Darkspace

by Richard Tongue

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because there was no other choice. Because the evils they had wrought would have returned once more. Because I am forced, sometimes, to do what I dislike because it is the only way to save the greatest number of intelligences. I note that the One is here, with you.”

  “I am here as an observer,” Joe replied. “We have an interest in the doings of our neighbors, especially when they choose to invade our system. We destroyed your ship, and I am here to warn you that any future visit will be met with the same response. We have never asked for more from you than our privacy.”

  “We make no bargain, no treaty, no negotiation. What is, must be. If you or any member of your race ever leaves your system again, we will have no alternative other than to direct all of our force against you. We have no wish to undertake such a punitive expedition, but if we are forced, we shall. Though I beg you, with all my heart, not to force us into such a desperate extreme. Your civilization could easily last a billion years, perhaps far more.”

  “Just what is all of this about?” Novak asked. “Why do you wage war upon humanity? Why do you want to exterminate us? Why have you annihilated so many other races across the galaxy?”

  “It is a sad, sad story, Commander,” the voice said. “The One, Joe and his people, know a portion of the truth, though I suspect they do not entirely realize it. You will have noticed that this part of space is laden with advanced, long-lived civilizations? Regrettably, this is far from the norm in our galaxy.”

  “Because you continue to wipe them out,” Belinsky replied. “It was decades before we even discovered evidence that other intelligent life-forms existed at all, still longer before we were able to contact them…”

  “No,” the voice replied, sadness deep in every word, “it is not our doing. Indeed, that there are any civilizations still surviving, still thriving in our galaxy is the result of our labors. A hundred million years ago, the first, great age of galactic expansion began, thousands of races reaching from their homeworlds and leaping out across the stars, constructing the first of the wormhole networks. Soon they came into contact with each other, but three of them proved stronger than the rest, and began to dominate the others, forming vast nation-states that controlled entire galactic arms. You humans experienced a similar phenomenon in what you now call the Nationalist era.”

  “Sure, but we grew out of it,” Silva replied. “We’re pretty much unified now, and there’s no thought of dividing once again, other than a few crazy hot-heads.”

  “Your maturity is admirable, Lieutenant, but it was not shared by the Titans of ancient times. For many thousands of years, they co-existed in peace, but gradually tensions began to rise, conflicts emerged, and soon war raged across the cosmos, battle-lines thousands of light-years across, billions of ships waging a terrible war. The three great empires battled for endless centuries, until finally they fought to exhaustion, and the conflict ended.”

  “Then peace?” Novak asked. “What happened to them? Where are they now?”

  “They saw their peace as the prelude to another war, and this time they determined to enlist every ally they could find, any potential means to bolster their armies, their fleets. They contacted every sentient race within their borders, conscripting them into their empires whether they liked it or not, slave worlds by the thousand, by the million, producing armaments and warriors for a cause they could barely understand or comprehend. But then, their masters did not need their minds, only their bodies, their worlds. The One, in their first civilized period, were once such race.”

  “My people were enslaved?” Joe asked. “There are no records of that, though it might explain certain of our ancient stories, legends from our distant past.” He nodded, and said, “If you have any information on the actions and deeds of my people in this time, I would very much like to study them.”

  “They will be made available to you, if you wish, but I would advise caution before examining the documents too closely. You may well not like what you find within them. It is another sad, sad tale, and your people were renowned in their youth as some of the most vicious, brutal warriors in the Telnaki Consortium. Prized by your masters for your ferocity in war, your ruthless determination for victory at any and all costs.”

  “Was there another war?” Novak asked.

  “There was, twenty-two million years ago, but this time it was far shorter. Weapons that are the stuff of nightmares were deployed, stars extinguished, planets ripped from their orbits, black holes thrown across the light-years at distant targets, anything to provide the victory they craved. Then came the final weapon, which eliminated all technological civilization across the galaxy, aside from a handful of enclaves such as this, sheltered from the force of the weapon. Even we have not preserved the record of the technology it involved, only the effect. Millions of worlds destroyed. Quadrillions of lives wiped out. The labor of a hundred million years, gone in a day.”

  “Did you live through those years?” Silva asked. “How did you preserve the records of this time?”

  “We lived through them. We fought. Our biological ancestors were the survivors of the combined space fleets of the combatant powers, forty million out of the trillions who had, as you would say, worn a uniform.”

  “And you set out to conquer the galaxy once again,” Silva said, shaking her head. “Leaning nothing.”

  “On the contrary, Lieutenant, we, or I should say our ancestors, as the last of them died out ten million years ago, knew that we had to prevent any further war. That we had to protect the fallow species, protect them from the aggressors that would leap across the stars and create new empires, new monuments to tyranny and false glory. That was our goal. That is why our ships dominate the galaxy, watching for signs that another species has decided to place itself on the road of empire, the path to conquest.”

  “Humanity has never launched any aggressive acts against another race,” Novak protested.

  “And the Folk, as well,” Belinsky added. “They had no instinct for war, were forced to it only by your actions.”

  “The Folk are an interesting case, and a testament to the virtue of our argument. Consider, Professor. They had contacted seven intelligent races, all of them with more limited technological bases. I grant that they did not physically conquer them, but they still contaminated them, donated techniques and science that advanced them far faster than they should have. Their cultures became blended with those of the Folk, to the point that they lost their distinctiveness, lost a chance to become whatever they might have become on their own. You have met one of those species, who have destroyed their homeworld in their xenophobic bid for aggression.”

  “You already attacked them once,” Silva protested.

  “No. Our ships destroyed no world in their system. They did it to themselves, to their original homeworld. We could do nothing but watch, and mourn. Now that they know of the wormholes, they will likely begin their expansion, and we shall be forced to intervene once more. We will be forced to watch another world burn. Else they will find a dozen other peoples, a dozen other cultures, and either contaminate them with their bloodlust or exterminate them as a potential future threat. We will permit neither outcome. We dare not.”

  “Then any race that leaves its system…”

  “Becomes of interest to us. A single use of a wormhole, perhaps accidentally, is permitted, but once a species begins systematic exploration, its time is reaching an end. Few civilizations reach for the stars in any case. Many destroy themselves before they can unify, others wreck their planet in the course of industrial development, and in both cases, the species generally die out rapidly, though some have recovered to remain in a fallow state. Many never do develop any technological civilization, content instead with the way things were, the way things would always be.”

  “What of those that do?”

  “Many are content with their own world, perhaps the other planets of their system. They devote themselves to the deve
lopment of their species, rather than a desperate need to expand beyond. Some explore the universe without ever leaving home, others have little interest in the stars, choosing to explore inner space, the realms of the mind, their own psychology. The One are an example of such a civilization, but there are hundreds of thousands of others.” With a deep sigh, the voice added, “There were many more before the wars, before they were conscripted to battle. A million versions of paradise were destroyed, never to be rebuilt, never to come again.”

  “Then humanity is doomed by its own desire for exploration, its curiosity,” Novak said.

  “I fear this is the destiny of your species, yes. You have fought well, harder than most, but I already have a larger warfleet on the verge of entering your territory once again, and this time, the battle will not end until your world has been destroyed. You will be remembered here, in this room, forever, but I fear your day is all but done.”

  “Is there no alternative?” Belinsky asked.

  “I fear not,” the voice replied. “I doubt your kind would permit it, and you have already demonstrated your resilience. Walk the halls, walk the galleries, and look upon your predecessors. Once you have had time to think, we will talk again.” The voice was silent, and the light overhead began to fade, replaced instead with spotlights shining on the statues. The four of them looked around, looked at each other, but knew within their hearts that they had nothing to say.

  They’d landed with high hopes of victory, of one form or another.

  They’d failed.

  Chapter 18

  “Still nothing from the surface, sir,” Chen reported. “Sensors tracked them all the way down to the surface, but as soon as they landed, we lost all contact, even telemetry. It’s as though they threw a switch. I’ve got a probe ready for launch when you give the order, but…”

  “Negative, Lieutenant,” Scott replied. “I’m not really surprised that our people are being held incommunicado. I’d have been more surprised if the Exterminators had given them the freedom to contact us. Keep monitoring all channels, and if they contact us, or if anything changes, I want to know at once. That shuttle is your top priority.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” Chen replied, throwing controls.

  “No change to any of the other ships in the system,” Rochford said, shaking his head. “They’re just sitting there.”

  “Watching and waiting, just like us, wondering what we’re going to do next,” Scott said. “Any progress?”

  “The whole science team has been…”

  “Radiation spike, sir!” one of the technicians reported. “Another black hole. That makes seven since we arrived in this system, Admiral, on a twenty-two minute repeated pattern. I can probably narrow it down still further if you want.”

  “I want, Spaceman, I want,” Scott ordered. “Any information we can gather might be useful.”

  Looking up, Rochford said, “There’s just no obvious weakness, Mike. I think I’ve found the shipyards they use to build those beasts, out in the distant reaches of the system. Quite clever, really, they’ve got some sort of hypermagnetic field to direct the black holes out there, and presumably to catch them at the far end. We’re looking at eight billion miles from the wormhole, though, and well-defended at that. There’s no way for us to get out there.”

  “Even if we did,” Chen added, “what good would it do? Temporarily cutting off their supply of new ships isn’t going to do anything to the ones they’ve already got on the line, and it must have taken them years to get out to Earth, probably decades, using conventional wormhole technology.” He sighed, then said, “I just don’t see what options we have, Admiral. All the weapons we have would barely make a dent in one of their ships, and there are thousands of the beasts just here in this system.”

  “I don’t accept that,” Scott said. “There’s got to be an answer.” He paused, then said, “We’re dealing with a robotic intelligence. That means that there has to be some sort of central control…”

  “Unless it’s a distributed brain,” Chen replied.

  “We can test the theory,” Rochford said, racing over to a sensor panel, running through a series of quick searches through their archives. “I thought so. None of their ships has ever been out of line of sight with a wormhole. Never. They must have some way of communicating through wormholes, even over extreme distances, and that’s how they’re controlling their ships.”

  “Fine, then they’ve got a central brain,” Chen said. His eyes widened, and he said, “The planet?”

  “Why not? The amount of processing power we’re talking about would be about as large as a planet, and this one has the local power plant available to run it.” Turning to one of the technicians, Rochford added, “This whole system is dedicated to the Exterminators, and given everything they’ve done to protect it, this has to be vital to them, to their well-being. How many of these systems would they have created?”

  “For all we know, sir, they might have built thousands of them…”

  “No,” Bendix said. “We’d have seen them. The only reason we missed this one was that it was hidden behind the central black hole, out of observation. Even then, the Folk found this one, and they’d have seen any others that had been built. Our best guess suggests that their reach was high enough over the Galactic Plane that they were able to look over the center.” Before Chen could reply, she added, “I know a million years is a long time, Lieutenant, but all our theories suggest that they’ve been around for a lot longer than that.”

  “I think we’re safe enough to assume that this is a unique system for them. All the evidence points that way. So we have a shipyard out in the deep system, and a central control here, close to the star, a star that should last for billions upon billions of years. Besides, I don’t think they built this. They inherited all of this technology. They might not be able to duplicate it. That’s why all the Exterminator ships are of the same pattern. They can’t innovate.”

  “I agree,” Rochford said, “though I don’t know where it gets us. Admittedly, if we could destroy the planet, we might be able to destroy the Exterminators with it, but we don’t have anything like the armament required to pull that off. Even if we tried, they’d be on us before we could even get our kinetic cannons loaded.”

  “Maybe we could try selective targeting, sir,” Cunningham suggested. “See if we can find something important and take it out with an orbital strike. I can take the ship as low as you want, maybe down to ten miles altitude. It’s not as if there’s an atmosphere to worry about.”

  “You’re both missing the obvious answer,” Scott replied, a smile on his face. “Bridge to Sickbay. Doctor, is Professor Watson up and about yet?”

  “I still need to keep him under observation, Admiral,” Nguyen said.

  “Like hell!” Watson shouted in the background. “I’m fine! Just let me out of this damn prison, and…”

  “Release him, Doctor. I need him on the bridge immediately. My order, my responsibility.”

  There was a brief pause, then the medic replied, “Under those terms, I’ll send him up right now. Next time, try and send me a patient who isn’t an absolute pain in the neck.”

  “No promises, Doctor,” Scott said with a smile. Turning to Rochford, he said, “Clyde, I want all of our sensors focused on the local satellites of the swarm. We know they’re feeding their power to a reflector. I want a good look at it.”

  “Aye, sir, but I don’t think there’s any hope of us doing something with that. It’s not focused correctly. I’m not even sure how you’d build a laser with that sort of power level. Certainly, we don’t have anything that could come even close to withstanding that level of energy. And they’re bound to have reserves buried deep in their planet. I can’t imagine that they’d have designed a system that would shut down the first time someone threw the switch.”

  “That’s not what I’ve got in mind,” Scott said, looking at the display, watching as the data built up, the sensors sweeping over the alien
equipment and gathering all the information they could. Strangely, he could recognize some of the design, the Exterminators evidently opting to keep it as simple as possible, a suspended disc of ultradense material in a magnetic cage to keep it steady, able to reflect untold terawatts of power. Behind him, the doors slid open, and the bandaged figure of Watson stormed out, looking at the image on the screen.

  “How can I help you, Admiral?” the scientist asked.

  “Tell me about the manufacture of black holes, Professor. Just what is involved? As far as I can see, they’re popping into existence in free space, before heading out on trajectory to their target at the other end of the system.”

  Frowning, Watson replied, “With the caveat that this is about equal parts speculation and theory, it’s actually not that difficult to create a quantum singularity. Fundamentally, it’s a question of raw power, and if sufficient photons were targeted at the same point in space-time, they’d have enough…” He paused, then said, “Admiral, playing around with black holes would be a very dangerous thing to do. Our understanding of the physics is limited in the extreme, and we’re centuries away from even beginning to duplicate what we’re seeing out there.”

  “I don’t want to duplicate it, Professor. I want to make use of it.” Looking at the planet below, he asked, “Just how much damage would a black hole do to that world if we hurled it down there.”

  “It’s hard to tell, Admiral, but you might be disappointed by the results. These aren’t huge, and while over time they would start to eat away at the planet, I have to assume that they’d have ways to mitigate any damage caused, and that they must have the technology required to extract it safely. It would be an inconvenience. Nothing more.”

  “Damn,” Rochford said, shaking his head. “I really thought we had something there. We’re back to luck and guesswork again.” Looking at the reflector, he added, “There’d be a way to do it, as well. We could use the kinetic cannon. Precisely-tuned particles hurled into that matrix at the right second. It’d be a tough shot, but I think the targeting computers are up to it. Though there would almost certainly be a way to counteract it. If by no other way than destroying this ship. We might well only get a couple of shots off before the end.”