Chapter Two
OUTER SYSTEM, BD+56 2966
As soon as Karam Tsaami had maneuvered far enough from the Slaasriithi ship—improbably named the Tidal-Drift-Instaurator-to-Shore-of-Stars—to lay in a course for the after-fringes of the most trailing of the debris fields, he turned to Riordan. “We’re clear to commence transit, Skipper.”
Riordan turned to Dora at the comm panel. “Ms. Veriden, please signal the rest of the crew to strap in. We’ll be pulling a decent portion of a gee in a few moments.”
Dora nodded, made the announcement over the hardwire comms.
Riordan turned back to Karam. “Get us under way, Helm.”
Tsaami adjusted the thrusters, prepared to engage—and stared. “Holy shit,” he breathed. It sounded more reverent than profane.
“Problem, Helm?”
“Anything but, sir. Good thing I checked our power levels before kicking in the juice. The Slaasriithi didn’t just replace the power plant. They must have swapped in something a whole lot more muscular than the old nuke unit.”
Tina Melah’s voice was suddenly on the open channel. “That’s a big affirmative,” she said, almost breathless. “There’s an honest-to-god fusion plant down here. Inertial. Pulse fusion. Fits in the engine room of this little corvette. How the hell do they—?”
“Ms. Melah, let’s consider the technological ramifications later. Is the plant’s function nominal?”
“If you want to call this kind of output nominal, well, yeah, I guess so. And Commodore?”
“Yes?”
“Did Yiithrii’ah’aash happen to mention that he replaced our drives, as well?”
“He did.”
“And did he happen to mention that these are not patterned after our standard MAP drives at all?”
Well, damn. “He did not.”
“Looks like he put in a highly advanced version of what we call an H-MAP thruster: a heavy-particle magnetically accelerated plasmoid drive. I think this is the Slaasriithi standard, and what our egg-heads are trying to monkey-copy back home.”
“Well, then, we’re fortunate enough to have the first in the fleet. Estimated increase in thrust?”
The silence on the line was profound. It was the other engineer, Phil Friel, who broke it. “Conservative guess would be two point two times more thrust, sir. Conceivably as much as two point five. And there’s only a fraction of the radiation, shielding, and coolant headaches we’re accustomed to. In a smaller, lighter package.”
Riordan glanced back at Karam, whose face was no longer the careful, cynical mask he usually affected; he looked like a kid at Christmas. “Helm, do you think you’re up to the challenge of flying with this new system?”
Tsaami spent one second looking offended and then saw the slow smile that Riordan could not keep back. “Oh, yeah, sir, I think I just might be able to handle it. Strap in, thems of you what ain’t, ’cause here we go!”
And indeed, they did go—fast enough to push everyone back in their couches.
* * *
After several minutes of two-gee boost, Riordan gave orders for Karam to bring the thrust back to .8 gees constant. Tsaami looked like his Christmas present had been abruptly transmuted into coal.
“Signature,” Riordan explained. “We don’t want to look like a roman candle coming in.”
“Understood, sir, but it’s nice to know we’ve got that in reserve. It was a nice test-drive.”
“It truly was.” And besides, we needed to put the new drives through a fast shake-down run. Wouldn’t be smart to count on that thrust until it was a proven value. Riordan adjusted his hardwire comm set. “Major Rulaine?”
“Here, Commodore.” Bannor’s voice had a slight echo. He was in the gunnery bubble: a sealed, spherical station amidships that allowed for weapons control using intuitive motions within a 360 by 360 virtual representation of the battle-space.
“All weapons green?”
“They are, sir. And I believe our hosts upgraded the cooling systems on the railgun.”
“Any guess why?”
“Yes, sir. Because they’ve doubled the power supply to the weapon. Advantage of having that fusion plant: juice to spare.”
“What about our load-out?”
“All the missiles we had after Disparity are still in the rotary launcher. The larger systems, including our independent point defense platforms, are in the midship ventral munitions bay. However, the Slaasriithi have added some of their own toys. I’m going over the specs now.”
“Did they give us one of those drone fighters we saw at Disparity?”
“No, sir; we wouldn’t have the room in the bay for anything else if they had loaded up one of the cannonballs.”
Logical. “Did they give us any PIPs?”
“Yes, sir. Two Slaasriithi Point-defense Independent Platforms are in the soft-deploy bay.”
“Very well, Major. When you and the rest of the crew are done squaring away your action stations, head back up here. It’s time you find out what we’re facing.”
* * *
As the rest of his team filed on to Puller’s bridge, Riordan smiled. “You know, even though you’ve had almost three months of sound sleep, you all look like hell.”
“Yeah? Have you looked in a mirror, yet?” Dora Veriden had sounded testy when she began the retort, but her tone ended on irony, not annoyance. Caine smiled more widely. She almost smiled back.
Karam Tsaami, who was returning from the ship’s locker, passed close to her—a little closer than strictly necessary—and grinned as he fell into his pilot’s couch. “Okay, so I saw the cold cells’ reanimation data; the Slaasriithi got us out of cryo in record time. Impossible time, I would have said before today. Of course, the more we learn about what some of our exosapient neighbors can do, the more I hesitate using the word ‘impossible.’” His stomach rumbled and he stifled a belch; Caine could smell the geneered glycerin that would take weeks to fully work its way out of all their systems. Genetically reverse-engineered from the same compound that kept Arctic cod from freezing solid in blocks of ice, it retained a faintly fishy undertone. “Pardon,” Karam offered as half of the team waved hands in front of their noses.
Not that it would help much. They all stank of the glycerin in addition to the antiseptic reek of the other chemicals that would slowly leach out of their bodies. But one sensation was new to Caine: a coppery taste in his mouth. Probably stimulated by the near-overdose of hormones and neurohumors that the Slaasriithi had pumped into them.
Miles O’Garran, a former tunnel-rat like Peter Wu, folded his arms. “So what’s the big rush? Something’s up or the Slaasriithi would have followed the standard reanimation protocols.”
Riordan nodded. “We’re in the Turkh’saar system. Outer reaches.” Caine activated the holotank—just before he realized it was not of human manufacture: another refit, courtesy of the Slaasriithi.
The holotank, although much smaller, projected a breathtakingly detailed and faithful display of the system. Caine looked for a plasma stylus to change the view, didn’t see one, tried manipulating the view with his hand.
Accordingly, the representation zoomed in, the rest of the system falling outside the view as it centered on the seventh, outermost planet. “We’re here. A gas giant, about half the size of Saturn, just over three AUs from the primary.”
Tina Melah, one of the two engineers, frowned. “Why the hell are we out here? Turkh’saar is the colony world, so we should have shifted in near the habitable zone. Which can’t be more’n half as far out as Sol’s goldilocks girdle, given this star’s a K3 V.”
Riordan nodded. “True, but we’re trespassing in what could be a hostile system. And the Slaasriithi are nothing if not careful.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” grumbled Tygg Robin. Even when speaking under his breath, the tall SAAS soldier’s broad down-under accent was unmistakable.
Riordan shared a rueful grin. “Here’s why they woke us up.” Caine put his hand into the holoplot near Planet Seven, stretched his fingers further apart. The view zoomed in even more. Four small moons appeared, moving slowly about the gas giant. Two faint rings, one located beyond the orbit of the innermost moon, were slightly askew from the system’s ecliptic plane. “Show debris,” he ordered the computer; since it was not in emergency operations mode, it could still process voice commands. A litter of red specks appeared in a ragged half-wreath around the planet, scattered liberally in the rings as well as near the orbital tracks of two of the moons.
Bannor Rulaine raised a single eyebrow. “So who’s been shooting at whom, out here?”
“Slaasriithi raiders came through shortly after the Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh attacked us. They hit the Arat Kur refueling facilities, as well as their automated sensor and defense assets.”
Peter Wu stepped closer, examined the distribution and density of the red flecks. “Then they must have had very extensive facilities around this planet. The amount of debris is consistent with a much larger engagement.”
Riordan nodded. “That’s one worrisome mystery. Here’s another: according to Yiithrii’ah’aash, the final scan by the Slaasriithi who hit this system showed a different picture.” Caine waved away the current display, summoned the postbattle readings with a slow raise of his palm. The red wreath in the new image was slightly thicker. In several places, debris clusters predominated where there was now clear space.
“Someone came through to clean up the rubbish?” Melissa Sleeman’s tone indicated she didn’t believe her own speculation.
Riordan smiled. “In a manner of speaking.” Karam Tsaami rolled out of the pilot’s couch, came over to scowl down into the holotank. “What do you think, helmsman?”
Karam’s scowl deepened. “Hell, you already know what I think—and what Yiithrii’ah’aash thinks, too, I’ll bet. The Arat Kur returned and reseeded the planet with new sensor and defense assets. No other reason to clean up the junk.”
Dora, who had less spaceside experience than most of the others, squinted at the holoplot as if that might help her see it more clearly. “I don’t get it. Why not leave the debris in place, as cover and hiding places for your new robots? They’d be invisible to our sensors if they were snugged up tight against that junk: same materials, same temperature, same size. Or smaller. Great spots from which to mount ambushes.”
Riordan nodded. “All true, and they’ve left plenty of those hunter’s blinds for themselves to hide in. But, if the junk is too dense, it becomes an obstruction for their own sensors and maneuver. Too many small objects tumbling along at different velocities, on different vectors. An ambusher needs to groom the ground—or in this case, the space—between themselves and their prey.”
Veriden’s squint intensified. “Yeah, that’s what they’ve done, all right. They’ve thinned out the debris in a couple of places. And gotten rid of a couple of larger objects as well.”
Engineer Phil Friel moved forward. “Actually, I’m a wee bit puzzled about those missing larger objects.”
Karam made a troubled noise. “Me, too.”
Riordan grew concerned. “What’s worrying you?”
Phil shrugged. “Well, the biggest of the missing bits were so shockin’ large that any ship that’s been here before—or that can compare the current sensor readings to these older ones—is sure to see they’re gone. Rather spoils the surprise, doesn’t it, calling attention to the changed debris field, that way?” Karam grunted approvingly.
Damn it, they’re right. And damn me for not seeing it, myself. “Okay, but then why remove those bigger pieces? Unless that large debris was not debris.”
Karam looked at the large red flecks again. “You mean, you think the missing chunks might have been intact systems that were lying doggo when the scan was made, then moved off on their own power later on?” He cocked his head. “Zoom in some more, will ya?”
Riordan complied. Now, at maximum resolution, each debris field looked like a funneled storm of large ragged ice chunks being spattered by a faster blizzard of hail and fine snow—all bright red.
Karam shook his head. “See that? If any craft tried weathering that storm as it waited for a safe window in which to move, it would get holed. Or worse.” Karam peered more closely. “I’m guessing the smallest of the junk is still massing close to ten kilos. At those velocities, any hit would be serious. If it smacked any of a craft’s critical systems, it would be disabling. And with all the big pieces still colliding, spinning off on new vectors and generating new debris, there are no reliable eyes of calm in that storm.”
“Okay, but we haven’t gotten any closer to knowing why the larger objects were removed,” Melissa Sleeman pointed out.
“And I doubt we are going to, Doctor. At least not from this distance,” Peter Wu observed respectfully.
Miles O’Garran stared around the group; his deepening frown was impatient, almost angry. “Okay, so do I have to ask the obvious? Why the hell did the Slaasriithi wake us up for this? I mean, are we supposed to go out and collect the garbage because it makes them nervous? I know they flee from conflict whenever possible, but Christ Almighty, this is—”
Riordan held up a hand. “You asked a question, Chief. Wait to hear the answer.”
O’Garran stopped in mid syllable, mouth open, looked away. “Yes, sir.”
Riordan waved away the older sensor survey of Planet Seven; the current, slightly less crowded one reasserted. “Show emission sources,” he instructed the computer. Three faint, lavender spheres superimposed upon the view, each one straddling a different debris field. “Each of those areas are possible locations of Arat Kur platforms, sending intermittent pings to each other.”
Tygg Robin (whose first name was actually Christopher, and thus spawned a steady stream of Winnie-the-Pooh jokes), shook his head. “So, you mean, we already know where the targets are, Commodore?”
“You’ll note I called them ‘possible’ locations, Lieutenant. Whatever enemy systems are hiding in those spots, they’re hardly pinpointing themselves. In fact, if we hadn’t laid hold of all the Arat Kur stealth and covert operations protocols when they surrendered, the Slaasriithi would probably never have found these telltale signs at all. The signals rotate frequency and transmit only when the gas giant itself sends out a wash of solar-induced static. So, if you don’t know exactly where and when to listen, their pings just sound like part of the background noise. Unfortunately, the objects sending out the pings are probably not the ones we need to worry about.”
“That’s covert SOP for us, too,” Karam agreed with a sharp nod. “The pingers are tiny, expendable. The business platforms—weapons and sensors—will be nearby. They’ll be lying doggo, maintaining line-of-sight connection to the little repeaters, which only exist to poll the more distant parts of the autonomous matrix, confirming readiness and position.”
“Which means, even if you home in on and close with these pingers, they’re really just bait,” Bannor concluded with a nod.
“And that’s why the Slaasriithi are spooked.” Riordan swept a hand through the Slaasriithi holo; it flicked off. “They are used to cat-and-mouse games, but not when the clock is running.”
Sleeman nodded. “Which started ticking when we arrived, because of our immense in-shift signature.”
“Exactly, Doctor. Yiithrii’ah’aash tells me that, under normal Slaasriithi rules of engagement, the current circumstances warrant withdrawal.”
O’Garran scowled. “What? Because of a few hinky signals?”
Riordan shook his head. “Miles, the Slaasriithi philosophy is to work from stealth and at great distance. They don’t like fighting, particularly not up close and personal. Nor do they like starting an engagement that they can’t be sure of winning.”
“Then, with respect, sir, how do they expect to win any fight, much less a war?”
“They don’t. That’s why they see us as essential allies.”
“You mean, so we can die instead of them?”
Riordan did not allow any change in expression which would suggest just how much he sympathized with O’Garran’s last, irritated outburst. “No, Chief. So we can succeed at tasks for which their evolution has made them singularly ill-equipped. And succeeding at those tasks is exactly what we are going to do. Is that clear?”
“Clear, sir. What now?”
“The Slaasriithi have replaced a lot of Puller’s systems, particularly those compromised after she went into the drink on Disparity. Yiithrii’ah’aash only gave me a brief overview of the major changes before we detached. So you’ll need to survey your action stations for any alterations and familiarize yourself with any new toys. There are two of the space-adapted pastorae on board; call them for assistance.”
“Or we can ask the computer,” Tina Melah put in.
“Not anymore, at least not vocally.” He glanced at Dora. “I’m instructing Ms. Veriden to take the computer’s voice-command option off line. Immediately.”
“Why?” asked Veriden, even as she complied. Staring at Caine, she missed how the eyes of the military personnel hardened as they began edging in the directions of their various action stations.
“Because,” Caine answered, “you can’t trust voice recognition when you’re operating in a combat zone. Which we’ve just entered.”