Darkspace

by Richard Tongue

  “Deploy x-ray lasers,” Scott ordered. “Let’s see if they make an impression.”

  “Missiles away, sir,” Morales replied, throwing a control, “though given what they’ve thrown at us so far, I very much doubt that they’ll have any significant impact at all.” Another laser pulse raced through the air, and the young officer’s face paled. “One down, sir. Right out of the launch tubes. It’s as though they knew what we were doing.”

  “They probably did, Ensign,” Rochford said. “The weight ratio…”

  “We’ve still got one left in the air,” Scott replied. “Fire at will, Ensign.”

  “Shuttle launched, Admiral!” Chen added, as a brief burst of violet flame raced across the sky, hammering into the heart of the enemy ship. For a second, just a second, the Exterminator ship slowed, forced to dig deeply into its reserves in a bid to withstand the sheer force of the attack, but it rapidly shook off the fire, returning to its original course, almost filling the viewscreen.

  “That did something, sir,” Morales said. “I’m not detecting any sign of damage, but it definitely slowed it down.”

  “A good power drain, Admiral,” Rochford added. “Suggest we try that again as soon as possible.” He looked up at the readouts again, and added, “Shuttle now clear, on approach path.”

  “Sweep the road, Ensign,” Scott ordered, and the kinetic cannons barked once more, hurling their fragments of rock in swiftly-dispersed paths across the space between the two ships, forcing the enemy to make a decision about where to make best use of its power. The immediate threat won, and the Exterminator lasers fired once more, slashing into the incoming swarms of deliberate debris Leonidas hurled towards it, harmlessly wiping it out of existence.

  “They’ll be on the surface in thirty seconds,” Rochford said. “Assuming they make it at all. They’re going to work out what we’re doing, and as soon as they do…”

  “Once they get inside the enemy defense perimeter, they’ll be as safe as if they were in their beds,” Scott said.

  “They could have defenses on the surface, Admiral,” Rochford warned. “Ensign Morales, fire two more missiles.”

  “They aren’t ready yet, sir,” the young officer protested. “The arming sequence…”

  “Tell me, Ensign, does the enemy know that?” the veteran asked with a wry smile. “Give them something to think about. Get four of those birds up and in an attack pattern, right now.”

  “Aye, sir,” she replied, throwing a series of controls, four new lights briefly flickering into life on the monitor before being answered by a salvo of laser fire from the enemy ship. She grimaced, looked up, and added, “Didn’t even make a mile out of the tubes, Captain.”

  “That just means we’ve got a way to bait them, Ensign. And it means we’ve finally got a weapon they’re actually afraid of.” Turning back to the screen, Rochford added, “Let’s just hope we’ve got two of them. Looks like the shuttle’s about to land.”

  Nodding, Scott said, “Not far off perfect. Helm, pull us back, just a little, but keep us close enough to recover the shuttle once they take off. We’re not going to have long to recover them before the charges fire. Lieutenant Chen, contact the shuttle, and…”

  “Sir, I can’t. We lost all contact as soon as they closed within a hundred meters. I don’t even have telemetry any more. It’s as though someone reached into the guts of the system and threw a switch. Even the tightbeam links aren’t working, and I’ve got a good line-of-sight with them.”

  “Odder and odder,” Rochford said.

  “Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” Bendix said. At Scott’s glare, she added, “Arthur C. Clarke, sir.”

  “I know the reference, Doctor,” Rochford replied. “In this context, I prefer to try not the patience of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.”

  “We can get back to book club later,” Scott said. “We’re still in the middle of a battle. Keep your focus, everyone.” He looked at the monitor, another laser blast racing past them, then turned to look at the alien fleet, still implacably racing on. Under his breath, too quietly for anyone else to hear, he muttered, “And just what do you think of all this, I wonder.”

  “We’ll know in a minute, Admiral,” Bendix replied. “I’m almost there.” Before he could reply, she added, “One reason I became a linguist is my exceptional hearing, sir. Well above human norms. You don’t get to keep any secrets from me.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind, Doctor,” he said with a smile. “And I admire your optimism.”

  “Sir?”

  The proximity sensors wailed again, a blast close enough to scorch the paint, and he replied, “You’re assuming that bastard out there won’t catch us first. Watch it, helm. Keep our distance.”

  “Trying, sir,” Cunningham protested. “They’re not letting us pull back, matching our moves. I think we made them mad.”

  “You mean they weren’t before?” Rochford replied. “If they tear planets to pieces when they’re in a happy mood, what do they do when they get angry?”

  “Wait around,” Scott said. “I have the horrible feeling we’re about to find out.”

  Chapter 6

  “Engines to idle,” Silva said, throwing controls on the helm. “Clamps secure. We’re locked to the surface.” She looked across at a readout, shook her head, and added, “This is wrong. Gravity’s ten times what it should be. It’s still not enough to have any appreciable effect outside, but it’s still crazy. Either our mass estimates are completely out, or we’re going to have to rewrite the laws of physics.”

  “Later,” Novak replied. “Though that’s just one more thing for us to do when we’re done here.” She looked across at her controls, and said, “I still can’t raise Leonidas, but somehow, that doesn’t surprise me overmuch. We don’t need them for this anyway. Check the clamps again.”

  “They’re secure.”

  “Do it anyway. I don’t want the shuttle drifting away while we’re down there on the surface.”

  Silva sighed, tapped a control, and waited for a second as a sequence of green lights raced across her panel, before replying, “All secure, Commander. We’re not leaving until we choose to.”

  “I wouldn’t be quite as confident about our ability to make that choice as you are,” Novak said, rising from her seat. Both of them had launched in their spacesuits, leaving off only gloves and helmets, and she hastily attached both, the heads-up display flickering into life as the neck clamps locked into place. She stepped into the airlock, reaching across to throw a control to open the exterior cargo hatches, then rapidly cycled through the double doors, the outer door cracking open to reveal the alien warship beyond.

  At first, it was hard to tell that she wasn’t drifting out onto a large asteroid, just as she had hundreds of times before on research and patrol missions, but the tendrils sweeping across the sky above were quick proof that she wasn’t, that she was somewhere strange, somewhere alien, somewhere no human being had ever been before. As she watched, the tip of the nearest tendril glowed, unleashing another bolt of energy into the void, and the sight of such unimaginable power being wielded drew her back to reality. She walked around to the cargo hatch, pulling out one of the deceptively small warheads and tugging it free, almost falling off her feet from the mass.

  Gravity was heavier than it should have been. On a body this small, she should have been using her suit jets, but she could walk, at least after a fashion. Shaking her head, she swept the landscape for any potential weak spots, finally selecting a site at the base of one of the tendrils, at the joint where it was connected to the main body of the craft. Silva was out as well, hastening to her position, and with a curt nod, Novak began her journey, taking a series of long, lazy bounds as she raced across the landscape, a hundred meters to her target point, the warhead swinging back and forth from her arm with every step.

  After a moment, she reached her goal, and carefully planted the warhead in position, securing it to f
ace the hull of the enemy ship, where the shaped nuclear charge would have its fullest effect. They’d kept the detonation as simple as possible, the designers providing a chemical-based backup trigger, something that could not be affected by electronic interference. All she had to do was activate it, and she reached down to a control, ready to go. She looked up for Silva, scanning the horizon, then heard something in the background, almost indistinct, a faint voice that whispered over the roar of static being produced by the enemy ship. She threw the control, the countdown beginning, then reached to her wrist control, playing with the frequencies, trying to strengthen the transmission.

  “Lieutenant, is that you?” she asked. “Lieutenant Silva, respond at once, respond at once.”

  “No,” the voice said, its whisper somehow cutting through the static like a knife. “This is not Lieutenant Silva, nor anyone else from Leonidas or the rest of the ships in the fleet. I am, perhaps, a friend.”

  “You’re from the alien fleet? How did you manage to get onto this frequency? I need to…”

  “No, I’m not from there either. Let’s say for the moment that I am a voice from the ancient past, and leave it at that.” There was a brief pause, and she heard a strange, rhythmic thumping as an undertone to the soft words. “I have a question to ask. Why are you here? Why do you do this?”

  Somehow, the words flooded from her lips, “We’re here to destroy this ship, to save the aliens living here.”

  “They were in no danger before your arrival. This ship would not have emerged from its cocoon unless you had compelled it to do so. What brought you here?”

  “We learned of the existence of the aliens, and believed that the Exterminators would destroy them.” The voice had to be from the ship below, had to be one of the occupants finally engaging in dialogue, but no matter how hard she fought, she couldn’t stop herself from answering. It was as though she had been given a sonic truth serum, compelling her to answer any questions she was posed, and yet she was still able to think, still able to reason, to push questions of her own. “Why do you wish to destroy us?”

  “We have no wish to destroy anyone. We are compelled to fight for life, just as you are.”

  “By destroying whole worlds?”

  “It is all just a matter of cosmic time. The worlds are not transformed. Just changed. Now, tell me about the bomb you have planted. How may it be disarmed?”

  “Now that I have activated it, there’s no way to stop it. Nor can it be removed. Not in the time allowed. It was designed specifically to prevent that from happening.” She cursed herself, unable to stop, unable to hold back, and asked, “Just who the hell are you?”

  “A friend, potentially. We will talk again, I think, at some future point. For the present, I wish you luck. I suspect you will need an excess of it in the moments to come.” As suddenly as it came, the voice ended, and Novak took a deep breath, struggling to collect herself. Whatever the voice had been, it had locked her in place, almost without realizing it. She looked down at her arm controls, and her eyes widened. Her receiver was off. That signal must have come through the hull of the ship, the being that spoke to her perhaps only meters away.

  Then she looked up at her heads-up display, and immediately started to race back towards the shuttle. The conversation had felt as though it had lasted for a few seconds. In fact, it had been three minutes. Two more, and the bomb would explode, and no force in the universe could prevent that now, a precaution that she was extremely happy about. Had there been any way to disarm it, she knew that she would have done it, would have ended the mission.

  She saw Silva, climbing into the airlock, and looked out across the terrain to see the winking light of the second bomb, positioned closer to the shuttle, ready to detonate. Evidently Silva hadn’t experienced the same trouble she had. Her sensors winked into life, warning her that the engines on the compact spaceship were warming up, the rebellious pilot wasting no time in making her preparations for takeoff. Not that it was much of a surprise. From Silva’s point of view, she’d just decided to stare out into space for three minutes, unable to be contacted, unwilling to move. She could hardly blame her for wanting to make good her escape while she could.

  With a final, desperate bound, she jumped for the shuttle, scrambling on board and ducking through the outer door of the airlock just as it slid shut, the launch thrusters firing to hurl the ship into the sky. Racing into the cabin, she tugged off her helmet and gloves, tossing them to the deck, and climbed into the co-pilot’s couch as Silva threw the throttles full open, caring about nothing more than raw acceleration in the frantic race to get away from the enemy ship.

  “What the hell kept you, Commander?” she asked.

  “One of the crew,” Novak replied. At Silva’s expression, she added, “I can’t explain it, Lieutenant. Some sort of hypnosis, perhaps, but they tried to get me to disarm the bomb.” She paused, then continued, “It was strange. Not like the voice we heard before, during the first battle, but softer, almost friendly.”

  “Friendly? You’ve got to be kidding, ma’am,” Silva said, shaking her head. “I’d have a word with Doc Nguyen when you get back to the ship. Sounds like you might…”

  “What are you insinuating?” Novak asked.

  “Leonidas to Shuttle,” the voice of Scott broke through, interrupting their argument before it could begin. “Do you read me? We have positive track of your departure trajectory. No word from the aliens yet, but they’re bearing directly on the target, and if my guess is right, they’re setting up for an attack run. You can expect full defensive fire from the enemy ship any second now.”

  “Heading around the far side,” Silva replied. “Away from the potential missile trajectories. If we’re going to get clear, that’s the only way we’re going to do it.”

  “Belay that,” Novak said, shaking her head. “Set us up for a bombing run by the topmost tendril, with full evasive pattern. I want to draw off as much of their fire as we can.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Commander, but we don’t have any bombs. Hell, I don’t think this ship is maneuverable enough to pull that off, not at this range. We’ll be blown to pieces.”

  “And maybe, just maybe, we’ll give one of those alien ships the chance to get the critical missile to its target and do the same to the enemy. Two lives don’t mean a damn thing compared to all the rest in this system. Isn’t that the point you made back in the Sim Room, or does that only apply to aliens, not humans?”

  With a scowl, Silva turned the shuttle, and Novak called up the auxiliary systems, keeping one eye on the trajectory plot as the pilot set them onto an attack run they would never be able to complete, racing towards their target. There had to be some way for them to let the aliens know where to attack, without actually speaking to them. Her fingers flicked through the subsystems, trying to find something of use, cursing that the usual probe package had been left behind to save weight, sacrificed on the altar of mission success.

  Then, she found it. The distress beacon. Meant to be jettisoned should the ship be on the verge of imminent destruction, and technically, if Silva made one wrong move, that might well end up being the case. Her hands danced across the controls, activating one override after another in a bid to convince the computer to launch the beacon, before finally, she managed to engage the activation sequence, sending it hurtling towards the enemy ship, back in the direction from whence they had come, back towards the two blinking warheads, now mere seconds from detonation.

  “Bastard’s taking the bait,” Silva said, hurling the shuttle to the side, evading the bolts of laser energy flying all around them. She reached over her head, threw a control, and the viewscreen dimmed just as the two warheads exploded, both erupting in violent flame at the same instant, the second triggered by the first. Novak focused her sensors on the source of the impact, impatiently working her console, trying to clear the interference thrown up by the force of the explosion. Silva pushed the engines harder, dodging the debris that she knew w
ould be flying towards them, hurled into space by the detonation, and swept clear of the enemy ship at last, curving neatly out of the firing line.

  “Did we do enough?” Silva asked, as Novak struggled with the sensors.

  “I think so,” she replied. “Yes, we’ve cracked the hull. There’s a breach. Small, but sufficient if the alien targeting systems are good enough. And the power levels on the enemy ship are way down, heat radiation through the roof. We’ve probably damaged the guts of that ship at the very least.” She paused, then added, “She’s moving off! I think she’s heading for the shadow wormhole, but at reduced speed.”

  “With a little luck, she’ll never get there,” Silva said, altering course. She frowned, looking up at a sensor display, but before she could make another move, there was a loud report from the rear of the ship, behind the cabin, and the shuttle began to tumble out of control, the roar of the engines fading to silence. “Crap.”

  “Debris?” Novak asked.

  “Right into the primary engine manifold. Given time, I might be able to repair it.”

  Novak looked across at the status indicator, grimaced, and replied, “I don’t think so. Not unless you can fix the outer hatch from the inside. I’m reading five different impacts on the hull. We’ve lost two sensor feeds, a thruster, the engine manifold, and the last one dented the hatch just enough to stop it from opening. It’s a miracle the hull wasn’t actually breached.” Turning back to the viewscreen, she added, “At least we’ve got a front-row seat for the fireworks.”

  Firing the thrusters, the pilot replied, “I should be able to keep us stable, at least after a fashion, but we’re not going to be able to dodge out of the way of anything. I just hope that bastard out there doesn’t consider us a serious threat. Any more debris fields heading for us?”

  “Nothing in the area, but I didn’t pick up the first swarm. Sensor resolution’s not as good as it should be. Something’s causing interference on the short-range systems.” Frowning, she added, “I’m getting a strong build-up of Hawking radiation. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Throwing controls, she continued, “There’s no sign of a singularity in the vicinity, but…” She looked at Silva, and said, “The warship.”