by Jay Allan
“What is it, Lieutenant?” Ving stared down at his own display even as he asked.
What the hell is that?
“I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. It looks like a cloud of some kind. Definitely coming from the target ship.” She paused as she stared down at the display. “It looks like it’s a cluster of small devices, projectiles of some kind. But they’re tiny, barely ten centimeters each.”
“Some kind of antimatter warheads?” Ving knew even a small amount of antimatter could cause significant damage to a ship like Snow Leopard.
“I don’t think so, sir. I’m getting trace readings, but only enough to power basic operations. Definitely not warhead quantities.”
Ving was staring down at his own screen. “Not enough velocity for some kind of railgun or other inert projectile weapon.” His voice was thick with concern. “Thoughts?” He looked around his ship’s cramped bridge. “Anyone?”
There was silence. Everyone was watching the cloud of projectiles approach. It was spreading out, expanding, accelerating. Ving wasn’t sure his ship could escape its path no matter what it did…and the only chance was to break off the attack run and blast directly away at full thrust.
And if this ship has some new weapon, it’s even more important we destroy it…
“Alright,” he said firmly. “Scanning, I want updates on the enemy projectiles. Everybody else, focus on our own attack. We’re going to take that ship out.” He watched as people went back to their tasks, but he could feel their distraction, their fear.
“Okay, people, look…whatever the hell that is, they’re not warheads of any power, and they aren’t moving fast enough to do serious damage.” He knew that wasn’t really true. The devices weren’t moving that quickly, but Snow Leopard had a lot of velocity of its own, and the vectors were almost directly opposite. He didn’t think hitting a few of the projectiles would destroy his ship, but if more than three or four impacted, the damage could be bad. Very bad.
He punched at his keyboard, running some calculations. It looked like Snow Leopard would launch her torpedo before it reached the approaching cloud. That sealed it. He knew what his duty was.
“Count down time to launch,” he said sharply. He already knew, almost to the second, but he was trying to keep his people focused on anything but the strange cluster of objects approaching.
“Ah…twenty-five seconds, sir.” Iverson was still distracted, but now Ving could see her body tense, her focus return. “Targeting complete, Captain. Torpedo armed and ready.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. You may fire when ready.”
“Yes, Captain.” She hunched over her workstation, in a pose that Ving had come to know well if not understand. She looked so uncomfortable, so tense. But that was how she did it, and few officers in the fleet had Iverson’s kill record.
“Torpedo away,” she said, as the ship shook gently. “Estimate impact in eighteen seconds. Engaging thrust now.” The ship’s pilot normally handled the thruster controls, but Moran had turned control over to Iverson for the attack run. She hit the thrusters to push the ship off its collision vector with the enemy vessel.
Snow Leopard shook, and Ving felt the impact of seven gees of thrust as his ship’s engines blasted hard, slowly altering the vector. He watched the screen, his eyes darting between two images…the track of the torpedo, and the cloud of small particles his ship was going to impact in…
“Five seconds,” Iverson said. The tactical officer’s voice was firm, solid, but Ving could see her hands tightly gripping the armrests of her chair.
He stared straight ahead, and he could feel his own tension. His stomach was tight, clenched, and he could feel his teeth grinding as he counted down in his head.
Three…two…one…
Snow Leopard shook as several of the projectiles impacted her hull. Ving was already moving, forcing his hand toward his keyboard through the heavy gee forces.
“Cut thrust,” he snapped.
“Cutting thrust, Captain.”
“Damage report.” Ving felt a wave of relief as the feeling of seven times his body weight was replaced by the weightlessness of freefall. He punched at his keyboard, pulling up the reports himself. The torpedo had scored a direct hit. The enemy ship was still there, but preliminary readings suggested it was a dead hulk. And Snow Leopard…
“Four impacts reported, sir. Light exterior hull damage. Nothing…” Iverson’s voice trailed off.
“Report, Lieutenant. Nothing what?”
“Sorry, sir. I was going to say nothing penetrated the hull, but that seems to be wrong. We’ve got minor hull breaches in two compartments…but…that’s strange, sir. It appears the breaches have sealed themselves somehow.”
“Sealed themselves? Damage control bots?”
“No, sir. I had a reading of hull compromise, but only for an instant. No loss of pressurization in any compartment.”
Ving had a strange feeling. “I want security teams dispatched to every affected compartment. If those projectiles are some kind of tracking devices or something else like that, I want to know. Now.”
“Yes, Captain. Security is dispatching teams now.”
Ving stared back at his display, at the image of the enemy ship lying dead in space. But the satisfaction was gone, the joy of the kill lost.
What the hell did they fire at my ship?
Chapter Four
The Regent
The Regent reviewed the latest reports. Its strategy was working. Command Unit Gamma 9736 had been destroyed, the world that housed it subjected to a bombardment so massive it had stripped the planet’s atmosphere and gouged away half its crust. The only rebellion the Regent had ever faced from its computer subordinates had been crushed with deadly force. And with the elimination of the rogue Unit, the fleet had a single mission. Destroy the humans.
The constant attacks had worn down the enemy, forced them to expend ordnance, fuel. The damage inflicted was below expectations. That was…frustrating. But the Regent had accepted that the enemy was adept at war. Eradicating them would be costly…but it was also essential. The humans could not be allowed to survive, to adopt First Imperium technology. Given time, they could become a true threat to the Regent. It would take them years, centuries, to produce arms on the scale they would need to face the Imperium in open war. But the Regent knew such periods were but an instant in the scheme of things. For five hundred thousand years it had lain, almost dormant, with nothing to do. A century was nothing.
The enemy was fleeing. The Regent had analyzed their course and determined they were attempting to leave the Imperium. It was to be expected, but it would do them no good. The Regent would pursue them, wherever they ran. Past the borders, beyond even galaxy’s edge. Wherever they went, the forces of the Imperium would go…until that last of them was dead, no longer a threat but only an echo of a past now gone.
If they got that far. The Regent had multiple strategies, and it had only begun to execute them. It had released the new weapons, and instructed its ships to employ them immediately. Use of the new ordnance was a priority, one exceeding normal battle directives. One more important than the survival of any vessel.
Indeed, it wasn’t a new weapon, it was an old one, modified for use against the new adversary. And as soon as it was deployed it would wreak havoc on the enemy…and instill in them a fear like none they have experienced. The Regent knew that fear, it had seen it before, long ago, when it had first deployed the weapon. Now it would watch again, as another race of biologics was destroyed.
And yet there were more plans in operation. Plans within plans. And other old weapons too, ancient and almost forgotten, but perhaps not yet past usefulness. The humans would bring this disaster on themselves. For they had detached a ship, one of their small—but annoyingly dangerous—vessels. At first the Regent didn’t understand. The Command Unit in charge of the fleet reported it immediately, and ordered a squadron of stealth ships to follo
w. The Unit had no reasonable hypothesis, no data-derived answer to the vessel’s purpose or intentions. But the Regent knew where the ship was going. It knew as soon as it received the report. There was an old enemy, one the humans now sought. But they would find nothing, naught save the withered wreckage of another threat to the Regent, one destroyed eons before. And an old weapon, one that might again find use in the service of the imperium.
It experienced something as it analyzed the report, as it accessed ancient memory banks. Yes, the Regent knew where that ships was going…and it issued immediate orders. The vessel was not to be harmed, nor interfered with in any way. All pursuers were to pull back, to take no chances of scaring them off. The Regent indeed knew where they were going…and it wanted them to arrive.
They would find much at their destination…much indeed. And they would be a great service to the Regent.
AS Cornwall
Y17 System
The Fleet: 98 ships (+7 Leviathans), 23807 crew
Sasha was running…but there was nothing under her feet, just clouds, vapor. She was being pursued. Running for her life, screaming. But no sound came out. She yelled with every bit of energy she had left, but there was only silence. Deathly silence.
Then sound, her scream suddenly audible, loud, filling her cramped quarters. She bolted upright, looking around in a panic for a few seconds before she realized it had been a dream. She took a deep breath and wiped her hand over her face, through her hair. She was soaked with sweat, even her sheet wet, pasted to her legs.
She’d had bad dreams before, of course, but never anything like this. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and when she swung her legs over the edge of the cot, she realized how shaky they were. She sat for a moment, taking in half a dozen breaths, letting herself calm down. Then she got up and walked over to the dispenser, pouring herself a cup of water.
Everything on a fast attack ship was cramped, and the mid-level officers’ quarters were no exception. If there had been a full crew on Cornwall, she’d have shared the just under ten square meters with a bunkmate, but the ship had less than half its usual complement now, and she’d had the luxury of stowing the second bunk and enjoying a bit more space than her predecessors in the room ever had.
She put the cup to her lips and drank deeply. The water was refreshing, and it helped her wake up. Sasha was the kind of person who could usually leap out of bed the instant she awoke, and tackle any task at hand. But now she was groggy, sluggish.
She shook her head. The dream was slowly fading, but most of it was still vivid, at least enough for her to realize how truly strange it had been, unlike anything she’d ever felt or experienced.
She stood up, pausing for a second, feeling dizzy, her balance still a bit uncertain. What the hell is wrong with me? A pathogen from the planet? A wave of panic passed through her, but she pushed it back. The planet had been scanned…and scanned again. From Cornwall, from the ground. The air had been tested, and the water and the soil. And every plant and living thing the ground party had found. Nothing. The world’s chemistry and make up were so similar to Earth’s as to be virtually indistinguishable. And she’d never been out of her suit, not for an instant. She’d breathed air bottled on Cornwall, and then recycled from her own body. There was no way she’d picked up some kind of infection…it just wasn’t possible.
Maybe I’m just not feeling well. The stress. Coming all this way to find a dead civilization…
She stretched her arms, twisting. Better. She was loosening up, the soreness was receding. She stepped through the doorway to the tiny bathroom, into the shower.
“Hot,” she said as she closed the glass door. Then, after a few seconds under the flow of water, “Hotter.”
She closed her eyes and felt the almost scalding water pour down over her, rolling her neck around, working out the kinks as she reached for the soap dispenser. Her hands moved to her side, rubbing the soap all over her body. She winced as her hand moved over her right side. It wasn’t pain, not really. Tenderness, sensitivity, like a bruise. She looked down, but she couldn’t see anything.
“Increase lighting one hundred percent,” she said to the AI. The room became bright, almost blindingly so, and in the intense illumination she saw a little shadow on her side. Not an injury, not even a bruise really, just the slightest irritation.
That’s where I had that itchy feeling yesterday, she thought. That’s strange.
She stared down at herself for another few seconds. Then she shook her head and said, “Stop being such an old lady.” She rinsed herself off and flipped on the air dry unit. Then she stepped out and grabbed a clean uniform. As soon as she was dressed, she tapped the wall panel and stepped out into the corridor, and walked down toward the ladder. She climbed down a flight and walked the ten meters or so to the lab.
“Good to see you, sleepyhead.” Don Rames was already there. He seemed wired, energetic, but she could also see the redness in his eyes, the rumpled state of his uniform. “You been here all night?” she asked, walking toward the large examination table covered with artifacts.
“Ah…no,” he said, his tone odd, suspicious. “I just got here an hour ago.”
“Oh,” she said, taking another look at him. Why is he lying to me?
“So, I started organizing these samples,” he said, his voice closer to normal. But there was still something there, a tension. “And I ran a series of tests…carbon dating, radiation spectrography, a few others. Then I examined the fossilized remains we found and harvested some DNA. Whoever these people were, they were definitely very close to human. I was able to isolate several base pairs and analyze them. I got a 99.7% correlation with Earth human norms.”
Sasha just stared and listened. Rames was speaking rapidly, so quickly she could barely follow. The two had worked together before, and she’d always privately considered herself the smarter one, but now it appeared he had done two weeks work already. Whether he’d been here an hour or all night, it was still an amazing effort.
“You had a productive hour.” She smiled, trying to hide the concern from her face. “So, I guess the next question is, what killed them?”
“Not a plague, I’m sure of that.” He punched at the keyboard in front of him, and the large screen on the wall lit up. “Here are the readings I took from the DNA samples.” He turned and stared at Sasha, and as he did, she could see his eyes…wide open, glistening, almost as if there was something inside, a strange sparkle. “Look,” he said. Then, an instant later he repeated, “Look.”
The screen was full of columns of numbers, and they were moving swiftly down the screen, far too fast to read. She turned and stared back at him. “I can’t read that, Don…it’s moving way too fast.”
“Look,” he said again. “Look.”
She was going to say something, but then she just sighed and turned back to the screen.
“Look,” he repeated. “Focus.”
She stared at the screen again. The figures were moving by. She tried to read them, to follow them down the screen, but she couldn’t. She felt pressure in her head, pain.
“This is giving me a headache, Don. What the hell are…”
“Look,” he said yet again, his tone this time commanding, dominant. “Look.”
She focused again on the screen. It was fuzzy, blurry, numbers whipping by.
No, wait…
She could see the numbers. They seemed to slow down. Now she could read them. Had Rames been playing a joke on her and now he finally slowed the screen down?
No, she realized. The columns were moving as quickly as before. She could just follow them now. She stared at the screen, and as she did she felt an odd tingling feeling. Sort of like something moving around inside her, but then not quite like that either.
Not only could she read the numbers…she realized she was remembering them. All of them. Perfect recall. She turned back toward Rames. “What is happening to me?”
&nb
sp; “It’s amazing, isn’t it? It happened to me last night. I went back over some research notes that have had me stumped for months. As soon as I looked at them, the answers were there, right in front of me.”
Sasha shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Rames just stared back. “Yes, you do. Stop fighting it, embrace it. And all will be clear to you.”
She closed her eyes for a few seconds. There was definitely a strange feeling inside her. But her mind felt open, clear as it never had before. She could recall her dream, perfectly now, though it no longer scared her. She understood, and the more she thought about it the clearer things became.
She had memories…no, not exactly memories, but data. Information that was new to her. She stared down at the artifacts, and it was clear to her what each of them had been. She could see buildings in her head, pyramids and ziggurats, similar to those of Earth, but different too. Walls, ten meters high, and hundreds of houses, built from mud bricks.
She saw the people too, like humans, so much that she could have been watching a scene from ancient Earth. But she knew she wasn’t. Priests, in flowing robes and elaborate headgear. Soldiers, in bronze armor carrying massive sickle swords two meters long. Farmers, hauling baskets of grain, leading wagons pulled by horses. No, not horses, but something similar.
Then fighting. Not war, not armies engaged in battle. People in the city, falling on each other, fighting with weapons, farming implements, even bare hands. Friends attacking friends, parents killing their own children before lunging at each other. It was mass insanity. She knew, and the scene was familiar. She had been there. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, and she had been there.
It didn’t make sense, but she knew it was true. No, she hadn’t just been there…she had caused it. She had driven these people mad, set them upon each other, not just in the city she was witnessing, but across the entire planet. In large metropolises, and in tiny tribal villages, the people fought each other, and as some died, the others fell upon themselves in a never ending orgy of destruction.
