In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (42 page)

The control interface was a broad interactive
panel, filled with touch sliders and colored control points, none of which
meant anything to me. “Which one?”

Izin turned to the panel uncertainly. “I’m not sure,
Captain.”

“Guess!”

He reached toward an image of a three dimensional
geodesic and dragged his finger across the curved surface. On the screen above,
the image of a spherical wormhole mouth filled with a dead black sphere began
to shrink. Closely bunched concentric rings around the wormhole mouth slowly
began to expand as spacetime curvature in the Solar System began decreasing.

Behind us, Gern Vrate limped on his weapon-crutch to
the second cryochamber and released the transparent cover with a hiss of misty
air. He didn’t wait to see the occupant revive, but continued on to the third
chamber to free its frozen prisoner.

“How long?” I asked as the self destructing siphon’s
energy took on a dark red hue.

“I don’t know, Captain.”

Vrate opened the third cryochamber, yelling, “Kade,
if you help me get my people out, you can come with me.”

“Izin?” I said, following his gaze to the screen
above the console. The tightly bunched concentric rings suddenly flowed like
ripples on a pond after a stone had been dropped into it and began to fade
away.

“The mouth has withdrawn, Captain. The singularity
is back in hyperspace.” Izin pointed to another screen showing an elongated
shape resembling a sock with a heavy weight in it, slowly shrinking. “It’s coming
back this way.”

I turned to Vrate. “We’re coming!”

The Kesarn in the second chamber had his eyes open.
He was cold and disoriented, but he didn’t resist as I dragged him out of the
chamber. He was heavier than a man, but I managed to sling him across my
shoulders. Vrate was too weak to get the other one out, so Izin jumped onto the
cryochamber and pulled the frozen Kesarn to a sitting position, then rolled him
over the side, letting him fall onto the deck.

Vrate grunted unhappily at the roughness.

“Better bruised than dead,” I said.

“Can your tamph carry him?” Vrate asked, ignoring
Izin completely.

“I can drag him, Captain.”

“I’ll take his other hand,” I said, turning to
Vrate. “Where’s your ship?”

“Near where you boarded,” he said, limping on his weapon-crutch
toward the vehicle entry.

I followed him, struggling under the weight of the
half frozen Kesarn on my shoulders while helping Izin drag the other one by the
arms. We struggled through dark corridors as the wail of the deteriorating dark
energy siphon rose to a scream behind us and the lightning flashes grew
brighter.

“You Kesarn need to slim down,” I said.

“Harden up, human,” Vrate growled, pressing his
hand against the side of his chest, careful not to touch the fluorescence that
was now lighting our path. Incredibly, it was healing him before my eyes.

The thunder of the
Vigilant’s
bombardment
continued unabated, almost drowned out by the shriek of the dying siphon. There
was no sign of the crew, who may have been trapped in another part of the ship,
but we couldn’t help them.

“What’s the siphon’s blast radius?” I asked,
feeling my shoulders turning to ice under the cold radiating from the Kesarn
hulk I was carrying.

“Equivalent to a small nova.”

“Will it reach the Aphrodite?”

“They have shields,” Vrate said. “At that
distance, they will survive.”

We passed through an armored hatch, out of the
Mavia’s
fortified citadel. In the corridor were a dozen dead Orie mercs, some were on
fire, lighting our way.

“Your handiwork?” I asked.

“I took no pleasure in it. I am a tracer, not a
killer. Survival is our burden.”

“Your burden?”

“I find the lost that they may live,” he said in a
way that sounded almost ritualistic. “Failure means death.”

“You couldn’t stop the Matriarch,” I said,
thinking he was grieving the loss of the Kesarn the Intruder had killed in the siphon
room.

“One life, one world, they are all our burden.”

I glanced at his hard face, realizing he was
talking as much about the dead Kesarn as the destruction of his homeworld. Having
spied for the Tau Cetins during the Intruder War, his people had risked the ire
of one galactic super power by helping another and it had cost them everything.
No wonder he was bitter! More than that, I realized his entire race suffered
survivor’s guilt, making the loss of even one more Kesarn almost unbearable. It
was why he was a survivor, why his people had invented healsuits and why he
would scour the galaxy to save one life.

We moved on in silence to an open airlock, then Vrate
helped Izin drag his Kesarn through while I struggled alone with mine. Once
aboard, I released my Kesarn and followed Vrate as he hobbled to his flight
deck.

“I need to warn the human ships!” I declared.

He limped up the ramp to his piloting position,
dropped his weapon-crutch and placed his hands on the two command spheres,
using them for support. Almost immediately, his ship moved away from the
Mavia
sending the navigational guides sliding across the inside of the spherical chamber.

The
Vigilant
was barely twenty clicks away,
a rectangular armored slab with squat round turrets either side of a central
superstructure. Her big guns were firing steady, controlled blasts, vainly
trying to batter down the
Mavia
’s shield, while her secondary weapons
poured rapid fire streams at the same point. Sheets of energy rolled across the
Mavia’s
shield, illuminating its curved surface before fading away,
showing no sign of buckling under the onslaught.

Far beyond the battlecruiser were three smaller
Earth Navy ships exchanging fire with the Super Saracen fleet bearing down on
them. None of the Separatist ships were heading for the wormhole mouth now.
Either the arrival of the Earth Navy squadron had forced them to abandon their
attack, or they’d detected the singularity blocking the exit mouth and had
aborted the raid. Whatever the reason, the small Earth Navy force was suffering
at the hands of its more powerful adversary.

The heavy destroyer
Kirishima
was adrift. Glowing
plasma fires lit up her hull in a dozen places as her last surviving heavy gun continued
to fire sporadically. With no shield or propulsion and the full weight of the
Separatist fleet bearing down on her, she didn’t have long to live, yet not a
single escape pod had launched.

Retreating from the wreck of the
Kirishima
were the
Delhi
and the
Nassau
, firing as they fell back. The
leading Super Saracens were already maneuvering to pass the
Kirishima
and refocus their attention on the surviving escorts. Their shields were still
up, but a plasma fire had erupted from
Delhi’s
starboard side and one of
Nassau’s
turrets was already a jagged ruin.

Only the
Vigilant
was undamaged, having
come in to destroy the
Mavia
while her escorts kept the Super Saracens away.
Coming up from below the
Mavia
were the two converted cruisers that had
detached to intercept the
Silver Lining
. They were still outside weapons
range, but were decelerating on an intercept course with the
Vigilant
. Sheltering
behind the
Vigilant
was the
Silver Lining
, carefully positioned
not to obstruct the warship’s guns, but close enough to swoop in and pick us up
if we jumped clear in the battle suits.

“Speak,” Vrate said as we passed outside the
Mavia
’s
defense shield.

I took a step up the ramp. “This is Sirius Kade to
all Earth Navy ships and to the Silver Lining. The Mavia is about to become a
nova. Evacuate the system immediately!”

Lena Voss’s face appeared inside the sphere
surrounding Vrate’s flight deck. “ENS Vigilant to Sirius Kade, is Earth in
danger?”

“No, but we are!”

Relief washed over her face. “Good work, Sirius.
Vigilant out.”

Lena’s face vanished, then Vrate said. “Another
message incoming.”

Jase’s face appeared. “Skipper, where are you?’

“On Vrate’s ship. Get moving. Pick a direction, don’t
stop for a light year. We’ll find you.” I glanced at Gern Vrate. “Right?”

“If he goes now,” he agreed, sending his ship
hurtling past the
Vigilant
. In the blink of an eye, we were behind the
Silver
Lining
, velocities perfectly matched.

“I’m out of here,” Jase said, then bubbled away in
a streak of light.

I looked at Vrate quizzically.

“Got it,” he said, confirming how easily he could
read our autonav.

A short distance away, the
Vigilant’s
big
guns fell silent. She turned slowly, thirty degrees, then bubbled, followed immediately
by the two surviving navy frigates. Only the glowing wreck of the
Kirishima
remained of the Earth Navy ships, still being battered by the Super Saracens.

“Can you save her?” I asked, nodding toward the
beleaguered
Kirishima
.

“There isn’t time.”

“Do the Separatist ships know what’s coming?”

“I didn’t include them,” Vrate said, turning
curiously. “Would you have preferred I did?”

“No, let them burn.” At that range, even with
their shields up, the Separatist fleet would not survive the explosion of the
Mavia
.
“Are there any other ships in-system?” I asked, wondering if the
Cyclops
was still here.

“No.”

“OK, let’s go.”

Vrate’s ship turned after the
Silver Lining
,
then his spear-like superluminal bubble formed, carrying us to safety. Several
minutes later, a small nova bloomed at the edge of the Duranis-B system, consuming
the
Mavia
, thirty two Super Saracen merchant cruisers and vaporizing the
wreck of the
Kirishima
.

Fifteen hours later, the blast was captured by
every major news service in Mapped Space, watched from the decadent comfort of
the
Aphrodite
and dozens of smaller ships. The Separatist leaders were
shocked to see their fleet repel an Earth Navy squadron only to vanish in a
single annihilating flash. To most, it was a disaster, the ruin of years of
planning and the expenditure of vast fortunes, made worse by the terrible
retribution that would inevitably be inflicted upon them by Earth Navy.

To Manning Thurlow Ransford III, cradled in one of
his colorful exoskeletons, the bright light in the sky marked a huge increase
in demand for ships and weapons of all kinds, from both sides. The loss of this
fleet was a setback to the Separatist cause, but he knew there were other squadrons
that were even now launching surprise attacks upon isolated Earth Navy outposts
across Mapped Space. Considering the distances involved, it would be many
months before news of the Duranis-B disaster reached them, by which time Human
Civilization would be ablaze.

In the secluded comfort of his super yacht in its
private berth alongside the
Aphrodite
, he watched the distant nova
slowly fade, not with trepidation but with delight, certain that business would
be booming for years to come.

* * * *

Vrate’s ship unbubbled a
light year from the Duranis binary after a few seconds of flight. By the time
the
Silver Lining
arrived seven hours later, the two kidnapped Kesarn
had recovered their strength enough to eat and drink, but do little else.

Vrate locked onto the
Lining’s
port side
airlock, eager to get rid of us and take his two companions home – wherever
that was. The Kesarn were an obstinately solitary people, suggesting much about
their origins. I could imagine lone hunters prowling the plains of a long lost
world during a time predating technology. Now they prowled the galaxy, alone
and remorseful, tortured by survivor’s guilt, longing for a world that no
longer existed.

At the airlock, Vrate gave me an appraising look.
Incredibly, his chest wound was showing remarkable progress while his suit was
already beginning to repair itself. For loners wandering the galaxy, isolated from
mainstream civilization, the Kesarn healsuit was the ultimate achievement in
self reliance. I wanted one.

“You kept your word,” Vrate said. “You found my
people.”

“You kept yours. Thanks for trusting me.”

“Are you typical of humans?”

“Some of them.”

He fell silent, deep in thought. Finally he said,
“The Kesarn have few friends.”

“I find that hard to believe, you’re such a bundle
of laughs.”

The Kesarn’s granite face didn’t budge. He was as
tough as a Gesion razorback, and about as affable.

“I will recommend we establish contact with
Earth.”

That was a surprise. “I thought we were primitive
barbarians?”

“You are, but so were we – once. Even more than
you.” He hesitated. “In time, we may come to an understanding.”

“Any Kesarn ambassador will be welcome on Earth.”

In fact, Earth Council would fall over themselves
to build a friendship – perhaps even an alliance – with the Kesarn, a people
hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us who were beholding to no one, who
feared nothing and now had a reason to hate the Matarons.

Vrate held out both hands palms up and nodded his
head slightly forward. I wasn’t quite sure of the meaning of the gesture, but I
guessed it had something to do with trusting me enough to show he held no
weapons. I mirrored the gesture back to him. His dark stony face gave no hint
as to whether it was the right response, but he didn’t insult me so I figured
he’d taken it as a good attempt at respecting his customs.

I followed Izin into the airlock and turned back
to the Kesarn tracer. “If you’re ever back this way –” Vrate touched the wall
panel, sealing the airlock shut. “– look me up,” I said to the dull metallic
hatch.