As the deepening blue-black of night began to overwhelm the last remnants of the day, small oases of light started to appear around the camp as Mumtazers sought privacy away from the pressures of daily life in Eternity Camp. Digby had promised that work would start on building a small township on the slopes of Mount Kaspari to the north, but it would be months before people would be able to move out of the cramped sleeping huts whose open sides and lack of internal partitions provided an absolute guarantee of no privacy.
In the meantime, Mumtazers who wanted to be alone had no choice but to take a coldlamp and head out into the darkness. Each night many did, and this night was no exception.
As Kerri waited for the last members of the escape committee to straggle into the circle of light thrown by the small lamp set on a rock 200 meters downstream from the camp, she was struck by how quickly a new etiquette had grown up, in this case a strict rule that nobody should approach a coldlamp any closer than 100 meters unless previously invited. Not for the first time as she watched the lamps wandering out of the camp, she wondered at the incredible adaptability of human beings.
Because she couldn’t tell them why, it had taken considerable cajoling on Kerri’s part to get the escape committee together. The very idea of escaping had become more ludicrous as each day passed, as the vision of a green and fertile Eternity took root in the minds of more of the Mumtaz- ers, as lives past were written off and consigned to the rubbish bins of history, as the sheer impossibility of escape had finally sunk in.
But she had persisted quietly but emphatically until, with great reluctance, the escape committee had agreed to meet.
As usual, they had been waiting for Colin Mendes, former FedPol chief inspector on Anjaxx and a man so incapable of being on time for anything that Kerri often wondered how he had survived in the police service. But he’d finally turned up with his usual mumbled apology before taking his place in the circle around the coldlamp. While the group settled, Kerri reached into her coverall and pulled out a small gray box, placing it on the rock next to the lamp and pressing a small switch.
It took only a moment for the implications of that simple and outwardly unremarkable action to start to sink in. Everyone present knew an electronic shroud when he or she saw one. More to the point, they knew that Kerri hadn’t had one before. In an instant there was pandemonium as the sharper members of the group worked it out, and it took a while before Kerri, a broad grin splitting her face under her breather mask, was able to quiet the group. But finally she had the undivided attention of the escape committee.
“Well, everybody, I still have trouble believing it, but it’s true. All being well, we’ll be going home and…” Kerri couldn’t continue as emotion overwhelmed her and every other member of the group. All were of an age at which they had too much invested in the past to contemplate a new life, at which it was too late to start again, and the thought that all that was precious and dear to them might be restored was almost too much to take.
But finally, the group settled down and Kerri was able to start again. She was pleased this time to see emotion slowly replaced by a steely determination to do whatever it would take to make their escape from Eternity happen.
“Okay. Here’s what we have to do, and we don’t have a lot of time to do it in, so pay attention. First up, meet a friend of mine.”
The shock was total as the leading edges of two small mounds of rock just outside the pool of light lifted to reveal the smiling faces of two marines. The mouths of the escape committee members were hanging as far open as breather masks would allow, and the silence was total.
Major Anschar Shao, Federated Worlds Marines (retired), was the first to recover.
“Christ,” she said, “chromaflage certainly has come a long way since my day. But it’s good to see you, by God. I can’t tell you how good.”
“Likewise, Major,” replied the first marine, “Lance Corporal Jensch and Marine Maziz at your service, sir. Now, please, our time is limited because we need to be safely tucked up by moonrise. Two things. We need to get all of your neuronics modified so you can talk securely among yourselves and to us. When that’s done, we’ve got some holocams we’d like placed and some whisker laser rebroadcast units to cover some blank spots in our neuronics network, and when that’s finished, we’ll hand over to Commodore Helfort. That gives us less than three hours, so if I could have you, Major, and you, Captain Zuma. Just sit down with your backs to us and leave the rest to us.”
Monday, November 16, 2398, UD
Task Force 683, Revelation System, Hell Outerspace
One after the other in quick succession, the four deepspace heavy patrol ships of Task Force 683 dropped into normalspace over 30 million kilometers out from Hell, their arrival announced only by the briefest flashes of ultraviolet.
The Atsumi’s combat data center was quiet as Commodore Kawaguchi and her staff watched the ship’s three consorts-Almohades, Ashanti, and Akkad-take loose station 2,000 kilometers apart, the ships invisible on the holovids against the brilliant tapestry of stars that curtained the skies. Within one minute of dropping, BattleNet was up and Atsumi, using the 6,000-kilometer baseline provided by the four ships’ sensors, started the slow and painful process of scanning the huge volume of space ahead of them before slowly rotating the line to cover the space to port and starboard of the original line.
This was a very unpopular maneuver, with captains understandably concerned about exposing their ships’ poorly armored sides to any loose rock or debris in their path as the ships coasted in-system at 150,000 kph. But it had to be done.
Slowly the ships’ sensors sucked data from every part of the electromagnetic spectrum and from every direction. The massive sensor AIs crunched terabytes of data a second as the threat plot located and displayed every ship, every satellite, and every fixed installation in the Hell system, all prioritized by proximity and threat.
Kawaguchi could see it all, feeling godlike as she looked down on the Hammers going about their business, unaware that they were being watched.
Even from more than 30 million kilometers away, she could see the characteristic signature of a Hammer mership. Judging by her vector as it boosted out-system en route, it was bound for the planet Faith in the Retribution Star system 3.75 light-years away. Farther out, a Hammer warship boosted out-system. It was an old Constancy class light escort judging by its electromagnetic profile and was identified by Mother as the Conciliator. Not a problem.
The long drawn-out process went on, the sensors gradually sorting the electronic chaos into an orderly picture of Hammer activity across trillions of cubic kilometers of space. Most important, Kawaguchi was relieved to see the threat plot turn and stay a uniform orange. Her orders were very specific. She was to jump back into pinchspace immediately irrespective of vector the instant the threat level escalated to red.
“Command, command AI.”
“Go ahead.”
“Threat plot is orange. Mission prime directive met. Ready to commence deployment.”
“Command, roger. Deploy.”
For five minutes, the local plot showed nothing more than the four warships, now back in a loose line abreast, coasting in-system. And then, from each ship there began to emerge a growing line of little dots, each dot representing a single Sandfly deepspace starship simulator, all shepherded clear by unseen EVA teams.
With a flattened, stealth-coated ovoid cross section broadening sharply out into a blunt bow making it look like a hammerhead shark, the Sandfly was the Federated Worlds’ latest and most sophisticated deepspace ship simulator. It was able to replicate any ship, from the most dilapidated tramp mership running the trade routes to the Far Planets up to and including the Feds’ latest, the Seagirt class deepspace heavy cruiser.