Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) by Glynn Stewart (best e book reader TXT) 📕

prepared to face it, but they likely lack the strength to overcome.

“The only option they may have is to lure them here.”

Rin nodded slowly.

“So, we punch the bear in the nose and hope he follows,” he said grimly. “How long do we have?”

“I do not know. My communications with the Battle Hives are over a cycle out of date,” she admitted. “As of then, twenty-six hours ago, they had not yet relocated the swarm.”

“Have you requested help from the Laians and A!Tol?” Rin asked.

“We cannot.” She shook her head. “Ronoxosh’s pride may have broken our Hive. By refusing to work together, we now cannot ask for aid without seeming weak.”

“Which is more important? Seeming weak or surviving?” Rin said quietly.

“It is not my decision,” Oxtashah told him. “The Royal Commandant will engage the swarm. He will lead them here. The weapon must be ready when he arrives.”

Rin swallowed but nodded firmly.

“I will talk to my team,” he told her. “We may need more assistance.”

“The entirety of Zokalatan’s crew will be placed at your disposal,” she replied firmly. “I have made this clear to my officers. Secrecy will no longer save our Hive. We cannot bring forward sufficient fleets fast enough to save our outer provinces.

“This weapon must work.”

Chapter Fifty-Three

The teleporter station was a maze of mystery systems, ancient black molycircs and other strange devices ticking away as they slowly powered up. White-painted hybrid systems were everywhere Rin looked as he walked through the platform, each of them with a name and purpose scrawled on them in black marker.

They had atmosphere aboard the working stations now, at least, though gravity was still provided by people’s boots. Air was necessary for efficient work—but being able to move things in zero gee was often useful as well.

“Where’s Commander Lawrence?” he asked the first person he met—a Worker-caste Wendira working on installing white-painted power cables into a mystery gray device that was shifting shape as Rin looked at it.

“The containment chamber,” the Wendira replied, pointing a pincer without looking at him. “Keep toward the center of the station.”

“Thank you,” Rin said. The Wendira was clearly focused on his work, so Rin set off in the indicated direction.

There were more Wendira as he got closer to the center of the station. Some individuals, other teams. Most of the teams were a mix of Imperials, Workers and Drones—and they started to be everywhere as he reached his destination.

The containment chamber was the primary receiving and transmitting node for the teleporter that filled most of the space station. It was a hundred-meter-wide sphere, its interior forged of compressed matter.

White-painted force field generators were being installed all around the surface at ten-meter intervals, dozens of the devices being linked to massive power couplings as they attempted to build a system that could hold whatever they grabbed from the star.

“Lawrence,” he called out when he saw the woman. “Where are we at?”

She looked up at him in clear exasperation, then waved him over.

“You know, you could call me on the radio or something,” she told him. “You didn’t need to take a shuttle all this way.”

“I’m in charge of all of this, and I needed to see the station,” he replied. “Plus, I needed to step away from code for a bit—and I want your opinion on the latest code sets.”

Lawrence shook her head.

“Fine, fine,” she said. “We’re running against an unknown time limit to build a weapon of unknown but cosmic power, and you want to do site and code review. Sure!”

“Kelly,” he said sharply. “Doing things quickly doesn’t mean rushing. Rushing tends to result in things going slowly, doesn’t it?”

She snorted.

“Fair. I could probably use a step back from containment-field calculations, anyway. Want the tour?”

“Please. Then we can talk code.”

She waved her hand around.

“This is the containment chamber,” she told him, repeating the obvious. “All calculations suggest it’s oversized for what the teleporter can currently do. We’re picking up a fifty-meter-diameter target, which gives us space to set up a stronger containment field.”

“Were the Alava really transmitting plasma between star systems?” Rin asked.

“Yes and no.” She snorted. “It’s pretty clear plasma transmission was always intended to be shorter-ranged, but they were still sending plasma to other star systems. Mostly, though, they were sending straight-up electricity. Up to fifty light-years.”

“I’d seen the records and projections, but that’s still mind-blowing,” he admitted. “Can we do that with this system?”

“Gods no,” Lawrence told him. “Not a bloody chance. Too much of it required the universe to work in a completely different way. I’m not sure the electricity transfer could work at all anymore—but the matter transfer still does.

“Somehow.”

“So, we pull coronal plasma in from the star to here, and then we flick it out again?” Rin asked. “It’s here for, what, a millisecond?”

“Twenty-six,” Lawrence told him. “Which is about twenty-four milliseconds longer than you want a twenty-five-meter-radius ball of solar plasma inside anything. This shit makes our fusion reactors look like campfires.”

“The delta isn’t that much larger,” Rin argued. “I’ve seen the numbers.”

“It’s an order of magnitude. For whatever reason—and no, we can’t adjust it—we’re grabbing the plasma from the hottest part of the star. We’re not sure why, but it’s the only pickup that seems to work without the collector station.

“Good news? This setup is going to hit a lot harder than the Taljzi one did.”

“Bad news, that point-two percent failure chance,” Rin guessed.

“Exactly. Come on.” She led him across the sphere and out into a corridor. “Along here are what little local controls we have. Honestly, it’s basically nothing. These are communications receivers from the control station.”

Stepping into the room next to the corridor, Rin noted that most of the original equipment was piled along one wall, replaced by white-painted Wendira transceivers.

“Of course, none of the Alavan coms still work,” she said.

“I set up the other end,” he reminded her gently. “We’re using standard hyperfold transceivers. We’ve even managed to test the weird hyperspace interface scanner they have.”

“And? I didn’t see that report yet,” Lawrence asked.

“Instantaneous to