Ice War Read online

  The Pillar Universe Book Three Ice War

  Copyright © 2019 Tim Niederriter

  http://mentalcellarpublications.com

  https://dwellerofthedeep.wordpress.com/

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written consent of the author. Unauthorized duplication in any media is a violation of international copyright laws and will be prosecuted.

  Published by Mental Cellar Publications

  This is a work of fiction People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to actual people, places, and events is purely coincidental.

  Also by Tim Niederriter

  Science Fiction and Fantasy Series

  The Pillar Universe

  Spells of the Curtain Series

  Tenlyres Series

  The Root Conspiracy Series

  Other Books

  Rem’s Dream

  Find out more at http://mentalcellarpublications.com

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  For everyone who ever put up with me talking about a Pillar Universe.

  Thank you.

  And to anyone who ever felt like their dream of falling really might last forever.

  Far from the heat of the hive pillar, Yajain stalked through a winding passage of blue and black stone. This base appeared abandoned like all the others Yajain and the patrol ships visited since forming an alliance with Elder Patla’s colony. The tyrants proved elusive at every turn.

  She paused just inside the control room at the passage’s end. The rest of the team spread out, operating frost-covered terminals and hologram displays. Artificial cores stirred within the machinery.

  “Yajain,” said a voice from one side of the room. “We found them.”

  Mosam.

  Sorai soldiers took the hallway behind her. Technicians scurried between terminals. Yajain made her way over to where Mosam sat peering into a hologram image floating over his terminal. Mosam rubbed the bridge of his nose with a finger. The hologram displayed three tyrants, all of them large and spiny ovals on the screen, tails arching and swinging as they moved.

  Tyrants, the first aliens ever encountered by humans to have developed technology, were also capable of bending humans to their will using pheromone pollen and injected parasites from their tails. Yajain’s brow furrowed as she gazed at the three aliens in the image. In person, she hoped never to encounter one of these monstrous creatures again, but the three in the viewer were the team’s targets.

  “Hopefully they’re the only ones here,” she said. “Do we know where they are?”

  “Yeah,” Mosam said. “About five kilometers down-pillar from us. Looks like a docking port.”

  “A dock?” said Yajain. “Any ships there that we can tell?”

  “They’re powering up an old bulk transport, probably the one they came here on. Our ships are on their way. Pull up a chair.”

  Yajain nodded. She grabbed the back of an abandoned desk seat and pulled it toward her. Cold clawed at her despite her heated uniform. She gazed at the moving shapes in the hologram.

  “They’re loading something onto the ship,” she said.

  “Right.” Mosam propped his elbows on the desk. His fingers interlocked. “Looks like digital storage containers. Can’t imagine what they’re trying to hide.”

  Yajain nodded. She flicked the comm link microphone into position by her mouth, then activated the channel to the strike team’s leader on the nearby ship.

  “Iswenn,” she said. “Are you seeing what we’re seeing?”

  “We see them,” said the sorai colony’s agent, holding the “s” sound as a hiss, probably from bitterness at being controlled by one of the creatures below until recently. “Time to punish them.”

  “You know what to do,” said Mosam.

  Iswenn’s reply sounded almost smug.

  “Two teams of cablers, all armed with heavy ballistics.”

  “Try to save those storage containers,” said Yajain. “If we can learn what they were up to here, we should.”

  “Point taken,” Iswenn said. She hesitated for a second. “Our teams are ready.”

  “They’re unaware,” said Mosam. “Give the order.”

  With relish, Iswenn commenced the strike.

  Snipers opened fire from outside the port’s open side, using ballistic rifles. One of the tyrants fell with two rounds blasting through armor and flesh. The other two dropped the storage container they were carrying. Both whirled to fight. Both moved too late. They would have to freeze time to escape this situation.

  Cablers stormed through the docks, weapons blazing. One tyrant fired an energy weapon as he fell. The shot scarred the ceiling, disrupting the hologram capture device through which Yajain and Mosam viewed the scene. When visibility returned the tyrants lay still.

  “All teams reporting. Enemy down,” Iswenn said. “Take that, you bastards.”

  Mosam glanced at Yajain.

  “We should head down there.”

  Yajain climbed out of her chair. She and Mosam descended through the abandoned settlement to the port, accompanied by the team from the control room.

  The efficiency of Oscarat Alliance military training seemed to have carried to the sorai colony in exile. Use of heavy ballistics left bloody holes in the walls and floors even before the final tyrant died. Yajain’s brow furrowed as she walked past members of the strike team, approaching the digital containers alongside Mosam.

  She stopped by the body of one tyrant, a hulking mass of armor with tentacles sprawled along the floor from the side not crushed by its own bulk. Three limbs per side, as before. Each tyrant resembled the spiny aliens encountered at Sifar. Yajain flexed her fingers, trying to direct her thoughts away from the loss of a friend there, Ogidar. In less than twenty changes, she went from everyone around her understanding her feelings at his death to working with these soldiers who never met fallen the cabler.

  Yajain stopped beside a standing container and swore once again to do what she could to make his sacrifice worthwhile. Part of her nagged. No matter what she did, Ogidar died saving her, and he would never know what it meant in the long run. He only knew what it meant to him at the time. She sighed, then pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. Sliding her hands over the smooth surface of the upright storage container she found the lock on its side. Properly applied pressure, as the sorai agents had taught her prior to departing Haxos Mirror, would unlock the container.

  Mosam pressured the other side.

  “Time to see what they stored here,” he said. “Looks like this one takes more than two.”

  Yajain nodded.

  “Once we know what they were hiding, hopefully, we’ll have a clue to their next move.”

  Mosam waved over a pair of sorai soldiers. He directed them to press against the other two sides of the container. When they did, a click emanated through the inner docks.

  “That was it,” Yajain said. “Keep your hands where they are.”

  Holograms sprang to life around Yajain, Mosam, the soldiers and the container. Images circled, displaying first words, then images.

  The words read in the tyrant language with the translation in human trade languages below each word. Her eyes raced to read them as glowing linguistic characters flickered past.

  “First sentence says decryption successful,” she said.

  Mosam laughed.

  “You’re telling me!”

  Yajain resisted the urge to shoot a glare at him and kept reading aloud.

  “Four storms, three rebel leaders, three cherdi fleets from six orders…” She frowned. “It’s listing resources.”

  “
Useful, but I’d like to know where to find all this stuff,” Mosam said.

  Yajain kept her hand pressed to the side of the container and took a step into the stream of data and images. The holograms streamed images of ships, both human and alien around them. While the human vessels mostly appeared familiar in shape and size the alien vessels were all previously unknown to Yajain, but she identified them by their larger sizes and bulbous shapes. Her eyes lingered on the largest ship.

  The huge vessel appeared to dwarf the hologram fleet around it if the scale was accurate. Alien in design, the ship consisted of a sleek forward section connected to a vast metallic sphere at the rear by tow cables and bridges all surrounding a massive external core. The core must provide power enough to tug the entire enormous sphere despite it being far larger than the forward part of the ship.

  Mosam peered around the container.

  “It looks like it’s designed to separate. That sphere might be made to function independently of the front when deployed.”

  “The sleek part could be a tug,” said Yajain. “It looks built for power, so I’d guess the sphere was built separately. Iswenn, are you getting this?”

  “All of it,” said Iswenn in her ear. “Good find. And I think your guess is correct based on preliminary analysis. You and the rest of the team recover what you can, then return to the ships for further analysis, and that means the bodies of the tyrants too, people.” Iswenn’s tone carried a sense of grim satisfaction. “Congratulations, everyone. We’re going back to Haxos.”

  Yajain glanced at Mosam. His eyes met hers. She flushed, thinking of how he’d kissed her just prior to diving to protect the colonial leaders at Haxos. So much changed over the course of this journey, and yet she still doubted everything about him. How genuine could he be after betraying Lin?

  Yajain’s sister would never forgive him. At least, Yajain thought, Lin wasn’t here to see her wavering. Prisoner of the fleet, yet Mosam seemed more and more like he had once been. His honesty eclipsed past deception when she considered what happened. Yajain needed a drink, maybe a second opinion. She let her hand fall as she stepped away from the container. The holograms flickered and went out.

  “Doctor,” said one of the soldiers nearby. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you, soldier.”

  Only that’s a lie, she thought.

  “Alright everyone,” said the team leader. “Two teams on those containers. The rest get the bodies onto movers. Move.”

  The troops carried out their orders with single-minded precision.

  Every agent and specialist was present at the shipboard briefing but Yajain didn’t see Mosam when she entered the room.

  “The location of the sphere-ship is listed as Kerida Cluster,” said Iswenn as Yajain sat in the small conference room of the heavy ranger. “Based on the other data we decoded from the storage units and other tyrant interface gear we recovered I believe the tyrants are planning some kind of larger invasion of human-space, staged there.”

  Someone raised a hand.

  “Captain Caitlos, your contribution?” Iswenn pointed at the gray-haired woman who raised her hand.

  “From what we know about Kerida only two regions would be suitable for staging prior to moving to the transit hub. I would consider the Ambana Reef one of those, and the cold space around Vilmanorin the other.”

  Iswenn nodded.

  “Make sure you add your analysis to our report, captain. We can investigate further.”

  Caitlos’ lip curled.

  “Already done,” she said.

  “Anything else, captain?”

  “Good to have you back, Agent Kaidal.”

  Until Yajain and Mosam stopped the tyrant attack on Haxos, Iswenn and her fleet-officer fiancee had both been under alien control. The pollen carried in their pores had made them both unwilling slaves of the creatures. The tyrants’ ability to control other life forms made the name seem all too apt to Yajain.

  Mosam entered the room from the door near her, well and truly late. As the rest of the spies and officers made their reports and asked questions, he took the seat beside Yajain.

  “Did I miss much?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Only the whole meeting,” she whispered back.

  “Oops,” he said at the same low volume.

  She smirked at him.

  “Better late than never. I think Captain Caitlos doesn’t hold falling into tyrant control against Iswenn.”

  “That’s good, I suppose.”

  The meeting began to wind down. Some officers got up to leave.

  “You really are clueless. Iswenn needs the other officers’ trust or her career could be over.” Yajain shrugged. “You’ve spent too much time studying old texts and not enough thinking about people.”

  “Old texts are full of people.”

  “Yeah, ancient people.”

  “People more like us than unlike us.”

  “Maybe,” said Yajain with a smile. “But reading isn’t conversation.”

  “I think I’m doing alright at this.”

  “Only because you’re talking to me.”

  “Yajain.”

  “Mosam.”

  He shook his head, a grin spreading.

  “Thanks. I’m glad we can talk like this.”

  “Don’t get used to it. Once we rejoin the relief fleet I’d bet you’ll be going back in the brig.”

  “I’ll take that if I must,” he said. “This voyage has been well worth it.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “You know.”

  “I’ve been picking up your cues if that’s what you mean.”

  “Because you know me. Is that because you studied more modern texts?”

  “No,” she said. “Besides, bionetic poetry isn’t much newer than your Harvest Bible in the greater scheme of things.”

  “Perhaps your right. You like old science, not just old stories.”

  “The bionetics wrote in a way that still makes sense in our time.”

  “Too bad we don’t have any of their writing on tyrants.” He smiled. “But I noticed you’ve been working to remedy that yourself.”

  “You hacked my writing pad, then?”

  He shrugged.

  “I saw it over your shoulder at one point.”

  She turned toward him in the seat.

  “You really shouldn’t do that sort of thing.”

  “Well, I would have told you sooner if it had come up. I think it’s amazing you try to write like them at all. Coding the data into the text isn’t something I understand.”

  “If you trained with the monks back on Kaga you might.”

  “I was too busy training with old Doctor Savar, back then.”

  Yajain sighed, her levity fading at the mention of the Doctor of Harvest who had ordered Mosam to destroy the armory where Lin worked all those cycles ago.

  “Busy learning to build bombs.”

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Right.” She stood. “You shouldn’t.” She left him in the briefing room but managed to keep back her tears this time.

  How could she care for him after what he’d done? After what he and his mentor had schemed to do? After promising Lin to make him pay, their closeness contradicted her promise.

  The ships returned to Haxos, and Yajain returned to the ships that had brought her this far. Castenlock and the rest of the exploration-turned-relief fleet waited like glimmering spears in the hot red light of Edrid’s Solna hive. Mist awaited in towering walls visible hundreds of kilometers away from Haxos in the opposite direction.

  DiKandar Hall sliced through the mist at the end of the corridor, flanked by squadrons of smaller vessels and a handful of lesser capital ships. They all appeared to be Ditari made, except for one. Yajain frowned through the transparent dome of the bar on Castenlock as she tried to identify the Dilinian Privateer that rode the transit a short distance behind DiKandar Hall.

  The privateer was almos
t as large and heavily armed as a full banner ship but carried none of the finery suggested by a banner ship’s name. Banner ships represented notable families and governmental arms. Privateers sometimes qualified as elements of the military despite being technically mercenaries.

  Yajain sat at the barroom table beside Dara and looked across it to where Sonetta sat beside Mosam. Conversation had been awkward over the few shifts since she and Mosam returned to the relief fleet near Haxos, but Yajain had persuaded Sonetta and Dara to let Mosam join them, given the temporary parole granted by Agent Pansar and Captain Gattri.

  “If you say so,” Sonetta had said.

  She’d been seated beside Mosam for the better part of the last half hour talking about cards and the time along the journey.

  And Dara, “Just don’t let him push your buttons.”

  If only I knew how. Dara, you’re a good friend, but you don’t know what he once meant to me. What he might still mean. She cut off that thought. I’m tolerating him. Otherwise, I might have taken that swing with the sword.

  The little they’d been saying silenced completely as the Redoca’s fleet arrived in all its gleaming flashes shrieking decelerating thrusters.

  Dara whistled.

  “The big, mean hunters come charging in.”

  Sonetta shook her head soberly.

  “They certainly know how to be nasty.”

  “No kidding,” said Mosam. “But don’t forget. They’re on your side now.”

  “Your side?” Yajain frowned at him across the table. “Don’t you mean, our side?”

  “I didn’t include myself because Adya’s still in this ship’s brig.”

  “She shot me,” Dara said. “And I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Fair point.” Mosam sighed. “Hope you don’t take it personally that I want her freed.”

  Dara shook her head.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Doctor Coe.”

  Yajain squinted at the approaching privateer as it peeled away from the DiKandar ships and glided toward Castenlock.

  “Looks like we’re gonna have new arrivals soon.”

  Mosam nodded.

  “I guessed Dilinia would respond. Just one ship at this point, of course.”