by Bob Mayer
Inside the Core, given the information on humans and the target planet, the Metamorphosis began.
SHOULD HAVE LISTENED
REGRESS
Yerz is on the beach, standing at the edge of the water. The red-brown surf swirls sluggishly around his legs. Nyx watches him, content to see, be near. He isn’t aware she’s here, but when she’d arrived home from duty, he’d been nowhere to be found. She’d checked all the usual places, then taken the line to the ocean.
There is endless, dirty water stretching to the horizon. The color comes from minerals and chemicals churned by the currents. This is a rich planet in natural resources, one of the reasons for Command to build the space field. It is also in a remote arm of the galaxy. Far away from the Airlia home system, wherever that is.
Yerz takes a step forward, the water to his knees, soaking the legs of his gray coveralls. Then another. And another. The water is at his waist.
Nyx strides forward, the black sand crunches under her boots. “Yerz!”
He pauses, but doesn’t turn to look at her. He takes another step, then halts.
She reaches the surf line. “Yerz. What are you doing? It’s too cold.”
“It’s dead,” Yerz says, without looking back at her.
“What’s dead?”
“The ocean.”
Nyx has to think for a second. “Oh. Yes. Been dead for a while. You know that. Another reason to get out. You don’t want to accidently drink any. It’s bad enough on the skin and in your clothes. We’ll have to throw that coverall out.”
“I know,” Yerz says, his voice strange. “I just never thought about it too hard.”
“What do you mean?” Nyx takes a step into the surf.
“We killed it, didn’t we? Everything that lived in the ocean, we killed it.”
“What’s wrong, Yerz?”
“We killed the ocean, didn’t we?”
“Run off,” Nyx says. “The extractors. They flush everything from the higher elevations into the watershed. And then the ones under—“ she pauses, concerned—“Yerz?”
“The extractors under the water,” Yerz says. “They just dump the waste products as they plow ahead along the ocean bottom. I looked it up. Talked to an engineer aspirant. He says they don’t know all the chemicals they’re using to extract what is needed or what they’re leaving behind.”
“They have to know,” Nyx argues.
“Maybe they don’t want to know,” Yerz says. “How long ago did every creature in the ocean die?”
“Yerz?”
“My friend says this planet is dying. We’ve killed it. It will not be long before it will be uninhabitable.”
“Yerz?”
He turns and she sees the tears streaking his face. “What is it?” She runs into the water. Wraps him in her arms and pulls him tight. “What is wrong?”
He’s breathing hard, hyperventilating.
Nyx shakes him. “What happened? What are you doing?”
He pushes his hand between them and retrieves a message scroll from his breast pocket.
Nyx lets go and takes a step back.
He offers the scroll to her. She recognizes the banner across the top.
Selection.
There is one word: Warrior
“My assessor said genetics was as much a factor,” Yerz says, “as all the tests. I was the son of a warrior. It is my destiny.”
“That is not proper assessing,” Nyx argues.
“Everyone I know was assessed warrior,” Yerz says. “Except those who went crew. A few went Kortad,” he adds, referring to those who kept the law. “But no scientists, no scholars. In my entire section. Not a one. Even the aspirant for engineer was selected warrior and he has the top grades. He would be a superb engineer.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Nyx says. “Come, you must be cold.” She leads him to the beach.
Yerz points landward, where the tips of talons point skyward. “They are readying another fleet. They need bodies. Assessment is a mirage. To make us believe we are individually destined for something. We are, but it’s not what they tell us. We are destined to serve the needs of the Empire, not our own. We have it backward.”
“The Empire must come first,” Nyx says, “but assessment does take into account who we are. Look at where I was slotted? No one wants my job.”
“You did,” Yerz says, looking at her, red tears smeared on his smooth skin. “I wanted to be like you. Why doesn’t genetics matter there?”
“Come,” Nyx says, linking her arm through his.
“I don’t think they care what we want.”
“Let’s go home and get you dry. And we can appeal.”
They trudge across the sand to the terminal. Getting on the line, the few in the car give them dirty looks, because their damp coveralls reek of the ocean.
As they ride the line, she puts a comforting hand on her son’s shoulder. “Warrior is a noble profession. Looked up to. I know you wanted to be as me, but I rarely get to do my actual profession. I do menial tasks most of the time as my administrator determines. I do no research as I should. No studies. My administrator thinks I am worthless.
A flash of anger. “You are not!” Yerz reached up and put his hand over hers. “It is those like you that have to find the answer.”
“’Answer’?”
“Mother.” The word was a rebuke.
Nyx plunges on. “As a warrior you can make rank.”
“To what end?”
“To lead,” Nyx says. She leans close. “You will be a great leader. That is your talent. That is implicit in being selected warrior. Scientists don’t lead. Nor scholars. They come from the ranks of warrior and crew.”
“But first a warrior must fight,” Yerz says. “I don’t want to kill.”
Nyx glances around to make sure none of the other passengers hear him. “That is only a possibility. Most warriors serve and never have to fight. They keep the peace.”
Yerz looks at her. “Why do you talk to me like this? It’s not what you believe.” He pauses, a furrow of concern crossing his forehead. “Is it?”
Nyx speaks in a low voice. “We know for certain there are threats out there, Yerz. The Swarm most of all. They are horrible. The enemy of all Scale. But—“
“We don’t try to defeat the Swarm,” Yerz says. “We run from it.”
“We fight it,” she corrects him. “Part of my job is to try to figure out a way to defeat it.”
The line goes underground, to pass below the space field.
“But you just said your administrator doesn’t think much of you. That she has you doing menial work.”
“But I also do real work. And there are dangerous Scale besides the Swarm. You know that. And we will encounter more species, yet unknown. Some will battle us as some have in the past.”
The line stops and a cluster of crew and builders enter, having finished their shifts.
“Because we take their planets,” Yerz says. “Because we run from the Swarm.” He shakes his head. “Why do we have to fight? Why can’t species that have crossed the Scale threshold communicate and live in harmony?”
“That is an ideal,” Nyx agrees, “to aspire to. But it is not realistic at this time.”
“When will the time be?”
The line stops twice more at underground stations, taking on more.
Nyx looks around the car, noting the dull look in the eyes of her fellow citizens. Exhaustion from their work. There is always an urgency here, as if ships can’t be repaired or built fast enough.
Fast enough for what? There is little real news of what is happening in the Empire. Rumors are discouraged.
“You did not answer me,” Yerz presses.
“Now is not the time.”
A wry smile crosses his lips. “An answer that isn’t worthy of you, mother.”
The line came to the surface on the far side of the space field. There are a few muted conversations but it is mostly quiet. The car begins emp
tying. They live furthest away as Nyx’s job doesn’t involve crew or building or engineer or maintenance. Nyx feels guilt, because her words reveal her limitations; she does not build, nor does she create, nor does she truly believe what she is saying.
They arrive at their building.
On the platform, finally alone, Nyx turns to Yerz. “You are right. All that you say is true. I wish I could change things.” She sweeps her arm, taking in the towers, the field, the warships. She points up. “The universe is vast. Even our Empire is but a grain of sand in it. And I am only one person.”
Yerz nods. “We are all only one person. But that is all change can start with. A single grain of sand.”
Nyx struggled against consciousness and reality, trying to stay in the regress; an impossible task as the memory nanites expired. Even more impossible was the desperate desire to change the memory, to change the past.
The curse of regress is to remember those crucial points in one’s life when an important signal occurred but could only be seen in retrospect. Where something important was overlooked at the time. It was one reason why regress was highly regulated and officially used in Fleet for ‘medical’ reasons.
She should have listened.
Her knees quivered, the muscles in her legs screaming in pain from being inactive. She staggered, caught herself before falling over.
She should have listened.
Labby was staring at her.
She went to the console and tapped a code on the hexagonal control panel. The yellow light and a warning tone came alive. She slid the venting gauge. Her ears popped as the facility lost pressure and oxygen.
She should have listened.
Yellow went to red and the tone became shriller. Nyx disengaged the automated over-ride.
She watched the indicator drop.
75%
She should have listened.
Closed her eyes, tried to imagine this in the coldness of space. She was gasping, trying to draw air.
50%
Nyx closed her eyes.
40%
She should have listened.
An alarm boomed through the facility, so loud the floor shivered. Even through her closed eyelids a powerful flashing strobe light penetrated. Labby began barking wildly.
Nyx had only heard this alarm a single time before, when it was tested. It had nothing to do with the oxygen level.
30%
Stars were sparkling in her vision as she opened her eyes. Lack of oxygen. The strobe light blinded her momentarily. It was coming from all corners of the control room. The pain in her chest was exquisite.
The alarm boomed and the strobe flashed once more.
20%
Nyx barely had enough consciousness to do as she’d been trained and subconsciously programmed: one must respond to this alarm above all else.
10%
She slid the gauge to closed.
Slid out of the chair to her knees, gasping for breath. She squeezed her eyes shut against the next burst of strobe. Her ears ached from the boom.
Nyx got to her feet, using the chair to keep from falling over. Took several more deep breaths. Labby was staring at her, panting and desperately trying to keep barking.
Good programming on physiology at least, Nyx thought.
She walked over to another command console, her legs stiff, knees aching. She caught the next blast just as it started, slamming her hand down on the command panel.
The lack of boom and strobe was a momentary relief and she savored it along with the oxygen. She was also loath to check what must be checked.
Her fingers rested lightly on the hexagonal keys as she brought up the message from the Sentinels.
The alert had been tripped thirteen hours ago; it had taken the laser warning that long to reach Mars. An inbound ship had transitioned from FTLT beyond the heliosphere.
The screen above the console flickered and then presented the last images recorded by the alerted Sentinel before it was destroyed. A Swarm warship and in the distance behind, the massive bulk of a Swarm Battle Core.
Nyx looked over at Labby. “You are lucky you will not have to face this.”
THE CHOSEN
ROCKY MOUNTAINS
“I only have one talent,” Turcotte said. “Killing. It’s what I was trained to do. It’s what I’ve been doing my entire adult life.”
“You just saved someone,” Yakov pointed out. He was pleased that Duncan’s cabin in the Rocky Mountains above Boulder, Colorado contained a liter of vodka in the freezer. He was savoring a sip from his replenished flask. “We also defeated the Airlia.”
“More killing than saving,” Turcotte noted. He was drinking hot chocolate mixed with coffee. The Fynbar was in a relatively level glade about a quarter mile from the house. They’d walked through a beautiful stand of Aspen to get here.
“I do not know what the ratio is but it leans heavily toward saving.” Yakov was sprawled on an old leather couch. “Remember you stopped the Mission from spreading the Black Death? A few other things?”
Turcotte was standing by a large window, staring toward the high plains of Eastern Colorado, barely visible in the hazy distance beyond the foothills. The high peaks were in the other direction. He turned back to the room and Yakov. “I had some happy memories here. Now those are gone too. It was a lie.”
“If it happened,” Yakov said, “it wasn’t a lie. We cannot change our memories based on what we learn afterward. Besides, Duncan didn’t know she was lying to you.”
“But she knew she was withholding some pretty important shit,” Turcotte said.
“We all have our secrets,” Yakov said.
“Your Russian philosophy is not very useful,” Turcotte pointed out.
“It has worked for me,” Yakov said with a shrug.
“How well?”
“I am here with you,” Yakov said. “All my comrades from Section IV are dead.”
Turcotte walked over to a large wooden desk on the far side of the room from the fireplace. Tried the drawers. They were locked. He used his knife to solve that problem. In the top left drawer he discovered a thick manila folder. He dropped it on the desktop.
“My military records,” he told Yakov. He opened the folder. “All of it. I didn’t think anyone could get this. When I went black ops, this stuff was supposed to get locked away, someplace deep and dark.”
“I think Ms. Duncan had access to many deep and dark places,” Yakov said. “She was the President’s science advisor when she tapped you to be assigned to security at Area 51.”
“That seems forever ago,” Turcotte said.
Underneath the folder were several blue, medal boxes. Turcotte took them out, opening them one by one, recognizing all the awards he’d been presented with throughout his career. “Why would she have these?” he wondered out loud.
Yakov got off the couch with a groan and walked over. “Very pretty. In the old days, the time of the tsars and kings and emperors, brave warriors were rewarded with land and women and cattle. Useful things. Napoleon was the one who invented little pieces of ribbon as a reward for courage in battle. Much cheaper and made him much richer. Now soldiers die for these baubles that are only as valuable as we believe they are.”
“Is that true? The Napoleon thing?” Turcotte asked, picking up a Distinguished Service Cross. The actual cross was just that, made of bronze, only 2 inches tall with an eagle in the center. Below it was a scroll that had FOR VALOR in tiny letters on it. On the reverse side his name was etched, barely legible: M. TURCOTTE.
“I do not know,” Yakov said, “but it makes for a good story, does it not?”
Turcotte tossed the DSC on the desk. “I got that in a clusterfuck where civilians, including a pregnant woman, got killed.”
“And they say Russians are pessimistic,” Yakov said. “You are like that character in the Snoopy comics. A dark cloud over your head. Always pouring rain.”
“He was dirty,” Turcotte said. “It was dust. Pig Pen.�
��
“Whoever, whatever,” Yakov said. “My friend, we should be dead. We are alive. Perhaps take a moment to breathe that. Feel it.”
Turcotte chuckled. “When you’re the optimist between us, we’re really in trouble.”
“What else is in the desk?” Yakov asked.
Turcotte slid the folder into the drawer along with the medals. The one below held a shoebox size safe. Turcotte lifted it out and dropped it with a loud thump on the desk.
“Fingerprint lock,” Turcotte said. “She said that—“
“Try it,” Yakov interrupted.
Turcotte put his thumb on the lock. It clicked open. “How did she manage that?”
“She put an implant in your brain that you weren’t aware of until she told you,” Yakov pointed out. “You don’t think she could have gotten your fingerprints?”
“Funny guy.” Turcotte lifted the lid. A ka was in the box along with a note in Duncan’s thin letters.
Mike,
This contain the history, as much as we knew, of my planet, my people, our journey into space, and then all that Gwalcmai and I did once we landed on this planet.
I know in my head that my planet is gone. It was savaged so badly in the wars against the Airlia. The environment was too far gone. It is why the mothership with our mission was launched.
I know in my heart that my planet is gone. My son’s name was Fynbar. I could not even allow myself that truth, blocking it and replacing it with the thought our ship was named after the leader of our revolt.
It was the hardest decision of all. To leave him behind; to follow the higher calling of saving other humans at the expense of one’s own child.
Perhaps he had a long life. Perhaps they managed to survive. It is what I dream and hope. But even if he did, it was so long ago when we left . . .
If you are reading this, I am gone. You’ve found the file. When I read in your file what happened in Germany, I knew it broke you. You would no longer be the person you were. It is why you were chosen. One of the reasons. When you didn’t do as ordered while running your first Nightscape mission out of Area 51, it confirmed my suspicions.
