Chapter Twenty Four

Portal Ship

Sorilla managed to stick the landing, almost, as she exited the portal, coming down in a crouch that left her skidding to a stop just outside the range of the mind-bending twists of spacetime that she’d used to jump across lightyears.

If she were right, she should be within a couple jumps to her target, though she was still guessing a little bit in those regards.

Each time, though, however, was teaching her more and more about the system the Ross had… found, stolen… she wasn’t sure which, though she was reasonably certain that they hadn’t made it themselves, not originally at least. It wasn’t instantaneous travel across any distance, for which she wasn’t sure if she should be disappointed or relieved, if she were being honest about things.

Relieved, probably, Sorilla admitted to herself.

If only because the Ross controlled the damn things, it was good that it had some clear limitations.

Range seemed to be one, though she wasn’t certain that range meant the same thing to the Ross as it meant to her and humanity. Pure distance wasn’t the impression she got from the captured notations she’d had time to decipher a little bit of, but Sorilla didn’t know what to make of the other variables listed.

Time almost seemed to be one of them, but she didn’t think it meant in terms of time travel.

Whatever it was, though, it meant that she couldn’t jump directly to her target but had to take a path from ship to ship, much the way starships occasionally had to go through several stars before they could get the direct jump point that would take them to their destination.

Might even be for the same reasons, Sorilla supposed. She’d probably know a lot better if she had a stronger understanding of how and why those limits existed for ships, but that wasn’t her specialty unfortunately.

There’s a thought I never believed I’d have… a wish that I specialized in spacetime math. Someone just shoot me now, before I start thinking like that full time.

Of all the things in her personal quiver of skills, high end mathematics really wasn’t one. She could, in a pinch, snipe or spot for a shooter, but that sort of ballistic calculations was pretty much the top end of what she could do without some serious mechanical aids.

Of course, she did have access to some of the best sub-compact supercomputers ever made, between her implants and her armor, but that still put spacetime calculations well out of her wheelhouse.

She looked around the section she’d appeared in, noting the lack of security with some mild surprise. Sorilla knew that the word was out to look for her, but it didn’t seem to have filtered out evenly, or some places were dragging their heels for one reason or another. She didn’t know which.

Whatever the case, she was happy to take advantage of the gap in security on the ships. While running off to the secure terminal room wasn’t a great idea since more and more of them had started being obviously guarded, there were unsecure terminals much closer that still gave access to some interesting bits of information that she had no doubt SOLCOM would willingly kill for.

Especially Ruger. That man is wound tighter than a German watch, and with even less humor.

Unsecure information was mostly the basic sort of logistical stuff that any NCO would probably know without needing the computer to tell him on a SOLCOM ship, but still needed to be accessible reasonably quickly. Inventory for the ship she’d jumped to tended to be easy enough to grab, TO&E tabulations, even some stuff like mission orientation if not object.

She copied it all down quickly, not bothering to try and translate it. It wasn’t likely to be able to help her, but she knew that SOLCOM would pour over it for years to come if and when she got it back to them.

She didn’t want to push her luck too far, however, and now she was just one jump from her target anyway. From there, well Sorilla had hopes of being able to get back to human space, or at least contact the Alliance. Worst case, however, she figured she could deal for a while until one or the other opportunity arose.

She closed down the terminal and triple checked her calculations and projections for the next jump as she headed back to the portal. Once she got herself lined up for the next hop, Sorilla leapt into the twisting mass of seriously non-Euclidian space once more, vanishing from the ship.

Behind her, after she vanished, a single Goblin stepped out from an impression in the wall and signaled back that the observation target had vanished.

*****

The conclave shifted their focus. The message from one of the watch posts they’d put into place had triggered. They left the ship with its current orders to eliminate the target and refocused on subject Entropy.

She is going to the human occupied world, Bera Ur. Interesting.

Has she had previous contact there?

That was a question that the conclave wasn’t certain of. There had been an Alliance operation reported there, but no mention of the human had been brought to their attention. Most of them had believed she would have chosen the other human controlled world they had contact with.

No matter. The orders are set, she will not leave that one of her own power.

*****

Portal Ship, Alliance World Arkhana

Sorilla felt the slip through the portal let her go as she exited the path and got her feet under her and flexed, ready to land with the force she had become used to. Before her feet could contact the floor, however, two things assaulted her senses.

First, the scanner she had running showed a marked difference between the room she was portalling into and the normally empty ones she had gotten used to. Second, and much more blatant, she felt the gravity surge of weapons charging and several firing while she was still airborne.

Unable to get any leverage, Sorilla was immediately clipped by one of the blasts, sending her spinning wildly as more were aimed at her previous position. Only that first hit saved her from being torn to pieces by conflicting gravity pulses, armor be damned.

Bruised and with system warning screaming in her ears, Sorilla hit the deck in a spinning slid that sent her skidding right into a pair of Goblin mechanoids, bowling them over before she slammed into the wall with enough force to break her legs if her armor hadn’t had something to say in the matter.

Armor or not, however, the impact hurt. Pain spiked up through her leg even as she was trying to parse together what the hell had just happened.

More gravity pulses from Ross weapons set her in motion, her body working on automatic while her brain was still trying to catch up to the situation. She powered through the pain, surging back to her feet and dove into a classic spear tackle, driving the closest standing Goblin to the ground, grappling with it as she rolled for cover.

In close the little mechanoids were vicious hand to hand fighters, but their skill level left a little to be desired. Sorilla got its limbs into arm and leg locks and didn’t bother stopping with a mere submission hold. Metal groaned, sheared, and shattered as she put the full strength of her armor into it, literally disarming the Goblin before taking its legs off too for good measure.

That left its weapon free for the taking. She couldn’t remember where she’d lost the last one she’d stolen, so Sorilla grabbed it up in a rush and bolted for the nearest corridor she could locate, space warp blasts pelting at her heels as she ran.

They setup an ambush, had to have worked out where I was going. Damn that’s more aware of human motivations than I’d given the goolies credit for, Sorilla thought, maddened by the fact that she’d not expected just that, and slipping into the old wartime terminology for the Ross in the process.

She’d not thought about them like that in a long time, not since the Alliance had softened some of her perceptions of the enemy by turning out to be, well, people. Sorilla supposed that, if you got close enough, even the Ross were likely to be people too, somewhere deep inside.

Really deep inside.

They just didn’t show it. Dealing with the Ross had always made her feel like an ant dealing with a human, or how she thought the ant might feel at any rate. They were unfeeling, uncaring, completely amoral by human standards, and really didn’t seem to much care about human actions until and unless it impacted directly on them.

She’d run operations that directly tore Ross installations to shreds, but while they would pursue her afterwards, it would only last until she was clearly outside of their area of interest. There had never been any hint that they even tried to outthink her operations in the past.

This was an interesting turn of events.

With the captured Goblin weapon in hand, she ran through the decks of the alien vessel. Chased by occasional attempts to pin her down or blast her apart, Sorilla tried not to stay still long enough to give them a chance to do either.

I need to get out of here, she thought.

Arkhana was one of very few destinations where she figured she might have a way to smuggle herself off world. The planet had been colonized, originally, by a militant white supremacist faction that had been under the guise of following libertarian ideals. As of the last time she’d been on the planet, the racist stereotypes had still existed but by her reckoning they were dying out, or at least being replaced by something closer to the pretense they had hid behind.

There was something about the idea of equality and self determination. It was an infectious ideal. You couldn’t pretend to follow those sorts of beliefs without them slowly taking hold, if not of yourself, then of your children.

Eventually, no matter what the beliefs of the ancestors, humanity didn’t have hate in their hearts sufficient to hold onto it for that long. If you tried to indoctrinate hate, you would breed a revolution that tore down everything you built… and if you tried to hide it behind something else, well that other thing would smother the hate in its sleep.

Arkhana wasn’t some utopia, of course. It had more than its fair share of residual problems inherited from the founders… as did Allah’s Word… but both were well on their way to being cultures she could easily find a way to live in.

Sorilla hoped that she didn’t have to, of course.

She had her own place in the galaxy, back on Hayden.

First, I’ve got to get off this damn ship, though. Then I’ll worry about getting off world.

*****

She evaded the first ambush. Impressive.

Chance. She was struck before she could fully ground herself. The blast knocked her out of the path of the remaining shots. The Universe conspires with Entropy, it seems.

Do not call upon some supernatural idiocy to explain her. Chance is a factor, but she is skilled in the sort of actions we are engaging in, she understands them better than do we.

Do not be disgusting. She is a beast.

And this is a beast’s game. We do not take part in such things. We do not live them. She does. That is why we have lost thus far.

There is no loss until the game is ended.

The conclave had been growing more heated with every passing moment. The longer the one known as subject Entropy continued to evade their forces the less certain some of them seemed to be in their superiority, at least within certain specific areas of endeavors.

That uncertainty had led to other voices growing more and more heated as they fell back on the defensive belief they had in the racial uniqueness and ultimate superiority of the People. They were unlike anything or any other species ever encountered.

None saw the universe as they did. None experienced or could manipulate it as they did. To be people, therefore, meant to understand the universe on that deep level. Only they could do so, only they were the People.

Some beasts were dangerous, yes, but they were just beasts.

Poor creatures who only existed within three dimensions, chained by the fourth… and entirely unaware of the remaining.

To be pitied, perhaps, depending on the charity one felt to less things, but nothing more than that was possible. Beasts were just beasts.

A few in the conclave had begun to, lightly, question that statement since observing subject Entropy, however. She saw more depth to the universe than any other they’d encountered. She could manipulate and navigate through the dimensional strings in ways that only the people could.

Yet she was a beast.

It made no sense to them, not to any of them.

A few among the conclave were no longer quite so enthusiastic about ending her spark as they had been.

None raised their voice to stop it, of course. The People and the missions they oversaw were necessary. One life, even of a not-quite-beast, did not compare.

*****

Sorilla lid to a stop, covering behind a corner in the maze of identical construction that was the interior of the Ross ship.

They’ve got the way out completely covered. This is bad.

She needed a new plan, because her current one was shot to hell. Sorilla wasn’t certain that she could fight her way out past the forces guarding the exit of the ship, but worse… she didn’t think it would make any difference if she could.

If they want me dead this badly, they’re not going to just let me go once I’m out. They’ll keep coming. The people here don’t deserve what the Ross will rain down on them in order to get to me.

That presented a problem.

For all that she had little respect for the tactical acumen of the Ross, or the individual strength of their security forces, they didn’t need much of either.

The power wielded by their forces, up to and including the ships themselves, was so far beyond anything that might be considered ‘conventional’ that it was laughable. At the low end, the weapons tech they could deploy was capable of shattering atomic bonds on a whim. Anything that could deploy nuclear equivalent weapons as a tactical option, and did, was not something to ever underestimate.

For all the power inherent in that, however, the power level of those weapons was still within the range that Sorilla would consider conventional, more or less.

Certainly, human forces didn’t opt to use nuclear equivalent weapons, but they just as certainly had them. Even tactical nukes were a thing though. Again, they’d never gained much favor in human conflicts for some very obvious reasons. Primarily that they tended to be overkill when you actually wanted to make use of land you had conquered.

Destroying buildings and infrastructure assets, irradiating land, air, and water, and killing indiscriminately was generally all a bad thing for the majority of operational goals. Contrary to what many civilians believed, the military didn’t center around killing people and breaking things. It centered around accomplishing specific operational goals. Killing people and breaking things just tended to be the most efficient means of accomplishing said goals sometimes.

The Ross were on another level, however. They didn’t care about the land as far as she could tell. They certainly had no care for anyone living on it. Irradiating the land was neither a positive or negative to them, for example. It had no effect on them, negatively speaking, but really offered no benefit either. So, if there was something to be gained by doing it, they didn’t hesitate… but if there wasn’t, they wouldn’t be bothered.

Simple as that.

The issue was with the level of pure power they had, and within that Sorilla strongly suspected that nothing the Ross had displayed during the war truly approached their full power aside from, possibly, the annihilation of a planet in an attempt to destroy the SOLCOM fleet.

Of course, given how damned casually they opted for that option, I doubt it was nearing their true limit either.

For whatever reasons, Sorilla was certain that even destroying a planet was the equivalent of them holding back.

She didn’t know why they were holding back, just that they were… which made her very cautious about doing anything that caused them to unleash any fraction of their strength, let alone whatever the full power of it was, upon any inhabited species.

It wouldn’t end well.

That, unfortunately, put her in a quandary.

If they wanted her that bad, she couldn’t let them know where she was so long as they had the capability to reach her. They could, and likely would, tear worlds asunder to get to her if that was an operational goal.

She slipped back away from the entry, she had things to do deeper in the ship before she could return to run that gauntlet.

*****

The conclave waited.

And waited.

Something is wrong. Subject Entropy should have arrived by this point.

Likely she is there, watching, attempting to plan a way through?

The uncertainty in the suggestion could be felt on multiple levels.

Perhaps. Is she frightened?

Subject Entropy does not show fear.

Do not enhance her more for no reason. There is no evidence of such emotional crippling in the subject. Fear may not be a powerful motivator for her, but it surely exists.

She is planning something. Her priorities have changed. We projected that she had prioritized escape to a world in which she could locate other humans, and she arrived as predicted. We projected that she would break out to contact other humans and she has vanished. We are missing something. Her priorities have been altered. We must determine how.

The conclave considered that and agreed quickly.

Subject Entropy was not what they considered an easy one to predict, but it was not because of inherent unpredictability as had been suggested early on during the creation of her file. No, it was more that her priorities tended to be different than others, both of her species and of other known species in general.

She acted with the precision expected of one trained in conflict, but with more fluid options opening to her that constantly changed as the situation changed. She would often seemingly change her entire mission profile mid-operation, when presented with some new piece of information that altered her perception.

That was unusual among the militant factions of most of the beast species they knew. All of them, honestly, though one Alliance species had a faction that had some level of fluidity beyond the normal expectations.

Entropy, however, flowed like water through the battlefield… she changed direction and goals constantly, taking the path of least resistance as she made her way toward whatever goal she ultimately had.

We know her ultimate goal must be to escape and return to her own people. Most efficient means of accomplishing said task?

The conclave considered that for a moment.

Escape the ship, acquire a jump capable ship from the locals, depart the planet immediately.

Agreed. Obstacles?

Our forces. She must eliminate the security force, or bypass them in some way.

Wait.

The Conclave paused, shifting attention to the speaker.

What is it?

Eliminating or bypassing our security forces does not accomplish her mission.

Explain.

Assume total victory by subject Entropy. Annihilation of our forces and escape into the world beyond.

Highly unlikely.

Assume it. What response remains for us?

The conclave considered it briefly, but the answer was obvious.

Once she exits the vessel, we would bring our main weapons to… oh. Oh no.

Her objective priorities are not quite what we believed them to be. She must disable our response capability before she exits the vessel.

Issuing orders to redeploy security now.

*****

There were not many points in the Ross ships that were known weak spots, unfortunately. Most of the ones destroyed during the war had fallen to bunker buster missiles with nuclear warheads. SOLCOM had learned early and quickly that nukes alone weren’t going to do much - the Ross vessels could take absolutely massive levels of damage to the exterior infrastructure and continue to remain operational. Getting the warhead deep inside the hull was the key to taking one down, though even then it often amounted to much less damage than could be accounted for in any of the models.

Now, Sorilla suspected that much of the unaccounted for energy had gone through the portal system, bleeding out into other ships lightyears away, but the key takeaway remained the same in any case. To disable or destroy the Ross vessels, you needed to punch hard, and punch deep within their armor.

Deep, that was something she could manage. She had, if not unfettered access, certainly a reasonable level of it.

Especially with the security forces arrayed primarily at the exits like that, she mused.

Punching hard, however, that was a potential sticking point.

The captured small arms she had acquired from a security mechanoid Goblin were considerably more potent than even standard anti-tank weapons issued through SOLCOM or any national governments on Earth, but it wasn’t even close to the power of a ship mounted nuclear missile.

Thank God, even if it’s a bit of a problem for me right now.

The idea of the Ross mechanoids with quite that much power sent a cold chill down her spine.

Sorilla figured she only had a couple viable targets. The tactical option would be to take out the Ross weapon itself. Destroy the gravity valve and that would eliminate most of their real firepower. They could chase her with their security forces, but frankly that could just as easily work to her favor if they started rampaging across Arkhana like particularly stupid bulls in a china shop.

The local response would certainly be fun to watch. Preferably from a minimum safe distance and with a bucket of popcorn, given the predilection for weapon’s ownership among the Arkhanians.

Is that the word? Arkhanites? Eh, I’m sure they’ll have something picked out.

Sorilla shook off the non-sequiter, forcing her mind back on track.

The problem with the idea of taking out the weapon was actually pretty simple.

She had no idea where it was. SOLCOM investigators had some ideas, but frankly no one was entirely certain if there even was a discrete weapon mount in the ships, or if it was some artifact of their drive design, or something else entirely. Which kind of put a damper on any chance of taking that particular target out.

That left option two, something she did know the location of. The ship’s main drives.

Sorilla dropped down a couple decks from where she’d been, working her way deeper in as quickly as she could. She had little doubt that the enemy would be working out her goal at some point, if they hadn’t already, and the closer she got there before they redeployed to stop her, the less she had to fight through.

The Ross used a gravity drive system, one that had been the inspiration for the gravity control mechanism on the new class SOLCOM vessels in fact. Granted, the SOLCOM design was like a child trying to build their own Harley out of carboard and plastic containers in order to drive what their dad was driving, but it somehow managed to work… after a fashion.

SOLCOM engineers and investigators actually knew quite a lot about the drives in a Ross vessel, though much of what they knew was more along the lines of knowing what they didn’t know. The important parts, however, were at least mostly identified… and, having been at war during those bits of research, blowing up the important parts had received quite a lot of focus.

While learning how the drives worked was never information that was considered important for someone in Sorilla’s position to learn, nor would she have had the education or time to learn it, knowing how to destroy them? That was right up her wheelhouse.

She ducked into a darkened room when she heard a rhythmic stomp of boots on the deck, and felt the presence of several squads moving in her direction. She frowned, though, when they shifted automatically to alter their direction toward her even as she moved to hide from them.

Are they watching me? I didn’t think they had me on visuals this time, based on… Oh, shit, I’m an idiot.

Sorilla grimaced, killing the captured scanner that she recognized had to be putting out a powerful field of active and thus trackable radiated signals, then slipped from cover and bolted up the corridor away from the approaching security.

This just got harder.

*****

The conclave grimaced slightly as they lost the tracking on the target.

She disabled her captured scanner. Annoying.

Isolate her location so we can get an active track on her visually.

The conclave agreed, getting to work on doing just that, but it was somewhat easier said than done. If they could find her, they could assign the system to an active track, which would process through all of the damn near infinite reams of data coming through the ship’s onboard systems. Without that to filter it through, however, it would take a rather large amount of time to locate her and, even with compression on their side, she was moving too fast toward an objective they considered far too dangerous, to risk spending that time on.

Bring in more security along this axis, another said firmly. Do not leave gaps, we will flush her into the open.

Agreed.

*****

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