Ambassador 4: Coming Home (34 page)

A shudder went through the ship. I peered out the window, but didn’t notice anything until a faint glint of light bloomed and flickered out.

One of the navigators said, “Positive.”

I guessed that was it? I didn’t dare ask. Everyone seemed busy. Thayu watched the goings-on with sharp eyes. Did she understand what they were doing? With the many jobs Thayu had done, I didn’t
think
she’d ever done a stint in the military, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she had.

This stealth warfare thing was not half as exciting as I thought. I attempted to lean back against the central stalk of our platform, as far as one could speak of leaning back in weightlessness, and go to sleep. But as I closed my eyes, the light from the projection and the thousands of white and blue dots turned into streaks when filtered through my eyelashes. Ledaya had again zoomed out so that all locations near both planets showed up. The dots formed an almost half-circle which, when I squinted, all looked like they were connected to each other through streaks of light.

I opened my eyes, and I lost it again, but the streaks reappeared when I squinted. It was an effect of light reflecting off my eyelashes or something, but the resulting image made me think.

A bit over a year had passed since we first heard from the Aghyrians. Back then, I remembered Ezhya talking about the alignment of the planets. This happened only once every five years. Ceren’s years were long. We were now almost at the quarter point and Asto was about a quarter of an orbit ahead of us. The relays were mostly in orbit around Asto. A good number of them had drifted to the Trojan LaGrange points, which were in the same orbit, but ahead or trailing the planet by a sixth of the orbit.

There were also a handful in the Trojan LaGrange points of Ceren. The only relay at Ceren itself had just turned blue.

Supposing the ship was not going to use an area with a high concentration of relays, but an extreme spread of them? It now had relays in positions that spanned a third of a circle around the two suns. Supposing the ship needed as many of these relays to connect with each other as possible, and assuming that they would focus on the jump point, which, if I was the captain, I’d choose to be the L1 LaGrange point on the inside of Asto’s orbit—well, I didn’t know that, but let’s assume it.

All those relays would then need to focus at that point. Their means of communication was probably not terribly fond of the disturbance caused by stars. Which meant that if Asto and Ceren were on opposite sides of the suns, the array was huge, but communication poor. If both planets were at the same point, the array was small but the communication excellent. Which meant that now Asto was racing ahead, we were going into a long period of poor communication and they would probably jump sooner rather than later.

I explained this to Thayu, and she said, “Shit. I don’t know that that option has been included in the calculations.”

She undid her belt and floated over to the command module where she spoke with Ledaya.

“They produced three possible models,” Veyada said.

“We assumed that a certain concentration of relays would be necessary to produce a strong enough signal,” Ledaya said, joining us on our mushroom platform.

“What if the larger ones are resonators or boosters?”

He frowned deeply, staring at the projection. “We just got rid of the only relay at Ceren. Ceren’s trailing cloud would be about to go out of range. That would explain some things . . .” He fingered his upper lip. “I’ve been getting messages that the ship’s engines are ramping up, and we haven’t been able to understand why, since our calculations didn’t have any of the arrays in a useful formation for a number of days. Engineers suggested that it might be for tests, but to me, it looks like they will jump soon. Which means . . .”

He pushed himself to the command module and spoke urgently into his earpiece. All around us, people stopped working and listened to commands we couldn’t hear. There was a sense of urgency in the air.

“Are we going to jump?”

“It seems so,” Sheydu said.

“Our work here is done,” Thayu said. “I’ve just been connected to the ship loop. He says we’re going to join the fleet to destroy some relays around Asto. Oh, and my father has just received word from the Trader Guild that they’re ordering all their ships to go up as well.”

“They’re not armed, aren’t they?”

“No, but they can haul in relays in the hold and destroy them manually.”

“That sounds like a slow process.”

“It is, if you have only a few ships. There are over ten thousand Trader ships. Not all will be able to come in time, but the majority will.”

Shit. This was happening. This was a race against time.

The crew was full on preparing for a jump. Unnecessary processes were shut down, anchor belts and tethers properly attached, workbenches stowed and uniform buttons done up. I didn’t know why the buttons were important, but enough of the crew were doing up their buttons for it to be noticeable.

A warning started blaring to secure loose items and use belts. A countdown number flashed in the middle of the window behind Ledaya’s command chair.

I knew what to expect and still felt cold with nerves.

The countdown reached zero. For a moment it seemed like nothing happened and my heart filled with panic that the Aghyrian ship had yet again disabled the Exchange.

Then everything went white, and slowly reassembled itself in rainbow colours.

The scene outside the window had changed. Immediately below was a decent-sized disk displaying the eroded pink surface of Asto, crisscrossed by channels. The projection in the middle of the command room had adjusted to reflect our new locality. I could see many little specks that I presumed to be other ships. The space station, too.

“Are those all military ships?” I asked Thayu in a low voice. “Or are they Trader ships?”

“No, the Traders are at the LaGrange points.”

Damn it, I hadn’t realised how big Asto’s fleet was. I could likely see only a small part, too.

“Where is the sling?”

“It’s still on its way.”

Ledaya made another announcement to the crew, and the frantic activity resumed.

“He’s ordering everyone to stay in their seats in case the ship needs to move quickly. We’ll be doing an orbital sweep and will be firing at any bit of debris we find.”

The crew was certainly very busy. Other ships were busy, too. One by one, the white lights turned blue. Someone was making good progress at Asto’s leading LaGrange point. The white dots at Ceren’s leading LaGrange point were almost extinguished, too—wait. There was a
white
light that didn’t belong in the projection. A white dot at Ceren.

I said, “Look there.”

But people had already seen it. The captain, too. He was talking to someone—Ezhya or Asha—making wild gestures. Yes, he had destroyed the relay. Yes, he had checked. Yes, he had fired twice just to make sure.

And yet there it was: a white node, not just live, but
communicating
with the few relays at Ceren’s leading cloud.

Shit.

Alarms started blaring. Lights were flashing. Crewmembers were talking in their earpieces. Compared to what you might expect a scene of panic to look like, it was still calm and ordered, but the pronouns were all imperative.
You do this. You do that. You hurry up
.

A couple of white lights in Ceren’s cloud went blue.

But something else was happening in the cloud around Asto: a couple of the dots were growing filaments, like fungus. The threads connected with other dots.

Ledaya was shouting orders now. Some lights turned blue, but more and more of them sprang into being, connecting to the growing network of nodes, linked up with blue-white filaments of light.

The network grew. It connected to the nodes in Asto’s orbit—and some winked out again because they were still being destroyed. But it grew outwards inexorably, and grew, and grew—

Until the whole thing resembled the web-like projection of the Exchange network that you could see when you stood at the observation window at the Exchange: a web of strands of light that were constantly moving and jiggling.

And pulsing, like the beating of a heart.

For two flashes the entire network pulsed in unison.

Then the flight deck went dark, and the windows went dark. Of course. They only
looked
like windows but were viewscreens. The screens went dark. The instruments stopped blinking and transmitting. In that deep silence, a wave of . . . something made the ship hum and shudder.

“We’ve lost contact with command,” someone said into the darkness, which might have been the understatement of the century. I thought the voice was Ledaya’s but I couldn’t be sure.

And then, a moment later, “Yes . . . yes. We’re working on it.” It was Ledaya indeed. He lit a small light on his workbench that cast his face in an eerie glow from underneath.

Then he said, “Fleet Command reports that the Aghyrian ship has jumped.”

T
HE CREW
worked frantically to re-establish power to the command room. First the light came back on in the cabin and then the viewscreens flickered back into life.

The scene out there was surreal. Ceren was just big enough to form a little half circle. Asto was a brighter and much larger half-disk. Both were side-lit by Beniz and Yaza, which, from our position, were much further apart than they were when seen from Barresh.

Against the backdrop of ink-dark sky glittered thousands and thousands of bright specks, which moved in the same direction we were moving. The closer ships resolved into distinct shapes. They were, as far as I could see, mostly Asto military, the square and clunky vessels that few people ever saw and that mostly hung around in the dark depths of space.

The crew also managed to bring the projector back to life. It showed a vibrant white-green dot that trailed filaments of light.

That was the Aghyrian ship. I guessed those wisps were the anpar wake, even if I’d never seen this. The operator enlarged the area and then enlarged the view at the giant viewscreens.

The dark, giant behemoth that was the Aghyrian ship floated between Asto and the suns.

It was massive, many times bigger than the largest ship in Asto’s fleet. Fifty thousand years ago the generation ship had left, having refused help to the beautiful, green, dying planet. Today it was back, looking on its homeworld’s scarred surface.

Most of the crew in the control room would not have seen it before. People sat silent behind their workstations, staring at it. Coldi military would be strongly discouraged to show emotions, but their utter silence and pale, quiet faces were scarier than shouts and panic would have been.

They would have heard Asha’s statement that normal weapons couldn’t destroy this ship. There was no doubt in their eyes. It was plainly obvious. They had no weapons to destroy it, except perhaps the sling, but it wasn’t due to arrive for the best part of a day.

The navigators had managed to re-establish contact with the fleet and were talking to other ships in low voices. I could see the details flicker over the screen.

“Our leader speaks,” Ledaya said, amplified through the command centre.

There were some clicks and hisses of static and then a voice resonated through the area. A voice that had spoken sternly to me and had offered me protection before I left, protection that might be futile depending on what that ship did.

Ezhya said, “People of Asto and all who have loyalty to me. Today we stand before a challenge that is bigger than any we have faced in the history of our civilisation. I may ask things of you that I have never asked before and that, hopefully, I will never have to ask again.”

He used
miyu
pronouns all the way. All people in the command room listened. Not a single glance went to the instruments or screens. Ezhya had their undivided attention.

“While I am with our fleet, I look upon this intruder and know that our impressive arsenal of weapons may not be enough to deal with this ship. We do not know what they want but we know that they have not come in peace. I am calling on all my people to help defend our beautiful world against the menace. I have given orders to appropriate people to take action. If you find you are subject to an order that appears to be outside your normal routine, this is why. The orders may seem extreme, but I’m hoping that they will be no more than precautions.”

“He’s ordered all the citizens to seek shelter in the aquifers,” Thayu whispered to me.

Shit
.

“We have a number of advantages. We are many, and our numbers continue to increase. We have recalled as much of our fleet as feasible. We have full cooperation and assistance of the entire Trader Guild. The Exchange is operational. The Kedras military is on its way. Hedron has sent ships, due to arrive soon. And we have the captain of the ship as hostage. We will be using all these advantages to their fullest extent.”

Ledaya glanced at me from where he sat.

“Meanwhile, I expect your full loyalty. As people, we have been through difficult times together, and we will get through this together. We are one. Iyamichu ata.”

The whole command centre exploded with the reply as more than a hundred voices shouted, “Iyamichu ata!”

I merely repeated the words, but Thayu shouted, and Sheydu and Veyada, and Deyu, her eyes glittering.

The shout made the air vibrate as if the very metal of the hull rang with the sound of many voices. A number of people raised fists.

Ledaya called out, “Iyamichu ata!”

And again the crew replied as one. Serious faces. Raised fists.

It gave me goosebumps.

Asto was going to war.

As the crew sank into frenzied activities, Ledaya gestured me over to the command module. I undid my seat belt and floated over to him.

Ezhya’s face was still displayed on the screen in front of the captain. Ezhya, too, sat in some kind of ship. Not a very large one, I thought. Possibly his own.

Ledaya moved aside so that I could face the screen.

Ezhya nodded when I came into view.