Authors: Jaine Fenn
‘And it’s those defences that shot down your evac-pod when you were escaping from the Sidhe ship, which is how you ended up on Serenein in the first place?’ Taro asked, fitting the pieces into place in his head.
‘Yeah. Fortunately the point-defences are orientated to deal with stuff coming in from space, rather than dropping off the transferstation and heading down to the planet, so they just ripped my smartchute, rather than holing the capsule itself. Still led to a pretty rough landing . . . Actually, I’m surprised those lasers were powerful enough to destroy a shiftship, but I guess if Damaru waited until it was close, then managed to get all the weapons to turn on it together, and kept them focused until he got through in multiple locations—’
He paused, frowning, then said, ‘Shit! I’ve just had a really nasty thought. I need to speak to Kerin again.’
‘So, have we decided whether we’re going in or not?’ Taro didn’t remember them actually discussing that.
‘Do we really need to, given the risk if the defence grid is active?’ said Nual. ‘After all, we have planted the beacon; correct me if I’m wrong, but linking it into the beevee system requires us to return to human-space anyway.’
‘It does,’ said Jarek, tapping one finger on the console, ‘but that’s not the point. Kerin has got to have control of the defence grid if she’s to stop the Sidhe retaking Serenein.’
‘She said her son destroyed the last Sidhe ship with the point-defences, and those
do
work,’ said Nual.
‘They did, but the point-defence system isn’t designed to take out whole ships, which is why I need to speak to Kerin again.’
As Jarek reached for the com, Taro said, ‘You gonna introduce us to your wife this time?’
Jarek hesitated. ‘I guess I should.’ He didn’t sound eager.
‘Both of us?’ asked Nual softly.
‘Yeah,’ said Jarek a little reluctantly. ‘Both of you.’
Kerin answered his call at once. ‘Are you coming here?’ she asked.
‘Still working that out. Uh, Kerin, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’ Jarek had the call on flatscreen, so Taro couldn’t see Kerin clearly, but she didn’t sound too happy.
‘When Damaru used the cutting light to destroy the Sidhe ship, did you see anything from down there?’
‘I did not, but there was much talk of a light, high up in the sky, on that night.’
‘Right. And how abo ut since?’
‘It is odd that you should ask that, for there have been reports of flashes in the sky ever since.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of.’
‘What do the lights signify? They have caused much confusion here. People believe them to be portents of doom.’
‘They might be right. Damaru wouldn’t have been able to completely destroy the Sidhe ship, but he must have done it enough damage that it broke up. The problem is, the bits are still in orbit – floating around in space above you – and those flashes you’re seeing are the point-defence lasers – the cutting lights – going off, to destroy any of the debris that gets too close to the beanstalk – your silver thread. If they don’t, one of the bits might hit it.’
‘And that would be bad?’
‘Yes, very bad.’
‘But we still see the lights: surely that means these point-defences are continuing to do their work? Though . . . the lights have become less frequent of late.’
‘They have? That’s my worry: the point-defences aren’t designed to fire continuously; they’re only meant to cope with occasional small stuff. Anything big, like the Sidhe ship, should have been trashed by the orbital weapons before it got anywhere near Serenein.’
‘You are saying these point-defences are failing?’
‘Not exactly failing, but as the system loses power it has to become more selective about what the lasers fire on.’
‘Can you fix this?’
‘I’m— We can try. But we’ll have to come in and dock with the beanstalk.’
‘Sais,’ asked Kerin, ‘you have twice said “we” now. Who is with you?’
‘Ah, yeah. Sorry: I’m being rude. I have a couple of friends here – allies in our fight.’ Jarek motioned to Taro, who came over and smiled at the tired-looking woman on the screen. She might have been pretty once, but she’d obviously had a well shitty life. ‘Kerin, this is Taro.’
There was still some signal-lag, so it took a moment for Taro to see Kerin’s expression change. He’d bet she’d never seen anyone quite like him before. ‘Hi,’ he said, giving her a big, friendly grin.
She got over her initial surprise and smiled back gravely. ‘Good evening to you, Taro.’
Taro stepped back to let Nual come forward. ‘And this,’ said Jarek, ‘is Nual.’
Kerin was silent for longer than the second or so it took for a message to get there and back. Then she said, ‘Forgive me, but . . . the way you look, I am reminded of the Sidhe I have seen.’ She spoke hesitantly, trying not to offend.
Nual said evenly, ‘You are correct, Kerin, and it is because I am Sidhe – but I am working against my sisters, with Taro and Jarek.’
Jarek added hastily, ‘Nual really is on our side, Kerin.’
Kerin said, ‘I need to think about this.’ Then she ended the call.
Jarek swore under his breath.
‘So, what now?’ asked Nual. ‘If she doesn’t want our help because of me, then I’m not sure we have any choice but to leave.’
‘Kerin’s a smart woman,’ Jarek said. ‘She hates the Sidhe, but she trusts me. She’s just a bit surprised, that’s all.’
‘It ain’t like Nual could influence her over the com,’ said Taro, ‘but I guess she don’t know that.’
The incoming call light came back on a few minutes later. Taro and Nual moved back to let Jarek take the call.
Kerin said, ‘I am uncomfortable that you have an ally who is Sidhe, but I have had to accept a number of things I am uncomfortable with lately. If you are willing to help, then I would be grateful for your aid.’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Jarek said. ‘Now, let’s work out what we can do, shall we? Personally, I’d risk the defences and come in to check out the status of the beanstalk, but this isn’t just up to me; I’ll only do it if my companions agree.’
‘Of course,’ said Kerin.
Taro looked at Nual, who said slowly, ‘If Kerin wishes it, we should help. We are fighting the same enemy.’
‘I’m in too,’ said Taro.
‘So that’s a “yes” then. Right, Kerin, we’ll speak again when I’m closer – assuming those weapons really are inactive! I’ll keep the channel open so you can call me if you need to.’
‘I will be here.’
Jarek minimised the call and swivelled his couch. ‘You two can stay on the bridge if you like, but only if one of you gets me a caf first. I think I’m going to need it.’
While Jarek plotted their approach, Taro and Nual carried on going through the Sidhe files. They’d have been more comfortable in the rec-room, but if everything did go to shit, there was an unspoken agreement that they’d see it coming and go out together.
Finally Jarek said over his shoulder, ‘We’re going in.’
Though Taro caught his breath, there wasn’t much to see – just space, big and black outside the dome, and Jarek’s hands, flying across the controls in here.
When the planet itself came into view, a distant bright half-circle, he watched it for a while, but after several minutes had passed and they still hadn’t been blown up, Taro risked speaking. ‘Er, I notice we’re not dead.’
‘Well spotted. If the defence grid was going to fire on us, it would have done so by now.’
‘Top prime.’
‘Yeah, but that’s not our only problem. I need to show you something.’ The holocube display changed as Taro and Nual approached, to show Serenein at the bottom and the beanstalk growing up from it; the lump of the counterweight was at the top, with another lump, presumably the transfer-station, a little way below it. ‘That’s a real-time projection, magnified and enhanced so you can see everything. We’ll actually be coming in on the planet’s nightside. Now, watch this.’
A blinding barrage of flashes went off in the space around the beanstalk.
‘Shit!’ said Taro, ‘is that the point-defences?’
‘Sort of – they’re currently firing about once every hour or so. What you just saw is a sim: I asked the comp to light up everything in the debris cloud that will, at some point in the next year, be in range of the beanstalk lasers. The cloud’s smearing, spreading out to orbit the planet, so the calculations aren’t perfect, but it gives you an idea. And that’s just the big stuff; we’re still too far out to pick up any micro-sized motes.’
‘And we gotta fly through all that shit?’ Taro breathed.
‘Yeah, we do.’
‘So we’re gonna take it easy, yeah?’ In Taro’s experience, Jarek wasn’t always one for taking the slow and steady course.
‘We’d have to go really slowly to significantly reduce the risk of taking a hit. If the point-defences are starting to fire selectively, we need to get in there quickly and fix them – they’ve only got to screw up once for something to get through and take out the beanstalk.’
Taro had a sudden thought. ‘Aren’t the point-defences gonna fire on us when we get close? I mean, won’t we look like a big lump of debris heading straight for the beanstalk? ’
‘Fortunately there’s an approach corridor,’ said Jarek. ‘Provided we come in under power, on precisely the course from the
Setting Sun
’s comp, the defences will register us as a friendly ship, and not fire. But I’ll need to run some more sims, to make sure none of that debris out there’s going to trigger the lasers near us when we make our final approach . . . Or hit us before we even get that far, for that matter. And yes, I could use another drink.’
‘I’ll fix a round,’ said Taro. This situation was way beyond his own meagre piloting abilities.
By the time he got back, he could see the central habitable area of green and brown between Serenein’s massive ice-caps. Jarek was hard at work at the comp, but he paused long enough to give Taro a smile when he put the caf down. ‘Thanks, mate. This is where it gets really tricky.’
Lining up with a transfer-station on a beanstalk wasn’t a straightforward manoeuvre at the best of times, let alone with the added dangers of crossfire and space debris. Though the comp would do the calculations, Jarek needed to provide the correct inputs, and monitor the
Heart of Glass
’s vector. He normally ran the comp on silent mode – its smug voice bugged him – but now he switched on voice activation: there were some alerts he couldn’t afford to miss.
It was a while before he had time to drink the caf Taro had brought him, but once the comp came back with the answer he’d been hoping for, he allowed himself a brief time out, thanking Taro for having the forethought to use a bulb rather than a mug, so the caf was still warm. He decided against telling his companions that he’d managed to plot a debris-free course, in case that jinxed it. He wasn’t going to say they were safe until he was sure they were. He kept an eye on his readouts, but as he drank, he found his mind recalling his first visit . . .
He’d slipstreamed the
Setting Sun
on spec, following a tip-off about this independent tradebird that allegedly disappeared from the shipping-lanes for up to three months every couple of decades. At the time he’d assumed it was a freetrader outfit who’d found a new – and possibly lucrative – transit-path. He already knew the Sidhe were still around, thanks to Nual, but he’d left her on Vellern nearly seven years before and his level of paranoia had dropped to wary caution.
Serenein’s orbital weapons hadn’t fired on him at once, and he’d been oblivious to the planet’s defence grid, too busy tailing the
Setting Sun
and waiting for them to spot him and ask what the fuck he thought he was up to . . . He remembered being puzzled that they hadn’t commed him yet.
Then the weapons had opened up – or rather, one lone platform had fired one single projectile, and his basic countermeasures had defeated what he’d thought at the time was a not-so-smart-missile. Afterwards, of course, he’d had to reassess his opinion of the defences; it was much more likely the Sidhe ship had overridden the weapons and then initiated that one ineffectual attack, which had been enough to disconcert and distract him, so when the human pilot of the ship had commed him, claiming his vessel had sustained damage and needed help, Jarek had taken the distress call at face value. He’d rushed in – and promptly been captured. And that’s when things turned really nasty . . .
‘Proximity alert.’ The comp’s synthesised voice startled him, and he dropped the bulb. ‘Where?’ he asked, scanning his console.
The comp obligingly maximised the source of the alarm: an extensive shower of debris motes.
The ship’s nav-shields were good, but there was a limit to how much they could push aside, and at this speed even objects too small to see could tear a hole right through the ship. He’d been banking on the wreckage being in large lumps. It looked like he’d been wrong.
Time for some emergency evasive tactics; the view changed from the sliver of Serenein’s globe currently in sunlight to the darkness of space.
Jarek looked back down at his display and ramped up the shield on the planet-ward side. They were definitely going to clip the edge of this debris cloud. In the clarity of cold panic he wondered if there might be something in Taro’s opinions on the advantages of neurolinked flying. Jarek had always maintained those extra milliseconds of reaction time wouldn’t make much difference to a freetrader . . . he hoped the next few minutes weren’t about to prove him wrong.