Earth Song: Etude to War (35 page)

Minu watched from the secondary CIC as the three stars fell away behind them with dizzying speed. A few minutes later Pip and Kal'at made an appearance, both deep in conversation about their newest item of interest, the combat suits. After listening to them go back and forth for a while, Minu decided to interject herself. “What's the point of contention?” she asked during a brief lull.

“The suits and modern versions,” Kal'at explained.

“Go ahead,” Minu prompted from her command chair.

“They are a mishmash of technological innovations,” Pip took over. “There are things on those suits we've never seen before.”

“How is that a problem?”

“There are also improvements I've read about on modern suits used by the higher order species that aren't present on these.”

Minu thought for a moment before speaking. “That does sound at odds with their age.”

“Exactly,” Kal'at agreed, snapping his jaws in his species way of emphatic agreement. “How can they be more advanced in some ways and less advanced in others?”

“Couldn't they be a model that was never fielded?” Aaron asked. Kal'at and Pip looked at each other before both shrugging. It was an amusing scene to witness from Minu's perspective.

“Lilith, do you have any input on this?”

“The specifications of these combat suits are in my database. However, as they stated, some of the features of these suits are not listed in those specifications.”

“So they are modified,” Kal'at said.

“No,” Pip chimed in immediately, “they are stock. These four suits have never been activated.”

“Okay, so the People came up with some innovations no-one ever saw,” Minu said. “Maybe these are prototypes.”

“The problem with that,” Pip replied, “is that these are not old products of the People.”

“How do you know?”

“The firmware is dated thirty-four years ago. If the suits were modified by your father, he went so far as to write an entirely new operating system and install it in such a way as to leave no evidence anything of the sort had been done. You can't just upload new firmware in this sort of machine, you'd need to pull the processor block and replace it.

“This machine is factory fresh. None of the issues we often encounter with salvage from junk piles; even the new stuff that was never taken out of the box, so to speak. When you unpack a hundred thousand year old machine, there are problems, no matter how carefully it was packed up. And this is purported to be more than a million years old.”

“Perhaps it has had maintenance?” Kal'at suggested.

“No record of that,” Pip countered, “I'm one hundred percent certain it has never been activated.”

“What about the Kaatan?” Minu asked. “It sat for a million years and was fine.”

“The firebase maintained it in operational condition,” Lilith told them. “It was stored in low power mode, but routine work took place at regular intervals by the bots.”

Silence reigned for a long moment.

“You mean this was made thirty-four years ago?” Cherise spoke the question Minu couldn't make come out of her mouth.

Father, what are you up to?
Had he found some sort of manufacturing robot that built combat suits, like the little automated computer manufacturer she'd 'traded' the Beezer for years ago. It had turned out to be quite useful during the Rasa vendetta and was being used to this day. Minu began to think that her father was making a statement as well. “Look what I can do!”

“One question,” she asked, “if these suits are manufactured by my father, or someone, recently with some modern innovations and all, why didn't he make them to our specifications instead of the People’s?”

No-one had an answer to that, even Pip.

“ETA to destination is twenty-nine hours,” Lilith announced. Minu guessed at least some of her questions would find answers in a little more than a day.

Chapter 34

April 21st, 534 AE (subjective)

Deep Space, Galactic Frontier

The Kaatan dropped out of super-luminal speed and coasted towards the coordinates provided by Minu from her father's diary. Lilith was fully submerged in her pilot’s interface nestled deep inside the ship. Completely linked to her ship, she tasted the space around them, wary for anything out of place.

Every sector of space possessed different unique characteristics. Background radiation, solar wind from distant stars, weakening of the space fabric such as the place where she called the Weaver to their tactical drive. Other than a somewhat young supernova two light-years distant, there was nothing here of note.

Lilith gave her report and told them they were coming in at just under the speed of light. Since the cruiser could travel fifteen thousand times faster, it was a snail’s pace. Once they were under twenty million kilometers from the coordinates, her infrared sensors picked up the first signs of something in their path.

“I have identified a number of heat sources,” she told the gathered personnel in the other CIC.

“Any more detail?” Minu asked.

“I would estimate either one large station, or a number of ships. The infrared radiation is only a few points above the background. I did not notice until we were close.”

At their speed, the targets were only a hundred seconds away. Lilith slowed their pace considerably to give herself more time to respond.

Should the targets prove hostile, a hundred seconds was precious little time, especially since anything they did would only be apparent to her fractions of a second before they reached her. Light speed was a harsh mistress.

“Reducing speed to one quarter C,” she announced. The Kaatan slowed at several thousand Gs, the occupants never noticing.

Minu was still getting used to the casual mention of fantastic velocities. Only one quarter the speed of light? Oh, that was a mere 46,500 kilometers per second. Four times around Bellatrix in a blink of an eye. Pull over, I'm going to get out and walk.

With their destination now more than seven minutes away, and their speed well under light, she could employ some of her active sensors. Radar was too risky to use. It would make the Kaatan a huge target.

Instead she employed a neutrino backscatter scan. Another ship would need to be looking for it to even notice the scan. It wouldn't provide any serious detail on the targets, but it would tell her if they were starships or space stations. The nature of ships provided for much more robust construction, especially in powerful gravitic generators and possibly fusion power plants (for some species). Space stations were usually all but transparent to a neutrino scan.

Owing to the unusual nature of neutrinos, she got her response almost before she sent it. Eleven hard returns. Starships, no doubt about it. She told her mother.

“Are they active?”

“Highly unlikely,” Lilith replied. “Even the most carefully stealthed starship has to be able to dump their heat into a sump somehow. It is impossible that all eleven of these ships are masking in the opposite direction from our approach.”

“Unless they were expecting us,” Pip suggested, “or they spotted your superluminal wave front?”

“While it is possible to notice our approach, it wouldn't provide enough time to mask their infrared signatures out to the distance we arrived from. That was, after all, the reason I precipitated two light minutes from the target.”

“So they could be hulks,” Minu thought aloud. “Let's risk a radar scan.”

Lilith considered it still a risk, but a minor one. An actively crewed ship with functional sensors would have noticed their arrival by now anyway. She swept the area with a single pulse of intense radar and recorded the results. “There are ten distinct ships and the remnants of four more that have been moored together.”

“Did you get enough detail to identify them?” Minu asked.

“Affirmative. Six are Ibeen class transports, three are Eseel gun boats, and one is a Fiisk class heavy cruiser. I cannot yet identify the remnants until we can maneuver around the other ships. They are all in close proximity to each other. All appear like the rest though, ships belonging to The People.”

“How would the supernova have affected them?” Pip asked.

“The radiation wave front would have been intense, even at this distance,” Kal'at commented.

“Agreed. Had they been under power and operational, energy shields would have been sufficient to preserve the crew’s lives. Even with that consideration, the Ibeen would have needed to be abandoned and any crews take refuge about the Eseel and Fiisk class vessels. The Ibeen is a combat transport, but not a warship.”

As she spoke sections of the CIC spherical wall became displays showing the ships in question. Like seemingly all of the long extinct species’ ships, they followed the needle and ball configuration to one extent or another.

The tiny Eseel resembled the shuttles on the Kaatan, only longer and the needle bulged near the end. The display said it was thirty meters long with a crew of five. The Fiisk heavy cruiser was a monster compared to their ship. Three balls in a row were pierced long-ways by three needles, around one in the center. It was over two hundred and fifty meters long and with a crew compliment of fifty, assault forces extra.

And then there were the Ibeens. They were titans, even next to the Fiisk. Six clusters of five balls were grouped around a central shaft along its one and a half kilometer length. There were no needles like on the warships, but the front end of the central shaft narrowed to a point. Minu guessed you could consider it one massive needle. There were several whistles from the humans and hisses of astonishment from the Rasa as the Ibeen was described.

“Why doesn't the big one list a crew?” Cherise asked.

“They are automated,” she explained, “not requiring a crew. The ships can be configured for any job necessary from commercial transport to military assault support to fleet base resupply.”

“A kilometer and a half long ship with no crew?” Aaron said, clearly agog. “There have to be some functions necessary for a biological crew, aren't there?”

“The intelligences loaded into the Ibeen were unique for their purpose, advanced and autonomous. The most advanced the People employed.”

“They wouldn't trust them with warships,” Minu guessed and Lilith confirmed. “So what are all these ships doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“It would appear to have been a convoy,” Lilith explained. “The Eseel were most often employed as escort craft, being noted as unsuitable for line missions by midpoint of the last war. The presence of the Fiisk is unusual.”

They were several minutes closer now. Before she slowed further, Lilith ran another scan. “The four damaged ships are all Kaatan.”

“Refugees from a fight,” Pip surmised. “They ran as far as they could, then stopped here and waited for help.”

“Help that never came,” Cherise almost whispered.

“How many people could those Ibeen hold if they were personnel transports?” Minu asked her daughter.

“Again, it depends on the use. Combat troops, seven thousand each. Military personnel and gear, ten thousand each. Civilians packed in for maximum occupancy, twenty thousand each.”

The numbers added themselves up in her head. Up to 120,000 if the Ibeen had been full of civilians. A thought suddenly occurred to her. Had Chriso sent her after the EPC modules as a rescue mission? Was he here aboard these ships with thousands of members of a species long thought extinct, waiting for her to come to his aid with power sources? The idea seemed ludicrous. Except for one thing...

“Lilith, how many people could be held in those ships in suspended animation?”

“Such an undertaking would have been prohibitively difficult.”

“Indulge me?”

“Very well.” The girl was silent for a moment as she consulted her specifications on the transports. “Perhaps five thousand per ship.”

“Okay.”

Lilith continued to run more powerful scans as they approached. It wasn't until they were less than ten thousand kilometers away that anything happened. “The gunboats are going hot,” she informed them.

“They are manned?” Minu said incredulously.

“It may be an automated response by their combat intelligences. I will attempt to contact them.”

Lilith wasn't really concerned. The gunboats were good combat vessels, but not against the Kaatan. Together the three had roughly half the firepower she had at her disposal. Even before she opened her communications the three needle shapes were spreading out and assuming a defensive posture. She sent out a coded burst with the correct fleet identifier for her ship.

For a long moment there was no response and she was afraid she'd be forced to disable fellow friendly ships. And then they stood down. “We are clear,” she informed her passengers.

“So what now?” Pip asked for everyone.

I wish I knew
, Minu thought. It was pretty obvious her father sent her out because he'd found these ships and knew they had no power. Why else to bring the ship size EPC?

“Do you know if the Fiisk is operational?”

“I have gotten data links with the three gunboats, but none of the other ships respond. They were either coded to remain silent, are in sleep mode, or are inoperable.”

“Start with the gunboats?” Aaron suggested.

“Unlikely,” Minu responded, it wasn't like her father. “Too obvious. Besides, there’s a problem here. Lilith, what would have happened if we didn't have the correct code? You are in communication with the gunboats now, right?”

“Actually, you are in command of them.”

“What?”

“You are designated as a ship's commander. The gunboats were ordered to acquiesce control to the first command-rated biological to enter the solar system. The command codes for all the ships were transmitted as well.”

“Oh,” she said, too surprised to really communicate her feelings. Humanity had a fleet now, albeit a tattered and ancient one.

“Admiral Groves?” Cherise asked, a just noticeable amount of smirk in her voice.

“Drop that shit right now,” she growled back. Boss was bad enough most days; she didn't want admiral catching on.

“Commodore is more appropriate for a squadron,” Lilith interjected. “Lacking a proper composition for a combat fleet, squadron would be a more appropriate designation.”

Minu looked around; even the damn Rasa had their mouths hanging open in an unmistakable reptilian grin. Swell.

“Lilith, query the combat intelligence of the gunboats. What would have happened if we didn't have the correct codes?”

“We are warned off at nine thousand kilometers. Unless the vessels are recognized combatants of an enemy species, warning shots are fired at five thousand kilometers. If vessels do not heave too, they are then fired upon.

Minu nodded. No matter how many howlers her father had pulled out of his hat, there was no way he had fleet operations codes from the People. He would have not been able to board any of the ships. “Lilith, scan the proximity of these ships. Start at five thousand kilometers and extend outwards.”

“What precisely am I looking for, Commodore?”

Minu blanched at the chuckles coming from around the room, then decided the best thing she could do was ignore and hope they stopped. “Anything that stands out.” She could almost see the teenage girl rolling her eyes several decks away. “A message in a bottle.”

“Very well. Performing intense scans, please stand by.”

As Lilith worked, others in the CIC used the ship’s cameras to begin examining the ships that were now only two thousand kilometers away. The Kaatan was coasting up at a leisurely fifty kilometers per second, and slowing. Even from half a continent’s distance away, the Ibeen were large in their view; giant constructs which made the viewer doubt that they could fly through space. But being so big, their damage was more visible.

“They're all chewed up,” Pip noted. He had a linked tablet out where he floated in his customary reclined position and was sorting data with the help of his implant. “All the transports have damage, some severe.”

The view moved to the Fiisk, smaller but still nearly twice the size of the Kaatan. One of its three balls was nearly torn in half, and a huge gouge was bitten from another. The front of one of the three outside needles looked melted.

More amazed sounds came from those in the command center. Finally, as they maneuvered closer, the view of the clustered Kaatan became visible. Minu doubted there was enough left to make one complete ship. Lilith was uncharacteristically silent at the spectacle. Only the three gunboats appeared undamaged.

“There are one hundred and sixty-two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven objects at a distance of five thousand kilometers extending to fifty thousand kilometers. Should I continue outward?”

“No,” Minu said quickly. “What kind of stuff is it?”

“Objects vary greatly, with the majority being debris from the damaged starships at the center of the search area.”

“Okay, rule out that material. Also take out any natural items, asteroids, like that.”