The Ninth: Invasion (50 page)

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” Doug asked Dante.

Dante groaned as Cain chuckled.

“How much longer until we can head out?”  Ronald asked.  “Now that we know where to go.”

“Another fifteen, twenty minutes,” Brent said, checking his pad.

“This waiting around is killing me!” Doug said.

“Could be worse,” Kindra grumbled.  “The Citadels have had time to make a couple of jumps by now.  They’ve probably run into a few of our friends by now.”

“Really?” Penny asked, horrified.  “Will they be okay?”

“Don’t worry,” Brent said reassuringly.  “They have standing orders to keep their distance from the Citadels.  They are doing little more than playing a game of tag right now.”

“They are going to know something is up,” Doug said as he shook his head.  “Why stick around and play tag when they should be running away?

“That’s the
whole
point,” Tyra said with a sigh.  “We want them looking for something.  When the planet killers launch, they will think
that
is what we were hiding.”

“Oh!  I get it,” Doug said with a content smirk.

“Only took eighteen times to get it through that thick skull of yours,” Marie said with a chuckle.

Brent watched the information readouts intently as the minutes passed.  Finally, the deadline passed, and the swift progress of the Citadels ground to a halt.

“Showtime,” Mahoney said with a wide grin as he watched over Brent’s shoulder.

The other troopers gathered around him and his pad.  Brent handed the pad to Cain, who quickly rigged it up to a large monitor.

“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” Marie said, slapping him on the back.

“You’re not the only one who’s taken some support training,” Cain said, rubbing his back.

The monitor showed the information from the pad large enough for the entire squad to make out what was happening.  Six new icons flashed on the screen as the planet killers launched.  After a single jump of the planet killers, their effect was obvious.  Every Citadel stopped dead in its tracks and reversed course.  Energy readings from the Citadels spiked as they put everything they had into fueling the jump drives.  Each and every Citadel not entrenched on a planet headed directly to the Shard hub world.  Even a few of the nearby entrenched powered up to pursue.  As the Wall passed through the section of the ship, the other human ships moved around randomly on the monitor.

“Why aren’t they all heading back to Eos?” Penny asked.

“So they won’t notice the fact that we aren’t headed to Eos,” Brent said watching intently.  “The Shard are distracted, but I don’t want to tempt fate.  The other ships are vectoring away from the Commonwealth planets along random jump paths.  The fact we are headed to the Great Divide should get lost in the noise.”

After a few more jumps, Brent let out a sigh of relief.  Not one of the Citadels changed course.  They hadn’t noticed his group of ships.  The planet killers were the first, last, and only concern of the entire metallic race.  Taking his sigh as a good sign, Cain broke the silence.

“Fifteen days from now we’ll be the first people to enter Shard space in centuries.”

“Really?” Tyra asked, taking a relaxed position.  “I’d think there would be a lot of interest in the remains of their empire.”

“At first there was, but it waned pretty quickly.  When the Shard homeworld was vaporized, it took almost everything of value with it,” Cain said with a shrug.  “Combat units self-destructed, information terminals overloaded, resource gathering facilities malfunctioned.  It was assumed from the pattern of destruction that their homeworld housed some kind of central control unit that commanded and maintained the rest.  Without it, they all were lost.”

“Wait, what about that moon over Eos?” Dante asked.  “It didn’t look in all that bad a shape.”

“Don’t bother asking me,” Cain said.  “I found out about it at the same time you did.  Everything I know about it, you know.”

“Did Alden tell you much about it, sir?” Dante asked.

“He did say the moon was heavily damaged when they found it,” Brent said, watching the monitor.  “They had to do some extensive repair work to gain access to the database.  The first few generations spent their lives just trying to get it to work again.”

“That would explain the nebula,” Ronald said.  “If it was damaged, it might have been attempting to comply with its original orders.”

“But with its damaged systems,” Sanderson added, “instead of a nebula that spanned an Commonwealth, it got a cloud large enough to cover a single system.”

“I wonder . . .” Doug’s voice trailed off as he thought to himself.

“This should be good,” Marie said with a chuckle.  “Tell us, oh wise one, what do you wonder?”

“Do Shards have sexes?”

“That’s actually a good question,” Sanderson said, pondering.  “Rita turned out to be a Shard and she was female, but was the Shard itself female or not.”

“It’s a moot point,” Brent said.  “They build replacements at factories; they have no need for reproduction as we know it.  Gender would be pointless.  What I wonder about is if that Shard was organic.”

“Sir?” Dante asked.

“Everything I know about the Shards is based on the fact they are machines ruled by a central mind.  If they have learned somehow to create organic Shards, they might have also developed a new way to rule themselves.”

“Wait, are you telling me there may
not
be a central control world for us to blow up?” Tyra asked.

“It’s a possibility,” he admitted, “but not a strong one.”

“How can you be sure?” Cain asked, concerned.

“The way the Citadels move is too perfect.  They move as one, like the extension of a centralized will.  If each piece thought for itself, there would be lag times, irregularities.  Imagine if every cell in your arm had to consciously decide for itself to obey every order your brain set to it.  Some muscles would fire quickly, others slowly.  Fluid motion would be impossible on the level those Citadels operate at.”

“Alden was right to put this responsibly in your hands,” Ronald said.

“Hand,” Brent said with a grin as he wiggled the fingers on his left hand.

“Let’s just hope you don’t have butterfingers,” Cain said, bursting into laughter.

He smiled at the joke to the relief of the others.  He continued to watch over the Citadel fleet like a hawk.  As time passed, the others grew tired of the monitor and found other sources of entertainment.  While the others trained and watched 3Ps, he studied the Galaxy like a gigantic chessboard.  The Shard had fallen for the trick completely.  In their mad dash, several Citadels had been destroyed in the attempt.  The residual energy reading hinted they had pushed their reactors too far.  However, the Citadels had reached the hub world
barely
before the planet killers.  Brent found that was a relief to him.  The idea of using that terrible weapon, even on a Shard world, sickened him.  He knew the Shard were slowly annihilating his species, but the terrible nightmare of the massive maws shook him to his core.

As ordered, the planet killers had turned tail and retreated to Eos along with the rest of the fleet.  Brent’s task force of ships had penetrated the Great Divide and was safe from detection, for now.  The navigation array of the Commonwealth didn’t extend over the Great Divide because there was no need for it.  The real threat was whatever sensor array the Shards used in their own territory.  For all Brent knew, they could have already spotted his small fleet.

Day in and day out, he went over the reports Alden sent him while double-checking the long-range scans of the ship.  The Shards returned to their business of eradicating the human race, while Brent’s ship moved, apparently unnoticed.  The diversion had given humanity an unexpected bonus.  The Shards intensified their patrols near their hub world, diverting forces away from the human worlds.  The Commonwealth was still hanging by a thread, but the Shards were holding back now.  They knew the planet killers were out there, lurking.

After every jump, Brent anxiously reviewed the long range scans, expecting to find an enemy fleet waiting for him, but every time he was greeted by nothing.  Finally setting down for the final night, he tried to sleep despite the anticipation.  He was rudely awakened in the morning by the blaring klaxon alarms of the ship.  Leaping out of bed, he and the rest of the squad quickly prepared for battle.  Thankfully, the ship wasn’t as massive as the Harbinger had been, so reaching the bridge hadn’t taken too long.

“What’s going on?” Brent asked the bridge crew.

“Could we please turn off that racket?” Cain complained.  “Something is wrong; we got it.  Can we save our eardrums?”

“We are jumping to the indicated jump coordinates now,” the captain said anxiously.  “All crewmembers are assembling in battle stations.  Glad you are here to see for yourself – whatever is out there.”

“It’s already been fifteen days?” Doug asked.

“You’ve spent more than half of them passed out at the bar,” Marie said with a shrug.

“Maybe, but I’m sober and ready for action now!” he said, defending himself.

Everyone on the bridge held their breath as the Wall passed over them.  Brent could sense their excitement, anxiety, and fear all mixing together as the Wall passed through the ship.  The sight on the other side was truly anticlimactic.  A single lifeless sphere hung silently in space.  There were no massive Shard shipyards or staging points.  There wasn’t even a single Citadel to be seen.

“Well?” Cain asked expectantly.

“I thought they were jamming us,” the tactical officer said as she scanned the area again.  “I thought that was the reason we didn’t pick up anything.”

“This is impossible!” the captain shouted.  “I triple checked the data from the navigation array myself!  We should be right where we should be.”

“I’ve got nothing,” the tactical officer said with a sigh.  “The scanners are clear.  No planets, no moons, just that one ice cube.  There isn’t even a rogue asteroid out there.”

“Communication channels are dead.”  The man at the communications terminal shook his head disapprovingly.  “There isn’t even background noise.”

“Could they have seen us coming and fled?” Dante asked.

“Scans of the ice cube are all clean,” the tactical officer answered Dante.  “It’s just a lifeless ball of ice.  With its distance from the sun, I doubt it ever supported life.  There aren’t even any minerals to extract.  There is no reason the Shard would ever have any interest in it.”

“Unless they wanted to make one heck of a smoothie.”  Cain chuckled to himself.

“You said the scans of the local area were clear, right?” Brent asked.

“That’s what I said.”  The tactical officer nodded.

“Perfect,” Brent said with a widening smile.  “We’ve found them.”

“I mean no disrespect, sir, but weren’t you listening?” Dante asked.

“Very closely; heard every word,” Brent said, still smiling.

“Are you saying we missed something?” the captain asked, a bit miffed.

“Not at all; you’ve done a perfect job,” he said with a growing smile.  “There is nothing out there.”

“Then what do you mean we’ve found them?” Ronald asked.

“There is nothing out there,” Tyra said, gesturing to the empty monitors.  “Absolutely nothing.”

“Which proves we’ve found them,” Brent said with a confident nod.

“You’ve lost me, sir,” Dante said hesitantly.

“These are the exact coordinateness the Shard ship originated from.”  Brent nodded to the captain.  “I double checked myself.”

“Could they have altered the data?” Erin asked.  “Sent us on a wild goose chase?”

“Unlikely,” Brent said thoughtfully.  “However, even if that were the case we’d still find it.”

“Find what?” Doug asked, scratching his head.

“A sensor array,” he said with a triumphant grin.

The tactical officer’s eyes widened, and she immediately returned to her console.

“Don’t bother looking again; it isn’t out there.”  Brent smiled.

“I don’t get it,” Penny admitted.  “What are you talking about?”

“A jump drive is a jump drive,” Brent said matter-of-factly.  “It doesn’t matter if it belongs to the Commonwealth or a Shard Citadel, it still needs two things.  A tremendous amount of energy and . . .”  his voice trailed.

“And current jump coordinates,” the navigation officer finished.

“The ship that retrieved Rita came from
this
system.  That leaves us with only two alternatives.  Either it was built here, or at some point jumped into this system.  And since I don’t see any shipyards, it has to be the second.”  Brent gestured to the empty monitors.

“So then, where are the shards?” Angela asked.

“Right below us on that icy world, most likely playing dead hoping we jump away as soon as we recharge. 
It
is the only thing in the solar system and thus has the be what provided jump coordinates.”