Earth Song: Etude to War (55 page)

“Pip provided additional data.”

She felt herself starting to lose her patience. “And how did we jump so far so quickly? Let me guess, Pip?”

“That is correct. He convinced us, much like you did in another continuum, to overlook your own rules for Portal operation in a special situation.” There was a short pause. “We do not understand why you ask these questions if you already know the answers. Why not address them to the being Pip?”

Minu was suddenly glad her dream self didn’t have a weapon, and then regretted the thought, knowing the Weaver would read her mind. When it didn’t react, she decided the creature ignored the hollow threat and continued: “Then can you perform another one of these super-jumps and take us back to Bellatrix?”

“Ask Pip to provide us the calculations.”

Minu hissed in frustration and pushed herself backwards. A moment later she was looking up from where she sat on the dais into Lilith’s green eyes floating nearby. “How did it go?”

“About like I suspected,” she spat. After calming herself, she explained to Lilith how the conversation had proceeded.

“We can only assume that Pip provided some sort of calculations before he was killed in the battle with the T’Chillen and convinced the Weavers to use them.” Lilith’s logic was mostly sound.

“Then why won’t they do it again?” Minu countered.

“That I cannot say.”

“Okay,” Minu said finally, “we’re not going to get anywhere with the damn space crabs. Let’s get some rest – and you get yourself to the medical bay. After you’ve been given a clean bill of health, we’ll meet in the CIC and go over our options.”

Chapter 63

June 16
th
, 534 AE

Deep Space

There was a small bloodstain on one padded wall of the CIC that Minu noticed before their meeting began. Other than that, there was no evidence of the events from the previous day. Lilith’s face was a sickening hue of brown and yellow, but the eye was no longer swollen closed. Some proof she was capable of following orders after all.

Kal’at sported a dualloy support device on his leg with electronics that flashed status lights as it knitted his leg bone. According to the medical intelligence, the only remaining passenger under its care was the Ranger with the broken neck. He would be released in another three hours, none the worse for wear.

“Let’s start with you, Lilith,” Minu opened the meeting. Present were her daughter, herself, her husband, Kal’at, and the Ranger sergeant Selain. “How’s the ship doing?”

“Some of the damage will only able to be repaired with the assistance of a pressurized, zero gravity maintenance facility. Call it an orbital dry dock.”

“We don’t have one of those.”

“No,” agreed Aaron, “but I’ve been talking with Lilith and I’m pretty sure Groves Industries can get something together that will be sufficient.”

“That’s good to hear,” Minu said and looked back to her daughter. “So can we continue to operate until then?”

“Yes. The hull damage was severe, but I have isolated those affected systems and erected temporary forcefields to reinforce some of the damaged sections. Aside from the nearly depleted stores of combat consumables, all other repairs have been completed.”

“Good to hear. All right,” Minu raised her voice to address everyone. “During the battle at Dervish, we were somehow transported some forty-seven hundred light-years across the galaxy, roughly away from home.”

“More of a tangent away,” Lilith corrected, and Minu nodded in consent.

“Some of you might not understand the nature of our problem.”

Minu was offering this largely for the benefit of Selain and his men, though it didn’t hurt to have it all out in the open as well.

“This ship’s top speed is fifteen thousand times the speed of light. We cannot make a direct course back because territory belonging to two higher-order species lies between here and home, so our course would actually cover more than seven thousand light-years. Six months, minimum. As Lilith mentioned, we are not really in fighting trim, and are almost out of ammo anyway.

“We are uncertain how this distance was covered, or why. The ship’s tactical drive is complicated and follows some very specific rules of operation. Our jump to here seems to have violated just about all of those rules.

“This problem aside, we can’t use the tactical drive to return. It really isn’t practical. More than fifty jumps would be needed, and an unknown amount of time between each jump. Some of those rules for use of the drive also state that it should not be used in this manner.”

“Begging your pardon, commander,” the sergeant spoke up, “but those rules seem somewhat moot in relation to us getting here, can’t we just ignore it and get back the fastest way possible?”

Minu glanced at Lilith and lifted an eyebrow. Her daughter answered the question. “The People wrote the rules to avoid any ‘incidents’ while using the tactical drive. Some of these rules state that the side effects of abuse of the tactical drive could be bad. And I believe they meant bad on a scale beyond just the ship violating the rules.”

“I guess I just don’t understand, ma’am. Sorry.”

“That is okay,” Lilith said and nodded to the soldier, “I’m not sure I understand either.”

“I’ve decided it best to follow the proscribed rules for using the drive, even if it seems to violate those rules when it sees fit,’ Minu continued.

“Damn thing almost acts like it’s intelligent,” Selain mumbled. Only Aaron was close enough to hear him, and he wished he could tell the man just how right he was.

“Lilith and I have talked it over, and the only practical solution is to part ways, at least temporarily. There is a planet only a dozen light-years away with a Portal humans have visited once a long time ago. Ironically, it was my father who’d been there.”

It had taken her several hours of searching with her father’s journal to locate the world. He’d named it Wiggin (she didn’t know why), and other than noting it was a dead end of a Portal network and that he’d left a cache there, no other details existed.

“We are going to disembark there and travel via Portal to Jumpoff and link up with the other Rangers and then return to Bellatrix. Lilith will travel back via the safest route possible and hopefully stop at an old depot and rearm.”

“By herself?” Aaron asked, a little surprised.

“No, Kal’at will travel along.”

“It could be risky moving through some of the star systems this Portal route follows,” Kal’at put in. “Risky for humans to be spotted with a Rasa, and for me to be spotted at all.”

“His species is still under a death order by the Concordia,” Mini reminded them. “I can’t risk him. Besides, it will give Lilith some help if she needs it, and some company.”

Her daughter had insisted she needed neither. Minu had originally intended to stay behind herself, but her daughter steadfastly refused. She pointed out, and rightly so, that the leader of the rescue expedition to Planet K needed to return with them back to Bellatrix. Besides, Minu realized she was looking forward to a little discussion with Jacob.

“Sergeant, brief your detachment on the situation and begin preparing them to disembark in eight hours. Lilith will have the ship synthesize any missing gear and provide us with rations enough to make it back home. We have a lot of work to do, so let’s get to it.”

Chapter 64

June 18
th
, 534 AE

Wiggin Star System, Gulla Territory

As soon as the Kaatan dropped out of supra-luminal travel, Minu felt her tension levels begin to rise. It was against her personal rules to antagonize a higher ranking species that wasn’t trying to kill her, and trespassing with a starship in the system belonging to the Gulla could definitely be considered an antagonistic act. She hadn’t seen any evidence that species outside of the higher-order group possessed starships. At the same time, it wasn’t that long ago when she’d believed no species possessed starships, and that had proven to be very wrong indeed.

Minu instructed Lilith to enter the system with as much stealth as possible, dropping out of supra-luminal travel hours outside the system and coasting in below the speed of light. It took almost forty-eight hours to slip into orbit, using that method, around the world Chriso Alma had named Wiggin, but by the time they orbited the planet the first time, Lilith was certain they were alone.

“Only a powerful planet-based listening post could detect our presence,” Lilith assured Minu. “And based on your fathers observations many years ago, no such installations exist here.”

Chriso’s notes spoke of an ancient mining operation with indications of sporadic use by the Gulla; a tiny village meant to house workers when the facility was in operation. He’d said it appeared to have been abandoned for decades when he was last there.

“The only starship capable of evading my detection would be a Tog stealth frigate,” Lilith further explained.

Minu was forced to admit it was possible one was hidden within the clouds of one of the three gas giants in the system, or maybe the extensive Oort cloud. At the same time, there was nothing she could do about it if there was. The Tog were unlikely to inform on their own wards to the Gulla, despite their dislike of the fact that humanity was expanding beyond their control.

“No signs of energy emanations from the planet?”

“Only small ones. They are likely either equipment left in dormant modes by the Gulla mining crews, or natural background readings.”

“I guess there is nothing more to it then,” Minu admitted and turned to her daughter in the CIC. “The shuttle is loaded and we’re ready. The sooner we’re off, the sooner you can get back into deep space.”

“I agree, mother.”

Minu stepped closer and looked at her daughter. The girl – no, the woman – was slightly taller than her but with the same copper hair and her father’s brown eyes. Like her mother, her face was so angular as to be almost triangular, with cheekbones as sharp as cut glass. To Minu’s surprise, a tear was forming in Lilith’s eye.

“What’s wrong? It’s only for a few months.”

“I will miss the birth of my sibling,” Lilith said, and a little sob escaped, surprising her. Emotional displays were rare with her, and they were usually violent in nature, not tender.

Minu stepped into the zero gravity bubble and took her daughter into her arms. Lilith returned the embrace without hesitation. It was a growth in her that made Minu start to cry as well. Aaron stood a little bit away, understanding this was a mother-daughter moment.

After a few minutes of holding each other, they separated. Minu used the sleeve of her black Chosen jumpsuit to wipe her daughter’s tears, who did the same for Minu, making her chuckle.

“Like mother like daughter.”

“I guess you are correct,” Lilith said.

“Don’t give up hope,” Minu told her and put a hand on her abdomen, “I’m not due for six months, February next year. You could well make it in time.”

“I will be there, then.”

Minu stopped and pointed a finger at the young woman. “Now listen here, you will not take any shortcuts through contested or higher-order species territory.”

Lilith stared back deadpan.

“That is an order, young lady.”

“I acknowledge your order, Chosen.”

Lilith reached out and took Minu’s hand.

“There is danger in your trek as well. Exercise caution. That is an order from your daughter.”

“I acknowledge the order,” Minu smiled and held out a hand for Aaron. He joined them and they all held hands in a circle for a long moment.

A cough from the door showed Selain standing there pretending to examine a control mechanism. “Yes Sarge?”

“Loaded and awaiting your orders, commander.”

“Very well, we’ll be down in a minute. Kal’at, I entrust my daughter to your safekeeping.”

“I will do what I can,” he said from a short distance away. “I must admit, our species’ lack of familiar attachments would seem a loss of ours sometimes.”

“It has its benefits,” Minu admitted, then felt tears threatening again as she turned towards the doorway. And their downsides as well. She kept the latter to herself.

The shuttle was one of the Kaatan’s complement of craft. It was decided to use the sleek needle shaped craft instead of Aaron’s Phoenix shuttle because Lilith could better control her own shuttles remotely from orbit. Kal’at was not qualified to pilot either, so it would descend under Aaron’s competent hands and return on remote, empty.

There was less interior room, but still more than sufficient for the small contingent riding the comfortable seats. The twelve man squad she was beginning to think of as ‘hers’ took up the rear of the passenger area, while Aaron sat in the pilot seat and she took the copilot’s chair.

Wiggin proved to be an unusual world. Residing in a binary star system, it was intermittently baked by intense radiation storms from an aging yellow giant star, the larger of the two. The other star, a much smaller nearly red spectrum primary, acted with insidious regularity to assist by flinging off massive amounts of coronal mass ejections from the yellow giant as it passed in irregular low orbits around its twin.

“A dangerous and unstable star system,” Lilith had observed. Minu agreed as she watched the radiation meters observing current solar activity. They would need to use personal shields while exposed on the surface.

“Must be some valuable stuff down there to even bother mining it at all,” Aaron observed as they pulled away from the Kaatan.

Minu’s gaze was pulled up and she gasped as she saw her daughter’s ship. Formerly as pure and shiny as a mirror, it was now marred in a dozen places by ugly burns, the result of the titanic battles she’d seen recently.

Along the bulbous ball on one side, the hull was breached in a gash that looked like a flaming sword had taken a chunk out of the hull. Minu could see the edges of the wound were more regular, signs that the ship’s bots has cleaned the wound. But now she understood why this would not be a simple fix, even for the resourceful bots.

“She took a beating,” Aaron nodded in response to her reaction. “I hope our daughter was not covering up the extent of the damage.”

Minu’s head spun around. “What?”

“I just don’t know if she’d lie like that to get us to go ahead on this mission.”

Minu was forced to admit she didn’t know either. Her daughter was as stubborn as she was fiercely independent. Minu didn’t think she lied about her abilities; she just had a somewhat overdeveloped opinion of them. Would she lie to her mother, and commanding officer, to get her to leave and risk her life by herself? Minu just didn’t know.

“I guess it doesn’t matter at this point,” Minu finally said. “We can’t leave the Rangers on Jumpoff for six months while we trudge across the galaxy.”

“We also can’t leave our little friend there alone for that long either,” Aaron said and gestured over his shoulder. Among the cases of supplies was a half meter long cylinder with a shoulder strap. Inside was a very valuable being of a higher-order species who was most definitely not happy with his mode of conveyance.

“You can stay in here like a lab animal for the next six months, or ride in this thing,” Minu had told Hodo Bapal when she’d shown him the cylinder. It was equipped with an independent life support, along with packaged foods to his liking for several weeks. What it did not have was any way to exit from the inside, and no view of the outside world.

“This is completely unacceptable,” he’d raged until Minu relented and gave him his tiny tablet back along with some data chips. It was enough, apparently, and he consented to the portable prison.

“I could give a shit what his majesty thinks of the accommodations,” Minu snorted. “I’ll be most happy when he’s on his way back home, and the Chosen are considerably richer for the results. It’s the least we can get from him, considering how many of our people died on that world.”

And something else Jacob has to answer for
, she thought.

The surface of Wiggin was a swirl of blacks and browns, with a little green in places and no visible bodies of water. Minu thought it was a miracle that any life managed to survive considering the intermittent hellish radiation storms.

Kal’at was less surprised, suggesting that life was a thing determined to always find a niche. “Perhaps life survives in caves during these radiation storms to then repopulate the surface afterwards?”

It really didn’t matter to Minu. At least there was oxygen in the atmosphere. They would only need filter masks to take care of radioactive particles and not to provide oxygen to breathe.

“I have a fix on the Portal,” Aaron told them just before they dropped into the upper atmosphere.

He adjusted their descent as plasma began to swirl around the nose of the plummeting dart. In moments there were surrounded by the hellish fire of reentry.

“I try not to think of just how old these shuttles are during reentry,” Aaron said. “How many thousands of years old is this thing, and was any sorts of metal fatigue from age ever done?”

Aaron’s way of making conversation in moments like these bordered on a kind of macabre engineering flagellation. Minu didn’t find it very amusing most days, and the looks of shock and concern from the dozen Rangers behind them made it clear they found it even less amusing.

Minu shot her husband a little glare and he grinned sheepishly in reply. She just shook her head and leaned back to relax during the terminal part of their reentry.

Aaron set the shuttle down two kilometers from the planet’s only Portal. He found a level spot where a hill hid their approach and landing from the village built inevitably close to the Portal, as on most every world Minu had ever visited. The Portals were the only means of commerce, and thus the obvious place for settlements to be built.

It only took the twelve Rangers a few minutes to unload the cases of supplies and convert them to backpacks via their integral straps and harnesses. Minu knew only too well how precious little they were carrying, considering how far they would be going. She’d been farther from home in her travels as a Chosen, though never this far from friendly space, and never without any hope of help or rescue should something go wrong.

And then they were ready.

“Lilith,” Minu called on her little gem communicator implanted behind her ear, “offload is complete.”

“Acknowledged, mother. Safe journey.”

“You too, sweetheart.”

“Remember we can still talk with these quantum radios, regardless of how far apart we are.”

“I won’t bother you too often.”

“It is never a bother to hear from my mother.”

“Thanks, it’s good to hear you say that.”

“Tell her we love her,” Aaron whispered in her ear.

Lilith said she’d heard, and Minu told him so.

“Kal’at asks you to give his regards to his brother and nest mates and that he will see them soon.”

“We will.”

The shuttle’s ramp slid up, the door rotated closed, and it lifted off with a skin-tingling sensation from the gravitic impellers. Lilith executed a smooth 180 degree turn, and it accelerated away towards the horizon. A moment later they heard a dim sonic boom and saw a glint of silver as she arrowed the shuttle up towards orbit and out of site. They were alone.

“My father said the journey of a thousand kilometers begins with one step,” one of the Rangers remarked.

“I wonder what he would say about forty-seven hundred light-years?” Minu asked aloud, and then regretted saying such a sobering thing. As she looked over the men and women she saw a mixture of resolve, concern, and trepidation. As well she should.

“I’m not going to say this is going to be easy. Only a few humans have ever come this way before. This is dangerous territory, and we’re caught by the wrong species, we’ll have to fight, or die.

“You soldiers represent the finest mankind has to offer. I have no fear we will make it home. Concentrate, do your jobs, and be ready for anything. That is all I can ask for.”

“We’re ready,” Selain said. His soldiers nodded in agreement.

“Then let’s go,” she said, and took that first step.