The Depths of War (Dark Seas Book 5)

by Damon Alan

  “Then the future indicates she accepts it. Either way is adequate. Historical documents from this time period are not always clear about how events unfold,” the AI said, “and we are not at liberty to use time travel to answer every question. The process is very difficult, and only a very limited amount of matter can be out of its proper time without destabilizing the space around it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s complex, but it involves the conservation of matter, the quantum foam, and black hole evaporation. When we move matter through time, black holes evaporate in order to compensate for the appearance or disappearance of matter. Quantum foam is rife with the creation of particles that mutually annihilate pico seconds after creation. Black holes evaporate by absorbing the antiparticle. When matter appears or disappears from a spot in the timeline, black holes are the buffer that creates or destroys matter to maintain the balance. Exceed the buffering capability of black holes, and you destroy space.”

  “That is more than I need to know,” Emille said. “My knowledge of such things is still limited.”

  “I apologize. Your descendants will rule the universe. It is easy to overestimate you.”

  She smiled and shook her head. That was also an insult, although probably not intended. And it was probably true that she was a simpleton compared to her descendants.

  But it still stung.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to take control of the materials I will give the team that is in front of me, then ensure it gets into the hands of Peter Corriea and his wife.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are the genetic progenitors of our species.”

  That made her gasp. The AI was saying things that were outrageous. “How can that be?”

  “They are the creators of Gaia, using the information I am handing over to you. You will not understand it. He and she will, in time. While Homo Sapiens Sapiens is limited by their closed minds, they are exceptional at science and mathematics.”

  “I’m sure Peter will be honored you think so highly of him,” Emille said.

  “The requirements of this conversation are met. The humans may colonize this world as a means to interface with us. That is important, because they will need to be reminded often that the rest of the universe is not theirs. You will give the packages I have for Peter Corriea to him. You are now aware of the nature of space-time,” the AI said. “Do you have any last questions?”

  “What happens if I refuse any of this?”

  “The timeline indicates you do not.”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then a new timeline will unfold, I will likely not be created, and your descendant, Theramakrommis Zerron will not be born to lead your species in the prosperous future in which I was made.”

  “I see,” she said. “I’ll take your counsel under advisement.”

  “Goodbye, Emille Sur’batti.”

  One of Hamden’s people spoke in the background. “Look, that wall is opening up.”

  A few seconds of silence followed, then the AI spoke to the ground team in Galactic Standard. “Take the items in this enclosure to Emille Sur’batti. She is expecting them.”

  The AI vanished, judging by what came next.

  “Where did it go?” someone asked.

  “Gone,” Hamden answered. “Emille Sur’batti, there are several boxes here in a chamber that just opened. Do you need us to bring them back to the ship with us?”

  “The fusion reactor is powering down,” a woman said, distressed.

  “Get the items, get out of there,” Kuo ordered the ground crew, not waiting for Emille to answer Hamden.

  “On our way,” Hamden reported. “Two minutes until we’re on the surface.”

  Emille let the conversation fade into the background as she wondered what she would do. She needed to talk to Peter. He was the smartest person she knew, and he would explain how her decisions might affect the future.

  She wondered what the AI had for Peter that was so important that it had waited eons in order to carry on a three minute conversation with her.

  Chapter 42 - A Promise for the Beach

  32 Febbed 15332

  Moments after leaving the hole the opening shrank into nothing. Tapping it did nothing. Stabbing it with a shovel did nothing.

  Several metal cased packages waited by the excavation for return to the Stennis. Hamden stared at the now closed spot, wondering what the projection had said to Emille.

  Torris tapped her earpiece. “We have our orders to return, I have been assigned a docking bay.”

  “Grab a box, let’s get to the shuttle,” Hamden ordered his team.

  A sound something like a trumpet mixed with tearing metal screeched at them from the jungle, accentuating the sounds of snapping foliage. The entire team looked up to see a creature the size of a small lifter charging toward them. It had a ball shaped body, four legs tipped with cutting claws, and an open mouth full of teeth. Two rows from the looks of it.

  Smits and Vallat broke and ran. The rest of the team unslung their weapons from their shoulders and opened fire. Flashes and sound filled the area, along with the acrid smoke of the propellant chemicals contained within the guns.

  Smart fléchettes tore into the creature, seeking vital organs. Networked, each projectile relayed the nature of the tissues it penetrated to the others that followed. Within half a second the projectiles were impacting and shredding the beast’s heart and aorta.

  It rolled forward, tumbled like a ball twice over, and then slid down into the excavation pit before splaying out on its shredded belly.

  The silence was almost stunning. The forest was quiet.

  Coutts swatted her neck. “Aaaaand we’ve got bugs.”

  Hamden laughed nervously. Moments later Torris joined in, then a second after that the entire team, except for the two runners, was laughing.

  Smits and Vallat walked back toward them, embarrassment on their faces.

  “You two will carry the boxes to the shuttle,” Hamden ordered, “while the real marines stand guard. Then you’ll take the camp down, pack it up. Once we get back to the ship you will clean everyone’s gear. Then we’ll do the paperwork to remove you from this team.”

  “Sir—”

  “Shut up,” Hamden said. “You thought of your own safety first. The rest thought of their training and their commitment to the team. They brought their weapons to bear.” He smiled as Coutts nodded her agreement. “Me and my squad sergeant have no use for cowards. We’ll find you less critical duty.”

  Six of Hamden’s people stood guard as their morale raced among the clouds. Two people, no longer part of his team, realized one mistake had changed the direction of their lives and felt the opposite.

  Hamden had no sympathy for them, but he had no malice either. Sometimes it took an out of the ordinary event to reveal true character.

  The marines needed clerks too. These two would fit that bill just fine.

  “Whatever was keeping the animals away is no longer functioning,” Hamden said to Torris. “Our arrival was the reason this place existed.”

  “It’s hard to believe it’s been here so long that the laser that signaled Gaia has eroded away to nothing. I wonder how long before the rest of it fades to dust?”

  “That’s how it is for us all,” he replied. “We only have a certain amount of time to get it right, then we pass into whatever lies beyond.”

  “You think there is something after death?” she asked, a bit incredulous judging by her tone.

  “The adepts think so. And I’ve seen things I wouldn’t have believed if Admiral Dayson herself had told me about them five years ago. Almost all of that involves the adepts. They’ve shown us a new truth.”

  “Well, by the stars, Lieutenant Hamden,” Torris said. “I’ve never heard you philosophical before.”

  He looked at Torris, realizing with sudden clarity that she was stunningly important to him. When two of his soldiers ran, s
he’d stood her ground by him and killed the attacking beast. She was brave, loyal, and confident. At that moment he wanted nothing more than to make her happy forever. He laced his hand into hers.

  “Marry me,” he said. “Let’s do great things with our time together.”

  She shook her head no.

  “Oh…” he gasped, his face reddening.

  She pulled him closer and leaned her head on his chest. “Ask me on the beach of the lagoon in Jerna City. Because I want to be able to walk to where you asked and I said yes for the rest of my life. The Andromeda galaxy is a bit far for that.”

  He laughed. “Okay, I’ll ask you there. But if you say no, I’m throwing you in the water for the fish.”

  “You can try,” she challenged. “Even if I do say yes.”

  Something howled not too far away, then a high pitched scream of death followed shortly thereafter.

  Gripping his pistol, he looked toward the woods. “I better keep you alive until then.”

  She put her hand to her brow and scanned the forest. “Pffft. I better keep you alive.”

  Two hours later Hamden and his team were headed toward the sky on 19C, a wide grin still on his face.

  Life changes so fast sometimes.

  He looked over at Torris as she flew. He wasn’t about to let the good parts pass him by.

  Chapter 43 - Slow Recovery

  37 Febbed 15332

  Sarah’s eyes didn’t want to open. They felt as if they were sealed together with glue.

  She tried harder.

  Light burst onto her retinas as a painful reminder that she was still alive. She could tell that medical nanites were in her, blocking pain signals from what might be a wrecked body. Tilting her head to the side, complex machinery greeted her. Vital statistics indicating that her existence continued flashed on small monitors. Tubes stretched from pumps, either putting things in or taking things out of her body. And, on the bag hanging next to her up in the air, the words she’d always hated.

  Nanites, Medical, Royal Korvandi Navy.

  At least they were from the stash they’d picked up at Chungathi Station. It felt like her childhood home was making one last effort to save her.

  “She’s waking up,” someone said from her other side.

  Painfully and slowly she turned her head. It hurt and she closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she saw people standing near her. It was hard to focus and see who they were.

  She tried to talk, but couldn’t.

  I will speak for you, said a whispered message inside her mind.

  It wasn’t Alarin.

  Who are you?

  My name is Salphan Nuverni, I was the ambassador from Antecar to New Korvand. Now, seeing as you could use one, I am your bodyguard.

  “She wants to know who I am,” a deep voice repeated. “Her mind is intact.”

  How is it you can speak to me?

  “Alarin taught me the skill,” Salphan said. “He thought it would be useful as ambassador, and he was right. Fortunately I showed an aptitude for understanding the newcomer mind. Not many do.”

  I’m not sure that’s very flattering.

  “Ask her how she feels,” Thea urged. Thea was here. Good. But then she would be here. She was Sarah’s best friend. And her doctor.

  Tell the goofball I can hear her, Sarah thought to Salphan.

  “She says she can hear you and that you are a goofball,” Salphan said. “I hope that is something good?”

  Thea laughed. “Yeah, it’s something good.”

  I don’t feel anything, Sarah added.

  “She doesn’t feel anything.”

  “The nanite blocks are working, and yes, I know how she feels about that,” Thea said. “Too bad.”

  How long before I’m up and around?

  Salphan repeated her question.

  “A month. Maybe six weeks,” Thea said.

  “Sixty days?” Salphan exclaimed, “Who’s going to go after the Komi?”

  Sarah laughed inside. She hadn’t really thought that at him, but apparently she’d thought it forcefully enough for him to pick it up.

  “Not you. Heinrich has it all under control. Captain Kuo is her XO,” Thea said as she checked a piece of equipment. “Right now they’re off gallivanting around in Andromeda. Have been for a month or so now.”

  How long have I been down?

  “A month or so, genius,” Thea said after Salphan spoke to her.

  Sarah studied Salphan. His face was scarred, fresh red angry welts covered the right side. His hair, while platinum as all the natives had, only grew on about two thirds of his scalp.

  What happened to you? Sarah asked him.

  “When you were attacked, the only thing that could stop Fasdamar was another adept. I was the lucky fellow who was in the right place at the right time. I’m now part of your legend, I suppose.”

  I’m no legend.

  “Who said I was talking about you?” Salphan said, smirking. “I was speaking of Jerna City, because if Fasdamar hadn’t been dealt with, he’d have burned as much of it as he could.”

  So you stopped him? That was brave.

  “I slowed him down. It was your soldiers that stopped him.”

  Marines. We call them marines.

  “What does that mean?”

  They’re soldiers, in a sense, but they are skilled at going places normal soldiers don’t go. Like crew to crew combat on ships, or descending from orbit to fight.

  “Marines, then. Your marines took him down and now he is in a bed a few rooms away looking as if he were dead,” Salphan said.

  He’s not dead? Why hasn’t Alarin taken him?

  “Alarin is in Andr… An… the small tapestry.”

  She talked with Salphan for a while, then the others in the room got their turns. Peter, Eris, and Thea.

  “Admiral, that package I gave you from Gaia when I met you on the Stennis. Did you ever get it open?”

  Salphan relayed her message. “No, I tried a couple of times, but it won’t open. I got tired of trying.”

  “Hmmm,” Peter said, stroking his chin.

  Why? What’s wrong?

  “Nothing,” Peter answered in response to Salphan’s relay. “I’ll brief you fully once the expedition to Andromeda returns. Salphan tells me that Emille and her father have been talking. Apparently they found some things. But that can wait.”

  “You’re as big of a jerk as Thea is,” Salphan said for her.

  Peter smiled and nodded. “Eris says similar things.”

  Eris stepped forward, and Sarah was pretty sure the woman was holding her hand. But she couldn’t feel it. “I’ll brief you as soon as Dr. Jannis says it’s allowed,” she promised. “I don’t want you in the dark, and neither does my jerk husband.”

  “That will do,” Salphan relayed. “You probably know more about things anyway.”

  Eris stuck her tongue out at Peter.

  “Okay,” Thea said. “It’s time for my patient to get some rest. Once you heal some more, we’ll see about filling in the blanks for you.”

  But I—

  That was her last conscious thought before Thea put her back under.

  Chapter 44 - Return to Gaia

  38 Febbed 15332

  “Transfer complete,” Algiss said. “Maneuvering to match speeds with Gaia.”

  Blackness filled the view screen. Heinrich felt torsional forces as the Michael Stennis rotated to engage his main engines. Seconds later half of a G pushed her into her gravcouch.

  She began unstrapping from her position. “Mister Seto, contact Gaia and let her know we’re coming to get her. Mister Mors, plan a shuttle mission with Adept Emille to get one of her team onto the colony ship. Once we’ve got that done, we’ll jump to Oasis and correct our speed variances when we arrive,” she ordered her bridge crew.

  “And me?” Kuo asked.

  “You’re going to accompany me to the gym and get your behind kicked,” Heinrich said. “I happen to know a variant of zer
oball that we can play under acceleration. While we’re doing that, we can discuss our stop back here to pick up our lonely spacecraft. I have questions about that.”

  “I don’t know anything about this colony ship,” Kuo said. “But I do love zeroball.” He started unstrapping himself as well.

  “Mister Seto, you’re in command,” Heinrich said.

  “I have the bridge, Captain,” Seto replied.

  Heinrich and Kuo made their way to the zeroball court. Due to the orientation of the room relative to the ship, the scoring holes were now on the floor and ceiling, the return holes were on opposing walls.

  Heinrich pushed the button on the wall that normally ejected the ball into the center of the room where players would most often collide. Instead the ball arced down to the floor and bounced along, until it rolled to a stop.

  “We can’t keep normal points,” Heinrich said. “You can only score a point if you get the ball through the ceiling goal. But in order to attempt the ceiling, you have to attempt the floor first. Only after scoring on the floor for no points can you attempt the ceiling for a point.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” Kuo said. He charged the ball.

  “Wait!” Heinrich yelled. “The catch is that only the last person to make the floor goal can shoot the ceiling goal. So if you make the floor, then I make the floor, you have to make the floor again before you can shoot the ceiling.”

  Kuo lobbed the ball toward the floor goal, and it dropped in without hitting the rim.

  “I wasn’t ready,” Heinrich barked at him.

  “You’re the captain of an FTL battlecruiser, you should be ready for anything,” he said as he positioned himself for the return ball.

  She jabbed him in the back of the knee with her own, and he dropped to the floor with a grunt as his leg collapsed, allowing the ball to fall into her hands. As he lifted himself from the floor, she waited for him to look her way. As he did, she dropped the ball from her hand and it fell straight down through the floor goal.

  “You’re a cheater,” he said.

  “So are you,” she answered. “You just don’t have the determination to cheat as well as I do.”