Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Oh no,” Erik breathed. Now he was scared. It was a different kind of fear to anything he’d known before. Previous threats, humanity had discovered ways of combatting. This did not sound like one of those.

  Pram nodded. “The DNA-editing spreads, like any infection, but the host remains unaware that it is even taking place. Our scientists think it can be activated at a signal — we don’t think a radio signal or anything quite so simple, but close, and perhaps even worse. If an entire population were infected in such a way, over a period of years, decades or even centuries…”

  “Then they can start a war by popping in from jump and wiping out entire planetary populations with a signal,” Trace surmised. She sounded completely flat, devoid of emotion. Erik suspected it was too much for her to even process.

  “Tavalai authorities have ordered a tavalim-wide survey to check for those DNA modifications,” said Pram. “Already we’ve found infected portions of the population… not large so far, but we also suspect there are far more forms of infection that we don’t yet know about. If the alo/deepynines have weaponised this technology, they may be evolving it to the point where they can kill every other species in the Spiral, once they’ve acquired proximity, with the touch of a button. And if they’ve done it to our population, on the opposing side of the Triumvirate War, then one can guarantee they’ve done it to yours.”

  There was silence in the Aronach Dar briefing room, save for the woosh of the giant dishwasher, and the hum and buzz of automated appliances from the kitchen. Erik had never seen his senior crew look so frightened in any situation where no one was shooting at them.

  “What if Pram’s lying?” Commander Adams of Lien Wang said finally, with a note of desperate optimism. “The tavalai are in political chaos right now, State Department is in crisis, there’s renewed concern that humanity might resume the war while they’re weak, beat them down further. Come up with a common enemy, distract the humans, get them looking the wrong way.”

  “If that was their strategy,” said Erik, “they wouldn’t send Pram running here to see Phoenix, they’d send others to see you guys back at Homeworld or Heuron. They’d need to convince Fleet Command, not Phoenix. We’re irrelevant to that plan, save in making it look consistent.”

  “We don’t know that they haven’t,” Adams objected.

  “And secondly,” Erik continued, “even if that were true, so what?” He didn’t want to be saying this. Just days ago he’d been arguing with Trace about why they should all go home. But now, everything changed. “Even if there’s only a chance he’s right, it’s our duty to do everything we can to investigate. And right now we’re in a position that no one else in Fleet is. We’ve a huge headstart, we’ve alien contacts they’re in no position to gain or access, and we’ve learned how to operate out here, with alien allies, in a way that I don’t think most Fleet officers, with their regulations and protocols, could manage. This is our play. I don’t think we have a choice.”

  There was no argument from those surrounding. Many faces were pale, no doubt thinking of families and friends back home. Entire civilisations. Worlds. Systems. All full of humans who might already be infected with a DNA mutation no one even knew to look for, and could kill them with a simple trigger, rendering entire systems uninhabited of human life.

  “Pram was trembling,” Trace added. “We both saw it.” Glancing at Erik. “He’s a brave man, but he was terrified for his people.”

  “And he said he’d give us the medical evidence from tavalai doctors and scientists,” Erik added. “He can’t show everything, because the way the technology affects tavalai DNA is about the most highly classified secret the tavalai have. But he says he can give us enough to let our doctors and scientists know what to look for. Doc Suelo’s going to look over it, but he’s a military fixer not a cutting-edge theoretical scientist, as he told me quite strongly when I talked to him just earlier. So this stuff needs to go back home on Lien Wang with all urgency.”

  He looked at Captain Sampey and Commander Adams. Both looked shaken and quiet. “Of course,” said Sampey. “We’ll make immediate preparations.”

  “Just wait long enough until we can get you a tavalai escort,” said Erik. “You might run into another Fleet inspection ship on the way back or you might not — either way, a tavalai escort would clear the way of any bureaucracy, give you the fastest path back home.”

  Sampey nodded gratefully. “Appreciated, Captain.”

  “I don’t think there’s any choice at all,” said Romki. He was seated along the table on Erik’s right, with Lisbeth. This was no longer a purely military matter. They needed all the best minds on this, irrespective of their place, or lack of one, in the military hierarchy. Romki looked remarkably calm, in the manner of a man accustomed to extremely complex answers who had just discovered one that was incredibly simple. “We must treat this as the highest level of emergency. Military or civilian, we must all agree now that our own lives, hopes and dreams become irrelevant. If we die doing this, so be it. If the worst case scenario were to occur and we did nothing, we’d all be dead anyway and most of humanity with us. We must be prepared to willingly sacrifice everything to defend against this threat.”

  Trace gave Romki an approving nod. “Does anyone disagree with the Professor?” she asked the table. Varying degrees of ‘no’ came back, from the fearful to the hard and determined. From Lieutenant Dale, a loud ‘Hell no’.

  “So if we’re going,” said Kaspowitz, with the skepticism of an older man who’d seen the difficulties of simply moving from point A to point B under normal circumstances, “how are we going? Our best parren contact with the croma is dead, and croma don’t just accept any visitors.”

  “Captain Pram says the Dobruta have croma contacts,” said Erik.

  “How?” Kaspowitz persisted. Everyone at this table knew from experience to be skeptical of tavalai ‘assistance’.

  “Apparently they go back a few thousand years. The Dobruta invited croma to discuss joint patrols against possible Machine Age survivors. The croma weren’t very interested, the Machine Age never advanced much beyond their territory. They said they’d taken care of it. But the Dobruta have persisted, it’s pretty much the Dobruta mission in life — putting the containment of Machine Age technologies ahead of even State Department policy.”

  “They missed a bit,” Dale said grimly. A few smiles around the table. Alo space had always been off-limits to Dobruta. There’d been speculation that tavalai insistence on the opening of alo space to such inspections had helped convince alo that tavalai power in the Spiral needed to be taken down several large notches.

  “And who are their contacts, exactly?” asked Kaspowitz. “Croma aren’t monolithic, there’s lots of groups.”

  “The only monolithic species in the Spiral is humanity,” Romki said mildly. “You want to talk to us, you talk to Fleet Command.” Everyone looked at him blankly. “Do go on.”

  “I won’t even attempt the proper pronunciation,” said Erik, checking his slate notes. “But the faction is Croma’Dokran. The current rulers of all croma space are Croma’Rai. Croma’Dokran aren’t very friendly with them, Pram says, but he’s fairly vague on the croma too. Nobody knows very much, not even their parren neighbours.”

  “And Pram’s contact is leadership in Croma’Dokran?” Shilu asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Captain Pram wouldn’t happen to have any translation notes?” Shilu asked hopefully. “Work on basic law and customs? I’ve looked but it’s pretty thin, and mostly repeats itself — you know, they’re big, they’re slow, their architectural style is fortified and they’ve made a fetish of strength and impenetrability. I’ve read that a dozen times using different big words each time, and still learned nothing.”

  The Coms Officer looked hopefully at Romki and Lisbeth. “I’m sorry Lieutenant,” said Romki. “The croma are so far outside my area of expertise I’d only be guessing. I’m happy to cooperate with you on making best gue
sses on whatever we encounter, but until then I won’t be much help.”

  “Same here, Wei,” Lisbeth said apologetically. “It was all I could do just to get Gesul’s people to find Jarush for Erik to talk to. And now that she’s dead, I don’t think many others will be stepping forward.”

  “Figures,” Shilu sighed.

  “I think you’re about to have another issue,” Lisbeth continued. She wore a plain jumpsuit, evidently not having had time for anything more elaborate, whatever her now standard ceremonial requirements. Her brown hair frizzed as nature intended, without its more recent restrictions. Erik thought she looked much better this way, but wasn’t game to say so. “If the tavalai are telling the parren about this, it will get back to House Fortitude and their ruler Sordashan as soon as the fastest ships can get there.”

  “And what happens then?” Erik asked.

  “It’s hard to be sure… but my guess is that House Fortitude will invoke their status as the ruling house and take full jurisdiction over all missions from parren space to further investigate this matter. Phoenix is in parren space on the invitation of House Harmony, so that will include us.”

  “So we won’t be able to go anywhere or do anything without House Fortitude permission?” Shilu asked.

  “Worse,” Lisbeth said sombrely. “We’ll not be allowed to do anything not directly connected to the advancement of parren interests. Phoenix is headed to croma space for the advancement of human interests. It won’t be allowed. No chance.”

  “How long did Lieutenant Rooke say the refit would take?” Romki asked. Rooke, of course, was the one senior officer not present. All agreed that his work on Phoenix was too important for him to waste time in meetings.

  “Another thirty days,” said Dufresne. “I did suggest to him that it could be faster if he would accept more assistance, but he replied that under-qualified assistance could actually slow him down. It seemed a reasonable assertion, I did not challenge him on it.”

  “Major,” said Erik, “how are the kids coming along?”

  Trace thought for a moment. “I’ve been cautious, and Styx has agreed that caution is best. But this changes things. I’ll ask Styx to run some numbers and estimate the time savings Rooke could make if we deployed the drones on Phoenix immediately.”

  “I think we’ll be cutting it fine either way,” Draper said grimly. “I was looking over the Midships systems just yesterday, there’s plenty still to do.”

  “And Kaspo,” said Erik, “what’s your best guess at when House Fortitude ships could get here once they’ve received the tavalai’s data?”

  “Depends on which tavalai ships went where,” said Kaspowitz. “Faster routes could shave a few days off. But if Makimakala represents the first time a tavalai ship has entered parren space with this information, even the fastest travel time for that message would take us to nearly twenty days.”

  Erik took a deep breath. “Okay… it may be that we’re overreacting to this, but I doubt it. Various delays in bureaucracy could hold things up, but my sense is that parren can be pretty fast when things get urgent — a linear command structure with almost no checks and balances as humans understand it can do that.”

  Lisbeth nodded her agreement. “Yes,” she said, in case anyone had missed it. “Frighteningly fast, sometimes.”

  “So we’re going to operate on the assumption that we’re running against the clock. Twenty days until the response reaches here and shuts us down, Rooke’s best estimates at completing the refit puts us at thirty… we have to find ways to bring that down inside our limit.

  “And Lisbeth? I’d like you to reconsider whether you want to stay here or not. Once House Fortitude gets here and takes over all national security matters from Gesul, it’s going to get pretty hairy. If Phoenix has just run ahead of them arriving, against their obvious wishes, they might not take it well. The one remaining human on Defiance might be in a dangerous spot.”

  Lisbeth shook her head firmly. “I don’t think so. I’m a member of House Harmony’s inner advisory circle around Gesul. I’m in no more danger in that capacity than anyone else is.”

  “Still considerable,” said Romki, with fatherly concern. “I think your brother makes a lot of sense, Lisbeth… I mean, given how we’ve all seen the parren deal with these internal disputes. House Fortitude could just decide Gesul is an inconvenience and dispose of him, and where would that leave his advisors then?”

  “If they did that,” Lisbeth said calmly, “House Fortitude would no longer be the leading House in parren space within a few short years. Challenges must be conducted properly and for good reasons — just declaring someone annoying and killing them would cause a flux-shift away from House Fortitude and toward House Harmony so strong that Fortitude would lose the numbers to rule, and the Jusica would declare Harmony the new ascendant, exactly what Fortitude don’t want. It’s happened before, all parren leaders understand these lessons very well.”

  “This is a matter of national security, Lis,” said Erik. He couldn’t help the concern in his voice before all the crew. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he’d given up caring what it looked like. “Fortitude might decide the interests of national security take precedence, and the parren population will forgive him for putting those interests first.”

  “Sure,” said Lisbeth with a faint smile, not falling for it. “But Harmony has been the house preaching the need for strong, unified parren defence in the face of foreign threats. Fortitude haven’t — they haven’t been for parren unity at all, they’ve been for division and the separation of houses, which benefits Fortitude because they consider themselves superior… and in political terms they’ve been right, for the last few centuries at least. So for Fortitude to come in here and knock off Gesul in the name of unified national defence will be seen by most parren — even House Fortitude parren — as the height of hypocrisy.

  “Parren are obedient but they’re not blind. Just because they do what they’re told doesn’t mean they can’t realise it’s not right. Sometimes when the strain between what they’ve been ordered to do and what they feel is right becomes too great, you get a phase-shift so intense it swings the balance of power wildly away from the offending house or leader. That’s what makes balance in parren society where so many other autocratic systems would fall apart — parren leaders are actually more afraid of their own people than most so-called democracies are. So no — it’s imperative for human interests that a human remains in my current position of influence. And since none of you can do it, it falls to me.”

  A brief silence around the table. Romki looked at Erik, struggling with a wry, proud smile. Trace looked content, and even the unimpressionable Dufresne looked thoughtful. “Captain,” said Captain Sampey, “given that Lisbeth is currently the leading human authority on all things parren — and possibly the leading human authority there’s ever been — I think we have no choice but to accept her advice.”

  Erik sighed, proud and frightened, all at once. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.” Lisbeth gave him a small, affectionate smile.

  “Captain?” ventured Draper. “I can think of one… very significant matter that will need to be addressed if we’re headed to croma space. We just don’t have enough crew. It’s that simple. The ship won’t work with what we’ve got, barely in peacetime and certainly not in combat.”

  Erik nodded. “I know. Makimakala’s thought of that already.”

  8

  “With respect, Captain,” Dufresne said stiffly as they waited at Assembly for the tavalai shuttles to dock. “I think this might require a broader discussion among the crew. Tif is one thing. This is something else entirely.”

  “You seem to be under the misapprehension that this is a democracy,” Erik told her, gazing at one vast window on the curved inner wall before him. Delta Platoon were preparing to relieve Bravo Platoon on security detail this ‘evening’, and the lower platform to the greeting party’s left was filled with the armoured whine and rattle of suits preparin
g for departure. Marine voices shouted, and concerned Operations crew talked on coms while monitoring the habitat docking mechanisms they’d never entirely trusted, and hoped the ancient automation they’d fixed and polished didn’t abruptly break down.

  “I’m sorry Captain, “ said Dufresne, not sounding at all sorry. “It wasn’t my intention to imply that. I was merely exercising my prerogative as the Phoenix third-in-command to state my mind on matters of crew morale. And I’m fairly sure that many will not take this well.”

  “The Captain hasn’t decided to accept Makimakala’s offer,” Trace cut in before any others could reply. “This is an evaluation.”

  “And I maintain that any evaluation should include the opinion of the crew themselves,” Dufresne persisted.

  “It does,” said Trace. “You’re flunking.”

  Dufresne turned a stare on her, then perhaps realised who she was staring at, swallowed hard and watched the final preparations as the access gantries connected to the shuttle’s dorsal hatch. Erik tried not to let his amusement show. Dufresne was discovering the difference between sharing an O-4 rank with Trace on paper, and exercising an equal authority in practice. Having suffered through that experience himself, Erik only hoped that it would do Dufresne as much good as it had done him, however little he’d enjoyed it at the time.

  Commander Draper stood with them, and Lieutenant Dale as well — the full Phoenix command crew, the top three from the bridge plus the two top marines, arrayed to consider this disconcerting offer their tavalai friends had made. Not for the first time, Erik found himself wrestling with the gaping hole that Suli Shahaim’s death had left in the bridge crew. They were all so young without her, Dale excluded, though even he was hardly ancient. But mostly Erik just missed her, and missed her calm advice, and the knowledge that whatever strange situations confronted them, she’d likely seen something like it before and would have things to say worth listening to.