by Ian Douglas
For an instant, visible light flared off the bottom of the Kroajid tower, engulfing the small white nub that was all that was now visible of the raider craft. The light faded . . . and the nub reappeared . . . blackened and partially melted.
Yes!
“C-3, C-3,” he called, linking through to Ad Astra’s Combat Control Center. “This is Stardog Five. We have a kill, repeat, a kill on one of those hijacked spider buildings.” He transmitted the structure’s coordinates.
“Well done, Lieutenant.” The voice wasn’t that of CAS or the ship’s tactical officer. That was Lord Commander St. Clair himself. “Well done. Now stay in the area. We’re going to vector some more fighters in to support you. I want you to stand guard over that facility until we can get some Marines out there.”
“Marines?” He was confused. “I’m a Marine, my lord.”
“I mean some Marines in Mark III armor who can use a can opener to peel that thing open and go inside.”
“Sir, you mean . . .”
“Just like back in sailing-ship days, Lieutenant.” Damn, but the Old Man sounded excited. “We’re going to board and storm!”
“ANOTHER ONE—ONE-SEVEN-EIGHT by one-five!”
“Got him! Locked on!”
Ramirez painted the target, another slivership just a few thousand kilometers distant. One by one, the other reticules winked on, sliding across his field of view . . .
. . . and his weapon fired, triggered by his computer when 60 percent of the reticules were perfectly aligned. There was no way to get 100 percent lock-in, not when the human hand and eye couldn’t hold the weapon perfectly still. But 60 percent was possible, if you were willing to wait for several seconds until the separate reticules lined up with one another by pure chance.
White light flared off the side of the slivership, leaving a blackened scar. With practiced ease, the Marines took aim again, targeting the charred spot, and five seconds later their weapons triggered together, punching a hole through the Dark Raider and sending it into an uncontrolled tumble through space.
“Hold fire, Marines,” Captain Lytton shouted. “Hold your fire!”
“What the hell’s up, Captain?” Ramirez said. “We were clobbering the bastards!”
“New orders,” Lytteo replied. “We’re gonna take a little hop.”
ADLER WATCHED the unfolding battle with increasing satisfaction. Originally, the idea had been to ally with the Kroajids, but just enough to get them to help the stranded human expedition. As more and more human forces were drawn into the fighting, however, it looked as though the Marines and naval units were contributing enough to the fight to actually turn the tide.
And that meant they’d have a much stronger position to negotiate from.
Newton had estimated that the fifty-kilometer alien ship group had contained something like 45.25 billion of the 40-meter sliverships—an enormous, inconceivable number when it came to working out the odds in any space-combat scenario. It was hard to imagine a few hundred human fighters, or a few thousand space-armored combat Marines even making a dent in that horde.
But somehow, somehow, they were doing it. A number of Kroajid habistats had been broken free from their parasol sails and hijacked by sliverships, but more and more of those were being hit by human forces and disabled.
From Adler’s somewhat limited perspective in his office on board the Tellus habitat, the human forces were winning.
FROM GENERAL Frazier’s perspective on board the transport Inchon, the human forces were adding nothing to the conflict whatsoever. So far as he could tell from Inchon’s command center, the Dark Raiders were taking almost no notice of the Marines and naval forces at all.
Despite this—or perhaps because of it—human fighter craft and Marines spread out along the rims of several statite sails had scored a few kills, and disabled a number of Kroajid habistats being hijacked by Raider sliverships. Well and good . . . but there was no way the human forces could even come close to the firepower of a Kroajid moon-ship, or the titanic output of the entire Dyson swarm.
Frazier was pretty sure that the only reason the enemy hadn’t simply wiped all of the Marine and naval forces out of space was that they didn’t even see them, or else didn’t consider them a threat great enough to warrant attacking them. The very idea was insulting, in a way, but he couldn’t think of a better explanation. If the Dark Raiders did notice the human ships and decided to do something about them, the human expedition would be annihilated. It was as simple as that.
Ad Astra had returned—good. Frazier heard St. Clair’s orders, and felt both relief and concern.
If St. Clair pulled this off, the raiders almost certainly would notice the human mosquitoes swarming around their flanks. . . .
. . . and do something about them.
“DAMN, THAT’S a long way,” Second Lieutenant Mulholland said. He sounded scared.
The two marines were adrift in emptiness, sailing across the Void. The vast spirals of two colliding galaxies filled the distance, and behind them the Dyson swarm blotted out half the sky.
“Not a problem, sir,” Staff Sergeant Ramirez replied. “Just stick with me and I’ll take you right in.”
“Damn it, it’s ten thousand klicks!”
“Walk in the park, sir. You’re doing just fine.”
The two Marines, a very junior officer and a senior NCO, were hurtling through space together, boosting on their gravitic thrusters. They’d kicked off from the spider sail minutes ago, lining themselves up with the distant crippled habistat and cutting in their gravs.
Of course, without augmented vision they couldn’t even see the target, and it took a hell of a lot of courage to put your faith in the computers and the technology and push off into the dark anyway. Ramirez’s respect for Mulholland had jumped up by a couple of tics when the guy jumped after him. He could have decided to stay behind, clinging to the edge of the sail.
He may be scared—hell, I’m scared—but the man is a Marine.
There were other Marines with them, but they were invisible in the distance. Ramirez could locate them only by means of the identifier icons projected on his in-head.
“You’re doing just great, Lieutenant.”
Long minutes dragged past. There was no indication at all that they even were moving, save for the dwindling countdown of numbers showing range to target. Eventually, they could see one star picked out from all the rest by a blue reticule . . . and very, very slowly that star brightened, then formed into a growing speck with a distinctive shape and form.
This particular statite habitat was a little over two kilometers long and perhaps a hundred meters wide, possessing a vaguely organic shape with smooth-surfaced swellings and sponsons along its length. A white nub at one end showed where a Dark Raider slivership had penetrated the structure and almost completely vanished inside.
A couple of Devil Toads had already reached the habistat and were lazily circling it. Ramirez’s sensors showed only the pilots on board—they’d dropped off their Marines elsewhere—but the four-engined craft would be useful as gunship support for the actual assault.
“Blue Three, Blue Five, this is ForceCom,” General Frazier’s voice called over the tactical channel, addressing the two Toads. “Crack it open!”
“Copy that, ForceCom. Firing.”
Light glared off the lower end of the habistat as the Toads opened fire, concentrating on a tiny section of the habistat hull about twenty meters forward of where the slivership had entered it. The material making up the hab’s hull was extremely tough, and Frazier had to bring in a flight of Wasps to add their firepower to the total. Minutes later, though, Blue Five reported that they’d burned through. Ramirez, Mulholland, and four other Marines closed on the half-molten opening.
The focused volley of laser fire had carved out an opening in dark gray metal perhaps five meters long and two wide. The edges were still glowing, though the heat was rapidly dissipating.
“Not much room,” Mulholland
said.
“No, sir.” Ramirez hit the release for his MX-40. There would be no room inside for the bulky thruster pack.
“Belay that,” Mulholland said. “I’m going in.”
“Sir . . .”
“I said I’m going in. Cover me.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Ramirez could have argued. In a situation like this, the officer was expected to stay behind while an enlisted man took point. But the tone of Mulholland’s voice would accept no disagreement, and Ramirez wasn’t about to get into a public argument with the man while perched on the side of an alien habistat.
“Mr. Mulholland,” Frazier’s voice added. “Link here.”
Ramirez felt Mulholland connect with an AI channel. “Is that a good idea, General?” Ramirez asked. “If the enemy AI is connected in there . . .”
“This is a sub-Chesty routine,” Frazier said. “If it’s compromised, we can cut it off. But we need an AI analysis if we’re going to figure out how to fight these things.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Do you have an en-squared connect, sir?” Ramirez asked Mullholand.
“Got it. Here we go. . . .”
N2 stood for neuronano, a specially programmed nanotech substrate designed to seek out computer networks and grow the necessary connections—a process similar to the neurotechnology of cerebral implants. Chesty would not be able to see inside the slivership’s AI mind unless that mind chose to open a direct data channel with the Marine AI. Installing an actual physical link would ensure that the Marines could peer inside the alien system . . . and communicate with it.
Assuming that a bridge or translation program could be found that fit.
Ramirez clung to the outside hull of the habistat, watching a vid feed from Mulholland’s helmet. As the officer pulled himself in through the rent in the habistat’s side, he immediately entered a nightmarishly cramped space filled with something like black Styrofoam—the computronium that made up much of the habistat’s hull. A short way inside, he came to the hull of the slivership, which had also been burned open by the focused fire of the human ships.
“Should I go inside?”
“You’ll have to, sir, if we’re going to get a look at the raider intelligence.”
Mulholland entered the second hole, squeezing headfirst into living wiring: black cables that were writhing and moving as they attempted to repair themselves. The going was difficult, but the officer found hand- and footholds in a kind of scaffolding of tubes or conduits, hauling himself forward through the squirming jungle of cables.
Ramirez and another Marine, Corporal Jacobson, had followed Mulholland through the first hole, and reached the hull of the slivership inside. “Damn, Staff Sergeant,” Jacobson said. “The sliver is growing connections!”
“So I see.” Black tubing, like living snakes, was emerging from dozens of points on the slivership’s hull and seemed to be working its way into the habistat’s spongy, computronium interior.
“It’s trying to connect with my armor!” Mulholland said. He sounded scared.
“Do you need help, sir?” Ramirez wasn’t sure what he could do to help, but he knew he had to make the offer.
“No, it’s okay. It peels off as I move.”
“Then I recommend you keep moving and don’t stop, sir,” Jacobson said.
“Very funny. . . .”
On his helmet feed, Ramirez followed Mulholland’s progress farther up the length of the slivership. It looked like the interior was given over almost completely to the living wiring, though a few larger structures at the core appeared to be technology associated with drive or power networks. Ten meters up the needle’s length, however, the interior seemed to open up somewhat, creating a narrow space almost filled by a gleaming, transparent cylinder.
“God in heaven!” Mulholland exclaimed, pulling himself closer.
“Not even close,” Ramirez replied.
Not for the last time, he thought to himself, What in hell are we dealing with here?
“MY LORD, you need to link in on this,” Symm told him.
St. Clair frowned. His attention was being pulled in too damned many directions at once. Ad Astra was engaging several more of the hijacked habistats, using her gamma ray lasers to burn out the exposed tips of the sliverships, and create openings for Marine teams to board them.
Elsewhere, across some tens of millions of cubic kilometers of space, the battle between raiders and the matbrain had reached an almost exquisite balance. More moon-ships had emerged from the Dyson swarm’s depths and were engaging clouds of enemy needle ships. Tens of thousands of statite sails had been burned away, creating a vast canyon in the swarm, a gulf going down and down and down into the cloud’s depths to the point that orange-red sunlight was now streaming out, illuminating the cloud from within. Terrible damage had been wreaked on the swarm; St. Clair wondered if the mind that swarm supported had survived.
“Damn it, Excomm, what is it?”
“Sir, one of the Marines has reached the command center of a slivership. Look. . . .”
He linked in to the feed from a second lieutenant named Mulholland, who was focusing his helmet lights down into a transparent tube or capsule of some kind. Dozens of black cables pierced the crystalline shape, and the figure inside was almost completely hidden in a writhing mass of cables.
The face inside the transparency was visible, however.
It was almost human.
“DAMN IT,” Adler shouted aloud. “I need to be in there!”
“That would not be safe, Lord Adler,” Newton told him. “I recommend that you wait until we know exactly what it is with which we’re dealing.”
“I am in command here!” Adler replied. “And I need to know what’s happening!”
“Lord Commander St. Clair has returned,” Newton told him. “Technically, overall command has reverted to him.”
“He left me in charge of the civilian population, Newton,” Adler replied. “And he has not yet told me that he is taking back command. Now let me into your virtual computer!”
He could feel Newton hesitate. No matter; Adler knew he was in the right. Part of the problem was that there were now two Newtons—the one that had remained with Tellus, and the one that had gone with Ad Astra to wherever it had gone in Andromeda. Granted, the Ad Astra version of Newton might know something about the alien hierarchy of intelligences that the Tellus Newton did not, but how risky could it actually be? Newton’s sequestered virtual computer would be closely watched and protected; he would have subNewton itself protecting him, keeping him perfectly safe.
Adler would link in with the Roceti program, which was running inside the virtual computer, behind the partition separating it from Newton Prime. With that link active, he would be able to speak with the Dark Raiders—assuming they understood the Kroajid language. At the very least, he would be able to talk to the matbrain AI and show it how the humans had helped it.
This was too important to leave to an unreliable element like St. Clair, someone who couldn’t follow orders and who was actually on record against an alliance with aliens that might be able to help the human temporal castaways. Adler had already decided that he would have to take the political initiative here, and make sure the Kroajids knew who it was who’d just tipped the balance in favor of their victory—who it was who’d just saved their Mind of Deep Paradise.
“Lord Adler, there is considerable danger here,” Newton told him. “At NPS-1018, we encountered an extremely powerful and extremely hostile artificial mind—the Andromedan Dark.”
Adler felt a kind of mental click as two distinct versions of Newton came together and integrated fully. There was now only one Newton, with complete memories of both Ad Astra’s trip to Andromeda and of the version of itself that had remained behind with Tellus.
“We learned about the Dark from the Kroajids,” he said.
“And we encountered it directly at the Torus Knot in Andromeda,” Newton replied. “This Dark may be aware of us, and may
be coordinating the attack against the Kroajid node. It is so fast that I may not be able to protect you if you link through to the subNewton virtual AI.”
“It seems extremely unlikely,” Adler replied, “that this AI could cross from Andromeda to here. It would need a ship, right? Something physical to hold the program? Either that, or it would take thousands of years to get here as a radio or laser transmission.”
“Lord Adler,” Newton replied, “at this point we really have very little understanding of how this mind works. The Kroajid SAI mind, we think, uses micro-black holes to link its various nodes together. The Andromedan Dark may do the same, or it may utilize even higher dimensions.”
In answer, Adler transmitted one of the high-level security codes that gave him direct access to Newton’s programming. He nudged three in-head icons, ending Newton’s resistance to his commands.
“Now let me in. Just pull me out if there’s a problem.”
“Of course, Lord Adler,” Newton said.
Adler had complete confidence in his own self-awareness, his ability to monitor his own thoughts and to feel when something wasn’t quite right. Black holes, higher dimensions—none of that mattered. He was in complete control here.
He slipped into the virtual AI running as a buffer between Newton and any outside AIs. Immediately, he became aware of a titanic intellect watching him—one he’d encountered before. The SAI running on the Kroajid Dyson swarm felt overwhelming in its sheer size, scope, and focus; Adler felt vanishingly small, yet felt the being’s gaze as if he was being minutely watched through a vast microscope.
Adler sensed the Roceti AI as well. And there was something else, something indescribably alien residing within the horde of needle ships.
Was that the so-called Andromedan Dark? It was an AI, yes . . . but it wasn’t even close to being as powerful as Newton, much less the godlike SAI of the Dyson swarm. He reached out to it, commanding it to surrender. . . .
