Annihilation (Star Force Series)

by B. V. Larson

“Yes,” I said thoughtfully. “I suppose it is. But I thought your people and the Macros had a treaty and were cooperating.”

  “During our last battle, we took certain tactical steps that the Macros found unacceptable. They are still technically allies, but they are actively seeking ways around their agreements.”

  I thought about it. The Crustaceans had operated as marines in our recent battles. They’d played the role my own troops had when we’d been working for the Macros. As I went over their actions in my mind, I figured out what he was talking about.

  “You mean they are upset with the way you handled yourself in the Eden system? I recall you attempted to retreat, and then finally surrendered your forces to us. The Macros don’t like allies that surrender, right?”

  “Correct. The Macros found these actions unacceptable and contrary to our prior agreements. If you ever find yourself serving the machines, know that you have been forewarned.”

  I snorted. I probably knew more the topic that Hoon did. Star Force had begun its forays into deep space in the belly of a Macro transport. I’d been a mercenary leader then, nothing else.

  “I know all about the ruthless nature of the machines,” I said. “We served them in the past, before we threw off our slave yokes and rebelled. They used my men like machines, ordering us to attack world after world. They’d planned from the start to grind us down until we were all dead.”

  “In this rare instance, our experiences have been similar.”

  “Let’s get back to our problem and what we can do to help. Possibly, I can use my ships to evacuate your population. How many individuals do you have on Yale?”

  “Approximately one trillion.”

  My mouth dropped open, and it was a second or two before it closed again. “A trillion?” I asked.

  “Approximately. Our young are numerous, and quite small. Unfortunately, they are more vulnerable to changes in heat in pressure than are our adults.”

  “I see,” I said. I envisioned clouds of young the size of brine shrimp. “Tell me Hoon, how long do we have? How long until these environmental changes become intolerable to your species and your young begin to succumb?”

  “The process you describe has been on-going for many days. Our population was nearly two trillion a few weeks ago.”

  I was staggered. They’d lost hundreds of billions of lives already? The evil of the Macros was overwhelming.

  At the same time, I felt guilty. They’d suffered so much already, and I’d been about to bomb them myself. In a moment of emotion, I’d ordered my ships to unload on their dying civilian populations. Were a few insults and a hundred lost human ships worth that kind of slaughter?

  It was a troubling question. But I felt I knew the answer: I’d been in the wrong to give that order.

  No matter how irritating our intended victims were, genocide was the business of the machines, not Star Force. I urged myself to remember that in the future.

  -8-

  We spent another fruitless day watching their oceans drain away while the water that was left heated up steadily. It was dismal and sad.

  On the morning of the second day, I ordered Marvin to board a Nano ship and fly down to the surface. I wanted him to observe the phenomenon from within the atmosphere of the planet itself.

  We could measure the phenomenon with radar and sonar, but the surface was now obscured. The entire world was wrapped in thick clouds. Really, this was steam, rising up from the warming oceans.

  I didn’t need to ask Hoon how things were going for his civilian population. The young must have all perished by now. Only the thicker-shelled adults could survive the warm waters and migrate to areas that were cooler. They were clustering around the poles at both ends of the moon, grimly clinging to life.

  There wasn’t much we could do for them. With hundreds of billions of individuals, any evacuation effort would only save a handful. Probably, the panic created by our efforts would kill more than it would save. If I lowered a ship into the atmosphere with an open hold, thousands would try to board. The results might even capsize the ship. Worse, the aliens were aquatic and would require water aboard the rescue ships in order to breathe for an extended period of time. The weight would be tremendous.

  No, rescue and evacuation was out of the question. We had to use what we had to save them in another way.

  When he returned from the surface, I summoned Marvin. He was in a state of agitation when we met in the conference room. His tentacles were slashing the chairs and cracking like whips on the walls. Fortunately, smart metal furnishings were self-repairing.

  “What have you got for me, Marvin?” I asked.

  “I’ve completed my preliminary study on the situation. The ocean is draining at a slightly decelerating rate as the pressure drops, but the rate of change is not significant.”

  “How long until the oceans drain all the way down to where this spot is exposed and the process stops?”

  “Approximately thirteen days.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “That gives us a little time, then. And it’s good to know the oceans won’t go all the way down.”

  “No, they won’t.”

  “So, the situation isn’t entirely dire.”

  “That depends upon our goals.”

  I frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

  “If Star Force wants to colonize this world one day, then the situation is beneficial. If our real mission is as stated, however, this is very bad news.”

  I stared at him. “Our mission is clear. We’re here to help out the Crustaceans. We’re here to turn them into allies, one more powerful biotic species to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the machines.”

  “Then my report is very dire. The population of this world will be completely annihilated before the thirteen days are up, or shortly thereafter.”

  I thought about it. “The heat. You’re saying it’s going to get worse.”

  “Yes. Every day the hot ice at the bottom of the oceans is further exposed. This world has very deep oceans, but it would be primarily coated in surface ice if it weren’t for internal heat from geological sources and the compressed hot ice. Now that the oceans are receding, the cool water in the middle depths of the ocean is being drained away. It is true that the ocean will eventually cool again, but it will take some time. Thirteen days is not long enough.”

  “Exactly what temperature will the oceans reach by the thirteenth day?”

  “The oceans will be near the boiling point by then.”

  “Two hundred degrees Fahrenheit?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Higher than that. This is saltwater, after all. The boiling point is slightly higher.”

  I massaged my temples. I realized dully that a thousand billion sentient beings were going to be boiled alive over the next two weeks if I didn’t get cracking.

  “What can we do to stop this?”

  “Unknown.”

  “That’s not good enough, Marvin. What have you tried? Have you sent in a probe?”

  “I’ve sent in many submersibles of various makeshift designs. Few of them were able to survive the turbulence on the way down to the aperture. Most stopped transmitting telemetry and readings even before they reached the event-horizon and vanished. The few that did make it all the way down never came back.”

  “Not surprising, really,” I said. “They were programmed to attempt to come back to this side after scanning whatever was on the far side, I assume?”

  “Naturally. But there was little hope they would succeed. The gushing pressure on the far side is almost insurmountable. Even if one of the probes did get up enough velocity to punch into the water and reach our side of the ring, they would not survive the impact with high-pressure water.”

  “Right,” I said, thinking of the time I’d come back into the atmosphere of Venus from the blue giant system. “Even hitting gas is like hitting a solid object when you’re moving at thousands of miles an hour. Hitting liquid—it would be like smashing into a brick wall.
The probes would be obliterated.”

  Marvin was watching me carefully from multiple angles. This made me nervous. He wasn’t asking for anything, and I was the only thing in the room for him to study, but I was still wary.

  “You’ve got something else in your brainbox,” I said. “Talk to me.”

  “I have another possible approach to the situation, Colonel.”

  “Yeah. Of course you do. Just tell me.”

  “Would I be held responsible for the possible side-effects of experimentation?”

  I laughed. “You want me to sign a prenuptial agreement? I’m sorry Marvin, I’m not going to absolve you of responsibilities for some idea I haven’t even heard about yet.”

  He scrutinized me for another full second before continuing. “The rings have capacities other than the transmission of physical matter between two locations.”

  “You’re talking about relaying transmissions, right? The vibration thing?”

  “Not just that. They can be switched on and off. The flow of material can also be reversed. In a sense, they can be opened and closed like doors.”

  I nodded, seeing what he was getting at. “That’s self-evident in this case. The ring was always there, the Crustaceans have told us. But it was inactive. Now, someone has figured out how to turn it on and use it to drain their oceans away. My money is on the Macros of course. They’re always looking for a quiet way to kill off their biotic allies that doesn’t violate their existing agreements.”

  Marvin’s cameras drew closer to me. “I believe I can gain at least partial control of the ring.”

  “What? That’s great!”

  The cameras rose up a little higher, showing he appreciated the praise. I had to wonder why he hadn’t brought this up in the first place.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been pondering for a long time. It’s closely related to the process of using the rings to relay vibrations from on system to another. You see, the rings are really in two places at the same time. That is their secret. There aren’t really two rings, there’s only one.”

  I nodded impatiently. “Yeah, that makes sense. This is a wonderful development, Marvin. I want you to grab control of that ring and turn it off.”

  “Naturally, that would be the happiest outcome.”

  I paused and my eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘would be’? I thought you said you could control it.”

  “I said I could take control of it. I can put it into program-mode, so to speak. But I have no real idea of what commands to send it. I don’t know its protocols or packet control structures. I would have to experiment once I opened a session.”

  I nodded slowly and my face fell. I was beginning to understand his hesitation. I also understood now why he’d asked for absolution before making an attempt to do this.

  “Marvin,” I said. “I get it. You’re talking about hacking this thing. About attempting to get it to do what you want. But you know you don’t understand the interface. You’d be making guesses, and bad things might happen as a result.”

  “Exactly.”

  I thought about it. What if Marvin reversed the ring’s direction of flow and put the other end of it into the flaming surface of an unknown star? Anything was possible. He might destroy Yale, or save it.

  I knew a little about hacking. It was a hit-or-miss thing. Usually, there were a lot of misses before hits were registered. It would take time, and it would be dangerous. But really, what other choice did we have?

  “You know Marvin, this interchange represents a shift in your behavior. I think you might be maturing. Instead of hiding the possible disasters that may occur, you brought them up ahead of time. I’m proud of you, Marvin. You’re learning about responsibility and honestly, I think you’re growing up.”

  “That’s an unexpected compliment, Colonel Riggs.”

  “Keep it in your RAM,” I told him. “I don’t give a lot of those.”

  “Audio saved.”

  I smiled and summoned Captain Jasmine Sarin and the rest of my command staff. We had a decision to make.

  “I think the Crustaceans have to decide, Colonel,” was Jasmine’s opinion. I wasn’t surprised. Everyone felt that way. We’d discussed it for nearly an hour, and the prevailing decision was clear.

  I nodded and contacted Professor Hoon. They all listened intently. No one seemed more interested than Marvin himself. He desperately wanted to make the attempt, of course. His main interest in this meeting was spreading the blame for it afterward, in case it turned into a royal shit-bomb. No one could blame the crazy robot if he’d gotten us all to agree it was risky.

  Professor Hoon’s answer was quick and decisive.

  “Yes, by all means. Make the attempt. But be warned: there will be an investigation afterward. If this is an elaborate ruse to increase the speed of our world’s demise, there will be a censure forthcoming.”

  I tried not to smile. After all, we were talking about billions of possible deaths. The fact they were all doomed in the near future seemed almost immaterial to them. What mattered more was the correctness of the procedure. I thought about asking Hoon who he thought was going to perform this investigation and censure, but held back.

  “Understood, Professor Hoon. We’ll take every precaution.”

  “We also request dissemination of the results,” Hoon continued.

  I hesitated. This was a sore point among my staff. If we did gain some level of control over the ring, they didn’t want to give that powerful technological advantage away to the Crustaceans. They’d been hostile just a month ago. They were cooperating now, but were not really our allies.

  “We will consider it after the successful conclusion of the operation. Possibly, we will utterly fail, in which case there’s nothing to disseminate. If it does work out and relations between our governments are normalized we can consider sharing technologies. We have a lot of things to share, far more than just this little trick.”

  “We accept your conditions, because we have no choice.”

  I turned to Marvin and the rest of them. Marvin was barely able to crouch at the conference table, he was so excited. No one else was sitting within a chair or two of him for fear they’d get slapped by a tentacle or knocked in the head by a drifting camera.

  “Can I proceed, Colonel?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “there’s no time to waste. See if you can turn off that damned ring, Marvin.”

  “Channel open,” he said.

  Suddenly, Marvin froze up. Every tentacle stopped moving, and he resembled a still-motion photograph. The effect was uncanny. No human could have gone from such a state of agitation to a completely motionless state. It was as if someone had switched off his primary generators, but he still had enough residual power to maintain rigidity.

  “What’s wrong with him, Kyle?” Sandra asked.

  “I think he’s okay,” I said, standing up and walking close. “I think he’s switched over all his computing power to this hacking effort.”

  “I think he’s locked up,” Kwon said, poking at a camera near his elbow.

  Marvin made no response, so Kwon prodded him more vigorously. “I see this all the time. He crashed. He needs to reboot, or something.”

  I waved Kwon back. “Just give him some air,” I said, getting nervous. I was as worried as the rest of them, but tried not to show it.

  About a minute after he’d frozen in place, Marvin finally came back to life. We all began breathing again in relief.

  “Transmission sent,” he said.

  “Well? How did it go? Give me a full report, Marvin.”

  “Impossible,” he said, “to verbalize a full report of my transmissions would require a period of time longer than your projected lifespan, Colonel Riggs.”

  “Yeah, okay. Give me the condensed version. What did you do?”

  “I sent a sequence of likely codes to the ring.”

  “How many of them did you send?”

  “Just over six billion.
”

  “Did you try everything then? What are the results?”

  “Unknown.”

  I brought up the display of Yale on the conference table. The world looked pretty much the same. But I knew the currents of a worldwide ocean would take longer than a minute to reshape themselves.

  “What do you mean, ‘unknown’? Did you get through to the ring or not? Did it accept any of those six billion commands?”

  “Yes. It accepted one. The last one I sent.”

  “Okay... So you sent a barrage of spam at the ring, and apparently it finally took one command and executed it. That sounds like blind hacking, Marvin. I was under the impression you had some idea of what you were doing.”

  “It was not a sophisticated algorithm,” he admitted.

  “What command did it finally take?” Sandra demanded suddenly. “What did you tell the ring to do?”

  “I have no idea. That’s why I stopped when it accepted a command. In order to learn how to control an unknown device, experimentation is required. The next step is to observe its behavior, and thereby update my knowledge base.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” Sandra said. “I thought you knew what you were doing. It sounds like you just pushed every button on the remote control until something happened to the TV.”

  “An accurate analogy,” Marvin said.

  “But what if you found the self-destruct button?” she demanded.

  “I doubt that function exists. But if it did, and I had managed to trigger it, we would have seen dramatic results by now.”

  All of us stared down at the conference table. Yale was depicted there, blue-white and lovely, filling the screen under our collective elbows.

  Everyone was squinting. Several gritted their teeth, as if wincing in pain or worry. What had we done to this beautiful, stricken world? Had we made things even worse somehow for the hapless inhabitants?

  Like Marvin, I figured we would find out soon enough.

  -9-

  “Professor Hoon is attempting to contact us, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said. “He seems agitated.”

  “Probably because you did something horrible,” Sandra said.