“The Exterminators are using a black hole to power their ships?” Her eyes widened, and she said, “Damn, we’re aiming way out of our league with this one. If they start throwing quantum singularities around…”
“Never mind that now,” Novak replied. “Looks like the aliens are setting up for an attack run.” Turning to watch the trajectory track, she added, “And if my guess is right, we’re going to be right in the heart of it.”
“Beautiful,” Silva replied. She reached for her helmet, and said, “Might want to suit up. Just in case.”
“Yeah, not a bad idea,” Novak said, tugging on her gloves, locking the seals into place once more. “Launches. My God, there must be five thousand missiles out!” She sat back on the couch, watching with rapt attention as the alien ships pulled away, staying well clear of the crippled enemy ship, letting their missiles take the risks for them. Text scrolled down the side of the viewscreen, projections of the destructive force of the salvo, several gigatons of death heading towards the Exterminator, all targeted for the crack they’d ripped in the bulky warship’s armor.
It was an awe-inspiring sight, the entire might of a planetary defense launched in one titanic salvo, as much firepower as all of the Great Powers of Earth had wielded during the Nationalist Era. A force that could destroy a planet, or at least make it impossible to live there for centuries, maybe millennia. The Exterminator ship was still sweeping the sky with its lasers, destroying the incoming missiles by the dozen, by the hundred, but for every one that the warship destroyed, two remained, holding course, racing towards their goal.
Finally, the inevitable happened, and it was all over. As far as Novak could determine, twenty-two of the missiles managed a time-on-target attack on the crack, hundreds of megatons of precisely-aimed firepower delivered at the same instant. There was no way for the enemy to counter that, and as a huge flash of fire briefly lit the sky, the energy readings from the Exterminator ship briefly surged, then died, the vessel itself tearing into a billion pieces, a cloud of debris that would swirl endlessly through the system forever, silent monument to the battle that had been fought here.
“Too easy,” Silva said with a smile.
“That was easy?” Novak replied, shaking her head. She called up the communications controls, and said, “Should be able to contact Leonidas now. We can probably dock if they get close enough, or…” She paused, then said, “Christ.”
“What?”
A harsh, guttural voice ripped through the speakers, saying, “Alien vessels, identify yourselves at once, or face destruction. I repeat, identify yourselves, and face destruction. You have one minute. That is all.”
“Great,” Novak said. “Now they want to talk.”
Chapter 7
“This is Admiral Scott, commanding the Terran Starship Leonidas.” Looking across at Chen, he added, “Our intentions in this system must by now be obvious. My complements on a most impressive display of firepower, and the destruction of the Exterminator warship.”
The harsh, guttural voice replied, “With the lives of all of my people resting upon my shoulders, I can take no risks. While I accept that you assisted in our destruction of the enemy vessel, there are those among my staff who consider that this could be a trap, that you are attempting to lure us into a false sense of security before launching into a war of conquest for our Sacred Realm.” There was a pause, and he added, “I need more proof. Cut all engines and permit my people to board you. I give you my word that you will come to no harm. My technicians will examine your ship and its equipment, as well as your database, and…”
“It will be a cold day in hell before I permit that,” Scott said. “If for no other reason than that we don’t have the time. We’re passing through this system on our way to our primary objective, and I already made a damned detour to do it! If you think I’m going to sit here for weeks or months while your engineers play with all the new toys I’ve brought into the system for you, you are very much mistaken!”
“Admiral,” Bendix warned, “the translation matrix isn’t that robust yet. I’m not sure how much is actually getting through, especially profanity.”
“Profanity?” Scott barked, turning to the linguist. “Damn it, Doctor, if I was to use profanity, they’d understand every god-damned word I said, whether it got through your translation matrix or not!” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Helm, resume our course to the exit wormhole, best possible speed. If my guess is right, those morons out there will have burned through most of their charges to get here in a hurry. I doubt they’ll be able to intercept.”
“Admiral,” the voice replied, barking over the ceiling speakers, “I have little choice in this matter. I must guarantee the security of our Sacred Realm, no matter what my own feelings might be. I can see from your trajectory track that you are planning to leave this system.” He paused, then asked, “What is your primary objective? Can you tell me that?”
“We’re investigating a possible resurgence of a race we call the Folk.” Turning to the side, he ordered, “Chen, send some samples of the Folk text to the aliens. Enough that they could recognize it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is impossible!” the harsh voice said. “These are copies of the holiest writings of our people, found carved in the…” He paused, then said, “Their resurgence, you say?”
“They fought the Exterminators a million years ago. And they lost. We found evidence of them scattered all across this part of the galaxy once we seriously started to look for it. There’s a chance that they might be coming back, at least some vestige of them, and in that case, we need to reach them before the enemy does.” He paused, then asked, “What connection do your people have with theirs?”
“They are part of our earliest myths and legends, both the Wise Lords and the Great Destroyer. You appeared close to the world the Destroyers, I presume your Exterminators, scourged in the Ancient Times. I will consult with the Elders. It will take a few moments. Will you stand by?”
“Leonidas and the rest of the fleet will be in this system for a while longer,” Scott replied, glancing at the astrometric plot, “for about two-thirds of a rotation of your homeworld, if that helps.”
“That suffices. Out.”
“Interesting,” Rochford said. “Though the timing doesn’t quite add up. The Folk were destroyed a million years ago, but that planet back there died more like thirty, forty thousand years ago. It’s inconsistent.”
“We’re talking about ancient legends, Captain,” Chen said. “Why should we assume that they have any degree of accuracy? How much could cavemen manage to work out from seeing fires in the sky?”
“Maybe, or maybe there’s something else going on,” Scott said, reaching for a control. “Bridge to Science Lab.”
“Belinsky here, Admiral. We’ve been going over all of the data from the enemy ship, and I think…”
“Never mind that now, Professor, though I’m going to want a full report as soon as we reach the wormhole. What can you tell me about the alien presence in this system? Is there any evidence of prior occupation, say around the time of the destruction of that planet back there?”
There was a brief pause, and the scientist said, “You understand that it is very difficult to make such a judgment without actually putting boots on the ground, Admiral. There’s only so much I can glean from the long-range sensors, especially given all the other activity out there. They’ve got more asteroid mining going on than we’ve got at Sol, for a start, and signs of…”
“Professor, let me tell you my theory, and see if it matches any of the evidence you’ve found so far. This system didn’t have one intelligent race, but two, one of them living on that planet, which managed to attract the attention of the Exterminators. Maybe forty, maybe fifty thousand years ago. The wormhole was close to their homeworld. They wouldn’t have needed the advanced technology we use to access it. Hell, they might have blundered into it in the early days of spaceflight.” Nodding as he warmed
to his topic, he continued, “The aliens we’re facing now would have been primitive, too primitive to register. The Exterminators operate with surgical precision, or they’d have destroyed Earth when they destroyed the Folk. Our ancestors were down from the trees by then. What do you say?”
“I’d say you’ve got a theory there which will be damn near impossible to prove or disprove without a lot of work, but it fits together well enough.” Belinsky stopped for a moment, then added, “That could explain the hidden ship, as well. Watching the aliens, to see whether they could become any sort of a threat. I’m guessing we triggered them ahead of schedule, but it would only be a matter of time before they found the wormhole and left this system. Whereupon they’d be out into interstellar space. If we hadn’t found them, they might have found us, Admiral.”
“Given their predilection for gigatons of nuclear fire, that thought does not exactly fill me with happiness. Run all the checks you can, Professor, and see if you can come up with a threat assessment of our holy friends out there. If we have to fight another battle today, I’d like the best possible chance to win it.”
“You think that might be a possibility?”
“That’s up to them at this stage. I won’t start a fight, Professor, but I will damn well finish it. Bridge out.” He looked across at Rochford, and said, “We’ll shoot our way out of the system if we must. Any damage from the battle?”
“Actually, we managed to get through with barely a scratch. Some superficial burns on the outer hull, but we’ve got the drones looking at it now. Same with the rest of the fleet.” Cracking a smile, he added, “I guess we’re beginning to work out just how to beat the bastards.”
“We had overwhelming force on our side, and we still had to pull off a hair-brained stunt to finish them. Not to mention that the ship had to rip itself out of a moon before going to battle, and that must have affected them in some way.” He paused, then said, “That ship could have been waiting there for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years. How the hell did the aliens miss it?”
“If it has been there for their entire technological era, why not? They’d assume it was something normal, probably came up with a load of vaguely plausible theories to explain it.” Rochford sighed, then added, “We’re going to have to assume that there’s an enemy ship waiting in any system we come across, hiding in any small piece of rock. Christ, they could be lurking everywhere. Those decoy ships could be right in Sol, hidden in the Oort Cloud or the moons of Persephone, and we’d never know a damn thing about it.”
“The thought had occurred to me, but we’re too far away to do anything about it now.” Looking up at the viewscreen, Scott said, “I can understand their paranoia. They’ve lived under the shadow of the gun for centuries. Imagine if our first probes to Mars had found evidence that some unknown force had destroyed the planet a few thousand years ago, swept it clean of life. We might have done something like this, built the same sort of space fleet.”
“Just as likely we’d have tucked our heads under the blankets and hoped for better times.” Shaking his head, Rochford glanced across at the trajectory plotter, and said, “Some activity on the alien fleet. Shuttles moving back and forth, and a few of their ships are on the move.”
“They’re transferring charges, sir,” Chen suggested. “Their equivalent of refueling, I guess. The ships are safe enough on this trajectory until they can ship new charges from their homeworld, but that’ll take far too long if they hope to keep up with us.” He paused, then said, “We’ve been at battle stations for more than half an hour, sir. Should I take us down to standby alert?”
“Not yet, Lieutenant,” Scott said. “Maintain current status.”
“If we keep that up for too long, Mike, the crew will lose their edge, especially if we’re not actually in the middle of a firefight,” Rochford warned. “We’re getting some good distance between ourselves and the aliens, and…”
“And they still have a lot more ships than we do, and while we’ve got a good technological edge, I’ve got no way of knowing just how that will play out in a battle, and we’re in a fight for the survival of all humanity. The crew can handle it, at least for a little while. Any sign of activity from the flagship?”
“Assuming that’s the ship those signals came from, it’s one of the ones they’re currently working to refuel.”
“Keep an eye on her.” Scott looked around the bridge, watching his crew work. They’d come through the battle far better than they’d had any right to do, but now they were potentially facing an even greater threat, one they could not have considered when they’d left Earth. First Contact with the Exterminators had been bad, but now he was beginning to wonder if they would ever find a friendly alien race out in the void, or whether they were cursed to an endless series of wars, raging all across the galaxy, across the universe, without any possible end.
What would that do to humanity, a war lasting that long. They’d been fighting the Exterminators for months, and already the paranoia back home was changing Earth, possibly forever, certainly not for the better. Pundits on every street corner clamoring for more ships, for an aggressive expansion into the universe, to wipe out any potential threats to humanity before they could even get started. That more and more politicians seemed to be agreeing with that stance terrified him, especially with the tens of thousands of stars they now had access to through the shadow wormholes.
It seemed strange to look back just a year ago, when he was making a struggling living as a military commentator, going from one news station to the next to demand more funding for the moribund fleet, a new wave of exploration, restoration of aging defenses. Now the defense budget was higher than it had ever been, so much money coming in that the Fleet was having difficulty spending it, struggling to keep pace with the ever-increasing expectations of the public for more ships, more outposts, better and bigger weapons.
At one time, that would have been the answer to his prayers. Now he feared the effect it would have on humanity in the future. Perhaps if they were able to finish this war quickly, find the silver bullet that ended the threat of the Exterminators forever, it might grind to a halt. Somehow, though, he knew that the genie had escaped the bottle, and that nothing could ever be the same again. War without end. The alien homeworld, a few million miles away, choking to death on its own filth, was evidence enough of where that road might lead.
“We’re getting a signal from the alien flagship, sir,” Chen said. “Tightbeam, sir. Nobody else will be able to hear it. I’ve plugged in the translation matrix.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Put him through.” There was a brief crackle of static as the signal swept over the ceiling speakers once more, and he said, “This is Admiral Scott. What is your decision?”
“That we shall not have a war today, Admiral.” Scott smiled, and the alien continued, “Though we shall be limiting our exposure to your culture for the present. The Elders have requested that you transmit a full cultural and historical database for our analysis. I should state at this point that they also asked for technological data, but I explained that you are unlikely to yield to that request.”
“With one exception,” Scott said. “First, to whom am I speaking?”
“I am my people’s Orbital Warleader. The equivalent of an Admiral, if I understand you correctly. What information are you willing to provide? Naturally, we’re eager to see any tactical information you can provide.”
“The information will not be for military use, Warleader, but for the restoration of your homeworld. Centuries ago, we wreaked havoc on our biosphere just as you have to yours, and it took the labor of generations to undo the damage. I’m willing to transmit some blueprints and designs for equipment that you might be able to use to restore your homeworld to its pristine condition.”
There was a delay on the line, and the Warleader replied, “I am open-minded, Admiral, so I can tell you that while I appreciate the sentiment, our Elders would never permit the use of alien technology
on our Sacred Realm. The risk of contamination would be too great. I hope you understand.”
“He’s out of his mind,” Rochford said, shaking his head. “Their homeworld…”
“Is theirs, Captain, not ours.” Turning back to the microphone, Scott continued, “Any cultural exchange must be reciprocal. We’ll trade you ours for yours, information on your history, as well as any data you have about both the destroyed world and the moon from which the enemy ship launched.”
“I anticipated that request, Admiral, and I have the data ready to transmit. My ship will escort you out of the system, and we ask that none of your people should return unless you are invited. Our home space is sovereign and will remain so, at no matter what cost.” There was another brief pause, and the alien added, “I regret that it must be this way, Admiral, but we dare not take any risk.”
“I understand. Preparing for data transfer.”
“We are ready here also. And Admiral?”
“Yes?”
“If I understand the meaning of the phrase in your language, good luck.”
Chapter 8
“It’s sad, actually,” Novak said, looking down at the text scrolling across the surface of the table. “A race that has spent its whole existence looking up at the stars, waiting for the arrival of the enemy destined to destroy them. When we were coming up with stories about Gilgamesh, they were trying to defend themselves from a threat they could barely comprehend. As though their entire culture was focused on preparing for its end.”
“We had Ragnarök,” Belinsky replied, shaking his head. “Is there anything in there that might corroborate the Admiral’s theory about the second alien race?”
Darkspace Page 6
