Centre of Gravity. Ian Douglas

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СКАЧАТЬ double worldlet marked hives of the creatures—bases, cities, and industrial facilities, some in orbit around the planet, some deep within its atmosphere … or, though it was hard to imagine such a thing, on the surface itself.

      And ships. So many ships … all as tiny and as insubstantial as the worlds among which they traveled.

      This, then, was the star system to which the fragmented intruder probe had traveled. It was impossible to tell, of course, precisely where the probe fragment had gone in this teeming sea of energy and space-borne craft. The heavy concentration of energy-radiating points on and near the sub-planet directly ahead, however, the one with the poisonous atmosphere and liquid surface, appeared to be the heart of this system’s activity.

      Ordered Ascent called up Warship 434’s encounter records, and swiftly found a match there with some of the alien ship energy patterns ahead. The H’rulka had drifted into this species just once before, some ten-twelfths of a gnyii, one rotation of the homeworld about its sun, ago. Evidently, they called themselves humanity, a burst of low-frequency sound without meaning. The Sh’daar masters called them Nah-voh-grah-nu-greh Trafhyedrefschladreh, a complex collection of sonic phonemes that meant something like “20,415-carbon-oxygen-water.” Humanity was very nearly the twelve to the fourth intelligent species encountered so far by the Masters that was carbon-based, breathed oxygen, and used liquid dihydrogen oxide as a solvent and transport medium.

      Repulsive vermin. No floater sac, no feeder nets or filter sieves, no manipulators—unless the two jointed appendages sprouting from near the top of the creature were used for that purpose. Only two tiny photoreceptors, instead of broad photoreceptor patches of integument. Surface crawlers. Poison breathers. The images in the H’rulka records had been made of creatures captured in that one encounter, but none of the specimens had survived long enough for their captors to learn how or what they metabolized, how they got around, how they reproduced, or how they managed to viiidyig without having a colony component designed for it.

      And somehow the disgusting creatures had managed to build starships and enter the Great Void. Ordered Ascent never ceased to be amazed at the inventiveness of the natural order.

      “Some of the vermin ships have taken notice of us,” High Drifting reported. “They are accelerating away from the larger of the two sub-planets ahead. We will soon be under attack.”

      Ordered Ascent considered this. They’d pursued the probe they’d detected in System 783,451 in order to determine where it had come from. When the fleeing probe had divided into four independent sections, the H’rulka ship had split as well.

      It was imperative that Warship 434 return to an Imperial base and report. The vermin occupying Star System 784,857 were not as technologically advanced as the H’rulka, obviously, but they were close enough in terms of ship and weapons technology to be of concern. The Sh’daar needed to be informed.

      “Set navigational coordinates for System 644,998,” Ordered Ascent directed. It hesitated, then added, “and prepare for Divergence.”

      This last was an uncomfortable order to give, and more uncomfortable to obey. The H’rulka, long ago in their pre-technological Eden, had evolved as herd-dwellers, drifting in vast islands in the skies of their homeworld. Just as they felt claustrophobic when they were enclosed, they felt a terrifying isolation when separate colonies were cut off from one another.

      But the H’rulka of Warship 434 were well trained and disciplined. Across the cavernous interior of the control area, each of twelve massive gas bags drifted outward toward a wall, where a section of the curved surface flowed and ran suddenly like liquid dihydrogen oxide, then dilated open. Ordered Ascent moved through the nearest of these openings, entering a far smaller, more claustrophobic space forming around it.

      “Weapons ready for combat,” Swift Pouncer reported.

      “Warship 434 ready for Divergence,” Wide Net, the navigation officer, added.

      “Accelerate now. …”

      And the H’rulka ship began twisting space.

       VFA–44 Dragonfire Squadron

       Giuliani Spaceport

       New York State, Earth

       2018 hours, EST

      Trevor Gray jumped out of the pubtran and onto the spaceport’s tarmac. The Starhawks of VFA–44 were lined up ahead beneath the field lighting, sleek and mirrored jet-black, each, at the moment, a rounded ovoid of light-drinking nanosurface perhaps seven meters long and three tall and wide. As the squadron pilots approached, the central section of ten of the ships yawned open to receive them.

      “Where the hell are Collins and Kirkpatrick?” Commander Allyn demanded as she stepped off the ’tran.

      The other pilots, already starting to jog toward their waiting spacecraft, pulled up short. “They were with Prim at the party,” Lieutenant Walsh said, using Gray’s hated squadron handle.

      “Gray?”

      “I don’t know, sir,” Gray replied. “I did see them earlier, but …” He ended with a shrug.

      “Shit.” She looked around, as if searching for another transport from the eudaimonium. “They’ll just have to make it when they make it, then. Let’s strap ’em on, ladies!”

      Gray reached his waiting Starhawk, grabbed the upper lip of the opening, which shaped and hardened itself to his grasp, and dove into the black interior feetfirst. His skinsuit was already reshaping itself for flight ops; his helmet was waiting for him inside.

      He wondered if he should tell Allyn what he’d seen at the party. Kirkpatrick had definitely gotten into something he shouldn’t have, and had been flying-impaired. There was no way he was going to be able to operate a fighter; though if Collins could get his deet engaged, he had a chance. Missing an emergency recall, though, was serious.

      He found himself grinning as he pulled the helmet over his head and let it seal itself to the unfolding collar of his skinsuit.

      His palms came down on the fighter’s control contact plates, one to his left, one to the right. At a thought, the body of the fighter faded to invisibility, and he could see the tarmac, the other fighters, the sky-glow of the eudaimonium a few kilometers to the south as clearly as if he’d been standing out in the open. Another thought switched on the fighter’s power plant and engaged the diamagnetic outer hull fields. The opening flowed shut like water, sealing him in. The Starhawk’s hull began growing longer and thinner.

      Starhawks and other military fighters utilized what was known in the trade as VEG, variable external geometry. The various elemental components of the hull—carbon, iron, iridium, and dozens of others—were arranged within a nanotechnic engineering matrix that allowed them to reshape themselves within the ship’s informational morphic field. Standard flight configuration was a needle-slim shard twenty meters long, with a swelling amidships large enough to accommodate—just barely—the pilot and the primary ship systems: power, drives, life support, and weapons. As he brought the ship to flight-ready status, it lifted itself above the tarmac in a silent hover, almost as though straining against the gravitational bonds tethering it to the planet.

      “Dragon Three, ready for boost,” Donovan’s voice reported.

      “Seven, flight ready,” Lieutenant Walsh said.

      The СКАЧАТЬ