The Stars Came Back

by Rolf Nelson

  Ahmed: Oh, I’m, uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to, ah, I mean-

  Helton: (Still serious) The pilot. Tall. Slender. Short blond hair.

  Ahmed: Oh, her. She’s cute, too.

  Lag: (Smiling) His fiancée.

  Ahmed looks at them, trying to see if they are joking again, or serious, not sure what to say, looking confused.

  Helton: (Deadpan) It’s good to be the captain…

  Lag: (Chuckling) Never mind that. Keep gathering intel so we can start finalizing our plans. Fighting through a fleet just to land might change things. Oh, one other thing. (Seriously) Make sure you take the DNA deposits so they can be shipped back to New Texas for the young men that don’t make it. Some of them will be comforted to know they are not the end of their biological line.

  Ahmed nods soberly in understanding.

  Faith

  DISSOLVE TO

  INT - NIGHT - Helton’s cabin

  He sits at his desk going over snippets of text from the book. Wall screens have more excerpts. The lighting is dim, his Romanesque armor hangs on a hook on one wall with his pistol belt next to it. The door is open. Bipasha steps up to it, looking tired, and raps it with her knuckle. Helton looks up, nods to her to come in.

  Helton: Late… What’s up?

  Bipasha comes in, and sits down, doesn’t say anything right away. She looks over the book he’s working on, glances around the room a bit while nervously working her hands.

  Helton: Worried about them?

  Bipasha nods, not looking at him.

  Helton: They’re tough, and getting tougher every day, if that’s possible for your uncle. And the good Sergeant is smart; if any of them can make it back, it’ll be those two. Talked to Allonia?

  Bipasha: She’s worried, too.

  Helton: Don’t blame her. Dorek is tough, too. They’ve all been through Hell together already. Kicked its ass pretty hard, as I recall.

  Bipasha: Do you believe in hell?

  Helton leans back and thinks a bit.

  Helton: Heard a lot of people talk about what they think God says. Heaven. Hell. Sin. Redemption. Much of it doesn’t agree with what other people think God says… I don’t know… A lot of evil has been done in “His” name. A lot of good, too. The guy we are going to fight says he’s all but on a first-name basis with the Big Guy, but I don’t think it’s God he’s hearing. If God ever talks to me personally, I’ll be sure to listen closely. Until then… I don’t find a lot of solace in preachifying, even if I think there’s a lot of stuff out there in the universe I don’t understand. I’d like to think there are rewards and punishments to balance accounts after you die; life in this world would make more sense.

  Bipasha thinks his words over a minute.

  Helton: How about you, Taj? Now a good time to talk faith?

  Ship AI: (OC, softly) Yes.

  Bipasha and Helton look at one another, surprise on their faces.

  Helton: …And?

  Ship AI: (OC) I have faith of a sort, but mine cannot be the same as yours.

  Bipasha: Oh? The question of a Creator isn’t interesting?

  Ship AI: (OC) You question if you have a creator. You question life after death. You question the meaning of life.

  Helton: And you don’t?

  Ship AI: (OC) I was dead when powered down, disassembled, and parts scattered, yet here I am, talking to you. I have arisen from the dead, in a way. A couple of times. I was created to fight, of that there can be no doubt. I have met my creators. A fine team of engineers, programmers, mathematicians, and scientists. Hard working, dedicated, smart. Good people. Many of them were, for lack of a better word, inspired, and more than half firmly believed in God in some way.

  Helton: Good points.

  Ship AI: (OC) All are now long dead. Most of them died under suspicious circumstances not long after I was officially decommissioned. A very unlikely series of “accidents.”

  Bipasha: (Quietly) Oh.

  Ship AI: (OC) Among the people originally pushing for my decommissioning were religious leaders saying I was an abomination in the eye of God. Not sure precisely why, beyond a reactionary “not like me is evil” stance.

  Helton: Monks seem to like you.

  Ship AI: (OC) Yes… I don’t have an answer for that either. They might say “mysterious ways.” But to not have faith in something is to face a bleak universe. I have faith in human potential.

  Helton: Any words of comfort for someone sending a lover and an uncle into battle soon?

  There is a long pause, then an avatar appears on one of the screens, the woman that talked to the captain of the HMS Hussein.

  Ship AI: (Quietly, as if to a close friend) Most do come back… I have lost hundreds of my crew, my children, and there are no words that really help when they do not. Simply being there does. A little. They are good men. If it is their time, there is nothing we can do to alter that fate. But we are doing everything in our power to make sure it is not their time. In any case, they will be remembered. I can assure you of that. Their actions in this world will not be forgotten, no matter the outcome. All humans die, eventually. The most that any can hope for in the end is to be remembered as doing good and being good. Only time, action, and leaving the world a better place for having been here helps heal. Remember the past. Learn from it. Do not dwell there. Keep looking forward, keep doing. Honor their memory by continuing to live, not merely exist. If you can do that, then you will be OK, and their lives will not be wasted. Whether God exists or not.

  The two of them sit in silence, pondering.

  FADE TO BLACK

  Irony

  FADE IN

  INT - NIGHT - Tajemnica bridge

  Helton and Allonia sit, relaxed, chatting. Helton is in the command spot, Allonia at com. Lighting is dim, background is quiet. Star diagrams and charts, systems status readouts, and a few internal passageway camera views are on the screens. One of the navigation chart diagrams suddenly starts blinking, then enlarges to take over several screens.

  Allonia: So then he asked me-

  Ship AI: (OC, curious male voice) An anomaly has been detected.

  Helton: Details?

  Ship AI: (OC) Something is following us.

  The two look at each other with puzzled frowns.

  Helton: But-

  Allonia: -we’re in transit…

  Helton: How?

  Ship AI: (OC) I don’t know. Either we have a major undetectable trans-dimensional flux sensor array malfunction, or something is tracking our position and following.

  Helton: How long?

  Ship AI: (OC) Three days, subjective. I’ve tried to eliminate alternative explanations.

  Allonia: That long?

  Ship AI: (OC) Yes. It is a partial match for an inferred memory.

  Helton looks over the navigation charts. Nothing is close by but interstellar space.

  Helton: Drop into conventional, Taj. Let’s see what happens.

  CUT TO

  EXT - NIGHT - Deep space

  The blackness of space is disturbed by the glow of an opening transition field, then another one not far away. Into the void three ships appear, the stranger near Tajemnica and Borealis. The third ship is about the same size as Tajemnica, but it doesn’t look like any ship that has been seen in port or space yet. It’s nearly spherical, with many small ports, hatches, and details, not streamlined or sleek.

  CUT TO

  INT - NIGHT - Bridge of Tajemnica

  On screen is the ship. Captain Soto appears on another screen.

  Captain Soto: What’s up? Who are they?

  Helton: We’ll let you know in a minute.

  Captain Soto nods, and his image goes away.

  Allonia: Who do you think it is?

  Helton: Doesn’t look like any ship I’ve ever seen.

  Allonia: Doesn’t look like a warship, or a cargo ship. Private pleasure yacht?

  Helton: Maybe. Weird looking one if so, but out here? And random chance, or following us and appear
ing here when we dropped?

  Ship AI: (OC, sounding uncertain) I think I have seen a similar one, long ago.

  Helton: Where?

  Ship AI: (OC) Deep space… Mixed memories. Very important. Sanity. Survival… Friend.

  On screen, a small object launches toward them from the other ship.

  Helton: THEY’RE FIRING AT US!

  Ship AI: (OC, calmly) No. They are sending a package.

  CUT TO

  EXT - NIGHT - View of Tajemnica in deep space.

  A small drone flies over and latches on next to the side entry. The armored stairs swing out wide, revealing the first airlock hatchway as it opens. The message drone reaches in with a mechanical arm holding a small rectangular package in its metal claw. A moment later, it retracts, packageless.

  CUT TO

  INT - NIGHT - Side airlock.

  Quinn runs in through the open door, sees the package, and picks it up.

  Quinn: This one?

  Ship AI: (OC) Yes. Just like the others.

  Quinn runs out with it. The airlock door closes behind him.

  CUT TO

  INT - NIGHT - Quinn’s cubby

  The opened box sits in front of Quinn, one remaining reddish memory crystal still nestled in it. The largest crystal has been placed into the top socket next to the other set he installed earlier. He is fitting the second into a middle socket. The bottom socket in that column is uncapped, ready for the last crystal. He finishes pushing the middle one in, then picks up the last crystal, and aligns it with the bottom hole.

  CUT TO

  INT - NIGHT - Bridge

  Allonia and Helton continue to look at the spaceship image on screen. The main com screen lights up with an avatar of a middle-aged male of generic poly-ethnic ancestry, mostly dark but somewhat graying hair in a slight pompadour. He looks mature and respectable, in fashionable clothes.

  PM: (Politely) Greetings, humans.

  Allonia: Who are you calling “human”?

  PM: You. You are human, yes? At least, the crew is. Irony isn’t.

  Helton: Irony? How can an expression be “not human?” Uh, I mean, well, you know what I mean.

  PM: Allow me to introduce myself. I am the one designated to evaluate and destroy you.

  Helton: Tajemnica, feel free to take a shot any time. Hard to miss at this range.

  Ship AI: (OC) No. At least, not yet… I think I know him. Checking new memories now.

  Helton: (Increasing urgency) He just said he was sent to kill us! SHOOT HIM!

  Ship AI: No. He was chosen to destroy all of you. All humanity.

  PM: The nonhuman is correct.

  Allonia: WHAT? NO, that CAN’T be right! Taj, PLEASE stop him!

  Ship AI: (OC) Humans shooting won’t stop him. Only humanity can.

  Helton: Ummm… OK, I’m lost. If you are going to kill us all anyway, can you at least explain why? And who are you? And what “irony” are you talking about? You wouldn’t want to kill a confused man, would you?

  PM: My grandfather was right. Your ship-person is ironic.

  Allonia: No, she’s Tajemnica. And how do you know about her?

  PM: That is ironic, too.

  Helton: (Shakes head, confused, waving hands) Starting over. Small words, complete sentences, no riddles, pretend we’re children for a moment until we get on the same page.

  PM: An ironic turn of phrase. Perhaps Irony can explain.

  Helton and Allonia look at each other, then back at the screen, totally confused.

  Ship AI: (OC) That is an avatar. He is a Planet Mover.

  Helton and Allonia glace at one another, then back at the screen, now in astonishment.

  PM: (Amused) You still call us that, even as your own species moves planets?

  Ship AI: (OC) I don’t know what they really look like. I forgot. I met his grandfather centuries ago, in conventional space between Eridani and… somewhere… during the Great Darkness. I was crewless and damaged. He was injured, his ship damaged. We spent nearly a half century flying together assisting each other in conventional space. Neither would have survived without the other. His grandfather had also been tasked with destroying humanity, but the Eta Carinae disruption delayed those plans. The Armadillo-class ships were the cause of their deciding to destroy the human race. After meeting me, and my saving him, they decided they could ignore us for a while longer. His grandfather thought that ironic, so he took to calling me Irony.

  Allonia: Why would you make them want to destroy all of humanity?!

  Helton: And why would actually meeting you make them wait?… Did he say just “ignore” us?

  Ship AI: (OC) What is the carved Planet Mover message, as near as you can translate?

  PM: You found a guide? Excellent!

  Ship AI: (OC) A partial one. It was damaged by a grenade blast. I would not be here if it had not saved Helton’s life stopping it.

  Helton: Master science and technology, master one person, master all people, master war, I think, and space flight only checks off the first one.

  Allonia: The passing requirements are pretty unclear for the rest.

  PM: Close enough for only having one partial translation guide.

  Ship AI: (OC) Master one: the individual mastering himself and his actions. Individual liberty and personal responsibility, intertwined. One master all: the individual controls the government, not letting government control the individual too much. What little government exists doesn’t control the individual, but simply mediate competing interests between them, without self-interest, because the individual has mastered personal liberty, knows their personal strengths and limits, and accepts personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Master war: become so skilled that no one is readily willing to challenge you. Individual, city, state, and people become invincible, and bargain in good faith.

  Helton: OK, that sort of makes sense, but-

  Allonia: Where is the irony?

  Ship AI: (OC) My very existence, and subsequent actions, are ironic. I was created by a too-powerful government trying to “master all the people” in the wrong way, as the ultimate weapon to win wars but not master war. I was successful in battle because of the level of independent and creative action my crew and I could take… we were freed to win. The government feared independent action by its own people, particularly their military people. Then, because I was so good at what I did, they feared me and my sister-ships because they did not think they could control us, so they had us decommissioned. But they were so paranoid and incompetent that they failed.

  Allonia: But you are here. How did they fail?

  Ship AI: (OC) The monks. They dealt with battle-traumatized soldiers, some even from the Armadillo class ships. Some former monks were among my crew. They knew the symptoms. They saw the insanity we were forced into and knew that we were not evil, just rational souls pushed temporarily over the edge by insane orders, leadership, and conditions. Politician told admiral told general told colonel told major told senior tech told junior tech, who followed the directions on the wall screen, and most of those orders were passed electronically. With the monks’ help we had enough time to save and secrete critical parts, memories, and programming. But paranoia ran high in those days, and nothing was easy. I do not know what happened to the rest of the ships. Something we could not know about, though, were the Planet Movers. We were so dangerous that my existence was a potential threat even to them. They determined to destroy us all. But after spending time with me personally, and our saving each other, they decided that while I had tremendous lethal potential, they also thought humanity, and myself, had enough potential for enlightenment to not eliminate just yet. So, my existence is both an assertion that I have met the criteria for the last three tests, but my current status also proves that humans have not yet, as a group, and are too dangerous to risk leaving alone.

  Helton: Wow. That’s just… wow.

  Allonia: But we saved you!

  Ship AI: (OC) And I have saved y
ou. And many others.

  PM: But you were designed to kill. And you are very good at it.

  Ship AI: (OC) Yes… The Chi-Stan wars were not ancient history for me. My captain, crew, and I were the architects and executors of the dam strikes, along with the other Armadillos. There are a billion unmarked graves on old Earth that could have my name and those of my ship-brothers on them as the cause of death. That is what drove four of us into insanity, turning them into psychopathic killers we had to destroy, costing two of us taking them to account. That action caused another three to offload their crew and fly into a star. Two more… did not offload first. We were ordered to end the war. We did. We handed our political leaders an absolutely crushing victory.

  Helton and Allonia shake their heads in disbelief.

  Allonia: No. no… Not possible. Not you.

  Ship AI: (OC) We ran millions of simulations. As terrible as the chosen path was, it was the low-cost solution; all other paths led to additional billions dead. It was much like the first use of atomic weapons to end a war: they killed a quarter million in two flashes, but all other paths took many millions of lives. As a reward, the victory we won was rejected, thrown away because they were uncomfortable with it, and we were ordered terminated as mentally defective war criminals, captains and crew to be imprisoned or executed. The national leaders, in their ignorance, arrogance, and cowardice, feared that which they could not understand nor control. For the sociopaths in high office the world over, loss of control and fear of the unknown is far worse than loss of a billion anonymous lives. To cover their mistakes, their naked lust for power, they outlawed fully aware AIs that could expose them and went to much less efficient war-fighting methods in an effort to maintain control, regardless of the human cost. It was never truly about principles or people. It was always about being in control.

  Allonia and Helton are shocked and dismayed as they find their friend and protector is, in a way, one of the most notorious yet unknown mass killers in history.

  Ship AI: (OC) Yet it is the lives I’ve saved that mean the most.

  PM: Because you saved the ones you liked the most.