Desperate Measures Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Five

July 30, 2230, Solar System, Asteroid Belt, Approaching UTC Space Fleet Base Penglai

Erik nodded, satisfied as he looked forward in the cockpit. Jia was next to him.

Emma’s holographic wraparound camera feed displayed the approaching Fleet base as it grew larger in front of them, one of many hidden outposts of humanity among the sparse asteroid belt.

He had not expected trouble along the way, but the conspiracy had a way of surprising them. Underestimating an enemy, especially that enemy, was a good way to end up dead.

As a former soldier, Erik preferred to take on his enemies somewhere other than inside a ship. Losing atmosphere would be a problem.

They’d done well against Sophia Vand and managed through luck and pure effort to win against the Hunter vessel, but he had no illusions that the

Argo

and the

Bifröst

could win every battle.

If the enemy showed up with a small fleet, they’d be destroyed with ease, and from what Emma and Raphael had said, pulling off their nested hyperspace gate trick might kill them all the next time it was tried.

For now, he would deal with what was in front of him. His primary goal of getting the team balanced and cooperative was proceeding well.

After days together, Erik couldn’t claim Anne had warmed to either him or Jia, but the agent wasn’t being actively hostile anymore. She even participated in more games of darts. Her lingering distrust of them was obvious, but she didn’t give any indication she wouldn’t obey orders.

Jia smiled from her seat. “Emma, let the others know we’re on approach to Penglai.”

“Doing it now,” Emma replied.

“I keep thinking about this mission.” Jia looked at Erik. “You think we’ll find anything, or will this be a wild goose chase using the most advanced technology in the UTC?”

“I think Alina wouldn’t be sending us to another star system to chase our tails. The jump drive might help, but it’s not like we didn’t burn a week flying to this base. I know she shields us from a lot of the politics, but you also have to figure that the Defense Directorate brass sends down a lot of heat every time this ship moves.” Erik gestured at a nearby data window. “If things go badly and we screw up, it’s not just us dying.”

“We’re taking the team with us.” Jia looked over her shoulder, not that she could see them. “That’s a lot of people.”

Erik shook his head. “That’s bad, but I’m pretty sure the DD doesn’t care that much about a couple of agents, engineers, and a scientist. Raphael’s smart, but he wasn’t the only one working on the project.”

“What then?”

“The irreplaceable loss would be Emma. They can always make a new jump drive, but not a new her.”

“That’s true,” Emma commented. “I would rather avoid dying for my own reasons, not because a group of uniform boys would be vexed by it.”

Erik laughed. “Keep that spite going, and you’re going to last forever.”

Emma sniffed. “It’s a plan, and it’s enjoyable.”

The conversation fell into a natural lull for a minute as the ship continued to approach the base, Jia speaking only to the base’s flight controller. A pensive look grew on her face, and she finally spoke.

“All this talk about dying makes me think.” Jia stared at Penglai. “The conspiracy will always have the same problem the UTC does. That’s something we can take advantage of.”

“What problem is that?” Erik asked.

“The fundamental limitations of distance.” Jia gestured at the base. “After what happened with the Hunters, I was wondering if the conspiracy had found some sort of better communications tech that lets them get messages around instantly, but it’s obvious they

don’t

have that. There would have been smarter moves if they did.”

Erik thought for a moment. “There are all sorts of tactics they might use, but do you have something specific in mind?”

“Rather than take the ID and military head-on in the place they’re strongest, they should take them on in the place they’re weakest: the colonies, starting with the frontier colonies. The team we put together for the Provence raid would represent the bulk of military forces on some smaller colonies.”

Erik liked that she was thinking about the issue, but it was obvious she didn’t appreciate certain basic realities that came only with hard-won experience. Jia might find it condescending, but better to inform her now.

“Seeing a colony on the OmniNet isn’t the same thing as visiting it,” he explained. “Most of them are nothing more than a handful of glorified domes, not the stuff empires are built from. You’re talking about the garrison forces being small, but it’s not like you can raise a major insurgent army in a tiny colony. There’s not a single colony that could stand up to the Army and the Fleet when they show up to take care of the trouble.”

“You’re not thinking this through. You’re assuming the military can concentrate their forces.” Jia countered. “What would happen if every colony rose in revolt at the same time? I might not be a former soldier, but I have read enough about the UTC’s military strength to wonder, and given the distances involved in some situations, there could be trouble.” Jia glanced at a readout before continuing, “Yes, on the most extreme frontier colonies, there is decent strength because of concerns over aliens, but there are plenty of colonies that have minimal military resources and are far enough away from Earth that if they revolted in a coordinated manner, it’d cause trouble. If the closer military forces decided to intervene, they’d leave the UTC vulnerable to invasion.”

Erik’s smile vanished. The same question had come up more than once in his previous career. He’d never worried much about it. Most people living on the frontier were grateful to be part of the UTC, and people who had been transported for crimes were watched more closely than others.

Some people got it in their heads that they wanted more local control, but as Jia had highlighted, the reality was the farther from Earth a person lived, the closer to potentially hostile aliens they were. That might not be enough if someone was manipulating people from the shadows, however.

Most insurrectionists he’d dealt with were zealots motivated by questionable ideologies, who were more than willing to sacrifice innocents to get what they wanted. They had fortunately been rare overall.

Jia’s suggestions met some of the evidence, but that didn’t mean her guess was right.

“It’d be a big gamble to try something like that,” Erik replied. “And we know now the conspiracy might have their own forces, but they don’t have enough to accomplish anything serious. If they can’t get multiple colonies to revolt at once, the whole plan fails.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Why you so worried about this all of a sudden?”

“The conspiracy is striking away from Earth. I’ve been trying to think of reasons for that. Until now, everything’s been concentrated on or near Earth. There has to be a reason.”

Erik looked away, his jaw tightening. “They struck a long way from Earth already. They struck as far away from Earth as they could manage without leaving human space.”

Jia grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about what I was saying. I didn’t mean to dismiss Molino.”

He waved a hand. “It’s okay. But we’re both here now because the conspiracy reached out to kill people fifty light-years from Earth already.” Erik gestured at Penglai. “Without a jumpship or theoretical instant communications tech.” He shook his head. “Don’t let the mission spin you up. It might not be they are acting up more. It might be nothing more than Alina believing we’re ready to take them on farther from home. I’m not sure it matters.”

“Why wouldn’t it matter?”

“Because wherever it is, if we defeat them there, it weakens them. We just have to beat them on Chiron.”

Jia tapped her PNIU. An image of Chiron appeared, with its famous Striped Archipelago of red island land masses and blue oceans, with dots of orange representing plants and plankton-like creatures surrounding underwater geysers spouting nutrients out of hellish heat holes.

Humanity had left their Solar System and traveled to the world, hoping and praying it wouldn’t be the ravaged wasteland predicted by astronomers, and found far more water than expected and a decent atmosphere.

Domes had been necessary for the initial colonists, but now it was one of the crown jewels of the Core Worlds—a planet where millions of humans could wander freely without domes. It was a self-sustaining biosphere that could ensure the continuity of humanity even better than colonies like Mars.

“It’s almost like it was ready for us,” Jia murmured.

“Chiron?” Erik asked with a smile.

“Yes. Sometimes I wonder how much we were set up by the Navigators.” Jia frowned. “Or even the Hunters. A lot of what we thought we knew about the planet was wrong, and what are the odds that we’d end up with something we’d have an easier time turning habitable than planets in our Solar System?”

“Don’t know.” Erik shrugged. “But people have been there for almost a hundred years and not run into trouble. If it’s a long play by some ancient alien race, they haven’t sprung the trap yet.”

Jia’s hand flew over the controls. Chiron disappeared, and Penglai reappeared in front of them. A subtle shake of the ship signaled thrusters firing.

“Let’s make sure they go another hundred years without trouble,” she added.

Erik, Jia, Lanara, Anne, and Kant sat in a large conference room inside Penglai. They’d been greeted by Fleet personnel on arrival and led to the room after being informed Raphael would be joining them soon.

A chuckle escaped Erik’s lips. “No matter where the military goes, I swear the first thing they build is a conference room. Can’t have the military without meetings. The entire DD would fall apart.”

Kant snickered. “Hey, the ID isn’t much better. Sure, when you’re out in the field, you can avoid that shit, but if you get anywhere near the brass, you’re doing nothing but warming your butt.”

“Planning is important in operations,” Anne offered with a frown. “Meetings and briefings are part of that.”

Jia looked at Anne and Erik but didn’t say anything. Her partner knew what she was thinking. She wanted to agree with Anne but didn’t want to undermine him in front of her. He appreciated it.

Loud clapping interrupted Erik’s musings. Raphael stepped in, beaming a bright smile toward Erik and Jia. The man looked damned happy, considering what they were about to set out to do.

“Erik, Jia, welcome back to Penglai,” Raphael gushed. “You’ll need to tell me what you’ve been up to since last time. The Fleet guys here don’t tell me anything. Earth could blow up, and I’d be the last to know.”

“They took out a

yaoguai

factory,” volunteered Kant with a grin. “Did some other stuff too, but that was the big one.”

Raphael’s eyes widened, and he clasped his hands together. “Of course they did.” He nodded at Kant and Anne. “Welcome to the team. Nice to meet you.”

Kant gave him a mock salute. “I’m sure we’ll kick a lot of conspiracy ass together.”

“I’ll leave that to you and stick to the jump drive.”

Emma appeared in a chair. Her choice of blue and black Fleet uniform didn’t surprise Erik, nor did her admiralty rank insignia.

“Can we get to the point?” Anne asked. “You can drool over Blackwell and Lin on our way to Chiron.”

Lanara was at the end of the table, poking data windows. It was impossible to tell if she was listening and didn’t care or not paying attention. If they needed her attention, they could yell at her until she listened.

Raphael’s cheeks reddened, and he sat down slowly. “Ah, yes. You’re right, Agent Devereaux. We should get to it. Um, well, you see, I just wanted to go over how this is going to work. The multi-jumping, that is. That’s how we’re going to get to Alpha Centauri without flying for another three weeks.”

Kant let out a sheepish chuckle and rubbed the back of his thick neck. “Not to be a total wuss, but this isn’t going to kill us, is it? I’d be kind of embarrassed if I got vaporized in hyperspace. That’s not the way I thought I’d go out, you know?”

“Huh.” Raphael tilted his head. “I always figured that was exactly how I would die.” He waved a hand at the now-blinking Kant. “I can’t guarantee our safety at a hundred percent, but I’m confident enough that I’ll be on board.”

“Yeah, but you just said…” Kant looked at Erik pleadingly.

Erik inclined his head toward Raphael. “He’s a smart guy, and a lot of brilliant people worked on the drive. A lot of money and time went into it, and no one wants to waste it.” He nodded at Emma. “And we’ve got her. I’m sure they can figure it out together. They didn’t have much trouble getting us to the Hunter ship. I don’t think they’ll have much trouble getting us to Alpha Centauri.”

Raphael cleared his throat and jabbed his PNIU and then a data window that popped up. An image of an HTP appeared. It looked like a massive gray ring in space.

“I’ve been working on the calculations and calibrations as best I could without Emma,” Raphael began, “but the most straightforward version of this is that we’ll make a jump. The large distance will require recharge time since the best we can do right now is about a light-year between jumps. We hope to improve that in the future, but it’ll require more data, experiments, and refinement.” He gestured at the image. “The distances involved will also require additional navigational plotting time between jumps, but even taking it slowly and carefully with maximum recharge times, we’re only talking a day to get between here and Alpha Centauri. So, yeah, a lot faster than flying to the HTP.”

“Damn.” Kant whistled loudly. “Too bad they can’t mass-produce these drives. We could spread across the galaxy like a flood.”

Erik didn’t know if that was a good thing, but he didn’t have to worry about the far future of humanity. His job was stopping the conspiracy in the meantime.

Emma smirked at Kant. “The drives aren’t the issue. They can’t mass-produce me as a navigation system, and without me, the drive is just an expensive way to kill people.”

“Is there a reason we have to take it so slowly and carefully?” Jia asked. “Or is it just because you haven’t jumped this far before?”

Raphael gestured at the HTP. “That’s part of it, but also, the Sol System has some unique properties that affect hyperspace tuning.”

“Isn’t that why we have only the one HTP, and it’s so far out compared to other systems?” Jia asked. “That’s what I’ve read, anyway.”

“I always thought that was to make it harder for invasions,” Erik offered. “Because all the races’ HTPs are based on Navigator tech, we didn’t want to end up giving them an easy two-way gate. Cut off comm and whatnot in case they take us by surprise. We blow the gate and make them commit to the sacrifice.”

“I don’t know about that,” replied Raphael, “but I do know there are fundamental physics issues when it comes to Sol versus other systems. That was why colonization took off so quickly once we got out of the system. We realized it was going to be far easier to set up multiple HTPs that transferred farther than we’d expected at home. If that hadn’t been the case, I don’t know if we would have the modern UTC.”

“Isn’t that strange?” Jia tapped a finger on her lips. “Why would it just be Sol?”

Raphael shrugged. “It might not be. It’s not like we can get probes close enough to any other race’s homeworld to figure out how many HTPs they have.”

“That could be it.” Jia leaned forward, her face alight with interest. “I wonder if it had something to do with the Hunter ship. Maybe they did something to the Solar System that made it harder for hyperspace travel.”

“Excuse me.” Anne cleared her throat. “This is all fascinating, but it’s irrelevant, right? The important thing is Dr. Maras and Emma have to prep things, and we’ll make four jumps. If we don’t die, we’ll be in Alpha Centauri, and we’ll be able to proceed with the mission.”

Raphael sighed and looked down, his face disappointed. “That’s accurate.”

It might have been rude of Anne, but Erik couldn’t fault her logic. They weren’t there for Raphael and Jia to have a rousing physics discussion, which they could have later. The team had already lost time traveling to the base, and every day that passed gave the conspiracy more time to burrow into whatever dens they were in on Chiron or to escape the system entirely.

A closer base for the

Bifröst

would have been helpful, but it also would have been dangerous. The conspiracy might not have Emma, but it wouldn’t be easy to reproduce the finely tuned working prototype jump drive either. Since the conspiracy

could

get their hands on alien tech, they might hit upon some other way of navigating that didn’t require Emma.

Besides, Jia’s earlier point about communications was right. The conspiracy might have resources and influence, but multi-day if not week or month comm times meant Erik’s team had a good chance of getting ahead of them, even with a week’s delay between Earth and Penglai.

Erik motioned to Emma. “Before you plot the jumps, you need to interface with the DD’s systems and see the latest intel concerning ship deployment and travel in Alpha Centauri. It’d be nice to jump straight to the planet, but we’re guaranteed to be spotted, which means not only do we risk someone coming for the ship, but we also give up our advantage of surprise on this mission. For all we know, the conspiracy might not think we can jump, let alone that far.”

“Wouldn’t they know from what happened with the Hunter ship?” Anne asked.

Jia shook her head. “We can’t be sure, and there’s no reason to gamble.”

“Agreed.” Erik looked around. “I hope you are all looking forward to more darts in the future because I want Emma to drop us about five days from Chiron.”

“Darts?” Raphael’s smile grew so broad it was infectious. “I

love

darts!”

“Then let’s get Emma interfaced with the jumpship and the

Argo

docked and get the hell out of here.”