Starforge unsec space bo.., p.37
Starforge (UNSEC Space Book 3), page 37
“Well,” Anna said before anyone else could speak. “That’s one vote of confidence. Though Liaison, a little tip. If you want to remind us you’re in the channel, throw us a hud indicator or something. You speaking out of nowhere on our net like you’re physically present when you’re not—Sweets’ armor notwithstanding—is creepy. Entendido?”
“Compreendo,” As odd as it was hearing the alien AI speak English, hearing its strange, overlapping voice speak Span-Portuguese was even stranger. True to its reply, however, a moment later a comm connection indicator popped up in the corner of Jake’s hud, signifying that “The Liaison” was now part of the channel.
“First time I’ve heard you speak Span-Portuguese in a while,” Jake said, giving Anna a glance.
“Been spending too much time around you lot,” she replied with a shake of her head.
Sweets tilted his helmet to one side. “But … doesn’t your family speak Span-Portuguese?”
“I think she’s saying she got it all out of her system,” Jake said, grinning and well aware Anna could read the expression from his body language. “Now she’s stuck with us and so all that extra backlog is building up and leaking out around us.”
“Oh slag off,” Anna said, though there was no bite to her words. Then, changing the subject: “Liaison, can you tell us anything about this Starforge yet?”
The comm indicator bearing the AI’s name on Jake’s hud flashed as it began to speak. “No. Per code—”
“We get it,” Sweets said, cutting the Liaison off. “In the future, you can just say ‘no.’ We’ll understand the rest.”
“Acknowledged-understood.”
“Two minutes.” Navs’ warning sounded loud and clear across the bridge, and Jake didn’t miss the way the three squad captains shifted ever so slightly, readying themselves.
For what? I guess if things really go wrong and we come under attack the moment we drop out of the jump or something, maybe there’d be an advantage to being a fraction of a second faster to react and run, but …
It’s just training. They’re at the ready in case something happens. All of us are. The countdown on the displays continued its descent, Commander Gan letting out a low, slow breath that probably hadn’t been intended for his audience. Then he leaned forward, tapping at the controls and speaking, his voice echoing over the intercom and ship channels once more.
“Attention all crew. One minute to end of jump. Again, one minute to end of jump. Make final preparations now.” Gan pulled his hand away from the controls, the channel closing. “Bridge stations?”
“Ready to drop,” Comms replied.
“Ready to end.” Navs shifted and gave Gan a nod. “Forty-five seconds. Bringing us out on the edge.”
The edge? Then again, it made sense. There wasn’t any information on how big the Starforge was, and the last thing they wanted to do was test to see what happened if a jump ended too close to—or even inside of—something like the Starforge. If that were even possible.
One of Gan’s controls pinged, and the commander tapped it. “Yes?”
“All VTOLs are ready for launch, commander.” Jake only faintly recognized the voice of the Beachhead’s lieutenant commander, having had barely any interaction with the woman due to their opposing schedules. His one conversation had determined that she had been a former subordinate of Gan on the Tintin during its loss at the battle of North Shore, and had followed the commander to his new position out of loyalty and respect for his command. And a chance, Jake suspected, at a career advancement like Gan had been promised.
“Good. Stand ready.”
Less than thirty seconds now. Despite everything that was riding on their mission, he could feel anticipation building inside him. We are about to see a structure so big it’s the size of an orbit, wrapped around a star. What is it going to look like? And how much of it are we going to see?
How much of it can we see? It’s the size of … well, an orbit. Will we even be able to distinguish what we’re looking at?
“Twenty seconds.”
A faint shiver rolled through his body, shifting his armor plating slightly, and he saw Anna give him a quick glance. “Here goes,” he said. No one replied.
“Ten seconds. Opening the shutters.”
At the front of the bridge the metal coverings over the viewports began to retract, and Jake winced as he caught a glance of the folding everything and nothing beyond it, turning away as a sense of pain seemed to stab into his head through his eyes. Most of the bridge did the same, fixing their focus on the displays or deck rather than on the painful, twisting wrongness that was … whatever the folding, twisting logic of travel at FTL was.
“Five seconds. Four. Three.”
This is it!
“Two. One.”
Jake brought his eyes up just as the strange folding wrongness vanished, normal, logical space appearing once more with a transition that was part gradual slide, part leap, and so intermeshed he couldn’t say which was which. But in an instant that felt like an eon, the stars were back.
Only they were wrong. Everything about them was wrong, and for a moment he was worried that something had malfunctioned with the end of the jump. Gasps echoed around him as he stared, and then his mind caught up with what he was seeing.
Those aren’t stars. They’re lights. Titanic ones. The space ahead of them was filled with a faintly visible globe, lit only by billions of pinprick lights along its surface and over it, as well as several gigantic beacons so bright they looked like miniature suns climbing away from its surface.
No, he realized. They don’t look like it. He had to focus for a moment to trigger his visor’s zoom, disappointment rearing when it accomplished little. I think they’re … Those look like … plumes?
“Sir,” Navs said, their voice holding a tone of awe. “We’ve arrived.”
“Signal from Vesta and the rest of the fleet,” Comms said. “We’re all here. Vesta is feeding us scanner data now.”
“Display!” The center of the bridge lit up as emitters went to work, building a much more detailed image than the view outside the viewports. Or at least, half of one. Or a quarter. Like a slice of an orange in the middle of the air.
Sensors must be having trouble resolving something so massive, Jake thought as the image formed. His eyes flicked to the plumes first, massive jets of flame venting out through openings that looked only to be a few inches across, but had to be tens of thousands of kilometers.
Gan’s focus must have shifted as well, because he spoke first. “What the hell are those things? Engines?”
“No.” The Liaison’s voice was audible to all, Sweets’ armor shifting as the construct’s avatar formed in the air. Its appearance hardly pulled anyone’s focus away, all of them still watching as the display resolved more and more detail from the scanners. “They are venting systems. The Starforge fueled a civilization, but in the event that the energy of its star was unneeded-unused, surplus-excess would be directed-vented-released in a controlled-directed manner.”
“That’s a star,” Iyis said. “Venting?”
“Understood-correct.”
No one said anything further, their eyes still fixed on the display. More details were becoming clear now as the scanners from their small fleet took in every detail they could. The small pinpricks of light appeared to be …
The bottom dropped out of Jake’s stomach the same time alerts began to flash across all three control panels.
“Contacts! All vessels!” Comms said, a tone of panic in their voice. “Appear to be fighting unknowns, possibly Sha’o. Total count over one thousand … two thousand … three thousand …”
Jake’s mouth felt dry. They had more worlds like Livingstone. The Overseer was right, then. The All is attacking the Starforge.
Except … that doesn’t make any sense. Comms’ count continued to climb, moving past ten thousand. Is there any sign of damage?
“Transmission-contact!” The Liaison’s voice was raised, and Jake tore his eyes away from the display as the construct’s appearance swelled, growing larger. “The Exarch Overseer of the Starforge is aware of our presence. I have received instructions.” Its image flickered, becoming larger still and changing to a slightly different looking shape, one that was probably more distinct from the former appearance if one was Sha’o.
“System under quarantine-isolation protocols.” The new voice was wider in range, with more highs and lows that the Liaison’s. “All outbreak-uncontained-ranging. Retreat-depart immediately-at haste or face-accept penalty-consequences.” The image shifted and shrank, fading back into the more familiar shape of the Liaison.
Outbreak uncontained?
“It speaks English?” Captain Njoku asked, turning to look at Sweets.
“Handshake-connection assisted-aided translation,” the Liaison replied.
“Quiet!” Gan ordered. “It’s a bit irrelevant at the moment. Comms! Transmit that to the rest of the fleet.”
“They uh … already have it, commander,” Comms replied, visibly alarmed. “Came in at the same time.”
“It’s fast,” Sweets was saying. “Very fast. The Starforge Overseer, I mean.”
“FTL comms in a fregging armor suit,” Gan said, nodding as he stepped forward. “Liaison, can you order a resupply for Pisces from here?”
“No,” the AI replied. “We will need physical access. This fragment does not have command-authority-precedence over Starforge control-command systems.”
Jake ignored the conversation as Gan began plying the alien AI for a flight path and destination, stepping closer to the display and well aware he was likely blocking someone’s view. Outbreak. This close, it was becoming clear that the brief, sparkling lights he’d seen earlier were flashes of battles, fights between All ships and what had to be smooth-sided, almost organic-looking Sha’o vessels of some kind—though it was hard to tell as the images still weren’t clear. Why that particular choice of word? Does the system consider the All a plague?
“Sir?” A member of the bridge crew was waving at him to move back, but he ignored them.
Why outbreak? More detail took shape, enough that he could make out the surface of the Starforge now, its appearance almost scaled, made up of billions of tiny, hexagonal panels that were probably tens of thousands of kilometers across.
“Sir? Mr. Tames?”
He held up a hand. “Comms? Can you—?”
“Sir, please step—”
“Can it!” The words came out of his mouth a bit more forcefully than he’d meant, but there was no taking them back now. Only rolling with it. “Triumvirate, remember?” he asked, pulling his eyes away from the display for just a brief moment. “Contact the Vesta. Tell it we need a high-detailed look at this portion …” He glanced at a section of the surface away from what looked almost like a line of lights denoting where All ships were fighting Sha’o. “And …” He moved his hand back to the left, across what had to be millions—if not billions—of miles of surface. “Here,” he said, making a circle with his fingers under a cluster of what looked to be All ships that weren’t currently fighting.
“Sir, you don’t—”
“Authorized!” Gan’s voice was like the crack of a whip. “What do you see, Tames?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he admitted. “But the Overseer here called it an outbreak. Not an attack. The Overseer of Pisces was certain the All were going to destroy the Starforge. But you don’t call that an outbreak.”
“A virus can destroy the body that hosts it,” Njoku said quickly. “Still makes it an outbreak.”
“Sir,” Navs said. “The Liaison is feeding me possible ways into the Starforge. I—”
“Just sort through it for the moment,” Gan ordered. “Tames?”
“An infection is an outbreak too,” Jake countered, glancing at Njoku, and the captain nodded, her heavy exosuit shifting. “But not the same thing. Why outbreak?”
“Detailed scans of those areas coming up now.”
Jake nodded and turned back to the display, watching the two sections of the Starforge closely. His gut gave a twitch, folding like it was knotting around itself. What am I missing? What’s the piece here we need?
The first section he’d indicated, away from the fighting, took on a new level of detail, tiny hexagonal pieces so large they would have dwarfed any human structure appearing by the thousands. That must be the basic component piece they built this thing out of.
His focus jumped to the other section, watching as it too began to sharpen, the Vesta and its attendant fleet narrowing their sensors on that one piece of the vast sphere. Hexagonal lines took shape, more pieces of the station, and he almost let out a breath of relief … until the smooth precision he’d been hoping for didn’t appear.
“Blow it up,” he said, motioning blindly at the nav officer.
“What?”
“Zoom!” he said, a cold rush of adrenaline flowing through him as he stared down at the tiny, dirty-looking hexagons. “I need a closer loo—”
And then he had it, the small section of the station—probably less than a millionth of a percent of its overall size—swelled to fill the bridge, fine details the size of mountains becoming clearer with every passing second, and his gut gave a final, clenching twist as the bottom seemed to drop out of the world.
The outer surface was marred by faint lines of orange, blossoming across it like a weed, spreading between thousands of clusters of bulbous shapes that were at once familiar but not at the same time.
Cocoons. Eggs. The size of mountains.
“What—?” Whatever Gan was about to say was cut off as Anna spoke, a single word echoing across the bridge in a sharp bark.
“Foxtrot.”
Jake turned, his chest suddenly feeling tight, like he’d taken a heavy blow in a sparring match and had the breath knocked out of him. “It is an outbreak,” he said, trying to keep the panic he was feeling from entering his voice but unsure of how well it was working. “The Overseer on Pisces was wrong. It just … couldn’t see it. And we missed it too.”
“The All don’t want to destroy the Starforge,” he said, waving one limp-feeling arm at the display behind him. “That’s not how they’re going to win their war. They don’t want to starve the Warforges and run.”
He swallowed, forcing the next few words out of his mouth as if he were spitting them. “They’re not here to destroy it.”
“They’re here to take it.”
END OF PART ONE
Interlude 1
“Is it done?” Syrah stated the question as soon as the door to her private office sealed shut behind her. There was a pause before she received any reply, slight but there, as her security systems engaged in a full check, making sure that she was well and truly secure. Her position as Director of Security Operations for United Nations Space Exploration and Colonization—or rather, all of humanity—meant living with some caveats.
Acceptable ones. If grating. And speaking ill of mankind’s stubborn, self-harming nature in general.
She waited, hands clasped behind her back, her face an expression of pure, controlled neutrality. A lesser being might have been tempted to tap their foot against the plush, hand-made carpet. Or perhaps wander over in the direction of the drinks cabinet set in one wall—all wood, again hand-made, and filled with bottles of wine and other alcohols almost as costly.
She did neither. The cabinet was a status symbol, a useful tool for controlling those of lesser wills. And the tapping of her foot would only be a juvenile reaction, a suggestion that she didn’t understand the necessity of the delay she experienced each time that she entered her office.
Such a reaction would instead be a sign that things were wrong, not ordinary, and a flag to the active security systems currently checking not just to see if her office was secure, but that she was indeed who she claimed to be, reading her breath patterns, pupil dilation, eye movements, micro-muscle twitches … anything that could be used to signify an imposter or impairment of any kind. A highly focused energy field had pulsed through her as she’d passed through the doorway, checking for signs of concealed bugs or tracking equipment, even internal, and powerful enough to short out anything below a certain threshold. Air filtration systems were scanning her exhalations, and had been since she’d entered the hall that led to her office, checking for signs of disease, out-of-the-ordinary chemicals, or one of millions of other methods to compromise or harm a high-ranking member of the United Nations. Some theoretical … and some not.
A constant, steady reminder every time she entered her office at the necessity of her position, and how foolish mankind could be without a steady, firm hand to keep them in check. If all were enlightened, they would see the stability and control that UNSEC—and I—bring, she thought as another second passed. And there would be no need for any of this.
But instead mankind squabbled, many of its members acting like spoiled, selfish children, refusing to see the bigger picture.
Like Pisces. She didn’t let her anger flare as thoughts of the wayward planet swam to the surface once more. If anything, what she felt was more akin to disappointment. In a time like this, it was mankind’s moment to stand united in support of the greater cause.
Instead, Pisces had chosen impudent rebellion, like an unruly child striking back at its parent and rejecting the cradle that had brought it into the void.
A soft tone echoed through the room, a comforting low pitch that marked the end of the scan, but not the slightly softer duet it would have produced had the system found nothing. “Analysis?” she asked, ignoring her prior question for the moment.
“Electromagnetic residue along your collar indicative of small numbers of nanite observers.” The firm, masculine voice that filled her chambers was a recent addition, and still felt new compared to the older AI it had replaced. But Lohit, unlike the AI he had replaced, was exclusively loyal to her. “Secondary examination confirms that all have been disabled.”
