“There are still five targets left,” Kensei said.
“Interceptors,” Jack said. “They’re out of firing range.”
“I see them.” Jenny selected one. Unlike the drones, these were crewed ships, sleek and black.
“They’re gaining on us,” Kensei said.
“No,” Jenny said, “they’re passing us.”
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Adriana asked.
“They don’t have to,” Jack said.
“Why not?”
“Because they know our destination. They’ll fly ahead and wait for us at the Terminal.”
“So, what do we do?” Jenny asked.
“I’m going to cloak the Strider until we’re clear of the Tamarack.”
“You have a cloaking device?” Kensei asked. “Why didn’t you use it before?”
“Because I have to shut off the primary drive. Now, let me give you some tips on how to operate your pods.”
38
Sol Terminal
Between the Strider’s intense acceleration, and breathing the oxygen-rich fluid, it felt like an elephant was sitting on Jenny’s chest. After a few hours, she was too exhausted to talk. Even moving her eyes felt like work. So, Jenny resigned herself to facing forward and focusing on each breath with her eyes closed. At least her bond to Cobol didn’t require her to move any muscles. Cobol?
Yes, Jenny.
How do I unlock the Terminal?
I was wondering when you were going to ask.
I just assumed you would tell me when we got there, but now I’m curious.
I understand, Cobol said. After we arrive at the Terminal, we must walk along its outer surface until we reach a lock. Then you must remove the Riftkey from my back and insert it into the opening. The waveforms of the bolt will appear to you, and you will have to match them to the energy of the Terminal.
Oh, like the mazes. Jenny yawned. Lin had said that the tests would prepare her for unlocking the Terminal.
Yes. That is their purpose, Cobol answered. And, after you align all twelve locks, the Terminal may be activated by selecting a destination.
That’s nice. Jenny blinked slowly. How long will it take?
Given your limited mobility in magnetic boots, I estimate it will take two and a half hours, not including the time it takes you to align each lock.
Sounds good, Jenny thought. The next moment, she fell asleep and dreamed that she was back on the Endeavor. She had finished the last maze and had stepped out of the room to thunderous applause. As Lin walked toward her, Victus picked up the Riftkey from the pedestal. Jenny tried to call out and warn Lin, but no sound came out, and her muscles felt like cement. The crowd was still cheering as Victus thrust the Riftkey into Lin’s back.
Jenny jerked awake with the sudden feeling that she was falling. She looked around in confusion. That’s right, she thought. I’m in the Strider’s gun pod, breathing liquid, and I’m weightless. That must mean that we’ve stopped accelerating and I can talk again. Indeed, it no longer felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. “Where are we?” Jenny asked.
“Halfway to the Terminal,” Jack said. “How was your nap?”
“Good.” Jenny stretched her neck and flexed the muscles in her legs and arms to circulate her blood.
“You all stayed awake longer than I expected,” Jack said.
“From here, we turn around and accelerate in the opposite direction,” Kensei said. “Like in the spaceplane.”
“That’s right,” Jack said.
“So, what’s the plan for when we get there?” Adriana asked.
“Once we’re sixty thousand klicks out, I’ll cut the primary drive and activate the cloak,” Jack said. “Then we’ll coast the rest of the way to the Terminal.”
“We’re going to sneak up on them,” Kensei said.
“That’s the idea,” Jack said. “Space combat is like any combat; it’s about hitting them before they can hit you.”
The stars outside spun around as the Strider flipped to face the opposite direction. When the roller coaster ride ended, Jenny took a deep breath to ready herself. The thrusters ignited, and she was thrown backward.
Over the next few hours, the kilometers quickly ticked down. At around sixty thousand, the seat stopped crushing her, and Jenny was weightless once again. They turned around, and the distance to the Terminal continued to decrease at about 120 klicks per second.
We’re finally here, Jenny thought, we’re finally going to see the Terminal. She zoomed in her display to look at the artifact. But at this distance, the ring looked small, dark, and unimpressive. “Is that what all the fuss is about?”
“Yeah,” Kensei said. “It doesn’t look like much.”
Do not be fooled by its appearance, Cobol sent to Jenny. Its technology is far beyond anything humans can conceive.
“Where did it come from?” Adriana asked.
“No one knows,” Jack said.
As they drew nearer, the lidar targeting system in Jenny’s pod highlighted five sleek, dark ships inside the Terminal.
“I see the interceptors,” Kensei said.
“Good,” Jack said. “Remember, the guns will give away our position, so choose your own target and fire as soon as you’re in weapons range. With luck, you’ll destroy them before they even know we’re here. Got it?”
“Got it,” they answered.
Jenny’s heart pounded as she gripped the joysticks on each arm of the chair. She worked with the other three pods to select targets. When Jenny armed her pod, the gun barrels turned to point directly at the enemy ship. A large red circle indicated the weapon’s range; when it became green, it would be time to fire. Jenny’s nerves tingled as they crept closer and closer to the enemy. As soon as the red circle touched her target, it turned green.
All at once, they fired in synchronized perfection. Purple plasma belched from her gun barrels, then tungsten slugs flew at a generous fraction of light-speed toward their targets. Against all the odds, the shots missed, and the interceptors scattered in different directions. A moment later, the diagram of the Strider flashed red.
“What’s that flashing?” Jenny asked.
“We just flew through a tracker net,” Jack said.
“Is that bad?” Kensei asked.
“Only if them being able to see us is bad.”
“It’s bad,” Kensei said.
On the diagram of the Strider, Jenny noticed two dots emanating little radio waves. Those must be the trackers. One was in front of the cockpit, and the other had lodged itself on the joint of the starboard arm, the same arm she was in. There were several beeps in quick succession, then ten new dots appeared on the lidar.
“What is that?” Adriana asked.
“Torpedoes,” Jack said. “Hold on.”
Stars spun in the background, and Jenny was pressed down into her seat. A second later, she was shoved violently backward. Four of the ten dots had disappeared, leaving six torpedoes.
“Stay on target,” Jack said.
“For what?” Jenny asked.
“The interceptors.”
Jenny had forgotten about the enemy ships. She quickly worked with the others to exchange targets as they twisted and turned through space. The gun pods were like dragon heads as they belched purple plasma. Seconds later, two of the interceptors exploded, but the remaining three evaded their best attempts as they wiggled through space like they were intoxicated. All the while, the six torpedoes closed in on the Strider.
For a second, Jenny became weightless before being jerked sideways. A sharp pain lanced down her injured arm, causing her to yelp.
“You alright, Jenny?” Adriana asked.
“Yeah, it’s just the gun wound.”
They were now flying straight toward the Terminal, and the torpedoes were directly in front of them.
“Are you crazy?” Kensei asked.
Something vibrated through Jenny’s seat, and there was a flash of orange outside. One of the tor
pedoes disappeared from her lidar, leaving five.
Jenny rocked back and forth in her seat as Jack performed an acrobatic maneuver to put them behind one of the interceptors. Jenny and the others focused their fire, and the ship exploded. Just two left. Jack flew through the debris, and two of the five remaining torpedoes disappeared. There was another flash, and the ship shook.
“Brace for impact,” Jack called out.
Jenny cried out as her chair smashed into her. The starfield was spinning, and she felt like a load of laundry in the washing machine. The gun pod’s displays flickered, then blinked off. Red emergency lights lit the compact space. The Strider came into view for a second, then it flew away. Jenny noticed that its starboard arm was missing.
Jenny heard someone shouting as the oxygen-rich fluid drained from her suit, but she couldn’t make it out over her own coughing. A pump drained the remaining fluid from her suit, leaving her gasping for air. But soon, she was breathing as usual, a sound that seemed too loud after the silent fluid.
“Jenny!” Adriana shouted over the comm.
“I’m here.” Jenny coughed.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“The torpedo blew the starboard arm off,” Kensei said.
“Yeah.” Jenny knew she was breathing too fast and hard, but she couldn’t help herself. “I figured that out. What do I do?”
“You need to get out of there,” Jack said.
“Yeah, but how?”
“Unhook your umbilical,” Jack said. “Your suit has about eight hours of oxygen. That should be long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“For you to unlock the Terminal before we pick you up. But, once you’re unhooked, you won’t be able to communicate with us.”
“Okay.” Jenny almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Hearing their words did calm her enough that she could gain control of her breathing and study her surroundings. In her heads-up display, she saw that her oxygen was only at 86 percent. It will have to do. Jenny found the umbilical and unhooked it from her chest. Because the arm was rotating, she drifted toward the outside wall.
Come to the center of the arm, Cobol said in her mind.
Jenny crawled along the wall and braced herself against the back of the seat. She took hold of the hatch’s wheel and twisted, then pulled the door open and jumped out into the tunnel. The spinning was making her dizzy, so she closed her eyes as she crawled down the ladder. Cobol was waiting for her at the center of the arm.
Jenny held on to the last rung of the ladder and looked out at the wreckage. Shards of metal left a spiral trail through space. The Terminal was roughly ten kilometers away, but that distance was growing every second.
What do we do? Jenny asked.
We have to jump. Cobol climbed out through the wreckage and grabbed a jagged section of metal. The stars spun behind him and Jenny fought her growing nausea by closing her eyes. When she was confident that she wouldn’t vomit, she opened her eyes and searched for a handhold. She worked her way along a honeycomb-shaped lattice until she stood next to Cobol.
I’ll go first. Cobol crouched and waited for the arm to spin around. Then he leaped and floated straight toward the Terminal.
Jenny crouched down and gauged the arm’s momentum. This has to be perfect, she thought. In zero gravity, there’s no way to alter my course. If I’m off, then I’ll be left floating in space until the oxygen runs out. Once she had a sense of the timing, Jenny took a deep breath, let it out, and then jumped with as much precision as she could summon. Now all I can do is wait.
Lights streaked behind the Terminal as the Celestial Strider and the last Tyran interceptor fought to the death.
Jenny was about twenty seconds behind Cobol and at least a hundred meters. Oh god, oh god, oh god. This was stupid, Jenny thought. An icy fist gripped her heart. She was too high. Oh shit, I miscalculated my jump. No, no, no. I haven’t come this far just to fail now. Jenny tried to swim toward the Terminal for a few seconds. I’m going to miss. I’m going to die. Then, she remembered the valve on her chest. Maybe if I vent some air…she thought.
Jenny twisted her body until her chest pointed away from the Terminal. Not too much, she thought. Otherwise, I won’t have enough air to walk around the Terminal. Jenny lifted the flap on her chest and felt for the nozzle. Very gently, she gave it a twist. There was a brief whoosh, then a sucking sound. That should do it. Jenny wriggled around to see if it worked.
Up ahead, Jenny saw Cobol touch down on the Terminal’s surface.
The distance between them shrank rapidly. Jenny stretched out with both arms and Cobol reached up to catch her. For an instant, Cobol’s hand brushed hers, then she was cartwheeling over the Terminal. That’s it. Jenny gasped. I’m going to die out here.
A hand gripped her foot.
I’ve got you, Cobol said.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jenny thought as her boots clicked into place. I never want to do that again.
The outside of the Terminal was wide enough for two cars to fit side by side. It was perfectly flat except for a deep groove about four centimeters wide that bisected the surface. The entire ring seemed to be composed of the same obsidian-colored material as the Waypoints.
This way, Cobol said as he walked casually along the surface of the Terminal.
Jenny wasn’t as comfortable in her spacesuit. Moving in the magnetic boots was a new experience. But she remembered Jack’s training and adjusted the magnetic strength until it felt most natural.
Here’s the first lock. Cobol pointed at a rectangular hole that interrupted the groove and turned his back to Jenny. Take the Riftkey and insert it into the bolt.
Overhead, the Strider streaked by them. Its engines blazed, and its two remaining rail guns fired back at the pursuing interceptor.
Do not hesitate, Cobol warned. Your friends fight so that you may complete the mission.
I know, Jenny said, but she couldn’t look away. The Strider spiraled around the Terminal, using the ring as cover. She could see the damage from where the torpedo had broken the arm off. Her breath caught as one of the Strider’s thrusters exploded.
Cobol stood there waiting for her to take the Riftkey, but she couldn’t look away. Not now, not when her friends were about to die. Jenny’s guts tightened as the interceptor closed in. Suddenly, the enemy ship exploded in a flash. Jenny flinched as debris crashed into the Terminal. What was that? Jenny thought.
It must be Lance, Cobol replied.
Six fighters—in silver and red—raced past the wreckage of the interceptor. The Strider limped into view for a moment, then it engaged its cloak and vanished into the dark of space. Jenny almost jumped for joy but thought better of it. Sunward, a whole squadron—composed of interceptors, gunships, and assault craft—sped toward the Terminal.
He must have gotten a message out. Jenny sighed in relief. Okay, I’m ready. Jenny turned to Cobol. As she pulled the Riftkey off his back, the empty virosuit tugged at something inside of her. She ignored the sensation and activated the Riftkey. Its edges blazed with blue light. What if I accidentally cut the Terminal? she asked Cobol.
Do not worry, the Riftkey cannot cut through the same material it is made of.
That makes sense.
On Earth, the Riftkey had moved like it was underwater, but out here, it was as light and whippy as her fencing foil. Jenny positioned the Riftkey above the lock. Now for the moment of truth. She thrust the Riftkey down until it clicked into place. In her mind’s eye, she saw waveforms of blue, yellow, and green. It is just like the mazes, Jenny thought.
Now you must merge the lock’s waveforms until they form one continuous pattern with the Terminal, Cobol instructed.
I see it, Jenny thought. The Terminal displayed a single white waveform. By merging the blue, yellow, and green lock waveforms together, she could connect them to the white waveform of the Terminal and make one continuous line.
Jenny focus
ed on the blue waveform, altering its peaks and valleys until it matched part of the Terminal’s pattern. She worked on the yellow one next, and once the two waveforms combined, they formed a more complete part of the Terminal’s energy profile. But, before she could even start on the green one, the blue waveform reset back to its original form. There’s a time limit. What do I do now? she asked Cobol.
That is for you to figure out.
Thanks. Like with the tests, Jenny thought, this must have to do with perception. Jenny turned her focus inward and controlled her breathing. She felt her heartbeat and the pressure of the suit on her skin. Time seemed to slow down. For one breath and one pulse, she worked on the three waveforms. Jenny’s mind split into two parts as she manipulated the patterns like a spider weaving its web. When the lock clicked into place, a feeling of pure joy washed over her, and the groove bisecting the Terminal glowed with a soft blue light.
I did it. Jenny pulled the Riftkey free and snapped it into place on the virosuit’s back.
Yes, I see it. Just eleven more to go, Cobol said.
As Jenny made her way around the Terminal she watched Lance’s fleet. At some point, she felt a door open in her mind. She saw that the ships were positioned in defensive formations. Jenny counted around 150 ships: Smaller vessels, barely visible in the distance, formed a wall at the front line. Nine medium-size corvettes and six destroyers remained farther apart. Two frigates—about the size of the Tamarack—and one enormous spacecraft formed up in the rear.
It had been two hours since Jenny and Cobol had reached the Terminal. Jenny removed the Riftkey from the tenth lock and returned it to Cobol’s back. The groove, running down the center of the Terminal, now blazed a brilliant-blue color. The release-and-attach rhythm of her magnetic boots, which was so novel at first, now seemed tedious. Her oxygen level had depleted to 23 percent, but with only two more locks to go, she had plenty of time.
How will they know when I’m done?
After the final lock is aligned, Cobol answered, the Terminal will activate in a flash of white light.
The Key of Astrea Page 45