Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘I do, honestly, consider it entirely feasible that this entire sector was once theirs, with other species giving them their space, no pun intended, respecting that that was what ‘personal space’ clear-zone the Marefek needed around them to feel comfortable. Only then, see, there was the plague, Marek pulled in tight, shut down their borders, locked and barred. I believe – all right, hypothesise – that at that point this whole sector would have been protected by a shield, like our veil. We know – or at least, consider it overwhelmingly probable – that there is an ancient beacon within the Novamas system, after all, which retains enough power to give ships a buzz when they’re on close perihelion with the planet.’

  Alex nodded. He had worked that out himself, in attempting to get to grips with the long-held belief amongst spacers that Novamas was a jinxed, haunted and unlucky world.

  ‘Just suppose, hypothetically,’ Shion said, ‘that we on Pirrell were aware from observing our own beacon that its range decreases over time – say, we’d calculated that in about another four and a half thousand years, it would have shrunk so much that ships could reach our planet.’

  Alex stared at her, but managed not to react, even though he knew, just knew, that what she was telling him there was no ‘suppose’, but the truth. She had already told him, in absolute secrecy, that her people had no control over the Veil technology, but believed that whatever created it was located within and powered by their star.

  ‘I consider it quite feasible,’ Shion said, ‘that the Marfikians would have cranked their beacon up to maximum range, full power. They may have been running it at hundreds of times greater range and force than ours, and that being the case, it wore out a lot sooner. I’m basing that on the principle that your people call the Law of Tech Entropy. It is the case that any technology, regardless of how advanced it is, has a finite capacity both in terms of performance and longevity; nothing lasts for ever. It is also true that, as a general principle, the harder you work tech, the quicker it wears out.

  ‘So imagine the Marefek, they’ve sealed their borders, pulled everything back to the homeworld, and they’ve got their beacon cranked up to maximum, telling people to keep away. But, you know, there were the Olaret, looking for places to seed their nesting colonies, and other people, too; there were a lot of life-boat colonies and various quarantine and research facilities, all sorts going on, and planets which were either already suitable for colonisation or could be terraformed very quickly would have been in high demand. I think people moved in here, possibly even without the Marefek knowing about it. And, over time, they lost their knowledge of advanced technology, forgot even how to make superlight ships, they were so focused on the biotech. My guess is that by the time the Excorps ship approached their system the beacon was no longer working, might not have been for thousands of years, with the Marefek having forgotten, even, that there was intelligent life beyond their own world.

  ‘It must have come as the most appalling shock to them when the Excorps ship arrived and they realised that worlds even within what they thought of as their space had been colonised by survival species; humans. From your perspective, they surged out and conquered, tyrannised over those worlds, and the only thing that holds them back from doing the same to your worlds is your strength, standing against them. I believe that from their perspective it is far more like a police action, regaining control of what they believe to be their legitimate territory, with no imperative, or interest, in extending beyond that.’

  She drew his attention to the location of Pirrell on her version of the star map. It was close to one of the faces of the icosahedron – had it been a sphere, in fact, Pirrell would have been within its circumference.

  ‘Just note, please…’ she asked him, ‘that in this model, Pirrell is not within Marfikian space. We never were. We were – are – their neighbours. The border-between is, like, ninety nine point eight percent on the Marfikian side, but that isn’t something we’d see as an issue, there is a gap between the outer limit of their control zone, their comfort zone, and ours, and as long as there is a gap, however small, there is no conflict of borders. Which brings us…’ she zoomed the chart around, again, ‘to Lundane and Cherque. These are touch-points – actually, I believe, the points which define the territory, as the distance between them is key to the icosahedron.’

  She showed him what she meant with a simple diagram, starting with a chart, measuring the distance between Lundane and Cherque, fixing them as vertices and then using that line to construct an icosahedron with Marfik at its centre.

  ‘But look really closely, Alex…’ She zoomed in again, showing that the points of the vertices actually converged a short distance from both Cherque and Lundane. ‘I don’t know exactly how close it gets,’ she said, ‘I’m guessing it is very close, maybe even right up to the edge of the comet cloud. But I do believe that both Cherque and Lundane are perceived as being on the outside of the defended zone. Just ask yourself, Alex, what is going on with Lundane? It is right on the edge of their border. It is a world which actively engages in contact with the League, but they leave it alone. Why?’

  ‘It’s believed that Lundane has nothing that they want,’ Alex said, ‘that there may be some advantage to them in allowing Lundane to maintain contact with us, or perhaps that they just haven’t noticed it yet.’

  ‘Come on, Alex, that’s weak,’ Shion said. ‘For one, the Marfikians don’t want anything from any other worlds anyway. They take nothing from any of these worlds for themselves, they build their own ships and no resources, raw materials or manufactured goods are taken to Marfik, ever. They never leave their ships, when they are in orbit, they certainly don’t take anything aboard, and no other ships are allowed anywhere near their homeworld-space. They compel worlds to supply one another with resources, sure, but there is no benefit to the Marfikians themselves in that. No, I really don’t think there is,’ she held up her hands as he looked even more dubious.

  ‘I’ll just ask,’ she said, ‘Why do the Marfikians allow Prisos to build ships? They don’t just allow it, they enable it. Prisos is dependent on other worlds supplying them with raw materials for their ship building and domestic industries. It is the Marfikians who organise that, telling other worlds what to send, where, and when. And to what advantage? Enabling Prisos, one of the most rambunctious worlds in their zone, to build ships and develop weapons which they know will be used against them. Prisos is, in fact, like Chartsey, entirely dependent on other worlds not just for industrial materials but for food. They were already heading that way at the point of first contact, yes?’

  Alex nodded. Prisos had been forced into developing system space travel, exploring, mining and exploiting other worlds and moons within their system because they had exhausted their own planet’s resources and population growth was outstripping their ability to grow enough food. Things had only got worse, since then, as they had exhausted all the rarest resources throughout the system and could not even create a tenth of the food that their population needed.

  ‘If the Marfikians wanted to destroy Prisos all they’d have to do would be to blockade the port. Prisos would be running out of food within five months,’ Shion observed. ‘There would be an apocalyptic famine, global starvation and disintegration of infrastructure, a tiny number of survivors descending into Dark Age subsistence. The Marfikians could have done that at any time, but no, they feed them, ordering other worlds to supply them with the nutrient and raw materials they need. I believe this to be an ethical decision – the Marefek, remember, are known to have aided other worlds, despite their insular culture and considering even other advanced species to be dirty and their garden worlds disgusting. If another world needed their help, they gave it, not with any great degree of warmth or generosity, perhaps, but on the ethical position that they had a duty to do it. They regard these worlds as within their space and I do think that makes the Marfikians feel not only that they have the right to control them but responsibility to do so, too. If you ac
cept that as a bedrock principle, that makes total sense of why they manage things the way they do.’

  ‘Manage things?’ Alex couldn’t keep the cry of protest from his voice. ‘With missiles fired at cities?’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Shion held up her hands. ‘I’m not defending what they’ve done, I’m just trying to get you to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it. Can we agree, at least, to consider this as a hypothetical? Taking it, for now, as accepted that the Marfikians, for whatever reason, believe themselves to have sovereign rights over this territory, okay?’ She saw that he was listening, however unwillingly, and continued.

  ‘So – let’s move on to consider R,’ she said, drawing his attention back to the formula which she’d adjusted, ‘Revulsion. Vital, in understanding the imperatives which I believe control what the Marfikians are doing. So, let’s explore that with a further hypothetical.’ She opened up another screen. ‘Allow me to introduce the Urr.’

  Alex looked at the bio-profile. It described a species – vaguely humanoid but with frog-like legs and a brutish, simian face. It was covered all over with crusty, warty skin oozing with a tacky mucus. There were orifices on its upper chest, like anal sphincters where a human had breasts. It wasn’t just a picture, either, but a detailed profile including a DNA analysis and biohazard evaluation.

  ‘The Urr,’ Shion said, drawing his attention to the long list of toxins and pathogens identified in the species, ‘are a walking biohazard. The mucus they produce dries and flakes off constantly, both in airborne particles and actual flakes which fall off around them…’ she touched a control and the Urr began to scratch itself vigorously with one foot, sending a spray of flakes around it like super-sized dandruff. ‘The mucus is toxic,’ Shion said. ‘Just a few grammes of it, breathed in, or exposure to it via the skin, will cause burning pain, nausea, muscle spasms, liver and kidney failure, fatal within minutes unless you get rapid and intensive medical assistance. They exhale carbon monoxide loaded with pathogens. And they frequently do this…’ another touch to a control, and the sphincters on the chest contracted with a sneeze-like sound, firing out two puffs of vapour. ‘Flatus,’ Shion said. ‘Methane, loaded with disease-carrying high velocity particles of excrement.’

  ‘Not people you’d want to be stuck in a lift with,’ Alex observed, and gave her a patient look. ‘If this is meant to be how the Marfikians see us, I get it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you do,’ Shion said. ‘It is a model for how the Marfikians see you, of course, but work with me here, okay? Try to imagine they’re real - the Exploration Corps is out beyond Quarus right now, and who knows what worlds or even multi-system civilisations they may find out there. Or, as in this case, what species there may be out there already exploring on their own account, and about to find you.

  ‘So, you’re on Therik - put yourself there, okay? The Fourth’s on base leave, and one day, right out of the blue, an alien ship appears. They cruise straight into the system past every defence and land their ship – their ships can go direct to ground – right in the middle of Capital Square. Hatches pop open with gusts of toxins and pathogens, and out come the Urr. They’re not wearing spacesuits, or any kind of protection, there’s twenty of them walk-hopping about, trying to find someone who’ll stop running away screaming and respond to their ‘We come in peace.’ You are ops-comm, Alex. What do you do?’

  ‘Rapid containment, of course, full biohazard response.’ Alex replied. ‘Get them back on their ship and off the planet.’

  ‘But they won’t go. The Urr have no philosophy of territorial rights, the whole concept of owning a planet is incomprehensible to them. As far as they’re concerned they have as much right there as you do and you don’t have the right to tell them what to do. They’re not armed, they’re not attacking, they’re explorers, not warriors, they’re just visiting, just curious, spreading out from the ship, starting to go into buildings, now. Your call.’

  ‘You know how that would have to go,’ Alex said. ‘Establish a containment zone, evacuate around it, contract the zone and control… peacefully, if they’ll comply with being put into quarantine, but using whatever means necessary to protect our world.’

  ‘All right – you stun them, take them prisoner, haul the ship off the planet with tugs and slap down quarantine. Then you do your best to explain to them that their very presence is lethal to your people, people have already died from exposure to their various toxins, there’s global panic, you just can’t have them walking around. You ask them to remove to an X-base, with the facilities to meet with them safely. But they refuse. They do not see an issue. If your people are vulnerable then it is your people who should wear the protection, not them. Anyway, they say, they have every intention of going anywhere they want, on Therik or any other world they discover. Any number of them may turn up, any time, land anywhere they like. As you’re talking to them you find that they excrete wherever they happen to be…’ another touch to a control and the Urr on the screen crouched into a bobbing motion, spurting streams of thin green and brown diarrhoea from its chest orifices. ‘The liquid component of which is sulphuric acid. They’re particularly keen to see tourist attractions, beauty spots, leisure parks.’ She was watching him closely, ‘Did I mention that they eat their dead?’

  She grinned, then, as she saw the reaction she’d been pushing for, in the involuntary heave of his stomach.

  ‘Now you’re getting it.’ She said, satisfied. ‘Gut-wrenching, visceral revulsion. So, what do you do now? Head out with a fleet to blast their planet to cinders?’

  ‘No, of course not!’ Alex said, with a reproving look. ‘Obviously the necessity is to protect our worlds, and yes, I do see the analogy with the Marfikians’ fear of our plague-ridden contamination. But you have to handle things with a proportional response.’

  ‘Ah, the magic words,’ Shion said, and smiled. ‘Proportional response, all about control, yes? Zone-based; establishing control zones with a measured, appropriate response. You would draw the line, there, at your borders, warning the Urr that bringing their ships across that line would be regarded as a hostile incursion. A ship crossing that line would get your outer-zone ‘escort and warn’, mid-zone warning shots and attempts to board and seize, and if they continued into the exclusion zone presenting an imminent threat to an inhabited world, shoot to kill. Yes?’

  Alex nodded. ‘That’s our established policy,’ he confirmed.

  ‘And if the Urr ship is carrying two thousand of them? Twenty thousand?’

  ‘Irrelevant,’ Alex said, with a curt note.

  ‘And if you’re told they’ve brought the kids along? Hundreds of little Urr, squirting poo everywhere in their excitement at going to a theme park.’

  Alex’s expression closed down.

  ‘Irrelevant,’ he repeated, tersely. ‘We could not allow them to land. If all other efforts have failed, we would have to shoot them down.’

  ‘All right,’ Shion said. ‘And that, you see, I believe, is exactly what the Marfikians are doing, proportional response against a species so loathsome and horrific that they have an overwhelming imperative to protect themselves from you.’

  ‘Proportional response?’ Alex said, with a level gaze and a glacial edge. ‘Invading other worlds, slaughtering billions?’

  ‘Proportional response?’ she returned, and indicated the Urr. ‘Blowing unarmed ships full of tourists and kids out of the sky?’

  ‘That’s different, they…’ Alex started, then broke off as he saw her quizzical look. He took a few seconds, then, overcoming his instinctive defensiveness on this issue and trying to consider it objectively. ‘All right, point taken. There’s a fundamental ‘We will do whatever we have to do to protect our world’, however terrible those decisions might have to be. But I can’t accept, can’t even begin to accept, that what the Marfikians have done is any kind of acceptable proportional response.’

  ‘All right,’ Shion conceded, ‘Let’s go back to the hypotheti
cal, here – you’re coping with the Urr, you’ve got your defences in place, you’ve had to destroy some of their ships but you feel that you’ve got things in hand. Then you discover that while you weren’t looking they have established a colony within League borders – I mean, ages before, they’ve already been there a couple of centuries before you find out about it. They’ve built infrastructure, industry, and they breed like maggots, too, so there are more than a billion of them; it is way too late to consider any option of evicting them. If the world they’ve settled is some slimeworld way out on the edge of your space it is quite probable that you’d just shift your border back and defend it, yes?’

  ‘Yes, very probably,’ Alex agreed.

  ‘But what if,’ Shion suggested, ‘the system they have settled was right in amongst the central worlds? It could be, you know.’ She was responding, there, to the flicker of incredulity she’d seen on his face. ‘Here, say.’ She zoomed in and found a system which was, indeed, well within the heartland of the League. It was rated D-7, a slimeworld which was not even used as a stopover by freighters, since it was too far off shipping routes to make that convenient. ‘One of the Arcadias,’ Shion pointed out, and flicked up a screen with key-point information just in case Alex needed reminding what that meant.