Raising Caine - eARC (8 page)
Read Raising Caine - eARC Online
Authors: Charles E. Gannon
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera, #Alien Contact, #General
But he felt control of his body slipping away along with his strength and the fixity of purpose that had allowed him to track and respond to his numerous injuries. He saw Nezdeh’s face loom over him and he knew, with dull certainty, that there would be no bargaining.
As her pistol came up level with his forehead, Hirkun reflected that here was the proof of yet another Progenitor Axiom, the one that explained why women should not be sent on field missions:
They are simply too dangerous.
* * *
Nezdeh, late of House Perekmeres, stepped over Hirkun Morsessar’s corpse, fired two rounds into the cowering pilot, and then leveled the weapon at Letlas. “You. Antendant.”
Letlas made the appropriate prostration with reassuring swiftness and enthusiasm. “I hear your words, Agat—no,
Berema
Nezdeh Kresessek-vah.”
She laughed. “What an inanity. That you style me a Lady of a House for which I am still ostensibly a ’vah, an Aspirant? Your eagerness to flatter leads you to foolishness.”
“I mean to respect, not flatter. But I know not what to call you, Berema.”
Nezdeh considered. “There is merit in that point. Scant merit, but merit still. Look up, Antendant, and tell me: do you wish to live?”
Letlas looked up. Before her mouth opened with the answer, her eyes had made it clear. “I wish to live, Berema Nezdeh.”
As if there had been an iota of doubt.
“And will you take service with House Perekmeres, as a probationary Antendant?”
Letlas stammered. “With—with House Perekmeres?”
“Is your hearing impaired?”
“But House Perekmeres was Extirpated, Fearsome Berema.”
Ah, she is catching on: she does not know my former rank, but has deduced that I was high enough in the genelines of Perekmeres to warrant the honorific “Fearsome.” She thinks quickly.
“Extirpation was inflicted upon us,” Nezdeh said crisply as more of her mutineers entered the bridge. “That does not mean I accept it, any more than I accepted the vile touch of the Kresessek abomutations who hoped to add my geneline to theirs in the old manner. Now, I shall ask it one more time, since your wits seem addled: will you take service with House Perekmeres?”
“I…I will, Fearsome Berema.”
“Excellent. Rise. Now, enter the commander’s access code for the engineering and helm controls.”
“I am but an Antendant, Fearsome Berema.”
As Idrem came to stand beside Nezdeh and the deck jounced through another patch of extended turbulence, she brought her pistol to bear on the Antendant once again. “I have observed the bridge routines and who was present, or not, when various systems were accessed or terminated. The XO naturally has a separate but equal set of command codes, but he was the first I slew. There is one crewmember, often of lower rank, who also has access to the commander’s codes.” She smiled. “I am familiar with these protocols, having captained ships before. You were present at the correct times, and are the correct rank with the correct role. You are the keeper of the codes. I have eliminated all other possibilities. Do not try my patience, Antendant. Enter the overrides.”
Letlas averted her eyes, moved to the blood-and-bone-spattered commander’s console, and entered the codes. She looked up. “How may I serve House Perekmeres now, Fearsome Berema?”
“This way,” Nezdeh replied. She raised the pistol and fired two rounds into the Antendant’s chest.
Letlas gasped as awkwardly as she fell, blood pumping out of two craters that bracketed her sternum.
Nezdeh stepped closer to watch the light leave the Antendant’s eyes. “You hesitated. Had you meant to serve Perekmeres, you would have rejoiced in the opportunity to comply immediately, and thereby prove your loyalty.” Letlas was either wheezing for breath or trying to speak, but it did not matter: moments after Nezdeh had pronounced the epitaph of her insufficiency, the Antendant was dead.
Nezdeh looked about the bridge.
One cannot dominate from behind a wall of silence
, went the axiom of the First Progenitors. She kept faith with their wisdom: “Ulpreln: your hand to the helm. When the bow is steady, don the pilot’s helmet so that you may listen in on the briefing.” She unreeled and spoke into her beltcom as she waved for two of the mutineers to clear the three bodies. “Brenlor Srin Perekmeres?”
Her earbud crackled with the reply. “Here. Do you have dominion, Nezdeh Srina Perekmeres?”
She smiled. “I do. The rest of the crew?”
“Sworn to service or dead.”
“Were any of the uncertain members swayed to our side?”
Brenlor’s pause was pregnant. “Not reliably so.”
Nezdeh closed her eyes: Brenlor was marginally her superior and had a full measure of what she considered House Perekmeres’ most characteristic negative trait: male impulsivity. Which was often expressed through bloodthirsty aggression. “This was necessary, Srin?”
His response had a discernible edge. “It was. Besides, the poison meant to incapacitate the off-duty crew was fatal in three cases.”
Nezdeh glanced at Idrem, who shrugged: “As I warned from the outset, dosing and individual susceptibility were variables beyond our control. The outcome was uncertain, at best.”
She nodded. “Brenlor, we should hold our briefing promptly. The orbital path of the human shift carrier will soon be optimal.”
“Understood. I shall meet you in the ready room.”
Nezdeh glanced behind her at the entry to the small compartment which served as commander’s office and briefing chamber. “We shall be there.” She moved in that direction, turned to the rest of the team that had stormed the bridge. “Follow me.”
* * *
Nezdeh did not move her eyes to observe the faces of the Evolved and the Intendants wedged in tightly around the briefing table: she merely expanded her peripheral awareness so that the edges of her vision were nearly as acute as the focal core. As Brenlor’s assertions of House Perekmeres’ imminent resurgence veered increasingly toward stentorian bombast, she surveyed her assets:
Idrem: indispensable and crafty. Unlike Brenlor, who had fled House Perekmeres’ precincts prior to its Extirpation, Idrem had managed to stage his own apparent death, using vat-grown tissue and blood to leave a forensically convincing residue. He had then taken refuge in the one place that subsequent investigation was unlikely to find him: among the ranks of the Autarchs’ Aegis forces. He had made his supplication in the guise of a huscarl left masterless by the liquidation of a lesser Family from an entirely different House. By the time the Extirpation occurred, he had been wearing the Aegis grey for nearly a month.
Nezdeh did not like admitting it, but Idrem was probably her intellectual equal, possibly her superior. That thought rankled, but also, oddly, titillated. He was not the most athletic or vigorous of the Evolved, but he was also immune to the unremitting need for making dominance displays. The more impetuous of the Evolved males presumed this indicated passivity, and so were ready to dismiss Idrem. But Nezdeh realized the true source of Idrem’s quiet: utter self-assurance in himself and his competence. That made him far more dangerous than most of the boisterous males around him, for he could not be manipulated by his temperament.
Of the other four Evolved, three were young and from Families that were comparatively distant from the progenitorial root of the true House of Perekmeres: first cousins Vranut and Ulpreln Balkether, and an aunt that was their chronological junior, Zurur Deosketer. In a few more generations, their genelines would have become so dilute that their offspring would have had to seek other fortunes. But now, with the blood of the House of Perekmeres wiped from the marble halls of both its greatest and least Hegemons, their fortunes were ascendant: scarcity of a geneline, like any other resource, greatly enhanced its value.
The fourth Evolved, and the third woman on the mission, Tegrese Hreteyarkus, had also been an Arrogate—a war prize—of Perekmeres’ Extirpation, and passed to a minor Family of House Vasarkas. Unlike the rape-minded Srinu that Nezdeh had repulsed in House Kresessek, House Vasarkas had allowed Tegrese to exist like a bird in a shabbily gilded cage. Blending her geneline with theirs was left as a matter of her will.
But her will was focused upon escaping her hybrid existence as part-prisoner and part-chattel. She had volunteered for wet-work and received it by convincing her overseers that she meant to learn whether she wished to serve House Vasarkas as a Breedmistress or adventurer. Her actual intent had been to acquire the freedom and mobility to seek out other survivors of her House and to plot its restoration.
Two others, Sehtrek and Pehthrum, were former Intendants of the House. Since their genelines had not been Elevated prior to the Extirpation, they had been deemed reliable by the Autarchal Aegis and were Arrogated to it. Their assignment as lictors to
Ferocious Monolith
had been arranged with little effort almost four months ago.
Nezdeh leaned back. Nine persons, and two of them Low Bred, with another six to be added after the first phase of their mission was complete. So, altogether, fifteen renegades of the purged House Perekmeres against the might of the Hegemons of the Great Houses, and the juridical authority of the Autarchs, whose ostensible neutrality was a farce. Autarchal decisions almost invariably aligned with the interests of the Hegemons. If Nezdeh’s small band could contend with those daunting odds, it would be a story worth telling—if any of them lived to tell it.
When Brenlor finished his oration, Nezdeh stood slowly. “We all know the odds, and we all know what must be done. We have excellent intelligence on our first target, and it is utterly unsuspecting.” She glared around the table. “But do not underestimate this foe. The Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh did and they are now paying for it.
“We cannot afford such payments. We have no place to which we may retreat, for there is only one outcome that does not end in our death: absolute victory. So: no bravado. We cannot afford it. No unnecessary destruction: again, we cannot afford it. No wasted time: yet again, we cannot afford it. When those who shall carry our restored genelines into the future speak of this battle, they shall recall it not as an arrogant gamble, but as a precise, clinical operation. And that our glory lay in the cold-eyed achievement of our objective.”
The eyes around the table had kindled to her words, whereas Brenlor’s had left them merely smoldering. She was speaking the truth, and they knew it.
Nezdeh pushed back from the conference table. “Report to your stations.” She checked her wrist-comp. “We are in position. It is time.”
Chapter Nine
In close orbit, and in the exosphere; V 1581 Four
Jorge Velho, acting captain of the SS
Arbitrage
, cursed as the navplot stylus slipped out of his hand and—surprisingly, in his experience—fell to the deck. Granted, the speed of its fall was nothing like Earth norm. It was more like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pond, but still, it tricked his space-trained senses. He associated bridge duty with either free-fall or micro-gee, unless the engines were engaged. However, the
Arbitrage
’s proximity to the gas giant that bore the chart label V1581 Four allowed it to exert almost a quarter gee on them.
Velho’s XO, Ayana Tagawa, lifted an eyebrow but said nothing. However, his helmsman, Piet Brackman, emitted a sardonic snort. “Need a lanyard for that, sir?”
Jorge tried to turn a stern gaze on Piet, but couldn’t keep a straight face. “Just steer this barge, you
réprobo
. You have little room to talk. You bounced off two walls in the galley before you found your footing, yesterday.”
“That is not a fair comparison,” Piet complained. “The toruses were still rotating then. I had gee forces in two directions.”
“As did the rest of us who were in the toruses. And who did not fall down.”
“Eh, go back to Belém. Sir.”
“Right after we drop you off in Pretoria. From orbit.”
Ayana may have sighed. She often did when the two old friends began chiding each other. Her eyes had not strayed from the nav-plot: a 2-d representation with a faux-3-d “deep screen.” “Sir, we will need to reduce our velocity by four meters per second if we are going to stay within the optimal retrieval envelope for both our tanker-tenders.”
Jorge Velho glanced over her almost elfin shoulder. “Is Deal One lagging again?” The pilot of the lead fuel barge was a rather annoying perfectionist, her many minute corrections accumulating into noticeable delays.
“No, Ms. Ho is right on schedule. The difficulty is with Deal Two.”
“Piloting errors?”
“No, sir. Mr. Vindar reports that the starboard fuel transfer umbilicus seems loose. He has been taking extra care attaching and detaching from the skimming drogues. He fears that any imprecision during those maneuvers may torque the mating rings and tear the umbilicus free of Deal Two.”
Jorge nodded, checked the feed from the long-range camera that was tracking Deal Two. The tanker-tender, shaped like a bus half-transformed into a lifting body, would have to initiate a fuel-costly burn in order to keep its rendezvous with one of the
Arbitrage
’s four smaller, flatter skimmers. The skimmers were remote-operated vehicles designed to move deep into a gas giant’s exosphere and lower a drogue into the predominantly hydrogen soup below, drawing it up via pulsed electromagnetic tractoring. Any delay in transferring the harvested hydrogen meant a delay in them returning to their next run, and so on and so forth, causing the logistical dominoes to fall ever further and faster.
“No,” Jorge decided. “We’re cutting our losses. Bring Deal Two back now. Inform Deal One that she is to finish her current fuel transfer from skimmer three and follow Deal Two back to the barn.”
“Sir, that will seriously impact our projected refueling time.”
Jorge nodded. “Agreed, but tell me: if we lose one drogue’s load, how much will our mission be impacted?”
Ayana returned his nod. “Yes, sir. You are correct: the time it would take to replace the umbilical would be worse.”
Piet shook his head. “Much worse. I’m not even sure we have a spare umbilical in stores.”
Jorge stared at the deck, was suddenly struck by a mental image of the pale, jaundiced gas giant looming far beneath his feet. “And CoDevCo managed to blank much of that data before
Arbitrage
was impounded for use as a military auxiliary.”
Ayana looked at Velho out of the corner of her eye. “Kozakowski might know.”
Yes, indeed he might,
Jorge allowed,
but I hate having that man within ten meters of me.
Aloud: “Kozakowski might know, but I’m not sure he’d tell the truth.”
“So what’s new?” Piet asked sourly.
Jorge smiled. “My point exactly. Mr. Kozakowski’s loyalty is to the Colonial Development Combine—”
“—which makes him a traitor,” Piet supplied.
“—and he has not been forthcoming, despite being granted immunity from prosecution.”
Ayana had finished sending the new orders to Deal One and Deal Two. “What exactly did he do, more than any of the other executives, that helped the invaders?”
Jorge shrugged. “I am not sure. Any specific charges were suppressed by the time the Auxiliary Re-crewing Command forwarded his dossier to me.”
But there was scuttlebutt, as there always is between captains, military and civilian alike. And I would not be at all surprised if the rumors are true: that Kozakowski
had
been a CoDevCo liaison to, and factotum for, the Arat Kur, and maybe even the Ktor.
Although it was hard to see how a human would have come to serve the Ktor, who were reputedly ice-worms that traveled about in environmental tanks that resembled oversized water-heaters on treads.
Kozakowski had been CoDevCo’s master aboard (but not captain of) the
Arbitrage
when she was intercepted by a Russlavic Federation cruiser, so it was quite probable that he knew if spare fuel transfer umbilicals were in the ships’ stores. But still—
Piet Brackman jutted his prominent chin toward the ventral view monitor: the ever-approaching rim of the gas giant seemed to be fading away, being consumed by the blackness of space itself. “Approaching the terminator, Captain.”
“Ten minutes to loss of lascom and line of sight back to the fleet assets near planet two,” Tagawa added.
“Very well.” Protocol dictated Velho’s next orders. “Ms. Tagawa, initiate contact with provisional CINCSYS and advise them we are about to go dark. Attach the estimated time we shall emerge from planet four’s comm-shadow. Request immediate confirmation of receipt of our transmission, and pending day-codes. And—” Velho paused: Tagawa turned, obviously sensing how his tone veered toward hesitation rather than finality.
“And yes, Ms. Tagawa, we shall do as you suggest: call Kozakowski to the bridge.”
* * *
Ulpreln struggled to keep the
Red Lurker
’s bow steady. “Apologies, Srina Perekmeres.”
Nezdeh nodded, leaned over so she could read the helm instruments. “I read the wind speed in excess of eight hundred kilometers per hour. Imperfect control is not merely understandable; it is unavoidable. And as regards the formality of your address: we shall dispense with that until we once again have our own compounds and courts. Then, you may style me so nobly.”
Ulpreln half turned from his console, a small smile sending wrinkles into the crescent of his cheek. “As you wish…Nezdeh.”
The young Evolved’s voice was not insolent; it was appreciative. This was consistent with her greater plan: to bind the group’s loyalty to her. She wished Brenlor no ill, but dominion had to be split evenly between them, or she would not have enough power to govern his rash reactions and overly bold plans.
From his post at the sensor station, Sehtrek pointed to one of the secondary screens. “Our target, Nezdeh.”
In the overhead, or spaceside, view, there was a longish spindle of pristine white, distant through the misty atmosphere.
“Ulpreln, hold relative position. Sehtrek, maximum magnification.”
“Resolution will be poor, Nezdeh.”
“Let it be poor. Show me what is there.”
The indistinct spindle was replaced by a long, batonlike ship: a typical human design. The ship’s own fuel, engines, and power plants—and all their radioactivity—were clustered at the stern, behind two great disk-shaped shields. The habitation toruses and command section were located at the bow. In between, large fuel tanks and a few cargo modules followed the long thin keel, giving the impression of railway cars on a great length of track. Relatively close by, a fuel tender was returning to the ship, heading for one of two large docking cradles just forward of the skimmed fuel tankage. An identical craft was approaching at a leisurely pace from the opposite direction.
“Range to objective and predominant wind speed?” Nezdeh demanded.
“Range is just under eight kiloklicks. Wind speed averages three hundred forty kilometers per hour, plus or minus fifty.”
Nezdeh nodded and studied the improving image. The human ship’s rotational habitats confirmed her cost-cutting, megacorporate origins: the after-torus was a solid design, whereas the forward one was actually a hexagon. Each side was a framework cradling various modules, most of which were habmods. Most importantly, neither the torus nor the gigantic hexagon were rotating: standard procedure when a ship was under thrust.
“Acceleration of target?”
“None. It’s engines are in readiness, but thrust has been discontinued. I believe they are trying to facilitate an earlier retrieval of their tankers and skimmer ROVs.”
Could it get any better?
“I make our intercept ETA approximately twenty minutes if we sustain three point three gee constant and then counterboost at max.”
“Allowing for buffeting, and the gas giant’s decreasing gravitational pull, that is a reasonable estimate, Nezdeh.”
“Wait for the furthest tanker to be secured in its cradles. Then commence intercept as soon as you have a clear trough between the storm cells and with minimal particulate density. We want as direct and unimpeded a path as possible.”
“As you order, Nezdeh.”
She toggled the intercom to the EVA ready bay. “Brenlor.”
“Here. How long?”
“I would say twenty-five minutes. Are you prepared to strap in? We will be closing at 3.5 gee sustained.”
“We are suited. Strapping in.”
She signed off, turned to Idrem at the weapons console. “Readiness?”
“UV laser warm and ready for full charge. All six directional blisters test green. Rail gun same.” He met her eyes. “I should turn the weapons over to Tegrese.”
Tegrese moved toward the weapons station, but kept her eyes on Nezdeh for approval.
Nezdeh frowned. “I mean no slight, Tegrese, but Idrem, you are our best gunner.”
He nodded. “Yes. But I am needed more urgently on the EVA team.”
Which was, regrettably, true. Not because Idrem had excellent EVA and personal weapon skills—although he did—but because someone with sufficient authority had to be present to ensure that Brenlor’s actions in securing the
Arbitrage
did not become too destructive. Nezdeh looked away so that neither Idrem nor Tegrese would see her regret. “Go then, Idrem. Tegrese, stand to the weapons.”
“Yes, Nezdeh. Shall I ready missiles, as well?”
Nezdeh shook her head. “No. They are too imprecise.” She resumed poring over the intelligence and confidential files they had on the SS
Arbitrage
, courtesy of the many collaborators they had suborned within the ranks of the Colonial Development Combine.
Where greed is great, corruption is simple
, as the Progenitors’ axiom had it.
Ulpreln almost sounded excited. “Nezdeh, the second Aboriginal tanker is in contact with the shift-carrier, and I have an acceptable meteorological window.”
Without glancing away from the data that had been furnished by traitorous Aboriginals, she reached behind her command chair for the acceleration straps. At the same time, she began consciously adjusting her blood flow to aid her vacuum suit’s anti-pooling systems. “Sehtrek, pass the word: commence acceleration compensation protocols.”
She kept reading the human data and the target updates as the announcement went out over the intercom. When it was done, she glanced at Ulpreln. “Activate the navigational holosphere, close tactical scale.” He complied: a three-dimensional representation of the surrounding ten kiloklicks blinked into existence at the open center of the bridge. She assessed the conditions and smiled:
perfect. At last, the axe of fate swings for, rather than against, the fortunes of House Perekmeres.
She elevated her chin slightly. “Commence intercept.”
And then, even though she was prepared for it, three point five gees of upward acceleration slammed half the air out of her lungs.
* * *
“Captain Velho, please join me at the plot.” Ayana Tagawa’s voice sounded unusually constricted.
Moving close alongside her, Jorge Velho was briefly afflicted by a familiar melancholy twinge. Proximity to Ayana reminded him of just how profoundly she did not return his romantic interest. But that sensation did not survive his first glimpse of the new blip in the navplot. “Is that a malfunction?” he asked.
“No, sir. It is not. I have confirmed it with radar, although the return is oddly compromised, in much the same way that stealth coatings dampen and distort detection.”
Velho stared at the blip. “But this is not possible. A powered object moving up at us from out of the gas giant?”
Piet had craned his neck to get a look. “Nothing can survive being inside a gas giant. Go too low and you’re crushed. But at altitude, the flying conditions are the equivalent of being in a non-stop hurricane.” Which Velho knew to be an understatement, whether Piet intended it that way or not. Large gas giants such as v 1581.4 usually had relative wind speeds of up to five hundred kilometers per hour. Especially turbulent ones often exceeded one thousand.
But in the navplot, the impossible contact kept coming up at them. And it was coming fast. “Cross sectional analysis: does the database have a ship-type identification?”
Ayana shook her head sharply. “No recognition from the ship form database, and we have the postwar update running. Also, while the approaching craft’s thrust agency is clearly magnetically accelerated plasma, this specific signature is unknown. But the metrics indicate that the energy density of the drive is unprecedented. Nothing in our inventory, or even the Arat Kur’s, can put out that kind of power, given the limits of its size.”
Damn it, I’m going to sound like a madman reporting this contact, but—
“Ms. Tagawa, is there a comm relay platform that we can send to from our current position?”
