by Ben Hale
Despite their near invisibility, Siena felt vulnerable. She’d always traveled with a krey or a dakorian, and even when she’d been on the slave cargo ships, she’d known they were nearby. It was disconcerting to know she could simply head into a different World Gate and disappear.
“Do you realize we could just walk away?” Begle hissed.
Siena snorted in amusement at the shared thought. “It’s only a matter of time until Malikin knows we’re not on Lumineia. We need to stay out of sight as much as possible. Kensen, did you block the vids?”
“Are you crazy?” He released a strained breath. “There are thousands of vid recorders in this dome alone. I’ve blocked the nearest, but there’s no way we can get off this place without being spotted.”
“Then we should move quickly,” Siena said. “Which way?”
He pointed to one of the docking legs. “The ship Ero suggested is up that one.”
Siena veered onto an intersecting path and followed it until they stepped out of the forest. Crossing a strip of clear seracrete that lined the expansive edge of the station, she tried not to look at the endless vista of stars. She had to veer around a group following a purple-eyed krey talking to a black-eyed krey. Then she entered the ascender at the top of Dock 16.
A krey from House Bor’Grave was standing inside the ascender. He frowned at their arrival, his orange and red eyes sliding across them and obviously noting the absence of a noble or soldier. Before he could question them, Siena prepared her most demure voice and spoke first.
“Our owner is waiting for us above.”
“He sent you alone?” he asked, craning his neck to look at Begle and Bort in the back.
“There was an accident, and he sent us away to return with clean attire.” She swept her hand at Tana, who wore a clean and pressed tunic and pants.
“Slaves are not permitted to wander on the shipyard without supervision,” he said.
“It was not our choice,” Kensen said, his tone apologetic.
The krey, clearly annoyed, shook his head and activated the ascender. “If this costs me a sale, I’ll make sure each of you are burned for it.”
“As you order,” Siena said.
The krey used his holoview to link to the cortex of the ascender, and the large platform accelerated into the long tube. It was by far the largest ascender Siena had seen, and the speed took her breath away. Even with gravity dampeners, her heart lifted through her chest and her breathing fluttered. The others were equally as surprised—all except Tana, who warped the gravity around herself so it minimized the effect. Siena glared at her and she rolled her eyes.
It’s not like he can see the gravity waves I’m altering, Tana thought to her.
But a vid recording might check for it later, she replied. They can’t see it with their eyes, but they do have scanners. No augments unless it’s necessary.
Tana made a face but did as Siena requested. Her toes settled back onto the white glass of the ascender. Siena doubted anyone would use a gravity scanner to check for anomalous gravity readings, but if there was even a remote chance, she didn’t want to risk leaving evidence of their augments. It would be as bad for Ero as it would be for them.
“What ship was your owner looking at?” the krey asked as they passed a retrofitted Enex-class ship.
Siena nudged Kensen, and he coughed. “I believe it is the Crescent.”
The krey raised an eyebrow. “The Vaunt class? Are you certain?”
“I’ve never heard of the Vaunt class.” Siena glanced to Kensen, but he nodded to confirm it was the right one.
“It’s one of a kind,” the krey said. “And no one has asked for a tour in ages, not that they’d have reason to. It’s only here because we can’t dispose of the thing.”
“Why?” Begle asked.
The krey frowned at the boy’s bold question, then shrugged. “It wasn’t built with seracrete. House Mor’Val used a new material called teracrete. It has a similar molecular structure to seracrete but responds to direct energy manipulation. It’s strong enough to withstand plasma fire without shielding and is highly resistant to ion bolts.”
Siena recognized the description as the repeated speech of a sales pitch, but was surprised that such a ship had never been sold. Surely a rich krey would not care about the cost. Curious, she reached out with her mind augment and picked the additional thoughts the krey was thinking. It immediately became apparent why the Crescent had not been purchased.
It wasn’t just expensive; it was a thousand times more costly than a comparable vessel. Its sheer cost had made replicating it difficult, so it was unique, and its strange metal composition meant the parts would be difficult to replicate. In addition, the shields were four times stronger than necessary, but the emitters had constant problems. It had been intended to outclass any ship in the galaxy, but instead of being a juggernaut, it was crippled by hundreds of engineering defects. No wonder it had not been purchased.
“He makes it sound perfect,” Kensen murmured. “Why’s it still here?”
Siena telepathically shared the details she’d gleaned from the krey, and watched their expressions of hope gradually sour as they realized the ship they were here to steal was barely flyable. Oddly, Kensen had the opposite reaction.
“It’s beautiful,” he breathed.
“What’s that?” the krey asked.
“Nothing,” Siena said.
The krey turned away, muttering about humans that didn’t know their place. Siena nudged Kensen, but he was deep in his augment, his eyes twitching as he saw things no one else could.
“Ero could have pointed us to any ship,” Bort grumbled. “Instead he tells us to steal an expensive derelict.”
“It probably doesn’t even fly,” his brother agreed.
“You don’t understand,” Kensen hissed. “It’s perfect.”
Dubious, Rahnora pointed to Siena. “Did you not see what Siena saw? The ship might look nice on the outside, but it’s just a broken heap of—”
“It’s not broken,” Kensen hissed. “It’s just not efficient.”
Siena had never seen him so excited. “What are you talking about?”
“The Crescent is lightyears ahead of current technology,” Kensen said, the words tumbling from his lips. “The engineers that built it used new tech in nearly every aspect of its construction. But even they didn’t understand what they were doing.”
“And you do?” Tana asked.
“I’ve hacked the schematics of the ship,” Kensen said.
“You hacked the station’s cortex?” Tana was impressed.
“I didn’t need to,” Kensen said. “All the ship schematics are available to customers, so it was hardly protected at all.”
They slowed as the ascender approached the last of the ships on the long tube. Siena was close to the edge, so she craned her head to get a look at their target. She spotted the sleek vessel—the Crescent—at the last berth on the docking leg.
The krey tapped a symbol on his holoview and turned back. “No one has been up here in years. Are you sure your owner told you to meet him here?”
“That’s all we know,” Siena said.
The ascender slowed to a halt at the very end of the mile-long tube, where an airlock connected to the rear access hatch of the Crescent. The vessel’s black hull was so polished it reflected the stars.
The krey’s frown deepened as he examined his holoview. “There must be some mistake. There are no life signs on the ship. Your owner must have confused this one with another.”
“It was the Crescent,” Siena insisted.
“No,” the krey said, “I’ll take you back up and hand you to the station guard. They can sort this mess out.”
As the krey reached for the ascender controls, Siena grabbed the gravity and lashed it to the krey’s back. His weight tripled and his legs buckled. With a yelp, he fell backwards and hit the floor. Hard. Begle struck him in the head, and he went still.
Siena grappl
ed with the sudden sense of fear. She’d struck krey before, but never without a krey at her back. This was different. If they were caught, they would almost certainly be killed.
Begle gave a satisfied grunt and stood up. “That was fun.”
“What now?” Rahnora asked.
“Are you kidding?” Kensen exclaimed, almost giddy with excitement. “Let’s get onboard!” He sprinted into the ship.
The others shared a smile and looked to Siena, and she recovered herself. “Drag him off the ascender.” She pointed to the unconscious krey. “I don’t want someone above summoning the ascender upward and finding him on the floor.”
“Want me to kill him?” Bort asked.
Siena hesitated, and then shook her head. “We are soldiers, not murderers.”
Tana used her gravity augment to lift the krey off the floor, and Begle shoved him into the chamber connected to the tube. He hit the opposite side with a crunch, and the two brothers grinned. Tana dropped him into a heap.
“Why even use the ascender at all?” Quis asked. “Why not just use Gates?”
“This shipyard is a display.” Rahnora peered out the window at the dome station far below. “They want the buyers to see every angle of the ships, and Gating onboard wouldn’t let them salivate over their new purchase.”
Siena called to Kensen. “Before you get too excited, shut down the onboard Gate. We don’t want someone showing up while we’re stealing the thing.”
“I don’t have to!” he shouted from inside the Crescent. “The ship’s systems are already locked.”
“I’ve never seen him so excited,” Tana said.
Although Siena’s worry continued to mount, she smiled. “Me either.”
Rahnora shrugged. “We should go before Kensen’s brain blows a valve.”
Siena laughed with the other two, and then she followed Quis into the ship. As she passed through the airlock, she lifted her gaze and came to an abrupt halt, her jaw falling open. Kensen was right. The Crescent was everything Kensen had said and more.
Chapter Fourteen
The Crescent resembled a dakorian sunderblade with its two wings extended outward, each with its own gravity drive and a dedicated ion propulsion engine. Secondary gravity repulsors lined the tops and bottoms of the wings. The ship would be more agile than a Ro fighter and faster than even the Kildor.
The wings curved forward like a crescent moon, the shape built to handle atmospheric flight. The bow of the ship extended into two needlelike points, with the bridge resting between them. Propulsion vents protruded from the stern, their ports larger than normal, suggesting they’d been built to handle enormous thrust.
The ship boasted four forward lances, two alongside the bridge and two in the center of the wings. Two smaller lances extending from the back, operated from spherical gunner stations. In addition to the lances, a class-two plasma cannon threaded through the belly of the ship. While not overly large, Siena had seen the schematics on the weapon, and the housing was thicker than normal to accommodate plasma that ran much hotter than in normal cannons.
The interior of the Crescent was just as sleek, and could house a crew complement of sixty-four. It featured compartments and quarters along two decks, both of which overlooked an open central area. An upper balcony on both sides ran the length of the ship, giving access to the upper compartments. Near the stern, the vaulted interior opened sideways, with twin engineering bays inside the wings. Oddly, there were no ascenders.
“How are you supposed to get to the upper level?” Tana peered to the sides.
Kensen was at a side control panel, and waved dismissively at the floor. “The gravity is localized across the entire deck.”
“I don’t know what that means, Kensen,” Begle said.
“Just jump,” Kensen said.
Begle jumped slightly, and the moment his feet came off the floor, he floated up to a second-level balcony. Siena blinked into her augment and watched the threads of gravity pull him to one of the many sections of the upper balcony that lacked a railing.
The normally dour Begle actually laughed and jumped down. He fell twenty feet and alighted with ease. “The entire ship is an ascender,” he crowed.
“My turn.” Bort followed his brother’s example by soaring up to the second level. In seconds, everyone but Siena and Tana were jumping to the balcony and back, their laughter echoing throughout the gleaming ship.
Tana snorted. “Gravity newbies.”
Siena grinned and joined Kensen at the control panel. “How does it look?”
“I wish you could see it,” he breathed, his hands flying over the holos. Then he blinked and whirled to face her. “Wait, you can, right?”
“I’ve tried to use your coding augment.” She shook her head wryly. “If you’ll recall, it didn’t go well.”
“It’s easy,” he said. “Just focus on the holo and let your vision expand until you can see every spectrum of light. It’ll feel like there are millions of threads of energy passing through everything around you.”
“We don’t really have time for this.”
“Please? I really want you to see this. Besides, if you can see what I can see, you can help me get this ship moving.”
She relented. “I guess.”
While the others goaded Tana to join the gravity fun, Siena focused her attention on the holo above the controls. Kensen tried to coach her, but his words were more of a hindrance, so she tuned him out. She relaxed her vision, and gradually the holo began to expand.
She knew the basic rule of a holographic emitter: that nonvisible light was beamed together, and at the intersection it became visible. As she focused, the barely discernible patterns of light materialized—and then abruptly expanded.
Siena sucked in her breath as millions of threads burst across her vision, a complicated web of signals that bombarded her consciousness: Threads from the ship’s gravity drives reporting their status. Threads from the shields, the gravity repulsors, the deactivated sensors, the primary ship’s cortex—the gravity emitters in the floor—the lights embedded into the walls—the walls themselves—
The shock forced her to focus, and she stared at the walls. The metal was smooth and polished a blue-gray, but beneath, the molecular composition was infused with power, with thousands of signals moving so fast they blurred into a single haze. The teracrete wasn’t just metal, it was metal infused with a constant overlay of energy.
She reached out and touched the metal. Her fingers registered just a smooth surface, but her augment tingled with power. She tapped it with her fist and the energy brightened, absorbing the impact like a dakorian gravity hammer before spreading it across the metal. An ion bolt would have the same effect, and the ship’s hull would redirect the impact of the energy outward, allowing every molecule to share the load. A ball of plasma would be absorbed as well, and the heat would dissipate into the metal before being redirected into the gravity drives in the wings. A fight wouldn’t drain the ship, it would just make it stronger.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“Right?” Kensen’s voice sounded distant.
“Is this what you see all the time?” She made the mistake of looking out a window. Across the dark expanse she spotted dozens of ships on other berths. The void was bursting with signals. Beamcasts and Gate signals and background scans and thousands of cortexes, all forming a blur of noise that filled her vision with a sort of static. She grimaced and shut her eyes. Then a sharp pain abruptly hit her shoulder.
She recoiled and snapped her gaze toward Kensen, who lowered his fist. His expression was apologetic. “Pain breaks the coding augment. And trust me, you don’t want to dive into the actual substrates of a crystalline matrix. It’s ten times worse.”
Every signal was gone, and the holo of the Crescent was back to normal. She rubbed her eyes. “How do you not get distracted all the time?”
“It was easier to focus on one signal when there weren’t many on Lumineia,” he said. �
��Proximity is a factor as well. I need to be within a hundred feet or so for the signal to be strong enough for me to manipulate. I can’t imagine seeing all this for the first time. Now it’s just a background hum.”
“I think I’ll leave you to deal with the coding.”
The buzz in her head was quickly settling into an ache around her temples. The use of the augment had been relatively easy, but painfully overwhelming. Another reminder that although she could use every augment, others would probably be better at individual talents.
“What do we need to do to get this ship moving?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, that’s going to be a challenge.” Kensen manipulated the holo, and warnings brightened in blinking red. “There are more than a dozen issues with the systems of the ship.”
“Can you fix them?” Tana asked, joining them.
“Actually, I think I can,” Kensen said.
Begle and Bort landed together, and Rahnora and Quis joined them. “Wait,” Quis said, “you can fix what the krey couldn’t?”
“There are four primary problems with the ship,” Kensen said, pulling the holo off the wall and expanding it to show a larger schematic. Four red dots appeared, one at the bridge, two in the wings, and the fourth beneath the belly. Kensen pointed to each in turn. “As you can see, the rest of the ship is ultra-modern, and the primary cortex is no exception. They used a quad-crystalline design bound inside a charged liquid matrix.”
“It’s like he’s speaking another language,” Begle said.
“Sorry,” Kensen said. “The primary ship’s cortex is built to handle a hundred times the processing load, but the coding is primitive in comparison. If I had to guess, they just copied the coding from a similar ship and tried to make needed changes. What it needs is a full overhaul and a complete rewrite.”
“How long will that take?” Tana asked.
Kensen grimaced. “About ten years.”
The two brothers groaned, and Begle jerked his head. “Ero is going to love it when we return a decade from now.”