The Complete Inheritance Trilogy: Star Strike, Galactic Corps, Semper Human. Ian Douglas
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the dodo, the elephant, and the blue whale, a dead-end trap and ultimate extinction.”
“It still seems short-sighted to ignore the potential for this type of interstellar transport,” Cara observed.
“Cara, I couldn’t agree more. Maybe, if Operation Lafayette and Operation Gorgon are both successful, if Skybase really shows her stuff out there, that by itself will nudge things along in a positive direction. At least we can hope.”
“Hope is one aspect of humanity I’ve never been able to fully understand,” Cara told him.
“Three minutes,” another AI’s voice announced. Pure imagination, really, but to Alexander it seemed that he could sense the gathering of energy within the bulk of Skybase. Windows open to one side in his mind showed that all of the base systems were standing ready, all personnel at battle stations, the antimatter reactors at the station’s core already pouring terawatts of energy into the slender channel now opening into the Quantum Sea.
“Cara,” he said in his mind, “has there been any word from the Puller listening post?”
“Not for eight days, five hours, twenty-seven minutes,” the AI told him. “Lieutenant Fitzpatrick’s last report indicated a possibility of failing power systems, however. He may not be able to communicate.”
“QCC units don’t need much power,” Alexander said. “And they can’t be tapped or intercepted. If he’s not able to communicate, it’s because the PEs found him … or his life-support systems failed.” He watched the inner panorama, of Skybase adrift against a star-scattered emptiness, for another moment. “I don’t like jumping into an unknown tacsit,” he said at last.
“We’ve known there would be considerable risk, General. The connection with Lieutenant Fitzpatrick has been tenuous and intermittent ever since the PanEuropean fleet entered the Puller system.”
“I know.” He was thinking about the ancient military maxim: no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy.
During ops planning, they’d considered putting a hold on the actual translation to Puller 659 until they actually received an all-clear from Fitzpatrick and the listening post. That idea had been dropped, however. There were reasons, psychological as well as engineering, that Skybase could not be kept on perpetual alert waiting for the next contact from the distant Marine listening post.
So they would make the jump, and simply try to be ready for whatever they found at the other end.
“Two minutes.”
He opened another window, sending out a connect call. “Tabbie?”
There was a brief pause.
“Hi, hon,” was her reply. “Almost up to the big jump-off?”
The link was via conventional lasercom relays, so there was a speed-of-light time lag of about three seconds between the moment he spoke, and the moment he heard her reply.
“Yeah. But I do hate leaving you behind.”
“I hate it, too. But … you’ll be back. And I’ll be here waiting for you.”
They’d talked about that aspect of things a lot during the weeks before this. Normally, Skybase was home not only to nearly eight hundred Marines and naval personnel, but also to some five hundred civilians. Most of them were ex-military, or the children of military families, or the spouses of military personnel serving on Skybase. Most worked a variety of jobs on the base, ranging from administration and clerical duties to specialized technical services to drivers and equipment operators in the docking bay.
In fact, they represented the way the Marine Corps, in particular, had over the centuries evolved its own microculture. The retired Marine staff sergeant or colonel, the spouse of a Marine pilot, the child of Marine parents both stationed at Skybase, all shared the same cultural background, language, and worldview that made them a single, very large and extended family.
But Skybase was about to take part in an operation utterly unlike anything tried in the past. This time, the MIEF’s headquarters would be traveling with the expeditionary force. It would be the target of enemy assaults, and it would likely be gone for many years.
Active duty Marines at Skybase had been given their orders. The civilians, however, had been given a choice—a choice to be worked out by both civilian and military members of each family. Many civilians had preferred to stay behind at Earthring, though the decisions of many had been swayed by the military members of those families, who’d wanted loved ones to be safe.
According to the final muster roster, two hundred five civilians were accompanying the Marines and naval personnel to the stars on board Skybase. Among them were the research team from the Arean Advanced Physics Institute, crucial members of the technician cadre, and a number of civilian family members who’d refused to be separated from loved ones.
Tabbie, though, was staying at Earthring. She had family there … and though she’d not wanted to stay at first, Alexander had finally convinced her that she would be better off making a home for herself there, rather than enduring the hardships—and the danger—of life aboard the base during this new deployment.
“I still don’t entirely agree with your reasoning,” she told him after a moment.
“You mean about Earth not being safe?”
“You’ve said it often enough yourself,” she replied after the three-second delay. “If the Xul come to Earth again, when they come, there won’t be any behind-the-lines. Everybody will be taking the same risks.”
In fact, the original rationale behind giving Skybase its paraspace capability was to ensure that the MIEF headquarters would survive if the Xul did manage to find and slag the Earth. It would be a terrible irony, Alexander thought, if Skybase survived the coming campaign … and Tabbie and the other civilians left at Earthring were killed.
“Yeah, well, there’s a big difference between the Xul coming to Earth again, and us going out hunting for the bastards,” he told her. “We’ll be out there looking for trouble, and we’re going to find it. And if we’re successful, we’ll shake the Xulies up enough that they won’t come to Earth.”
“I know, I know. But I don’t have to like it.”
“One minute,” a voice said in his head.
“Okay, Kitten,” he told her. “I just got the one-minute alert. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be back in a few hours for the next set of ships.”
“I love you, Marty.”
“I love you.” He hesitated, then added, “I’ll be back before you know it.”
He could feel the hard and familiar knot of anticipation tightening in his gut. He wished this next translation was the one taking them to the Xul. He wanted to get it over with … but unfortunately Operation Lafayette had to come first. Secure the jump-off system—and get those captured Marines back—and then it would be time to deal with the much vaster threat of the Xul.
“Thirty seconds.”
What perverse insanity emanating from the gods of battle demanded that humans first tear and kill one another, when the Xul were the real threat, the most terrible and terrifying threat the human species had ever encountered?
“Ten seconds.”
“Five … four … three … two … one … systems engaged. …”
The mental window through which Alexander was watching the scene suddenly turned to white snow and crashing static. Damn! He hadn’t even considered the self-evident fact that once Skybase translated, the camera on board the Aldebaran would suddenly be left far behind, and the abrupt loss of signal had jarred him. He switched to a different input channel, one connected to a camera feed from Skybase’s outer hull.
For just an