Burnt Worlds

by S. J. Madill

Dillon stopped, turning to look at her. “Hear what?”

  She shook her head. “Do your suits not pick up external sounds? Something is playing the radio traffic from that battle. It’s in your language.”

  “External mikes, everyone,” said the Captain, tapping his wrist console.

  It was quiet, but he could hear it. The rapid, clipped staccato of tactical radio chatter. Dozens of different voices, with different accents, quickly speaking after each other.

  “...lost power and are adrift. Bonaventure, please make positive-zed to avoid, over.”

  “U.S. Third Battle Squadron, remaining units merge with First Cruiser Division. Flag transferring to St. Louis, out.”

  “Vanguard to fleet: we are coming about to starboard, to open our forward arc. Stand by for FTL torpedoes. Vanguard out.”

  Perkins looked at the Captain. “FTL torpedoes, sir? They gave that monster faster-than-light torpedoes? I thought those were banned after that thing happened to Pluto...”

  Dillon was already moving higher up the steps, quickly looking at each row of consoles as he climbed. “Negative, Perky. Only banned for fighting other humans.”

  “Holy shit,” breathed Amoroso, looking up at the giant display. “Vanguard just one-shotted a cylinder. One shot, whomp, cylinder’s gone.”

  “Yeah,” said Dillon. “Except she only would’ve sailed with a half-dozen torpedoes. They’re still screwed unless we—”

  “Listen!” snapped the Tassali. Everyone froze, straining to hear.

  “Affirmative,” said the faint voice. “we’ve had additional transmissions from Borealis. She’s through the gate, at the homeworld of these things, dodging a couple of them. They’ve got a team on the surface, trying to shut these things down. Over.”

  “Understood. Godspeed to them. Lincoln out.”

  Dillon shook his head. “Damn it, we don’t know if this is a real-time feed from the cylinders themselves, or if this radio traffic is five minutes old. The fight could already be over.” He started to run up the stairs, Amoroso taking off ahead of him.

  “Here,” he said, arriving at the top row of consoles.

  A half-dozen chairs were pulled into a semicircle around the large central console. On the chair and on the floor nearby were the metallic remains of uniforms and insignia. Several guns lay nearby; on the wide central console was a collection of empty cups.

  “Huh,” said Dillon. “A group of them decided to go out together.” He carefully picked his way between the chairs. “I kinda get it.”

  Mouthing a silent apology to the dead, he gently pushed the high-backed centre chair out of the way, its metallic uniform fragments falling to the floor. While the other three gathered around him, Dillon stepped up to the wide console and began to examine it.

  In addition to the massive displays on the far wall of the room, the console had its own displays: a large central one that flickered intermittently, plus two smaller ones on each side of it. One showed text, one showed columns of data, and the other two were dark.

  “Amoroso, get out your datapad. See if it can translate the one with the columns.

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Tassali, the big middle display is showing something, but the flickering is too brief to make out. See if your datapad can record it and show us whatever the image is.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Perkins, keep an eye on the big wall displays. Let us know if anything interesting is going on.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Dillon held the datapad toward the small text display, and waited while it worked at translating it.

  “Sir,” said Perkins. “That one tactical display,” he said, pointing to the upper left of the room, “I think it’s tracking the Borealis. A single ship, flying like mad around the planet, with two cylinders chasing it.”

  “Okay, Atwell and the Chief are driving. They can keep ahead of the cylinders. They’ll have to play hide-and-seek until we get this shut down.”

  Amoroso turned his head to look at the Captain. “Sir, I have these columns translated.”

  Dillon leaned to look over the marine’s shoulder at his datapad. He blinked as the console’s large central screen flickered, a single brilliant burst of an image too brief to make out.

  “Here, sir,” said Amoroso. “First column is world name, second is population. All zeroes. The third one is titled ‘Vault’, and most of them are sort of checked off.”

  The Captain stared at the monitor. “So… they were tracking their colonies as their populations crashed, and marking off the ones where they’d built arks like the ones we saw.”

  “Aye, sir. Looks like it.”

  Dillon looked at the empty chairs behind them. “So, it’s save what you can, tidy up the loose ends, then a toast to each other and bullets to the head. Is that how a civilisation ends?”

  The Tassali didn’t look up from her datapad. “Once all hope is gone, that is all there is left: to try to be dignified about it.”

  Amoroso pointed at the small screen. “Look, sir. Not just planets. The list includes a half-dozen colony ships. All presumed lost, it says, but still…”

  Dillon’s datapad chirped at him, and he looked down at it. “Okay,” he said, his voice energetic. “This is excellent. The text here is about the cylinder peoples’ automated defences being online. So, if I poke this…”

  He reached out a gloved hand, one finger aiming at the floating display in front of him. As his finger touched the image, the display turned blue with new text across it. He looked back down at his datapad. “Locked out?” he said. He poked at the console again, but the same blue image reappeared. “Locked out,” he repeated. “Control transferred.” He looked up at the large displays on the far wall. “Control transferred? To who? To where?”

  “Another planet, sir?” asked Perkins. “We’d need to find out where, and then—”

  “To him,” said Amba. She held up her datapad for them all to see. “This is the image that is flickering on the large screen.”

  On the datapad was an image of a small room. An empty chair faced the camera, and the floor and walls behind it were covered in small alien writing. In the far corner of the room lay a body, a humanoid, curled up on the floor.

  “Oh my god,” said Amoroso. “It’s—”

  “Sir,” interrupted Perkins. “It’s a body, sir. A body. There aren’t any bodies anywhere else.”

  Dillon looked up at Amba, whose blue eyes were wide. “No plague,” she whispered. “This person survived. They were safe from the plague, and they knew it.”

  The Captain looked at the high-backed command chair, and its fragments of empty uniform. “So they transferred the command of their entire civilisation to that person, then… they all died.”

  “He watched his civilisation die, Captain. Alone.”

  Dillon shook his head, his breath heavy and steaming inside his helmet. “Okay,” he said. “We can’t be sentimental right now. Let’s all shake this off, and keep moving. Where is this person they gave control to?”

  “Somewhere safe from the plague, sir?” offered Perkins. “Somewhere sealed up?”

  “A clean room,” said Amoroso. “Like in a lab?”

  The Captain’s eyes lit up. “You mean,” he said, excitement growing in his voice, “like a science lab?”

  Perkins’ voice was unusually loud. “Sir! Back where we came in! There was another corridor, to a science area!”

  Dillon smiled. “Perkins, Amoroso, lead the way. Let’s move!”

  46

  They thundered down the hallway toward the science area, stepping sideways through two wide-open airtight doors, into a small foyer with desks and security stations. Beyond it, the room opened into a vast cavern.

  As big as a sports stadium, the cavern was filled with rows of glass-walled laboratories. Each contained research computers and equipment, and through the glass walls they could see the next laboratory beyond, and the next beyond that. Hundreds of laboratories, a
ll of different sizes and heights. Their eyes were caught by movement; in some of the laboratories there were screens that flickered, or robotic equipment that moved endlessly back and forth, or just sat in place, twitching feebly.

  “Well,” said Dillon. “They took their science seriously.”

  “Probably researching weapons to use against the Horlan,” said Amoroso.

  “Or a cure to the plague…” said the Tassali, “…once they realised what was happening. But once it went active, their time was limited.”

  “Okay,” said the Captain. “Look, we know what the clean room looks like: white walls with writing on them, and a body. These rooms all have transparent sides, so I doubt it’s any of them.” He gestured to the left and right. “Let’s split up and quickly look around. Everyone make sure you can see everyone else at all times. Go.”

  Perkins took off along the cavern wall to the left; Amoroso went to the right. Dillon and Amba ran ahead, separating as they moved down different rows of laboratory rooms.

  Glancing into the labs to his left and right, Dillon saw room after room filled with robotic equipment, computer stations and other strange devices, as well as more mundane collections of flasks and tubes. Most of the labs were sealed, the piles of clothing on the floor showing where the scientist had worked until they died. Apart from a few chairs and scattered pieces of equipment, the open hallways between the labs were mostly empty, making it possible for him to move quickly. He paused, looking to make sure he could see the others. Amoroso and Perkins were still following the cavern’s stone outer walls, and the Tassali was several hallways over from him, moving from room to room. He looked up, at the catwalks surrounding the higher levels, giving access to the tops of multi-level laboratories and other, smaller labs built up near the ceiling.

  “Sir!” cried Amoroso. “Over here, sir!”

  Dillon spun around to his right, his eyes finding Amoroso over by the cavern wall, waving and jumping. The Captain took off at a run, dodging chairs and skidding around corners until he was at the cavern wall next to the marine.

  A massive round door was set into the wall. Through its small window, they could see it was made of metal half a metre thick. Amoroso tapped on the glass. “In here, sir.”

  Dillon stood on tiptoe to look through the window. On the other side, in a cylindrical room, was a small bank of computer consoles. Beyond that was a second round metal door. Through the second door's window he could barely make out while walls covered in faint writing. “God damn,” he said. “Good eye, Amoroso. You’re hired.”

  “Aye sir. Thank you, sir.”

  “So,” said Dillon, looking at the wall next to the door. “How do we get in?”

  The marine held up his datapad in one hand, and pointed to a blue square on the wall panel. “According to my pad, sir, that one says ‘open’.”

  “Outstanding job,” said the Captain. “Go ahead, give it a push.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The marine leaned forward, his fingertip touching the blue button.

  There was a massive thud that shook the floor, followed by a cloud of dust jumping off the door. Perkins and Amba came jogging up just as the large metal door began to rotate clockwise, rolling itself into the wall and out of sight.

  They ran into the small room, past the consoles to the inner door. Dillon looked through the window, and could see the body on the floor in the far corner. “Huh. I can’t see his face very well. Someone look at him through your scope, let us know for sure that he’s dead before we open the door. For all we know, these people might live for centuries.”

  “I’ve got it, sir,” said Perkins. As the Captain stood aside, the marine stepped up to the door, pointing his weapon toward the glass while watching the carbine’s display screen. “Sir, those statues upstairs — if that’s what these people look like when they’re alive, then this guy isn’t. Skin’s pulled back, eyes are gone, bones are sticking out of his hands. Some dried-up gunge on the floor around him that looks nasty, sir. I think he’s long since kicked it.”

  “Alright then. Everyone with datapads, get ready to collect air samples. This’ll be the last remaining pre-plague native air on this planet. Might contain old organic stuff. Probably all dead, but still, the science types back home will be cranky if we don’t bring them some.”

  When Amoroso and the Tassali nodded their readiness, Dillon poked the blue button on the panel next to the door. The big round door silently and smoothly rolled into the wall, as a puff of dust and a shimmer in the air rolled past them.

  “Right now,” said Dillon, “I’m thrilled that we can’t smell anything. I bet that air is pretty bad.” He paused. “We should be respectful. This person died in here, probably very frightened and alone.”

  Dillon stepped into the room. It was small, three metres a side, with a large computer console and a chair, the one they had seen from the command room. The walls and floor were completely covered in neat rows of careful handwriting. A small corridor led off the back of the room; Dillon motioned for Perkins and Amoroso to check it out.

  Amba had crossed the room and delicately knelt on the floor in front of the body. “An dalan,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Amoroso’s voice burst through their helmets. “There’s a small apartment back here, sir: a bunk and some sort of crapper. Also a fancy robotic lab, and a big storage room. This guy was set up with a mountain of food rations, and he ate it all. I guess he starved when it ran out, sir.”

  “Writing on everything?” asked Dillon.

  “Aye, sir. Floors, walls and ceiling. Everywhere, sir.”

  “Understood. Scan it. Scan all of it.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Dillon looked down at the Tassali. “Amba,” he said, “I’d like you to scan the writing in this room. He wanted to leave a message for whoever came after him, and for his sake we’re going to make sure it gets read.”

  She turned to look at him, rising to her feet. “Yes, Captain. That is a very decent thing to do.”

  Dillon turned to look at the computer console. “I’ll see if I can control their defences from here.”

  Gently settling into the seat, he looked at the screens. In the centre was a display with lines of text. To the right, a view of the command centre, where they had just been. The semicircle of chairs around the commander’s console was clearly visible. Dillon shook his head, imagining the scientist, here in his safe room, watching as his entire civilisation was entrusted to his care — and then as the last people he would ever speak to died in front of him.

  The small display to his left had sets of numbers on it. He held up his datapad to scan it all in, tapping impatiently while waiting for the translation to finish.

  “I have found where she started writing,” said Amba.

  “She?”

  “I have decided it is a she.”

  “Oh,” said Dillon.

  The Tassali looked down at her datapad. “It begins, ‘My name is Furro. I am the last of my people. We are called the’... it is phonetic here… ‘Dal-tan-in, and soon we shall be extinct.’”

  “One sec,” said Dillon, as his datapad chirped at him. “Good, got it. This screen over here,” he nodded to his left, “shows the population counts of their colonies. The top row is their pre-plague population — nine hundred billion — and the lower number is obviously a ‘one’: this person. The centre screen,” he leaned forward, holding the datapad higher, “is at a screen with video replay options. The videos are titled ‘Last Day’ and ‘Last Words from the President’. Good god. Okay. I want some sort of…” he poked tentatively at the screen, and waited for the datapad to translate the new text that sprung up.

  “She had a family,” said Amba. “Two spouses and two children. She was told they were all safe on a colony ship, but she knew they were dead.”

  The Captain sighed. “Yeah,” he said, looking back at the datapad. He pushed another button on the console, and another, and the central display changed to show an imag
e of the homeworld, surrounded by ships and stations. “Ah,” he said, poking at part of the image. A picture of a cylinder ship appeared, along with numbers and other text. With a broad smile, he stabbed a button on the screen.

  His broad smile faded as a smaller display appeared. He looked incredulously at the screen. “Password?” he said. “They need a password to control their defences.” He looked around at the writing on the walls and ceiling, his stomach sinking. “What the fuck would she use as a password?”

  Behind the small password-entry display, the larger display shifted, to show a group of hundreds of cylinder ships pushing back a fleet of smaller vessels. Dozens of wrecked cylinders, and dozens more smaller ships, filled the space between the two fleets.

  Dillon swallowed. “Oh, shit. That’s us. The combined Earth fleets are losing.” He looked up at Amba. “Do you have any idea what might be the password?”

  The Tassali stepped over next to him, holding her datapad where he could see it. She pointed at groups of characters the datapad had read off the wall. “Those characters,” she said, “are the names of her spouses. These down here are the names of her children.”

  “Okay,” said Dillon. He tapped at the display, entering the same series of characters as were on Amba’s datapad. The display flashed blue, and the password-entry display reappeared. “The other one, then,” he said. Again, the blue screen. “Now this one.” Blue screen. “That one.” Blue screen again.

  He leaned back in the chair, tilting his head back toward the ceiling. “Perky, Amoroso, have you two seen anything that says what her password might have been?”

  “No sir,” came Perkins’s voice. “But we’re still scanning, sir.”

  “You said there was a bunk. Check the bed, the furniture, whatever, for mementoes or personal effects that might give us a clue.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Dillon watched the display, trying to make out the individual Earth ships involved in the battle. He recognised a few; one of them burst into a cloud of wreckage while its squadron mates fell back. He tapped his wrist console to create a private channel. Amba turned to look at him.