Trapped

by Scott Bartlett

“Already on it,” Guzman said, nodding at his pad. “I’m in communication with my counterparts already. Unfortunately, my warning came a little late.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “We had the worst outbreak. Two other destroyers experienced similar crises. But there were eight other ships that had minor outbreaks.” Guzman looked up from the datapad, meeting Husher’s eyes. “Except, those eight ships were never attacked like we were.”

  “There must be a gestation period. We had people coming and going between ships, and they carried the infection with them.”

  Gamble shook his head. “We have to limit ship-to-ship movements until we can nail this down. If it spreads…”

  Guzman finished Gamble’s thought for him. “If it spreads, we’re all doomed.” He turned to another patient.

  Chapter 38

  Combat Information Center

  UHC Relentless

  “The Scions are slowing,” Winterton said, his fingers dancing over his console. “And they’re turning, sir.”

  Husher frowned. “Are you picking up on any other readings throughout the system?”

  The sensor operator shook his head. “Nothing, sir. We’re still some distance from the coordinates they gave us.”

  “But these aren’t them.”

  “No, sir. There’s a planetary body at the coordinates. We’re getting close, but we aren’t there yet.”

  “Strange,” Shota said. “It doesn’t seem like they’d lead us all the way here, only to tell us to go away right at the doorstep—“

  “Sir,” Tremaine cut in. “I’m getting an energy signature similar to what we saw when the Scions were engaged with the Brood.”

  Shota leaned forward. “They’re activating their weapons.”

  “Or their shields,” Husher said. “Either way, I wouldn’t expect to see those deployed here. Arm our point defenses, Tremaine. Move to full alert status.”

  The lights in the CIC changed red as the order was relayed throughout the ship.

  Husher tapped at the com embedded in the command seat’s armrest. “Alert fighters?”

  “Ready and willing,” came the reply from Callum over the bay com.

  “They’re firing,” said Tremaine.

  “Helm, get ready for evasive.”

  “It’s not going to hit us, Captain,” Winterton said. “It’s a shot across the bow.”

  “Providence is hailing us,” Long said.

  Husher nodded. “Patch him through to the main viewscreen.

  “What is this?” Iver said once he appeared. “Any ideas?”

  “Not a trap, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Shota said.

  Husher appreciated his young XO’s bluntness, but he knew Iver wouldn’t share that opinion. Husher was almost sure that Iver had been the one to assign Shota here. If he’d expected Husher to dull the commander’s rash streak, he was failing badly.

  “Thank you for outlining what I’m already thinking,” Iver snapped. “But if it’s not a trap, then what is it, Captain?” He emphasized the last word.

  Husher glanced at Shota, who shrugged and sat back. “They wouldn’t miss us unless they wanted to. We saw those plasma lances in action against the Brood. They had no problems targeting them.”

  “So a warning shot, then? But why? They brought us here.”

  “To be fair, they showed us the coordinates and made it clear we should follow them. But they didn’t actually tell us what we would find here.”

  Winterton interjected. “Sir, I have drive activity coming from the planet’s orbit. It took some time to see it because there’s some interference coming from the planet. Something powerful is blocking the signal. But now I can definitely make out more of their ships.”

  “How many more?”

  Winterton shook his head. “They keep coming. At least a dozen.”

  “And they’re all as big as the ones we’ve been following?”

  “Bigger, sir. Much bigger.”

  “Still sure it’s not a trap, Commander?” Iver said sarcastically over the com as the information rolled in.

  “I think so,” said Shota. “Tactically, there’s nothing to gain from bringing us all the way here to ambush us. They could have set that up much more effectively farther out in space, away from a planet they value.”

  “You’re assuming that planet means something to them. It might be some cold rock they’ve been using to conceal their numbers.”

  “I don’t think they would have fired a warning shot if they wanted to attack us,” Husher said, backing up his XO. “It’s not a guarantee, though. We should definitely move to full defensive spread.”

  “Agreed,” Iver said, and the coordinates for the destroyers to line up to absorb the first wave of incoming ships were immediately transmitted, like the admiral had them waiting to send. It was prudent, Husher told himself. In this case, the admiral was absolutely right to be concerned.

  He was beginning to have second thoughts of his own as he watched the ships in the viewport grow larger. They were much bigger than any of the ships they’d seen before.

  “Admiral, what are we thinking—”

  A high-pitched squeal of sound made everyone in the CIC wince, and Admiral Iver vanished from the main viewscreen. Several covered their ears.

  “What the hell?” Shota said, looking over at Long.

  The Coms officer shook his head. “It’s not on our end. We’re getting a transmission from one of the alien vessels.”

  “One of the ones we’ve been following?”

  Long shook his head. “The source is one of the ships incoming from the planet, sir. It’s drowning out all other communications. That’s why we lost connection with the admiral.”

  “They’re jamming us,” Shota said. “I’m starting to think the admiral is right.”

  Husher’s jaw tightened. “Me, too. Alert fighters, get out there. Tango on deck.” He turned to Tactical. “Tremaine, we need a firing solution. Don’t open the tubes, but let’s plug in what we have—”

  “Sir,” said Long. “I’m getting visual.”

  “Since when do jamming signals come with visuals?” Shota asked.

  “We’re not in our universe anymore.” Husher realized he’d leaned toward the main viewscreen, and he forced himself to settle back into his seat. “Put it onscreen.”

  An alien filled the screen. It had scarlet skin, and a face that tapered to a point at the chin. But it was the catlike eyes, taking up much of the face, which drew immediate attention. Of the alien species they’d encountered in their galaxy, Husher didn’t recall any quite like this. The mouth looked small, little more than a slit above the pointed chin. It had no ears, but wore a comically large cone on its head, like an ornate head covering.

  “Well?” Husher asked. “I’m not hearing anything.”

  Long shrugged. “They aren’t sending anything.”

  “No audio?”

  “Nope, just this visual.”

  “Can we transmit?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Without communication with the other ships in the battle group, there was no way for Husher to check with Iver to see if he wanted to do the honors. He was about to give up and start broadcasting on his own when Iver spoke, transmitting a standard message with his rank and ship name and requesting to know the aliens’ intentions. Despite the fact that the human ships couldn’t communicate with each other, the admiral’s voice was apparently being relayed to the Relentless. By the Scions, presumably.

  The aliens said nothing in reply.

  A few minutes later, the same message was repeated by Captain Daniels aboard the Providence.

  The alien on screen nodded, which Husher took to mean that they were being heard. But the alien said nothing. It just kept nodding.

  Then it dawned on Husher. “We’ve heard from them, but before today they haven’t heard from us.”

  Shota cocked his head, then seemed to grasp it as well. “We’ve had the distress signal from them for
months, and it took us weeks to decipher.”

  “And now that we’ve cracked that, we can translate what they send us,” Husher added. “But we’ve never sent them anything they can use to learn from us.”

  “What can we send?”

  “Technical specs?” offered Winterton.

  The XO shook his head. “If we’re going to send something that could be a Rosetta Stone, then it needs to have some kind of shared language on it that they can translate from. And we haven’t shared any language yet.”

  Suddenly Husher smiled. “But we have shared a language. Mathematics.”

  “So maybe star charts?” Shota scratched his chin. “But that would still be problematic. We don’t want to reveal too much—”

  Husher held up his hand. “Not star charts.”

  Shota shrugged. “Well, you got me, then. What can we share that includes numbers, that isn’t technical information of any kind? The admiral won’t sign off on the transmission of anything even remotely sensitive, and I’d have to say I’m with him on that.”

  Husher nodded. “Have you chatted with our cook?”

  Shota look bewildered. “The cook?”

  “Let’s take a walk down to the mess hall,” Husher said. “I think I know what our Rosetta Stone will be.”

  Chapter 39

  Combat Information Center

  UHC Relentless

  Twenty minutes later, they’d sent over the entire recipe database for the Relentless, complete with full step-by-step conversion explanations for any number of different measuring systems that could be applied.

  In the meantime, the other ships and captains, once they’d caught on to the idea, had started running on a loop most of the multi-language welcome messages that were common to all ships in the fleet.

  Abruptly, the alien who’d been standing silently, facing them like a statue for the better part of an hour, came to life.

  “Thank you,” said a smooth, automated voice. Husher didn’t even see the lips move at first. It was just the slightest bit of a trembling at the edges of the small mouth. “Our shared matrix needed to gather as much information as possible so that we could communicate properly with you. I have to admit that this was a great struggle for us. But all of your input has finally given us the information we needed to communicate in your language. Please allow us one more moment to assimilate.”

  “That’s one use for a cookbook,” Shota murmured.

  The CIC fell silent as they waited for whatever processes the aliens had initiated to finish—and for whatever this Scion would say next.

  “Thank you for your patience,” the alien on the screen said at last. “And thank you for your assistance in fighting the Brood. We have not had help in this fight for many cycles.” If the voice of a computer could sound depressed, this one did. “Had you not interceded, we fear that would have been the last stand before they were upon us here. And we suspect they soon will be.”

  “First things first,” Iver said. “Why did you fire at us?”

  “We must apologize for that as well. Without communication, we were uncertain how to proceed. We feared you would interpret our warning shots as hostile.”

  “You feared right. Care to explain?”

  “We cannot allow you any closer to our home planet. It is sacred space to us, and none but Scions may approach. There are a number among us that have become even more keen to protect the homeworld from intrusion since we began losing colonies to the Brood.”

  “I see,” Iver said. “What can you tell us of this universe? We came in response to your distress signal. We struggled to understand it, since it appeared to describe a past event. I wasn’t sure—we weren’t sure—what the nature of the emergency was, exactly.”

  The alien cocked its head at this, then turned and began an animated discussion with someone sitting next to it off-camera, presumably another Scion. Suddenly, the tiny mouth that had barely moved before was now moving rapidly, in an up-tempo tone that contrasted with the alien’s calm demeanor before.

  After several seconds of this, there seemed to be an agreement reached.

  “We apologize,” the Scion said. “Your use of time is difficult for us to fathom.”

  Husher remembered Ochrim’s words about how the Scions didn’t seem to think in terms of past, present, and future. Instead, they thought of everything as though it had already happened—as if the whole of existence were a play, watched from a distance.

  Iver seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “How should we refer to time, then?”

  Again the creature nodded to another, but this time the other alien stepped into frame, and its thin mouth began to quiver in much the way its companion’s had. “Forgive me, Admiral, but I am a scientist. My name is Malek, and I believe I can shed some light. You see, Admiral, this is actually related to why our homeworld is sacred to us. We have evolved in an environment that is clearly very different from yours. Our world, known as Skisel, is home to many viruses. As a result, we evolved a high awareness of, and connection to, our bodies. We learned to consciously direct our immune system to attack invaders.

  “This has proven to be one of our best defenses against the Brood, who have the ability to infect new hosts in order to reproduce. Our cells replace themselves every two years, at our conscious direction. As a result, we are far less attached to a sense of personal identity. Certainly, nothing like what I have seen of your species. I mean this not to be disparaging. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve spent my life researching many species, both on our native world and throughout the universe. Many of them possessed a self-awareness similar to yours, one I believe could have served our people better, at times.”

  The alien next to Malek leaned forward to say something in their language.

  Malek nodded. “These speculations don’t have a place here, of course.”

  Husher smiled inwardly to himself. In any species, it seemed, there was always a boss that wanted to micromanage. Husher made a note to remind himself of this the next time he decided to tell one of his bridge crew how to do their jobs.

  “This is why Skisel is sacred. It is where all our ancestors, past and future, have lived. Because we direct our own cellular replacement at a much faster pace than most species, we are less attached to an individual sense of identity. It is a prevailing belief throughout Scion society that our ancestors live on as spirits, who are often considered more important than living Scions. Some also believe that Scions can act as the embodiment of ancestors for a period of time, though this has not been specifically proven…” The Scion glanced at his boss. “Or disproven, for that matter.”

  Learning about the Scions was important, but Husher was more interested in military matters. Like how the Scion ships worked—specifically, their modular design. It had to be a design characteristic of this universe, since the Brood seemed to operate in much the same way.

  He cleared his throat. “Sorry to interject—if I may, Admiral?”

  “Go ahead, Husher.”

  “I’m Captain Vin Husher of the UHS Relentless. I’m anxious to know what you can tell us of the Brood.”

  The scientist hesitated, then nodded to the alien next to him, bowed, and stepped back. “There isn’t much to say,” the first alien said, who Husher was beginning to think as of their own version of the admiral. “They arrived suddenly, as if from nowhere, with no precedent here. In short order, they ripped out almost all living things in the universe. Our species survived their initial onslaughts, partly because of our unique immune systems, but that just meant that they quickly evolved attack methods that allowed them to overcome that with brute force. They are extremely adaptive. They typically arrive in giant, slow-moving biological craft that carry dozens of smaller units. We have no word for them that translates.”

  “We call them Stomachs,” Husher said.

  “The smaller units that break off from the main biological craft, those we call Pseudopods. They, like the cargo they carry, are able to spit acidic
bile. Inside their biological bubble, they carry wild killing creatures we call Wayfarers. They are some of the most hideous creations in all the known universe. All claws and teeth.”

  Husher nodded grimly. “You don’t have to explain to us.”

  The alien bounced its large head discernibly as the AI seemed to translate that simple statement. “And yet you live. Most impressive.”

  “So far. But they killed many. We have some of them trapped in our ships.”

  The alien seemed further agitated by this. “Captain, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you have a highly contagious parasite on your ship.”

  “Airborne?” the admiral cut in, sounding choked. “Contagious how?”

  “They’re called Polymorphs,” the computerized voice said, “and they transfer through physical contact. They will also linger on a surface, well after a carrier has touched it. After they infect an individual, in time that individual becomes a variation on the Wayfarers. And once that happens….” The speaker trailed off, then seemed to gather himself. “We expect to make a last stand soon. You are welcome to join us. With Wayfarers among your crews, your days are short, as are ours. The Brood will attack soon. We are sure of it. Our analysis indicates that the battle you interrupted was only the beginning move in a final, all-out assault on our world. Once we are gone, there will be none here to resist them.”

  “What do they want?” Husher asked.

  The alien shook its head. “Destruction. Death. The end of all things.” He hesitated. “And now, the end of you.”

  “But what have they told you?”

  “Nothing. No one has ever communicated with them.”

  Husher sat back, letting that last message sink in. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Not all things do,” the computerized voice said, as if it was teaching him a new lesson.

  “No,” Husher said. “I mean they spoke to us.”

  The computerized voices fell silent for several seconds as the aliens discussed this in their frenetic language of hisses and clicks.

  “Can you confirm the meaning of your last transmission?” the lead Scion said at last.