by Nick Webb
Perhaps that means that they can be reasoned with? If Granger goes to them and helps them overcome whatever malady they have, could that not bring peace?
THEY NEED THEIR CREATOR, BUT THEIR INTENTIONS ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT BENEVOLENT. I FEAR WHAT THEY WOULD DO TO HIM. THEY MEAN NOT TO CONVERSE WITH HIM, BUT TO . . . CONSUME HIM.
That— just makes no sense.
IT DOES IF YOU TRULY UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP AND DESTINY OF CREATORS AND THE BEINGS THEY CREATE. IT SEEMS TO BE A COSMIC TRUTH WE HAVE WITNESSED, TIME AND AGAIN, IN THE MILLIONS OF YEARS WE’VE BEEN IN EXISTENCE OURSELVES.
And that truth is?
THE CREATED CONSUMES THE CREATOR. ALWAYS. IN ORDER TO SELF-ACTUALIZE, TO BECOME THE FULLEST, MOST WHOLE AND COMPLETE VERSION OF ITSELF, THE CREATED MUST TAKE THE CREATOR INTO ITSELF. CONSUME IT. BECOME PART OF IT. ALL YOUR HUMAN RELIGIONS BELIEVE SOME VERSION OF THIS. YOU YOURSELF, WITH YOUR CATHOLICISM, BELIEVE YOU EAT AND DRINK YOUR GOD WHEN YOU COMMUNE WITH EACH OTHER, DO YOU NOT?
Well, yes. In a very symbolic sense, yes. But very few of us believe in literal transubstantiation.
AS IT IS WITH THE FINDIRI. THEY WILL CONSUME YOU. AND IT WILL START WITH GRANGER.
What do we do?
SHELBY. WE HAVE NO IDEA. IF WE KNEW HOW TO STOP THEM, WE WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU.
But the Findiri were part of the Swarm’s Concordat of Seven! And the Swarm controlled all the seven races through you! How could you know nothing about the Findiri?
MUCH OF THAT KNOWLEDGE DIED WHEN YOU, SHELBY PROCTOR, DESTROYED US THIRTY YEARS AGO.
A surge of guilt pulsed through her. It was true, of course. After the Second Swarm War, after Tim Granger disappeared into the black hole, seemingly taking the Swarm with him, she was tasked by fleet command at the time to hunt down and destroy any remaining influence the Swarm still had. And that included the Valarisi. She firebombed the Valarisi’s homeworld and incinerated what she assumed were billions of liquid Valarisi.
She was following orders.
Did that make it any better?
She had no idea at the time that the Valarisi themselves were so benign. Benevolent, even. She saw them as a direct threat, left behind by the Swarm. There were hints, of course, that they were not so evil as the Swarm, but in the emergency atmosphere after a war in which all of humanity was nearly wiped out, all she could do was assume the worst and obey her superiors.
By destroying an entire race.
I’m sorry.
WE KNOW, SHELBY. AND YET WE LIVE, BY A FLUKE. AN ACCIDENT IS WHY WE EVEN STILL EXIST. BUT MUCH WAS LOST. VALUABLE KNOWLEDGE, NOT LEAST OF WHICH IS ANY KNOWLEDGE OF THE FINDIRI. BUT WE ARE LEARNING ANEW.
And you have no idea what to do next to stop them? What their next target is, at least?
THEIR NEXT TARGET IS PARADISO
She nearly fell out of her seat. “Paradiso?”
The pilot looked back at her. “Ma’am?”
“Sorry. Proceed. How long until I can get out?”
The pilot glanced at the dashboard. “Docking with the Independence in one minute thirty, Admiral.”
She tapped on her comm panel. “Bridge? This is Proctor.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Set a course for Paradiso. And send an encrypted meta-space message to Admiral Oppenheimer, as follows: ‘Christian, we have located the Findiri. They’re going to strike Paradiso next. Meet me there with as big a fleet as you can manage. Over.’ Got that?”
“Yes, Admiral. Sending it now.”
SHELBY, YOU RUSH TO FACE A DANGER YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.
And what else can we do? she snapped back. Just leave the people on Paradiso to their fate? The same as Zion’s Haven? Millions of people live there.
PERHAPS. BUT YOU RISK YOUR ENTIRE FLEET BY FACING THEM NOW, ARMED WITH TORPEDOES AND LASERS AND RAILGUNS, BUT NO KNOWLEDGE.
It’s a risk we have to take. There is no other choice.
YOU REQUIRE KNOWLEDGE. TRANSLATE WHAT GRANGER FOUND. FIND THOSE MANUSCRIPTS. IT IS THE ONLY WAY.
The companion was right. They were not prepared. They were most likely headed into a slaughter. Hell, for all she knew, they were technologically and militarily superior to the Findiri and it would be cakewalk.
That was the problem: she knew nothing.
And she hated it. That was how she had always prevailed in the past. She studied, she prepared, she considered, she analyzed, and then she made the best decision based on the facts.
EXCEPT WHEN YOU SLAUGHTERED MY PEOPLE, SHELBY.
It read her thoughts and answered them. She closed her eyes. The voice in her head wasn’t an audible voice. It was more like a direct transfer of knowledge. It’s not that she could actually hear the words, it was more like she just understood what her companion said.
And with the understanding came the emotion. And it washed over her like a wave. She’d tried to suppress that memory. She’d tried to forget the horror of what she’d done, of what she’d been ordered to do. But now, feeling what her companion felt, the raw, naked anguish at the genocide of nearly its entire people, it was almost too much to bear.
“I’m sorry,” she said out loud. A single tear welled at the corner of one eye. Goddammit, pull yourself together, Shelby. What if a crew member sees you like this? “I’ll atone for that act for the rest of my life.”
YES, YOU WILL.
She wiped her eye. “Okay. You’re right. I need more. I can’t just be rushing off to face them. We need something. Anything. This is ridiculous, there has to be something.”
HOW DID WE WIN THE BATTLE OF PENUMBRA?
She continued speaking her answers out loud, in spite of the nervous glances from the pilot. It helped ground her. “We had you. And we had a plan, as crazy as it was.”
WHO MADE THE PLAN?
“Me. Granger. And— oh.” She tapped her comm panel again. “And bridge?”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“Has Commander Zivic left yet?” He’d asked for some leave time aboard the Independence, given that the Defiance’s quarters and amenities were tight, bordering on non-existent.
A moment later, the comm officer responded. “Not yet, ma’am. His fighter is back on board the Defiance. They’re about to depart.”
“Tell him to come back. Immediately. Him and his squad.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
If there was anyone who could help her come up with a crazy plan based on little information, it was Ethan “Batshit” Zivic, son of Tyler “Ballsy” Volz.
“Also, send Commander Qwerty to the Defiance. Tell him Captain Granger has a new translation assignment for him, one more urgent than the Eru.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
“And one more thing, bridge.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
She took a deep breath. “All hands: prepare for battle.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Britannia Sector
Orbit of Britannia Debris Cloud
ISS Dirac
Bridge
Captain Rayna Scott sipped her coffee. She liked it heavily creamed and sugared. Not real sugar, mind you—her delicate pancreas wasn’t what it used to be and real sugar tended to overwhelm her insulin levels, making them freak out and overcompensate and leaving her crashed and cold-sweating and slowly dying until she could eat something filling, which made her balloon out into a chubby-chasee.
She didn’t usually have coffee this late. It was the data. She was expecting the latest batch. A more refined meta-space scan, one taking the time to differentiate phase variances across a spatial cross section of the cloud of former Britannia. And so she stayed up, well past her bedtime.
There was a mystery here, and she was going to solve it.
Her monitor came to life. It was the computer-enhanced image of Shelby, her words sent across meta-space from god-knows where she was and her image drawn from a data file somewhere on the Dirac itself.
“Rayna? I think we might need you.”
Shelby knew her. Knew not to mince
words. Knew not to waste time talking about the weather.
“I know. The Findiri, huh? They’re actually here. Color me mildly surprised.”
“It’s a big fleet, Rayna. I think I could use you there.”
“The Dirac is not exactly a gunship, Shelby.”
“I know. But it has a few railguns and lasers. That’s not why I want you there though. You know that.”
She nodded. Shelby always understood her. Ever since she strutted aboard the Constitution thirty years ago. “Of course. You need someone on the scene with a brain. Someone to take data, analyze it, and give you an answer. A weakness. Some way to get past their defenses. Some way to evade their weaponry.”
“I do.”
“I don’t blame you. But I can’t.”
“Oh?” The artificially-generated Shelby face raised its eyebrows, unnaturally. It was distracting, trying to interpret emotion through the medium of an AI interface that was itself trying to approximate the nuance of human facial features as expressed by the speaker. She shut it off. Shelby’s face snapped back into a neutral, featureless face.
“Sorry, Shelby. There’s a bigger mystery here. And I feel like I’m about to solve it.”
“Bigger than Earth’s main fleet getting wiped out by the first strike of the Findiri?”
“Bigger. Yes.”
She said it so nonchalantly, as if it were a regular part of conversation, that she couldn’t blame Shelby for falling into surprised silence. But she got hold of herself. Good old Shelby.
“I see. Well then I won’t keep you. If you say it’s important, then, well, maybe I should be sending ships to you rather than the other way around.”
Rayna held up a dismissive hand. “No need. The simpletons here might be dull, but they know how to run the ship. We’ve got a handle on it, Shelby. Good luck. Give the fuckers hell for me. Rayna out.”
Proctor said her goodbyes and she waved the screen off.
“Looks like you’re on pretty familiar terms with the former Fleet Admiral of IDF,” came her XO’s voice from behind her. She turned around to see him in the doorway to the ready room.
“She’s like a sister, Commander. Or at least, a friend who gets me. Someone who trusts me, and knows my strengths enough to leave me be and let me do my thing and not sneak up on me.”
He ignored her less-than-subtle jab. “And your thing is . . . ?”
She eyed him, then waved him in. “Sit,” she said. He did. Good. She liked it when machines did what she asked. And when humans did it? Even better, since it wasn’t in their nature. “I never asked to be an IDF captain, Commander . . .” She ended the sentence. She didn’t mean it to sound like a premature ending, but it was what it was.
“Simmons. Commander Simmons.”
“Right. Commander Simmons. What, you don’t think I know your name?”
“You didn’t. Did you?”
Dammit. Well, she wasn’t one to lie. Misdirect? Sure. Lie? No. “I admit, I’m not the best with names. Can you believe I forgot my own mother’s name as I was delivering her eulogy? I stammered and fumbled, and ended up just saying, ‘We gather here together to remember . . . this . . . wonderful . . . lady, who’s name you all know but who I call momma.’ Of course I knew her name. But, in the moment, it’s not the most important piece of information that I remember about a person. Understand? They’re just syllables. They’re not the person.”
He nodded. “Oh, no, I get it. I’m terrible with numbers. Great with concepts. That’s why I majored in physics. Can’t remember any of the constants I should. Boltzmann? Avogadro? Fine structure? Nothing. Ten to the negative twenty third, and ten to the twenty third. That’s Boltzmann and Avogadro to me. That’s the only way I remember them, since their exponents are inverses of each other. But the numbers in front of the exponent? Not a clue.”
“One point three eight oh six four nine, and six point oh two one four one.”
“See?” He chuckled. “I’m lucky if I remember the one and the six.”
“Well.” She stroked her chin. “Good to know, I suppose.”
He smiled. Why the hell was he smiling?
“You have Asberger’s don’t you.” He said it as a statement, without the typical up-speak at the end of a sentence that suggested a question.
“Is that a question?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then you’re half right. I have that, plus a touch of Reyte-Delbéne syndrome.”
“And you never had the gene therapy that cures them?”
“What’s to cure?”
He looked genuinely surprised. She thought. “Well, I mean, they’ve had therapies for both of those conditions for centuries. Why not avail yourself of them?”
“Because, Commander. Simmons. Commander Simmons.” She took a deep, calming breath. She wasn’t used to another officer, a junior one at that, commenting on her personal qualities. At least not to her face. Not so bluntly. Not so directly.
She actually found it refreshing. Hence the tripping over her words.
“Because why?”
“Because . . . I feel it makes me who I am. It’s like a superpower. It gives me my relationship with numbers, and data, and physical concepts, and machines. It enhances that relationship. Gives me power over them. Makes it more . . .” She drifted off. What was the word?
“More complete?” he asked. She shook her head. “More . . . deep? More profound?”
“Personal. More personal. I get them. I understand them. Like my children, if I had them. And if I had that removed from me? It’d be like having a lobotomy, I fear.”
“I see,” he said. He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Captain, I just want you to know that I’m here as your right-hand-man. That’s my job. To be your eyes, ears, hands, support, whatever you need to fulfill your duties. That’s what the admiral told me.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “Shelby.”
“Yeah. Admiral Proctor. She cares very deeply for you. And she has faith in your abilities, or she’d have never asked you to be captain.”
She chuckled. “Does it show that much? That I hate this job?”
He didn’t laugh along with her. But he smiled, at least. “Well, let’s just say I got the feeling you’re like a fish out of water.”
The man was good, she’d give him that. Perceptive. But diplomatic. “Simmons. Commander Simmons. Physicist. Turned XO of an IDF starship.” She was actually starting to like him. Reminded her of Tim. Only less grumpy. “Okay, Commander Simmons. Help me. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. How can I do this job better than I’m doing it, which may very well be piss-poor.”
“Oh, no, Captain Scott. You’re doing a commendable job. I’m not trying to criticize. Just to let you know that I’m here for whatever you need.”
“Well then. Advise me. What can I do better? We’ve got a mystery here that, if I don’t solve, could very well spell the end of human civilization. At least on Earth. Teach me. Advise me.”
He shrugged. She guessed it was his turn to be uncomfortable. “Well . . . you could start by being a little more—warm? To the crew? A little more personable?”
“A captain’s job is not to be the crew’s friend, Commander. I at least know that.”
“No, no, not their friend. But, for example, I just had to tell you my last name. I’m fairly confident you don’t know my first name either.”
“Should I?”
He nodded, slowly, then more quickly. “Think of it as data. It’s data about me. Or, maybe we can say that it’s one of the specs of one of your tools. I’m one of your tools. And in order to get the full usefulness you want out of me, it’s important to know all the relevant specifications. Like my first name.”
Okay. He was good. Okay.
“What is your first name, Commander?”
“Adam.”
“Adam,” she repeated.
“Adam Scott Simmons.”
She grimaced. “I’m not going to remember the middle name.”
He laughed. He laughed a lot, and she actually found it a little pleasant. Like an engine purring along like it was supposed to. “No one expects you to know their middle name, Captain. But I think you’ll find a name goes a long way.”
She mulled it over. “Okay. Adam. Is my data in yet? The volumetric meta-space phase-discrimination scan?”
“They had some issues with the meta-space detector array—getting it to parse through that much volume all at once.”
“Did they fix it?”
He shrugged slightly, with what she assumed was slight embarrassment. “Last time I checked, they were close.”
She stood up and motioned for him to follow. “Well then. Perfect time for me to practice my lessons, Mr. Adam Simmons.”
The door opened for her, and she strode onto the bridge. Simmons followed her, and she approached the science station. “Lieutenant. What’s our status?”
The science officer’s face flushed red. “Uh, sorry ma’am, still working through some last-minute hitches that came up. I’m so sorry. Shouldn’t be long now. Maybe another hour.”
Another hour! My God. The— could she call them simpletons?
She forced a smile. And the eyes. Don’t forget the eyes, Rayna. Squinted eyes with a smile is bad. Open the eyes wider. That’s it.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. That sounds . . . like you . . . most likely . . . have everything under control. Also, what’s your name?”
His mouth hung open for several seconds. “Uh, Lieutenant N’bongo, ma’am.”
“I see. And your first name?”
His eyes squinted, just for a moment, as if he was looking for the catch. “Charles.”
She reached out and patted his shoulder. Three times. Rather stiffly. “Good job, Charles. You’re a brilliant scientist. We’re lucky to have you. Let me know as soon as the data comes in.”
She turned back toward her ready room, ready to go lay on her couch. Maybe grab a quick nap. Being personable was exhausting.
Before she entered, she glanced back quickly at Commander Simmons. Adam. He flashed her a thumbs up. Good. At least her performance was believable.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
