by Ramy Vance
Percival bowed his head.
“One more thing, Commander. I’ve been going over some security access records with a fine-toothed comb. I’m convinced that Ensign Jaeger wasn’t working alone.”
“We already know that,” Percival said dully. He rubbed his hands together, fighting to keep his fingers from going numb. “The last AI message confirmed—”
“Oh, I’m not talking about Lawrence Toner.” The professor made a dismissive gesture. “An interesting bit of genetic artistry there, but the man is the tool, not the artist. No. Clever as she is, even Jaeger couldn’t override the Moss AI security protocol without certain codes that even she did not have access to. She had outside help.”
Percival’s eyes fell shut. Until this moment, he’d been telling himself that he had been bested by a single, if brilliant, lone wolf. Now, he saw the specter of dozens of unknown co-conspirators rising from the shadowy depths of his imagination. An entire network of spies and traitors surrounded him.
He thought he felt frost forming at the corners of his mouth.
“I will interview my remaining command staff,” he whispered. “We will find and deal with the ones who helped Jaeger.”
“Excellent. That is exactly the thing you should do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Commander. This is the only time of my day I can get a few minutes to myself.”
The professor dropped his shoulders in another practice swing. Percival had been about to turn back to the airlock but couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you ever going to hit the damned ball?” he demanded.
The professor didn’t look up from his club. “I’m a man of faith, Commander, not a fool. It takes more than practice and planning to make something that will last.” He dropped his shoulders, and with a sudden vicious twist of his body, smashed his club into the ball. The little white orb shot into the darkness at blinding speed and shrank into eternity.
The professor rested his club on his shoulder and stared after it, a look of blissful satisfaction on his face. “Do you know how long that ball will fly, Commander, once you put all that practice to the test and take your swing? Do you know how far it will go?”
“No,” Percival said. “How far?”
“It will go on forever.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jaeger wanted to have the briefing in the command center, but Occy requested they remain in the engine bay. He said he was in the middle of a generator tune-up and didn’t want to leave his work. Jaeger half-suspected the boy felt more comfortable in zero-G, where he could let himself be as big and strange as he truly was.
Something small and sharp bit into her. A shard of brown glass jutted from her forearm. She stared at it, frowning.
“Hey!” Toner snatched the jagged thing from her fingertips and rounded on Baby, brandishing it. “I thought you were gonna clean this place up! We can’t have glass floating every—oh shit.” He flicked his wrist, sending the little shard of glass soaring through the open generator bay. “Shit. Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic look as he clawed restlessly at his neck. “It had blood on it.”
Baby lifted her head as the glass shard flew past. She made a deep, grumbling, sucking noise, and the shard vanished into the abyss of her toothy face-hole. The tardigrade really would eat anything.
“Why is there glass floating around?” Jaeger wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know.
“No reason! Hey Virgil, isn’t it meeting time?”
“It is,” Virgil grumbled from the speakers. “You have a holo-call waiting.”
On cue, one of the overhead hologram projectors flickered to life. All at once, Seeker stood amid them, ramrod straight and hands clasped behind his back. His square jaw worked silently for a moment before the audio patched through. “—thing on? Hello? Can you hear me?”
“You’re clear, Seeker,” Jaeger said. “Thanks for joining us.”
“This is the second time you asked for my help in the last few days,” he grunted, rolling his shoulders. “You must be desperate.” The camera had added ten pounds—of muscle, directly to his neck. Jaeger was fascinated.
“Well,” she said, “we’re on a time crunch, and it’s all hands on deck. Virgil, pull up the primary display.”
The large screen stretching across one wall of the generator bay flared to life, showing a two-dimensional image of the asteroid belt.
“Here are the broad strokes.” She paced lightly in front of the screen on mag soles activated at half-power. “K’tax—Sorry, Occy, I mean Creepers—have been raiding Overseer ships and the Locauri with increasing frequency over the past several months. We need the Overseer’s blessing to settle on Locaur. Overseer cultural protocol dictates that they must negotiate in good faith with anyone who brings them a sufficiently impressive gift. To get it, we’re going to handle a problem that’s been bugging them for a while.”
Toner snickered. “Yeah, they’re awfully crabby about it.”
Jaeger ignored him. “We’ve located the base of operations the Creepers are using to launch their attacks against the Locauri and Overseers. Now we need to chase them out of the system.”
“You mean destroy them,” Seeker said.
Jaeger winced. “I’ll settle for obliterating their base. I expect the vast majority of the aliens themselves will escape. In fact, I hope they will. We’re not interested in wholesale slaughter, only depriving the enemy of a weapon they’ve been using against us and sending the message that we will no longer sit idly by and allow them to harass our allies.”
“That’s a kind spin on it,” Seeker grunted. “It’s war and carnage when the rest of the fleet prepares to engage the enemy, but as soon as it’s convenient for you, you start drawing up battle plans.”
“I don’t find it convenient,” Jaeger snapped. “I don’t find it convenient at all. I find it tragically necessary. Like I said. Our goal isn’t to slaughter. It’s to destroy infrastructure. If you cannot frame our goal that way, you have no place at the planning table.”
Seeker blinked at the venom in her voice, then nodded and wisely offered no further argument.
“With that in mind,” Jaeger continued after allowing herself a moment to calm down. “We don’t have the firepower or resources to smash into the asteroid belt, guns blazing, in hopes of destroying the base before the Osprey gets pulverized by asteroids or wrecked in combat.
“Fortunately, the asteroid belt provides excellent cover for small craft. Using modified shuttles and the Alpha-Seeker, we’re going to enter the belt, infiltrate the Creeper base, plant explosives, and get out. We’ll broadcast an open message shortly before detonation so there can be no misunderstanding, warning the K’tax to evacuate their people and to stay out of our system.”
“You want to tip them off?” Toner yelped in dismay. “And give them the chance to find the bombs and disable them?”
“We have to tip them off.” This point had frustrated Jaeger as well, but she saw no way around it. “I don’t want to be responsible for mass murder. Even putting the moral reason aside, it’s vital that they understand that this wasn’t the result of an accident. They have to know that we’re fighting back. Maybe it will force them to look elsewhere for someone to bully.”
“Okay, I see the logic to that,” Toner conceded, “But it still gives them a chance to, you know, find and disable the bombs and make it all for nothing.”
“You’re going to plant lots of bombs,” Occy called from where he was working inside the nearest Jefferies tube. “Any one of them is going to be powerful enough to blow up the base. Boom!”
“Occy is modifying some bomb designs,” Jaeger said. “They’re going to be compact and easy to replicate. We’re going to plant as many as we can.”
“I hate spiders,” Occy agreed, downright cheerful as he slapped the butt of his multitool against a stuck airflow valve.
“That’s…a little racist?” Toner cast a furtive glance from side to side. “Isn’t it?”
Seeker rolled his eyes.
&n
bsp; “Tell us about the away teams and shuttles, Toner.” Jaeger had long ago realized that half her job as captain of this odd little crew was simply keeping Toner on track.
Toner cleared his throat and stood, shaking out his baggy jumpsuit in what felt like far too much of a production.
“Well,” he said. “To start with, navigating through asteroid fields is going to be tricky. Trying to stay within the radar shadows of asteroids on top of that, to avoid detection, is going to be damned tricky.”
“That’s where the shuttle modifications come in!” Occy called from where he crawled through the guts of the ship. “I’m gonna glue some big rocks onto the shuttles so they look more like belt debris than regular ships. It’ll make the shuttles harder to spot on radar.”
“Glue?” Toner asked.
“Well, it’s a seven-part hyper epoxy-986 resin tested to hold up to eight thousand times its weight through one-tenth of light speed, so…really, really good glue?”
“Okay.” Toner swallowed. “Using the hyper-advanced technique of middle-school stage dressing should take a bit of pressure off the crew, but you’re still going to want a pilot and at least two active navigators on every shuttle if you want any hope of keeping below the radar.”
“Two shuttles,” Jaeger noted. “That’s six crew members right there. Plus, one more to pilot the Alpha-Seeker.”
“You’re taking my ship on this bug hunt?” Seeker sounded dismayed if not exactly surprised.
“It has a very sophisticated AI,” Jaeger said. “Nowhere near as impressive as Virgil, of course, but with the right pre-programming, it’s nearly an entire crew member in and of itself. One that can shoot lasers and fly at sub-light speeds. We can’t afford not to use it.”
Seeker settled into a strange squatting position with a despairing sigh. Jaeger realized he had slumped onto a chair that the hologram scanner didn’t recognize.
“What’s more,” Toner went on, “the shuttle crews can’t be on the landing parties. We can’t afford to leave the shuttles unmanned. They’ll get either obliterated by stray asteroids or discovered.”
“Agreed,” Jaeger said. “We can’t leave the shuttles unattended. What about the rest?”
“Well.” He sucked in a deep breath. “We have almost no information about the interior of this base. If you want us to plant multiple bombs spread out over the whole area, we’re going to have to split into multiple small, mobile parties. At least three. Four people is ideal for a mission like this, but three is doable.”
Jaeger did some quick mental math. “We’re looking at…about twenty people needed, right there.”
“That’s without any tactical or comms support,” Toner agreed. “You’ll want some eyes back on the Osprey coordinating all the teams and keeping an outside view of the situation.”
Jaeger nodded. “Virgil. What’s the minimum number of crewmen required to operate the Osprey in full combat?”
“According to basic operations manuals, the Osprey’s combat configurations call for twenty-seven separate operating roles to function at full capacity,” Virgil said.
Toner forced a whistle through his teeth and met Jaeger’s eye. “Can we haggle that down?”
“I’m a computer, not a salesman,” Virgil said crisply. “You may do as you like. You won’t be affecting my yearly salary, only endangering your lives and chances of success.”
Jaeger’s eyebrows jumped. Virgil has always been difficult, but this obstinance was getting excessive. To her surprise, Toner didn’t seem put-off by the AI’s display of independent thinking.
“Yours too, though, right?” he said, looking up at one of the speakers. “I mean. If we get the ship blown up, you go with it.”
“I do not appear to have quite the same mindless drive for self-preservation as you biologicals.”
Toner’s head fell to one side as he considered this. He opened his mouth to speak.
“We can get into the philosophy of it later,” Jaeger said brusquely, tapping the little clock on the corner of the display window to remind them all of the deadline. “Virgil says we need twenty-seven crewmen to run the Osprey in combat optimally.”
“I don’t say that,” Virgil said stiffly. “The ship’s designers say it.”
“We’ve done it with as few as three in the past,” Jaeger said.
“Not that it was much fun,” Toner muttered. “In the past, we were only taking on one or two targets. If we’re going to engage with a swarm of ships, we’ll need more than one person on tactics, not to mention guns, comms, engineering…. There are a lot of balls to juggle in combat, Jaeger. If you ask only three people to juggle them, something is going to get dropped—and sooner, rather than later.”
“The vampire is right.” Seeker grunted. “With practice, preparation, a competent crew, and some systems automated, a crew of three might be able to get the ship out of a very brief combat with a single enemy in one piece. I’d say that every second you ask that anemic crew to keep her together, the chances of critical failure rise tenfold.”
Jaeger nodded. “Twenty-seven is optimal. I’ll give you that. Still, the plan doesn’t call for the Osprey herself going into combat. If we get to that point, something has gone very wrong.” She lifted a hand. “I’m not saying it’s not a possibility we need to account for. We do. We will. I’m saying that the Osprey’s crew is, unfortunately, low on the priority list for this mission.”
“What’s the hesitation?” Seeker leaned forward, resting his elbows on the card table back in his cell. Since the holo-scanner didn’t recognize the table, either, Seeker now appeared to be squatting in some torturous, impossible position in midair. “It’s not like you don’t have a boatload of crewmen to choose from. This bird will easily sustain a crew of three hundred. You don’t want for people or space.”
“I do want for the Overseers goodwill,” Jaeger admitted. “They’ve already told us what they’re comfortable with, and that’s twenty more crewmen. If we have to exceed that total to get the job done, we may lose as much of their good faith as we gain, even if the mission is successful. We need to get this done without making the Overseers feel like we’re looking for bad-faith excuses to activate more crew.”
“Got to lick those alien boots nice and shiny clean,” Seeker muttered. Jaeger considered reprimanding him again but decided not to get into a power struggle with yet another under-stimulated, testosterone-hyped meathead on her crew.
“We need a team of twenty just for the shuttles and landing parties,” Toner objected. “That leaves Occy here alone with Virgil. We can’t do that to the poor kid.”
Jaeger hesitated. Half-serious jibes at the AI aside, she didn’t care for the idea of leaving all of that responsibility in Occy’s hands. He was a brilliant engineer, no doubt about it, but, well. From time to time, he still woke up screaming from nightmares and couldn’t sleep until he’d gotten a hug and another bedtime story.
“I have a suggestion.”
Jaeger blinked up at the speakers. She had gotten used to the AI being polite but not forthcoming. “Go on, Virgil.”
“The Overseers object to the full activation of crew members, correct?”
“I don’t follow.”
“The No-A activation tanks are capable of developing embryos to near-completion and holding them in stasis until final activation,” Virgil said. “Crewmen in such a state would still be inert but could be fully activated in just a few minutes, instead of requiring the full six-hour cycle.”
“Oh.” Toner sounded almost pleased by the idea. “So we bake the full twenty but leave another dozen in the chamber, ready to be loaded at the drop of a hat if necessary. Neat.”
“Could you mix in any more idioms if you tried?” Seeker muttered. Jaeger laughed. Seeker shot her a mildly surprised glance and gave a tiny nod of appreciation.
Toner was wrapped up in his thoughts and didn’t notice. He flounced in front of the display screen, studying the projected asteroid belt. He started to nod, his
eyes bright with anticipation. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, okay. I see it coming together. We activate twenty crew to keep in the spirit of the law. One stays on the Osprey to support Occy and Virgil. Me and Jaeger lead the rest on the infiltration mission. We keep a backup squad in the tanks, ready to be activated if the Osprey comes under threat. We’re gonna need to start cooking right away.”
“I need help dressing up the shuttles,” Occy called.
“I got you, kiddo. I remember how to use paste and rocks.” Toner turned his bright-eyed stare on Jaeger, and for the first time in months, she saw him fully awake and focused.
She took that as a sign that he’d begun to forgive her for getting them into this situation in the first place.
“I wanna start shuffling through the embryo profiles and pick out the infiltration teams.” Toner’s voice had the giddy edge of a teenage girl whose daddy gave her his credit card, dropped her in the middle of a mega mall, and told her to make a day of it.
“Slow down.” Seeker looked up from his invisible table. “I have one more question.”
“Shoot,” Jaeger said.
Seeker fiddled with something invisible between his palms. Jaeger guessed he was carving another knight to replace the one he’d broken. “Not to piss on your parade, but what makes you so sure all of this will work? Why do you believe the Overseers will give any more of a shit about this than they did before?”
Jaeger grimaced. “My Overseer contact has indicated that a gesture this ambitious and grand would be seen favorably by even the most hostile council members.”
“Your contact,” Seeker repeated. “The same one that thought your gift of intel would be sufficient?”
“The situation has changed,” Jaeger admitted. “Kwin has obtained new intelligence that has given him a broader and more accurate understanding of Overseer politics. If we pull this off, we’ll be in a much better position to negotiate.”
Seeker gave her a long, dubious look and said nothing. She didn’t blame him. She had doubts of her own, but she had to keep moving forward. One step at a time—and, like it or not, this was the next step she had to take.