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

“As sure as I can be,” Mok replied. “I went over all of the scan data we have from the Infinite, but we’re not even entirely sure what the ice-cursed scanner is looking at. Something about the hyperspace interface, but we’ve never duplicated it.”

“But you think the Infinite’s reactionless drive also has a signature on the interface?” Rin said.

“Ninety percent,” the astrophysicist doctor replied. “Maybe ninety-one. I think the actual physics behind their engine are closely related, but without a sample to test, I can’t confirm it.

“The drinkable water of it all, though, is that the Infinite will ping the Alavan scanner. Just not as a ship—but then, the interface drive shouldn’t properly register as a ship.”

“But it does,” Rin said quietly. “We know that because it was occasionally triggering on Taljzi ships long before they actively modified it into a proper weapon.”

“I think—but this is just guessing—that the Infinite drive won’t register as strongly and likely won’t be classed as a ship without us doing something.”

Rin snorted.

“That’s what this code fixes,” he told Mok, tapping the screen. “The Taljzi eventually added an identification database, basically, to the system, telling it that interface drives were ships. They weren’t able to narrow it down to only target particular drives, but they convinced the computer that interface-drive ships needed fuel.

“And since the teleporter was grabbing coronal plasma rather than refined hydrogen, well…” Rin shrugged. “Even war spheres died. I’ve rewritten the code to include your estimate of what the reactionless drive looks like.”

“Can we take interface drives out?” Mok asked. “We’ve only seen those on their missiles so far.”

Rin grimaced.

“We know the sun eater developed a biological interface drive,” he told the other scientist. “I have to assume that the Infinite have done the same by now. There are definite advantages to both systems, so…some of their fleet may well arrive on interface drive.

“Plus, looking at the signature we’ve included for the reactionless engine, I think that will ping for interface drives as well,” he admitted. “When we turn this on, every friendly interface drive in the star system needs to turn off or they’re going to die.”

The lab was silent.

“Did you ever think you’d be doing this kind of work, Dr. Dunst?” Mok asked. “Assembling a weapon from xenoarchaeological artifacts?”

“No,” Rin admitted. “I knew that the tech artifacts I recovered would be studied and attempts would be made to replicate them, but I was never expecting to be involved in that side of things. I was a field archaeologist.”

He stared at the code blankly for a moment, not seeing the symbols.

“Then we met the sun eater and I got dragged into a pile of overly classified bullshit,” he said. “And here we are. I do what I can.”

“I was recruited to disable a weapon like this,” Mok said quietly. “As a doctor and an astrophysicist, I study people and stars. I was brought in to the Taljzi swarm to study the stellar effects of the thing.

“Assembling the weapon I once destroyed…feels wrong. And yet…”

“Any chance to save people,” Rin said. “So, here we are.”

He tapped the code on the screen.

“We’re only a cycle or two away from being able to load this into the control center, though we’re further from having the teleporters online,” he told Mok. “I’m going to see if I can refine the code to give us a bit more direct control of the targeting, but my suspicion is that if the Taljzi couldn’t manage it, we can’t.

“They had hundreds of years of personal experience with their swarm. I just have their notes.”

“Which I hope is enough,” a familiar translated voice told him. Rin looked up in surprise to see Princess Oxtashah standing in the entrance to the lab, flanked by her Warrior bodyguards.

“It might be, Your Highness,” Rin conceded. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Zokalatan has remained here to act as a security force,” she told him. “And to stay in the communications loop for the war. May we speak in private, Dr. Dunst?”

Rin led Oxtashah to the office the Wendira had put aside for his use. Like the lab, it was a prefab space clearly unused before his team’s arrival. Unlike the lab, he’d barely used it. All of his gear was in the lab he shared with the rest of the team, leaving the office without even chairs that were comfortable for humans.

Awkwardly perching on the desk, he looked at Oxtashah. Her wings were ever so slightly lifted from her carapace, seeming to twitch unconsciously every so often.

He didn’t know Wendira body language…but he suspected she was terrified.

“How may I assist you, Princess Oxtashah?” he finally asked when she didn’t speak.

“How soon will the weapon be ready?” she asked.

“Faster than I dared hope,” he admitted. “Ten cycles. Maybe twelve. That will only be two teleporters, though. Given time, we think we can get up to five online. The odds say we won’t get many shots from any given teleporter, so more is better.”

He spread his hands.

“This won’t be a sustainable weapon, Princess,” Rin warned. “We don’t have all the pieces that the Taljzi did, so we can’t build as solid a system as they did. There’s about a point-two percent chance every time one of the teleporters activates that it will pick up more plasma than we can contain—and the station will be destroyed.”

“So. Five hundred shots,” she whispered.

“Statistically,” he agreed. “If we have two teleporters, we’ll probably get a thousand shots—and the odds are that we’ll get a one-shot kill on anything up to a Category Four. But…” He shook his head.

“There is a small but real chance that the guns will overload on their first shot. This is not a reliable trap, Princess.”

“You may not have twelve cycles, Doctor,” she warned him. “And it will need to be as reliable as you can make it. A new Infinite swarm has been detected, heading into Wendira space. Far stronger than the last; my people’s Battle Hives are