Earth Song: Twilight Serenade Page 14

  Starships consumed frightening amounts of energy, as did their construction. He had personal knowledge of just how stretched their resources were. Still, rushing was a mistake he hadn’t intended to make, and now his hand was being forced.

  Singh-Apal reached the command deck and Agan relinquished the pedestal without any hesitation. He turned to look at his technical leader. “Sally,” he hissed.

  “Order me, leader.”

  “Do you have any results?”

  “It is too soon in the analysis. However I was… concerned we would be hurried so I instructed my team to look for tags indicating changes.”

  “What did you find?” he asked.

  “There are thousands of edit points in the code, leader. Many thousands. I personally examined several and they are either innocuous, or actually appear to improve the original operating system. It is most confusing.”

  “Were our enemies just bored?” Singh-Apal wondered aloud.

  “A waste of valuable computer processing time,” she stated plainly. “It would take my team nearly a year to do all of this work. And it is flawless coding.”

  Singh-Apal nodded and turned to his assistant whose lidless eyes watched him with intent.

  “Orders, leader?”

  He considered just ignoring the high command. It would take another week for a follow up order to arrive at which point the females may have uncovered some trap or trick left behind in the code. Of course, if nothing was wrong he was extending his throat for a bite by Agan. He spat in frustration before giving the order.

  “Form up a cruiser squadron to escort a transport. Tell them to proceed with extreme caution.”

  The orders were again relayed and the ad hoc squadron formed up on four cruisers. In short order they were diving through the maelstrom of Dervish. The bigger, slower transport drew the energy vortex much more effectively so the cruisers were forced to stay in tight formation, their shields overlapping to provide maximum protection. By the time they reached the station all four warships’ shields were glowing orange with massive energy loads.

  Finally they were inside the station’s shields, safe and sound. Everyone on the command dreadnought’s bridge breathed a sigh of relief. Singh-Apal noticed none more than Agan. It’s not over yet, he thought as the cruisers took up station around the docking area and the transport began to move in closer.

  Not having been designed to load EPCs directly, they were forced to move modules the same way the Beezer had. T’Chillen in suits and bots to assist began to swarm from the transports as external bay doors swung wide. Less than an hour after the order was given the first EPC floated out of the station and Singh-Apal began to think his instincts were wrong.

  The programs that ran the station were indeed complex and interconnected. Five distinct programs worked to make the systems function together with no one program having supremacy over the others, as was common with autonomous non-combat facilities built by the People. Sally and her team of programmers were busily combing the station internal control programs and handling system for signs of dangerous modifications. Lilith had inserted thousands of changes to those systems, but none of them were hazardous in any way whatsoever.

  If she’d had time, she would have branched out into the other less innocuous systems of the station. In particular station keeping, and shield control. She did notice that one of the programs that monitored ships in close proximity to the station had a new subroutine. It was to note when more than six ships were within its shield, and report to another program.

  She’d made a note of that and moved on. In her section of the ship she was isolated from tactical so she had no idea that a new group of ships were now in the station’s shield perimeter until she ran a compile on the stations monitor program and found it had altered itself. Sally instantly stopped what she was doing and compared the code against her original recording.

  On the bridge, sensor operators made note that the station was shifting positions. It had done so dozens of times since their arrival, so this was not unusual. They made note of it, transferred the data to the gathered fleet, and went back to work.

  Sally finished her comparison an hour later and verified it was that reporting subroutine that was now gone. The program was doing something and covering its tracks. Instantly her assessment of the programmer changed from confused or perhaps unskilled to dangerous.

  “Control,” she called, “please verify how many ships are next to the station?”

  “Six,” was the terse reply from the CIC liaison.

  Sally looked at the missing subroutine again to find out what other program it reported to. Maneuvering.

  “I’m going to the CIC,” she told her assistant programmer. “Retask all analysts to the maneuvering program, I’m sending you a program call tag to search for. This has maximum priority!”

  Sally reached the CIC and requested audience with High Leader Singh-Apal Katoosh, and was promptly told to wait. Females in the T’Chillen didn’t go far if they didn’t follow instructions from males. Those who ignored protocols just didn’t live long. Sally had risen high within her field. A few more steps and she’d move into the command structure and receive an appointment. Perhaps even fleet command or analysis on the home world.

  She saw the humans in this. Ever since her interaction with them at the Lost firebase she’d been fascinated by the hominids and made them a personal study. Every bit of news and information that became available on them was carefully reviewed by her and cataloged. She knew that the few in her species which were aware of them considered the enigmatic species to be nothing more than pawns of the Tog. Sally knew they were much, much more.

  They were impressive warriors, having defeated both the Rasa and the Tanam. They’d fought the Mok-Tok to a standstill on Planet K (mostly classified), and stolen a ship right out from under her own people’s snouts. For some reason she didn’t understand, Sally had never told her superiors about that. She was the only T’Chillen to survive who’d physically seen the humans. Instead the Rasa took the blame, and they’d all died for it.

  The humans were now major players on the food market within the galaxy as well through a joint venture with several leaseholds considered less than useful for just that purpose. They’d began selling space capable shuttles as well, useful to many small species with remaining orbital facilities. And they now had soldiers they were hiring out for military operations, if doing so carefully to avoid angering other species.

  This programming seemed beyond such a young species. But its sneakiness, cleverness, and stealth spoke of no one else she’d dealt with. And there had been a Kaatan with those transports and other ships, she was certain of that.

  Long minutes went by as she waited outside the CIC. She dared not request to enter again, and now that the high leader knew she was there. If anyone were there to see her they’d think her hiss of frustration almost sounded like a male’s.

  Finally the door slid open and a tactical officer stuck his head out. “You the female computer coder?”

  “I am,” she bowed her head low.

  “The high leader will see you.” She followed him inside.

  “Why do you want to see the high leader?” demanded his assistant, Agan, as soon as she was inside. Singh-Apal was on the far side of the CIC, wrapped around the command pedestal watching the myriad of displays.

  “I believe this is an elaborate trap.”

  “Absurd, what would a female know about combat traps?” he demanded with as much disdain in his voice as he could manage towards a lowly female.

  She desperately wanted to admit that she’d been studying spaceship combat tactics since their defeat at the Rasa home world years ago. That she’d accessed records as ancient as time speaking about combined fleet actions against the People, both wins and losses. She watched the battle fought here days ago and knew the mistakes that had been made, and said nothing. “Not a thing,” she said and lowered her head. “I know only technology and computer coding
.”

  “I thought as much. I should have your worthless body ejected into space for wasting my time,” he hissed, though not very loudly.

  You’d like that, she thought, to have me gone from helping Singh-Apal. “I have found that the various computer programs have been communicating between each other.”

  Agan made a dismissive gesture and the two armored door guards moved towards her. She spoke quicker. “The programs are responding to our presence and doing something, then deleting the records of what they are doing!”

  The guards, not caring or understanding what she was talking about, curled their powerful arms around her and started dragging her towards the exit. Agan had turned, but stopped at her last comment. “Has the station begun to maneuver, leader?”

  “Wait,” he ordered the guards. “Tracking, report on the station’s position.”

  “It has been maneuvering for the last four hours.”

  “How far?”

  “A little over one light second closer to the K class primary.”

  “Why wasn’t tactical informed,” he snapped, whirling on the suddenly terrified sensor operator.

  “Sir, the station has maneuvered often since we arrived. This was the first time it has demonstrated an extensive maneuver. We were about to—”

  Agan spat and cursed, turning to Sally. “What do you know?”

  “Six hours ago there were six ships next to the station, is that correct?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “What is happening?”

  “I need to speak to the high leader.”

  Agan slithered towards her with blood in his slit eyes.

  “Is that Sally?” came an authorative voice from across the chamber.

  He stopped his advance, turned and bowed slightly. “Yes, high leader, I was about to tell you she may have some information of note.”

  Singh-Apal had already left his pedestal and was moving towards them. Agan could see he was looking past him and at Sally. “Yes, that is why the guards have her restrained.”

  Agan cringed and gestured angrily. The obviously confused guards obeyed and released the female.

  “High Leader,” Sally bowed almost to the deck, “can you tell me if more ships are headed to the station?”

  “Five more are almost there,” he confirmed. “It’s taken a little more time because the damnable station is moving.”

  Sally raised her head and took in the various monitors and the data the displayed as quickly as she could. Long accustomed to analyzing data, she had the situation in tentacle in moments. “High Leader, I beg you reverse those ships out of their decent.”

  “Why?” he asked, though not angry, just curious.

  “I do not know.”

  “This female is addled,” Agan said and glared at her. “She reads some code and sees enemies stalking our tails.”

  “I ordered her to do just that,” he reminded his assistant and turned back to her. “I have trusted your ability several times and you have not let me down. However I cannot risk those ships, which are almost to the station, on just the word of a female.”

  “I understand, High Leader. I am just waiting for word—” and she suddenly cut off as her communicator chirped.

  “Tech leader,” her assistant spoke urgently, “we have results.”

  “One moment,” she told the males and spoke, “proceed.”

  “We found more subroutine calls, just as you instructed. The path was circuitous and leads between several of the programs. Whoever wrote it was incredibly talented and meant for us to waste our time. The vast majority of the changes are meaningless, only there to distract us.”

  “Time is of the essence, assistant, get to the point please.”

  “Yes leader. After the deleted segment you found that is triggered by the arrival of at least six ships, the maneuvering system is alerted to prepare to move the station. That routine contacts sensors again to get a current scan of the stars. That data is sent to the control program which runs a probability subroutine, and that result is sent to the shield controls.”

  “What happens with that?” Sally asked, desperate now. Almost all eyes in the CIC were on her.

  “We’re still searching.”

  “Stay on the line, tell the instant you know!”

  “Well, Sally?” Singh-Apal asked. She quickly and with simple terminology explained the conundrum to the leader. He seemed more technologically savvy than the average male and followed her explanation well.

  “The question remains to what effect?” he asked her. “All of these computer decisions appear to deceive,” he said.

  “And waste our time,” Agan agreed.

  “Time,” Sally mumbled, “just more time.” She looked up and saw the station had moved even farther, closer to the K class star which was sending huge solar prominences arcing across the skies. A particularly huge one was just forming and climbing quickly, pulled by the gravity of the other stars.

  She could tell by the mannerism of the High Leader that his patience was at an end. He was about to have her removed, when it hit her like a lightning bolt. “The shields!” she cried.

  “What about them,” Agan demanded.

  “The last subroutine call sent probabilities to the shield control program.”

  “What difference does that make?” he pushed her.

  “Look,” she said, forgetting all form and coming fully erect and pointing with a tentacle arm at the station display. “It’s been maneuvering closer to that star which is now forming a huge solar prominence. It knew that would happen, and started once there were six ships inside its shields!”

  “I still don’t—” Agan started, but as she’d finished her impassioned description Singh-Apal had spun around to look himself. Memory of his first fight against that elusive Kaatan ship of the line came flooding back like a tidal wave.

  “Order the second transport group to come about!” he bellowed and raced toward the command pylon, Agan staying where he was and looking aghast at him. “Cease loading of EPCs, disengage from the station and form up to retreat!”

  “High leader, the second squadron just reached the safety of the station shields. The area of solar activity was extreme and their capacitors are full. The captains say they cannot leave and protect the transport for at least an hour.”

  He thought for just half a second before giving the next order. “Abandon both transports, get those cruisers out of there.”

  The tactical officer suddenly exclaimed. “The station has employed powerful gravitic tractors, all the ships are being held!”

  “Fire on the station!” Agan screamed, venom flying from his fangs. “Disable the tractors!” This entire operation was his, and he’d finally realized everything had just gone to shit.

  Even as the cruisers tried to bring weapons to bear, the station’s shields dropped.

  Lilith was herself no small amount of artful computer programming. The implants placed in her brain when she was just a fetus let her work in code the way some worked in oils and clays. Taken as a whole it was a masterful work of deceit, and subterfuge. There were few beings in the Concordia as talented as Sally. Most would never have noticed at all.

  When the shields fell the vast solar prominence was just beginning to wash over them. The station was designed to deal with them. In fact, it fed on them. The energy was taken, processed, and stored for use in the starship class capacitors. The deadly displays were of no threat to the station’s antennae which extended outside the shields. They were designed to survive in that hellish plasma storm. The actual station, was another matter.

  Enough energy to power a dozen planets for a year washed over the station and the nearby ships. The station was instantly converted to plasma, consumed by the very power that had once fed it. Taken in comparison to the ten thousand kilometer wide prominence, the death of the ancient station made not the least amount of difference. The energy wave moved on and added the T’Chillen transport, and the four cruisers to its own existence.
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  The other four cruisers abandoned the transport they had been escorting and spread out to make a run for it. Their shields were already glowing red when the transport died. The rapidly growing and spreading prominence engulfed first one, then another, and finally a third. The fourth cruiser cleared the danger zone, its shield glowing white and billowing smoke from one of its blown capacitor banks. It had been bare moments from death.

  On his command pedestal Singh-Apal sighed and shook his great hooded head. Seven cruisers and two transports, gone in moments. The crews were even more irreplaceable. He took a moment to enter an official notation in the log that Sally had figured it all out, and Agan delayed her report.

  From where he still curled on the floor by the door, Agan looked from Sally to him and back. The guards were all loyal to Singh-Apal, he knew that, but the youngster was certain to have some loyalists in the crew. A tentacle arm reached down to his pedestal where a hidden compartment held a small beamcaster.

  The assistant turned and slithered out the door without saying a thing. Singh-Apal caught the eye of Sally, who was looking at the now dissipating solar prominence with resignation. She bowed slightly, and he bowed back. Then he set about writing the after action report.

  Agan-Soufa shot himself in the head in his cabin an hour later. Singh-Apal Katoosh had the corpse ejected into space where it slowly fell towards Dervish to one day join the thousands of other vaporized corpses.

  Interlude

  The command battlecruiser floated in the void a light hour outside the spectacular display afforded by the star system human’s called Dervish, which the T’Chillen just referred to by an ancient numerical designation. The High Tactical Leader had ordered his personal squadron to hold station while scientists studied data left over from the encounter with the human ships.