The Dark Between the Stars

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The twelfth moon was in an erratic elliptical orbit, probably knocked off course by a collision or gravitational perturbations. It had an icy outer crust, but it emanated thermal energy, an unexplained heat spike.

  The Solar Navy sent a squadron of sensor-equipped cutters to cruise above the outlying moon for detailed mapping, but Keah called two of her Remoras to join them. “Let’s pull together and do a full analysis. Maybe we’ll find something interesting after all.”

  Her first officer gave her a skeptical look. “Are you prepping us for another war-game scenario, General?”

  She shook her head. “Not unless Adar Zan’nh has a trick up his sleeve—and he never has a trick up his sleeve, unless he’s really pushed.”

  The survey ships orbited the small moon, and the readings were unusual enough that Keah decided they warranted a hands-on surface investigation. Adar Zan’nh agreed. The group of Solar Navy cutters kept their distance, using remote mapping equipment. The ruddy gas giant cast a glow on the moon’s surface, and one of the CDF Remoras skimmed over the pockmarked ice, sending sensor pulses down. Keah watched the images flood back in.

  Suddenly the frozen landscape took on a different character. Artificial shapes rose up, smooth towers that looked like termite mounds made of ice. Geometrical patterns were scribed on the ice crust, even a trapezoidal structure, a familiar framework that looked fresh and new—under construction.

  “This is some kind of base, General! A whole settlement down there.”

  “Now that’s a surprise.” She contacted the flagship warliner. “Z, does this ring any bells?”

  “I have no bells,” the Adar said. “I have transmitted a greeting and request for information to the site. It is not an Ildiran splinter colony. We will see if they acknowledge, whoever they are. I also dispatched a ground inspection team.”

  Keah gritted her teeth. “I would have preferred to use a little more caution. Keep me in the loop, Z.”

  One of the Ildiran cutters landed on the ice near the strange structures. Adar Zan’nh was moving quickly, perhaps to stay one step ahead of his rival. “No response from the base, as of yet, General. Three of my soldiers have donned environment suits and will make initial contact with the inhabitants.”

  On a private channel, Keah instructed her Remora pilots to keep a close watch. “I don’t like this at all.” The scout pilots flew in a grid pattern overhead, crisscrossing, keeping an eye on the Ildiran expedition.

  “Thermal spike is increasing,” said her sensor chief. “Like somebody’s opening doors and powering up systems.” The frozen moon had a faint glow as energy seeped through the thick frozen layers.

  “They know we’re here.” Keah transmitted to the flagship warliner, “Adar, I recommend that your team exercises extreme caution.”

  The three suited Ildiran soldier kithmen emerged from the landed cutter. The alien space helmets were elongated, reminding her of a conch shell. Adar Zan’nh provided the Kutuzov with a direct feed from the helmet imagers so Keah could watch the progress. The contact team walked in a slow-motion march across the landscape toward the base, following the edge of a deep, straight trough in the ice.

  The explorers shone blazers in front of them. The pool of bright light sparkled from ice that had been melted and refrozen many times. The three approached some kind of access hatch into the underground facility, or base, or hiding place—whatever it was. The Ildirans studied the hatch.

  Adar Zan’nh contacted Keah, breaking her train of thought. “General, our rememberers have finished reviewing historical records. A discovery similar to this was made on a frozen moon of Hyrillka.”

  Keah knew that Hyrillka was an Ildiran planet, the site of several battles in the Elemental War, but she didn’t know how that might apply here.

  The three suited explorers stepped back as the access hatch shuddered, then cracked open. No wisp of atmosphere bled out, so this was not an airlock, simply an access door to an airless base. The helmet imagers showed movement behind the hatch, a wink of crimson eyes . . . dozens of them, then hundreds.

  The Ildirans shone their blazers ahead, suddenly revealing a mass of black beetlelike machines with flat geometrical heads, glowing eye sensors, articulated limbs. The machines surged forward.

  “Klikiss robots!” Keah yelled.

  Adar Zan’nh commanded his soldiers to retreat. Now that they had been discovered, the black robots boiled out of their underground base. Keah saw hundreds of attackers before the Ildiran helmet imagers went from static to black.

  “I thought the bugbots were all wiped out at the end of the war!” Keah sent a signal throughout the scout group. “I’m not inclined to sit around and chat, Z—I say we attack.”

  The Adar had already issued orders. “I agree completely, General.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  EXXOS

  The black robots had bided their time for centuries, surviving apparent extinction, two major Klikiss swarmings, and the Elemental War. Now, from their last redoubt in an unnamed icy moon orbiting an all-but-forgotten gas giant, Exxos had made plans for the past twenty years.

  After the disastrous end of the recent war, his remaining black robots tunneled deep into the frozen crust, setting up this base, while others gathered useful scrap components from secret searches around the Spiral Arm. The machines constructed industrial equipment, extracted metals, manufactured new vessels and weapons.

  Following their utter defeat, the resurgence of the Klikiss robots required careful planning, and patience. His hundreds of robots pooled their immense calculational abilities, casting a wide net of projections to capture every possible scenario. Exxos had analyzed the entire scheme—it could not fail. They had only to hide and wait. The black robots could brush aside the immensity of history and simply consider the final result. The conclusions were indisputable.

  But first, they had to survive.

  In establishing their redoubt, Exxos had considered it extremely unlikely that any ship would investigate the Dhula system, although humans were persistent, ambitious, and unpredictable. Should the robots be discovered by an unexpected scout ship, perhaps some naïve miner poking around the moon cluster, Exxos had planned a response. In one scenario, he had projected that a Solar Navy warliner might detect them in the course of inspecting Ildiran planets. The black robots had assumed they could simply lie low and hide their base. Barring that, as a last resort, they could destroy any ship that displayed too much curiosity.

  In no scenario, however, had Exxos anticipated an invasion by ten human battleships and seven Ildiran warliners!

  While assembling six last-ditch evacuation ships under the icy crust, the black robots had constructed and expanded their base, embedding defensive weapons in the ice. Exxos had to hope those weapons would be sufficient against such a massive military force now. External imagers mapped the primary warships and the much closer scouts.

  “We have been discovered,” Exxos transmitted from robot to robot in their industrial tunnels. “We must defend ourselves.”

  Another robot came up to him, crimson eye sensors glowing in the dim airless tunnels. His flat head moved up and down as he raised segmented claw legs. At the end of the Elemental War, Azzar had disagreed—as he often did—when this contingent of robots went into hiding, as a guarantee that some robots would survive the worst possible outcome. Such a measure had seemed unnecessary, given the assumed victory over the humans and Ildirans.

  But that was the only reason any Klikiss robots had survived at all.

  Now Azzar reported, “Our weapons are insufficient against that military force. Conclusion: we cannot destroy all of those battleships.”

  Exxos agreed with Azzar, which was unusual. “We cannot hide, and we cannot defeat them. Therefore, we must escape—at whatever cost.” These robots were the last of their kind.

  As the three suited Ildiran scouts discovered the access hatch into the tunnels, Exxos knew he had to take advantage of the element of surprise. He sent signal
s to arrange a multipronged response.

  Many robots volunteered to attack the suited Ildirans at the hatch, not because those three deaths would materially improve their chances of escape, but because they had always enjoyed killing. Exxos transmitted his approval, then initiated an immediate full evacuation.

  When the suited Ildirans opened the hatch, the attacking robots swarmed forward, transmitting every detail and every sensation. Synthetic claws ripped open the protective suits, smashed the Ildiran helmets, dismembered the freezing and jittering bodies.

  As he expected, the human military and the Ildiran Solar Navy reeled in shock, taken aback by the ferocity of the robots. Two Remora scouts flew overhead, diving low to target the blood-spattered robots that milled around the entry hatch. Though the volunteer robots retreated as efficiently as possible, Exxos had made calculations and decided to sacrifice them, if necessary.

  The Remora jazer blasts melted the hatch, destroyed four black robots.

  Exxos seized the chance and opened fire from within the base. Catapults launched projectile cylinders of solid ice at five hundred kilometers per second. At that velocity, the kinetic energy from impact was like a small nuclear explosion, and both Remoras were vaporized as they passed overhead.

  The pilot of the Ildiran scout cutter struggled to lift off from the icy surface after the three explorers were killed, but Exxos triggered the first wave of trench-opening explosions. The blasts were designed to free the evacuation ships from beneath the frozen crust, but they also served another purpose when the ice collapsed beneath the Ildiran cutter, which rolled down into the chasm, crushed.

  “The larger battleships are now alerted to the threat,” Azzar said.

  “Commence full bombardment with as many projectiles as we can launch,” Exxos ordered. “Meanwhile, load our evacuation ships with all possible speed.”

  Each of the thousand surviving black robots had an assigned role. A small group worked the base’s weapons controls, while the remaining robots marched aboard the six enormous underground vessels. Programmed pilots prepared the engines for takeoff and escape as soon as the obstructing ice sheet was removed.

  The magnetic cannons fired cylinder after cylinder, damaging the nearest warliner. The shields of the human flagship deflected most of the ice projectiles, but some penetrated and damaged the hull. Atmosphere vented out into space. Other ships patrolling the outer Dhula moons raced in, preparing their weapons.

  Both Ildirans and humans began to bombard the crust above the base, and the explosions unwittingly helped Exxos’s plans. Detonations shook the underground base, and fissures appeared in the ceiling as the thousand robots continued to flood aboard the six ships. Part of the frozen ceiling had already collapsed, but did not damage their sturdy vessels.

  Exxos entered the primary ship and went directly to the piloting deck. By now all robots should have been aboard, and he could wait for no stragglers. He remotely sealed all hatches and fired his engines, clearing the way for liftoff. The blast of heat melted more ice shards.

  In the sensor view, he watched as three black robots were caught in the backwash of his roaring engines. Each loss was significant. Of the million or more Klikiss robots that had fought at the height of the Elemental War, only this handful remained. Though it might take centuries to create more Klikiss robots, Exxos could find a way—but long-term plans did not concern him now. They were relevant only if he and his robots escaped.

  When all six escape vessels were ready to rise, Exxos triggered the rest of the trench detonations. Lines of explosions vaporized the ice sheet overhead and shot geysers of vapor and debris into the sky, which served as a momentary smoke screen. He felt the rumble of his ship as the levitation engines activated.

  The loaded robot vessels rose away from the moon, firing weapons indiscriminately as the human and Ildiran warships closed in. Unfortunately, the high-velocity ice projectiles had not caused enough damage.

  He anchored his armored body against full acceleration. Leaving the frozen moon behind and escaping the rubble of their base, the robot ships fled into space.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ELISA REEVES

  Elisa spent four days stranded alone in space at the site of the exploded bloaters. She worked on her ship, rerouting power around the damaged systems to bypass any that were not absolutely vital. And she did it herself.

  Garrison had always been arrogantly proud of Roamer ingenuity; he bragged about how his people could take the most unlikely hodge-podge of components and make them work like magic—the proverbial spit, chewing gum, and bandages. Elisa found it ridiculous.

  Lee Iswander was also a Roamer, but instead of relying on his pilots being able to make duct-tape-and-twine repairs, Iswander Industries simply provided each ship with adequate spare parts in case anything should fail. It seemed a much more rational way to prepare for emergencies. Elisa had worked for days swapping out life-support modules, navigation circuits, and damaged engine controls.

  Eventually, her ship was ready to fly again.

  During the flight away from the site, where most of the bloaters had been destroyed, she pondered and rehearsed exactly how she was going to tell Iswander what had happened. Her mission had not turned out the way she’d expected, but at least she wasn’t returning empty-handed—thanks to her intrepid investigations. She had studied two of the surviving bloaters and couldn’t wait to tell Lee Iswander what she had found.

  She didn’t want Iswander’s pity for the tragic death of her son as well as, she supposed, her husband. But once the industrialist learned what she had discovered, he would surely promote her (after acknowledging the painful loss of her family). This find was worth an incalculable fortune.

  When she reached the Sheol system, the binary planet looked like a glowing ember in space, cracked and bleeding with lava. Just like always. The lack of space traffic surprised her, though. She heard none of the constant comm chatter of cargo ships hauling exotic metal-polymer materials or shipments of ingots. She surfed the channels, expecting to hear the usual drone of conversation from smelter barge crews and the control towers, even Alec Pannebaker showing off some stupid stunt. Their perimeter systems must have detected her, but she received no ID request. Odd.

  She transmitted her queries, trying to find someone who would answer, and finally received a reply—but the transmission did not come from the admin tower down on the fiery surface; rather, the response was from a small satellite station in orbit that received bulk shipments and transferred supplies down to the main facility.

  It was Lee Iswander’s voice. She couldn’t believe he would be manning the comm himself. By now, she had expected he would be the new Speaker for the Roamer clans.

  “Elisa, you came back!” He sounded strange, shaken . . . relieved? “Did you retrieve your son?”

  “No, he . . . he’s dead. Garrison put him in a hazardous situation. He was reckless. He . . . they were both lost in a massive explosion.”

  Iswander groaned and said in a much quieter voice, “Haven’t we had enough deaths already?”

  Elisa felt a sudden chill, now even more alarmed that the lava-processing facilities were so silent and empty. “What happened? Where is everyone on Sheol?”

  “Everything happened. The facilities are gone. Hundreds dead—fifteen hundred and forty-three. The survivors are at Newstation, but I had to come back here, see if I could salvage anything. It seemed the best place.” He didn’t sound like himself at all. He seemed broken.

  Though Elisa was ready to explode with questions, she quelled them, forced a businesslike calm. “I’m docking soon. You can tell me about it face-to-face.”

  She guided her ship into the orbiting transfer station, and hers was one of only four ships in the bay; half of the lights had been dimmed.

  She carried images of the bloater cluster, the record of the explosions, and her quick analysis. Rushing back to Sheol, she had been bursting with excitement over her news—enough to temporarily overshadow t
he loss of her son. But when she presented herself in the control chamber, she was astonished to see Lee Iswander’s face. He looked exhausted, aged. His skin tone was grayish, and he had shadows around his eyes.

  “I’m glad to have one supporter back,” he said. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

  Alec Pannebaker swept into the control center, and his usual smile looked more relieved than excited. “Elisa! Well, that’s one step closer to digging our way out of this hole.”

  “We’re in space,” grumbled Iswander’s son. “Everything’s a hole.”

  Arden’s mother wrapped her arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him close, though he resisted. “I told you it’ll be all right. Your father’s had ups and downs before. We’ll get through this—we just have to be strong.”

  Elisa looked Iswander straight in the eye. “No matter what happened, sir, I’m here to provide anything you might need for Iswander Industries. You have my full commitment . . . now that my son is gone.” Her voice cracked at the end.

  Now that I have no distractions. No family obligations. Nothing else to divert me.

  “We’ll need it,” he said. “But I’m afraid I’ve lost everything.”

  Iswander explained the disaster in the lava-processing facilities, how he was being accused of using “irresponsible safety margins.” Elisa had also dismissed Garrison’s Chicken Little fears. Well, he hadn’t lived to see his fears proved right.

  Iswander continued. “Only two dozen workers followed me back here, in hopes of salvaging something from the wreckage. Not necessarily because they have faith in me—they may not have anyplace else to go.”

  When Iswander looked at her, his reddened eyes and his intense but distant stare made her stomach knot. He said, “When we came back here, I didn’t expect anyone to be alive, but the station had recorded transmissions from the smelter barges below, and some survivors in one shielded chamber in Tower Two that remained intact after the collapse. Those people knew they were going to die as the temperature rose and the insulation failed.”