S. Swann - Prophets

It also confirmed the details of what they found there, or failed to find there. It provided a wealth of technical details especially on how the Eclipse ended up damaged and inbound to this system. Most of those details were completely opaque to Admiral Hussein, but they would help the engineers in going over the wreck of the Eclipse .

It was that technical discussion, opaque as it was, where Bill complicated the diplomatic issue.

“I am impressed with your ship,” Bill radioed from his electronic voice box. Even in Arabic, the words carried a Windsor accent.

“What do you mean?”

“I never would have thought human engineers would be able to build a tach-drive that worked beyond the asymptotic barrier.”

Admiral Hussein just stared at the creature in its glass globe.

“I apologize, was I unclear?”

“No, go on, please.”

“Even the highest acolytes of our universities within Paralia have failed in designing a stable generator that could manipulate a field complex enough to move the asymptotic barrier. In theory it was always possible, but the dimensions involved increase with the cube of the distance, so solving the equations for a three-dimensional reference frame—”

“Bill?”

“Yes, Admiral? Do I need to explain something?”

“Just tell me how you know the capabilities of this ship?”

“Simple observation; the data provided when the Eclipse ’s own drive failed provided enough data to describe a boundary model of your drive capability. The mass/drive ratios visible on this ship speak to an unorthodox sixfold redundancy or a new drive design. Mosasa implied that his expedition would be the impetus driving the Caliphate outward, meaning you left after us, yet arrived before us, despite the necessity of supplying and outfitting a vessel this large for a hundred-light-year journey.”

“I see.” Admiral Hussein turned away from the Paralian and looked out the grate and toward the stars. The planet they were here for was a small blue-white disk, brighter than the stars behind it.

He had known that these capabilities would be known as soon as they were used, but it was discomforting to realize that even the Paralian considered them extraordinary. He was not in the habit of questioning his government, but for several moments he wondered where the expertise had come from.

“What is it you see?” asked the Paralian. It took a moment for Admiral Hussein to realize that it was in response to the last thing he had said. He turned to face his massive guest and was about to explain the figure of speech when his suit’s comm called for his attention on the command channel. He switched the comm from the closed channel he shared with the Paralian and immediately heard Captain Rasheed’s voice.

“Admiral Hussein?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“We just detected an energy spike on the other side of the planet. We don’t have visual contact yet, but it’s consistent with the Sword ’s tach-drive signature.”

“Are you sure?”

“It has to be an Ibrahim-class carrier. No other drives leave as large a footprint.”

Instead of an envoy, Bitar comes in person?

“I’m coming to the bridge.”

Admiral Hussein turned the comm back to the Paralian’s channel. “I have to go now,” he told it.

“Is there a problem?”

“No,” he lied.

Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) Salmagundi-HD 101534

In less than an hour, Alexander had confirmation that the last of the militia aircraft was safely out of the red zone. He ordered the drone aircraft bearing the nuke to head for the target. In ten minutes, the low altitude airburst would vaporize everything at the impact site. On the security footage, the two offworlders still stood with Flynn.

“Mr. Shane,” one of the militia officers said shortly after he ordered the nuke into position.

“What?”

“We have developments in orbit. I’m putting the feed on holo one.”

The main display in front of Alexander shifted to show the schematic of the space around Salmagundi. It had changed since he had left the rest of the Grand Triad to their debate. When he’d left the meeting room, there had been a dozen unidentified spacecraft, one identified as the source of the lifeboats and of the offworlders standing in the security footage showing on holo five.

The red-highlighted spacecraft was no longer shown on the schematic. Now on the fringes of the image, Alexander saw thirty or forty blue icons pushing in from the edge. As he watched, three more appeared in range.

Closer in, in orbit above them, there were suddenly dozens of vessels.

“What the hell?”

“Our observatories are picking up dozens of spacecraft just now taking up positions in orbit.”

“How many?”

“At least sixty.”

Alexander settled back into his seat, staring at the screen. He had moved, but not quickly enough. He watched the icons maneuver in discreet jumps as observations were made and fed again into the model he was watching.

The militia officer spoke again, “We have sixty-three confirmed contacts. Sixty-five. Sixty-eight.”

“Stop counting,” Alexander whispered. Salmagundi had, maybe, a dozen craft capable of orbit. All dated from the original colonization. The Confederacy was about to descend upon them, and there was nothing they could do about it.

“Mr. Shane? We need confirmation to detonate the nuke.”

Alexander looked at the security monitor. Flynn and the offworlders were looking up.

“Mr. Shane, sir?”

Tetsami faced the newcomers and said, “Forgive me if I’m a little incredulous that my long-lost sister from Dakota just walked into our little no-man’s land. You got some convincing to do, chicky, starting with what in the name of Jesus Christ on a unicycle you’re doing a hundred light-years from what’s left of the ass-end of the Confederacy.”

She looked from the tall woman to the taller moreau. Her own genes, at least the genes for the last body that had been exclusively her own, had come from Dakota. However, unlike the three-meter-tall furry tiger-man, just by looking, there was usually no way to tell someone from Dakota from a human whose genetic history didn’t include a couple of genetic engineers trying to “improve” something a few centuries ago. A century or two of mixing bloodlines and the more-or-less “normal” human morphology dominated.

One thing was clear, the presence of tiger-boy proved that this couple was as definitively from off-planet as their nameless Protean.

But from Dakota? What the hell was going on here?

It didn’t get better.

The woman, Kugara, did most of the talking. She told Tetsami and Flynn about their ship, the Eclipse, and the ill-fated expedition it made to Xi Virginis. The story uncomfortably synced with the Protean’s warnings, and Tetsami tightened the grip on her shotgun. Even more than when the nonhuman pair walked into the deserted outpost, she stared at them looking for some sign of infection, some wrongness, some symptom that these two had been touched by the same darkness that had consumed the Xi Virginis system.

Then Kugara mentioned his name.

Tetsami jumped backward, leveling the shotgun at the space between Kugara’s gut and Nickolai’s groin. “What was that name?” she yelled at them, finger aching against the cold metal of the shotgun’s trigger.

What the hell? Gram?

Shut up!

The tall woman backed up, stopping only when she bumped into the tiger. “Mosasa, Tjaele Mosasa.” Nickolai put his arm around her in a gesture that was almost protective.

“What the hell does that bastard have to do with this?” Tetsami screamed at them. The barrel of the shotgun shook, and she concentrated on steadying her aim.