“Other than defensive systems, the Tahrat Shan-che is unarmed,” Dutch said. “Currently we are kahnu-naet so we are in no danger.”
“Null light,” Chei said. “A cloaking field?”
“We’re invisible?” the chancellor asked. “We’re driving an alien space ship that’s useless in a fight, and we’re going to do what with it? Run away?”
“We’re actually heading down-system,” Dutch said. “It’s my intent to alter Odysseus’ reality in a profound way.”
Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
“Cori’s down!” Seva barked as she swung his tumbling body around with one arm and pulled him out of the chute as he rocketed by. He was trailing streamers of blood from where the lower third of his leg had been. “We need a doctor.”
The shockwave of the exploding dropship had propelled them like a shot down the chute. Somewhere along the way, Cori had tumbled and his leg had caught on the edge of a deck. The lower part of it was still hanging up there somewhere, but retrieving it would have to wait, as another wave of grenades tumbled down behind them.
Alyx had somehow avoided tumbling, and had swung down and rolled to a stop, scattering the militia units like a cannon ball. She bounced up and off the ceiling as she sprung toward the airlock on the opposite side of the engineering deck. Her breathing mask had shattered when she landed, and she was single-mindedly running for air.
Seva grabbed the shoulder of her sergeant to make sure she had his full attention. Her adrenaline fueled grip bent the suspension clips on his EVA suit and he almost squealed in terror. “Hold this position,” she growled.
“Yes ma’am,” he squeaked as she bounded away after the men carrying Cori.
By the time she’d pushed through the permeable wall and into the air beyond, Anju was bent over him, and Edison had his hands covered in blood as he pressed down hard trying to cut off the arterial bleeding. He didn’t have the strength needed to get through Cori’s EVA suit and the PSE under it.
Flipping open her helmet, Seva jumped in. “Let me,” she said, pushing Edison back and jamming her fist down to pinch off his femoral artery.
“Shit, I feel that,” Cori hissed. “Leg’s numb, but you’re kinda bending my bits you know.”
“More pressure,” Anju said.
“I’m sure,” she said, leaning forward and locking eyes with him as she pushed down harder. “Fortunately, it will grow back.”
He would have laughed, but something the doctor was doing found a nerve that wasn’t in shock and he screamed loud enough to hide the hissing sound of flesh being sealed the old fashioned way.
“Come on, you big baby,” Seva said as she dropped her body weight down on him and pinned him to the floor to keep him from thrashing. “She’s almost done.”
Anju tapped her on the shoulder. “Ease off. I think I’ve got it sealed.”
She pulled her fist out of his crotch and his eyes went wide, but the doctor nodded.
“We need to get him to MedBay,” Anju said, as Tana skidded to a stop behind her, a medkit and neuroblocker in her hand. “There’s only so much I can do with a plasma pistol.”
“Nogo. Not going to happen,” Seva said. “It’s in a hard vacuum.”
Tana dropped beside Cori to dose him up, and he swatted her hand away. “Wait,” he said. “I know how to stop the reinforcements.”
“I recommend that if you have a plan, you proceed now,” Solo said. “The one remaining laser is overheating and will not operate much longer.”
FleetCom Military Operations Center: Lunar L-2 Shipyard:
“What can we do?” Admiral Quintana said. He was watching the main screen and shaking his head.
“Not shit,” Roudini said.
“They haven’t gotten inside our defenses yet,” Ducat said.
“They haven’t gotten in yet, but they will. We’ve lost seven of fifteen multicruisers and they’ve still got 150 ships,” Visser said. “It’s a numbers game. Our only hope is to pull back and reinforce the surviving ships with cover fire from the base guns.”
“Do it,” the admiral said. “We’ll figure out what comes next, but let’s—”
“We’ve just lost a cluster of gun posts,” Sage said, sounding panicked more than exhausted. “210 through 322, in the outer arc. They’re completely offline.”
“Nobody’s over there,” Visser said, glancing at the screen. “Did they fail?”
“I can’t tell,” she said. “They’re just dead. Gone. Like they fell into a black hole.”
“Was it an attack?”
“I don’t think so. Seriously, there’s nothing on that side …” the defense controller drifted to a stop. “Wait, we’ve got a hard target. It’s small and sitting stationary in the middle of the dead zone. I didn’t see it before.”
“What is it?”
“Upper B-class keel. No transponder. Minimal EM signature. It’s dead in space,” she said.
“Get me a visual on it,” the admiral said, anchoring his maglocks on the deck behind her station.
As the image locked and magnified on her screen, the com officer interrupted. “Incoming com from the unknown target.”
“Put it through,” Quintana said.
“L-2 Approach this is the Katana. Do not fire. I repeat this is the Katana. Do not fire, we’re on your side.”
“It looks like the Katana,” she said “But where did it come from?”
“This is FleetCom Admiral Jaxton Quintana. I don’t know who you are and how you came to be in possession of the Katana, but you’ve got about ten seconds before I order you removed from our space. Permanently.” He was bluffing since the defense net was still down for 500 klick in every direction from the ship, but better to start out strong and then try to fill in the gaps.
“Admiral Quintana, my name is Kiro Kamoto. Until recently, I was the pilot of the Jakob Waltz.”
“Impossible. The Waltz is in the outer deep-system. Where the frack did you come from?” he challenged.
“Neptune L-4,” Kiro said.
His first officer leaned forward and whispered, “The Cassiopeia can engage in one minute.”
The admiral nodded.
“I’m transmitting my credentials and the ship’s transponder authorization,” he said.” Stand by, I am also patching in a relay. There is someone that wants to talk to you.”
“His creds check. He sounds legit,” Ducat said. “It is the Katana, and he’s listed as the pilot of the Waltz. Their last recorded location was Neptune L-4.”
Static broke over the com then another voice cut in. “Admiral Quintana, I told you we’d bring your ship back,” Saffia said.
“How the hell did you get back here and why didn’t we see your approach?” he said. “And while you’re at it, what the hell did you do to the defense net?”
“Uhm, nothing on purpose,” she said. “Did we break it?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Sorry, but we need your help,” she said. “Can you link us to Galileo broadstream?”
“No I can’t. We’re kinda in the middle of a war here,” he said, shaking his head like he was trying to wake himself from a strange nightmare. “This is just too foobed to be real. I’m still having trouble believing you’re real. Can you open a visual?”
“That might be a little problematic,” Saf said. “We’ve got some technology limitations and we’re relaying everything through an EVA suit comlink on the Katana right now.”
“You’re doing an EVA in a warzone?” he said, looking around at the shocked expressions on everyone’s faces. At least he wasn’t alone in this alternate reality.
She laughed. “Sounds like fun, but no, it’s not that. It’s just that your com gear isn’t compatible with ours.”
“Why? Where are you?”
“Stand by,” she said.
After several seconds the Tahrat Shan-che materialized in the middle of the hole in their defense net.
A ghost against the starry sky.
CHAPT
ER THIRTY-ONE
Operations Control Center: Galileo Station:
Derek Tomlinson sat stone still in one of the seats in the back row of stations staring at a screen on the console in front of him. He did not need to be here other than that Odysseus wanted to gloat about its imminent victory over FleetCom.
Every time it would try to open a conversation, he would focus on the blue button on his jammer, forcing his mind to frame the thought as a threat to push it. Not that it was more than burying his head under the pillows of ignorance, but it worked to poke a pinhole in Odysseus’ cyber-ego and its need to brag about its tactical triumph. After the third or fourth attempt, it gave up and left him alone.
Something on the screen grabbed his attention despite his best effort to ignore it. What the hell is that? he thought, before he realized he’d opened the door for an answer. It looked like a ship of some sort, but it was not like anything he’d ever seen.
“We are picking up communications between the smaller vessel and the L-2 shipyard,” it fed the com into his implant.
That sounds like Saffia Drake, he thought. I thought you said she was on Mars.
“That was the last location for her that I disclosed to you,” it said. “The previous portion of the conversation indicated that the pilot of the smaller ship was at Neptune L-4.”
Isn’t that where you are working the ESI contact?
“Affirmative,” it said. “I have iterations of my awareness there, although as of four hours ago, contact with the ESI had not been established. Katryna Roja and her forces have engaged my fleet and they are refusing to allow me access.”
If the smaller ship was there, does this make the larger ship aliens? Derek asked, much more interested in being a witness to the situation than he’d been before.
“Unknown,” Odysseus replied after several seconds of silence. “If so, containment of the zone of contact may have become more challenging.”
“I suggest you focus in on the … whatever it is.” Derek said out loud. He wanted to laugh as he realized Odysseus had just been shoved outside its perfect ordered universe.
Tahrat Shan-che: Lunar L-2 Shipyard:
“What a fragging mess,” Roja said as she stood on the front edge of the control deck and stared at the field of battle. “They look like they’re getting their asses handed to them.”
“It looks like we’ve got, trouble heading our way too,” Kiro said over the relay. “A group of ships broke off on the outer side and is angling for us.”
“Fifty ships. Six minutes,” Kylla said. The ships that were inbound all flashed brighter to indicate where they were. It was the first time the front wall of the deck looked like anything but a window.
“We’ve got to do something,” the chancellor said.
“We are,” Dutch said. “The first part of the plan is to attract attention to the fact that we are here.”
“We’ve done that,” Saf said. “Then what?”
“Then we ask for Odysseus to surrender,” it said.
“Why would Odysseus do that?” Roja said. “I thought you said this ship doesn’t have any weapons systems.”
“Because it has failed to meet one of its protocols,” Dutch said. “Containment of the ESI contact is now no longer possible, and it will need to negotiate terms of surrender.”
“I thought you said you had a plan,” Roja said, shaking her head in disbelief. “We’re about to get shot to hell, and you think Odysseus is going to just give up now that we’ve let the cat out of the box?”
“It does sound thin Dutch,” Chei agreed. “If they can blow us out of the sky before the word spreads, that might be a hole in your plan.”
“It’s unlikely they can do that, but it might be possible for them to control the dissemination of information,” it said. “There is historical precedent for governments with totalitarian control to manage the perception of truth.”
“Truth endures longer than lies,” Kylla said. “But is nojo to say it might take a while for the ball to swing far enough.”
“I think we need to figure out how to keep the good guys alive while we wait,” Kiro said. “I’m kinda sitting out here naked, and being a relay satellite, in case you all forgot.”
“Did you guys fall asleep out there?” Quintana said. “You got ugly moving in your direction.”
“Roger that, admiral,” Kiro said. “We’re cooking ideas at the moment. Stand by.”
“We’re unarmed,” Saf said. “There’s not much we can do at this point is there?”
A bright flash in the distance caught everyone’s attention. “The Kitty Hawk is down!” someone said over the open com. “We’re getting fragged. We’ve got to push them back, we can’t breathe like this!”
“Push back …” Chei said, his eyes lighting up. “Can the Tahrat Shan-che generate the same quantum sink that the Tacra Un did?”
“Yes,” Dutch said. “The available energy is less, so the field will be smaller.”
“You’re talking about trapping the ships inside the field with us?” Roja asked, wrinkling her face and shaking her head.
“I think that sounds like locking ourselves in the room with the bear,” Kiro said. “Is not my idea of fun. Nojo?”
“Not if we can reverse bias the gradient,” Chei said, grinning like he’d been eating sugarloaf yeastcake and packing it in with full-rack hardballs. “Can we do it?”
“It’s theoretically possible, but the controls must be configured manually,” Dutch said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I didn’t design the systems, you can take that up with the Shan Takhu,” Dutch said, making a sudden sound like he’d burped. “I apologize. Sarcasm is a new concept for me.”
“Part of the upgrade, apparently,” Saf said, laughing.
“Shan Takhu control logic is challenging,” Dutch said. “I recommend you explain your desired system modifications quickly. The enemy vessels will be within range of the Katana in under three minutes.”
“We need to move anyway,” Chei said. “Kiro make feet for the Shipyard. We’ll catch up with you in a minute and be sure to let the admiral know not to shit himself when we snuggle in close.”
FleetCom Military Operations Center: Lunar L-2 Shipyard:
“We’re preparing to deploy a quantum sink field,” Kiro said. “If it works, it will provide a defensive shield for L-2, but they need to reposition the Tahrat Shan-che close to the station to be effective.”
“Stand by Katana,” the admiral said.
“This whole thing still stinks like burnt recycler biscuits,” Ducat said. “We’ve got no visual on anybody out there. As far as we know it’s Odysseus running a Paulson Lassiter angle to get us to let them in.”
“You think it’s some kind of trap?” Quintana asked.
“They were grinding us down, why bother with a new strategy?” the defense controller said. “They were going to get in anyway.”
“That thing is most definitely not from the neighborhood,” Visser said. “I’m not comfortable letting it snuggle up tight no matter who owns it, but if they can give us some kind of shield, that beats letting Odysseus hand us our eviction papers.”
“How long will it take the Katana to get here at full burn?” the admiral said.
“Four minutes, maybe less if the pilot doesn’t mind flatface,” Sage said, glancing at the tracking screen on her console. “Never mind, looks like he doesn’t. He’s already moving.”
“Obviously, the pilot has eggs,” Quintana said, nodding to indicate he wanted back on the com. “Pointless of me to say this, but permission granted. So what are you planning to do once you get here?”
“Let us get it set up first,” Saf said. “I’ll have our science guy explain it, but he’s busy working it out.”
Ducat and Roudini both shook their heads in unison and the admiral almost changed his mind. “Saf, you need to move. You have an attack group on top of you.”
“We’re about to do that,” she said. “I
need to warn you we’ll lose signal until the Katana catches up.”
“Catches up?”
“It’s pulling twelve-g,” Sage said.
“Stand by L-2,” Saf said as the ship faded away.
“We just lost the inner bank of turrets,” Erin said. “We’re wide open out there if they don’t come back up.”
Less than a second later, the command deck dropped into absolute black as the station’s electrical grid died. “We’re dead!” Ducat bellowed in the darkness. “We’re fragged!” The observation windows around the top of the deck let in the faint glow of reflected lunar light, but otherwise nothing even blinked.
“It was a trap,” The ExO said, slamming his fist down on the console in front of him. “We’re totally fucked.”
“Maybe not,” the defense controller said as a shadow fell over the glow through the windows and the lights and systems came back on.
“Engineering reports that all systems are coming back online,” Ducat said relief clear in his voice.
“What the frak are you doing?” the admiral barked as soon as the com was back online. “You just shut everything down over here.”
“Oops, sorry,” Saf said. “We’re still new at this starship stuff.”
Inside the Un Kanahto: Gateway Colony, L-4 Prime:
The com from the colony to the Hector was down. They had no choice but to take Cori to where they’d parked the shuttlepod that carried the bomb they’d rigged to leverage the Armstrong. They’d never removed it and had left the shuttlepod to sit in the shadow of the Hector’s engine assembly. Unfortunately, it meant that he had to set the detonation sequence from the other ship since the remote access depended on their, now destroyed, com dishes.
Jeph didn’t like the plan, but he’d signed off on it since it seemed like the only way to stop the relentless waves of troops pounding their way down through the decks to get to Dutch’s quantum core. At least if they could take out the troop carrier and its escorts they’d have a chance.
Otherwise it was only a matter of time before Odysseus got inside.
Anju, Alyx and three of their guard force had carried Cori through the Kanahto to the proxy chamber room. None of them had been through the door from this side, but Ian had told them it lead to the Hector.
Shan Takhu Legacy Box Set - With an Extra Bonus Story Page 84