Wars

by Alex Deva

  “Any news?“

  The German checked something off camera.

  “Greene has met more aliens than Hollywood has ever imagined, but so far none that’s willing to help. The good news is that we’ve sold a little VR entertainment to the station managers in exchange for a preliminary five hundred hours of verdammte interaction time.“

  “He’ll never make it that long in that tub,“ said Souček. “He’ll never last a third of that. Nobody else has.“

  “We’ll replace them with another team. We’re working on it.“

  “Another Rook?“

  “Most likely, together with a volunteer diplomat.“

  “I’m a diplomat, and I volunteer.“

  “I don’t have time for more trouble, Karel.“

  The Czech nodded and looked away.

  “No. None of us do.“

  Outside, in the street, he began to hear screams, followed by gunshots.

  XVIII.

  Geneva was dark, just as Tiessler had said. The science campus was deserted, partly because of the panic, and partly because it hadn’t been much frequented to begin with. The nearest Place of Light was a small town in the vicinity of Freiburg, in neighbouring Germany. But the telesentience laboratory, buried four hundred and fifty metres under ground, was lit artificially, and enjoyed power from its own nuclear reactors. The two metallic cylinders gleamed in the middle of the main room, and around them, technicians were trying to pretend that everything was still business as usual.

  They knew, of course. By then, there was hardly any human on Earth who was unaware of the religious ultimatum of the Eight. Frightened friends and family members had called or written, news corporations — those that were still broadcasting — did their jobs the best they could, and panic did the rest.

  It wasn’t just that the people in the laboratory were professionals, although they were. Their calm pretence had not been the result of bravery alone, although they were brave, too. It came from a mixture of knowing that they were still, for the time being, reasonably safe in their secret underground bunker, and that they were, for all intents and purposes, everybody’s last hope.

  The world’s police had been quickly overrun. The national guards had been deployed, but barely managed to keep some foci of order and didn’t dare spread themselves too thin. And the military reacted, too. Many soldiers of all ranks, many officers and many military leaders had simply turned Eighters. A few of them tried to sabotage their stations, and a few of the few even succeeded, but most defectors simply went to the nearest Place of Light, their oaths of allegiance be damned.

  Such was the power of a convincing religion.

  On the surface, above the laboratory in Geneva, there was a chemical research institute. It was large, and had enjoyed some fame in the scientific world. It was certainly still known to the local Swiss, French and Italian communities. It was a complex of grey buildings spread across a couple of hectares.

  Nobody had noticed the military vehicles that had moved into strategic positions in the previous days. At least, nobody who cared. The military often had business with the science in Geneva.

  The vehicles had carried Lykke Dahlberg’s special forces, together with a detachment of Vatican’s peace troops, who had immediately deployed to form a defence apparatus. Karl Tiessler had also offered some soldiers, but his were not as well trained for Earth-based ops. The Americans, too, had offered their SEALS, but formidable as they were, there was no time to fly them over — nor was there a willingness to risk letting armed American troops into Geneva for whatever reason.

  The Vatican soldiers were trivially known as the Bishops. The Eurasian defence troops were nicknamed the Rooks. That their nicknames were linked to the game of chess was a coincidence which many had spent time pondering on.

  The Rooks were Eurasia’s answer to the American SEALS, and they were also formidable. When a Rook had recovered the floating body of American defector Jessica Lawry, he had himself floated for tens of kilometres through the cold dark of space, nudged from far away by a computer-controlled laser. He had a small, palm-sized metal plate which he had to angle so that the laser pulses would accelerate him in the direction he needed. The technique was nothing short of art, and mistakes would mean death.

  A total of forty Rooks, men and women, had been deployed to defend the telesentience mission.

  Vatican’s Bishops were different. To begin with, they were all devout Catholics, and had been devout Catholics even before their implants and musculoskeletal servos had been embedded into their bodies. They were faster and stronger than anyone else alive, and they praised God and thanked the Pope for it. They were heavily armed, too; and why not? The Catholic Church had a military history which was measured in millennia. But the gap between the first Crusaders and the Bishops was immeasurable. Their high-tech guns were heavy, complicated and could spread death quicker and more efficiently than any others in Earth’s twenty-fourth century military.

  A total of forty Bishops, men and women, had been deployed to defend the telesentience mission.

  The Bishops had been charged with the outside perimeter, while the Rooks were guarding the main building, as well as the access ways to the actual laboratory.

  So, by all accounts, Jessica Lawry should’ve felt safe. In fact, it would’ve been hard to imagine a safer place anywhere on Earth right at that moment. And yet, she felt anything but safe. She glanced nervously at Lem, who was busy scrolling through a long table filled with numbers, biting his lower lip; she wished she had something equally demanding to occupy her mind with.

  “It’s been thirty-eight hours,“ he said. “They need to sleep at some point.“

  “The Rook doesn’t,“ she said. “And Mark can take a little more, too.“

  He shook his head. “A little more, maybe. But the more they wait, the more expensive it’ll be. Numbers don’t lie,“ he said, pointing at his tab. “The only way they’re holding this long is because they’re technically sleeping right now.“

  She nodded stubbornly. “They’re soldiers. They’re tough, both of them. They’ve been through worse.“

  “Well, I’m not saying they’re not tough. I’m only stating that, at some point, it becomes more efficient to rest than not to. After all, you and I did sleep.“

  She didn’t reply.

  A couple of technicians glanced nervously at each other.

  At the laboratory entrance, a massive Rook soldier, in full infantry combat gear and armed to the teeth, was listening to his fingers. The chip buried under the skin of his forearm received radio signals and converted them into tiny electrical impulses that went into his finger nerves. Quick bursts of pulses were coming in from his company fellows, status reports from all over the building. Occasionally, in his headset, he also heard the summary reports of the Bishops, emotionless repetitions of codes and numbers which his brain interpreted automatically. All was well, or as well as could be expected.

  Outside their building, at twenty metres intervals, squads of the impressive Bishops were laying hidden in their digital camouflage, quietly observing their surroundings in infrared, ultraviolet, visible light, sound, infrasound, radar and only their Catholic God knew what else.

  It would’ve been late afternoon in Geneva. Sunset would’ve normally come in an hour or so. Not that it mattered to the Bishops. They had absolute control over their surroundings and, short of an army, they could face anything, in the name of God and their fellow soldier.

  So, when a small rocket no bigger than an antique arrow fell down at near supersonic speed into the Centre for Advanced Metallurgy, four hundred metres away from the telesentience laboratory, causing a huge, bright explosion and the complete destruction of the building, it did not come as a great surprise.

  “We’re under attack,“ quietly observed the big soldier stationed at the door inside the laboratory, the first words he’d spoken since he’d politely thanked for a cup of tea a few hours earlier.

  Lem didn’t even
hear. He was busy conferring with a group of three people on the implications of messing with Mark’s levels of melatonin and adenosine. But Jessica heard. Her heart skipped a beat and her face heated up. Sharply, she turned to the soldier. The name tag on his chest said Markku Seppänen. He was calm and composed. Inhuman, thought Lawry with a brief shudder.

  “What’s going on, staff sergeant?“ she asked, trying to at least mimic his calm.

  “Distraction attack,“ he said. “Space-to-ground ordnance just took out a building half a klick from here. The real attack hasn’t begun yet.“

  She turned back, grabbed her tab and hit it with her fingers. It took a few seconds for Tiessler’s face to appear on the screen.

  “I know,“ he said. “It was an Indian ship. Her crew decided to turn Eighters in orbit. There was nothing I could do.“

  “Where are they now?“

  The German didn’t answer. Shot to hell, Lawry understood. A plume of dust, sacrificed to an antimatter alien.

  “India is part of the Eurasian Union,“ she said.

  “And, as such, they’ll have to explain why their ship attacked a Eurasian government installation in Geneva. Never mind that now. We have bigger problems.“

  “Wait.“

  A new video feed appeared on Lawry’s tab. Lykke Dahlberg’s face was drawn and there were dark circles around her eyes. Her lips were dry and her eyes spoke of stress such as was too much even for the Director of Eurasian Civilian Security.

  “Madam Director,“ said Lawry, joining the two calls.

  “Put Seppänen on,“ she said curtly, not answering to the greeting.

  Jessica passed the tab to the soldier, who repeated after her:

  “Madam Director.“

  “They’re coming from north-west, from the forests. Thirty-two klicks out.“

  “How many?“

  “Eight… no, nine ASVs, and at least three hundred on foot, more to follow.“

  “Who are they?“

  “Eighters militia, by all accounts.“

  “Militia with nine armoured security vehicles?“

  “That’s the current intel, staff sergeant.“

  “Yes, madam. We’ll be ready.“ Seppänen’s right hand fingers twitched in quick succession, as he passed the information along through flex-signals.

  Lawry joined the call to Tiessler’s comm channel. “Where did they come from?“ she asked, in the meantime.

  “I don’t know, somewhere in the forest. I don’t know how they gathered there. Things like this are happening everywhere right now. We missed it,“ sighed Dahlberg. “We stopped others. I…”

  “Can’t you stop them from orbit?“ Jessica asked Tiessler.

  “You mean kill them all,“ he answered, dryly. “Last time I checked, Eurasian citizens still enjoyed freedom of religion, and while gathering in armed groups is illegal, it’s also illegal for a Eurasian cruiser to engage on the surface of Eurasia. More to the point,“ he added, making a face, “the only space-to-ground ordnance I have is nuclear.“

  “Don’t worry, lieutenant,“ said Dahlberg, with clenched jaws. “We’ll handle this. You just look after our two guys in there.“

  * * *

  The Saudade ambassador was humanoid. She had two long legs and two long arms, a very long torso with what seemed like two waists, and an actual bald head with actual eyes and what passed for a mouth, albeit unmoving. Her species had a lifespeed coefficient only very slightly smaller than the human one, and that, combined with her posture sitting behind an actual desk on an actual chair, reminded Mark of a laid-back drug lord. Of course, that could also have been on account of how terribly, terribly tired he felt.

  — Is it “drug lady“ if it’s a woman? he wondered vaguely.

  He couldn’t really be sure if the alien was male or female, but something in its demeanour seemed feminine to him. He had eventually decided on the feminine gender when he’d heard the ambassadors melodic voice.

  “You’re the twentieth species I’ve met this cycle,“ she said, amiably. “My thousand and eleventh since I was posted here. First of all, welcome. The Saudade Conglomerate would happily like to start off as friends of Earth.“

  “Thank you, your Excellency,“ said Mark sincerely. “I hope our friendship will grow solid roots.“ Both the appellative and the metaphor were translated, converted and adapted into the Saudade’s language, who gesticulated with her long arms in what Mark assumed was polite acceptance.

  “Secondly, do you know how many of those thousand and eleven species came to me hoping to get help against the Squares?“

  “No,“ said Mark. “How many?“

  “You are the three hundred and forty-first.“

  “And how many have actually received your support?“

  “Zero, of course, as I’m sure you’ve come to expect after visiting some of the other ambassadors. Or do I have the honour of being first?“

  The Brit sighed and suppressed a yawn. The part of his brain that had been trained to think clearly for as long as possible wondered how many lines of code someone had written in order to simulate a suppressed yawn into his telesentience interface. The rest of his brain screamed this is hopeless, you idiot even as it fought itself to carry on.

  “Perhaps you could point me to some race more open to…“ he started saying the well-rehearsed phrase, when the room turned bloody red.

  The Saudade ambassador was startled. She looked around, and then pushed back her chair and stood up, her long arms stretched at her sides as if she was trying to keep her balance.

  In the next instance, the room was suddenly filled with a strong smell of mayonnaise.

  The ambassador screamed, but the sound of her voice was garbled and distorted.

  Something’s wrong with the interf…

  The room disappeared. Colour was restored, the bad smell vanished instantly, but the nausea of the change was too much for Mark’s tired neurovegetative system. With no chance to control himself, he fell on his knees and vomited explosively. He saw and felt simulated puke come out of his simulated mouth, another unexpected wonder of quantum computer programming.

  When he was done, gasping for breath, he opened his teary eyes and looked around himself.

  …face, he finished the thought.

  The station was gone.

  But not the aliens. As far away as he could see in all directions, there were creatures sitting, standing, crawling and rising in flight. He was one individual in an endless, amorphous mass that shared only one thing in common: confusion.

  Next to him, the Saudade ambassador was also trying to get her bearings.

  “Where are we?“ she asked.

  Mark had no idea. There was no sky, no structures, no objects other than the aliens, ambassadors and visitors alike, asking each other what had happened. They were all sharing the same plane; there was no ceiling and no walls, and everyone more or less stood in the same vertical orientation.

  He looked down. He was standing on a kind of floor, which, other than being matte white and feeling reasonably rigid, presented no other physical characteristics.

  — Mark, he heard Zi’s voice.

  — I’m here, he mouthed soundlessly. Where are you? What happened?

  — I’m with Rrapi. We have no idea what’s going on.

  If Rrapi, who was one of the station managers, didn’t know what was going on, then nobody else would, and that meant that things were bad.

  — He’s saying the transceivers have been hacked, continued Zi. He doesn’t have any control over them anymore.

  — Where are you? asked Mark.

  — See that big yellow hill? We’re right next to it.

  The Brit looked around, trying to see over the heads of the creatures around him, but he was either too short or too far away. He turned towards the Saudade.

  “Your Excellency, could you please stand up and tell me if you can see the Erf ambassador?“

  The alien stretched her limbs, and her already long torso pr
olonged telescopically. Then she craned her neck and looked around. She was over three metres tall.

  “There,“ she said, pointing to Mark’s right. “Not far.“

  Maybe not on those legs, thought Mark.

  “Could you guide me towards him?“

  “Why?“

  “Rrapi… One of the station managers is there. I think it’s our best chance for answers.“

  “How do you know where this station manager is?“

  “My colleague is also there.“

  “Ah,“ nodded the alien understandingly, in a very human gesture. “You have secured private communications. I am always surprised at visitors who do not.“

  She walked off in a fluid motion, elegantly twisting her body through the mass of other creatures. Mark followed.

  “Thank you,“ he said. “That makes me wonder what else we should’ve done.“

  “Oh, each species have their own ideas and take their own precautions,“ she said with unmistakable amusement. “I’ve seen some things.“

  She stepped over a puddle of something. Mark couldn’t tell if someone else had puked there just as he had, or if the something was a someone. He struggled to keep up.

  “There,“ she pointed. A few hundred metres ahead, the yellow tip of the huge Erf ambassador protruded majestically.

  — On my way, he transmitted. five minutes out. And then, Jessica, are you there?

  Nothing.

  He swallowed dry, fighting a new wave of fear.

  — Yeah, she’s not answering. I’ve tried flexing, too, said Zi. Didn’t work. Something’s not right.

  * * *

  The Eighter militia attacked furiously. It became immediately obvious that they were not only professional fighters, but also that they benefitted from capable, strategic leadership. They were moving tactically, following their armoured vehicles, coordinating in an attempt to cut off and isolate the Bishop squads.

  The Vatican troops were outnumbered more than ten to one, yet they stayed calm and organised. They moved from cover to cover much faster than their attackers could. They aimed and fired with great precision when they were shooting to kill, and they created scary spectacles when they were laying down cover fire. Very quickly, the attackers began stepping over bodies of their own soldiers.