Edge of War (The Eternal Frontier Book 2)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Coffee. Burned, watered-down coffee was all that kept his body going.

  Slightly invigorated by a fresh round of caffeine, Tag joined Coren, Sofia, and Alpha in the med bay. They were still sifting through mountains of data. A multitude of patterns had been spotted from the demographics and histories of the presumed free Mechanics they had identified, but sorting through the false positives and the strange coincidences required a human (or Mechanic) touch.

  “They all share similar medical histories,” Coren explained, “but so does just about every Mechanic. Ninety-six percent of them were on the correct vaccine trajectory.”

  “Could one of the vaccines you take prevent nanites?” Sofia asked.

  “I doubt it,” Coren replied. “To my knowledge, Tuffet’s syndrome, limb paralysis shock virus, and the mutagenic organo vector are caused by pathogens that are nothing like the nanites.”

  “Maybe there are other diseases with pathogens that are similar to the nanites,” Sofia said.

  Alpha gestured to a holodisplay. “I have performed the simulations according to the data Coren and Bracken have shared with me. There are no known disease-causing agents that share a biochemical or structural similarity to the nanites.”

  “Damn,” Sofia said. “So what did these people come down with that created nanite antibodies like this?”

  Tag moved past them and used his hand to scroll through the data on the holoscreen. “Maybe we’re headed in the wrong direction.” He thought of Gorenado again. How the effect of the alien technology on his wound had stumped traditional AI medical approaches. How it had taken thinking outside the human medical paradigm to develop a solution. “Maybe there’s something we’re missing.”

  “Uh, Skipper, I thought antibodies and the immune system are supposed to react to pathogens. So what are we missing?” Sofia asked.

  “Evolutionarily speaking, yes. Our acquired immune systems are geared to fighting whatever our environment throws at us that might harm us,” Tag said. He racked his brain to remember his seminars on the pre-interstellar history of medicine. “But sometimes that causes problems.”

  “Such as allergies. Unnecessarily violent reactions to an innocuous contaminant or material,” Alpha said.

  “Exactly. Healthcare workers, back in the days before spray-on sterilization wraps, used to wear gloves made of latex. Sometimes they would wear the gloves so much they developed a latex allergy.”

  “Even though latex isn’t harmful to human biology,” Coren said. “Interesting. This isn’t generally a widespread problem in our species.”

  Sofia lowered her wrist terminal. “Oh, so the Mechanic immune system is superior now, too?”

  Coren gave her a noncommittal shrug.

  “Anyway,” Tag said, “I’m guessing there’s something in the environment. Something these people were exposed to that led to their acquired immunity toward nanites.” He held up his hand and raised a finger with each suggestion. “Look at their jobs, where they grew up, where they traveled, what their parents did, what foods they ate. That’s where I think we’ll find an answer.”

  The group turned back to the terminals, working in strained silence. Tag started searching through their occupations and positions within the Mechanic navy. He found engineers and educators and scientists and marines and exo-suit operators and pilots. No clear patterns emerged. Their ranks and time spent in the navy, too, proved to be a dead end.

  “Any luck?” Tag asked the others.

  “Unfortunately not,” Alpha said. “Family history and age are proving to be nonfactors.”

  “It’s extraordinarily difficult to find any type of patterns within extracurricular activities,” Coren said.

  Sofia pointed to a map of the Mechanic home world with cities across the globe highlighted. “And place of birth and where they lived isn’t really helpful.”

  “Damn,” Tag said. “What else can we look at?”

  Coren’s golden eye glowed as if he was struggling to retain something within his head. “I think...I think there is a pattern.” His fingers danced over the cities on the globe, and he rotated it, scanning each city. “These cities highlighted in orange signify their places of birth, right?”

  “Right,” Sofia said. “All over the damn world.”

  “Yes, true,” Coren said. “But these cities are all similar.”

  “Their populations are different, and their geolocations aren’t nearly close together. What’s the similarity?”

  Coren waved his hand over the map. “Almost all of these cities are bubble communities.”

  “Bubble communities?” Sofia asked. “I don’t remember you telling me about these before.”

  Another wave of Coren’s six-fingered hand, and the holoscreen provided a magnified view of a bubble community. The entire city was a latticework of tunnels and tall buildings, not consequentially different from a modern human city. It was considerably greener than Tag had expected. Plants seemed to cover every available space with gardens and parks on top of buildings, on balconies and outcroppings, and even in dedicated suspended platforms between buildings. But the most startling aspect of the city was the enormous bubble that covered the entire community.

  Tag pointed to the bubble. “What is that for?”

  Coren zoomed out of the city slightly. Now Tag could plainly see the city was situated at the bottom of an ocean floor. “That seems like a rather difficult place to build a city.”

  “Hell of an engineering feat,” Sophia added. Then quickly, “But don’t let it get to your head.”

  The holoscreen’s view expanded again to display the globe.

  Coren was already copying the names of each bubble community to a new document. “These communities were built to separate us from the environment as an early experiment in our colonization efforts. It protected us from the outside elements, which was crucial on planets we had not yet terraformed. Pursuing these technologies had an unintended consequence at home.” He finished transcribing the names and transmitted the document back to Bracken. “Most importantly, we realized the communities did something else important. They limited our impact on the environment. On an overpopulated planet, we could use our bubble communities to build civilizations deep underwater, past where most other native species could even survive. We could better filter the air, control what waste and refuse was recycled and that which we emitted into the environment. It saved our planet and, as a result, saved our species.”

  “Interesting,” Tag said. He recalled the urban sprawl of Earth. People everywhere. How some parks, once protected by their individual nation-states, had been deforested to provide more living spaces. The gray skies. The occasional smog, despite the SRE’s best efforts to control the changing environment. He imagined what it would be like if humans had started colonizing the ocean floor like the Mechanics rather than devouring all the land available to them. But as much as Tag wanted to mull those thoughts over, none of them affected his current dilemma. “So what do these bubble communities have to do with nanites?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Tag sat in the captain’s station at the bridge. Soon they would be transitioning into normal space. His fingers curled and uncurled around the armrests. He clenched his jaw hard enough that the first tendrils of a headache were wrapping around his brain, but he couldn’t help it. The tension building inside him was like an energy round charging in a cannon with nowhere to go.

  “Incoming message from Bracken!” Alpha practically shouted.

  Adrenaline jolted through Tag. Not an emergency. Not now. They were minutes from transitioning, and the T-drive was already spooling down.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “She says they identified the compound they believe may be the center to our nanite immunity mystery.” Then Alpha turned back to her screen.

  “Well?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Three hells,” Tag said. “Do Mechanics enjoy teasing like this?”

  “Only if it p
roves we are indeed better than you,” Coren said.

  Tag sent a connection request to Bracken, and her image showed up on his holoscreen.

  “Captain,” she said as if he had interrupted something.

  “What’s the deal with the nanites?” Tag asked.

  “We had a bet on the bridge you humans couldn’t handle suspense,” Bracken said. “I’m proud to say I won.” There was a sense of victory in her tone, though her outward expression remained as void of emotion as a black hole. “We found a similar particle—at least in size—that shares some of the trace elements found in the nanites.”

  “And what’s the particle do?”

  “Always the curious human.”

  “I’m a medical scientist. Curiosity is what I do.”

  “The particle is from our air recycling units. I’ll share more if we have a chance in normal space or else at the next debriefing.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Tag said as he ended the communication.

  “Transitioning...now,” Alpha said.

  Sofia tensed at her controls, and Coren hovered above the weapons commands. Tag felt the tug of momentum pulling him forward as the inertial dampeners fought to keep him restrained. The bridge rattled, and the waves of plasma on the viewscreen dissipated.

  They floated in a vast expanse where distant constellations sparkled in the viewscreen. Their lidar and radar detected nothing except for the Stalwart beside them, floating in their periphery. The sight of the emptiness before them stretching into an expanse of stars inspired a reverence in Tag he wasn’t prepared for. It was a reminder of just how alone they really were in this mission, both literally and figuratively. A reminder of just how little their tiny spaceships were, like dust motes blown in the wind, when compared to the unimaginable numbers of other life-forms carrying on somewhere around those random stars peppering the deep void.

  And he wondered just how long they would be alone.

  “No signs of Drone-Mechs?” Tag asked.

  “Nothing yet, Captain,” Alpha said.

  Bracken appeared on the holoscreen. “We have not detected any other ships within our vicinity.”

  “Let’s set the timer for five days and see what happens, shall we?” Tag asked.

  “We shall.”

  For some reason, Tag felt his nerves flickering with more anxious energy out here than he did when they were investigating a space station or traveling to Eta-Five. There was something unnerving about not knowing whether a ship would transition into normal space near them. There was no space station or planet to orient themselves against, nothing to hide behind in case they found themselves mired in an unexpected battle.

  He tried to reason that the nearest Drone-Mechs were probably situated somewhere around Chronamede, which was five days’ hyperspace travel away. Nothing should, he hoped, surprise them until somewhere near the two-day mark. The likelihood of the Drone-Mechs arriving sooner, already being positioned nearby, was infinitesimally small.

  Then again, stranger things had happened.

  “Want to talk about those recycler particles?” Tag asked over the comms to Bracken. He never took his eyes off the holomap. No matter how he tried to distract himself, it would be impossible to quell his worry.

  “Certainly,” Bracken said. He could almost see a glimmer in her golden eyes. She must be studying the holos back on her bridge, watching, waiting. Just like him. “There really isn’t much to them. The particles help to sequester pollutants.”

  “Simple enough. And I take it they are harmless to Mechanics?” His eyes gazed at the viewscreen, then the map. Still no contacts.

  “The particles are indeed designed to be inert within healthy Mechanical bodies. However, my medical staff did note that there are documented cases of air recycling particle allergies.”

  “Which makes sense. Given we now believe those particles might elicit an acquired immune response.” Tag’s fingers drummed over his armrest. “So we’ve got some time to test this theory.”

  “Between sitting here, waiting for the Drone-Mechs, and the rest of our hyperspace travels to gather free Mechanics, I would say ‘we’ve got some time’ is a vast underestimation. But I would expect nothing less from a human.” On the holoscreen, Tag thought he could see Bracken’s lips twitch slightly.

  “Was that humor? Is Bracken really making a joke?” Tag asked with a grin.

  “Don’t test the limits of my well-rounded humor.”

  “Wouldn’t dare,” Tag said. “I can set up some experiments to test if we can use these particles to inoculate you all. Do you happen to have any of these particles on hand?”

  Bracken lowered her eyes, appearing decidedly rueful again. “Unfortunately, those that we did have on hand were used in our facilities on the Forest of Light. We of course had hoped not to pollute their ecosystem. With the Drone-Mech attack, we didn’t have the time to salvage any of our homesteading or community-building technologies.”

  “Understood.” The defeat echoed through Tag like a desperate yell ringing through his skull. “So without these particles, we’re more or less back to where we started.”

  “Ah, human, don’t look so disappointed,” Bracken said. “We don’t need the particles.”

  Tag’s confusion must have been clear through the holo.

  “We can make more. We’ve got the materials, the recyclers, and the fabricators to produce as many of those things as we want.” She paused, staring at Tag through the holo. Her thin lips were pursed tight as if she was refraining from saying something.

  Tag sighed. “Go on, say it. Mechanic technology is superior, yadda yadda.”

  “Thank you, Captain Brewer. You said it for me.” She turned away from the holo and barked orders to someone else unseen on the bridge. “We’ll begin production immediately. I can also send you the fabricator program for the recycler particles, although it will not be compatible with your own machinery.”

  “Coren, can you handle translating it into something we can use here?”

  Coren’s good eye twitched like he was raising his brow, his black fur rustling, and he chuffed.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Time passed tediously as the crew took shifts on the bridge. Coren updated the 3-D fabricator in engineering between shifts at his weapons terminal. He and Alpha took turns writing a script to translate the Mechanic code into a workable program for the Argo’s fabricator. After performing some spacewalks to clean off the remnants of Dreg ships and recover samples of a few dead, frozen Dreg still secured in those ships, the marines joined them on the bridge occasionally. Lonestar’s gait had grown steadier and healthier. Bull hardly spoke a word, and Sumo hung somewhere in the balance between acting like Bull and trying to maintain more amiable relationships with the rest of the crew. Sofia often sat with her legs dangling over the side of her crash couch while she used her wrist terminal to write up her observations on the Dreg, Mechanics, and the gods only knew what else. Tag had hoped analyzing the samples of the Dreg would occupy more time, but all the scans he and Alpha had performed yielded no sign of nanites anywhere within the ugly aliens. Once they had finished, there was little else to do but wait.

  What had started as an exercise testing Tag’s apprehension and dread had turned into one of tedium. Staring at the same blank holomap, the same star-studded viewscreen had quickly lost its luster.

  That was, until several new shapes exploded into view.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “Gods be damned!” Tag yelled, his fist slamming on the terminal. He called up the alarm, and red lights danced across the bridge. The rest of the ship would be alight in similar frenzied crimson flashes as a computerized voice alerted, “All hands to battle stations.”

  The red dots on the holomap began closing in on them. Alpha looked at Tag, waiting for the signal to jump to hyperspace. But while the unidentified ships grew closer on the holomap, no smaller dots zoomed toward them signifying incoming fire.

  “Anything, Brack
en?” Tag asked.

  “No, no comms yet. We’re hailing them. Maybe...” She let the rest of her sentence trail off.

  Tag could sense the longing in her tone, the hope that maybe this time, for some insane reason, these were free Mechanics and not the Drone-Mechs. But then Bracken looped them into her incoming transmission.

  “Where does your loyalty lie?” the droll Drone-Mech voice asked.

  “Son of a Dreg!” Sofia yelled, slapping the controls. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

  A sick realization poured over Tag. He gave Alpha a perfunctory nod to initiate the coordinated hyperspace jump. The Argo quaked, and the bulkhead hummed in shifting harmonics as waves of plasma started lapping over the viewscreen. The crew remained still and silent even as the ship settled into a stabilized transit through hyperspace in parallel with the Stalwart.

  But though they had escaped the Drone-Mechs again, Tag couldn’t escape the dread that came with it. They had never seen another alien, another Mechanic, or anything, for that matter, in the emptiness they had sat in for five days. No signal that anyone else had identified them. No random drones happening by. No scout ships.

  Just a contingent of Drone-Mechs dropping in on them. And sure enough, they had come at around the five-day mark as predicted. They must have been stationed near Chronamede, but there was no way they had simply spotted the Argo or the Stalwart from there.

  Tag shook his head as the others studied their stations. Their current theory that there were allies of the Drone-Mechs stationed around waiting to signal the Drone-Mechs didn’t explain what had just happened. It looked more likely than ever that someone, somehow, was aboard either the Argo or the Stalwart, signaling the Drone-Mechs. And all the paranoia Tag had once felt when he had first met the Mechanics came flooding back.