by Alex Lamb
‘What do you suppose those are?’ said Judj.
As if in response, scanning or targeting lasers started fishing across their hull.
‘Defences,’ said Ann darkly.
‘But whose?’ said Judj. ‘The Transcended?’
‘I find it hard to believe that a species that can blow up stars would bother with targeting lasers,’ said Clath.
‘This place must have been considered a key asset either by the Photes or the gorilla-crabs they were fighting,’ Ira suggested. ‘Somebody wanted to maintain control of the lure so they put weapons around it.’
‘It was the crabs, then,’ said Ann. ‘Photes don’t shoot people. They save them. Visible defences aren’t their style.’
‘In any case, do we think they still have enough power to fight?’ said Rachel.
‘If they have enough power to scan, we must assume they can kill,’ said Ann. ‘Anything else is pointless optimism.’
Rachel frowned. ‘Do we want to back off, then?’
‘What’s the point?’ said Palla. ‘Where would we go? We’re all out of options. If we leave, the Photes catch us. The end.’
Mark wasn’t worried. He felt sure that if there was one outfit running the show in Backspace, it would be the Transcended. And as far as he knew, that ancient race preferred their playthings alive to dead.
His confidence fell a notch when they started getting warnings. Or that’s what they sounded like to him, at least. The short, ultra-dense and utterly incomprehensible data bursts they received on a variety of channels held a definite sense of menace. So far as he could tell, the packets were being tight-beamed by about a dozen of the moonlets at once.
‘Those aren’t Phote signals,’ said Judj. ‘Point scored for Ann’s theory.’
‘Any signs of attempted subversion?’ said Palla.
Judj had already brought up a security workspace. It floated around his arms and head like a bubble of luminous glyphs.
‘None,’ he said. ‘It’s passive content. But there are shifting symmetry breaks in the pattern like the ones on the mandala symbols we’ve seen.’
‘That also fits the security-cordon model,’ Ira observed. ‘Any chance you can figure out what those messages are saying?’
‘Are you kidding?’ said Judj. ‘I’d need a phrase book and an alien coding manual to make even the most basic stab at that.’
The security warnings started iterating more rapidly as the Dantes slid into geosynchronous orbit around the lure world. Each data burst was exactly the same. Mark had no trouble imagining what they were telling him. Warning: this is a restricted asset. Leave or we will be forced to destroy you.
‘I’ve found a structure on the surface,’ Clath told them. She threw them a window with a picture of a silvered false-matter dome the size of a small country situated on the lure world’s equator. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘This is where the crabs learned how to make warpium – the surface shield and that dome are giving me identical spectral bounce.’
Mark ignored the eager speculation. The sick sense of inevitability in his gut was winding ever tighter.
‘I’m sending a recon drone to the surface,’ Ann informed them as soon as they were within range. She worked fast. Nobody felt like hanging around with laser-bounce painting their sides. ‘I’m using the same interaction protocol employed by the first lure-star expedition so there’s no room for confusion. If it works, the drone should be able to initiate a microwave-wavelength conversation just by probing the surface fabric.’
The moonlets appeared to anticipate her choice. Their warnings changed, growing denser and more insistent but no less opaque.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Judj.
‘Is there anything you do like?’ Palla snapped.
‘Bunnies,’ Judj retorted. ‘Spring flowers, sunshine, anything that doesn’t want to kill us.’
‘Judj, I’m running your interaction protocols,’ said Ann. ‘Swapping my casket to secure buffered mode now.’
A glass box appeared around Ann’s avatar, indicating that she’d closed herself off from normal operation. They’d be able to hear her but not talk to her again until after her attempted contact.
The mood in helm-space crackled as they waited for Ann to report. In the back of his head, Mark listened to the periodic bursts from the ever angrier moonlets. Their messages were like a drumbeat, an incessant, hypnotic backdrop to the ritual of madness they were caught up in.
‘I have contact!’ Ann said, sounding jubilant. There was a long pause. Her face fell. ‘Receiving a suntap schematic.’
That was the first message the Transcended had given mankind – the gift of infinite energy with existential strings attached.
‘Attempting second-round interaction,’ said Ann. ‘Replying with boser design to confirm prior dialogue.’
Everyone waited in silence while Ann’s face tightened in annoyance.
‘Communication channel severed,’ she said.
There was a long pause while Judj’s quarantine software dismantled Ann’s data shield, testing it for deposited stealthware as it was ripped apart. Then Ann’s box was gone and she was back in the room.
‘They don’t want to talk to me,’ she said with a face like thunder.
Mark fought down the crazed chuckle that threatened to bubble out of him.
‘Estimated time to Phote arrival?’ said Palla.
‘I’m surprised they’re not here already,’ said Ann. ‘We have half an hour at best.’ She pasted a threat-model window into the public space for them all to see.
‘I’m up next,’ said Ira.
‘No,’ said Mark. ‘Why don’t we cut to the fucking chase here? We know what they want: a roboteer. They took Will. They’ll take me. My interface is the closest thing we have on this ship to the mind-candy that set them off last time. Anything else is just wasting precious time.’
‘No!’ said Rachel. ‘That’s bullshit, Mark. You don’t have to do that.’
Palla stared at him, an unreadable expression on her face. ‘Is that what you want, Mark?’
‘No, but it’ll get us out of here. So what are we waiting for?’
Palla rubbed her eyes. ‘What do you think, Judj?’
‘Under the circumstances?’ he said, his eyes flicking to the threat window. ‘The clock’s ticking and the man’s got a point.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Rachel, stepping towards him. ‘Touching one of those things screwed up Will’s entire life. And mine. I will not stand by and see the same thing happen to you.’
‘Rach,’ said Mark, ‘if none of us gets out of here alive, there won’t be much to screw up, will there?’
‘How about this time I take on security?’ said Ann. ‘I have a personal understanding of what Captain Bock is upset about. I don’t mind running the firewall. If anyone’s equipped to keep Mark’s interface from being abused, it’s got to be me.’
‘Is that right?’ said Judj.
‘Do you doubt it?’ said Ann. ‘I’m not afraid to die for this.’
A curious half-smile slid across Judj’s features. ‘And you think I am? I volunteered, remember?’
‘Thank you for the thought, Ann,’ said Rachel, stepping between them, ‘but I don’t care who’s on security. I don’t want Mark anywhere near that thing.’
‘Not your choice,’ said Palla darkly. ‘It’s Mark’s. I’m sorry, Rachel, but one more word out of you and you’re back on the yacht.’
Rachel glared at her.
With a little reluctance, Judj handed control of the security framework to Ann. Her subminds merged with it, taking it over. His glyph sphere slurped across helm-space to wrap itself around her.
‘Get ready,’ Ann told Mark, her face stony.
Rachel’s gaze flicked between the two of them, her expression both desperate and resigned.
‘Mark, for God’s sake, you don’t have to do this. Let me try! I’m in the one in the quarantine core.’
He was surprised that
Rachel didn’t understand. Maybe that’s how it always was with mothers, half or otherwise.
The security box snapped up. Mark found himself alone in a featureless black cubicle with a single icon hovering before him: the comms-link to the contact drone. The drumbeat of alien warnings had stopped, leaving an ache of silence in its wake.
Mark grabbed the icon and swallowed it. He was ready to give the Transcended a piece of his mind, in any case. It was about time they knew how he felt. His perspective lurched, fusing with the tiny drone on the surface.
‘Drone contact established,’ he told the others. ‘All right, you ancient bastards,’ he snarled at the featureless planet. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. Let’s do this.’
Something flickered in the corners of Mark’s mind. Glimpses of shapes vast and hideous like rolling continents of rotted meat flashed in the darkness. Something wrong loomed in his mind’s eye and reached towards him. Mark had a single terrified moment to regret his choice. Then came the dark.
12.3: NADA
Aboard the PSS Infinite Order, Tactical Officer Nada Rien watched eagerly as they descended upon the humans at last. She thrilled with satisfaction at their impending victory as she spotted the GSS Edmond Dantes locked in geostationary orbit around the system’s only planet. Superior Zilch’s hunger for closure sang in her veins, spurring her forward.
She had been so much happier since Zilch made his ascent to leadership. Now that she no longer wanted to think about the subtle problems of command, dilemmas that had once been maddening were easy to disregard. All she needed to do to experience joy was obey the bidding of her superior node. And why not? Zilch was obviously right, even though sometimes setting aside the difficult ideas that arose in her mind caused headaches.
‘Sending arrival message now,’ she said proudly, announcing their promise of love to the Unsaved who now lay within their sights.
Nada frowned as she noticed the ring of moonlets floating between them and their target.
‘Unidentified artificial objects have been detected,’ she announced.
As harvesting specialist, the minute-to-minute coordination of the fleet under Zilch’s command was her responsibility. Her subnodes managing the other ships sent her confirmatory data.
‘Receiving data packets from the objects,’ she said as they closed. ‘Warning! We are being targeted!’
She seethed with frustration. An irrelevant threat? Why were there so many obstacles between them and Zilch’s clean and righteous goal?
‘Are these structures human?’ said Zilch. ‘Leng, you have permission to speak.’
‘They do not appear to be so,’ said Leng. ‘Evidence suggests that they belong to the last species to become Saved in this stellar neighbourhood. I recommend—’
‘That is enough,’ said Zilch, placing Leng back into a golden and orderly silence.
‘Nada, monitor them,’ said Zilch. ‘Assemble all vessels in-system for direct confrontation. There is no point covering exit vectors if we do not know in what direction the humans will try to leave.’
‘I obey with delight!’ she told him.
As they closed to within three AU of the star, one of the moonlets fired. Something like a boser lanced out, obliterating their lead ship in a ten-millisecond burst. Nada threw the other ships into evasive scatter.
‘The foreign objects have engaged us!’ she shouted. Her body shook with rage even while the song of Photurian love coursed through her. ‘Superior Zilch, should we pull back? There are ninety-six adversaries, superior in size and firepower.’
‘Negative,’ said Zilch. ‘Use their numbers against them. Forty ships will engage the irrelevant weapons. The remainder will destroy the Dantes before it eludes us again.’
Nada struggled with another of her shooting headaches. Maybe after the battle, Zilch would take away her problematic capacity for doubt.
‘Yes, my wondrous superior!’ she told him and threw her ships into battle with a willing and disciplined zeal.
12.4: IRA
Ira watched as Mark’s avatar became a scramble of alien code, spilling out and filling the box that Ann was managing. It looked as if his body had dissolved into a cloud of high-speed maggots. Rachel cried out.
‘On it,’ said Ann. ‘Intervening now. Judj to security, please. Box me up.’
Ann started severing Mark’s link. At the same time, a second box appeared around her as Judj threw up another defensive wall in the ship’s systems to prevent the digital contagion from spreading. Ira felt a surge of fear on Ann’s behalf. This was surely not the right course of action.
‘Oh no you don’t, you bastards,’ said Ann from inside her cubicle. ‘You want him? You talk to me first!’
Ann’s avatar quivered. A look of surprise bloomed on her face as data light writhed around her, then an expression of luminous determination.
‘So be it!’ she roared.
Her avatar came apart into manic squirms of light. Contagion alarms starting shrieking. Ira’s breath caught. The impossible had happened. The goddess was in trouble.
‘On it!’ said Judj, his fingers flying across two virtual touchboards at once.
Mark’s security box winked out of existence with Ann’s along with it.
‘Palla to medical,’ Judj shouted. ‘We have two patients.’
‘On it,’ shouted Palla.
Ira stared frozen at the data sphere that ballooned around Palla. Not Ann again. Anyone but her. Why hadn’t he pushed harder to keep her out of this mess? The man he’d once been wouldn’t have hesitated. His gaze met Rachel’s. She stared back at him with a look of horror that suggested she considered everyone around her guilty, including him.
Helm-space vanished. They were back on the yacht. Ira glanced around and saw the walls begin to crawl. It looked as if the cream-coloured wallpaper was turning into locusts.
‘What’s happening?’ said Clath, backing away from the wriggling furniture.
‘Our systems are being incrementally co-opted,’ said Judj. His data bubble was still intact. So was Palla’s. ‘The Transcended are cutting through our defensive ecology like wildfire. I’ve never seen anything like it. We may have seconds.’
‘Then let them!’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘You can’t stop them and we’ll get our ship back faster.’
‘Captain Bock, this is not a great moment to lose all of helm control!’ Palla shouted.
As if on cue, an exultant voice came over the public channel. ‘Humans of the GSS Edmond Dantes, your final opportunity to embrace harmony is at hand. Power down your engines and weapons immediately and prepare for passive jubilation!’
‘Ira!’ Rachel shouted. ‘You need to take the helm. The Photes are coming.’
‘I’m not rated for this ship,’ he blurted. ‘I don’t have immersive flight augs.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Palla. ‘Activate Muri Pattern Grandad’s Ride.’
The bridge of the yacht reconfigured. The virt slewed around and Ira found himself in the pilot’s crash couch aboard an old-style soft-combat starship. The walls were still melting, but this did nothing to dent Ira’s astonishment.
‘This is my ship!’ he said, astonished. ‘This is the Ariel.’
The mere sight of it twanged strings of memory that had lain silent since that terrible day when he’d seen his command ripped apart by the Truists.
‘It’s as close a replica as we could build from historic records,’ said Palla. ‘Pilot controls are mapped to your standard. Rachel, you’re drafted. Ira can’t fly us on his own. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Think you can take engineering? I’m routing as much to the quarantine core as ship security will tolerate.’
‘Of course,’ said Rachel.
‘Good. Clath, give them all the help you can. Compensate for the antique mapping. Be roboteer and weapons and whatever. Judj and I will handle med and security. Ira, get us out of here as fast as you can.’
With that, Palla’s avatar vanished.
Ir
a checked his visor. They had fifty-three enemy ships closing fast. Suddenly, boser beams lanced out from the alien satellites, targeting the invaders.
‘Holy shit!’ said Clath.
‘I don’t get it,’ said Rachel. ‘Why them and not us?’
‘Who knows?’ said Ira. ‘Maybe because they shouted their arrival at the moonlets and we didn’t?’
He grabbed the control handles. They fitted his hands just right. A rush of something familiar and almost forgotten came upon him: purpose. A grin bloomed on his face.
‘All right, you fuckers,’ he growled. ‘Grease the rails, Rachel, we’re getting out of here.’
Ira hit the stud and flew, feeling the familiar snarl of a warp engine thundering all around him.
‘Enemy down to forty-nine scouts,’ said Clath. ‘They’re raising quantum shields.’
The moonlets fired again, hitting another six ships. This time the beams thinned weirdly and held. The ships’ shields flickered. Then all six targets erupted into bursts of light.
‘What was that?’ said Clath. ‘Some kind of super-boser? They cut through those shields like tissue paper!’
The beams fired again while the Photes struggled to evade.
‘Wow! Okay! Got it,’ said Clath. ‘They’re rotating the phase on their coherent iron at low intensity until they have a match and then doing some kind of power feedback. Jesus, these bastards were smart.’
Ira had more pressing things to think about. Four of the Phote ships had come close enough to engage pursuit. They were scouring the space on either side of the Dantes with g-ray graters, trying to cut off escape routes.
Ira thought fast and dived straight towards the nearest boser installation. The moons didn’t seem to want to shoot him – maybe he could use that. The Photes banked and released a swarm of drones.
Ira laughed out loud. Life had presented him with alien beam-weapons, enemy drones, infected computers and pure chaos, and told him to deal with it. This was more like it.
As he barrelled towards the moonlet, its targeting laser flickered across their hull and went out. The object’s surface rippled weirdly, glowing for a moment before going dark.
