Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Gesul’s scholars say the AI race that built Defiance originally was never given a name by any organic species,” Lisbeth said as they progressed inside. The size of the place was impressive. She wondered what the drysines had made here… and how it remained in such excellent, and evidently operational condition. “They’re calling it ‘Hechamtai’, I think… that means ‘builders’ in one of the older parren tongues.”

  “The tongue is Tertai,” said Timoshene. He bounced with his rifle racked, but his koren staff held openly. Lisbeth guessed its unsheathed blade-end would be an effective enough weapon against unarmoured suits, but mostly it was display. Lisbeth was a high ranking official, Timoshene was her guard, and the koren told all they might encounter to behave accordingly. “Widely spoken still in several far flung places.”

  “Hannachiam’s quite vague on AI history,” Lisbeth continued. “I suppose that’s understandable given she can’t actually talk. But Styx isn’t much better.”

  “There are some cultures that don’t consider it polite to talk of the ancestors,” said Hiro. “AIs aren’t much on history, they’re always about the future.” Their guide brought them to a halt before a railing, behind which there was a good viewing platform for a look across a cavern through the heavy machinery ahead. “So this is what Rehnar nearly opened fire on Tif to stop us from seeing.”

  “Advanced AI manufacturing,” said the guide — a middle-rank from Gesul’s science detachment, Lisbeth’s visor ID informed her. “The most advanced.”

  “Making what?” Lisbeth asked.

  “AI brains.”

  Lisbeth blinked. Within the cavern, there wasn’t actually a lot to see. Most of the advanced machines did their work within enclosed shells, some of them no doubt holding extreme environments or nano-machinery that could not be exposed to the vacuum. But the place hummed and throbbed, linked by a spidery network of cords and umbilicals, and a brief drift into infra-red showed an array of bright colour on Lisbeth’s visor, some hot red, others cold blue.

  “Well no, hang on,” said Lisbeth. “We… I mean Phoenix made AI brains just in its little Engineering facilities, using the machinery we captured earlier. Why does it need all this?”

  “That was a repair job on an existing damaged unit,” Hiro corrected. “My understanding was that Styx already had most of the bits and pieces she needed to strip and make a new drone brain from scratch. But you have to make all those bits and pieces first, I guess.”

  “This facility does not make drones,” said the guide, with the smug self-importance of a man with a great discovery. “It makes queens.”

  Lisbeth gasped. Timoshene gave her a blank-visored look — he hated it when she did that. “Queens! Of course! I mean, look at the size of this place!”

  “Worth shooting someone down to keep a secret,” Hiro murmured. “I wonder if Rehnar was planning to build any more.”

  “We have not yet ascertained,” said the guide.

  There followed a short tour, and the sight of many parren scientists in EVA suits, all peering at the strange alien tech and exchanging notes via shared holographic workspace, painting pictures in the space between them on how it all might work. Timoshene and his guards took a brief detour to inspect some security vulnerability, and Lisbeth found herself momentarily alone with Hiro.

  Hiro flashed a laser-light on her faceplate, projecting from beneath his own faceplate. Her own coms function detected a lasercom channel connecting, and she opened it. “Hiro,” she said with annoyance, “they won’t like us talking off coms, I work for Gesul now and it’s not polite…”

  “Screw polite,” said Hiro. “Lis. Do you have any idea what you’re trying to achieve with the parren?”

  Lisbeth blinked. Past the faceplate polarisation she could faintly make out his eyes, intense on her own, just several handspans away. “Achieve? Hiro, humanity needs a representative among the parren. If the alo/deepynines are the threat we think they are, we’re going to need all the help we can get…”

  “So that’s the plan? Get them to help humanity? Join hands and fight our war, if it comes to that?”

  “The alo/deepynines are everyone’s enemy, Hiro,” Lisbeth said firmly. “You saw what they did to Mylor Station. They’ve attacked parren space directly, and that makes it all parren’s business.”

  “And Gesul agrees with this? Or is he just using all the tools at his disposal to climb the slippery pole of parren power as fast as he can? Sure done a nice job of that, hasn’t he?”

  He had, Lisbeth couldn’t deny it. From second-in-command of the Domesh just a short time ago, to ruler of House Harmony today. “Parren associate in houses, but they’re species-nationalists,” she insisted. “They’ve a long history of putting divisions aside to fight great external threats. That’s what Gesul’s thinking.”

  “He’s told you that?”

  “A parren leader isn’t going to explain his every motivation to his followers,” Lisbeth said with growing frustration. “I’m sure that’s his thinking. It underlies everything he’s done.”

  “Or maybe you’re just getting attached. The guy’s got charisma, I’ll give him that.”

  “Hiro, if you’ve got doubts about Gesul, stop dancing around and say it.”

  “Aristan was the militant guy who wanted to unite the parren and fight hostile outsiders. I’m thinking we might have done better with him.”

  Lisbeth rolled her eyes… and wasn’t that just like Hiro? Worldly spy or not, she’d been warned by family staff that there was a xenophobic, anti-alien streak running through Federal Intelligence, and Hiro was one of its proponents. The kinds of people who thought the tavalai needed to be not so much defeated as annihilated. Lisbeth didn’t think Hiro was quite that bad, particularly not after this trip, but he had a bloody-minded way of always assuming the worst about anyone not human, and always having a violent solution ready at hand.

  “That’s not very helpful, Hiro,” she told him now. “And no, you’d not have found Aristan the slightest bit useful, because Aristan would have joined forces with the deepynines to slit our throats if it suited him. Gesul is a moral and principled man, and there’s a world of difference.”

  “You just have a good think about it, Lis,” Hiro told her, undeterred. “Because all these nice trappings you’ve acquired? It’s not really about that, is it? This isn’t about Gesul, or House Harmony… it’s not even about you and me. It’s about finding the best assistance for humanity. If it turns out that Gesul’s not it, then you and I are going to have a problem. Aren’t we?”

  “I don’t even see why we’re having this discussion,” said Lieutenant Rooke, skinny arms folded as he gazed out the heavy window at his beloved warship. Phoenix stood tall in the cavernous dock, enfolded in supports and gantries, ablaze in floodlight and showers of orange sparks where the automated drysine systems continued to work on the ship even when most Engineering crew were asleep. Two of the four months of repair work had been just getting Defiance’s automated systems back on line, and figuring out how to get the enormous engine construction facilities a kilometre below the surface to start rolling again. Once that was done, repair times had been a fraction what they would have been at any other dock. “We need a crew, right? I mean, we can’t work the ship without one, we’re not drysines, we can’t just automate everything. We’re being offered a crew. Let’s take it and go.”

  As many of Phoenix’s senior crew as could be spared from other duties gathered in the storage room beside the bay’s control room, sitting on containers about an improvised table. At present, that meant Erik, Draper and Dufresne up one end, with Kaspowitz, Geish, Shilu and De Marchi along the left side. Hausler was at the far end, representing Operations, and Rooke — refusing to sit with his back to his beloved ship — sat with Trace, Dale and Jalawi on the right side opposite.

  “Some of us don’t think the crew will wear it,” Erik replied, charitably not calling out Dufresne before the rest. “Who agrees? Dylan?”

&nbs
p; He looked at Draper. Draper looked uncomfortable, in that way he got when asked things he didn’t entirely trust his own opinion on. With Draper that was often the case on matters of morale and personnel management. On operations and systems, thankfully less so. “I honestly don’t know, Captain,” he said, and gave again that little helpless shrug that Erik found unbecoming of an officer. Erik could see Trace’s stare boring a hole in the young Commander. Now her eyes shifted to him, demandingly. “It’s not something I’ve asked them about very much. I’m a pilot, I talk pilot stuff.”

  Erik stared back at Trace. He’s my responsibility, that stare said. I’ll do it. Trace settled back, somewhat mollified. None of the other crew seemed to notice their fast, wordless exchange.

  “Justine,” said Erik, again passing up the opportunity to dump on her for her earlier disagreement.

  Dufresne stiffened, a familiar posture for her slim frame. “Most of us fought in the Trimuvirate War,” she said, her vowels tightly clipped with born-and-bred-spacer precision. “I saw little action compared to many of you here, but I saw my share. We’ve all lost friends to the tavalai. I think it would be naive to assume that the very strong feelings that come with those experiences can just be put aside. And I sense that the crew’s morale is, forgive me Captain, the poorest it’s been since Phoenix left Homeworld. I have heard cynical talk about Styx, for one thing, and a lot of trepidation about the consequences of having her aboard. Some of that cynicism was aimed at the command crew’s judgement. I think that if we invite… what is it, one hundred tavalai aboard? More than one hundred, on top of everything else? I predict trouble.”

  Erik looked along the table to his left. “Kaspo?”

  Kaspowitz stirred his coffee and tapped his foot, one long leg jumping compulsively. He looked unhappy. “I’m less unhappy with the tavalai crew than I am with the destination, Captain. If we were to be staying in somewhat familiar space, I think it would have a chance of working. But we’re going where few if any humans have ever gone before. It just seems that the longer we stay away from home, the less familiar everything becomes. Yesterday we had drysines on the ship. Today we’ve got tavalai. Mental strain is a cumulative thing. If the crew perceive that everything is getting progressively harder and stranger without end…” he shrugged. “We used to know what we were fighting for. The more alien everything becomes, the less certain everyone gets.”

  “We’re fighting to find answers to this technology that threatens to wipe us out,” Trace said coolly to her old friend. “I don’t think it could be clearer.”

  “On the orders and assistance of Makimakala,” Kaspowitz returned, “who are themselves following orders from some other flat-head froggy further up the chain. We might know who’s in charge, but lower-ranked crew will wonder, sometimes loudly. That’s just how it is.”

  “Stefan,” said Erik, moving to the next in line.

  “What Kaspo said, Captain,” said the often grim Stefan Geish. “I can’t tell what the crew think, though some of my Scan crew I’m pretty sure won’t like it. I can say that I don’t like it, if I’m allowed to state my own opinion.”

  “Of course you are,” Erik said coolly. “Wei.”

  “Captain,” said Wei Shilu with his usual elegance, “I think it will be extremely complicated and fraught with communication and cultural issues. I don’t think those can be underestimated. But I think it is probably the only way to get Phoenix operating at optimum once more, and if you think we should do it, I’m on board.”

  Erik nodded his appreciation. “Lionel?”

  Lieutenant Lionel De Marchi was Kaspowitz’s second, a young ace navigator who’d given up a promising acting career to join Fleet. He still had the looks — lean faced with dark, wavy hair and intelligent eyes, and he spoke with a drawl like the backworlds freehold farmer his parents were. “Captain, I think Lieutenant Kaspowitz has it right, myself.” No surprises there, Erik thought. “I mean, as a navigator, I can’t deny it’d be fun to go see the croma. But that’s a real long way, even for us. Crew gotta trust each other out there. And with tavalai… I think that’s asking a lot.”

  “Trey,” said Erik.

  Hausler smiled easily. “Need another shuttle, Captain. Need more pilots, need more marines, need more crew, I don’t care if they’re green and croak, I don’t care if they smell bad and eat raw fish. They’re crew, Captain Pram recommends them so we know they’re good… like Rooke says, I don’t know what there is to discuss.”

  “Daniel,” said Erik, “your opinion has been noted.” Rooke nodded uncomfortably, as a few of the crew gave him odd looks at the name. Rooke never went by Daniel. A few of them probably hadn’t known. Erik hadn’t, until he’d looked at his file. “Rufus? Anything to say?”

  Lieutenant Rufus Jalawi nodded vigorously. “Which of you assholes has been letting your people clog up the B Sector toilets? B Sector toilets are for marines, but we’ve come back from shift three times now and found our closest toilet block smells like someone crawled in there and died…”

  “Anything to say about the present topic?” Erik interrupted drily.

  Jalawi looked at him blankly. Then grinned. “No, I’m good.” Trace gave him a look of pure affection. All the marines loved Jalawi — he was like a big, brown, bald dog that liked to chase balls and lick your face. It was occasionally astonishing to recall that he was also an exceptional platoon commander with a combat record nearly as shiny and somewhat longer than Trace’s.

  “Ty,” said Erik, finally coming to Tyson Dale, grim-faced and hard-jawed as ever, blue eyes scouring the table with contempt.

  “You’re all a bunch of fucking pussies,” said Dale, looking clearly at the naysayers. Dufresne glared. Geish rolled his eyes with a world-weary sigh. Shilu smiled patronisingly. Draper looked uncomfortable. De Marchi looked to Kaspowitz for direction. Kaspowitz smiled wryly at the big marine, and raised his middle finger. Rooke looked impatient for the whole thing to end so he could get back to his ship. Dale said nothing more, and looked at Erik to indicate he was done.

  “Thank you Ty,” said Erik. “Constructive as always.”

  “You bet,” said Dale.

  “Trace,” said Erik, to round the whole thing off.

  “Whatever you think is best, Captain,” Trace said simply, gazing straight back. Her eyes flicked to Rooke and back, seeking permission to address the next topic. Erik nodded. “Rooke, you seem to be fine with working alongside tavalai. What would you say to drysine drones?”

  Rooke blinked at her. “They’re ready? How long?”

  “Tomorrow, Styx says. And no, they’re not exactly ‘ready’, their cognitive abilities are still transitioning, they won’t pick up new things as quickly or as precisely as we’d like. Nor as safely, I’d imagine. But the point is, that’s now up to you. Supervise them, train them, show them how it’s done. Start them on the small stuff first, then work your way up. It will probably slow you down for the first few days, but after that, they work incredibly fast once they’ve mastered a technical skill. It will be up to your crew to decide which skills they’re best suited to, and how to go about upskilling them.”

  For the first time since he’d entered the room, Rooke looked enthusiastic to be there. “Major, could you lend me some of your expertise with the drones? Your Command Squad in particular know a lot more about their behaviour and skillsets than my engineers at this point.”

  “Absolutely, I’ll be there myself, and Styx will have further input. Peanut is still recovering from his damage in the firefight, but he’s coming along well, he might be a day or two late. Probably best that you deal with Wowser and Bucket first — they’re the least socialised, Wowser in particular, but then he’s very good at following instructions and doing drone-like things, so he might even be easier for you to get working. Peanut needs the most instruction, but he’s the easiest to get along with because he’s the friendliest. Bucket’s somewhere in the middle.”

  “Friendliest?” Rooke asked, halfway betwee
n a frown and an amazed smile.

  “Peanut’s a nice little guy,” said Trace. “He’s not a dog, you can’t over-generalise, but you’re safe with Peanut. I’ve seen Styx tell him to do things and he actually ignores her, for a while at least — he’s got his own thing going on in his head. Wowser would gut you like a fish if Styx told him to. Be warned.”

  Rooke swallowed. “Right.”

  9

  The human was checking his weapons. Timoshene considered him without appearing to, helmet on, systems cycling in preparation for egress, powerplant humming and filters flushing via the umbilical connection to the shuttle’s seat.

  “Why this one again?” Dalray asked on private coms, excluding the human.

  “It is Gesul’s command,” Timoshene formulated shortly. Dalray did not look at him either, inspecting his own weapons with professional thoroughness. “The human spy knows much about the AIs. He is an expert in their communications technology. Gesul says that he has been tracing strange communications across Defiance for many days. Following Rehnar’s discovery of the queen-making facility, his suspicions have grown worse.”

  “Suspicions of what?” asked Shola.

  “Of unauthorised AI activity. There is only one queen on Defiance. Possible answers are limited.”

  The human spoke, and Timoshene did not like the tone of that strange, alien tongue nearly as much as he liked Lisbeth’s. The voice of a woman, he thought, had greater aesthetic qualities in any tongue, with any species, than that of a man. “Gesul must trust you,” spoke the translator in Timoshene’s ear. “So many security personnel in his service, and yet he chooses Lisbeth’s personal security chief for this mission.”

  “I am honoured by Gesul-sa’s faith,” Timoshene said flatly. “Do you have your assassin bugs with you today?”

  “No.”

  “Then she scares you.”

  “She scares every living thing with a brain. But mostly, she sees too much at most times. There is no need to make it easier for her.” The human’s narrow eyes flicked to Timoshene’s secondary weapon — a shotgun in its thigh-sheath astride the hard-shelled but light armour. “Can I see?”