by Mike Sheriff
Not that it mattered now. Pyros was dead, and she wouldn’t be haunting the lower decks to stretch her legs on this mission. Jiren Yongrui was competent enough to handle the nav transit on his own, but she wanted to remain on the bridge in case they encountered any emergencies on the way. Or a mongrel incursion fleet.
They’d reached the ninety-mile waypoint on their journey north—nearly halfway to Havoc. The crew had settled into its routine of vigilant awareness. An air of quiet professionalism saturated the bridge gondola—except at one console along the starboard bulkhead.
“I tried a potato for the first time yesterday,” Yongrui said as he hovered over Bhavya’s acoustic-sensor console. “Have you had one yet?”
Bhavya tugged a crystal earpiece from her ear. “I don’t even know what that word means,” she said, shaking her head.
“According to the records uncovered by the Libraria, it’s a tuber. It grows in bunches underground. They come out plump and brown and as big as a fist.” He made a fist and waggled it before Bhavya’s face, blocking her console’s touch-screens. “But on the inside, it’s pure white. They’re loaded with carbon hydrates.”
She swatted his fist away. “What’s it taste like?”
Yongrui tapped his lips while he pondered the question. “Sort of bland . . . especially if you eat it raw. But cut up and boiled in water, it’s not bad.”
“That’s a sterling recommendation.”
“It’s filling, at least.”
“Unlike some things I could mention.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Bhavya sighed. “Use your imagination.”
“All I’m trying to say is potato beats grooll any day of the week.”
Cang had heard enough. “Could you two concentrate on your duties for once?”
Bhavya glared up at Yongrui. “You’re always getting me into trouble,” she whispered, but loud enough for Cang to hear. She reinserted the earpiece and refocused on her screens.
Yongrui shrugged and wandered back to the nav console, next to Cang’s chair. He gave her a lopsided grin—the only form of apology he ever offered. “We’ll be arriving at the midpoint in six minutes, sireen.”
She grimaced. The midpoint marked the outermost reaches of the mongrel’s long-range sensors. It was also the point at which both aeroshrikes would descend to one hundred feet above the desert.
For the second half of the transit, they’d hug the dunes to avoid detection, only climbing again to initiate the reconnaissance once they arrived ten miles south of the colony. For her, the lower altitude translated into eighty miles of flying with her gaze fixed inside the bridge to avoid debilitating heart palpitations. “Coordinate the descent with Commander Eshan once we’re in position.”
Yongrui’s grin evened and broadened. “Giving me more responsibility, sireen? Are you grooming me for command?”
She harrumphed. “Perhaps I’m testing you. Looking for weak spots so I can cull you from my crew.”
“Oh, I think I can rise to the challenge.”
A snort of disdain ebbed over from the starboard bulkhead.
“Something to add, Jiren Bhavya?” Cang asked.
“No, sireen.”
“Then pay attention to your sensors.”
“Yes, sireen.”
Yongrui nodded at Bhavya. “There’s your dead weight. If you’re going to cull anyone from the crew, it should be—”
“Multiple acoustic contacts, dead ahead!”
Cang flinched at Bhavya’s shout. “Electro-optics?”
Next to Bhavya, the electro-optics sensor operator scanned an array of touch-screens on his console. “Nothing visual, sireen.”
Cang pushed herself out of her chair and strode over to the starboard bulkhead. Yongrui followed. They halted behind Bhavya’s seat. She traced a finger across her console’s largest screen.
The three-dimensional display featured an undulating scrim of concentric waveforms. Each waveform emanated from a line of ethereal spheres. They overlapped, forming a chaotic chain of peaks and nulls that spanned the width of the screen.
“You’re sure it isn’t interference?” Yongrui asked. “Sometimes wind shear can—”
“I know how to interpret atmospheric interference.” Bhavya pressed a finger against her earpiece. A few seconds later, she pivoted in her seat and looked up at Cang. “They’re acoustic point-sources. High frequency. My guess is airscrews.”
Cang studied the screen. The overlapping waveforms faded in and out, the interference pattern as delicate as inlaid whisperglass. “Can you determine the range?”
“Doubtful,” Yongrui said. “The lines of bearing are too—”
Bhavya’s fingers tapped the outer extremities of the waveforms before Yongrui could finish the statement. The action opened a triangulation calculation on a sub-screen. Four more taps produced the answer. “Forty miles to the leading edge,” she said. “I’m also seeing indications of depth. There’s three miles of separation between the leading and trailing edges.”
“How many point-sources in total?”
Bhavya cupped her ear and squeezed her eyes shut. Her lips moved as though she was tallying the number in her head. “Assuming two airscrews per mongrel cullcraft, I make the count close to sixty vessels.”
Yongrui scoffed. “It must be interference. The mongrels would have to launch every cullcraft they possessed to create such an armada.”
“I can only report what I’m hearing,” Bhavya said.
“They’ve never committed so many aerial assets to an incursion.” Yongrui shifted his gaze to Cang. “They’d never be so bold.”
Cang locked her gaze onto the screen. Yongrui had a point.
Past incursions had thrown no more than a dozen cullcraft and perhaps twice the number of troopships at the city-state’s defenses. Of course, none had been successful. Could the mongrels be trying a new tactic? Could this armada be what Pyros and his fleet had encountered?
She strode forward and punched into the comms tablet mounted above the central window. “Eshan, this is Cang.”
Commander Eshan’s voice leaked from the tablet a few seconds later. “Go ahead, commander.”
“We’re showing multiple acoustic contacts ahead. Are you seeing anything on your sensors?”
“Wait one . . .”
A moment passed before the comms tile crackled to life. “We’re seeing an interference pattern forty miles ahead. It looks like an atmospheric anomaly.”
Cang turned from the window.
Bhavya clenched her jaw and shook her head. “They’re solid objects, sireen, and powered by airscrews. I’m sure of it.”
Cang surveyed the bridge.
Twenty sets of eyes drilled into her. Twenty pairs of ears waited for her next order. Throughout the aeroshrike, one hundred-thirty lives depended on her making the right decision.
Her head told her the strange pattern on Bhavya’s screen was most likely interference. Her gut whispered a different story—one that couldn’t be ignored. “Jiren Yongrui, bring the ship to action stations.”
Yongrui’s brow creased before relaxing. “At once, sireen.”
She directed her next command into the comms tile. “We’ll advance to contact. I’ve ordered my vessel to actions stations. Ready your crew, commander.”
“Yes, sireen.”
Cang strode back to the acoustic-sensor console to take another look at the point-source signals. She laid a hand on Bhavya’s shoulder. “If you’re right, I’ll need to know how many cullcraft we’ll be facing.”
“Of course, sireen.” Bhavya lowered her voice. “And I know I’m right.”
“That may well be,” she whispered, “but part of me hopes you’re wrong.”
“I’M TELLING YOU, they’re Jireni aeroshrikes!”
Julinian ignored Itta’s screeching and leaned over the seated operator. His port-side console fused electro-optical and acoustic data in a reasonably ordered manner, deviating from the scattersh
ot design characterizing the other displays inside the control gondola. She studied the blurred imagery captured by the cullcraft’s most powerful electro-optical sensor.
The screen displayed two elongated objects, both black, both airborne. Poor resolution made it impossible to discern finer structural details. The mongrel’s optical glass lacked the long-range fidelity found in Jireni sensors.
Massum craned forward. His tunic’s shoulder armor bumped Julinian and knocked her aside. He squinted at the screen. “Can you magnify the image?”
“It’s already at maximum magnification.” The operator motioned to an adjacent screen—it displayed five evenly spaced concentric circles. The outermost circle intersected two cylindrical icons. “The search lidar’s showing a range of thirty miles to the objects.”
“Why do we need a clearer image?” Itta asked. “Last time I checked, the Jireni are the only other people who use aerial vehicles this far north of the wall.”
“It could be a silica-sourcing expedition,” Julinian said. “Or a group of Libraria using two aerostats to investigate an artifact cache.”
“How big are the vessels?” Massum asked the operator.
The operator hooked one of the cylinders with a tap of his finger. He inputted a flurry of data into an on-screen prompt. A moment later, it returned the object’s estimated dimensions. “It’s showing a structural height of one hundred-fifteen feet and a longitudinal length of one thousand feet.”
Itta flashed a rare grin at Julinian. It dripped with smugness. “Do the Libraria of Daqin Guojin hunt for artifacts in one thousand-foot vessels?”
Julinian shrugged off the contemptuous remark. “So they’re aeroshrikes. What of it?”
“What of it?” Itta flicked an incredulous glance at Massum. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re leading an invasion force. We’ll lose the element of surprise once they alert the city-state’s defenses!”
Julinian pitched her head back and rasplaughed. “Did you really think we could reach the Great Northern Border undetected?”
Itta’s hand dropped to the small of her back. It reappeared holding a crystalline khukuri. “You’ve been leading us into a trap this whole time?”
“Yes, Itta. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.”
Itta lunged forward. The khukuri’s broad blade glinted as it arced toward Julinian’s neck. Massum thrust his arm forward and intercepted the strike.
Julinian suppressed a flinch. The attempt on her life caught her by surprise—but she wouldn’t give Penumbra the satisfaction of seeing fear.
Itta struggled to free herself from Massum’s grip. “Why did you stop me?”
“Because you haven’t thought this through.” He wrenched Itta’s arm downward and slammed her face-first into the bulkhead beside the console. Her khukuri clattered onto the deck.
Julinian crouched and picked up the weapon. It was heavier than it looked—roughly half-a-pound of combat-hardened crystalline. Its raked edge looked sharp enough to slice through nullglass. It would make short work of Itta’s windpipe. She filed the image away for later study.
Massum reefed Itta’s arm upward, not stopping until her hand middled her shoulder blades. She yelped, cheek pressed against the bulkhead. “Do not try that again,” he whispered in her ear. “We need the Julinian as much as she needs us. Is that understood?”
She nodded between whimpers. Massum released her and stepped away. Julinian stood and rammed the khukuri into the sheath on Itta’s waist belt.
Itta spun from the bulkhead, eyes ruddy and moist. She rubbed her shoulder and glared at Julinian. “What’s your plan for dealing with the aeroshrikes?”
“We’ll use the assets in this fleet to destroy them,” she said. “Then we’ll proceed to Daqin Guojin and take the city-state. I suggest you bring the plasma-beam online and prepare your people for what’s to come.”
“Prepare our people?”
She sighed. Itta’s inability to see beyond her own nose was typical. “Remind them of what they’re fighting for. Assure them they can achieve a great victory if they work together.”
Massum and Itta exchanged a look of puzzlement. Massum spoke first. “We’ll do as you suggest.”
“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a call to make.”
“Who are you calling?”
“The Jireni aeroshrikes.”
Itta’s jaw dropped beneath widening eyes.
She couldn’t help but chuckle at the slaking cudd’s stunned countenance. “I’m calling an ally in Daqin Guojin. Would you care to monitor it?”
“Ye—”
Massum severed Itta’s response with a wave of his hand. “No need. Go make your call while we discuss our battle plan.”
Julinian acknowledged Massum’s graciousness with a brusque nod and left the pair to their discussion. She had her own plan to implement, and for that she needed a more powerful transceiver.
She crossed to the starboard side of the control gondola, tugging her quantum tile from her shenyi en route. The mongrel manning the comms console acknowledged her arrival with an equally brusque nod.
“I need to make a call using your transceiver,” she said, waggling the tile. “Can you provide an air-link?”
The mongrel’s brow knotted, transforming his blank expression into a scowl.
“I have permission from Massum ili Mussam. You can ask him if you’d like, but he’s discussing the upcoming battle plan with Itta ala Atti and might not be in the mood for interruptions.”
The mongrel shrugged and plucked a thumb-sized antenna from a nook in his console. “This will port the tile’s output through the cullcraft’s primary transceiver.”
She conjured a muddled expression and handed him her tile. “Could you set it up for me?”
He took the tile with a good-natured grunt and mated the antenna with one of its open slots. After a few taps of its screen, he handed it back. “It’s ready for you, Trium Julinian.”
Julinian grinned and touched his hand. “I’m not the Trium yet,” she whispered. “You can call me Julinian. No need to stand on formality.”
The mongrel offered what passed for a grin. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Some water would be welcome. It’s so dry at this altitude.”
He rose from his seat. “At once.”
Julinian watched him proceed aft. She entered the contact number into her tile and waited for the call to port through the transceiver. It took three seconds to make the connection.
A thin voice leaked through the static. “Julinian?”
“Yes.”
The voice thickened, its pitch warbling. “It’s so good to hear from you. I was beginning to think something had delayed your departure.”
“The mongrels lack our organizational skills, but we’re under way now. Is everything ready?”
“It will be shortly. Where are you?”
She couldn’t suppress a self-satisfied smile. “I’m on my way home, Hai.”
6
Words of Warning
THE OUTSTATIONS REPORTED in one-by-one via the internal emergency circuit. Jiren Yongrui entered their status into his nav console as they arrived, scalp tinted red by the bridge’s tactical lighting. After half-a-minute and another eight harried reports, he came to attention. “All stations are closed up at the first degree of readiness, sireen. The vessel is at action stations.”
“Very well,” Cang said, leaning back in the commander’s chair. She glanced at the chronoglyph on her wrist. From the moment the shrill klaxon announced the call to action stations, it had taken four minutes and forty-six seconds to prepare the crew for battle—well within the six-minute target they’d been trained to meet. “Distance to the mongrel fleet?”
“Coming up on twenty miles,” Jiren Bhavya said, seated at her console. “Acoustic returns are stronger now. I hold sixty-one cullcraft on a bearing of three-five-zero through zero-one-zero. I’m also hearing sporadic sound signatures from a trailing wav
e.”
“A trailing wave?” Yongrui asked.
“Point-source echoes fifteen miles astern the leading cullcraft.”
Cang alighted from her chair and strode to Bhavya’s console. Yongrui joined her. “Show me,” Cang said.
Bhavya manipulated two dials to the right of her main screen. “I’ll try to increase the distance-versus-frequency resolution,” she said.
On the three-dimensional display, sixty-one well-delineated spheroids marked the disposition of the mongrel cullcraft. A lone spheroid fronted three rows of twenty more, the separation between vessels equivalent to one mile. Fifteen miles north of the cullcraft formation, a tangle of feeble wavefronts dappled the display like muted ripples on a pond. The acoustic anomalies overlapped, disappeared, and reappeared, making it impossible to assess their fidelity.
“It looks like sound smears from the main body,” Yongrui said.
“On any other day, I’d be inclined to agree,” Cang said. “But today?”
“Multiple visual contacts, dead ahead!” a crewman shouted.
Cang spun to the forward windows.
Beyond them, sixty-one black-and-gray objects speckled the blue sky. From this distance, the cullcraft were little more than smudges—fine droplets of foul water upon the glass. The threat they represented was much clearer.
“Oh my Sha,” one of the bridge crew whispered.
Cang suppressed a shudder. She’d never seen so many airborne vessels at one time, nor had she imagined the mongrels possessed so many cullcraft. She glanced at Yongrui.
If he felt any fear, he hid it well. “I think our mongrel brethren mean business.”
Bhavya twisted her console’s dials and cursed under her breath. “If I could tune this slaking frequency, I’d be able to make an accurate assessment of the trailing objects.”
The comms tile above the central window crackled. “This is Eshan, calling for Commander Cang.”
Cang marched forward and punched into the tile. “Cang here.”
“Are you seeing this, sireen?”
Cang grunted. She had eyes, didn’t she? “We’re also seeing a series of trailing echoes that might be another cullcraft formation.”