The Cold Steel Mind (20 page)

There had been an urge to start planning for the Hyde’s return there and then, and that had happened to some extent with the Jenlay setting down what they thought the problems were and hearing what the AIs thought of them, but both Speaker and Ella had decided that it would be a good idea for people to engage in a few other activities. The stress was relieved, sure, but there was still a need to relax properly afterwards.

Aneka was not sure that a trip out to the ship graveyard around Negral’s gas giant counted as relaxation, but it was different and it was the kind of thing that Gillian liked doing. Besides which, with the new suits the AIs had provided, Bashford was willing to actually let the archaeologist go out on a field mission in vacuum and it had turned into something of a couple’s event.

Drake and Shannon were handling things on the shuttle they had been given. Slightly larger than the one they had used to hold their meeting, this one was actually a boarding vessel which had been used as transport for refugees from the graveyard. What that really meant was that it had a docking tube designed to latch onto a hull and allow forced entry. Since the ships out there had been sitting in space, unmanned and unpowered, for over a millennium there was a very high probability that they were going to have to force entry. Once that had been achieved, however, the two pilots could sit back in relative comfort to wait for the EVA team’s return. Aneka had absolutely no doubt that Shannon would have Drake out of his suit inside of two minutes; well that was as good a form of relaxation as any.

Gillian, Bashford, Aneka, and Ella were handling the EVA. Bashford and Ella seemed to be looking forward to getting their boss out in a vacuum suit and Aneka wondered how often the archaeologist had to put up with deferring to Ella for the slightly more dangerous circumstances of a hostile environment site. Gillian certainly seemed very keen to get into their chosen target; there was a hint of girlish enthusiasm about her as she watched the great ball of the gas giant with its scudding, dull red clouds grow in the front viewing screen.

The image was entirely false, of course. At this range from a star that gave off essentially nothing in the way of visible light, the giant was in pitch darkness. The only thing illuminating the world and its system of moons, and the far smaller dots of spacecraft still in orbit, was the radar system from the shuttle. However, sensors collected chemical composition data as they closed with the planet, and the on-board computers gave colour where there was no light. And Aneka frowned a little as the first signs of the ships beyond a simple marker appeared on the screen.

‘Does anyone else hear… singing?’

The three Jenlay in the passenger cabin looked at each other. ‘No,’ Ella said. ‘No, uh, singing. What kind of signing?’

‘It’s not quite… Well, signing’s probably the wrong word. It’s like… It sounds crazy but it’s what I’d imagine sirens sound like.’

‘The creature of Greek myth?’ Gillian asked. Aneka nodded. ‘Of course, the myth moved on into space, but no one has ever proved the existence of the Xyriana.’

‘And they will continue to remain unproven,’ Al said. ‘What you’re hearing is the magnetosphere of the planet.’

‘Oh,’ Aneka said aloud. ‘Al says I’m hearing the planet’s magnetosphere.’

‘Sorry,’ Drake said from the forward cabin. ‘I should have mentioned as we moved in. This place has a pretty active radio output. Bash, you’ll want to make sure you’re checking your dosage at regular intervals.’

‘Al, give me a display of everyone’s radiation dose meters,’ Aneka instructed silently. A small bar appeared at the edge of her vision field showing colour-coded numeric values. They were all green and showing zero figures at the moment. ‘I’ve got that,’ she said aloud. Bashford grinned at her.

‘We’re starting to get telemetry on the ships,’ Shannon announced. ‘I’m reading ten… fifteen… twenty-seven… wow!’

The display began to show dots with trails following them showing the orbits of vessels around the planet. It really was a ship graveyard. Hundreds of ships were circling the world, apparently in very stable orbits since they had been there for a millennium.

‘Most of them are small vessels, under a hundred tonnes,’ Shannon commented.

‘With warp drives?’ Aneka asked, surprised.

‘They could build smaller first-generation drives as well as the second-generation ones,’ Gillian explained.

‘So they ran here in whatever they could get their hands on.’

‘That’s what it looks like,’ Shannon agreed.

‘The war had turned against them,’ Gillian said. ‘Human and Herosian forces were hunting down every Xinti they could get their guns on.’

‘And those who knew about this place ran here,’ Aneka finished for her.

‘Some of them in something a bit bigger,’ Shannon said as a schematic of a ship appeared on the screens. The scale indicated something over six hundred metres in length. Weapon turrets decorated the hull along two-thirds of the length and there was what looked like the mouth of a huge gun jutting out from under its sloping prow. ‘Database says it’s a… Mordra Kai-class battleship. Am I pronouncing that right?’

‘Yes,’ Aneka told her. ‘It means “Great Beast.”’

‘As I recall,’ Gillian put in, ‘it was the largest warship they constructed. That main gun was one of the most feared weapons in their arsenal. That one would probably be our best target.’

‘Setting course,’ Drake said. ‘Shannon, give us a tight lidar scan on that one.’

‘I can do a bit better,’ Shannon replied. ‘We’ve got a full array of Xinti sensors here… And it’s not exactly doing us a huge amount of good. The hull on that thing is
thick.
Do you recognise any of these materials?’

‘A laminate of hyper-dense matter and mono-crystalline layers,’ Gillian told her. ‘I think you’re reading the outer layer. Likely some form of degenerate matter like neutronium, which is why you don’t recognise it.’

‘Well there’s no electromagnetic signature. The thing is powered down and dead. I am reading a void in the forward section. Looks like an open hangar bay.’

Drake glanced at one of the displays in front of him. ‘That sounds like our best bet for entry. Correcting course now. Better get ready; we’ll be entering the bay in… three minutes.’

The passenger compartment became a hive of industry as the door to the pilots’ cabin closed. Bashford handed out helmets and Gillian put hers on with a gleeful, rather child-like haste, and Bashford double-checked it though he was grinning as he did so. Aneka checked her equipment, putting her own helmet on last, and then checked that Ella’s gear was properly fitted.

‘I’ve done this before, you know,’ Ella said over the intercom.

‘This is different gear. I just want to be sure it’s set right.’

‘You’re just making a show because Bash is.’

‘Uh-huh. Problem?’

Ella giggled, an odd sound over the radio. ‘No. You can check me over any time you like.’

‘If you two have finished…’ Bashford said.

Aneka gave him a grin, her attention turning to the window on the port side. Lights from the shuttle were playing over the interior of a hangar bay which could have held the Garnet Hyde a few thousand times, but now was entirely empty. The strange song of the gas giant, a strange, almost symphonic tune, the chords winding around each other with a background modulation she could not describe, had been reduced to a whisper by the dense hull of the ship they were entering.

‘I’m reading some old allotropic carbon deposits on sections of the interior hull,’ Shannon told them. ‘Looks like something burned pretty fiercely in here and they never got a chance to clean up.’

‘Fire in a vacuum?’ Aneka asked.

‘It can happen,’ Bashford replied. ‘Burning is an oxidation process. Some fuels can burn without exterior oxygen, or a ship’s internal atmosphere can feed it.’

‘There,’ Gillian said, pointing out a structure on one of the side walls. ‘Drake, do you see that observation window? Must be a traffic control room or something. We can probably breach the hull there.’

‘I see it,’ Drake said and the shuttle slid towards it with no sound of thrusters. Aneka was still not used to the silence of the Xinti reactionless drives, but they were certainly efficient.

‘Getting chemical analysis data,’ Shannon said. ‘The atmosphere’s completely vented within the ship. Oh, and I found the design plans for this beast. I’m transmitting them to your suit computers.’

Al was faster than the Jenlay at handling the data; within a second Aneka had a map in-vision showing the area at the side of the hangar bay and the point they were likely to breach. ‘Looks like you were right, Gillian. That’s the main control room for the bay. The flight deck is forwards about twenty metres and up two decks.’

‘Habitation?’ Gillian asked.

‘Amidships, maybe two hundred metres to the rear.’

‘Given the probability that the bulkhead doors are sealed,’ Bashford mused as he manned the controls for the boarding tube, ‘our best bet for travelling through the ship is probably going to be the bay housing the main gun.’

Aneka nodded, the schematic in her vision field winding out to show the layout of the full vessel. ‘It runs almost the whole length of the ship. My God that thing must have an enormous amount of power.’

‘A three terra-joule gamma-ray laser,’ Al supplied.

‘I’m sure it has,’ Gillian said, ‘and Abraham would probably enjoy it a great deal, but I’m more interested in the living quarters. That’s where we’ll find out about the people.’

‘Xinti aren’t noted for leaving many personal effects,’ Ella put in, ‘but we may find a few things and they’re always fascinating.’

‘A truly undisturbed site is almost unheard of,’ Gillian added. ‘That’s why the Agroa Gar was so important and this ship has been preserved in a vacuum for almost as long.’

Bashford had been busy. ‘We’ve got a good seal. I’m initiating the cutting beams. We should be through in… less than a minute.’ He sounded impressed. ‘The Xinti could really build boarding ships.’

‘Ape would tell stories about their boarding actions,’ Gillian said. Ape was Monkey’s father, the Captain of an Admiral-class battleship and a source of many horror stories about the Xinti. ‘They were embellished over time, of course, but several of these things latching onto your hull, a horde of warrior-body Xinti charging into your ship…’

‘I’ve seen some of the weapons they used back then,’ Aneka added. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to face them.’

‘We’re through,’ Bashford told them. ‘I’m evacuating the compartment. Everyone get ready to enter.’

Aneka saw Gillian’s body tensing. It was not apprehension. ‘How long is it since you’ve done something like this, Gillian?’ she asked.

The archaeologist looked around and gave Aneka a timid grin. ‘A couple of decades. Am I that obvious?’

‘A little. Just let me and Bash go first. Just in case.’

For a brief second Gillian looked like she was going to argue. Aneka could see enthusiasm warring with common sense. Gillian could see that Aneka could see it. ‘I’ll be good,’ she said, her cheeks colouring.

Aneka laughed. ‘Honestly? I hope when I’m over a century I’m still as enthusiastic about what I do for a living.’

The door onto the boarding tube parted and slid open, soundless in the vacuum. ‘Aneka,’ Bashford said and she moved forwards, unsnapping the straps on her holsters.

‘Where’s Bessie?’ Ella asked, noticing the slimmer pistols for the first time. Aneka had decided that two of the machine pistols would be better than one and she was strong enough to control them one-handed.

‘Bessie’s best suited for heavy engagements. These are Bridget and Clara, they’re for precision work. Twelve hundred rounds a minute, five hundred round clip. Muzzle velocity is around three per cent of light speed.’ She moved down the tube, eyes scanning the far end until she was through and clambering over the fallen circle of transparent plastic that was lying in the control room.

‘Uh… That sounds very precise.’

‘They’ll take your eye out; Bessie takes your head off. We’re clear. I’m showing no signs of any electromagnetic radiation in my frequency range.’

Gillian appeared beside her as if by magic; Bashford had, perhaps wisely, allowed her to go ahead of him to at least be second onto the new find. Her gaze swept slowly around the room and then she moved over to one of the dark consoles, running her fingers over the smooth surface.

‘No dust,’ the archaeologist commented. ‘The Agroa Gar had bodies desiccating in it for centuries. This place is clean.’

‘I’ve kind of being trying to avoid thinking about where all the dust came from on the Agroa Gar,’ Aneka commented.

‘Sorry.’

‘All the interior doors are open,’ Ella said.

‘Good,’ Bashford commented. ‘Aneka’s muscles will be pleased. Are we heading straight for habitation?’

‘I don’t think looking at dead control panels will get us far,’ Gillian replied.

‘There should be a vertical access tunnel about forty metres forward,’ Aneka told them. ‘I doubt the lifts are working, but if we turn off the boot grips we can just float down to the spinal mount bay.’

The descent was a simple matter of pushing down the ladder in the tube and they found themselves in a huge, semi-cylindrical chamber containing a metal tube about a metre in diameter. Aneka looked down the length of it from where it exited the hull at the front to where it basically vanished into the perspective in the distance at the rear.

‘That,’ she said, ‘is one big gun.’

‘This is probably just the focussing system,’ Gillian told her. ‘The focal length on gamma-ray lenses tends to be extremely long. The beam generator and amplification system probably takes up less than half of the length of the weapon.’

‘Right. Is there anything you don’t know, Gillian?’

Gillian grinned through her helmet. ‘Many things. The way to the habitation area, for example.’

Aneka grinned back and started towards the stern. ‘It’s this way.’

Another tube with a ladder, this time to be used for pulling up instead of pushing down, brought them up to a maze of corridors. There were doors along many of them with very empty rooms behind them. It seemed that, in most cases, the Xinti who had resided on the ship had left with any belongings they possessed. Gillian and Ella were looking a little disappointed until they reached the medical wing.