Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) (41 page)

More cold silence, and dark stares at Romki. He had of course articulated exactly what made them so uncomfortable. Styx didn’t care if
Phoenix
lived or died, but Romki, with his usual tact, had spun that as though it were a good thing.

“Look,” said Erik before things could deteriorate further, “I understand the misgivings. In any other circumstance, having Styx aboard would be suicidal, and yes, she’d probably kill us all in a heartbeat if it would serve her purposes. But right now she needs us. And we need her. I don’t doubt that she’s a cold and calculating killer, but she’s primarily a killer of
deepynines
, not humans. So long as we share that goal in common, I think we can trust her, within reason.”

He could see they didn’t like it any better. But they could at least see that he wasn’t about to change his mind, and that Trace was with him. Resignation settled.

“What if they look more closely?” asked Shilu. “What if they send a visual inspection? Or if they board us? We’ll have to get real close for the shuttle to reach Tartarus.”

“Styx says almost no-one’s seen an old deepynine carrier-class,” said Erik. “We’ll be pretending to be a twenty five thousand year old vessel, lost and just recently reactivated. In configuration, those ships were nearly identical to
Phoenix
, in basic layout and mass proportions. She says they’ll believe her because her command of old deepynine language is probably better even than a present-day deepynine queen’s. Styx is an antique. The deepynine we killed at TK55 was new. It knew far less about old deepynines than Styx does. Possibly the deepynine queen at Tartarus will be the same.”

“And Styx says they’ll not board a deepynine queen’s vessel,” Romki added. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“That’s assuming they do have a deepynine queen who’s in charge,” Shilu challenged. “The base will be run by sard. Sard might not do what she says.”

“They will,” Romki said with certainty. “Deepynines don’t take orders from organics. They hold all the cards here, the sard desperately want that ship technology, they’ve already proven they’ll kowtow to aliens to get it, as they did with the tavalai.”

“It’s more likely Tartarus is actually run by reprogrammed drysine drones,” said Erik. “We’ve seen them used in the attack on Joma Station. Probably that was just a small portion of them. Tartarus is a drysine base and was designed to be run by drones, possibly it can even make its own drones — it’s big enough. If they’ve been reprogrammed by a deepynine queen, they’ll be completely under her control.”

“Can Styx reprogram them back?” asked Rooke.

Erik nodded slowly, and glanced at Trace. “That’s the idea,” said Trace. “Styx thinks it’s possible. Not certain, but very possible. It’s the reason the Joma Station attack would have been reckless if the hacksaws had suspected Styx was still alive — she
could
have reprogrammed some of them, at least. It’s a technical process, far too complicated for even our best techs to understand. But if she can find a way to pull it off once we’re inside Tartarus…”

“
That
would cause a pretty big distraction,” said Shahaim, eyes widening. If Tartarus was run by drysine drones, with a sard and deepynine command presence… and all of those drones could be led in an uprising? Erik saw hope and realisation light anew in their eyes. The plan was crazy dangerous, and if it worked would likely create one of the biggest firefights anyone had ever seen. But it was far from hopeless.

“That would give Styx a drysine army of her very own,” said Dale. “At which point she’d turn them on us and we’d all be dead, deepynine, sard and tavalai alike.”

Silence as they all considered that. Could Dale be right? Was Styx’s apparent cooperation just a ploy to get herself back into a familiar, powerful drysine shipbuilding base? Styx’s entire aim was to rebuild the drysine race — what better way to do that than to reclaim such a huge strategic asset, and start rebuilding ships, drones and everything? A new body for herself, a final slate of neural repairs, a new fleet of whatever ships they were building over there and then off to resettle in some far part of the galaxy where neither humans nor Dobruta could reach?

“Hell of a chance to take,” said Dale, into the silence he’d made. “Trusting something that doesn’t even understand the concept.”

“I put a hole in her head once,” Trace said grimly. “If she tries something like that, I can always finish the job.”

E
rik should have been sleeping
, but circumstances were making that impossible. He sat instead on his single chair and spoke to Commander Nalben on the wall screen.

“One of the fleet captains is launching a notice,”
Nalben explained, in his disconcertingly perfect English.
“It is a legal procedure to censure the Dobruta due to our actions here.”

“And what consequence will that have?” Erik was really too tired for tavalai legal nonsense. He’d heard tales about the sheer scale of tavalai legal bureaucracy, and it was well known that the third-most-senior officer on every tavalai military vessel was a legal officer.

“It challenges the right of the Dobruta to grant full protection to a human vessel, particularly to a warship. They cannot interfere with Makimakala, but they are claiming the right to interfere with Phoenix. Given that you are advocating a plan that will damage the tavalai-sard alliance. They are arguing that the alliance provisions have legal superiority.”

“Great.” Erik rubbed his face. “How long will that take?”

“Several rotations at minimum.”

“Well
Phoenix
is not staying here that long. Our plan is set and we’ll go without you if we have to.”

“That is suicide.”

Erik smiled faintly. “Only if it fails.” The Captain had said that a lot. “Do you have an alternative plan?”

“Captain Pram wishes to rendezvous with other Dobruta vessels, and gather enough force to perform this mission properly.”

“Tavalai space is big. How long to rendezvous with these other Dobruta vessels?”

On the screen, Nalben’s big, three-lidded eyes shifted evasively.
“Perhaps a month. We are spread wide.”

“By which time your fleet here has sent communications back to your homeworld and brought full legal weight down on
Phoenix
to stop us.”

“Dobruta can do this without you.”
Edgily.
“We are not helpless.”

“But you would not tell us what you find at the base. Humanity’s survival depends on that information, and I cannot allow this to be a tavalai-only mission. We will not wait a month. We are going now. If you wish to influence the outcome of this assault in any way, you’d best convince Captain Pram to come along, or both the tavalai and the Dobruta will miss out.”

A brief silence from Nalben.
“I’ll talk to him. Again.”

“Good. Is that all?”

“That is all.”

“
Phoenix
out, and good luck.” Erik disconnected and slumped in his chair. Trace entered behind, no doubt having registered on uplinks that he was on coms.

“Any luck?” she asked, taking a seat on his bunk with her back against the wall, knees up and casual as she would never be with regular crew.

“Not yet. The tavalai fleet are threatening to bury us in lawyers.”

“Poor tavalai,” said Trace, with a faint smile. “I never thought I’d say that. They have institutions with founding charters thirty thousand years old. All of them have their own rules, and the laws to untangle it all just accumulate, like sedimentary layers. The Captain told me all about it.”

“My Uncle Calvin did his thesis on some obscure tavalai legal thing or other. I forget which.” Erik stifled a yawn. “It’s a pity you didn’t get a chance to talk to him properly on Joma Station. He’s a pretty cool guy. So what’s your readiness ETA?”

“Twenty hours. Engineering’s modifying a harness to hold the queen. Styx, rather. Complete with a twenty thousand volt killswitch, assuming that will have any effect on her.”

“I’d have more faith in a Koshaim-20, myself.”

“Me too." She considered him with dark, tired eyes. Somehow the weariness never seemed to dim their alertness. It made Erik sit up straighter, and will his own eyes fully open. “If
Makimakala
won’t come with us, what are our chances of getting out alive?”

“That’s an unknown unknown,” said Erik. The Captain had said that a lot too. “There are too many unknown variables.”

“Assuming worst case scenario,” Trace pressed. “Heavy defences, lots of advanced ships.”

“But the unknown variable there is Styx. The worst case scenario is that they don’t buy her transmission, but in that case we’ll be blown from the sky long before we can make rendezvous with Tartarus.
If
they fall for it, and you go in to meet them? And
if
Styx can cause some kind of large distraction, as she claims she can?” Erik shrugged. “Again, how big? What kind of distraction? It’s all on her.”

“It really is, isn’t it?” They were insane, Erik knew in the silence that followed. But they’d sworn an oath to defend humanity, and Fleet HQ had no interest in finding out the nature of the deepynine threat. It was
Phoenix
or no one, and ‘no one’ was not an acceptable option to either him or Trace. Whatever it cost. “If Styx can cause some chaos, we’ll get out. Given the systems she can take over by remote, I’d guess she can, and there will be a lot of vital systems on Tartarus even aside from all those drysine drones. Hausler likes chaos. And he says you do too.”

Erik nodded. “I can’t change your mind about going yourself?” Trace gave a faint smile, and did not bother to answer. “You know, even your best officers think you have a death wish.”

“All living things have a death
inevitability
,” Trace replied, unruffled. “Kulina just understand it better than most.”

“Knowing you’re going to die isn’t the issue,” Erik retorted. “The issue is what’s your rush?”

Trace smiled more broadly. “Promote yourself to captain and I’ll tell you.”

“You’re lying. You wouldn’t tell me if I did promote myself to captain.”

“Come on, right here right now,” Trace persisted. “We’ve got some captain’s wings in storage, I checked.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“It needs to be done Erik. In situations like we’re about to go into more than ever.”

“I think the crew know who’s in charge.”

“I’m sure
they
do,” Trace retorted. “I wonder about
you
.”

Erik just smiled at her. These arguments between them were so familiar now. Trace smiled back, reluctantly. “You know,” said Erik, “I really will miss this endless harassment when you’re dead.”

“The way we’re going, I may just outlive you,” Trace snorted. Erik grinned.

The door chime sounded, and Erik hit open. Tif entered, in her beloved flight suit that she seemed to spend more time in than anything else. To say that she’d taken to her role as
Phoenix
shuttle pilot was an understatement — Lieutenant Jersey had marvelled at how much simulator time she’d been accumulating, determined to learn these new military systems to the best of her ability.

“EwC,” she said, her big golden eyes fixed on him with curiosity. “You want see ne?”

“Yes, Tif. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, but we’re not going to be able to get Skah off the ship for this mission. We’re not going to have time.” She stared at him. “Do you understand that?”

“You want Skah off ship?” She sounded alarmed.

“For this mission, yes. But we can’t. We can’t spare a shuttle, and we’ve nowhere safe to leave him where we can come back for him later.”

“You want ne off ship?” Now she sounded upset, eyes wide.

“You?” Erik asked, puzzled. “No Tif, I don’t…”

“I
Phoenix
,” said Tif with fierce urgency. With her flight gloves off, the three-fingered claws came partway out, deadly sharp. “I
Phoenix
, Skah
Phoenix
! You no say can… can not say…” She broke off in confusion, her English abandoning her.

Erik stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “Tif, no no. Bad communication.” He smiled reassuringly. “Bad, I didn’t mean to… look. In my culture? A small child on a ship in combat is very bad. We protect small children. We don’t put them in danger.”

“In ny cuwture?” said Tif, very earnestly. “Whole… faniry?” Erik nodded encouragingly. “Aw faniry together. One thing.” She made a tight fist before his face, claws comfortingly retracted. “Bad thing happen nother, bad thing happen kid. Aw one thing.”

“So what happens to children in a war? When their adults lose?”

Tif made a mystified gesture. “Depend who win. Sone good, sone bad. Sone… educate? Yes, educate kid, sone not. Sone kiw.” She grasped his arm again. “I
Phoenix
, one faniry, yes?”

Erik nodded, and grasped her hand. A gesture of trust, considering the mess those claws could make of a human hand. “Yes Tif. One family. You and Skah, both
Phoenix
.”

“Pronise.”

“I promise.”

“Good,” she said, with obvious relief. As though the bad thing that she feared most had been banished. “Good. Thank you. I sreep now.”

She nodded to Trace, and left. Erik looked at Trace, now seated upright on the edge of his bunk. “And sometimes,” said Trace, “the aliens make more sense than the humans.”

“Yeah,” Erik sighed. “Sometimes.”

P
hoenix
slid
out of hyperspace and raced. Erik blinked his vision hard upon the screens, as automated systems scrambled to process visuals, and cross-reference stars against existing charts.

“Navigation is processing,” Kaspowitz announced.

“The timer is running,” Shahaim added. “We are at T-minus-136 and counting.” That was one hundred and thirty six minutes until
Makimakala
leaped from hyperspace at high-V and tried to kill the Tartarus base. Hoping, of course, that
Phoenix
had found some way to clear her path by then. Erik sipped from his water tube, watching the data cycle as posts reported in. Styx had given them the procedure that deepynine vessels of the class would follow out of jump. Now to hope that whoever was watching couldn’t tell the difference.

“Vessel at eighty-seven by fourteen,” Geish said tersely from Scan. “Maybe seventeen seconds light, it’s not moving.”

“That’s an outsystem picket,” said Shahaim.

“He’ll see us in five,” said Geish. “Four, three, two, one.”

Now seventeen seconds of response time. Erik licked his dry lips. “Kaspo?”

“Navigation is still processing,” said Kaspowitz. It did this sometimes, in unfamiliar systems.

“Second vessel,” said Geish. “Two-oh-five by one-three-six. Also unmoving, range twenty-five seconds.”

“We have arrived,”
came Styx’s synthetic voice on coms.
“Commencing transmission.”

“Navigation fix,” Kaspowitz said finally. “Gsi-81T confirmed, we are way out deep at nine AU, the system doesn’t like it when we emerge so far from the star.”

“I have Gsi-5,” Geish announced. “System orbits are confirmed, Styx’s charts are right — all the moons are just where they should be.”

“Great,” said Jiri, “now where’s the Tartarus?”

“Scan confirms something very big on our present course,” Geish added. “Range twenty-one seconds light.” Erik’s left screen flickered as nav built a picture of that object. “Very, very big,” Geish amended. “Estimating… one-twenty klicks diameter, spherical. Hollow structure, that’s why the nav’s struggling to classify it.”

“Fixed and locked,” said Shahaim. Lieutenant Shilu’s Coms channel was outputting something very strange indeed — massively high-frequency, encoded and complicated almost beyond a human decryption program’s ability to handle realtime. Shilu’s Coms post was routed directly to AT-7 and Styx.

“Signal will be reaching Tartarus in five seconds,” said Shilu.

“Still no response from picket vessels,” Geish added. “Only two so far, but this far out from the sun we’ve got limited visual ability.”

Erik’s tactical display showed him
Phoenix
’s position, eating up distance as she raced at full-V from jump — barely thirty minutes to the Tartarus at this velocity. Either they got a response soon or they were going to start running out of room. In far orbit to one side, Gsi-5 blocked any escape in that direction… though its huge gravity field did create some interesting escape trajectory possibilities. Tartarus was in a wide, far orbit from the gas giant, however, beyond most of the system’s primary moons. Evidently the drysine spacers hadn’t liked deep gravity wells any more than human spacers did.

“Any idea why we can see those two marks?” Erik asked. He was surprised at how calm he felt. Buried in uplink visuals, graphical displays and rapidly unfolding time parameters, he simply had no time to ponder unpleasant possibilities.

“Sir, I think they’ve deployed panels,” said Geish. “Signal looks unnaturally strong to me, suggests they’re giving away position and stealth on purpose. They might not even be warships, that looks like too large a signature.”

“Visible defence,” Shahaim said grimly. “LC, I reckon we’re right in their defensive funnel. They’ve got other ships here too, lying dark — these two are their position markers. They want us to run deeper into their crossfire. The deeper we get when they spring the trap, the deader we are.”

Erik’s display showed that the Tartarus had received Styx’s signal twenty seconds ago. A few seconds more for a reply, if they’d responded immediately. “We’re holding course,” he told the bridge, hands hovering on control sticks, thumbs and fingers a light pressure upon buttons and toggles. “There’s no response yet, they haven’t IDed us as hostile. Helm, get me a good escape vector.”

“Already plotting LC,” Shahaim replied.

“LC I have limited visual on a lot of activity up at the base,” Jiri called from Scan Two. “Mostly small scale, there’s… there’s a lot of interference, but it looks quite busy.”

“I can second that,” Shilu added, toggling furiously through various frequencies. “I’m scanning for com traffic but nothing yet…”

“Active scan!” Geish cut him off, urgently. “We have been target locked by a new mark, location oh-eight-seven by…” and Erik tuned him out, seeing that new position appear on his tactical. Then another, then another, Second Lieutenant Geish announcing each in turn. And suddenly the entire forward scan lit up like an Exodus tree, a wave of ships locking on their targeting systems, like hidden hunters in the dark all turning on their flashlights at once. Erik’s hands nearly jumped on the controls… only his heart refused to accelerate to panic speed because clearly this was a very odd way to spring an ambush.
Phoenix
was nowhere near deep enough into the crossfire yet, and the ambushers were giving away surprise and stealth at a time when
Phoenix
still possessed enough options to do something about it.

“LC, what are we doing?” Shahaim said with alarm, hands hovering over controls that would lock in an override escape route and get them the hell out of there.

For a brief moment, fear and doubt struggled to surface past his calm. “Does not look like an attack to me,” his mouth said on automatic, even as his brain tried to rebel against his own words. But it looked like the truth, and the Captain had always said that a combat pilot had to trust his first instinct, because by the time he got to his second instinct, he’d be dead. “We’re being bracketed, they’re giving away their positions.”

“Hello Phoenix,”
came Styx’s voice on coms.
“This is a welcoming response to my signal. Correct procedure will be to dump velocity by the indicated increment, and proceed upon a steady course.”

L
ocked
into her command post on AT-7, Trace could see
Phoenix
’s tactical feed projected on her faceplate. The situation looked as bad as could be expected if you flew in the front door of a heavily guarded fortress. But it was what a deepynine ship would have done in friendly territory, and they’d had no choice. One false twitch here and they were dead.

“Crowded, isn’t it?”
Lieutenant Hausler remarked from up front. If he felt the stress, his voice didn’t show it. Hotshot pilots had cool reputations to upkeep.

“Hello Stan,” said Trace on coms. Romki was strapped in down back with the queen, the only place where her carry-frame would fit. “How’s she looking?”

“Major, that transmission is something… well, you’d be better off asking Rooke if he’s watching…”

“I’m watching,”
Rooke interrupted from Engineering.
“It looks crazy, I’ve no idea what she’s telling them. Seems to be working though.”

“Sure,”
said Lieutenant Jalawi of Charlie Platoon from nearby.
“So long as she’s not telling them to put old differences aside and kill the humans first.”

“You people do understand that she can hear you?”
Romki retorted. If Styx had an opinion on the humans’ mutterings, she did not volunteer it.

“
L
C
, I think I’ve got it.” Kaspowitz shunted his feed to Erik’s screen, and suddenly he could see it — an indistinct sphere, blurred as
Phoenix
’s cameras tried to get a fix, not the simplest thing at this distance while still carrying combat-V from jump. Then a shift of focus and it came abruptly clear, drifting and recorrecting as the cameras adjusted.

A massive series of frameworks, making a rough sphere in two distinct halves. The entire sphere was quarter-lit as they approached from the outer system, Gsi-81T’s small yellow star far distant and ‘behind’. One reason the cameras had such trouble picking it up, Erik realised — though the size of a very small moon, the base was non-reflective, its hollow maze of gantries seeming to suck in more light than they let out.

“Luminosity is low,” Kaspowitz confirmed. “Can’t see much yet, have to wait until we’re closer.”

“Mark for V-dump in thirty seconds,” Shahaim added. They were following the course laid in according to Styx’s parameters. The approach profile matched a deepynine carrier, Styx insisted, and she had provided a laundry list of things to do and to avoid. Foremost amongst them had been to turn off local wireless coms, which she’d insisted deepynine com-tech could register when close enough. They were also without any form of active scan, relying entirely on passive reception. That was going to make it hard to get weapons lock, particularly for defensive systems if someone started firing at them. To intercept incoming fire, they relied entirely on active radar, which could not be disguised as anything but human. But presumably, if someone was shooting at them, the game would already be up.

“Coms, how’s it looking?” Erik was most concerned about the signal Styx was sending to the base. The com frequency had been precisely modulated, utilising a high bandwidth humans rarely used, but Styx insisted was default on a deepynine carrier. As with everything else, they’d had to take her word for it.

“All nominal,” Shilu confirmed. “Sir, I’m not getting any chatter from the base. Either everyone’s communicating on tightbeam or hardlines. There’s no random traffic at all.”

“Been here a long time,” Kaspowitz reminded them. “Coms traffic can survive sublight when the deepspace background buzz doesn’t wipe it out. If you’re trying to stay hidden for centuries, you don’t want your com traffic turning up a few hundred lightyears away for someone to trace.”

V-dump arrived, and Erik pulsed them hard into hyperspace, then out at a more sensible velocity. Still scan showed them locked by twenty-two different armscomps. “Scan, do you have any ID on those marks?”

“Sir, scancomp shows those targeting locks as unfamiliar.”

“
All
of them?”

“Yes sir.” Geish concentrated hard on the multiple analysis his systems were feeding him. “Five different types. We’ve got three painters, that’s heavy active scan illuminating us for followup missiles — they’re probably platform bases. No visual confirmation at this point, so I’d guess they’re less than twenty meters diameter. The rest are a mix… there’s three that look like they’ll need a very high powerbase to generate, I reckon big ships, maybe even carrier-class.”

“Sir,” Jiri interrupted from Scan Two, “on our present course we’ll be within visual range of one mark in one minute. Permission to align main camera for a visual?”

“Permission granted,” Geish answered for him — visuals were always the senior Scan Officer’s prerogative. “LC, that’s a heck of a lot of marks in good defensive position. It’s going to be real crowded for
Makimakala
coming through here at high-V.”

“We have to get at least half of those ships to displace or
Makimakala
’s got no chance at all,” Shahaim said with certainty. “Even then they’ll have to bury themselves in these defences to give the ordinance a chance of avoiding interception. The survival to success ratio is looking unacceptable to me.”

“We’re going to have to find some way to get them to move,” Karle observed nervously.

“Our mission is intelligence,” Geish disagreed. “Helping
Makimakala
to destroy the base is secondary.” Which wasn’t what they’d told
Makimakala
. Erik saw a few faces turn to glance his way. Hang the tavalai out to dry? Fail to clear their path, and allow the base defences to kill them on the way in? How much was a human’s word worth, to the old tavalai enemy, when the fate of the human race hung upon them learning more about the deepynine queen they thought was running the Tartarus? If that queen did exist, then killing just her and this base became relatively insignificant. There were bound to be far, far more of them.

“Sir,” said Jiri. “I have a visual on that mark. Putting it through now.”

Erik’s screen flipped, then settled on a bright smudge against a black background. That was about all you could expect at these speeds and distances, but now the image zoomed and sharpened as scancomp cleaned it and focused… and the analysis scrolled in fast numerics across the screen.

“Carrier-class,” Shahaim muttered.

And from Geish, “What the hell
is
that?”

“That’s trouble,” Erik said as he stared at it. “Look at the size of those engines. It’s bigger than carrier-class, and it’s not our technology — we can’t configure power-to-mass in those ratios.”

“Well,” Kaspowitz said conversationally, “that’s a new ship. Congrats everyone, drinks on the LC.” In the war, Fleet Intel had given hearty bonuses to any crew that found a new class of alien ship.

“Yeah,” Geish agreed. “The bad news is it’s probably deepynine, and it can probably kick our ass.”

“That’s not the bad news,” Jiri disagreed. “The bad news is it looks like there could be a dozen of them.”

S
ixteen minutes
later and
Phoenix
dumped velocity again. Trace blinked hard to get her vision back, popped her visor and sipped some water so she didn’t deplete the suit bottle. Once the visor was down permanently, that would be the only water she had.

“Incoming signal,”
she heard Coms Officer Shilu saying on the bridge.
“That’s… holy shit that’s strong, encryption can’t decode it… LC, I have no idea what that is, but it’s definitely coming from the base…”