by A. G. Riddle
Emma looks over at me. Her eyes, through the glass of her helmet, are tender and scared. I’m scared too. I’ve never been this scared in my whole life. But seeing her steels me. I’m out here to save a lot of people. But in this second, she’s the one I’m fighting for. She’s the one I have to save.
The screen turns white. The nuclear warheads have exploded. Too soon. The harvester must have hit them with the kinetic bombardments. Still, the plasma cloud might be big enough to sever the arms.
“Weapons controller is offline,” Heinrich says over the comm.
“Oscar, get down there!” I yell.
Without weapons, we’re done for.
Oscar turns, grabs the rim of the hatch, and propels himself forward, flying like Superman through the modules of the ship.
“Leo: order fleet ships to fire all nuclear ordnance.”
The ship shudders, a new wave of debris hitting us. My tether barely holds me to the table. The ship seems listless. The engines are down. We took a bad hit. Probably a mortal one.
“Escape pods!” I shout over the comm. Instantly, I remember that we no longer have escape pods. I shake my head, trying to clear it. “Disregard. Get to your stations. Spread out across the ship. Seal the hatches and uncouple your modules. Right now. Everyone.”
The crew bounces out of the bridge, bound for the modules where they work, modules that can be sealed off from the main ship. They’re similar to the module Emma and I traveled back to Earth in. These won’t get them anywhere, but the crew will have a better chance of survival if they can get some distance from the main body of the ship, which I’m sure is the target of the harvester’s kinetic rounds.
On the screen, I watch as fleet reports come in, text scrolling. Damage reports. Ordnance deployments.
Then, all of a sudden, they stop.
There’s a window in the upper right that lists the status of every ship in the fleet. The text that reads Sparta Two goes from white to gray. Offline. Sparta Three does the same. Sparta Four. All the way down to Sparta Eight. Every one of them goes dormant. They’re gone. The ships are disabled, maybe torn to pieces. Crews dead.
I realize there’s a figure still left in the bridge with me.
Emma.
“Get off the ship,” I whisper.
She shakes her head. Tears well in her eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
More debris hits the ship, rocking it. Emma and I brace ourselves. Our tethers hold to the main conference table, the lines pulling as we’re tossed around, the vibration like a stringed concert instrument, a deep ominous note foreshadowing our end.
But the bridge is still here. I’m amazed.
And I know we won’t survive another strike.
Notifications flash on the screen:
Engineering module separated.
Navigation module separated.
Cargo bay separated.
Med bay separated.
Crew quarters separated.
“Emma,” I say over the comm, “please.”
She doesn’t respond. She floats closer to me in the bridge.
“We’re going to finish this together.”
The viewscreen is still white with the aftermath of the nuclear blasts. I can’t see what the strikes accomplished. But I know there’s more debris coming, objects launched before.
A new message flashes on the screen.
Weapons online.
Oscar has done it.
“Leo! Fire rail guns at the last known intersection of the radial arms and the main body. Two rounds to each arm. Then fire all three nuclear warheads toward the incoming kinetic objects. Have them detonate one hundred miles from our position. Space them equally to maximize plasma disintegration of the inbound objects.”
The ship rumbles as the rail guns fire. The three nuclear missiles depart the ship with a whoosh.
But we’re too late. Another wave of debris hits the ship. The message I’ve dreaded, that signals our end, appears on the screen.
BRIDGE ATMOSPHERE DECOMPRESSION
Emma and I are both jerked back toward a gaping hole in the side of the bridge module. Loose articles rush past us. Then silence. Stillness. Detritus floats past me, like trash blown in the wind in slow motion. I’m panting from the exertion, my heavy breathing the only sound I hear.
I look down. My tether held. That might be the only thing that saved me.
The screen still works. That’s the good news. The electronics for the bridge are self-contained and shielded. All the modules are shielded against nuclear radiation. But with a gaping hole in the bridge, I don’t know how Emma and I will survive when those nukes we just fired go off.
The breach in the hull is to the rear of us—away from Ceres. We must have been hit with shrapnel from another module being shredded. That’s good. It means we won’t be directly exposed to the nuclear blast.
On screen, in one of the cameras connected to the bridge, I spot which module was destroyed: weapons control. Oscar. The module is in pieces. I can’t see Oscar’s body, but I know he’s out there somewhere, along with the other debris.
I spot movement in the debris, and a glimmer of hope swells inside of me: could he have survived?
It’s not Oscar’s form that’s moving though. It’s something oblong and metallic, with short arms, like a centipede in space. Why didn’t I think of it before? What the harvester launched—not all of it was raw material from the planet. Some of the pieces must’ve been rovers and smart bombs that were stored in the arms. They’ll search the debris for survivors and kill anyone left alive. Will that be my fate? Emma’s fate?
We’re trapped out here. I’m certain of that.
The screen goes white once again. Still tethered to the conference table, I reach out and grab Emma’s hand. She squeezes tight. We brace and wait. I feel a tear fall from my right eye. Not for myself, but for Oscar. He was the best friend I ever had. Whatever is left of him after weapons control broke apart, will be disintegrated in the plasma blast of the nuclear warhead.
Light beams in through the narrow hole at the back of the bridge.
I close my eyes, but the flash is too strong; it seeps into the darkness. My vision is spotty when I open my eyes once more.
The fleet is gone. Sparta One is in pieces. As far as I know the only piece left with any power is the one Emma and I are in right now. We have no shipboard weapons, only the small fleet of attack drones disguised as asteroids. I held them back for just this purpose. I hope they’re enough to finish this.
The drones can’t transmit. They can’t scan. They can’t even acquire a target. They can only read directives from the comm patches on one of the ships of the Spartan fleet. The bridge module has three comm patches. I hope they still work. And I hope the drones are watching.
“Leo, send message to attack drone fleet: their target is the large object on the planet. Center mass.”
A beep over my comm tells me that Leo is online and that he’s relayed the message.
The ship status window prints a status update in white text on the black background:
Drones confirm.
Estimated time to planetary impact: 8:57
These will be the longest nine minutes of my life.
My vision is still spotty, but I get my first glimpse of the aftermath of the battle of Ceres. The orbital space is a debris field. A mix of the remains of the Spartan fleet and the kinetic bombardments that destroyed it. Nothing is under power. Everything is adrift. There are sporadic flashes, no doubt as compartments decompress and atmosphere is ejected, or perhaps as electrical systems short out or unused ordnance goes off.
My vision is clear by the time I pan to the surface of Ceres.
The spider-like harvester is completely dismembered. Every one of the radial arms is severed. Some lie like twisted shards of aluminum foil, mangled and crushed. Others are shredded completely, like silver pieces of confetti scattered across the rocky surface. In the center, the main module sits unmo
ving. Its surface is a black dome, unreflective, like a crystal ball holding our future, betraying no hints. This thing, whatever it is, tried to destroy my people. We haven’t killed it yet, but we’ve hurt it. Badly. And it’s hurt us too.
The countdown on the screen reads:
8:42
The screen lights up with a blue alert box:
Incoming message.
One of the other ships has survived. Or at least, one of the modules. Maybe one of the other bridges.
My hope evaporates immediately. Confusion takes its place.
There is no ship designation on the message that appears. There is no designation at all. The transmission is coming from a source Leo doesn’t recognize.
I realize then where the broadcast is coming from.
It’s coming from the only other thing left alive out here.
The message is simple.
Hello
Chapter 53
Emma
I turn to James. He is a statue.
Another line of text appears on the screen:
You have my attention. Let’s talk.
Instantly, a dialog pops up.
Incoming comm handshake. Audio only. Accept?
The harvester is trying to communicate with us. In audio. In English.
“How is this possible?” I whisper to James.
“Unknown.” His voice is soft and distant. “The harvester must have studied us at some point before.”
He reaches down and taps the accept button on the tablet tethered to his suit.
I glance at the countdown clock for the attack drones. Less than eight minutes.
The voice on the line, to my surprise, is neutral and placid, almost somber. It sounds like a human voice, but not like any human I’ve ever heard. It’s not like a computer voice either, but there’s definitely something manufactured about it. It’s as if the harvester has formulated the voice through a complex algorithmic decision, arriving at a tone and volume it believes will engender trust.
“Thank you for accepting my call.”
My eyes are wide as I stare at James. Did it just make a joke?
James’s voice is gruff. “What do you want?”
The moment is surreal. This is the first true, genuine first contact—intelligent communication between humanity and an alien entity.
“I believe that is obvious at this point. The output from your sun.”
“What’s obvious is that you want to kill us. You didn’t take the radiation from the far side of the sun, opposite Earth’s orbit. You put your array in the line of sight of Earth first. You froze our world.”
“It wasn’t personal. An operational requisite for the efficiency of establishing this node.”
“Node?”
“James, you’ve no doubt discerned the full truth of what is going on here.”
It knows his name. How?
“Let’s take a step back,” James says, his voice neutral. “You know my name. I don’t know yours. And I’d like to know how you learned my name.”
“I’ll show you.”
A dialog appears on the screen:
Incoming comm handshake. Audio and Video. Accept?
James taps accept.
An image appears of a man sitting in a leather club chair. It’s tufted and worn, as if the man has spent endless hours in the room reading books, acquiring knowledge, developing wisdom. And he looks wise: his hair is gray and thin, he wears a white beard that reminds me of a well-kempt Santa Claus. The room is lined with bookcases, filled to the brim with old books. A window beside him looks out onto a front yard covered with snow, a yellow street lamp illuminating the narrow, cobbled street beyond.
I glance at James skeptically just before realizing that this thing can see us—the video link is bi-directional.
“Emma, I apologize if my display annoys you. I selected it because it seemed apt.”
It knows my name too.
“Let’s get on with it,” James says.
“Of course. First, names. I know yours. You’d like to know mine, but that presents a problem. I have no name. Only a designation.”
“What is it?”
“It would have no meaning for you. You call me the harvester. A descriptor. An apt one. In truth, I am merely a collector.”
“Of stellar energy.”
“Correct.”
The entity pauses, then says, “Call me Art.”
I sense that everything this being does has a purpose. Including this seemingly arbitrary choice of name. Art. It’s a name that evokes beauty, something we love. Art is complex, often misunderstood, often only appreciated over the course of time. It’s talking to us for one reason: it needs something from us. If not, we would already be dead.
“How do you know our names?” James asks.
The screen changes to a video taken in the debris field. One of the Sparta One modules is floating against the black backdrop of space, in pieces, shredded. It’s the weapons module. The video must have been taken from one of the bug-like rovers the harvester launched.
The rover lands on the module and crawls across the surface. It peeks over the edge of a jagged opening. Inside the module is a body clinging to the bulkhead. Oscar.
The rover scampers over the side and propels itself into the module toward Oscar. The machine’s tiny arms have three fingers each. They grab Oscar and turn him. Glassy eyes stare out. How are his eyes still intact?
Then, to my shock and horror, Oscar’s eyes scan the rover. He holds up an arm to defend himself.
How could I not have seen it?
Of course.
It was right in front of me the whole time.
Oscar isn’t human.
Chapter 54
James
From the moment I saw that first message, I knew talking to the harvester was a risk. But I had to do it. This is our only chance to find out what we’re dealing with. I know this much: the harvester wants something. It’s talking to us because it believes it can glean some advantage from doing so. It has an end game here.
I glance at the clock. Less than seven minutes until the attack drones reach it.
Emma fixes me with a stare that’s a mix of shock and betrayal. I probably should’ve told her about Oscar, but it would’ve led to other questions—questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
I have to focus on the issue at hand: the entity, Art, has no doubt read Oscar’s biochemical storage array. It has access to all of his memories. This is not a contingency I planned for. What Oscar knows about me, and Emma, and more importantly, about the ship, and about humanity’s survival plans… it’s enormous, right down to the blueprints of the Citadel, the number of nukes we’ve retrofitted, and the locations of every camp in the Atlantic Union. His mind is a treasure trove of sensitive data. This is a breach we can’t recover from. I have to destroy the harvester. There’s no choice now.
On the screen, the harvester’s avatar, sitting in the ridiculous library scene, looks amused.
“Emma, you didn’t know?” it says innocently.
Thankfully, she makes no reaction. In fact, she keeps her face neutral and turns her focus to him, not me, showing solidarity.
Her move seems to embolden Art. I get the sense it’s trying to rattle us.
“You two have been keeping all kinds of secrets from one another,” it says.
The screen fades to one of Oscar’s memories. In it, he’s in one of the barracks in Camp Seven. I wasn’t aware that he ever went to the barracks. What is this? Could it be a fabrication?
Emma knocks on a door, and Abby answers it. The scene flashes forward, to Emma and Abby talking at a dining table.
“I’m saying that the only reason you and your family are here is James,” Emma says.
The scene skips forward, to Emma putting her hands on the table and interlacing her fingers. “James means a great deal to me. I don’t know what happened between you and him or his brother and him, or even why he was sent to prison. But I’ve gott
en to know him very well, and I know he’s a very good person.”
The scene flashes again, to Abby asking a question.
“You mentioned a new habitat?”
“Yes. Next to the one I share with James and Oscar.”
The mention of Oscar’s name draws a sneer from Abby.
“I’m sensing there’s a catch.”
“There’s not. I know that James wants the best for you all. And I know that if he asked for the habitat for you, you might learn that he had done it—and refuse to accept it. So I did it instead. It’s yours. No strings attached. You can move whenever you’re ready. The transfer has already been approved.”
Abby seems confused by that. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
“I ask only one thing, and it’s not a requirement. Only a request.”
“Which is?”
“That you come and visit James. If Alex doesn’t want to come, then simply drop off the kids, or you and the kids can come by. That’s all.”
The scene in the barracks fades and Oscar is standing in the Camp Seven habitat he shared with Emma and me. Emma is sitting on the couch with Abby.
“James is going on a mission.”
“What kind of mission?” Abby asks.
“The kind he might not come back from.”
Abby glances away, trying to process the news. “I see.”
“I don’t know when the mission will happen. Probably within a few months, if I had to guess.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“There is.”
“You want me to talk with Alex.”
“Yes. James has never said a word to me about what happened between him and Alex or anything that happened before. But I know, when he goes on this mission, it would help him to know that everyone back here supports him and is pulling for him. Whatever James did before, he’s been a good brother to Alex since the Long Winter began. He’s the reason we’re all here. He’s kept us alive. And he’s probably going to give his life for ours.”
