Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) (20 page)

-34-

Director Vogel was obtuse, as usual.

“About time you asked my advice,” he said. “If these ships are under the control of variant pilots, I’ll get them to talk to us.”

“How?” I asked.

He waggled a thin finger at me.

“With a clever application of keywords. They speak a dialect of Standard that’s subtly different from our own. It’s not binary, don’t get that idea, it’s a more precisely functional version of our communication. Let me demonstrate.”

I was reluctant to open a channel and let him say whatever he wished, but given the situation, I doubted things could get worse.

“Open the channel for him, Yamada.”

She did, and Director Vogel smugly stepped up to the filament-cameras. Hanging down from the roof, they glowed with a bluish light. They followed his every motion like hair-thin snakes.

“Identification protocol,” he stated. “Director Vogel, Earth system, Phobos complex. Acknowledge.”

There was nothing in response. He repeated the statement several times, becoming agitated. He tugged at his clothing, but since it was made of smart fabrics, his collar and sleeves quickly slid back into position.

“I don’t understand it,” Vogel said. “This should work. They should feel an almost irresistible urge to respond in kind and identify themselves.”

I shrugged, and Vogel kept trying to reach them.

After the fourth attempt, Yamada signaled me. She wanted to know if we should close the channel.

“Director Vogel,” I said, “I think we should try something—”

“Sparhawk?” the speakers boomed suddenly. We all jumped. It was the voice I knew as Zye’s voice—but that meant little. Because Betas were all clones they all sounded the same.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Are you Sparhawk?” the voice demanded again.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m Captain William Sparhawk.”

“Why do you have this mental deficient calling us? Did you hope to hide behind him? Did you hope we wouldn’t know who you really were?”

At the reference to being a mental deficient, Vogel ruffled. “I demand to know who’s piloting the ships in our wake!” he said.

I cast him a dark glance and waved him away from the cameras. Two security people quickly escorted him off the deck.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said when I stood in the central position, my face lit up with a slightly bluish cast by the twisting vid pickups. “That was one of our scientists. We thought you were—well—we thought you were someone else.”

“You’re talking about those machines, aren’t you?” the voice asked.

Whoever she was, this individual wasn’t showing herself.

“Why are you so afraid?” I asked, deliberately needling her. “Betas are always paranoid, but this time you’re more so than the last time I visited this system.”

The response was very sudden. An angry face loomed on the forward holo screen.

“Ignorant Basic!” she said. “I’m no Beta, I’m an Alpha. You’d best remember that.”

“Captain Okto?” I asked. “Is that you?”

“You remember? Good. I want you to know who destroys your ship. I want you to feel fear and rage as your decks split apart under your Earthling ass.”

“Tempers are flaring,” I said as calmly as I could. “I would suggest that we’re wasting our energies on each other. We should be presenting a united front to stop the real menace—”

“Which one?” she asked. “The Stroj or that war-fleet full of robots you sent out blindly into space? How can you suggest alliance when you created both these threats? Do you take us for utter fools?”

“Not at all,” I said, “and you do have a valid complaint when it comes to the variants.”

“We have more than that. You Basics are responsible for everything that’s wrong with the colonies. We understand that now. You seeded us, abandoned us, and now you seek to destroy us. Could your motivations be whimsy or idiocy? Does it matter which it is?”

“Captain Okto,” I said, “I know you’re upset. I’m sure the variants have done grievous damage—”

“SHUT UP SPARHAWK!” she raged. “A million Betas have perished. A dozen proud starships have been lost… I’m only glad you’ve provided us with this chance to even the score.”

She closed the channel. Try as we might, she didn’t allow it to reopen.

“Well,” Vogel said from behind me, where he’d crept back onto the deck, “that could have gone better.”

I felt rage bubble up in me, but I didn’t release it. There was no purpose. What was done was done. A potentially allied world—probably the best ally we could have hoped for—had declared a vendetta against us.

That was the legacy of Earth’s dealings with her colonies. The arrogance of the Council and the Chairman had no bounds.

Did they really think the colonists were going to forget these acts? If these peoples out here among the stars ever got their strength together, if they ever managed to gather their scattered numbers and turn against us…

We wouldn’t stand a chance.

That was the thought which transfixed me. In an instant, I felt I understood what was going on—or at least part of it.

Whirling on my heel, I approached Vogel with such singleness of purpose he staggered back, suspecting I was going to strike him. In truth, such a thing did briefly cross my mind.

“Vogel, come with me.”

I brushed past him and headed for the conference chamber. He followed, muttering to himself.

When we were alone, I set up a scrambler and began to talk in earnest.

“I understand what’s going on out here now,” I said.

“You do?” he asked cautiously.

“Yes. I want to know if you understand it as well.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Captain,” he said. “Please remember I’m only a weak-minded fool.”

I blinked then realized he was still furious that his intellect had been called into question by Okto. I brushed his concerns away with my hand.

“Grow up, man,” I told him. “An Alpha called you an idiot. So what?”

“When it comes to comparative intellects—”

“Drop it,” I told him. “We have much bigger concerns.”

“Why?” he asked. “We’re going to slide right past these ships. They said themselves they lost half their fleet to the variants. That lowers the odds they’ll be ahead of us waiting for us in ambush.”

“I’m not talking about the Betas. I’m talking about the variants and their mission. They’re out here to destroy every colony they encounter.”

“We knew that.”

“Yes… but we didn’t know why. Not until now.”

He blinked at me. “Your discussion with Okto gave you an insight into the motivations of my variants?”

“In a way, she did just that. The variants aren’t rebels. The variants are obedient, as always. It’s my belief this case is no different, that they’re following their orders.”

He frowned and squirmed. “That’s absurd. Why would Admiral Halsey order them to mutiny and kill him?”

I gave him a slow, grim smile. “The variants have implants—right, Director?”

He paused, staring at me. “Yes… for all intents and purposes, they do.”

“Just so. Now, who do you think might have the power to reprogram all your variants at once, without your knowledge?”

“But why…?” he asked. “You believe we did this to ourselves? Such a horrible thought.”

“I think the Council did it, yes. The Chairman specifically. He tricked the variants, or changed their memories, or something. He turned them against Star Guard and against all our colonies. He sent them out here to destroy them all.”

“That’s monstrous,” Vogel said. “Genocide? On an interplanetary scale? Why?”

I leaned toward him. “Now you’re right where I am. It’s one thing to suspect a crime, it’s quite another to have a sensible motive that makes everything fit. Now, at last, I think I understand.”

“Explain it to me then.”

“When Okto raged at us, I realized that Earth wouldn’t stand a chance against all our colonies in a united war. Despite having the largest fleet, we couldn’t stop all of them put together.”

Vogel looked horrified. “So… so we struck first? Out of fear?”

“Fear? Maybe that’s the right word. I was there when the Council voted to act. To build a great fleet and launch it into the stars. It was my understanding that the purpose of the fleet was to bring order to the chaos that our colonies represented. But they had a different view.”

Vogel was nodding now. I could tell he’d come to see things my way. I could also tell he didn’t like it.

“Monstrous,” he repeated.

“A fair description,” I agreed. “The Council figured Earth couldn’t fight every colonist out here if they were united, so Earth struck first. That way, they could take the colonies down one at a time in a long series of battles. Each time the armada ventured to a new star, our fleet would be bigger than the enemy fleet as long as the colonies stayed divided.”

“I think you might be right, Captain. The variants will never be defeated if they move quickly and ruthlessly enough.”

Vogel said this, again with a hint of pride. I could forgive him for that, even if others wouldn’t.

“One detail that I haven’t understood,” I said, “is why they killed Halsey.”

“Maybe that was an error,” Vogel suggested. “Or maybe he didn’t like the change of orders. The variants might have misinterpreted his reluctance to follow orders from Star Guard.”

“Misinterpreted? Their instructions were illegal and those instructions probably only existed within the minds of the variants. I find it likely that the Council intended for the human crews to die. They would only get in the way when the killing began in earnest. Variants have no conscience, do they?”

Vogel studied his hands. “It’s hard to know… but then, neither does the Council.”

“What I
do
know,” I said, “is that the Council sent me to meet
Victory
in battle when she came toward Earth. Maybe something had gone wrong by that point. Maybe
Victory
wasn’t supposed to return to the Solar System at all.”

Vogel shook a finger at me. “That’s got to be it. The variants might be—troubled by all this.”

“By ‘troubled’ do you mean completely mad?”

“Possibly. I don’t know how they might respond to a radical shift in their world-view. They aren’t human—not quite. The Council may have miscalculated. They may have accidentally put Earth on the menu.”

“That scenario fits the events I’ve witnessed,” I said. “Halsey was sent off to die, but I was allowed to live with
Defiant
under my command in orbit over the home world.”

“I suppose that’s a backhanded form of compliment,” Vogel said, his lips twitching into a smirk.

“Yes…” I agreed. “Then we gave them a second chance at both of us. What better reason to kill us, or make us vanish, could there be than an unsanctioned attack on CENTCOM? But even after all that, they let us out of prison.”

Director Vogel chewed that over. “Our release wasn’t on account of any kind-heartedness on the part of the oldsters, of that much I’m certain. It was a reaction to stark fear. They must have calculated that they still needed us.”

“Perhaps they see us as fail-safes. A method of shutting down the variants when their mission has been completed, and they begin to return home.”

Vogel agreed, and we both sat brooding over our next move.

The idea of defending the Council with my life and the lives of my crew bothered me, but then so did the prospect of leaving Earth undefended. They had me boxed in. For now, I was forced to do my utmost to protect everyone on Earth—whether they deserved it or not.

“We have to continue the mission,” I said, “even if it plays into the Council’s hands.”

“Agreed,” Vogel said. “Those bastards don’t deserve our loyalty, but what else can we do?”

We broke up the meeting and returned to our posts. Both of us were a little wiser, but we were by no means comforted by these new thoughts.

-35-

Okto pursued me doggedly. As we got closer to the next breach in the sequence Admiral Perez had written for us, it became increasingly clear she wouldn’t be able to catch up.

Still, it wasn’t going to be for a lack of trying. The acceleration arc of her ship was such that it might have killed a normal human crew. Her people were enduring tremendous physical challenges to pursue us.

Only when we approached the breach did the true nature of her plans begin to become clear.

“We’ll have to slow down, Captain,” Rumbold said. “This breach is bouncing all over the place.”

I strode to his side, checked the measurements and then moved to Durris’ planning table.

“Why weren’t we aware of this previously?”

He shrugged. “You can’t get good readings on a breach when you’re several AUs away. The radiation signatures are too faint. But Rumbold is right, this breach is unstable. It’s liable to shift a thousand meters every few minutes. If we approach with too much velocity—”

“We’ll be unable to make a course correction in time and shoot right past it,” I finished for him. “Damn it... Okto knew this all along. She knew that this had to be the breach we were heading for as it’s the only one out here. Further, she had to know we couldn’t detect how unstable it was. She’s going to catch up when we slow down.”

Durris nodded helplessly. He knew I wasn’t interested in apologies. I valued results, so he didn’t offer any phantom solutions.

“Hmm…” I said, pacing the deck. We were no longer accelerating, but coasting along in preparation for entering the breach.

“Captain?” Durris asked. “I’ve plotted a new set of maneuvers. If we begin braking now—”

I shook my head, and he fell silent.

“I’m thinking,” I said, “what velocity are you estimating Okto will reach when she hits the breach?”

“If we begin to slow down now, she’ll be moving about twenty percent faster than we are currently.”

“Isn’t she slowing down as well?”

“No,” Durris admitted, checking his instruments to confirm his answer. “She’s not. I can only assume she knows this breach-point’s behavior pattern. She’s predicting a point where they can make a high-speed entry.”

“Ah-ha!” I said, daring to give him a tight smile. “Let’s match her course precisely then. We can certainly project it—she must be blazing along after us at full burn.”

Durris shook his head sadly. “No Captain, I tried that. She’s making random course variations. At first I thought she was worried we might have left mines in our wake, but now I believe she’s trying to hide her exact course.”

“So we can’t match it…” I said, deflating.

“Exactly.”

“All right then. We’ll have to take a risk. To be eighty percent certain we’ll hit the target, how much would we have to slow down?”

Durris turned back to his boards, frowning. He sighed when he’d finished.

“We have to begin slowing right now to achieve that goal. Every minute that passes is increasing the odds of a high-speed miss by about one percent.”

This news alarmed me. “We’re at eighty percent? Right now?”

“Seventy-nine.”

“There’s no way to rectify this?”

“We could perform an emergency deceleration, but there will be injuries. Further, we’ll be at their mercy when they catch up to us.”

“Apply the brakes. Get us to eighty percent.”

He turned to his boards and all around us crewmen began strapping in and bracing themselves.

I made an announcement over the ship’s com system to the entire crew. “All hands, get to an acceleration couch! We’re going to be braking hard. This is no drill—you have seconds in which to comply!”

The pain began soon afterward. The lights on the command deck went yellow, then orange, then red. The ship was built to withstand this kind of abuse, but the humans aboard weren’t. I found myself wishing Zye were here with us. She’d always been able to withstand more Gs than the rest of us. In a way, she belonged aboard
Defiant
more than any other crewmember as the ship had been built by her people, for her physique.

Pressed back into my seat with terrific force, I was close to blacking out when I suddenly shook myself. I’d almost begun dreaming. The pressure—it was too much.

“Ease off,” I ordered. “Rumbold? Ease off!”

Rumbold didn’t respond. Durris grunted, crawling hand over hand along the railing toward the helm. He was trying to follow my orders. I waved him back and slid out of my swiveling chair. I was much closer to the goal than he was.

The full pressure of heavy deceleration brought me to my knees. Humans could withstand high G forces with proper support, but only for short periods of time. We’d been on full thrust for too long. The oppressive force from braking had begun to mess with our guts and play with our minds.

Managing to crawl to Rumbold’s station, I killed the thrusters, returning them to a relatively mild one-point-five rate. We were still sick and heavy, but we were able to function.

All over the ship, people had lost consciousness. Several of my command crew were lolling in their seats.

“Durris,” I grunted out as I crept back to my chair, “what are our odds now?”

“I can’t get back to my tabletop to check…” he said from the deck. He was lying flat on his back, his breathing labored. “…sorry Captain.”

“It’s all right,” I said, “we’ll make it, or we won’t. Rest until you’re fit to resume your duties. We’ll know the outcome soon enough.”

“Breach in thirty seconds,” the ship’s computer said. We’d recently taught it to talk when we were back at Araminta Station. “Acceleration rate non-standard.”

No shit
, I thought to myself vaguely. I’d made it back to my chair, but I was envying Durris who was still flat on his back.

With an effort, I swiveled my attention to the forward screen. The anomaly was right there, dead ahead. Undetectable to the human eye without instruments, we had many names for these twisted patches of space-time. Wormholes, warp-fields, ER bridges…

That was all I had time to think about before the anomaly loomed, and we went into the final plunge.