Guardian of Night (16 page)

Martinez, now dust between the stars. Gone. Oh, God.

Thank you, XO.

They had food for a time, if she could figure out how to feed the sceeve. Hell, if she could figure out how to survive on lifepod hardtack herself. Yes, a month. Maybe more on starvation rations.

Until.

Until the cold equations asserted themselves. The fires inside died.

Until they died.

But not yet.

“Guess I’m going to find out what I can take without losing it permanently,” Japps mumbled to herself. She quietly promised herself to find a way to kill herself, maybe kill them both, before that happened. She turned to the Poet. He gazed up at her with big black eyes. Impossible to read an expression in them. At least impossible for her, who had never had any practice.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “This isn’t much of a rescue.”

The Poet laid his head back, his breathing growing more rapid.

The atmosphere was going to be the problem. Sceeve lived in a pressurized environment equivalent to the water pressure at three hundred feet under the ocean on Earth. That same pressure would kill a human with oxygen narcosis who didn’t slowly adapt to it by punctuated periods in higher and higher pressure.

She had a pressure suit on, but, of course, in the haste to depart—of course, of course,
she’d forgotten her helmet.

Goddamn it, she couldn’t be blamed; this wasn’t her billet.

Of course she
could
be blamed. It was an idiot move.

No space helmet.

Here they were.

Could she even up the air pressure in this pod? Japps doubted she could get it that high. She’d have to break into the monitor board, figure out the circuitry, see what she could do. At least
that
was part of her skill set. Maybe she could at least get the pressure up to some degree. Enough? She’d do what she could.

Shit.

Her good friend, dust out the viewport.

Herself stuck in a lifepod.

No Q bottle.

No FTL.

Adrift on the outer reaches of the Fomalhaut Limit.

Nearly twenty light-years from Earth.

Deep space.

Alone.

Well, not quite alone. For what
that
was worth.

“It sucks to be you,” she said to the Poet, knowing he couldn’t understand a word she said but figuring he just
might
get the intent. “It sucks to be you. And it really,
really
sucks to be
us.
”

NINE

31 December 2075

Richardson, Texas

New Pentagon E-Level

Coalbridge turned a corner on E-Level of the New Pentagon and came to the end of a corridor. There he found an open door that led to the office of Huntley Camaroon, the Secretary of the United States Extry. Coalbridge paused, took a breath, then entered the SECEX’s office with trepidation.

This was it, wasn’t it? The moment he’d always dreaded. He was going to be grounded, he just knew it. TACTIC was the traditional resting place for captains awaiting new commands to be readied. He hadn’t exactly enjoyed pushing data there, but he’d accepted it as necessary. And definitely temporary.

But today’s orders, out of the blue, sent him over to STRAT for the grand tour. STRAT was definitely not a way station for field officers. STRAT was a specialty.

After the tour, he was report to SECEX. Not the section of the New Pentagon that housed the office suites—but to the man himself.

They had to be priming him for some bogus promotion. Planning staff. Headquarters. Something along those lines.

And if so, he would lose his vessel.

Yes, assignment to STRAT was a big deal. It meant somebody had an eye on you for admiral, for one thing. He knew plenty of Extry officers who would give their eyeteeth for such a chance. He was not one of them.

Fuck. Double fuck.

It had started innocently enough, with his boss, Micky Wu, a two-star rear admiral, pulling him aside on the train ride back from the RAMP meeting that morning.

How about taking a stroll over to STRAT this afternoon, check out the current deployment grid? Bone up on the latest intel while you’re at it. Get an overview of current fleet deployment.

But Micky, I’ve got those torpedo reqs to finish—

Too busy?

Too bad.

Orders are orders.

So off he’d gone. Now it was 18:30, his stomach was grumbling, and Coalbridge dreaded what he was about to hear from the SECEX.

Camaroon sat at a huge oaken desk. Several files were scattered across its surface, and an old-fashioned pad of dazz paper served for written messages, although Coalbridge figured the SECEX was also wiied to the New Pentagon’s chroma matrix. Everyone was.

“How was your tour of STRAT, Jim?”

“I’m pretty much up to speed on the fleet deployment at present now. At last report, the sceeve are at Wolf 359, sir. They’ve got ten thousand vessels.”

“Yes,” said the SECEX. “And vectoring for Sol at a nice steady pace of 100
c
.”

“We’re in for it, sir.”

“Yes.”

“If I may ask,” said Coalbridge, “the Extry’s not planning to keep me here permanently, is it, sir? Am I being reassigned to STRAT? Because I would hate that, sir, I really would. Especially if the situation in space is as dire as it looks.”

Camaroon’s stern expression softened to a smile. “No, no. On the contrary, Jim.” The SECEX leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his neck. He regarded Coalbridge. “Hell, son. You fight.”

Coalbridge breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Sir.”

The SECEX put a hand, his left, on his desk. His nails were manicured, but his fingers were wrinkled, wizened. Like an old man’s.
He’s only fifty,
Coalbridge thought. Could body parts age at different rates? He didn’t think so. The SECEX wore a silver wedding band that glinted against his dark skin.

“STRAT INTEL gave you the full details on the
Chief Seattle
?”

“Yes, sir. Some I already knew from Lieutenant Commander Leher’s analytical report.”

“So the
Chief Seattle
disappears from existence. Almost. No further word. She misses her next rendezvous point. Nothing.”

“
Almost
, sir?”

The SECEX smiled. “Caught that, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

The SECEX nodded toward a file that lay on his desktop. It was red-taped TOP SECRET. “There’s one more piece of information.”

“Sir?”

“Messenger drone arrived at Walt Whitman today from 82 Eridani sector. It was sent by a lifepod belonging to the
Chief Seattle.”

Coalbridge eyed the file. It was the MDR from the drone. Had to be.

“Before I reveal to you what’s in that file, let me tell you that the messenger drone’s black box recorded debris near its originating location. Debris characteristic of the
Chief Seattle
’s core material, I’m afraid.”

Coalbridge breathed out. So, she’d been destroyed. Too bad. He’d known and liked her captain, even though Hayden did seem to entirely lack most traces of a sense of humor. He’d been a good man. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

The SECEX nodded sadly. “But to the MDR. It’s a very simple message, really. From a SIGINT petty officer, seems to be. The MDR states that there is one human alive on that pod.”

“Some good news,” Coalbridge said.

“One human,” said the SECEX, “and one sceeve. Both alive.”

“A sceeve? Sharing the same atmospheric mix? How the hell is that even possible?”

“That’s a question we would very much like an answer to,” said the SECEX. “Along with just who or what this sceeve actually is.”

Coalbridge considered. “You’re saying that sceeve is the
Poet
, sir?”

“So says the MDR.”

“We have the Poet.” Coalbridge let out a low whistle. “I’ll be damned.”

“Unfortunately, at this time, we do
not
have the Poet. What we have is a sceeve invasion. I cannot afford to send the Extry, a significant chunk of the Extry, or even a small task force, to find out who or what is in that lifepod.”

“I suppose I can see the logic in that, sir,” Coalbridge said. “But a sceeve that doesn’t immediately commit suicide by
gid
deliquescence the moment we capture it, sir. That’s a
turncoat
. Never happened before. That’s the Poet out there. I’ll bet my command on it.”

“You’re about to.”

“Pardon, sir?”

“I’m sending you.”

“Me?”

“You and the
Joshua Humphreys
,” said the SECEX. “I could send a scoutcraft, but what could it do? Turn around and head back? I want you to investigate and
act
, Captain. Full latitude.”

“How old is this MDR, if I’m permitted to ask, sir?”

“Eight hours. Came in this morning just before the RAMP meeting. Only Maggie and I knew about it.” Camaroon chuckled. “We were terrified that Tillich had gotten wind of the info and would threaten the president with it.”

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the SECEX said. “We dodged that particular bullet.”

Coalbridge wondered if the president herself had been informed at that time. He knew better than to ask.

“So, I’ll be leaving—”

“Walt Whitman projects a departure time in forty-eight hours with full provisioning and final systems burn-in.”

“She’s already stocked, sir. I’ve seen to it.” Coalbridge wondered how to put this delicately and without getting anybody in trouble.

“Have you?”

“Back channels, sir. That sort of thing.”

The SECEX shook his head. “Maggie was right. She says you’re a half step away from DTSO, Captain.”

DTSO was Extry slang for “danger to yourself and others.”

“I hope not, sir.”

“She also told me you had a brilliant mind underneath that bull head of yours.” Camaroon shrugged. “Anyway, no burn-in, no additional provisioning, and a DT in twenty-four.”

“And the destination?”

“82 Eridani.”

Coalbridge totted up a quick estimate in his head. “Ten days.”

“Yes.” The SECEX sat back again. “As I mentioned, I’m sending you with open orders. If there’s any truth to this Poet craziness, act on it. This is fourth and long, son. You’re the Hail Mary. You get that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Coalbridge. “I get it.”

“Have any problem with it?”

Coalbridge flushed. He was either getting his dream assignment—or he was about to be sent to the ass-end of nowhere on a wild-goose chase and miss the greatest battle ever fought in humanity’s short history of space flight. And maybe return to a burned-out, blasted Earth.

“No place I’d rather be, Mr. Secretary.”

“We’ll try to hold the sceeve to the Kuipers, then fall back from there if necessary. When they attack, it’s not going to be pretty.”

“No, sir.”

“You know I grew up in Kansas, right?” said the SECEX. “Suburb outside of Topeka.”

“Yes, sir, I think I knew that.”

“Let me tell you something, Jim. You grow up in Kansas, you learn to feel a storm coming. And right now—this whole situation has the smell of tornado weather. So let’s pray to God that that lifepod does yield up something.”

“I’ll do my best to find out, sir. If I may put in a few special requests for crew additions before my departure time?”

“You got somebody in mind?”

“Lieutenant Commander Griffin Leher, sir. The Depletion Report creep.”

“Thought you might say that,” Camaroon replied. “Done.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The SECEX shook his head. “Goddamn, this is the wrong time for this to be happening. One more year. Even six months. But Tillich slowed me down. I haven’t got my vessels.” The SECEX suddenly looked tired. Old. His fleshy, jovial face sagging into a worried frown.

“We have days. Maybe hours. Let’s make them count, Captain,” Camaroon said. “Let’s make them count.”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary.”

A message scrolled across the dazz-paper pad on the SECEX’s desk, and he glanced down at it. Coalbridge couldn’t make it out, but it was highlighted with a red priority flag. “Okay, I’ve got to take care of this,” the SECEX said to Coalbridge. “Good luck to you and your crew, son.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And take the night off and get some rest, Captain. You’re going to need it,” said the SECEX. “That’s an order.”

Coalbridge stood, saluted.

“Dismissed.”

As he turned to leave, Coalbridge suddenly knew exactly how he planned to obey the final orders of the SECEX. Relaxation? Yes. Sleep. Less likely. To do so would, however, require a little persuading. But she was most definitely worth the effort.

Yep.

A captain’s work was never done.

1 December 2075

Vicinity of Beta Geminorum, aka Pollux

Guardian of Night

The cleanup of Milt’s body was surprisingly easy. The craft was equipped with very efficient nanotech for such tasks, and Storekeep Susten had brought along a “gut bag” from the processing lockers. In no time, Milt became a pasty goo in a clear container, and V-CENT was once again spotless. The churn even cleaned and freshened Ricimer’s bloodstained uniform in the process. The churn’s controlling program would log its entire process with Lamella and Governess—which ordinarily would have triggered an alert, and vessel marines to be dispatched to arrest him, had Lamella not immediately overwritten all the data.

That left the problem of what to do with Milt’s two DDCM subordinates who were also aboard. And, more importantly, the portion of the crew not in on Ricimer’s plot—which amounted to nearly thirty of his fifty-five officers. Too many to risk imprisoning them. Besides, what would he do with prisoners in the end? He wasn’t going to kill them, but Sporata starcraft were not equipped with lifeboats in which to set them adrift. Lifeboats were for weak-willed traders. For lesser species.

Ricimer pondered the solution he’d come up with on his way back to his bridge.

The vessel was under his command, but not yet under his control. The rates were Lamella’s task. She was a constant presence in their minds. She was not all-powerful, of course, but she had each rate on continual virtual feed and could modify his or her perception of reality by additions and subtractions of sensory input and, more importantly, with plausible explanations for almost anything out of the ordinary.