The ethos effect, p.43
The Ethos Effect, page 43
“Do you need any help with the equipment?” asked Van.
“It’s ready to deploy.” Trystin stood.
Van also stood.
“You go first” Nynca said to Van. “It’s easier that way.”
Van inclined his head, then turned.
He did not look back as he headed to the lock, but he couldn’t help but sense the hug Nynca gave Trystin, or the words that followed.
“... be careful... wish it hadn’t turned this way...”
“... do what I can... my responsibility...”
Van frowned. What was Trystin’s responsibility? What IIS had done? He couldn’t have meant the Revenants were his responsibility. No man could take responsibility for a culture, especially one not his own. Could he?
Chapter 72
Although the Salya jumped first, followed by the Joyau, when Van came out of jumpspace, the Elsin was already moving in-system, and the Salya was nowhere to be seen. Van checked the comparator beacon. He was definitely on the outskirts of the Jerush system.
The shipnet monitors had already begun to bring up the EDI traces, and Van could see almost fifty vessels, half of them light cruisers or larger vessels. His initial scan showed none of the heavier vessels near the two IIS ships, but two corvettes were within a thousand emkay. They had not reacted—yet Van extended the photon nets full, but did not draw on his accumulators, as he brought the Joyau after the Elsin.
“Eri ... full combat restraint.”
“Yes, ser.” Eri’s voice was strained.
The brightening of the corvettes’ EDI traces indicated that they were adding power. After a moment, Van checked their courses—toward the Elsin, predictably enough. The Salya was still in transit, and while Trystin was doubtless a better combat pilot than Van, Trystin couldn’t very well set up his device for delivery while under attack.
The Revenant corvettes continued to accelerate toward the Elsin.
Van increased his own acceleration, closing the gap as the Elsin decelerated. That meant that Trystin felt he couldn’t move farther in-system.
The Revenant corvettes began to launch torps, in sets of two, salvo after salvo, all arcing toward the Elsin. Van counted sixteen.
As the torps closed on the Elsin, Van could see the other IIS ship’s shields flare to maximum as Trystin transferred all power to them. But the Elsin launched no torps as a counter. Was Trystin so loaded with equipment that he carried no torps? Did the setup take both him and Alya?
Van kept checking the closures. He also noted four torps impacting the Elsin’s shields at once, and the slight shiver of amber flashing through Trystin’s shields. He continued to concentrate on the Revs, and was almost within torp range when the two corvettes changed course, trying to bracket the Joyau.
Van sensed the slight raggedness in the shields and drives of the Revenant farther from the Elsin and turned the Joyau onto a head-to-head. He smiled, knowing that the corvette pilot would realize shortly that the Joyau could crush the smaller ship with screens alone. He also hoped that the pilot continued to think that the Joyau was either unarmed or unequipped for conventional combat The Revenant was brighter than that, launching a double salvo of torps, then making a tight turn back in-system. Too tight, Van realized. He immediately launched his own torps.
The Rev’s screens flared amber, and Van sent a third torp.
The Rev tried to flip his shields to bring the heavier forward shields into play, but the strain on drives and shields was too much, and a flare of energy replaced the overstressed corvette.
Even before the energy dropped from the monitors, Van angled the Joyau toward the remaining corvette. The pilot reacting to what he had seen, began salvoing his torps at the maximum rate—but that meant only eight torps before he seemed to exhaust his supply. Van cut all power to the drives and screens, redirected it to the shields, and shuttered everything.
Two minutes later, the Joyau was through the wash of energy and closing on the Revenant, who had turned in-system. Van redirected power to the drives, and with half shields, began to overhaul the Revenant Three torps were enough to take out the smaller vessel.
Van turned his attention back out-system toward the Elsin, seemingly stationary in the system. The shipnet monitors indicated that one of the Revenant cruisers had turned and was accelerating out-system toward the IIS ships, with a CPA of twenty, plus or minus five.
Status green? Van pulsed toward the Elsin, not wanting to give an identity.
Green, affirmed Trystin. But the concussions shook up my packages. May take longer than I’d thought.
Do you want me to bring over my packages?
Negative this time. Take longer to set them up than to set things right here.
Van studied the screens. The oncoming cruiser was pushing everything to reach them.
With a tight smile, Van swung the Joyau into a tight turn, one that would sweep through the area where the second corvette had disintegrated.
Interrogative assistance, came from the Salya, now moving in-system.
Stand by, Van replied. Cover number one. He’d never worked with Nynca before, and two uncoordinated ships were at greater risk than a single vessel.
Will do.
As the photon nets pulled in the molecular debris from the second corvette. Van monitored the strain on the ship systems. He was carrying a mass load close to design limits, but that wouldn’t matter if the strategy worked. If it didn’t then the Joyau couldn’t hold off a heavy cruiser for all that long.
Interrogative time necessary? Van pulsed to the Elsin.
Twenty, with luck.
Stet.
Van frowned. A corvette had appeared out-system of the Salya. Had one of the Revs used a short jump? That was almost suicidal—except that it had worked.
Nynca changed course to put the Salya between the corvette and the Elsin.
Van went back to concentrating on the oncoming heavy cruiser, a vessel that massed twice what the Joyau did. Since both the Revenant cruiser and the Joyau were on a closure course, the CPA had dropped to less than fifteen.
For an instant, he focused on the Salya and the Revenant corvette. Nynca had launched torps, and two of the Rev’s torps had flared harmlessly against the Salya’s shields.
Another cruiser had turned out-system, but according to Van’s calculations, would not reach the Joyau for close to thirty minutes.
Van watched as the Joyau and the closer Revenant cruiser neared each other. The Revenant began to launch torps even before the two ships were within effective torp range. The first four flared away harmlessly a good emkay short of the Joyau’s shields.
Van dropped all power to the drives and gravs, and transferred it to the forward shields.
The next set of torps—four in all—impacted the shields, but not simultaneously, and the shields shivered, but remained in the green.
Because the Joyau still wasn’t close enough for what Van needed to do, he shifted power to the drives for a moment, then returned it to the shields before the cruiser’s next salvo arced toward the smaller IIS ship. Again, the Joyau’s reinforced shields held, staying in the green, if barely, as Van kept his course head-on-head with the cruiser.
The cruiser shifted course, not by much, less than five degrees, as if to avoid a collision. Van shifted his course to return to a steady bearing, decreasing range. There was less than five minutes to CPA, although it was unlikely to be a collision, given the relative velocities and speeds. Van just wanted to be close enough to use the Joyau’s nets and torps to full advantage.
The cruiser’s next salvo brought the faintest trace of amber into the Joyau’s shields.
Van checked the closure—still not near enough.
Within another minute, the two vessels would be within less than twenty klicks, flashing toward and past each other.
Van slewed the Joyau across the projected course line of the cruiser, then flexed the photon nets, released all the matter gathered there, and followed with two quick salvoes of torps, then another.
The Revenant cruiser’s shields flared bright green as the cruiser impacted the wave of matter Van had flung, then dropped to amber, but held.
Van loosed another double salvo of torps.
The cruiser’s shields held, momentarily, and in the amber, but they held. Van could see the Revenant’s EDI drive indicators flickering, and he let loose another set of torps. He hoped they’d take out the cruiser, because, until he and Eri could manually reload the spare torps in the cargo bay into the firing bays, the Joyau was down to two torps.
The cruiser’s drives flickered off, but the screens remained amber.
Van fired his last two torps, then swung the Joyau out-system.
Behind him the cruiser’s screens collapsed, and the cruiser flared into energy.
Van checked the wider monitors.
The Salya had taken station near the Elsin. and there was no sign of the Revenant corvette, but another cruiser had turned out-system to follow the one that was only fifteen minutes from intercepting the three IIS ships.
After another five minutes, Van was close enough to pulse the Elsin. Interrogative status?
I’ve had to improvise here, but everything’s go. Countdown beginning at sixty. Departure in thirty. Beginning countdown at sixty. Departure at thirty.
Van let out a slow breath. Affirm departure in thirty.
In thirty, affirm, came from the Salya.
... thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two ...
The transmission from the Elsin broke off. Van stiffened. The Elsin had vanished—gone jump. He scanned the EDIs, then the system screen.
Van froze, if but for an instant. The EDI screen showed— impossibly—an enormous flare surging out from Jerush—the sun itself—what looked to be a major flare.
“No ...” murmured Eri from the second seat.
Van froze, if but for a milli-instant. The release of energy shown in the EDI screen was not just a massive solar wind, a comm disruption, but something with enough energy, heat, and power to broil the sunward side of Orum, or burn it to a crisp, strip the atmosphere away. The image of eight white towers melting down instantaneously flashed across his mind, followed by the screams of millions of men, women, and children, walking, talking, one moment, and then...
Convulsively, Van initiated the jumpshift—hoping that he had not been too late, and hoping that Nynca had not waited so long as Van had.
The Joyau twisted, and Van felt his guts being ripped in different directions, pulled out from inside him, even as they simultaneously were being crushed into the internal equivalent of a black hole.
Black flashes alternated with white flares, and the entire ship shuddered in the endless and yet instantaneous moment of jump.
The Joyau staggered—that was the only word that fit—out of jump. Van checked the systems, half-surprised that they had made it anywhere. The ship was somewhere on the fringes of the Perdyan system, but well out beyond normal jump emergence.
Then he just sat in the command couch, shuddering, as image after image ran through his mind, of oceans instantly boding away, of waves of flames incinerating everything before them, before the air vanished, of the strongest buildings being flattened, just before the very ground turned to molten rock, of mountains melting down like candles in a wildfire, of seas boiling away in an instant...
While trying to cope with those images, he automatically ran diagnostics. Both jump generators were inoperative. The secondary screen generator was down. He tried to spread the photon nets, and got fifty-seven percent of maximum extension.
The Joyau was headed in-system, and Van sat stunned in the command seat, images jumbled together, images of shut-ties being dashed from the skies, of orbit stations being vaporized, of all the Revenant ships in-system knowing the wave front was accelerating toward them and those in the inner system unable to move fast enough to reach a place where their shields would protect them, and those in the outer system half-blinded, unable to jump, their habitability systems failing ... slowly, inevitably.
... and the millions upon millions of people ... gone ... dead ... instantly.
Van couldn’t stop shuddering, even though his entire body felt bruised and sore, and each shudder racked him.
Across from him, Eri was unconscious, but breathing, and the medical scan indicated no severe physical trauma.
Sometime later, an hour perhaps. Van pulled himself out of his stupor and checked the monitors, finally realizing that something had been nagging at him. He checked the systemwide EDIs. There were only about twenty Coalition warships—and all were drawn up in a defensive formation around Perdya. The other ships that had been mustering before he had jumped out-system were gone.
Where? They certainly hadn’t gone to Jerush. The Keltyr systems?
Van continued to monitor the system as the Joyau built up speed, headed in-system. Van reminded himself that deceleration would also take longer.
After another twenty minutes, Eri groaned.
Van unstrapped himself and went to the galley, where he started the kettle and the café maker. He tried not to think about what had happened in the Jerush system, but images still flashed across his mind. After the kettle boiled and the café was ready, he carried two mugs back to the cockpit.
Eri took the tea, but just cupped it between her hands.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?” Van took a sip of café. “The damage to the Joyau?” He didn’t want to address the bigger why. “I waited too long. We did make it back. But we’re outside Perdya, well outside, with no jump capability, and a little more than half drive capability. I’d guess close to twenty-plus hours to reach Aerolis. That’s where we’re headed because the Joyau’s in no shape to go anywhere else.”
The tech nodded. She was pale. Finally, she sipped the tea.
Van checked the system again, but nothing had changed. It would be hours before they reached the normal jump exit zone. For a time, he just sat there. So did Eri.
“I was on the shipnet,” Eri said. “When ... he...” She shook her head.
Van swallowed. He hadn’t even thought that Trystin had actually used the Elsin to deliver his device to the Revenant sun. “You think that he...”
Eri nodded. “He could not be certain otherwise.”
“But Alya, I can’t believe...”
“Was she on board? Did you see her?”
“No,” Van admitted, “I didn’t. I didn’t hear anyone either.” That would also have explained the extra setup time that Trystin had needed. “But why?”
“He needed to be certain,” Eri said bleakly. “He always needed to be sure.” She looked down at the mug she held.
Van couldn’t say he understood. Trystin had never struck him as the martyr type. And Trystin had never lied to him. After a moment, Van laughed softly and bitterly. Trystin hadn’t lied. He just hadn’t told the entire truth—and that had happened before.
The Revenants—if not destroyed—were broken. Their home planets, their great Temple, and their defense fleet were all destroyed. The Coalition forces—and perhaps the Hyndjis and the Argentis—wouldn’t hesitate to finish off the Revenant invasion fleets. Without those fleets, most of the planets taken over in recent years might well revert to their previous belief and social systems. Then, again, Van reflected, they might not.
He frowned. Except for him and Eri, and Nynca and her tech, who would know what had happened? Massive solar flares did happen. They were rare enough that no one could be sure exactly of the cause. Was that what Trystin wanted? A proof that the Revenants were not God’s chosen people? A seemingly natural occurrence that cast massive doubts on the divine support of the Revenants?
Van took refuge in the shipnet, checking the system EDIs and the ship systems.
He still couldn’t say he understood, especially after everything that Trystin had said about ethics—and the totally ethical way in which he had treated people. Van just hoped he would be able to understand when he knew more. If he could learn more. If he could put aside the images.
Chapter 73
Nynca and the Salya had reached Aerolis before Van and the Joyau, and Nynca was waiting at the tower lock once he had the Joyau docked.
Van wasn’t certain he wanted to see her. The more he’d thought about what Trystin had done, the less he understood. The images still flashed through his mind. How could anyone believe that destroying a world, a system, with half a billion people, was ethical? Had Trystin been, at the end, a madman, as Jose Marti had suggested? How could he have been otherwise?
Where did that leave Van? He couldn’t return home, not with what he’d been a party to, and not with the situation in the Republic. And he also didn’t have a ship that was going anywhere, not anytime soon. Could he make amends through IIS? What would happen to IIS?
He pushed those thoughts aside as Nynca stepped into the Joyau’s lock. Her eyes were still reddened, and she had deep black circles under her eyes. Without a word, she walked into Van’s stateroom and waited for him to close the door. Then she spoke. “Privacy. No recording.”
Van nodded and triggered the little-used privacy cone.
“How much have you figured out?” she asked, without sitting down.
“He had it all planned.” He cleared his throat. “Alya wasn’t on board, was she?”
“No. He sent a burst coded message to me just before...” Nynca’s lips tightened, and she looked down at the stateroom floor, at the synthetic parquet flooring.
“He wanted a natural occurrence to destroy the Revenants,” Van offered. “One that would cast doubts on either their sense of divine mission, or one that would imply that their God disapproved of their actions. Maybe both.” Van paused. “That’s all I can really say that I truly understand. I don’t... I can’t... understand ... there must have been five hundred million people ... How could anyone...?“
“That is the danger of age,” she replied.
“The danger of age?” Van replied stupidly.
“How old do you think he was?” Nynca asked.
“At least a hundred fifty. There are some who thought he was an immortal.”
