I have something I must do to protect my human companions, it thought.
“You are free to do what you choose,” the Tacra Un said.
Kanahto Control Center: Tacra Un: L-4 Prime:
Chei stood on the edge of the control center staring up at the sky projected on the vault above him. He and Saf had come back from the Tahrat Shan-che because there was nothing else to do. Part of him wanted to join the fight in the Waltz, but he knew there were already three hundred bodies jammed in there and all he would be is one more.
Saf sat beside him with her legs hanging over the lip of the floor. “Sucks to be watching and not doing,” she said, seeming to read his mind.
“Nothing we can do but wait it out,” he shrugged, listening to her with one ear and the internal com with the other one. “Apparently, they are debating about what to do to protect Dutch’s core. He’s been deleted.”
“Deleted?”
“Yah, his code isn’t there,” he said. “Cori and Alyx were running the lasers until Solo took over.”
“Odysseus is running the defenses?” she said. “Are they insane?”
“Solo, not Odysseus,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s the same program,” she said, shaking her head in obvious disbelief. “They have to take it offline.”
“Solo has been inhabiting the Armstrong for months,” he said, frowning. “Why are you so worried about it?”
“I know that program maybe better than anyone,” she said. “I know what it can do.”
“Right now it’s defending us,” he said.
“Only because it serves its—”
“What the frak? Kylla vanished!” someone shouted across the control center interrupting her in mid tirade. Saf snapped to attention bouncing, up to stand beside Chei. “I was looking at her and she … disappeared.”
“What the hell?” Chei said. He stepped forward trying to identify where the voice was coming from. He glanced at Saf. As he watched, she wrinkled her face and then winked out of existence.
“Boss, we’ve got a problem down here,” he said, shaking his head as a twisting sensation grabbed him and he passed out.
Or maybe not.
“Frag me!” he gasped, blinking as his eyes focused in the dim light. “What happened?”
“You are in the Tahrat Shan-che,” Dutch said. His voice came from a space in the center of the room. “We must move quickly. I’m assembling a crew.”
Saf stood beside him blinking. If they were in the ship, it was a chamber they hadn’t seen before. “Is this the control room?” she asked.
“Da,” Kylla said. She was standing behind them and they both spun to face her. She had her hands on two small pedestals.
No, she has her hands in them, Chei realized. They are submerged almost to her wrists.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
“She’s establishing a control connection,” Dutch said, his voice moving around to a space in front of them.
“Wait, you’re in the ship?” Saf asked.
“Dutch, is the ship,” Kylla said, without turning to face them.
“That’s true,” it said.
“You don’t sound the same,” Chei said, shaking his head. “What happened to you?”
“The Tacra Un relocated my awareness to the Tahrat Shan-che,” it said. “This is as unsettling to me as it is to you, but it’s increased my cognitive abilities exponentially. We’re able to access the control systems of this vessel. I need an organic interface to provide direction, but we can now operate the ship.”
“Tahrat Un-oola. Che-Un,” Kylla said. “You give me commands and I translate and implement them. I’m the levers you use to operate things.”
“The Tahrat Shan-che was designed with organic interface controls and I cannot access certain functions without a human to complete the circuit,” Dutch explained. “Kylla has now established the connection to the primary piloting systems. It will require six additional augments to fulfill the remaining systems’ requirements.”
“The controls are accessed by the non-verbal part of the Shan Takhu language,” Kylla said. “The control pedestal surfaces are only permeable to someone with enough ability to use that part of the language.”
“When we both touched the panel at the same time, we must have added up to enough collective potential to activate its surface,” Chei said. “That’s why we couldn’t do anything working individually.”
“I wasn’t present when you were exploring the ship,” Dutch said, “but you are likely correct in your assumption.”
“I’d wager that fourth generation augments would be the minimum threshold necessary to make any of this work alone,” Kylla said.
“But you’re an alpha,” he said.
“It’s the synaptic rewire it needs,” Saf said. “She was the only alpha to get one.”
“I think I am having feelings of inadequacy now,” he said.
“So what are we doing here then?” Chei said.
“We need your experience and skills,” Dutch said.
“To do what?” Saf asked as three more augments appeared in the room. They looked around in stunned confusion.
“We’re preparing to launch,” Dutch said. “As soon as we complete the crew, we can make way. I have a plan.”
“A plan?” he asked.
“What the frak is going on and why was I told to bring an EVA suit with me?” Chancellor Roja roared as she appeared behind them.
“We’re trying to figure that out ourselves,” Saf said.
“The Katana is aboard,” Kylla said.
Personal Quarters of the Executive Director: Galileo Station:
His door pinged. Derek ignored it even though his mind reached in automatic reflex for the optic in the corridor outside. The jammer cut that off from him, so he didn’t respond at all.
“I miss you,” he said, staring at the face of his wife on the screen. He’d have used one of his thinpads to talk to her, but they were all offline. It forced him to sit in his desk chair and use the console since it was the only com system in his apartment hardwired into the network. He didn’t mind even if the seat was uncomfortable.
“I miss you too,” Bella said with a sad smile. “I’m scared for you. We don’t get much news down here, but things sound like they’re coming apart.”
“They are, a little,” he said. “Maybe I should just pack up and move to Earth. It doesn’t sound that bad where you are. I miss the kids too.”
“It’s hot, but they’re both learning to swim now, so we spend a lot of time on the beach.” She smiled and flipped her thinpad open and sent him a picture. “I took that for you. It was at the beach in Iceland last month.”
“They look so tanned,” he said, smiling. His eyes burned, and he rubbed one with the back of his hand. “God, I want to be with you.”
The door pinged again. Several times, in rapid succession. He glared toward the living room and shook his head.
“Don’t you need to get that?” Bella asked.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Whatever they want, can wait.”
“You have responsibilities,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening up there, but you need to take care of things. You’re an important man.”
He shook his head again. “There isn’t anything I can do now.”
“What does that mean?” She wrinkled her face into a confused smile. “You’re the most powerful man in the Union. Of course you have things you can be doing.”
Loud, bone-rattling pounding replaced the polite but insistent pinging. A muffled voice he couldn’t understand bellowed from the corridor.
“I’ll be here all day,” she said, winking. “Go take care of things. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said as she closed the connection from her end.
“This is security. Director Tomlinson, are you alright?” A voice hollered from the front room.
“I am fine,” he yelled back. “I told the last guard that
came looking for me, I didn’t want to be disturbed. Is that beyond your ability to comprehend?”
“No sir,” the guard said, appearing at his bedroom door and snapping to attention. “Paulson Lassiter ordered us to bring you to the OCS.”
“Paulson Lassiter is dead,” Derek said. He didn’t care of Odysseus wanted to keep it a secret. That he knew things he shouldn’t share, didn’t matter to him anymore. It had all gotten so sidewise that nothing mattered.
“No sir,” he said. “I was in the Operations Center when he gave the order. I heard it with my own ears.
“That wasn’t Lassiter.”
“I’m sorry, sir. It was,” the guard insisted. “He said you’re to report to the OC or we are to arrest you and bring you there by force.”
“By whose authority?” Derek challenged.
The guard blinked several times like the idea that Lassiter didn’t have that right had never occurred to him. He shrugged. “Please sir, don’t make this more difficult than it is has to be.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Governor’s Office: Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
“Gateway, are you tracking the Katana?” Admiral Nakamiru asked, his face appearing on Jeph’s wall. G-forces slammed him back and forth as the mountainous Armstrong fought its way through swarms of enemy ships.
“We’ve got our hands full down here too,” Jeph said, glancing over his shoulder as Tana and Anju appeared at his door. “They’ve breached the locks in the Waltz and we’re trying to defend Dutch and the power systems by brute force.”
“Our sensors are still down and it is not answering com,” the admiral said. “When your situation got hot, did you divert them away?”
“I don’t think we’ve had contact since just before you got engines. Stand by and let me check,” he said. “Cori, are you still on the ConDeck?”
“Yah boss,” he said. The background noise sounded like chaos coming unhinged around him.
“Any chance you’ve got a way to track the Katana?”
“Shit,” Alyx answered. “Are they missing?”
“Apparently,” Jeph said. “Might just be lost in the confusion.”
“I lost the Hector’s sensor controls to a grenade,” she said. “But they’ve got better sensors in Kanahto control.”
“Copy, they’re my next ask,” he said.
“I hope they’re alright,” Tana whispered.
“Kiro’s the best,” Anju said, reaching out and squeezing the chancellor’s hand. “If anybody can keep them alive, it’s him.”
“Chei, do you see the Katana out there somewhere?” Jeph asked.
No answer.
“Chei, can you tell me where the hell the Katana is?” he asked again, turning to face another wall and having the system bring up a view of the control room.
“Is anyone down there? Chei? Somebody? We’ve lost the Katana.”
“Chei ahn Tahrat Shan-che Un oola Shan Tarah,” Ian said as his face appeared on the wall.
Jeph blinked several times. “He’s in space?
“Is Saffia down there with you?” Tana asked.
“Saffia da-ahn cata Kanahto ahn Un oola Shan Tarah,” he said.
Tana looked at Jeph who shrugged. “He says she is not in the control room either.”
“She is apparently out in the solar system somewhere?” Anju added, her tone implying her confusion at Ian’s answer.
“What about Katryna?” Tana asked.
“Chancellor ahn Un oola Shan Tarah ahn Tahrat Shan-che.” Ian offered.
“Roja too,” Jeph said, looking back at the open com screen and realized that Nakamiru was glaring at him. “Uhm, admiral, we might have a problem. She’s left L-4 Prime. She’s missing. Along with several of my people.”
Thunder rumbled through the floor plates a second before the admiral’s face disappeared from his screen.
Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
A ball of fire billowed down the chute carrying glowing fragments that were all that was left of the forward bulkhead and hull of the Waltz. Alyx and Cori both leapt for cover but the shockwave of expanding hot gas slammed them into the outer walls of the ConDeck.
Cori’s training let him take the fall and so he landed with a roll that scattered fragments of the main viewscreen like crystal raindrops across the deck. Alyx was still trying to get used to her new meso physique, and so she landed hard, snapping her head back and tossing her breathing mask off. Shaking her head to fling off the fog that formed around her, she blew out hard to release the gas from her lungs, as the shockwave from the blast reversed and the pressure plummeted toward hard vacuum again.
He dove for the corner where her mask had slammed and grabbing it, bounced back in her direction. He helped her pull it back over her head and watched as the frost on the plasglass faceplate fogged and then condensed. A small streamer of venting air jetted out of the corner of one lens. “It won’t hold for long. We need to get you out of here,” he said.
She shook her head and pointed at her ears. Their comlink was down.
“Seva, do you copy?”
“Ja,” she said, sounding relieved and pissed off in the same syllable. “Are you alright?”
“Negative,” he said. “Alyx has a broken mask. It’s venting fast and we need to get her to air.”
“Jump down the chute now,” Seva said. “They pulled back before they blew the end. It’s clear at the moment, but—”
A smaller grenade blast rocked the deck below them and then the floor vibrated hard. Bucking and heaving like it was being shredded.
“What the frag is that?” Cori said, wobbling back and forth like he was riding waves.
“It appears to be a drill device of some sort,” Solo said. “They have set up on the EVAOps Deck and are cutting down through the deck plating.”
“Frakking cowards,” Seva said. “They won’t face us down the chute, so they’re cutting a new route.”
“We don’t have time to debate this,” Cori said, grabbing Alyx by the hand and pulling her toward the railing. It was bent and twisted, and they could see it swaying wildly, as they got closer to it. “Can you cover us if we jump now?”
“Let us run some heat up the chute to push them back,” Seva said.
“Recommend you proceed quickly,” Solo said. “I have only one laser left and there are at least six hard targets inbound. One of them may be a gun ship.”
“How do you know that?” Seva asked.
“I can use the targeting radar to sweep the approach vector between shots,” it said. “It gives me low resolution situational awareness.”
A blast of exhaust gas shot down the chute as a dropship descended into position above the end of the Waltz to unload.
“Stand back, up there,” Seva said. “Let’s talk him into rethinking that parking space.”
A bolt of plasma, much hotter than the hand-held units their forces carried, shot up the chute and out of the end of the ship. Moments later three bodies plunged past in the opposite direction, propelled on the plasma fire of the dropship’s engine as it blasted away from its perch.
“Incoming meat bags,” Cori said, grabbing Alyx and pointing after them. She gave him a nod, and they both leapt over the edge.
“Solo, you’re up,” Cori said. “Hold the fort.”
“I will endeavor to do my best,” it said as the one remaining laser marked the end of the fleeing dropship with a blinding flash that hurled them down the chute on another shockwave.
Tahrat Shan-che: Above L-4 Prime:
“What’s going on out there?” Kiro said, his voice coming over the comlink on the EVA suit that the chancellor still held in her arms. Chei heard it as a pathetic little squawk before he took it from Roja’s hands and punched in the relay mode on the suit’s armpad.
“Stand by, Kiro,” he said. “I think we’re about to launch the Tahrat Shan-che.”
“What is the Tahrat Shan-che?” the chancellor asked, shaking her head and almost growling. “And where are we?�
�
“We’re in space,” Kylla said, glancing at Saf and winking.
“Somebody needs to tell me what the frak is going on before I lose my protein,” Roja said, her snarl escalating. “I was on the Katana, then I got a message to grab a suit, and now I’m standing here. There are some big gaps in my reality that need filling.”
“The Tahrat Shan-che is something we discovered inside the Tacra Un,” Chei said. “The name literally means space-vessel of the star children.”
“A Shan Takhu space ship?” she asked.
Saffia stepped up to one of the control consoles and tapped into it. After flipping through several layers of interface, she found what she was looking for, and the entire front of the control room disappeared. It was as if they were standing on a balcony, out in space.
L-4 Prime was a bright spark surrounded by a hazy atmosphere and hundreds of dancing specks.
A half million kilometers from where they were.
“We’re moving?” she asked, walking forward and shaking her head in amazement.
“Our current velocity is 10,200 kilometers per second,” Dutch said. “Range to L-4 Prime is 460,200 kilometers.”
“Did I hear that right?” Kiro asked from the pilot seat of the Katana. “We’ve only been aboard a minute.”
“Affirm on that,” Chei said. “The view up here is pretty amazing.”
“I’m not feeling that,” Kiro said. “I’m looking at a wall in front of me and nothing else.”
“Sorry about that,” he said, glancing at Saf who was tapping something into her control pedestal. “We’ll work on getting you a window when we can.”
“The front wall just disappeared,” Kiro said.
“It’s still there,” Dutch warned. “Saffia altered its appearance for you.”
“Dutch?” Kiro asked. “When did you learn to speak like a normal person? All short-cutty and everything?”
“Contractions,” Chei nodded. “I knew there was something that sounded different.”
“When I was uploaded to the Tahrat Shan-che. The new hardware is substantially more … sophisticated.”
“This is all warm and fuzzy, but we’ve got a fleet out there dying,” Roja said. “Can we use this ship to level the playing field somehow? It’s got to have weapons to match its, sophistication.”
Shan Takhu Legacy Box Set - With an Extra Bonus Story Page 83