by Nick Webb
The radar groupings of strike craft pulled further apart. From the Stennis team, one of the stragglers pulled away, obviously damaged. Mattis watched the ship curiously.
“Ma’am,” said Blackwood, tapping at her keyboard. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “We’re detecting a strange signal emanating. A microburst, narrow band transmission. Impossible to tell where it came from.”
A microburst? That kind of thing was the tool of black ops, spies, spooks and assassins. Not the Forgotten, who were almost all exclusively military personnel without access to special forces tech. “Was it targeting anything?” asked Mattis.”
Blackwood’s eyes flicked to Spears for confirmation, then answered. “Unclear,” she said, a slight reluctance in her tone. “The nature of microbursts makes them difficult to differentiate from background radiation. They are just a quick pulse; far too quick for us to get a lock on it, and unless we’re actively looking to triangulate it, we don’t have a hope. We were lucky to detect it all.”
All of this matched what he understood. For a moment, he found himself wishing Modi was here to help Blackwood find out what she could. The two of them would probably get along perfectly.
“That’s odd,” said Spears, leaning forward in her chair and staring intently at the viewscreen. She put her tea cup down on the arm rest. “Look at that.”
Mattis squinted at the monitor. It showed a picture of the half-constructed space station. As he stared at it, he saw it too.
One of the ships at the station. It looked … different.
“Holy shit,” said Mattis.
“Mother of God,” said Spears. “Is that one of them?”
Mattis nodded. “Sure as hell looks like one of the Avenir.”
“Flag that ship as Skunk Alpha,” said Spears. “And get ready to engage.”
The vessel spun on its axis, then turned and began moving toward open space.
“It’s fleeing,” said Blackwood. “We’re detecting a surge of energy consistent with a Z-Space translation.”
A voice crackled over the line. Commander Jeremy Pitt. “Captain Spears,” he said. “Captain Flint and I have something important to tell you about that ship.”
What the hell is he doing out of quarantine already? thought Mattis.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bridge
USS Stennis
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
Captain Dravin Flint could not keep his eyes off the dead man his Marines had brought to his Bridge.
He’d heard of Commander Pitt’s death. Everyone had. Had seen pictures of his body… everyone had. Now he was back. Just like he’d never gone. An immortal being, seemingly, for nothing else made sense.
Had Maxgainz gotten a hold of the body and injected it with something? Had the mutated future-humans gotten to him and corrupted him somehow? Was he the future of humanity? Was he really what they would all become, given time?
He was supposed to be in quarantine, but Flint’s curiosity and burning need to have those questions answered drove him to summon the formerly dead man.
“You’re staring,” growled Pitt, his eyes almost boring into him. “You have a battle to fight.”
Flint made no apologies about it. There was nothing wrong with indulging his idle curiosity during a battle going well. “I have the best bridge crew in the galaxy,” he said, completely genuine. A sweep of his hand showed his crew working at their posts, occasionally calling out information. “A new breed of vessel. Highly automated; far more than previous models. State-of-the-art Chinese engines—finally, some good came from the peace accord. It’s worlds faster than anything our fleet has ever seen. If I recall correctly, your old ship, the Midway, was outfitted with these same engines in the weeks before she blew. But that was after your death, so you wouldn’t know that, would you?”
He regarded the other man, looking for a reaction to the mention of his death.
Instead, all Pitt said was, “Interesting. This ship basically fights on its own. And I’m sure those engines will come in handy. But it would be a shame if they fell into Forgotten hands.”
Flint breathed a sound of contempt. “As if. They don’t stand a chance here.”
Pitt regarded the crew with outright suspicion and contempt, every inch of it painted on his mutated face. “Humans have learned to fight so well, we no longer need humans to do it.”
“You speak of us as though you’re not one of us,” said Flint, smile spreading. “Like you’re apart. Different. Aren’t you… simply what we all aim to be, Commander?”
“I’m a lot of things,” said Commander Pitt, nodding towards the main screen. “You might want to watch this.”
The main screen seemed to be just a static, floating picture of the shipyard, surrounded by a swarm of strike fighters, illuminated by the burning gun platform and punctuated by flashes of light from weapons impacts.
“What am I looking at?” asked Flint. “Apart from the obvious.”
Commander Pitt merely pointed to the battle. “I was hoping your fancy ship’s sensors might be able to pick it out.” Kind of rude, all things considered. “I have a feeling one of their ships will be breaking away from the station any moment with a precious cargo aboard. I suggest you acquire it.”
“Precious cargo?” Flint narrowed his eyes. “A feeling? What kind of nonsense is this?”
“Look there.” He pointed at a spot on the screen.
Flint squinted. “Magnify.”
The location Pitt pointed to expanded, and then Flint saw it. “Good Lord. Is that an Avenir vessel?”
“Sure looks like it. And it’s the only explanation for all this that makes sense. Why are the Forgotten risking everything right now? Why are they laying it all out on the line? They’re risking their very existence by coming out into the open like this. The only explanation that makes even remote sense is that they’ve come into possession of the one thing that Earth can’t defend against. One of the future-human mass driver weapons,” said Commander Pitt after the briefest pause. The weapons that devastated the Earth fleets. “They probably scavenged one of the ruined future-human ships and repaired it. Secure it, and it might be possible to reverse engineer the design.”
A useful weapon. The Chinese had a crude prototype, but this was better—years, no, centuries ahead in its design and capabilities. “Get Admiral Mattis on the line,” said Flint. “He’ll want to hear this.”
Pitt moved to pick up one of the headsets, sliding it over his head. Flint considered, then held up his hand.
“Best pretend you’re still in quarantine,” he said, smiling politely. “Wouldn’t want to trouble an old man, after all.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Bridge
HMS Caernarvon
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
The mass driver weapon. The same weapon the future-humans had tried to turn on Earth. A devastating tool that they had been unable to recover from the wreckage of the Avenir ships. But this ship was intact—and dangerous. It hadn’t shot at them yet, not even cannons, but if it had a mass driver there was no way they should let it get away.
Mattis blew out a low whistle. “We need that ship,” he said.
“We need that ship,” echoed Blackburn.
“We need that ship.” Spears, however, seemed less eager, and more concerned. “But where the dickens did it come from?”
That, Mattis did not have the answer to. “Maybe during the short period of time the vortex was open in the Pinegar system. Maybe one got away.” He wasn’t sure. It was pure speculation; this would be the kind of thing Modi would be excellent at.
“Jack, I’m sure you’ll understand—this ship is a far greater threat to humanity than kidnappers. We’re going after it. We’ll come back and search for the kids later.” She turned back to her helmsman. “Set in an intercept course. Retrieve the strike craft. I want that ship
in my hangar bay. Commander Blackwood, get the Rhinos suited up again. I know they won’t like it, but stifle their bellyaching and make sure they’re ready to go.”
“Aye ma’am. I’ll get Major Hubbs on the horn and make sure it happens.”
The Caernarvon began to turn, moving to intercept the ship. The hostile vessel was a compact and boxy frigate, seemingly completely built but sporting no obvious weapons, and Mattis could guess their intentions; move out away from the station and execute a Z-Space translation into the wild, unreal dimension of interstellar travel.
“Tracker,” said Mattis. “Fire a tracker. We need to get a Z-Space beacon on that ship before they get out of the system.”
Spears’s tone turned slightly sour. “I’d prefer to capture them here, Admiral Mattis. They’ll turn to engage any moment. We only have two of those things and they’re still experimental.”
There was no time. Every warrior’s instinct screamed at him that they were about to make a jump. “Call it insurance,” he said. “They’re rabbiting. I’m sure they are.”
After an agonizing moment of consideration, Spears nodded her approval. “Blackwood, fire a Z-Space beacon. Attach it to the stern if you can. Only have it signal when the ship next leaves Z-Space.”
Blackwood’s fingers flew over her console. “Confirmed, Z-Space beacon, pattern november-mike-romeo. Firing.”
A tiny silver streak, no bigger than a classroom ruler, flew out from the Caernarvon and zoomed toward the target, leaping across space. As it drew close, it spun around and began decelerating. Slower, slower…
“We’re detecting a power surge,” said Blackwood, her eyes flicking to Mattis for just a second. “They’re about to enter Z-Space.”
If they hadn’t launched the beacon when Mattis had suggested it, it would never have gotten there in time. He couldn’t help but feel a little satisfaction as the tiny Z-Space beacon latched hold of the hull of the strange ship and attached itself like a limpet.
With a bright white blinding flash, the hostile ship vanished into the lurid unreality that was Z-Space.
“Skunk alpha is faded,” said Blackwood.
Spears steepled her fingers and leaned forward slightly. “Retrieve the strike craft,” she said. “Make sure that the Stennis gets theirs, too. Get the hell away from this hornets nest. Then we wait for the beacon to signal.”
Chapter Forty
Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s J-88
Pilot’s Ready Room
USS Stennis
Gas Giant Erebus
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
The strange transmission and her unconscious sending of it bugged Guano all the way back to the Stennis. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the thought out of her head. Could not quell the urge to say something.
Why had she done it? It was a subconscious urge; something deep-seated and primal had driven her to send out a transmission even she didn’t know the contents of.
She sat in the ready room, lounging in a beanbag, trying to figure it out.
Trying to understand.
Trying to speak.
“Hey,” said Roadie, slipping into a neighboring sack of plastic beans with a rustle. “Nice job out there today.”
It was true. She’d picked out the decoys before anyone else had. She wasn’t an electronic warfare specialist and yet she’d been able to look at her radar and determine, somewhere deep inside her gut, that the radar returns were distractions.
It’s important you tell Roadie about this. It’s important that you let him know that there’s something that happened to you on Chrysalis. That the battle fugue is working differently now. Tell him that you’re sending strange transmissions and doing things without thinking about it—that you sometimes black out or fade away, and that you can’t even bring yourself to open your mouth and tell him about it.
But she didn’t. She opened her mouth to put it all into words. But nothing came out. So she searched for something benign to say instead. “Thanks.” She smiled at him a little. “Just a hunch, I guess.”
“Good hunch.” Roadie stifled a yawn. “Okay, well, unless the shit hits the fan again, I’m going to take a rest. You should get some sleep too.”
She felt wide awake. More than that, she felt that sleeping—given that it seemed to happen for almost no reason these days—would be a bad idea. “I’ll get some rack time in a bit,” she said. “Still riding that battle high.”
Roadie clapped her on the shoulder and left her in the ready room, alone with her thoughts and a tiny, nearly silent voice screaming for help in the back of her head.
Chapter Forty-One
Main Promenade
Christchurch Corporate Business Park station
Vellini, High Orbit
Vellini System
Tiberius Sector
There were actually surprisingly few people walking around for such an important station next to such an important shipyards over such a populated planet. Bratta wondered about that as he walked down the promenade, towards the door with the teeth biting into a planet symbol. As they got closer, he saw a placard next to the door.
Jovian Logistics and Supply, inc.
There seemed to be two kinds of people walking around: uniformed guards, wearing the same black armor that the airlock personnel were wearing, and another group of people. People who walked with stooped posture and glazed eyes, wearing orange jumpsuits just like prisoners. Were they prisoners? Wasn’t this a civilian business park? Didn’t various private corporations have offices here? But the people seemed to be calmly unresisting, even moving around in groups of their own.
Smith took the lead, guiding Bratta through the door into Jovian Logistic’s offices, and through another door marked maintenance, then into a narrow passageway that seemed to be some kind of space between rooms.
“What are we doing here?” asked Bratta. This didn’t seem to be an important spot.
“Hey, listen,” said Smith, his face a concerned mask. “Stay focused. Head forward. You’re staring around at everything like it’s the first time you’ve been here—and yes, I know it is the first time you’ve been here—but we’re meant to be blending in. All of this should be boring to you. You shouldn’t be thinking, hey, what are those people doing there? Who are those guards? You should be thinking, damn, I hope the vending machine doesn’t swallow my money today like it did yesterday, and I hope that cute secretary notices my hair.”
“Vending machines are actually quite reliable these days,” said Bratta, then closed his mouth and nodded. “Okay. More nonchalant.”
“Yeah,” said Smith, idly glancing around the corner. “Be careful. These guys look real similar to the ninja-people I took out, just… you know. Without the masks and with body armor. They may well be the same guys. Forgotten elite fighters or whatever the hell they were.”
That would be bad. “Okay, I’ll be careful.”
“Good.” Smith nodded his approval and they set out again into the main section of the offices.
Bratta kept his eyes down low, watching the floor. He knew he usually walked this way; posture slumped, avoiding eye contact. It was easy to slip back into old habits.
Smith, for some strange reason, seemed to know where he was going. Bratta knew he had many implants, and some of those implants—most notably the eye—were able to pick up sensor information that might give him an edge. Let him see things that nobody could.
Somewhat more disturbingly, he also… knew things. Things he shouldn’t have known. Couldn’t have known. And the man was a consummate liar, actor…
What secrets did he keep?
Bratta squelched his distrust. They were on a mission after all. There would be time for talking later.
Smith lead them to a door, thick and reinforced with heavy bars. This one was different, wider, and obviously stronger. No guards. Just a simple keyswipe.
“Bratta, think you can watch my back while I jimmy the card reader? Don’t whistle
or act weird, just stand there and don’t talk to anyone. Like this kind of shit happens every day.”
It wasn’t possible to jimmy an electric card reader, but Bratta knew there were other ways. “Okay,” he said, casually turning around and waiting, pulling out his phone and fiddling with it. He stood there, ignoring the faint sounds of scratching from behind him and pretending he was doing something very important and work-related, and that he couldn’t see the various wireless networks floating around, tempting him to log into them.
But he didn’t. That would be a huge security risk. So he just pretended, idly flicking his screen.
Wonder how Jeannie is doing these days…
The door hissed open. “I’m in,” whispered Smith. He’d pried off the card reader, the device dangling by a pair of wires. As casually as you like, Smith reattached the card reader and walked inside.
Bratta followed, resisting the urge to whistle. Whistling would be bad, he knew that much.
Inside the room were cylindrical vertical tanks. Bright green tanks full of a bubbling green liquid. Inside were floating masses of flesh; clumps what he could only describe as adult fetuses. Half-formed, warped and twisted, they were as much horrible monstrosities as they were people.
“This is it,” said Smith, his voice soft, almost hollow, all pretense of his I belong here act completely gone. “Get into their computers. Find out what you can. Get the data—all of it.”
Bratta didn’t need to be told twice. He jammed a data stick into the nearest terminal and ran a program to copy everything the tiny device could see.
Smith moved in front of him, casually blocking the device with his hip, standing with his hands folded, obviously trying to act casual.
Bratta used his phone to look at the raw data stream. Details stood out to his eyes as the filenames flew past. Cloning technology. RNA modifiers. Gene re-sequencing. Biologically-implanted memories.