Faith (4 page)

It was as though someone had made a deliberate gesture, and Copeland knew who: not where, why, or how, but definitely who.

“Signals, I want that answer.”

“I’ve just got it, Captain. Anubis 4 have rechecked their satellites around the moon and the planet. They say there’s nothing out there, anywhere in the outer system. Except us and the convoy.”

“Scanners.”

“Nothing in the inner system either, Captain. Not even anything of ours. All traffic ceased when we lifted off, as you ordered.”

“And the convoy?”

“Nothing new to report, Captain. Our monitoring shows nothing to suggest that the breakup was caused by any external signal.”

“Alright. Maintain battle stations. Pilot, reset previous course and speed, and go back to our previous distance behind the convoy.”

He settled back lopsidedly into his chair. As it creaked, he added “And Weapons, destroy those three freighters.”

•

Coming to the end, Copeland thought. Or nearly the end. Always most vulnerable when it seems we might have made it.

“Well?”

“It seems we might have made it, Captain. Scanners still show no other vessels.”

“Alright. Get me Khan’s.”

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
,” piped the chair-side screen.

“Yes?”

“The convoy is ready to go into landing formation, Captain.”

The forward screen showed the manned leader and twenty-eight surviving freighters strung out in a loose, miles-long line ahead. Beyond them, a similar shade of grey, was the naked single moon of Anubis 4 on which Khan’s gleamed like a dropped coin. Beyond that, and dwarfing everything else, was the planet itself, with a roiling opalescent cloud-cover of plum and ochre. Like most gas giants, its atmosphere made it look out of focus.

“Captain, the convoy is ready to go into landing formation.”

Copeland’s chair creaked; it, too, had felt the strain of the last few hours.

“Thanks. I’ll say when.”

“I have Khan’s, Captain. It’s Ms. Khan herself.”

“
Doctor
Khan.”

“Apologies, Captain. Putting her through now.”

“Doctor Khan, this is Copeland.”

“Captain Copeland, you’re very welcome….”

There was a burst of static. Copeland was immediately wary, but said nothing.

“I said you’re very welcome. I hear your journey was not completely uneventful.”

“Yes, we lost three and it may not be over yet….Doctor, excuse any discourtesy, but I’d like to get the rest of the convoy landed and then we can talk. Agreed?”

“Of course. I’ll instruct my staff to make arrangements direct with the convoy leader. We’ll meet later, I hope.”

“Yes, I’ll look forward to it.”

Copeland shut the channel, and looked round at the unmoving silhouettes of his Bridge officers.

“I don’t have to remind you,” he reminded them, “that we’re not finished yet. Something caused those malfunctions. I believe it was Her. We’re still at battle stations. If She moves, it’ll be now.”

There was another wave of static.

“Signals, what
is
that?”

“Just more electrical discharges from the planet, Captain.”

“As strong as that?”

“….Yes, Captain.”

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
. Convoy leader to
Wulf
.”

Copeland realised the chair arm screen had come to life without his having noticed; he had been preoccupied.

“Yes
, what is it?”

“I now have landing clearance from Doctor Khan’s staff. I need your permission to group the convoy and start landing procedures.”

“Go ahead. We’ll remain on standby until the last one is down.”

“I have your permission to go ahead?”

“I just told you.”

Another wave of static.

“So I have your permission to go ahead.”

Muttering, Copeland closed the comm link. Reminding himself not to relax for an instant, he relaxed for an instant and watched the forward screen. Slowly and solemnly, as solemnly as only mindless things could manage, the twenty-eight assemblies of spheres and girders were jerking and shuffling into a tight line ahead, the manned lead freighter marshalling and fussing them. A few minutes passed, punctuated by occasional bursts of static and an icily polite argument between the convoy leader and the Landing staff at Khan’s over the length of intervals between the freighters’ individual landings. This was something Copeland expected; it had happened with each of the previous convoys. The freighters were so large that ground around each one needed to be cleared before the next could be allowed down, since once they landed they would never fly again. Copeland, lulled by the detail of the argument, almost hotsoaking in it, started thinking things like
Khan sounds OK, I’ve never met her, I’ll enjoy meeting her
, so that the slowly gathering emergency did not immediately register.

It did not register when the convoy leader took seven minutes to get the freighters into landing formation, an operation which should have taken less than five. It did not register when the communications interference mounted gradually from being an exception to becoming the rule. It registered only when, for the third time, the freighters’ remote guidance systems malfunctioned.

And this time, it was all of them. The entire formation broke, and freighters cartwheeled solemnly across the screen as if from the centre of an unseen explosion.

“Captain,” Signals said, “we have a ….”

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
! Convoy leader to
Wulf
!”

“…a strong override signal. Those freighters are being jammed. It’s coming from…”

“Khan to Copeland. Captain, we have an emergency.”

“Coming from where? The planet?”

“No, Captain, from the
moon.
Planetside.”

Copeland swore and hit the alarms.

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
. Convoy leader to
Wulf
.”

“Somebody, shut him up… Weapons, stand by. Scanners, pinpoint that signal. Pilot and Engineering, ready for immediate move.”

“Khan to Copeland. Captain, we have an emergency.”

“Doctor, it’s
Her.
You bet it’s an emergency. This is the biggest emergency you’ve ever had.”

“But how? Where?”

“Just over your horizon. How, I don’t know. That comes later. Your people missed Her, and so did we until now.”

“Captain, handle this any way you like, but I need those freighters.”

“Been there all this time… Her shroud is perfect when She’s not moving...No drive emissions,” Copeland muttered, half to himself. “Scanners, I want that signal pinpointed! Weapons, Pilot, Engineering, I want immediate…”

“Captain,” someone on the Bridge shouted, “
look at the screen
.”

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
. Convoy leader to
Wulf
.”

The end of the emergency had registered as slowly as its beginning, but now it was over. The twenty-eight freighters were regrouping into classic landing formation; if anything, more smoothly and tidily than before.

Copeland subsided. His chair creaked.

“Convoy leader to
Wulf
.”

“Copeland speaking. Why didn’t you call?”

“Captain…”

“Never mind. Just tell me, what
was
that? And if you say a malfunction in the….”

“
Cap
tain,” the convoy leader snapped, “whoever is preparing this convoy to land,
it isn’t me.
”

On the screen they were continuing to regroup, briskly and very precisely.

Copeland’s control came close to leaving him.
You asked how She was going to do it,
he told himself,
and now She’s shown you.
He was already seeing three moves ahead. Expressions of horror at what was about to happen were passing across his face like cloud-shadows across Anubis 4.

“Scanners, Captain. The override signal is unstoppable. Source is 02-05-03.”

“So. She’s closer than I thought.”

“Just below the horizon. Do we engage Her now?”

“Of course not! Don’t you understand yet? Copeland to Khan. Copeland to Khan.”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Doctor Khan, did you hear that last call from the convoy leader?”

“I did. It seems we’re getting our freighters after all.”

I’d really enjoy meeting her, Copeland thought. I wish there was more time.

The screen showed a very precise line ahead landing formation emerging; Copeland caught himself admiring its tidiness.

“Doctor, I need to know, very quickly, what defences you can deploy down there.”

“Captain, what you need to know is that we have nothing Down Here capable of stopping twenty-eight freighters from crashlanding on us.”

“Then you must….”

“No, Captain, there’s no time to evacuate, and nowhere to go.”

Freighter One was peeling off to commence descent. Freighter Two was moving forward to follow it. The rest held their formation tidily. One at a time, thought Copeland incredulously, She’s even going to observe that last detail and crashland them one at a time.

“It seems we’ve run out of choices, Doctor.”

“It seems we never had any, Captain. Go ahead. Do what She wants.”

“Copeland to convoy leader. Abandon the convoy. Take your ship out of the area. You have ten seconds.” Ten seconds during which Copeland reflected on his own slowness, the inadequacy of his scanners, and how he’d had the instinct to know She would come here, but not the imagination, or the strangeness, to guess
how
She would make Herself known.

“Convoy leader, confirm you’re now clear.”

“Confirmed, but….”

Copeland cut the channel. He took a deep breath.

“Weapons, destroy the freighters. One at a time, as each one peels off for landing.”

Freighter One had already commenced landing descent when the
Wulf
’s particle beam found it and reduced it to less than dust. The screen filtered out the momentary flare. Focus shifted. Freighter Two was peeling off downwards and again the particle beam stabbed out, again the screen filtered and refocused, and showed nothing; no wreckage, not even the afterimage of wreckage. Three moved forward and peeled off, and the beam stabbed out; flare, filter, refocus, nothing. Four moved forward and peeled off, and the beam stabbed out; flare, filter, refocus, nothing. It became a rhythm, the dispassionate rhythm of a culling.

Copeland had no language for what was happening. From the empty space on the screen where Three and Four had gone, and where Five and Six were going... his gaze wandered to a spot he couldn’t see, just below the horizon of Anubis 4’s single moon. He tried to imagine Her there, and tried in particular to imagine Her commander—for surely, whatever She was and wherever She came from, there would be something inside Her like a commander—who had done
this.

She could easily have attacked the convoy direct. She could easily have destroyed the
Wulf
—though he would never, never have said this in anyone’s hearing—and then destroyed the convoy. But
this
had such flavour, such symmetry: to get them to do it for Her, while She scrupulously observed the one-at-a-time landing protocols which they themselves had negotiated. He had no language for it.
Foord
, he thought,
if it’s true that they’re sending you to face Her at Horus, I hope you’re strange enough. I’m not.

Again the particle beam stabbed out. Again. Again. Seven, Eight, Nine. The freighters were unmanned, non-military and therefore defenseless, which somehow made it worse. The filtered wreckage-less frame on the screen, the dark area where the beam waited for them and where they entered passively, was like the curtain across an abattoir door.

Ten. Eleven. And then a roaring swamped the Bridge and something rose over the horizon of the moon.

It was a patch of empty space. Just like the empty space around it, but something was wrong. This was like a patch of empty space from another day, or seen from another angle. It was different; and it moved.

Copeland screamed as the forward screen erupted with light and a deep violet afterimage settled across his eyes like a piece of hot iron. When his sight returned, the screen was still shuffling filters and the
Wulf
was left bobbing in the wake of whatever had passed. The screen cleared, voices returned to the comm channels, and normality crept back, injured, to the Bridge. The disruption had been total but lasted no longer than a heartbeat. The Weapons Officer was first to recover and, without speaking, resumed firing on the freighters. Twelve. Thirteen. The screen filtered the glare of the explosions almost gratefully. After what had just passed, that was easy.

“Khan to Copeland.”

“Engineering! I want damage reports. Scanners! I want…”

“Khan to Copeland.”

“A moment, please, Doctor. Scanners! I want…”

“Yes, Captain, I have it. Unidentified ship, dimensions equivalent to a large cruiser; shrouded, but we can track Her drive emissions. Emerging from planetside of the moon and travelling on ion drive, about seventy percent.”

Fourteen. Fifteen.

“Travelling
into
the system.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Towards Anubis 3.”

“Yes, Captain. And She’s still putting out that override signal.”

Copeland’s head cleared like the screen, totally but perhaps too late. Suddenly the decision was easy.

“Captain, we have damage reports.”

“No time. Pilot, Engineering, I want immediate pursuit on ion drive at eighty percent.” He hit the alarms. “Signals, tell Anubis 3 what’s happened, and tell them what’s coming. Weapons, stop destruction of the freighters
now.
Copeland to Khan.”

“Captain, those freighters will crashland!”

“I said
now.
Copeland to Khan. Doctor, did you hear that?”

“Captain, Anubis 3 has defences. I don’t. There are two thousand people down here.”

“Doctor, I wish we were down there with you, it’s the safest place to be. If –” Copeland gasped as his impact harness whipped round him. All the seats sprouted impact harnesses; it looked like the ship was attacking its own crew. The alarms increased a semitone, and red Final Warnings flashed from screens and displays. On the forward screen, Sixteen was halfway through landing descent, Seventeen was following and Eighteen had shuffled into position behind it. “If you don’t see what She’s done, I can’t explain. No time.”