Morgan's Return (43 page)

"Wow, that is amazing." Jirra spoke softly.

Morgan sat silent, unmoving. Ravindra wanted to ask questions, but she'd tell him when she was ready.

"Makes you feel small, doesn't it?" Davaskar murmured.

Yes, it did. Insignificant in the scheme of things. If there was such a thing.

"I don't know what it is." Morgan's voice sounded strained. "There's nothing to describe it in my databases. It's putting out visible light, and shorter spectrum radiation, which is sliding past our shields. I suppose the best analogy I can give you is the gamma rays coming from a black hole."

"But it's not a black hole?" Davaskar said.

She shook her head. "At least, it isn't a gravitational anomaly. And there aren't a lot of gamma rays. We can see it, too. It's between one, and one-and-a-half light years away, so it has been in existence for some time."

"Is it a portal?" Jirra asked.

"I don't know what a portal looks like, even what one is," Morgan said. "But if I use my fanciful human brain, I'd say this looked like a rip. Or a mouth with parted lips. Sort of two plumes on each side of a roughly oval gap."

Ravindra agreed. It did.

Jirra turned to look at him, her eyes wide. "We're not going
in
there, are we?"

Morgan gave a half-laugh. "I wouldn't recommend it. But
they
might."

"What?" Ravindra straightened, instantly alert.

Morgan moved the sensors, zooming in on something behind them.

His heart hammered. The alien mother ship. Correction,
an
alien mother ship, powering up from their stern, and to starboard. The sensors were tracking, showing the decreasing distance.

"Recommend we stand fast, Admiral," Morgan said. "Cloaking shields raised. Let's hope they haven't seen us already."

"Agreed." He tried to forget about the vision of
Maximus
being torn apart. "Can you tell if this is the same ship we saw at Ushas?"

"Comparisons calculate to ninety-three percent." She grinned. "But maybe mother ships are identical."

"They don't appear to be slowing down or changing direction," Davaskar said.

The thing almost looked alive, just like the jellyfish-like ships it carried inside.

"Oh, fuck." Morgan leaned forward in her seat. "Something's coming from the direction of the rift. Just come out of shift space."

Davaskar swore softly in Manesai. "It's even bigger than this one."

Ravindra checked the screens. Estimated size of the mother ship approaching was three times the size of the one passing them. If the things spotted
Vulsaur,
they were history.

"There's a cloud of jellyfish coming out of the new one." Jirra's voice was tight with tension.

They'd all seen it, the row of fighters flowing out like… Ravindra leaned back in his seat. It couldn't be. Could it? No, he'd keep his mouth shut. If he said anything, he'd sound as silly as the two humans.

The two alien vessels slowed down, approaching each other. Now the second ship, the one that had come from Ushas, also released 'fighters'. The two sets of jellyfish mingled, circling around each other, and their parents. There. He'd said it, at least to himself.

Leaning forward, he spoke to Morgan. "Does this remind you of anything?"

She pulled a face. "A victory celebration?"

"It's almost like… parents with kids," Jirra said slowly.

Davaskar snorted. Jirra squirmed.

"Remember the cardoplasts?" Ravindra said.

Morgan turned to look at him over her shoulder. "You're suggesting they're alive? Sentient beings?"

"Why not? The universe is a very large place." Jirra and Davaskar both stared at him, eyebrows raised.

Morgan chortled. "What ridiculous, unadulterated hornswoggle." She laughed. "Oh, Ashkar."

Jirra and Davsakar eyed each other, and him. They had the sense to keep any similar notions to themselves.

"That's enough." Ravindra snapped the words, which at least stopped her laughter. "You don't know everything, Supertech. Have you ever seen a spawning? Seen the fish return to the rivers of their youth to have their young? Seen pronkhorn parents with their cubs? I know you've seen cardoplasts and their nest."

She didn't answer, just tilted her head to one side.

"It's a theory. Something we could never prove. But bear with me. Let us say that when this rift happens, these aliens have their young, here where perhaps it is safer for them. And then one day, a foreign object appears in their vicinity. One of their young, a jellyfish, finds it, and finds a transmission. A couple of the youngsters follow it back to the source. They're curious. But one of them is destroyed. The other fights back, but is forced to flee.

"The parent, probably the male, returns with its half-grown children. They punish the aggressors, then they go home, where the female waits with the rest of the brood."

"It fits," Jirra whispered.

Ravindra looked at Davaskar, who shrugged. "Yes, it fits. If the things are alive."

"What would they eat?" Morgan waved an arm. "Out here?"

"Perhaps nothing. They wouldn't be the first species which went hungry during their reproductive cycle."

Jirra pulled a face. "True. On my home planet we have big sea mammals that migrate to mate. They don't eat for months."

Prasad appeared in the hatch. "With respect,
Srimana
. We'd all like to know what's happening?"

Of course. Ravindra followed his intelligence officer to the common room, sat down next to Prasad and repeated his theory to the humans, Tullamarran and Prasad. Morgan came down half-way through, and sat next to the humans.

Partridge was immediately convinced, nodding in a satisfied way. "It's a very different picture, isn't it? The idea of an angry parent defending its child."

Perhaps. Ravindra had seen such attacks carried out by Manesai. He remembered one of his first actions as a junior commander, when he was ordered to stop the bloodshed between two warring villages. A woman had been raped and murdered, and her friends and kin had attacked the village from which the culprit had come. Hundreds had died in the ensuing minor war. What a prospect, on a planetary scale, a deadly, looming, darkness. He suppressed a shudder.

"So what are we going to do now,
Srimana
?" Morgan asked. "There's a human task force hot on our tail. They'll be out here, all guns blazing, in a day's time. And if you're right, and they try to take out the big ones, we'll have an inter-species war on our hands."

Chapter 37
 

M
akasa eased his way out of the lander, and onto the deck of the star destroyer
Sentinel
. If one of these buffoons even thought about finding this funny, he'd have their balls in a vice. Or something equivalent for the women.

The deck officer slapped off an impeccable salute. "Admiral, welcome aboard. I'm to escort you to quarters and then to the captain."

Captain Treannu had done well. Returning the salute, he said. "Thank you Commander. Lead on."

Makasa had already given orders that the
Sentinel
and her escorts were to follow
Vulsaur
. Obviously, Ravindra would know that. Oh, when he got his hands on that alien bastard... The lift slowed and the doors slid aside.

"This way, Sir."

He followed the officer to the guest quarters, not as large or comfortable as he was used to. The new uniform he'd ordered had been made up for him and lay on the bed. Excellent.

"When you're ready, Captain Treannu will see you in his office."

Showered and dressed in clean clothes, Makasa had someone take him to the captain's office, close to the bridge. Treannu saluted, then sat down again, behind his desk. Makasa subsided into the visitor's chair, wishing it was wider. Or better still, a hover chair.

"We're under way, Admiral. I've given orders to move up gradually, since we don't know what we'll find. The nearest sun to the target area is Nev." He brought the system up as a 3D projection on his desk. The red giant glowed at the center of five orbiting planets. The captain pointed at the fourth planet. "This one is nearest to the target area. I'm going to stop there and regroup, then move on."

"That sounds eminently sensible, Captain."

The 3D projection blinked off.

Treannu moistened his lips. "I've looked at what intelligence we have about these ships. I'm not quite sure what to do."

"You have the units to block their communication?"

"I'm hoping my Supertech will have the work finished." He brightened a little. "She says the instructions are excellent."

Of course they were. They came from Morgan. Anger growled in Makasa's gut. Damn Ravindra's hide. He might respect the man's intelligence but he didn't have to like him.

"You've had your tactician analyze the data?"

"I have. It looks as though we need to get the heaviest ordinance we have into the mother ships as soon as possible."

"Indeed. And Captain, if that means we have to sacrifice some fighters to do it…"

Treannu started. "Suicide missions?"

Gods, what an ugly word
. "If we can manage with remote controlled ships, that may not be necessary." But it probably would be. Remote controlled ships were good, but not when unusual circumstances prevailed

Treannu's Adam's apple bobbed. "Understood."

The captain didn't like it, not one bit. Which was understandable.

"I'm sure we'll all hope it doesn't come to that."

***

"H
ow is this taskforce likely to approach?" Ravindra asked.

"Carefully, I would think," Morgan said.

That went without saying. "Yes, but how?"

"Why don't you and Davaskar tell me? You're both task force commanders. Given this situation, what would you do?" She set up the star chart for them, from Ushas's system to here.

"I'd come in to here." Davaskar pointed at the fourth planet of the red giant closest to the rift.

Ravindra tilted his head. "Agreed."

"So that's where we'll wait for them?" Morgan raised her eyebrows.

Davaskar straightened up. "What will the task force consist of?"

"I'm guessing, of course. But they won't send a battleship. They don't have many, and they're based in the outer regions. It'll probably be a star destroyer, maybe two, with escorts."

Morgan brought up a 3D image of a ship, rotating slowly so they could see it from all angles. Ravindra exchanged a look with his cousin. They'd already seen the Coalition hardware, out of professional interest. The star destroyer was shorter and stockier than Manesai ships. The escorts were frigates, about half the size of the destroyer, each more than enough to destroy
Vulsaur
.

"I was thinking we could place
Vulsaur
near one of the moons?" Morgan zoomed in on the planet in question, a blue gas giant, with a faint ring and ten moons, and lit up one of the larger moons. "This one is probably a capture, on a very eccentric orbit."

"No." Davaskar shook his head. "They'll want to keep their ships away from the planet. I would be going for about here." He pointed to an area within the orbit of the three outer moons, but beyond the other seven.

"I think we hide close to one of the inner moons," Ravindra said.

"Okay." Morgan created icons representing the human fleet, and put them into place, then moved an icon representing
Vulsaur
into position. "Looks good. I can keep us between them and the planet. As long as they don't disperse too much."

"I wouldn't," Davaskar said.

"Nor I. And then what?" Ravindra sat down, and stretched out his legs. "You know these people. What is the best approach?"

"I know Makasa. Or I thought I did." Her face clouded for a moment, then cleared. "What the fuck. I never did really trust him."

"You like him, though. And you understand how he thinks."

"I guess."

"So. What does he want?"

Davaskar chuckled. "Her."

"Oh, yes. But is that all? Is he going to be bent on revenge? Death to the aliens? All guns blazing, as you say?"

Morgan sucked at her lip. "The captain and crew may be. You know what it's like. Some of them are likely to have had friends on
Maximus
. It's what they've trained for, and now the enemy is
alien
. So much easier to kill something not like us."

"Yes. Understood." Ravindra rested his chin on his fingers. "But Makasa will call the strategic shots. He has seen a battleship torn apart, seen a planet virtually destroyed, so he knows how powerful these things are."

"That's part of the game, though, isn't it?" Morgan said. "I mean, we all know the fleet is really a glorified, mobile peace-keeper. But we'd like to think we're protecting our people from invasion. And now it's happened."