Dreadnought (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

-36-

Someone shook me awake a few minutes later. I groaned, unable to open my eyes for a moment.

“So,” Zye’s voice asked somberly. “This is your secret desire? How can you derive pleasure from such an act? Is this sort of thing even legal on Earth?”

Blinking, I fought to force my body to obey me. My jaws were sore and stiff.

“She’s a Stroj, Zye,” I said. “She tried to kill me. Get her off me.”

Zye pulled at the corpse, which was stiff and arching still. I howled in pain, but managed to untangle myself from what had so recently been known as Suzy.

Zye looked at the staring eyes doubtfully. “She looks human.”

“Yes, she’s quite convincing. That’s how she joined the ship’s crew undetected. She also managed to work her way close to me, as I was her assassination target. She’s the best Stroj mimic I’ve seen yet.”

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

Cursing, I gathered my uniform and headed for the infirmary.

After making sure the Stroj was well and truly dead, even going so far as to give her a farewell kick in the side, Zye joined me in the passageway.

“When did you know she was a Stroj?” Zye questioned.

“When? When she started trying to kill me, that’s when.”

“Were you engaged in a sex act at that point?”

“No. She appeared in my cabin, uninvited. She kissed me and went for my throat right after I realized what she was. That was when you stepped in the first time. By the way, you have to stop doing that.”

“If I hadn’t come back, you might have died.”

“Well, next time someone is trying to kill me, please knock first.”

She walked next to me in brooding silence for a while.

“I think I understand,” she said at last. “I’ve been reading online articles about Earth males. Your kind requires a large personal region.”

“You mean personal space?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

I gazed at her in disbelief. “I told you not to read those things. Without any perspective, you’ll only get confused. This isn’t about my need for personal space. I was attacked by a sex-bot that worked its way to my cabin and tried to kill me.”

We reached the medical bay and the doctors there went to work on me, clucking their tongues and eyeing Zye in disdain. I got the feeling they thought she’d abused me. I didn’t bother to explain.

“Why didn’t this Stroj take drastic action earlier?” Zye asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It replaced Durris to get closer to you, then it attempted to seduce you. That seems too complicated. Why not just show up on any given night in your cabin after one of your shifts? Surely, you would have coupled with it.”

I laughed. “How little faith you have in Earthmen,” I said. “Apparently, she enjoyed having sex before a kill. She flirted with her targets to gain their attention, and then she pounced when the time was right. I think that’s why she came to my cabin tonight. She must have sensed an opportunity”

“Ah,” Zye said nodding. “I sensed the attraction. I saw you run your hands over her unnecessarily. That’s a sure sign of sexual intent.”

Oddly enough, I was embarrassed. What I’d done had come naturally to me, but hearing it from Zye, I could tell it had been inappropriate.

“I suppose you’re right,” I admitted. “I hadn’t intended on anything happening. All I did was touch her lightly when showing her how to use the system.”

“Would you have touched Durris that way while training him?”

“No,” I admitted.

“You were sabotaged by your instincts. Very clever, these Stroj. Her beauty and overtly sexual nature helped her seduce you. No wonder she was programmed that way. I wonder how many more Stroj are aboard.”

That thought alarmed me. “We don’t really know, do we?” I asked. “The newer models pass for human so easily… I thought our tests were foolproof, but clearly they aren’t.”

“Perhaps you should take the entire crew to bed,” Zye said wryly. “The ones that try to kill you are probably Stroj.”

“That approach wouldn’t be practical,” I said, smiling.

She shrugged and stood up. “I’ll be going. Looks like you’ll need time to recover.”

“Right. But I’ll be back on the command deck before we find our way out of this pocket of hyperspace.”

She left me there to wince and growl as the medical bots were applied. They patched my wounds with fresh skin cells then sealed the mess with tiny applications of self-dissolving glue.

* * *

The following day, we found our way out of the tiny hyperspace region. We had to change course several times to avoid exiting the region early—which the theoretical physicists among my crew said might prove to be fatal. What appeared to be walls surrounding us were indeed the limits of the sub-universe, but to leave this slice of space in any way other than the two bridge-points would probably result in an unfathomable disaster.

Some postulated that we’d end up back where we started, or in normal space near our destination. But most insisted that to exit elsewhere would cause our existence to come to a dramatic, instantaneous finish.

Following the tritium trail, we finally discovered the exit point. It was clear the pirates knew where it was, as they’d been heading directly for it from the start.

“Fire at the exit point,” I directed. “We know they have to travel through it, and in this ER bridge it’s unusually small. We might get lucky.”

Durris had returned to the command deck, but he was unable to stand. He floated in a hovering chair and worked the controls with loose fingers and a lolling head. Still, with his understudy gone, he was the best navigator we had.

“Point marked in the battle computer, sir,” he said, slurring slightly.

I frowned, wondering if I should relieve him and man the post myself. Deciding I would give him a chance, I nodded to Zye.

“Fire at the First Officer’s coordinates.”

Reluctantly, Zye turned to her boards and the big cannons spoke again. They fired in a predetermined grid, peppering the target region with particles.

“Report, Yamada?”

“Nothing, sir. The tritium trails for two of the ships have ended.”

“Adjust, fire on yellow,” I ordered quickly.

Zye worked the controls, and the guns went off again. I saw one blink red, overheated.

We waited quietly until a flare of light appeared.

“Contact!” Yamada said excitedly.

I got up and moved to her sensor array display. The data presented there was complex. Her job was to sort through it with the help of an AI system and present her analysis to the rest of us.

“I think we got one, sir. The hit registered catastrophic venting. But it vanished immediately after we struck the vessel.”

“Are you sure it was a fatal blow?”

“That’s my interpretation of the data.”

Nodding, I moved to Durris, who was groping at his nav table.

“Durris, I need a course to follow that wounded pirate. There’s blood in the water.”

“Already figured that,” he said. “The course has been sent to the helm.”

Rumbold took the course and applied it. We veered slightly, and raced after the wounded ship.

While the breach loomed closer, I had a few seconds to talk to Durris.

“You’re doing well, despite your injuries,” I told him. “But if we’re caught up in open combat, I’m going to have to relieve you. Your spine needs time to heal.”

“I understand, sir,” Durris said.

“How are the replacement vertebrae?” I asked.

“A little gritty when I turn my head. I think they’re just printed copies of the originals, after all.”

I narrowed my eyes, cringing sympathetically. I knew he was in pain.

“Here, why don’t you retire to your bunk? I can take it from this point.”

He slewed his eyes around to look at me without moving his neck more than a fraction. He gave me a tiny, wincing headshake. “Please don’t relieve me yet, sir. I need to witness more of our revenge on these Stroj devils.”

“When Ensign Gelb worked with you,” I said, “did you ever suspect what she really was?”

“No sir, she had me completely sucked in.”

“I see,” I said, nodding. I thought it might have been a poor choice of words on his part, but I didn’t comment.

“She kicked your legs out from under you right here,” I said, tapping on his nav table. “At this very workstation. Such cunning and ruthless behavior.”

“The Stroj are nothing if not cunning and ruthless.”

“What did you think? When she kicked you?”

“We were in combat, so I thought she’d slipped, and I believed it was an accident. It seemed plausible at the time.”

“All right, carry on. We’ll be reaching the breach point soon.”

Returning to my seat, I noticed Zye lingering nearby, listening and watching.

“Yes, Lieutenant…?”

“I watched you closely. During that entire interchange, despite the fact that Durris is your friend and injured, you never saw fit to make physical contact.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“In such a situation, even two Betas might have touched one another comfortingly.”

“Zye, I know I shouldn’t have put my hands on Ensign Gelb. We’ve already been over this.”

She nodded. “I just wanted to make sure the lesson had been understood.”

I frowned at her back as she returned to her chair, then I shook my head and chuckled. Zye was very predictable in her own odd way.

-37-

When we passed through the barrier at the far end of the unstable bridge, it felt different somehow. The instant we’d made the transition, I learned why.

“Sir, we’re in the middle of an artificial structure!” Yamada shouted. “Sensors are showing a metallic web-work around us of gigantic proportions.

“Helm, prepare for evasive actions,” I said. “Get the shields open and show us where we are, Yamada.”

The visual screens activated, and we could see the web-work, as she’d described it, surrounding us.

“I see a conical exit point, head that way, Rumbold.”

He’d been braking heavily to prevent a collision, but now he slewed the ship around, and we did a power-arc toward the only visible open space.

That’s when the guns began to fire. Tracking the incoming beams and hurled pellets back to their source points, the battle-computer showed graphically that we were under attack from the wiry structure itself.

Hundreds of beams lashed the hull. The projectiles were slower, and they progressed steadily on every screen toward our position.

“Shields up on all sides. Hit the gas, Rumbold.”

To his credit, my helmsman had improved dramatically in his skills during the voyage. He served on the bridge regularly now, unless we were in a particularly dull stretch of space. Under such conditions I ordered him to go off-duty and rest.

The shields were up and fully energized just in time for a storm of pellet fire to land on them.

“Analyze this incoming flak,” I told Yamada.

“It’s depleted uranium slugs, sir. Each one about a centimeter in diameter. Not all that dangerous unless it’s encountered while moving fast, unshielded.”

The pellets disintegrated against our shields for the most part. Those that managed to overwhelm the shields and penetrate to the hull made thousands of pockmarks. The sound was like that of hearing gravel dropped onto the roof of a house.

“Damage report?” I shouted over the din.

“The fire is heavy, but uncoordinated. We’re getting some hull erosion, but it’s not critical yet.”

“Hull stats.”

“Seventy percent integrity. Forward shield at fifty percent, flanks just over forty.”

I found her numbers alarming, but I took them in stride.

“Any sign of the pirate vessels? They obviously set us up by leading us here.”

“Sir… I’ve lost them. The beams and pellets—there’s too much interference to sort out a trace of the enemy engines.”

Suddenly, Lorn’s plan was crystal-clear to me. He’d led me here, while stealthed, knowing this ambush would occur. Perhaps the entire point hadn’t been to destroy my ship, but rather to provide him the cover he needed to escape.

We powered our way out of the web-work of struts and automated guns into open space. This system seemed monumentally hostile already, and I hadn’t even laid eyes on the stars and planets yet.

We were in a binary star system, with two central suns. The primary was a white, F-class star that had a smaller red companion. There were planets, but they were pretty far away from us. Over ten AU distant.

“Once we’re clear of that flak, drop the forward and flank shields. Crank the sensors up to maximal sensitivity. We need to pick up their trail again.”

The crew carried out my orders efficiently. Within twenty minutes, we were listening for the enemy in relative silence.

After pinging away for a full ten minutes, I became frustrated.

“Nothing?” I demanded, hovering over Yamada’s station. “You’re telling me you’ve got nothing?”

She shook her head. “I don’t see any tritium trails, and no energy signatures anywhere close.”

“Could they have coasted out directly from the entry point,” I said, pacing behind Yamada’s chair.

Durris waved for my attention, and I rushed to his side.

“Have you got something?” I demanded, running my eyes over his nav table hungrily.

“Just an idea.”

I straightened in disappointment.

“Let’s hear it.”

“We should follow our best guess of where they went, looking for their trail. If we are lucky enough to get close, they’ll probably drop stealth and run in fear.”

My face twisted into a frown. “That’s it? A gambling man, eh?”

He gestured weakly toward his table. “I’ve been working with the battle-computer since we entered this star system. I’ve channeled all our known contacts with the enemy and our best guess concerning their course into the computer. Here’s what it’s showing us.”

He displayed a three-D image that included the web-work structure, the bridge entry point and even the central stars.

“See this lavender line? That’s our best guess concerning their course. They can’t change it much without leaving a trace behind. If they continue on this line, they’ll eventually be caught up in the gravitational influence of the larger of the two stars. We’ll end up somewhat near the inner, rocky planets we’ve discovered.”

I stared at his work, unable to hide my skepticism.

“What if they diverted their course while they were in that hailstorm of fire inside the structure?”

“Unlikely,” said Durris, tapping a finger on his table. “The exit point was small, and the automated guns might have sensed them and fired on them if they’d used their engines.”

“I don’t know… What do you think that structure was, anyway?”

He looked surprised. “Don’t you know, sir?”

“I said as much.”

“It’s an artificial bridge projector. They always were theoretically possible, but I think we’ve seen our first one in reality.”

His words stunned me. “I recall such a thing from the Academy,” I said, “but I didn’t know any of them existed.”

“They don’t—or at least, they didn’t until now. They were theory, but that structure we passed through matches the designs Earth engineers developed nearly two centuries ago down to the last detail. Which proves two things.”

“Please continue,” I prompted him.

Internally, I was still trying to absorb the idea that the bridge had been created artificially. That meant whatever beings controlled this system had advanced technology. Earth had never managed to do more than draw up blueprints of something like this.

“First,” Durris said with the air of one delivering a lecture, “this colony was founded by humans. No alien race would invent a system that looked identical to examples in our textbooks.”

“What’s the second item on your list, professor?”

Durris’ strained to look at me sideways, his ear touching his shoulder.

“Just that they’ve managed to create a link with a single open unit on one end of the bridge. That’s an amazing improvement to known designs.”

“Hmm, right…” I said. “Otherwise, we’d have seen a matching webwork of metal in the last star system. The idea is fantastic, you know. Such freedom and power… To build a bridge to go anywhere you want...”

“Exactly.”

I leaned against his nav table and studied his data closely. It all added up, as far as I could see. The implication was that the Stroj were even more technically advanced than we’d given them credit for.

We followed his plan to search for the missing pirates. After seven hours of looking and listening, I began to quietly despair.

I could see the same emotion reflected on the face of every crewmember present. They’d been hopeful at first, but none of them were fools. With each passing hour, our odds of finding our invisible friends was dropping.

After crunching numbers on my own, I decided to make a change.

“Let’s pull up,” I said. “Let’s begin decelerating, coasting—even braking.”

“But we haven’t caught up with them yet, sir,” Yamada said.

“Haven’t we?” I asked, turning on her. “How do we know that? It’s difficult to determine an enemy’s exact speed without direct sensory data. What if we’ve sailed right past them? What if we’re right on top of them now? They had several minutes to make adjustments before we broke through the barrier on their tails.”

Durris shook his head, then winced and stopped himself. He rubbed at his neck with closed eyes, in obvious pain.

“I don’t think so, sir. The automated weapons system would have turned on them instead of us if it knew they were there. They had to use stealth to get past the structure.”

“We don’t know that,” I said. “All engines, halt. Rumbold, begin gently braking. Go to full-active pinging.”

Like an ancient destroyer searching for a submarine, we slowed and began a thorough scan of our immediate environment.

My hunch quickly proved correct. One of the pirate ships was flushed out, convinced we’d spotted it somehow.

But, in typical Stroj fashion, it didn’t run. It attacked us at point-blank range.

Twin disrupters fired and we took a hit in the belly. Deck four was damaged, and reports of casualties and pressure leaks flowed in.

For once, my predatory mood was such that I hardly cared about the injury they’d inflicted.

“Lock on all banks,” I ordered. “Fire at will.”

The plasma cannons, along with our smaller secondary batteries, all fired at once. A lethal mixture of beams, particles, radiation and pellets struck the pirate, tearing her apart.

Her last salvos rocked our ship, flickering the lights and making everyone grab their armrests and railings for support. But the ship was blown apart.

“And now, crew,” I said, “there’s only one Stroj ship left.”