Kinder des Schicksals 4 (Xeelee 9): Resplendent

were among the first to see the injured ship as it downfolded
out of hyperspace. It was a Navy ship - a Spline, of course, a living
ship, like a great meaty eyeball. It just appeared out of nowhere. We
were close enough to see the green tetrahedral sigil etched into its
flesh. But you couldn’t miss the smoking ruins of the weapons
emplacements, and a great open rent in the hull, thick with
coagulated blood. A swarm of lesser lights, huddling close, looked
like escape pods.
    The whole bridge crew fell silent.
    ’Lethe,’ Tarco whispered. ’Where did that come from?’ We didn’t
know of any action underway at the time.
    But we had no time to debate it.
    Captain Iana’s voice sounded around the corvette. ’That ship is
the Assimilator’s Torch,’ he announced. ’She’s requesting help. You
can all see her situation. Stand by your stations.’ He began to snap
out brisk orders to his heads of department.
    Well, we scrambled immediately. But Tarco’s big moon-shaped face
was creased by a look I didn’t recognise.
    ’What’s wrong with you?’
    ’I heard that name before. Assimilator’s Torch. She’s due to
arrive here at Base 592 next year.’
    ’Then it’s a little early. So what?’
    He stared at me. ’You don’t get it, buttface. I saw the manifest.
The Torch is a newborn Spline. It hasn’t even left Earth.’
    But the injured Spline looked decades old, at least. ’You made a
mistake. Buttface yourself.’
    He didn’t rise to the bait. Still, that was the first indication I
had that there was something very wrong here.
    The Kard lifted away from its operational position, and I had a
grand view of Base 592, the planet on which we were stationed. From
space it is a beautiful sight, a slow-spinning sphere of black
volcanic rock peppered with the silver-grey of shipyards, so huge
they are like great gleaming impact craters. There are even
artificial oceans, glimmering blue, for the benefit of Spline
vessels, who swim there between missions.
    592 has a crucial strategic position, for it floats on the fringe
of the 3-Kiloparsec Spiral Arm that surrounds the Galaxy’s Core, and
the Xeelee concentrations there. Here, some ten thousand light years
from Earth, was as deep as the Third Expansion of mankind had yet
penetrated into the central regions of the main disc. 592 was a fun
assignment. We were on the front line, and we knew it. It made for an
atmosphere you might call frenetic. But now I could see ships lifting
from all around the planet, rushing to the aid of the stricken
vessel. It was a heart-warming, magnificent sight, humanity at its
best.
    As we approached the Spline, the Kard hummed like a well-tuned
machine. Right now, all over the ship, I knew, the whole crew -
officers and gunners, cooks and engineers and maintenance stiffs,
experienced officers and half-trained rookies - everybody was getting
ready to save human beings from the great void that had tried to kill
them. It was what you did. I looked forward to playing my part.
    Which was why I wasn’t too happy to hear the soft voice of
Commissary Varcin behind me. ’Ensign. Are you’ - he checked a list -
’Dakk? I have a special assignment for you. Come with me.’ Varcin,
gaunt and tall, served as the corvette’s political officer, as
assigned to every ship of the line with a crew above a hundred. He
had an expression I couldn’t read, a cold calculation.
    Everybody is scared of the Commissaries, but this was not the time
to be sucked into a time-wasting chore. ’I take my orders from the
exec. Sir.’ I looked to the Executive Officer.
    Baras’s face was neutral. I knew about the ancient tension between
Navy and Commission, but I also knew what Baras would say. ’Do it,
ensign. You’d better go too, Tarco.’
    I had no choice, crisis or not. So we went hurrying after the
Commissary.
    Away from the spacious calm of the bridge, the corridors of the
Kard were a clamour of motion and noise, people running every which
way lugging equipment and stores, yelling orders and demanding
help.
    As we jogged I whispered to Tarco, ’So where has this bucket come
from? Where’s the action right now? SS 433?’
    ’Not there,’ Tarco said. ’Don’t you remember? At SS 433 we
suffered no casualties.’
    That was true. SS 433, a few hundred light years from 592, is a
normal star in orbit around a massive neutron star; gravitationally
squeezed, it emits high-energy jets of heavy elements - very useful.
A month before, the Xeelee had shown