Modulus Echo

by Toby Neighbors

  “I have the slaves preparing one now,” Hassik said. “May I have the honor of—”

  “No,” Grubat said. “I will go down. You will stay here and command the Nog’Deit in my absence.”

  A look of disappointment clouded Yarl Hassik’s face, and his head tendrils stiffened in annoyance. Grubat had felt the same way many times when his own superiors had stifled his ambition. Yarl Hassik was strong and smart, but not quite ready to challenge Grubat. He still needed the loyalty of the Thralldom. Most of the members of the Nog’Deit crew would follow him, but the new shipmasters, many of them chieftains, would not. He couldn’t risk throwing the loose assemblage of warriors and shipmasters into open rebellion. They would use his challenge as an excuse to go their own way in the new galaxy. It was too great a risk for the young Yarl, but the time would come soon. Until then, Grubat knew he would have to lay claim to as much wealth and success as he could to elevate his position. If the priests named him warlord, Yarl Hassik would have to rise to chieftain to challenge him.

  “My lord,” said another of the Yarls on the bridge. “The alien ship is escaping.”

  “It has jumped to hyperspace, Chieftain,” said another.

  “Send the Jas’Tumar in pursuit along the ship’s hyperspace trail,” Grubat said.

  “We have located a beacon,” said a female Yarl. Her name was Wimar. “The aliens left one of their own behind.”

  “They are cowards,” Grubat said. “My son reported as much. Retrieve the creature and have it brought to me.”

  Wimar bowed, then spoke quietly into her headset transmitter to relay the order. Grubat cast a look over his most powerful Yarls. They were all capable and hungry, yet none threatened him. It was a good feeling. A new galaxy of riches had suddenly been laid before him. It was enough to make one actually believe in the gods. Grubat swept his head tentacles through the air, letting them taste the pheromones of his underlings. There was no sign of rebellion, only excitement and hunger for the ripe pickings that lay before them.

  “I will go down and lay claim to the world in this system,” Grubat said. “We shall feast on its treasures and establish communications. Once our claim is indisputable, I shall return. We will gather our Thralldom in all its growing strength and spread out through this new galaxy and make it our own.”

  There were growls and cheers from his Yarls. Grubat hurried away, suddenly anxious to get off the bridge and into the landing craft that would take him to this wondrous place that might prove to be the greatest find in the history of the Krah Empire. A new home world, the very thought of such a thing almost made the warrior chieftain giddy. Nothing, he thought, could be more glorious.

  Chapter 22

  Le Croix watched as the Modulus Echo darted around the big alien ship. She was coming straight for him, but so were the alien ships. It was like a pack of hunting dogs chasing a fox, and there was no chance the Echo could stop long enough to pick him up. His only hope was that the big alien ships might not see him. Perhaps, once they gave up pursuit, the Echo might jump back into the system to retrieve him.

  Drifting in space was frightening, but he had trained for such a scenario. He knew his space suit had enough oxygen and power to keep him alive for several hours. He looked at the control panel on the pod he had rescued from the captured transport. The readout showed that the emergency pod had less than half an hour of air remaining. Le Croix began to look for external modules that might allow him to share his own oxygen with the lone occupant inside the egg-shaped device. They might both die drifting through outer space, but it wouldn’t be because he didn’t do everything in his power to see the mission through to a successful end.

  When he looked back up, the Echo had altered course. She was running, and Le Croix wasn’t surprised. They needed to jump out of the system. If they made a short jump, they could give the aliens time to return to their command ship, which Le Croix could see as a speck of light near the red spot that he assumed was the wormhole. Once the hunting party broke up, the Echo could jump back into the system for a quick rescue. It was a long shot, but it was possible, a last-ditch effort to rescue a member of the royal family.

  Le Croix found an O2 input nozzle. His own air supply was built into the armor of his hard-vacuum space suit. There were no tubes or hoses to connect them. Le Croix would have to hold his body right next to the nozzle if he could make it work at all. An air leak, even a tiny one, could send him shooting away from the pod, and being lost in space with a limited supply of breathable air was terrifying.

  He glanced up just as the Modulus Echo vanished into hyperspace. It was frightening and hopeful at the same time. He knew they had to go, and yet he suddenly felt completely alone, as if he had been abandoned. He forced himself to hold onto hope, even as the huge alien ships drew near to his position.

  For a few moments, the big alien vessels slowed their forward progress. Le Croix guessed they were preparing to reverse course or turn around and fly back to the ship far in the distance. He fought the urge to close his eyes and hope they didn’t see him. Instead, he forced himself to study the alien ships. There wasn’t much he could tell simply by looking at the hulls, but from his military training, he knew that firsthand accounts, however preliminary, could be invaluable intelligence. If nothing else, he could relay what he saw to General Pershing once he was rescued.

  The alien fleet was a strange assembly of mismatched vessels. Some were close enough that Le Croix could see the various sections cobbled together. It reminded the major of toys he had built using stackable blocks as a child. He would make a simple ship from the blocks, then keep adding more and more features. Unlike the old Royal Imperium headquarters that was made up of hundreds of separate modules linked together over time, there was no continuity to the features on the alien ships. It was as if new sections had been added on gradually, which made Le Croix wonder if that was why the aliens were capturing the Royal Imperium vessels.

  “The bastards are recycling our ships,” he said out loud, although no one could hear him. It was somehow heartening just to hear his own voice inside his space helmet.

  Suddenly, one of the alien vessels, a choppy-looking midsized ship, jumped into hyperspace. A new fear awakened in Major Luc Le Croix. Was the alien ship following the Modulus Echo? It seemed far fetched, but then where else would the alien ship be going? Jumping to hyperspace wasn’t something that could be done randomly. It was much too dangerous without specific coordinates.

  The Royal Imperium Fleet often calculated destinations from the direction a ship was traveling when it jumped into hyperspace, but that could only be accomplished because of the Navigation Network. Without extensive mapping of the galaxy, jumping through hyperspace was suicidal. And if the aliens had just arrived how could they know where it was safe to go and where it wasn’t?

  There were only three explanations, each one a little more frightening than the last. First, Le Croix reasoned, it was possible that the alien ships weren’t alien at all. Perhaps these were simply vessels the Royal Imperium had not encountered before. It didn’t seem likely that the cobbled-together appearance of the huge vessels was merely a way to disguise manmade spaceships. Yet it was even more unlikely that an alien ship would jump through hyperspace without any notion of where it was going.

  Second, it was possible that the ship was alien, but they had already hacked their way into the Nav Net. According to reports, the wormhole had been open less than twelve hours. It was terrifying to think that anyone could break into a foreign computer network that quickly, but Le Croix had to admit it was possible. For all he knew, the aliens were so advanced technologically, that the Nav Net was like child’s play to their superior intellect.

  Finally, and most horrifying of all, it was also possible that the aliens could track vessels through hyperspace. Le Croix had heard of various experimental programs trying to find a way to do that very thing, but to his knowledge, no one had successfully achieved such a feat. If the aliens could follow them th
rough hyperspace, humanity’s biggest advantage was lost. The aliens might have superior ships, but they were in new territory. They didn’t know anything about the galaxy they found themselves in. But if they could follow human vessels into hyperspace, they could very quickly map the major trade routes and most vital planets.

  Another thought made Le Croix feel as though he might be sick. If the aliens were following the Echo, then they couldn’t return to the Celeste system. That meant there would be no rescue. Death was always a possibility in the military. Le Croix had come close to dying more than once in his life. He had faced that fear and mastered it, or so he thought. But the idea of drifting through space until his oxygen supply ran out, or his suit lost power and he froze to death, seemed undignified. He was a fighter, and he felt he deserved to die in battle, not abandoned and alone.

  Le Croix was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the tentacle arm that was moving silently through space toward him. It latched onto the emergency pod, the articulated three-prong pincer taking hold of the egg-shaped safety device. In a split second, Le Croix made a decision that he knew would almost certainly lead to his death. He held on as the pod was pulled toward the alien ship. He could have let go and hoped that the aliens left him to die, but what good would that do him? He didn’t want to be just another bit of space debris floating for a million years through the endless void of space. He wanted to get on board the alien ship and wreak as much havoc as possible. Fortunately for him, the aliens were making it easy for him to do just that. His opportunity was upon him, and even though it would almost certainly be the end of him, he felt a sense of relief and even contentment.

  He did a quick weapons check. He still had two concussion grenades and a full magazine of plasma rounds in his assault rifle. There were also his sidearm with fifty flechettes in two clips and his fighting knife. Whoever was reeling him toward the alien ship was in for a big surprise once they got Major Luc Le Croix on board. He would make sure the aliens knew just who they were up against in the new galaxy. And his death would mean something, that was all he ever wanted.

  Chapter 23

  Ben felt nervous. Like every other member of his crew, he was unsure about having the royal family on board the ship. The Modulus Echo was in good shape for a smuggling ship, and a big step up from the conditions on Torrent Four where he and the crew had grown up. But it was nothing like the opulence the royal family was accustomed to. He was proud of the work he had put into the old Kestrel class ship, but he was keenly aware of the fact that everything was secondhand, refurbished, and mismatched.

  “Don’t be so nervous,” Kim whispered as they moved upstairs to meet their new passengers. “If not for us, they’d be halfway to another galaxy as prisoners of an alien race. Besides, they’re just people.”

  “With the wealth of ten thousand worlds,” Ben said. “The Echo must seem like a trash heap in comparison.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? These are the people who have held the galaxy in a death grip for almost a century, and you’re worried about what they think of your ship?”

  “I’m nervous about a lot of things,” Ben whispered back.

  When they reached the upper deck of the ship, Ben and Kim fell silent. There were seven civilians seated at the big dining table under the dome of the observation bubble. Cool blue light from the fog of hyperspace filtered down onto them. They looked haggard and unhappy, all except one woman who Ben immediately recognized as the queen. Her face was a mask of haughty indifference, as if she were above her surroundings and even the rest of the royal family.

  “General,” Staff Sergeant Visher said as he came to attention and offered a salute. The rest of the commandos did the same.

  Pershing returned the salute. “Good work out there, Staff Sergeant.”

  “It wasn’t a perfect op,” Visher said. “May I ask what happened to Major Le Croix?”

  Ben saw Pershing’s throat move before she answered. It was the only sign of emotion she showed, but he could tell she was upset at having left the major behind.

  “Under the circumstances, we were forced to leave the system without him,” Pershing said. “It was not the outcome we had hoped for, but considering what we’ve achieved, it was a successful mission.”

  “Yes, General,” Visher said.

  “My queen,” Pershing said, turning to the royal family, “may I introduce you to the crew of this vessel. This is Ben Griminski, engineer and responsible for the restoration of the Modulus Echo. And Kim Baudry, pilot.”

  Ben wasn’t sure what to say. Should he bow? Should he thank the queen? It was confusing and frustrating.

  “Where is the rest of the royal family?” Queen Ultane asked, ignoring Ben and Kim completely.

  Ben felt himself flush, partly with anger and partly with shame. It was insulting to be ignored. Ben could sense the anger building in Kim. Her entire body tensed like a cobra about to strike. He put a hand on her arm in hopes that it might soothe her as Pershing looked to Staff Sergeant Visher.

  “We were operating on radio silence,” Pershing explained. “Major Luc Le Croix was in charge of the commando team who infiltrated the transport that had been captured by the aliens.”

  “Tell me everything,” the queen demanded.

  Visher cleared his throat nervously. “We got onto the wrecked transports without resistance. The vessel was torn apart, and many of the emergency pods were lost or damaged.”

  “How many?” Queen Ultane asked in an icy tone.

  “That’s impossible to say for certain,” Visher replied.

  Ben couldn’t believe the hardened veteran was so nervous. Visher had his hands clasped behind his back, but his voice quavered before the angry queen.

  “Major Le Croix sent us to investigate the back half of the ship. There were four pods with surviving occupants. Two more were damaged. Some were missing. The major got three pods off the front half before the aliens showed up.”

  “You came under fire?” Pershing asked.

  “No, General. The ship was moving away from the rendezvous point, so the major ordered us to get off the vessel while he went back for the last pod.”

  “There’s another survivor?” Queen Ultane asked.

  “That’s correct, Your Majesty,” Visher said.

  “We have to go back,” she demanded. “It could be the crown prince or the king.”

  Pershing didn’t reply immediately. She turned to Kim and looked at the pilot. “Is that possible?”

  “We can drop out of hyperspace okay,” Kim said.

  “Excellent,” the queen replied. “We’re going back.”

  “I understand your position,” Pershing replied. “And I respect it. But my duty demands that I get you and the rest of the survivors to safety before attempting a rescue mission for the major.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your duty,” the queen snarled, rising to her feet suddenly. Her face was pale, but her eyes were fiery. “And I don’t care about the major. But he was in the front half of the transport. That’s where my husband and son were when the ship was attacked. Odds are good that at least one of them survived. We must return immediately.”

  “If we go back,” Kim said, “there’s no telling what we might find. We could jump right into one of the alien ships.”

  “I hate to admit it, but she’s right,” Visher said. “Those emergency pods only had sixty minutes of air once they were disconnected from the transport. I don’t see how we could stop, turn around, and go back in that time frame. There was less than half of the air left in your own pod when we got you aboard and popped it open, Your Majesty.”

  “The risk is too great,” General Pershing said. “I’m sorry, my liege, but we can’t go back.”

  “We can, and we will,” the queen said. “I order it. All who disobey me will be tried for treason.”

  Ben looked at Kim. He wanted to laugh. It seemed preposterous to him that anyone would choose to risk death on an impossible m
ission rather than face the possibility of being charged with treason. The queen was completely unreasonable, and he was beginning to think she was a megalomaniac as well. His nervousness in her presence was fading fast.

  “As you wish, my queen,” General Pershing said.

  Ben saw Staff Sergeant Visher’s face drop. Several of the commandos were shaking their heads in disbelief. Ben turned to Kim, who had an amused smirk on her face.

  “Kim, take us out of light speed,” General Pershing said.

  “Sure thing, General,” Kim said, then continued under her breath so only Ben could hear, “This should be entertaining.”

  “We should man the bridge,” Ben said. “It will take some time to recalculate a jump back to the Celeste system. And I want to reset the flux shield.”

  “Please don’t rush,” said a striking-looking man sitting nearby. He was part of the royal family, but Ben didn’t recognize him. “The rest of us would prefer not to die to appease the queen’s outlandish whims.”

  “Shut up!” Queen Ultane shouted. “How dare you speak in my presence with such impudence?”

  “How dare you ignore the counsel of your own officers?” the man demanded. He rose to his feet, his head held high. “Everyone on this ship knows that the king and your precious puppet Prince Godfred are dead. You may not want to live without them, but the rest of us do.”

  “I shall have you banished for speaking of your sovereign so callously.”

  “No, you won’t,” the man continued. “With the crown prince dead, I’m heir to the throne. Do not forget that, Queen Ultane. Your time as puppet master is coming to an end.”

  “With your leave, Majesties,” General Pershing said with a little bow.

  The queen and the man she argued with both ignored her. Ben and Kim quickly followed Pershing back down to the main deck of the ship.

  “Well that was fun,” Kim said.

  “Who was that man?” Ben asked.