Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) (19 page)

-32-

The post-mortem of the attack on this system was a lengthy process. I assembled my best advisors for a round-table analysis of the whole mess.

“As best we can tell, the Earth fleet passed through here,” Yamada said, “but used a different path through the bridges.”

“I don’t care how they got here,” I said, “I want to know where they went next.”

“Right… that’s unclear. There’s so much radiation blasting this system it’s hard to follow a month old trail. We’ll have to guess.”

“Very well,” I said, “what’s your best guess?”

She squirmed. Yamada was my science officer, but she wasn’t a wizard. I’d asked her for information she probably couldn’t produce. Still, I could tell she wanted to have a good answer—after all several million people had died here. An entire colony.

“Captain,” she said after a moment’s hesitation, “I know that emotions are running high. I know the Connatic meant a lot to you—”

“Lieutenant Commander Yamada,” I said firmly. “If you don’t have an answer, just say so.”

If the truth be told, my memories of the Connatic were haunting my deeper thoughts. My restored relationship with Lady Chloe put a whole different light on things, but I’d had a significant romance with the leader of this colony the last time I was here. Emotions notwithstanding, my training forced the outrage to stay in check. We had a mission to execute.

“I have no answer, Captain.” Yamada dropped her gaze. “We can’t know the truth without sifting through the wreckage at length hoping to find a surviving digital recording… something like that.”

I nodded slowly.

Durris, still amped on medical stims, jumped in then. His voice rang with alarm. “Captain, I don’t think we can spare the time. They’re already dead, and we’ve got our orders.”

Glancing at him briefly, I let my eyes go back to Yamada.

“I’m well aware of the situation, Commander Durris, thank you. Yamada, have you got anything else?”

She shook her head in defeat. We had not found a single survivor. The variants had infested a relatively undamaged portion of the smashed space station, set up a fighter launch bay and waited here in ambush. Eventually, we’d entered the system and been attacked.

In the long run, I had no doubt my crew would remember the fine people and hospitality of Gi, but this system was now a dead scrap heap. The clock was ticking and there was an enemy to kill.

“Director Vogel,” I said, turning to face him, “what’s your theory about this trap? Why did the variants set it?”

“I… they probably wanted to make sure every last human in this system was dead.”

“Right, I agree. They’re thorough creatures by nature. They don’t like to leave a job half-done—or even ninety-nine percent done.”

“You don’t think they knew we’d be coming?” Morris interjected.

He normally stayed quiet at these meetings as his expertise involved ground missions. Today, however, I welcomed any input I could get.

“Yes, what about that angle?” I turned back to Yamada and Durris. “Could they have been left here specifically to intercept us?”

“Unlikely, sir,” Durris said. “How would they know we were coming?”

“It’s not impossible,” Director Vogel said. “This system is close to Earth. Many paths from Earth to the colonies pass through it. The battleship
Victory
was sent toward Earth to destroy
Defiant
—or maybe it escaped the mutiny and later succumbed. In either case, the variants had to know that they may be pursued.”

“But why would they weaken their fighter strength?” Durris demanded. “It makes no sense. Placing a hundred fighters here gives them that many less to defend the carrier.”

Director Vogel launched a single index finger into the air. “Ah,” he said, “you don’t know all of
Iron Duke’s
capacities. The carrier, manned by variants, is able to build new fighters to replace the old. They have an in-flight construction bay. I think it’s likely they dropped off their surplus units here.”

“And the variant pilots?” I asked. “Are they being replaced as well?”

He nodded crisply, with certainty. I could tell he had great pride in the monsters he’d created even when they were at their worst. “Yes, as long as the necessary resources are available.”

“You mean people that can be brainwashed, cut apart and built into machines against their will.”

“Must you speak so crassly about the genius that has…?”

“That’s wonderful,” Morris interrupted. “We wasted ammo on these guys. They’re slowing us down with every hour we fart around in this system. I suggest we move on, Captain.”

“Following our original course?” I asked.

He shrugged. The rest agreed without enthusiasm. All of us were demoralized by the loss here. A colony had been swept away. Worse, it was a colony friendly to Earth. Possibly, the Gi people had been the only humans in the universe that would have called Earthmen their friends.

“I agree with Morris,” I said at last. “We’re pulling out in one hour. Meeting adjourned.”

No one objected. They got to their feet and returned to their stations.

Defiant
hadn’t been badly damaged in the battle, but after violent action it was standard operating procedure to review and consult checklists for every system aboard. One hour would be cutting it short for my officers. I let them move on to their work.

* * *

We left Gliese-32 in a sober mood. Weeks passed quickly. After crossing more bridges, we discovered two star systems that were new to us.

They were just as lifeless as Gi had been. Both possessed natural beauties to behold, to be sure, but nothing living. Nothing threatening, either.

Today we sighted what was to my mind the most intriguing natural wonder of all. A pair of crystalline planets orbited one another in perfect synchronicity. They were twins, both of them haunting beauties covered in cold, sparkling spikes.

Encrusted with blue ice, they stretched and crackled due to their mutual gravitational forces. These forces inevitably melted the surface in spots and drew spikes of fresh-melted liquids from both cores. The spikes then refroze into blue crystal mountains.

We passed these planets in their eternal frozen embrace. Just beyond them, we found another breach and headed for it, not knowing what we’d find inside or at the far end.

My worries continued to haunt me. My gut was telling me to press on, but my doubts were almost as strong.

Was I a madman to be out here, chasing phantoms? With each jump, we were getting farther from home. We’d trusted the word of a dying Stroj with the lives of my entire crew.

With each jump, my tension grew. This series of jumps had at least been hinted at on the Connatic’s maps—but not so the next one. The next one would truly be the first blind, blue jump of my career. On every previous flight, I’d at least had a hint as to what was on the far side or some evidence that the way was safe.

The breach loomed ahead, and I found I couldn’t take my eyes off it. My crew was transfixed as well, silent and foreboding.

To our knowledge, no one had ever passed through this next breach.

It could very well be that the dead Stroj we were relying on was laughing in Hell at us as we followed his map. Had he played an elaborate prank from the grave? Were we about to be exposed to deadly radiation, an inescapable gravitational force, or simply a planetary mass so close to the exit that there was no hope of evasion?

We had no way of knowing what was ahead, but we flew into the wormhole all the same, and we vanished without a trace.

-33-

Instant death didn’t await us once we’d found the exit to the bridge. This left me mildly surprised. I’d calculated that if the Stroj had been engaged in a careful act of deceit, this would have been the perfect point to spring his deadly surprise.

What of the other jump points on the list? Were they window-dressing? Had they only been scrawled there to put us off our guard? Logically, it would be the first blue-jump, the first jump into the total unknown, that would be our undoing. The rest of the coordinates were only included to give us false hope.

But that wasn’t how it played out. The trip here hadn’t been easy, to be sure. This last bridge in particular didn’t want to give up its secrets. We’d searched for an unusually long time, but we’d eventually found the exit.

“Data is coming in now, Captain,” Yamada said. Her voice was professional, but she sounded stressed. She knew the stakes and the odds as well as I did—perhaps better.

“Display everything you have as soon as it’s confirmed,” I said.

“Coming on screen now.”

We could all see as a group that we were in a single-star system. Most stars were multiples in our galactic neighborhood. The star in question was a dwarf but a relatively bright one.

Staring at it with narrowed eyes, I stepped closer to the screens. One by one, the local litter of planets were being detected and displayed on the holo-maps.

“Captain…” Durris said, “we have a ninety-percent match-up already. Can you guess where we are?”

I nodded. “As a matter of fact, I thought I recognized it. A young star, with no gas giant to clean up the outer system debris… this is Beta Cygnus, if I don’t miss my guess.”

“Exactly,” Durris said. “Not the safest system in the galaxy, but not the worst, either.”

“I can’t believe that we’re back here again,” Yamada said. “Last time they were hostile… Should we transmit a welcoming message?”

Her question gave me pause. It would be a polite gesture, but there were several flaws with the idea. For one thing, when we’d been here before, several Beta warships—each of them a twin to
Defiant
—had chased us. One had caught up, and we’d been forced to battle her. We were fortunate to have survived that encounter.

That wasn’t the only reason I hesitated. The Betas might be no more. If the star carrier had come through this system, I doubted the Betas could have destroyed it. As before, they may have left variant forces behind. Calling out to the Betas might well alert this hypothetical enemy to our presence.

For several long moments, I didn’t issue any orders. I was considering my options.

The system made me think of Zye more sharply than I’d done since we’d left Earth weeks before. Here we were, visiting her home system again. The strange thing was that, even if she’d been with us, she’d have been no more welcome here today than she was back on Earth.

“What should we do, Captain?” Durris prompted me at last.

“I’m thinking. Anything new?”

“I’m reading flight-signatures around the Beta home world,” Yamada said.

Moving to her station, I studied the data directly over her shoulder. The command deck was organized in such a way that I was fed only the summary data directly. Each of the substations was manned by key officers who got everything, all the details they were responsible for. The reason for this two-tiered system was that there were simply too many pieces of information flowing around for any one person to track it all.

Because of this arrangement, I had to move to another station for data in depth or request that it be relayed to my screens. I often chose the former option so I could converse with the specialist in person.

“Are they scrambling a ship to come greet us?” I asked Yamada.

“I’m not sure, but I doubt it,” she said. “There’s quite a bit of traffic, and it’s unlikely they’ve spotted us yet. We’re about a light-hour out from Beta right now. Even if they have drones here, spying on us, they can’t have reported in yet.”

She was assuming that Beta tech was as limited as ours was in the area of communications, and I didn’t correct her. For now I’d continue hoping that the speed of light was an impenetrable barrier for Betas when it came to communications.

“All right then,” I said, coming to a decision. “We’ll assume they don’t know we’re here—not yet, anyway. Come about to your last planned course, helmsman.”

Rumbold looked startled. “Are you sure, Captain? That will take us right through the inner planets.”

“You’re suggesting we should poke along at the system outskirts?”

“Yes. A long trip in an elliptical orbit would get us there a week from now, but with little chance of detection.”

I shook my head. “We have to assume the
Iron Duke
is still out there, laying waste to systems ahead of us. We can’t wait around while people die.”

None of my crewmen said anything, but I knew what they were thinking:
these people are only colonists.

Fortunately, none of them dared to speak these words to me. As far as I was concerned, we had an obligation to protect all humans. This responsibility was doubly ours due to the fact Earth gov had released the variants on the universe deliberately. It wasn’t as if we’d stumbled into some kind of alien civil war. We’d built and unleashed the very engines of their destruction.

A dozen hours passed swiftly. We’d stopped using thrusters after the initial burn to get up to cruising speed. But silent engines weren’t enough to hide us when we were soaring through the system openly. Each hour took us closer to their home world. We weren’t on a collision course with it, but it was going to be pretty damned close.

At some point during this time, the Betas detected us. I was summoned to the deck, and we were treated to an aggressive display.

“There are at least seven ships headed to intercept us,” Yamada said, struggling to keep her voice calm.

“Let’s see the projections on the main screen.”

Red arcs appeared, looking like hair-thin strands of light. Each intersected our ship over the next day of travel time.

“Any incoming demands?” I asked.

“Nothing sir—just like Gliese-32.”

I didn’t look at her. We both knew what she was thinking. The variants might have swept through here with their fleet already, destroying the Betas. But the last time we came through the Beta Cygnus system, they hadn’t bothered communicating with us. Why would this occasion be any different?

“Durris, have you got a model yet?” I asked. “What does this look like if we go to full burn?”

He showed me, and the situation looked far less bleak. We’d reach the exit point we were aiming at before any of the enemy ships could catch up. Having a head start was seriously helping.

“But Captain,” he said, “there may be more ships ahead we don’t see yet.”

“Of course. The last time we crossed the Beta Cygnus system, it was a ship that was ahead of us that managed to catch up. Keep scanning for that, forward of our position. In the meantime, light up our engines. We’ll have to keep out of their grasp. But don’t push it any harder than you must. I want room to maneuver.”

“Got it, working up a thrust setting.”

The next few minutes were tense, but once we got underway, we all felt better. It was unnerving to have seven ships on your tail gaining fast, and any one of them could be your equal in a fight.

Rumbold seemed particularly happy to be applying thrust again. He hummed, and he mumbled, and he occasionally chuckled to himself.

“Captain,” Yamada said, “are we going to try to talk to them?”

I considered the idea. Last time, it hadn’t helped. Any communication could only identify us to the enemy at this point. But I thought it might be worth a try anyway. Maybe we’d learn something.

“Get Director Vogel up here,” I said. “He’s the expert on variants. Maybe he can get them to parley with us.”

As Vogel was summoned, I had time to think about the situation. It seemed grim. If this system was as dead as Gliese-32 had been, then there were no more Betas.

Well, there was probably one more in existence. The only one I knew of—Zye.

Her loneliness had infinitely increased on this black day.