Darkness: Book One of the Oortian Wars

by Iain Richmond

  When your country has five billion citizens you learn to reuse everything no matter what it smells or looks like. That was Fei’s father’s favorite statement when he was a boy. He tamped the wet cloth on his forehead and waited. The enemy had not shown itself again and sitting in the center of the open space with the Kwan Yin pointed away from a previously safe harbor seemed dangerous. Trust your instincts, captain, they have never led you astray. He reassured himself.

  The calm before the storm, Fei was sure. For a brief moment, it seemed the enemy could not find the Kwan Yin in the open, or was simply letting them know it was there. Sensors are based on the evolution of a species. You design technology for the signatures you know exist in yourself, your environment and your world.

  There must be at least a few shared characteristics between humans and this new… Fei still had no idea what they had encountered. Heat was the most obvious. Each used combustion to power their vessels and each had means to destroy.

  Do they hone in on the sound of human voices, the sound of pumps and moving liquid? Contrary to what people believe, sound travels sporadically through space on particles of dust and debris. The five-layer hulls deadened ninety-nine percent of sound outside of the boats. Or could it be as simple as line of sight? He thought of the new telescopes that could pry into distant solar systems. Line of sight depending on the technology or evolution could be far superior to computer-based sensors.

  Red flashes caught Captain Fei’s attention. Commander Zhu scanned the Battle-Net screen, stood up and walked to the hologram that floated in the center of the bridge. He touched the data-pad and a red glow appeared on the edge where the dark field ended and the oval piece of open space they found themselves began.

  The enemy was skimming the camouflage just enough for the Battle-Net sensors to pick it up. It has almost gone full-circle. Any moment now, Fei thought, and readied himself.

  “Ready yourself, Lieutenant,” he whispered to his pilot.

  The pilot turned. “Ready, Captain.”

  Fei saw resolve in the man’s face or maybe just fear. Either way, he was ready.

  “INCOMING!” Commander Zhu roared as the giant orb flew from the dark field. The commander’s hand slid towards the right side of his data-pad and hovered over the launch controls.

  “Hold your fire, Commander.” Fei could see panic rushing over the man. “We have one shot, let it come closer.”

  Commander Zhu took a deep breath and held steady. “There is no heat lock from the Battle-Net.”

  The sphere the size of the Kwan Yin had an amber tint, no flames, no glow, just a vast glob of mottled-jelly moving towards the center of the cleared area. Pushing towards the Kwan Yin at a steady, but measured pace.

  The Battle-Net had a visual lock based on the movement, but that was all, and that was not good enough. Captain Fei knew the stakes were too high for anything other than a heat-lock. A heat-lock was a guaranteed hit or as close to one as the Battle-Net could get.

  “Ready Lieutenant.” Fei waited for the rush, waited for the predator to make a kill-run at them.

  “Heat source, Captain! Battle-Net has a heat-lock!” Commander Zhu moved to fire.

  A massive burst from the orb and it shot away from the Kwan Yin. The enemy cut its burn and with it the heat-lock. In seconds, it was hidden once again in the camouflage of the dark field directly in front of the Kwan Yin.

  Zhu thumped a hand near his data-pad. “I should have fired. We had heat-lock.” He looked to the decking under his feet. “I have failed you, Captain, I have failed this crew.”

  “Focus, Commander. If you had fired we would be defenseless and our last missile would be harmlessly chasing ghosts in the field.”

  “Lieutenant prepare—”

  The bridge lit up, the hologram in the center erupted with light. The sphere tore into open space, covered in blue flames with fiery debris trailing behind it. A bulk of flames raged towards the Kwan Yin.

  “Hold, Commander!”

  “Full bow burn, Lieutenant.”

  The crew on the bridge slammed toward the bow, each harness straining until the grav-system caught up to the sudden thrust. Fei saw that the angle was off, but it should buy them the seconds they needed by increasing the distance.

  “Fire!”

  Commander Zhu hammered the control and the Battle-Net unleashed a single missile from a lone, now empty cradle.

  “Full Burn! Twenty-degree up-angle.” Fei’s body smashed into his captain’s chair, the Kwan Yin unleashed its main engine and powered up and away from the flaming orb.

  “Direct hit!” Commander Zhu rattled.

  Blue flames engulfed the hologram, the Kwan Yin shuttered, the force of the explosion pushed her close to vertical. The lieutenant adjusted his flight path while a shower of burning debris thumped against the bottom of the hull.

  Commander Zhu’s screens flashed, data streaming across in a solid line. “Fire suppression system is overwhelmed, Captain!”

  “Do what you can, Commander.” Fei felt the strain ease on his chest, the grav-systems balancing out the force of acceleration. The Kwan Yin’s outer layer foamed and frothed while its fire suppression system fought to extinguish the chunks of burning mass and fill the voids they left behind. The repair system pushed its sticky epoxy through charred holes, sealing them shut until the hull warning lights ceased flashing.

  “Captain! Twenty seconds until we enter the field!” Fear had taken the young pilot as they approached the harbinger of death that surrounded them.

  Captain Fei hit the open-COM key. “Brace for possible impact in fifteen seconds. Once we enter I want full silence, not a sound from anyone on this boat.” His calm was more unnerving than the scenario from which it sprang.

  … TEN… NINE… EIGHT…

  Fei clamped down hard on his arm rests, watching the numbers light up the bridge of the Kwan Yin.

  “Lieutenant, cut the main engines and ready the bow thrusters.” Fei looked to the Battle-Net station. “Commander, shutdown the hologram, emergency power only and that includes the Battle-Net, remain on basic life support.” Let’s hope there is nothing in our path, he thought as he prepared to slow their forward progress.

  Silence consumed the Kwan Yin while the Battle-Net counted down the seconds to contact on every screen, at every station on the Kwan Yin. Each numeric change lighting the tense faces on the bridge with an eerie glow.

  The Battle Net flashed … FOUR… THREE…

  “Fire the bow thrusters, Lieutenant.”

  … TWO…

  “Shut it down, Lieutenant.” Captain Fei calmly stated, his heart pounding in his ears.

  … ONE…

  45

  Aris the Chosen One

  the Darkness

  A private thought-stream opened and the upload began. Aris the Chosen One hung in the darkness tired and aching from its restorative infusion, but alive and close to fully healed. The Creators continued to push data into her systems. Her carapace ebbed and flowed with the warrior’s rage coursing through her mended organs and systems.

  The Creators had a new plan. Aris continued to scan the incoming data. She was not allowed direct communication with the Creators yet. But of course, they knew this as they knew all things that went on within the clans. They knew of all things except the Darkness, Aris thought on her private thought-stream. The Darkness has her own plan, but how Aris knew this, was not known to her, it was simply part of her memory.

  Aris was pleased that the Creators had championed the eldest Warruq as the new LOR. Warruqs followed the title and each time the leader of their clans completed his journey to the Realm of Warriors, chaos ensued until another leader was named. They were a warrior class that needed an iron fist. Aris the Chosen One commanded the Warruq, but only through a LOR.

  Aris uploaded the latest records on the invader’s five vessels. Pleasure pushed through her systems. The leader had escaped capture and was hurtling towards the Darkness itself. It had not run towards
the direction it came, and fled towards its home as the Creators had planned, the location where fifty-five Warruq waited for glory. Instead the lone craft felled a Krell with a single ember that turned the beast into flaming shards and bravely pushed into the Darkness and vanished in her mass.

  Fearless, Aris thought, a warrior among them. This vessel would be worthy of battle, worthy of death by Aris the Chosen One. She hesitated after the upload terminated. The last of the feed was unusual for the Creators. Aris was to choose four Prox and hunt down the remaining enemy and LOR would lead the clans against another invading force moving toward the Darkness.

  A battle without a Prox? Aris had never heard of such a strategy, but the Creators had their reasons and she, her orders. Aris opened a thought-stream to the clans, searching its traffic for four specific beings.

  Aris would gather the four Prox that her mentor had spoken of before she passed to the Realm of Warriors. She would bring the ancient ones that existed when the Darkness protected but a single planet. The four that could be forged into a hunting pack and find the invader that boldly charged into the Darkness.

  The territories must be protected.

  46

  Admiral Chen

  10th Fleet

  Admiral Chen began thumping a loosely closed fist on his armrest. “Twenty-five Data-Pods would account for their entire inventory?” Chen looked around the bridge, his eyes finally falling on his commander.

  “Why would Captain Fei send fifteen towards Earth? His COMs are out, but 10th Fleet is less than twenty-four hours from his last location and Station Pluto is only a few hours further? We could flash a message to Earth in four point five hours?” The Admiral had been doing so daily with his United Nations superiors updating the situation and receiving his orders. Quietly the admiral also used encrypted back channels with the sovereign Chinese government to keep them up to date.

  Chen was getting uncomfortable. The orders received from the UN and the opinions of the Chinese government were no longer congruent. Though the United Nations accord stated that the combined military was under their leadership, China is the country with the majority of lives at risk at Station Pluto and the 10th Fleet are their vessels, filled with Chinese crewman.

  Commander Lee broke the silence. “Captain Fei’s battle-group may have assumed that the mass of the Data-Pods should be sent to the target with the greatest…” Lee paused and gathered himself. “A target with the greatest chance of successful contact.”

  Chen felt adrenaline enter his veins. “And 10th Fleet was not believed to fit that assumption?” If Captain Fei’s battle-group encountered a force he believed was superior to Chen’s armada he would look to Station Pluto then Earth.

  “Admiral?” Commander Lee scanned the Battle-Net screens.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “There is something that does not fit, sir.” Lee was examining the data as he spoke. “What is the probability that after the battle-group was surrounded by the black field and engaged by enemy forces—”

  “Could they have launched their entire inventory of Data-Pods and not lost one to the enemy?” Admiral Chen asked aggressively.

  Chen rose and marched to Commander Lee’s station. The Battle-Net screen continued to track the Data-Pods. Five were slowing down as they neared 10th Fleet. Their trajectory would place them just within the range of the Grappling-Bot.

  Five other signatures where moving wide starboard of the Fleet’s flank and another fifteen were further starboard of those. All would pass the Fleet in minutes while they traveled towards Station Pluto and Earth.

  “Commander, Battle Stations level ONE.” Chen was following protocol, but he felt the need to raise the alert to a level THREE. Calm, he thought, Level ONE is a defensive position.

  The grappling-bot released from its cradle on the underside of his command ship, the Qing Long and moved towards the waiting Data-Pods. The Battle-Net continued to track the twenty other signatures passing wide off the Fleet’s starboard flank.

  “Two minutes to contact, Admiral.” The lieutenant’s fingers continued to skate over the small navigation screen while she skillfully maneuvered the bot through the Fleet’s hull scrapping Stealth Formation. Once in open space the grappling-bot would net the Data-Pods, one at a time.

  “Emergency Flash coming in, Admiral,” the COMs officer stated in response to a pulsating red light on his screen, “CODE RED from Station Pluto, Captain Falco’s authorization cypher.” He opened the protected channel, as was protocol for the seldom-used line and fed it to the admiral’s station.

  Captain Falco’s desperate voice sounded. “Admiral, badly damaged Data-Pod was brought into Station Pluto. Signature is a match for the Kuan Ti of Captain Fei’s battle-group.

  “All of the incoming Data-Pod signatures match the battle group pod signatures.” Chen scanned his personal Battle-Net feed, “Five Pods from each vessel.”

  “Yes, Admiral, with the damaged pod, count makes twenty-six, one more than battle-group’s inventory. I repeat, count makes twenty-six!”

  “Battle Stations level THREE! Battle-Net to protect 10th Fleet vessel signatures only!” Chen’s voice boomed through the command center. “Data-Pod signatures may be compromised. Commander Lee, optical scan, as close as we can get on the nearest of the five Pods. Keep tracking the twenty off our flank.”

  “On your screen, Admiral.”

  Chen flinched at the image of what was reading as a Data-Pod. The newest model was a layered-plastic sphere covered in sensors and solar skins with an unhackable, coded Fleet Signature, specific to pod vessels. What the Admiral was looking at on the optical-zoom was something else. A rough, shiny skin stretched over a hard sphere with a loose fleshy appendage on the rear that appeared to be venting steam or—

  “Optical match to the ‘Hull Pounders’ that hit the Anam Cara!” Commander Lee frantically moved his hands across his data pads. “Signatures are good, but these are not our pods!”

  “Lock onto all pods, Commander…”

  Commander Lee input the order the second it left the admiral’s lips and the Battle-Net’s warning systems screamed inbound alerts from bow to stern of 10th Fleet’s formation. Twenty Hull Pounders ignited into a full burn. Five toward the bow and twenty from the starboard side.

  “INCOMING!” shouted Commander Lee.

  “FIRE!” responded Chen.

  47

  Captain Fei

  the Black Field

  Commander Zhu of the Kwan Yin turned toward Captain Fei. “Sensors are useless. We are blind beyond our hull,” he whispered.

  Fei felt the words more than heard them. There was a familiarity upon entering the camouflage. A feeling from the past that skirted just outside of his memories. The soft resistance to the Kwan Yin’s forceful plunge had been unexpected, soft and pliable.

  The crew braced for impact anticipating the dark field to feel like a solid wall. Instead the dark mass gently pushed against the boats hull, gripped her tight yet permitted her to enter without damage. The Kwan Yin slowed against the soft resistance, crawled forward and finally came to a full stop. How far they had traveled into the dark field was anyone’s guess. A hundred meters or a hundred klicks.

  Captain Fei surveyed the bridge. Stations dark, each screen black, holograms off, a faint glow from the Battle-Nets reduced function gave Commander Zhu a fierce lighting from beneath his angular face.

  Here we sit in a sea of black with no means to protect ourselves, no method to detect the enemy that lurks within it and no way of knowing which way to go. But we are still alive, Fei thought.

  He risked their lives by entering the field, but believed it was their only hope. Fei put the final pieces together as the lone, massive orb circled them. It was using the field as cover, yet it would appear and then vanish beneath its camouflage.

  Fei deduced then that it could not see his vessel unless it was in the open space that had been left for them; a trap for the Kwan Yin and at the same time, a killing field for
her weapons. Even then, he thought, it had to search for them. Keying in on a sight or a sound within the vessel itself? Human voices or the Kwan Yin’s systems? The ping from her searching sensors, radio waves maybe or even the scanning Battle-Net? If the field can hide the enemy from us, it can hide us from them, was his theory and, so far, it seemed correct.

  Fei reached for his harness release, the click echoed through the bridge. Slowly he stood and moved toward the Battle-Net station and Commander Zhu. Leaning down, Fei and Zhu began whispering back and forth, afraid a sound may give away their position.

  “This field hides their form, but we must assume that they have a way to communicate their location with the others and some means of moving within it.”

  Fei nodded at each barely audible word. “Yes, we must assume, but how would they communicate in this field? See or travel?”

  A shrug was all that followed and Fei moved back to his captain’s chair.

  Fei’s crew continued to go over the Kwan Yin with a fine-tooth comb, outside of the epoxy-filled burn marks on her belly, they could not find a dent or scratch. The commander wanted to send out a probe to get a sample of the dark field that covered them. Fei agreed, but not until he knew they could do it safely without giving away their position.

  We need to warn Station Pluto. The only means to communicate would require being close enough to use Morse code or dock at one of the station’s bays. The Kwan Yin’s COMs satellite was smashed into scrap.

  Fei caught himself assuming 10th Fleet would be overrun and destroyed, leaving Station Pluto as his only refuge. No, he thought, they have a chance. 10th Fleet has immense firepower and an admiral that knows only stubborn victory.

  A rising humidity glossed over the bridge. Crewmen glistened and Fei felt a lone drip of sweat run down his back. Even at the lowest setting, the life support systems kept humidity low. A problem for another time, Fei thought. Let’s see this dark field. He pushed off his captain’s chair and soundlessly moved toward his Commanders station again. “Engage the Virtual Surround Vision,” he murmured.