Chapter Nineteen
Parithalian Cruiser Upwind
“Possible contact, Sector Thirty-One Twelve.”
Elim nodded, gesturing quickly, “Locate, isolate, and identify. Full active scans are authorized.”
“Yes, Master of Ships.”
The Upwind was still evading the enemy, though as best they could tell no farther shots had been fired in their direction. With the Ross, however, that likely only meant that they had decided to settle in for the long wait, likely securing the Jump Point against their return.
If they relaxed and tried to Jump again… well, then there would be a second chance, wouldn’t there?
That wasn’t going to happen, however. That Jump Point was blacklisted as far as Elim was concerned. He had no intention of taking his ship anywhere near it, and that was final. They’d already plotted an alternate course to get them back to the Alliance Administrative Systems, using a longer series of Jumps.
The only thing slowing them from taking that right then was that he wanted to ensure that the Ross weren’t skulking close enough to take them out no matter which Jump Point they used.
Until they found the enemy, the Upwind was going nowhere.
The new scan looked promising, however, and Elim copied it over to his own system to examine while the scanning crews were doing their duty with the raw feeds.
The potential target was an unknown source of warping in the local space time. That might not be the enemy ship. Solar systems were notorious for hiding even significantly sized celestial bodies in their outer shells where the light from the primary was weak and didn’t reflect particularly well, especially off rocky planetoids and larger.
However, this system was reasonably well surveyed, and hadn’t shown that sort of anomaly in any of the recent scans from the last several records. That was a good sign that they had a decently high probability of a match.
It was quite a distance away, however, very much out of the range of the faster systems of scanning. It would take time to get a proper image of the target, time that he would prefer was spent in other ways if it could be managed.
Let’s see what happens when they’re scanned actively…
*****
Portal Ship
The local conclave found itself pulled away from the ongoing and occasionally enlightening, yet always frustrating, situation with Entropy, their attention being redirected by the actions of the Alliance war vessel.
They have detected the vessel pacing them, active scans of that region of space are increasing.
Have they reached detection threshold?
Negative.
Then they believe they might have located it, but have not yet. Take no action until the scans reach the detection threshold. Have the ship maneuvered closer, and prepared for combat.
The conclave considered the suggestion briefly in their compressed time, then gave the assent for it to be undertaken. The Alliance ship was the priority, but really it was a secondary interest for them compared to what was going on right there on the other vessel buried in the dirt of the Alliance Production world.
Entropy in action was… fascinating.
She has been moving erratically, but there always seems to be a goal. What is her next one?
That was a question that was perplexing the conclave incredibly. The human soldier did not seem to like moving in straight lines, despite being entrapped in a ship that was composed almost exclusively of straight corridors it seemed. When she made moves, it had become part of their procedure to attempt to predict where she would ultimately end up… and whether that was where she originally intended.
Thus far, none of them had been particularly successful at predicting the first, nor confirming the second.
Her current path will take her, eventually, to another secure storage.
Anything of note within?
No. Merely supplies for the ship, parts, nothing of military value at least.
Do not assume that means that Entropy will be unable to leverage it into something of military value.
Agreed.
Attention…
They all refocused, turning to the speaker as the project of the subject’s path was calculated.
What is it?
She may be directing for the spacetime core.
That brought them up, confused for a moment. There were few things there that anyone could affect, even the Ross themselves, without significant equipment. While she had certainly surprised them in the past, there was no hint that she had the capability to do any damage to the core.
Likely a misdirect, another finally decided. There is nothing there she could reasonably accomplish.
The transport paths cross there.
That warning left many of them dumbfounded. Not that Entropy might be heading for the Paths, but rather than anyone would even consider it a possibility.
You don’t mean to actually suggest she might be capable of navigating the Paths, do you?
I mean to suggest that we are no longer certain of her actual capacity at all. It harms none if we dispatch more… significant security to the entryways to the Paths.
That caused them to reconsider their incredulity.
Ultimately it didn’t hurt to send forces there, just in case of course.
The order was given.
*****
Sorilla spotted the lumbering Golems moving into position through the scanner long before she could see, hear, or even feel their actions through the deck.
Fuck. They’ve finally outguessed me.
Honestly, she was surprised that it had taken this long. She’d been trying to cover her approach with misdirection, taking longer routes than needed, and even hitting other targets that happened to be close to the path she needed to take, but in the end… she was moving ever closer to her goal, and at some point, they had to recognize what that was.
The portal room.
SOLCOM didn’t know a lot about it. In fact, she was probably the single human in the galaxy who knew the most… certainly the most first hand. She’d been in such a room once before, before her actions led to the destruction of the ship and the room with it.
What they did know was that the Ross had a mastery of spacetime that challenged everyone’s understanding of physics. Their control over gravity was one aspect of that control, but it was arguably one of the least impressive. Being able to warp spacetime, increasing or decreasing the localized effects of gravity, had far more applications than merely turning any matter into a nuclear explosive.
It allowed them to manipulate time, send ships powering across the galaxy at incredibly absolute velocities as well as unbelievable accelerations… but it also allowed them to interconnect their ships, creating a massive portal network that could instantaneously cross lightyears in ways that no other species SOLCOM was aware of could even dream of.
Hell, they weren’t even completely certain that the Alliance knew that the Ross could manage what they did.
It was the great secret that the Ross protected, and one that she had managed to unveil because of one of the more insane missions she’d participated in during the war.
And now, I’m going to use it to my advantage.
Or die in the attempt, of course. But Sorilla firmly kept that thought from actually forming in her mind.
First, however, she had to get through the final defense that the Ross had opted to place in front of her.
And what a defense it is…
Six Golems, heavily armed, and of the combat variety rather than the upscaled earth moving versions she and the Pathfinders on Hayden had initially encountered. Sorilla fingered the captured weapon in her possession, considering her chances against them with only that.
She didn’t really like those numbers.
Should have kept the Cougars as an ace in the hole, I guess. Oh well, hindsight and all that, I guess.
She briefly toyed with the idea of checking and seeing if the Ross had any captured Titans in their inventory, but as far as she was aware none of the big mechs had ever been captured intact during the war, and even if they did have one, the odds of it being on this ship… not great.
Sorilla settled in on one knee, surveying the scene through the scanner rather than with her eyes of her armor’s sensors. In addition to the instinctive understanding of the environment it offered her through her accelerometers and the neural interface they used to communicate with her core processor, she could have her internal computer take the data and crunch it out into a visual representation.
It was slower, taking seconds to render even a still frame image, but it worked.
The small squad of very big mechanoids was waiting just a ways down the range and, from the way they were arranged, they knew exactly where she was. If Sorilla had any doubt concerning whether the Ross were monitoring her… she didn’t… that would have cinched it.
Sorilla found herself a little irritated at the confirmation even so, however, as it clearly established that the Ross were treating her like a rat in a maze… offering up some cheese here and there to motivate her, while simultaneously throwing obstacles in her path to see how she’d react.
Whatever intelligence she was gaining, so too were they in turn pulling back from her.
That was how it worked, of course. You rarely, if ever, got to work in a vacuum where you were gaining all the rewards while the enemy got nothing in turn. She was used to the give and take. She just didn’t like being in such a one sided situation. Letting the enemy control the battlefield was generally a good way to get yourself killed, but she just didn’t see many ways around that at the moment.
Just have to keep playing the game and be ready to grab my chance to break out of the maze when it comes. Then we’ll see who’s the rat, and who gets the cheese.
Sorilla blinked, grimacing slightly as she thought about what she’d just said… well, thought…
Ok, that kinda sucked. Eh, I’ll come up with something better if I ever get to tell this story. Enough time wasted. Let’s get this show on the road.
*****
The conclave watched as subject Entropy took some time, kneeling in place and just stayed there in silence for a time. They assumed that she was interfacing with her own equipment and likely, the scanner she had taken from the storeroom. That being the case, they anticipated that she was aware of the more potent security forces protecting the Paths.
Entropy moves.
They all moved automatically, focusing on the human as she was indeed moving again.
That answers that.
Directly toward the Paths.
Yes, but is it because the Paths were her goal all along. Or is she going there now because the additional defenses have piqued her curiosity?
The members of the conclave froze at that, then glared as one at the speaker.
They hadn’t considered that possibility.
Damn it.
No matter. Deal with her now, enough of the games.
The conclave agreed. More security was summoned, just to close the exits from the area. This was Entropy’s last stand.
*****
The Ross weapon had an impressive power supply, of that Sorilla had no doubts. Unfortunately, at its highest setting… the only setting that was even slightly inconvenient to the Milspec Golems, even as impressive as it was, it was a limited power supply.
She noticed the gage descend below the useful range after only two additional shots that left one Golem smoking and moving slower than the rest, but still active and very much looking for her head.
Shit.
She could fall back, but Sorilla could already feel the additional security moving in to cut off her retreat. Possibly she could fight through them, but that felt like it would be merely prolonging the inevitable. Her goal was right there. She could see the path into the portal room right through across the way.
I can make it, Sorilla thought, steeling herself.
She looked side to side, taking in all of the approaching Golems with care as she stood her ground and let them come, her hands dipping down to her hips and resting on the butts of her pistols where they waited.
Alright, partner… Sorilla thought, smilingly slowly under her helm. Draw.
*****
What is she doing? Does she intend to engage the security drones with her personal weapons?
Impossible, we have thorough scans and analysis of those. They are not capable of harming the combat rated drones.
Agreed, but she clearly seems to think she can do something.
The Conclave agreed with that, somewhat set aback by the subject’s refusal to take actions that they could understand. Fleeing would make sense. Charging would make sense. Neither would necessarily be intelligent, but they made sense.
Standing there?
The conclave was about fed up with attempting to get any sort of sense out of the actions of Entropy.
The woman had well earned her title by this point.
With orders dispatched the end the threat, they settled in to see if some other bit of insanity was about to befall them.
*****
The feeling of the Golem’s weapons powering up was like a massive foghorn alarm going off in her ears. Sorilla tensed, sinking a little as she bent her legs and shifted power to the capacitance that energized the musculature built into her armor.
One chance. That’s all I get.
The standoff didn’t last long. According to her chronometer it was only seconds at most, but Sorilla felt like it had gone on for hours while she waited for the signal to move. That moment, that signal, finally came as she felt the power in one of the Golem’s weapons discharge.
She was moving before the pulse formed in the weapon’s projector, already clear of the area of effect before the blast left the weapon, and charging right in as she drew both pistols and tagged priority targets in the exposed sensory mechanisms on the big mechanoids.
Her super-positioned pistols could empty their barrels so quickly that the recoil wouldn’t even have time to affect her aim before they were empty, but that wasn’t what she needed at the moment. Precision shots took out the Golem’s ‘eyes’, or as best as SOLCOM’s research had indicated would be their eyes. She and the Pathfinders had mapped out many of the big mechanoid’s weak points during the early period of the war, but whether they’d found them all, Sorilla really didn’t know.
She just needed to buy some time, and hoped having their sensory capacity dropped would manage just that.
Another pulse discharged, vectoring right for her, and Sorilla leapt up and to the side, twisting in the air as the warping of spacetime turned the deck where she’d been into a mockery of modern art.
She planted her feet against the wall, running along it slightly to redirect herself before finally kicking off as hard as she could when a third discharge went off.
The wall behind her exploded as she dove through the air, hammering into the head of the closest Golem in a spear tackle that ended much better for the Golem than it did for her. Armor or not, hitting an immovable object hurt if you weren’t an irresistible force.
Ow.
Sorilla managed to hang on, however, even as the mechanoid reared back in response to her landing on it. She didn’t know if it was startled by her arrival, unbalanced by the impact, or actively trying to shake her off… but it didn’t really matter as she locked her arms around the thing’s head and hung on as she lost her grip on one of her pistols, the weapon clattering down to the deck far below.
Bucking around, Sorilla gritted her teeth and jammed her remaining pistol into the neck joint, firing off everything she had left before she let that one drop too and went for her knife.
Just like old times, she thought as she drew the SOLCOM issued blade and slapped the butt against her thigh to activate the carbon alignment of the blade. The edge glowed white as she held on with her left hand and stabbed repeatedly into the neck of the machine with her right.
Metallic screeching filled her ear. The thick, almost stone like structure of the Golem, was incredibly tough, even for a mono-molecular blade like the one she wore, but Sorilla didn’t let up. Within seconds that felt like hours, she sensed the big machine slow and slump, dropping roughly down to one knee as she let go and slid down its back, keeping the bulk of it between herself and the others that were turning on her.
She felt several weapons charge, preparing to fire, and knew that she only had seconds to make her move.
Sorilla kicked off the back of the Golem in a dive and dove straight for the entry way to the portal room, pulse discharges slamming into the big machine behind her as it exploded and the shockwave rippled out across the room, engulfing her in its passing.
The blast wasn’t enough to penetrate her armor, but it was enough to disorientate her as she hit the ground, fumbling the landing as she crashed along the deck and through the entry path to the Portal room.
*****