Even though it was basically just a frayed mechanical structure, it had a quality that told him it wasn’t human. Neatness, he decided, it lacked neatness, the kind of confident elegance that was the signature of human astroengineering. Where humans would use failsofts and multiple redundancy, the Tyrathca built tough simple devices in tandem. If one was taken out of service for repair or maintenance they trusted the second to remain functional. And it was obviously a philosophy which worked.
Tanjuntic-RI’s existence and triumph was evidence of that. It was just … reality at one degree from human sensibilities.
The voidhawk’s movement halted. Shadows plagued the hull, turning the marbled polyp a dingy walnut. Gravity in the airlock faded away as the distortion field flowed away from it.
> Syrinx said. >
The spaceport support column appeared to be holding steady just past the lip of the hull. Stars waved about behind it. Samuel triggered the cold gas jets in his armour, and drifted out from the airlock. Gaps in the column were easy enough to find. The original close weave of pipes and structural girders had been loosened when the bearings seized up, opening a multitude of chinks, though it was impossible to guess which one had been used by the archaeology team all those years ago. He selected one ten metres above the huge bearing ring set in the rock.
Nitrogen puffed out from tiny nozzles around his slimline manoeuvring backpack, edging him closer to the gap. It was lined with a buckled pipe on one side, and a tattered conduit casing on the other. He reached out with his left gauntlet, and made a tentative grab for one of the flaky cables inside the conduit. Dust squirted out around his fingers, and tactile receptors in his palm told him the cable had compressed slightly in his grip. But it held. His main worry had been that everything they touched along the column would disintegrate like so much brittle porcelain.
“Okay, there’s a degree of integrity left in the material,” he datavised back to the rest of the team. “You can come over. I’m going in.”
Helmet and wrist lights came on, and he shone the beams into the black cavity ahead. When the column bearings seized up, the torque stress exerted by the spaceport’s inertia had splintered hundreds of structural girders, ripping apart the multitude of pipes and cables they carried.
The result was to fill the inside of the column with a forbidding tangle of wreckage. Samuel activated his inertial guidance block. Bright green directional graphics flicked up over the monochrome sensor image, and he eased himself forward. According to his suit sensors, the spaces between the interlocking struts contained a thin molecular haze from the slowly ablating metal.
The chinks were becoming smaller, with fragments scraping against his armour as he hauled himself in the direction the graphics indicated. He pulled a ten centimetre fission knife from his belt. The blade’s yellow light shone brightly, shimmering off the strands of ash-grey metal. It cut through without the slightest resistance.
> he confided to the Oenone’s crew.
Scraps of crumbling metal were whirling round him, bouncing and twirling off the corners and angles of the shambolic maze. The second armour-suited figure had reached the gap: Renato Vella, who was quickly wriggling along after him. One of the serjeants was next, followed by Monica, another serjeant, then Oski Katsura. Syrinx and the crew used the sensor blisters to watch them vanish inside one after the other.
> she said, sharing a quiet confidence with her crew.
Parker Higgens and Kempster Getchell walked into the bridge, and took the chairs Syrinx indicated. “They’re making progress,” Edwin told the two elderly science advisors. “At this rate, Samuel will have reached the main airlock chamber in another ten minutes. They could be at their target level in a couple of hours.”
“I hope so,” Tyla said. “The quicker we’re away from here, the better. This place gives me the creeps. Do you suppose the Tyrathca souls are watching us?”
“An interesting point,” Parker said. “We’ve not had any reports of our returning souls encountering a xenoc soul in the beyond.”
“So where do they go?” Oxley asked.
“We’ll put that on the list of questions for the Sleeping God,” Kempster said jovially. “I’m sure that’s quite trivial compared to—” he broke off as all the Edenists froze, closing their eyes in unison. “What?”
“A starship,” Syrinx hissed. “Oenone can sense its distortion field. Which means the Tyrathca detectors will pick it up, too. Oh … bloody hell.”
> the Stryla gloated.
Etchells hadn’t realized that there was a voidhawk accompanying the rogue Adamist starship. Not until he swallowed in above Hesperi-LN, and started scanning round for the ship he’d pursued from the antimatter station.
There was plenty of activity above the xenoc planet, big sedate ships powering their way into high inclination orbits, complementing the protective sphere thrown up by the SD platforms. The twin moons were sending out constant gravitational perturbations as they orbited round each other, half a million kilometres above Hesperi-LN itself. A network of sensor satellites. An unusually thick band of dust slithering above the upper Van-Allen belt. He had to move around cislunar space in small swallows so that his distortion field could complete a clean sweep above the planet. The Adamist starship was easy to locate, a tight curve in the uniformity of space-time. He focused on it, prying and probing at its composition by creating a multitude of tiny ripples within his distortion field, seeing how they reacted to the encounter, the diffraction pattern created as they washed across the hull and internal machinery. One thing was clear, it wasn’t a Navy ship. The layout was all wrong for that. And Navy ships didn’t have an antimatter drive. Its main fusion generators were shut down, leaving just a couple of ancillary tokamaks to power the life support capsules; and the biggest give-away of all: its thermo-dump panels were retracted. It was in stealth mode.
A Confederation Navy sanctioned starship on a clandestine mission in the Tyrathca system. It would have to be a very important mission to risk an inter-species clash at this delicate time. Etchells knew damn well it had to be connected to the issue of possession somehow. Nothing else would warrant approval. When he extrapolated its trajectory, he saw it was going to fly past a moonlet. He ran through a batch of his stolen almanac memories, discovering that the moonlet was actually an arkship, abandoned over a thousand years ago after a flight from an exploding star. His knowledge of Tyrathca history was almost zero, although the fundamentals were there. But he certainly couldn’t imagine any connection with their ancient ship and the possession crisis.
A quick swallow manoeuvre put him a thousand kilometres from Tanjuntic-RI, hours ahead of the Adamist starship, and he began to examine it. That was when he found the stealthed voidhawk lurking so close to the surface it was almost touching.
His flush of achievement was tempered by continuing worry. What the hell were they doing here? It had to be important. Critical, even. Which meant it was a threat to him. Among all his possible options, one thing was very clear. They had to be prevented from achieving their goal, whatever it was.
>
>
>
>
>
> Etchells launched a combat wasp at the arkship, then immediately swallowed away. The wormhole terminus opened a hundred kilometres from the Adamist starship. He loaded a hunter program into another combat wasp, and launched it as he emerged into real space.
&nbs
p; As soon as Syrinx warned him a hellhawk had arrived, Joshua initiated combat status. He knew damn well their cover either had been, or was about to be, blown. Lady Mac’s main fusion generators powered up, the full suite of combat sensors rose out of their recesses, combat wasp launch tubes opened. Alkad Mzu and Peter Adul hurriedly secured themselves on the large, zero-tau capable acceleration couches in the lounge. Up in the bridge, webbing tightened around the crew.
“Wormhole terminus opening,” Beaulieu warned. “One hundred kilometres.”
Joshua triggered the Lady Mac’s triple fusion drives. That close wasn’t an accident, the hellhawk had their exact coordinate. “Liol, maser the bastard.”
“On it, Josh.” A targeting program went primary in his neural nanonics.
Three of the starship’s eight maser cannons aligned themselves on the terminus and fired. The beams caught the hellhawk as it slid out, and tracked it perfectly. At a hundred kilometres, the inverse square law meant they couldn’t kill the hellhawk immediately. Joshua didn’t care about that. He just wanted to force it away. Lady Mac could take a lot more radiation punishment than any bitek construct if the hellhawk wanted an energy beam duel.
It didn’t. A single combat wasp shot out of its launch cradle, curving round to intercept Lady Mac. The hellhawk’s harpy shape wavered and imploded into a narrow polyp ovoid pimpled by steel-grey mechanical modules. It rolled frantically, trying to dodge the beams. After three seconds of futile manoeuvring, its distortion field applied a near-infinite force against space, and an interstice blossomed open.
Joshua fired four combat wasps to intercept the incoming drone, and changed course again. His crew groaned in dismay as they accelerated at ten gees. Space behind Lady Mac’s triad of dazzling fusion drive plumes ruptured into a gale of plasma as the combat wasps ejected their submunitions. A curtain of nuclear explosions erected an impenetrable barrier while particle beams and X-ray lasers lashed out.
“I think we’re clear,” Beaulieu datavised. “Our combat wasps knocked out their combat wasp.”
Joshua reviewed the sensor data, which was calming as the expanding plasma wreathes from the explosions turned to purple then began to decay through the spectrum. Stars began to shine through the squall of enraged ions again. He reduced their acceleration to four gees, and switched course once more.
“We just ditched our softly softly policy,” Sarha grunted.
“Yeah,” Dahybi said. “Whoever possesses that hellhawk knows their tactics. One combat wasp was never going to hurt us. But it made us expose ourselves to the SD network.”
“Not just us,” Beaulieu said.
The sensors were showing them another combat wasp clash developing several hundred kilometres away from Tanjuntic-RI. “Syrinx, where the hell did it go?” Joshua datavised. “Could you get a fix?”
“It swallowed over to the moons,” Syrinx said.
Joshua already had the star system’s almanac file open. He reviewed the data on the twin moons. Airless rocks, three thousand kilometres in diameter. If they hadn’t been orbiting Hesperi-LN they’d be categorised as exceptionally large asteroids. “There’s nothing there for it,” he protested. “The Tyrathca don’t even bother mining them the ore’s so poor.”
“I know. We think it’s just a good location for a tactical withdrawal at this point in time. And it’ll be at least partially shielded from the SD sensors. The Tyrathca probably don’t know it’s here.”
“Great. Did you manage to get the team in?”
“Yes, they’re in. But Oenone is now holding station a hundred kilometres out from Tanjuntic-RI in case the hellhawk tries to swallow in and launch some more combat wasps. The arkship is very fragile, Joshua, it couldn’t withstand a nuclear assault. That leaves us totally exposed. The Tyrathca’s sensors have already locked on to us.”
The flight computer reported that three radars were already focused on Lady Mac’s hull. “Shit.” Joshua shut down the fusion drives and let the starship coast along. Their trajectory wasn’t taking them anywhere near Tanjuntic-RI anymore. “They’re watching us, too,” he told Syrinx. “Now what?”
“It’s their move. We wait.”
The message came eight minutes later, beamed at both Lady Macbeth and Oenone from one of the low orbit docking stations. “Human craft, you are not permitted here. You have fired weapons above our planet. This is an act of war. Leave now. Do not return.”
“Brief, but not open to much misinterpretation,” Ashly said as the message began to repeat. “I’m surprised they didn’t put in an or else.”
“They just have,” Beaulieu said. “Three ships on their way to intercept us. One-point-two-gee acceleration.”
“For them, that’s really racing along,” Liol said. “The Tyrathca hate high gees.”
“Another three fusion drive ignitions,” Beaulieu said. “One heading for us. Two aligning on Tanjuntic-RI.”
“At least we’re out of range from the platforms’ combat wasps,” Liol said. “That could have been nasty.”
“What’s your assessment?” Joshua asked Syrinx. He started to run the Tyrathca ship trajectories through some tactical analysis programs. While he was doing it, another two ships ignited their fusion drives and started to fly up on a course for the arkship.
“I think the situation’s still manageable,” she replied. “Providing it doesn’t escalate any further.”
“Yeah. I’m working on that aspect. We’ve got to make sure the team can continue. You’re going to have to stop that hellhawk from coming back to Tanjuntic-RI.”
“We can swallow out to the moons and keep it very busy. But that leaves the team without protection. One of those Tyrathca ships is bound to investigate the arkship. Even with their phlegmatism, they’ll want to know what we’re doing here.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll divert them. You get over to the moons.”
“Acknowledged.” Joshua lifted his head, and smiled round at his crew.
“Oh God,” Sarha moaned with unfeigned consternation. “I hate it when you smile like that!”
“Cheer up. We’re going to invade Hesperi-LN.”
The rotating airlock chamber had survived the spaceport bearing seizure almost intact. Samuel cut through the wall and floated into the big empty space. His helmet lights automatically defocused, throwing their radiance all around him. It was a cylindrical chamber, fifteen metres in diameter, and fifty long; stark even by Tyrathca standards. The walls were lined with a petrified sponge material resembling pumice stone, with thousands of regularly spaced indentations. Each one was just big enough to accept a Tyrathca breeder’s hoof.
There were three airlock hatches at each end, large circular affairs with chunky electromechanical locking rims. Precisely halfway down the chamber was a bulging hoop; the rotating seal to provide the Tyrathca with a pressurized transfer from the arkship to the spaceport. Now, its working fluid had evacuated, internal components were reduced to granular sculptures of their former selves; a technological cave etching.
Renato Vella squirmed into the chamber with jerky motions, knocking large chips of the wall material from the edge of the hole Samuel had cut. “Oh great, late era gloomy,” he pronounced. “They didn’t exactly go in for frills, did they?”
“I doubt a translator could even find an equivalent word,” Samuel datavised back.
The first serjeant was emerging from the hole, fracturing even more wall material as it came. There was an almost identical hole a third of the way round the wall, slightly larger. A matching opening had been made next to one of the airlocks at the ship end of the chamber. Samuel’s gauntlets gripped the indentations in the desiccated sponge fabric, and he moved cautiously hand over hand towards it.
“This must be where the archaeology team cut their way in,” he datavised.
“Wait. Yes.” The suit sensors showed him a small plastic box fixed close to the jagged rim by a blob of epoxy, narrow lines of red human lettering covered a third of its dark blue surface. “Som
e kind of communication block. There are several cables running through the hole.” He ordered his suit communicator to transmit a standard interrogation signal. “No response. I guess the power’s drained by now.”
“Shame,” Renato datavised. “It would have been convenient to have some kind of communication net in there.”
“We could probably power it up again,” Oski replied. “It’s only a century old, the processors will be fully functional.”
“Forget it,” Monica told them. “The bitek processors can keep us in touch with each other and Oenone. We’re not going to be inside long enough to justify getting cosy.”
“We hope,” Samuel said. With the whole team now in the airlock chamber, his helmet lights refocused into wide beams. He grasped the edge of the old hole and pulled himself through.
The archaeology team had cut their way into a broad corridor that served one of the large jammed-up airlocks. It was a simple, square section shaft sliced straight through the rock, with the spongy hoof-grab fabric along the floor, and pipes fastened to both walls. He barely did more than look round, when Syrinx announced the presence of a hellhawk. She gave them a running commentary as the other team members emerged into the corridor.
“The Oenone is swallowing over to the moons to tag the hellhawk,” Syrinx told them. “Lady Macbeth will distract the Tyrathca.”
“For how long?” Monica asked.
“As long as possible,” Joshua replied. “Worst case, we fail completely. Their first ship should reach Tanjuntic-RI in fifty-three minutes—mark.”
“That’s no good. We won’t even have reached the second level by then.”
“I’ll swap with you any time.”
“Sorry, Joshua; that wasn’t a complaint. How did that hellhawk know we were here?”
“Probably followed us from the antimatter station,” Syrinx said. “It wouldn’t be too difficult.”
“Thank you, Captains,” Samuel datavised. “We’ll try to be as quick as we can.”