Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  “You trust the Corvids?” Ahmed asked. Medical curiosity was one thing, but the good doctor had a habit of never walking into a situation with his eyes closed. He expected no less from anyone else.

  I glanced down at the datachip in my hand. “They’ve given us no reason to mistrust them yet,” I said. “This would be an awfully roundabout way to pull a fast one on us, and honestly, with their technology—”

  Galwan nodded. “They could pretty much deal with us whatever way they liked. You don’t have to spend long on that station to figure that out.”

  “Keep that in mind when you’re writing up those reports,” I said, and made my way to the bridge.

  “Admiralo on the bridge,” Linna Drake announced when I rejoined the crew there.

  “At ease,” I said, and took my chair. “Mr. Medenez, open a ship-wide channel, please.”

  When the communications officer nodded to me, I made the announcement I knew no-one would want to hear.

  “This is Admiral Mahane. It turns out that our mission won’t be completed at this station; Ambassador Andresson, Lieutenant-Commanders Didkovsky and Summergale, and Commander Blue are no longer here, although we have reason to believe they’re safe. We’ll have to travel further to recover them. The Corvids are preparing some communications relays for us, to be deployed in the Woodroct’s Star system. They’ll deliver them tomorrow. Until then we’ll stay docked here. I’ll keep you all informed as I know more.”

  Linna Drake had visibly suppressed an exclamation when I began my announcement, but she kept silent until I nodded to Medenez and he closed the channel.

  Now she spoke. “Do we know where they are, sir?”

  “Not yet, but I’m hoping the answers are here.” I pulled the datachip from my pocket and gestured to Viss. “Let’s take this into my office.” I wanted to see it before making its contents widely known.

  I led Viss out the back of the bridge to my office. At my desk, I pulled up an extra seat for the engineer to join me, then plugged the chip into the reader on my datapad. The chip held only two files; one an obvious message file tagged with both video and audio components and named LISTEN_FIRST, and one a text-only file labelled EMERGENCY_CONTACT. I set the video to play.

  The placid Lobor face of Cerevare Brindlepaw looked out at us. Her brown eyes were huge and dark, and the concern in her voice was evident before she’d spoken very many words. The image blurred and shook intermittently. She must have been on one of the Chron ships assisting the Corvids when she made it. The image was steady enough, though, that the ship must have been docked at the uruglat and not in the midst of battle maneuvers. Otherwise she’d have been bouncing all over the place. The shaking came from hits to the station.

  To whoever comes to rescue Commander Blue and the others, she said, please know that we will endeavour to keep them safe. We will take them to a planet known locally as Tabalo. Exit the Corvid system via the second wormhole starwise from the one you entered through, and proceed to these coordinates. Here she rattled off coordinates in a standard Nearspace configuration; she obviously knew how we’d parse them in relation to our entry point into the system. I believe when we were on the Tane Ikai it was estimated to be about eighteen hours away from the wormhole.

  This system is not entirely controlled by the Relidae—the peaceful Chron, as we know them. This is how their name for themselves translates for us. There is a second planet, inhabited by the other Chron, whom they call the Pitromae. Border disputes are ongoing, but there is a reasonably safe route directly from the wormhole to the planet. When you are close to Tabalo, you should be able to reach me via my Nearspace ID comm, included in the emergency contact file. If not, land at the coordinates noted in that file and display it on your datapad. Show it to anyone who will look, and they’ll help you find me.

  The video stuttered and Cerevare looked over her shoulder. Behind her I saw the group with Yuskeya and the others come into view.

  I must go so I can leave this with the Corvids, she said, turning back to the screen. Good luck, and I hope to see you soon.

  She reached out a furred hand, and the screen went dark.

  I TURNED TO Viss, glad to have someone to talk to. “I have to make a decision.”

  “I probably know what you’re thinking about, and you probably know what I’m going to say about it, but go ahead,” the engineer said, leaning back in his chair with a lopsided grin.

  I stood up and paced the small space. “We have two choices. Turn back, navigate the pulverized asteroid field again, then go back out to Delta Pavonis to warn them that the Chron threat could be imminent. Or trust that whatever protections the Corvids can offer will hold, and press on to get our people back as quickly as possible first.”

  “As I said, you probably know what I think.”

  I tapped the admiral’s insignia on my collar. “This is telling me that the Protectorate needs to know extra precautions are in order. One level of protection separating the Chron from us has been taken out of play, and that heightens the threat level considerably.”

  Viss sighed. “And what if you send the message, and the Protectorate response is to order you back to Nearspace immediately? They could argue that Andresson, Didkovsky, and Yuskeya Blue are apparently safe and in good health. That would make it acceptable to delay their retrieval until we’re certain there are no imminent threats.”

  I leaned against the view wall and folded my arms. “Did the message from Cerevare give you that much reassurance?”

  Viss stood and joined me at the wall, looking out at the black nothingness of the inside of the station. “No, it didn’t.” He reached out and tapped my insignia, as I’d done. “Forget for a minute what this is telling you,” he said. Then he tapped me lightly on the chest, just over my heart. “What’s this telling you?”

  I blinked, a little surprised at his familiarity, and also at the sentiment. The Viss Feron I knew had always presented a more pragmatic and stoic face to the world. Apparently becoming involved with Yuskeya Blue had changed something in him.

  The answer to his question was easy, though. “That I want our people back, and I want it now.”

  He grinned. “Then I think we’re on the same page. There’s a third option, though. We could do both.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Compose a message for Fleet Commander Holles, and ask the Corvids to take it through to Delta Pavonis. They know how to get there, because they got the Stillwell back, right? Even in their current state, they should be able to spare one ship to run that errand.”

  If I hadn’t thought it would be overly dramatic, I’d have slapped a hand to my forehead. Instead I simply shook my head. “It’s a good thing one of us is thinking,” I told Viss.

  “Fly with your sister for a while,” he said with a grin. “You get used to figuring out ways to do more than one thing at a time.”

  He left me to compose a message for Regina, but I didn’t go back to my desk right away. I turned to look out the view wall. It still showed only the inky blackness of the uruglat, although if I put my head close to the glass I could make out the hexagonal discs of mysterious matter that comprised the station. I stared at those, marvelling at the precise way they fit together, how well they worked in unison to provide whatever the Corvids needed.

  They reminded me, oddly, of Yuskeya Blue.

  If I was honest with myself, I wasn’t all that concerned about Andresson, Didkovsky, and Summergale. It would certainly be good to get them back to Nearspace, and there were undoubtedly dangers associated with being on a Chron station now. But, like Viss, it was Yuskeya I wanted to rescue, Yuskeya I was worried about. Yuskeya Blue, with her dark eyes and hair and quiet compassion and competence. Yuskeya, whom I’d foolishly sent straight into the arms of someone else when I’d assigned her to the Tane Ikai.

  I pushed off from the view wall and ran a hand through my hair. “Not like you would have done anything about it anyway, Admiral,” I muttered to myself,
and it was true. Between Soranna and Regina Holles, I’d learned a lot about loss and why my situation made that an inevitable end game for me when it came to romance. I really couldn’t see myself spending a lifetime—a very long lifetime, for me—moving from one younger woman to the next, only to lose them to the two implacable forces: time and death. It felt both slimy and dishonest, no matter how strong my feelings.

  So, I’d sent Yuskeya Blue on an outside assignment, and she’d met Viss, and I could put that particular problem out of my mind.

  Which didn’t mean I could leave her trapped in what was essentially enemy territory.

  I crossed to my desk to write my message to Regina, cursing myself for the fool I knew I was. But if I’d learned anything in the past eighty years, it was that I’d have lots of time later to think about it. Now we had a job to do.

  I DIDN’T HAVE to go back into the station to put my plan to Fha; she answered me directly by materializing, as a hologram, inside my office when I requested a meeting. Fortunately, Luta had told me about this communication method, so I managed not to jump and scream when it happened. She agreed that they could spare a runner to take the message to Nearspace.

  When I returned to the bridge after making the arrangements, Linna Drake gave me a look that said, “when are you going to tell us more?” I pretended I hadn’t seen it.

  “All right. I want senior officers in the galley for a briefing. Mr. Feron, please join us.”

  Viss nodded.

  When we’d gathered in the galley, I said, “The good news is, they were taken for their own safety to a planet, and we have the coordinates for it.”

  “In this system?” Commander Drake asked, her eyes narrowed.

  I shook my head. “That’s the downside. They’re in a Chron system, the guests of the ‘peaceful’ Chron faction—who call themselves the Relidae, and so we will, too.”

  “And where is this other system?”

  “Just one skip away, and then about eighteen hours in-system to the planet,” I said.

  Viss cleared his throat. “You’d better allow a little longer, Admiral. Cerevare remembers correctly, but the Corvids had given us an upgrade to the burst drive, which cut about twenty percent off the time. Say a full day, counting the time in this system to get to the wormhole, and travel time on the other side.”

  I sighed. “All right, thanks for setting that straight. Fha tells me that the asteroids aren’t moving in a preprogrammed course, just drifting, so it should be an easy passage through them.”

  Then I played Cerevare’s message for them. No-one questioned my decision to press on to the Chron system. I wanted them to hear what she’d said, though, and to understand the situation. We were walking into the middle of hostile territory, and we had to remember that we couldn’t tell our friends from our enemies just by looking.

  “If we make it to the planet and Professor Brindlepaw answers when I comm her, that’s one thing,” I told them. “En route, if we encounter Chron ships, I expect we’ll be able to tell pretty quickly if they’re friendly or not.”

  “And if they’re not?” asked Lieutenant-Commander Huba Jelenka. Jelenka oversaw weapons, so I’d expected this question to come from him.

  “We won’t be the first to fire,” I said. “No aggression on our part. There might be a war coming, but it’s not started yet, and the Cheswick is not going to be the ship that starts it.”

  “If we find hostiles engaged with friendlies? What then?”

  “We go to the aid of our allies,” I said. “But I’m really hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Well, I’ll make sure one of the launches is ready for the trip down to the planet.” That was Alice Payette, the Lieutenant-Commander in charge of the flight deck. We kept two launches and I knew that with Yi in charge, they’d both be spotless, fuelled, and ready to fly on a moment’s notice. “Anything else I can do?”

  “No, that will be fine. Lieutenant-Commander Betany, I don’t know what kind of a timeline we’ll be on, so will you make sure there are quarters ready to receive our guests if they need them?” Chuck Betany was the master of stores and quarters on the Cheswick, and I knew he’d make room for the newcomers if he had to sleep in the galley himself to do it.

  “Do you really think it will be a straightforward pickup?” Linna Drake asked. She’d been quiet up until now, a trick I suspect she learned from—or taught to—Regina Holles.

  I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know,” I said, “but that’s what I’m hoping for. We’ll plan for the best and expect the worst. I’m sending word to FarView about what we learned from the Corvids, so if we run into delays, we won’t have that pressure, at least. Any questions?” When none came, I said, “Okej, you have your orders, and everyone is dismissed. Please make sure your sections know what’s happening. None of this is classified or secret.”

  The meeting broke up. Viss stayed in the galley to get something to eat, and Linna Drake and I walked back to the bridge together. “You’re worried,” she said. She had her hands clasped behind her back and she looked straight ahead as we walked, not at me.

  I sighed. “Damn right I’m worried. There are so many ways this could go wrong, I can’t even count them. What will we encounter on the way to the planet? When we get there? Will Cerevare Brindlepaw’s friends really recognize us on sight and be happy to see us?”

  “Good questions,” Drake said, still not looking at me. “And you’re right, we don’t want to make any aggressive moves if we do run across the other Chron. In and out quickly, that’s the best we can hope for.”

  “We need to make that happen,” I said. I glanced over at her and caught the hint of a smile around her lips. “What?”

  “I’m glad you can tell me what you’re really thinking,” she said. “You control it well in front of the others, but I know you, Admiral. You need to blow off steam sometimes in order to keep your head on straight. I’m just pleased that you feel comfortable enough around me to do that.”

  I used to do that with Yuskeya, too, I thought. In fact, she was probably the first Commander I’d felt comfortable enough with to do so. She never seemed to mind, which was one of the things I appreciated about her.

  But it was not Yuskeya walking beside me now. She was on the other side of a whole lot of unknowns. “I’m glad, too, Commander,” I told Linna Drake. “Now let’s get everyone ready to head into that wormhole tomorrow.”

  THE ASTEROIDS GUARDING the wormhole entrance drifted lazily, no longer tumbling and spinning in their course to block the entrance. The Chron hadn’t seen fit to pulverize this field, or perhaps hadn’t had time before the Corvids had destroyed them. But I felt sure it was only a matter of time until they returned. I asked Linna Drake to send a tracer through the wormhole before we entered it. I didn’t want to meet up with a Chron ship anywhere, but especially not inside a wormhole. It came back clear, and with trepidation—and a bit of something else—I ordered us through.

  The something else was a thrill of excitement. Every skip that took us deeper into Otherspace re-ignited my passion for space travel, something that I realized had become a bit blasé over the past number of years. Nearspace was my home, and I felt that way about all of its great expanse and many systems, but exploring—that was an entirely different experience. Despite the danger, I couldn’t ignore the spark of wonder I felt.

  The Chron system expanded before us as we exited the wormhole, opening like a door flung wide. It revealed an enormous crimson particle cloud nearby, with a smear of sulfurous dust painting it like frosting on a cake. The system’s yellow sun, looking not terribly unlike Sol, burned in the distance.

  “Scan for the planet,” I ordered. “Supposedly we should be able to pick it up now or very soon.”

  A moment later Linna Drake reported, “It’s there, just inside the edge of our range.”

  I felt the muscles in my neck relax and realized that I’d been worried it wouldn’t be so easy to find. “Set a course,” I said. “Gi
ve me an estimate on time to reach it as soon as you can.”

  “Twenty-plus hours,” the nav officer said. “If we use the burst drive to its full capacity.” Viss had been right.

  “Locate the station, too,” I said. “There should be one, not too far from the planet, I think. We don’t have to go there but we might as well know where it is.”

  In-system travel is usually boring; it’s a fact of space travel. It was less so, I found, when you spent the time waiting to see if hostile aliens were going to notice your presence in the system and launch an attack. I distracted myself some of the time in my office and at the gym, but I spent a good bit of it in my command chair, watching with everyone else. The system, fortunately, provided plenty to look at, from the particle cloud we’d first seen to a spectacular nebula—probably a supernova remnant—that burst to life in dazzling colour when Linna Drake switched the viewscreen to its ultraviolet filter.

  What we didn’t see was any indication of hostile Pitromae, and I was grateful for it. I caught a few hours of sleep, although it didn’t come easy. I expected my comm to buzz at any moment with news of trouble.

  I was back on the bridge by the time I thought we might be close enough to send a message to Cerevare Brindlepaw’s ID. I wasn’t completely surprised when the officer on duty, Lieutenant Toor, reported no response. In Nearspace, regular relays made long-distance communications possible, but things might be different here. It still made me nervous, but I made myself wait another ten minutes without fidgeting and then asked Toor to try again. This time we got a reply—faint and distant, audio only, but it was the professor.

  “Admiral, good to hear from you. I am alerting those who should know that you are approaching. Your ship will not encounter any difficulty. Will you send a launch vessel down to the planet? Yuskeya and the others are well, but the Ambassador isn’t quite well enough to travel yet. And I expect you’ll want to meet some people here, anyway.”