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

four light-hours, at least,” he told her. “We didn’t want to run the tests further out than that, because we only have one escort to send dancing around the star system.” He grinned. “And doing it for as long as we did made Sub-Commandant Likox really uncomfortable.”

Likox was Zokalatan’s captain. A senior Warrior, probably well past due for promotion, he’d been personally tasked with Princess Oxtashah’s safety.

Rin found the man stuffy and paranoid, though he did understand where it was coming from.

“And the teleporter itself?” he asked. “Where is that?”

“You’re standing in it,” Lawrence told him. “The entire damn station. I’m sure we could narrow down how much of it we need to turn on, but the Taljzi decided never to risk it…and we can’t really take risks, can we, sir?”

“No,” he murmured. “Swarm Charlie was located again forty hours ago.”

Which meant he’d heard about two hours ago. Hyperfold coms were faster than light, but faster than light did not mean instantaneous. Once the update reached a starcom, it reached its recipient within minutes, but getting a message to the starcoms took hours—roughly an hour per light-year.

“Fuck. Where?”

“Too close to the Shakol System,” Rin told him. “The Battle Hives were scrambling, and it’s entirely possible battle has already been joined.”

The Shakol System was the main industrial node of the Wendira province closest to the Astoroko Nebula. That meant it was where the Wendira had concentrated their entire defense fleet. Once again, the Infinite appeared to have gone directly for the jugular.

Of course, the jugular in this case was two hundred–plus fully rearmed star hives.

“We should be receiving updates every nine twentieth-cycles—half a Wendira day—until…Well, until Swarm Charlie is here.”

There was no one else in the communication relay chamber, which allowed Lawrence to curse fervently for several seconds.

“We’re not ready, Rin,” she admitted.

“You need to be ready,” he told her. “Worst case? The Hives lead them straight here. Shakol is three cycles from Skiefail. They could be here in less than seventy-two hours.

“We need the system online in sixty.”

Lawrence exhaled a sharp breath.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. This is a nightmare, Rin. What we’re building. What it’s supposed to face…”

“I know,” he told her. “That’s why I wanted you to look at the code I prepped. If I’ve done it right, I think we’ve created a mask that can conceal existing signatures. We may be able to hide the Wendira fleet’s interface drives.”

“You’d need a live hyperfold connection from the ship in question,” Lawrence said instantly. “If the interface scanner is instantaneous…”

“I know,” he agreed. “It’s a manual brute-force solution—and you’re the only person, even in this team, I trust to review my Alavan code.”

“I’ll take a look,” she promised. “But then I need to get back to work if you want two teleporters in sixty hours.”

Chapter Fifty-Four

“And that makes three.”

Morgan watched the force they were designating Swarm Delta-Three swim through hyperspace. Her entire task group was motionless, a full hyperspace light-cycle short of their destination, watching as the third of the Infinite’s defensive flotillas orbited past.

“We’re too damn close,” she muttered. “Ort, what do you make their closest approach to the STG?”

“Just over three light-hours, Division Lord,” the Ivida officer told her. “Path is the same as the first two. I estimate we’ll be clear to proceed in a half-cycle.”

Eleven hours and forty minutes. Another delay.

“Understood,” Morgan conceded. “Pass the word to the task group. How long until we’re in position for the first deployment after that?”

“Two cycles,” Ort confirmed. “Two-point-five cycles until we exit hyperspace and can assess the situation at the first launch point.”

The rosette was going to be a pain. Until they were on site, Morgan wasn’t going to know if she needed to set timers or could use hyperfold detonation commands. If she had to set timers, she’d probably need to leave the starkiller crews behind.

“We’ll need to watch the first launch all the way in, no matter what,” she murmured to Rogers. “This is taking longer than I’d hoped.”

“I wish we’d had a better scan of Swarm Charlie’s vector,” her chief of staff replied. “The report that they’re at Shakol…”

Rogers shook her head. At least they could receive starcom messages in hyperspace, though they couldn’t reply.

“We could pull this off, only to have the entire Grand Hive burnt down by the time we got out of here,” she said.

“Right now, I’m concerned about the Delta swarms,” Morgan admitted. “That’s a lot of bioforms we can’t be sure are going to get caught in the novas. And that’s ignoring the fact that they’re our biggest obstacle to completing our mission.”

“Well, so far, this has been slow and painful…but we’re still undetected,” Rogers reminded her. “That’s about as good as we could hope for, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Morgan agreed. “We might just be able to pull this off. The stealth fields are holding and we’re almost there. We’re so close it’s painful to keep waiting, but we’re almost there.”

“And so far, no one has been lying doggo in our path, either,” the chief of staff said. “We’re blind to any Infinite in hyperspace that isn’t moving, and that makes me nervous.”

“Me too,” Morgan said. “But despite everything the Infinite have done, they don’t seem to have been ready for us to sneak in a fleet with stealth fields.”

“Were there any on Builder of Tomorrows?” Rogers asked.

“We don’t know. It’s not like we got a nice, neat inventory for the mobile shipyard that officially didn’t exist and was operated by a multiracial conspiracy to steal a wrecked Alavan fleet,” Morgan noted. “I’d feel bad for what happened to them, but they found what they were after.”

Rogers chuckled bitterly.

“And fucked everybody else.”

“It’s our job to unfuck it all,” Morgan told her. “Go rest, Bethany. Almost half a cycle before we even bring the drives back online.

“We’re going to be here for a while.”

Morgan was awoken by an alert. Rolling out of bed with practiced ease, she hit a voice-only accept as she reached for a uniform.

“Casimir. What