Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova.

by Doug Dandridge

  She was definitely uncomfortable with what she just said to you, came the thought of his sibling.

  “Nanites are nanoscale robots,” said the human after a long hesitation. “We use them for just about everything on this ship, from basic maintenance of equipment, to the protection of our bodily systems. As soon as you came aboard you must have ingested some into your systems, and they looked over your cells and sent the information to our medical database.”

  “You let these things get into us,” said Nastra, her primary eyes widening while her secondaries went into overdrive. She started scratching at the back of her tentacles, as if she felt the things attacking her.

  “They will not harm you,” said the human. “We have been using them for over a thousand years, and they are perfectly safe.”

  Not according to our research, came the thought to Lamsat from his sibling. Our researchers feel that they can be as dangerous as any technology we have ever developed.

  But they are so much more advanced than we are, sent back Lamsat, trying to imagine just how much further along the tech scale these aliens were.

  “Our people think these, nanites, can be dangerous if not deployed with sufficient safety,” said Lamsat, looking into the eyes of the human. A moment later he was interrupted as more humans entered the room, bearing trays with glasses full of several colored liquids.

  “We have a lot more experience with this tech than you do,” said the Captain, picking up one if the glasses from a tray and taking a sip. “Try them. They’re safe as well.”

  Lamsat reached for a glass that contained an orange colored liquid, brought it to his ingestion orifice, and took a sip. He gave a grunt of surprise at the taste and sipped some more. “This is delicious.”

  “That’s orange juice,” said the human. “It comes from a Terran tree.”

  “My brother thinks it’s delicious,” said Lamsat, closing his mouth tight as he thought what he had said. They don’t know we can communicate with each other mind to mind. And that is an ability I’m not sure we want to give up yet.

  “Why would your brother think it’s delicious?” asked the large alien they called a Phlistaran. “He couldn’t have known anything about orange juice.”

  “It’s just an expression,” said Lamsat, communicating through his link to his sibling, who talked to his partner’s sibling, who communicated back to her.

  The human Captain looked at him strangely, and he looked away, refusing to meet her gaze while he talked in lies. He looked up after a moment, still aware of her gaze on him through his secondaries. He really didn’t know how intelligent these creatures were. More than his own people? He wouldn’t be surprised, not only because of their tech, but also due to their ability to get along with other species, while his own couldn’t even get along with themselves.

  “And what does your high command think of us?” asked the Captain, narrowing her eyes at Lamsat, another gesture he was unsure of. “Do they see us as friends from the stars, or invaders?”

  “They’re not sure yet, Captain,” said Lamsat, knowing exactly how his high command thought, if not the commanders of the other nations. He could feel his hearts beating faster, knowing that he did not like this kind of maneuvering. Especially with creatures he could not read all that well. And the information being sent to him by his sibling was all guess work as far as he was concerned. “That is why we are here.”

  * * *

  Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Exec, sent Albright through her com link.

  Telepathy, ma’am? asked Sekumbe. Do you really think that’s possible? Or if it’s just a misunderstanding of the translation program.

  That would be the smart way to bet, sent the Captain, rubbing her chin with her thumb and forefinger. But we’re not picking up any kind of transmission from them to the planet. In fact, with our EW platforms active, that would be impossible for their tech level. If there is a chance that they have some kind of mind to mind transmission, we have to pursue it. What do you think, Doctor.

  The nanites are sending back a pretty complete physiological profile, sent back Lt. Commander Sophia Romanov, the ship’s surgeon, as well as their chief of exobiology. If he were human, I would say he is distressed by what he is saying. If he were human, I would say he was lying. And I’m getting a fairly complete energy profile on his brain. A small area in one of the lobes has been very active in both of the aliens. I can’t say what it is, but it is not activating in response to their speech.

  “I’m sure you’ll want to contact your high command,” she said to the larger of the aliens, the male. “We can put in touch with them through our com.”

  “I would appreciate that, Captain,” said the Alien.

  Albright nodded to Hi’tarris and the Gryphon tech manipulated some controls on his board. At that moment the face of another alien appeared on the holo over the table, and Lamsat started as he found himself looking through the holographic communication. The aliens started speaking, and though they heard everything that was being said through the translation program, everything seemed to be pretty innocuous.

  Those brain areas are radiating with high energy, sent Romanov. Again, not in sync with their speech. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m willing to bet that it’s some kind of communication.

  “Excuse me, gentleman, and lady” said Captain Albright. “I have a question to ask you and your leader.”

  Both the alien on the holo and the two in the conference room looked at her, all of their eyes, primaries and secondaries, focusing on the human.

  “And you able to communicate mind to mind?”

  All of the eyes changed, turning to a fierce glare on the leader, and to panicked orbs on the Astronauts. That caused some physiological stress on the two on board, came the com link transmission from the Doctor. I think you hit a real nerve there.

  “Ma’am,” came a call over the voice com. “We’re tracking a launch from the largest land mass.”

  “Show me,” she ordered, and a second holo came to life over the table, this one showing a globe of the world they were in far orbit of. The globe, a composite of the visual scanners of the ship and a probe they had placed opposite of the cruiser in orbit, was a beautiful pearl of blue and white, like most living planets. The vortex pattern of a storm swirled off the southern coast of the largest continent. The lights of huge metropolitan complexes sparkled in the night of the smaller continent, one which was shaped like an upside down question mark, stretching from icecap to icecap at both poles. And most interesting of all, the large structures rising out of the atmosphere and into space. There were twelve of those objects scattered equidistant across the world, eight of them rising from land, the rest from the oceans.

  We still don’t know what they are, she thought, her attention captured by the magnificent objects that were over ten kilometers in diameter at the base and almost five hundred kilometers high. And we haven’t had a chance to ask these people about them.

  A blinking dot appeared rising up from the east of the largest continent, and Albright zoomed in her take to see a shuttle similar to the one their new friends had come up in. There were differences, but the tech level looked to be similar, which made sense, since these creatures occupied the same planet.

  “We warned them not to attempt contact,” said the Leader of the Tsarzorians over the holo he was on. “They were told what would happen if they tried.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Albright, looking at the alien leader in alarm. “What do you intend to do?”

  The holo went off, the contact with the Leader of Tsarzor broken before she could get an answer, and she found herself looking at the leader of the Astronauts. “What will he do?”

  “The situation with Honish is, tense,” said the alien, making what looked like a shrug of his tentacle attachments to his torso. “We have been in conflict with them for decades, fighting through proxies. And sometimes more directly.”

  “Perhaps we could help you to resolve y
our differences,” suggested the Captain. Because you’ve got enough trouble coming your way without fighting each other.

  “They are, different than us. They look different, and do not do things the way we do,” said Nastra, her head moving in a circular motion that the Captain took as a negative. “And they worship a false God, and commit atrocities in the name of that deity.”

  Sounds a lot like our own history when we were at this tech level. Except the ones who committed atrocities in our timeline were much more primitive than the Western nations.

  “We have more launches, ma’am,” came the call from her tactical officer over the com. “Two.”

  “More shuttles?”

  “No, ma’am. Not unless they have inertial compensators that we don’t know about. Those things are lifting at over thirty gravities, and they’re launching from an aquatic vessel.”

  “Contena is willing to start a war,” said Nastra in a soft voice, really too low to hear, but picked up by the translation program and amplified.

  “What are those things?” asked the Captain, slapping a hand on the table to catch the attention of the two aliens. “Are they targeting that shuttle?”

  “Those are interceptor missiles,” said Lamsat, looking down at the table, then up into the eyes of Albright. “They are made to knock down missiles that are targeting our ships, but can hit very high altitude targets as well.”

  “Tactical,” called out the Captain. “Target those missiles. Take them out.”

  Everyone watched the holo with high levels of anxiety, even if the reasons were different. The cruiser was at action stations, with its light amp rings fully charged, each ring’s multiple emitters drawing power from their crystal matrix battery packs, which tapped into the matter/antimatter reactors to recharge as they were drained. Laser A took aim at one missile, the B ring the second, and it only took one shot from each to spread the missiles into clouds of plasma in the upper atmosphere.

  “I want one of our assault shuttles out right now to escort that shuttle to us,” ordered the Captain over the com.

  “Do you want us to take out those launching platforms, ma’am?” asked the Tac Officer.

  Albright looked up to see expressions on the faces of the two Klassekians that looked like panic. “Those are manned vessels, I suppose?” She could read the answer in the faces of the aliens. “Just take out any more missiles, Tactical,” she ordered over the com. “Do not hit those ships.”

  Albright looked back at the Klassekians. “Why in the hell would your leader order that shuttle to be fired on.”

  “The Honish are our enemies,” said Lamsat, as if that was all the answer that was needed. Albright kept him skewered with her gaze until he spoke again. “We have lost many of our people to them over the last four decades. They are fanatics. Their God, Hrrottha, is a murderous deity, at least in their delusional minds.”

  “In their minds?”

  “Of course their God doesn’t exist,” said Nastra. “They say the Blue Giant star, what we call Gromor, is their God, while we know it is not a deity. They even call it the same name as their God, Hrrottha.”

  “Even some of our own people believe it is a God,” said Lamsat, looking over at his partner. “They believe that an Armageddon is coming, and Gromor is the harbinger of that apocalypse.”

  “And they are correct,” said Albright, thinking about what astrophysics had told her as they entered this region. “But not in the manner in which your people believe.”

  Chapter Three

  My greatest privilege as a member of Exploration Command has been to make first contact with several intelligences. To come before them in friendship, and to see it in their eyes. To know that they realize they are not alone in this Universe.

  Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung.

  Many people thought aliens, those who belonged to another species, were all monolithic cultures, and that they all looked alike. The members of Exploration Command knew better. They were trained in recognizing the differences that existed in the members of all species, as well as the cultural differences that were obvious to a skilled observer. And then they interacted with many members of other species of the Empire, so they could put their training into practice. Mandy Albright had been an explorer for over twenty-five years, and this was not her first first contact situation. There were obvious racial differences between the newcomers and the people they had already been talking to, especially when able to compare them in the same room.

  The newcomers, both males, were slightly shorter than Lamsat, but that didn’t have to be a racial difference. The difference in skin coloring was a dead giveaway, the newcomers at least a couple of shades lighter than both of the Tsarzorians. And their eyes were much rounder, and actually protruded a bit more.

  And I just wish this day would be over with, thought the Captain of the William Clark. It had been a very long day, over forty hours, and though her nanites would cleanse the toxins from her system, whether she slept or not, there was still a psychological fatigue that they couldn’t touch. And dealing with these people would strain the patience of a saint.

  “And what have these liars told you,” said the primary representative of the Nation of Honish.

  “We did not lie to them,” yelled Lamsat, glaring at the other male, whose name was Jerarr H’rrana. “We told them the truth, before you could get to them with your foul manipulations.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Albright, holding up a hand. “I will not have you arguing on my ship. Now, Nazzir, I would listen to these emissaries. You will have a chance to rebut whatever he says.”

  Lamsat looked away, obviously wanting to say something, but holding it in. Albright looked back at the representative from Honish, who appeared to be an older male, and the only one of his team to talk so far.

  “Thank you, Captain,” said H’rrana. “We wish to establish relations with your people, and protest that the Tsarzorians tried to monopolize this contact, to the point of committing an act of war against my people by firing on my shuttle.” H’rrana glared at the enemy male for a moment before looking back at the human. “And I wish to thank you for saving my life when they shot those interceptors at us. And for sending out the other craft to escort us in.”

  “You are very welcome, Representative H’rrana. We definitely wanted to meet with your people as well. Because we have something very important to tell you, both of you. And I think you will want to settle your differences and cooperate with us after I give you this news, if you want your species to survive.”

  The expressions on the faces of all the aliens mirrored as she spoke. Good. They need to be concerned, and take this seriously.

  “Your close companion star, Gromor, is going into the final stages of its life. It’s going to go supernova within the next couple of years. Maybe as soon as a year.”

  She could read the shock on the face of Lamsat, despite his alien features, it was so obvious. “No,” stammered the Astronaut. “It can’t be.” The reaction of the other alien delegate was also shocking, in a different way.

  “Gromor is the manifestation of our God, Hrrottha,” said H’rrana, a strange expression on his face. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, and the curving of his speaking orifice seemed to signify pleasure. “This is wonderful news. I have told the leader of my people through my sibling of the news, and it has greatly excited him.”

  “Why do you say it’s wonderful news?” the Captain asked the Honishan.

  “It has been prophesized for thousands of years that our God would take us into his embrace on the day our world ends,” said H’rrana. “Through the years his manifestation has grown larger, and we were sure the day was coming when he would take us into his heaven, and cast the infidels and unbelievers into hell. This means that we win, and our enemies lose, according to the judgment of Hrrottha.”

  My God, these people are religious fanatics, thought the Captain, wondering how she was going to get through to them with some sense. Wait a s
econd. He said he told his leader. She linked into the network and contacted her Com Officer. Has there been any signals coming to or from our guests?

  No, ma’am. Not a watt of energy has passed either way.

  She looked over at the leader of the Honish delegation. “You said you contacted your leaders. How?”

  “Through my siblings,” said the alien, giving her another strange look. “We are linked by the God. Are you not?” The last was said in almost a hiss, as if the alien was shocked by the concept that an intelligent being wouldn’t be linked to those they had shared the womb with.

  “And your people?” she asked Lamsat, ignoring the question of the Honishan.

  “Yes, we are linked with those we shared the womb with,” said the Astronaut. “I thought it best to hold that knowledge from you, but since this idiot has given away the game, there is no use now.”

  “Who are you calling an idiot,” growled H’rrana, starting up from his seat.

  “Sit down,” roared the Captain, pointing at the alien. “I will have no violence aboard my ship. If you want to kill each other on your planet, that’s your right. But not on my ship.”

  “They will all die soon enough,” said H’rrana, sitting back down slowly, his glare never leaving the face of Lamsat, who also sank back into his seat. “The judgment of God is upon us.”

  “Not our Gods,” said Lamsat, looking at the Captain. “Our Gods do not want our people destroyed. We too have a prophecy. It says that a God will come from the heavens to aid us in our hour of need.”

  Lamsat closed his primary eyes a moment, then opened them wide and looked over at H’rrana. “Why are you fueling your missiles?”

  “Because our God is nigh,” said the alien from the other power. “Because his judgment is upon us, and we have nothing more to fear from you, or any other worldly power.”