Feeling almost human after two hours’ sleep and dressed in his skinsuit in expectation of battle, Absen entered the bridge. He hung his helmet on the hook next to the chair he’d claimed. “What’s it doing?”
“It’s altered course slightly but is still moving toward Reta, sir,” Captain Mirza replied. “Other than that, no hostile moves. We’re getting some very good video now, and Intel is working on it. Here’s what we know so far.” He nodded at the young intelligence officer, a scrawny googly-eyed fellow with a receding chin.
The main holotank flickered, then filled with a high-definition representation of the bogey. “Good morning, sir,” the man said nervously to Admiral Absen. “I’m Ensign Fleede and I’m here to brief you on the...on the...”
Absen held up a hand. “Ensign, dispense with the schoolroom script and just tell me what you know.”
“Yes, sir.” Fleede took a deep breath. “The unknown ship has one fusion drive functioning, though there are clearly eight exhausts, so we do not know whether the others might be usable.”
“Is that one on full?”
“Probably not, sir. Analyses thinks it may be low on fuel.”
“That would explain why it’s heading toward Reta.”
“Yes, sir.” Becoming more confident, Fleede stepped forward to point at the hologram filling the tank. “It has at least twenty capital weapons that might be operational, of two main types: lasers, and particle cannons – rather like the Sekois’ – that we estimate should have a range of two million kilometers or so, in the petawatt range. There are also hundreds of small laser turrets that we believe are for point defense use, along with what we think are short-range guns, mine launchers, and these unknown structures here.”
“Unknown. Any ideas?” Absen raise an eyebrow.
“Perhaps an energy emitter...but it’s unlike anything we have ever seen.”
“Get the engineering team to take a look as soon as they finish installing the particle cannon. I presume we’re staying well out of its range,” Absen asked, glancing at Mirza.
“Of course, sir. At least out of range of the weapons we identified.”
“No kinetic weapons? No missiles?”
“Just those small gun tubes, sir,” Fleede replied. “We suspect they are some kind of defensive weapon, perhaps firing an anti-hyper round.”
“That weapons suite doesn’t make sense. With nothing that can reach out beyond two million klicks, how could it fight Meme with hypers launched from far beyond that?”
“It might constitute a standoff,” Mirza replied. “Neither side could hurt the other.”
Ford spoke up. “Maybe it’s faster than the Meme so it could blast in close.”
“Not with its conventional drive.” Fleede stopped.
“Hmm,” Absen replied noncommittally. “What’s an unconventional drive?”
Fleede replied, “Just the intel team’s speculations, sir. We don’t know what those structures are. We don’t know how it got into this system so fast, yet was discovered at rest.”
Johnstone spoke up. “Perhaps it’s a defensive ship of some kind. A carrier, or an auxiliary that protects other ships?”
“Sir, there do not seem to be launch bays or any other indication of numerous small craft. We’ve seen a couple of dozen remnants of large shuttle bays, but for a ship that size, that’s not unusual.” Fleede waved his hand inside the hologram. “We’ve also been able to see deep inside the ship’s structure because of the severe damage, and estimate these corridors and rooms are scaled for creatures somewhat larger than human size. And then there’s this.” Touching a control, Fleede zoomed in to a point on the ship’s surface, where the view showed them the inside of a large room. “There.”
“A suit? Bipedal...” Absen stepped forward. “Doesn’t look so different from our own.”
“Or the Hippos for that matter,” the BioMed officer, Lieutenant Jansen, spoke up, “who are also bipedal. In fact, discounting the Meme, most biologists agree that the upright bipedal model is the most suitable for higher life. It keeps the delicate tool-using extremities off the ground, and allows for a variety of climbing, swimming and other mobility. Other advantages include –”
“Thank you, Mister Jansen,” Absen cut him off gently. “What else have you found, Fleede?”
“Four functioning fusion generators. One in the rear powering the engine, one a bit farther forward, one in the center, and one near the bow. We believe there are at least forty more non-active plants, some of which are clearly beyond repair. But the distribution of these four suggest they are deliberately being run at minimum capacity, in optimum configuration to maintain what systems are left.” Fleede moved the hologram view yet again. “And here’s another interesting find.”
Zooming out then in again, the holo displayed a metal creature resembling an octopus, or perhaps a daddy-longlegs spider. Touching another control, the thing came to recorded life, moving across the floor of a ripped-open room to retrieve some object, then disappearing into the interior.
“Scale?” Absen snapped.
“It was about man-sized, sir, probably so it can move in the same interior spaces as the organics in the suits. Our theory is, it’s a maintenance drone of some sort.”
“Or a combat drone,” Ford said darkly. “Not so different from those Pureling war-spiders on the moon base.”
“Those were much larger,” Fleede objected. “And we can see no weapons.”
“Weapons can be fitted,” Ford argued.
“We’ll keep all possibilities in mind,” Absen interjected. “Go on, Fleede.”
“Yes, sir. There are two more things of significance. First, the transmitter locations of the two communications we have received – the information attack and the Ryss transmission. The former came from a large, powerful antenna array on one of these four wing-like structures. It’s the only one that seems undamaged. The latter came from a low-power directional transmitter right about here.” He pointed at a spot near the waist of the ship. “It looks to be something stuck on to a wall in a damaged room. That leads me to the other significant item – this area here.” Fleede waved his hand though an area of the hologram glowing green, a lozenge shape comprising three decks and backing up against the functioning fusion plant next forward of the engine’s generator.
“And that is?”
“We believe it is the area occupied by the organics, the Ryss. It is warmer than other areas in the ship – about fifteen Celsius. The rest of the ship’s interior is just above freezing. It would make sense that if they installed a transmitter themselves, they would not go far from their living spaces.” Fleede brought the holo-view back to see the entire ship.
“Have we heard any more communications from the Ryss? Johnstone?”
“No, sir. I’ve been pinging them but there is nothing.”
“All right. Well done, Fleede,” Absen said. “Pass that on to the intel team and tell them to keep at it. The more we know, the better our decisions.”
“Thank you, sir.” Fleede left the bridge, glowing with the praise.
“Decel burn, sir,” Tanaka spoke up. “It’s completing its orbital insertion for Reta.”
Absen stroked his chin. “Get me the Booker’s captain.”
A moment later the face of a worried-looking, dusky man filled the main screen. “Good day, sir.”
“Captain Prahbindra. Good to see you again. Sorry to have you conning a mere tug. A long way from a missile frigate, I know.”
“No problem, Admiral. I know we don’t have many ships right now. I’m sure when the time comes you’ll have a chair for me.”
“When I can,” Absen promised. “Right now I need information on the Reta base.”
“Yes, sir. We got everyone off, of course. We’re pretty crowded in here, and I’d like some instructions pretty soon – should we head for Afrana or do you need us here? Because I don’t have supplies for long.”
“If you need to you can offload the ground crew onto Temasek. With only half their Marines they have plenty of room. Now tell me about the base.”
Prahbindra nodded. “We idled the fusion plant and shut down all the fuel cracking processes, and loaded all the fuel we could carry, especially the deuterium-tritium, but there’s still a lot of hydrogen left. We turned on all the cameras and other sensors and everything is being broadcast encrypted. I’ll pass the details to your CyberComms people.”
“You didn’t happen to dump the rest of the fuel, did you? Or set a command destruct on the fusion reactor?”
“No, sir,” the tug captain said as his face fell. “We were just told to evacuate, that there was an unknown ship coming in. That’s a valuable fuelling station, two years in the building.”
“No matter,” Absen said mildly, making a mental note that a warship might not be the best place for this captain after all. “Good thinking on the sensors. I’m sure we’ll all be very interested to see what these aliens look like. And we may need the base engineers later, so go ahead and send them to Temasek, and then pull back out of range behind us. One never knows, we might need a tug. Absen out.” He turned to Johnstone. “Get me Temasek.”
A moment later Captain Antonio Marquez appeared on the screen.
“Good to see you, Tony,” Absen began. “I need you to take on some passengers from the Booker, and bring your Marines and Crows to Condition One. We’ve got about twenty minutes before that ship enters Reta’s orbit and I want to be ready for anything. I presume you’ve been following the situation so you know we may want to go in and board. There may be potential friendlies on it, there may be hostiles, and most particularly there is valuable military technology and information. We won’t get it by destroying the ship, which I believe we could do, as bad off as it is. So it’s the assault forces again that will have to do the job. Are you up for it?”
“Itching for it, sir. This is a lot more interesting than the usual patrol. We’ll have everyone suited up and in the tubes within ten minutes. I already have a combat space patrol of four Crows out and the rest can launch any time. We’ve only got sixty-one total right now, though.”
“It’ll have to do. Absen out.” The screen changed back to a startlingly high-definition shot of the bogey. “Damn, that’s getting close.”
“We’re holding the range at 2.2 million klicks, sir,” Okuda said from the cockpit.
Absen noticed the helmsman’s dark sweaty cranium still wasn’t connected to his medusa. “Links not working yet?” he asked.
“Links working fine, sir,” Okuda answered. “It’s the chips in my head that I don’t trust. I think there are still some snippets of corrupt code in there and one processor is surge-damaged. When we get a chance I’ll have BioMed replace the whole suite, but until then, manual will have to do. Things won’t go quite as smooth, but we’ll get by, sir.”
“Understood. I have full confidence in you. Ford, I presume you have missile and railgun solutions for that thing?”
“Already programmed in, sir.”
Absen cleared his throat. “I want you to detarget the area around those possible living decks, where the Ryss might be. If we fire, smash the front and back but try to leave that alone. Oh, what’s the range of our new toy?”
“The Hippo particle cannon?”
“It’s ours now, Mister Ford.”
Ford bobbed his head. “Yes, sir. Generally speaking, it gives a pretty good tickle at 1.6 million klicks. That’s the range where it hits about as hard as all our other beam weapons combined do at one million.”
“Damn,” Absen muttered. “I’d hoped it would outrange the bogey. So it’s railguns and missiles again unless we want to take one on the nose from theirs. We’ll stay back for now.” Absen stroked his chin, trying to think like their opponent. “Johnstone, tell Temasek to move to a position where it can’t see the Reta refueling base and vice versa. Conversely, make sure Conquest and Krugh can see it at all times.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnstone said as he relayed the instructions. “Why –”
“Just a hunch, Rick. Just a hunch. By the way, shouldn’t someone be relieving you about now?”
“Yes, sir. Lieutenant Khalid can take over for now.” Rick nodded to the assistant CyberComms officer at the next console, whose eyes got suddenly larger. “Good luck, Jimmar.” Johnstone slapped the junior man on the shoulder, pulled out his link and left the bridge with a nod to Captain Mirza.
That worthy turned to Admiral Absen with a questioning look.
“Sorry, Mirza, I didn’t tell you in the press of things. Johnstone is going in with the Marines as my liaison and first-contact specialist.”
The captain did not look happy but said nothing, turning to his assistant CyberComm officer. “Khalid, just do your best, and pass the word for the next CyberComm officer in rotation. I want a full bridge crew.”
“Bogey is in high Reta orbit now, sir,” Tanaka called. “It’s decelerating again, dropping lower.”
“Keep an eye out, everyone. Whatever is going to happen I get a feeling is going to happen soon.”
***
“What is happening?” Chirom asked Finnar, the old technologist on duty. Others of the Ryss lined the corridor outside, asking the same question but not allowed inside.
Undersized and even stringier than usual for the Ryss population aboard, Finnar spoke precisely as he prodded nearsightedly at claw-keys. “Desolator is de-spinning, Elder. We are approaching a small icy moon around a gas giant. There is an installation of some sort on the surface of the moon. There is also increased maintenance drone activity aboard.”
Chirom waited for him to go on, then prompted when he did not. “And? Why?”
Finnar folded his paws over his paunchy belly, one that never seemed to go away no matter how little food was available. “If you insist I speculate...there is only one reason to take the spin off the ship, and that is to interact with a spatial body.”
“Speak plainly please. You think it is preparing to land on the moon?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Finnar sighed, glancing past Chirom to the crowd of faces at the door. At that moment Elder B’nur pushed through and spoke. “Yes, why?” she snapped.
“Again, it is only speculation, but...” He went on hastily as Chirom bared his teeth in frustration. “Fuel, Elder, and air. The alien installation seems to be a processing plant for cracking water into hydrogen and oxygen, and I am sure there are other compounds and isotopes there – methane, deuterium, tritium, the water itself – that we need to survive. With resupply, more fusion plants can be run, more food can be grown, more heat provided, more maintenance devices have power to make more repairs – and the photonic drive capacitors can be recharged.”
“And if they are,” Chirom’s voice rose, “we are back to wandering in interstellar space. Twenty years and a hundred systems later, and several of them held habitable worlds, but Desolator refused to let us colonize, claiming that the Meme would just find us and destroy the Ryss forever. Now we have found a system with non-Meme aliens in it, and Desolator is about to make us thieves and pirates, and create more enemies. We must find a way to stop this endless sojourn.”
“Chirom!” scolded B’nur. “This is a matter for the Council.”
Chirom looked at the faces in the doorway, and listened to the silence in the corridor as dozens, if not hundreds of Ryss strained to hear. Time to cast the gambling-sticks, he thought. “Finnar,” he said, leaning close, “are you sure Desolator has no surveillance devices in the warm-room?”
Finnar nodded. “Not for some span. I check it myself daily.”
Chirom straightened and turned to the waiting crowd. “Then it is time for all Ryss to hear. Follow me and I will tell you more.” Striding out of the tap-room, the sea of bodies parted for him, then followed.
In the large comfortable warm-room he made his way to the center, to stand on a divan so all could see and hear. As he did, Eldest Mother Kirst’aa’s wavery voice rose from the front rank where she sat with her young females and crones. “You have no right to speak for the Council, Chirom. Step down from there and wait for the next meeting.”
“I do not speak for the Council, Eldest Mother, and not even for my clan. I only speak with the right of any other Ryss. But I am a clan elder, and I am the Records Historian for Desolator. Some of you may have forgotten that, but it is true. I study the past, ancient and recent, and remind you now of the state we are in. Once there were over one thousand three hundred Ryss on this ship, remnants of those who did not make it to the lifeships. Those of my age and older know why we are now only some five hundred.”
Hissing and grumbling arose from the elders among the Ryss, with shouts of no and silence and do not speak. A group of grizzled males moved toward him as if to stop him by force until the yearsmane Vusk and his group of young toughs blocked them. “Go back to your places, decrepit ones. We real warriors want to hear what Elder Chirom has to say.”
Help comes from unexpected quarters, Chirom thought, bemused. Again he spoke loudly. “All must hear, and decide for themselves.” Sweeping the crowd with his eyes, he realized that almost every Ryss aboard was now in the warm-room listening, save only Finnar in the tap-room and a few on meat-plant duty.
“The time has come to tell everyone of the price we paid for survival. Once you understand the cost, you will see why the time has come to use what we bought.”
“What is it? Tell us,” came a young voice from the back.
“I tell you now.” Chirom settled his robe closer around his shoulders. “One ship year after the Meme drove us off our homeworld, this ship’s Council met in secret. We reviewed data that showed disaster for us. Desolator had already scouted and rejected five star systems, one of which might have sustained us, in favor of further wandering. In one case it chose to seek out and kill a Meme Destroyer, taking further damage to itself and throwing away the lives of nineteen Ryss.”
“At that time there were almost three hundred dams of fertile age, and birth-suppression drugs were running out. Within a year or two, we would see a thousand or more kits open their eyes...and food supplies were already dwindling. Something had to be done.”
“Why did we not hear of this before?” asked one adult male.
“You were a child then, Lennd. When would have been a good time to tell you of this tragedy? Every time the Council discussed revealing the story, it was deemed too explosive a truth. All your elders were sworn to secrecy. There was simply no good that could come of telling, until now.”
“Why now, then?” Kirst’aa snarled. “What good can a tragic story do but stir up dissension?”
Chirom shot back firmly, “Because now we have a chance – perhaps our last chance – for the Ryss to live again.”
At that moment the room seemed to shift slightly, and the crowd swayed. “You see? The spin is off the ship, and Desolator has engaged artificial gravity. It is using the last of its fuel and stored power to land on an alien base and steal what it believes it needs to survive. But what point is surviving if we waste away aboard this wreck with an unstable device in control?”
“What is the truth?” Vusk asked loudly, turning to Chirom. “Tell the story, and we will decide what to do.” Around him his gang nodded and slapped their flanks in approval.
He’s enjoying the spotlight, and thinks he can gain status from this, Chirom thought. No matter; the sticks are cast. “I will tell the tale now. When it became clear that Desolator would not let us leave and overpopulation would rapidly destroy us the Council proposed to temporarily sterilize all dams of kit-bearing age.”
Murmuring began among the crowd: some shocked, some angry, and spitting disputes arose before Chirom raised his paws and called for calm again. “It was the only way to keep us from a population explosion that would doom us all. The rest of the adults agreed...but the fertile dams did not.”
“We told them the truth – that the procedure could be reversed with a fair chance of success. It was just to delay until we could somehow find a way out of the dilemma, but still they did not agree. One among them, Selaa,” Chirom said, naming Trissk’s dam, “stood up first and refused, and convinced many others to refuse the sterilization. When she was told that she would be forced...” he cast his eyes down in sorrow, “Selaa took her own life in protest. And the lives of my litter within her.”
Unable to help himself, Chirom reached up with claws extended to shred the tips of his ears in agonized grief, grief that even now ripped at his gut. Reverent silence hung over the assembly as the blood dripped down to run in slow streams across his face and onto his whiskers. “But that was only the beginning of sorrow, for Selaa was held in great regard by her sisters. Before they could be stopped, more than two hundred young females, many with kits inside them, followed her example. They murdered themselves and the lives they held.”
A great wave of wailing swelled, and hundreds of paws rose as one to shred their ears. Many fell on all fours or curled up on the deck in agony as if to avoid the images of desecration and abomination inside their heads. Even Vusk and his toughs stumbled about as if drunk, twitching convulsively even to contemplate the unthinkable loss of so many dams. It was all Chirom could do to stand and look out over the scene before him, and not join them.
Chirom met Trissk’s eyes where he stood at the back. He’s already done his mourning, he thought, and now he’s strong enough to get past it.
As if reading his mind, the younger male nodded solemnly.
After some smallspans the commotion died down, and Chirom judged the time right to continue in a ringing voice: “We Ryss are a strong race. We Ryss mourn with passion. We Ryss fight with strength and honor. We Ryss endure even the unendurable. But now our few daughters, who were but kits when this horror overtook us, will soon come of age to bear new litters; but we have no food to feed them. Will we starve our children? Will we sterilize the dams too? Will we drive them to self-murder?” Raising his naked claws above his head, the elder shouted, “I say NO!”
NO, NO, NO, chanted the crowd, and Trissk wondered how in his pompous childishness he ever could have thought Chirom did not understand politics.