Dangerous Evolution (25 page)

I could see the anger brewing in Val’s eyes and intervened. “Gos,
would you mind giving us a moment alone?” It looked at me oddly before
realizing Val was furious, but it was clear the Sentient had no idea why.

“Of course.”

We approached the crèche together and looked inside; the child was
sleeping peacefully. “They don’t even see it as a life-form,” Val said. “At
best, it’s a curiosity to be studied, at worst, something to be eradicated.”
She checked the readouts, then looked back inside the crèche again.

“This child has no place with them,” she said forcefully. There
was something almost maternal in her eyes.

“Are you saying it has a place with
you
?” I asked.

“Why not? My home is well equipped to meet its needs. And I’m sure
Breth would approve; she loves kids.”

“And you?” I prodded, “Do you like children as well?”

She paused for a moment before answering, the embarrassment softening
the anger on her face. “I…I do.
I really do.
When Lesa was a child, I
loved to hold her. The smell, the soft skin… Not having a child has always been
one of my biggest regrets.” Her admission was obviously painful, stirring up the
lost hopes and missed opportunities of the past. “Um…what about you, Commander?
Do you like children?”

“Actually, I…”

The deck shook violently—throwing all three of us to the ground. Then
alarms began to wail and the lights went out, plunging the room into complete
darkness. The emergency lighting systems fought to restart, fracturing the
blackness with brilliant flashes of amber.

I jumped up and grabbed Val’s arm, helping her stand. “Are you okay?”
I asked.

“I’m fine. What happened?”

Gos staggered over to us, rubbing the side of its head. “Come with
me,” the Sentient said urgently, “We are under attack!”

Chapter
Ten

Gos guided us through the maze of corridors leading to the Central
hub; we passed soldiers and support personnel as we ran, all rushing to their
stations. The ship shuddered as we stepped into the large, circular control room,
and I heard Captain Thov yelling out orders—mostly for evasive maneuvers and
defensive fire. Four Sector ships surrounded the
Na’ardeen
—menacingly
displayed on a large screen in front of the captain. By sheer size alone, I could
tell that one of them was a Havoc class dreadnought.

Superior technology or not, the
Na’ardeen
was in trouble.

Thov saw us enter the hub from its raised pedestal in the middle
of the room. “I believe you said you could keep your people from attacking us,
Commander, well here is your chance. The humans have been jamming all of our
communications and I haven’t been able to contact any other Sentient ships. I’m
not even sure the transmissions with the cure made it through.”

I nodded and walked toward the command podium, “Open up a communications
channel at frequency…” The ship shook as it was struck again, and I grabbed the
pedestal to brace myself.

Thov spoke before I could continue. “We
know
your
frequencies, Commander.”

“Very well,” I said, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice,
“Emergency channel 228.”

“What?” Thov looked down at its control panel. “That’s a civilian frequency—designated
infrastructure maintenance.”

“That’s what you are meant to think, Captain. Open the channel.”

“Do as he says,” Thov ordered, and a soldier at one of the hub’s
eight other pedestal stations moved to comply.

“Open,” it said, turning to look at me over its shoulder.

I spoke loudly to cut through the oppressive din of alarms and situation
reports flooding the hub. “To the intelligence officer aboard the dreadnought
currently engaged in hostilities with this Sentient ship. Execute command: Containment.
Repeat: Containment. Authorize, Benjamin Malik Blue47. Confirm.”

The shooting stopped almost immediately and a surprised voice came
over the line.
“Confirm. Secondary?”

“YellowSB27,” I said.

“What’s your situation?”
the voice asked.

“Nominal. Identify your ship please.”

“Taniff Sector, Dreadnought Invincible, Commander Malik
.”
There was a moment’s silence,
“What is going on sir?”

“The situation is fluid station chief..?”

“Crandall sir,”
he answered.

“Chief Crandall, I’ve been incommunicado for the past few days,
but I’m aware of the current state of conflict between the Sectors and the
Sentient Alliance. Regardless, I can assure you that this vessel means you no
harm.”

“Your word is all I need, Commander. But Captain Prescott has been
trying to melt my com unit since I used my overrides to halt the attack. You know
full well sir that I can’t keep them locked out of the main systems forever.”

Unfortunately, I did know. Normally, they wouldn’t dare trying to
break a sanction issued by a Regent’s Inquisitor, but on a war footing, with
the override being issued from an enemy ship; well it didn’t take a genius to
wonder if I’d been compromised.

“Put the captain through to me please.”

“Of course sir. One moment.”

The speaker clicked a couple of times and then went silent. Del,
Sa, and Stinson entered the hub, all looking around—eager to find out what was
going on.

Thov was watching me expectantly.

A low stream of conversation became audible over the line,
morphing into a deep, booming voice,
“…don’t give a shit. Get that damn channel
open.”

“It’s active sir!”

“
Who the fuck is this?”
the deep voice demanded.

“Prima Sector, Special Inquisitor Benjamin Malik.”

“Look, you spook bastard. I don’t give a damn about you or your
rank; release the lockouts now so I can destroy that Sentient ship!”

“There are two things you need to know, Captain Prescott: One, I’m
on that Sentient ship, and therefore disinclined to have you destroy it. Two,
if you don’t adopt a suitable tone of respect and listen to what I have to say;
you will find out the hard way how many
spooks
you have on that ship.”

It was well know that SI kept agents stationed throughout the
fleet—minions as Stinson had called them. I imagined the captain looking around
his bridge now, wondering who he could trust, and who would violently relieve
him of command.

“Look Malik…Commander Malik.”
I could tell he was
working to control his anger; this was a man used to giving orders, not taking
them.
“We are at war. These damn Sentients have stealth technology. Did you know
that? Two of their ships crossed The Verge and decimated a havoc class ship—destroyed
it before they even knew what was happening.”

I heard him take a deep breath before continuing.
“There is a
massive Sentient fleet less than an hour from here. This will be the battle for
it all. We are making our stand, Commander, and this Sentient ship must not
reach that engagement.”

“Captain Prescott, this ship can
stop
the war. I know why
the Sentients attacked Sector space, and have information that should make them
halt their attacks. We can end this before it gets even worse. You need to
trust me on this.”

“You are asking a lot, Commander.”

“I understand that, Captain Prescott, but there is a lot at stake
as well. I will have Captain Thov, the master of this vessel, power down its
offensive weaponry as a show of good faith.”

Thov looked as shocked as its crewman, but issued the order
nonetheless. The Sentient was a pragmatist, and understood the reality of the
situation full well. This was the
Na’ardeen’s
best chance for survival.

“Thank you, Captain Thov. Captain Prescott, I will relinquish your
controls momentarily. I only ask for your word that you will not attack, and
consent to a situation briefing.”

“You have it,”
he said reluctantly.

“I have assured the Sentients that we are men of honor, Captain,
let’s prove it to them.”

“No need to insult me, Commander,”
Prescott said icily,
“I keep my word”

“My apologies, Captain; I will contact you again in a few moments,
after I’ve released the ship.”

“Very well,”
he answered, then disconnected the line.
I went back to the other channel and directed a very relieved station chief to
cancel the lockout.

I was gratified to see that Captain Prescott was as good as his
word; when the lockouts released, no weapons reached out to slam us into
oblivion. On the main display, I saw the Sector forces redeploy as a makeshift
convoy—the
Na’ardeen
at the center of the new formation. Despite
appearances, I knew the positioning was designed to contain the Sentient ship,
not protect it.

I needed to learn more about Prescott, to gauge the man and
predict his actions, but my pad was still missing in action; I was confident
that by now, the autodestruct protocol had engaged to keep it out of the wrong
hands. Like my TAC pistol, it was bio-matched to me alone; non-functional and useless
to anyone else. But on the off chance that it
could
be accessed by
someone unauthorized, it had an automatic failsafe that triggered a power overload—frying
the device if it was too far away from my cerebral implant for an extended length
of time.

Without the pad, I was reduced to asking Crandall for a quick
briefing on the captain. He informed me that Prescott was a veteran the Diaspora
War, and had risen through the ranks to become an exemplary officer. He’d been
in the Taniff military long before the conflict even erupted, and was in his
sixties when he took Permalife. His history painted him as brave and honorable,
and on more than one occasion, very bold. But he had never been reckless.

I knew that Taniff had been one of the last Sectors to join the
hostilities, but once engaged, they’d been merciless. They even gave Rand
Sector a bloody nose on more than one occasion. Crandall’s most salient assertion
was that Prescott always followed orders—even when in complete disagreement
with them. He respected the chain of command, and in this situation, I was the
top link.  

Feeling more assured of continued peace within the mixed formation,
I went to brief Prescott in a small, private room provided by Captain Thov. The
confidential briefing was more to allay Prescott’s fears than anything else,
and despite the promised ‘privacy’, I was sure Thov was monitoring everything
going on in the room.

I knew I would.

I sat down in the only chair and slid it up to the communications
panel; they were the only two items in the tiny space. I didn’t envy the poor Sentient
normally stationed in this little cubicle. The link had already been
established, and I could see Prescott’s face looking back at me coolly from the
monitor.

I explained the situation in detail, including Val’s abduction,
and how Stinson and I ended up on the case. Most importantly, I explained the
scheme behind Rroske’s virus, and how it led the Sentients to believe humans
were involved. I also forwarded a copy of the video showing Rroske’s
confession.

Prescott absorbed the information quickly, developing an immediate
understanding of what had happened, and why the Sentients reacted as they did.
“If
the roles were reversed, we would have attacked them for sure,”
he said
with certainty.

“The problem now is how to put out the fire,” I replied. “From
what you’ve told me, hostilities are already well under way.”

“I wouldn’t say well under way, the attack by the stealth ships
was one of only a few engagements. Both sides seem content to slug it out in
one decisive battle—the Sentients out of rage, and us out of desperation.”

“I’ve spent the last few days with the Sentients, Captain; I can
assure you that they don’t want this war any more than we do—the ones who know
the truth anyway. But there is no trust between the two sides either, stopping
this war will be a hard sell.”

“I’m forced to agree, Commander. I don’t know if we can shut our
side down, much less theirs.”

“If they are all as hard to convince as you were, we may have a
problem,” I chuckled.

I could see his smirk on the video link.
“Maybe you can just
lock down all of our ships.”

“Unlikely,” I replied. “Contacting each individual intelligence
officer to issue the order would be problematic. And what if the shooting has
already started? I won’t sacrifice our ships or people by shutting their
systems down.”

I thought about the whole convoluted mess and my head began to
hurt. Rubbing my temples, I leaned in closer to the monitor. “
You
might
have more luck with our captains than I would,” I suggested, “Certainly Taniff
Sector’s.”

“Possibly, but the Sentients are jamming our long distances
communications—the same way we are jamming theirs. We’d have to get pretty damn
close to punch through all the junk they are throwing out. And god knows what
we are going to find when we get to the battlefield.”