Human, page 12
part #1 of Humanity Ascendant Series
Eth was on the verge of challenging the need for custody at all but remembered that she was, technically, a wardu and, therefore, contraband. “What do you intend to do with her?”
“Nothing untoward, I assure you,” he replied sincerely. “No harm will come to her, but we will test her. We will have our answers.”
“Answers to what?”
The Varangian grinned, holding out his right arm in formal greeting. “When we have our answers, Human, you will know the question.”
Eth waved his own right forearm over the alien’s, exchanging contact data. Hjalmar, his implant whispered to his consciousness and he shuddered at the sudden intrusion. This was his first formal introduction as a free citizen. Slaves didn’t get social implants.
The Varangians, though they had, eventually and at massive cost, been conquered and incorporated into the HQE, had never been enslaved. Their uncanny prowess as warriors had earned them the right, not only to avoid enslavement, but also to remain outside the class conventions of the empire. They had kept their naming conventions unsullied by the tags of the lower and slave classes.
“Eth,” the Varangian nodded his head, deliberately omitting any reference to class, which was probably meant as a courtesy. “We will meet again, when we have more to discuss.”
Eth knew he was being told to bugger 0ff but, to be honest, it was done far more politely than he’d done only moments earlier at the bar. Something told him to trust this person, despite his own questions about the unconscious mystery woman. “Very well, Hjalmar,” he replied, finally removing his hand from his sidearm. “I’ll find you next time we’re here.”
He turned and walked away, in no way certain that he’d done the right thing but he didn’t know what else he could have done.
And he was burning to know why the Varangians were so interested in his kind.
What Was That?
M mm!” Eth made a show of sniffing the pellet he’d just dropped onto his platter. “Mystery protein!” He put it into one of the three small ovens that sat between engineering and the bunks. Their little scout ship was finally complete.
Almost.
The oven’s sensors scanned the pellet and emitted a brief blue flash, giving it just the right amount of moisture and energy to reconstitute.
He pulled it out. “Steak!” It resembled a normal steak, which it had been before it got collapsed, except for the half that looked like it had been buried with one of the ancient emperors for use in the afterlife.
He put the plate back in the cycler and, using the desiccated half as a handle took a bite as he walked forward. He stuck his head in the engineering space. “Oven’s still a bit off, Noa.”
“Hey! Is that steak?”
“Some of it is…” Eth carried on up to the bridge. “Anything change in the last eight hours, Edku?”
“Hendy thought he saw a reflection. Was that when you were on with him?” the backup pilot asked.
“No, must have been the second half of his shift.” He stepped back to the tactical cubicle. “You got any data on Hendy’s mystery sighting?”
Oliv brought up a recorded projection. “It was only for a few seconds and then it was gone. It’s consistent with a sizeable vessel but there’s no way to be sure. It’s faint enough to be a glitch but…”
“But it could also be a screen-frigate running picket for a hostile force,” Eth finished for her.
“Has a conflict been declared?”
“Not to my knowledge but, out here, we wouldn’t hear anything until we had warheads inbound anyway.” He took another bite and chewed while staring at the replay.
It could be nothing but he wouldn’t keep his crew alive very long trusting to that kind of assumption. He needed more information.
There were three minor lords out that way with direct borders on the Kwharaz sector. Any one of them might consider probing for weaknesses. Still, the suspected ships were moving the wrong way if they wanted to penetrate the sector.
The trace they had was minimal, almost too close to the margin of error to even call it a vector, but it still looked to be moving along the border between the Kwharaz sector and its unfriendly neighbors.
“Assuming it’s a real vector, extend it for me so we can see where it’s headed.”
Oliv selected the icon for the contact and extended a line along its estimated path. “I wouldn’t want to bet on being able to intercept using this,” she warned.
“That’s fine, Oliv. I just want to get us close enough for a better look. You listening, Ed?”
“I got nothing else to entertain me.”
“I want us to stay between that projected course and the local star. Start moving us in closer.”
“Won’t we be easy to spot if the sun’s behind us?”
“If we were a frigate or a cruiser, sure.” Eth nodded toward the stern. “This gal’s not much bigger than a shuttle. The algorithms in their sensors’ll scrub us out, assuming we’re just random noise.”
“Eth,” Glen spoke up, “should I signal the fleet and let them know we’re gonna move off-station?”
“Not yet. Even with a narrow beam, we risk some of it bouncing off one of our ships and getting picked up. We’ll see what’s out there first.”
Ed pushed them forward at ninety percent acceleration. With no visible frame of reference, they might have been sitting still. The boredom set back in. The mild excitement of having maybe seen something soon faded as they got farther and farther from their assigned station.
And then it paid off.
Eth thought he saw faint twinkles of light.
“Multiple contacts!” Oliv called out. “Ninety-eight by fifteen by point six-seven – holding station at those coordinates. I’m getting a main body of five larger ships and six smaller contacts around them. Estimate as a squadron-size raiding force – cruisers with a frigate screen. That initial contact must have been on picket.”
“Check the Orbat,” Eth told her, trying not to lean over her shoulder. He was going to talk to Noa about getting rid of these cubicles. He couldn’t even remember why they’d decided to partition the bridge crew like this. It was probably just left in some old coding.
“No friendlies in the area,” she confirmed from the order-of-battle list.
“Sound general quarters,” Eth told the system. “Glen, now we contact the Dibbarra . Get the summary from Oliv and fire it off as fast as you can. We need to bring our force into contact with these guys.”
Mishak had eighteen ships at his disposal. With surprise on his side, he should be able to make short work of the interlopers.
M ishak walked onto the bridge to find Captain Rimush moving sideways past the tactical holo. “Report.”
“Sire, a scouting report indicates a five-cruiser force with a six-frigate screen sitting in our territory. We have no friendlies in the area.”
“Then they need a kick in the teeth!” Mishak rubbed his hands together. “Which captain found them?”
“Not a captain, Sire, a warrant officer.” He had no need to say more. Most of their scouts were frigates – a captain’s command. The one exception was Eth and his Human-designed scout-ship.
“It would seem our experiment was a success,” Mishak observed. “You’ve been fighting for a long time, Captain,” he continued in a low voice. “My father speaks very highly of your abilities so I have no qualms about leaning on your experience. What would you recommend?”
Rimush’s posture, usually a picture of military correctness, somehow managed to draw him up by at least another inch in height at this statement. “Immediate attack, Sire. We bring the cruisers straight down their throat in a reverse-hemi formation and coordinate the path-shift to put our frigates on their starboard beam. Catch ‘em in a crossfire.”
“Sounds good.” Mishak’s eyes glinted. He could feel Rimush’s enthusiasm for the coming fight and it was infectious. “Perhaps we can get in close enough so we come out of path with our guns charged. Hit ‘em with slugs and warheads!”
“Aye, Sire!” Rimush’s approval wasn’t feigned. “We can get some much-needed experience for our crews out of this.” He turned to his staff, ensuring the plan was being coordinated with the other captains.
T hat’d be the fleet,” Eth said, seeing all the twinkling lights as their ships dropped out of path around the enemy. “Move us in, Ed. Let’s see if we can help.”
“Oh, sure,” Oliv chimed in. “Our dinky little pop-gun oughta scare the hells out of… Who are we fighting, anyway?”
“Don’t know,” Eth replied calmly, “and I don’t care. They shouldn’t be sitting out there so we’re gonna shoot at them.”
There was a bright flash of plasma. None of the eye-searing brilliance one sees after a drop out from a long path. It was a short jump.
“Two of the enemy contacts have broken off and micro-pathed to get behind our fleet,” Oliv warned. “One cruiser and one frigate.”
They could just sit and wait, he knew. They’d done what they were supposed to do. They’d found an enemy force and they’d guided the main body into combat with it. In the after-battle assessment, there would be a nod from Mishak for doing exactly as expected.
Eth frowned, watching the two ships grow larger in their cockpit windows. Nobody ever lasted in this business by doing what was expected .
“Oliv, rig for combat and lock your pop-gun on that cruiser.”
“Rigging for combat,” she replied, and all the helmets snapped shut, “but you realize our first shot will light us up. They’ll have their secondaries firing at us in half a heartbeat. That’s assuming they don’t pick up the initial heat-loss from our reconfig before we fire.”
The last of their air was pumped into storage and hatches along the sides grew open to space.
“That’s why this is Ed’s great moment!” Eth grinned, slapping the pilot on the shoulder. “He’s going to show those douche-nozzles what maneuverability can do for close-in combat.”
Hendy came forward with a block of nanites. He slapped it onto the front of Eth’s suit and it flowed into place across the bottom of the breastplate. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re now an official damage-control auxiliary.” He climbed into the co-pilot seat.
“We’re close enough for gunnery,” Oliv advised. “If you can even call it that with only one gun… What the hells took you so long?” The last was directed to Lil, her second-shift counterpart. They’d decided that, during combat, both shifts should report to duty stations rather than stand around waiting to repair damage.
“Let’s get in a little closer.” Eth gripped a stanchion, as though expecting the ship to lurch out of the way of fire at any moment. “I don’t want them getting any more warning of an incoming round than absolutely necessary.”
“It’ll also leave us less time to fret over their return fire as well.” Oliv chuckled darkly. “So we’ve also got that going for us! No, I’ll stay on weapons,” she told Lil. “You take sensors.”
“Speaking of sensors,” Lil said, looking up to catch Eth’s eye, “we’re a stealthy little ship, but even we can’t stay hidden much longer at this range. They’re bound to pick up the gravitational signature of our drives any second now.”
“Alright, Oliv.” Eth turned to look out the front. “Give ‘em an ass-full of nanites!”
“Firing on the cruiser!”
Eth shuddered as the railgun howled. Its frequency never failed to elicit a sliver of primal fear. Even Oliv refrained from comment, other than to report rounds-complete.
“Emergency evasive!” he shouted at the pilot and the two enemy ships immediately slipped out of view.
“Some inbound secondary rounds now,” shouted Lil, “and I’m reading a spike in both ships… It’s not for their guns.” She shook her head. “They’re charging their main engines!”
“They’re running?” Eth couldn’t believe it. “Must be another micropath…” No, he knew they were leaving. They were all leaving.
“Firing!” Oliv shouted.
“Impact from our first round!” Liv announced. “The nanite mass penetrated and it’s active. I’m reading… Holy hells!” She pounded the bulkhead beside her output screen. “The energy spike just dissipated throughout the ship! It looks like one of those nanite spears cut into the main bus. That ship’s dead in the black!”
“Their secondaries are still active.” Eth leaned toward the pilot. “Ed, better…”
“Mass-separation!” Lil shouted. “Mass-sep from the frigate. Possible warheads showing on the trace!”
Eth’s blood ran cold. They may have an advantage over the single, micro-sized pitch-drive in a warhead but a brace of warheads had the combined hive-computing power to box them in and wipe them out. Oddly, Eth remembered the order he’d been about to give Ed but now it was for a new reason and not the obvious one.
“Ed, back us off from the targets, fast as she’ll move!”
He wasn’t concerned about their ability to evade the limited event-horizon of the warheads. He was worried about secondary explosions from their target.
“The warheads are converging on the cruiser.” Lil cast a quick glance at Oliv. “They’re shifting. The frigate is in-path. They’re gone!”
A dark sphere seemed to appear in the cruiser’s bow, the hull and supporting structure crumpling and shredding into the darkness. A second and third sphere appeared farther back and the center of the ship was gone in the blink of an eye. The last two spheres joined, their combined effect also pulling the first sphere aft.
Eth and the crew watched in silence. Though they’d been shooting at the cruiser only a few seconds ago, they shared all crewmen’s universal hatred of singularity weapons. Being thrown from a shattered hull to die in the void was nothing compared to the soul-sucking beast currently devouring the enemy ship.
The three spheres had joined into one large malevolent rift and the remainder of the enemy cruiser fell into it. A threshold was passed and the inbound mass destabilized the artificially created phenomenon. With the shaky equilibrium gone, the contents were released as energy.
“Brace!” Eth shouted.
The expanding front hit them, but there were few parts of the original ship that hadn’t already been consumed. A few small pieces pattered against their hull and most of the radiation was easily handled by the bow, though some bled in through the open sides. Eth felt a mild vibration and he looked down to find that he still held the remains of his steak. It was sizzling silently in the deadly energy. He dropped it with a shudder.
Fortunately, he’d thought to back away. Doubling their distance from the origin of the blast cut the radiation levels to a quarter of the original total and they’d already quadrupled their original distance, cutting exposure to just over six percent of the original.
He watched his steak curling up on the floor between the pilots. The radiation levels would have been more than enough to overpower their suits if they hadn’t backed off. They’d have left nothing more than charred remains and an empty ship for a new Human crew to inhabit.
“Main body of the enemy fleet’s bugged out as well,” Lil announced. “Flagship’s demanding a status report and they signal no severe damage to the fleet.”
“Why’d they do that?” Hendy turned to look up at Eth. “They killed their own guys. Are they that reluctant to surrender to Humans?”
“They don’t know we’re Humans,” Ed countered.
“We could’ve scavenged a ton of useful gear from their ships,” Oliv groused. “We would have observed the forms regarding the crew.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Eth said before he realized he was thinking it. Still, it explained a lot. “Maybe they don’t want us talking to that crew and finding out where they came from or, more damning, who gave them their orders.”
Oliv cursed. “Is it just me, or is this just the same job we used to do, except on a larger scale?”
Eth gave her a wan smile. “Welcome to politics in the HQE!”
“You figure they were sent here to make it look like the neighbors are getting frisky?” She frowned. “Seems a little too convoluted.”
“In this case,” he countered, “it’s the simplest explanation. They destroyed that cruiser to maintain secrecy. If it really was the neighboring lords, they wouldn’t screw around with secrecy, they’d attack outright and seize what they could. If you want to turn us against them, then you try to give an impression of an attack.”
“Yeah,” Noa interrupted, stepping into the crowded cockpit, “that’s all great stuff, but we have bigger fish to fry.”
Everyone turned in alarm.
“Our ship just saved our collective hides,” Noa went on, “and she still doesn’t have a name. That’s just bad joss.”
A few muttered insults were thrown as they visibly relaxed but they were all said with smiles.
“How about the Crispy Lunch Platter ?” Ed offered, picking up the tiny black curl that used to be Eth’s steak.
“The Snitch, ” Glen insisted.
“I got it,” Oliv announced, stepping out of her cubicle. “Your Last Chance !”
Ed was the first to get it. “Imagine hailing some dumb bastard! Unidentified vessel, this is Your Last Chance! They’d be so damned confused!”
They all laughed, glad of the release after the adrenaline rush of the last few moments. It trailed off into chuckles and the occasional snort. A few heads tilted, thoughtful.
“Hmm,” Eth looked at Oliv. “That works for me.”
“That’s gonna get confusing,” Noa grumbled.
“Not within a friendly fleet,” Eth countered. “We’d be in the ORBAT files and who gives a pile of fresh droppings about an enemy being confused?”
Noa stumped off back to his engines. “Should’ve left well enough alone…”
After Action
E th stopped just outside the door to the Dibbarra’s ready room and turned to two of the Human petty officers who’d been recruited, along with their teams, to shore up the crews of Mishak’s fleet.
