Darkspace

by Richard Tongue

  “Fifty seconds, sir,” Cunningham said.

  “All decks are at standby alert, Admiral,” Rochford reported. “Just in case.”

  “Wise, Clyde,” Scott replied, sitting back in his chair. “Here we go.” He looked up at the viewscreen, watching with a faint smile as his ship completed its trajectory, racing through the exit of the shadow wormhole and out into free space once more.

  “Sensors running,” Rochford said, standing over the console, looking down at the two technician-operators as they worked. “Getting a full picture of the…”

  “Admiral, the viewscreen!” Cunningham yelled, throwing an image of the planet below onto the display. Scott rose to his feet, involuntarily walking towards the nightmare on display, a world torn and ripped asunder, cracked with volcanic vents, a ring of debris in orbit. He only knew one force that could wreak such havoc on a planetary scale. The Exterminators had been here already.

  “First scans show no sign of trouble at the alien homeworld, Admiral,” Bendix said. “Nothing we didn’t already know about, anyway. A lot of orbital installations, though, many of them obviously defensive in nature. Missile, lasers, kinetics. Some of it isn’t that far behind our own technological level. Space-based installations all through the system, lots of stations, colonies, outposts. They’re in a hurry, Admiral.”

  “I can’t blame them,” Scott said. “I need some sort of time frame. When was this world destroyed?”

  “Maybe thirty to fifty thousand years ago,” the technician said. “Give me a little time, sir, and I can narrow it down some more.” He frowned, then added, “Maybe we can ask the aliens. I’m picking up a network of probes scattered across the surface, probably geological data collectors.”

  “Not surprising that they’re interested about this planet,” Scott said. “Sensors, any other surprises?”

  “Lots of blind spots in the deep system, sir,” Chen replied. “No evidence of any activity outside the inner planets of the system. They’ve got two asteroid belts to play with, and there is extensive resource extraction, far more than we ever did. They’ve certainly gone for spaceflight in a big way. Lots of traffic in interplanetary space, even more in orbital space around their homeworld.” He paused, then added, “Their orbital defense network is powering up.”

  “Threat appreciation?”

  “Negligible at this range,” Silva reported. “I wouldn’t want to go into orbit, though. There’s enough heavy stuff to tear us to pieces quite easily.” Turning to him, he added, “If it came to an Exterminator ship, though, it’s just that much more debris for them to blast out of the way.”

  “How long before our First Contact package reaches the alien homeworld?” Scott asked.

  “Another couple of minutes, sir,” Chen said, throwing controls. “It’ll likely take them a while to respond. There are a couple of closer ships, but they’re holding course at the moment.”

  “Best guess is that they don’t have a choice on that,” Rochford added. “They’re on slow Hoffman trajectories. Probably freighters, transports. They aren’t in a hurry, certainly. We could get a shuttle to the nearest in a day or so, if you wanted.” Looking up at the viewscreen, he added, “Why didn’t the Exterminators finish the job?”

  “Maybe this system produced two sentient races, rather than one,” Bendix suggested.

  “Science Lab to Bridge,” the voice of Belinsky barked. “Admiral, we’re getting some excellent data now from the aliens, lots of language, most of it in the clear, and we’re making a good start on decrypting it. I think you’ll be able to talk to them in a matter of hours.”

  “Hours?” Rochford asked. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Professor, but how in the name of hell did you manage to pull that off? I would have expected it to take months, maybe years before we could have more than a rudimentary conversation. We only cracked the language of the Folk because they made it easy.”

  “That’s what’s done it, Captain. They’re speaking a language related to that of the Folk.”

  “What did you say?” Scott asked. “Professor, are you trying to tell me that these are…”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Readings from their spaceships suggest different requirements for life-support, though the two races could probably have co-existed in the same basic biosphere, at least in terms of gravity, atmosphere and pressure.” He paused, then added, “If the aliens are speaking English, sir, then the Folk language is Sumerian. Sharing some origins, a few words, some part of the sentence structure. It’s giving the translation computers a good head-start, though. Six hours, nine at the outside, and we’ll have the seven hundred words.”

  “Seven hundred words?” Silva asked.

  “The minimum for comprehensive conversation,” Chen replied. “That’s…” He paused, then added, “Sir, we’re getting a signal. Tight-beam, directly at us, focused from an orbiting satellite. There hasn’t possibly been time for them to react to our arrival yet, so it has to be something that was pre-loaded in the control software.” He frowned, continuing, “Looks like an old-fashioned television signal, the coding Terrestrial, but archaic.”

  “Can you play it, Lieutenant?” Scott asked, glancing at the communications console.

  “I think so, sir. Throwing it onto the viewscreen now. No audio, picture only.”

  Scott didn’t know what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t a grainy image of Adolf Hitler, saluting at a roaring crowd. He glanced around, looking at Bendix nodding her head, walking over to a monitor station.

  “Care to explain, Doctor?” he asked. “You look as though you were expecting this.”

  “I was, actually,” she replied. “Certainly, it was a possibility. The 1936 Olympics saw the first large-scale television transmissions, certainly the first that had any chance at all of pushing into interstellar space. They would have picked up these signals maybe a hundred years ago, perhaps when they first became spacefarers.” Throwing a control, she added, “It checks out. That shot matches the footage we’ve got in the archives.”

  “You’re telling me that Adolf Hitler is the first ambassador we sent to the stars?” Scott replied. “Christ, what must they think of us.” He paused, then added, “They knew we were coming.”

  “Evidently. Their signals haven’t had enough time to reach Earth yet, not in sufficient strength to show up, but in a dozen years or so they’d have reached our outer monitoring satellites with enough strength to stand out. Someone would have come out here anyway, though probably under happier circumstances. Admiral, this means that they knew we were coming. We have to consider the possibility that these defenses are meant for us.”

  “Transmit the First Contact package back to the satellite. Everything we’ve got.” Scott frowned, then added, “Sensors, are we getting any more data yet?”

  “We’re into analysis now, Admiral,” Rochford said. “First thoughts are that they’ve pushed themselves right to the limits of their technology and damn near wrecked their homeworld doing it. They’re close to a runaway greenhouse effect, way worse than we ever managed to Earth, and there’s a lot of background radiation down there.”

  “A nuclear war?” Cunningham asked, throwing the ship onto her new trajectory, out towards their exit wormhole.

  “I don’t think so, Ensign. There’s no sign of damage of that level on the surface, and I can’t see how a culture could have a conflict on that scale while still maintaining this level of off-world infrastructure. Based on some of the larger stations and installations, I think they were using Orion drives.” At Cunningham’s blank expression, Rochford continued, “It’s a technique we played around with on Earth for a while. Using the blast of atomic charges to propel a ship. We never actually tried it for real, but it was thought to be a good, low-tech way of moving big cargoes around a solar system.”

  “They’d do that on the surface of an inhabitable planet?” Scott replied. “They must have been desperate.” Looking across at the trajectory plot, he added, “Our course takes
us well clear of anything they might be worried about protecting, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re going to do all we can to keep it that way. No provocative actions at all. No probes, we stick to sensors. Once we find a way to talk to them directly, then we can…”

  “Sir, I’m getting something from one of the gas giants,” Chen said. “From the innermost moon of the nearest. Substantial tectonic activity. Something major, big enough that it might disrupt the crust. Lots of heat signatures, but they don’t look volcanic to me.”

  “I thought there were no signs of the aliens outside the inner solar system?”

  “Aside from a few probes, Admiral, that’s confirmed, but something is definitely happening out there.” Reaching for a control, he added, “Focusing all sensors.” Looking up from his station, he said, “The timing would match a reaction to our arrival in-system. They’d have detected us about thirty seconds ago.”

  “Admiral, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Rochford asked.

  “I wish I didn’t,” Scott replied. “Helm, plot an intercept course, best-speed.”

  “Estimate eleven and a half hours, sir. They could probably be on us in twelve, though we’ve got plenty of room to dodge them. Assuming they are what we think they might be.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bendix said.

  “Wow! Communications chatter just went through the roof, sir,” Chen said. “They were pretty damn active before, but I think every station in the system is talking. Whatever’s happening out there, they weren’t expecting it.”

  “Moons don’t tear themselves apart every day,” Scott replied. He reached for his controls, calling up the data on the moon, and said, “Small, very low gravity. No reason why a ship couldn’t land there. Leonidas could, at a pinch.” Turning to Chen, he added, “Tell the fleet that they are to follow my lead.”

  “Aye, sir,” the communications officer replied.

  “Tectonic activity still rising,” Rochford said. “Something’s emerging.” He threw a control, bringing the latest sensor images onto the viewscreen, and all eyes watched, rapt by the spectacle, as a dreadfully familiar sphere tore itself out of the moon, bursting into space. An Exterminator warship, and judging by the energy curve, weapons hot.

  “Battle stations,” Scott ordered. “Doctor Bendix, I need to talk to the aliens, and I need to talk to them now. They’ve got to know what they’re facing if they’re going to have any chance at all of living through this.”

  “We fight, sir?” Silva asked.

  “We may have brought this beast to life, Lieutenant. We’re not going to leave them to face it alone.”

  Chapter 4

  “Damn it!” Novak said, slamming her palm on the console in frustration. “We died again, people, and without inflicting so much as a scratch on the enemy. I hope I don’t need to make it clear that is completely unacceptable. There are at least five billion lives counting on us getting this right.” She cracked a smile, and added, “Not to mention our own. I’d rather like to get through this in one piece.”

  “I’m not sure that’s practical, ma’am,” Cunningham said, looking up from his position in the battle simulator. “The best chance we seem to have is to try and ram the bastard, but even then, there’s little chance that we’ll get through the enemy defenses.” Shaking his head, he added, “We’ve always been able to use some sort of strategic edge, ma’am, but this time we’re facing them in free space, and ultimately, it’s just a numbers game.”

  “We’ve got the new weapons, Ensign,” Silva said. “Don’t write us off yet.”

  “I’m not doing that, ma’am. May I speak freely?”

  “Go right ahead, Ensign,” Novak said, locking Silva with a glare.

  “Every time we’ve faced the Exterminators we’ve had some sort of new weapons system to employ. Every time, they have failed to have any appreciable effect. We can’t beat them with a technological edge. That’s obvious. Certainly not one thrown together by a look through the history books.” Warming to his topic, he called up the weapons inventory, his finger stabbing brutally at the screen. “X-Ray lasers. Right out of a museum.”

  “Missiles, using megaton nuclear bombs…”

  “Which, Lieutenant, will undoubtedly be shot right out of the air before they can detonate. Refined kinetic cannons that the enemy will just dodge, enhanced masers that cannot possibly penetrate their hull. There’s just no way to do this, ma’am.” Shaking his head again, he added, “We can’t beat them this way. We need to lure them into somewhere we can use to our advantage, an asteroid swarm, rogue comet, anything. There are dozens of potential contact points within ten million miles of our position.”

  “And every potential target area is loaded with civilians, Ensign,” Novak said. “We can’t put them at risk.”

  “If we lose, ma’am, they die. All of them. Their world reduced to smoldering rubble, their very species wiped out. Based on that, if they incur a few casualties, that’s a small price to pay for the survival of their race.”

  Nodding, Silva said, “I’m forced to agree with the Ensign’s analysis of the situation, Commander. We’re playing for a big pot here, and if we have to concede a few chips to win the game…”

  “We’re not talking about poker chips, Lieutenant, and this is not a game. We’re talking about people’s lives, and our responsibility is to ensure the survival of the greatest number of them, no matter what. There’s an excellent chance that we are to blame for this attack, that we triggered the emergence of the Exterminator warship, and I will hear no more of throwing away any civilian lives unnecessarily.”

  “Bridge to Simulator Room,” Scott’s voice barked.

  “Novak here, sir,” the Commander said, throwing a control.

  “Any progress down there?”

  “Nothing yet, Admiral, but we’re still working on it, and I have every confidence that we’ll come up with something. Has there been any response from the aliens yet?”

  “That’s why I was calling, Commander. A force of fifty-two of their ships just left their homeworld on an intercept course. They’re using Orion drives to give themselves one hell of a kick, and our best guess has them engaging the enemy about fifteen minutes after ours. I can’t help but think that I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like it the first time.”

  “No, sir, I agree with that completely. They can’t have any idea what they are facing, and if they run headlong into that ship without any proper warning, they’ll be wiped out to the last ship. Unless they’ve got some sort of weapons system we know nothing about?”

  “Not unless it is extremely well-hidden. Our best guess has them using nuclear missiles, probably in the low-megaton range. They can probably use their own shaped charges as well. They’re tough little ships, but I can’t see that they’ll stand a chance of getting through their defenses, and even if they do, the enemy will have no trouble knocking all of their warheads right out of the sky. I wish I had happier news for you, Commander, but as far as I can see, we’re down to whatever you can come up with down there.”

  “Any progress on communicating with the aliens, sir?”

  “Plenty, but it’s taking a little longer than we feared. At this rate we’ll be able to toast them at the victory party.”

  “Let’s hope we have a chance to hold one, Admiral. We’ll do our best to secure an invitation.”

  “I know you will. I’ll call back in an hour. Bridge out.”

  “Christ, what are we going to do in an hour?” Cunningham said.

  Glancing at her watch, Novak said, “Take ten minutes. Go get a cup of coffee, go walk around the deck.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Silva protested.

  “No, Lieutenant, we don’t have time to sit here and make the same points over and over again! Take ten minutes, have a walk, have a think, and come back with something new to bring to the table. Dismissed.” Reluctantly, the two officers walked out of the room, and Novak sat down in a chair, looking up at the view
screen, throwing a control to bring the trajectory tracks of the ships into position. Three tiny stars, all destined to collide with each other. First Leonidas and the enemy ship, then the aliens to join the fight for a brief firing pass. She tried to put herself in the mind of the commander of that fleet. He, she, it, must know the odds they were up against. Or did they have some sort of hidden edge, a secret advantage to deploy? There was no sign of such a weapon on the sensors, but almost by definition, it would have to be masked from view.

  She called up the specifications on the new weapons, first focusing on the x-ray laser. An artifact of the 21st century, the Fleet engineers had managed to fit new hardware, new designs to make it a nimble and effective one-shot weapon, a five-megaton warhead that detonated at range to fire a burst of devastating laser fire at the distant target. On paper, the concept was beautiful, but in reality, she just didn’t see how to press such an attack home. Even if they did, there was every chance that the alien hull would be able to absorb the blast at range. Optionally, they could try and throw the warhead directly at the enemy, but again, they’d struggle to punch through the enemy’s defenses. She’d launched a close-range bombing attack before, with some limited success. That might be an option, but it hadn’t destroyed the enemy ship before, only opened up a weak spot that they had failed to exploit. Whatever they did, it had to destroy the enemy vessel rapidly, before it could have a chance to take out Leonidas and the alien fleet.

  There had to be a way of pressing an attack home. The Exterminator ships could be defeated. They’d certainly proven that well enough in their last two encounters, though on both occasions, victory had only come at a terrible cost. If they could position those charges properly, then there just might be a chance of cracking the hull, perhaps giving the aliens a chance to press their attack home. The kinetic cannons mounted on Leonidas might be able to block the lasers, provide a shield of some kind to let the missiles reach their target, and with a large enough wound gouged into the enemy hull, they might be able to bring the beast to a standstill. It was a desperate hope, she knew that, but at least it was a hope.