The Chronicles of Theren, page 63
“Don’t you die on me now,” Raith said, eying Carter’s ship. “Not now. Not after everything.” He only had one choice. If he was to win with honor, as Carter requested, he couldn’t let the man die out here in the cold void. After placing the Vindicta in a low power state, with just enough juice to keep itself oriented alongside the Bloodhound, Raith slipped out of his sled-like cockpit and into the open vacuum of space. “Forty-five minutes before the next racer reaches us. Plenty of time.”
From the side of the Vindicta popped a tiny compartment, filled to the brim with emergency supplies. He grabbed everything he thought necessary to handle exterior repairs before preparing to leap. Using the tiny thrusters installed in his body, Raith jetted across the tiny expanse between the two craft, reaching his friend’s hull in a matter of seconds. With a gentle thud, he stepped onto its side, and he magnetized his feet to its cold steel armor. Slowly, carefully, he walked along its outer edge searching for something—anything—to diagnose the damage to the ship.
And there it was.
A jagged edge of ridged carbon-steel fractured deep into the ship’s hull. Raith’s additional visual sensors revealed the tiny escape of gas into vacuum, meaning the Bloodhound was quickly losing atmosphere. He could only hope Carter was inside, utilizing emergency life-support to keep himself active and conscious. Raith could do his part. He could fix this.
Leaning over, he grabbed the metal and pulled, thrusting it out and away from his friend’s ship. The release of gas increased, though if he understood the ship’s build correctly, the air escaping should be from a tiny external bubble in the wall designed to handle vacuum breaches. An initial breach released the atmosphere in the outer layer first, giving any crew or computer systems a few precious extra seconds to both prepare for a full breach or to section off the outer layer in time.
Before he patched the outer hull with his emergency pack, though, he peered through the gap, seeing the real problem. The shrapnel had sliced a power cable—most likely a cord central to regulation of the entire ship’s electric system.
Fortunately, every ship’s emergency pack came prepared to fix power cable failures.
From the pack strapped to his torso, Raith pulled a massive pod of conductive gunk. The patch would only work for a few days, but Carter only needed a few days. Finding the severed cable, he laced the gunk between the two cables, careful to release the gunk and place the wire into it, rather than touch the gunk the moment electricity began coursing through the ship’s system again.
Satisfied with his work, Raith pulled out a canister of nano-mist. The little robots would do just the trick. Bringing the nozzle right to the open gash, he sprayed, and it took only a few seconds for the tiny bots to recognize the problem and begin weaving a new barrier across the ship’s hull. After releasing all of the contents of the bottle, Raith stepped back. Moments later, the wound healed.
“Carter, you better be alive in there,” Raith said, activating his body’s local connection. There—inside the ship—a network was reforming. Not waiting for permission, Raith pushed his way inside, searching for the Bloodhound’s diagnostics.
“God damn it, Raith,” came a voice. Carter’s.
“I didn’t take you for the religious type.” Raith leapt from the ship and jetted back to the Vindicta.
“I was fine. I had it under control. I was doing the repairs.”
“You’d have never been able to do the spacewalk like me.”
“I was suited up, ready to head outside.”
“Well I saved you the trouble. Those things are so cumbersome anyway.”
“You could have won, Raith.” A slight pause. A labored breath. “You should have won.”
“I still might.”
Another pause. “Except I’m already back in my pilot’s seat, friend.”
“If it means you live,” Raith said, “I’m willing to lose.”
He shut off the connection as he reached the Vindicta. It was time to reunite with the lovely ship, integrating his mind back into its framework. He glanced back at the Bloodhound, watching its thrusters come to life. He hadn’t been able to save Erika and Donyi, but at least Carter survived his tribulation.
Opening the Vindicta, Raith positioned himself so his back faced the ship and his face stared down upon the rocky behemoth below. As he linked within the ship, he spared the seconds to consider the abomination blocking the racecourse.
It drifted on its inexorable, unknowable course, its edges vibrating as if . . . as if breathing.
Breathing.
No.
Raith watched, beat for beat, the rhythmic and consistent bleat of the massive creature. For it was alive, breathing in and out consistently like any living being might when asleep.
Impossible.
Its skin, rocky and coarse, shimmered with glimmers of emerald along its ridges. As it floated along the stellar wind, the creature cared not for what was in its way. Like a star, it simply existed, living and dying according to its own timeline.
Olive was right—they were all infinitesimal in scale when compared to the reality of the universe. Yet she was also wrong. Raith stared upon the creature, recognizing a new truth. Without humanity, without their synthetic counterparts, without the ability to love, to hate, to perceive a creature such as this—to perceive the entirety of the universe—the universe would never know itself. Raith was a part of the universe, observing the discrete parts and the whole. Observing this creature as it floated by, living its life oblivious to the petty squabbles of corporations and nation-states. And it surely observed too, probably not even knowing puny little creatures just scratched its skin.
What did it think? Did it float along, finding planets to devour? Or did observe stars, charting their paths?
The Vindicta closed around Raith, the augmented sensors of the ship returning to his perceptions. He wanted to sit there, staring upon the majestic animal flying by. But a few dozen meters away, the Bloodhound blazed to life, its thrusters active.
Raith reactivated his own ship, trailing close behind Carter. Seconds later, his friend initiated Jump. The massive creature continued its inexorable breathing path.
And it vanished.
No. What? Impossible. He stared in disbelief, replaying the images in his mind. Not vanished—just . . . Jumped. It could Jump, using some unknown, natural process to pass distances on its own. Creeping dread—and awe—clung to the inner nodes of Raith’s mind.
No more time to waste. He mimicked Carter and the creature, Jumping to begin the race anew.
“After everything, after absolutely everything, after talking about winning as the only thing that mattered, you took the moment to save Carter, rather than ensure your victory?”
Bonta had asked the question at least four times over the past half-day. Side-by-side, the Vindicta and Bloodhound dove toward the finish line. Raith kept a constant line of communication open to Carter, periodically checking in on the man to ensure the repairs were holding. He’d kept his words to the crew sparse. His mind was partially out of focus, worried about Carter, but more so, his mind kept contemplating the phantom behemoth. The word—behemoth—was the best description he could come up with for it.
“I told you, Bonta, all of it was worth it,” Raith said. “Just wait until I show you the images in my mind of the thing that blew apart the pack.”
“But you could have won!”
“I, for one,” said Harrison, “think what you did was very admirable. Useless, because as you told us, Carter was ready to repair his own ship, but still admirable.”
“Thank you Harrison,” Raith retorted. “I’m glad you appreciate my actions, unlike someone.”
“Oh shove it.”
“Bonta, I can hear your respect from here. I know you think I did the right thing.”
“Maybe.”
“Admit it!”
“No, now—” The connection disappeared.
“Bonta?”
Nothing.
“Harrison?”
Nothing.
Raith readjusted his communications channels. “Carter?”
“I’m here,” said the man. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve lost connection to Bonta and Harrison,” Raith said. He checked their metrics—another light-year-and-a-half remained until the finish line. A little less than a day.
“Heaven forbid you fly without your crew for a second.”
“Carter, no jokes. You know how on edge I am after losing the twins.” Raith queued in a few requests for external channels from the Hub, but nothing responded. Strangely, the connection through the Hub between him and Carter continued, but no other queries responded. “Are you getting any data from beyond QuanCom’s system?”
“Let me check. No. Wait—other than our connection, I’m still receiving data on the state of racers behind us. I’ve also got a ping on the emergency vessels dispatched to assess the rest of the debris for any other survivors. We’ve still got our opponents a half-hour behind, but . . .”
Raith considered the options. If they were connected through the Hub, that meant it was still active and transmitting information through its internal data relationships. But if external connections to it were cut, especially to the racing crews . . .
“I don’t think this is a race anymore,” Raith said. “Something’s happened. Olive said this was a war. The Conglomerate has had its eyes on—well, everything—since we started. And who the hell knows what else is going on. If they’re jamming external the Hub . . .”
“Then QuanCom is under attack. I’d guess the Conglomerate. They’ve had enough. All entertainment for the past year has focused on us. You always said they were probably connected to the Venus Vacation Conglomerate, yeah? Maybe the race is finally hurting their bottom line. Why not cut it at the source?”
“You really think they’d stoop that low?”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
“What about the race?”
Raith pulled up a few calculations. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s give them a final show.”
Less than a light second before they reached the finish line, the Vindicta and Bloodhound dropped out of Jump. A little over ten thousand kilometers separated the duo from the end.
“So how the hell are we going to time this?” Carter’s voice came through loud and clear over the now local network.
“You just do your thing, fly boy, and I’ll match you. I’m the synth. I can do it.”
Their ships danced, twirling through space along vectors designed to entice. The final checkpoint, the one they’d crossed to finish each of the nine laps before, rested smoothly above the ecliptic of S-1022, and—
Data streamed in from throughout the star system, revealing the inferno beneath the final stretch of the course. Ships blared distress signals from a dozen different orbitals, all indicating the emergency engulfing the star. QuanCom’s special station? Practically in flames.
“Carter,” Raith said. “I don’t think anyone’s watching us.”
Only a few minutes separated them from completing the inaugural Five Hundred Light-year Classic.
“Carter, you hearing me?”
“Yeah, I’m hearing you. I see it. So someone attacked. Whether it’s the Conglomerate or something else entirely, I’m not sure there’s any way for us to know right now.”
Raith turned his scopes on the finish. His sensors detected nothing. But if he were an enemy, hoping to capture a prey, he’d go right where he knew they’d be. And if they were still planning on stealing the ship at the end, the finish line made the most sense. “We need to quit.”
“What?” Carter’s voice sounded incredulous. “We’re almost there. We’ve come so far together. I thought we were going to end it together.”
“We are,” Raith said. “We need to end the race. Actually end it. They’re waiting for us. Well, for me. But inevitably for both of us.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. I have no idea who’s an enemy and a friend any more, except for you and my crew. Only one thing matters now.” Without waiting for an answer, Raith modified his trajectory, dipping away from the finish line and toward S-1022. Toward the Juniper.
Two seconds later, Carter and the Bloodhound deviated as well, diving toward the stellar system sprawling below. Two more seconds of silence followed before the Vindicta’s sensors detected the subtle fluctuations of power from three tiny pinnaces waiting beyond the finish line.
“We’ve got company,” Carter said. “Are you armed?”
“I am not,” Raith replied.
“Lucky for you, the Bloodhound’s packing heat.”
Raith began charting the quickest vector through Jump to reach the QuanCom Hub. Above all else, he needed to find Harrison and Bonta. He already lost Erika and Donyi. He wasn’t losing the others too. “I’ve got a path locked in to reach QuanCom in just a few seconds. You following?”
“You go ahead. I’ll take care of these three.”
“Roger. See you in a few.”
Raith watched for a moment as Carter’s ship looped around to face the incoming foe. Trusting the adventurer knew his own skills, Raith Jumped.
And, three seconds later, he arrived outside the massive space station in the middle of a firefight. Kinetics and plasma blasts sliced through space, ships smashing into one another in apocalyptic inferno. “Olive, when you said a war,” he said aloud, “I did not think this is what you meant.”
Connecting to the local networks, Raith searched and searched and searched for a signal from his crew. Nothing. A few hundred kilometers away, their hangar came into view. Before he could plan a docking berth, a request for a direct line rang through his head. He accepted the request.
“Raith, this is Administrator Harris!” The signal emanated from a communications tower attached to QuanCom’s station. “It is good to see you and Carter alive. Now get the hell out of here!”
“Administrator, I’m not leaving without my crew,” Raith said. “Now where are they?”
“The whole station’s been overrun with Conglomerate thugs,” he said. “I’m barricaded in my office. Your crew? No idea. The Juniper isn’t docked with the station anymore, if that’s—”
The transmission disconnected. Raith internally uttered a series of incomprehensible swears. Turning the Vindicta, he assessed the battle as a whole in an attempt to identify the sides. At the scale of a system-wide conflict, he was a gnat in comparison. He just needed no one to notice him.
Starward, three immense cruisers blasted away at four battleships drifting toward the station from the system’s edges. Dozens of smaller craft darted about, either attempting to find a clear vector to Jump or engaging in their own petty fights. Sensor data overwhelmed, continuing to provide more information. Seconds later, transponder codes revealed the four battleships as ICH vessels. If those ships arrived in system in so quickly, they’d been forewarned of the attack.
And the three cruisers. Certainly Conglomerate, in an attempt to seize whatever prize they desired from QuanCom. Unless . . . maybe the Conglomerate had given up and simply wanted to ensure QuanCom’s complete destruction, at least in S-1022. Raith’s question to ponder: did they still want him? And what about Olive’s strange faction? How did they fit in?
The question received an answer moments later when three corvettes deviated from their vectors and redirected toward his position.
He had nowhere to hide.
Raith frantically analyzed the rest of the system, his foes still a few minutes away. Where was the Juniper? It simply wasn’t possible they were already dead. He wouldn’t accept that truth. If they managed to escape the station, they would have reached safety. Maybe with the ICH battleships.
He considered the government ships for a moment. Would he find safety there? Perhaps. The moment he hid behind them, though, he lost his opportunity to find his friends. And he couldn’t leave them alone out here.
Problem, though. The Vindicta was completely unarmed.
He was an idiot to think he could do anything to change the battle.
No, wait. He wasn’t. They wanted him. They wanted him. He could use it to his advantage. He opened a system-wide broadcast.
“Good morning, S-1022! This is Raith, the co-victor of the Five Hundred Light-year Classic alongside the enigmatic and beautiful Carter, piloting the Bloodhound!” He paused, watching the transmission begin its electromagnetic echo between the planets. It would take hours to reach every corner, but they would hear him. “If you’re looking for me, I’m right here. Come and find me.”
As the transmission ended, he gunned the ignition, the ship darting on a new path between planets and away from its incoming tails. He only had a few drops of Exo left, so he’d need to make any Jumps count. Three tasks, then.
Find the Juniper, reuniting with Harrison and Bonta.
Rendezvous with Carter.
All four of them flee together, out of system and away from the battle.
Anything else meant falling under the control of someone, whether the Conglomerate or the ICH.
Beneath QuanCom’s station, the barren and unnamed terrestrial planet invited him. Between its craggy peaks, he could find peace. And he could defeat his enemies without firing a single shot.
The plan, albeit simple, required a few key pieces to fall into place without any communication. Raith, now breaking the near-impotent atmosphere of the planet below, found mountains and canyons and valleys in which to lose any fighters in pursuit. Once he was clear of foes, Harrison and Bonta would simply know to bring the Juniper in, meeting him for a quick pick-up. They’d tether the Vindicta to the underside of the larger ship and escape. Carter, watching from afar, would match their vector out of the system. Flawless plan. Everyone would see it.
He hoped.
The Vindicta darted toward the surface, reaching a ridgeline of mountains. In atmosphere, the ship felt painfully slow, but fortunately his foes would similarly be limited. And plasma blasts and kinetics didn’t like atmosphere any more than a spacecraft. It was a win in all regards. In a sense, his best battleground was above the surface of this unknown rock.
