Battle Cruiser (13 page)

This room was different. There were sub-chambers, a dozen of them, each effectively a cage-like structure with ribbed walls and small portholes in the sides.

“Cells?” Rumbold asked. “May I ask why we’re here, sir?”

I pointed to the last cell in the line. “That cell,” I said. “I noticed when we first examined the diagrams that there was power and heat down here. I didn’t know it was the detention center, but it makes sense to me now.”

I walked up to the cell and peered into a fogged over porthole.

Rumbold huffed and followed me. “You can’t be serious!” he said. “A prison? One cell that’s still functioning? No one could be alive in there!”

Rather than answering him, I tapped lightly on the metal cell wall. A ringing, reverberating sound met our ears. The cell was like a tin drum, echoing my tapping.

Suddenly, a face loomed in the glass.

Rumbold fell back, gasping. “By the gods!”

Yamada sucked in her breath, but said nothing.

For my own part, I simply stared. Her face—it was obscured somewhat by the glass, but still unmistakable. She was the woman Yamada had projected by reading the DNA in the tubes. Those clones must have been her sisters. Thousands of them.

But that wasn’t the shocking part. The thing that alarmed my crewmen was her size. Her face was that of a giant. As broad and thick-boned as the largest of men.

-18-

The female giant in the cell regarded us thoughtfully. We could only see her face, but even that was impressive. Her green eyes were intelligent but wary. Her raven black hair was long and hung down to spill on her broad shoulders.

Those eyes…they shifted from one of us to the next. Often, they came to rest on the weapons we had on our belts.

“Hello,” I said in Standard. “I’m Captain William Sparhawk. Who are you?”

“You are Basics?” she asked aloud, speaking Standard with a strange accent. Her voice was deep for a woman’s, but not as deep as mine.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that term,” I said.

“Basic stock. Old-men. That’s what you are—I can tell. You’re all varied in design, but not for specific purposes.”

“We’re Earth men,” I said, “and we’re here to rescue you.”

She studied us suspiciously for a moment longer, then a smile spread across her wide face. That smile wasn’t entirely friendly, in my opinion. There was a hint of something predatory in it.

“You’ll find the lock difficult to open,” she said. “But there is a bypass at the guard station over there. Before you open it, please make sure the atmosphere is breathable, for my sake.”

“We’ll do so,” I said. “Yamada, power up life support in detention, please.”

“It will be a few minutes, Captain.”

I turned back to the prisoner. “We have time for a few questions,” I said.

“How fortunate,” she said, but she didn’t appear to be happy.

She wanted to get out of her cell. I could understand that, but I felt I had to know more of her situation first.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Betas don’t have names, we have serial numbers. But those I interact with on a regular basis called me Zye—the last symbol in my serial number was Z.”

“Zye…all right.” I proceeded to introduce the three of us. No one looked comfortable. I could tell she didn’t trust us, and we certainly didn’t trust her. But the introductions seemed to help a little.

“Zye,” I asked, “how is it that you’re alive and everyone else aboard this ship seems to have died or abandoned her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trapped in here—I don’t know how long. Fortunately, the cell is automated. It has fed me, provided me with air, and removed my waste since the ship was stricken.”

“Do you know what might have damaged this vessel?”

Zye shrugged. “The Betas have many enemies. It might have been the Stroj, or the Reavers. I can’t be sure. The crew wasn’t interested in keeping me up to date on events.”

“How did you come to be imprisoned? What were the charges?”

Her mouth worked for a moment, but she didn’t answer.

“I’m like you,” she said at last. “That was my crime. I varied too much from the pattern. They didn’t like the variation.”

Frowning, I wasn’t sure how to take her statements.

Rumbold cleared his throat and I glanced at him. He indicated that I might want to step away from the porthole to talk to him privately. I indulged him, connecting a channel for a privately radioed talk and turning off my external speakers.

“What is it, Chief?”

“I don’t like this, sir, and I don’t like her. She’s obviously some kind of vicious criminal.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Oh, come on, Captain! A man doesn’t have to be a hundred and sixty to know that a prisoner is generally behind bars for damned good reasons.”

“Point taken. Thank you,” I said. Disconnecting the channel, I activated my external speakers again. “I’m getting good sound now, Yamada. How’s the air in here?”

“Chilly, but breathable.”

I removed my helmet and regarded the woman in the cell intently. She was taller than I, a full head taller. But I didn’t get a feeling of menace from her. Rather, I thought she was the conniving sort.

“You’re a criminal, aren’t you?” I asked. “What was your crime? Theft? Deception? Violence?”

Zye stared at me for several seconds.

“Deception,” she said at last. “Betas don’t generally steal. We don’t covet possessions, and there are few items known to us that are worth the effort in any case. We
can
be violent, but only with good reason.”

“So you lied about something?” I asked. “Explain to me what kind of lie might cause someone to be imprisoned for so long.”

“My crime was in being different from my countless sisters—and hiding the fact,” she said. “I know that must be difficult for you to understand. You’re a Basic. You’re unevolved.”

“You’re different than the others?” I asked. “Meaning you’re not a pure clone?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“You look like your sisters. We projected your likely appearance into adulthood. I can’t understand why you would hide a small variation in your genetics—was it a mutation?”

“Yes, a mutation. Variations are permitted when they’re deemed positive. My mutation was classified as negative.”

“What mutation?”

Zye looked thoughtful, almost ashamed. “It has to do with my personality. If you meet another Beta someday, you’ll detect the difference very quickly. They’re universally boring.”

Yamada laughed. “A planet loaded with boring clones? That’s a sad state of affairs.”

Zye glanced at her, then turned her big eyes back to me. “Compared to myself, you Basics are the worst of misfits. By definition, you and every person from Earth is a far worse deviant than I could ever be.”

This was too much for Rumbold. He stepped closer and glared up at her.

“That’s enough, you,” he said. “We’re not deviants! What do you know about us? You’re looking at three honorable guardsmen. We’ve never performed a crime in our lives. We’ve sworn to maintain the law of our world.”

Zye laughed then. It was an odd, baritone sound.

“You see?” she said, still looking at me. “Your breed is too different, too varied in type. This aged individual barely comprehends what I’m talking about. I would predict that Betas and Basics will always have great difficulty in understanding one another.”

Before I could calm the two of them down, the power surged and dimmed around us. The light panels in the walls flickered, and we eyed them in concern.

“A power outage?” Rumbold asked.

For the first time since we’d met her, Zye appeared to be alarmed.

“I’ve never seen anything like that, she said. “I’ve been in this cell for a year or more. What is your crew doing to the ship?”

Her statement surprised me. She’d said before she hadn’t known how long she’d been in the automated cell, but now she’d said it had been a year. Which was the truth? Hadn’t she said her crime was deception? I was beginning to understand why she was behind bars. Perhaps it was as Rumbold had said: there was always a good reason.

But there was no time for recriminations. I contacted the crewmen I’d left back in life support, demanding a report.

They quickly responded, indicating they were innocent. They hadn’t done anything to impact the flow of power around the ship.

The lights flickered again, but this time they went out altogether. A droning hiss signaled the end of the process.

“That’s life support,” Yamada said. “It’s gone. There’s no air flowing in here anymore.”

The chamber had gone dark, but our suit lights sensed this and turned themselves on. Right then the three of us reached for our helmets. I could already feel the pressure dropping.

Before we’d buckled our helmets firmly into place, a muffled booming sound began. We looked up, startled.

Zye was hammering on the metal walls of her cell. Each time her massive fist struck, the wall bulged. Her face was in the porthole, teeth revealed in a snarl. She shouted something, but I could barely hear her.

I could tell that her air was running out. Somehow, we’d depressurized this part of the ship. She was dying.

-19-

The air around us had been warming up quickly, but now the cold of space was stealing into the detention center again. The air smoked with vapor and ice crackled on the walls.

“Let’s get her out of there!” I ordered.

“But sir,” Rumbold objected. “We don’t even know—”

“She’s been in there for years, and we come along and kill her? Is that how you want our first encounter with a Beta colonist to be remembered?”

He shut up, and Yamada activated the door lock. It swung open immediately.

I was again impressed by Yamada’s skills. While we’d been talking to Zye, she’d worked on hacking her cell door. Now that her efforts were critically needed, she was ready to act.

Zye fell out of her cell and crawled on her knees, wheezing and steaming. She was nude—I hadn’t realized that before as I’d only seen her face through the porthole. She was uncommonly broad of shoulder and thick of bone. Her breasts hung down from her chest, and I was surprised she made no effort to cover them.

Despite her feminine charms, her sheer size was alarming. She was easily bigger than any guardsman I’d ever met. Only a few of Earth’s athletes could boast her size—all of them male.

Grabbing up a suit from the locker she’d indicated earlier, I brought it to her. I jammed the helmet over her head and helped her trembling hands work the leggings up over her long, broad thighs.

Zye was shaking slightly from the cold, but she was still functioning. I checked the external pressure readings—the atmosphere was desperately thin. If these pressure readings were correct, one could quickly lose consciousness and die.

But she kept moving, slowly, numbly. Her hands reached for the straps and zippers. Fortunately, the suit had smart seals that connected and meshed on their own. I switched on the suit, and it began to pump air and heat over her body. The suit inflated around her like a crinkling balloon.

Within a minute, she was able to stand. Her eyes were bloodshot, but no capillaries had burst. I was worried about altitude sickness and other maladies from fast pressure changes, but her rate of recovery was remarkable.

Her sides heaving as she sucked in oxygen, she straightened slowly to her full height. She had to be over two meters tall.

She looked down at me with a strange expression. Her arms swept forward suddenly, and she clutched me under my arms. I was lifted into the air like a child. That baritone barking—her laughter, began again.

Rumbold’s pistol was out in an instant, but I waved him off. Fortunately, Zye didn’t see this interchange due to her helmet’s restricted zone of sight.

Reluctantly, Rumbold lowered his gun, but he didn’t holster it.

I hung in the air and managed a smile. Zye was sweating and grinning like a bear with game in her clutches.

“I’m impressed!” she boomed. “You’ve saved me! I will not soon forget this favor!”

She hugged me then, and I struggled not to wheeze and cough. My ribs rasped against one another as I was crushed into her massive breasts. I endured the indignity for several seconds, and she released me at last, setting me down on my feet with a gentle movement.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I see by the expressions worn by your crewmen that I’ve embarrassed you.”

“A little gratitude is to be expected,” I said, feeling myself wanting to straighten my spine to its utmost extent. Something about being towered over—it made me want to look as tall as I possibly could. Being the tallest among my crew, I wasn’t used to the experience.

“No!” boomed Zye, lifting her hand into my faceplate. “Not a little gratitude. You trusted. You acted. You prolonged my existence. My own sisters have forsaken me, and they would have executed me when we returned home. My gratitude is like the ocean of space itself.”

Not quite sure how to take her unexpected attitude, I decided to make the best of it.

“I accept your thanks, and I hope we can help each other survive even longer. Zye, we need your help to operate this ship. We don’t have time to figure out how everything works on our own.”

I quickly explained the realities of our predicament. That
Altair
stalked the space outside this ship, and that her captain wanted us dead.

Zye took this in with a frown and a nod.

“These renegades of yours must have done it,” she said. “When we were hit in battle, our power couplings were damaged, I remember that much before my sisters ran from battle. That means your enemies have entered the ship through the damaged section and disconnected the power entirely.”

“The ship’s hull was breached in these areas?” Rumbold demanded.

“Yes, how else could the guts of a ship encased in fullerene-laced armor be damaged?”

“Right…” I said, thinking fast. “Of course. We sealed the cargo hold door, and so they looked for another entrance. They must have found the holes in the ship’s hull. Their sensors are better than anything we had aboard
Cutlass
. They were able to penetrate the ice and find a breach.”

“Singh and his men are aboard this vessel?” demanded Rumbold in alarm.

“Yes,” I said. “We must assume so.”

Rumbold turned a skeptical eye toward the Beta. “Your story shifts like mud,” he said. “You told us you didn’t know how long you’d been inside that cell, or what had happened to this vessel. Now, you’re full of details on both subjects.”

Zye shrugged her massive shoulders. “Would you trust a Beta who wandered aboard your ship while you were helpless in a cell?”

“Probably not,” he admitted, “but now I’m seeing why they locked you up for deception and abandoned you here.”

Zye’s face darkened, and I had to intervene before an argument began.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said firmly. “Zye, we need your help. Are you with us?”

“Yes!” she boomed. “I consider myself part of your crew. You are my captain, William Sparhawk.”

“All right then. How do we repel these invaders?”

Her eyes roamed the dark ceiling. She lifted a hand after a moment of thought. Her gestures were somewhat alien to me. She was human—but not quite like an earthly woman. I tried my best to drive these unhelpful comparisons from my mind, but I kept coming back to them.

“We could gather your crew in the life support section and irradiate the passages,” she said. “The reactor’s cooling jacket was ruptured in battle, but it self-sealed afterward. It would take only a small effort to destabilize it again.”

I thought about it, but I shook my head. “No, that’s too drastic. I don’t want to kill more guardsmen. Singh is misleading good men.”

“No killing?” Zye asked. “That will make things much more difficult.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Yamada said. “Let’s go back to life support.”

We moved quickly through the ship’s passages. At each junction, I looked for the suit lights of an opposing combat patrol. I felt that Singh had all the cards. He was aboard with marines, no doubt, and they outnumbered us ten to one. All I had was Zye and her knowledge of this vessel.

“Here,” she said when we reached a side passage. “I assume you wish to avoid your opponents for now, correct?”

“Yes, absolutely,” I said. “We can’t beat them in open battle.”

“Then we should go down these passages to the troop deck, then back up again to life support. If they’re coming in from the power section, they’ll march right through the next junction.”

We followed her lead. I was impressed by what little I saw of the troop deck as we wormed our way through it. There must have been enough bunks in a series of identical chambers to hold a thousand troops—possibly more.

“Zye?” I asked as we moved. “I’m surprised to see quarters for an invasion force on a battle ship. What kind of mission was this vessel designed for?”

“S-11 is a battle cruiser, not a battle ship,” she replied. “She’s capable of navigating the rivers between the stars alone. Such vessels are always large and outfitted for any contingency. If an invasion is required, she can perform the mission.”

“S-11?” Rumbold asked. “Is that the ship’s name, or is it her class?”

“Both. All our ships are numbered.”

“Oh,” he said thoughtfully. “So, there’s an S-10 out there somewhere?”

“Yes, unless she’s been destroyed.”

Rumbold rolled his eyes. I could tell he didn’t think much of the Beta naming scheme. Leave it to them to give their ships numbers, rather than names. I had little doubt that the “S” stood for “Ship.”

“S-11…” Rumbold said thoughtfully. “Not the most inspiring name for a warship. Why not call it
Defiant
, or something?”

“That is your prerogative. She is under your control now.”

I leaned forward, liking the idea. “
Defiant
it is,” I said. “Thanks for the name, Chief.”

Smiling, Rumbold’s mood was instantly elevated. “Is this vessel the largest design you Betas have in your fleet?” he asked Zye.

Zye glanced back at him. “It’s the only warship design we have. As I said before, my sisters aren’t imaginative. Well, I should qualify that: they’re imaginative enough, but they tend to all imagine the same thing at the same time!”

She boomed with laughter, although the joke had less of an impact on the rest of us.

I thought about the implications of her statements. There were several details that stuck out in my mind.

“Just to clarify,” I said, following her up the last passage to the deck that housed life support. “This ship can follow wormholes? On Earth, we’ve lost that capacity.”

“Yes, your routes shut down long ago. But there are plenty more. You only have to look for them. We Betas found that out long ago. Earth cut herself off from us, and you did not try to reestablish the connection. That was a mystery to us. Perhaps you could enlighten us as to why you did so?”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “We had a solar flare, a very large one, about a hundred and fifty years back. It was similar to something called the Carrington Event, another solar flare that damaged electrical systems on Earth in the days of telegraphs and railroads. In the Cataclysm, all of our power systems were damaged, and after we repaired them, we found we were cut off from our colonies.”

“Yes, yes,” Zye said, flapping a large hand over her shoulder dismissively. “We figured something like that had happened—or something worse. We suspected when your star hiccupped, it must have burned away all life on Old Earth. In any event, all you had to do was look for new pathways to the stars. There are rivers between the stars, affected by currents and eddies. What you haven’t explained is why you didn’t seek new paths to your colonies?”

Rumbold and I looked at one another thoughtfully.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “Our government always said it was impossible.”

“Well then,” Rumbold said, “someone’s lying!”

Zye gave him an unpleasant glance. “Yes, someone
is
lying. But it can’t be me.”

“Why not?” demanded Rumbold.

“Because, old fool, I’m standing here before you. This ship is in the Solar System. If interstellar travel is impossible, how did
Defiant
come to be here in the first place?”

Rumbold’s eyes bugged from his head, but he stayed quiet. Her words were irrefutably logical.

She was right. If
Defiant
had made the journey, it proved it could be done.

Therefore, Earth’s government had lied to her people for a century and a half. And that thought alone was alarming enough. What truth had we stumbled onto that warranted the destruction of
Cutlass
and her entire crew?

More thoughts, however, tumbled unbidden into my mind following this first one. Singh’s motivations now were suspect to me. Perhaps I wasn’t supposed to find a way to board this ship. Perhaps I was supposed to help maintain the fiction that a vessel like this one couldn’t exist.

The second, even more disturbing thought was of my father. Was it possible that he and his political friends knew the truth? Did they try to dismantle the Guard every year with fervor precisely because they didn’t want to explore space and rediscover the new pathways that must exist?

I wasn’t sure what I’d uncovered, but I was certain that I had yet to get to the bottom of it all.