Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “Pressure is very slightly higher. We’re getting close to engineering. Should we – no, never mind.”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “It’s too late to do anything about it.”

  “Carl, now you have to tell me.”

  “Should we worry about radiation?” his face told me that he had already answered the question for himself.

  “No. This ship was designed to carry live cargo. If a few hours exposure put us at risk, imagine how passengers would fare after years of radiation.”

  “Good point.”

  “Let’s worry about threats we can touch and see for now.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  The lead helmet lights signaled back, and we approached. They were standing around a hatchway big as a bank vault door. Two stood guard, looking about with their shotguns. The third was on one knee, wires running from his tablet into an exposed access panel.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked. The guard helmets nodded. Bolts began sliding and the door hissed ajar. The hacker gave a thumbs-up.

  I took point, and stepped into the crew freezer.

  And into a cathedral of steel.

  It was a freezing void, with grey walls ringed by silvery walkways. They rose above me twenty floors and dropped down at least as many. Ice-covered lights studded the walls, built to out-burn eternity.

  All along the walkways were frosted vault doors. I scraped at one, digging out streaks of clear glass with gloved fingers. I peered inside at two rows of man-sized, grey cylinders. They faced each other politely like coffins standing in a bus.

  “This place,” Carl whispered, his eyes darting about, “this place is fucking huge. It’s fucking huge and there’s no cover.”

  I nodded. “Sooner we get to the other side, the better. Once we’re through here, it’s a straight shot to the bridge.”

  Weapons at the ready, we moved quickly along the walkway.

  We passed vault after vault. Most were covered in thin icing, but a few doors were swung open. Inside there were cylinders. Some were damaged or lay disassembled, as if being repaired just before an interruption. Paulus even found a box of tools. Others were in perfect condition, powered down and waiting patiently for users who would never come.

  We found one that had been occupied. I couldn’t tell what kind of ammunition had bored through the cylinder. However, I could recognize the dark red ice patch that was under it.

  Metal thundered against metal, echoing.

  Behind us, the hatchway we’d entered from had shut. Ahead of us, we could see the exit hatch starting to rotate.

  “They’re coming!”

  We lay prone, our shotguns useless at that range. Paulus was lucky, his eye disappeared into his scope. The bipod-mount of the sniper rifle rested by the guard rail.

  The crack exploded in our ears, he bolt-loaded another round and the rifle cracked again. Then again.

  The rest of us were up, our boots pounding down the walkway. We saw heavy coats with gas masks and rifles pouring out of the hatchway. Some smacked backwards in red spray or tumbled over the railing as Paulus fired. They kept coming.

  Metal sparked and howled as rounds began striking around us. Carl yelped as one hit his shoulder and spun him round.

  “Son of a bitch!” he dug the flattened slug out of his body armor.

  “You hit?” I yelled back, crouching.

  “Of course I’m hit!”

  “You hurt?”

  “No!”

  Fucking drama queen. The first of the gas masks had rounded the curve of the cathedral. They were running right at me, firing as they came.

  The Augustino boarding assault shotgun was designed specifically for Human Affairs. We were always under strength, and faced everything from well-armed terrorist cells to ship-wide insurrections. This called for a weapon with stopping power, but versatility. We needed a corridor-clearer, that wouldn’t hole the corridor. Fighting with naked space just around the hull was a delicate business.

  I switched to full auto, nothing delicate there. Half a 32-round drum emptied in two and a half seconds. The high-ex frag rounds tore into the gas masks, exploding like mini-grenades. The gas masks were shredded like fingers forced into a blender.

  Carl’s shotgun joined in. He tracked the gas masks back towards the hatchway. Victor ran past me and crouched behind a torso. He fired 3-round bursts, the gun punching back into his shoulder. The muzzle-flash lit steam torrenting from his breath into the cold.

  I ran up while Victor covered me. I passed him, and reach the curve of the cathedral. The hatchway was just twenty meters away.

  Then a nightmare stepped through.

  It was twice a man’s height; it had to crouch to get through the hatchway. It had four legs: armored, mechanical pistons like a Worm cataphract. They stomped in quick sequence, the monster was fast as a spider. Atop the legs was a large box-like torso. Two, hopper-fed, chain guns were its arms.

  “Put down your weapons and surrender,” a voice oddly familiar was projected from the AI. A woman’s voice. “I repeat, put down your weapons and surrender.”

  The guns opened up.

  It sparked and juddered as armor-piercing and explosive rounds impacted all over it. My drum clacked empty and I tore it out, slammed in a new one, and kept on firing. I saw Carl reload, and Victor too. And then reload again. The AI’s legs buckled and collapsed, denting the walkway.

  “Cease fire!” we were dangerously low on ammunition. I had only one drum left.

  “What?” Carl looked up, his mouth was wide open. “What’s it doing?”

  The scratches and cuts in the AI began to gleam and bubble. Cracks glowed molten hot, then pressed together and sealed themselves. Dents popped themselves back out. It flexed its legs, then stood again in a single motion. It had been down for a total of seven seconds.

  “Put down your weapons and surrender. Your other agents have all been captured.”

  A sniper rifle cracked and a round thunked flat into the AI’s torso. One of its chain guns swiveled and turned. The roar was so loud I covered my ears. Through tightly shut eyes, the muzzle flash lit like a nuclear engine.

  I did not look back at Paulus – none of us wanted to.

  Red laser sights snaked out from the torso and found our foreheads. Both chain guns began to swivel.

  “Put down your weapons and surrender. This is your last warning.”

  More gas masks came in through the hatchway. They took up position, flanking the AI.

  I put my gun down and raised my hands. Victor and Carl did the same. Then the masks ran up, gleaming black with red lenses. They kicked away our guns and taped our wrists roughly behind our backs.

  A new figure stepped through the hatchway, a woman, her face hidden in a thick scarf. She walked right up to us – and up to me. She peeled away her scarf.

  “You? How?”

  “Hello, Agent Rex Havelock. Yes, it’s me, Angelica Harris – the Story Teller. Or more accurately, it’s one of me. But Angelica isn’t really my real name.”

  “What are you?”

  “I am both many things and one thing, I am a bridge between us all. My name is Sarasvati, and I need your help.”

  Jahandar VII

  My Dearest, Dearest Farida,

  I know you will never see this message. It is on paper, the back of a map in fact. They started making these for us when we stopped trusting the machines. That was days ago, but it feels like ages. You were just instants away from me. I could touch you, see your eyes, smell your skin.

  And now you are so far away, I cannot find your star at night.

  No one wants to talk about it, but it’s in the air. We know we may never come back. Our stories may end here, and no one will ever know happened to us.

  I write this, I think, more for my sake. I need to talk to you, even if you can’t hear me. I know you would care, I know you would listen. That’s enough for me right now.

  I’ve done things. Things I don’t think I c
an ever tell you about. No one is ever going to hold me account for them, because we’re all doing it. First I told myself that it wasn’t why I was here. Now, I ask myself, what had I expected? What had any of us expected?

  But what I regret most of all Farida, is that I am not with you. I hate this place. I hate what it’s done to us. And I perhaps most of all, I hate myself. I left you and came here to fight for Humanity. Now, I fight only to see you again.

  But it’s not just this place I have to fight, that’s easy. I was built for this war, quite literally. The hard fight is to recover who I was. Is to make amends for what I’ve done to you.

  I have no idea how to even begin.

  Diamond VI

  “Colonel Diamond?” an unfamiliar face appeared on his retinal screen. Annoyance was refreshed at a high frame rate.

  “Colonel Diamond, This is Doctor Jovanka, I’m sorry to bother you. Do you have a moment?”

  “Of course, Doctor. I heard you lost your head on an insane AI submarine, but don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. What can I do for you?”

  “Colonel I know you’ve left the Taskforce, but with everything going on, no one in command has been able to get back to me.”

  “Is this an HR issue? Cause its sounds like an HR issue. Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

  “I’m on Deck Seventeen, it’s where we’re storing the artifacts recovered from the temple raid. Can you come?”

  “Can’t you just tell me what it is?”

  “You really should to see this for yourself. It is hard to explain. There is - activity.”

  Seventeen was an engineering deck; planet carriers had lots of those. Bases as much as warships, they were built for force projection across planets. The Washington carried 180 aerospace craft and three companies of powered armor marines. It could fight, win, and clean up after a pocket war.

  The pressure doors to Artifact Containment were sealed airtight. Above it a yellow hazard light spun, painting the corridor in gold. A pair of guards in black body armor saluted him.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Biological containment protocol, Sir,” one ran his key card through the wall-mounted reader. It flashed green, and the door hissed open. “Nothing to worry about, Doctor Jovanka just wants to make sure none of them get out.”

  “None of – “

  The answer crawled out and over the door. It tasted the air and clacked its enamel green wings. The other armsman reached up and crushed it in his glove.

  “You’d better go in,” said the first.

  Diamond stepped through.

  Artifact Containment was just a large, converted, cargo bay. It was like any other big, airy warehouse – just easier to seal off. Battery powered forklifts purred down the aisles of caution tape cordons. Behind the larger ones were the piled relics recovered from Kashi. Chipboards had highlighted prints and pictures tacked to them. They bore titles like PARVATI, DURGA, SARASVATI.

  Jovanka stood in a knot of scientists next to a fish tank the size of a bus. Inside were dog-sized, white squids swimming in circles and biding their time.

  “Hello Doctor.”

  “Colonel!” the pasty scientists looked up. They stared at him like a statistical outlier or an exceptional inspection instance, depending on their quantitative bias (and gender).

  “Just call me Jack. Is there a bug problem? I didn’t know we brought any onboard.”

  “Thank you for coming, Jack. I did indeed ask you to visit us here, because of the ‘bugs.’ We brought some Servant beetles aboard to feed these squid-forms you see here,” he tapped the glass. “These were taken from the pool in the trophy room. We decided they must have some importance.”

  “I can tell you right now that they get bigger. Real big.”

  “Yes well,” he beckoned to a large crate covered with a black cloth. “Come see what we have over here.”

  Two scientists lifted the cloth away. Inside was a glass tank filled with large, green, beetles.

  “Are they dead?”

  “Wait a moment,” Jovanka held up his finger, “they have to notice the light.”

  Translucent wings began to flutter. Shells began pushing past each other, trying to get to where the tank was greener. The first few buzzed up and onto the glass, sticking with hard thunks.

  Like giant fireflies, their abdomens lit up.

  En masse the swarm erupted. Droning loud as a diesel engine they turned the tank into a glowstick rave. They bashed against their prison, stoning it with their bodies. One lab coat took a step back.

  “This began about an hour ago,” Jovanka yelled above the droning. “We have not seen anything like this.”

  “They need space,” Diamond stepped up to the tank and looked around it. “How do I open this thing?”

  Someone gasped. German mutterings networked between worried glances.

  “No! We cannot let them out!” Jovanka waved his hands. “Some already got loose before we covered the tank.”

  “And what did they do?”

  Jovanka paused. “They just flew around. Typical insect dispersal behavior, I assume.”

  “Then they’re just big fireflies. Probably just a mating dance.”

  “Wait! You cannot just – “

  His hands snapped the catches open, and lifted off the top.

  The swarm streamed out, a river of staccato green flashes. People ran back, yelling at each other.

  “You fool! What have you done?”

  It rose high up into the air, just below the ceiling. Earlier escapees came flying back from underneath tables and between crates. The swarm fanned out suddenly forming a perfect oval cloud. They started to flash in knots, clumps, and then entire patches. The lab coats craned their necks, all base concerns forgotten.

  “The beetles,” Jovanka’s mouth was open. “They are synchronizing.”

  “How many bugs are in that cloud, Doctor?”

  “One thousand, six hundred and thirty seven.”

  Jack turned and stared. “I’d say something about precision, but that would be racist. Not to tell you how to do you jobs, but can you pay close attention to the flashing and see if any interesting patterns emerge?”

  “I can answer that right now,” Jovanka’s eyes kept darting across the cloud. His smile was of sudden insight. “This is an emergent swarm behavior. They just needed to be a large big enough group and have the space to swarm. Have you ever seen a process flowchart of neuro-optical circuitry, pulled apart?”

  “I always meant to, but then I started collecting guns instead.”

  “Well you’re looking at one right now,” his eyes shone, reflecting back the flash patterns. “They are behaving like transistor elements. Our nano-cloud processors work in the same manner.”

  “You’re saying they’ve formed a computer?”

  “Essentially, yes. It is a distributed computing system. There are too few here to make anything impressive, though. Even our simplest calculators have more processing power.”

  “Our simplest calculators haven’t been reproducing and spreading over an entire planet, protected by religious superstition. This is it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jovanka smiled. “The Xeno Transcendent. Category Three.”

  Day Two

  Dawn climbed over the ghats, highlighting columns of smoke rising across the holy city. Small arms clattered sporadically, chirping crickets of urban firepower. Black gunships vectored across the sky, their high pitch screeches a new call to prayer.

  Exo-armors of grey steel, pistoned across the airstrip like hulking prehistoric apes. Under each arm they carried Jersey barriers of reinforced concrete. They plonked them zigzagged across the road like children’s blocks. Khaki body armors handed sandbags down from trucks. Weapon crews fixed gatling lasers on tripods and dragged boxes of mortar rounds.

  Sergeant Aziz drew his pistol. He thumbed it to the lowest setting, held it up to the beedi, and pulled the trigger.

  “Are you smoking Sergeant
?”

  Behind him came a tall blonde man, helmet tucked under his arm. His face was streaked with dirt and his eyes bagged. His patch read LT. SHIELDS.

  “No,” he put his pistol away and took a deep drag.

  “I came to see what the holdup was. Why isn’t the road secure yet? It’s been all morning.”

  Aziz shrugged and pointed.

  “The sandbags are an hour late, and they only sent one truck,” he flicked some ash. “We needed three. The exo-haulers only just got here. They said they’d been digging trenches outside the city.”

  “Outside? Trenches?”

  “Forget the engineers. We’re supposed to have half a heavy mortar platoon and some HLGs up here, but Battlefield Control transferred them elsewhere.”

  “That’s pretty stupid. No way can we hold this road without heavy laser guns. Do we only have our own squad weapons?”

  “That’s all we got. If we don’t get any HLGs, can you send us the robotic weapons squad? We’ve got mortar rounds but no mortar drones to shoot the damn things.”

  The exo-haulers stopped suddenly, and began to walk back down the airstrip.

  “Hey,” Aziz waved. “Hey!”

  The lead hauler stopped and swiveled. Inside the exposed driver’s chassis, the blue, jump suited operator looked weary.

  “Battlefield Control is transferring us.”

  “Battlefield Control can fuck your Mom for a dollar! You are finishing those barricades.”

  Five tons of steel and buckyball cables shrugged. “Take it up with Command,” it turned and walked after its fellow.

  “Hey,” Shields tapped the Sergeant’s arm, “He’s right, let me go to take it up with Command and find out what’s going on with logistics and deployments.”

  “Can you ask again about what the fuck happened with that Dragonfly yesterday?”

  “I’ve been asking, but I’m not getting real answers.”

  Aziz shook his head. “El Tee, some guys from Third Company were here this morning. They said some of their guys got hit with friendly fire as well, by a Dragonfly. What’s the chance we’d have two blue-on-blues in the same night, with the same type of gunship?”