Cradle of War (A Captain's Crucible Book 3) (15 page)

Barrick stepped back, as requested. While their attention was on her, he surreptitiously slid the tartaan into a secret pocket in his forearm.

The Organism says it fell behind,
Barrick told the guard.
And then lost consciousness for a few seconds. When it awoke, we were gone. It took a wrong turn. Got lost.

Convenient, that the Organism should find one of our armories.

The guards proceeded to search her. Tendrils of black mist enwrapped Sil’s spacesuit, and clawed forelegs momentarily emerged from the darkness.

Tell the Organism to remove its upper exoskeleton,
Banjo commanded.

“They want you to take off the harness,” Barrick told Sil.

She complied.

The Raakarr searched the harness, and when they were satisfied that nothing was hidden inside, Sil was allowed to put it back over her spacesuit.

They frisked him next, making him remove his harness as well, but they found nothing of course.

“How did you manage to hide the device from them?” Sil asked as the party made its way back down the passageway. “They searched your harness thoroughly.”

“I’ve seen this future once before,” Barrick said. And in that future, while there had never been a guard watching the armory, Banjo had always searched her, and then him.

“I see,” Sil replied.

“Yes. And I made preparations.” He showed her where he had stashed the device in the hidden pocket sewn into his forearm.

“Nice,” she returned.

Barrick found himself beaming.

They emerged from the black-out region, returning to the watchful gaze of the AI. Barrick was confident the machine would not be able to track the stolen device, as he had never foreseen such a thing previously.

After passing through an airlock into the examination room, which had breathable air as it also served as his quarters, Barrick made her remove the spacesuit. Then he put on a show of examining her with the various human equipment at his disposal, most of it salvaged from the
Selene
and flown over to the
Talon
via the lifepod of the downed prison vessel, T300. Included in the stash was a rather heavy comm node—moved into and out of the lifepod with great effort—and a run-of-the-mill medical kit.

After half an hour:

I believe the Organism is going to be fine,
Barrick sent.
It merely suffered from a passing ailment typical to my kind.

You organisms are so weak,
Banjo replied.

On the way back to the area where the remaining humans berthed, the party passed the black-out region once more. Barrick used the opportunity to slip the tartaan to her.

When they reached the berthing area, Banjo gave the authorization for the outer hatch to open, and Sil stepped inside the airlock.

As the hatch groaned closed in front of her, Barrick said: “I trust you’re feeling better?”

Behind her faceplate, she grinned slyly. “Better than ever.”

The hatch shut.

With that, Barrick and his escorts departed.

T
he days passed relatively slowly as the
Talon
edged its way across the system toward the inner Slipstream.

Jonathan had been somewhat surprised that Barrick had come through for them. Maybe he really was wrong about the man. But even if Barrick was on their side, Jonathan couldn’t yet forgive the telepath for what he had done to his crew, and to Bridgette.

With the darkness device in hand, Connie, escorted by two Raakarr, had returned to the Dragonfly under the guise of retrieving more supplies; once there, using the precision scientific instruments aboard the shuttle, she had determined the new frequency the device used. Connie propagated the necessary modulations to the laser rifles of the party, so that their weapons would penetrate the shielding.

With the updated modulation programs in place, Jonathan felt more at ease already. Even so, Connie warned him there was no guarantee those frequencies would stay the same for long.

“Who knows,” she said. “Maybe they change out the frequencies daily.”

“If they did change it,” Jonathan asked her. “Would the new frequency propagate to the device we have in our possession?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the chief scientist responded. “It depends on whether or not it’s linked to their ship’s AI. But if it
is
linked, I’d say we were in trouble, because then the Raakarr know we have it.”

“But that would depend on how it’s linked, wouldn’t it?” Jonathan said. In human systems, location data wasn’t always transmitted back by remote devices.

“Sure,” Connie replied. “Still, I’d take it as a good sign if our device didn’t receive any updates.”

P
URSUED DOGGEDLY THE whole way by the Raakarr laser ship and its two escorts, the
Talon
finally reached the exit Slipstream five days later. Once there, it launched a probe to confirm the destination. When it was obvious that the endpoint opened into Anvil Rappel, and that no ships waited in ambush, the
Talon
crossed through.

Anvil Rappel proved abandoned as well. The system was owned by the Asiatic Alliance, though the local government allowed the United Systems to operate a military base there.

Debris consistent with comm nodes and starships was scattered in orbit above the colony world, Anvil Prime, a planet famous for the all-day-long aurorae that dominated its skies. Notable was the lack of Gate debris around either Slipstream in the system.

“What do you think happened to the Gates?” Jonathan asked Rodriguez over the comm.

“Hard to say,” Rodriguez returned. “Maybe the inhabitants hid them somewhere in the system. Or maybe the invading Raakarr decided to tow them away.”

“Where?” Jonathan said.

“I don’t know,” Rodriguez admitted.

Jonathan pulled up the system map on his aReal. Most star systems in the galaxy had more than one sun, and Anvil Rappel was no exception. It was a stable binary system of two main sequence stars, one blue, the other orange. Their orbital distance varied with time, and according to the corresponding note in the aReal database, if traced the orbits formed an outline vaguely reminiscent of a medieval anvil—Jonathan had tried plotting a complete revolution once, but the only shape he got was a sideways figure eight. The remaining seventeen planets orbited the same center of mass, forming ellipses of varying sizes. The Slipstream they had emerged from orbited halfway between the tenth and eleventh planets—gas giants—while the exit Slipstream to the next system revolved directly around Anvil Prime, one of the smaller terrestrial planets of the inner system.

“You know Anvil Rappel has seventeen planets and an asteroid belt, right?” Connie transmitted over the comm. “And some of those planets have up to thirty-two moons. That’s a lot of places to hide a Gate.”

“Yeah, I’m refreshing my memory as we speak,” Jonathan said. According to the aReal, the only military base in the system was located on the planet around which the inner Slipstream orbited.

“Nukes could have vaporized the Gates entirely,” Rail suggested. “We wouldn’t find any debris, then.”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” Jonathan said. “But then we’d detect nuclear residue in the region.”

“Maybe we should launch a telemetry drone to confirm,” Rail said. “Unless you trust that our Raakarr masters are revealing everything to us.”

“What happened to the Gates isn’t our biggest concern at the moment,” Jonathan said. “Though we’ll certainly need them if the United Systems ever expects to pass this way again.”

“You don’t sound too confident the Raakarr will share their fabled Slipstream-traversal tech with us,” Rodriguez said.

“That’s because I’m not,” Jonathan replied.

“You know,” Sil Chopra said. “If the inhabitants really hid the Gates, that means Prius 3A managed to get a warning through. So NAVCENT has likely received news of the threat by now. As I argued already.”

“We still have our own news to deliver,” Jonathan said.

“We do,” Rail piped in snidely. “And an inquiry to set up.”

Jonathan smiled grimly.
Really itching to testify, isn’t she? Maybe she and Knox were secret lovers.
Jonathan somehow doubted it, given Knox’s reputation as a strict disciplinarian, and Rail’s general bitchiness. Then again, he supposed he would never truly know.

The
Talon
began the journey toward the Slipstream situated in orbit above Anvil Prime. The estimated arrival time was four and a half days.

Jonathan had only returned to the berthing area for an hour when the illumination inside his tent became crimson in color. He quickly donned his helmet and emerged from the tent to find the bulkhead filaments glowing a bright red. According to Barrick, the color meant the ship was currently engaged in an elevated state of readiness, similar to general quarters aboard a human vessel.

He was about to tap-in the telepath but Barrick was the quicker, sending him a message first instead: “Captain Dallas, the two of us are to report to the bridge.”

Jonathan rounded up two Centurions and hurried into the airlock. After it sealed behind him, the two waiting Raakarr led them forward. Hatches that had been open before blocked the way, preventing ship-wide decompression in the event of a breach scenario. The hatches automatically slid aside when the Raakarr approached. 

He joined Barrick on the bridge momentarily.

“What is it?” Jonathan asked.

“Otter says they just detected an incoming heat signature,” Barrick told him. “Judging from the thermals recorded in our previous engagements, they believe it to be a human weapon. Nuclear.”

W
here the hell did it come from?” Jonathan said.

“Otter says it was floating out there, and activated when we approached to within fifty thousand kilometers.”

Jonathan pressed his lips together. “Basically a smart mine. Why put it all the way out here? A better strategy would be to mine the entrance.”

“How do we know the residents of this system didn’t do just that?” Rodriguez asked. “And this could be all that remains of that mining. Whoever was operating them likely pulled back the nukes when they realized the Raakarr were triggering them with probes.”

“So there might be more,” Jonathan said.

Barrick spoke up. “Otter says they’re also detecting two more thermal signatures emerging from behind a nearby asteroid. A rather large one. The heat patterns don’t match anything they have in their databases, but the Zarafe believe they belong to human vessels. The pair currently reside eighty thousand kilometers off the nose.”

Jonathan wished the Raakarr tech was compatible with his own so that he could pipe the thermal feed to his aReal and do a look up. The situation would remain that way for some time, he suspected, even when the Raakarr signed a treaty with humanity—technology was often closely guarded, even among allies.

“Anvil Rappel had a small military presence,” Jonathan said. “Four corvettes. This has to be two of them. The question is, where are the other two? Barrick, are there any other moons of the tenth planet nearby? Somewhere the United Systems ships could emerge in ambush, perhaps to launch a pincer maneuver?”

“According to Otter,” Barrick said. “There is only one other asteroid nearby, though it’s too far away to make a difference at the moment.” He paused. “Otter says they’re detecting more incoming weapons. Looks like another nuke. And what he calls ‘rocks.’ I think he means mortars. They’re currently the same distance away as the ships. Freshly launched.”

Jonathan nodded. “The corvettes are trying to herd us into the second nuke. Classic strategy. Though in this case it’s more defensive than offensive. They want to steer us away from them.” He subconsciously reached for his lips, but remembered the glass faceplate.

“I think the refugees from the military base saw what they thought was an easy target,” Rail countered. “And decided to go for it. It’s an offensive strategy, in my opinion.”

“Well if that’s the case,” Rodriguez said. “They’re wrong, of course. A Raakarr corvette is easily a match for two human varieties.”

“Try telling that to them,” Jonathan said. “They’re itching for a fight, I’m sure, and want revenge. They haven’t seen this much action since they were posted to the remote output. It’s too bad we’ll have to disappoint them.” He contacted Dragonfly 1. “Can you tap me in to the approaching vessels via the comm nodes in the telemetry drones?”

After a moment, the AI sent: “I am not receiving a reply to my pings. I believe our signal is not reaching them. The strength is inadequate at this range.”

“Because of our hull?” Jonathan asked.

“That, and interference from the gas giant’s radiation belts. I suggest stringing the drones out to act as repeaters in front of us.”

“Radiation belts?” Jonathan said. “This far from the giant?”

“Yes,” the AI returned. “While the gravity effects are minimal at our current range, the tenth gas giant is producing an atypical amount of radiation, and has an abnormally strong magnetic field. The field lines intersect our position, extending the radiation belts to here and beyond.”

“Fine,” Jonathan returned. “Calculate the locations for the drones to act as optimal repeaters, given the radiation belts, and prepare to launch.” He turned to Barrick: “Tell Valor I’m going to launch the telemetry drones and string them out to act as repeaters between us and the approaching ships. Once we launch the drones, I want Valor to reverse course. We need to give those ships time to respond.”

Barrick nodded. A moment later he replied: “Valor says he intended to reverse course already.”

Jonathan frowned. “That’s fine. As long as he does it.”

“He also says he planned to instruct you to launch your telemetry drones to act as repeaters.”

Jonathan couldn’t help the ironic smile. “All right.” Some officers always had to pretend they were the ones in control. Most of the time, those same officers didn’t know what the hell they were doing. But since Jonathan didn’t understand the alien culture, he wasn’t sure how applicable that conclusion was to the Raakarr captain. Perhaps it was important that Valor didn’t appear to be catering to the whims of a human in front of his crew.

Jonathan switched channels: “Chief, instruct the Centurions guarding the Dragonfly to take shelter in the craft.”

“Already done, Captain,” Chief Galaal replied. “When the aliens open the hangar bay, the robots will be safe.”

“Barrick,” Jonathan said. “Tell Valor to please vent and open the hangar bay in preparation for launch.”

“Done,” Barrick replied. “By the way, we’ve already begun reversing course.”

“What? I wanted to launch the telemetry drones first,” Jonathan said. “To take advantage of our momentum.”

“I know...” Barrick said.

He tapped in the Dragonfly’s AI. “Dragonfly 1, is the hangar bay open?”

“Negative,” the AI returned.

Jonathan glanced at the telepath. “The bay isn’t open yet, damn it.”

“I’m asking again,” Barrick replied.

“Valor really wants to prove who’s in charge, doesn’t he?” Jonathan grumbled. “Even if it puts us all at risk. Because if we don’t achieve communications lock soon, I can assure you there are more nukes where that one came from.”

“Preaching to the choir, Captain,” Barrick remarked. Then: “It’s done.”

“Atmosphere has vented,” the AI confirmed. “The bay doors are opening.”

“Launch the first drone as soon as you have enough clearance,” Jonathan told the AI.

“Launching telemetry drone A,” the AI responded.

“How do we know the incoming corvettes won’t shoot down our drones?” Rodriguez asked over the comm.

“They might,” Jonathan agreed. “But the pings should mark the drones as friendlies to their AIs.”

“Assuming they can achieve a decent ping in this radiation before they’re shot down,” Rail added dryly. “And even if they do connect, the approaching ships might think it’s a trick and shoot them down anyway.”

“Then we’ll just have to make a run past them to the next Slipstream,” Jonathan said. “And when our three pursuers arrive and blast them out of the void, I won’t feel any guilt. Okay, maybe a little.”

“We should at least take down the closer missile out there,” Rail insisted. “The Raakarr particle beam can easily handle one nuke. We’d be clearing the way for the telemetry drones...”

“But then we’d have to move closer to the corvettes,” Jonathan said. “I don’t want to make any aggressive actions for the moment.”

“Launching telemetry drone B,” the AI announced.

“We’ve completely reversed course,” Barrick said. “And are now accelerating in the opposite direction.”

Jonathan shook his head. That mean telemetry drone B would waste propellant accelerating up to speed.

Jonathan used the data provided by the drones to overlay a tactical display onto his vision. It was good to see that familiar representation of the battle space again, even if it was extremely lagged.

The next several minutes passed far too slowly for Jonathan’s tastes. The first nuke looked like it was going to pass right by the lead telemetry drone.

“Dragonfly 1,” he said. “Do we have a comm link yet?”

“Negative,” the Dragonfly returned.

“It looks like they’re turning the first nuke toward the nearest drone,” Barrick said. “The second nuke, and its mortars, are continuing on their previous trajectory. Toward us.”

He glanced at his tactical display. Because of the lag, the directional change of the nuke hadn’t been picked up yet.

“Dragonfly 1, pull back telemetry drone A,” Jonathan said. “I repeat, pull back—”

“Captain,” the AI interrupted. “We just lost contact with telemetry drone A.”

Jonathan gritted his teeth. “Damn it.” That was why lag on a tactical display was never a good thing.

“Valor tells me the nearest nuke just detonated,” Barrick said.

“Yes, I know,” Jonathan replied.

“What do you want to do with the remaining drone?” the AI asked.

“We don’t have a ping yet?”

“Negative,” the Dragonfly responded.

“Keep sending it forward, then,” Jonathan instructed the AI.

According to Barrick, in the next few minutes the
Talon
continued to put distance between the drone and the approaching United Systems corvettes.

The AI eventually reported: “Telemetry drone B is nearing its maximum possible range, and signal degradation approaches critical. If it continues moving away, we risk losing contact with the drone.”

“Have the drone reverse course and close to an acceptable range with the
Talon
,” Jonathan said. “Then maintain its distance from us. Barrick, have Valor ensure the
Talon
matches the speed of our drone.”

Barrick nodded.

“The second nuke is still fast approaching,” Barrick said a few moments later.

“Dragonfly 1,” Jonathan sent. “Is drone B in the clear?”

“Negative,” the AI returned. “If the nuclear warhead changes directions, it will impact the drone in approximately twenty minutes.

Even at their fastest speeds, telemetry drones were still slower than missiles. So while the
Talon
and the drone were retreating, it made sense that the missile would inevitably overrun them.

Barrick glanced at Jonathan. “Valor wants to retreat faster. He doesn’t want to limit us to the speed of the telemetry drone.”

“No,” Jonathan said. “If the
Talon
increases speed, we’ll lose our connection with the telemetry drone.”

“Valor is insistent—” Barrick started.

“No,” Jonathan said. “Not yet. We need that drone to stay in range. Tell him if we lose it, we’ll have no means of communicating with United Systems vessels going forward.”

Barrick responded a minute later: “Valor says we can link with existing telemetry drones or comm nodes the corvettes may be using, like I did before with you, using the human comm nodes already on board.”

“Well certainly,” Jonathan said. “Assuming we’re in range of those drones. But considering how intense the radiation belts are, we’d have to travel quite close, and I somehow doubt the corvettes would allow that, given how aggressive they’re behaving toward us.”

Barrick hesitated, then said: “Valor has agreed to maintain the
Talon’s
current speed for the moment.” He paused. “Otter says the nuke appears to be changing directions... it’s now aimed at the second drone. The mortars are proceeding on their original attack vector, of course, and will give the drone a wide berth. Valor is adjusting our trajectory to avoid those mortars.”

“There you go,” Jonathan said. “Valor has nothing to worry about. The nuke isn’t even aimed at his ship. Dragonfly 1, do we have an updated estimate on when it will overrun the drone?”

“Based on the proximity fuse found in that model of missile,” the Dragonfly responded. “We will lose the drone in nineteen minutes, eighteen seconds.”

“We’ll just have to hope we make contact before then,” Jonathan said.

“And if not?” Rail asked.

“Then we convince Valor to slow down enough to retrieve the drone,” Jonathan said. “Then we take out the nuke, cut our losses and make a beeline for the Slipstream.”

The moments passed. Jonathan swallowed nervously; he flexed and opened his fingers repeatedly inside his gloves.

“We’ve been flying backward for what, a total of ten minutes now?” Jonathan said. “These radiation belts have to end soon.”

When no one answered, he was about to ask the AI, but the Dragonfly spoke before the words left his lips.

“The drone is reporting a ping,” the Dragonfly sent. “We can attempt communications with the ship whenever you are ready, Captain.”

“If we’re getting a ping,” Captain Rodriguez said excitedly. “That means their AIs will shortly inform them they’re dealing with United Systems property.”

“That’s what we want,” Jonathan said. “Dragonfly 1, tap me in to those ships.”

“No reply,” the AI returned.

“Like I said, they think it’s a trick,” Captain Rail sent. “I would believe that, too.”

“Dragonfly 1,” Jonathan said. “Forget the standard tap-in protocol. I want you to transmit a specific message.”

“Ready to transmit,” the AI returned.

Jonathan cleared his throat. “This is Captain Dallas, formerly of the
USS Callaway
, Commodore of Task Group 72.5. I have returned from Vega 951. We have allied with a breakaway faction of aliens. We come in peace. We carry alien equipment and specimens on-board, and have much needed combat data. Cease firing. I repeat, cease firing.”