The Borrega Test Read online

  The bestial voice spoke again. “What is the extent of the Directorate’s knowledge of the ones known as the Harbingers?”

  McFinn finally understood. This creature was one of the Naati infused with the Harbinger DNA. The yallic slaves had successfully created four of the abominations all those years ago, and the Naati moved them off the surface of the moon and back to the Hegemony. One was here now, looking for any knowledge about its own creation.

  Cavanagh did not reply.

  McFinn screamed in pain; it seemed as if a thousand knives cut his body into ribbons.

  Cavanagh looked at him, her eyes wide. She raised the weapon to her head. The creature let out a howl of rage and frustration. The sound seemed to pierce McFinn’s eardrums, as well as blind him with brightness.

  He still saw Cavanagh.

  “NO!”

  Cavanagh pulled the trigger.

  BLINK

  The command deck reappeared. The ion beam from Cavanagh’s sidearm splattered the top of her head over the bulkhead. Her body slumped on the deck, her dead eyes looking up at him.

  McFinn collapsed. He realized he had wounds. He looked up at the creature. Its dog-like head was hairless, the skin color a sickly gray, the eyes cloudy orbs. It looked around, as if unsure of what to do. It looked up, as if becoming aware of something, and then turned and walked off the command deck, the other Naati following.

  McFinn heard moans of pain. The crew lay on the deck, wounded or dead. He rolled over on his back. The sobs wracked his body and the tears and snot rolled down his face. The pain from his wounds, physical and psychological, was unbearable. After a few moments, he passed out.

  McFinn woke with the vision of Cavanagh in his mind; half of her head sheared away, the blood oozing from the cauterized tissues. He rolled over, vomited on the floor, and then lay back. He lay on a power stretcher, naked beneath a blanket, his head propped up on a thick pillow. Several other power stretchers occupied the same space, which looked like the medical bay on the Angau Coch.

  Was it all a dream?

  A nurse noticed he had regained consciousness. “Commander McFinn? You’re on board the Durendal.” She offered him a cup with a straw. “Here. Drink.”

  McFinn sucked on the straw and laid back with a sigh of relief. “How long have I been here?”

  The nurse looked at her watch. “Fifteen hours. In addition to your wounds, you suffered from acute psychological trauma, so we gave you a course of psychorep drugs and kept you here for observation.”

  “What about the Coch?”

  “Captain Suftin can answer your questions. I’ll let him know you’re conscious.”

  Captain Suftin had thin white hair and light blue eyes, and looked to be much older than McFinn. “I am pleased to meet you, Commander.” He shook McFinn’s hand. “Your reputation precedes you.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” McFinn said to be polite. “What is the condition of the Angau Coch?”

  “She’s a complete write-off,” Suftin replied. “I’m sorry to hear about Captain Cavanagh.”

  McFinn said nothing; he just looked away, the tears welling up in his eyes. How can I possibly forget this?

  “She served under me as an ensign,” Suftin continued, “right out of the Academy. I knew she would go on to become one of the best officers in the Navy. She will be missed.” With a glance at the mess on the floor, he pulled up a chair and sat down. “We were waiting until most of the crew had recovered from their wounds before holding a service for her, and for others who died.”

  McFinn didn’t want to go to any service. He wanted to run far away and hide. “That is very thoughtful, Captain.” An awkward silence descended, and McFinn wondered if Suftin would say it.

  After several long moments the Captain cleared his throat. “I must apologize for our tardiness, for myself and Captain T’lau of the Excalibur. If we had been even an hour sooner, many more people would still be alive.”

  No shit, Sunshine! Suftin didn’t offer an explanation, and McFinn didn’t push it; it didn’t make any difference now, anyway.

  Suftin stood. “I’ll let you know about the service.”

  McFinn just stared as Sutfin walked away, the tears rolling down his cheeks and the snot dripping from his nose. Had he loved Cavanagh? Possibly. They had had their intimate moments, especially early in their relationship, but he had cut it off soon after he began serving on the Coch. She had taught him much, and knowing her had made him a better officer, and, he dare thought, a better person.

  However, there was something else looming in his mind, something far more disturbing than Cavanagh’s death. How could the Naati have possibly known the Angau Coch, and not some other ship, was going to respond to the raids? Even more incredible, how could they know Cavanagh was going to be commanding the vessel? For the Naati to be that lucky, the odds were astronomical: one in a trillion, probably.

  Someone told them. Cavanagh didn’t kill herself; she was murdered.

  Bacchus Freedman almost succeeded in betraying the Union and starting a destructive war with the Naati, but the man was long dead. Hundreds of Naval officers had conspired with Kilgore, but the Navy only prosecuted a few. There was no telling how many people within the Intelligence Directorate, the Navy, or any other agency, shared Freedman’s warped views. A cold shroud of fear covered McFinn’s heart. A stand up fight with the Naati was hard enough, but a fight against an unknown and internal enemy was almost more than he could bear.

  Cortez

  The itch was the worst.

  It always appeared when he was under stress, like now; he was in command of one of Her Majesty’s Imperial Naval vessels, the lives of one hundred and fifty crew hanging on his every decision. He wanted to rip off the mask and soft padding and claw off what remained of his face. He could touch the medtab at his belt to pour drugs into his bloodstream, but the medication always made him lose his edge, that cutting blade of the mind that allowed him to make confident decisions with little information.

  So he suffered; he “put up with it” as his father used to say. Put up, or shut up, boy!

  Fucking bastard.

  Captain Marcus Braden Cortez stood on the command deck of the Naginata, the latest iteration of the Gladius class cruiser. His smooth mirror-finish mask reflected the holograms floating above the sitrep table. Modeled on his own face, the mask had idealized features, of course; it looked like the face of an ancient statue. He stood exactly one point nine meters tall, the proportions of his body perfect in the classical sense, but that body was almost completely artificial. Only his trunk remained, and even that held artificial lungs and heart, the originals damaged by explosive decompression. The polyalloy shards of the Raptor’s command deck door had sheared off his two arms. One leg had burned to a crisp in the ensuing fire, and the bones of the other crushed into hundreds of pieces by the collapse of the command deck’s bulkhead.

  His new form was powerful. He had the strength of many and frightening dexterity. He could breathe in lighter or denser atmospheres. His form could absorb large amounts of kinetic and electromagnetic energy, which made him resistant to personal firearms. Of his head, most of the skull was metal, an alloy of chromium, molybdenum and steel. His eyes were sensitive electromagnetic receptors capable of low light, infrared, and ultraviolet vision, as well as telescopic and microscopic vision. He could hear a rat fart at a hundred meters. He could precisely analyze odors for chemical content.

  However, his brain was still his own. It had survived unharmed, physically, at least.

  By Imperial law, cybernetic modifications had to stand out. No artificial limbs could be fashioned to look normal; no artificial face could look natural; even people with artificial organs had prominent tattoos or other indicators.

  In a galaxy full of bizarre aliens, Union culture prized the natural Human form.

  Cortez didn’t care. No one could read his expressions or body language. He struck fear into the sniveling, pant-pissing ensigns the Academy sent him. T
hough fear and anxiety may rip through his mind, he always appeared calm and in control.

  Where this tall and attractive General Intelligence Directorate agent told him to go gave him plenty of fear and anxiety.

  “These coordinates are in the Neutral Zone,” Cortez said. His artificial voice purred. The hologram above the sitrep table exploded into a cloud of red and green. A tall woman with a shock of blonde hair stood across the sitrep table, staring at Cortez through the image. “What’s more, Ms. Hoffman, these coordinates are in the Golaran Cloud, a protoplanetary nebula.”

  “I appreciate your concern, Captain Cort…” Hoffman began.

  “I don’t think you fully realize the implications. The region has a density of several thousand particles of gas or plasma per cubic centimeter.”

  “So?”

  “This means our force fields will be working overtime to protect us from the ionizing radiation, limiting their tactical effectiveness. Sensors will be limited, communications will be spotty at best, and the range of our weapons cut by at least half. We won’t be able to invoke the hyperdrive because of the fluctuating gravity fields; to do so would be suicide.”

  “I am counting on all of that, Captain Cortez.” The woman smiled.

  Cortez increased the volume of his voice by a quarter and added a little reverberation. He used the effect to scare the hell out of his crew. “Then why do you want to go there?”

  Hoffman didn’t betray a hint of uneasiness. “We are retrieving a package,” she replied.

  “It must be valuable: we’ll be violating the Treaty of Phoenix and putting this vessel and its crew in great danger.”

  “It is more valuable than you can possibly imagine, Captain.”

  “What is it?”

  “All in good time, Captain.” Hoffman smiled. “So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You are a skilled navigator, tactician, and commander, Captain Cortez. I would prefer that you stay in command of this vessel for the duration; it would greatly increase the odds of the mission’s success. However, under the charter of the GID I can take control of this vessel myself, if needed.” She paused. “It’s your choice.”

  Cortez wanted to rip the woman’s head off. What’s more, he was capable of the act. “As you wish, Ms. Hoffman,” Cortez said. “Emphatic log entry,” he continued, “Marcus Braden Cortez, Captain of the HSS Naginata, strongly disagrees with General Intelligence Directorate agent Katherine Hoffman regarding mission destination. Requesting registry of a Command Caution.”

  “Noted,” the computer said. “Hoffman, Katherine Beverly, Agent, General Intelligence Directorate, confirm Command Caution, Cortez, Marcus Braden, Captain, HSS Naginata.”

  “Confirmed,” Hoffman said.

  “Command Caution Registration 10/11/2647,” the computer said, “Emphatic log entry 15:38 hours, same date.”

  “Now, Agent Hoffman, if you don’t mind, I need you off the command deck. We’ve got work to do.”

  Hoffman tilted her head slightly and smiled, then turned and strode from the command deck. “Best possible speed, please, Captain Cortez,” she called back.

  Since they were still in the Yunari Forward Deployment Area, the computer would transmit the Naginata’s logs to Fifth Fleet Command via the QBD Relay Network as part of the standard departure procedure. Computers receiving the logs at Finwarden Stations would route the Command Caution to an admiral. Cortez figured someone back there would know the Naginata’s destination, in case his wildest fears came true.

  However, it didn’t really matter if he was dead.

  The near edge of the Golaran Cloud was twenty-five hundred light years from the Yunari system. Cortez first commanded the Naginata to accelerate for twenty-four hours to reach a velocity of 13.3 million kilometers per hour. Hoffman was annoyed, but Cortez explained the destination was at least sixty astronomical units within the densest part of the nebula; even at this fast velocity it would take twenty-eight days to move through the nebula to their destination. It took less time to get to the Cloud in the first place, a little over fourteen days using hyperdrive.

  Cortez looked at the holographic image of the Cloud above the sitrep table: red and green strings of matter wrapped the protostar at the center like a loose ball of string. Density at this point was around five thousand particles per cubic centimeter. The energy streaming from the young star ionized the gas, wreaking havoc with communications and sensors. The free-floating electrons would degrade any laser beam at twice the normal rate, and plasma beams stood a good chance of just dissipating into the nebula medium after a few hundred meters. The Naginata pushed its way through the particles like an ancient vessel moved through the seas of Earth; the nebula medium caused enough drag on the ship to require the reactionless drive to run at a low level to keep their velocity constant.

  In ten millennia, the matter would collapse along the gravity fields and begin to form a star system. Cortez felt a little safer; it was unlikely there were any Naati ships in the area; the spineys were not famous for scientific curiosity.

  Agent Katherine Hoffman strode onto the command deck and up to the sitrep table. She wore a black tunic and pants that flattered her figure. She had gathered up her blonde hair at the back of her head in a bun. She wore a wide belt with a large sidearm. She smiled. “Good morning, Captain Cortez.”

  Engineers had designed the command deck of the Gladius class as a half-sphere fifteen meters in diameter crammed with computer stations and instrument consoles, all surrounding a circular sitrep table. Cortez looked up. “Ms. Hoffman. We have almost arrived at the coordinates. Can you tell me what we’re looking for in this soup?”

  “We won’t need to find it,” she replied, holding up a small data chip, “it will find us.”

  Cortez’s face started to itch. “What is that?”

  “A beacon,” she replied, plugging the chip into a slot. A small hologram appeared and she touched it. “We should receive an answer quite soon.”

  At first, the signal looked like static, but Cortez soon saw regular short and long bursts in the snow of the signal. A few minutes later, a hail hologram appeared over the sitrep table. A man’s face appeared; he had dark and bushy eyebrows and a ragged beard. “You’re late, Agent Hoffman!”

  “I’m sorry, Stanislaus, the Navy needed some convincing.”

  The hologram scattered and reformed every few seconds. “We’ve been sitting out here eighteen fucking days!” the man exclaimed. “You try living with a spiney that long; you never get used to the smell!”

  “What’s going on?” Cortez asked.

  Hoffman ignored him. “Can you detect our vessel?”

  There was a pause. “Yeah, we’ve got you. Moving pretty fast; we’ll need to accelerate for at least fifteen hours to catch up!”

  “We’ll slow down for you,” Hoffman replied, and looked at Cortez.

  Cortez stared back at her for a moment and then barked orders to the command crew.

  “That’s better,” Stanislaus replied. “Computing intercept in seven hours. You had better have a lot of food aboard; our guest is getting hungry, and we humans are beginning to look like turkey dinner. You get me?”

  “We’ll be prepared,” Hoffman answered. “Naginata out.”

  “So, he gets to see us, but we don’t see him?” Cortez purred.

  “He’s in a special operations ship running on full ECM. Plus the…”

  “…nebula makes him even more difficult to detect, given its effect on our sensors,” Cortez finished. “I get it, but what the hell did he say about a spiney?”

  “A defector, Captain. Our best shot at winning the coming war with the Naati.”

  Cortez stared at her.

  “We’ll need to prepare quarters for our guest. May I suggest the ventral stores, away from the crew? We don’t want any misunderstandings, do we?” She smiled. Her eyes were deep blue, her skin flawless, and her figure perfect. In his previous life Cortez would have tried his best to…well, Cortez figured she
knew she had this effect on men.

  “Whatever you require, Agent Hoffman.”

  “Let me know when they are making their final approach.” She turned and walked off the command deck.

  Seven hours later Cortez stood at the main airlock with a squad of Marines. The special operations ship had just docked. Agent Hoffman rounded the corner.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Security, Ms. Hoffman. In case you’ve forgotten, there’s a spiney about to board.”

  “Have you no brains in that tin can of a skull?” She stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “You want to set the beast off? Then by all means threaten it!” She gestured at the Marines in light armor and holding rifles. “Send them away!”

  “Ms. Hoffman…”

  “We’ve discussed this. We can do this my way, or we can do it my way.”

  Cortez stared at her. He zoomed his vision in to the pores on her face. She wasn’t even sweating, but his face was on fire, the itch almost driving him mad. “Step back,” he said to the Marines, “out of sight.” The Marines disappeared around the corner. Cortez bowed. “It’s your show, Ms. Hoffman.”

  She tapped her pockcomp. “Jim? You ready?”

  “Yeah,” came a muffled reply.

  Hoffman stepped forward and punched the airlock button. As the door slid open, an overpowering odor filled the air. Cortez detected several thousand parts per million of ammonia, sulfurous compounds, and long strings of complex hydrocarbons. A bearded man in a black uniform emerged from the airlock. The man had pale, dirty skin and messy dark hair. His uniform was soiled, and not a small share of the odor emanated from his body.

  “Congratulations, Agent Stanislaus,” Hoffman said, shaking the man’s hand. “This was an almost impossible mission.”

  “You have no idea, Agent Hoffman, but we’ll talk about the difficulties later.” The man looked at Cortez and held out his hand. “Captain. The GID appreciates the cooperation of the Navy.”