The Complete Union Earth Privateers, page 51
A hollow thud sounded on the other side of the hatch. The squad raised rifles, but nothing else came besides a shower of dust from the tunnel ceiling.
“Don’t worry,” said Tessa. “It would take them hours and a lot of explosives to get through this entrance. And I’ve already rigged this tunnel to blow. Mining charges ain’t short around here.”
The thick steel hatch was reinforced with carbon crossbars that secured the welds and computer-controlled locks that wedged the entire structure shut. Aesop was satisfied, for now at least. Gravity, and the density of the air for that matter, were noticeably heavier on this side of the gate.
Aesop turned back to Tessa. “Maggie’s still back on the Condor. Physical therapy, but she’ll be back in a suit in no time. What about you? How did you end up all the way out here on Tethys?”
Tessa Baum jerked her head back down the tunnel, which was strung with intermittent rope lights casting the metal duckboards in sharp relief. The bottom of the natural portion of the tunnel was wet and slick. Liquid pooled down where the ambient temperature had risen to melt the cave’s natural ice, but it was still chilly enough for Aesop’s breath to puff out in a small plume with each exhale. The tunnel stretched a few hundred meters, at his best guess.
“Captain Jackson came back and pulled me off what was left of the Springdawn,” she said as they walked. “I had to manage the Dirregaunt rescues and help them break off those big friggen lasers. They had to bring six ships in on the Malagath’s doorstep to haul them out of there. Thank God for that pea soup ion cloud. After that, they bounced me between his command and the TechDiv detachment putting those new laser artillery boats together. They kept calling me back because the Santa Project kept stalling.”
“Santa Project?”
Tessa opened another hatch and led them into a lab filled with clean-suited staff moving and stacking crates marked with various hazard warnings and classified markings. A three-meter cube-shaped enclosure of polycarbonate glass hovered in the center of the room, above a softly humming cargo lift. Inside sat a figure Aesop had only seen on recordings, from the old lady’s Conn transmissions.
“Meet Santa,” she gestured to the cage. “That’s the Director’s code name for Best Wishes.”
“Christ in Heaven,” said Vega, making the sign of the cross.
The ragged, bony creature in the cage slid to its feet, claws scratching at the metal floor. The four-eyed alien turned towards them. Dangerous even bound and caged and wrapped in a restraining jacket. The Dirregaunt looked like nothing so much as a giant primeval wolfman, two-legged and maned, with a mouth containing too many razor teeth. Aesop noticed Singh’s gun hand twitch when she saw Best Wishes move, and Grinner visibly jumped.
This was the xeno that had hunted them halfway across the Orion Spur, ambushing them at every star and enlisting the Graylings as hunting dogs. If not for a pair of marines stowed aboard the xeno’s ship, the Condor would have been destroyed several times over.
The Dirregaunt lost interest in them and began scratching at the transparent wall of his enclosure, occasionally stopping to stare skyward. Symbols and figures were etched there, gouged over time by his claws. When Aesop looked closer, it appeared to be advanced mathematical formulas, though what they were for he couldn’t hazard a guess. By all reports, the Dirregaunt commander had driven himself somewhat mad in his single-minded pursuit of Captain Victoria.
Grinner stepped forward, the only one not attached to the command during the encounter with the Dirregaunt assassin. “Why is he staring like that?” he asked.
“He sees things—sees people, his people,” said Tessa. “A few others we pulled off the Springdawn have similar deterioration. Something about how their brains processed the infrared light from that ion cloud. The TechDiv bonecutters don’t know how to treat it. B.W. here is the worst, but when he’s lucid, he’s a treasure trove of xenotech knowledge.”
Aesop pulled his eyes away from the cage. “So, you go where he goes. Is that why you haven’t evacuated to the Beta site with the others?”
“No,” said Tessa, “No, they hit the Beta site and the Charlie lab first. Director Sampson ordered all surviving personnel here. The Alpha lab is the only site they haven’t breached. Maeyar in their vacuum suits and Graylings with some sort of breathing tubes shoved down their throats.”
Aesop cursed. “And Bogrun’s got some other new tricks up his sleeve. Have you seen that bullet-eater?”
“The Director calls it the substatic conductive kineto-neutralizing field generator. I like bullet-eater better,” said Tessa, smirking. “Sounds snappier. Yeah, I’ve seen it. That’s how we lost the primary gallery in the living quarters, and how they took the tertiary Ceta lab.”
Vega whistled. “They chase you all the way back here?”
Tessa Shrugged. “We had to scuttle that whole tram network to keep them out. They almost compromised Santa.”
“Why does Sampson call him Santa?” asked Singh, tapping on the glass.
A new voice interrupted. “Because he brings gifts to all the good little scientists of Earth.”
Director Sampson, head of the Union Earth Technology Division stood at the door, tall and broad in his TechDiv coveralls and white laboratory coat. He smiled, showing stark white teeth. He didn’t introduce himself. Sampson knew he didn’t need to. In the middle of a hostile xeno incursion, isolated from rescue, and likely in the final hours of his life, not a drop of sweat showed, not a single golden hair was out of place.
Aesop took an immediate disliking to the man though he couldn’t determine why. Perhaps his instincts were warning him yet again. Not all threats were on the other side of the lab’s hatch.
“Director Sampson,” said Aesop, nodding just low enough to keep the man fixed in his view.
Xenotechnology captured or salvaged by Privateers passed through the desk of this man before scientists and engineers could begin to unravel their secrets. Sampson was the gatekeeper, the leading xenotech expert for the Union Earth, and possibly one of the most ruthlessly intelligent humans alive.
Aesop’s retinal implants parsed more redacted files than he’d seen anywhere other than Israeli Intelligence reports. The glint in Sampson’s eyes told Aesop that the Director’s implants were likely rifling through his own files. Sampson had to be linked to the research lab’s network, granting him access to the entire locally stored Privateer database.
“The Grah’lhin are learning, Vultures,” Sampson spread his arms as if talking to children. “Learning to adapt technology to counter our forms of war. As are the Maeyar. And they learned it by watching us.”
He gestured at the glass where Best Wishes had abandoned his scratching and pressed himself to the corner opposite of the humans. Aesop noted that it was the farthest his enclosure allowed him to get from Sampson.
“And if they find out about him, they won’t have much left to learn from us, eh?” said Sampson. “Sergeant Cohen, welcome to Archimedes Research Laboratory. Come with me.”
The Director turned on his heel and left, his hands gesturing in front of him. There was a rising whir, and the cage containing the cowering xeno began to trundle after the Director. Precision antigravity tech, more precise than Aesop had been aware that Union Earth had access to. The marines followed close behind Sampson, the device just behind them.
“We had hoped that more than four marines would make it down to us. We were prepared to move Santa topside for extraction through the loading dock. That was one of the few uncompromised accesses remaining. It appears that you took significant losses, but at least you made it in.”
Aesop stepped quickly to stay ahead of the cage and stood abreast of Director Sampson. Making it inside the base was a close thing, and it was a very high order that kept the door sealed against their access attempts. If it had been left to Sampson, none of them would be inside the base. Tessa Baum’s unauthorized override had let Singh break the lockdown protocol. “The majority of our marines are en route to the habitation complex with Major Calhoun. The incursion protocol dictates that you should have withdrawn.”
“Nonsense. My work here is too important. Who do you think wrote those protocols? Besides, Beta complex was hit first. We had to seal the junctions.”
Aesop swore under his breath. “Is there any way for them to reach us?”
“I bloody well hope not,” said Sampson. “That would mean we’ve done a poor job keeping the Grah’lhin out.” Sampson paused, and the device stalled behind them. “But you’re welcome to double-check the station’s schematics. I noticed you have tunnel rat experience, both starside and on Earth. You might have some insight we missed. Here, I’ll make them available to you.”
“Can we at least contact them?” asked Singh. She looked to Aesop.
Aesop nodded. “Site-to-site intercoms should still be active. Tess, mind giving her a hand?” From his own suit’s computer, he shared the site schematics with the rest of the squad. Singh jogged ahead in the direction of the communication station with Tessa Baum close behind.
Sampson led the three remaining marines out into the Alpha complex. Here, a high, cylindrical cavern spiraled up, branching off into many platforms and tunnels. The smooth round walls bore the machining marks of mammoth-sized earth movers. The closest comparison Aesop could draw was to an empty missile silo, with individual paths branching off on a multitude of levels leading through several kilometers of cave tunnels. Several metal catwalks and integrated ladders crisscrossed the hollow. The site schematics began to overlay the physical structure, showing branches that led to smaller laboratories, environmental control, station power, equipment storage, artificial gravity, and several tunnels with restricted access and unidentifiable purposes on the uppermost decks.
Vega craned his neck, looking at the extent of the construction. “Meu Deus, how did you build all this out here?” The amount of shifted rock would have been a monumental task for any Earth construction company, and this was a remote corner of the Orion Spur.
“Believe it or not, nine months ago, this part of the lab had only three levels. We’d pegged the site for its future expansion potential because of the rare mineral deposits off several offshoot tunnels. Those were dredged out with our excavators there,” said Sampson. He waved his hand toward three tarpaulin-covered shapes on the lowest level of the hollow.
Even covered, Aesop recognized the shapes of the three-legged terrestrial earthmovers. He’d seen similar models carving out rat warrens underneath sites of the worst fighting he’d experienced on Earth. Fully autonomous digging machines like that could carve out hundreds of tons of rock a day without the need for a human operator. Over the course of a year, they could carve out two kilometers of tunnel, or be used to breach the underground curtain walls of a compound under siege.
He found his heartbeat accelerating simply by remembering the slow, steady rumble of the massive engines and their gaping rotary throats. It wasn’t a fond memory, listening to the insidious sound grow hour by hour. The buildup culminated in the breach of an underground wall in Pakistan. Aesop had stared into the gates of Hell that day, a fiery inferno of choking cement dust and pulverizing teeth, white-hot with the heat of friction and pressure and the screams and rifle clatter of militants rushing through the gap in its wake.
Sampson continued. “We brought the Zumwalt project out here to get it away from the frontiers. This part of the Spur is quiet, astronomically speaking. Or at least it was, before your captain intervened in the Gavisari-Maeyar conflict. Archimedes Alpha Laboratory became the first test range for the Dirregaunt lasers before designs for the vessels that would carry them were ever finalized. What better way to study the properties of the devices? From twelve thousand kilometers up, those Dirregaunt arrays still cut through stone like butter. It is, after all, softer than most of the Malagath hulls they’re designed to penetrate. The excavators provided finishing, and then demolition hid the evidence and made the roof look like a natural rockslide. It was fortuitous, what with the timing our proximity provided to the battle of Pedres.”
“You mean making us betray the Maeyar in favor of the Gavisari,” said Aesop.
Sampson’s eyes narrowed, a brief crack in the facade. “Careful, Sergeant. You’re too savvy not to understand the nature of ‘truth’ in politics. If not the Yakima’s destruction, another reason would have been manufactured.” Sampson shrugged. “Victoria Marin’s position with the Maeyar was untenable, and their society is a corrupt bastion of nepotistic martial castes,” he said. Then paused for a moment. “Even more so than ours. While it may have seemed shortsighted to throw our weight behind subterranean dogmatics, the Gavisar—no ‘I’ at the end mind you, the name has no Latin roots—align more closely with the direction Union Earth needs if we’re going to survive.”
Aesop wasn’t sure the Ionian colonists would agree—whichever ones were still alive. But he held his silence. Sampson swung more power in the Union Earth than arguably any member of its parliament or the director of any other division. The Privateers operated under his authority, and as a xenotech engineer, Aesop’s future likely entailed working somewhere in the broad organization that was TechDiv.
“So, what now, Director?” asked Aesop.
“Now?” he asked, glancing back at the trio of marines.
“What’s the backup plan?”
Sampson barked a humorless laugh. It echoed off the walls of the main cavern. He flicked his eyes, and the glass enclosure containing Best Wishes began to float upward, toward the second level. “You were the backup plan. That loading dock was the backup plan. The Graylings and Maeyar have locked down almost every exterior access, and with your timely arrival, we have a total of five marines still alive—unless the major checks in. So what now? Now, we continue working and hope to God we figure out a method of escape.”
Grim tidings. But at least a ray of luck had filtered through. Singh was pinging his squad level circuit. Aesop put his helmet back on. “Send it.”
“Aesop, comms are up and running in the Beta lab. Patching you through to the major now.”
Chapter 12 – Resurgence.
The Condor accelerated away from the clustering civilian ships, toward the phantom heat signatures glimpsed only briefly through the screen of rock and ice held back by the satellite’s efforts. Victoria keyed her command repeater. No heat signatures on her local sensors, and there was so much RF chatter from the Union Earth ships that her receivers couldn’t make heads or tails of any frequencies that might not belong to human traffic, if any existed.
“Take us past the edge of the debris, Huian, and come about, reverse bearing.”
“Aye, Vick,” said Huian, already entering the course adjustments at her station.
The Condor’s engines were barely whispering, and as the Privateer ship turned Huian angled the shutters over the drives to deflect the minimal waste heat away from their aft vector. Using the antigravity thrusters meant the ship was just as maneuverable flying in reverse, though the Graylings had taken out enough sensor modules to leave a narrow blind spot on the viewscreen. Huian would have to compensate. The ring debris here was still light, and some smaller shards of ice were already knocking on the outer hull, though the velocity and mass wouldn’t be severe enough to cause damage to the outer skin of the Condor.
Victoria looked over her other systems. She did her best not to let her hands shake on the console while she checked Tactical, Sensors, and Engineering. It wasn’t fear, as such, and she had trouble determining the source of the shakes—until she counted the days since she’d last had a drink. The withdrawal symptoms were beginning to affect her.
Carillo had already anticipated the combat action, as usual, having loaded laser countermeasures and warmed up the railguns. Avery had his operators working overtime trying to sort and classify any debris larger than a mid-sized terrestrial car. Davis Prescott had brought online the newly reacquired Gravitic Stealth Device, carefully balancing its power draw against the inertial dampeners and antigravity thrusters, compensating for the ship’s lop-sided center of gravity.
He also had the attenuator up and running, though Victoria wasn’t confident in the mileage they’d get out of the radar-absorbing equipment. The Condor could get very toasty in a very short amount of time running the full suite of combat equipment. Heat management was one area of the ship that hadn’t seen a marked increase in efficiency during her last refit, and both the blackbody radiators and liquid coolant ejectors had already been secured.
Victoria switched her screen to check-
“Conn, sensors. Contact bearing one-seven-two drop two-five azimuth.”
“Sensors, Conn. Aye,” said Victoria before her team could even give her a classification. She left the main viewscreen for Huian and instead overlaid the sensor data over her own personal monitor. It wasn’t much to go on. Some shafts of light had reflected off a few unidentified bodies, of which there were a lot. But these particular bodies the computer had identified as changing course, and inanimate objects did not alter bearing. At least not ones that followed Newton’s laws.
“Stand by helm,” said Victoria.
She refocused the ship’s aft sensors for a better look. A particularly thick grouping of boulders briefly blocked the bearing. Victoria uttered a string of condemnations towards the rings of Ionia while she waited for the vector to clear. Once it did, there was more than just telltale reflected light hiding in its wake.
Heat bloomed on the infrared sensors lining the aft and ventral sections of the Condor. Not the bright angry glare of an oncoming Grayling cutter, or even the coronal exhaust profile of a head-on fighter that she had seen on the Aegis’ sensors. Within another minute, Avery visually confirmed and designated a wing of four Maeyar fighters, coasting between the drifting death of the rings on engines at or just above idle power. They were short-range vessels, no FTL systems aboard, and launched from a spaceborne carrier. Instead of screaming in like the deadly interceptors Victoria had seen chase down Gavisar cruisers, these were coming in slow, lazily, like a tiger shark drifting with the current. They were cautious, watchful.
