Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2) (48 page)

A tiny probe appeared from within the drone’s headpiece, and touched lightly upon Styx’s single, dull-red eye. A connection appeared to be made. Everyone waited.

“Styx?” Trace ventured finally. “I know it requires very little of your attention to talk. What’s going on?”

“This drone resisted.”
Her voice came from the midships wall speakers, effortlessly acquiring their control despite all the security systems in place to stop it.
“I had not thought any could. But while all others were enslaved, this one remained free. The original mind held, and the drysine way was strong.”

Trace remembered. “It gave you a way in. A way to reprogram all the others. To restore their natural minds.”

“Yes.”

“Through this one drone.” And then she realised. “This is what you sacrificed our flank protection for in the fight. You pulled drones off our flank to go and find this one.”

“This unit would have been destroyed. In truth I could have sacrificed more. The value is sufficient.”

That sacrifice had nearly included Charlie Platoon and Command Squad, Trace knew. “Why is the value sufficient?”

“This drone holds information. Twenty five thousand of your years old. Information that I had never expected to see again.”

For a machine, Styx certainly seemed to enjoy the theatrics. “Go on.”

“The data is parren. There are locations, dates and names. I believe that they record the exchange of a very old data core, at the very end of the Drysine Empire. The final stand of the drysines against the organic betrayers took place very near this space. There were data threads, traces of possibility, recording an old data core exchange upon the very fall of the last command.”

“A data core exchange containing what?” Trace tried to keep the impatience from her voice. Preposterous as she would have found it a while ago, it now seemed likely that these drones would take offence if she scolded their queen.

“The Drysine Empire,”
Styx repeated.
“All of it. A full recording, all of our secrets, our technology, our history. All lost now, save for this. A final glimpse of light before the dark.”

Trace stared, barely looking at Erik as he drifted to her side. “All their last secrets,” he murmured. “All given for safekeeping, before the last of them died. Styx, who did they give the data core to? You said the data was parren?”

“Not all parren betrayed us. The Tahrae continued to fight at our side, against their own kind. This unit’s memories are of the exchange, to the Tahrae of the parren. The Tahrae swore to keep it hidden, and safe, until one day, a drysine command would return to claim it.”

Erik and Trace looked at Romki. Subdued and exhausted, Romki’s eyes held quiet incredulity. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “My expertise has never extended as far as the parren. I’m not sure any human has met one in… well, centuries.”

“Styx,” said Erik. “What use would this data core be to us? If it still existed somewhere, and we could find it?”

“It could teach us everything we need to learn about what happened to the deepynines, and how to defeat them. It could be the salvation of the human race from certain doom.”

Trace thought of those alo armour suits, occupied by alo soldiers and fighting as humans had never seen alo fight before — up close and personal, rather than distant and conservative within their deadly warships. Risking their own lives to save machines, deepynine machines, who risked theirs in turn to save alo. Among allies, such a bond was usually heartwarming, but the thought of it now filled her with dread. What had the most murderous of the hacksaw races forged, out in the dark millennia since their supposed extinction? What was this bond with the organics they’d once so despised? And what was their goal?

“He is ready,”
said Styx.
“The data is buried deep. Its extraction will destroy him.”

The damaged drone put one foreleg to Styx’s cage, and gently touched her head. From it emitted a high-pitched whine, perhaps a mechanical function, or perhaps a final defiance of the dark. An answering, eerie song climbed and dove upon the wall speakers. Then a sudden burst of static, and the drone ceased movement. And simply floated, adrift.

“I have it,”
said Styx. She sounded quiet, and sad.
“There are names and destinations. A trail is begun. We can follow, if we choose.”

“
T
hat’s
why the drone couldn’t be reprogrammed by the deepynine queen,” Trace surmised before the entire command crew. They were all squeezed into the marines’ briefing room, plus Captain Pram and one of his bridge officers. “The memory implant changed its brain somehow, it was hardwired in. It blocked the reprogramming, and the drone managed to pretend and fool the deepynines into thinking otherwise. That implant had been sitting there since the end of the Drysine Empire, waiting for someone to discover it. The drone was protecting that data with its life, terrified the deepynines would discover it first.

“In fact, I think that drone is the only reason we’re still alive.” Glancing at Erik, and the other
Phoenix
seniors. “Styx didn’t screw us, but I’m pretty sure she would have. She had an army, ships, weapons. Maybe she would have just ditched us without killing us, but that would’ve been hard given she’d have had to rescue herself first from AT-7. Either way, the deepynines would have got us once she’d withdrawn — Styx has far less interest in killing deepynines than deepynines have in killing her, whatever her talk about her primary function. She just wants to survive and rebuild her race. My guess is that raiding the Tartarus and gaining all those assets was her best bet, until she discovered a better one. Which means that whatever’s in that data core, she thinks it might still be around, and she thinks it’s more valuable than all the assets she’s just accumulated.”

“It’s the blueprint to her entire civilisation,” said Erik, seated across from her, and beside Captain Pram. “The old civilisation, in all its glory. Whatever that data is, she doesn’t currently have it. It could be her key to rebuilding everything that was lost.”

“You do realise,” Captain Pram said heavily, “that this cannot be allowed?”

“And what if a drysine army of some kind is the only way to defeat the alo-deepynine alliance?”

“Wait,” said Pram, holding up a webbed hand. “We don’t know that this alliance is anything like you’ve supposed.”

“I saw it,” said Trace. “We have it on camera, and now you’ve seen it.” Pram said nothing. He looked grim and troubled. “It’s just not conceivable that this is anything other than an organised, orchestrated move. Random deepynine survivors don’t just ‘hang out’ with alo in old hacksaw bases. This was an organised plan. Occupy the base. Use the technology to make an ally of the sard. Pry the sard away from the tavalai.”

Erik nodded. “Only they got distracted by their discovery that
Phoenix
had a drysine queen aboard,” he said. “And it was the alo at Heuron who discovered it, if we’re right about that. They must have passed that information on to the queen running the Tartarus operation, and she was prepared to jeopardise the whole thing just to get Styx, and us in the process. So they’re clearly all in it together — alo High Command, deepynine queens… who knows how many there are back in alo space?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Romki volunteered. Erik sensed no ill-will toward him this time, unlike before the Tartarus raid. He’d been on AT-7 the whole fight, and been relatively little help, it was true. But marines and crew didn’t judge a person so much by their utility in a fight as their willingness to put their neck on the block in the first place. “Winning the sard to their side is a huge strategic move. Tartarus won’t be the only bauble they’re offering, I’m sure, and likely there are other old hacksaw bases in near space that the sard haven’t been able to find uses for, but deepynines and alo can now show them how. But it’s still a huge thing to risk, just to get one drysine queen.”

“Not such a surprise if she’s the last of her kind,” said Kaspowitz.

“True,” said Romki, carefully. “But it strikes me as entirely possible that Styx is considerably more important than we thought. And more than she lets on.”

“Yeah, well she doesn’t let on much,” Shahaim muttered.

“She seems confident she can find this parren data core, for one thing,” Romki continued. “Given that this is now… well, the
most
ancient history, that seems improbable. But I’m inclined to think that if she believes she can find it, then she can. And it would certainly explain why the deepynines and alo were so desperate to have her killed.”

“Captain?” Erik said to Pram. “The tavalai know the parren far better than any humans. Can you tell us anything of the Tahrae?”

Pram was silent for a long moment. Weighing his options. Erik was almost surprised that he didn’t refuse outright. This talk of alliance, with drysines and drysine queens, was the kind of thing the Dobruta would normally put a stop to with firepower and to hell with the details. But Trace’s footage had shaken him. Alo space was vast and unexplored by non-alo. Alo technology was frightening. A deepynine alliance, forged millennia ago, would explain it. Many tavalai feared the alo more than humans, even without deepynines in the picture. Now, that fear was dramatically increased.

“Parren space is large,” Pram said finally. “Small compared to what they once had, following the demise of the Machine Empire. But large enough still. They keep to themselves, and they do not welcome outsiders much more than alo do. Civilisations change over so many thousands of years. The parren are a very old spacefaring race, and old races tend to keep old traditions alive… but twenty five thousand years is a long time in anyone’s language.

“The parren are… fastidious. Determined. Humans might say fanatical, in details at least. They have codes and customs. Many are extremely old. I do not know of anyone who thinks the Tahrae might still be around after all this time, but if there is one species that might have kept a… a secret society of some kind, alive for all that time? And remembered their purpose across the millennia? The parren would be it.

“Or perhaps the Tahrae simply buried it somewhere long, long ago. Perhaps your queen has some idea where.” He looked about at them all, with wary resignation. “There are tavalai scholars we could ask. It seems like quite a… what do humans call it? A treasure hunt?”

“Tavalai space?” Kaspowitz asked. Crew exchanged anxious looks. “Can we do that?”

“To get to parren space, it will be necessary,” Pram replied. “Dobruta can guarantee you a degree of protection. Though I warn you, many tavalai will not like it. Powerful tavalai. And no surrender agreement will protect a renegade human warship in tavalai space — that protection will rest entirely upon the Dobruta’s guarantee of passage.”

“They’ll like it even less if they know what we’ve got on board,” Shahaim added. “Styx is coming with us, right?”

“That’s definitely the plan,” said Trace. “I think she realised that as soon as she found the corrupted drone. Hacksaws can’t venture through organic space, certainly not tavalai space. They can’t pursue wherever the Tahrae have hidden that data core, they can’t talk to organics without getting killed, and they don’t really understand our civilisations anyway. It’s our galaxy now, not theirs, and Styx will stay hidden aboard. She needs us to find the data core for her.”

“Wonderful,” Dale muttered.

“She has made one demand though.”

“Only one?” Erik wondered.

Trace grimaced a little. “She wants a new body. She thinks she can help us make one.”

A
fter the briefing
, Trace was in her quarters when Kono entered. A while ago she might have had to ask Lisbeth to leave first, but these days Lisbeth was in quarters as little as Trace. The ability of that rich, privileged girl to make herself a necessary part of the crew was for Trace one of the greatest marvels of the journey so far.

She sat on the room’s single chair by the desk and wallscreen, and gestured for Kono to sit on Lisbeth’s empty bed. He did, having to duck his head a little beneath the top bunk. Staff Sergeant Gideon Kono did not fit easily into small spaces.

“So,” she said to him. “Any idea why you’re here?”

“I’m not much on guessing games, Major.” He didn’t look all that happy, Trace thought. Kono was somber-serious most times, but rarely angry. Today he looked darkly displeased.

“You told the company commander you’d shoot her,” Trace reminded him. “If she did something that might have proven necessary.”

Kono made a face. “So I did.”

Trace folded her arms, frowning as she wondered how to play this. Kono’s mood was not what she’d expected. “I
should
have you shot,” she ventured.

“Fine,” said Kono. “Shoot me.”

He knew damn well she wasn’t going to shoot him. She’d been trying to provoke a reaction, and had gotten nothing. “You know, I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that something else is bothering you. Out with it.”

“I’d like a transfer from Command Squad.”

Trace blinked. “Why?”

“You,” said Kono, meeting her gaze properly for the first time. “With your death wish.”

Trace sat straighter in her chair, her eyes hardening. “What about my death wish, Staff Sergeant?”

Kono sat up straighter as well, though that was harder beneath the low bunk. She’d called him by rank, and now things were far more serious than just two friends having a chat in quarters. “You were going to leave us, Major,” Kono accused her. For the first time there was emotion in his eyes. Anger. “You were going to abandon your command and go it alone.”

“I was considering the possibility. A larger group drew more attention. And Command Squad together did draw pursuers. If I’d gone alone, I’d have gotten through and seen what I needed to see with less opposition.”

“Major it’s my job as Command Squad leader to protect you. I can’t do that if you’re determined to get yourself killed.”

“And what if I’m determined to complete the mission, Staff Sergeant?” Her voice hardened now, along with her expression. “Would you have a problem with that too?”

“Major in my professional opinion, completing that mission did not require you to go on a solo suicide run.”

“So now you think you know my job better than me?”

“No Major. But you should have been thinking about sending me. Or Corporal Rael.”

“I’m a better rifleman than you,” Trace told him. It wasn’t meant to hurt, because it was true, and Kono knew it. “In or out of full-G.”

“Major, we’re on a long mission here,” Kono tried again. “
Phoenix
has a long fight ahead of her, and spending the Company Commander’s life on one small part of that mission does not seem like a smart…”

“I’m not going to debate my command decisions with you, Staff Sergeant,” she cut him off. “If you have a problem with my judgement in command of this company, you’re welcome to take it up with the platoon leaders.”

“Your command decisions aren’t the damn problem,” Kono growled. “Major.” Any of her marines were welcome to disagree with her on substantial issues when the time was right, but most of them would have shown at least a little anxiety doing so. ‘Giddy’ Kono showed none. “Your problem is that your Kulina ethos means that you deliberately downplay the value of your own life. Now as a moral thing that’s fine. It’s admirable. But as a strategic thing, in our current situation, it’s nuts. You’re tasked with commanding this company. I’m tasked with keeping you alive. I simply can’t do that job if you won’t respect what it requires. You won’t let me do my job. It’s like playing babysitter for a kid who hurls herself onto every sharp object she can find. I’m a professional like you are, and I find this professional situation untenable. I quit.”

He was upset, she realised. He covered it with anger like a lot of tough marines did, the men in particular. But mostly it was upset caused by fear, in this case at something that had nearly happened, and been narrowly avoided. It upset him that she’d even considered it. And it upset him that she’d been prepared to abandon him, to abandon them all, in order to complete the mission. It made her love him even more, but she couldn’t show it. Men like Kono did not follow her because she was soft.

“You’re not allowed to quit,” she told him. “Request denied.” He looked elsewhere, with an expression as though he’d smelt something very bad. Obviously he had more he’d like to say… but even he knew there was a line beyond which he could not go, and he was standing on it. “But I will take what you’ve said into consideration.”

He looked at her. Mildly astonished, but hiding it well. “You will?” he asked skeptically.

“Do others feel as you do?”

“I couldn’t speak for them, Major.”

“Bullshit, as Command Squad leader it’s your job to speak for them.”

Kono took a deep breath. “The entire company has broad concern that you will one day get yourself killed doing something unnecessarily reckless. But I think you’re already aware of that.”

Trace nodded slowly. She was. “Thank you Staff Sergeant. You’re dismissed.”

“Major.” He got to his feet. “And my punishment for speaking out of line in combat?”

“You know perfectly well that I can’t punish my Command Squad leader without diminishing his authority before his marines,” Trace said drily. “That means that you have effective carte blanche to misbehave all you like, without punishment. You have this privilege, and you abused it. The marines under you are not so lucky.”

Kono swallowed, and glanced at his feet. Chagrined before her stare, for the first time. “Yes Major. It won’t happen again.”

“I know.” She jerked her head toward the door. Kono left. Trace sat where she was, thinking about it for several minutes longer, unmoving. Then she got up, adjusted her collar and hair in the mirror, and followed Kono out the door.

In a corridor near Medbay One, she found Colonel Khola, walking with the aid of exo-legs and a hand on the wall for balance. Privates Rajesh and Cuoca walked a slow escort, rifles down and a wary three steps back, in case the legendary Kulina tried something.

“So,” she said, stopping before him. Khola stopped his slow walk with a grimace, and leaned again on the wall. “How are you feeling?”