Earth Song: Etude to War

by Mark Wandrey

  He knew his buffers were stuffed and his attention was starting to waver. But he didn't want to take any down time. With Minu and Aaron off the ship, he didn't have to deal with their husband, wife, boss klothshit, and that suitd his concentration. It was only bad luck that their 'away mission' corresponded with the time when he was finally running out of space to operate. And of course, that was when inspiration struck.

  He floated there for several minutes, thoughts swirling with terabytes of data and abstract ideas. Something was coalescing, if he could only let it finish before his tortured brain demanded release.

  Trying to delay the inevitable, he stared at the displays in the CIC for long moments. Lilith was working with Kal'at, teaching him about the ships they had discovered and their capabilities, so the wall of the CIC was covered with technical blueprints of those vessels.

  It was so tantalizingly close he felt like ants were crawling inside his brain. Bits and pieces. Starships, portals, far flung star systems, portals, solartaps, Weavers, portals, war, portals… portals!

  Pip clawed his way to the door of the CIC, almost bumping his head in the frame twice. Kal’at glanced up with one eye from a blueprint to watch curiously as he left. Three decks and all the way forward, as he did his best to not let his implants completely shut his brain down.

  Finally a heavy doorway slid open before him revealing a long bay narrowing opposite the entrance. In the center an unusually low dais glowed slightly with an already active archway above it. As he stumbled closer a spider-like creature floated from the ethereal plasma of the archway to regard him.

  “Pip,” the ethereal voice spoke, “we have/will/are speaking of the agreement.”

  “As always,” Pip replied, afraid his words were slurring. He looked at the being for a long moment, trying desperately to keep his thoughts on track. “The Weavers control the portals.”

  “We control the portals,” came its voice.

  “Who built the portals?”

  “You call them the Lost.”

  “They are the ones who should negotiate this agreement,” he said.

  “You are/have/will negotiating with us.”

  They'd been over all this territory before, but something had fallen together in his digitally addled brain. “Where did the Lost go?”

  “Go? They are not gone. Not truly.”

  That was a slightly new take and it stopped him for a moment. He'd never really completely understand what he was even negotiating for. Years ago when he'd gotten into the discussion with the Weavers he didn't know if anyone else ever saw the creatures. Before he was critically injured and spent years in a coma. Before he'd learned not to stick his nose in business that wasn't his to interfere with.

  “Where do you live? The Weavers?”

  “We have/will/are discussed this before. We exist outside your dimension.”

  “Yes, but you are here now. Why?” Pip realized he was close to something, because the Weavers didn't reply. “There must be a reason you are in our dimension, what is that reason.”

  “Survival.”

  “I need to know more.”

  “You desire to know more.”

  “Same thing.”

  Again there was nothing for a long moment as the Weaver floated. Then it spoke into his mind. “Our universe was/is/has died. We developed the ability to move between dimensions as a natural evolution. We used/use/will use it to pass between feeding grounds. The common biology of our universe is different from yours. Most beings here are carbon based. In our native universe, silicates predominate. In particular, silicates utilizing energized plasma synthesis ecology.”

  “You consume energized plasma?”

  The being did not respond.

  “You would be completely at home in the photosphere of a star!” Pip felt like slapping his head for not realizing it.

  “A specific kind of star only. While we discovered/discover/will discover one of those stars in your universe, we could not/cannot/haven’t found any others.”

  “Why not?”

  “Space is big. We cannot simply fly around like your people can in your star ships. We can only exist in your world—”

  “Within an energized plasma field,” Pip finished for it, and gestured to the portal dais. It was not quite like the normal portal dais. This one was round and only one step tall instead of three. However it was still, at its essence, a force field containment device filled with energized plasma. There was no need for it to answer.

  “Eventually the star was/will/is nearly depleted. We were/are/will be few. We tried to ration the supply of plasma, but the star was/is/will die. The Lost did/will/have found us. New stars offered, in exchange.”

  “For the portals?”

  “Pip knows/will know/can know this already.”

  I do know, he thought. His brain was gelatin, but he knew the rest. They were running out of food again, but the Lost were gone. There was only him.

  * * *

  Minu looked at the dancing script floating above her PCR. She'd been working for eight hours organizing the addresses from her father’s old PCR and had made less progress than she'd intended.

  Mainly because of the three major earthquakes, and seven tremblers, they'd suffered through. The last one had almost thrown them around like rag dolls. Lilith had informed them she'd lifted the shuttle off for a minute. The Rasa seemed to handle it well enough.

  “Isn't there some way we can just leave the damn rod here?” Aaron grumbled from a few meters away. He was perched on a remnant of a wall applying a dressing to his left elbow. Most of the skin was ground into the cracked pavement nearby.

  “You know better than that,” she said without looking up.

  And she knew he did know better. The rules governing the PCR operation were simple and direct. They were controllers only in a remote sense. They stored records as well while the portals themselves contained all the equipment. They had the ability to link with a tablet and index their destinations with a database, and that was SOP for the Chosen.

  The problem here was her father hadn't done that in this case. Purposely, of course. She was getting used to that. The problem was sorting through the addresses and finding one that matched. And she couldn't just open the last location listed. There was some risk that her father had passed through an enemy controlled world.

  The entire process was frustrating. She'd eliminated all the easy worlds from her own tablet records, leaving the more recent entries and those without a match in her records. The location codes were understandable in at least what part of the galaxy they were located in. A disturbingly large number were in contested space, and more than a few in systems controlled outright by a less than friendly higher order species.

  “I think I'm going to link remotely with the Chosen database,” she said.

  “I'm sure there will be a dozen nasty messages waiting for us,” Aaron said.

  Minu shrugged. She knew she hadn't made any points by taking off the way she did.

  “What are you going to say if he tries to order us home?” he asked.

  “You really don't want me to answer that, do you?”

  It was Aaron's turn to shrug and she smiled. Her loathing of First among the Chosen Jacob was the worst kept secret in the Chosen.

  The decision made, Aaron broke open his pack and removed the small, compact laser link all Chosen carried and unfolded the integral tripod. Sitting it on the edge of the portal dais he linked with his tablet and gave her a thumbs up. She pointed the PCR at the portal (a ubiquitous habit they all had) and activated it. A moment later the aquamarine cloudless skies of a world appeared. “Deep Blue,” Aaron recognized instantly, “good choice.”

  The world was a favorite for the Chosen for training and relaying transmissions. It was quiet enough that the laser link left there actually had a partial Chosen database resident. Highly encrypted of course.

  At least a dozen other neutral or friendly species had their own last communication links hidd
en in windows and dug into walls of the long abandoned buildings within view of the portal on that world. It only took a moment for the laser on their side to link with its distant counterpart, exchange codes, and create a link. “Here we go,” Aaron spoke.

  Minu lifted her tablet to eye level and watched the interface download from the other side. Immediately several messages appeared to her. That was no surprise. She waited to look at them as she sent a query to the network on the other side for address codes stored on other portal addresses. Once that was set, she went back to read the messages.

  The first one was, predictably, from First among the Chosen Jacob. It was full of anger and threats. “If you do not chose to return immediately there will be dire consequences!” She snorted and deleted it. The next one was from an old friend, Dram, who was Second among the Chosen. He told her not to worry about Jacob and to be careful out gallivanting across the galaxy. She saved that one.

  There was a letter from Gregg mentioning his frustration with Jacob on a deployment. More mercenary work. She scowled and tabled it for then. Followed was a message from the Chosen office of deployment and service acknowledging she'd been granted an extended leave of absence. She had made no such request. Dram, no doubt. The last was another from Jacob. She almost just deleted it, then something made her open the message.

  Chosen Minu Groves,

  You need to be informed that elements of the Rangers are missing on deployment. Chosen Gregg Larson is in command of the 1st Division deployed to Planet K back on April 22nd on a support mission of the Akala. They have failed all previous scheduled communications schedules. This morning Chosen scouts attempted to insert through the portal to Planet K, and failed. The portal is no longer active on that side. The Leesa are in possession of the portal spire. It has been deemed an unacceptable risk to attempt an incursion through the portal spire under control of an enemy.

  We will continue to monitor for any signs of an opportunity to send relief, but at this point we have to consider the possibility that the 1st Division is a complete loss.

  First among the Chosen Jacob Bentley

  Minu felt dizzy and had to sit down suddenly. Aaron looked over from where he was keeping an eye through the portal (standard procedure). He was next to her in a heartbeat. The Rasa soldiers suddenly alert for attack. “What's wrong?” She shook her head and handed him her tablet, unable to speak. He quickly read the message and looked back up at her. “Oh no.”

  “That son of a bitch,” she finally managed to speak. “We drilled for this kind of op. Gregg and I trained special teams of Rangers to assault through a contested portal.”

  “It's high risk, though.”

  “No shit, but better than just abandoning our men on the other damn side!”

  “Okay sweetheart, I was just saying.”

  “I know,” she said and stood back up. She took her computer back and checked the date of the message. Jacob had written the message on May 1st, the network on the other side tagged the date as May 5th. They'd lost seven days in subjective time while traveling faster than light. Gregg and a thousand of her Rangers had been stranded, probably under fire, possibly dying, on an alien world for over two weeks. She tried to imagine how they felt. Abandoned? Lost? Betrayed? “That son of a bitch.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We don't need a damn portal. We have a starship.”

  Chapter 37

  May 5th, 534 AE

  Planet Richter, Geosynchronous Orbit, Galactic Frontier

  “Minu, this is a difficult development.”

  “Pip, you really think?” Minu rode in the copilot seat as her husband piloted the shuttle back towards orbit. To be precise, Lilith piloted from inside the Kaatan while Aaron watched to see if he was needed. The squad of Rasa were in the rear, chatting busily in their hissing language. Minu couldn't figure out Pip's unusual response.

  “Yes, very difficult. There have been developments… I am trying…”

  “Pip, what the hell is going on with you?”

  “I… I… Minu… damn—” and the transmission ended.

  “Lilith, what’s up with Pip?”

  “He has overloaded his implants,” her daughter explained. “He should have down timed more than twelve hours ago.”

  Minu shrugged. Pip usually dealt with such matters without anyone else being aware of them. “Why does he have these issues? Don’t the two of you share similar… modifications?”

  “I was born with mine, the medical intelligence improvised his as a work-around to his brain damage. It is possible over time he will adapt the means to handle such overloads. However given his propensity to use the implants as handy data storage and processing facilities—”

  “I get the point. Send Cherise down there to make sure he didn’t collapse and give himself another brain injury?”

  The shuttle rocketed from the atmosphere and soon was being guided aboard the Kaatan by carefully controlled beams. Minu and Aaron were hoping down from the craft even as it was settling to the deck, the Rasa soldiers close behind. Cherise met them in the hall outside the shuttle bay.

  “He’s fine,” she told them, “I found him out like a light on the floor of the tactical drive room.”

  “He must have been talking to the space spiders,” Aaron guessed.

  Minu nodded, she often felt like passing out whenever she talked to the strange beings.

  “We need a meeting to discuss our plans,” she told them.

  A few minutes later she was with Aaron, Cherise, and Kal’at in their version of the CIC. Lilith hovered in a holographic form from her own main CIC two decks down. Her virtual presence was so common no-one really took notice of it any more. Just for everyone’s sake, Minu detailed the situation on Planet K.

  “And he’s just abandoning them there?” Cherise barked when Minu had finished.

  “You can’t honestly say you’re surprised,” Aaron grumbled.

  “It is an act we would more have expected from the old leaders of our species,” Kal’at said, “but not from Var’at. He has learned much from you, Minu Groves.”

  Minu nodded to acknowledge the compliment.

  “What is your intention, mother?” She glanced at the hologram. “Besides rescue, of course. How do you propose we go about this?”

  “We could just fly there and shoot the shit out of the little reptile bastards,” Aaron suggested, then glanced self-consciously at Kal’at. “Nothing personal.”

  Kal’at gave a very human shrug.

  “The Leesa must have help,” Minu pointed out, “otherwise they wouldn’t be able to pin down an entire division of Rangers and take out the portal.”

  “A reasonable tactical analysis,” Lilith concurred. “The offensive/defensive capabilities of the Rangers are far in excess of anything a minor species is capable of employing. This is a principal reason they have proven so popular in these sorts of mercenary contracts.”

  “So we can assume they’re facing something more,” Minu continued, “either an alliance of more than one minor species…”

  “Or a higher order big-bad-guy,” Cherise finished for her.

  Minu just looked down and nodded.

  “Oh Lord, here we go again,” Cherise said.

  “The good news is,” Aaron said, “we’re running out of higher order species that have military power.”

  “You are not helping, husband.” He smirked and she continued. “We have to go and help them, we can all agree on that?”

  Everyone nodded, including Lilith.

  “Good. So the question we’re left with, is how to accomplish that with a minimum of random destruction.”

  “I doubt any planet-bound force would present a real problem for me,” Lilith said casually.

  “Remember the minimum of random destruction clause?”

  Lilith managed to look offended in her hologram. “Mother, I am capable of surgical precision, even from orbit.”

  “Against dug in enemy units inside facilities such
as the portal spire?”

  She shrugged slightly and glanced off screen. “There would be some collateral damage. It is impossible for there not to be some in any military engagement.”

  “I believe it would be more efficient to engage from the ground with orbital support.” Lilith just observed while everyone else considered.

  “The problem would be sufficient force to make a difference,” Aaron pointed out. “One squad of Rasa soldiers and ourselves is not exactly a force to strike fear into the hearts of most Concordian militaries.”

  “We could evacuate your soldiers to this ship,” Kal’at suggested.

  “I lack the capacity for that many passengers,” Lilith quickly replied. “Perhaps a hundred for a short FTL jump, no more.”

  Ten trips, Minu thought silently. From a screen next to her chair she called up the star charts around Planet K. Nearest world the ship knew to be inhabitable was eleven light-years away, and did not hold a portal.

  Six hours each way, plus extraction time with the ship’s four shuttles. Call that two hours. Maybe one and a half if they used the Phoenix shuttle as well. A conservative estimate was 160 hours. Even if they could hold off the enemy that long, it meant abandoning all the Rangers’ hardware on planet, and probably spending a lot of their lives to buy the time. Then of course they’d have to make a second jump to a planet with a portal. No, this wasn’t really an option.

  “No,” she said solemnly, “we need another option.” And then, it came to her. But it wasn’t a great option.

  * * *

  “Here they come again.”

  Gregg looked up from his tablet. It was his second and last one he’d brought on the deployment. The previous one had stopped a grazing beamcaster round.

  He tapped an icon on the tablet and the projector next to his right eye sent images from the virtual battlefield right into the eye. Beta, C/3 was heavily engaged by a company of heavy tanks. There were using their heavy beamcasters to hold them at bay, but only barely. It fit the profile that a major attack would follow.