Empire Ebook Full

by B. V. Larson

  “You have to stop doing that,” I said. “It’s insubordination.”

  She hugged me a moment later, powerfully. I hugged her back, liking this treatment much better. I took a second to smell her hair and feel her body pressed up against me. I found both sensations pleasant. After a few long seconds, she disengaged herself from my arms and walked out.

  “Fine,” she said, turning around in the airlock, “go get yourself killed again. I don’t care. I won’t sit up all night for you. Not this time.”

  Then she was gone. I smiled after her, knowing Sandra was still Sandra. I knew she would wait up for me every night until I returned. It was comforting, in a way, to know someone back home cared if I came back or not.

  The nanites usually took care of adjusting and sealing my form-fitting armor, but sometimes there was a fold that just didn’t feel right. Smoothing out every stiff wrinkle I could find, I finished adjusting my armor and headed for the airlock.

  The ship I had left waiting for me was the destroyer Actium, which had once been my command ship before we’d built Nostradamus. When I was finally in my ship and I undocked from the cruiser, I felt better. Getting into trouble on my own was a vacation for me. I enjoyed leaving all the troubles of my office behind for a while.

  As I approached the Blue’s homeworld, I transmitted a steady drumbeat of entreaties. They no longer had a screening group of Nano ships hovering over the planet’s atmosphere to stop me. That was due to some of my trickery in the past, of course. I hoped they weren’t still upset about that.

  Actium was a fast ship, faster than anything else I had available other than the cruiser itself. That’s why I’d chosen her. Flying it solo wasn’t easy in combat, but on a scouting mission like this it should work out just fine.

  One thing that worried me as I approached the Blues’ homeworld was their general lack of response to my entreaties. I knew they were capable of receiving radio messages from us—after all, they were using more advanced tech to talk to our enemies right now via the rings. But they didn’t seem terribly interested in striking up a conversation with me. I told myself it didn’t matter and flew closer and closer to their gas giant. Soon, it filled my vision and seemed impossibly huge.

  I reached the upper atmosphere, which amounted to a swirling mix of hydrogen atoms at the fringe of a vast sea of gases. I nosed the destroyer downward and drove it steadily deeper. Soon, the air thickened and space around me vanished.

  I rode Actium down in the soup, and felt the hull begin to vibrate and occasionally groan as the exterior pressures built up. I ran the program I’d developed with the last ship I’d taken down, slowly folding the walls down toward me, reducing the size of the ship’s cabin and thus increasing the internal pressure and thickening the hull. The nanites flowed overhead like silver water, forming and reforming the curved walls as they adjusted to the building forces outside.

  I planned my diplomatic speech during the long descent toward the inhabited layers of their atmosphere. Every layer I penetrated seemed like a permanent blanket that wrapped around this murky world. I told myself I would insist they speak with me. It would be easier to find them this time, as I now knew where they glided and swam in their oceans of gas.

  Just like the last time, the ride was pretty uncomfortable until I got to a depth of about nine thousand miles. Down there, the windshear of the upper layers was gone, and the pressure seemed to level out a bit. The environment at this depth was calm and even the temperature was reasonable.

  I had Actium form an audio device to talk to the Blues. The bassoon-like instrument was half-megaphone and half-computer. Through it, I was able to blow vibrations into their winds and capture their attention. I still wasn’t sure why they didn’t use more advanced communications technology when dealing with us, but I didn’t much care why. I just wanted to get them talking.

  Eventually, after sending out enough whale-calls, I received an answer: “Why do you disturb us, dense-thing?” asked a melodious voice.

  “I’m Colonel Kyle Riggs,” I said. “May I ask who you are?”

  “I am…Beneficence.”

  An interesting name, I thought. I knew from experience that the Blues were named for their natural behavioral traits. I told myself I should be happy this guy’s name wasn’t something like Irritability or Pointless Rage.

  “I’m not the machine you see before you. It’s merely a vehicle. I’m inside this ship, and I’m biotic like you.”

  “You insult me by suggesting you are in any way similar to myself.”

  I frowned. Beneficence my ass, I thought. Prissy might have been a better name.

  “I’ll come out of my ship and meet with you, if you like,” I said.

  As the Blues were essentially gaseous in nature, they considered us to be more or less on the level of rocks. Blues lived their lives as organized clouds, and frequently shared their body mass with one another. They mixed gases and gauzy aerogels when coming into contact with each other as a matter of course. It was vaguely creepy, but they really liked to taste a newcomer and share part of themselves physically with anyone they met.

  “If you must,” Beneficence said.

  Muttering about ungracious hosts, I wriggled out of the airlock, which was about the size of a manhole now that Actium had compressed herself down to withstand the atmosphere. Once floating outside, I was promptly assailed by Beneficence. The process was like being felt-up by an air compressor.

  When the being was quite finished, I coughed as politely as I could and resumed our conversation. “I’m here to ask you to join us in the coming conflict.”

  “I find you distasteful. The molecules reeking from your form are universally unpleasant.”

  “Yeah?” I asked, trying to control my temper. “You stink too. But let’s get down to business, shall we? Are you in charge of making any kind of group decision for your people? Should I talk to someone else?”

  “I doubt another of my kind would subject themselves to your disgusting essence.”

  “Well, how would they know—”

  “I’ve taken the precaution of singing about it. The message will be repeated and resung until it rolls around the world and back again.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “Do you know anything about the robots your people built and sent up above the clouds to plague the rest of the universe? Or are you as ignorant as you are rude?”

  “You came here to cast insults and demands? Striking. Discrediting.”

  Something in my question had shocked the cloud-being. I was glad about that, and wished I knew exactly what it was so I could say it again with more vigor. I took a deep breath on my respirator and tried to control my temper. For all I knew, the rest of the Blues would avoid me now, because this joker had told them I smelled really bad. In that case, I had to get some kind of valuable communication going with him, because it might be my last chance. I didn’t have weeks to hang out down here and become touchy-feely with their culture.

  “Look, Beneficence, I want to ally with your people against your lost robots. Billions of lives are at stake, including your own.”

  “Lost robots?”

  “The Macros,” I said, explaining what I was talking about until we were both clear on the topic.

  “We have not lost them,” Beneficence said at last. “We know precisely where they are.”

  I thought about that, and narrowed my eyes within my helmet. I had a growing suspicion this Blue was hostile toward me in a personal way. My mind had also begun convert the suspicion they were using the rings as transmission systems into a certainty.

  “You don’t like us, do you?” I asked. “You aren’t a random being, you were sent here by your superiors to be rude to me. I get it now. You aren’t an emissary, you’re an insult.”

  “I am an insult?” asked the cloud, its voice rising. The translation system didn’t do so well with inflections. It could only raise or lower the volume of a statement. The gasses around me, however, had begun to stir.
I could feel bumps and currents. I suddenly felt like a kite on a windy day, instead of a diver floating above a calm seabed.

  “Yes,” I said. “What don’t you like about me, other than my flavor?”

  “You are arrogant—almost to the point of absurdity. You come here into our universe and disturb our peaceful seas with your stench. You dare to destroy that which we created—as if you are the superior species.”

  There was a lot of anger and resentment in that statement. I took a second to mull over my response. “When I came here the last time, your people expressed guilt about having released machines beyond your clouds to plague the rest of us. We have done nothing but defend ourselves against your creations. In fact, your creations have turned against even you.”

  “Incorrect!” shouted the being. “You shall see. We are not helpless. We will not sit here, awaiting your ships and bombs. We’re not at your mercy any longer. Now go, before we forget ourselves in a forgivable act of vengeance!”

  I had the sense then, for the first time, that there were others here. I wasn’t meeting a sole being, but a crowd of them. They nosed the ship, making it bob and roll, its stabilizers fighting to keep an even keel.

  Gone from my mind was all concept of making these beings see reason. They were angry because of earlier events. I’d blown up their screen of Nano ships, having led them off like the Pied Piper to be destroyed by the Macros. I could tell now this had really pissed them off. I guess they’d felt tricked and used—and in a way, they had been. But they were the ones who had built the damned machines in the first place.

  “Know this, people of Eden-12,” I said, “you released abominations of metal upon the rest of us. You can’t expect the other biotic species in this star system to die without a fight. Nor can you expect to survive, if we label you as an enemy. Therefore, I’ll warn you now: if the Macros come again to the Eden system and attack, we will not direct our weapons toward them. Instead, we will destroy the brain of this enemy. We will rain fire down upon this world until every shred of atmosphere is blown away, and nothing but the molten core remains. This planet will be reduced to a cinder bubbling in space, with nothing living left upon it.”

  Even as I spoke, I’d been wriggling my way back into my ship. I felt a tugging, as if invisible fingers grasped at my suit. I was glad for my nanotized muscles and for every Microbial bath I’d undergone at Marvin’s urging. I managed to escape their grasping tendrils of gases and gels. I buttoned up the ship and ordered her to sail aloft.

  Actium struggled at first. It was as if a thousand hands had grabbed her hull and tried to hang on. In the end the ship was too strong however, and broke free. I sailed up and up, not daring to relax until I reached open space again.

  As I returned to the inner planets, I gazed back at the retreating brownish-green sphere that was the Blues’ homeworld. Had I just declared war upon another species? Had they given me any choice?

  Troubled, I went back to my reports and informed Star Force that my diplomatic mission had failed.

  -24-

  After I’d rejoined the fleet, I monitored the alien traffic using Marvin’s mysterious apparatus. The rings sang like high-tension wires all the next day and night. I monitored the activity, and had Sarin graph it for me on our shared console.

  “See here?” I said, pointing with a gloved finger to a red line that rose above the others on the displayed graph. “This spike in transmissions occurred immediately after my visit to their homeworld. I’m sure it represents them calling the Macros. The transmission is only hitting the Thor ring. They don’t send anything the other way to the Helios system until hours later.”

  “Yes,” Sarin said, studying the data. “I can see the point where they begin transmitting through the Helios ring. It’s right after another series of vibrations at the Thor ring. See, this blue line represents the Helios activity. Nothing is there until after the second spike.”

  “So, this seems like a clear scenario. They heard my planted threat, then sent something out to the Macros. Once they heard back from the Macros, they talked to the other side—to Crow’s forces.”

  Sarin looked at me very seriously. “That’s a lot of guesswork, Colonel. We still have no idea what was said. We don’t even really know who said what.”

  “I know,” I said, “all we have is a timeline of events, and a lot of conjecture.”

  I paced around the console. When I’d circled it twice, I turned back to it and began tapping. A theoretical repositioning of ships began. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said. “We’ll pull our ships from the Thor ring—we’ll pull back everything supporting the battle station for now, except for a few scouts to keep an eye on the Crustaceans. Then, we’ll station a squad of ships over the Blue’s homeworld. They’ll just sit out there, silently, in far orbit. In the meantime, the bulk of our forces will mass here at the Helios ring.”

  Miklos walked quietly over and joined us. “This is a significant change to our strategy, sir.”

  “Indeed it is,” I agreed. “And we’d better all pray tonight I’ve guessed right. Because we’re betting the farm on this one.”

  Miklos blinked at me. “Must we bet the entire farm, sir? Perhaps we should only bet—ah, a few animals or a field.”

  I laughed and shook my head. “We can’t win that way. Hell, we might lose no matter what we do. But if we get hit from both ends at once, and split our forces to face these two enemies evenly, we’ll get mowed for sure. We have to put everything down at Helios ring. We’ll set an ambush for Crow’s Imperial fleet. When they come, they have to be hit so hard from the outset that they turn around and run.”

  Miklos pursed his lips. Sarin’s eyes were big and dark. She didn’t say anything.

  “Sir…” Miklos began.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “It sounds kind of crazy. But I’m working from more than a hunch. I think the Blues really only care about one thing, and that is their own gassy rear ends. They’ve been cowards from the start, and I’m betting they’ll stay that way. They just transmitted to the Macros a cease and desist order. I’m pretty sure of that. We’ll keep a fleet near them to keep them running scared. That’s a small price to pay to neutralize an entire armada on a second front.”

  “You believe they are talking to Crow, also?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Either that, or Crow is talking to the Lobsters. It doesn’t really matter. We haven’t got enough force to cover everything. To win, we have to gamble.”

  “But sir,” he said, giving it one last try, “sometimes, your hunches don’t work out quite the way you planned.”

  I glowered. “I know that. If you have a better plan, I’d like to hear it now.”

  That was my trump card. They all tried, but no one could come up with anything else that gave us a good chance at victory. Sure, none of us knew what was going to happen. But in war, you had to play the odds. I’d laid my cards on the table, and we were going to see how it all played out very soon.

  After another hour of watching my staff do some obligatory soul-searching, I tapped the scenario we’d laid out into a loading queue. The orders were automatically dispersed to every ship and they began moving the moment they got them. What had been a battle plan had neatly turned into reality.

  Sandra caught up with me on the way back to Actium. I winced at her touch, fully expecting a tirade. What I got instead was a weary smile.

  “Your plan is the best we can come up with, Kyle,” she said. “The others don’t like it, because it’s not perfect. But that’s just too bad.”

  She looked as pretty as ever, but her eyes were half-closed.

  “You didn’t sleep while I was gone, did you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I pulled her up against me and walked toward Actium’s airlock.

  “Come with me,” I said. “I’m going to go down to Eden-6 to kick Marvin in the butt. He’s got to stop killing Centaur volunteers and start turning them into super-goats.”

&
nbsp; She balked at the airlock. “I’m not going to get any sleep on this trip either, am I?” she asked.

  “I swear, I’ll let you have a good rest. At least eleven hours’ worth.”

  “It takes fourteen hours to get to Eden-6.”

  “Yeah? Well, the other three hours are for both of us. We need to get reacquainted.”

  Sandra snorted, but followed me into the ship.

  Fourteen hours later, we were both well-rested and in a much better mood. As we eased into orbit over Eden-6, I looked down upon the heavy clouds. Here and there, the cloud-layer had burned through enough to reveal the endless sparkling seas underneath. There was no land visible through any of those holes in the cloud-layer—just ocean.

  “Such a big world,” Sandra said. “Nothing but islands and beaches. I like the place, even if there isn’t much in the way of direct sunshine.”

  I nodded, staring. “I see something out there, moving out of orbit.”

  “I don’t see it—oh, you mean that silver thing?”

  “Actium, display Eden-6 and our orbital surroundings. Identify all moving vehicles.”

  The ship did as I asked, and we moved to the command chamber. We took our chairs and strapped in. There were several vessels in the region. They were quickly located, displayed, and identified by Actium. Most of the ships here were transports. There were seven of them, all of which had brought colonists to various landing sites. I wondered vaguely how the civilians were enjoying their new environments. I imagined it was quite an adjustment for them, but it had to be better that sitting in space.

  There was one contact that didn’t show up as green, however, and had no identifying trace of words next to it on the display. It showed as a faint golden-yellow color. I looked at the vehicle as it streaked away to the far side of the planet.

  “Actium, follow that unknown contact.”