The Dead Sun Read online

  Now that I’d left Earth far behind, I felt free. We were flying a small task force out to the frontier to do something crazy—all of Marvin’s ideas are crazy. I had to ask myself why I’d approved this particular one so impulsively, and I think it had to do with the fact that it gave me the perfect excuse to leave Earth.

  “It’s strange, really,” I told Jasmine over breakfast. “I’m really liking this trip. It feels good to get away from Earth.”

  “What’s strange about that?” she asked.

  “Remember last year as we flew toward Earth? We were excited about that. We hadn’t seen home for years. These days, I’m fed up with it.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t see any of this as strange. You’ve never been comfortable on Crow’s throne.”

  “Don’t call it that.”

  We both fell silent and chewed our food for a moment. We were cruising toward the ring that would transport us from Alpha Centauri to Helios, the star system of our allies, the Worms.

  “It’s not a throne,” I said at last, putting down my fork with a clattering sound that was louder than I’d meant it to be. “Look at this system we’re crossing now. There’s nothing much out here. And in the next one, Helios, we don’t rule it. What kind of empire rules a single planet and a few colonies?”

  “It doesn’t matter what we call it,” she said.

  “Yes it does. If we’re going to have elections soon, we can’t go around calling our government an empire.”

  Jasmine frowned at her plate. I knew she didn’t believe in a world-wide, multi-planet democracy. I couldn’t blame her entirely—it might not work. But I did feel we owed it to our species to give it a try. Call me sentimental, but I liked individual freedoms, political equality and rules like one-man, one-vote.

  My girlfriend, on the other hand, thought it was too dangerous to hand political power over to whomever the people voted into the job. She felt there were too many vicious aliens around who might tear us a new one any given year, and we couldn’t afford to trust a haphazard political process that might give us a loser leader and result in our extinction.

  “People always trade freedom for security when they’re threatened,” I said, countering her unspoken argument. She didn’t even look at me as I spoke.

  “Right now,” I continued, “they like me because they see me as a strongman ruler, a protector. But that will change, you watch. They’ll turn on me if we have too many years of peace. They’ll hate me in a decade—maybe less.”

  “You’re right,” she said, staring at her plate. “You’re always right.”

  “No,” I said, chuckling. “I’m not. That’s the whole point. Don’t you think that everyone in history who’s been in a position of power like I am right now must have held that same conceited belief? I’m not always right. I can be replaced—and I should be, if I screw up.”

  “Let’s talk about something else.”

  I sighed and finished my food.

  “Hey,” I said, as nanite arms removed our plates and stuffed them into the walls for recycling. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  She frowned. “A walk? This ship isn’t that big.”

  “A walk on the outside,” I said, grinning.

  Jasmine was a bit nervous about the idea, but I finally talked her into a vac suit and a stroll on the outer hull. She said something about radiation and exposure, but I coaxed her out anyway. She wasn’t usually so fussy about things like that.

  Once out there, we watched space drift by as we sailed toward the ring. We couldn’t see the ring itself as we approached it, of course. We were going too fast for that. I especially enjoyed the sensation of going through a ring while out on the surface of a ship’s metal skin. It was unlike anything else in my experience. One second, you were in a given star system, and the next you were somewhere else—a hundred trillion miles away.

  “Isn’t it great out here?” I asked her, loving it. “I mean, I’m a fool not to have trumped up a reason to visit Eden before this.”

  “We could be in danger.”

  It seemed like Jasmine had been complaining about something the entire time we’d been out here, and I hadn’t really been listening. I finally tuned back in when she mentioned danger.

  “Dangerous? How?” I asked her.

  “I don’t know. Flying debris. Some old weapon system of Crow’s—anything.”

  “You worry too much. I’ve been out on the hull of ships in the middle of a pitched battle—so have you, for that matter.”

  “Yes, but I don’t—oh!”

  One second, we could see the three local stars, Alpha, Beta and Proxima Centauri. The next, everything changed around us. It wasn’t a shimmering change, but an instantaneous one, as if someone had turned on a light in a darkened room.

  The light bulb this unnamed giant had flipped on was huge and red. It filled a much larger portion of space than had all three of the Centauri stars. Called Aldebaran, the red giant filled more space than one could fathom. It glared and seemed very close, even though it was far away.

  “Look at that!” I said, pointing toward the monster star. “You can feel the heat from it. Our visors are working overtime to adjust.”

  “The radiation will burn our retinas out,” Jasmine complained.

  “Nah,” I said, clanking over the hull to a better vantage point. A sensor pod had been partially blocking my view.

  Jasmine followed me after a moment and put her hands on my shoulder.

  “I have to admit,” she said, staring with a fascination that matched my own, “It is beautiful. You brought me out here to see this, didn’t you? You knew we would fly through the ring while on the hull.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “All those battles you spent on the inside, staring at a screen, I figured you never really got to experience anything like a live transition from system to system. This is your first one, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, looking all around. “Okay, you were right to bring me up here.”

  “Ready to go back inside?”

  She shook her head and I laughed. I put an arm around her and tried to squeeze her very gently. I did a good job, as I could tell she wasn’t injured.

  “Colonel Riggs?” A familiar voice spoke into my headset.

  “Is this a private channel, Marvin? What do you want?”

  “It’s the Worms, sir. They’ve sent us a message.”

  I frowned. “I’ll be right there.”

  As we headed back to the portal, I looked away from the big red star toward the disk that was the Worm homeworld. It was close and looked like a massive version of Mars. The color of rust, it had brackish, dried-up seas and mountain spires taller than anything back home on Earth.

  When we got through the airlock and into the ship, I marched directly up the spine of the ship toward the bridge.

  “Do you think it’s important, Kyle?” Jasmine asked.

  “Probably not, but I haven’t spoken directly to these people for a long time. I want to make sure our relations are strong.”

  “Maybe you should ask Kwon for a report,” she suggested.

  I nodded. “I’d planned to pick him up, actually. He’s been on Helios long enough.”

  Several months ago, Kwon had begged for a field assignment. If I was tired of Earth, Kwon was positively sick of it. I’d sent him out here to see if he could enlist the Worms in our service in some capacity. Jasmine had pointed out he was no diplomat, and I’d pointed out the Worms were half-feral and would probably like Kwon’s concept of diplomacy.

  Secretly, I’d been worried from the start. This moment was no exception. The instant we crossed into the Helios system, the Worms hailed us—how could I not think of Kwon and his efforts at making friends?

  But I didn’t tell Marvin or Jasmine any of this. It was best to learn the truth and try to pick up the pieces after you knew the score.

  “Marvin?” I called into my com-link, struggling with a smart-clasp on my helmet that didn’t wa
nt to let go. “Give me a report. What have they said so far?”

  “Not much, Colonel Riggs. They sent a series of idiomatic pictographs indicating we should meet as warriors on the field of honor. Then they launched three ships, which are now in-bound to our position.”

  I frowned. “Three ships? The field of honor? Give me possible interpretations of the pictographs you received.”

  “I believe I just did that, Colonel.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I need analysis, Marvin. Are they angry, happy or just talking about honor because that’s the polite thing to do?”

  “A combination of all three is indicated,” Marvin said. “Being in a state of rage pleases the Worms, and they are always concerned with honor. Without knowing the context of recent events in the system, we can’t be certain which of these elements of their communication represents the primary meaning.”

  “Why not?”

  “The same set of symbols can indicate a duel to the death is coming, or that a comrade is well-met. The concepts are too intertwined in Worm communications to easily separate them.”

  Jasmine and I reached the bridge, where Marvin was crouched at the command table. A spherical holotank floated above it, a newly-upgraded version. The holotank was a globular shape that spun with the motion of the ship, giving our relative attitude and a real-time reflection of space around us. Instead of being mounted on the ceiling with a steel rod, as we’d done in the old days, the system was positioned and spun by gravity plates both overhead and built into the command table itself. Our technology with regards to gravity manipulation had improved recently.

  “So, in other words,” I said to Marvin as Jasmine and I joined him at the command table, “You have no idea what the Worms are saying or what their intentions are?”

  “That is essentially correct.”

  “That’s unacceptable, Marvin. You’re our best translator. I depend on you for accurate communications.”

  “I’m well aware of my indispensability.”

  I glowered at him for a second and had to force myself to calm down.

  “Let’s hypothesize,” I said when I knew I could speak without shouting. “They only sent three ships. That indicates this is not an attack.”

  “A reasonable, if not entirely accurate, assumption.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be accurate?” I snapped.

  “Note the symbols on the table in front of us,” he said, waving his tentacle over the command screen.

  I turned my attention downward. My staffers had been watching the three contacts—colored amber, meaning the brainboxes weren’t quite sure how to classify them. The three alien warships were closing on our position. There was a string of symbols displayed beside them, their last transmission. An image of Worm warriors side-by-side, which could mean honor or comradery. Next to that was a pictograph of a flat plain with a sun overhead. Last came a symbol I wasn’t familiar with.

  “What’s that final thing? It looks like an X.”

  “Crossed lances,” Marvin said. “The symbol indicates a duel or a military conflict of a small nature. It can also mean an exchange of arms.”

  I frowned at the symbols. “I have to admit, I don’t see a clear meaning.”

  “Neither do I, Colonel—or rather, I should say that I see several legitimate interpretations.”

  Jasmine reached out and ran her fingers over the symbols, spinning them around to face her. “You don’t think they’re calling us out to some kind of duel, do you?”

  “Um…maybe,” I admitted.

  “That is indeed one of the possibilities,” Marvin added.

  “Ah, damn,” I said.

  “What is it, sir?” asked Marvin.

  “My good mood is gone.”

  “What mood, Colonel?”

  “The feeling of joy and relaxation I was experiencing just a few short minutes ago. Now I remember what being out on the frontier dealing with crazy aliens is really like. What is it about our minds that causes us to only remember the good things about places we’ve been in the past?”

  “That’s an intriguing question, Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said brightly. “According to research I’ve been conducting on human neurological patterns, I believe the human brain is structured to behave in this fashion. The mammalian brain—in particular, the anterior cingulate—has a number of unusual mood-inducing properties not found in—”

  “Marvin,” I interrupted, “it was a rhetorical question.”

  “Oh. I see, sir.”

  He finally shut up, and we all watched as the Worm ships flew steadily closer.

  “Shouldn’t we prepare for the worst, Colonel?” Jasmine asked.

  “Like what?”

  “We could open our missile ports and prime the warheads. We could lock-on with our weapons systems.”

  “Are they coming in with live guns?”

  “Not that I can detect, sir. But it is a security breach to let a potential enemy get this close. We don’t know their weaponry all that well.”

  “Given what we do know, put a cone of fire up.”

  She did so, and I was immediately alarmed. We were already under their guns.

  “Put up their trajectory. Are they slowing down?”

  “Not much, sir. But Worm behavior is often like that. They tend not to slow down until the last possible second.”

  I watched as she tapped the screen, and I saw the projected path displayed. As I suspected, it intercepted my ship perfectly.

  “Not slowing down…” I said thoughtfully. “They drive like kids in a Porsche.”

  Marvin watched us closely with a single camera trained on Jasmine’s face and mine. Most of his stalks and electronic eyes were focused on the screens. I thought this was odd. He really didn’t need to look at the screens at all. Since he was linked in with the computers directly, he could see the data in his own mind the way the computer saw it. Maybe he liked getting our limited, angled version too. Maybe it gave him a more human perspective. As always, I found myself wondering what he was thinking. All too often during a crisis, it turned out later that Marvin knew more than he had been letting on about the nature of it.

  “So, we’re already within range of their particle beam weaponry,” I said. “They’re heading directly toward this ship, and they haven’t applied braking jets.”

  Without being told, Jasmine displayed a timer. We had ninety seconds to go before they rammed us.

  I knew I should fire on the Worms, change course, or at least warn them off. I chose none of these options.

  “Marvin, transmit a set of pictograms,” I said. “Tell them we welcome them on the field of honor.”

  Suddenly, I had the majority of his cameras on me. A few more swooped close to Jasmine to get her reaction.

  “That might not be wise, Colonel,” Jasmine said. “They might take the response as meaning their challenge has been accepted and that a duel should begin.”

  “Objection noted, Captain Sarin,” I told her. “But that is exactly what I mean to say to them. Transmit the message, Marvin.”

  I heard a gargling sound somewhere behind me. I turned to see Admiral Newcome. He’d snuck in behind me and had apparently been watching the proceedings in horror. His face, normally florid, was nearly as white as his hair.

  “Ah, hello, Admiral. Glad you could meet me here. Someone must have alerted you that we might be having a crisis.”

  I gave Jasmine a reproachful glance, which she dodged artfully, keeping her eyes down on the console.

  “Colonel,” Jasmine said. “The CAG aboard Elixir is requesting operational authority to launch his fighters.”

  “Request denied. There are only three Worm ships.”

  “Our protocols have been breached, Colonel,” Newcome said, speaking up for the first time. “They are in too close. We are within our rights to defend ourselves.”

  “What you’re seeing here isn’t a battle, Admiral. It’s a political negotiation.”

  “Then I request permission to eng
age in evasive maneuvers.”

  “Request denied.”

  “They’re flying their ships right into us!” Newcome objected. “Even if they don’t fire, they might well ram us. The kinetic force of even a glancing blow from a single ship would destroy our vessel!”

  “A reasonable assumption, Admiral. But I don’t think it’s going to go down that way.”

  “You’re gambling all our lives upon a hunch?” he asked incredulously.

  “If I might interject, sirs,” Marvin said.

  We both looked at him.

  “Admiral,” Marvin said. “Colonel Riggs often bases command decisions upon criteria others do not comprehend at the time they’re made. Frequently, command personnel object, but their objections are virtually always overruled.”

  “What the hell is your robot telling me? We have less than thirty seconds left!”

  “Tell him, Jasmine,” I said.

  She turned to Newcome. “He said Riggs often does crazy things, and you’d just better get used to it.”

  I nodded my head slowly. “Exactly.”

  When the final seconds ticked away, I could see Newcome squirm, wince and squint, but the Worms broke off before they rammed us, their trio of ships splitting apart and taking three separate spiraling paths.

  “Sir?” Jasmine said, but I was too busy gloating to pay attention to her.

  “See that?” I demanded, pointing at the twirling Worm ships. “They didn’t hit us. This was some kind of test, some kind of show of bravery. We did our part by not blinking first.”

  “Blinking, sir?” asked Newcome. “I don’t understand.”

  “Haven’t you ever played chicken with your friends—or your enemies—on a dark road at night?” I asked him.

  “I most certainly have not!”

  “Come on, not even when you were young and crazy?”

  “I don’t think that description ever fit my station in life.”

  I looked him over and sighed. “No, I don’t suppose it ever did. Well, anyway, the Worms were just having a little fun. Now—”