Empire Ebook Full Page 2

  The alarm had been triggered by one of my scout ships. I’d posted two of them on the far side of the ring, in the Thor system owned by our sneering neighbors, the Crustaceans. The scouts had strict orders: upon noting any kind of anomaly, one ship was to return to our side of the ring and report it. The other was to stay on alert, observing, until such a time as they were directly threatened. Only then were they to retreat and make a follow-up report.

  I’d set up this engagement policy to prevent us from being easily surprised by an ambush from the far side of the ring. If anything was starting up out there, I wanted to know about it. I’d soon figured out that one scout couldn’t do the job properly. If the scout returned immediately, we’d get an early warning, but while he was making his report he’d be missing out on details. Valuable information could be potentially lost. Therefore, I’d taken to posting two watchful sets of eyes.

  The Crustaceans themselves were a strange folk. As their name implied, they looked more or less like lobsters. These, however, were intelligent, gigantic, eight-legged lobsters. Their shells were bluish and thick, and they were definitely an aquatic species. We knew they could survive in an atmosphere like ours, or completely submerged, but preferred to be under water.

  Their system consisted of three gas giants and a load of other rocky worlds circling a binary star. The stars consisted of an F class bright white star and a tiny red dwarf. For some reason, I’d named the big one Thor and the smaller sun Loki. The three gas giants themselves weren’t inhabited as far as I could tell, but one of them was in the zone that supported liquid water. Circling that world were several water-moons that were the homeworlds of the Crustaceans. Being within the band of space that supported liquid water, the moons were covered in oceans.

  Although their worlds seemed pleasant enough, the Crustaceans themselves were not overly friendly. They’d been suspicious and competitive with us from the start. They searched every comment we made to them for insults, and frequently found them. In turn, they liked to brag, bluster and behave in a generally snobbish fashion toward us. I found them tiresome to talk to, but I tried to maintain an open mind. After all, in this war it was the biotics against the machines, and all living things needed to stay on the same side—even if some of us were obnoxious.

  I got some coffee and stirred it, looking at everyone with bleary eyes. I wasn’t overly tired—marines full of nanites and Microbial edits rarely got a full night’s sleep, and I was edgy. Even after all our modifications, our brains still needed to sleep and dream.

  “Have we attempted further contact with the incoming ship? What exactly do they want?”

  “The incoming ship still won’t answer any detailed queries,” Welter said. “They just say they’re coming to provide us with “enlightenment”, whatever that meant under these circumstances.”

  The Crustaceans were a snooty race that fancied themselves to be the best thinkers in the universe. They were highly competitive in this regard, and delighted in pointing out the foolishness of anyone else’s statement. In this case it seemed they were being cryptic as well.

  I felt confident in the military capacity of my battle station, of course. Any single ship the Crustaceans were sending would be no match for our weaponry, should they be foolish enough to attack. The Crustaceans had built themselves an impressive-looking ship and probably just wanted to brag about how much more advanced their design was when compared to ours.

  So, we waited. There were only fourteen humans aboard the battle station. Most of my people were out flying a ship around somewhere or serving in a marine assault squad. Fourteen was more than enough to operate the station due to the centralized control setup I’d built. I’d purposefully designed the station to be manned by over a thousand if necessary, taking a cue from the Macros in layered control systems. But the guns could operate without gunners. They could all be targeted from the bridge. If I’d had the crew, and the bridge had been knocked out, individual batteries could also be manned at the turrets themselves.

  “We’re just going to let them fly in here and dock?” Commander Welter asked for the tenth time some hours later. As the alien ship kept creeping quietly closer, he seemed to be unnerved by it.

  “Yeah,” I said. “What else are we going to do? We’ve scanned the ship, and I see one lonely Lobster aboard. I’m not going to fry a diplomat for just flying here to talk.”

  “What if he causes trouble?”

  “Then you can load a pellet in the primary railgun batteries and personally blow him to atoms, Commander.”

  Welter smiled at that idea. Several more staffers joined him in his amusement. No one was terribly fond of the snotty Crustaceans.

  We watched and waited. Just after the six hour mark, our second scout ship flew back to our side of the ring and the pilot made his report.

  “The ship is about to come through, Colonel.”

  I nodded at the viewscreen. “Good. Now, get back out there and watch them do it.”

  “Colonel,” Commander Welter said, “I recommend we contact Earth and make an official report.”

  I thought about it. Earth hadn’t bothered to even acknowledge my reports lately, but it was supposedly our job to report things like this. “We will—after we figure out what the Crustaceans want.”

  Commander Welter looked unhappy with this decision, but he didn’t say anything further. While we waited, the fifteenth member of the battle station’s crew made his appearance. Marvin snaked into the room dragging his bloated metallic body with a dozen whipping steel tentacles.

  “Is the messenger here yet?” he asked.

  “Any time,” I said.

  “Very good. Everything should be clear to us soon. I’m going below decks if you don’t mind, Colonel.”

  I frowned at him for a moment. I noticed he had a large number of cameras on me, meaning that he was intent upon my response. Today, he’d configured himself with seven hardened military cameras. This was an unusual arrangement of eyes for him, as he preferred more sensitive scientific units. I thought about asking him why he was set up for a fight, but didn’t bother. There were only a few minutes left, and I figured it could wait.

  “All right,” I said. “We don’t need you right here. Choose your own ground, Marvin.”

  He reshaped himself into a cylindrical formation and snaked away into a circular conduit in the floor. Everyone glanced at him as he left. The crew was used to him, but he still elicited headshakes and rolled eyes wherever he went. Most of us in Star Force knew Marvin by now. He was bizarre, but in a familiar way, like the crazy uncle who lived the family attic.

  “There it is,” Welter said.

  My eyes flew to the holographic tank in the middle of the room. The Crustacean ship appeared at the ring without fanfare. There was no explosion of radiation upon its arrival on our side of the ring. It simply slipped from another part of the galaxy into the Eden system without so much as a whisper.

  We scanned it the moment it emerged, of course. I examined every reading, and everything showed green. The ship was armed, but it wasn’t a flying bomb stuffed with fusion warheads. There were radioactive elements aboard, but that was to be expected. The type and amount of dangerous components wasn’t out of the norm for a cruiser of this size. If it did fire a missile into our base at extremely close range, it would definitely damage us, but at the cost of having us destroy a nice ship. I was confident in the layered armor and layered systems in my battle station. We could withstand a hard blow if it came down to that. I didn’t think we had any choice, we had to let him come close to talk to us. The risk of an attack was small, and was worth the chance of normalizing relations with these prickly neutrals.

  The alien ship decelerated rapidly as it made its final approach. It had been slowing down for hours, as if it intended to dock when it reached our station. The design was new to me and oddly-shaped. Rather than a geometric configuration, or even a symmetrical one, the ship had humps here and there seemingly at random. It looked off-ba
lance, but I supposed to the Crustaceans it was sleek and beautiful.

  “The ship is passing through the primary minefield,” Welter said, adjusting the tracking controls on the holographic tank.

  I looked around at my crew with a new thought. Most of them weren’t doing anything other than standing around watching. “Staff, I want everyone to scatter. Sandra and Welter, you stay here. Lester, head down to engineering. Pramrod, get yourself to maintenance. The rest of you, choose a weapons battery and set up camp. You can sip coffee and watch the secondary screens from there.”

  They stared at me for a second, then picked up their things and shuffled out of their seats. No one questioned me aloud, but there were a large number of baffled looks. I frowned. They were well-trained, but too slow for my taste.

  “Move, people!” I roared suddenly, clapping my hands together. “In ten seconds, I don’t want to see so much as your suited butts walking away. I want you all gone.”

  This got their attention. Everyone rushed out of the bridge and jostled into the various corridors and elevators that led out to remote parts of the station. After they’d left, I noticed Sandra was watching me rather than the holotank. The Lobster ship was about half way between the ring and the station.

  “What was all that about, Kyle?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. But when I saw Marvin take himself out of here, it occurred to me that maybe he was smarter than the rest of us. What if you only had one ship, and could only make one suicidal attack? Where would you hit us?”

  She looked at me, her eyes widening. “The bridge?”

  “Why not?”

  “But they can’t know—” Sandra began.

  “Alien ship docking in ninety seconds,” Welter interrupted in a loud, but calm voice. He was at the helmsman’s post even though the battle station wasn’t capable of independent flight. He could still adjust its tilt and yaw, swinging its massive girth in space. These controls were designed to bring fresh weaponry to bear in a serious fight, when one side of the station might be scorched and battered. I hoped to never find out if those rotational systems would operate as planned under fire.

  Sandra glanced at him, then back to me. She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. “They can’t know we only have a handful of people aboard.”

  “No, they can’t,” I said. “But maybe they do anyway. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a peaceful chat with them. Maybe they’ve realized it’s time to start kissing human behinds for protection. I can respect that. But they attacked us before, and forgive me if I’m not willing to let them sucker-punch us twice in a row.”

  She nodded, and together we watched as the ship slowed to crawl in front of us and came in to dock. The external cameras cut out and regional optics in the belly section took up the feed as the ship came very close. Finally, the holotank showed the ship had merged with us, and the only camera that could pick it up was the one in the landing bay itself. Located like a drawer in the gut of the station, the bay doors yawned wide to receive it.

  I signaled for Sandra to open a channel to the Crustacean ship.

  “You’ve arrived, Ambassador,” I said. “Now that you’re here, perhaps you can at least tell us your name?”

  The viewscreen responded with a bluish glow that grew until I could make out the outline of a Crustacean sitting in a chamber that bubbled and surged with floating debris. I knew in an instant the creature was in a tank full of seawater. Flecks like brownish snowflakes drifted in swirls around its antennae. The Ambassador was dimly lit, as was comfortable for him, I imagined. A deep sea creature would not be accustomed to bright light.

  “Ambassador?” the alien said. “Yes. That title could be construed as appropriate. I am a Senior Fellow, a female of the Fifth Rank. I have bestowed great honor upon you by coming here, by allowing you to view my person. Are you capable of comprehending the magnitude of the gift my physical presence represents?”

  I felt a sudden tightness in my shoulders. These arrogant shellfish really had a way of getting to you. I forced a smile, trying to see the funny side of it all. I took a breath and relaxed, deciding to play along.

  “We are overwhelmed, your worship,” I said. “Words can’t express how pleased we are with your magnificence.”

  The antennae waved for a moment, then floated a trifle higher in the water around the ambassador’s thorny head. I suspected the translation was just coming in, and she liked it.

  “Excellent. It is best that the lesser creatures grasp the magnitude of the sacrifice they are about to witness. Anything else would be inappropriate.”

  My smile slipped away as I tried to decipher the creature’s meaning. Oftentimes, aliens used idioms and wandering patterns of speech that didn’t make sense at first, until you got to know them.

  “Perhaps it’s time we get down to the purpose of your mission,” I said. “Please Enlighten us.”

  The antennae moved again, then stilled. “Agreed,” said the aquatic creature.

  I opened my mouth to say something else, but within an instant the thought was driven forever from my mind. From that day to this, I’m unable to recall what I’d been about to say.

  Because in that fraction of a second, the Crustacean Ambassador’s ship exploded.

  -3-

  In the first few moments after the explosion, I’d smiled grimly. The ruse had been a good one: they’d gotten in close and blown a hole in our central hold. But the attack was far from fatal. In fact, it was rather pathetic. I calculated it had to be less than a megaton warhead by the way the station only shivered, rather than swayed and shook under my feet.

  “Well, we’ve been ‘enlightened’, all right,” Welter said.

  I nodded. “I don’t see what their objective—” I began, but I didn’t finish.

  Every system on the bridge dimmed, and then died. My sentence died with the equipment. It took several seconds for the change to work itself through the instrumentation and power systems. Our jaws sagged and our heads swiveled this way and that. Everything was dying, or was already dead.

  “What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

  “Some kind of system virus?” Sandra offered. Her eyes were big and I saw something there I’d rarely seen in her since the battle for Andros Island: fear.

  “I don’t know what it is,” Welter said, fighting the controls, “but I think the corruption is affecting the entire station.”

  As we spoke, the central holotank went dark and the nanites inside slid down into a fine gray sand at the bottom of the vessel. I stared at them. It was as if they had all suddenly been shut off. Trillions of nanites…

  “EMP blast?” I asked aloud.

  “Either that, or a very fast-acting virus,” Welter answer.

  “Sandra, order the systems to isolate themselves.”

  “I’ve been trying to do that, but the primary console is not responding, Kyle. We’re cut off.”

  I nodded and slammed my fist down on the console. It dented slightly, a common side effect after being smashed by an angry officer with altered musculature. This was nothing new to me, but two details struck through as unusual. First of all, the console didn’t reinflate itself like a balloon, returning to its original form. Secondly, smashing my fist down on the metal surface hurt.

  I lifted my gauntleted hand and blinked at it. Nanites and blood trickled together down from my arm. It looked like a mix of fresh red paint and mercury. The flight suits I’d designed for comfortable service-work aboard the station were made primarily of nanite fabric. As I watched, the nanites were disintegrating. I realized that the nanites in my body were dying too, turning to waste metals in my bloodstream. I had to be careful, they could reach toxic levels. We all needed fresh nanites if only to dig the old ones out. Otherwise, they could form deadly clots.

  “We should have reported the transgression to Earth when we had the chance,” Welter complained. “Now, our communications have been knocked out and we can’t tell anyone what hit us.”
/>
  I glared at him for a moment. “Every time an alarm goes off on this station, in the back of my mind, I think of Earth first. But our relations with our homeworld have gone badly since I refused Crow’s recall order. I’ve sent messages, loads of them. Diplomatic apologies, explanations and even full reports—but there’s been no response. I requested reinforcements just last week. No answer.”

  Commander Welter didn’t say anything. I knew the silence from Earth had everyone on my command staff tense. After all, we were supposedly Earth’s border guards. What did it mean to that mission, if Earth wouldn’t even talk to us? My people weren’t sure what it all meant, but they knew it couldn’t be good. Some had been whispering, speculating that Earth had been lost to another Macro fleet coming from the Blue giant system, via the Venus ring. I rejected this. I was sure Crow would have sent a new message in such a situation, begging for our aid if he was in real trouble.

  But he hadn’t. He’d stopped sending requests and reports out to us. He hadn’t responded to our queries, so I’d stopped sending them myself. Now, we were in a sort of diplomatic limbo. Everyone was wondering and waiting. It was beginning to eat at my men. On this side of the war, some muttered that we’d built the battle station on the wrong end of the chain of rings, that we should have put it on the side facing Earth. I’d done my best to make sure such talk was squashed, but I’d never managed to stop the conversation in dimly lit passages. The talk had lowered to a dark murmur, but had never entirely gone away.

  Sandra cursed about two minutes after the EMP blast first hit us, causing Welter and I to look at her. Her clothing unraveled before our eyes. I realized then that my own outfit was slipping away from me. Everyone’s body-hugging clothing was falling apart. It was as if we we’d all been wearing strips of cloth taped to our bodies and the tape had suddenly let go all at once. The adhesion of the fabric was gone. The nanocloth unwrapped itself, billions of components relaxing in death. They fell to the floor around us and we stood in thin, sheer undergarments. I reflected it was lucky most of us still wore undergarments.