Blood of the Cosmos (49 page)

Moving through the busy station, they bumped into several people Terry remembered from his days here: engineers heading off to a repair yard, and a crew of dismantlers who teased Terry, told him he should get a real job and come back to work with them. Terry seemed embarrassed. “I enjoyed working with you guys, but I'll keep my new job.”

They laughed before moving along. “Oooh, the promotion's gone to his head!”

With OK accompanying them and helping Terry, they worked their way through the connected ships toward the hub. When Maria had departed with one of the refurbished Solar Navy warliners at the heart of Ulio Station, the disruption had required structural remodeling of the clustered vessels, but the new hub was now a thriving complex. The decks of the remaining warliners had been remodeled, rented out as temporary lodgings or permanent apartments.

Even though Maria had flown off with one entire Ildiran ship, several decks in another warliner also belonged to her—restricted, sealed away, and hidden by various database tricks. The passwords were incredibly complex algorithms that only OK could remember, once Maria had provided them.

The three of them went from sealed doorway to sealed doorway, penetrating deeper as the compy activated the passwords and granted them passage. Through internal corridors, then to a private lift to another sealed chamber, and finally after seven layers of otherwise impenetrable security, they reached Maria Ulio's secret central vault.

It was like something out of a legendary dragon's treasure hoard: shelves and slots crammed with prisdiamonds, firegems, old-fashioned platinum blocks, even a half ton of concentrated saffron threads … anything that might serve as liquid wealth, no matter what financial or cultural crisis hit.

“Saffron?” Xander asked.

Terry just stared. “I don't know what to say.”

“We could start hauling it out in suitcases,” Xander suggested. “Load up the
Verne
each time we make a trip here.”

“What are we going to do with all this?” Terry asked.

“Follow your Guiding Star. Whatever you want.”

Terry shook his head. “I don't want to be foolish. A fortune like this changes all the rules of civilized behavior. We're going to need to bring in your parents and Rlinda Kett for advice. They'll know what to do.”

“And this is only a portion of Maria Ulio's legacy,” OK pointed out. “Now that we know the stockpile exists, perhaps we should go to the Central Offices, and obtain the codes to all her diversified accounts and transfer them into Terry's name.”

Xander walked among the shelves of priceless gems, precious metals, and the saffron. “Good idea. This'll keep—it's been here for years.”

Terry looked shell-shocked as they departed and sealed each level of security behind them. Xander knew it would be hard to keep a poker face when they reached the Central Offices.

*   *   *

Darwin Felliwell, currently serving a two-year term as Station Manager, had come to Ulio Station in the last year of old Maria's tenure. He understood what made Ulio Station work: There were strict rules, and they were enforced by the traders, customers, and people who made this a thriving commercial hub. Everyone here swiftly punished pirates, thieves, and cheaters. Prices were vigorously haggled and set; services were provided, businesses started and failed. It was cutthroat. It was vibrant.

Xander, Terry, and OK went to the large control center that filled the entire command nucleus of the second decommissioned Ildiran warliner. Large admin screens displayed all incoming and outbound traffic, and complex grids showed available docking spaces scattered across the hodgepodge ships. Traders were not required to list full manifests of their goods, but if they wanted to sell anything, they attracted customers by featuring their items in the station database.

Xander had never met Darwin Felliwell in person, but the man knew Terry from his past service here. “Good to see you again, Mr. Handon.” He reached out to grasp Terry's hand as the younger man drifted forward on his antigrav belt.

“We're here to transfer some accounts,” Terry said. “Don't worry, there won't be any administrative changes.”

“Not until the next election, at least,” said Felliwell.

Xander said, “Maria Ulio handed over the keys to her accounts to this dear young man.”

Felliwell was surprised. “I thought Maria was long gone and took everything with her.”

“Oh, she took only a fraction of it,” Terry said. “And she gave me the passcodes to change the accounts over.”

Felliwell scratched his head, interested and disturbed. “And you've seen her in person? You have the passcodes?”

“When she departed, there was an agreement that a percentage of all station activity go into certain accounts, but that was all automated.” Terry accessed the database from a touchpad mounted on the wall. “Now she wants me to have that percentage.”

Felliwell watched all the passwords go through, saw Maria's permissions and security questions answered, and then he stepped back, shaken and seemingly exhausted. “I don't know that you understand just how much money that could be.”

“Oh, we understand,” Xander broke in. He couldn't shake the image of that wall of prisdiamonds and firegems from his mind.

“And her other accounts?” Terry asked as OK pulled him forward to the screen. “She left them in the Ulio Central Offices. I have to access them from encrypted files in the main computer.”

Felliwell had to take a seat, even though the gravity was kept to a minimum. “Maybe you'd consider reinvesting in the station? It was Maria's baby, after all.”

Thousands of complex codes filled the screen, waiting to be manipulated and reassigned. Xander was dizzy just to see all those hidden accounts.

“I'll consider that,” Terry said. “We'll consider a lot of options. This is all new to us.”

In the command nucleus, they watched the lights of flitting vessels that came in to dock, while others shot away. Bright stars surrounded them in all directions, but none of them were close. Ulio Station was like a sparkling archipelago, a destination for travelers coming from across the Spiral Arm.

One of the traffic controllers looked up from her screen and stared through the wide crystalline windowport. “What the hell is that?”

Xander saw a growing section of stars eclipsed as a billowing shadow cloud emerged, gushing smoke, darkness growing deeper and opening like an infinite doorway. Four enormous hexagonal black ships emerged, blunt cylinders sliding out from nowhere.

“By the Guiding Star!” Xander whispered.

All the computer systems in the Ulio Central Offices flickered. Several screens went blank, and others were engulfed in static. “Systems are failing!” someone cried.

Alongside the ebony cylinders a fleet of angular black warships gushed out—robot warships. Xander had seen images of them before, but these were bigger and more powerful than what he remembered.

More than fifty robot ships soared out of the dark nebula and began to attack the station.

 

CHAPTER

82

ADAR ZAN'NH

The Ildiran septa accompanied the CDF Juggernaut into unexplored space, navigating to the coordinates that Ohro had provided.

As they approached their ominous destination, Tal Gale'nh stood pale and quiet in the command nucleus, taking control. Adar Zan'nh had given his prot
é
g
é
command of the septa as they flew onward, and Gale'nh stared ahead, as intense as if already battling the shadows ahead of him.

Zan'nh watched silently from the fringe of the tal's field of vision; he nodded to himself and spoke. “Be strong. I want you to know that you are still capable of being a tal.”

Gale'nh gave a small acknowledgment, but Zan'nh could see how hard he struggled to keep his expression stoic from the emotions welling beneath. “Then I will do so, Adar.”

The exploratory mission would reach the Onthos system within the hour, and observers had gathered in the command nucleus. Rememberer Anton Colicos was eager to watch the story unfold. Rod'h had no Solar Navy rank, but he did have a sense of inner importance, not to mention impatience. He stood beside Tal Gale'nh at the command rail, as if he were the mission's cocommander. Gale'nh didn't mind having him there, though; his half-brother was an anchor for him.

The tal stared forward at the emptiness of space. “We are not traveling as far as the
Kolpraxa
did, but we may still find the Shana Rei out here. The shadows seem to be everywhere.”

“Then we will find them everywhere.” Rod'h sounded determined. “And we will find new ways to fight them. The Onthos system is long dead, but it may tell us much of what we need to know.”

Brave words,
Zan'nh thought,
for a man who has never encountered the Shana Rei.
Rod'h did have experience, however, in fighting the hydrogues and the faeros during the Elemental War. He was no coward, but his ambitions were his weakness.

The sensor tech announced, “Long-range scans still show nothing there—no star, no debris, nothing whatsoever.”

Rod'h broke in. “When we arrive, I volunteer to lead one of the scouting expeditions, Adar.”

“I will take that under advisement.” Zan'nh turned back to Gale'nh. “Have we received any update from General Keah on the
Kutuzov
?”

“Just a routine contact an hour ago, Adar. She says her crew is ready for anything, and she looks forward to turning over rocks and seeing what scuttles out from underneath.” Gale'nh paused. “Those were her exact words. I believe she was speaking metaphorically.”

“Yes, that sounds like her.” Zan'nh stepped to the command rail, and Gale'nh dutifully moved aside along with Rod'h.

An hour later, nothing had changed in the starfield even though they were nearly upon the coordinates. General Keah contacted them from the
Kutuzov
. “Have your sensors spotted anything yet, Z?”

The scientist kithmen enhanced the warliner's sensor sweeps and shook their heads. Zan'nh answered, “Nothing yet, General. Still no sign of the star.”

“Perhaps it was a hoax,” Rod'h said. “Maybe the Onthos lied to us all.”

“To what purpose?” Zan'nh asked.

“Perhaps to lure us out here? We should be wary of a trap.”

Tal Gale'nh agreed. “My brother's suggestion is wise.”

“We will go in on full alert,” Zan'nh announced. “Our warliners have a complement of sun bombs and new laser cannons. Along with General Keah's armaments, we will be able to harm the Shana Rei—if they are there.”

Keah transmitted, “Ready when you are, Z. I wish our enhanced sun bombs were ready, but we'll have to make do.”

“Let us hope we do not encounter a battle at all.”

When the exploratory fleet arrived at the Onthos home system, they found no star, no planets. What they did discover, however, was unlike anything Adar Zan'nh had ever seen in his life. The Gardeners' star was not visible—it had been
engulfed.

General Keah's voice was rough as she engaged the comm. “What the hell? Are you seeing this, Z?”

“I see it, General, but I do not understand.”

The ships decelerated, but where the star and planets should have been, they found only an enormous black egg, a shell that encapsulated the Onthos star out to a diameter wide enough to enclose the inner planetary orbits, a globe constructed of the same impenetrable and indestructible stuff that had formed the nightshade over Theroc.

“They built a wall to enclose the entire solar system,” said Rod'h in a voice made faint with awe. “They smothered the star and planets, and all of the Onthos.”

Gale'nh shook his head, paler than usual. “The power and the resources that such a thing would have required! The Shana Rei must be … invincible.”

Keah came back on the comm. “An old Earth physicist proposed something like this before, Z—a sphere built to enclose a star. We call it a Dyson sphere.”

Anton Colicos said, “But that idea was just a bizarre thought experiment, and it was meant for constructive purposes, a way to give maximum surface area for habitation, plenty of room to absorb all the solar flux.”

“I do not believe this was intended for constructive purposes,” Zan'nh told the rememberer. Considering the Onthos sun inside, he could think only of a candle flame being snuffed out. Inside, the star must be dead. “It appears the Onthos were not lying to us. Their system is here—
was
here.”

The seven warliners split apart to explore, while the
Kutuzov
set its own course, flying around one of the axes of the star system. The Adar's flagship cruised slowly above the surface of the Dyson sphere using high-resolution scanners in an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the blackness.

The warliners soared along, playing their sensors across the ebony shell, searching for any flaw, any weakness, any opening. But they found none.

Shaken, Gale'nh breathed heavily and forced himself to be strong. “We cannot get to the star system, Adar. It is dead, just as the Gardeners claimed.”

Rod'h leaned forward, and his eyes narrowed as he stared into the screen, looking for any sensor glitch that the technicians might have missed. He turned abruptly and looked at Zan'nh. “Adar, you know what we must do. We have the ships, the scout teams, and the weapons. We have to blast our way inside.”

 

CHAPTER

83

GENERAL NALANI KEAH

Perfect blackness.
General Keah had never seen anything like it. Not just dark like a night on Earth, because the glitter of starry skies always provided at least fragments of hope. The huge shell that encompassed the Onthos star system was
perfectly
black, reflecting nothing from the myriad stars outside the impossible obsidian sphere. The darkness was as deep as that of a sightless man who was blindfolded, then sealed in a chamber deep within a cave. Yes, that was the kind of black she saw.