Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9), Glynn Stewart [reading well .TXT] 📗

to break up the team and only had so many people to spare,” Rogers confirmed. “We’ve got Lesser Commander Nguyen, too, but she’s currently in sickbay. Stress breakdown.”

Morgan didn’t see any reason to stop frowning over that. Mental health issues were dangerous. She had her own appointments scheduled, but she’d also been kidnapped and used as a hostage at five years old.

She’d had a long time to learn how to be mentally resilient. Most people didn’t have that…privilege. Lesser Commander Thu Nguyen had been the woman running Defiance’s guns and defenses. It wouldn’t take much for her to blame herself for everything that had happened.

Morgan certainly blamed herself for it, so she could see how it happened.

“I’ll check in with the doctors later,” she told Rogers. “I imagine Thu isn’t the only one of Defiance’s crew in need of support.”

She gestured to the door they stood outside.

“Any idea what we’ve got?”

“It’s a conference room and a couple million marks of processing equipment,” Rogers told her. “Four of Tan!Stalla’s operations staff to start with—and you’ve got a blank check to pull in our old people from Defiance.”

“Not even an office,” Morgan said, but she was smiling as she said it. Jean Villeneuve might be immense—two-point-five kilometers long and over twenty megatons of mass—but every scrap of her was already spoken for, especially with her serving as a flagship.

“I’m surprised they even found us this much,” she admitted. “All right. Time to go work out how to politely explain to everybody just what we poked with a stick.”

The conference room was larger than Morgan had expected, but it had clearly never been designed for its current use. The long table intended to hold dozens of officers had been pushed against one wall.

The table’s holographic projectors were showing a map of the Eye of the Astoroko Nebula, a natural pattern of half a dozen newborn blue stars that made a giant mess of local hyperspace. At the center of them was a stellar object most easily described as a gas giant—though it was likely a not-yet-ignited star.

That gas giant had been the anchor the Alavan fleet had used for its final jump to evade their Infinite pursuers, and was now home to the Infinite fleet. More displays around the room focused on particular sections of the familiar rogue planet, identifying regions and objects that Morgan’s people had flagged as either Infinite or potential Infinite.

“Officer present,” one of the four analysts present in the room rumbled. The speaker was a massive Rekiki, one of the largest of the race Morgan had ever met and with an unusual jet-black color. The Rekiki were lizard-like hexapods with their front third turned upright for tool-manipulation—much like the centaurs of Greek myth mixed with a crocodile, with long snouts that added to the crocodile impression.

None of the other three officers in the room were human either. A blue-feathered Yin, a bipedal race with a human-enough build to draw human eyes but black eyes and a sharp beak, rose and saluted crisply.

The third officer was smaller, the smooth, gray-skinned form of a Pibo. With few visible features, Pibo strongly resembled Earth myths of the Grays—a resemblance no one had yet explained, so far as Morgan knew.

The last was actually the largest of the analysts, large enough that they must have struggled to get into the room. Built like nothing so much as a four-legged barrel with arms on the sides, this particular Anbrai was a bright yellow that contrasted sharply with their black Imperial uniform.

“At ease,” Morgan ordered. “Report. And introduce yourselves, for that matter.” She held out a hand, palm-upward. “It’s been a nasty few cycles and I’m not as caught up as I’d like.”

“Lesser Commander Shotilik of House Rayana,” the Rekiki introduced herself immediately. Only Noble Rekiki would automatically introduce themselves by their House, which meant that Shotilik was literally a natural herd leader, with hormones that would make other Rekiki inclined to follow her.

“These are Speakers Took, Ito, and Kadark,” Shotilik continued, gesturing to the Yin, the Pibo and the Anbrai in turn. Each saluted.

“And where were you each poached from?” Morgan asked dryly.

“I’m an engineering officer from Jean Villeneuve’s tech detachment,” Kadark rumbled. “I have some experience working with xenoarchaeologists and xeno-technology intelligence analysis in a prior posting.”

“That’s going to be handy,” she told him. “Though tech isn’t quite what we’re looking at.”

“So we’re seeing,” Ito said. Their voice was very different from any Pibo Morgan had heard before, and she studied the small officer intently for a second. It was hard to tell—Pibo were relatively featureless and all much the same shade, but almost every Pibo Morgan had ever met had been neuter. Ito, however, was female, with a noticeably sharper pitch to her voice.

“I was in Commander Ashmore’s operations group,” Ito continued. “The Commander is Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla’s operations officer.”

“Thank you,” Morgan told the Pibo woman. She hadn’t actually known that, which was a damning sign for how not-caught-up she actually was.

“The Lesser Commander and I are both from Jean Villeneuve’s tactical department,” Took said swiftly, the Yin woman covering her breasts with crossed arms as she studied the two humans. “Commander MacWilliam suggested that this would be good for our careers.”

“If we live, probably,” Morgan agreed with false cheer. “If we don’t, well. Do planet-sized living starships have careers?”

That chilled the mood in the conference room.

“Tell me what you’ve got so far,” she told them. “I can see Defiance’s data all over the screens, but that doesn’t explain anything.”

There was a long pause.

“I think we’re still processing it all,” Ito admitted. She tapped a command, zooming in one wall on the planet and on the immense creature that had lifted itself out to capture Defiance. “I mean, what even is this thing?”

“A sentient bioform well over one hundred thousand kilometers long, capable of engaging hostiles with plasma bursts, kinetic hits, and focused near-c singularity fire,” Morgan told her crisply.

“And it is the second-largest such bioform we have ever encountered,” she