Starship Doi

by Alex Deva

  Mark thought for a few seconds.

  "So, either it ended up, by complete accident, on the natural satellite of the single inhabited planet in the neighbourhood, which is a little unlikely..."

  "...or whoever put it there somehow knew in advance that the human civilisation would end up there," finished Tiessler for him.

  The implications were staggering. An entity capable of predicting the formation of life-bearing planets from nothing but randomly moving rocks would appear nothing short of divine.

  "It wasn't God," said Doina.

  Tiessler, Jing and Toma looked at her.

  "No, it probably wasn't. But a few billion people down there would gladly believe otherwise," said the German.

  "And the Americans know about this, too?"

  "Their spies are surprisingly capable."

  "But they didn't make it public."

  "No. And neither did we. Too many science-fiction nuts would've started screaming about aliens. And too many religion nuts would've started screaming about any number of gods."

  "Ah."

  The German had moved back to his seat, and he was just sitting down.

  "Now. Would you like to tell me anything about the object that's caused the solar system to fill up with dead bodies?"

  "It's a beacon," said Doina, quietly.

  Mark looked at her. "Doi, you can't know that for sure."

  "It's what Doi uses to communicate," she said. "Can't be anything else, can it?"

  Tiessler nodded slowly, then asked:

  "So, you're saying that..."

  "...those science-fiction nuts? Not so nuts, this time."

  XL.

  "Where is it now?" asked the girl.

  "In an Eurasian lab complex on the Moon," said Jing.

  She nodded, with a concerned look on her face, then glanced quickly towards Mark.

  The Brit had learned to never ignore Doina's concerned glances, so he asked, quietly:

  "Problems, Doi?"

  "I need to check on something," she said.

  He rose without hesitation. "I'll come with you." Taking her hand, he gave her a worried look. As the three baffled guests watched them leave, he barely had time to say:

  "Be right back."

  They turned towards Aram at unison, who appeared completely unconcerned as he popped half a meal bar into his mouth and said:

  "So, about that corn."

  * * *

  Going through the spokes was not only sensible, but also quicker, as Room One was on the opposite side of the starship.

  "What's up?" he asked, as she nearly ran through the airlock, breathing quickly.

  "When you and Aram were gone and I was alone here," she said. "I... I mean Doi-the-ship felt something on the Moon."

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  "To whom? I was alone here. And it felt kinda familiar. I didn't know what it was, but I remember it felt like it was trying to speak to me."

  "To the starship?"

  "Well, yes, to the starship."

  Mark's next question was quick and direct.

  "Friend or foe?"

  She turned to him as she opened the panels to One.

  "I'm really not sure," she said, shaking her had.

  And, for Mark, that was bad enough.

  "What's going on?" asked Jing.

  "Nothing," said Aram.

  Tiessler was dead serious as he leant forward and asked, urgently.

  "Where did they go, mister Aram?"

  "They'll be back soon," said the Dacian.

  "I'm asking you again, what's going on? What do you know about that beacon?"

  Tension suddenly filled the room. Aram sat back, put his hands on the table, and looked at each guest in turn.

  "I swear to you, I really don't know. But I do trust them. If Doi said she needed to check on something, then believe me, you and I really, really, absolutely want her to check on that something. They'll be back soon and then we'll know."

  "This feels wrong," said captain Toma.

  Aram laughed a little. "Captain, not much of what's happened in the past few weeks feels right to me. You'd better get used to it. What's your first name?"

  "Ileana," she answered.

  He told her something in Dacian, a phrase that ended with her name. The two men didn't understand, but she relaxed visibly.

  Jing looked at Aram.

  "You do know that, if we're not back within a specific amount of time, things will drastically change."

  "And you do know that you're much safer here than in any of your tin boxes," countered Aram.

  "From the Yanks, maybe."

  The Dacian laughed a little, again.

  "You are diplomatic envoys. As long as you stay diplomatic, you'll be safe. You have my word."

  "It is a beacon," said the ADM.

  "Whose beacon?"

  "It belongs to a civilisation complementary to the one that created starships like this one," it answered.

  "What's its purpose?"

  "To lay dormant until discovered."

  "Was it really waiting there since before the solar system formed?"

  "That is very likely."

  "What's it supposed to do once it's discovered?"

  "Assess that the nearby civilisation -- in this case, the people of Earth -- are sufficiently advanced to profit from their natural satellite, and so are developing space travel capabilities."

  Mark started having that surreal feeling that he had had when he first found himself aboard Doi.

  "What does 'complementary civilisation' mean? What's their relationship to the builders of this starship?"

  "They are enemies, competitors."

  Shit, thought Mark. So the Universe has people who can send beacons that wait until star systems are formed, and we go prancing about in their rival's sports car.

  "The message is sent using the same technology that Doi uses to talk to Effo, right?"

  "The principle is the same, yes."

  "Can you intercept the message?"

  "There were two messages. One was being repeated just as we arrived at the Moon; the other initiated right after the beacon sensed our starship."

  "What was the first message?"

  The voice in the walls answered, coldly:

  "Come."

  Doina stepped closer to Mark, who put his arm around her shoulders. The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped a few degrees, and he felt his skin prickle. Old instincts were switching on inside him, suddenly reminding him of the long days of crawling in Syrian ruins, death looming at every step.

  "And what was the second message?" he asked, slowly.

  And again, the voice in the walls answered, coldly:

  "Come quicker."

  XLI.

  "Verdammte Scheiße," swore the German.

  Mark and Doina had just finished explaining their findings, back in Twelve.

  "Our arrival acted as a catalyst," he explained. "The beacon perceived our presence as proof of the fact that their rivals had arrived here before them."

  "Rivals in what?" asked captain Toma.

  "In getting Earth first," said Mark, bluntly.

  Aram took it all in stride. "How much time?" he asked Doina.

  "No way to tell for sure," she said. "It depends on how close they are, of course."

  "I don't understand. Surely we know where they are," Aram said, obliquely referring to the ADM.

  "They'll have been patrolling the area, it's likely that some of them will be closer to Earth than others," she explained.

  Toma gaped at the twelve-year-old girl as if noticing her for the first time. Tiessler smiled thinly, without humour. Jing said, quietly:

  "So, one could say this is your fault."

  "We didn't know," said Mark.

  "If I understand your report correctly, we could face complete extinction. As a species. Relative to that, whether you were malicious or not is not entirely relevant, sir."

  "Actually, it is," countered
Mark.

  Tiessler looked at him questioningly.

  "The beacon activated four years ago, by your own account," said the Brit. "We were millions of kilometres away at the time."

  "So, what you're saying is that, assuming light speed, we have four years until they get the second, high-priority message," said Jing.

  "Well, there's that, and then there's not quite that," said Mark. "Gravity modulation is not restricted to the speed of light, it turns out. Don't ask me how or why; one day, your physicists are welcome to look into it."

  "In that case, these... aliens, they already know you're here."

  "They were going to come anyway, sooner or later. That much is clear. Regardless of us," said Doina.

  "But now we're here," said Aram.

  "And, colonel, I do believe we are the best chance at defence you'll ever have. So, catalysts or not, you need us now, more than ever," said Mark.

  "And not just you," said Doina. "Everybody."

  Silence fell around the table.

  "Shit," said Tiessler again, after a good while. "We thought you'd help us end the war, and instead we're discussing an impending alien apocalypse. As our British allies would say, I think I am a little annoyed by that."

  Mark smiled, also without humour. "Yes," he said. "They'd probably say that."

  "Tell me, mister Gardener," said Tiessler. "How come you know so much about these things? These... civilisations, beacons, gravity modulation?"

  He leaned a little over the table.

  "There wouldn't happen to be... an actual alien here, with you? With us?"

  This time, Mark's smile was genuine. "You have my word that the six of us are the only living beings aboard Doi, colonel."

  "Explain, then."

  "The ship's data banks are still a little bit of a problem to us, sir. The information in them doesn't always unravel to us at the rate we would like. We're working on that problem."

  "You are," said Tiessler, flatly.

  "We are," said Mark, firmly.

  "So," said Jing. "Are we to understand that you are not in complete control of your own starship?"

  "Are you?" asked Doina.

  "Am I what?"

  "Are you in complete control of your own space station?"

  The Chinese colonel looked puzzled. Tiessler smiled thinly and became very interested in a spot on the table.

  "How many people are there on it?"

  "Doi," said Mark, quietly. "You can't ask that."

  "No, asking is fine," said the Chinese. "Quite a few," he offered by way of answer.

  "And do you control every single one of them? And do they control every single component of your station?"

  "Well, of course not. But there's a reasonable amount of control, otherwise we wouldn't be here."

  "Just so," she said. "And we are here, too."

  "I hardly think that..."

  "No," Mark intervened. "She's right. Control is not and will not be an issue here."

  Slowly, Jing nodded and sat back.

  "For the good of everybody back home, I hope so," he said, very quietly.

  The implications were left unspoken but understood by everyone. To convince a number or war-hardened military officers that the fate of their species may lie in the hands of a twelve-year-old girl commanding an alien starship -- that would not be an easy achievement.

  Aram had watched the exchange like a tennis match spectator. In the silence that concluded it, he noisily popped another half a meal bar into his mouth, and started chewing loudly and ostentatiously.

  It was a welcome, if deliberate, distraction, and captain Toma jumped to his aid.

  "Is that all you've been eating since you've come on board?" she asked, with a small grin.

  The Dacian looked at the rest of his meal bar as if he'd never seen it before. He turned it around in his fingers, inspected it with his head critically laid on one side, then shrugged and popped it in as if saying oh, well.

  "Yeah," he said with his mouth full. "Kinda starting to miss cheese, myself."

  "Not to be rude, but why do you sound like someone who's from the north of Britain?"

  Aram shrugged again. "My own land had a north, too."

  She acknowledged that he was clowning around a little, and allowed herself a small chuckle. Her two companions looked at each other. Tiessler sighed again, softly, but grinned a little, too.

  "Brînză," said Toma to Aram.

  "Yeah," he said, smiling back. "Cheese. Got any?"

  She was going to say how amazing it was for that word to have survived unchanged throughout the tumultuous history of her language, when she noticed Doina turning white, and she stopped in her tracks with her mouth half open.

  "Oh, my God," said the girl. "Not again, please."

  Hearing her tone was enough for Mark's fight or flight reflex to kick in. Trying to overcome the nearly instantaneous rush of adrenaline, he turned towards her and took her hand. It was cold. She was staring into the distance, her eyes large and frightened.

  "Doi, please speak to me, now," he asked softly but urgently.

  Jing's tablet, the one on which he had read the invitation for alliance, beeped and vibrated loudly. Another beep accompanied it, as Tiessler opened his own pocket and pulled out his own tab.

  Their faces changed completely as they read the messages on their communication devices.

  "Our protective shield just destroyed a volley of missiles," said Doina, standing up. "And there are more on the way."

  "The Yǒngqì is launching automated countermeasures, and the Cameron is deploying, tā māde niǎo, we got two hits, one in my station, the other in your cruiser," said Jing in a sharp voice.

  "The Yanks are attacking," said Tiessler, standing up. "I need to get back to the Monnet, right now."

  "Where are they? And how many?" asked Mark, still looking at Doina.

  "Three cruisers and fifty-three Wings," she answered, still looking forward, her pupils moving in tiny jerks, as if she was seeing something that they couldn't -- which she probably was.

  "One cruiser's coming on an Earth orbit from the west, the other two are coming from behind us, from open space."

  "Where's the Moon right now?"

  "Not behind us." She was beginning to get a grip, as she glanced towards Mark, completely ignoring everyone else in the room.

  "So, how..."

  "Not sure, right now."

  Tiessler was following their dialogue intently.

  "Refuelling stations," he said. "They took the long way around to approach us from space, and they refuelled along the way."

  "Sounds very complicated," said Aram, who had sat down again.

  "He's right," agreed Mark, grim. "Would they have had time to organise something like that on such short notice?"

  Jing looked up from his tablet. "The Americans are extremely resourceful," he said with resentment.

  Mark looked at Aram, whose face betrayed nothing. But he could tell that they were thinking the same thing. He focused back on the urgent issue.

  "How far's the second volley?"

  "Forty-..." started Jing, looking back at his tab.

  "...seven seconds," finished Doina, looking at nothing.

  Captain Toma watched at the girl.

  "So it's true," she whispered. "She really is in control of this whole starship. This is completely incredible."

  "Colonel, how reliable is your transport's auto parking?"

  Jing looked at Mark. "As can be expected," he said. "Why?"

  "Because you might be losing it very soon," said the Brit.

  Tiessler placed his tab in the middle of them. It showed something like a radar chart, which was being fed to him in real time either from his cruiser or from the space station.

  "This is us, now," he said, pointing at a red triangle labeled "X1". The nearby Yǒngqì was a yellow circle, and the two docked cruisers were blue.

  There were three other red icons on the display; one was right between the station and E
arth, and had the designation "X2 USS Jackson", and two more lay in the opposite direction, labeled "X3 USS Brown" and "X4 USS Davis".

  "So, we were designated as a target," noticed Mark, in passing.

  "I'm sure you expected nothing less. Colonel Jing, we need to go."

  "No time," said Mark, then leaned towards Doina and whispered in her ear.

  She listened attentively, nodded and closed her eyes, grabbing on the edge of the table for support.

  Aram tried to catch Mark's attention. Should I...? he mouthed, pointing towards the airlock.

  Mark shook his head. Not yet.

  On the tablet, the incoming missiles were fast-blinking white arrows, leaving trajectory marks that originated from all three American cruisers. Doi was right in the path of six of them. Three more were coming from the USS Jackson, from the other direction. Of them, two seemed to be aimed at the station, and one at the Eurasian cruiser, the Cameron, which was slowly getting under its own way.

  The triangle labeled X1 -- their own starship -- suddenly jerked backwards, a dotted white line uniting it with its previous position. A smaller circle, immediately labeled as "YGQ Transport", appeared in its place, as the Eurasian transport suddenly had its parking place yanked out from under it, auto-park automatically turning off, leaving it adrift in space.

  As Doi jumped back a few hundred kilometres, two of the missiles were destroyed by its defence field, but four of them managed to veer away.

  "Wow," said Tiessler, impressed by the starship's impossibly quick change of position. "I didn't feel anything at all. How is that possible?"

  "Are those missiles manoeuvring around us?" asked Mark, ignoring his question.

  "Yes. They're pretty much some of the the smartest computers in existence," answered the German.

  "That's a bit sick," observed Aram.

  "I thought they're just missiles," mumbled Mark.

  "Do you remember the SCUDs?"

  The Brit certainly did. The Soviet-made tactical ballistic missiles had really made the Middle East a very deadly place in the nineties. He nodded.

  "Well, take a SCUD, send it to school for about twenty years and give it a couple of PhDs, and you get one of those." Tiessler's answer was terse, as he was following the trajectories of the missiles headed towards the space station and his own cruiser.

  "How much time?"