Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  Peanut had ten limbs — the four small ones to grasp small objects before his face, like Trace’s tennis ball, being by far the most dexterous. Trace was sure Peanut could do perfect origami with those arms if shown how, and probably at three times the speed of the fastest human. The remaining six legs were big — the rear two were often used in conjunction with rear weapons attachments, but were primarily for propulsion, haulage and large-scale manipulation.

  At close inspection it was obvious that the drones could hardly be described as ‘machines’ in the simple way humans understood such things. The shell and armour surfaces were varied in texture, embedded with multi-phase sensors on the molecular level, giving a surface sensitivity comparable to human skin. Petty Officer Chenkov had shown Trace the intricacies of sensor networks embedded into Peanut’s small hands on the forearms, and it had been like looking at organic brain structure, a maze of microscopic connections. Humans typically understood ‘machine’ to mean less complicated than ‘organic’, but with hacksaws Trace was not certain it was true. They’d been self-evolving for tens of thousands of years, dividing into different branches of civilisation as one group would pursue some technological advancement the others lacked, and chased it to an extreme. The constant fracturing had led to wars, but also to competition, which had resulted in synthetic life so complex and nuanced even a human could see the semantical issues that arose from insisting that it was not actually ‘alive’.

  Trace flicked her hand again, but did not let go of the ball. Peanut’s little arms flashed to where he thought the ball would be, froze as he realised his mistake, and Trace flicked the ball before he could recover, hitting him on the big, main eye. He did a fast double-take, lurching back half-a-step as though discombobulated.

  “Wake up Peanut,” Trace told him. “Look at where the ball actually is, not just where you think it is.”

  Peanut’s eye flicked to her face, then to the ball, as though sizing that up. Trace was certain he was reading her expression for clues… or trying to. Drones, in her limited experience, didn’t seem very good at that. But then, she’d never seen one grow old enough to learn properly. Peanut’s word comprehension was pretty good now, but she suspected all three drones were supplementing language comprehension with facial and body language cues. And just because he understood what she was saying didn’t mean he’d automatically follow her commands. Loyalty, with hacksaw drones, seemed a nebulous and potentially treacherous concept. Particularly with Styx around.

  On cue with her thoughts the big bay doors opened, and like a scene from a horror movie, there stood Styx, a looming steel dinosaur with flared head-shield atop a long neck, and a segmented body several times more complicated than the drones’ and twice as large. She entered the bay near where Private Jess Rolonde was showing Bucket the toy cube that Trace had once shown to their previous drone companion, whom they’d known only as ‘Kid’. Bucket flicked the rotating parts of the cube around to make colours and patterns align, then showed it to Jess. Bucket seemed to like Jess in particular. And Jess, having once struggled to be within ten metres of Kid was now among the most active participants in the new drones’ training.

  “Hi Styx,” said Rolonde, barely even looking.

  “Hello Private Rolonde,” said Styx. Once, Styx had communicated by hacking nearby speakers or earphones. Now, to go with her new body, she had a very accurate synthesiser — a voice of her own. “How is Bucket?”

  “Much smarter than Peanut,” Rolonde replied. “He’s had this mastered in an hour. Peanut’s had it for days and still hasn’t gotten it.”

  “Some degree of natural variance in capability is to be expected,” said Styx, stalking through the bay, sweeping past various humming fabricator shells with that creepy-smooth, flowing gait of hers. “What the final end product will be, only time will tell.”

  Bucket had gotten his name because they’d utilised many old parts to complete his chassis — ‘a bucket of bolts’, Petty Officer Chenkov had called him. Peanut was Peanut because that sometimes seemed to describe the size of his brain. And Wowser had once seen Corporal Rael unzip his jumpsuit and remove a newly soiled shirt, only to stumble back five steps in staring shock. Rolonde had found it funny, and named the drone for a prude who disliked the sight of naked skin. Trace had found it more concerning, for it described a synthetic brain that equated ‘organic’ with ‘different’, and possibly even ‘alarming’.

  “We’re just doing morning warmups, Styx,” said Trace. “Would you like to administer the technical uploads yourself?”

  “Yes,” said Styx, pausing by the large computer module in the bay’s center, a stack of alien systems that now served as a command mainframe for the drones while they recharged or reloaded.

  Chenkov looked up from his mainframe displays, observing the drones’ systems and vitals. “Can’t you do that from, like, anywhere in the tower?”

  “Yes,” Styx said patiently. “But this bay has inadequate visual coverage for remote surveillance, and sometimes it is better to observe things in person.”

  “Better yet,” Chenkov pressed, “why can’t you just simulate anticipated results in a psycho-structure and tell us what’s about to happen?”

  “Because there is a randomness built into the mathematics of the universe that makes pre-judging results folly,” said Styx. “And…”

  “But surely if you’ve got the brain-power of yourself and Hannachiam,” Chenkov interrupted with youthful enthusiasm, “and, like, way back in Drysine Empire time when you had thousands of brains that powerful, all linked together in network psycho-structures… I mean, wouldn’t that be enough to iron out most of the kinks in those numbers? And let you, well, maybe not predict the future, but be able to anticipate the results of an experiment before you’ve conducted it?”

  Trace had to smother a smile, still tossing the ball with Peanut. Chenkov was too absorbed in his idea to notice the faint sideways glance from that single, malevolent red eye when he’d interrupted. Trace wondered if there’d once been a day when organic beings more senior than Chenkov had died for less.

  “A false premise does not become less false because you apply more intellect to it,” Styx replied, her synthetic voice showing no more inflection than usual. “The universe is not perfectly simulatable. My people tried, with vastly more processing power than you describe, and still failed. Intellect affords no greater likelihood of accurate prediction in the real world if the premise preceding such calculations is wrong. The only way to ascertain the correct premise is to observe and record. Any other form of knowledge accumulation is not physically possible. The omnipotence of great minds, so often described in human literature, is not science, but magic.”

  “Oh,” said Chenkov. Like an enthusiastic puppy who’d gone bounding to his master hoping to play, and had instead received a whack on the nose.

  “Don’t worry Chenk,” said Private Leo Terez. “She still loves you.”

  “What books are you talking about when you say ‘human literature’, Styx?” asked Irfan Arime, watching from a nearby seat in his marine jumpsuit. Arime had been badly hurt in the battle of Defiance, and was not back to full health, let alone operational capability. But he was well enough to leave Medbay and come down with his Command Squad buddies to hang out with the new pets. Command Squad, like a lot of Phoenix Company units, remained one marine short of its full eight, there being insufficient available manpower to replace the loss of Private Kumar four months ago.

  “Sherlock Holmes makes a good example,” said Styx.

  Arime grinned, propped against a ceiling beam with his leg out, jumpsuit unbuttoned in the heat from the many fabricators, and to let his bandages breathe. “No shit? Detective stories?”

  “Those books provide an instructive insight into human misconceptions of omnipotent intelligence. The author constructs a false, fictional scenario wherein he allows the primary character to appear omnipotent in his unfailing ability to select the correct answer from limited data
sets. Such limited datasets exist only in fiction — the real universe is nearly limitless. It is the greatest folly, before such limitless possibility, to presume the certain accuracy of such a limited tool as intellect — organic or synthetic. Sherlock Holmes is not a detective, he is a magician.”

  “Great,” said Kono. “Styx’s book reviews. Could be a column in the New Worlder.”

  “I don’t think she gets out of those books what we do,” said Trace.

  “You read those books, Major?” Arime asked her.

  “No.”

  “The last book the Major read was the marine field manual,” Corporal Rael joked.

  “Right,” said Rolonde. “Thirty-four times.”

  Trace just smiled, tossing the ball rapidly. And glanced at Styx, to see the unblinking red eye watching her. Wondering, perhaps, that the most elite human marine she’d met was happy to tolerate this teasing. Trace greatly doubted that Styx either approved or disapproved. She just learned, as always. Day by day she learned more about the organics, and grew wiser… and perhaps other things as well.

  “How much use do you think Engineering will get out of these guys once the uploads are complete, Styx?” she asked.

  “Assuming the uploads are successful,” said Styx, “there should be no functional limit. They will continue to build on the base of knowledge the uploads will entail, simply by learning. And from what I have observed, Lieutenant Rooke should make an adequate instructor.”

  “He’ll be thrilled,” Kono said drily. “Finally people he can talk to on his own emotional level.” A few of the marines chuckled.

  “That’s pretty harsh, aimed at the guy who’s done more than anyone to save and rebuild Phoenix,” Trace said sharply. A silence fell.

  “Yeah,” Kono agreed, subdued. “That was dumb. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He knew better than to apologise to her, at least. Kono was one of Phoenix Company’s elite non-coms, and he could be grim and sarcastic at times. Trace thought there was entirely too much of it going around at the moment. She didn’t drop the hammer on her people often, finding that well-led, quality people rarely needed it, and that the hammer was far more effective when used sparingly. But lately she’d been dropping it more than she wanted.

  Again, she caught Styx looking at her. This, too, Styx learned.

  Halfway up the elevator on her way back up the tower, Trace stepped off, having been informed she had a visitor. Down several corridors she came to the mid-level cargo storage, where walls were replaced by open space for stacked crates from Phoenix and elsewhere. Several marines worked here in full armour, loading the newest arrivals, food from their parren suppliers, parts for their basement fabricators, miscellaneous gear that was nothing the marine commander would know about. Warrant Officer Kriplani was here, updating his storage manifest and directing the marines.

  Ahead, Third Squad Delta Platoon were on airlock guard duty, fully armoured and watching over their guests. Those guests were parren, in the spacer jumpsuits of their kind, these ones an off-white with more utilitarian pockets and functionality than Trace was accustomed to with ornamentive parren. There were ten in the hallway in total, warriors all by Trace’s judgement. Their weapon holsters were all empty, their builds wiry and strong. Unusually for parren, they did not stand to close attention while waiting, but stood at comfortable ease, a few even leaning against a wall, but watchful and always professional. Also unusually for parren, four of the ten were women.

  Unusually for House Harmony parren, Trace corrected herself. She glided to a halt in her low-gravity bounce, and one of those parren women stepped forward. She was slim and small, but she had a hard edge to her stare, a directness that the ever-decorous House Harmony would never allow. On her hairless head she wore a scarlet skullcap, a far more practical decoration than Harmony parren wore, yet also more outlandish in its alarming colour.

  “Major,” said Staff Sergeant Jakobson, visor-up in his armour, “this is Alired, House Fortitude’s ambassador to Defiance.”

  Trace was about to extend her hand, but Alired knelt down on one knee instead. Trace blinked, astonished, as all of Alired’s guards did the same. So House Fortitude was not without ceremony and display, then — it seemed a constant among all the parren houses. But where House Harmony parren placed great store in symmetry, these parren were not precisely in line, and each of their kneeling stances was slightly different. It felt… spontaneous, she supposed. If that were possible, with a people who did everything all at once.

  Alired spoke, rising to her feet, and Trace’s earpiece provided the translation. “Major Thakur. You have won great honour with the parren people. Allow me to grant you a gift, from the leadership of House Fortitude to you and all the crew of the warship Phoenix.” She rose, and produced from her pocket a slim band of wooden beads. Alired placed it into Trace’s palm. “It is worn on the wrist. It was one of the few surviving artefacts from the Fortitude warship Cobana. Our forensics tells us it was the possession of a common crewman. Please accept, on behalf of his house, and his family.”

  Cobana had been assigned to the defence of Cason System, the system containing the world of Pashan and its moon Cephilae. House Harmony ships, then in unwelcome alliance with Phoenix, had destroyed Cobana when she had been a helpless inconvenience, unable to fight back. Phoenix had then destroyed the ships that had done it, and Trace herself had later killed their commander and then-Domesh leader Aristan in single combat. That combat had been recorded, and vision had since spread throughout parren space. Few parren alive today, Lisbeth had assured Trace, would not have seen it. Lisbeth was the most successful and high-ranking human to ever ascend the ranks of parren power, but it was Trace who was by far the most famous.

  Trace considered the bracelet for a moment. Alired and her security watched, narrow-eyed and not entirely worshipful. This was a test, as all these games and gestures parren liked to play were tests. House Fortitude loved Phoenix because Phoenix had killed the hated Aristan, whom all the non-Harmony houses had despised, and because Phoenix embodied the kind of muscular power and will-to-action that Fortitude psychology embodied. And House Fortitude loathed Phoenix, because Phoenix had brought great glory to House Harmony beneath Aristan’s successor Rehnar, in whose possession now rested this great alien city of Defiance, access to the drysine data-core which held the sum total of all drysine civilisational knowledge, and a glorious military victory against the alien alo/deepynine invaders. These things had in turn produced an enormously large number of new phasings, which had sent the Jusica institution running throughout parren space to conduct a new count of denominational numbers. Word was that many of those new phasings had gone to House Harmony, and the lion’s share of those were choosing Gesul of the Domesh Denomination as their personal leader.

  Phoenix, in the eyes of Fortitude, had delivered them what they’d always least wanted — House Harmony ascendant, and led by a Domesh. But Fortitude could not attack or threaten Phoenix directly, because Fortitude could not help but respect such power, forcefully wielded in the name of strengthening parren defences against hostile aliens. Fortitude were just angry that it wasn’t them who were benefitting.

  Trace considered the bracelet for a long moment. Then she slid it onto her wrist, and made a fist. The parren seemed satisfied with the gesture. “You are invited,” said Alired. “At Fortitude headquarters, we invite you to a ***.” The translator gave her static on that word. “A formal training. A lecture, you might call it. The warriors of House Fortitude would be honoured to hear of your techniques.”

  She was being invited to train Fortitude warriors, Trace realised. No doubt it was a great honour, particularly when delivered by a high-ranking ambassador like Alired. “I am not the greatest fighter in unarmed combat on Phoenix,” Trace replied. “My victory over Aristan was found in tactics, not in technique. And human techniques in armed combat are classified. I fear I would make a poor instructor.”

  “Never,” said Alired, with a fain
tly devilish smile. Definitely not like House Harmony, Trace thought. “You belong with us, Phoenix. House Fortitude are warriors too.”

  “Harmony fought well for Defiance,” Trace said calmly. “And they were victorious.”

  “Fortitude warriors would have done better.”

  “Easy to say,” said Trace. “You weren’t here.”

  Alired’s eyes flashed. “But true nonetheless. Our power is undisputed in parren space.”

  “I am Kulina,” said Trace. House Fortitude, she’d been warned, would lose all respect if you rolled over before them. There was no such thing as polite agreement between Fortitude’s senior leaders. “Kulina are small. We do not boast of size. Phoenix is small, compared to the human Fleet. Our smallness is what makes us great. We are elite. There is no greatness in size, only in quality.”

  Alired’s growing smile suggested that she liked this answer. “So you will accept this invitation?”

  “It would be my honour,” said Trace. “But I am very busy. All that I am, I give to my ship. Finding time for outsiders can be difficult, please understand. I will look to find a time.”

  “A warrior’s answer,” said Alired. “Duty first and always. Know that you will always be welcome in House Fortitude, Major Thakur. The spirits of the Cobana crew will welcome you.”

  Trace held up her wrist. “I am pleased to have avenged them.” That was true enough. Cobana had not been so much killed in combat as murdered.

  Alired made a sweeping gesture, not quite a bow, then swung with theatricality to bounce, in low-G stride, toward the airlock. Her warriors followed in similar style. Trace watched them go, as behind her, Staff Sergeant Kono came to examine her new bracelet.

  “Nice,” he said. “Tricky buggers, aren’t they?”

  “I asked Gesul about House Fortitude,” said Trace, as Phoenix crew operated the airlock for the parren to enter on their way back to their shuttle. “He said that on the world he grew up on, there was a species of reptile that seems a lot like a snake. When one snake encountered another snake of the same species on the edge of their territory, they’d rise up on their coils to see who could stand higher than the other. If the smaller one was wise, he’d run away. If he didn’t run away, the larger one would usually strike first and kill him.”