Chapter 23

Lambert smoothed out his flightsuit sleeves as he pushed the joystick forward, the cloudy nebula gently losing its density through the still cracked and damaged canopy. After picking up the survivors and what limited scrap remained from the UEC fleet, the Hub forces had turned for home. With no more need for reconnaissance,

Lambert’s missile corvette had an entirely new, unique role to fill. “You look nervous,” Mezul commented, her wide hips squeezed into the co-pilot’s chair behind him. Just above the collar of her spacesuit he could see the edge of a bandage, the white fabric covering the spot where her implant was. She’d been allowed out of the medical bay after Captain Ander’s insistence, though why he was taking an interest in her was a mystery to the alien.

“I’ve got both our superiors on board, you’d be too if you were behind the stick,” he replied. For whatever reason the Captain had thought Lambert’s corvette would be the most appropriate to use as a shuttle, given his extensive interactions with the Balokarids. The Kith likewise thought that the corvette had a certain ‘diplomatic profile’ with her people, saying as much when she got on board.

“You’ll be fine,” Mezul said, her arm long enough that she could lay a hand on his shoulder without moving. “You flew through railgun and missile fire with barely a scratch, you can dodge a few clouds.”

“I guess I am the better pilot,” he said, laughing when Mezul nudged his shoulder playfully.

“Oh ho, is that a challenge? Perhaps we could hold a race at your Hub world?”

“We do tournaments from time to time,” he said. “Tell you what, we’ll enter the next race and the winner has to buy the other one dinner.”

“You’re implying we will be sharing meals together?” Mezul teased, a hand going to her injured neck. It was an unconscious move on her part, and his mood soured a little upon seeing it.

“Well, I know you like human food, and wherever they bunk you lot I’ll be visiting often. What else would we do?” he asked.

“I can think of a few things...”

He pulled up his collar to drive off a sudden heat, even though it was firmly secured in place, the Balokarid chuckling as he patched through to Carl. “How’re our passengers doing?”

“We’re like a VIP luxury liner back here,” Carl replied after a delay. “Lucky I ironed my uniform, there’s so many officers back here.”

“Your uniform is more wrinkly than an old man’s forehead,” Alice noted, the tone so deadpan and factual Lambert couldn’t help but snort. “That is not ironed.”

“Fuck you, robolady, you don’t have arms so you can’t talk.

Lambert are we there yet?”

“Almost. Tell the Cap we’re fifteen minutes out.”

“Roger that.”

The nebula’s clouds that choked space in every direction were beginning to thin out the further they travelled. The violet colouration started to confer to more blueish shades, the spectacle like that of a messy artist’s palette. The gaps between the mists of energy widened until they faded into nothingness, the way ahead safe from concentrated gasses that could melt through the hull.

They sailed over one last cloud, and then his sensors came fully back online, the grainy static of his external cameras fizzling until they calmed into crisp images, the false pings and anomalies blinking out one by one on the tac view between his knees, the clutch of interference lifting. After so long crammed between the clouds, it was like he could finally breathe again, the limitless expanse of the dark void stretching out infinitely through his circular-shaped canopy, the intimidating emptiness of the dark space contrasting with the nebula’s packed clouds of energy.

“There it is,” Lambert said, nodding through the glass. “What?” Mezul squinted over his shoulder, her golden eyes narrowing to slits. “I don’t see anything.”

“I thought your drugs helped you see better?”

“Do I look like I’ve taken a whiff to you?” Before he could answer she leaned closer to the canopy again, glancing occasionally at the camera feeds surrounding them. “How can your tiny mammal eyes see it? Whatever it is?”

“I just remember where it is from this angle,” he explained. “It’ll come up on that camera there in a minute.”

“Can you not just zoom in?”

“That would just spoil the surprise.”

“Tease,” she said, her accusation betrayed by her smile. “I hate surprises.”

They waited for a few minutes longer, until something metal came into focus ahead of them. The light from the system’s star catching on a distinctly curved shape.

Its profile was like that of a grey bracelet, gently spinning away out in the middle of space. Its broad width was silhouetted against the sun, the shadowed hull bumpy with life support modules and thousands of radio antennae and communication dishes. The outer side of the band tapered into curves at the edges, where the thick metal sloped up towards the interior surface, strips of light spilling through hundreds of viewing ports lining the outer surface.

The sloped sides raised to two level peaks, cutting off at flat roofs. The metal then turned back towards the inside of the bracelet’s surface, creating a pair of canopies made from solid metal that trapped the artificial atmosphere created on the band’s interior side. In between these canopies sat a torus-shaped furrow that continued around the entirety of the station, where pointed roofs and sloped housing modules textured the inside surfaces. Blocks of structures both tall and squat grew in detail as the corvette drew closer, two pairs of roads distinctly clear for the inhabitants to travel up and down the station, street lights illuminating the walkways in a pair of clear lines.

Floating in the epicentre of the ring was a ship that looked similar to the tanker the UEC had been escorting. It was a blocky vessel, with a rounded rear housing a single main thruster that was currently switched off, and a pointed cap where the yellow-tinted cockpit could just be made out. It looked a lot like an oversized escape pod in a way. There were four circular panels evenly distributed along its sides, the odd vessel rotating in time with the spinning station.

Mezul mumbled something in her native language, Lambert turning to see her eyes were as wide as plates as she stared out at the ringworld that slowly grew in size.

“Welcome to the Hub,” Lambert said. “surprised?”

“Amazed,” Mezul breathed. As the ship drew closer they got a better look at the inside of the ring, where patches of green and blue mixed with the more dominant spartan greys. “What is that ship in the middle for?”

“That’s the actual Hub, where the station gets its name from, obviously. It’s restricted to most people, with a secure airspace around it. You see those circles on the ring?”

Mezul scanned the ring, spotting small impressions trimmed into the band at all four points of the compass. They weren’t obvious at a glance, built discreetly into the ringworld’s surface and blending with the rest of the architecture. They were like metallic crop circles.

“I do,” she replied.

“The Hub, the ship in the middle that is, can extend four separate arms that connect to those circles, so that the station can be moved around. It’s never done that in my lifetime, so the ship is just there for politicians to meet up privately.”

“And you live on this ring ... thing?” Mezul asked. “Do you not just fall off?”

“Remember that whole artificial gravity thing I was telling you about?” he asked. “The spin gives us roughly one-g gravity, and those giant walls there? They keep the air trapped between them.”

“It’s as big as a moon!” Mezul exclaimed. “How long did it take to build such a thing?”

“I think they started building it, what, two hundred years ago?

I’d have to check with Alice.”

“Two hundred and nineteen,” the robot confirmed. “Right, two nineteen.”

Mezul got the impression that it was quite a long period, her beak opening the way a human might drop their jaw in awe, Lambert chuckling as she glanced between him and the station.

“Lieutenant Hall,” a voice patched through suddenly. It was Captain Anders, talking through Carl’s station. “I’ve sent the proper clearance codes, the Senator is waiting for us at docking bay four, airlock fifteen.”

“On the way, sir.” He tilted the corvette, gliding downspin of the station. “Looks like we’ll be meeting with the Senator,” he explained to Mezul. “She hardly ever leaves the Hub actual, looks like you’ve got her old bones warmed up.”

“Is she your Kith?” she asked.

“She’s the face of this whole revolution, so ... yeah, I suppose she is. She can be a little... crude when she hasn’t got a camera in front of her, but I’m sure she appreciates your support in the nebula, wants to thank you personally.”

“Strange,” Mezul said. “It is your support that saved our clan.”

Several other warships patrolled around various parts of the station, Lambert gliding a little closer upon Mezul’s request. There were frigates just like the Gallipoli, fighters and other patrol craft sticking in tight formation as they cruised along. Most of the larger ships stuck around the defence platforms – flat, disk-shaped vessels that acted as deterrents against hostile craft. They were equipped with two railguns not so dissimilar from the one on the Confederate destroyer, one on the top face and one on the bottom, giving them the widest firing arcs as possible. There were three platforms in total, the third currently hidden behind the station at their angle.

“You have some heavy defence emplacements here,” Mezul commented.

“They’re more like early-warning systems,” Lambert explained. “Completely stationary, so they’re easy targets. And all these ships you see are converted from the UEC, we haven’t got the production power just yet to start churning out our own.”

“This is what my people plan on offering yours,” Mezul said. “I hope your Senator can be persuaded by my Kith.”

“You’ve got my and every other pilot’s vote, and the Captain’s definitely on board too. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

He gently angled the corvette until they lined up with their designated port, Lambert allowing Alice to take the reins and guide them in. Like the Balokarid carriers, the ring’s hull was pocked with square-shaped doors, numbers stencilled in red colouring on each hangar door.

There were no other ships in this particular bay. The Senator obviously wanted to keep the aliens away from the public for now. The corvette flipped until its cargo bay doors faced the station, the computer matching the spin so that nothing appeared to move save for the stars. There was a clunk as the ship made contact with the station’s hull, and then everything went still, the hangar doors sliding shut with a loud thunk.

Mezul let out an unbecoming squawk as the centrifugal force pulled her down into her seat, the alien not quite used to manmade gravity just yet. The pilots unbuckled from their chairs, walking out into the corridor beyond, where the Kith and the Captain were already waiting for them.