“So,” Xeno explained, “Lots of good guys ally against one bad guy, to survive.”
“Well that sucks!” Nuke said, “The good guys got their asses kicked!”
“This ship shouldn’t be here,” Markus said. “But it belongs to the side that might soon be in charge of our little corner of the universe. We can’t destroy it. We need to study it, to work out a defense.”
“Not to mention,” Dr McInness cautioned, “if we destroy this ship and its people up there win, Earth may suffer a reprisal.”
“We have to destroy it! Vamp declared, turning to Beckman. “Sir, this ship has factories capable of producing an army of machines. All it needs is minerals, and it’ll stomp us into the stone age.” She turned to Dr McInness. “You know I’m right. Tell him!”
Dr McInness hesitated, then nodded slowly. “It’s true. If this ship were hostile, even in its crippled state, there’s no way we could defeat it.”
“You don’t know that,” Markus said.
“You haven’t seen their factories!” Timer said. “This ship could produce a robotic army capable of conquering our entire planet.”
“All it needs is time!” Vamp said. “It’s weak now, but it’s recovering. In a few weeks, or a few months, it’ll be unstoppable!”
“If we blow the ship,” Xeno said, “and the alliance wins, they won’t care. They might even thank us.”
“And if the alliance loses?” Markus asked. “Then what?”
“Not my problem,” Beckman declared. “Nuke, this is as good a place as any. Rig the package to explode, then you all get the hell out of here. I’ll give you six hours to get clear, unless some of those tinheads try to get in here, in which case, time’s up.”
“We can make minimum safe distance in that time, if we go back the way we came,” Nuke said as he slipped out of his backpack. He pulled the flap back to reveal the recovered antimatter torpedo. Markus casually let his hand rest on his submachine gun. He didn’t want to shoot them, but Beckman had left him no choice. He could not allow them to destroy what might be their only hope of resistance in the future. Markus calculated he could sweep the room on full auto, taking them all out before they could get a shot away. He slid his finger to the trigger and his thumb to the auto fire selector. He coughed once as Nuke began to connect the GE power pack to the torpedo, masking the click of switching fire selector to full auto.
“Wait!” Dr McInness said.
Beckman glanced at the scientist curiously. “This is no time to get cold feet, Doc.”
“It’s not that. This ship’s been hit many times, by incredibly powerful weapons and it’s still operational. Detonating your weapon here won’t stop it.”
“You know a better place?”
“I do.” He activated the schematic again and zoomed into the center of the ship where a spherical chamber stood encased in armor. Thousands of connections fanned out from the chamber to every point in the ship. “That’s where you have to set it off.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the ship’s nerve center. It’s the only part of the ship that survived a direct hit. You have to get inside its shielding to be sure.”
Beckman glanced at the schematic then nodded to Nuke, who resealed the torpedo in his pack. “It’ll be guarded. I may not be able to give you six hours. I may not be able to give six minutes.”
There was a moment’s silence as everyone took in his meaning.
“We know,” Vamp said softly, voicing their collective decision.
Quietly, Markus eased his MP5’s safety back on, for now.
* * * *
Both fleets had long since departed the Solar System by the time the crippled mothership brought one of its main power plants back online. If any of the surviving ships had still been in the Solar System, they would have detected the ship’s return to life, but no one was listening. The interstellar war had moved on to more important systems and even more desperate battles.
The ship’s meager energy supply was barely enough for interplanetary travel. The Command Nexus knew it would never again have the power to inflate spacetime and cross the interstellar void, but it also knew it no longer mattered. Its crippled sensors had detected more than four hundred radiation sources on the only habitable planet in the system. It assumed the radiation blooms were the after effects of orbital bombardment, rather than the cores of primitive fission reactors. It knew the Tau Ceti target world was fourth from its star, but assigned its inability to locate another inner world to its damaged sensors, and assumed the missing inner planet was hidden on the far side of the star. It never considered that it was in the wrong system, only that battle damage had corrupted its memory, allowing it to consign every irregularity to faulty data or crippled sensors. The Command Nexus detected a vast radioactive debris cloud out among the orbits of the gas giants, counted hundreds of shattered, lifeless hulks and was even able to identify wreckage that could only have been the remains of another mothership’s superstructure, yet not a single functioning ship remained anywhere in the system. Even to its disrupted logic cores, it was obvious that a battle of annihilation had been fought, with one clear outcome.
It was the only survivor.
Rather than scuttle itself as it should have done, it brought as many sensors, weapons and propulsion fields back online as it could, preparing to repel an attack that never came. Its flawed analysis led it to conclude that the enemy’s surface forces had been neutralized by orbital bombardment and the opportunity to inflict a crushing blow lay within its grasp. It decided to land immediately and establish a secure deployment zone without waiting to complete vital repairs.
With so few propulsion fields operational, the ship’s maneuverability was severely reduced. It approached the target planet without decelerating, wary of enemy forces arriving before it landed, while its few surviving maintenance drones repaired enough acceleration fields to protect every hull breach from the extreme heat of atmospheric braking. With the cargo holds mostly emptied by explosive decompression, there was little equipment left, so the ship cannibalized empty decks for raw materials for its nano fabricators.
While the ship drifted toward the orbit of Mars, it surveyed its target, selecting a landing zone both remote from major population centers and tectonically stable enough to endure large scale mantle mining. It knew unpopulated areas tended to be less well defended, while the dozens of mantle mines necessary to fuel its nano fabricators could trigger significant seismic events if located near fault lines.
The mothership punched into the upper atmosphere faster than any object in Earth’s four and a half billion year history. The entry angle was steep, to avoid bouncing off the atmosphere, while the friction of atmospheric braking sent the hull temperature soaring. With only a fraction of its normal engine power available, the mothership’s rate of deceleration was sluggish, and its in-atmosphere flight was unstable. Acceleration fields prevented super heated atmosphere from penetrating the hull breaches while the ship’s armor resisted the worst of the thermal assault.
The Command Nexus kept its few remaining hull weapons powered in anticipation of air attack, even at the cost of sacrificing some flight control, yet strangely, no attack came. It assumed the orbital bombardment must have destroyed the ground based air defenses, confirming its assessment that it had to strike fast while the enemy was vulnerable.
It plunged into the ionosphere, pulling up sharply to near horizontal flight as it passed over a narrow isthmus joining a pair of heavily populated continents stretching between the planet’s two polar regions. It detected thousands of slow moving air vehicles far below, but none emitted high energy signatures or tried to climb toward it, so it held its fire, conserving the limited energy for a genuine threat.
The ship became a massive fireball as it fell into the mesosphere above a great ocean that spanned half the world’s surface. It had decided to make its final approach over the Pacific because deep oceans were always less well defended than continents.
The great ship tore across the sky like a mountain of flame, a sight not seen on Earth since the dinosaurs took their last breath, decelerating slowly.
The target continent appeared on the horizon as the ship dropped through the stratosphere, still relying only on atmospheric pressure for braking. The Command Nexus had chosen wisely, selecting a natural fortress buttressed by wide seas to the north and sprawling deserts to the south. Collision warnings sounded throughout the crippled mothership, as it prepared to strike the ground. It commenced emergency braking with maneuvering thrusters at the last minute, reducing speed just enough to ensure the impact remained within the ship’s structural tolerances and the internal acceleration field’s capacity to offset the inertial effects of the impact. It could have slowed enough for a soft landing, but the kinetic energy of a high velocity impact would eliminate resistance in the landing zone as surely as if an atomic bomb had exploded. It was an attack that could not be jammed, shielded against or intercepted.
When the ship made its final approach, blasting down into the troposphere, its sensors detected plants and animals in abundance. There were almost no energy emissions of any kind indicating the lack of even a primitive civilization. The ship tried informing its distant masters it was initiating a kinetic impact assault on the primary objective, but its interstellar communications system was inoperable and the message was never sent.
The ‘impact imminent’ warning sounded, then the great ship nosed down into the vast tropical wilderness, which a moment later, was transformed into a hellish inferno.
CHAPTER 20
Nemza’ri found an officer’s quarters, where she slept after eating, her first real rest since escaping imprisonment in the hull several days ago. The heavy lift suit was parked in the corridor outside, and the passageway’s pressure doors were locked, ensuring the hot bloods in the sleep chamber could not surprise her. She’d slept for little more than an hour when a pristine thought entered her mind through her crew-net implant.
I have been monitoring your activities, Kaleezsha(Alashra-Warm)Nemza’ri.
She snapped instantly awake, shocked. Never in all the years she’d served aboard ship had she experienced a direct mind link with the ship’s command consciousness. That kind of access was reserved for senior officers only. And yet it had happened! The Command Nexus had spoken directly to her, and it had used her formal spawn designation! ‘Kaleezsha’ was her clan, which determined her bloodline. ‘Alashra’ was her crèche, the place where she was raised and which determined her relatively low social status. ‘Warm’ defined her spawning season, while Nemza’ri was her hatching designation, more a number than a name. With millions born at a single spawning, there was no tradition of personalized naming among her kind, only a recognition of one’s place in the vast sea of life.
Through a flood of astonishment, she recalled the damage the ship had suffered and wondered how the ship had been able to observe her.
A thought of perfect clarity appeared in her mind: Via the med drones.
The response startled her, because she’d not meant to ask the Command Nexus a question. Because of her implants, it had free access to her mind and understood her every thought.
Your crew status has been restored.
She hadn’t expected that. She waited for further explanation, or for orders, then sensed the Command Nexus was waiting for her to say something. Why would it wait?
‘Do you have orders for me?’
I have a request.
A request! Her hopes fell. The Command Nexus never made requests to crew of her rank, it gave orders. ‘What request?’
I understand your intentions. They are tactically sound.
It was something a fully functioning Command Nexus might conclude. Undamaged, it was a master of strategy, capable of the most devious and complex calculations.
You are the only functioning female alive, and have transformed into a breeder.
Was the Command Nexus being obtuse? She wanted to demand what it wanted, but her training and respect for authority restrained her. ‘Yes?’
Therefore, I request you assume the mantle of First Matriarch of this world.
‘What!’ The leap from lowly technician to brood mother for an entire world was unheard of. Her genetic class alone should have disqualified her from such a role, let alone her crèche and clan affiliations. And yet, as the only healthy female, it was a logical step that complied with the laws of maternal succession. Even so, it sent her mind spinning, leaving her to wonder what good accepting such an exalted rank would do?
I have been boarded by hostile forces. My internal sensors are eighty nine percent inoperable, making it difficult to locate the enemy. I am cannibalizing myself in order to produce combat units, however, there are few maintenance drones available to carry out the work. I must therefore prepare for defeat.
Nemza’ri had explored much of the ship, and even though she wondered how clearly the Command Nexus was thinking, she knew its assessment was correct. ‘What do you propose?’
This world’s oceans are not ideal for your species, however, they are viable. The dominant species on this world are land dwelling mammals. They have craft able to sail beneath the surface, but these are crude and limited to relatively shallow depths. The oceanic parts of this world would provide your species with a tactical advantage.
‘You want me to leave the ship?’ she asked, surprised.
I propose to relocate a power plant, med drones, clone tanks and nano fabricators to a deep ocean location where you can breed in safety. You could then release your eggs into the oceans in vast quantities.
‘You want the eggs to mature on their own?’
Compared to the mammals of this world, your species has vastly superior intelligence. In time, your spawn will pose an overwhelming challenge to them. With nano fabricators, you will be able to equip your spawn with the technology necessary to overcome all opposition.
The thought of spending her life in isolation at the bottom of the deepest ocean did not appeal to her, yet she had to admit, if the hot bloods could not reach her, the plan could work.
I will continue to repair myself, however, I have insufficient resources to restore my systems to operational levels within acceptable timeframes. Even if I continue to function at current efficiency, my simulations indicate I have a low probability of producing a force strong enough to protect myself before enemy forces inflict unsustainable damage upon my systems. Offensive operations outside the deployment shield are completely beyond all baseline extrapolations. With the enemy inside my hull, the probability of defeat is increasing rapidly.
She considered the Command Nexus plan carefully, unable to fault its logic. She’d seen enough of the ship to know the situation was desperate.
‘If I accept, what should I do?’
You would need to relocate immediately. I would assign a battloid and two combat seekers to guard you, although the deep ocean and the secrecy of your location will be your main protection. I will also construct the equipment you will need. You and the two viable males would then fly to a deep ocean trench north of this world’s equator. It is an ideal location for your hatchery. After each spawning, you will be able to use the vehicle to distribute your eggs to suitable oceanic zones around this world’s equatorial regions.
Nemza’ri wondered how her naked offspring could possibly survive a hostile world without technology and training. Again, the Command Nexus detected thoughts she had meant for herself alone.
Many will die, but many will survive. Eventually, other females will begin to spawn. In a few decades, this world’s oceans will be swarming with billions of your kind. They will become a greater force than any I could build.
She lay in silence, knowing the Command Nexus was only doing its duty, which was to utilize every resource at its disposal. She realized she was just another resource. While the ship had the potential to create a technological army, she carried within her the ability to give birth to a biological army.
‘I agree.’
Thank you, World Mother.
The highly formalized and hierarchical response surprised her. The Command Nexus was speaking to her as if she really were a Planetary Matriarch. Never again would the Command Nexus direct her. In future, every communication would be a request, or a suggestion, for not even a Command Nexus would dare to give an order to the Spawn Mother of an entire world civilization.
I suggest you select the vehicle you require, the weapons it will have and whether it will be capable of interplanetary flight or not. There are also many different types of habitats I can construct, each of which will serve the strategy equally well, but may provide you with different levels of comfort.
‘Can’t you select what I need?’
It is your prerogative, Great Mother. You will be dependent upon both the vehicle and the habitat for the remainder of your life.
She was not used to such treatment, especially from an awareness who moments before had been an integral part of the ship’s higher command structure. The captain always out ranked the ship’s Command Nexus, but rarely contradicted its recommendations.
‘Very well. I will choose.’
The Command Nexus directed her to the nearest command center, where she could access fabrication control. It was only several levels away, so she decided to leave the heavy lift suit and proceed on foot. After having encountered the hot bloods in the sleep chamber, she’d equipped herself with a weapon and a photon field, the latter capable of warping light around her body making her invisible. With those two items, she would be safe enough.
Nemza’ri stepped into the corridor, and headed toward the command center. She realized her life was going to be one of solitude and isolation, hidden beneath the oceans of this primitive world, but her life span was a long one. Perhaps in time, she would rejoin her kind, after they had civilized this planet. The years ahead would be lonely ones, but she would do her duty, without hesitation.
She was after all, this world’s First Matriarch.
The Mothership Page 35
