The Others Read online

  It wasn’t entirely fair, she knew on some level, to compare Dennis’s engineers to her hardened crews. But she didn’t care.

  She shook her head, and her eyes met his, almost daring him to counter her response. The workload had been heavy, but Colossus was one of the greatest pieces of technology ever to fall into Confederation hands , and there was no time to waste in deciphering its secrets. She imagined one day revamping the entire lexicon of Confed tech, upgrading warships, factories, information processing…taking the Confederation’s civilization centuries forward in a matter of years. All from what her people gleaned from Colossus and its systems.

  But for the moment, all her efforts, and those of the thousands of engineers and technicians working with her, had failed even to allow the great ship to make a single transit. Colossus was all-powerful…and helpless and vulnerable as well. As long as the ship was so close to immobile, it was vulnerable to a Hegemony raid to retake it. Hell, even the Union could have a go at it, if their intel had discovered anything material about the great ship.

  The first six months had been spent almost exclusively on checking and maintaining the antimatter storage systems, the very part of Colossus her team had boarded nearly a year before to destroy. The ship used antimatter for power, and the vessel’s tanks stored more of the precious material than the Confederation had produced in its entire history.

  More by orders of magnitude.

  That was one area where the Hegemony had outpaced Confed technology. The Rim nations all knew how to produce antimatter. That was basic science. The problem was producing the energy the operation required, the vast, unimaginable amounts of energy. Antimatter was still largely an experimental substance in the Confederation, available in minute quantities, useful for research, but not for mass application in drives and weapons systems.

  The Hegemony railguns used antimatter charges, relatively small ones, but still dwarfing any amount the Confederation could produce. But Fritz could only imagine the immense efforts that had been required to produce the quantities of antimatter Colossus utilized. Even for the Hegemony, she knew it had to have been a nationwide project.

  Dennis had remained silent for a moment, clearly intimidated by the fierce engineer. But finally, he worked up enough courage to continue his argument. “Commodore Fritz, my people are far from home, and they volunteered to come here, to help with your project. But, I’m…”

  “Help? Were my people ‘helping’ yours when they were fighting the Hegemony forces, struggling to protect as much of the Confederation as they could? Are your engineers not being paid—and well paid—to be here? Listen to me, Mr. Dennis, and listen carefully. I am in charge of this operation, and it will run on the schedule I dictate. Anyone who cannot keep up will suffer the consequences.”

  “Is that a threat, Commodore?” There was anger in Dennis’s tone, and astonishment…but mostly fear.

  “Yes, Mr. Dennis, that’s precisely what it was.”

  * * *

  “Up the flow rate…but slowly. I think we might have it figured out, but this thing still gives me the shakes.” Eric Kalmut was sitting on the massive conduit, a three-meter-wide pipe stretching across the huge open chamber. Kalmut shifted himself slightly, trying to adjust his balance. He was a veteran, one of Commodore Fritz’s top engineers, but he had one weakness, and it was eating away at him as he mounted his perch thirty meters above the deck.

  He was scared of heights.

  Kalmut was usually fearless, the first one to crawl into a damaged compartment, or to brave radiation, fire, or any other danger he encountered in his work. He was no coward, not by any measure.

  At least, not when his feet were on the ground.

  “We’re already at eight point three gigawatts, Commander. And the feed is only open thirty percent.”

  Kalmut nodded. He was as amazed as any of his team at the sheer amount of energy that coursed through the power arteries of Colossus’s systems. He was beyond impressed at the massive ship’s technology, and he’d had a dozen epiphanies in the months he’d been prowling around the vast depths of its engineering sections. Colossus was a massive technological windfall, unlike any that had come before, and Kalmut was sure it would advance Confederation science a century or more. As soon as he and his people were able to truly figure it out.

  They’d made some progress, certainly. And, they’d hit walls, too. Antimatter was one of those. The awesome power of the high-tech fuel was no surprise, and Colossus held massive stores of it. But producing usable quantities was still a capability out of reach of Confederation technology and engineering, and for all the great ship offered, that mystery wasn’t one of them.

  Materials in general were a problem. Kalmut’s edginess came from his acrophobia certainly, but the fact that he was sitting atop and energy flow powerful enough to fry a dozen cities to ashes wasn’t helping. He reached down and put his hand on the metal of the conduit. It was cool, no sign of the massive power a few centimeters inside.

  The insulation capacity of the conduit was incredible, and while he could discern the effects of the strange alloy, he couldn’t begin to understand how to produce it. That would take time, and probably a lot of it. And a better research facility than three dozen ships parked out in interplanetary space, all protected by a massive task force there to defend the Confederation’s bounty against any who might try to seize it.

  That’s why we’re here, to figure all this stuff out.

  Kalmut pulled his thoughts from antimatter and advanced alloys to the situation at hand. His job was to test every centimeter of conduit, to measure—to the maximum ability of his instruments—stress levels, and to ensure that when Anya Fritz gave the orders to fire up the monster ship’s engines, everything would go as planned.

  He would do his best, but in the end, he knew it would come down to a guess. An educated one, perhaps, tweaked linguistically to something more reassuring, like ‘estimate’ or ‘projection,’ but a guess nevertheless.

  Kalmut glanced down at the scanner in his hand, trying without much success to ignore the glimpse he caught of the edge of the conduit, and the drop below. The readings were perfect, spot on. There were no leaks, no detectable seepage, nowhere in the whole section of power line. Just like the other three hundred kilometers of primary conduit he and his team had inspected. That was an immense workload, and it exhausted him even thinking about it, and the days, weeks, months of grueling work it had all entailed.

  It also put his people somewhere close to halfway through.

  * * *

  “Admiral…before I begin, I just wanted to express my sincere gratitude at the invitation to your wedding, and express my sorrow at not being able to attend. As we discussed, we simply cannot be sure the peace with the Hegemony will hold, and Colossus’s current position leaves the vessel vulnerable…even to Union aggression, at least until we are able to resume full operation of the defense grids. I simply didn’t think the project could endure the delay my traveling to and from Megara would have entailed. Please accept my very best wishes to both you and Captain Lafarge.”

  Anya Fritz sat at the small desk in her quarters, leaning slightly to bring her mouth closer to the comm unit. It wasn’t necessary, not really. The equipment was highly sensitive, and the AI would clean up any noise or interference in the signal. Still, it was an affectation she’d long allowed herself.

  Or a good excuse to allow her fatigue to erode her normally ramrod straight posture.

  Fritz was a relentless taskmaster, a reputation she’d both earned by deeds and by a little targeted self-promotion wherever possible. It had served her well, and she fancied it had saved her life more than once, not to mention the lives of the thousands of spacers on the ships on which she’d served. She wasn’t about to let her engineers get the slightest glimpse at her own exhaustion, to see that the nonstop workload had come close to getting the better of her no less than it had all of them. Endless battle and technologically superior enemies were bad en
ough, but allowing a chink in her carefully-constructed armor was unthinkable.

  “My teams have made considerable progress, but virtually every system in Colossus requires extensive research before we can even attempt operation. We have basic power systems and life support operating reliably, as well as some minor, mostly-positioning thrusters, but it will require considerable work before we can safely operate the main engines or navigation systems…and even longer before I would feel comfortable activating the weapons grid. There is no question in my mind Colossus is adapted imperial technology, probably an ancient hull the Hegemony found and restored, replacing defective systems with their own. The Hegemony technology is easy to spot, and far simpler to master, though it still exceeds our own in complexity. The old imperial systems are extremely sophisticated, and I am hesitant to move too quickly in evaluating and activating them.”

  Fritz straightened up, more to stretch her back than to resume her normally-upright posture. She let out a long sigh, a luxury she allowed herself only in the complete solitude of her quarters. She’d intended to ask Barron for the time she needed to move slowly and methodically through the study of Colossus, but her own doubts began to force their way in.

  “A decision has to be made, one regarding the time sensitivity of the project. A slower pace will unquestionably allow us to proceed more safely, taking fewer chances with poorly understood technology.” She hesitated. “But I must tell you, sir, I am troubled by the manner in which the war ended, and we obtained control of Colossus. I do not trust the Hegemony, and I am far from comfortable that, whatever their ambassadors may state, they will not return and renew hostilities. If that is their intention, they would almost certainly take action to regain control of Colossus. The fleet deployed to guard the ship is substantial, but a strong and focused Hegemony effort would almost certainly succeed.”

  She took another deep breath, holding it for a moment, steeling herself as she prepared to release her real fear.

  “And, even if the enemy maintains the peace…I am deeply troubled by whatever caused them to suddenly sue for peace and surrender Colossus to us. They have never been dissuaded by heavy casualties, and while it would no doubt have been a blow for the great ship to be destroyed, it is lost to them anyway. What could have put that kind of scare into them? Of more concern, perhaps, do they really believe we will come to their aid, that surrendering Colossus allowed the vessel to survive to join whatever fight they face? That seems exceedingly unlikely to me, and it makes me wonder about their true agenda. Perhaps they do plan to launch a raid, to seek to retake Colossus.”

  The thoughts pouring from her mind were terrifying. Fritz hated the Hegemony, as much as nearly every other officer on the Rim. But it was simplistic to make sweeping declarations about never fighting alongside the Masters and their genetically ordered minions. She would never have imagined Union ships lined up alongside the Confederation’s vessels either, but Admiral Denisov’s forces battled with distinction.

  And, if there was something out there, some deadly threat that remained a mystery, did they really have time to waste in restoring Colossus to operational status at a slow and steady pace?

  “I can continue as I have been, or I can accelerate our efforts. That will involve some level of increased risk, and perhaps worse, I am not sure I can give you a reasonable estimate of how much that will be. Whether it is worth the additional danger and uncertainty is largely a strategic and tactical decision, and as such, it is yours to make, Admiral. Should I continue at the current pace, or should I increase our pace? And, if your decision is to accelerate the project, should that be a moderate increase…or do you want me to push forward as quickly as possible, regardless of the risk?”

  She didn’t like that last option at all…but she liked even less the prospect of some deadly new danger emerging while Colossus was still stuck in space, useless. And she had a pretty good idea that Tyler Barron would agree. She had a good bet what the admiral’s answer would be, and even though she agreed with him, it roiled her insides to think about it.

  Chapter Five

  HWS Hegemony’s Glory

  Venta Traconis System

  Year of Renewal 267 (322 AC)

  “Commander Ilius!”

  Ilius’s head snapped around, his eyes focusing on his chief aide. The officer was usually calm, a cold and grim block of granite on the bridge, even in the heat of battle. But excitement had slipped into his normally even tone. Fear.

  “Yes, Kiloron?”

  “We have rough scanner contacts on what we believe are three enemy vessels.” There were icons all across the massive display, at least a hundred contacts, every one of them the AI’s guess an enemy ship was located somewhere in that general area. It was all unreliable, terribly inaccurate, and utterly useless for something precise like targeting. Ilius had no idea what was notable about three of those guesses at ship locations compared to the others, and he almost expressed his doubts on the usefulness of the entire report.

  But he’d come to respect the officer’s opinion too much to doubt him out of hand.

  “There are over a hundred possible contacts out there, Kiloron. What is it about these three?”

  “They appear to executing complimentary vector modifications, Commander. It appears they’re all moving on a single target.”

  Ilius shook his head. It didn’t seem like the Others needed to mass their ships to obliterate even his most powerful monitors, but three of them attacking a single target didn’t strike him as particularly noteworthy. “I fail to see the relevance of…”

  “They’re moving on a single light cruiser, Commander.” The officer had never interrupted him before, but any anger Ilius might have felt at the mild offense was gone in an instant.

  Why would three of those ship be moving on a glorified escort?

  The enemy had been mostly ignoring all the lighter Hegemony vessels, going after the monitors and battleships, cutting away at the fleet’s real fighting power. So, what’s different about this ship?

  “Identify target vessel.”

  “It’s the light cruiser, Avia, Commander. Under the flag of Kiloron Tragus.”

  Ilius’s eyes dropped to his screen, even as the specs for Avia appeared. He scanned the data, hesitating for a moment when he saw Tragus’s genetic rating. Very high Kriegeri range…almost Master level. Tragus was a capable officer to command such a small vessel. Then, Ilius saw the commission date. The command was the officer’s first, and no doubt the precursor to greater assignments to come.

  No doubt at all if he’s figured some way to cause concern to the Others…

  Ilius’s eyes moved toward the coordinates posted on the side of the screen.

  If he lives to get a higher command…

  Avia was still fairly deep within the system, and with enemy ships closing…

  He’s never going to get out.

  Ilius worked his controls, pulling back recorded data on Avia, on the ship’s activities just before the enemy targeted it. He watched, silent, almost ignoring the back and forth across Hegemony’s Glory’s bridge as he focused on a series of weapons blasts. The cruiser had opened fire, its shots clearly directed toward a specific area. The targeted fire continued for a few seconds, and then a bright flash filled the screen.

  A hit?

  It took a few seconds for the reality to sink in, and then Ilius knew.

  Avia had been able to target the enemy ship. Somehow. They had tracked a vessel and managed to establish a firelock, a feat that had eluded every other ship in the fleet.

  His fingers moved quickly over the controls, bringing his screen back to a real time feed centered on Avia. His stomach tightened.

  The small vessel was conducting wild evasive maneuvers, an impressive display of navigational and piloting skill. But with three enemy ships on its tail, Ilius knew it was only a matter of time.

  He also knew, the only officers and spacers in the fleet who knew how to target the Others’ ships were in
that beleaguered cruiser.

  “All units within five hundred thousand kilometers of HWS Avia are to adjust thrust vectors immediately and close to support range. Repeat…all ships within five hundred thousand kilometers are to support Avia.” A short pause. “At all costs.”

  He didn’t know if he could save the cruiser and its crew…but he knew deep in his gut he had to try. He knew they were the key to learning how to fight the Others.

  * * *

  “Continue evasion pattern three for one more minute, Hectoron. Then adjust to pattern four.” Tragus was struggling to remain calm. He was a veteran, and he’d fought in some of the fiercest battles on the Rim. The Rimdwellers had been tough opponents, deadly and stubborn, but they were just an enemy, not so unlike his own Kriegeri. They lacked the distinctly different nature of the Others. The enemy from beyond the coreward reaches of the old empire seemed to drain away the courage of an adversary, almost as a dampener absorbing g forces. The Confeds and their allies on the Rim were dangerous fighters, but the Others were like some kind of nightmare conjured from one’s deepest fears.

  And three of their deadly ships were on Avia’s tail.

  They were all in range, of course, deeply within range. That only made the evasion efforts more essential. The enemy targeting was precise, and their weapons deadly. One mistake, one move executed fractions of a second too late, and Avia would be a floating cloud of plasma.

  “Evasion pattern four executing, Commander.”

  Tragus glanced over at the main display. He was doing the best he could to confuse his pursuers without adding too much time to Avia’s arrival time at the tube. He was grateful the AI lacked sufficient data on the enemy to calculate a percentage chance of escape. There wasn’t a question in his mind if such a number was available, it would be a depressingly low number—if not a fraction—and seeing it would serve no purpose at all, neither to him nor to his crew.