the countdown as it approached zero. At five seconds, he leaned forward and shouted to Josh.
“Now!”
Resolute Strike (The War for Terra Book 7) Page 23