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

“All starkillers lost,” Rogers reported. “They… They mucked our targeting up pretty good there, sir.”

“They’ve learned the game far better than I feared, Staff Captain,” Morgan told her chief of staff quietly. “Now it’s our turn.”

“Freeze in broken ice,” Ort suddenly exclaimed. “We’ve got her. Chunks of armor breaking free; interface drive is offline. The Six-A is dead, I repeat, she is breaking up and dead.”

Morgan’s attention turned back to her enemies. The big hologram showed exactly what Ort was saying—the last salvo of missiles had clearly managed to slip past the Infinite’s defenses and hit the unarmored inside of the Category Six-A bioform.

Armor that could stand against a point-eight-five-c impactor coming from outside the hull was far less durable when hit from behind. Massive plates, the size of cities, spun off from the dying bioform as its drive signature cut to zero and massive sprays of fluid, easily visible from drones only a few million kilometers away, filled the void around the creature.

“Adjust your targeting,” Morgan ordered coldly. “Take down the Threes.”

It wasn’t going to change anything, but it would buy her fleet time.

And maybe, eventually, Morgan would think of something to do with that time.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

The computer center on the ancient Alavan control station was starting to take on the look of a proper command-and-control facility. More holographic displays had been brought in and linked up to the molycirc core running everything—after Lawrence’s teams had purged the Wendira hardware, of course.

There were Wendira scattered around in support positions, but it was Rin and his collection of scientists who were handling the various workstations. They had direct control of what the archaeologist suspected was the most powerful weapon in the known universe.

A quarter of his people were civilians who had been accompanying the Grand Fleet because of the unusual opportunity to interface with the Laians and survey their space. The rest were at least officers and navy technicians as well as scientists.

Still, it was an unusual assembly to be in control of a weapon, a crew that told the tale of how the Skiefail swarm had been converted into one.

“We are now in the time frame estimated for the arrival of the Battle Hives,” Castellash told him. “Without contact, we cannot anticipate their exact arrival.”

“I know,” Rin agreed. While the messages they’d sent by hyperfold would have been relayed to Fleet Commandant Icenar by starcom, the Wendira officer was unable to respond. They had to hope that the Battle Hives had received the message with its instructions.

Rin looked over the room, his dozens of scientists, the chandelier-esque Imperial computer core and the massive towers of black Alavan molecular circuitry that surrounded him.

“Commence system activation,” he ordered, projecting his voice so everyone could hear him. He didn’t spend nearly as much time teaching as the Imperial Institute of Archaeology might prefer, but he’d done enough to be able to make himself heard to a classroom.

Green lights flashed up on the holograms as the hyperfold links established and hybrid systems interrogated ancient hardware for readiness reports.

“Teleporter one is online.”

“Teleporter two is online.”

“Teleporter three is online.” Lawrence reported the last activation herself, satisfaction in her voice. Teleporters one and two, after all, had been structurally intact and required only reprogramming and minor repairs.

Teleporter three had been struck by a meteorite at some point in the last fifty thousand years, and they hadn’t even been sure they’d be able to bring it online. Lawrence had worked miracles there.

“All systems online,” Rin reported aloud, for the recorders more than anything else. “Sensor board is clear. We have hyperfold links and active masking for all warships in the system.”

“My vessel is prepared to sortie in defense of the swarm, if needed,” Sub-Commandant Likox observed from one of the holograms. “Oxtashah has relocated to the expedition station.”

Hopefully out of the line of fire of whatever came next, Rin reflected. Unfortunately, the expedition station was attached to the control station, and if the Infinite worked out what was going on, that was going to be their priority target.

“Scanners are clear except for masked signatures,” he said aloud. “We are standing by for hyperfold links to create new signature masks.”

Even if Icenar sent the links the moment his ships emerged from hyperspace, there wouldn’t be time to mask them before the swarm fired. They needed the incoming Wendira ships to cut their drives the moment they entered the system and only bring them up after they were masked.

Not only would the teleporter destroy any Wendira ship that didn’t cut its interface drive, that would expend one of their strictly limited number of shots. Rin would mourn the dead if there was a mistake—but they could easily end up mourning that wasted shot more.

“Now we wait,” he told his team. “Please tell me someone brought coffee.”

Seventeen of Rin’s fifty people were human, which meant there were actually two coffee machines that had made the migration to the control center. In total, there were seven devices that turned water into hot stimulants for various species.

He was on his fourth cup when the alarms finally blazed to life. Checking the time, he nodded silently to himself.

Hyperspace travel times were always a guess. There were currents and density changes and all sorts of things that affected how fast a ship traveled. Most were constant enough to be mapped and included in the projection, but none were always the same.

Generally, hyperspace was denser and ships moved faster as you drew closer to the core of the galaxy. There were always currents of denser space and patches of lighter space, no matter where you were, and all of these things had some random variation.

There was still an average “most expected” time, though, and Fleet Commandant Icenar’s survivors had arrived exactly in the middle of it.

“I have a lot of hyper portals,” the Pibo tech watching the interface scanner told them. “Multiple ships passing through and cutting interface drives. Estimate…four hundred twenty contacts. Thirty are definitely star hives.”

There