Ice War, page 18
Tei Officer Cava Sogun met them there.
“Doctor Aksari, I didn’t expect I’d ever see you again, let alone dressed in Ditari battle armor.”
“Hello to you too,” said Yajain. She glanced at the armed tumbler. Its sides were blackened and the small wings and steering fins looked stripped of plating in places. “Any serious damage?”
Sogun shook her head.
“We were lucky. She’s ready to fly.”
“Good.” Yajain motioned to Mosam. “Once we’re through the gate we’re going to need every weapon available.”
“Weapons, huh?” a voice said from behind Yajain. She turned. Banedd Loattun stood in the entrance to the tumbler bay, Sonetta beside him holding a fluid coil rifle. “Guess we’re right on time.”
“Don’t joke,” Sonetta said. “We’re useless ship to ship.” She looked at Yajain, frowning. “Yajain, I hope you know what you’re doing.”
I wish, Yajain thought.
“We have to get to the sphere. If we don’t, the whole fleet will be fighting in storm conditions and we won’t win.”
Solnakite banked and they all swayed. Captain Ettasil’s voice came over the speakers in the tumbler bay.
“We’re almost to the gatehouse. Fleet banner ships are covering us.”
Yajain frowned.
“Does anyone have a communicator to the bridge?”
Sogun unhooked the headset from behind her ear.
“Use this.”
Yajain put on the headset and spoke. “Captain, use one of the smaller gates.”
“Second row from the bottom,” said Mosam.
Yajain repeated Mosam’s words, then added, “Captain Gattri wished us luck.”
“I’ll thank him when we get back,” said Kebrim. “Brace for acceleration.”
Mosam was talking on a communicator to Savar’s Banner ship, directing the Harvest Fleet back toward the gatehouse. The Solnakite burst forward on a pulse from the main engine. Yajain braced against one wall with one armored palm, and Mosam hung onto her side. The others shifted to the opposite wall.
“We’re getting interference,” said Kebrim over the headset. “It’s the Ghost Hammer.”
Yajain scowled.
“Lin?”
“She’s racing us to the gatehouse.”
“Not us,” Yajain murmured. “Savar.”
“Gates are open.” Mosam grimaced and lowered his communicator. “One transfer per five minutes.”
“Twenty seconds to the gate,” the captain said.
Yajain imagined the sweat dripping from Captain Ettasil’s pale face.
The ship rocked and bucked, then banked into a downward curve. Yajain’s armor kept her steady. Banedd, Sonetta, and Sogun barely held to the braces on the wall.
Ettasil laughed.
“We’re through the gate. Sensors are coming up.”
Yajain held her breath.
“We’ve got company,” said Ettasil. “It’s the Ghost Hammer.”
Yajain took a deep breath. Lin, I know why you’re here. And you can’t kill him, not before or after the battle.
“Mount up,” said Sogun. She turned to Sonetta and Banedd. “On the double.”
Ghost Hammer shot through the mist in front of the tumbler. Yajain sat in a copilot seat behind Tei Officer Sogun and the pilot, Harish, and watched the banner ship angle toward Solnakite. Beyond the gleam of the Ghost Hammer’s nose, darkness and shadow blanketed the pillars. A single massive pillar glimmered with reflected light, but only a handful of distant solnas cast their shine into the misty air.
“They look like they’re going to fire,” said Sogun.
“Can you contact their bridge?” Yajain asked.
“I can try.”
“Do it, then let me talk to my sister.”
Sogun hit a few keys, then nodded to Yajain.
“Lin, this is Yajain. Do you know why we went through the gate?”
Lin’s voice filtered into Yajain’s headset.
“The aliens have a strong point on this side. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it once you hand over Doctor Coe.”
Yajain scowled at the Ghost Hammer, as the banner ship’s weapons powered up. The whine and glow within the main beam cannon’s barrel.
“Is your revenge really more important to you than the rest of the human race?”
“I told you my priority, Yajain. Now let me contact the ranger so they can hand him over.”
“He’s not on the ranger,” said Yajain. “He’s with me on this tumbler.”
“Yajain, what have you done?”
Yajain took a deep breath.
“I’ve made peace, Lin. We need to fly together.”
“You’re letting him go. After what you promised me?”
“Please, don’t you see we have to forgive or this won’t end?”
The Ghost Hammer circled past the tumbler, trailing droplets of freezing rain. Yajain suspended the voice input on her headset and glanced at the Tei Officer piloting the tumbler.
Sogun turned to Yajain.
“They’re following us.”
“Good,” said Yajain. “We need to head for the largest pillar in the dark ahead. That’s Vilmanorin, where they’re hiding the storm sphere.”
Sogun’s eyebrows narrowed.
“Doctor, this is a risky move at best. Possibly suicide.”
Harish whistled.
“I’m getting used to taking risks.” I only hope I’m right about Lin. “She won’t fire on us, but she’ll use those weapons on the tyrants if we give her no other options.”
Sogun grimaced.
“Seems like we’re already committed.”
Yajain nodded.
“My apologies, Tei Officer.”
Sogun guided the ship toward the dark and shook her head.
“I should have known you’d get us into trouble out here.”
“Why is that?”
“You seemed so reasonable at first, too reasonable really.”
Yajain laughed.
“When we get back you’re gonna have to tell me how I ever seemed reasonable at all.”
The tumbler sliced through the air and Sogun hit the searchlights to cut paths through the darkness.
“Air temperature outside is falling,” shouted Sonetta from the passenger compartment. “Negative 10 degrees.”
Sogun muttered something under her breath. The beams of their searchlights fell across the side of an enormous metallic sphere hanging in the distant mist, silhouetted against the massive breadth of a pillar at least ten times broader than any Yajain had ever seen, and lacking any Solna.
Ice clung to the side of the pillar in huge vertical sheets. The searchlights illuminated what looked like tiny pinprick gaps in those sheets. Yajain judged by the distance that each of those passages into the pillar could be at least large enough for the Solnakite to fly through. That’s it, she thought, the tyrant paradise.
“A machra pillar,” breathed Sogun. “Guess you were right about the sphere’s location, doctor.”
Yajain nodded.
“Take us closer to the sphere. We need to find a way inside so we can stop the storms.”
Captain Ettasil spoke from the Solnakite through the cockpit speakers of the tumbler.
“Sogun, Yajain, what are you doing?”
“We’re going to board the storm sphere,” Sogun replied. “Doctor Aksari has an idea of how we can save the rest of the fleet.”
Yajain leaned forward to speak to the captain.
“Even if we destroy the sphere, the Tyrants will win the main battle if we don’t take control of the storms ourselves.”
Ettasil hesitated, then said, “I’ll cover your approach.”
The tumbler streaked through the icy blackness. Condensation formed across the windscreen then streaked away thanks to their speed, leaving the view mostly clear. Oblong tyrant ships became visible between them and the sphere. What had been specks in the distance resolved into vessels the size of the Solnakite or larger.
Sogun glanced at Yajain.
“Get that rail gun armed, doctor. It may come in useful, yet.”
Harish gave his head a shake, jaw set.
Yajain scanned the controls and quickly found a jury-rigged targeting system with a gun sight eyepiece. She raised the eyepiece with one armored hand and started to aim the massive weapon attached to the tumbler’s bottom.
“Warn us before you fire.” Harish’s hands flew over the controls.
Sogun glanced at the pilot. He stared at the closing alien ships.
“Right.” Yajain scanned in a circle with the gun turret’s targeting camera. In the mist behind the pursuing Ghost Hammer she glimpsed three more shapes cruising after them. Savar’s Banner ship, Adya’s Corsair, and a Ditari ranger she didn’t recognize.
“Looks like we’ve got back up.”
“Eyes forward,” Sogun said. “We’re about to meet our hosts.”
Yajain whirled the cannon with an easy twist of the controls. Her suit’s second set of arms braced on either side of her seat. The gun sight squared on one of a pair of tyrant ships similar to the scout from the forest station. Yajain steadied her aim.
“I’m going to fire.”
“Do it,” Sogun said.
Yajain squeezed the trigger. A flash of bright metal exploded from the cannon and cut straight through a tyrant ship, still a thousand or more meters ahead. The ship fell in pieces. The tumbler’s nose bucked up slightly from the recoil, but Harish and Sogun kept it under control. Someone in the passenger compartment cursed out loud.
Where one tyrant ship fell, four more swooped into formation with the survivor.
A salvo of beams and missiles from Ghost Hammer smashed all five to pieces. Blazing fires and floating streams of fluid lit the darkness between pillars, casting the shadows of dozens of tyrant craft ahead of the tumbler and to all sides.
Solnakite and the newly arrived ships behind it followed the Ghost Hammer and the tumbler as they formed the tip of the spear.
Yajain gritted her teeth as flames blossomed along tyrant ships in all directions.
“Two thousand meters to the sphere and closing.” Sogun’s eyes narrowed. “No more ships have come through our gates.”
Mosam slipped into the cockpit of the tumbler from the passenger compartment. He steadied himself on the backs of Sogun’s and Yajain’s seats and gazed out at the sphere.
“Head for the sphere’s equator,” he said. “I think I know how we can get inside.”
“Equator?” Sogun asked.
“Midsection,” said Mosam.
Sogun grunted.
“I’ve got us aimed at its widest point.”
Mosam nodded.
“Good, I have a feeling about that spot.”
Yajain scanned with the rail gun’s sights, but all the tyrant ships close enough to threaten already burned from other attacks. She frowned as her view passed over the sphere’s sparkling middle where it glittered in the darkness.
“It looks solid, Mosam.”
“Trust me. That thing looks like it was built by the same people who made the gatehouses. They had means beyond our ends.”
“You’re crazy,” said Sogun.
Harish whispered a curse in his religion’s prayer language.
“Stay on course,” Yajain murmured. “I think I see where he’s going with this.”
“One thousand meters out. Ghost Hammer is still on our tail.”
“But we have four more ships behind them.” Yajain swung the turret to point forward. “Lin won’t fire on us, not with me on board.”
“Glad to hear you aren’t totally suicidal.” Sogun checked an instrument, then spoke into a microphone. “Captain Ettasil, we are closing with the sphere. Standby for more—”
An explosion cut the air behind them and the shock rippled through the mist. The tumbler shook but held course. Yajain glanced at Sogun.
“Captain, are you alright?” Sogun asked over the communicator. “Damn it, Captain.”
Yajain’s eyes widened. She turned the turret back. A trio of tyrant ships rose from the abyssal darkness, each one large as a banner ship and covered in glowing weapon bays. Solnakite dove into the shadows surrounding one pillar to the side of Vilmanorin. Smoke billowed from the ranger’s crippled flank. Yajain looked up from the viewer.
Before the tumbler, the midsection of the sphere split in places, opening to reveal lights within and to release swarms of small tyrant ships. Yajain scowled and turned the rail gun forward.
“See those ports, Harish?” asked Mosam. “We’re aiming for one of them.”
Sogun nodded but said nothing. Harish gritted his teeth. The tumbler accelerated toward the sphere.
Lin spoke in Yajain’s headset.
“Yajain, turn back. There are too many enemies.”
“We can’t escape now if we don’t win,” Yajain said. “Lin we have to fight to the inside of the sphere.”
Lin growled.
“If you’re leading me into a trap, Yajain—”
“It’s not a trap. It’s our only chance to save the fleet.” Yajain took a deep breath. “If we don’t stop those storms, none of us are ever going to leave this cluster.”
“Suppose I believe you? What do we need to do to get inside?”
“There are ports around the sphere’s midsection. Aim for one of those.”
“Alright, Yajay.”
“See you on the other side, Lin.”
Yajain turned to Sogun, then to Mosam behind her. Swarms of tyrant ships emerged from the ports around the storm sphere. The tumbler drew closer.
Sogun’s eyes never left the forward view.
“Fire at will.”
Yajain returned her eyes to the gunsight and trained the gun on the nearest tyrant ship. She shot down one, then aimed again and hit another in the side. The second ship cracked in half vertically. Dozens of tyrant ships closed in. Behind the tumbler, Savar’s banner ship Adya’s corsair and the ranger following them broke off and circled the three tyrant capitol ships that crippled Solnakite.
“Let’s make this count,” said Lin. “Ghost Hammer is taking a lot of damage.”
“Two hundred meters to the port,” said Sogun.
Yajain missed the next tyrant ship with the rail gun. Ghost Hammer’s fusillade vaporized the vessel before it could return fire against the tumbler. An impact rocked Yajain’s gunsights. She looked up from the viewer.
“Just debris,” Mosam said from behind her.
“One hundred meters to the port.” Sogun grimaced.
Harish stared straight forward.
Thirty or forty tyrant ships flew toward them, weapons blazing. The tumbler darted between blasts of heat and searing bolts of coil fluid. The anti-glare visor of Yajain’s armor let her see everything clearly. The tumbler sailed through an open port, out of the heat of the tyrant’s barrage, through a dark tunnel, and into the bright light within the storm sphere.
Yajain laughed. On the inside, the sphere looked like a miniature version of a universe. Holographic pillars floated in clusters and arcs throughout the cavernous sphere. Only at the center of the chamber did a transparent bubble float beside the holographic tower of the pillar Vilmanorin, its icy face gleaming in light form. But here, the sphere appeared as a mere speck in the center of shifting chaotic clouds. Yajain glimpsed Ambana Reef and Haxos Mirror, Sifar and the Bahami Forest, Ija’s pillar and even Toraxas Hub, all recognizable along with countless other slender pillars engulfed in varying levels of holographic mist.
She glanced at Mosam, as he blinked and regained his sight.
“It’s the entire frontier,” Yajain said. “They’ve mapped everything at once in this room.”
Mosam’s eyes slowly widened.
“They’ve been watching everything from this ship.”
“I can’t believe it. We’re getting a full arc field everywhere.” Harish guided the tumbler between shimmering pillars made of projected light.
“Why would they do this?” Sogun asked.
“It’s a control room,” said Yajain.” She pointed toward the liquid eddying bubble suspended by six bridges near the image of Vilmanorin at the center of the room. “That looks like the place they’re operating from.”
She examined the bridges as they flew closer. Each one connected to a blue-glowing artificial core on the edge of the mapping area. Yajain stared, dazzled by the scale and scope.
Mosam nodded toward the central bubble.
“We get there, the storms will be ours.”
Yajain glanced at him. He nodded at her.
Ghost Hammer rocketed into the sphere from a tunnel to Yajain’s right. Lin’s ship raced toward the center of the sphere, trailing gouts of smoke and strands of cooling coil fluid. The banner ship cut through holographic pillars as it listed sideways. Yajain stared as Ghost Hammer began to spiral out of control. The tiny shapes of evacuating crew ejected from the sides.
“Lin!”
Yajain left the cockpit of the tumbler for the passenger compartment, bulky in her armor. Mosam followed her.
“You can’t go down there alone,” he said. “Tyrants will be all over the crash site.”
“Are you volunteering to come with me?”
“You know I am. I just don’t have to like it.”
They reached the rear door. Yajain turned toward him.
“One way or another, I’m going. She’s still my sister, Mosam. We have to make things right.”
“The bubble is right there.” Mosam sighed. “But I understand.” He flexed his arm, the one Yajain knew contained the miniaturized core weapon he’d used to kill the tyrant on the bridge of the blockade ranger.
“Let’s go,” said Yajain.
Sonetta and Banedd were right at their back. Yajain shook her head.
“You two stay here. Someone needs to get to the bubble.”
“Got it.” Banedd saluted. “Good luck.”
Sonetta took a step toward Yajain.
“Don’t die out there. Either of you.”
