Author's Preface
If you really don't value your lives, go ahead and attack the Humans. You think you're powerful because you kept the Batract Hyphae out of your system?
Think again. The Humans got rid of them after being integrated.
That's all you need to know about them. They don't know when they are defeated. But they will leave no doubt when you're defeated.
Go, destroy a fleet, or a colony. I lean back and enjoy the debacle. I'll be here in the Embassy, waiting for someone from your government to come and surrender.
But before you throw away your people, let me tell you what Humans gladly do to their own people whom they see as enemies, and then imagine what they'll do to aliens.
— Ambassador Nukkik to the Hrun delegation on the eve of the Hrun declaring war on the Aligned Worlds, 12 P.I.
"Sir, it's confirmed. We have connections over the newly installed direct links to Water, and the relay route to Taishon Tar, but nothing further."
The Comms officer's report confirmed Sanders' biggest fears. Either something had taken out the Titan Communications Node, or something was deeply flawed with the p-p network.
"Signal the fleet, we drop out of Transit now."
The officers in the CIC acted professionally, but Admiral Sanders could see the doubt in the glances they gave each other.
"Listen, we all got used to the p-p network quickly. This is a small setback, and we'll hear from Earth soon enough. You all know your duties, and I expect exemplary work from you, as you've done in the past. Proceed."
We took a technology we still don't fully understand for granted. And then built a system with a single point of failure. What could go wrong?
"Comms, continue to map all communication lines. Have the engineers go directly to the links and map where each one leads. Each ship reached is ordered to do the same. Maybe we're lucky and a forgotten or inactive link leads to another fleet."
"Yes, Sir."
Since even Sleipnirs had begun to have p-p links, it was possible a Sleipnir in the hangar, or a relay out in the dark, had links to Nekoo. Dropping into the system without further intelligence was suicide.
"I'm in my office."
She had to read up on p-p network engineering.
Walking out of the CIC, she started to prioritize. Until the p-p network went live, naval operations were designed to take the lack of communication into account. That's what pigeons were for.
After the network had begun to act up on some links, relays and direct exchange links began to be more heavily used. A saving grace. Otherwise she would have been incapable of reaching her own ships in Transit.
First order of business should be reaching Earth, but she already had contact with the Taishon system.
She stopped so abruptly that a Marine walking behind her almost ran into her.
"What the fu— Oh, sorry, Sir." The twenty-something-year-old soldier's head turned white from shock, realizing who he'd almost cursed at.
"My bad, Lance Corporal, continue."
As the Marine hurried down the hallway, running away from the scene where he almost rammed the admiral, Sanders looked after the well-trained soldier with a smile.
God, to be fifteen years younger again and a wild lieutenant…
CIC, right.
Storming back into the CIC so shortly after she had left caught a few officers off guard. Sanders saw the Comms officer had given the station over to his deputy so he could grab a coffee.
Cat's out of the house; it's party for the mice.
"Lieutenant, give me Taishon Tar."
The female Lieutenant at the station was another trainee of Sanders' very own Fake It Till You Make It program. Basically a constant rotation of junior officers on duty in the CIC, so Sanders could see them working under extreme stress. And fresh out of the Navy Academy, every duty in the Admiral's CIC was stress.
Officially, it was called the Future of the Navy program.
"Yes, Sir."
Sanders waited for the Lieutenant to make contact. The Comms center on Taishon must be a mess at the moment. She heard the LT curse a few times.
"Admiral Sanders, goddammit, 1st and 7th Fleets, now get off your ass and give me someone with rank."
Sanders turned and walked over to the coffee kitchen to grab one for herself, too. The Lieutenant had everything under control; she already cursed like a comms officer.
Comms are broken, and I'm in a good mood. Life's odd…
The small line of senior officers in front of the coffee maker thinned out pretty quickly after the senior sensors technician, a blond captain with a supermodel figure, spotted Sanders. The captain ended her flirtation with the senior navigational technician and hurried back to her station.
"Admiral, I've got Admiral Rolling on the line."
Sanders decided to talk right here in the coffee kitchen, taking the call on a wall-mounted screen.
Rolling appeared on the screen. She wore her long black hair down and looked like she'd been awake for days.
"Cassidy, why did your Comms officer threaten my staff with an FTL projectile up their ass if they don't get me?"
Sanders had to hide her smile.
"I'll talk to them. Listen, we're out here in the dark, a day's transit away from Nekoo and without any link to Earth."
"Oh, really?"
Rolling made a sarcastically overplayed surprised face.
"And I wondered why every ship with a link to us calls and asks for guidance."
Sanders laughed.
"Sorry, Samantha, I guess you had a horrible night. Have you sent ships already? Not to pressure you, but I have an invasion to plan."
"Relay-building Pioneer vessels are en route to Burrow and Earth. If you can spare one from your position to Burrow, we're back up. But Taishon can't play the node for the whole alliance."
Sanders saw the dark rings beneath Rolling's eyes.
Damn, Samantha, you really didn't sleep a lot.
"Why not, if I might ask? I didn't have time to go into the depths of p-p links."
"Heat. The Titan Node had millions of links. Each needing extreme cooling while being essentially a 100-watt heating unit. I'm talking sub -170 °C. That's why ships have only a few links."
"I know it was about heat, but don't you have an ice moon close by?"
Fear, and a bit of shock, crept into Admiral Rolling's face.
"I won't build anything on that cursed moon. There's something looking awfully close to a Doomsphere locked at its core. And every landing team had to evacuate because of some geological incidents."
Laughter from the CIC distracted the two admirals from discussing the issue further.
Rolling raised an eyebrow.
"Are you throwing a party there?"
"No, I don't know… You have better things to do than to chat. Keep me updated, and get some sleep."
"Sure. Kick some ass for me."
After the call had ended, Sanders had to see what was so amusing in the CIC.
Two female officers, the senior sensors technician among them, were making small talk with a Marine. The captain's blouse had too many buttons open.
"Am I interrupting?"
The Marine jumped to attention like a puppet whose strings got pulled.
"Sir, no, sir."
The two female officers looked… pissed. Sanders glanced at them, and they actually looked angry.
Must be the stress, and the Marine does look yummy.
"What are you doing here, Sergeant?"
The Marine looked into the distance with a puzzled look on his face.
"I… I don't remember… Sir."
Something's off…
"Zeus? Are you noticing anything out of the ordinary?"
She looked up. Even though Zeus was essentially the ship, the crew and Sanders were used to his voice coming from the ceiling speakers.
Nothing.
"Zeus?"
Zeus not answering a query did catch the attention of the rest of the officers.
You can't fix everything at once. Go backward — why did you think something's off?
The Marine…
"Sergeant, where were you before you came to the CIC?"
The Sergeant sat down. He looked flushed, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
"…The hangar bays?"
"What were you doing there?"
She remembered the Lance Corporal had been walking in that direction too.
"Ughh… Training, that's right!"
His face showed surprise, and he smiled as he remembered more.
"Yeah, and some man fainted, so the Lieutenant sent me to get help from the medics."
"You're at the CIC. Why didn't you use the intercom?"
"I don't know… Can you show me to the medstation?"
He was suddenly like a small boy. Sanders fought the urge to hug him and tell him everything's all right.
"CIC to Medbay."
No one responded.
"CIC to… anyone?"
"Bridge here, Admiral, everything all right?"
The bridge… something about the intercom.
"Can you reach the rest of the ship?"
Sanders could hear people giggling in the background.
They're affected too.
From the sensor station, the blonde bombshell looked up as a signal began to beep. Her blouse still had too many buttons open.
"Umm, Ma'am, Sir? The fleet just transited away…"
What the fuck is happening here?
Direct line… That's why the bridge can hear us…
Wait… The fleet!
A feeling of dread rose in Sanders. For a second, she thought she could see clearly.
"What's the fleet's heading?"
The officer stared at the station.
"I… I don't know."
Of course you don't know, you stupid bimbo — ready to throw your tits at the next man who walks by, but too stupid to do your job.
"Just… oh fuck it, sit there and look beautiful, I guess."
A voice inside her kicked in. She'd had anger management problems in her youth, and in class she had learned how to deal with it. How to look at oneself and spot changes in behavior. And that voice was ringing the alarm right now.
"We're… off. People, think. Something's happening to us."
The officers stared at each other. The whole crew looked tired, sweaty, and close to panic, except one.
"Sir… I think… I think it might be CO₂. Hypercapnia. The symptoms fit."
It was the Lieutenant from the comms. Regina something…
"Explain, quickly; I'm sick of technobabble nonsense."
"My father was an apnea diver, so was I, from childhood on—"
"Of course you were, fitness bitch."
The sensors officer interrupted the Lieutenant. Sanders barked back.
"Captain, shut up or I'll break your neck." She'd had enough. "And put your tits away. Continue, Lieutenant."
The Lieutenant gave the Admiral a shocked look but continued.
"The symptoms are exactly that. We need oxygen, now."
"Spacesuits."
God, thinking is so hard.
The officers scrambled to the spacesuits stored in the lockers next to the coffee kitchen.
Putting just the helmet on, she saw warnings flash up.
>CO₂ levels 5% — CRITICAL<
Jumpy, the diving Lieutenant. Good job.
Then the next warning flashed.
>O₂ storage depleted — replace bottle. O₂ levels CRITICAL<
Someone had emptied the suits' O₂ canisters.
She was close to passing out when a memory came to her.
The battle. They'd all walked around in suits. Her suit had warned her the bottle was empty. She'd gone to a station. There'd been something. A connector. A refill connector for the bottle.
There.
Training smoothing her movements, she pushed the connection line into the side of the comms station's O₂ connector.
The satisfying sound of flowing gas only lasted thirty seconds. Then nothing.
The bottle was only filled to about 10%.
Like a fresh breeze, she inhaled the air.
With every breath, she felt more awake. While her mind began to rebound, her body had its own fight to win. Her hands shook violently, and her vision blurred as her mild headache turned into a splitting pain.
She had to force herself not to vomit.
Focusing on her anger, she stood up.
Someone sabotaged my ship…
Looking around the CIC, she saw her officers close to unconsciousness.
Oxygen… they need oxygen.
Engineering station…
Walking slowly over to the station, she had to ignore the insane muscle pains her body bombarded her with.
Checking the life support systems, it all looked normal.
Restart…
The ship's life support systems were essential systems. The software was stored on EPROM chips and could not be changed. If someone had sabotaged the systems, it must have been done at runtime. A restart would dump anything in the RAM and reload the clean firmware from the chip.
Thankfully, military systems were designed to be basic, but reliable and fast. The restart took only seconds.
The ship's schematics turned from an all-clear green to shades of red and orange. Her hope evaporated as she saw the scrubbers marked black.
Not found.
Someone had probably removed all the scrubbers. Ventilation was turned off.
She closed her eyes. Turning the ventilation on would condemn the crew in the orange sections to higher doses of CO₂, but probably save the ones in the red sections.
Ventilation to maximum.
They needed oxygen and scrubbing. And all of it now.
Every move needed to be precise. Her helmet had about ten minutes of air left, then she would begin to experience the effects of the poisoning again.
The ship's O₂ tanks were emptied. Her only salvation had been the remaining pure oxygen pressurized in the pipes inside the CIC, backflow valves preventing the oxygen from flowing out.
The saboteur was smart. Wicked smart, in fact. She was almost certain the scrubbing filters were destroyed. No use trying to get the ship's scrubbers back to operational.
She needed something that could scrub the air of the ship quickly.
Only one thing came to her mind.
Fuck my life…
Dr. Stein had a laboratory on the ship. Even though he had transferred to the Magellan , some specimens were still frozen there, including one that every crewmember aboard the Niobe hated.
Burrow lichen.
A combination of different organisms that had turned Burrow's atmosphere into almost pure oxygen in three months — and, through negligence, had almost done the same to her ship. Cleaning up the mess had taken a week.
If she had to choose between suffocation and once again UV-sterilizing the ship, the choice wasn't a hard one.
Before she left the CIC, she took a pistol and a stun gun out of the weapons locker.
The saboteur might still be on the ship. Everyone she met in a suit would be stunned by her, no questions asked.
Stepping over unconscious crewmembers in the hallways, she made her way to the laboratory.
The laboratory was biometrically sealed. Only she and Dr. Stein could open it.
Five-minute warnings appeared on her helmet.
The door's opening sequence seemed designed to mock her, so slowly did it work the seals out of the bolts. Then the door opened. Moving slowly to not waste any valuable oxygen, she made her way to the freezer.
Dr. Stein had noted he had two vials of Burrow lichen.
Looking through the freezer, she found the vials. But they were more like two-liter bottles than vials.
Knowing how unnaturally quickly only a few spores of the lichen had turned the ship's atmosphere, Sanders decided one bottle was enough.
As the most central point of the ship, the hangar was the best place to release them. The fact that the hangar had now been equipped with Level 4 biohazard filters in the vents and Level 4 hazard airlocks meant no spore would be able to escape to the rest of the ship.
The helmet gave her a last warning. Her time was up.
Throwing the helmet away, she decided she might as well run to the hangar.
Her vision began to blur again. The headache that had receded came back slowly as she reached the hangar entry.
Just as she walked in, she noticed one Sleipnir missing.
That's where you went, you bastard…
Then she dropped the glass bottle, breaking it on the hangar's steel floor.
Like the first time, she had to confess, the lichen's growth and efficiency were remarkable to watch. Seconds after thawing, the first spots grew visibly larger.
Sanders sat down.
Her anger was gone. She had done all she could to save her crew. Now she could only wait for an alien bioweapon to save them all.
Zeus was gone. Probably deleted or killed, if you could kill an AI.
Her crew was on the brink of dying, killed by someone working on her ship. Someone she knew for sure. And who knew how many of her crew wouldn't survive the day.
Her fleet was gone. Transiting away to who knows where, following whoever's orders.
Sitting there in the hangar, Sanders did something she hadn't done in a while.
Cry.