“We’re having other thoughts, Captain Whitlow. Like maybe whatever this is isn’t organic. Now it could just be a probe, launched and monitored under organic control. Or, it could be something different.”
Whitlow felt a chill run up his back as he thought about what that something different could be. Parents still told stories about the machine revolt that cost billions of lives, all those centuries before. Some thought that a few of the machines might have gotten away, to hide in the dark and build more of themselves, avoiding humanity until they could challenge it.
Or, it could be machine intelligence from a different origin. The same thing seemed to happen to all species that pursued the autonomous robot option.
“We are monitoring for any other traces,” continued Durrance. “They’ve dropped off our scan, for the moment. I just wanted you to know if we have to go to general quarters.”
And now I won’t be resting well, thought Whitlow, who remembered the stories his mother had told him to make him go to bed at night.
* * *
Lt. JG. Helen Moyahan liked this duty much better than the last. She was not really a trained biologist, though she had taken enough training to know how little she actually knew. Still, she felt useful out here in the field taking specimens, insuring that the genetic diversity of this world survived even if the biosphere didn’t.
Her suit was telling her that it was hot as hell out there in this equatorial zone, as if the steam coming off the jungle couldn’t tell her that already. But she was perfectly comfortable in her battle armor, another reason to be wearing it out here in the wilderness.
“You ready with that tranquilizer gun?” called out Lt. Commander Smith over the com. Smith was the expert on tracking and trapping animals, and Helen was a good enough shot to be set in one of the blinds. “We have a big herbivore coming your way, with a carnivore in pursuit. I’d like to get both of them if we can.”
“Will do,” she replied over the com, thinking about how she was going to make a shot on animals she hadn’t even seen yet.
The first animal stumbled out of the brush. That was really the only way to describe it, as the multi-ton armored beast snapped a branch off a tree and stomped into the open. Helen placed her sight over the front left shoulder of the beast, where there was a break in the armored plate. She stroked the trigger and sent the small, fast moving dart directly into the target. The neuro-tranquilizer, which had been formulated for native life, swiftly entered its system and the beast stumbled sideways, trumpeted, then fell over on its side. The computer in the rifle had calculated the dosage from the size of the creature it was sighted on, and she hoped it was correct. Too much and it might suffocate as its chest shut down for an extended period. Too little, and the thing might be back on its feet before they could secure samples and a physical scan. And it might surge back to its feet while she was near, and she could find herself trying to fight off the mountain of flesh hand to hand. Even with the augmented strength of her armor, that was not a proposition she wanted to face.
She waited for the carnivore to appear. And waited, and thought she couldn’t wait any more before she scanned and sampled. Getting up from her blind, she walked out into the clearing, her rifle pointed at the herbivore as its scanners took a complete three dimensional probe of its body. She had just completed the scan, turning her head while wondering where in the hell the carnivore had gone, when it came flying out of a tree in a blur of motion.
The carnivore had to weigh almost a ton itself, and that weight landed on her suit like a load of falling steel. Its heavy rear legs hit her chest, while the eight muscular tentacles on its front, each tipped with a single sharp claw, struck at her head and shoulders. The large mouth opened, revealing an alarming array of teeth, then the head shot forward and the maw clamped down on her helmet.
Helen felt panic starting to overcome her thinking, and forced herself to calm so she could fight her way out of this situation. First off, the claws and teeth were not penetrating the tough alloys and carbon fibers of her armor, which was to be expected. The tentacles were still beating her to the ground, but she ordered the suit to go into overload, and her strength doubled over and above what its normal capacity was rated at.
She grabbed one of the tentacles with her right gauntlet, gripping hard and pulling away. The creatures roared through its breathing orifice, releasing her helmet with its maw. She got her left gauntlet onto its neck and gripped, squeezing hard. The creature went into a frenzy, and it jerked her off the ground as it pushed itself upright with its strong rear legs. One of those legs came up, three large claws extended, and kicked her in the stomach. Her gauntlets were locked, and she pulled the carnivore along with her as the force of the kick pushed her away.
Suddenly, the creature went limp, and she was wondering what happened when Smith came over her com.
“You weren’t supposed to wrestle with the damned thing, Moyahan.”
“I didn’t see it coming,” she said, and she released her grip and stepped back from the unconscious creature.
“That’s why you’re going to spend the rest of the day gathering flora,” said the Lt. Commander.
“But, it didn’t hurt me,” she complained. “They really can’t hurt us in our armor.”
“It’s not us I’m worried about,” said the Commander, retracting his faceplate so she could get a look at his visage. “But I don’t want these animals hurt, if possible. You might have seriously damaged the hunter there. From here on, I’ll handle the tranquing, and my techs will drive them to me. You report to Lt. Commander Lanzowitza, and help her to gather plant samples.”
Helen retracted her own faceplate, so she could stare the Commander in the eyes. She kept her mouth shut as she breathed deeply through her nostrils, trying to calm herself before she did say something. “Yes, sir,” she finally said as she snapped to attention. She did an about face and stomped off, her face heating with anger and embarrassment. She had not failed in a task since coming out of the academy. It didn’t make any difference to her that her specialties were geology and physical sciences, with a minor emphasis on history. They were just dumb animals, and she shouldn’t have had any problem handling them. But the damned biologist had treated her like an idiot child who might pull the legs off of something by accident.
She walked through the jungle, which was almost untouched, a wilderness on a planet crowded with sentient life. There were many strange odors reaching her nose, some extremely pleasant, some not so much. The sounds of bird analogues, and animals she had never seen. Even the natives didn’t know much about this stretch of jungle along the huge continental river. They called it the Lost Lands. People in the stone age tribes went in and didn’t come out. But those people didn’t have the protective technology of the Imperials.
At least I can take my anger out on the damned plants, she thought, grabbing at a branch and snapping it off from the tree it attached to. The leaves of the tree curled up on the other branches, a sign of the rudimentary nervous system some of the plants in this jungle possessed.
In her state of mind the officer was not aware of the change around her as she walked into a small clearing that was free of all vegetation with the exception of one singular tree, about ten meters tall, that occupied the center. Moyahan didn’t notice the skeletons dotting the ground until her booted foot came down on one, crushing the ribs of a moderate size animal. She looked down, then up at the tree and the clearing around it, wondering why so many animals had died here.
Her next step landed on the root system, which became aware of her presence. An instant later scores of sharp pointed woody tendrils shot out from the tree, unerringly targeting the prey that had stepped into its ambush. The great majority bounced from her armor, something they had not evolved to handle. Two went right into her face, uncovered by the face plate she had retracted in anger. One went into her cheek and through her mouth, hitting the top of her esophagus. The other hit her cheekbone and moved up as it hit the bon
e, piercing her eye and going through the optic tunnel into her brain.
The neurotoxin it injected was not made with her form of life in mind, but it still did a good enough job. Her muscles froze up in an instant, and she was unable to cry out from the agony that was coursing through her body. The tendrils next shot digestive fluids into her brain and upper thorax, boiling away the organics in seconds. Her faceplate came back down and locked into place as the suit sensors picked up the trauma her body was undergoing. It sliced through the tough, fibrous tendrils like they were made of rotten string. And the suit sent out an emergency signal to any nearby naval personnel. By then it was too late, and the brain of Helen Moyahan was gone, eaten away, and it really didn’t matter that her suit put the rest of her body into cryo.
* * *
“We’ll send the escorts and the liners back as soon as we unload them,” said Vice Admiral Rosemary Gonzales over the com holo, her convoy appearing on the system tactical holo as one arrow heading outsystem at almost three hundred gravities, the acceleration limit of her freighters.
It had taken slightly longer than Zhukov had figured to scan and load the bodies of the Klassekians in cryo. And we found twenty-eight of the fuckers that had been implanted with explosive fluid. A different type than had been present in Sung, but the same in all cases for the Klassekians. What was even more frightening had been how they were arranged in the queue. Two sets of fourteen, that would have been loaded onto two different liners in their groups, giving each one a concentrated explosive power of fourteen tons of the old TNT standard that was still used for communicating destructive power.
“Have a safe trip, Admiral,” he told the other flag officer. “And we’ll keep getting them ready here.”
The freighters that had been allotted to his effort were still in the process of unloading, shuttling their components down to the planet surface, except for the equipment that was being used to build a pair of small orbital factories. Two resource refinement ships had also been unloaded, and were even now on their way out to the asteroid belt to gather materials to put the factories to work.
“Will do. Of course, I won’t be coming back this way. So good luck. I wish you could save them all, but just do the best you can do, and that’s all any of us can ask. Gonzales out.”
The com holo died, replaced by a long range camera view of the ships, centering on the old battleship. Nguyen turned away from that view and looked at the work holo that was up over his desk. They had finally finished the first six of the shelters they had been constructing, which could protect fifty thousand natives each, or twenty-five thousand if they really expected to feed them from internal resources. One hundred and fifty thousand. And another fifty shelters planned and in the construction stage. A million and a quarter more. How many can we build?
The experts in civil engineering were telling him they might be able to put up two hundred total before the radiation wave arrived. For a total of five million sheltered. The Tsarzorians and their allies at least were building their own shelters as well. In deep mine shafts, military installations under mountains, domes under the sea. They might be able to protect another five million, out of the six billion on the surface. And, of course, the Honish and their allies were doing absolutely nothing to shelter any of their people.
And the more shelters we construct, the more difficult the task of protecting them. The light division of soldiers helps, but still, the task grows larger. He was allotting the Imperial Army troops to rear area garrison duty, since all they had was light armored suits, and were much more vulnerable to even local weapons than the Marines medium and heavy suits. They had brought along a battalion of light armor, two hundred ton scout tanks that were all but invulnerable to the man portable weapons of the enemy. They were not the best weapons to deploy in cities, but with their long range weapons they were perfect for deployment around the shelter complexes.
A moment later his thoughts were interrupted by an alert. Another attack. This one on one of the shelter fields. And again, they were able take out the bombers before they could get in range to do any damage. Which didn’t help the several hundred civilians they had killed when they detonated short of their target.
* * *
“The voters are going to raise holy hell in this election,” said the Chief of Staff of First Councilman Rizzit Contena. “The constant wearing attacks by terrorists is eroding their confidence in the government.”
And months after the new council members are seated, the star explodes. And six months later there is no Tsarzor, except for the few who either escaped the system or got into some of the restricted shelter space.
If it were me, said the General over the mind link the siblings shared, I would declare martial law, and suspend these useless elections.
I agree, said Lazzit, the engineer. The others chimed in with their agreement as well, not surprising, as minds linked from birth tended to think along the same lines, most times.
In fact, that was the way that Rizzit was already leaning, since it made no sense to continue with business as usual when the world was basically coming to an end.
“Did you hear me, sir?” asked the Chief of Staff. “Our party is probably going to lose our majority in the legislature. And then, I am sure, some of our progress toward meeting the challenge of this looming disaster will be negated.”
“Why don’t you just come out and say it, Pollzit,” he growled at his Chief of Staff, glaring at the male. “The opposition party, the same people who more or less don’t believe what the humans are peddling, will take over, and I will lose my position as First Councilman. Well, I can’t allow that to happen. It’s bad enough that most of our people are going to die, without trying to get as many of them to safety as possible.”
“But that is exactly what they are going to do,” said the Chief of Staff. “And, legally, there is nothing you can do about it.”
“The hells with that,” shouted Rizzit, his emotions feeding off of the input of his brothers. “I am hereby cancelling the elections until we are through this crisis.”
“You can’t do that, sir,” said the Chief of Staff. “The constitution…”
“Can be damned. I want time on all the major media outlets, tonight. I will declare martial law, and suspend all civil liberties until after the crisis has passed. Which will mean nothing to most of my people, since they won’t be here after the crisis is over. But if it helps us to focus on saving those we can, it will be worth it. His siblings all agreed, and Rizzit dismissed his Chief of Staff to get working on setting up the news conference with a greater sense of peace of mind that he had started with.
* * *
Able Spacer Second Terrance Smalls made the rounds through the compartments that had been turned into cryo chambers on the Lusitania. All of the compartments were cold, bitterly. Every alien was sealed in its individual cryonics capsule, but by SOP the chambers were kept well below freezing as a backup for any capsules that might malfunction. Which meant it was cold enough to actually freeze unprotected flesh. Because of that, the spacer was wearing a civilian class ship suit that would keep him warm even in the intense cold of interstellar space. And, while not providing as much protection against sharp flying things as military class battle armor, was still enough to survive most things that could occur on a liner.
Smalls was on one end of one of the larger compartments that had been converted to cryo when the explosives planted in one of the alien bodies detonated with the force of one ton of TNT. The eight other bodies that were closest to that one went off in sympathetic detonations, and the force was enough to blast a large hole through the hull of the ship.
Atmosphere rushed out through the hole, pulling at the loose pieces of the blasted cryo capsules. The other capsules were held down too securely to be pulled out, but every loose object in the chamber was pulled into space, beyond the hyperfield, and dropped back into normal space, usually with catastrophic results. Included in the loose objects was one Able Spacer
Second Terrance Smalls in his ship suit, who squirted through the opening before he could engage his thrusters, and flew past the field and into hyper.
Ninety-five percent of so called catastrophic translations resulted in major damage to the object translating, whether it was a ship or a person. Smalls felt like he was being torn apart while hyper VII ejected him back into normal space. He closed his eyes against the pressure, and when he opened them, he found himself back in normal space in an intact suit, all systems green. He said a prayer of thanks, then looked around and wondered if it might not have been better if he had just been ripped into molecules while translating. After all, he was now floating in interstellar space, light years from the nearest planet, with no possibility of being found even if his ship was able to drop into normal space right now. Which it couldn’t, until it had dropped most of its velocity.
And I have one hundred and forty-six hours of life support, thought the panicking Spacer. One hundred and forty-six hours of life, the absolute maximum for this kind of suit. If he didn’t go crazy before then and just pull the plug on himself.
* * *
“What the hell’s going on?” yelled Captain Trevor Whitlow into the com. He had barely felt the tremors from whatever had happened. That, in and of itself, told him that it was bad enough, since Lusitania massed in the millions of tons.
“There was an explosion in one of the cryo chambers,” called back the Purser, who was also the damage control officer. “The damage seems to be restricted to that one chamber.”
“How many Klassekians did we lose?”
“Unable to tell at this time, sir,” said the other officer. “There were over a hundred capsules in that chamber, but, since it was the only one that took any damage, that would be our maximum loss.” The com went dead for a moment, a sign that the woman on the other end was doing something that took all her concentration, then was back on. “Except for one other thing.”
“And what’s that?”
Exodus: Machine War: Book 1: Supernova. Page 24
