Assault on Ambrose Station: A Seth Donovan Novel (24 page)

38.

Our time before arriving at Ambrose wasn’t all damage control and practice runs killing the crew, I had the opportunity to learn a few things too. Zoe and Dr. Montannis decided, or rather Zoe convinced Elias, to let me study samples of the holographic nanites that coated the hull. They ran me through a few crash courses on the theory of the projections and let me observe their activation while running my Scan Paradigm. We put my gathered data through a packaging program that Tac wrote for me and when he was finished, after a few days, he handed me back a data wafer that he assured me would be a sufficient surrogate for a new Paradigm for me to upload into my NP Implant.

“The biggest deficiency, I’m afraid,” explained Tac, “Was the lack of sensor data. The Astral Spider has an exceptional three-hundred and sixty degree synchronous optical sensor that allows each nanite to project the image on its diametrically opposite nanite cluster. Unfortunately, humans lack such sophisticated vision. Even if you could observe all angles simultaneously, your brain would not be able to process such a sight.”

“So what can I do with it?” I asked, inspecting the wafer in my hand.

“You should be able to create a realistic hologram of anything your visual memory can recall. Within reason.”

“Hardlight?”

“Not without significant upgrades to your augmentations. I believe a Specialist would be able to create hardlight projections, but as you lack the power reserves, and the internal graphics adaptors, the best a Generalist could manage is softlight only.”

“How big?”

“An image roughly equal in size to yourself would be of decent resolution, able to fool most organics without careful examination, however anything larger would begin to lose clarity at a rate of three-hundred and forty two picons per micron, per cubic millimetre of volume beyond these specifications.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“The larger the picture, the blurrier it gets.”

“Oh. You could have just said that.”

“Preference noted.”

I started to use holograms during the damage control exercises. At first, I stuck with non-animated, three-dimensional images but, as I practiced and became more proficient, I started to use animation in the holograms.

I joined Naga Team in their drill runs, learning their methods and tactics. I knew that I could not hope to gain their level of unit readiness in such a short time, but it wasn’t long before my old muscle memory started to come back. Artemis was training with us daily as well, and she was in fine form. She was naturally competitive and delighted in showing off for the lads in Naga Team, so much so that they were distracted sometimes. I spoke to her about it, but she flipped me off saying that I was jealous. Yeah, she could still be a pain in the arse.

We were three days out from Ambrose Station when we started to go through the details of our joint operation. It was a full team brief, including Captain Garner, so Artemis and I decided to share our final piece of the puzzle – our target.

“Our client, who shall remain anonymous,” I nodded to Artemis, “has…hired the crew of the Dreaming of Atmosphere to rescue one individual from the refugee population. Some of you may know him, he was a little before my time so you younger soldiers may not recognise the name either. This is an older image of our objective, so please allow the turning of the years to add to this effect.”

I tapped a control on the glossy black table and sent a file that Art had shared with me. The image of Osiris Blackburn, albeit decades younger, appeared on the table. There were a couple of sharp intakes of breathe, but to the majority the image meant little.

“Osiris Blackburn, the scourge of Ilos, the butcher of Yggrest Station. The most powerful underworld figure across four star systems. He was investigating black market potential in the Gossamer System when the Betrayal went down. His personal yacht was crippled and boarded by Ghantri raiders before it could leave Ambrose Station.”

“You expect the Protectorate to sign off on rescuing a known criminal mastermind?” interrupted Captain Garner.

“No, sir. I expected the Dreaming of Atmosphere to do this. Maxine only agreed to the crew exchange under the pretence that this would take priority before any other objectives.”

“Captain Cooper didn’t strike me as the sort to work with criminals. Was I mistaken?”

“No, sir. The terms of our employment, although I won’t elaborate, are not terms of our choosing.”

Artemis broke in, clearing her throat. “What he means is that my boss is extorting Maxine to perform this job.”

There were a few shared looks about the table as this sunk in. I noticed Garner watching me carefully, one hand on his chin.

“Why wasn’t this shared with us earlier?” he said after a moment, “Should I be arresting Ms. Derris, here?”

“You can try.” she said.

“Art. Please. We’re committed to the job, now. Pulling out this close to our target would be a waste of our resources and make the loss of one of my friends mean next to nothing. No, sir. I would not arrest Artemis, the terms would remain the same.”

“Very well, assume I’m willing to entertain this for the time being.”

“Our client has foreseen Protectorate resistance to removing Osiris from the system and does not want to wait for us to bring him to them. So, they provided us with a very rare piece of technology.” I nodded to Artemis, who brought out the suitcase containing the portable Jump Gate.

“This,” she began with a flourish of her hands, “is a Korveli-Xue prototype Personal Jump Gate.” Immediately Elias gasped and moved close to the case. Artemis warded him off with her hands.

“Once we locate Osiris Blackburn, we’ll activate this device and allow Osiris…”

“And me.” interrupted Art.

“And Artemis to travel through the portal. Along with whoever we can round up and fit into it before the Ghantri detect the energy signature and investigate.”

“What?” said Artemis, her face suddenly dark.

“We’re rescuing as many people from the station as we can. With the system’s Jump Gate closing this will be their only chance to escape.”

“We have not discussed this.”

“No, nor will we.”

As this exchange went back and forth between Art and I, the rest of the briefing participants sat in silence, looking at each of us in turn.

“Benedict will not approve of this.”

“Benedict isn’t here. We are. I’m making this call.”

“That’s not your call to make!”

“It has to be. I know you put up a tough front, playing the cold-hearted bitch. But I’ve come to know you. I
know
this will sit well with you, if only you give it some thought.”

“We will not be deviating from the plan. Osiris only. End of discussion.” She was practically fuming now.

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can blow up your fucking ship, is what I can do.”

“No you won’t.”

“Seth!” cried Zoe, “Enough! Art, please consider it, these people have no hope otherwise. At the very least wait until everyone has calmed down before making any rash decisions.”

Art and I glared at each other across the table.

“Lieutenant,” said Garner, “Let’s continue with the briefing. We can debate the details at a later date, as Sub-Lieutenant Ward said.”

I took a few deep breaths and turned back to the group.

“Once we have secured Osiris, we can question him regarding our next objective – finding out what the Ghantri know about the
ghru
. If anyone would know what’s going on in the system, it would be him.”

“Osiris Blackburn never struck me as the kind of villain who let intelligence or information about a region go uncollected,” explained Garner, “Information is currency to these people. If he’s anything like I remember, he’ll at least be able to point us in the right direction.”

“Exactly. Speaking of information, has there been any word from the Dreaming?” I asked.

“Yes, we received an encoded signal several hours ago.” offered Ormund.

“Is everyone okay?” asked Zoe.

Garner answered. “We’ll go over their findings this evening. We’re still waiting for the last of the message to arrive. For now, we can tell that they did indeed discover something, but we’ve been unable to examine the footage they recovered. We hope to have more by this evening’s brief.”

39.

By evening, I was as anxious as Zoe was to find out how our ship had fared recently. They would have arrived at their destination a few days ago and begun exploring, so we were sure they had something to share. By the time it was all compiled and ready to go over, the Astral Spider’s AIs had put together a series of holo images and sensor recordings. The projector table in the briefing room was a fitting device to watch from.

Captain Garner took us through it.

“The first several recordings are sensor read outs as they approached the asteroid cluster. We had timed their arrival so that there were no Ghantri ships around the region, the nearest was several days out. The first interesting recording is from the command module. I’ll play it for you now.”

An image from the ship’s internal security camera appeared, showing the command module of the Dreaming with Max, Fel and Crege closed up on their usual stations. What surprised me was the Votus, who took my usual secondary command station. Paired with the image was another recording, from the ship’s optical sensors. They showed a large cluster of asteroids grouped in a cloud roughly a thousand kilometres across.

“Entering proximity of field, Captain.” reported Fel’negr.

“Give me a scan of the nearest rock bigger than the ship, Mel.” I could see the Votus visibly bristle as Max shortened his name.

“Yes, Captain.” he complied, “Scans coming in now. Nickle and iron deposits, cobalt, magnesium. Standard metallic composition. “

“No bug bits? Chitin?”

“No, Captain. Although I should point out that
ghru
world ships were not chitin, rather they were seeded alloys and…one moment, Captain. I am picking up energy readings from the object marked on your display now.”

“Crege, take us on approach, get us in close to that marker. What kind of energy?”

“It appears to be standard electrical signatures,” reported Fel, “Perhaps this is a mining site?”

“I am detecting dozens more similar readings, Captain.”

“Multiple mining sites?”

“Has to be,” barked Crege, “
fedang
work here for months, Protectorate say.”

“I concur, Captain,” agreed Fel, “We’re picking up nearly forty such sites.”

“Any life signs?”

“Negative.” said Melafenaseance.

“Are any of these rocks non-metallic?”

“None within sensor range, Captain.”

“We should scoop some up to take a poke at.” mused Max.

“I highly recommend we proceed to a suitable asteroid and begin our own mining operation. I believe that should yield us the most valuable data.” advised Mel.

“What would you consider suitable?”

“One that has not been probed by the Ghantri already. Whatever they are looking for, they have not found it within those already searched.”

“True. All right, Crege, work with Fel and find us a big rock we can park on and dig some holes. Time to get our mining hats on, fellas.”

The next footage showed the Dreaming resting upon an asteroid, while Hergo and Denno worked to offload the ship’s drilling rig. It was fairly old equipment, having been purchased when I was a child, but it still worked. When jobs were slow, we would use it to mine the Kersios Ring asteroid belt in the Argessi System and still make money. It was hard work, but safer than tracking down criminals or mercenary work. There was always someone who would buy the cargo as well.

The two Argen got the rig set up in no time and started drilling bore holes for fracking. The idea was to create a hole that could be sealed and atmospheric generators added. Mining was easier when you didn’t need to wear a space suit.

“I’ll skip this next part, the crew basically set up an outpost on the asteroid and begin excavating. Roughly twenty hours later, they halt drilling. Watch.”

“Captain,” called one of the Argen over the ship’s communications, “this is Hergo. We’re picking up a change in density, can we get a scan of the area?”

“Stand-by, ground crew.” said Cuts, who was on watch in the command module, “Max is asleep.”

Moments later a bleary-eyed Max entered the compartment, along with the Votus.

“What have you got, boys?” she said over the comms.

“Looks like the tunnel changed material. We just pulled the rig out and walked in to check, it’s definitely not metallic anymore.”

“Silicate?”

“I don’t think so. Denno says it looks like calcium.”

Maxine turned to Mel. “Calcium? In an asteroid?”

“It is unusual, Captain,” agreed the Votus as he reached for the comm controls, “Can you get images with your overlays?”

“Sending them now.”

A series of still images appeared adjacent to the compartment video. They showed the tunnel composition, which started as a dark, sometimes reddish rock and changed to a lighter grey, nearly white material.

“Bring a sample back to the ship. We’ll scan the area when you’re clear of the sensors.” said Max.

Next, a chemical break down appeared of the lighter material. The most abundant mineral was crystalline calcium carbonate.

“Terrestrial limestone?” I asked Garner.

“There’s a report in with the video about this substance they collected. Melafenaseance thinks it could be
ghru
minerals. Coral and other growths. Remember their world ships were supposed to be millions of years old.”

I shuddered at the thought of something so old that it predated humanity, an enemy who was unfathomable in their motivation. An enemy who strove for nothing less than the total annihilation of other civilisations. Well, not total as it appears. Something spared the Ghantri from sterilisation by the Destroyers.

We started the recording again. The next image showed a captured by someone’s overlay. It had to be the Votus’ implant, I mused, as I knew no one on the crew had enough internal memory to record such high-resolution images in video. The recording took place from inside the tunnel, which was thick with dust and other particles from the drilling. The rig had been pulled aside and Hergo and Denno were both back in space suits. A strange device was set up at the base of the end of the tunnel, where the drilling had ceased. It looked like a small tablet on a tripod with several leads pinioned to striations in the lighter rock material near the lower section. An antenna dish, roughly twenty centimetres in diameter extended from the rear of the tablet. The Votus, for I could see it was him now, manipulated something on the tablet and then an image appeared in the overlay recording.

A three dimensional, ghostly image depicted a cavernous area beyond the tunnel’s end, with several branching tunnels leading from a central chamber.

“The
ghru
compound fills the space ahead of us,” intoned the Votus, “but I can map out several of the extending passages.”

Max’s voice crackled over a speaker mounted on the drilling rig. “How long will it take to drill through all that crusty shit?”

“Once we have an opening wide enough to traverse, I can break down the calcium deposits with nanites. Should take no more than three hours to clear out his section.”

“Alright, the scans we managed to get don’t show any openings to vacuum so it should be safe.”

As the Votus went to work, Denno, or maybe it was Hergo (it was hard to tell in their space suits), started to ask questions.

“What could have caused all this calcium?”

“The
ghru
fed on large quantities of foraminifera-like organisms, which they kept in feeding vats such as the chamber ahead. At least this is my theory. They all died when this world ship died, and over the centuries their tests calcified and became compacted.”

“Tests?”

“Shells.”

“Oh. Foramina…something. What are they?”

“Foraminifera. Forams. Organisms similar to plankton on ocean worlds”

The Argen hissed in disgust. “Sea creatures. Argen find all sea animals disgusting. Our homeworld is teeming with slithering, slimy fish that no one can eat.”

“The Votus were evolved from an aquatic species.”

“Apologies, venerable one. Did not mean to insult.”

“Of course you did not. I would have slain you if you had.”

I could see the Argen’s face through his helmet, staring at the Votus.

I glanced at Garner, who dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.

The curious Argen backed away slowly and found something else to do. The image skipped ahead a few hours, showing the opening being shovelled clear of a fine powdery substance. Clearly, the nanites had done their work. When the tunnel was clear, several of the crew started to enter the cavern. The chamber was dark, at first, but the others began to set up portable lamps and soon the cavern was bathed in white light.

The chamber was roughly spherical, but unsymmetrical as if naturally formed. It was nearly fifty metres wide, with about a dozen small openings around the cavern walls, presumably where the other tunnels began.

“If this was part of a ship,” I asked Garner, “Why does it look natural?”

“The
ghru
used biotic technology. Much of what they used was either grown, or cultivated from organisms. There is a running theory that surmises one of the reasons the Destroyers did what they did was so that they could sample different genetic material to absorb into their culture. Or they simply needed more bio-mass.”

“So why kill everything?”

“I don’t know. There were often no survivors on worlds that fell to them. No one to tell what happened after all the defending forces were wiped out. Not many people  were keen to stick around after either. The few reports that are left from that period mention whole populations being eradicated by biological weapons, turned into sludge or some other bio-chemical by-product. Some were rounded up and herded into their massive ships, which led to attempts to rescue them. None were ever found again, of course.”

I turned back to the recording, as an image was showing the crew inspecting a section of the cavern wall. There was a discussion going on regarding what they were looking at.

“No, Captain,” the Votus was saying, “I am almost certain this is a
ghru
marker. See the pattern in the erosion?”

“There’s no way to be sure about that. It could be - that’s all I’m saying.”

Max had clearly had enough of watching from the command module and had decided to venture into the cavern herself.

“I have seen this symbol many times before.”

“So maybe that’s just you finding patterns in this, because your mind
wants
to find this connection.”

“Do not assume a Votus mind works the same way your younger species brains function. I remember every incident where I have encountered this depiction. My memory is flawless where the
ghru
are concerned.”

“No need to get touchy. I was only suggesting that we find more evidence.”

“The Protectorate Command will be convinced that my testimony is sufficient in this matter.”

“Now who’s making assumptions about other people’s minds? You clearly don’t know the Protectorate very well.”

The Votus paused briefly, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was getting pissed at Max, or gathering his thoughts.

“You speak wisdom, for one so young. I shall defer to your reasoning regarding the Protectorate.”

“Who you calling young?” she said, but I could see her grinning.

“Age is relative, Captain.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a nugget of cosmic mysticism.”

“Even the elder races have a limit to their patience.”

“Ha, you gotta get thicker skin, Mel.”

“My skin is of sufficient density. Might I suggest we start to examine these tunnels? I believe one of them should lead to a
ghru
living quarter, or at least a feeding chamber.”

Max gave out orders for the two Argen to take as many pictures as they could of the chamber, and started towards one of the tunnel openings.

Garner addressed me again. “I’ll skip some more, the next few hours are spent wandering the maze of tunnels. They get lost a few times and your engineer has to come down and set up a sensor beacon for them to trace back. Once they have it mapped, they stumble across this next chamber. I’ll restart the recording there.”

The image started as a swaying view as Melafenaseance was climbing out of a tunnel, then the view stabilised as he climbed to his feet. They were standing on a precipice, overlooking another chamber nearly as large as the first. They were twenty metres up on one side of it, with a ramp leading down to the left that spiralled to the cavern floor below. From the perch, they could see what appeared to be a hexagonal column raised up from the floor to about two metres high, positioned in the centre of the chamber. An eerie bioluminescence lit the chamber in a ghostly glow from above.

The pair were silent, gazing about the chamber in what I could only assume was awe.