Fracture Lines (The Glass Complex Book 2) (16 page)

“I agree,” Thress confirmed. “We’ll be at that intercept point in thirty hours or so at our current speed.”

“What if we changed course to meet up with the freighter as it reaches Eos?” asked one of the team members.

“The Xesset would sweep search between this intercept point and the Eo system, and they’d soon find us,” replied the Weapons lead.

“We have alternatives,” Thress said. “If we increase our speed, it changes our transit profile. The Xesset will expect us to travel at our normal cruising speed. Our drives are running at sixty percent. What if we moved it up to ninety? For twenty-four hours?”

Commander Gillespie said, “If we climb above our intended path here, arrive earlier, and take up station above the intercept point, we’ll alter the Xesset ambush scenario. This asteroid belt has the potential to provide lots of opportunities for us to hide and wait?”

Thress did some quick calculations. “We would arrive there in a few minutes over twenty-four hours.”

“
Wasp
‘s capable of running at ninety percent, and we’ve plenty of power reserves. It’s practical,” confirmed Gillespie.

“The Xesset are unlikely to reach there in less than thirty hours, so we’d be settled in a good six hours before they arrive,” Steg said. “I like it.”

“We’ll use our stealth shields—they won’t see us. Let’s do it.” Commander Gillespie issued instructions, confirming the new course and speed. A
frisson
of excitement stirred the bridge watch—at last they were taking the initiative, not merely reacting to events.

Steg returned to the war room to update Dean and Kirby. “Our plan is to try to ambush the Xesset,” Steg said. He did not provide a detailed briefing in case the word spread through the mercenary companies and was passed to the ex-officers. If Attwood or another of Monty’s friends still had access to a communications unit, there was a danger the Xesset would be informed of their adjusted strategy. “
Wasp
has excellent stealth capabilities, and we’ve an approximate location where the Xesset are likely to attack. We’ll try to strike before they do.”

“I agree, our stealth shields are good,” Dean said. “
Wasp
’s able to hide from even Imperial destroyers. Hopefully, the Xesset scanners won’t be any more effective than Imperial.”

“What if Monty has provided the Xesset with our stealth shield frequency pattern—would they be able to find us?” Steg asked.

Kirby and Dean each had horrified expressions.

“You’re damned frightening, you know,” Sergeant Kirby complained. “I’ll worry about this for days.”

“Well, for a couple of days, anyway,” Dean said.

Steg smiled and half-saluted on his exit from the war room. He wanted to spend time in quiet deliberation and headed to his cabin. His two guards hurried to match his pace.

The First Senior Acolyte paused in his contemplation of data flows presented by the Glass Complex. The huge computer, embedded deep under the foundations of Castlehome, continued its intake of data from numerous systems across Imperial, Alliance and Rim regions. Fifty or so Acolytes attended its processing and it regularly presented its analytic views to them and to the Senior Acolytes. However, the First Senior did not always agree with its analyses nor with its recommendations.

“Yes, Helen?”

‘First, I have a report for you—the Ebony Project.”

“Come in, take a seat. You, too, Tobias. Don’t stand out there, I won’t bite. Close the door.” The First Senior’s office was shaped like a small conference room, with viewscreens along each of three walls. His desk was tiny, and the room had few furnishings. The two Acolytes entered and took a seat at the conference table and the First Senior joined them. One of the larger screens glowed into life; the Glass Complex was connected and monitoring the discussion.

“So what do you know?” asked the Senior.

“Sir, it has taken a while. The Complex refuses to acknowledge it experienced a programming error. We’ve identified the decision point and I’m inclined to agree, although Tobias does not. In any event, the Complex transferred Steg de Coeur to what it assessed as the optimal destination for treatment of his blaster injury. It totally ignored the time dimension.”

“That’s what I claim is a program error,” interjected Tobias. He and Helen, both senior and experienced Acolytes, had worked together on the Ebony Project for the last year or so, ever since the attempted military takeover planned by Lady Gaetja. That woman, realizing her scheme had totally failed, had taken her revenge by ambushing de Coeur. Fortunately her blaster shot had not killed him, although the injury he suffered had been extremely serious.

“Let’s get to the important part of your report,” urged the First Senior. “We can discuss time parameters all day and still be at an impasse. You need to consider how the Complex regards time and space—its structure covers both. But I digress. Your report?”

“Yes, sir,” said Helen. “Steg de Coeur has recovered most of his memories. His system communication abilities also have returned. We—well, the Complex—recorded his use of those abilities and backtracked him to a small starship. The Complex confirmed his time location and we now know it had sent de Coeur back to an Imperial hospital starship in 1650 PD. The portion of the system managing the Ebony Project had previously refused to disclose the time dimension of his possible location; we think it was trying to hide its reach into the past.”

The First Senior ignored the details about the Complex’s time-reach ability. It was not new knowledge for him. “He’s safe?”

“As far as we can determine. He’s been separated from the Ebony sword, so we don’t have detailed information.”

“Separated? How did that happen?”

Tobias replied, “According to the Glass Complex, at first the sword was too damaged to communicate its report. It initiated a self-repair routine, aided by the Complex; however, it was badly damaged from that blaster attack. Then de Coeur ran into some difficulties, we have a separate report on those, and gave Ebony to a doctor on the hospital ship for safekeeping. She—that is, Dr. Yi—has an excellent record for treating head injuries. The difficulties de Coeur encountered were almost fatal. He was sentenced to death by an ImpSec tribunal while he was still regaining his memories. We almost lost him.”

“I’ll be interested to hear that report. What is he doing, now?”

Tobias and Helen exchanged glances. Helen said, “We don’t know, yet. The starship he’s on is part of some kind of mercenary outfit. He’ll be at risk until we get him off the ship.”

“What about Ebony? Can we recover the sword?” the First Senior asked.

“We’re going to try,” Helen replied. “We believe we can use the Glass Complex time-reach ability to set up a recovery plan. Dr. Yi has retired; she’s now located on an outlying Imperial planet called Freedom. We’ve run some scenarios, and if we use Ebony to influence her, we can arrange for her to surrender the sword. There’s one of Homeworld’s banking subsidiaries on the planet and we could have it act on our behalf. Once Ebony’s under our control, we can use a number of techniques to either get it back to de Coeur, or return it to us, here and now.”

“Very well. Now, I want you to be careful. No one—and I mean no one—is to be informed about the time aspects of the functionality of the Glass Complex. Not even the Second Senior.” The First Senior Acolyte diverted his attention to the Glass Complex and its data flows. After a minute or so, he returned his attention to the two Acolytes and said, “The Ebony Project is now sealed and details cannot be released outside this office. I have established a mandatory prohibition, understand?”

The two Acolytes nodded their understanding. Helen said, “We had reached that conclusion, Senior.”

Breach of a mandatory prohibition imposed by the First Senior Acolyte would be regarded as treason by Homeworld’s legal system and would attract extreme penalties. Details of the rules that governed the Glass Complex, and the penalties for their breach, were included in Acolyte training.

The First Senior said, “Good. Continue the project. Provide me with a report on the ImpSec difficulties. Implement a recovery program for Ebony. As soon as you have more updates regarding de Coeur, contact me immediately. The Glass Complex indicates his survival is critical for Homeworld, although I have no idea how he will be retrieved from 1650 PD.”

Steg made himself comfortable on his bunk. He had almost complete memories of all of his past, including details of Homeworld, Castlehome, the planet’s capital, the Acolytes, and of the computer complex—the Glass Complex—located beneath the huge castle. He missed his sword, Ebony. Somehow the weapon aided the abilities that allowed him to take control of starships and to communicate with and influence major systems complexes. He’d listened to the songs of the stars; now, he wanted to explore his reach and strength, to confirm his ability to detect distant electronic signals and messages.

He closed his eyes. He relaxed his mind and let it settle into a calm stillness. He drifted away from
Wasp
until it became a speck in the reaches of space. He sensed starship traffic in far off shipping lanes; there were freighters, liners, and military vessels, all light years away. His attention was caught by a distant planet, which almost overloaded his senses with its undisciplined outpourings. He could spend hours roaming from signal to signal. Mindful of the urgency of his task, he moved his focus back towards
Wasp
and began to search space in its vicinity. Steg worked outwards from the starship, gradually expanding his scope towards the expected location of the freighter with its Xesset escort. Time passed, unmeasured. At last he found the freighter, on course for its expected destination. He waited, watching, his senses tuned to detect communications between the freighter and a Xesset ship. At last a short burst of green and red symbols caught his attention—the freighter was in contact with its alien escort, exchanging messages. The contents were unintelligible; he assumed they were in Xesset language-based codes. He tracked the communications and found the escorting starship; it was within a parsec of the freighter, close enough to protect it if someone attacked the starship with its load of weapons and far enough away to be overlooked by anyone checking on the freighter.

He had discovered one Xesset vessel escorting the freighter. He needed more; according to Monty, the Xesset had a total of three starships on their way to Eos. Steg waited, monitoring the two starships for new transmissions. At last his attention was caught by a short burst of electronic data from the escort. It was another directed signal, and he tracked it to its destination. He had found the remaining Xesset starships, and they were heading away from the freighter. He had enough data. He fed the location and heading details of all the starships into
Wasp’s
computer system. He would update the details later; in the meantime the computer would churn the numbers to confirm two of the starships were on a heading to reach the likely attack point. If not, he would re-address his assumptions. Exhausted, he slept.

Steg’s dreams of Castlehome were shattered by the piercing shrill of
Wasp’s
emergency alarm. The howling sound removed all thoughts of sleep, and he jumped out of bed, wide-awake. The noise was joined by a pounding on his cabin door. He looked out—one of his armored guards was at the door.

“Sir, the alien has broken out of his tank. Captain Dean—”

“Tell him I’ll join him in the war room.” Steg had slept in his clothes. He tugged on his boots and left his cabin at a run, followed by his two guards.

The violent, almost ear-shattering sound of the alarm was easing off as Steg arrived. Kirby was closest to the door when Steg entered the war room. “Well, Kirby, what’s happening?”

“Sir, Monty’s exited through a lock into level 5, above his interview room. We have him on camera. He’s about to encounter teams from Dean’s company. They’re good, experienced.”

“Show me.”

The small operational team moved back to allow Steg to view both the camera shots and the multi-dimensional hologram of the starship showing where Monty had exited his tank. There were four red symbols displayed on the hologram, tagged as intruders.

“It’s Monty and three of his wives. They’re wearing strange armor. We’ve got them on screen,” Dean said as he joined Steg. “We tagged them—see the red stars? All armor HUDs will show them as enemies, no second guessing required.”

“Everyone, including us, should be wearing exo-armor,” Steg said. “In case Monty and his wives manage to break through a section.”

“It’s only you and me without armor. Your company and the marines from Delta and Charlie are armored. Crew and ship’s officers are all behind reinforced barricades; it’s a standard process. The bridge and command decks are well protected. I’m not sure about Attwood and his cronies—they could be anywhere. We cut off their access to exo-armor.” Dean sounded as though he also didn’t care.

Steg examined the image on the viewscreen. He said, “Monty should be near the first line of booby-traps?”

“Any moment now. The teams are waiting for the traps to trigger before they react. Our mines are all anti-personnel stuff—we’ll end up with scarred paintwork, I suppose. We’ll start with armor-piercing flechettes and switch to more powerful anti-armor explosive shells, if necessary. The only thing—the way he’s headed, I’m not sure Monty’ll take our bait and retreat towards the shuttle bays. I think he wants the primary command deck.”

“We can stop him?”

“Yeah,” Kirby said.

Steg worried his confidence might be misplaced.

The sergeant said, “Watch on the screen—they’re about to hit the detector beams. I’ll also relay comms from the teams.”

Everyone in the war room halted their other activities to watch the action unfolding on the screen. Monty, covered in a flexible armor, was using two pairs of his tentacles for walking; the result was a cumbersome, stiff-legged gait. He held a heavy weapon in each of the other two pairs of tentacles. His three wives, each only half Monty’s size, were following his lead, struggling with smaller weapons.