Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “I really don’t know what to say,” he said finally. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, but this…” He didn’t finish, and gazed at the wall a moment longer.

  “The data-core,” said Adams. “What progress have you made with it? Your AI queen was certain there would be technology here that could read it?”

  “No, wait wait wait,” said Sampey, holding up a hand to keep his colleague in check. “We have a lot of other things to discuss here first. Especially regarding Phoenix’s status in light of all this.”

  “There’s nothing more important than the data-core,” Adams corrected, pulling himself fully upright, leaning elbows on the table. “The data-core changes everything. It changes the whole Spiral. The parren are demanding access, yes?” Looking at Erik beneath arched brows.

  “Yes,” said Erik. “Defiance is theirs. We’re valued guests so long as we don’t screw them around.”

  “And the fact that you’ve unilaterally decided to unleash upon the Spiral the greatest arms race since the Machine Age doesn’t concern either of you one bit?” Adams said it without malice, but Erik was reminded of an older instructor at the Academy, asking a deadpan rhetorical question to let a couple of youngsters know they’d screwed up. But neither Erik nor Trace had been youngsters for a long time.

  “Which part of the briefing did you not understand, Commander?” Trace asked calmly. “We could go back over it and talk more slowly if you’d like?”

  “You…” Adams grimaced, breaking off his sentence with a hard gesture from both hands, gathering the enormity of his thoughts. “The Spiral is filled with competing factions. The Triumvirate War wasn’t just two sides, it was lots of sides, we just happened to all be formed into two sides for convenience. That happens because everyone’s seeking an advantage… but now there’s this data-core, containing a whole bunch of technology so advanced it could swing the balance of power one way or the other. And now you’re going to, what, let it go? Across the Spiral? Let everyone get their hands on it? This will start more wars than any single thing since…” Again the waving hands, seeking an answer to his own rhetorical question.

  “The alo are aligned with the deepynines, Commander,” Erik said calmly. “The deepynines already know all this stuff, or most of it. It’s already out there. We’re just trying to catch up.”

  “Your major concern can’t seriously be the fate of other species,” Trace added, in a tone that was almost scorn. “Fleet is concerned with the fate of humanity. That’s it. The alo/deepynine alliance will be eyeing us next, we need this technology if we’re to have even the slightest chance of survival, and you’d deny it to us on the basis that someone else might get hurt?”

  “What’s your evidence the alo/deepynines are after us next?” Adams retorted with animation. “Okay, I’ll buy that there is an alliance, I don’t think that’s arguable with the evidence you’ve acquired. But we have a multi-level, multi-signature relationship with the alo, the depth and sophistication of which you wouldn’t know about because most of it is classified. Your very ship is based on their technology…”

  “Which was spying on us,” Erik interrupted. “And working against us, with covert codes that even Styx couldn’t completely unravel. Did you miss that bit too?”

  “It was spying to find lost drysine colonies, sure! That makes sense, the deepynines are terrified of drysines. But what evidence that they’re truly going to break our alliance, attack and invade us?”

  “The fact that they’re making alliance with the sard, who will always be our enemies, god willing,” said Erik. “Because I’d hate to belong to any species that actually made friends with the sard.”

  “Deepynine behaviour has not changed at all,” said Trace. “Look at what they just did to Mylor Station — forty thousand dead civilians for no strategic purpose other than to send a warning. If the drysines hadn’t won the drysine-deepynine war, I’m not sure there’d be any organics left in this part of the Spiral. If they’d then expanded as far as Earth, there wouldn’t be any humans either. Previous AI races were murderous, but deepynines were almost uniformly genocidal.”

  “Which would work for me as an explanation,” Adams persisted, “if they hadn’t just teamed up with the alo!” And made a shrugging gesture at them both, challenging them to explain themselves. “Who are most certainly organic, and… Major, you saw them fighting on the Tartarus, as you call it? You said alo and deepynines seem to share a bond that looks like ‘love’. Your words.”

  “I know,” said Trace. “We can’t explain it either. Deepynines seem to hate other organics just as much as they ever did, but alo are an exception.”

  “You said in the final part of your report that that might have a connection to the reeh?” Captain Sampey reinterjected himself.

  “The data-core places an early record of the alo out in reeh space,” Trace confirmed. “We’ve been following contacts through House Harmony to see if we can gain access to the croma. The Croma Wall, of course, stands between this entire portion of the Spiral, and all reeh space.” She glanced at Erik. Erik gestured for her to continue. Having spent more time in close proximity to drones, Styx and deepynine enemies, she was probably better placed for this kind of analysis anyway. “Alo are biomechanoid, in part. What little we know of the reeh says they certainly are. Our working theory is that reeh space might have been where alo and deepynines met, after the drysine-deepynine war. Maybe a deepynine queen fled in that direction. We’d like to find out, because if deepynines start using reeh technology against us… well from what we’ve heard, we’ve no defence against that either.”

  “You can’t go off to see the reeh,” Sampey said flatly.

  “We don’t want to meet the reeh,” said Erik, “we want to meet the croma.”

  “Who are right next door and aren’t known to be that friendly, and we’d like to not piss them off either. Look, guys. I must differ from my friend Commander Adams here — I find the idea of an alo/deepynine alliance, exhibiting the kinds of behaviours you’ve identified, right on humanity’s doorstep, to be pretty fucking terrifying. Our back is turned to them and we’re vulnerable. I understand, and believe it or not, Fleet HQ will understand.”

  Trace glanced at Erik, warily, as though concerned that he might be falling for it. Erik barely acknowledged, and just met Sampey’s gaze with a flat, disbelieving stare.

  Sampey saw that unity and sighed. “Whatever you believe about Fleet HQ, I can assure you that what you’ve shown me here will blow their socks off. That’s not to say they’ll be happy. What you’ve achieved is incredible, but the methods you’ve taken to achieve it have been dangerous at best, and may yet hurt us very badly.

  “But, I mean, gravity bombs.” He looked amazed. “And if your Lieutenant Rooke is correct about the upgrades to Phoenix’s performance, then the benefits to Fleet could be…”

  “Except that everyone else will have those upgrades too,” Commander Adams said with exasperation. “So we haven’t really gained anything at all, just made everything more dangerous.”

  “The deepynines don’t have gravity bombs,” Erik replied. “They were as surprised as we were.”

  “Sure, but now they know they’re possible, they’ll work on them until they invent them…”

  “In decades or centuries,” said Erik. “Drysines were far more advanced on gravity tech. Drysines had more inquisitive minds, it doesn’t come as naturally for deepynines.”

  “We’re going to still be living with the alo and deepynines in decades and centuries, Captain,” Adams said crossly.

  “That’s what we used to say about the krim,” said Trace. A silence followed.

  “Captain,” Sampey tried again. “My point is that Phoenix has done enough. If you come home now, I promise you’ll be well treated. Your record at this point is inarguable — the worst thing your enemies say about you is that you’re only in it to somehow advance or aggrandise yourself. But what you’ve done… what you’ve all done… out here, i
s so completely selfless and brave that those arguments will collapse like sand in water when people hear about it.

  “But the reeh are a whole different game. I’m no expert, probably Commander Adams could tell you more. But the reeh are just flat out scary. That empire could overwhelm the croma if they really wanted, the only reason they don’t is that they’ve pissed off all their neighbours simultaneously and are constantly fighting everyone. The croma are just one neighbour. We’re not doing anything to get the reeh looking in our direction suddenly. Fleet can’t allow it. If you come home now, bygones will be forgotten, I’m sure of it. But if you tear off again to go and destabilise some other dangerous alien race that humanity previously had no problem with… then I’m afraid you’re truly on your own.”

  “Bygones,” Trace said flatly, looking from Commander to Captain and back again. Suspiciously. “The last ultimatum Fleet gave us came via my old friend Colonel Khola in barabo space. We broke that ultimatum to go with Makimakala and fight the deepynines and sard at Tartarus. We haven’t heard a thing about our status back home since then. Exactly what bygones are we talking about now?”

  3

  Lisbeth thought the chair was about the most ridiculous thing she’d seen in four months on Defiance. It had no great artistry to it — just a simple, straight-backed plastic thing, made by people with no real knowledge of chairs, and presented for the human guest to sit on before the leader of all House Harmony. Lisbeth wore her spacer’s jumpsuit beneath, with no choice but for that informality considering the airless expanse to be traversed by any visitor to this Incefahd tower. A red sash about her waist was the sole offering to parren style, and some neat pins in her hair to keep the brown curls orderly after a half-hour in an EVA helmet on the way here.

  The walls of this upper-level in the tower had been stripped, joins still visible where workers had not yet filed them away to nothing. What remained were structural supports only, though Lisbeth remained unsure that aesthetically fastidious parren would not bring the ceiling crashing down if it could create a more perfectly formal space. But the last she’d glanced at her AR glasses, the pressure indicator had suggested all in good order, and neither she nor this esteemed company were about to be blasted to vacuum. Red carpets and red wall decorations completed the effect — a royal place, she supposed, and the walls were lined with many bureaucrats, big-hatted officials, grand-robed dignitaries and colourfully-attired guards.

  God forfend that parren would put the razzle-dazzle aside for even a steel and airless place like Defiance, where sensible folk would all be surely attired as she was — with pressure-suit linings and emergency mask and hood near at hand in case of rapid decompression. Semaya stood at her side in a parren-equivalent jumpsuit with green ties. Behind them all, Timoshene and his small group of Domesh warriors, black robes now replaced by black jumpsuits, hoods and dark interactive glasses similar to what Phoenix’s crew would wear. The robes were merely a style, and Timoshene had been unbothered to replace them with attire that achieved the same fully-covered result.

  “This new human warship,” said Rehnar, kneeling in the usual parren preference. Here he knelt upon a poga — a raised platform — so that the human would not loom above him, difficult though that would be from this ten meter distance. “This Lien Wang. Is this not the name of the human captain who sacrificed his life to commit total genocide against the krim?”

  “Her life, Rehnar-sa,” Lisbeth corrected. Half-a-year of full emersion in the Porgesh tongue, and she was finally confident to ditch the translators entirely. Semaya assured her that she would catch any small mistake before it got out of hand, and that the degree to which parren would be impressed by a human’s fluency would outweigh any possible mistake. “Lien Wang was a woman. One of the greatest human heroes. This visiting ship is named in her memory.”

  “Genocide,” Rehnar repeated, big, dark blue eyes lidded. ‘Korosar’, the Porgesh word was. In Porgesh, Lisbeth grasped that the horror of the concept was as much a matter of aesthetics as morality. Parren were dismayed by the brutal and blunt. Genocide, to parren, meant the work of barbarians, unfit for the fine appreciations of life. The moral matter of annihilating billions of lives bothered them less.

  “The krim started it,” Lisbeth said coolly. A small murmur of looks and gestures circled through the robed figures who flanked the walls. That was unusual, among disciplined, ever patient House Harmony parren.

  “No doubt the crew of the Lien Wang will be most eager to learn of the data-core, and to take its knowledge back to her human rulers,” said Rehnar.

  “I am not privy to those discussions,” said Lisbeth. “It seems likely.”

  “I forbid it,” said Rehnar. “The data-core is the property of House Harmony. Its contents will not be shared with foreigners.”

  “This has been discussed,” said Lisbeth, too wise by now in parren brinkmanship to suffer more than a mild acceleration of her heart.

  “Unsatisfactorily,” Rehnar said darkly.

  “Phoenix possesses the data-core,” said Lisbeth. “Phoenix crew suffered and died to win it and keep it. Phoenix acknowledges House Harmony’s rightful claim to the contents of the drysine data-core, but Phoenix holds a claim on the behalf of all humanity.”

  “Unacceptable. This is parren space. House Harmony space. By parren law, Phoenix was in the service of this house in all its actions to acquire the data-core, and thus has no grounds to decide who sees the data-core’s contents.”

  “Phoenix served in parren space under agreement with Gesul of the Domesh,” said Lisbeth. “The Domesh made no such restriction, and Phoenix made clear from the beginning that she reserved the right to pursue the interests of humans above all other considerations.”

  “Domesh Denomination does not rule House Harmony,” said Rehnar. “Incefahd Denomination does. The Domesh have no authority to make such agreements where they contradict my will.”

  “Retroactively,” Lisbeth said firmly, her eyes not leaving Rehnar’s. ‘Tego dolara’, the Porgesh phrase was. It meant much the same thing as in English. “As in human law, Rehnar-sa, no parren can arrive on the scene of an ongoing circumstance and retroactively impose his will upon legally sanctioned actions that have already occurred. Phoenix acquired the data-core at great cost, in the belief that she could share that information with all humans. Not even the ruler of a great parren house can alter that understanding retroactively, particularly not when Phoenix has paid such a price for the acquisition in blood.”

  Rehnar’s slim nostrils flared. Lisbeth knew she took quite a risk, dressing him down in his own court like this. But lately she’d had less and less choice.

  “I warn you, Phoenix,” said Rehnar. “And your sponsor, Gesul of the Domesh. Gesul swore allegiance to Tobenrah of the Incefahd, and remains bound by that oath of fealty today, to foreswear all competition between the denominations for the greater good of all parren. Tobenrah fought within that bond to win this world and this city, and he died gloriously for the honour of House Harmony and the Incefahd. Phoenix also swore an oath to Tobenrah and the Incefahd, to assist him in conflict against Aristan’s people on Chirese, in exchange for Tobenrah’s commitment to side with humans against the alo/deepynines. Tobenrah is now dead, I have gained his place atop the Incefahd, and thus your oath to him remains in force with me.”

  “Phoenix follows your instruction faithfully, Rehnar-sa,” Lisbeth gave the traditional phrasing. “But Phoenix fulfilled its commitment to Tobenrah until his brave and glorious death in the battle of Defiance, and so considers its part in that bargain complete. It was Phoenix’s Major Thakur who defeated Aristan in an honourable catharan, witnessed now by most of parren space, that sent the Domesh forces at Chirese into disarray, and thus prevented Aristan’s ascension to supplant Tobenrah as the head of House Harmony. That Tobenrah remained leader of this glorious house, and was not supplanted by Aristan, is entirely the doing of the UFS Phoenix, Rehnar-sa.”

  And thus, she could have added, y
our own position here today is also. But stating it so boldly would have been dangerously impertinent.

  Rehnar’s eyes flashed with anger. “Humans and Domesh are not the only ones to have died here. Best that you do not forget.”

  “No, Rehnar,” said Lisbeth, with a faint bow of her head from that awkward sitting position upon the ridiculous chair. “But humans on Defiance are not helpless, no matter how outnumbered. Best that no one forgets.”

  “He’s going to attack Gesul, isn’t he?” Lisbeth said in a low murmur as she and her entourage changed back into their pressure suits. The basement beneath the Incefahd tower was filled with lockers and storage, surrounded by many airlock doors and the endless hissing cycle of visitors coming and going. Incefahd guards stood wary, watching their guests while other parren operated the airlocks. “Gesul is a threat to the House Harmony leadership now, whatever Gesul says about not wanting it.”

  “It is not up to Gesul,” Semaya agreed. She looked incongruously slim within the bulk of her pressure suit, her neck narrow above the helmet rim. She’d nearly died in the Battle of Defiance, riding on Gesul’s ship the Stassis when it had been crippled and left spinning and powerless. Surviving vessels had rescued the Stassis’s remaining crew, and Semaya with them. Lisbeth thought the experience had changed her, but with parren — and House Harmony parren in particular — it was hard to tell. “The Jusica are conducting a count of followers through all parren space. Should Gesul be found to have more, the Domesh will be the ruling denomination of House Harmony.”

  “The Incefahd changed the course of rivers to prevent the Domesh ascending with Aristan in power,” said Lisbeth. “They claimed that was all about Aristan, but I doubt they’ll be happier with Gesul.”

  “Rehnar’s greatest displeasure is that he feels Gesul has inherited all of Tobenrah’s good work,” said Semaya. “Tobenrah fought and died against the deepynines, and brought great glory to the Incefahd denomination. And yet it is Gesul and the Domesh who benefit, although the Domesh should have been discredited by Aristan’s failure and selfishness at Chirese. All the newly phased parren are flooding to the Domesh, because it is Gesul who survived the battle with glory and not Tobenrah. Such are the fortunes of war.”