The eternity artifact, p.40
The Eternity Artifact, page 40
Launch doors open this time.
Morgan had the bays open and the nanite barrier in place before I finished the checklist. Not by much, though.
Navigator Control, Needle Tigress, ready to launch.
Tigress, stand by. You are number three to launch. Number one departing cradle this time.
Standing by.
Lindskold was first, then Shaimen, then me, then Eyler and the other Alwyn pilot.
Needle Tigress, clear to uncradle and launch.
Stet. Uncradling this time.
Used the steering jets to ease the needle out, then formed up on Lindskold. When the last two joined, we had a loose wedge ahead of the Magellan.
Accessed the farscreens. What came through were points of energy all over the outer reaches of Hamilton system. The majority were D.S.S., according to the identifiers, but there were still close to fifty hostile vessels-—including eight dreadnoughts—in three battle groups. One enemy group was down to a pair of cruisers. One cruiser’s shields flared red, and raw energy replaced it, then faded.
Navigator needles, vector three one zero relative, plus two zero.
A pair of frigates—configured like Covenanters—lay along the vector. They were accelerating, closing on the Magellan. Leading them were three needles.
Needle Tigress, stet.
Let Lindskold take the lead, closed up slightly, but not enough that there was any chance for our shields to touch or interlock.
The Covenanter needles accelerated toward us, moving into a tight wedge with overlapping shields. Sure sign that they were trying for the Magellan.
Navigator needles, concentrate on the right needle. Hold fire until minimum plus twenty. Report fire.
Kept formation on Lindskold, holding as Morgan had ordered.
Less than thirty emkay… twenty… Still no torps from the Covenanters. None from the Magellan. Screens showed the Owens and the Bannister tucked up tight aft of the Magellan. They’d have bolted for Hamilton Base or some such. Except they were probably safer following the Magellan. Didn’t have the shields to deal with all the attacking ships around Hamilton system.
Closure at ten emkay… five… we were screaming toward each other. Could smell sweat inside the armor.
Navigator needles. That was Lindskold. Could “feel” the difference. Stand by to fire on my mark.
Two emkay… one…
Mark… fire two… mark…
Ten torps converged on the starboardmost Covenanter needle.
My farscreens blanked, then came back online after the energy wave swept past. All three enemy needles had vanished. Just dust, dispersing energy, and heat that would vanish into the chill and darkness in minutes.
Navigator needles, regroup and prepare for attack on leadfrigate.
Regroup? Realized we were missing one needle. Shaimen. Hadn’t even seen her go. Backlash on her shields, probably. Frigging bitch of a way to go.
Shuttled the remaining torp to the port tube. Always preferred the port.
Navigator needles, prepare to fire on frigate, link. Morgan this time. Wanted perfect synch of all torps.
The four torps from the needles and the ten from the Magellan slammed into the lead frigate’s shields. They barely flickered amber before going to red and shredding. Just a pair of torps from the Magellan finished that Covenanter.
Farscreen showed a wad of stuff flying out toward us. Past me before I could do anything. Shields flickered into the amber, and the needle shuddered.
Checked the farscreens. Frig! One of the Alwyn needles was gone. Didn’t know which, whether it was Eyler or the other pilot—Sennis, that was her name.
Navigator needles, stand clear. Form on couriers as possible.
With no torps left, Morgan didn’t want us caught between the last frigate and the Magellan. I didn’t want to be caught there, either.
Swung in a loop, small one, just enough to let the Magellan pass. Didn’t want to get caught without enough power to recover. I’d been there. Didn’t want to do it again—ever.
Could see the Magellan shifting shields forward. Covenanter had done the same.
Just before their shields touched, Covenanter released torps.
Had to gape… Magellan’s shields contracted. Morgan or the captain released double torp salvo, then expanded the shields forward. Never had seen that done.
Covenanter never had a chance. Got fried by his own torps, shield flex, and the Magellan’s torps. Could have been that the Magellan’s mass alone, backed by the shields, might have been enough. Wouldn’t ever know, though.
Morgan didn’t take chances. Didn’t think the captain did, either, but didn’t know her as well.
Navigator needles, cleared to return and recover.
Control, Needle Tigress, returning this time.
Stet, Tigress.
Checked the farscreens again. No one left close to us. Screens still registered dissipating energy. All that was left of five needles and two frigates. Had trouble swallowing. My mouth was dry.
Followed Lindskold back to the Magellan for recovery. Cold sweat coated the inside of my skintights. Alwyn pilot trailed me.
Checked the farscreens a last time before I dropped shields. Around Hamilton system, most of the hostiles had vanished—one way or another.
Still couldn’t believe that whoever it was—couldn’t have just been the Covenanters—had dared to attack Hamilton system itself. More unbelievable was that the Comity had been able to fight them off. D.S.S. must have pulled in every ship from hundreds of systems, if not all thousand. But how would they have known?
Navigator Control, Needle Tigress, standing by for recovery.
Stet, Tigress.
How could Comity D.S.S. have dared to concentrate so many ships, leaving systems defenseless? Bet Morgan knew. Bet he had a lot to answer for. Didn’t know as I wanted to confront him on it.
82 FITZHUGH
This time, after the battle, I’d waited outside the ready room, discreetly removed so that I could observe Commander Morgan’s appearance. As fortune, chance, or fate would have it, the commander did not deign to appear, and I finally made my way into the ready room.
Jiendra looked up from where she slumped in one of the chairs, exhausted. “You didn’t have to come.”
Lieutenant Lindskold smiled, then looked away before Jiendra could perceive her colleague’s amusement.
“You need nourishment, and separation from this locale would not be amiss,” I observed, “preferably before Commander Morgan appears.”
“He won’t be here. He’s got bigger problems.” She stood. “Could use a bite to eat.”
“Bigger problems?”
“Need to eat. We can talk then.”
Within a handful of minutes, Jiendra and I sat at the corner table in the mess, where she cut some form of formulated beef, drowned in a tan liquid masquerading as a sauce, with quick, exact strokes of a knife, then ate them with equally swift and precise bites.
“What is the probability that you’ll have to fight another battle?”
She swallowed, then sipped some lager that actually resembled closely the brewed product in both appearance and taste. “Doesn’t look likely. Not anytime soon. There must have been over a hundred Covenanter ships in Hamilton system. Saw more than fifty, and that was when things were winding down. Three, four times that many D.S.S. ships. We came in, looked like, on the tail end of a big-assed battle. Could have been bigger than anything since the Conflagration. Can’t say as I understand what brought it on, or why now.”
“You find it unsettling that the Covenanters and Sunnis and the CWs would sacrifice so many ships?”
“Stupid, first of all,” she pointed out, taking another quick sip of lager. “The CWs… I understand them. They wanted the Danannians’ technology. They didn’t attack Hamilton system, either. Just sent ships to Danann. Not that many, really. The Covenanters and Sunnis didn’t want anyone to have it. Understand that as well. But sacrificing so many ships? Makes no sense.”
“It does if you consider that, for them, the technology is something God never meant human beings to have. Because it came from another species, it had to have come from Iblis or Satan.”
“Still stupid.”
“It’s not precisely a question of intelligence, but of beliefs. We all have beliefs. Certain sets of beliefs enhance intelligence while others restrict the scope of its application. True believers, theocratic or otherwise, are those whose beliefs limit their applied intelligence. Throughout history, they’ve always been so. This… conflagration merely proves that little has changed. The Covenanters are monists in a multiplex universe.”
“You think it’s all over?” Jiendra’s vocal intonation, despite the inquiry, professed skepticism.
“You comprehend, all too well, my dear lady…” I shouldn’t have said that. I hurried on, trying to explain. “… that it has scarcely commenced. The Danannians, for lack of a better term, applied their technology to create a brane flex in a higher or different dimension, or another side of reality, or whatever, and they had enough power to push through at least a globular cluster. Cleon Lazar has suggested the possibility that they may have taken an entire galaxy. How or what they did doesn’t matter, except for one thing. Can you conceive of what that might be?”
“Liam…” She laughed. “You sound like a professor.”
“Professor or not,” I continued, essaying not to lecture, or not too much, “they created an entire new universe. For true believers, that’s something that only a deity can do. That leaves the true believers with a number of difficulties…”
“Aliens as powerful as gods, for one.”
“Or as powerful as they believe God to be, or as powerful as the mythical Satan, and a universe or a series of universes that can go on forever, for another, and where humans aren’t the most favored or the most powerful species, for another, and that’s particularly hard for those believers who insist humans are made in the image of God and foremost among his creatures.”
Jiendra laughed, and I just took in her face.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
“Do you think the scientists will ever figure out what’s behind all that stuff?” she finally asked, pushing aside an empty plate.
“Cleon Lazar has figured out some of it already, but it won’t be very useful as it is…”
“Why not?”
“The universe has changed since then. Oh… not in the grandest sense, but the comparative strength of atrousans and gravitons was stronger then. They’ve estimated that the surface gravity on Danann might have been close to one-point-five Tellurian. Cleon tried to explain the physics of it, and I still don’t understand. It has something to do with what you might call frequencies of brane flexion. Because everything is related to everything else, the relationships remain constant. One of the keys has been around for a long time, in astrophysics, where the age of the universe doesn’t work out quite right if the speed of light has been a constant since the prime flex. The higher gravity might be one rationale for why all the towers were shorter than anyone thought. And why the scientists thought everything was overengineered. It wasn’t.”
“Did they have Gates?”
“It’s not likely. According to Cleon, Gates wouldn’t work in the earlier times of the universe. Atrousan density was too high.”
“But… why did they leave?”
“That’s a guess. One of Cleon’s colleagues, and I’d calculate that it was most likely Koch or Chais, although Cleon refused to identify whoever it might be, theorizes that they were faced with the prospect of mental and physiological degradation because their biology was vastly different. They may even have a nervous system that was based on something similar to an AG drive. As the universe expanded, atrousan density decreased. So did everything else. It was a hotter, brighter universe… brighter in more ways than one.” “They wouldn’t be able to think as fast?” “I’d judge that they anticipated that possibility. Cleon won’t commit on that. He asserts that he is a physicist, not a neurologist. Most of the physical scientists have concluded that what we’ve found doesn’t work, or rather, that it functions only to a small percentage of its original design and capabilities. Not only are those functions impaired, but they will always be impaired and will continue to deteriorate as the universe continues to expand.” I couldn’t help laughing. Jiendra tilted her head.
“Doesn’t sound funny to me.”
“Don’t you see? Neither the rationalists nor the true believers will be happy. The scientists want to believe that, if they can just find the proper rational key, they can make anything work. If the preliminary work is correct, no one can ever make the Danannian technological devices operate as they once did. We might be able to create a universe where they did work again, but, personally, I’m not so certain that we’d work there.”
“What are we, then? The dregs of the universe?”
“I’d prefer to suggest that we’re the mature vintage of the universe, the later and better wine…” She did laugh at that.
83 CHANG
Finished eating and looked at Liam. Wanted some answers. He’d supplied some, but there were others, ones he didn’t know.
“You have that look, lady…” he said.
“Lady… I’m no lady. I’m a pilot, and I’m frigging pissed. We go off on an archeological expedition. We get attacked. We face assassins and sabotage, and when we come back through the Gate outside Hamilton system, we’re in the middle of the biggest single-system battle in human history. It’s no frigging coincidence.”
“That’s a rather charitably captious abnegation of—”
“Why don’t you just say you’re pissed, too?”
He grinned. “Your expressions are more colorful.”
“We need to see Morgan.”
“Will he see us?”
“If you come, how can he say no? You’re not under his command, and you can bust his butt into little fragments so small even a nanetic biologist couldn’t reassemble him. He also knows you just might.”
Liam stood. “We need to stop by my work space first, for some insurance.”
His insurance took more than half a stan. Finally, he stepped away from the console. “That should do it.”
“That to make sure everyone knows?”
“Some probably do. I just want to make sure everyone does.” Liam closed his door. Didn’t lock it.
We walked up the ramps.
Couple of officers looked round-eyed when we got to the ops level. Didn’t stop us, though. Morgan was in his spaces.
“Ah… I see I’m surrounded.” Morgan looked up from the console. His smile was hard.
Liam gestured for me to step inside, and then he closed the hatch.
“The captain will know you’ve closed the hatch, and she’ll be monitoring everything.”
“That’s fine.” My words were harsh.
“We have been pondering matters, Commander,” Liam began, “and cogitation, while often difficult, also can have unexpected negative impacts.”
“Get to the point, Professor. I don’t need lectures or verbiage.”
Liam moved. In instants, he had Morgan on the deck. “I don’t need condescending crap, Morgan. I’m polite because I was taught to be. You have a lot of explaining to do. Especially for all the blood on your hands. And don’t think that you can get out of it—not unless you want to silence or murder every member of the expedition.”
In a way, I was glad Liam had acted. I might have just busted Morgan’s balls and neck—in that order.
Morgan looked up tiredly as Liam released him. “Some sort of timed release?”
“It’s a bit more sophisticated than that. It’s a burst transmission, like a virus, that will appear in every terminal in the system, shortly. It will also appear if the system is turned off, if power is lost, and if any attempt is made to remove or tamper with it.”
“How did you learn that, Professor?”
“My subspecialty was communications disruptions, Commander. I’ve kept abreast, mainly out of curiosity.”
“Out of thousands of former commandos, we would get you.”
“No. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but it’s transparently obvious that I was placed here as a check on you, as well.”
I wondered how many checks on how many people the Comity really had. Got the feeling that there were plots within plots, stuff that I’d never know. Wasn’t certain I wanted to, either.
“Diplomatic Corps, no doubt.” Morgan cleared his throat. “Might I get up?”
“Why don’t you just sit on the deck?” I said. “Until we get some answers.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start right here,” I said. “How did you know that the battle here in Hamilton system was going to happen?”
“I didn’t.”
Just looked at him. My eyes were colder than his. Angrier, too.
“Just out of curiosity, Commander” asked Liam, “what were you at D.S.S. Headquarters, Deputy Chief of Intelligence? That has to be a matter of record, and I imagine that, if anyone published such a coincidence as your also returning as operations officer of the Magellan...”
“It would all be hypothetical, Professor, very hypothetical. Besides, I’m well past the time for full retirement, and I certainly haven’t done a single thing against any law or regulation.”
“Deputy Chief of Intelligence?” Liam pressed.
“Assistant Deputy Chief.”
“Now… about how you knew there would be a battle here in Hamilton system?”
“As I said, it could only be hypothetical—”
“Then, perhaps you had best offer your hypothetical answer.” Never heard Liam’s voice that calm or cold. Deadly.
Morgan looked from Liam to me.
“I’ll take hypothetical.” For starters.
Morgan rose to his feet. Liam let him.
Morgan smiled. Uneasy smile. “Let us start with Danann itself. Just assume that a D.S.S. ship fired a flash torp at the surface of Danann. Not anyplace near the megaplex, but just a flat icy patch over one of those frozen oceans. Not out of hostility, but to get some spectral readings because the ship was leery about landing its single flitter. Let us also assume that within moments the ship vanished, and there was a massive surge of energy on the AG level, enough to rock its companion vessel, despite the other ship’s having stood off several thousand emkay… Let us assume that, far later, another ship approached and successfully landed a flitter. What conclusion would you draw?”
