Star Force 12 Demon Star (40 page)

“I don’t know, sir. It just vanished.”

Angry, breathing hard, I came to a decision.

“Hard about. Reverse course. Arm everything we’ve got.”

“We’re going to fight a ring?” Hansen demanded.

“Yes. Launch all our missiles. Try to hit one edge.”

“That’s not going to do anything. It’s solid stardust.”

“Do it anyway,” I ordered.

My crew, nervous and sweating, did as I commanded.

“You’re not a god, Astrolyssos,” I shouted at the Ancient. “I reject you and all your people.”

“That is why you must be removed from this place. You do not belong here.”

The ring was spinning faster now. It looked like a rippling sphere. Closer and closer it came.

Our Daggers raced ahead, firing their weapons. They were ineffective. Nothing seemed to be able to do so much as scar the giant monolithic structure.

The missiles struck less than a minute later. They were batted aside. Explosions flashed—but the ring kept coming. It was almost upon us.

Adrienne came to my side. She took my hand.

At the last moment, when the spinning edge of the ring met my ship, she put her head against my shoulder, and I comforted her.

-34-

We were sucked into the ring, swallowed like ancient mariners into the belly of the leviathan.

In the final moments, I’d realized we couldn’t escape. The ring was moving too fast and maneuvering like a nimble fighter. Worse, since it was spinning, there was a distinct danger we’d be struck by the twirling edge of it and destroyed if we tried to dodge at the last second.

So, I let it happen. It was one of the hardest calls I’d ever had to make. We were overtaken and devoured. We vanished just as
Stalker
had minutes earlier.

When we came through to the other side, the universe was remarkably quiet. We weren’t dead, and that was good—but we were somewhere we didn’t recognize.

“Scans? Navigation?” I demanded.

“Coming in now, sir. Valiant is disoriented.”

Impatiently, we waited.

“He didn’t kill us,” Adrienne said to me in a hushed voice. “I thought for sure he’d kill us. How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” I admitted. “And we’re not in the clear yet. Radiation levels are spiking.”

“Maybe old Astro wanted to provide us with a slow, cooking death,” Hansen commented.

“Where are those rads coming from Valiant?” I demanded impatiently. “These readings are off the chart.”

The ship didn’t answer.

“The system’s central star has to be the source,” Adrienne said. She was back in the game, operating her sensor boards with quick fingers. “The star is on the map now.”

Not even a sluggish pile of nanites fresh out of the factory could miss the cosmic rays bombarding us. The holotank updated with a huge star at an unacceptably close range.

“It’s got to be a class B,” I said. “A blue giant.”

“Roger that,” Hansen called. “We have confirmation from the science lab. It must be a blue giant, but we still have no input from Valiant yet.”

“Do we have helm control?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Take emergency action. Turn our shielded aft section toward the star. Let’s fly gently away from it—but don’t run me into anything.”

Normally the navigational systems would have provided me a complete map of the system by now—but something was wrong with
Valiant’s
brainbox. Perhaps it was the shock of the transition or the radiation. I just didn’t know, and it was frustrating to be flying blind.

“On it,” Hansen said, and began working the helm. “Relaying your orders to
Stalker
.”

“Good,” I said. Then I looked around at the walls of the ship.

“Valiant?” I asked. “Valiant, what’s our position?”

“Protocol violated,” Valiant said. “Request ignored.”

I frowned at the walls. The ship’s voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, and I naturally employed a common human adaptation to our strange, talking brainboxes. I looked at the walls of the ship as if they were alive.

“What’s your problem, Valiant?” I asked. “Pull it together, please.”

“Protocol violation recorded. This ship can perform no actions in this star system.”

“Maybe Astrolyssos thought it would be funny to reprogram our AI for us,” suggested Hansen.

“I don’t know…” Adrienne said. “She sounds like she’s discovered a rule that’s been broken. One of her original rules of engagement.”

“Valiant,” I said sternly. “This is Captain Cody Riggs. Respond.”

“Cody Riggs recognized.”

“I’m invoking a command priority override. Whatever script you’re following, I want you to edit it as follows—”

“Violation. User rank too low. Command revoked.”

“Frigging machine,” I muttered.

Hansen chuckled. Most of the crew seemed to think the situation was amusing. I guessed they were so relieved to be alive, they didn’t care about a rebellious ship’s computer.

Large Star Force ships didn’t require their AI’s cooperation to navigate, but many functions were much more difficult to perform without the ship’s help. It was like trying to drive a car with all the power-assisted systems turned off.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s go over what we do know about this system. There’s a blue giant behind us. What about the ring back to Elladan? What about Astrolyssos? Could he be following us?”

Bradley shook his head. “No sir, I don’t think so. The ring just isn’t there. It’s dense enough and exerts enough of a gravitational field at this range to be detected with simple instruments. No extrapolation from Valiant is required to figure that out.”

I looked at him. “Hmm… If the ring isn’t behind us, we’ve been sent on a one-way journey to somewhere.”

“That’s right sir.”

“That could be good or bad,” I said thoughtfully. “At least we can be fairly sure Astrolyssos isn’t coming after us any longer without a ring to travel through.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“Radiation levels below lethal now,” Hansen interjected. “I’ve got her turned directly away from the star. With our engine’s shielding between us and the blaze, we’ll live.”

“All right then,” I said, “I’ll go see what the hell is wrong with Valiant.”

I walked down the main passageway to the door marked data-core and tried to open it. The door was locked.

“Hatch open,” I said.

Nothing happened. Frowning, I pushed on the smart-metal reactive zone in the wall, but the door held firm. Then, strangely, constructive nanites oozed out of the walls and thickened the door region, forming a solid seal. The seal was a tin-yellow color.

“What the hell…” I muttered.

I was becoming angry. Balling up my fists in my gauntlets, I pounded on the door. It dented, but repaired itself almost as rapidly as I could hammer a new divot.

Suddenly, the door dissolved. Only my quick reflexes prevented Sakura from getting a blow to the face. I’d just been throwing another punch when she’d opened the door. She blinked at me.

“Captain?” she asked. “What’s this about?”

“That’s what I want to know. Valiant won’t respond to me, and we need to know where the hell we are. I also want to know why you’re here in the computer core with a locked door.”

Sakura stared at me. She looked guilty. I know the appearance of guilt—I’d just spent two years in the daily presence of Marvin. He was always guilty of something.

Without waiting for whatever bullshit answer she might come up with, I pushed her aside and walked into the data core.

I’d only been in this chamber once or twice. It was a polyhedron, essentially, and all around the small space were linked brainboxes. Valiant had a big brain, which really consisted of many small brains with specialized abilities. Some ran engines, others ran navigation, weapons targeting, etc. I was looking for the one that talked to people.

“Where’s the higher functions box?” I asked.

Sakura licked her lips. “This is totally unnecessary, Captain. If you’ll kindly return to the bridge, I’m sure I can get the ship to respond again. It’s confused, that’s all.”

I tossed her a glare then began reading labels.

“Life support. Damage control. Communications array…”

“Sir—”

“Sakura,” I said, turning on her. “I think I should tell you that you’re a prime suspect in a long term investigation. It appears right now that your actions here are unexplained and possibly treasonous. You might be a saboteur or even an assassin.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she blurted. “I’m innocent.”

I laughed harshly. “Innocent people talk to their officers. They don’t try to hide in closets like this doing God-knows-what.”

“Sir, I would never—”

I loomed close to her. She flinched back. “Then talk. Tell me what’s going on. Why is Valiant failing to respond, and why are you lurking here in the data core?”

My tough-guy approach seemed to work. I hadn’t threatened her, but I’d let her know I wasn’t going to be put off.

“Sir…I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”

Frowning, I waited for more. She looked at her hands, and finally, at long last, began to spill her guts.

“When we were back on Earth,” she said, her eyes not meeting mine, “I was given orders, sir. I always follow orders—you know that, don’t you?”

I snorted. “It seems like you’ve been avoiding my orders for some time now.”

“That’s because the orders I’m talking about were from a higher ranking source. I had orders from Central Command that couldn’t be violated. My instructions couldn’t be overridden by an ensign fresh from the Academy, no matter what the situation.”

She raised her eyes then and looked at me defiantly. There was vindication in her voice and her demeanor.

I crossed my arms and leaned back against a brainbox, nodding. “I get it. This is resentment. This goes back to the very first day I took command. You’ve never accepted it. Everyone noticed, you know. They had theories. Maybe you were socially maladjusted, they said, or in love with me, or—”

“Hardly, sir,” she said stiffly.

“Be that as it may, I’m in command of this ship. I need to know where we are, and I need Valiant to be fully functional again.”

“I can help with the first part. We’re back in human space.”

I blinked at her. It was my turn to be shocked. “What? How can you know that? None of the instruments are performing analysis. Valiant’s brainbox—”

“That’s how I know,” she said. “Valiant switched into a special protocol. She would only do that if we were in human space again.”

“Ah…” I said thoughtfully. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Continue.”

She shrugged. “There isn’t really much more—”

“No!” I boomed at her. “None of that. Not now. You were doing so well. You should know that you’re facing a court martial at this point, to be carried out right here on this ship. Punishment will be severe and immediate.”

She twisted her lips. “I just told you we’re in human space. All your summary powers are abrogated. You’ll have to transport me to the nearest outpost, formally charge me there, and—”

“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t know where we are. I only have your word that we’re in human space. What I see standing before me is a lying saboteur. You’re endangering this vessel in my opinion, Sakura. That gives me the right to take drastic action.”

She licked her lips again nervously. She was a tough one, but I knew she was breaking. I wanted to hear everything now. For all I knew, this woman had played a part in Olivia’s death.

“Did you kill Olivia?” I asked her suddenly.

She looked stunned. “No, sir. That’s a ridiculous—”

“All right…” I said. “But you do know who did it. Is that why you’re here? To hide evidence now that we’re back in human space—according to you, that is.”

Her eyes darted around the data core, and they landed on the door, which had completely reshaped itself back into its original form.

“There’s no getting out of this,” I told her. “I’m sure you know much more than you’re letting on. Think about it… My fiancé died. My commanders died. You’re in here red-handed. Before he was destroyed, Marvin suspected you. That’s right, you topped his list.”

“It wasn’t me!” she said with sudden panic in her voice. “It was the ship!”

I stared at her in confusion.

“Valiant’s brainbox—that’s who did most of these things. You were supposed to die, Cody Riggs. Instead, your girlfriend died, your ship was lost in uncharted space, and we’ve been wandering the cosmos for two years.”

She was close to tears. I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe what she was saying.

“The ship’s brainbox is a computer,” I said. “Who programmed the computer?”

“Central Command. I’m the top tech, and I knew things were wrong, but I couldn’t tell you about it. Much higher ranked people built this AI. I follow orders, sir. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help you.”

“The orders were illegal,” I said. “Surely, you could see that.”

“Maybe, but it wasn’t my place to judge that. Remember, sir, you could be a traitor. You could be an impostor. All I know is that the ship had orders, and they were put there by authorities that go way above you in rank.”

I nodded, beginning to understand. Sakura wasn’t an assassin, but she was guilty of covering up what she knew. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She’d followed her orders to a fault.

“Why didn’t Valiant kill me in all of this time? She had plenty of opportunities.”

“Because we were cast out of human space and on our own, the computer reverted to emergency programming. She was set up to save the ship and the crew first in such a situation, and that priority overrode the need to get you killed.”

“I see…now that we’re in home territory, the original programming kicked back in, is that it?”

“Exactly. That’s why the ship won’t listen to you—in fact, she’s going to try to kill you.”

Feeling a bit off, I wiped sweat from my brow. My vision blurred.

“What’s happening…?” Sakura asked. “I can’t…”

She pitched forward onto the floor. She was turning blue.

I realized then that the oxygen was being pumped out of the compartment.

Worse, I had no helmet on, and the door had quietly closed and locked itself again.