Haze, page 38
Dan turns to the view window and stares out at the indifferent stars glittering in the infinite dark. Devit studies him for a few minutes, memorizing every detail about him that he can, transforming them into clear pictures in his memory for the times when he’s going to need them. Dan says nothing more, but his beautiful green eyes are wet with unspilled tears.
Devit turns and walks away.
He goes back to the bridge and the things that have always saved him; his work, his position, and the Fleet itself. I’ll get over it, he tells himself. You’ve done it before. You can do it again. He’s gotten the assignment he wanted. Soon, finally, the waiting will end.
SIXTEEN
The Repositories’ hotel on Third offers a delicious-sounding menu in its room service; real food, not nutrition bars and rehydrates. Santreeza is debating what to order for dinner when Devit pings her.
“You wouldn’t happen to be in touch with the SAR’s AI, would you?”
“Not at the moment, but I can be.”
“Good. Once we’re through, I need it to keep sending a message to PrimeOneMorrisonGuardA. It should run, ‘Commander Bolivar, the Fleet is here to rescue you.’ Can you get it to do that?”
“Sure. Do you think he’ll answer?”
“I don’t know. But it’s worth a shot. By the way, captains’ briefing is over, which means we’ll be going through the gate soon.” He pauses, hesitates a little. “Hey, Jorja, if I don’t come back, remember me?”
“Always. But you damn well better come back.”
“I’ll do my best. Got to log off.”
A click, and the contact breaks. Santreeza closes the menu on her PL. She’s no longer hungry.
“Let me get this straight,” Mata says. “The shuttle from the SAR’s coming to pick you up. They’re giving you a lousy little shuttle for this mission? I mean, varg!”
“Not just any shuttle,” Devit says. “It’s a personnel rescue unit with life detection sensors. Its hull’s marked to identify it as a rescue unit. Red crosses, blue crescents. If the rules of war even matter when you’re dealing with terrorists.”
“Sai, then, but does it come with crew?”
“A pilot and an AI, yeah.”
“What about a gunner?”
“No one mentioned one.”
“I thought so. I volunteered, and Bonna took me up on it. So I’m going. With the hardbeam long gun I found in the weapons locker. What if you get into this station and there are more hostiles than you can handle? Hah! I can see it on your face. Didn’t think of that, did you?”
“I was trying not to. Yeah, I know. Not funny.”
Mata makes the gargling sound deep in his throat.
“Hey, Mata? Thanks. I’m glad to have the backup. But combat suits for both of us.”
“Varg yeah! If we’re leaving soon, we’d better do an equipment check right now. There’s a second hardbeam there for you.”
“This is ridiculous!” Golverg waves his hand at the screen in his carrel. “I’ve studied the shunt system for over sixty years, but I have no idea how someone kept that stargate off the Map. Not even a glimmer. None.”
Santreeza hesitates. She does know, she respects Golverg, she wishes she could tell him, but she gave her word to PrimeOneMary.
“I certainly don’t either,” Santreeza says. “Huh, the Bureau wanted to understand the rumors about closing a stargate. ‘They can’t possibly be true’ is the going opinion, right? It’s impossible to close a gate! Well, in this one way someone managed to do it—just virtually.”
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that.” Golverg leans forward and speaks to the AI. “End session.” He gets up from his chair and grimaces with a shake of his head. “Bewildered, that’s me. Tell me something, Lieutenant. Do you think Vot’s still alive?”
“If Devit thinks he is, he probably is. And if anyone can get him out of there, it’s Devit.”
No one knows anything more about the anchor planet and its star system aside from the shreds of data Raddow revealed in her deposition. All she knew about a possible enemy battle fleet is that they have one—which, she thinks, is mostly “a bunch of little ships and that one big one.” She did give them one crucial piece of information. It’s a short shunt, at the most two hours’ travel by space-time reckoning. The AIs on the combat team ships will keep track of time through their cesium-based quantum clocks and sound alarms when they’re close to the exit stargate.
“Battle-ready, all of you.” Captain Bonna is giving a last briefing over the various ships’ comm systems. “SAR ShuttleOne, when you drop clear of your mother ship, the Jalal will be transmitting images of what lies ahead. Noted?”
“Sai, ma’am.” The pilot, a Leptic man named Na-Lerat, answers for the ship. “Thank you for the gunner, by the way. We’ve got an emergency turret.”
“Good. All ships, Go Ready for melded shunt entry. Jump in five minutes.”
The comm screen fades to gray. Out of habit Devit checks Lerat’s and Mata’s chair positions for the jump, then straps himself into his own. Since the shuttle’s still in the launch bay of the SAR, Lerat’s in touch with the SAR pilot team through an earjack. On the other side of the stargate, his primary focus will be getting the shuttle to the correct ancient station as soon as the scanner picks up signs of life. From where he’s reclining, Devit can see the life-form scanner’s display screen, a pale green, blank at the moment.
“Jumping. Jumping.” The mother ship’s AI sends the alarm. “Now.”
As usual, Devit feels himself dissolve into a pattern lying in the pattern of a chair. Patterns have ruled his entire life: patterns of data, patterns of behavior, all predicated on the underlying genetic grid of his functions. What makes the patterns visible? He vaguely remembers a few ideas from his pretentious secondary school’s required studies. Some philosopher whose name he’s forgotten once remarked that the visible universe is just a set of patterns thrown onto the wall of a dark cave by a light glowing at the cave mouth. The sapients inside the cave can’t turn around—for some reason Devit’s also forgotten—to see the source of the light. It occurs to him, as he travels toward the exit stargate, that maybe, just maybe, sapients have finally seen the source—the golden light where the shunts lie.
Another pattern: The Fleet is about to take Dan away from him again, but this time, at least, he’ll know where Dan is and that he’s safe—assuming, of course, that he himself does live through this mission. As is always the case before combat, that pattern lacks too many data points to close.
Time, such as it is out on the blue, passes. Devit’s mind keeps returning to the cave and the shadow patterns until he wishes he could just fall asleep during shunt travel. Very few sapients can. He’s not one of them.
At last the voice returns. “Leaving shunt. Leaving shunt. Jumping. Jumping.”
With the jarring smack of body awareness, Devit knows that they’re back in space-time. He switches his attention to the vidscreen on the shuttle’s ceiling. As yet, it shows only distant stars, pinpricks of light on that hypothetical cave wall.
“Hey, Devit,” Mata says. “How long before we reach the planet’s zone of control?”
“No one knows. Raddow couldn’t tell us. We’ll have to wait and see if someone comes to meet us.”
Waiting. PrimeOneMary pings Santreeza when the combat team enters the stargate. No one will know anything else until someone comes back through with news. After an hour of staring at the screen in her carrel, she gives up on research and goes to the lounge area. Golverg is sitting in an armchair by the holo screen window and watching four of the bodyguards play a Kar-Li gambling game that requires six packs of Human-style playing cards. The other bodyguards have taken the chance to catch up on sleep.
When she sits down opposite him, Golverg waves a vague hand in salute. He says nothing. She can’t think of anything to say either. The fake view on the holo shows a long shot of a city on some planet she’s never heard of.
“Show me the view beyond the cliffs.”
The screen obligingly changes to the yellow desert and the red rocks. Santreeza tries counting the rocks, but her mind keeps insisting on remembering the last time she waited for a man to return from a combat mission. He didn’t. After his funeral, his CO gave her the Council flag from his coffin before they launched him into the heart of his home star. She still has it somewhere in her storage locker back on Central.
This time, damn you, I want more back than a fucking flag. She has no idea whom she’s addressing. Fate, she supposes. Who never listens to mere mortals.
Once the entire convoy emerges from the stargate into space-time, the pilots break meld. They will remain in earjack contact, Na-Lerat tells Devit, and be ready to send any crippled ship back through the shunt. The shuttle’s Eyes split the overhead vidscreen into four panels. One shows nothing but the dark of space-time. The second, equally dark, displays a message, “Blacked out to avoid direct view of planetary system star.” The third displays a blurry view, relayed from the Imperator, of a foreshortened clot of ships. As Devit watches, the ships begin to break order, one at a time, until the line reforms as an arc with the Imperator in the middle and slightly ahead. The Jalal moves forward to take a place at one end of the line. The SAR, as far as Devit can tell, also shifts to stay behind its guard.
On the fourth panel a tiny sphere appears and swells to the size of a clenched fist. A dead gray moon travels in an orbit that lies in the same ecliptic as the planet itself. Since the Fleet ships have just come through a shunt, they are, in an artificial but useful sense, “above” the star system, giving them a clear view through the remote-range Eyes. The display focuses on Thorn and zooms in to show swirls of blue around patches of green and brown. Electric blue sprites dance on the edge of the atmosphere above the polar region. Devit can just pick out a tiny black dot transiting the planet’s equatorial belt.
“One of the old stations,” Devit says.
“Not quite in scanner range,” Lerat says. “Yet.”
On the screen the Jalal appears to be falling behind the forward line. Since the destroyer’s image stays the same size, Devit can tell that the SAR has cut speed to stay in position behind it.
“I’m watching that moon,” Mata says.
“Right. Lerat, how good is this SAR at evasive action?”
“Are you joking? This beast? Shit all.”
As the battle group draws nearer to Thorn, Devit spots a second possible station above a patch of gray cloud cover on the planet itself. This one catches a glint of sun. This close, he can just make out that the object isn’t round but some odd shape with a tiny fleck of yellow light gleaming at one miniscule spot on the side.
“Looks promising.”
“Sure does,” Lerat says. “I’m getting a real faint buzz off the scanner. PrimeOne, focus on that black thing with the light.”
The two empty display panels drop away. As the remote Eyes refocus, Devit can tell that, yes, the object’s some sort of metal construction, not a natural satellite of any sort. The fleck of yellow light might possibly be coming from some sort of view port.
“PrimeOne, we’ll need to drop soon.”
“Wait!” Mata snaps. “Something’s launching from the moon.”
“Shit!” Devit says. “Hostiles.”
Sleek shapes bright with the pale blue glows of thrusters—ships, maybe six, maybe more—break free of the moon and speed at full thrusters toward the far flank of the battle group. Devit’s earjack picks up the calm voices of the gunner teams coming over the intership links.
“Incoming hostiles from lunar base. Incoming missiles from planetary base.”
As the missiles rise, the Mansa swings around and fires. One at a time, the missiles explode into debris that falls back into the planet’s gravity well. The ships, all of them small, some of them no more than old merchanters with maybe one gun apiece, begin swerving and dodging in arcs and sharp turns. The pack splits and scatters. Most of the ships head in the same direction—away from the Fleet. The rest hurtle toward the attackers on such a straight course that they have to be an unmanned distraction.
“Surrender call’s been activated,” Na-Lerat says. “Sounding every seven seconds.”
“Any responses?”
“Not yet, Chief.”
“They’re not attacking,” Mata says. “Trying to escape.”
“Yeah. Trying to reach that other shunt, what do you bet?”
“I’m still picking up the call to surrender,” Na-Lerat says. “No answers. The fucking idiots!”
The Mansa breaks line, swings around and fires off nuclear torpedoes in a deadly flock. One hits. The rest explode among the approaching ships and send them dancing and swirling on the radioactive energy waves. The Imperator sweeps in and covers the helpless targets with a blanket of red fire, a solid sheet from their hardbeam generators. Ships explode. Debris collects and swells into ragged spheres.
The Imperator charges ahead on course and heads for the ships attempting to escape. Hardbeams flash from the destroyer once again. Two of the enemy fire back—and miss. The Imperator destroys them first in two quick blasts, then sweeps past the debris to shatter the others with both beams and missiles. As far as Devit can see, only one ship reaches the safety of the stargate to the long shunt.
“Shit!” Devit says. “Not combat. Slaughterhouse.”
The Mansa follows. When it opens push waves in standard procedure, the fragments careen down the gravity well toward Thorn to produce an ironic display of shooting stars. The way to the station opens up as the debris begins to clear.
SARPrimeOne’s voice comes over the intraship comm. “Shuttle, prepare for drop.”
“Noted. Go Ready.”
The shuttle jerks and vibrates as the SAR’s outer doors open. Something inside the shuttle’s atmosphere makes an audible clank. The ship trembles. The sensation of plunging down sweeps over Devit as they leave the SAR’s gravity field. He hears Mata swearing under his breath, but his stomach’s twisting too hard for him to follow suit. Clear at last—thrusters fire and the shuttle’s grav field takes over.
“Full power,” Na-Lerat says. “I think we got the right target.”
The closer they get, the louder the scanner signals, a slow steady beep in a pattern of threes. Two hostiles and the hostage? Likely but don’t jump to conclusions.
“Varg!” Mata snaps. “Hostiles at twenty-two hours.”
Two new ships break free from the cover of the remnant of the debris field. Like the others, they never respond to the call for surrender. It only takes a few seconds to realize that they’re heading straight for the shuttle. The Medic symbols have become a traitor’s kiss.
Na-Lerat and Mata start yelling at each other in Leptic Gen. Devit can pick out a few words that tell him a pilot and a gunner who’ve never worked together before are trying to position the ship so Mata can fire. The AI, acting as the engineer, chatters about speeds and positions and asks questions no one has time to answer. On the display screen Devit can see the Jalal turning in a cloud of blue plasma to leave the SAR and rush to rescue the rescuers.
Mata gets what he wants at last. The shuttle trembles as the hardbeam leaps from its single turret. A hit—one of the hostiles shudders and falls back as chunks of hull split and drift. The recoil of the shot forces the shuttle to turn just enough to expose its flank. As the second hostile moves in for a kill shot, a third ship—a frigate from the look of it—charges into the dogfight.
So it ends here. Jorja, I love you.
In a burst of red light, the new frigate fires. Its hardbeam hits the second hostile full amidships. A torpedo follows, and the push wave clears debris—nothing stands between the rescue shuttle and the station.
There’s only one ship that frigate can be.
Devit activates his earjack. “Sir! Thank you, Commander.”
“You recognized me?”
His voice clicks and at moments growls like an unsuccessful mix of Human and AI, but much to Devit’s relief, he knows Tech Speak.
Devit decides to take a chance on a long shot. “Yes, sir. Dan told me about you. He’s been looking for you. He’s back at base.”
“Good. I want to talk with him. Don’t fire on that station. Hostage inside.”
“Yes, sir, we know. We’ve come to get him. And get you.”
“Think they’ll want me back?”
“Hell yes! You’re still Fleet.”
The voice makes a sound like two pieces of metal scraping together. Devit can only interpret it as a catch in someone’s throat.
“Never thought I’d hear that,” Bolivar says.
“Once you’re Fleet, sir, it counts for something. Always.”
Again he hears the scrape of metal on metal.
“Sai, then,” Bolivar says. “But it’s too dangerous to follow you back through the shunt. I have no crew operational. They refused to surrender, so I evacuated most of the air in the ship. Just to low level. If they hold still and don’t waste their breath, some of them should survive.”
“Noted, sir. We have an SAR with us. Head back toward the shunt. ID yourself as MorrisonGuardA and accept surrender. The SAR can grapple you and carry you back.”
“Noted. You are?”
“CWO Devit, sir. Squad leader. Tell them I sent you.”
The AI makes a sound very much like a cackling laugh. “I will, Chief. Signing off now.”
The Jalal reaches them at last. The frigate makes a turn on low thrusters, fires a burst of full power, then lets momentum keep it heading back to the SAR. Devit returns his attention to the straight ahead screen, where the space station waits, drifting in orbit against the backdrop of the blue and brown planet.
“Varg!” Mata says. “I’ve never seen one shaped like that. Kind of like a huge egg.”
