Swarm sf-1

by B. V. Larson

  “Alamo, have you picked out anything intelligible from the mass of stuff they are sending? Give me estimates that are even ten percent or more likely to be accurate. You don’t have to be certain.”

  “It is a short, repetitive transmission. High probability that it is a command form statement.”

  “Could it be the command is to surrender?” I asked.

  “Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”

  “Can we respond yes or no, at least?”

  Hesitation. “We can attempt a positive or negative response. There exists a chance of error, however.”

  I thought about it. By now, I was sweating. I wanted one of the beers in the fridge, but I got out a highly caffeinated drink instead. I needed to think. I studied the binary transmission for a long time.

  “Enemy energy emissions are changing,” said the Alamo after the third hour.

  “Are their weapons systems charging?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Transmit both the signals for yes and no. Right now.”

  The ship was quiet for several seconds. I had just told them yes-no. I hoped that would be interpreted as a maybe. Hopefully, that would buy us more time to figure out how to talk to them.

  “Enemy energy emissions dampening.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Alamo, you’ve had hours of processing time now. You know the enemy are probably transmitting a demand for our surrender. You know how to say yes and no in their language. Can you translate their message? Give it to me, I don’t care if there are errors. Give me your best guesses.”

  “Transmission has high probability of error.”

  “Just do it.”

  “Message translation: Immediate defensive reduction suggested. No further loss required.”

  I blinked, typed it in, looked at the binary. Where had the Nanos gotten that one? I began to suspect they knew more than they were letting on. The message was confused, but they must have had something to work from.

  “What language did you use as a basis for translation?” I asked aloud.

  “Ancient transmissions from lost civilizations. The language used was the closest match, but error is highly probable.”

  I rolled my eyes at the ship’s fear of errors and probabilities. It was better than nothing. Much better. “Alamo, when you transmit my messages to the Macros, I want you to transmit in the exact language of the lost civilization. Do not attempt to upgrade the transmission to match their current version. You will use the old language.”

  “Ready.”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t sure my hunch was right. How could I be? But I hoped that the Macro language was a newer version of an old language that the Alamo knew. If I transmitted in the old version, there was a reasonable chance they could understand it. If there was some degree of backward-compatibility, the kind of thing we often built into our human computer systems, they should be able to understand the old language. There were a lot of ifs in this series of suppositions, but it was the best I had.

  What could it hurt to test my theories? At the very least it might keep this cruiser from blasting me for another few minutes.

  “Message to transmit as follows: Do you understand this transmission? Please answer yes three times in this language if you do.”

  “There is no translation of the please concept.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “Okay then, omit that word from the transmission.”

  The response came back in seconds. “Yes, yes, yes,” said the Alamo. I smiled. I had cracked the code.

  What was my next move? Should I keep talking, or hand it all over to Crow and whoever was pulling his strings these days?

  I sucked in air and froze, staring at the screens. This situation was getting bigger by the moment. Crow would want in on this. So would the people on the planet below me. They would all want in on it, right on up to the president and a dozen other presidents. But there wasn’t time for all that. This wasn’t a committee negotiation effort. The enemy was unbeatable and impatient. I believed they had been about to fire on me for taking too long just minutes ago. To be fair, the governments of Earth had every right to be involved in this discussion. But they weren’t up here sitting face-to-face with a Macro ship that was itching to blow them apart.

  “Incoming message,” said the ship.

  I sighed. Crow again, no doubt. “Let’s hear it.”

  A bunch of beeping and squealing bounced off the walls. It was the Macros. “Alamo, is that the old Macro language? The same as the one you sent to them?”

  “Frequency variations make it non-identical. Signal terminators match. Concepts are intelligibly structured.”

  “Then translate it, assuming it is in the old language.”

  “Incoming Message: Identify yourself.”

  I smiled. I’d done it. Despite the worst interface in the world, I’d gotten this Nano ship to do what I wanted, again. “Contact Crow. Relay this conversation feed to him. Then tell the Macros this: I am Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force.”

  “Incoming Message: You are the leader of the indigenous resistance forces.”

  “Was that a question or a statement, Alamo?”

  “A statement.”

  “How did you figure it out, Kyle?” asked Crow, breaking in. He sounded incredulous.

  “Never mind that. I’ve got them talking. What the hell do we do now?”

  “What do they want?”

  “I’ll ask them. But shouldn’t we get Earth into this?” I asked.

  “No. It’s my policy that if something is above the surface of the planet, it’s Star Force business.”

  “And I thought I had serious balls.”

  “You do Kyle, you really do.”

  “Do you want to talk to them directly?” I asked.

  He paused. “No, you keep talking to them. You are very smooth with computers, mate. They like you. Get them to go away peacefully if you can… but don’t give away Australia.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Incoming Message: You are the leader of indigenous resistance forces.”

  “Tell them yes. Yes, I’m speaking for this world,” I said.

  As I spoke those words, they sounded extremely crazy to me. How had it come down to this? How had I gotten myself into this position?

  40

  “Send them this: What do you want from us?” I told the ship.

  “Incoming Message: Peaceful capitulation with non-damage to our fleet. ”

  I snorted. Didn’t everyone want that? To win the war without a fight?

  “Tell them we wish to end this conflict peacefully as well.”

  “Incoming Message: Surrender terms accepted. ”

  “Whoa!” I said. “Tell them we have not agreed to surrender. We have agreed to a truce.”

  “Incoming Message: Terms unacceptable. ”

  I thought about what they had said so far. They were hesitating for a reason. The only thing I could think of was the size of their fleet. Before, they’d thrown a ship or three at us. We’d beaten them every time. Now, however, they faced us with a big fleet. That meant they had a higher chance of destroying us. But it also meant that they would take a much bigger loss if we somehow managed to defeat them a third time. I tried to think like a computer. They were not emotional. They did not have self-confidence, they had probabilities. They did not have complete data about us. They had miscalculated more than once. Now, they were uncertain. To them, I expected that the risk-reward ratio limit had been exceeded. Attacking us wasn’t quite worth the chance that we might destroy their big fleet.

  The line they had sent me, about wanting our capitulation without damaging their ships, that was very telling, really. They were simple in their diplomatic thinking. They gave away the truth immediately. I thought hard. If they feared a possible repeated miscalculation, another loss on their part, they could be bargained with. I could use that fear against them.

  “Tell them we will cost them a great deal of loss
if they attack. We have beaten them twice in space and once on the ground. We are stronger now than before. We want a truce.”

  “Incoming Message: Terms unacceptable. ”

  I frowned. “What could we give you to make the terms acceptable?”

  “Incoming Message: Your star system and its resources. ”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “Incoming Message: Your species will be removed. ”

  A chilling message. What made it worse was that I believed, in my bones, they could do it. I thought hard. What did we have that might interest them-more even than our raw resources?

  “We could become your allies.”

  “Incoming Message: Your military is too weak to warrant such status. ”

  I nodded to myself. At least they understood the concept of an alliance. Perhaps they had other allied peoples. I decided to work that angle, to talk us up a bit.

  “We destroyed Macro ground forces. Our ground forces proved superior to yours.”

  There was no immediate response to that. Seconds stretched out into a full minute. I began to believe that I had blown it. I’d insulted them one too many times, and they had had enough. I felt sweat bead up all over me. I thought of a dozen nice things to say, but I held back. They hadn’t fired yet.

  “Incoming Message: Terms acceptable. ”

  I looked around at the walls. What terms? I thought about what I had said, my boastful words. What terms had I given them? Had I, in fact, accidentally given them the deed to Australia?

  “You will withdraw your fleet?” I asked cautiously.

  “Incoming Message: Yes. ”

  “What will you require in return?”

  “Incoming Message: Two to the sixteenth power metric tons of cargo. ”

  I licked my lips and breathed hard. Cargo. A huge amount of cargo. I did some mental calculations… they wanted about sixty-five thousand tons of cargo. I certainly hoped they want didn’t tons of diamonds. I was tempted to let it go at that, to figure as long as they turned around and left, I had pulled it off. But exactly what did they want and when?

  “Specify the nature of the cargo.”

  “Incoming Message: You will fill one ship. ”

  I nodded. Okay, one of their ships held that much cargo. I could easily see that. One of those invasion ships certainly could hold that much, probably a lot more…

  Then, I got a horrible idea in my head. “You want us to fill one cargo ship with ground forces, is that correct?”

  “Incoming Message: Yes. ”

  I had it. I understood now. I had bragged about our ground forces. My boasting had been effective. I’d identified something they wanted. Superior invasion forces. It made more and more sense as I thought about it. Why fight for our world if they could get a superior final product out of us than they could build themselves and lose nothing in the process? We had one thing they wanted. They wanted my marines. They wanted Star Force troops.

  I felt a little sick. I tried to think of something else to offer them. But I couldn’t think of anything else they might want. They weren’t interested in food, oil, metals, video games or televisions. They wanted troops. Thousands of tons of them.

  “We don’t have that amount of troops ready at this time. We will require-ten solar years to produce them.”

  “Incoming Message: Terms unacceptable. We will send a ship one solar year from now. ”

  I swallowed hard. “How long will these forces have to serve?”

  “Incoming Message: Until their termination. ”

  “No, that won’t work well for us. We are biotics. We need repairs and replacements. Bring the forces back within one year and we will provide you with a new, full-strength army.”

  There was a delay. They were thinking it over.

  “Incoming Message: Terms acceptable. ”

  “Very well then. Earth accepts your terms. We will provide the forces as your ally in war.”

  “Incoming Message: Session terminated. ”

  And they pulled out after that. Without another word. They turned their ships around and glided away from Earth. They headed sunward, back toward Venus. I had to wonder if they were headed next to another world like ours to destroy or bully them.

  I got a dozen calls after that from a dozen people. The word was spreading. I had somehow turned away doomsday. I had faced the greatest enemy in our planet’s history, and I’d sent them packing.

  Sandra called me, Crow called me, General Kerr called incessantly. A dozen others followed, but I ignored all the calls.

  I didn’t really feel like a hero. I had negotiated a peace with the machines. But the price would be high. Thousands of our best would be taken away to an unknown world to fight an unknown enemy. Their masters would be heartless, towering machines. Our men would be mercenaries, sold to keep the peace.

  We were vassals to the Macros now, I realized. We were no longer truly free and independent. Like a lord given stewardship of a fief, I was to produce fighting men in turn for my overlord. They would fight and die to prevent a worse war at home. I had no doubt we would be conquering other species on other planets in order to avoid harm to ourselves. I recalled from history that the Mongols had formed their Golden Horde in just such a fashion, gathering survivors from conquests and driving them at the walls of the next enemy.

  The calls kept coming in, but I still didn’t answer them. I wasn’t sure what to say. How was I going to explain to them the terms of this deal? I had no doubt they would come to accept it, eventually. They had no choice. We could build a great fleet to fight the Macros, but that would take far longer than a year. Our truce, our tribute, would buy us that time.

  There was one thing I knew for certain. I was going to march aboard that invasion ship when it came back in a year to pick up our legion of soldiers. I would march aboard first, making a brave front of it, stepping onto an alien ship bound for an unknown star system fearlessly. I would do it because I could not ask Earth to give up her sons and then refuse to lead them myself.

  The Alamo continued to request my permission to open channels. I continued to ignore her. I pondered the strange manner in which waging war had become my way of life.

  I stretched in my chair and popped open the beer I had denied myself hours earlier. I drank it, and it tasted salty, fizzy and good.

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