“The nanites,” Tag said, confirming his darkest suspicions that the Collectors and Drone-masters were one and the same.
“Precisely. It’s efficient. I had hoped you would appreciate that as a scientist.”
“I can’t condone slavery in the name of efficiency.”
Ezekiel leaned forward on the crash couch, all three eyes narrowing as if he was annoyed. “It’s a matter of survival—both for our race and for these other lesser races. They refuse to protect themselves from the threat that our ancestors witnessed. We created better humans, a better race than the likes the natural universe has ever achieved. And as an unintended, but I believe benevolent consequence of that, we now have parts of all these species within us. We also have the ability to recreate any species at our leisure. We are the failsafe the universe needs against the monsters that once wreaked havoc aboard the Hope.”
“This is insane,” Tag managed, still trying to process everything Ezekiel had said. He marveled at both the technological prowess of these post-humans and at their disregard for other lifeforms as nothing more than tools and pets. Had it really taken just three generations to turn humans into the creature before him?
“Insanity? Maybe,” Ezekiel said. “I’m reminded of that ancient parable about Noah’s Ark. The old story says Noah was considered insane when he rounded up specimens from all over Earth in preparation for an existential threat unlike that which the human race had ever seen. We post-humans are no different. We are simply preparing for that which everyone else seems to be too blind to see.”
“If you were really champions of science, you would gather data on those light creatures instead. You would investigate them, and use evidence to show others that you’re right.”
Ezekiel laughed. “Don’t think we haven’t tried, Sape! The beings in question are testing the bounds of our own understanding of physics and biology.”
Tag was silent for a moment. Everything the post-human said seemed to answer—or at least started to answer—the questions he and his crew had amassed up to this point. Ezekiel’s tale also posed frightening new ones. Tag began with the one that had been troubling him the longest. “Why did you infiltrate the SRE? And how?”
Ezekiel smiled. “Despite our superiority, we do have a soft spot for our ancestral past. It’s difficult not to look at you Sapes with nostalgia. We also knew the UN—and, more recently, the SRE—did not see things our way when it came to advancing biological technology, so we offered to support certain individuals and organizations interested in real progress. My hope is that they, like you, will come to appreciate what we can offer the human race.”
“Who in the SRE is on your side?”
“I’m not going to list names,” Ezekiel said. “Instead I want to focus on what you can do for me.”
“I’ll never help you,” Tag spat.
“Just hear me out. There’s a way for you and your crew to come out of this situation alive.”
Tag’s eyes went wide. “What do you want?”
“See? I am more benevolent than you give me credit for. Running the Dawn by myself has gotten a bit lonely, or maybe I’m just getting sentimental. Colonization is one of the more mind- numbing duties required of us on these awfully boring ships.”
“There are more ships like the Dawn?”
“Of course! You see, one problem with our new post-human race is that we haven’t had enough time to populate. We’ve been forced to divide and conquer—to sow our seeds, if you will. Eventually, we’ll be able to come back and live on these planets, but the initial process requires an intense amount of automation. There are dozens of ships like this depositing what we call ‘colony seeds’ onto barren planets.”
Tag looked at the dusty planet. “All the robots, vehicles, drones–none of them are manned?”
“No,” Ezekiel said. “I run it all on my own, controlling everything from up here. I’m literally the brains of this operation.”
At least Tag now understood why he hadn’t seen a single terminal anywhere about the ship. “If you can automate so much of this, I don’t understand why you don’t just use your army of golems and drones instead of enslaving other races?”
“Let me put this in terms you will understand,” Ezekiel said. “Nature and evolution have given most races a tremendous advantage in the form of an adaptive immune response. Our bodies learn to fight new diseases. Sure, sometimes a disease culls the weakest from our ranks—and there are many diseases, even for us post-humans. But the glory of our genetic diversity is that even when a disease runs rampant through our population, we still have some who are resistant to fight on.”
“What does this have to do with your golems?”
“Simple enough, really. For all the glories of advanced computational technology, golems and drones and AI are remarkably weak. It is a shame to admit, but if someone were to impart an effective computer virus into the Dawn, the entire thing could come to a grinding halt. Our networks do not possess adaptive immune systems, and there is certainly no such thing as genetic diversity in a million drones and golems who are all constructed the same.”
Tag considered this, the scientific side of his nature drawn into the discussion despite himself. “So it’s the same reason a pure clone army wouldn’t work. One exploited weakness, and they all go down.”
“Aren’t you a clever Sape,” Ezekiel said. “Mindless golems work for now as tools, but they are vulnerable to exploitation and not adaptable enough to survive all that the universe has to throw at them. Therefore, we have successfully recruited a variety of other races like your so-called Mechanics.”
“You mean you’ve enslaved them.”
“Semantics.” Ezekiel lifted his huge shoulders in a shrug. “Truth be told, I don’t want the fate of post-humanity to rest on the shoulders of aliens or mindless golems. I want more control over it.” Ezekiel gestured to Alpha. “She’s an interesting creation. You did something we had written off long ago. You created an AI that is both sentient and biological. If we could introduce synth-bio intelligence into our golems, we would have a smarter workforce with more adaptive immunity to cyber threats.”
“That’s why you kept us alive? You want me to build you an army of Alphas?”
“No, that’s not the only reason,” Ezekiel said. “The droid merely drew my interest to you when I pulled that data from your ship—thank you for landing so nicely in my bay, by the way. Mainly, I brought you here for my own amusement.”
Tag’s muscles began to shake as he tried to clench his hands into fists. “Your amusement?”
“Even I get bored when things like colonization no longer pose a challenge.” Ezekiel paused. “You do care about your crew, don’t you? Even the xeno and the synth-bio droid?”
Tag hesitated, unsure of where this was going. “I do.”
“I watched you give orders to these other xenos.” Ezekiel motioned to the paralyzed forms of Jaroon’s and Bracken’s troops. “You have gotten these other aliens to follow you all the way here onto my ship.”
Tag didn’t respond this time, unwilling to give anything else away to Ezekiel.
“We had a difficult time with the Mechanics and Melarrey, hence the deployment of the nanites,” Ezekiel said. He paused, a calculating look on his strange, unsettling face. “Look, I’m feeling generous, so I might let you live.”
Tag sensed there was a catch.
And he was right.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Ezekiel stood, towering above Tag, and strode toward the bodies of the others frozen by the nanites coursing through their flesh. Each step he took sent shivers through the deck that Tag could feel even in his own paralyzed limbs.
“These Mechanics and Melarrey follow you like you are their master,” Ezekiel said. “The data from your ship shows these creatures have sacrificed for your missions. I wonder, how do you like the power?”
Tag couldn’t help himself. “The power?”
Ezekiel balled a fist in front of his ches
t. “The power you have over these pets of yours. Does it drive you? Do you like calling yourself captain now? Do you like how they look up to you, how they revere you?”
Tag remained silent.
“I think you do like it,” Ezekiel said, striding toward Tag. He leaned in over him, uncomfortably close. “I think you revel in it. It’s a rush, I can tell you that from experience. But I want to see how you use it.”
“This is ridiculous,” Tag said, his skin crawling as he tried to flinch away from the Collector. “Why not let us go? We could share your message, warn the SRE. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Diplomacy is useless,” Ezekiel said. “We’ve been down that road before, and it takes far too much time.”
“Let me try,” Tag insisted.
“See? You do think you have power. You think after recruiting a handful of xenos to your side, you can make a difference.” Ezekiel grinned. “You cannot.”
He motioned over his terminal, and a pool of black nanites flowed in from a vented panel behind his crash couch. With a raise of his hand, the nanites swarmed upward and formed into a golem. “You see? I have all the control here. I’ll remind you that these things are in your body, in your crew’s bodies. You will do what I want or”—he clenched his fist, and the golem exploded into a spray of particles that drifted back into the pool—“I will crush all of you.”
Tag’s teeth gritted. “What do you want?”
“I had hoped, since you were a scientist, you would appreciate what we’re trying to accomplish. I hoped you would want to contribute to it, in fact. Your efforts, as primitive as they are, could be helpful. I would allow you and your crew to live on that planet”—he pointed out the viewscreen to where the Dawn of Glory had deposited its automated colonization equipment—“and continue your synth-bio research unperturbed by silly things like your Sape government.”
“I won’t be your pet scientist.”
“That’s the only way your crew gets off this ship alive.”
Tag considered the offer. Once he and his crew were stranded on the planet, they might fashion a courier drone to send word to the SRE of what happened. Certainly Alpha had the schematics for a drone in her data storage. There had to be enough equipment and raw materials that they could cobble one together and send it off when Ezekiel left this system for wherever he was meant to colonize next.
At least getting off this ship would mean no one was killed. They would be alive, whether they were indentured servants or not.
“I’ll need the Argo. My vessel has the most advanced lab—”
“How stupid do you think I am?” Ezekiel said. “I’m not letting you back on that ship for a second. I’ve already got all the data you need off it, and our fabricators will produce a lab for you planetside.”
Tag was glad the nanites wouldn’t let him move, because they kept his expression neutral. He’d never had much of a poker face, and right now he felt like grinning. He had known Ezekiel wouldn’t let him have access to the Argo again, but he had gotten valuable information. Access to fabricators would be even better. Surely, he could use them to build a drone, if not a goddamned spaceship once Ezekiel was gone. Ezekiel would undoubtedly put other safeguards in place, but Tag would work around them. The Collector seemed to underestimate the intelligence of Tag’s crew, and it would be easy to use against him.
“Fine,” Tag said. “Send us down there.”
“Not so quick,” Ezekiel said. “You don’t need all of these beings down there.”
Tag’s stomach twisted. There was always another catch. The Collector made a few swift gestures, and the nanites reacted accordingly. The crew stood robotically and split into two groups, each facing Tag. On one side stood Sofia, Alpha, Sumo, and the Melarrey. On the other stood Coren, Bull, Gorenado, and the Mechanics.
“I want to know how well you have trained your pets,” Ezekiel said. “You have two options. First, you choose one side. They have to kill themselves. Every single one of them. I don’t care how they do it, but they have to commit suicide. Order them to do it.”
“No!” Tag cried.
“That’s why I’m giving you two options. Your second is to organize a little fight. One side against the other. Fight to the death until half of them die. Whoever is left will be your crew.”
“They won’t fight each other.”
“I can make them,” Ezekiel said. “The nanites, of course, have that ability.”
Tag’s eyes flicked from one familiar, eerily calm face to the other. “You can’t do this.”
“No, I won’t. I’m asking you to do it.” Ezekiel cocked his head to the side, laying his cheek in his open palm like a bored teenager. “I supposed you do, in fact, have a third choice. Do nothing, and I kill them all and you.”
The third choice was no choice at all. Tag couldn’t let them all die here. Not when they still had a mission to finish. Not when they still needed to get word to the SRE and Meck’ara about what they had learned. He had promised that, given a chance to complete what they had started, he would pursue it to the end.
The crew—his friends—shared wide-eyed looks of fear or steadfast anger or immeasurable worry. Tag looked between them, measuring each side.
If it came to a hand-to-hand fight, there was no telling who would win. Each possessed their own advantages. The Melarreys’ brute size and armor versus the Mechanics’ agility and wit or Alpha’s unparalleled strength and knowledge.
Tag could not let his crew tear each other apart. Doing so might relieve him of the burden of choosing who lived and died. But it would also mean every survivor would be haunted with the memories of those they had killed.
No, he couldn’t shoulder this decision onto his crew. Even if they forgave him, he would never forgive himself. This decision had to be his and his alone.
He caught Sofia’s eyes. At first, she appeared stricken, afraid. But when she saw he was looking at her, her face turned stoic. Next to her, Sumo’s chin jutted out as if she was standing at attention, and she stared straight ahead, fixed on some point only she could see. Tag was surprised to see her standing at all after the concussion she’d undoubtedly suffered, but he wrote it off as the nanites. Across from her, Bull appeared as red and angry as ever, full of lava and hungry fire. Coren’s working eye looked as dead as his disfigured one. No emotion.
“I have planets to colonize, Sape,” Ezekiel said. “Your decision?”
Tag surveyed both lines. No one looked to him, begging for their life. No one would condemn the others to die. He thought he saw Sofia’s fingers twitch, but when he looked at her, she was as still as ever. No one would make this choice easier.
“You make a decision now,” Ezekiel said, his three eyes narrowing. “Or I make it for you. And I promise you won’t like it.”
“Fine,” Tag said. His arms shook with the anger rushing through him. He took one final look at the people—alien and human—who had entrusted their lives to him. They had known this mission would be risky. They had known they might not return to their homeworlds. But none of them could ever have predicted it would end like this.
Then he noticed Alpha. She was the only one willing to meet his gaze. And when their eyes locked, she did something that surprised him.
She winked.
Tag knew exactly what his choice would be.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Let them fight,” Tag said.
“I’m surprised,” Ezekiel said, blinking. “That is more ruthless than I expected.”
“I’m sure it is,” Tag growled.
“This will be far more entertaining than I thought,” Ezekiel said, no longer looking at Tag. He faced the two lines of combatants and lifted his large hand into the air. His fingers came together with a snap to switch the nanites into fight-mode and force the sides together in combat.
Bull turned first, yelling in unbridled ferocity. Sumo collapsed when the nanites no longer held her up and lapsed back into unconsciousness. Alpha twisted next, lea
ping over the heads of the Mechanics, and Jaroon cocked a fist back as he ran. Coren ducked low and charged, and Sofia took a plasma blade from its sheath, switching it on with an electric hiss. The forces came together in a blur of bodies.
But they didn’t attack each other. Tag tore a blade from one of his sheaths and pounced. The blade dug deep into Ezekiel’s broad shoulder, spilling dark blood. The Collector threw Tag against a bulkhead. Before his head slammed against the hard surface, he saw the confused look in Ezekiel’s eyes, the question burning clear in his three pupils: How?
Pain swarmed through Tag’s skull, and he blinked away the snowflakes in his vision as he renewed his assault on the post-human.
Ezekiel tried to snap his fingers again, this time undoubtedly to make the nanites tear apart their hosts from the inside. The gesture did nothing.
Mechanics, Melarrey, humans, and a synth-bio droid descended on Ezekiel. Blades flashed, fists flew. The post-human towered above the others and swung wildly, defending himself with unparalleled strength and a deftness that spoke to his forbearers’ skill at splicing genes. Punches from Ezekiel cracked power armor and sent aliens and humans flying.
Tag wasn’t sure how Alpha had done it, but when she had winked at him, he’d understood that she had somehow taken control of the nanites. He had curled his fingers together and made a fist, something that he shouldn’t have been able to do if the nanites had still been controlling his body. The others had remained still as if they were still being held prisoner by the nanites, with Alpha somehow the one actually governing the nanites. Whatever Alpha had done, however she had done it, Tag wanted to know.
Later. First, they had a would-be god to deal with.
Ezekiel threw another Melarrey into a pile of Mechanics, knocking them all backward. He tried to wave an arm over his terminal even as Sofia clung to his back and jabbed her knife into his spine. Every time a wound opened, it seemed to heal almost immediately. It appeared as though nothing they were doing actually caused him real harm.
Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Page 22
