Cradle of War (A Captain's Crucible Book 3) (3 page)

T
he next few days passed in a tense blur. The task group gave the newcomer a four million kilometer berth and then proceeded toward the gas giant. During the entire voyage the Elder vessel hadn’t broken orbit, remaining above the Slipstream where it had emerged. Jonathan had the comm officers sending out hails hourly, but the new arrival still didn’t respond. The ops specialist confirmed that the Raakarr fleet—and the local defector—were similarly outputting the occasional gamma ray communications ping toward the Elder craft, however their radiation streams so far went unanswered.

By the time the task group reached the gas giant, the Elder ship resided six hundred million kilometers behind them. Jonathan felt somewhat safer at that range. The enemy Raakarr, meanwhile, had moved to twice that distance from the human fleet on the opposite side of the system, three hundred million klicks from the greenhouse planet.

The
Grimm
moved into low orbit around the gas giant and proceeded to deploy its collection device to sieve geronium and hydrogen. Via a special reactor, the latter was converted into helium—the inert gas used as propellant. The energy produced by the reaction was also employed to convert the geronium into a usable isotope.

The
Aurelia
mirrored the
Grimm’s
position in a higher orbit, keeping watch on the vessel. Meanwhile the rest of the task group concentrated on mining mortars and slugs from the ring system that surrounded the giant. Jonathan diverted the unused machinery of the
Marley
, the Builder ship in their midst, to the conversion process, which helped increase production threefold.

Jonathan also rerouted some of the raw materials toward repairs so that the drone swarms could continue the work they had begun on the
Callaway
after the first battle. Halfway to the gas giant the repair elements had run out, forcing a shutdown; but with the raw materials flowing freely again, the swarms had begun anew, 3D-printing superheated metal into the remaining gashes in the port side. When that was done, the swarms would focus on restoring damaged compartments and passageways, such as launch bay three and mess hall two. It would likely take a few more weeks before everything was restored, but Jonathan hoped to leave the gas giant in two or three days; the robot miners would stockpile the raw materials, ensuring that enough remained for the planned repairs and any subsequent work thereafter.

Roughly two days into the refueling and restocking operation, Ensign Lewis, first watch ops officer, announced: “I’m detecting gamma ray emissions from the Elder ship. They’re low intensity, and appear to be communication-based.”

“Directed toward us?” Jonathan asked.

“Negative,” she said. “The pulses are aimed at the Raakarr fleet. I’m only picking up the residue.”

“So they’ve finally deigned to answer their descendants,” Robert mused from his seat beside the captain. The commander rubbed his earlobe. “It’s telling, isn’t it, who they chose to answer first?”

“It is,” Jonathan agreed. “Lazur, get me Barrick.”

“Aye, Captain,” the first watch comm officer answered.

Barrick tapped in, audio-only, a moment later. “Captain?”

Jonathan wished Barrick would tap in with video for once, because when someone constantly communicated via audio only, it made Jonathan feel the individual in question had something to hide. Then again, video couldn’t be trusted either, not when it could be readily manipulated by realtime digital image processing.

“Tell me our Raakarr allies can intercept that signal,” Jonathan told the telepath.

“Negative,” Barrick replied. “Like you, the Raakarr are only detecting aberrant photons that aren’t part of the original message. The pulses are highly directional.”

“Thank you,” Jonathan said. “It was worth a try. Captain out.”

He terminated the connection.

Shortly thereafter Ensign Lewis reported the Raakarr fleet had issued an answering gamma ray; the vessels proceeded to exchange short-wavelength messages like that for several subsequent hours, each communication and its corresponding response taking half an hour to propagate across the vast gulf between ships, as dictated by the speed of light.

The watches changed, and when the bursts subsided, Jonathan received a message in his quarters. He looped in Robert and Miko when he answered. He chose full visual mode, so that it appeared he was standing at the center of the Round Table on the bridge, with Miko and Robert at his side.

“The Raakarr fleet is setting a direct course toward the Slipstream on the outskirts of the system,” Ensign McNamara, second watch ops officer, told him.

Robert’s hologram glanced at Jonathan. “What do you think they talked about?”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure whatever it was, it involved blaming us for what happened on the greenhouse planet,” Jonathan answered.

“The fact that the Raakarr fleet is heading toward the farther Slipstream tells me that they cut some sort of deal with the Elder,” Robert said.

“How so?” Jonathan asked.

“Well, as the creators of the Slipstreams,” the commander said. “In theory the Elder should have the ability to edit the endpoints. Likely they did just that to the farther Slipstream, to allow our enemies passage back to Vega 951. Valor, through Barrick, did say that the Raakarr hoped the Elder would help them return to their own galaxy, after all.”

Jonathan cocked his head slightly. “So the question is, who edited the Slipstream endpoints in the first place to bring us all here? And why?”

“Very good questions,” Robert said.

“Captain,” McNamara said. “The Elder vessel is accelerating. No, I take that back. There was no acceleration, at least not in the conventional sense. It’s speed change was instantaneous. And now it’s turning... I’m not seeing any evidence of propulsion of any kind. I’m checking the gravity bands...” His hologram looked up. “This is incredible. According to the weak gravity waves I’m reading, the Elder appear to be contracting space in front of them, and expanding it behind them.”

“An Alcubierre drive of some kind?” Robert asked.

“It seems so, commander,” McNamara answered. “Definitely something reactionless. Like I said, there’s no evidence of propulsion.”

“That’s great,” Jonathan said, the sarcasm thick in his voice. “They’re not limited by Newtonian drives like we are. For some reason I find myself unable to share your excitement.”

The ensign lowered his gaze. “Sorry sir.”

“Do we have a calculated trajectory?” Jonathan asked.

“We do,” McNamara said. He paused. “I hate to say it, but they’re headed directly toward us.”

J
onathan stared at the tiny dot on the tactical display that represented the Elder vessel.

“Can we outrun them?” Jonathan said.

“Negative,” the ensign answered.

“How long until they arrive?” Jonathan pressed.

“Roughly a day,” McNamara responded.

“So they’re three times as fast as our maximum speed,” Jonathan calculated. “And they can contract and expand space in order to move.” He shook his head, feeling utterly outclassed. “Comm, try hailing them again. Get our Raakarr allies to make a similar attempt.”

A moment later the comm officer said: “No response to either party.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Jonathan said. “I need some combat options here, Miko.”

“There aren’t many against a foe like that,” Miko’s hologram responded. “They’ll easily dodge our mortars. And as for slugs, even if they don’t detect them until the last moment, when they
do
detect them, they’ll effortlessly step aside. Lasers are our only chance. And perhaps the
Talon’s
particle weapon.”

“Too bad the ranges on the lasers and particle weapon are so damn short,” Jonathan said. “I definitely don’t want to let that bad boy get close. Work with Maxwell. See if you can come up with something viable.”

“I’ll get on it,” Miko said.

Robert spoke up. “Keep in mind, we don’t know if that’s their maximum speed. They could be holding back. Not wanting to reveal their real capabilities.”

“Much like I myself would do in a similar situation,” Jonathan agreed. “Miko, factor that in to any strategies you come up with.”

“I’ll set upper limits for their potential speed and weapons capabilities,” Miko said. “But at this point, I’m basically putting together a strategy to fight against a black box. We don’t even know if our weapons will have any effect.”

“I hear you,” Jonathan said. “Do your best.”

“What if they’re not hostile?” Robert said.

“At this point, we can only hope that they’re not,” Jonathan said. “If it’s any consolation, I’ll give specific orders not to fire first.” He spread his fingers but resisted the urge to tap his lips. “Commander, I want you to arrange the transfer of two of the anomalies to other vessels in our task group. I want one aboard the
Salvador
, and another aboard the
Marley
.”

“You’re thinking they won’t target those ships harboring their offspring?” Robert asked.

“Right or wrong, that’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Jonathan said.

“Need I remind the captain, the usage of civilian shields is strictly prohibited by the rules of war,” Maxwell intoned.

“Those rules apply to
human
shields,” Jonathan told the AI. “Not alien. Besides, we don’t really know if the offspring are civilians.”

“But Captain,” McNamara said. “They’re babies.”

“Are they?” Jonathan remembered the apocalyptic visions those ‘babies’ had injected into his mind. “How do we know they’re not advanced soldiers imprinted with instructions to kill from birth? We’ve achieved similar engram programming on Earth.”

“We have,” McNamara agreed. “But you forget that such birth programming is now illegal. Isn’t that right, Maxwell?”

The AI answered immediately. “The Kipps-Ricot Agreement prohibits the engram manipulation of prenatal embryos and has been signed into treaty by twenty-two governmental entities, including the United Systems and the Sino-Koreans.”

“The child assassin program was a mar on the history of the United Systems,” Jonathan agreed. “But that doesn’t mean the aliens feel the same way about their own offspring.”

“True,” Maxwell replied. “I understand now why you’ve ordered me to vent the entire contents of cargo bay seven into the void at the first sign of trouble.”

“That would be one of the reasons, yes,” the captain said. He glanced at Robert’s hologram. “Commander, get those anomalies transferred to the
Salvador
and
Marley
.”

“On it,” Robert said.

J
ONATHAN STOOD IN cargo bay seven. Robert had finished arranging the transport of the two anomalies a few hours ago, so that only one of the golden, cigar-shaped objects remained in the translucent container before him. He gazed intently at the remaining object, daring it to inject a vision into his thoughts, but none came.

Connie joined him. She wore her dark hair in a bun that day. The hair, in conjunction with her aReal spectacles, gave her the look of an academy professor. She dressed in standard blue utilities like the rest of the crew.

“Apparently you were right about these being eggs,” Jonathan told her.

“Normally I would be happy to be proven right,” the chief scientist said. “But not under the current circumstances, unfortunately.”

He shook his head. “Elder eggs. Who would have thought?”

“We are in a different galaxy, after all,” Connie said. “Anything could happen out here.”

“While that’s true,” Jonathan countered. “We are making one small assumption: that the Raakarr aren’t lying to us.”

“You’re never going to trust them, are you?” Connie asked.

Jonathan glanced at her. “Would you, in my position?” 

She pressed her lips together. “Probably not.”

He returned his attention to the alien embryo. “The commander thinks the humanoid that originally fled from us on the greenhouse planet traveled through the Slipstream and summoned the Elder.”

“What do you think?” the chief scientist asked.

He rocked his head from side to side. “It’s possible. Those suits of theirs are big unknowns to us. They give the humanoids the ability to journey between planets, blurring the line between smart missiles and fighters. But could those suits give them the power to pass through Slipstreams? I don’t really know. Maybe the humanoid is hiding on one of the inner worlds back there, in a secret base whose equipment he used to summon the Elder with. Either way, it doesn’t really matter does it? The Elder are here and we have to deal with them. By the way, speaking of the suits, any progress?”

His gaze momentarily drifted toward the second container in the cargo bay, where the environmental suits collected from the planet were held alongside the dead humanoids.

She pursed her lips slightly. “I’ve made some progress. I took samples of the fabrics. The composition is vastly different from our own technology, unsurprisingly. It’s mostly silicates embedded in a flexible carbon nanotube-like base.”

“Anything we can adapt to our own suit technology?” Jonathan asked.

“The material could certainly help us construct less bulky, more robust spacesuits. The problem is fabricating it.”

Jonathan frowned. “The 3D printers can handle nanotubes, can’t they?”

“They can,” Connie agreed. “But those tubes have to come in pre-produced packs. The fullerenes in the molecules form hollow cages of one hundred eighty carbon atoms. Stuffed directly inside those molecules are silicates. We don’t have anything that can mass produce molecules like that, not easily.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Jonathan said. “You won’t be able to repair the holes we’ve shot into those suits.”

“I’m not sure yet,” Connie said. “I might be able to use a substitute material. A bandaid, if you will. But keep in mind, even if I can repair them, there are likely security protocols in place. They’ll have to be bypassed before us ordinary humans can use the suits.”

Jonathan nodded. “Do what you can.” He paused, remembering something. “What about the energy fields we theorized surrounded those suits, and protected against our laser weapons?”

“We haven’t figured out where the fields were sourced from,” Connie said.

“And the ability to fly?”

“There aren’t any obvious jetpacks on the suits, as you know. I have Sil Chopra leading a team full time, but our best guess at this point is that they’re using a miniaturized version of the reactionless drives found on the Elder ship.”

“Contracting space in front of them, and expanding it behind?” Jonathan said.

“Yes,” Connie answered. “I finally had a chance to review the recordings from the battle on the planet. I watched it on every available frequency, electromagnetic, gravimetric, you name it. And I discovered that when the humanoids took flight, their suits emitted weak gravity waves similar to what we’re reading from the Elder ship itself.”

“I can’t tell you how important it would be for humanity if we could reverse engineer that tech,” Jonathan said.

“I know,” Connie told him. She smiled weakly. “No pressure, right?”

“None.” He turned his attention to the naked bodies arrayed around the suits. They were obviously still frozen: their skin was porcelain white, reminding him of a certain mountain climber he had been forced to abandon on a summit long ago. He had forgiven himself for leaving her, but he would never forget her. Famina was her name.

He focused on those lifeless faces, which appeared vaguely human: each visage had two eyes, a nose, a mouth. The thick noses, receding foreheads and prominent brow ridges betrayed their divergent origins, however. Even so, according to Connie and her team, the DNA base pairs of the dead individuals were a ninety-nine percent match to modern humans.

One of the humanoids lay in a separate holding tank nearby, isolated from the others. Its skin was not porcelain, but rather olive colored. Its belly bulged visibly, more-so than the others, and above that its chest had been cut open, and the ribs forced apart. Its half-removed lungs rested on those ribs, laid out on either side of the heart; the sight made Jonathan think of the ancient ritualized killings the vikings supposedly inflicted upon defeated warriors, known as the
blood eagle;
except in that method the lungs were removed from the back.

Like the other tanks, a glass partition separated it into two sections, with robotic arms mounted in the partition to allow for manipulation of the body without actually entering the main chamber. Metallic, telescoping limbs led from the dissected body to those arms.

“And what have you learned about our mostly human friends?” he asked Connie.