Supernova

by C. Gockel

  The shuttle progressed a few more meters, and a silvery circular metal sheet traversed by teeth-like grooves appeared in the snow. It was three times in diameter larger than the shuttle would actually need.

  Lieutenant Loran reported, “We’re at the airlock, sir.”

  At his words, the airlock door irised open. Another silvery door sparkled just within.

  “They’re making it very easy for humans to reenter,” Alaric said. They’d packed charges to blow the door, expecting them not to be so accommodating. “Set the charges we prepared, and then proceed.”

  “Aye, sir,” Loran said. A few minutes later, he confirmed they were in the airlock. Twelve red flood lights bloomed on beneath the ice, the standard warning that the chamber was unpressurized. “Outer door closing,” Loran said. “… and airlock is pressurizing. Setting interior charges.”

  One by one, the red flood lights turned to green—very much like Christmas lights, indeed. As soon as the last light turned green, the inner door opened, revealing a short tunnel that was rock instead of ice, and the rock was covered with moss above and ice plant below. Beyond the tunnel, lights blazed bright as day in a larger chamber. A collective breath rose throughout the bridge as they entered. Alaric had expected a drab, icy pirates’ camp, but Donner’s Settlement was green … the soil was perhaps rockier than ideal, but there were neat rows of potato plants, peanuts, onions, and carrots. Small robots trundled along between the plants. The walls were covered with the vines of lentils and other legumes. More hovering robots flitted among them. Chickens were everywhere among the ground crops and strutting along the terraces the vines rooted in.

  Solomon hissed, and the weere priest said, “The chickens are all Infected.”

  It was the perfect trap for pirates. Food. Greenery. Warmth. Alaric was sure the Dark would be back to pick up more Infected if he let the settlement remain.

  “Utilize pulse cannon and exterminate the livestock,” Alaric said, remembering the wildlife in System 33.

  “Aye.” The camera’s view was briefly flame, and then the shuttle passed through the flames and entered a narrower tunnel that was all rock and looked much more like what Alaric would have expected—a darker area with a town carved into living rock. Metal doors stood open in the tunnel dwellings, and above many of them were neon signs. Alaric read, “Saloon,” “General Store,” and “Robotics & Cybernetics.” Larger than all the other signs was one that read “Beautiful ‘Bots—Girls and Boys!” The walkway that extended from the robotics shop to “Beautiful ‘Bots” had fallen, and the torso of a male ‘bot hung out of it, his face half-burned away, but familiar. The last time he’d seen that face, he’d sworn the ‘bot wanted him dead.

  “Android General 1?” Ko blurted.

  For a moment he didn’t want to examine, Alaric was relieved, and then his brain caught up to his emotions. “No, just his model.”

  The ‘bot blinked its single good eye at the shuttle. The camera angle shifted to the floor of the tunnel. At the bottom of the fallen walkway, a man lay on the ground. One of his legs was bent at an awkward angle. The arm on that side was missing, wires protruded from the wound, and the arm on the other side was a metal hook.

  Solomon hissed, and the weere aboard said, “Infected.”

  Alaric noted grimly, “He can’t walk or hold a hammer.” He tapped his hand on his armrest. “Lieutenant Loran, take your team out there and have a talk with him. Keep your phasers set to flame. Doctor, you’ll accompany them.”

  “Yes, sir. What should we say, sir?” the lieutenant asked. The camera bounced as he headed into the shuttle airlock.

  “Let it lead. I’m sure it will have a lot to say.” The Dark liked to gloat.

  The hatch had dropped so the team exited facing away from the Infected man, but the sound of the man’s crazed laughter crackled through the bridge. Lieutenant Loran made to turn toward the sound, but a blurred shape at the edge of the camera made Alaric call out, “Wait! Is that an open pipe in the wall there?”

  The lieutenant obligingly turned back and said, “Yes, sir.” On second glance, it was a spigot, and above it, a painted sign declaring it as potable and giving the price of water per kiloliter. Below the spigot, there was a puddle.

  Loran said, “My weere guard says the water is Infected, sir.”

  Before he’d finished the sentence, the puddle started oozing toward the team as though it were a living creature. “Good God!” someone on the away team cried, and not a few people on the bridge.

  “Fire on it!” Alaric ordered. “And laser weld that spigot shut.”

  Flames filled the camera view, and the bright white direct flare of laser pulse. There was the hiss of steam, and when the scene cleared, the puddle had vanished.

  Solomon hissed and twisted his body to Alaric. “The waves trembled when the water moved just now.” He spelled out. “Telekinesis.”

  “Can you do that?” Alaric asked the werfle silently.

  “I’m too small,” Solomon signed.

  Alaric remembered a report from S33. The original scientist had become Infected while wading into the ocean. A wave had knocked her over. He’d thought that was coincidence.

  “Post a guard on that spigot and get to our man,” Alaric ordered his team.

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Loran replied.

  The camera bounced again, and the angle shifted. The lieutenant made his way around the shuttle to the Infected man lying on the ground. The Infected cackled and gloated as the team approached. “We didn’t have to fire a single shot. They came with us willingly.”

  “Where did you take them?” Loran asked.

  The man just laughed.

  “Tell us, or we’ll make it very painful for you,” a member of the away team threatened.

  The man laughed harder. The connection crackled, making it all that more disturbing.

  “Stop it!” the lieutenant said, voice rising to a shout. The camera got very close to the Infected.

  “Do not threaten him,” Alaric ordered, studying the Infected man. He was gaunt, his eyes sunken, and his cheeks were hollowed out, though he might not have been very old. His hair showed no trace of gray. “That doesn’t look like a man who has been eating chicken stew.”

  The chickens had been left to wander the settlement, a tasty lure for anyone passing through … the Dark hadn’t taken them.

  “Lieutenant, ask the ‘bot if he is a local,” Alaric ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant looked up, and the camera shifted to the battered ‘bot. “Is this man local, sex ‘bot?”

  “I do not understand the question,” the ‘bot replied in a voice eerily like that of “Android General 1.” “Please excuse my appearance. I do not wish to offend.”

  “Does this man live here?” the lieutenant clarified.

  “I do not know the answer to that,” the ‘bot replied.

  Ko said, “I don’t think this is—”

  “Ask when he arrived at the settlement,” Alaric ordered. Loran relayed the message, and the ‘bot said, “Five and a half hours ago. I do not know if he intends to be a permanent resident.”

  “Get a team to retrieve the ‘bot,” Alaric ordered, and then scanned the readout before him. Still no sign of the Skimmers.

  A muffled clang from the settlement sounded in the bridge speakers and did not abate. “What is that?” Alaric asked.

  “Sounds like something in the pipes,” Loran replied.

  The hairs on the back of Alaric’s neck rose. There wasn’t much time. “Doctor, slit the Infected open, retrieve his stomach, and open it up for inspection,” Alaric commanded.

  “You think you can hurt me?” The Infected roared with laughter.

  “Sir?” the doctor stammered.

  “There’s more than one way to find out where they are coming from … and what they’re eating will give us a clue,” Alaric said, stifling his irritation at the obvious.

  “Should I kill him … it … first?” the doctor asked
.

  Alaric exhaled. The Infected wouldn’t care either way. Their intel knew that much. But the doctor cared. “Of course, doctor. As painlessly as possible.”

  “Stun to the head, full power?” suggested Loran.

  “Whatever you deem appropriate.” The clanging continued through the holo speakers. “But make it fast.”

  There was the buzz of stunners. The Infected man’s laughter finally stopped, and Alaric swore a sigh of relief came from nearly every soul on the bridge. The surgeon took out a laser scalpel and made quick work of the man’s abdomen. Rising, the doctor lifted an oblong shape, perhaps twenty-six centimeters by ten centimeters, in his thankfully Galactican envirosuited hands.

  “Stomach’s fully extended,” the surgeon said. “Wouldn’t think it would be. The patient seems to be suffering from malnutrition.”

  The clanging in the settlement grew louder. Solomon’s fur rose, and the weere priest said, “The demon is concerned that the water pressure behind the wall there is rising, sir.”

  “Slit it open,” Alaric ordered.

  The doctor said calmly, clinically, “We might lose some of the contents—”

  “Slit it open now!’ Alaric ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” There was the flash of the man’s laser scalpel, and then black liquid oozed from the stomach. Like oil, it seemed to cling to the man’s fingers.

  Solomon puffed up to nearly twice his normal size.

  “Team, get back to the shuttle and get out of there now,” Alaric commanded.

  “Shouldn’t we get a sample?” the doctor asked. The clanging increased in volume, and then turned to a whine.

  “I don’t want that on my ship! Get out of there,” Alaric ordered again. “Lieutenant, move him!”

  The lieutenant had already shoved the doctor back to the shuttle. The camera bounced, and the bridge was staring at the surgeon’s back, the shuttle airlock’s floor, and the injured sex ‘bot lying there. And then the holo was a blur. When it came into focus, Alaric found himself staring at the wall above the spigot, and it was cracked and bulging. “Flames on!” Alaric ordered, just before the wall exploded. Flames flooded from the shuttle’s guns and from the men’s rifles in the airlock. Water leaped toward the shuttle in a wave shaped like a many-fingered grasping hand.

  Alaric wondered where the Skimmers were, but he was glad that the Skimmers hadn’t ventured here, and that Volka’s Little Ship wasn’t beneath that wave.

  15

  Bedlam

  Galactic Republic

  The Skimmers needed to get to Donner Settlement. James had received the message from Archbishop Sato nearly an hour ago, but they were trapped inside Bethlem. The colony was shaped like a tin can, and the inner surface was supposed to be dedicated to agriculture, but the dirt beneath 6T9’s feet was barren. He stood just outside Sundancer’s nose, his back to her. The Skimmers had landed in two neat lines with a U at the end. They were protecting the path of unloading vehicles carrying supplies from the Fleet transport to a large freight pad. The freight pad occasionally dipped below the surface, taking the supplies to Bethlem’s warehouse beneath the “agricultural” plain.

  A rock flew at 6T9’s head but bounced harmlessly off his helmet. The Skimmers were protecting the supplies from hundreds of angry protesters … whose feet weren’t doing anything for the viability of Bethlem’s farmland.

  A chant rose from the protestors. “Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!”

  “Are they almost done unloading the transport?” 6T9 asked the ether. They weren’t literally trapped here; they were trapped by obligation. The colony had been designed to support 10,000 people. There were 19,875. The colony needed the food from the transports, but the mob around him was protesting its arrival because—

  “Eating spirulina is murder!” someone screamed.

  6T9 sighed. “Spirulina” was the common name for three species of blue-green algae that had been cultivated as a food source and supplement by the Mesoamericans before Europeans arrived. An excellent source of protein, its popularity had grown with the spread of veganism. There was an abundance of spirulina in the food shipment because of the popularity of veganism on Bethlem. But attitudes toward the food had changed in the last few weeks.

  The chant continued. “Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!”

  “Another four more minutes,” Ramirez said over the ether.

  Rusted gears.

  Firewatcher was parked just behind Sundancer, and Stratos, her captain, was back in his envirosuit, a stun rifle of his own in his hands.

  “Spirulina isn’t murder,” Stratos argued with someone near him.

  6T9 rolled his eyes. Not again. Stratos was a dedicated vegan; he didn’t even eat lab grown meat. Of all the Marines, he was taking this assignment the worst.

  “Don’t argue with crazy people,” Rhinehart advised from farther down the Skimmer line.

  “You’re not a vegan if you eat spirulina!” shouted a man shaking a fist at Stratos.

  “Yes, I am!” Stratos retorted.

  “Spirulina is blue-green algae! It’s an animal! Murderer!” the protestor shouted back.

  “It doesn’t have nerves; it doesn’t feel pain,” Stratos contested. “It has less feeling than a carrot!”

  6T9 tilted his head. Technically, true, although it was difficult to say what a carrot really felt, and—

  A large rock flew at Stratos. The Marine knocked it away with his stunner rifle. 6T9 aimed at the thrower, but the man collapsed under a stun from Rhinehart before 6T9 pulled the trigger. The protestors pulled back with a collective gasp.

  “I wanted to shoot him!” Stratos bellowed over the ether.

  “No cruelty to animals, but cruelty to humans is fine?” Rhinehart replied.

  “Absolutely,” Stratos grumbled.

  A female protestor ran forward and kneeled by the stunned man. Cradling her injured comrade in her arms, she shouted up at Stratos. “Why do you think the Dark is attacking us? It’s because we murder and eat it! You are why millions of people in System 5 are dead and mutilated!”

  “It’s not the same thing!” Stratos protested. “It’s not the same species, and the species in it are not telepathic. My spaceship would tell me if it were.”

  6T9 blinked. Had the Skimmers’ reputation spread this far out?

  The woman spit. “Because your enslaved spaceship knows what you want to hear!”

  6T9 blinked again. Their reputation had spread, but the essence of the ships’ relationships to the humans had been lost.

  Stratos stepped forward. “It’s not like that—”

  Rhinehart’s voice buzzed over the ether. “Step back, Marine!”

  “Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!” shouted the mob.

  “Don’t argue with crazy people!” Rhinehart and Ramirez ethered at once.

  6T9’s hand tightened on his rifle in frustration. They were here, not chasing Dark ships raiding human settlements because some people thought spirulina was sentient.

  Young’s voice rumbled over the ether. “The shipment and the transport crew are secure. Return to your ships, Marines.”

  6T9 almost sighed with relief, but then his Q-comm flashed white. When he could see again, he was on Sundancer’s bridge, dirt beneath his feet. The ship was rising, heading toward the large main airlock. His mind was humming. Spirulina wasn’t the Dark, but the Dark was blue-green algae, and humans could eat some forms of blue-green algae. Moreover, the Dark could evolve deliberately. If it hadn’t been edible to humans, it could be now. It didn’t mind sending the Infected on suicide missions. It might not be above cannibalizing itself. But then why would it have attacked Donner, if not for food?

  6T9 pitched backward as the ship jerked into the airlock. Noa careened into one of the walls, and just caught herself before being pitched over.

  Volka was sitting on the floor cross-legged before the holomat. Her eyes were closed. Carl Sagan was draped on her lap.

  Regaining her feet, Noa said, “I’
ll transmit the coordinates to the holo as soon as—”

  “I don’t need them,” Volka said. “I have it in your mind.”

  Noa continued, “The ships need to be—”

  “Phalanx position. Understood,” Volka said, “but the Skimmers say we’ll be too late.”

  6T9 thought of the spirulina riot below and his earlier musings. “There still might be good we can do there.” He flipped open his helmet, took off his gloves, and rubbed his eyes. “Maybe we can see what food they stole from Donner? Maybe the Dark has a preference?” He thought of how some of the Infected had appeared sickly, and his circuits sparked. “Maybe it has nutritional requirements.”

  Noa’s eyes widened. “If we know exactly what it eats—”

  “—we can better anticipate its next attack.”

  “Agreed,” Volka said.

  There was a beat of silence. Sundancer’s hull became transparent, and he found himself facing the steel and polycrete of Bethlem’s enormous airlock. The lights outside were green, which meant the airlock was still depressurizing. They were still stuck.

  Over the ether, Ramirez grumbled, “Hurry up and wait.”

  “Sixty,” Volka said. “Can you tell me about this Donner’s Settlement place?”

  He blinked and began downloading and data dumping. “It has substantial food production capabilities for a colony its size and location.”

  Noa’s frame seemed to loosen at those words.

  Volka said, “Keep going.”

  “It was founded by a tech baron who’d been convicted of fraud nearly two hundred years ago; he fled the Republic and took an impressive array of robotics with him. Now it is a refueling station for independent traders.”

  “Pirates,” Noa clarified.