Dark Beneath the Moon (12 page)

“We have to restore drive power before we get caught in a gravity well, but for now we’re okay.”

“They missed it? How can you miss a moon?” Hirin sounded incredulous.

“They didn’t miss it,” Yuskeya said, focused on her screen. “There wasn’t any sort of an impact, but the moon started generating the same kind of rays that we encountered coming through the wormhole. It’s sending them in a stream directly into the mouth of the wormhole to Delta Pavonis.”

“Any idea what they are? Or what they do?”

“Not enough data. The Admiral’s people must have done something that triggered it before we arrived. Then they either stopped it, or it stopped itself.”

“Time it,” I said. “See how long it continues.”

“
Domtaw
is going nuts, ordering the Chron ship to stop, stand down, answer them—anything,” Baden said. “No response that I can pick up, and they’re still within range, even on the backup board.” He swung around to catch my eye. “
Domtaw
is threatening to fire on them.”

“Thrusters online, starting main drive pre-check,” Viss said from engineering.

I felt the ship rock as Rei applied thrusters to turn us slightly away from our course toward the moon, still coasting.

“What happened to the
Stillwell
?” Rei asked suddenly. “I’m not watching the fun—honest, I’m not, I’m driving the ship again—but it seems to have stopped moving, on my readout.”

I searched the screens. The dark ship was almost upon the Chron vessel, but the
Stillwell
had been in between them only a moment ago.

“It’s stopped moving,” Maja said.

I couldn’t look because at that moment the Chron ship veered aside from its course for the moon, and pointed its nose toward the Delta Pavonis wormhole. The
Domtaw
opened fire, and two torpedoes snaked silently out of the launch tubes and toward the Chron ship.

The Chron ship returned fire, a bright bite of orange light that chewed into the fore end of the Protectorate ship and burst it apart from within. The explosion was so brilliant it lit up most of the screens on our bridge. When it flared out again, the Nearspace Protectorate Vessel
O. Domtaw
was nowhere to be seen.

I never saw what happened to the
Domtaw’
s torps. All I knew was that we were in deep
merde.

“
MEGERO!
” PITA SAID
when Captain Paixon closed her comm connection to me without even saying goodbye. “She could have been a little more polite. But you didn’t exactly stick to the script, either.”

I allowed myself a little smile of satisfaction. Alin Sedmamin had given me a script for our encounter, but I’d decided at the last minute to improvise.

I sat back from the console. “I thought my message was better,” I told my personality-attuned computer AI. “Paixon was too cocky. I wanted to cut that out from under her.”

“You think she really knew you were working for PrimeCorp?”

“She could have been bluffing. Or she might think anyone who crosses her is working for them. They’ve got a long history, after all.”

“Maybe she knows more about us than you think.”

I ignored that. “Anyway, one of her weak spots was obviously her mother, as I’d suspected. Nice to have that confirmed.”

“And at least that
idioto
of an Admiral stopped shouting at us over the comm.”

“Typical Protectorate,” I said. “Happy to let us be the
Tane Ikai’
s problem, as long as I didn’t bother him or whatever his little secret mission is.” I’d almost laughed aloud at him, ordering me to do this and not do that. He didn’t know about the burst drive installation PrimeCorp had gifted me—if I felt like going through the damned wormhole, I’d go, and I’d be past the terminal point before he could get that lumbering Pegasus tub even pointed in my direction.

I did chuckle now, as I moved to the tiny galley behind the cockpit and pulled off another nice mug of hot
cazitta
. My plan had been to catch up with Paixon, give her the message, and take off again, leaving her to wonder what else I might be up to, but I’d stumbled into something far too interesting to walk away from just yet. A secret wormhole? Protectorate ships in an unknown system? And a second wormhole leading who-knew-where?

Curiosity, that old cat-killer. One of my few weaknesses.

Mug in hand, I returned to my seat at the control board. “Pita, message for Alin Sedmamin, double-encrypted.”

“Go ahead.”

“Target acquired and message delivered. Initiating surveillance.” Short and sweet, and guaranteed to annoy Sedmamin, who always wanted to be briefed
in detail.

“That’s it?” Pita asked.

“That’s it. Shoot it off through the wormhole, but store it to send again later, once we’re back in the Delta Pav system.” There had been something weird about that wormhole skip, strange grey lines streaking along the inside. I wasn’t entirely confident the message would go through, and I wanted to be sure he got it. I was only sorry that I wouldn’t see his frustrated face when he read it.

“Now,” I mused, settling in my chair and tapping my fingertips against the side of my mug, “what are all of you doing here?” Two Protectorate ships and the
Tane Ikai,
in what Pita confirmed to be a previously undiscovered and uncharted system. Sedmamin would be interested in this.
Very
interested. And he’d have to pay me very well for the information. I set scanners running to record every bit of data I could collect about the sector.

“Hey, another ship just joined the party,” Pita said. She put the visual on the main screen without waiting for my order. The ship had come busting out of the second, further-off wormhole—not the one we’d followed the
Tane Ikai
through.

I sat forward again. “
Sankta merde.
What is that?”

Pita didn’t answer me right away. The ship had taken the Protectorate by surprise, too, I could tell by their sluggish reaction. They didn’t fire. They didn’t move immediately.
Slackers
. They were obviously there to guard the wormhole against such a possibility, and where had they been when the possibility became reality? Napping, that’s where.

Despite my extensive knowledge of Nearspace registered ships, this thing wasn’t familiar. Something flickered up from the recesses of memory, like maybe I’d seen something similar long ago—in a book? a vid?—but it wouldn’t come into focus for me.

“I think that’s a Chron ship,” Pita said finally.

It takes a lot to surprise me, but that did.
Chron?
It was over a hundred years since anyone had heard from the Chron. I got a weird rolling feeling in my stomach. “Are you sure?”

“It’s an eighty-nine percent match.” Pita sounded annoyed that I would question her pronouncement. “The eleven percent discrepancy would be reasonable for changes in design, propulsion, and composition since the last data point I have for comparison.”

Pita could sound like any normal uptight computer intelligence when she wanted to.

The comm surveillance lit up with chatter between the Protectorate ships, and I was privy to it all thanks to PrimeCorp, again—I had to admit they weren’t stingy in sharing their “special” tech when it served their purposes. The Protectorate uniforms were as freaked out by the ship as I was. I heard them calling battle stations.

“Pita, let’s get out of the way.” Paixon and the
Tane Ikai
seemed to be thinking the same thing, as the ship turned to make for the other side of the planet.

“Engaging fore thrusters,” Pita said, and I pushed the
Hunter’s Hope
into a slow backward glide, out of the line of fire.

We didn’t get far before Pita said, “You won’t believe this.
Another
ship just came out of that wormhole.” She flashed it onto one of the viewscreens. “This place is getting crowded.”

This one really made me stop and take notice. I felt the tiniest surge of doubt—that maybe I hadn’t been so smart in coming here after all.

“What the hell
is
that, Pita?”

It looked like no other ship I’d ever seen . . . actually, like no other
kind
of ship I’d ever seen. It was dark and slick, all sharp planes and wicked angles. And it had a shimmer, or a wobble—an instability that sent a shiver racing down my back. That thing was weird. And dangerous. And coming our way fast.

It took even longer for Pita to answer this time. When she did, all she said was, “Unknown.”

That scared me worse than anything. All I wanted was to get as far away from it as I could, and my curiosity about it yielded ground to self-preservation.

“Forget the thrusters, Pita. I’m engaging the burst drive and getting us out of here!”

Before we could move, though, I guess we caught its attention. As the dark ship passed the
Hunter’s Hope
, a panel in its side opened, and something black and shadowy bloomed inside. The burst drive rumbled to life, and I yanked the ship to the side. Too slow.
Something
hit the ship—not an explosion, nothing concussive. It felt like we’d been grabbed by a giant hand.

“We’re—” Pita’s voice cut out. The rising hum of the drive died like a switch had been flipped, and the rear sensor readings went dead, too. Now I couldn’t see what the dark ship was doing, or anything else, and my stomach churned. Sweat prickled on my neck.

“Pita! Respond!” I punched things all over the control board, but it was a lifeless expanse of plasteel and glass. Pita didn’t answer. The only sound in the ship was the soft putter of the air recycler.

“
Damne
!” I slammed my hands down on the unresponsive board and pushed my skimchair back. It spun around on its axis, and I jammed my feet down on the floor to stop its momentum when I saw the rear of the cabin. Beyond the tiny galley, a hazy black wall now bisected the bow and stern of the ship. I stood and cautiously took a couple of steps toward it. No sound, no smell. It was simply
there
.

“Pita?” I tried again. I suddenly understood why computer AI’s were so popular in one-person ships. Bigger ships with multi-person crews didn’t use them very often, but smaller vessels always came equipped with one, even if it was very basic. Annoying as I usually found her, without Pita I felt very vulnerable and excruciatingly alone.

I was tempted to touch the shadowy barrier, but decided that would be crazy when I didn’t know what it was. Curiosity lost that round, too. I took a step back from it. I wasn’t going to touch that thing at least until I could get Pita functional and get her to scan it. It felt good to take control of that decision, minor though it was.

Until an eye-searing flash lit up the viewscreens at the front of the ship. The concussion followed a heartbeat later. The floor tilted, and I stumbled forward against the murky, unforgiving wall that hadn’t existed moments before.

“
DIPATRINO!”
HIRIN WHISPERED
behind me. The bridge of the
Tane Ikai
had gone as quiet as the vacuum of space surrounding us, as the explosion signalling the death of the
Domtaw
faded.

But there was no time to mourn, and barely time to think.

“Viss, how long to main drives?”

“It won’t be quick, Captain. I might be able to rush the burst drive if I leave the main for now.”

I chewed on my lip. The burst drive was fine for short durations, but if we had to get far away from here quickly, we’d need the main drive. But there could be people who needed our help.

“Get the burst drive online as quick as you can, Viss. Rei, use the thrusters if you can to get us turned and pointed toward the
Stillwell
.”

“What are you doing? I thought we were staying out of the way?” Maja asked.

“We are, but we can’t sit here and do nothing if the
Stillwell
needs help. Yuskeya, while we’re stuck here, scan that moon for signs of life. Woodroct said the
Domtaw
still had people down there.”

“What happened to that?” Maja asked. She pointed to my datapad on the decking. Part of the silver casing bore black streaks, and a thin wisp of smoke rose from it.

“No idea. It happened when the engines shut down,” I told her.