Cascade Point Page 2

  That the kid would assume it was alien was beyond doubt; humanity had never built anything like it.

  “Absolutely certain,” came the reply. “Circumstantial evidence aside, that ship is made of something our sensors can’t identify. It’s also scanning us with...huh.”

  “What?” Grant said after a few silent seconds.

  Dex cleared his throat. “They’re bombarding us with free protons.”

  Grant frowned in confusion. “A weapon? Are they using, what, a particle accelerator as a weapon?”

  He could almost hear Dex’s shrug. “We use miniatures for conventional propulsion, so I guess it’s possible, though this isn’t doing any damage. It’s unfocused.”

  Grant watched the ship move purposefully toward the nearby sun, the gap between them growing more vast by the second. When it became clear the Angel wasn’t in danger, Grant began to feel a little stupid.

  It was nearly an hour before Krieger gave them a confirmed Cascade rift.

  “I’ve been running the test cycle on the gate pylons ever since the shutdown. Whatever that ship did, it wore off. Or we’re out of it,” he added. “Low-power tests are green. We should be able to open a full gate on your command.”

  Instead, Grant had the ship continue on its course. He wanted to be as far away from the alien vessel as possible when they finally left the system, saying as much to the crew.

  Grant motioned for Crash to follow him, then turned to Spencer. “Abby, you have the bridge. Cho and I are going to talk with Dex and Batta, decide if it’s safe for us to slip into the Cascade.”

  “Yessir,” Abby said, though she stayed at her station. Gone were the days of uni-tasking control boards; now every system could be accessed and controlled from any station, even the TCA. Without the specialized interface it was less efficient, but the distributed design was magnitudes better than the old design ethos. Over the decades tens of thousands of people had died from the inability to access critical controls.

  Unsurprisingly, inaccessible consoles were pretty low on Grant’s list of things he was worried might kill him just then.

  Grant had a hard time looking at the group when he gave them the bad news. “We’re going to have to gray flag those drones. Our whole mission, actually.”

  “Obviously,” Crash said. “It’s not like we can just hand over the data to our broker and go about our business.”

  Batta sat with fingers laced together in front of his mouth, covering much of the thick black beard framing his angular features. “It will be expensive, you realize. We’ll have to wait for the Navy to show up, question us, and clear us.”

  “I think they’ll cover our expenses, if for nothing else than to keep us quiet.” Grant didn’t add that the other option was to lock the ship down and throw the crew into a hole so deep light would never penetrate it.

  “I’m sorry,” Dex said, cutting in. “What’s a gray flag?”

  Grant held back a smile. It was easy to forget that for all his education and brilliance, the kid had limited experience out in the world. Looking at him, you might not guess it.

  Dex was average height, and though it was hard to tell through the coveralls serving as a uniform, he was densely muscled. Not bulky at all, but what he had was solid. His skin was a light brown with reddish undertones, most of it was covered in markings of one kind or another. His arms were heavily tattooed up to his shoulders, his legs from ankles to hips, his torso branded with complex designs and tattooed over in places.

  It was all in the personnel file. The secret one, the real one, Grant had burned after deciding to help the kid out. Cho and Batta knew the deal, of course. Batta was his immediate supervisor, and was brilliant in his own right. He’d have figured it out eventually. Cho was in charge if Grant was killed or captured, so she had to know.

  “It’s a universal security hold,” Grant said. “It notifies the Navy that we have something too dangerous or important to share with our broker. It means putting ourselves under Navy lockdown until they see fit to release us.”

  Grant saw the quickening of the kid’s pulse on his neck, his pupils contract to pinpoints. In most people these were signs of fear, and Dex wasn’t different in that regard. It was what came next that Grant was a little concerned about.

  Dex, to his credit, got himself under control. “Is my story going to hold up? If the Navy looks into my background, I mean?”

  Batta chortled. “Oh, son. They’re going to look, likely with a comb with teeth so fine they’re single chains of molecules. But we’re not going to let them take you.”

  It was a statement, delivered with Batta’s usual mundane certainty. Grant had learned through years of working with the man both in the Navy and after that when Batta said a thing was true, it was as reliable as the expectation of sunrise.

  Dex glanced at his mentor and smiled weakly, looking barely reassured.

  “Batta is right,” Grant added. “Though not because, as I’m sure he’s imagining, we’re going to fight for you. Not that we wouldn’t—we’re crew, and that means we’re family—but because we won’t have to. Your story doesn’t have to hold up, Dex. The file the Navy has on you might not match how you actually got off Threnody, but it’s official. It’s not a fabrication, as far as the Navy’s concerned, and it was Navy Intelligence who wrote the damn thing. We’re solid on that.”

  “Then why are we here, boss?” Crash asked. “Just to make sure we’re all on the same page about the gray flag?”

  Grant let his gaze slide across each of them. “Yeah, but also to make sure Dex knew what was about to happen. Didn’t want him to think...”

  He trailed off. He didn’t need to finish; everyone in the room knew how much the kid feared being shipped back to Threnody. The Planetary Alliance had stout anti-discrimination laws, which meant they wouldn’t send a citizen in good standing back home without powerful reason. The official PA record said Dex was a legal refugee—and he was, even if the specifics were off—which gave him a lot of legal protections.

  But that was a rational thing, and if one thing could be said about most Threnodians, it was that they shared a cultural difficulty in coping with emotional turmoil rationally. Dex was an exception, but even he had his moments.

  “If you say we’re good, I believe you, Cap,” Dex said. “I know you’d never sell me out, not after all the trouble you went to helping me. But you can’t control everything. I won’t ever go back.”

  The last was said in a harsher, measurably deeper voice. Grant’s own pulse picked up in response.

  Given the giant-ass alien ship with unknown intentions, being afraid of Dex seemed stupid. He was, after all, a thoughtful and intelligent young man. He had never ascribed to the paranoid xenophobia or isolationism of his home colony, even if he carried the genetic marks of that society.

  “I kind of feel sorry for anyone who’d try to make you,” Grant said. He turned to Cho. “Crash, I want you to talk to the rest of the crew. Make sure everyone knows to plead ignorance about Dex. He’s new, they don’t know much about him, quiet kid. All that.”

  Grant didn’t share his real worry with any of them. He knew Dex was a good kid, everyone on the crew did. But that didn’t mean some hopped-up bigot in dress blues wouldn’t see the kid from Threnody and think the worst.

  3

  Most of the time, people don’t think about gravity. Or air pressure. Or even breathing, for that matter. Human bodies are so used to these things that they become background details, ignored until there’s a change. Gravity becomes front of mind during heavy acceleration or during free fall. Air pressure matters when your EVA suit pops a leak. Breathing then moves to the top of the list of active concerns as well.

  Similarly, almost no one outside the talented group of people piloting starships for a living put much thought into existing in three dimensions. Like the rest, this concept becomes very important when entering the Cascade.

  Travel through a Gate is not instantaneous. The ripple of energy playing across the ship is the skin of the universe parting just enough to swallow a ship. The translation from a three-dimensional space to one with at least five is experienced by every person differently. Not because it’s an objectively different experience for everyone, but because humans don’t have the frame of reference—or sensory organs—necessary to process the information they’re blasted with.

  For Grant, being in the Cascade was like looking at everything through a prism, while also feeling as if he were wearing gloves and simultaneously possessing hypersensitive skin. Sounds were always echoes, while smells were completely unaffected. During his Navy days, he’d known an ensign who always smelled baked goods during a Gate transit.

  It was over in a blessedly short time. The ship slipped back into the universe and linked up with the local Node to sync the clock and information feeds. Total transit time was thirteen minutes. It felt like less.

  It took sixteen hours to reach the station their broker worked on, which was whimsically named A Bit Out of the Way by the owners. Originally it was to be called Iain M. Banks outpost, but someone had decided to honor the centuries dead namesake—an author who gave the spaceships in his books equally whimsical names—a proper tribute.

  The station was on the coreward edge of settled human space, a frontier hub for crews like theirs looking for safe, boring work surveying potentially habitable star systems.

  Protocol required the Angel to remain at standby distance if they had a gray flag to send. Gray flags weren’t so unusual it would create a panic. Anything that might be considered out of the norm or of moderate interest to the Navy qualified. That being the case, however, the authorities wanted mild quarantine until the information in question could be scanned by someone in charge.

  Grant blinked
away the afterimages from the transit and stood. “Send a ping to Chalmers, please. I’ll take the call in my office.”

  The ping had already been returned before Grant settled behind his desk in the small room. He tapped the screen to accept, then leaned back.

  “Well, this can’t be good,” Chalmers, their broker, said without preamble. “You’re back on time, but I can’t help but noticing your ship is in a holding pattern instead of docking.”

  Grant sighed. “We’ve got a gray flag, Goran.”

  Chalmers cursed. “How bad is it?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Grant said, though it was rote, practiced. “All gray flag scenarios are treated the same. Total information blackout to prevent any speculation about the contents of the gray flag.” That way no one could tell whether it the flag was raised because of a potentially profitable find or something dangerous enough that it threatened humanity itself. Or, perish the thought, both.

  Chalmers frowned, chewing his lip. “I’m still getting paid, but the Navy takes goddamned ages to do it when a flag gets raised. Can you give me anything? Even a hint how long this is gonna take?”

  Grant looked away from the screen, staring at the thin film cling on his wall projecting a view of the outside. The stars didn’t twinkle the way they would on a planet. No atmosphere to distort the view.

  “I wouldn’t take out any loans,” Grant said. “I think this might take a while to sort out. And...when you send off the flag? Put a little English on it. Tell the Navy boys I seemed freaked out, worried, whatever it takes to get some extra attention.”

  “Yeah, you look terrified,” Chalmers said sardonically.

  “I am,” Grant said in earnest. “I really am. I’m just keeping it together for my crew. If I had my way, Navy Intelligence would already be here.”

  The older man gaped at him. “Coming from you, that’s saying a hell of a lot.”

  Grant nodded. “You’re not wrong.”

  The protocol went like this:

  A broker, acting as a bonded agent of the Planetary Alliance Navy, received notice of a flag. The broker then logged the source of the flag, which included an encrypted copy of the file on the agent responsible for the flag. That was Grant, his crew, and their ship.

  The logged file was copied to a sphere half a meter in diameter, which aside from a reasonably powerful computer also housed a basic propulsion system capable of accelerating the probe toward the local Gate.

  In this instance, the probe was launched using the station’s supply railgun, then added to its speed with onboard engines. It took eleven hours to reach Gate transit.

  Whatever message Chalmers included with the gray flag notification was obviously effective, because the Gate didn’t need to open when the Navy arrived. Grant expected perhaps a gunboat to escort them, maybe something as large as a frigate. What they got was a destroyer, and one of the newer ones to boot. A quarter again the size as the previous generation.

  Most Navy boats used the Gate system as a matter of convenience. It saved power over using their own Gate pylons, and assured they were ready for combat as soon as they entered a system. Gates were enormous floating structures, four curving triangular wedges carefully arrayed around a spot in the fabric of space thin enough to allow access to the Cascade.

  Though the distance between the Gate sections was vast, the actual size of the aperture in space they created was not. The hulking beast that appeared before Grant in the view screen was beyond the capacity of a standard Gate without sending a modification command ahead of time. Those were rarely used, as they required the Gate to move and change configuration, halting most traffic from smaller ships.

  “Looks like you got their attention, sir,” Crash said from her console to his right.

  “Apparently,” Grant replied in a half-grunt. “Everyone know the drill?”

  Crash nodded, eyes on her readouts. “I’ve gone over what to expect with the crew. Dex is understandably nervous, but I think he’ll be fine. No one knows all that much about what we saw, and no one other than Batta and Dex have seen the telemetry from the recon drones.” She paused, considering. “It’s not a secret that we saw something alien, but it’s not as if this is first contact. We’re not breaking new ground.”

  Grant opened his mouth to reply, but before the words could form the ship went dim and the inside of his head turned to white-hot pain.

  It was gone almost as soon as it began, but the flash still drove him to his knees.

  “Grant?” Crash said, trying to help him up. “Was that an override lock?”

  He worked moisture into his mouth. “Yeah. They had the volume all the way up, too. My implants almost fried.”

  He stood and saw a sardonic smile form on Crash’s face. “Kinda glad mine are inoperable,” she said. “Why you insist on staying linked to the ship while we’re in port, I’ll never know.”

  Grant heard distant, angry voices as the crew tried to figure out what had just happened. He knew the drill well enough; the destroyer had linked with their computer using the emergency distress frequency and used that back door to initiate the baked-in override command. It was something only navy ships could do to other navy ships.

  “Attention crew of the Fallen Angel,” a voice boomed over the internal speakers. “I am Jamal Sharp, Commander Third of the PA Navy ship Ueshiba, specialist IGLAD detachment. Your ship is under my control. You will initiate a digital handshake and cede all lockout codes, or you will be boarded by a company of marines. Compliance within sixty seconds following the end of this message would be advised.”

  Grant slipped into his chair and brought the master control panel up with a swipe. The handshake was easy, as was passing along the codes. Anyone who had been through basic shipboard operations training knew the protocol for surrender.

  Commander Sharp’s voice echoed through the Angel a moment later. “Handshake confirmed. Your ship will be docked with ours via hard seal bridge. You will be escorted to briefing rooms where you will be interviewed by the officers under my command. You will not speak to each other once you leave your ship.” There was a pause, one Grant thought significant considering the crisp delivery of the orders. “We can’t afford loose lips on this one. Too many lives are at stake.”

  The speakers clicked, the connection closed. Grant turned to Crash.

  “Do a run of the ship and make sure everyone knows not to fuck around, please,” he said urgently. “This guy is Naval Intelligence, and has enough pull to have the ship he’s on intercept us.”

  Crash widened her eyes theatrically. “Oh, is that so? Good thing you were in the navy and can tell me this, because otherwise I would have no clue at all.” Her face relaxed into a smile, and she put a hand on his arm. “I was right there with you, boss. I know something weird is going on just as well as you. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the children from misbehaving.”

  When she left, he realized it was the second time since the drone probes came back that he’d asked her to speak to the crew this way. Crash was one of those rare officers who inspired not only respect, but genuine affection. In many ways, she was better at his job than he was.

  Grant thought he was beyond her in only one important way, which was a weirdly divided nature made up of half hard-nosed practicality, half righteous anger at anyone who tried to harm his people.

  “I wonder which one I’ll need today,” he muttered to himself.

  Krieger glanced at him. “What was that, sir?”

  “Nothing,” Grant said, waving the helmsman away. “Do me a favor and go check on Dex, would you? Make sure the kid isn’t too on edge.”

  Krieger bobbed his head and zoomed off, and Grant thought any distraction would be good for Dex. Anything to help him relax through the uncomfortable debrief ahead was a good thing.

  Grant looked at the main screen, now blank, and pondered for a moment. “Abby, I have a job for you.”

  Abby Spencer materialized at his side, which was a little creepy. He almost never saw her move.

  “Yeah, boss?” she said cheerfully.

  Grant eyed her, trying to decide if her endlessly positive spirit was a good or bad thing. “I want you to put yourself in with the rest of the crew. My guess is they’ll keep me, Crash, and Batta together since we’re the command crew. You and Krieger would normally be seen separately, but I expect the rest of engineering and combat ops will be grouped together. I want your take on these people. Keep your eyes open.”