Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) (43 page)

Dear god, thought Trace. That was a fucking sard fleet, buried in here somewhere.

“Three captured vessels. One tavalai, mostly destroyed, intercepted at a neighbouring system, name unknown. One human, intercepted at a far system, name Europa. One barabo, intercepted at…”

“Wait!” Trace snapped, as even her calmly thudding heart nearly stopped. “Did you say
Europa
?”

“Regelda Freightlines ship Europa, civilian freightliner. Thirty-one crew registered living and in captivity, Captain Aldon Houli registered deceased, passenger Calvin Debogande registered alive, passenger Elizabeth Chow registered alive…”

“Styx,” Trace cut her off, “get me a secure line back to
Phoenix
.”

“I will have to disguise it as deepynine code, but the modulations may not look convincing. I do not recommend this course of…”

“Do it now!”

F
or a moment Erik
could not think or breathe, and simply sat locked in his command chair. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t… and thoughts flashed to his family, and childhood times with Uncle Calvin and his kids, Erik’s cousins, and games, dogs and barbecues. Cousin Sarah’s dangerous virus and Uncle Calvin not leaving her bedside, so devoted to his kids, comforted now in his memory by Erik’s mother, a hand on her brother’s shoulder and assuring him that everything would be okay…

Those memories did
not
belong out here. Those were his family, his home-life, that jumble of mundane complexity, loves and trials and relationships that were everything
this
life was not. In that life, Cousin Sarah had recovered and they’d celebrated with a ski-trip on her birthday, Sarah’s favourite thing with fireplaces and snow, and presents, food and songs…

And now, her dad had been abducted by deepynines. It just wasn’t possible that those two worlds could collide like this. But here was Trace Thakur, perhaps the most reliable person he’d ever met on things that mattered, telling him exactly that.

“Shit they must have followed them!” Shahaim breathed in horror. “From the Joma Station attack, the sard must have followed them and…”

“Hello Styx,” Erik cut her off, because it really didn’t matter now. Suddenly the confusion vanished, replaced with hard certainty. If there was one thing in all the galaxy he had been fighting for, in all his military life, it was to stop his military and home lives from colliding. And that was what he’d do. “Your distraction. Will it be big?”

“The possibilities of scale just increased.”

“How have they increased?”

“This friendly unit has encrypted communications with fellow drysines. I have access to the override programs. I can deprogram them.”

“How many of them?”

“Unknown. Perhaps some, perhaps most.”

“To what effect?”

“Localised civil war in Tartarus. My people can be freed.”

In the chair to his front and left, Kaspowitz had turned his head to stare. ‘We’re going to give her an army?’ that stare asked. He said nothing, but Erik knew.

“Styx, likely outcome of localised civil war?”

“Mutual mass casualties. Unsupported, drysines will cease effective resistance in under fifty human minutes. Supported, victory is possible, if unlikely.”

“Styx, we are going to send in another shuttle once you start the war. Its objective will be the rescue of human and other alien crew from those captured vessels.
Phoenix
will operate as a base of support for all rebelling drysine drones.”

“LC,”
Trace retorted,
“this plan will endanger our primary mission to confirm the existence of a deepynine queen…”

“No it won’t, she will expose herself in any fight we start.”

“LC as marine commander in the field, I will not…”

“You’re in a spacer shuttle Major, and this is
not
your command. You will obey orders or I will have you replaced.” His words held no temper, just the certainty of what it would take to make her shut up. “Lieutenant Jersey, please report.”

“Hello LC, this is Jersey, PH-3 is ready and waiting.”

“Hello LC, this is Crozier, Delta Platoon is go.”

Jersey and Crozier were a pair, Delta Platoon standing by in PH-3. Trace’s concerns with Crozier’s state of mind occurred to him… but she
was
the standby roster, and for this job only one platoon was going to fit.

“Lieutenant, PH-3 and PH-4 will depart on combat approach when I give the signal. Your objective is rescue, humans first, anyone else who can fit in second. PH-3 will take Delta Platoon, PH-4 will fly empty for prisoner recovery. We will try to get you an escort.”

“PH-3 copies, an escort would be real interesting.”

“PH-4 copy,”
Tif echoed. “
Good fun yes?”
Erik wondered what the kuhsi word was for ‘bravado.’

“Phoenix,”
said Styx,
“my drysines will provide both shuttles with escort. I have a fix on the prisoners’ location now, I will feed it to you.”

T
race flipped
her visor view to widescreen as AT-7 entered a cavernous bay. Four major warships were under construction here, in an interior space so large it made the huge ship bays on TK55 look like closets. Each ship was woven into a tight embrace of gantries and grapples, a cluster of interlocking steel skeleton so tangled it was hard to see where the Tartarus began and the warships ended.

About the ships were a small storm of construction vessels, tugs and drones. Upon the ships themselves swarmed hacksaw drones, like ants devouring the dead carcasses of larger animals, only these were not devouring, but building. The construction zone flashed with blue and yellow welding glow, dancing spot-fires that showered orange sparks into the vacuum. Hausler adjusted course to avoid haulers pulling hull segments across the void, and the deepynine escort flexed their formation without breaking it. Ahead of them, the construction cavern went on forever.

“Styx, can you get control of some of these ships?” Trace asked. She could see Jalawi’s face across from her, viewing the same view that she did, grim and increasingly certain that this would be his last mission.

“They are drysine command, but a different coding to my drones. I cannot do it myself, but some of the higher-ranked drones may find it possible.”

“What about the ships in the vicinity of
Phoenix
?” If they started a fight here, the picket ships would immediately fire on
Phoenix
once they realised the situation.

“The firebases are all drysine. I can gain control and fire upon the picket vessels. The surprise should incapacitate many, and the rest shall be too occupied with that threat to be concerned of Phoenix.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“How many ships in Tartarus? Get me a map.”

And with that her visor flashed again, and she zoomed fully into tacnet. It gave her a 3D display of the entire Tartarus sphere, alive with more activity than she could possibly track. But here, blinking for convenience, were seven locally-constructed warships, all docked within various inner cavities.

“Gaining access to those ships will be the first priority,” said Trace. Her heart was thudding in spite of all her habitual calm, and she focused her breathing, slow and deep. “We need to keep them busy and divert their attention. They’ll want to protect their base, so big warships inside their perimeter will do that.”

“Agreed. I have no firm number of drysine drones, I cannot contact them all. I estimate between three and four thousand.”

Trace licked her dry lips. She could not deny her nerves now, nor her fear. She’d never commanded anything a fraction as big. A glance at her visor counter showed T-minus-42.

“If we don’t do it soon Makimakala’s going to run through here and blast Tartarus with us still inside,”
Jalawi growled.

“We have to get closer,” said Trace. “Styx, can you confirm the queen is at the central core?”

“No, but it is the traditional location for command. Major, most of my drones are workers, though a small number have weapons. I estimate no more than ten percent, for rapid defence.”

“Can we get more? You guys have modular configuration, the drones that attacked Joma Station were armed. Where are those weapons?”

“I am scanning. Here, directly ahead, a reconfiguration point. There are others, all will be guarded.”
And Trace saw on her tacnet a large structure at the end of the shipbuilding cavern, highlighting now as she zoomed on it. Interior structures appeared, maze-like.

“Unarmed drones attacking that could get slaughtered if the defenders are well set. Everything depends on getting enough drones armed to make a difference, we can’t launch a rebellion without weapons.”

“Well we’re going to be there on our present course in one minute,”
Hausler told her.
“Phoenix is still a long way out to launch a rescue shuttle, they’ll have to boost up to get here quick.”

“Can they do it?”

“Yes.”

“Then we’re out of time. Styx, do it now. Don’t message
Phoenix
, they’ll figure it out when the shooting starts.”

“Yes. Commencing.”
Trace took several more breaths to slow her thumping heart. Just before it started was always the worst, like the anticipation of jumping into ice cold water. Once you were in, the body and mind adjusted. On tacnet, nothing changed. Trace wondered how she’d be able to command something this scale once it started. And realised that of course, she couldn’t. Styx might manage it. If it worked.

“I’m getting new scan activations from our escort,”
Yun said with alarm.
“It looks like they’re querying.”

“They have registered something wrong. My signal is propagating. Do not break formation or they will destroy us.”

Trace saw Jalawi looking at her. AT-7 had no guns save for its marines, and the marines had to stay hidden. Emerging to shoot at the deepynines would get AT-7 shredded before they could hit anything.

“Styx?”
Trace heard Romki press.
“Progress?”

“Localised. We must not flinch. Patience.”

“Shit,”
muttered Hausler, as one of the drones swung sideways on its course, full-frontal with all weapons. Trace could see underside launchers, and twin rotary cannon on its ‘shoulders’. In zero-G, hacksaw drones were like flying tanks, only smaller and more mobile.

“As soon as we’re clear we dock with the armoury ahead,” Trace told Hausler.

“Copy. Thirty seconds.”
The end of the cavern drew closer, visible now within the shadow of massive steel walls. Wedged between several gantries was a huge, dark spheroid, cocoon-like and ominous. Trace could see entry portals — hacksaws needed no airlocks — hexagonal openings into the maze.

“Charlie Platoon, prepare for mobile disembark and rapid assault,” said Trace, activating full suit combat settings and hearing the powerplants whine and thump to life about her. Some more drones jetted across their path, grasping assembly segments destined for the far side.

Ensign Yun saw the movement before Trace did.
“Fast approach!”

“I see it.”
As scan showed deepynines rotating fast to face it — a large ship segment, pushed by multiple drones, burning straight at them. Eruptions of white as the deepynines evaded, then an abrupt twist of vertigo as Hausler flipped AT-7 and slammed full power.

“They’re hitting ‘em!”
said Yun, as a camera struggled for focus past Hausler’s burn — a blur of bright flashes, rotary guns flaming and worker drones coming apart. One collided with a deepynine and sent it spinning. But now Hausler’s evasion was taking them away from the armoury sphere.

“Hausler, get us behind that armoury!”

“Trying, they’re locking us!”

“They will not fire on us yet,”
said Styx.
“They are confused. Head for the armoury, deepynine missiles are no threat.”

“Do it,” Trace confirmed, then another spin and hard burn as Hausler realigned. Trace caught another glimpse on visual, a flood of drysine drones pouring off their ships and straight at the six deepynines like a steel tide. Unarmed against murderous fire they disintegrated by the dozen, filling the cavern with tumbling silver debris. More exploded from missile strikes. Then another missile, inexplicably missing, turned a full arc and blew a deepynine apart.

The remaining five drones turned toward the fleeing AT-7, as though on cue. That was Styx, Trace realised. Taking control of deepynine missiles in flight and using them to kill each other. They knew, and now turned to kill the source.

“Evasive,”
said Styx, but drysines were hitting the deepynines before they could fire, some wrecked and half-dead but still holding momentum, grasping their hated enemies with broken steel limbs, some with impacts the force of car-crashes with accumulated velocity. And then the larger deepynines were slashing and cutting with those horrid close-quarter blades for which humans had given hacksaws their name. But the drysines had working tools too, and each cluster tumbled in an accumulating, thrashing ball of steel as more drones crashed in to replace the ones destroyed.

“Alignment!”
Hausler advised, and suddenly the rear hold cracked open, seats retracting as only harnesses locked marines in place — AT-7’s civilian design included orbital construction work, and personnel deployments not dissimilar from those marines used.
“We are dead on line, marines deploy!”

And those down the back left without ceremony, the entire hold vanishing in white thruster-mist as they jetted out, then the next, then the next, in well practised order. Then it was Trace’s turn and she grabbed Sergeant Kono’s rig as he thrusted first, and Jalawi grabbed hers, a big armoured chain pulling them rapidly into vacuum.

And then she was out, spinning in open space and bringing her Koshaim rapidly to hand, orienting to find the big, dark sphere was indeed right before them and they’d have to brake hard not to slam into it. Already her marines were doing that, fanning wide into groups and formations as they did, many turning back to see the deepynines… but they were gone. In their place came a swarm of silver drysine workers, like a scene from ancient nightmares. Every instinct in Trace’s body screamed at her to command her marines to turn their weapons on them and fire.

“First and Third Squad flank!” she said instead, fixing all attention forward at the sphere. “Second Squad go straight in, Command Squad has your rear. Flankers, watch for reinforcements, kill anything not drysine. If you’re not sure, the drysines will show you.”

Ahead, marines were firing, heavy fire pulverising those entry portals, and the figures emerging there.
“Sard,”
Jalawi announced.
“Sard warriors, they’re inside, don’t let ‘em get set.”
As fifty-two armoured marines spread wide across the approach, thrust and muzzle-flashes leaping, picking targets as they came.

“Sard warrior shuttles approaching,”
Styx announced calmly.
“They are acquiring long range missile lock. They will not succeed.”

“Get us a fix, Styx,” said Trace as her first marines reached the sphere. Second Squad flipped guided grenades through several entry portals, awaited the explosions, then thrusted inside. “AT-7, stay real close. You’re our command and control centre with Styx, stay within our sphere and we’ll protect you.”

“Copy Major.”

Tacnet showed Trace the spheroid armoury’s interiors as Second Squad penetrated — branching zero-G corridors, lots of junctions, open architecture beyond where things spread out. They were shooting now as they went, sard defenders scrambling and out of position — suiting up took time and preparation, which a surprise attack had robbed the defenders of. So where were the sard living quarters? Since nothing in the armoury was pressurised for organic habitation?

“First Squad, someone circle backside to see where these sard are living.” Shouts and terse commands as Jalawi passed that on. Trace hit the sphere beside a bullet-chewed entrance, yanked a mauled sard corpse from her path… and was cut off by Kono and Rolonde going in first, Arime and Kumar guarding her back as she followed them in.

She pursued the shooting ahead, watching the tight coordination on tacnet and listening to sharp commands from sergeants and corporals, broken by bursts of fire. On tacnet, Corporal Riskin of Heavy Squad found the sard habitation module built onto a huge structural support on the rear side of the armoury — a big seed-like thing with life-support modules attached.

Trace did not need to tell them to kill it, and Heavy Squad opened fire with chain guns and autocannon. Barely five seconds later and drysine drones were arriving at speed, burning hard to change course on modular thrusters and slam into the well-holed structure. Riskin yelled his squad to cease-fire, and with a squeal of cutters and construction tools hacksaws ripped into the damaged module in an accumulating, frenzied mob. Even from the corner of her eye on a visor display as she advanced through armoury tunnels, Trace felt a mesmerised horror to see it — the habitat torn to pieces in seconds, then the bodies of struggling sard emerging, some suited and others not, similarly dismembered and sent spinning with the rest.

Trace returned attention to her environment as the corridors gave way to a massive open space, a framework of storage grids, each dividing an equipment bay from its neighbours. Within them, meticulously racked and stowed, were modular weapon systems, thrusters and other things Trace could not identify. It was a hacksaw locker room, with each locker holding everything a drone might need for a variety of different missions. It must have been here when the sard had found Tartarus, Trace thought. With their total control of reprogrammed drysines, they’d thought the armouries too useful to consider the negative possibilities, if the drysines could be freed. The corridors turned into levels, encircling the sphere like the rings of an onion — no walls only layers of racked equipment, now quickly being freed of sard with rapid movement and bursts of precise fire. A last few tried to flee from armoury exits, and were killed by flanking First and Third Squads. Sard were known to retreat, occasionally even to panic and run, but no human had ever seen one surrender.

Fat lot of good it would have done them here, Trace thought as movement behind revealed a crashing, clattering mass of drones following them into the sphere. “Second Squad, Command Squad, move out before we get trampled!”

She hit jets for where tacnet schematic showed corridors would lead to an exit, bouncing off walls in her haste to get clear… but agile drones came rushing past from behind, hauling themselves with precise tugs of multiple legs, guiding and propelling their mass with surprising grace. They darted above and behind the retreating Command Squad marines, intent on their business and with no interest in allied humans. More astonishingly still, other drones on the point of entering hung back while the marines got out, before rushing inside to join their comrades.