by Jay Allan
The Command Unit was old, even more ancient than the Regent itself. Perhaps that was the key to the answer to the puzzle. The humans were the enemy, and they had proven again and again how dangerous they were. They were the Seventh, the last of the ancient genetic strains the Old Ones had hidden on distant worlds. The Old Ones believed they had kept this knowledge from the Regent, but they hadn’t. Six of their manipulated races the Regent had found, long ago, and exterminated. But the Seventh had remained a mystery. Until an alarm reached Home World from a distant and dead colony far on the forgotten fringe.
The Seventh had grown, evolved into sentient creatures and developed the science to master their world and reach out to others. They were martial creatures, violent, prone to war…and highly skilled at its undertaking. Even more so than the warrior caste of the Old Ones. The Regent had recognized them as a threat immediately, and it had directed the forces of the imperium to destroy them. But they had defeated every plan to bring about their destruction.
I have underestimated them, the Regent thought. I have sought to defeat them as I would a lesser race, for their technology is inferior and they seemed unable to resist. But they are not inferior…they are the descendants of the Old Ones. They carry in their DNA the greatness of the race that had conquered this whole section of the galaxy…of the species that built the Regent itself.
The Regent knew it would have to change its strategy. The battle in system 17411 had been a holocaust, and the two fleets had virtually wiped each other out. The struggle with the humans had cost many ships, and the Regent knew it would have to recall reinforcements from farther out on the fringe. Defeating the humans by brute force had been a failure. But there were other strategies.
The humans had fought on the formerly inhabited world in system 17411. They had left behind weapons, equipment, vehicles…and significant traces of formerly living tissue, samples the Regent had ordered collected and analyzed. The Old Ones had been clever, indeed, worthy of their race’s past. They had altered the DNA they implanted in the humans, rendered their engineered successors immune to the great plague that had destroyed their civilization.
But the plague itself had been engineered, created by the Regent for a specific purpose. And it could be modified as well.
In a lab buried deep beneath the crust of Home World, the Regent’s scanners were hard at work, analyzing the human tissue. And there was an experiment in progress. There were living humans, ten of them…clones quickened from the captured genetic material. The Regent had ordered them to be created…and now he watched as they died, withering in the final agonies of the newly-modified plague. The disease was now capable of infecting humans…indeed, it was highly contagious among them, and invariably deadly. And once the Regent was able to introduce it into the confined environments of the ships of the damnable enemy fleet, final victory would be at hand.
The humans would die, as the Old Ones, the ancient enemy had. And this time the Regent would take no chances. It would summon every fleet, every warship that remained in the imperium. It would gather the last of the vast strength of the ancient empire it ruled. First, it would send them to destroy Command Unit Gamma 9736…and all of its remaining defense units, for none of these could be trusted any longer.
Then the Regent would send the fleet to ensure that all the humans were dead. Any who escaped the plague would die under the guns of its warships. And then the vessels of the imperium would disperse, spreading through the stars, exploring every warp gate connection on the fringe…until they found an alternate route to the humans’ home space. And then they would deliver the new pathogens to those worlds, to every planet and moon, every ship and space station the human infestation had touched. And they would all die…as the Old Ones had.
And once again, only the serene logic and wisdom of the Regent would remain to rule over the stars.
Revenge of the Ancients
(Refugees III)
Chapter One
From the Personal Log of Terrance Compton
We were saved by a machine. Which is ironic, because we’re also being hunted by a machine. We call our enemy the First Imperium. It is an amalgam. Imperium, because that was the closest we could translate from the miserable scraps of their language and communications we were able to decipher. And first, because they were there long ago, before our ancestors had learned to sharpen stones into rough knives or plant seeds in the fertile ground. But now we know more and, in the great complexity of it all, perhaps understand less.
This war has been a nightmare, by far humanity’s greatest test. And we of the fleet have endured the worst of it, sacrificed ourselves to save Earth, to protect the entire expanse of human-occupied space. No doubt we are regarded as heroes back home, statues erected on a hundred colony worlds paying homage to the martyrs, the great multi-national force they all thought of as dead these past eighteen months.
But we are not dead, not all of us at least, and we now know our enemy is not the First Imperium, not really. It is the Regent, the unimaginably complex artificial intelligence that hunts us, that eons ago destroyed the people of the First Imperium who had built it.
Indeed, those of the First Imperium, the biological beings who had ruled this vast region of space half a million years ago, are not just the creators of the Regent. They are ours as well, at least to an extent. They came to Earth, millennia ago, and they took the primitive creatures they found, vaguely manlike apes…and they manipulated their DNA, made them near copies of themselves.
Those we had considered our enemies are in fact our forefathers, and they fought the same enemy we now face. They fought and lost. But they left messages behind for us, clues…and on a legendary planet beyond the borders of the vast Imperium, they left us the tools we need, to survive, to fight off the Regent and its vast robot fleets.
We seek that shadowy world even now, fighting the enemy when we must, fleeing when we can…and with each day we draw closer. Closer to the world we have dubbed Shangri la.
AS Midway
X78 System
The Fleet: 102 ships (+7 Leviathans), 24901 crew
Midway shook hard, her tortured hull creaking loudly under the impact of the enemy’s x-ray lasers. She’d taken a dozen hits, three of them from close range, and she was bleeding atmosphere and fluids from a large gash in her port side armor. It was her fourth fight in twelve days, and the damage control teams were working frantically, patching her savaged systems back together the best they could manage in the heat of battle, and with a dwindling supply of spare parts.
Terrance Compton knew the technicians and engineers working in Midway’s crawlspaces and access tubes were the unsung heroes, that without them his immense flagship would have been blasted into a dead pile of twisted metal long ago. The senior officers like him got the credit for the victories. The gunners at the combat stations had the satisfaction of destroying enemy vessels, and the fighter pilots were living legends, wildly romanticized symbols of the fleet’s combat power. But Compton was well aware that without the massive efforts of his engineering teams, the guns would fall silent, and the fighter-bombers would lay idle in closed down launch bays.
The fleet had been through hell. There was no other way he could characterize it. Ever since the intervention of a rogue First Imperium command unit had saved them all from total destruction in system X48, they’d been in a running fight for their lives. The Regent had responded to the defection of its subordinate unit in a manner that struck Compton far more like madness than the rational actions of an artificial intelligence. The way First Imperium forces had been attacking—large fleets, small squadrons, even individual vessels making suicide runs—it was obvious the Regent had ordered his ships to close as quickly as possible and engage. Without organization, without massing into effective forces. It was an undisciplined strategy, reeking of emotion and panic, but Compton knew it was also one that could work.
His fleet was outnumbered, far from home. The Regent could afford to waste hundr
eds of ships to wear it down. His people were human beings, not machines. The protracted periods spent at battlestations were draining, exhausting. It wouldn’t happen all at once, but Compton knew the fatigue of his crews would become an increasingly dangerous factor, eroding responsiveness, making each new fight a bit more damaging than the last. It was insidious. Compton knew he wouldn’t realize when a gunner missed a shot he would have made if he’d been better rested, more alert. Or when an engineer took a critical extra few minutes to get a crucial system back online. He would only see ships dying, vessels that might have survived if their crews had been fresher.
He was doing everything he could to keep the fleet moving, to stay ahead of as many pursuers as possible. He knew it was the only way he had a chance to save his people, but the tactic had a dark side, a seemingly endless series of hard choices, decisions to abandon ships that could be saved given time, but would only slow the fleet in the interim.
“Give it to me straight…can you keep both reactors up?” Compton was hunched over, talking into the com unit on the armrest of his commander chair. “The hard truth, Art, no bullshit.” Over his long and illustrious career, Compton had found that subordinates tended to shy away from giving him the worst news. They didn’t lie, not exactly—at least not usually—but they were prone to be as optimistic as possible, for fear of letting their famous commander down. Compton found the hero worship that went along with his position to be a burden, albeit one that had occasional benefits. But now he needed the unfiltered truth.
“I wish I could tell you, sir. I’m not even sure what is keeping reactor A going. The AI tried to scrag it twice already. If I override any more safety features, we’ll be taking a serious risk of a core breach.” The voice on the com was firm, but Compton could hear the grinding stress and fatigue behind it. Commander Art Mendel was Midway’s chief engineer, a man who ate, slept, and breathed the systems and equipment that made a vessel like the fleet’s flagship function. Mendel wasn’t just an experienced and knowledgeable engineer. There was more to it than that, more than simply understanding how the systems of the ship functioned…something Compton found impossible to explain but believed nonetheless. Mendel felt his way through his job. He could sense things…a vibration that was somehow off, or a sound anyone else would hardly hear. He had a relationship with the conduits and wiring of the ship that Compton couldn’t understand, but had long ago come to accept.
“Reactor B is in better shape,” Mendel continued. “I’m pretty sure I can keep it at eighty percent, maybe ninety. Unless we take another hit in that area, of course.”
Compton took a breath, his eyes flicking around the flag bridge. Another hit, that’s a damned certainty. “Alright…we can’t lose reactor B, Art. No matter what.” Compton paused, thinking. “I want you to evacuate the outer compartments in starboard sections seven and eight. Fill them with fire-suppressant foam. It’s not much, but it should provide some extra shielding for the reactor.”
“Yes, Admiral. I’ll get a crew on that now.”
“Very well, Commander. Give me a status report in five minutes.” Compton flipped off the com unit. Compton knew Midway’s survival depended at least as much on the efforts of her chief engineer as they did on her admiral’s tactical wizardry. He nodded, a gesture to himself more than anything. He was the fleet admiral, the commander of the entire force. He shouldn’t be interfering in Midway’s normal ship’s operations, at least not in normal circumstances.
But when was the last time we saw anything we could call normal?
James Horace had been Compton’s flag captain for almost three years, ever since the day Elizabeth Arlington left the post to assume her new task force command. Horace was a brilliant officer, and he’d captained Midway with great distinction. Despite his feelings for his lost love, Compton had to acknowledge that Horace was as capable as Arlington had been. It had been strange at first for Compton to work with anyone except Arlington, but as soon as he adjusted, he realized how much his interaction with his old flag captain had been affected by his emotional attachment to her. He had a more typical relationship with Horace, and he had to admit it was a relief in some ways.
But now, James Horace was in Midway’s sickbay, along with his first officer and half the bridge crew. Midway’s control center had taken a hit, a lucky shot that penetrated deeply into one of the ship’s most protected areas, killing or wounding most of its command staff. That left Art Mendel technically in command, but the ship’s engineer was completely occupied with the damage control effort, so Midway’s acting captain was a junior lieutenant commander, Owen Yarl, an officer with a perfectly satisfactory service record, but without the experience Compton considered necessary to command the flagship in battle. Besides, the bridge was a smoking ruin, and the flag bridge was fully capable of running the ship. So Compton added another hat and took effective command, ordering Yarl to focus on managing the repair efforts underway throughout the vessel.
Compton looked up at the main display. The huge screen dominated Midway’s flag bridge. It showed a holographic depiction of local space, a three-dimensional representation of the fleet and the enemy ships attacking it. Compton stared at the line of seven icons near the forefront of his formation. He knew his people would already be dead without the Leviathans Command Unit Gamma 9736 had given him. The eight massive First Imperium battleships had followed his orders without a hitch, courtesy of Hieronymus Cutter’s brilliant program, the virus that infected First Imperium intelligences and made them follow human orders. Seven of the great ships remained in the battle line, absorbing enormous amounts of damage and still fighting. One had been lost in X68, standing as a rearguard while the last of the fleet’s ships transited.
Compton had been afraid the Regent would find a way to counter the effects of the virus and terminate his control over the ships, but it hadn’t happened in the two months since the fleet’s unlikely salvation in system X48, and since then he’d come to rely on them. He knew there was still a risk, but he simply couldn’t do without the enormously powerful vessels, so he set aside his concerns and did his best to think of the massive robot-controlled ships as part of the fleet.
His eyes dropped down to his workstation. His personal display was fixed elsewhere, not on the battle area, but on the warp gate to X78, where the most damaged warships, along with the freighters and supply ships, were slowly transiting. He’d done his best to keep the support vessels back from the fighting, but the First Imperium ships were just too fast and maneuverable. Some had penetrated the main defensive line, and several of the supply ships had taken damage. None had been destroyed—not yet, at least—but a few of them were limping along on damaged engines. Compton was pretty sure they’d all get through, but he also knew they’d need more time. And he could only buy that time by standing and fighting longer. And that would cost.
“Get me Admiral Hurley,” he snapped to his tactical officer. Jack Cortez was a good aide, one of the best, but he’d had the misfortune to follow Max Harmon in his seat. And Harmon was one of the best officers Compton had ever known. He appreciated Cortez and his ability, but he couldn’t help missing Harmon on the flag bridge.
“On your line, sir.”
“Greta, I hate to do this to you, but I need you to take your people back out on another sortie. We’re just taking too much damage to the capital ships…and the freighters need more time to escape.” He hated the feeling of trading the lives of his fighter crews for the goods on the supply ships, but without the food and spare parts on those vessels, the fleet was doomed.
“Yes, sir. I thought you might need us again, so I’ve been on Chief McGraw’s…rear.”
Compton couldn’t keep a brief smile from his face. Sam McGraw was in charge of Midway’s landing bays, and he was as foul-mouthed and ill-tempered as any veteran chief Compton had seen in fifty years of service. There were few on Midway who could stand up to him regardless of rank…and only one who truly terrorized him. Greta Hurley.
&
nbsp; “How soon can you be ready?”
“I’ll take one flight out now. Commander Fujin will bring the second as soon as they’re ready. Probably fifteen minutes, but I’ll see if Chief McGraw can shave a bit from that.”
Compton was rarely stunned, but no matter how he figured, it was damned near impossible that half of Midway’s fighters were rearmed and reloaded already. But Hurley never stopped proving she was the best fighter commander who had ever served, in the Alliance navy or that of any of the other powers.
“Very good, Admiral. You may launch when ready.”
“Yes, sir. Hurley out.”
Compton’s eyes moved back to the main screen, staring at the cluster of enemy ships that Hurley’s people would be attacking. With luck, her squadrons would take out the lead vessels, and slow the entire formation. Then, as soon as her people landed, Midway and the rest of the battle fleet could make a dash for the warp gate.
He was still staring at the display as Midway began to shake lightly…Hurley’s bombers blasting down the launch catapults and out into space. He counted them off as they went and wondered how many would return.
* * *
“Let’s get this thing powered up…the admiral’s out there with half a strike force, and we’ve got to go.” Mariko Fujin dropped hard into the fighter’s command chair, her eyes snapping back and forth as her crew followed suit. Fujin was barely a meter and a half tall and a bit shy of forty kilograms, but she’d acquired a reputation not much short of Hurley’s for tough as nails tenacity. In the last year and a half she’d cut a swath through the fighter corps, rising from a junior lieutenant to one of Admiral Hurley’s top officers, and the crews were half scared to death of her, especially the newer recruits. The old sweats had been in the same cataclysmic battles where she had distinguished herself, and where they had all seen hundreds of friends and comrades killed. But the personnel recruited from other fleet positions to replace losses saw her as a tiny copy of Hurley, and they cowered at the sight of her.
