Event Horizon (Hellgate) (47 page)

He could have wished for time to find his wits, but no shipwide alert in his memory had ever waited on convenience, much less breakfast. In Westminster it would be around 9:00am on a warm, overcast, drizzly day when most people would be nursing spectacular hangovers. On the
Wastrel
it was the early hours of the morning, and Operations had just powered up as he and Marin stepped in.

Vaurien was in old white denims and a black silk shirt loose about a frame that had lately become spare to the point of thinness, his chest bare, brown, hard. He had clasped his hair and taken a mug of coffee, and was watching one of the big flatscreens. Tully Ingersol did not seem to have gone to bed yet; he was still wide awake and had been immersed in some project until Etienne called the alert. Jazinsky was absent, but Piotr
Cassals’s
voice was a whisper over the comm from the flightdeck. As Travers tried to get a grasp on the situation, Alexis Rusch and Ernst Rabelais appeared together. Like Ingersol, they had not yet retired.

A second amber bar turned to red in the status board, and while Rabelais went for coffee, Rusch yanked a chair up to a workstation opposite the navtank. “Richard, what goes on?”

“Deep scan reports ships coming in,” Vaurien told her. “It’s our own data from our own sensor network – we seeded a chain of drones on the way in. Civilian ATC won’t see any damned thing for another hour.”

“Have the ships identified?” Rabelais asked pointedly.

“No, and we haven’t asked.” Vaurien frowned over the tracking data. “In any case, it’s not our place to hail them – we’re just observers here. But I can tell you this: whatever they are, they’re unscheduled, they’re big, and they’re moving in convoy.”

“A clipper flight, maybe, or a bulk cargo fleet,” Travers mused. “Civvy? Freespacers?”

“No way to tell yet.” Vaurien took a long swig of coffee. “It’s fifteen big, fat marks, coming in on the central shipping road … one’s as big as an ore-hauler. You have to know what it looks like.”

“Oh, Christ.” Rusch rubbed her eyes. “Already? It’s too soon.”

“Not if the Jagreth Secret Service was just one iota less efficient than they think they were,” Vaurien said darkly. “They missed a Confederate agent, didn’t they? A ship got out. A small one, perhaps, small enough to slither out of the system sometime early yesterday with intelligence. The handover took place almost a full day before the official Proclamation, which brings the battle group to their doorstep.”

“Well, shit,” Rabelais whispered. “I guess it’s time. I thought we had the chance to…”

“To do what?” Rusch demanded. “There’s nothing left to do, Ernst. Today, tomorrow, what’s it matter?”

“Showtime. Etienne, get me the
Mako
.” Vaurien held out his empty mug. “Neil, would you, please? With honey and a shot of cream.”

“Sure. Anyone else?” Travers offered.

“I’ll take one. Thanks.” Marin leaned on the back of Rusch’s chair, frowning over the data. “One behemoth of a track, fourteen assorted smaller marks. The usual assemblage of cruisers and frigates, is it?”

“Plus a full-size Fleet tender, and the last mark is more than likely a hospital ship.” Rusch looked up and back at Vaurien. “And here they come – just like Velcastra.”

Enough like Velcastra for Travers’s belly to crawl. He handed the mugs to Curtis and Richard as they waited for the
Mako
to respond. Etienne had raised the AI at once, but van Donne’s people had clearly left the ship on automatics, and when a human voice answered at last, it was Ramon.

“Hey, Richard,
que
pasa
?”

“Sending you data,” Vaurien said tersely. “Drag the boss out of bed, Ramon. You better get tucked in behind
Nysos
, and do it quick.”

The data was coming up on the
Mako
’s screens now, and Ramon swore lividly. “
Santo
mierda
.” And then, bellowing: “Sergei! Sergei,
venir
aquí
,
rápido
!
”

They heard van Donne’s voice, gruff, muffled with distance between him and the audio pickup: “
Fuckit
, Ramon, this better be good.”

“We’re on, man. It’s
now
,” Ramon barked. “
Están
aquí
.”

“They bloody can’t be,” van Donne shouted.

“They bloody
can
be,” Ramon said just as loudly, “and we’re visible – we’re out in open goddamn’ space.”

A pause while van Donne digested the data, and his voice was a bass growl. “Shit, Vaurien, where’d the bastards come from? This fast?”

“Security leak. Had to be.” Vaurien sent the system plot over from the flatscreen to the navtank. “You might want to get out of sight.”

And van Donne: “You don’t say. Doing it now. Engines online … Ramon, get your butt back there and drag Rafe outta the sack.”

“Doing
that
,” Ramon snarled. “Rafe! Move it!”

A third amber bar turned red. It was Ingersol’s cue, and he was on his feet. “Okay, I see it. I’m going. Give me half a minute to call a tech gang to the engine deck, and then – you want us the hell out of here, Richard?”

But Vaurien shook his head. “We’re safe enough where we are, and I want to see this. Piotr?”

From the flightdeck, the tug pilot responded at once. “Right here. Yuval’s on his way up.”

“Plot a Weimann solution for Alshie’nya and stand by.” Vaurien glanced away from the tank at Ingersol, who had stopped between the open armordoors. “Tully, bring the Weimanns on standby.”

Travers shared a dark look with Marin. “You want me to take tactical?”

“Oh, no.” Vaurien was emphatic. “We’re not fighting here. The
weapon
will defend Jagreth. If for any reason it doesn’t, all we can do – one ship against the whole battle group, carrier and all – is get the guts blasted out of the
Wastrel
, and the lot of us detained pending summary execution. We can’t go there. We have a date with Lai’a, remember.” He glanced at Travers and Marin over the rim of his cup. “You better call Harrison. He’s going to want to be here.”

As he spoke Jazinsky stepped in, and a pace behind her was Vidal. From the look on her face, she had already seen the data. Tight mouthed, Vidal joined Rusch. One hand on her shoulder, he skimmed the specifics swiftly, and swore. “Well, now. I guess rampaging paranoia’s no guarantee against missing one.”

“And one’s all it takes.” Marin leaned both palms on the side of the tank. “Etienne, how long before the intruders are in range of the mines?”

“Given unaltered speed and vector,” the AI said coolly, “in forty minutes the intruders will encounter Swarm 4.”

The
Mako
was a red icon hustling into the sensor blind of the moon, and there she went dark, engines, active scan, even her comm shutting down. The
Wastrel
was similarly tucked in. Only mild residual heat from the engines would give away her position, but would not identify her. Active sensors were powered down, though Etienne was receiving the constant datastream from the drones deployed on entry to the system.

In the navtank, the minefields were marked as discrete areas of dull mauve which would brighten to red as they came alive. Six fields – or swarms, as they were swiftly coming to be known, since they were little like inert minefields – guarded Jagreth, one for each charted shipping road into the inner worlds. The fields were loud with exclusion beacons warning civilian and commercial craft to stay away; and the eyes and ears of the swarms were comm drones – semi-intelligent in their own right, quite smart enough to recognize the profile and IFF of Fleet warships.

“So a Confederate ship made it out.” Jazinsky yawned as she joined Vaurien at the tank. “The
London
showed up early, what’s it matter?” She slid an arm around his waist. “They get here today, tomorrow – it’s all the same. I could have wished they’d saved it for morning. That was the first sound sleep I’ve had in a week.”

Heavy, stomping footsteps from the passage stretching back to the labs announced Hubler, and Rodman was not far behind, still dragging both hands through the pillow-tousle of her hair. The loop was as busy as if the tug were on assignment. Marin was talking to Judith Fargo – where were the elements of Bravo who had shipped with Shapiro? Bill Grant wanted to know if the Infirmary should be cranked up; Vaurien told him no. Yuval Greenstein was with Cassals on the flightdeck by now, and though the drive remained cold, Ingersol was fine-tuning, tinkering.

“Thirty minutes,” Etienne said with the surreal smoothness of an AI. “IFF is recognized: DeepSky Fleet
London
.”

“What a surprise,” Travers said bitterly.

“Harrison.” Vaurien was on his feet as Shapiro and Kim walked up from the lifts. “You want to call President Prendergast?”

Shapiro did not look rested, as if he had been jerked awake after insufficient sleep, but as long as Marin had known him, his mind had never failed to drop into gear, no matter the time or situation. “Do I
want
to? Not particularly,” he admitted, and then asked shrewdly, “how long till Jagreth’s own deep scan network sees the intruders?”

“Guessing …” Vaurien stroked his chin. “Forty or fifty more minutes before civilian systems get hold of this. And you’re about to ask, how long till the battle group runs face-first into the mines? Under thirty minutes unless they cut speed and change course. Etienne?”

“No change of speed or vector,” the AI told him. “Minefield 4 is coming online.”

Master control drones in the swarm had recognized the super-carrier’s IFF and the whole field was activating. Travers felt a peculiar shiver. In the tank, the mauve cloud marking its position shifted to a subtle red, brightened, and he could have sworn it was moving.
Swarming
. Each mine was only the size of a melon, and its temperature was ambient with the profound cold of deep space. The scan platform of a science ship, specifically configured, would be able to see them, but warship sensors were calibrated to pick out objects the size of ships, or at the very least missiles. They ignored the flotsam and jetsam of discarded hardware which soon cluttered any system.

Discreet, cautious, Shapiro slipped a combug into his ear and withdrew to a workstation well away from the tank. “Etienne, call Chesterfield Control. Get me President Prendergast. The code is
jour de
l'indépendance
.”

“You want the government to evacuate?” Rusch asked quietly as they waited for Prendergast.

But Shapiro’s head was shaking. “This is merely a courtesy call. The man has a right to know the battle for this system is happening … the planet doesn’t need to know one damn’ thing till it’s over. Remember Velcastra?”

As if Travers would ever forget. He and Marin had no active role to play here. They drew aside with Vidal and Rabelais, Hubler and Rodman, and moments later Jo Queneau appeared. Like Jazinsky she had already seen the data, and she cut a direct line for the autochef, and coffee.

She had a bleak look for Rabelais. “Damnit, Ernst, you should have bloody woken me.”

“You were sound asleep, kiddo,” he argued. “You think I was about to wake you to watch a lot of poor conscript bastards get snuffed? It’s not a spectator event.” He nodded at the tank. “Jesus, look at the mines … they’re swarming. Like hornets. Surreal. Like they’re
alive
.”

“In a limited sense, you could say they are,” Jazinsky mused, watching the same display. “They can’t make copies of themselves, and they don’t need to forage for food, but they have the awareness of a cockroach and a keen sense of their purpose. They might not scavenge or hunt prey, but you could say they forage for gravity fields, and they’re sensitive to incredibly minute ones. They can easily surf on the micro-gravities created by a mass the size of an ore-hauler. Or a super-carrier.”

“They sleep, listen – wake,” Rabelais said grimly. “They know the IFF of Fleet ships … they swarm, sniff out gravity fields, and implode. Like warrior ants defending the nest.”