Out of the Dark

by David Weber

  Still there was nothing, and he stabbed more controls, bringing up the monitors. The displays came alive . . . and he froze.

  Not possible, a small, still voice said in the back of his brain as he stared at the images of carnage. At the troopers with their throats ripped out, at the Shongair blood soaking into the thirsty soil of an alien world. Heads turned backward on snapped necks, and dismembered body parts scattered like some lunatic’s bloody handiwork.

  Not possible, not without at least one alarm sounding. Not—

  He heard a tiny sound, and his right hand flashed towards his sidearm, but even as he touched it, the door of the control room flew open and darkness crashed over him.

  . XXXVI .

  “What?”

  Fleet Commander Thikair looked up at Ship Commander Ahzmer in astonishment so deep it was sheer incomprehension.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, Sir.” The flagship’s CO sounded like someone trapped in an amazingly bad dream, Thikair thought distantly. “The report just came in. I’m . . . afraid it’s confirmed, Sir.”

  “All of them?” Thikair shook himself. “Everyone assigned to the base? Even Shairez?”

  “All of them,” Ahzmer confirmed heavily. “And all of the Ground Base Commander’s specimens have disappeared, as well.”

  “Dainthar,” Thikair half whispered. He stared at the ship commander, then shook himself again, harder.

  “How did they do it?”

  “Sir, I don’t know. No one knows. For that matter, it doesn’t . . . Well, it doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen the humans do before.”

  “What are you talking about?” Thikair’s voice was harder, impatient. He knew much of his irritation was the product of his own shock, but that didn’t change the fact that what Ahzmer had just said made no sense.

  “It doesn’t look like whoever it was used weapons at all, Fleet Commander.” Ahzmer didn’t sound as if he expected Thikair to believe him, but the ship commander went on doggedly. “It’s more like some sort of wild beasts got through every security system without sounding a single alarm. Not one, Sir. But there are no bullet wounds, no knife wounds, no sign of any kind of weapon. Our people were just . . . torn apart.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Thikair protested.

  “No, Sir. It doesn’t. But it’s what happened.”

  The two of them stared at one another. Then Thikair drew a deep breath.

  “Senior officers conference in one day-twelfth,” he said flatly.

  • • • • •

  “The ground patrols have confirmed it, Fleet Commander,” Ground Force Commander Thairys said heavily. “There are no Shongair survivors. None. And”—he inhaled heavily, someone about to say something he really didn’t want to—“we found exactly eleven expended rifle cartridges. Eleven. Aside from that, there’s no evidence a single one of our troopers so much as fired a shot in his own defense. Most of them died in their beds, obviously without ever waking up at all. And as for the duty sections . . . It’s as if they never saw, never heard, a thing. As if they all just . . . sat there without even noticing that someone—or some thing—was about to tear them apart.”

  “Calm down, Thairys.” Thikair put both sternness and sympathy into his tone. “We’re going to have panicky rumors enough when the troops hear about this. Let’s not begin believing in night terrors before the rumor mill even gets started!”

  The other officers gathered around the table looked distinctly uneasy, and Thikair flicked his ears in an impatient shrug.

  “I have no more idea than you do about how they did it,” Thikair replied. “Not yet, at any rate. On the other hand, we’ve encountered one surprise after another ever since we entered the star system. So far, we’ve survived all of them, however painful some of them have been. And we’ve always managed to unravel what happened—and how—eventually. How they managed this one is more than I can say at this time, of course. If no weapons were used, perhaps what we’re looking at is the use of some sort of trained animals! I know that sounds absurd, but these creatures have done nothing but come up with one absurd, preposterous tactic or weapon after another. For that matter, it’s not as if we haven’t seen other primitives use war animals. Remember those trained cat-apes on Bashtu? They got those past all of our precautions because the troops thought they’d make such marvelous ‘pets’! Or what about those poisonous crawlers the Rashinti managed to introduce into our garrisons’ food supplies? No one saw that one coming, either, did they? Oh, and let’s not forget the bigger ones they used to fire at us with their Dainthar-cursed catapults!” His ears wagged emphatic negation. “I’m certainly not prepared to rule out the possibility that these damned humans have done something of the same sort!”

  Thairys looked at him for a moment, then managed a chuckle that was only slightly hollow.

  “You’re right, of course, Sir. And your point about how they got the cat-apes and the poison crawlers into our ground bases is well taken. It’s just that . . . Well, it’s just that I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’ve checked the database. As nearly as I can tell, no one in the entire Hegemony has ever seen anything like this.”

  “It’s a big galaxy,” Thikair pointed out. “And even the Hegemony’s explored only a very small portion of it. I don’t know what happened down there either, but trust me—there’s a rational explanation. We just have to figure out what it is.”

  “With all due respect, Fleet Commander,” Squadron Commander Jainfar said quietly, “how do we go about doing that without at least some information on what actually happened?”

  Thikair looked at him, and the squadron commander flicked his ears.

  “I’ve personally reviewed the sensor recordings and logs the Ground Force Commander’s patrols retrieved, Sir. Until Private Kumayr began trying to contact the perimeter strongpoints, there was absolutely no indication of any problem. For that matter, according to his computer logs, the initial alarm from his diagnostic programs had nothing to do with hostile incursions. It simply indicated that some of the perimeter positions were no longer manned as they were supposed to be. I’m sure he assumed the fault was in the software, not the hardware, at least initially. When he got no response to his attempts to contact those perimeter points manually, however, he activated the internal security cameras to check on them, and that’s when he hit the general alarm. Whatever happened, it apparently managed to kill every single member of the garrison—except for Kumayr—without being detected by any heat, motion, pressure, radar, or audio sensor. It avoided not simply the passive sensors, but the active ones, as well.”

  “What about the visual records from the cameras, Squadron Commander?” one of the division commanders attending electronically asked. “Surely they must have shown something, if whatever Kumayr saw prompted him to sound a general alarm,” he continued, and Jainfar lowered his ears.

  “The cameras might actually have offered us at least some insight,” he said. “Unfortunately, all visual records from the base archives were erased. Or, to be more accurate, all visual records from the period beginning approximately a quarter day-twelfth before Kumayr sounded the alarm were erased from the master computer banks . . . and the backup recording chips were physically removed.”

  There was a moment of silence as all of Thikair’s officers digested that particular bit of information, then Jainfar turned back to the fleet commander and shrugged. There wasn’t a trace of disrespect in that shrug, only frustrated ignorance.

  “The fact of the matter is, Sir, that we have no data. No information at all. Just an entire base full of dead personnel. And with no evidence, how do we figure out what happened, far less who was responsible for it?”

  “I think the Squadron Commander has raised a significant point, Fleet Commander,” a new voice said respectfully. “May I address it?”

  Ground Base Commander Barak was down on the planetary surface, attending the conference electronically from the communications center in Ground Base One,
and Thikair flicked his ears at the other officer’s com image in permission to speak.

  “With all due respect, Sir,” Barak said, his ears lowered in a position of profound submission, “I doubt that this situation is going to lend itself to the sort of explanations we’ve found for all of this planet’s other surprises. I agree that the condition of the bodies indicates they weren’t attacked with sophisticated weapons, but only a very sophisticated attacker could have penetrated Ground Base Seven’s defenses in the first place. And while the wounds may appear to have been inflicted by some sort of animal, the attackers—or whoever directed the animals in question, if animals were truly involved at all—were clearly not simply sentient, but technologically sophisticated. They managed not simply to locate and remove the physical recordings of what was presumably a visual record of their actions inside the ground base, but to erase that same imagery from the base computer net. That implies a level of familiarity with our systems and technology which far surpasses anything we’ve seen out of these creatures. I don’t say they wouldn’t have been aware of the probable existence of such records, but simply that they’re neither trained on nor familiar with our own cybernetics and data storage methods. Without that training and familiarity, how would they even find those records, much less erase them from the master computers?

  “Moreover, I think we must ask ourselves another significant question. If it was the humans—if humans were capable of this sort of thing, had this sort of ability and the technological sophistication to penetrate our cyber systems and erase or extract information—would they have waited to use it until we’d killed more than half of them? For that matter, why there? Why Ground Base Seven? Why not Ground Base Commander Fursa’s? Why not one of the other bases here in North America, where the humans appear to have been more technologically advanced and we’ve experienced so much difficulty in asserting control in the first place? Unless we wish to assume that the humans somehow figured out what Shairez was going to be developing and wanted to prevent it, why employ some sort of ‘secret weapon’ for the first time against a base whose ZOR has been so relatively tranquil rather than in one of the areas where the fighting has been both prolonged and intense?”

  “Those are all intriguing questions, Ground Base Commander,” Thairys said. “Yet what I seem to be hearing you suggest is that it was not, in fact, the humans at all. And if not the humans, then who do you suggest it might have been?”

  “That I don’t know, Sir,” Barak said respectfully. “I’m simply suggesting that what we do know clearly implies relatively high technological capabilities and that, logically, if humans could do this in the first place, they would already have done it . . . and on a considerably larger scale than a single ground base.”

  “Are you suggesting some other member of the Hegemony might be responsible?” Thikair asked slowly.

  “I think that’s possible, Sir.” Barak shrugged again. “Again, I have no idea of who it might actually have been, but the sophistication required to penetrate Ground Base Commander Shairez’s defenses strongly suggests that it could have come only from another advanced species.”

  “I don’t really see how it could have been another member of the Hegemony,” Squadron Commander Jainfar objected, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle thoughtfully. “Our technology is as good as anyone else’s—probably even better, in purely military applications—and I don’t think we could have penetrated Shairez’s security so seamlessly.”

  “Wonderful.” Thairys grimaced. “So all any of us have been able to contribute so far is that we don’t have a clue who did it, or how, or even why! Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t the humans . . . whom we’ve all now agreed don’t have the capability to do it in the first place!”

  “Wait.”

  Thikair tipped back his chair, grooming the tip of his tail while he pondered, and the others sat respectfully silent. Several minutes passed before the fleet commander brought his chair back upright and flipped his ears at Barak in a nod of appreciation.

  “As Ground Force Commander Thairys has said, Ground Base Commander, I believe you’ve raised several telling points. In particular, your observation that even if the humans somehow managed to train some unknown animal to break into our fortifications and slaughter our personnel, animals could neither have gotten past that many separate layers of sensors without something being detected nor subsequently erased and removed any visual record of their presence.”

  He paused, expression grim, then lowered his ears in mingled anger and harsh determination as he gazed around the table at his other officers.

  “As Ground Base Commander Barak has so ably pointed out, simply defeating the perimeter sensors would require a level of sophistication in advance of anything we’ve yet seen on this planet. Indeed, it would require a level of sophistication in advance of our own, and while the humans’ capabilities have surprised us several times, it’s always been primarily because of the way in which those capabilities have been applied, not because their technology is inherently superior. They’ve done things it never occurred to us to do because we’d never faced the problems they were solving, but we have faced the problems involved in creating sensors and security systems to protect our bases not simply against overt attack, but also against undetected incursions, even by the spies of another advanced species. On the other hand, like anyone else, we build our defenses on the basis of the threats we anticipate. Which means we don’t always give equal emphasis to defeating both types of threats simultaneously, now do we?”

  He paused, looking around at their expressions, then shrugged.

  “I find myself beginning to wonder if perhaps all of us—including His Majesty’s ministers—have underestimated the full depth of Vice-Speaker Koomaatkia’s purposes in this case,” he said very softly. “Clearly, she intended to suggest we would receive the sub-rosa support of her own species, and possibly some of the others, if there were any . . . irregularities in our conquest of the humans. The question which has just occurred to me, however, is whether or not she was being honest. For that matter, was she as ignorant as we of the true state of affairs here on KU-197-20?”

  “What do you mean, Sir?” Thairys asked respectfully, watching the fleet commander’s expression intently.

  “I’m not certain I know what I mean.” Thikair’s ears twitched a humorless smile. “One possibility which has occurred to me, though, is that perhaps the Kreptu—especially if they were made sufficiently nervous about the humans by the original survey report—dispatched one of their own vessels to examine the planet themselves while the various bureaucracies were still considering and processing Survey’s information. If so, they would certainly have realized how aberrant the humans’ rate of technological advancement has been. In which case, by acceding to our colonization request—by encouraging our efforts in that direction—they might have specifically intended for us to run our snouts into a shengar nest in the hope we might lose at least one eye to the creatures’ claws. Conversely, if they were aware of the humans’ capabilities, they might have felt even more anxiety about the potential danger the species represented, in which case their desire to see that danger neutralized would have been even greater . . . and we would have provided them with the most readily applied blunt object with which to do the neutralizing.

  “But suppose their actual intent goes even deeper than that. Suppose they want the humans neutralized, but that they’ve also become aware of the Empire’s ultimate plans for the remainder of the Hegemony? If they’ve finally awakened to at least a portion of our long-term strategy, they would certainly oppose it. And one step in doing that would be to turn public opinion among the other races of the Hegemony even more strongly against us.

  “So suppose they also saw this as an opportunity to significantly embarrass us before the rest of the Hegemony? If the Kreptu have developed a stealth technology superior to anything our intelligence services have reported, and if they actually have dispatched an expedition of the
ir own to this star system, then it would be distinctly possible that they could have a vessel present even now, without our detecting it. In that case, they may have been surreptitiously recording all of our actions since our arrival. For that matter, we know what data was erased from Ground Base Commander Shairez’s systems, but we have no way to know what information might have been extracted from them. Although they contained no details on the Empire’s grand strategy, for obvious reasons of operational security, it would be difficult to overestimate how embarrassing some of the other data from her secure files might prove.

  “With such records, particularly after a little judicious editing, they might find themselves in a position to convince the Hegemony’s weed-eaters that our species is even more ‘degenerate’ and ‘vicious’ than our most vociferous critics have ever claimed. They might hope they could actually encourage some of the other races to begin taking steps to build a genuine military capability of their own with which to oppose ours. They would be unlikely to succeed on any large scale, given the weed-eaters’ and most of the omnivores’ abhorrence of all things military, but such ‘revelations’ could still inflict enormous damage on our status within the Hegemony, with potentially serious consequences for the Emperor’s long-term plans.”

  Some of his officers looked skeptical, to a greater or a lesser extent. Others were beginning to look even more alarmed, and he shrugged.

  “I may well be seeing shadows within shadows, plots and threats where none exist,” he conceded. “For that matter, focusing on Koomaatkia and the Kreptu might well be an error . . . especially if some other advanced race is working against us. It’s even possible that that hypothetical other advanced race—the Liatu, for example, who aren’t much fonder of the Kreptu than they are of us—is working against both of us. If the Kreptu could be maneuvered into having ‘connived’ with us Shongairi, and if we could be demonstrated to have egregiously violated the Constitution as a result of the Kreptu’s actions, then the Kreptu’s status within the Hegemony might be seriously undermined, as well.”