Origins (17 page)

The perspective through the ports changed and the wasted vista of Calico Base disappeared beneath us. I remembered fleeing Damascus Space, travelling through the Shard Gate. The
Colossus
had been in her prime then, but even then she'd been a bruiser, not an assassin. Speed was not her strong suit. Without any proper opportunity to calculate thrust, to predict course vector, all we could do was move. I collapsed into a crash couch, just as the
Colossus
' thrusters fired.

Martinez's volley didn't go unanswered, and the
Shanghai
responded immediately. The railguns on her spine charged, began to lay down a heavy curtain of projectiles through near-space.

“Point defences are operational,” an officer said.

A bright matrix of light stitched space, dispersing lethal debris in our vicinity.

The
Shanghai
was poised in the distance. At least one railgun shot looked to have breached her hull armour, but it was difficult to tell. I squinted, watching the tactical displays and the logistic-engines flush with data. But even now, the
Shanghai
was dwindling, and as the distance between the two ships increased the flow of reliable intel trailed off. She'd been hurt but it was impossible to know how badly.

“Maximum thrust achieved! Permission to activate FTL drive?”

“You have it!” Loeb said.

The
Colossus
' FTL drive lit and space around us collapsed into a blur—

In that last instance – as the ship breached, broke and then rewrote Einstein's laws – I saw a spark of light where the
Shanghai Remembered
had been.

Could've been a critical hit
, I thought: a lucky shot from Martinez's chance attack.
But just as likely it was her drive lighting.

Before I could reach any conclusion, and long before we could do anything about it, the
Colossus
' CIC lights went out.

I sat in darkness for a moment, my own heartbeat – thumping in my ears like gunfire – my only companion.

Then the CIC slowly rebooted.

Beneath me, as though the
Colossus
' cardiac system had been resuscitated, the deck vibrated just ever so softly, life-support systems coming back online. The
Colossus
' thinking machines seemed to take a moment longer to recalibrate. The tactical display fuzzed with static, then holographic schematics began to rebuild. Overhead, the lights flashed on in sequence.

“Everyone all right?” I whispered. Corrected: “Everyone
alive
?”

“Affirmative,” Mason said. “But I don't think that I will ever get used to that…”

She looked decidedly green around the jowls. It wasn't only her; the rest of the CIC staff looked on the verge of being sick. It was perhaps a miracle that no one had been.

“That's what, your third FTL jump?” Martinez said.

Mason nodded. “About that.”

“Trust me, when you've done enough FTL travel, you won't feel a thing.” He yawned, rolled his shoulders. The weapons pod in which he was mounted had lowered, ready for him to disembark. “We used to do them all the time in the Marine Corps.”

“Fucking jarhead…” Jenkins said under her breath. She stirred beside me, still strapped into her crash couch. “But let's not do that again anytime soon.”

“No promises on that one, trooper,” I said. “Kaminski, Saul?”

Both were strapped into CIC workstations, alert enough to respond.

“That was pretty intense,” Kaminski said, rubbing his newly patched skull.

“Intense doesn't really do the experience justice,” Saul said. “At least the inertial dampeners held out.”

“We'd be plastered across the bulkheads if they hadn't,” Loeb muttered.

“And you, sir?” Mason asked me.

“I'm good,” I said. “All good.”

The Legion looked on with concerned expressions.

I was in a bad way. My stomach had finished somersaulting but I still had the iron tang of bile in the back of my throat. I unstrapped myself and clambered out of my couch – slowly, reacquainting myself with my own body: with the rheumatic aches in my knees, my shoulders, my neck. Though my insides felt pulverised – like I'd been in a high-G dogfight with one of James' Hornets – the sensation seemed to drill down to the cellular level. I held up my bionic hand: watched as the metalwork sparked with blue light, the finger-joints twitching erratically. Every muscle screamed, and my head pulsed with an intense ache. I felt something wet on my upper lip. Reached up to my face, with my real hand, and wiped a strand of bright red blood from my nose.

“I thought that the flying was pretty good,” James said. He looked completely unruffled by the experience, almost as cool as Martinez. “I barely felt a thing.”

“You wouldn't,” Jenkins said. “We're not all skinned up, you know.”

The CIC was soon a well of light and noise. Admiral Loeb, ever the taskmaster, leant forward in his command throne and surveyed his empire.

“Give me a damage report, XO,” he yelled.

“We're green across all systems, sir,” the executive officer responded. “All appear to be running at acceptable levels. No significant structural damage.”

“Has every department called in?”

The officer paused, then read from his screen, nodding. “Engineering, life support, drive, bridge… Everything looks good.”

“Anything on the scanner?” I said. “Did they follow us?”

Loeb gave me a knowing grin. “This is my speciality, Colonel. Our destination is wilderness space. We're using the FTL engine, not the quantum-space drive. There's no tachyon wake to trace.”

I consulted the tac-display. We were currently in the void between stars, teetering somewhere on the Alliance side of the Quarantine Zone, but I couldn't identify our location or destination. The Directorate weren't the only threats in this quadrant: there were probably Krell war-fleets out in the dark, roving for targets.

“This is dangerous territory,” I said. “We shouldn't linger out here for long; at least, not alone.”

Loeb sighed. “‘Broken knife' is the retreat code for the Alliance fleet. Always has been, since I was a green. The ship's AI has a pre-programmed destination in such a scenario: a randomly chosen muster point to which all remaining fleet assets should retreat.”

“How long will it take us to reach the muster point?” Mason asked.

“ETA is an hour,” said Loeb. “We can't fly FTL for ever, but we can plan our next move from the muster point.”

The faster-than-light drive was a crude device by modern spacefaring standards, and the
Colossus
wasn't made for unlimited FTL travel. Like most contemporary starships, for long-distance ops she relied on her Q-drive. The power required to fly a ship at FTL speed was phenomenal, and I knew that staying on FTL propulsion was out of the question. We'd have to plot our next course via Q-space; find a jump point and move on from there.

“We'll have to assemble what forces we have left,” Loeb said, staring at the obs windows, “and then we can go back and take on the
Shanghai
. When we have safety in numbers, we can make uplink to Command and teach these bastards a proper lesson…”

“I hit her, for sure,” Martinez said. His beard and dark hair were glossed with sweat. “She might already be gone.”

“I doubt it,” Jenkins said. “You aren't that good a shot.”

“No telling what damage I did though,” Martinez said with a self-assured grin.

“Maybe we took out the Warfighters,” Mason said.

“I hope so,” Kaminski said, with an earnestness that surprised me. “I really do.”

That thought was darkly warming. It was likely that the real Williams' Warfighters had been ensconced somewhere – in their own Simulant Operations centre – aboard the
Shanghai
. The suggestion that Martinez's chance operation of the railgun had killed them, struck at the soft underbelly of the traitors' strike force, was certainly appealing.

“There's no point going back anyway,” I cut in, “because there is no Command. Not any more.”

Loeb paused for a second, unsure of how to take that comment. “We can try the tightbeam communications array, make contact with High Command—”

“They're all gone, Loeb. I was there. Williams and the Warfighters killed them all.”

Loeb narrowed his eyes, unwilling to accept my explanation. “That can't be right,” he said. “Not High Command. I knew Fleet Admiral Sunsam. What were they all doing on Calico?”

These were the very people who had insisted on charges being brought against Loeb. Perversely, he seemed to be clinging to the chain of command as though it was a life raft.

“They're dead,” I insisted. “They came to brief me on an operation; a mission that General Cole said could turn this war.”

Saul shivered from the back of the CIC. “By Gaia. This is worse than I thought.”

Before I could ask Saul to explain that comment, there was a chime over the ship's PA system.

“Colonel Harris to the infirmary,” requested the AI. “Your presence is required immediately.”

I nodded at the Legion. “I want a full inventory check of what equipment we have aboard this ship, by the time we arrive at the muster point. Mason, check the simulant operations centre. Martinez and Jenkins, the armoury. Kaminski, see to Saul. And Loeb, anything out of the ordinary at all – Krell, Directorate or Alliance – inform me immediately.”

A Sci-Div medtech appeared at the entrance to the infirmary, dressed in a smock that was so splattered with blood that it looked more red than white. A pretty middle-aged woman, with cold features and blonde hair plaited down her back, she looked seriously out of her depth. She bowed her head at me.

“Colonel, I am Dr Erika Serova. I received mission attachment orders this morning…” She trailed off. “Are you all right, Colonel? Your face – it looks like you need some attention yourself.”

“Save the niceties,” I said. “Where's Ostrow?”

Now we were away from immediate danger – away from the
Shanghai
and her sister ships – my mind had turned back to the mission. Ostrow knew what I was supposed to do, and he was my only link back to the
Endeavour
intelligence package.

“He's through here,” the tech said. “He keeps asking for you, saying that he has to see you. You should be aware that he's in a critical condition. That he's conscious at all—”

“Is he going to make it?”

The woman pulled a noncommittal face. “He's suffered extensive blast injuries. Likely ruptured a lung, and with a grade-six hematoma on his liver. I suspect some form of spinal injury as well, although he won't let us examine him any further.”

She showed me through to a small chamber. Inside, Ostrow lay on his back in a bunk. The doctor quickly retreated from the room, leaving us alone, and the door hummed shut behind her.

Ostrow was in a really bad state. His eyes were closed, and although the machine beside him beeped rhythmically – showed a holo-projection of what I guessed was his heartbeat – he looked a lot like he was already dead: his skin had that waxy pallor, and his closed eyes were sunken into his head. Other bio-signs were broadcast on to the terminal, and none of them were encouraging. He'd been stripped out of his body armour, and his undersuit had been torn apart both by shrapnel back at the Spine and the treatment he'd received in the infirmary. Cables and monitor pads ran across his chest; medical dressings were plastered over his left shoulder. As I came near, he jerked awake, eyes flashing open with surprising determination.

“Harris…” he started.

“Take it easy,” I said, genuinely surprised by his reaction.

“Y… you need to know what to do…”

Ostrow still clutched the black metal box in a bloodstained hand. It attracted me like a magnet: made my heart beat that little bit faster. I quelled poisonous emotive responses that threatened to infect me.

“The
Endeavour
is the key… to this war… She's the origin.” His face twitched, spasmed with pain. “And the war won't stop unless she's found…”

“You're not making any sense. Tell me what I have to do.”

He pushed the case near to the edge of the bed, offering it to me, and I reached for it without a thought. The outer armour plating was battered and warm to the touch; Ostrow had been holding it tight.

“Ev… everything,” he said, struggling to speak, “is on there. That's what they want; it's what they've always wanted. L… look after it. A lot of good people have died for what's in that box.”

“Where is she, Ostrow? Where is the
Endeavour
?”

“In the Maelstrom,” Ostrow said. “Her c… coordinates… the box…”

After years of searching, this case contained hard intel on her location. I held it in my real hand, felt the worn safety catch. It was DNA-encoded but had been unlocked by Ostrow. I had to fight the almost irresistible temptation to open it here and now – to examine exactly what it contained – but Ostrow's ragged breathing drew me back to the room.

“You don't have long,” he said. His lucidity seemed deliberate, as though he was really concentrating on telling me this. “Planning a c… counter-attack… All in package…”

Sunsam's counter-attack: reinforcements from the Core Systems.
But High Command hadn't survived long enough to give me the details of the operation, and I only knew that they had – somehow – intended to rely on the Shard Gates…

“Tell me,” he said, “did Professor… Saul… make it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Saul is alive.”

If what Saul had become – a frightened shell of a man – was actually living.

“He knows more than you can ever appreciate,” Ostrow managed. “This will be the last time, Harris. You're finally getting what you want.” He reached out, blindly feeling for my hand. “For God and the Alliance.”

“I've never believed in the first,” I said, “and I'm not sure there's much left of the other.”

Ostrow's eyes shut. “I'm sorry, Harris. Sorry for what you will find out there.”

The bio-signs on the machine next to him abruptly flattened, and Ostrow's breathing became softer and softer.

“Medtech!” I yelled. “Get in here!”

There was no death-knell – no last-ditch, desperate attempt to cling to life. He just faded, until the machines began their insistent chiming. The medtechs came, blustered around him. Took their readings, logged it all down. Just as they ever did.

“He's gone,” Dr Serova declared.

It struck me, as the medical team left the room, as they drew the bed sheet over Captain Ostrow's ravaged body, that I knew so little about him. We'd served together for months now, and despite the annoyance that he had caused me he had been a faithful servant of the Alliance. This was not a soldier's death. He had deserved more. I didn't even know his first name, for Christo's sake.

Despite all of that, I left the Medical Deck in a hurry. I told myself that it was because I wanted to make Ostrow's death mean something – because this was what he had died for – but the truth was closer to home.
Is this it?
I asked myself, as I clutched the security case. I could focus on nothing but what I would find inside. It had taken on near demonic proportions – felt as though it had grown heavier and hotter in the brief time that I'd possessed it.

I raced from Medical to Communications. There would be a closed computer suite there. The room was lit only by space outside: the view-ports in the open position.

Strength began to ebb out of me, as the after-effects of the massive adrenaline flood left my system. I felt the hardwired chemical reaction that was my body telling me “thank Christo we made it out of that alive.” The sims never suffered from that response; the combat-suit medi-suite countered the comedown perfectly. Things were very different in my own skin.