Star Force 11: Exile Read online

  Sokolov glared at me, but didn’t directly accuse me of bringing up Cossacks to offend him. I pretended not to notice.

  “Worse,” I said, “the Centaurs have never been known for their programming abilities—they can’t do it even today. It would be hard to control the Nanos without such skills.”

  “Whatever,” Sokolov said dismissively. “I learned that these Raptors, to use your name for them, had apparently captured the fourth planet from the bears along with the bear colony there some years ago. The Raptors not only enslaved the bears, but also used them for food.”

  “Yes, it appears both sides eat the other,” I replied with a grimace.

  “I consider the Raptors worse,” Sokolov commented quickly, “as they apparently bred their slaves for slaughter. The bears just ate enemies they killed in combat, rather like some early human cultures did.”

  “Yes, but we’ve progressed beyond such ugly practices.” I stood up to look Sokolov in the eye. I was taller than he, but he didn’t seem intimidated. He had a fire in his belly, I could tell. Something intense drove this man. I wondered what it was.

  “The Pandas also eat diplomats,” I commented. “Not just people they conquer in battle. Six officers from this ship, in fact, including its original captain. They were invited to a feast on Tullax Four. They didn’t know they were to be the dinner. So forgive me if I don’t see either side as morally superior. We have no relations with the bears, while with the Raptors it’s purely pragmatic. At least I understand the birds’ idea of honor a little. I don’t have a clue why the Pandas thought it was okay to stab us in the back. Until I do, they’re not our friends.”

  Sokolov nodded solemnly. “I understand. Your father always said biotics aren’t the real enemy. It’s the machines that have no feeling. You can hate them, but they don’t even hate you back. They just destroy everything you love…” He seemed to stare off into the distance then, as if seeing something I couldn’t, a memory in his mind’s eye.

  “Well then, you’ll be displeased to know we have a new machine enemy even worse than the Macros. We call them Lithos.” I gave him a brief description of the communal silico-nanite creatures.

  The swarthy man’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded as if this information did not entirely surprise him. “Let me continue with my narrative and I think you’ll learn something,” he said, arrogance leaking through his steely calm.

  “Go on,” I said.

  I sat back down in my chair putting my right ankle on my left knee and leaning back, a picture of casualness. Dad always said it didn’t pay to seem too desperate for information or people would start bargaining for it with you, making you pay a higher price.

  “Apparently we and the Macros interrupted a long-running war between the bears and your Raptor friends,” Sokolov said. “When we appeared, the bears’ main fleet was just about to lose the space battle to retake their colony, planet four. However, they won the ground battle—or perhaps I should call it a slave rebellion—and wiped out their Raptor masters on the surface. The Raptor fleet, seeing us in our Nano ships losing to the Macros, ran for the ring on the moon of planet five and escaped.”

  I ran my hand over my head and scratched it. “That’s when your surviving Nano ships flew over to Tullax Four where the Pandas had just won the ground fight but lost in space and picked up some new command personnel.”

  “Of course. I thought I explained all that quite clearly,” Sokolov said with irritation.

  “And I’m making certain of your clarity,” I snapped. I could see he was becoming less and less courteous with every passing minute. To me, this revealed his true colors. I was beginning to understand what my old man didn’t like about this Russian. I’d keep that in mind.

  “Please continue,” I said in a milder tone, as I still wanted him to give me all the info he had.

  Sokolov huffed slightly, shrugging his shoulders almost as if he were a bird with ruffled feathers, which was pretty ironic considering his hostility toward the Raptors. “The bears and I waited at the reclaimed colony, planet four, and watched helplessly while the Macros systematically conquered the bear homeworld, planet six. Oh, it took weeks and it was a hard fight, but in the end the circles of destruction spread outward as the Macros built more and more domes. Apparently the bear homeworld was rich in all sorts of valuable rare elements, a real prize for the machines.” His tone had turned bitter at this point, fury shining in his eyes.

  “What were you doing all this time?” I asked.

  “I tried to teach the bears all I could about the Nano ships and the factories they contained in hopes of generating enough combat power to eventually reclaim their homeworld, but their society was in bad shape. They didn’t cooperate well with each other, and it took a series of short, brutal wars before one warlord, Provider Long Growl as he was known, came out on top and was able to get things organized.”

  I refrained from telling him that it was probably the same Long Growl and his buddies who had eaten our officers. “And then?”

  “And then we concentrated on replicating Nano ships as the simplest way to build an effective fleet. I could tell we wouldn’t have enough, though. The Macros were winning too fast. By the time we could challenge them in space, they would have conquered the bear’s homeworld. We had to get help.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “The Raptors?” That was the only possibility I could see. Except… “Or the Lithos?”

  Sokolov waved off my suppositions dismissively. “Your Lithos didn’t even exist then, at least not as you described them. But I believe I know their origins if you’ll stop interrupting me!”

  I held my tongue again. I needed his information and he knew it so I pressed my lips deliberately together and inclined my head with a show of interest.

  “Thank you,” he said condescendingly, as if putting up with a child. “The Raptors had stationed a reconnaissance squadron inside their ring watching everything that was going on but not moving to interfere. Desperate to save their homeworld the bears agreed to let me as the only alien there to try to talk with the Raptors, although they told me in no uncertain terms that they would never submit to being ruled. I’d had Alamo’s brain working on the bird language for some time, so I was able to establish contact quickly. I explained what I knew of the Macros and how they operated and that they were the enemy of all biotic species. I hoped the Raptors could see that as soon as the Macros finished with the bears, the machines would attack them next.”

  I looked at the wall as if bored rather than sparring verbally with Sokolov. Actually, I was very interested. If his tale were true, he was finally closing in on the origins of the Lithos.

  “The negotiations seemed to be going nowhere when the Macros, apparently certain of victory on the ground of the bears’ homeworld, lunged at us with their fleet. We clearly did not have enough to beat them, but the Nano ships gave us no choice but to fight. The bears and I improved the Nano tactics as well as we could, but the Macros gained a foothold on the colony’s airless moon and emplaced more shield domes, driving us off.”

  “And still the Raptors did nothing?” I asked.

  “Apparently they reveled in the bears’ defeat,” he said with evident bitterness. “You may think them no worse than the bears, but to me they’re traitors to biotic species everywhere. I pleaded with the Raptors to intervene with their fleet. They had time to repair and rebuild, so I knew they could have at least made a good showing and then retreated if necessary. I would have understood that. But no…they just watched.”

  Sokolov turned from his pacing narrative to spear me with his black eyes. “They never intended to help the bears! Instead, just as the Macro fleet was about to invade the fourth planet where we defended bitterly the Raptors popped through the ring with fifty ships and launched a missile barrage. They fired at least three hundred warheads and then just stayed there guarding their line of retreat.”

  “I can see why you’re pissed at the Raptors,” I said. “But at least they tried.”


  Sokolov pressed his lips together in disapproval before going on. “At first I was ecstatic thinking the aliens were finally coming to help. When their ships didn’t follow up to attack the Macros I hailed them, but they ignored me.” Sokolov’s tone implied that not listening to him was a worse sin than failing to help.

  “What did the missiles target?” I asked, trying to keep him on track.

  “That was the strangest thing at the time. One third of the missiles were aimed at the airless moon of the bears’ fourth planet, where the Macros had set up bases preparing to invade the bear colony. One third were aimed at the colony world itself. We thought they were bombarding the remaining bears. The final third aimed at the sixth planet, the bears’ homeworld, which the Macros had completely conquered by now. Instead of targeting Macros though, those missiles the Macros didn’t shoot down exploded harmlessly—we thought—against the surface of each world.”

  I knew what the answer had to be. “The missiles carried the Lithos—or at least their progenitors. Silicon nanites programmed to self-organize and attack anything made of metal.”

  Sokolov seemed crestfallen and irritated that I had preempted his big revelation. “Yes, that’s right. Your Raptors unleashed a biological weapon on the bears’ homeworld, on its colony and on its moon.”

  “So…I figure on the Pandas’ dry homeworld the Lithos spread and wiped out the Macros. Ditto on the airless moon. But on the wet colony world, they didn’t take hold and they died out or went dormant. But what happened to the remaining Macro fleet?”

  “The Macro ships tried to help their ground forces fend off the infestations, but they failed. In a few weeks their bases had been overrun or were under constant attack. They could not feed or replicate using the abundant minerals. By the time the Macro fleet intelligence decided it could not win it was too late. They made an abortive attempt to attack us at the fourth planet, but by then our Nano fleet had been rebuilt and we fought them to a standstill. They retreated. With nowhere else to go, they headed at high speed toward the ring near the fifth planet where the Raptors waited. Apparently they were trying to break out of the star system while they could.”

  There he paused, but I waited. I was beginning to think he wanted me to prompt him to go on and that he was trying to stretch out his dramatic narrative for his audience of one, but I wasn’t going for it this time. I just raised my eyebrows expectantly.

  “Your precious Raptors ran away,” he finally said with disgust. “They are not birds of prey; they’re more like chickens.”

  “How do you know they didn’t just lure them into the next system and destroy them there?”

  Sokolov spat. “Because as soon as the Macro threat to the system had ended, the Nano fleet abandoned the bears just like they abandoned Earth. With me and the bear command personnel aboard, the Nano fleet followed the Macros.”

  With restrained eagerness I opened my mouth to ask what happened next when Hansen called on the general PA, and I heard urgency in his voice. “General quarters. Captain Riggs to the bridge. I say again, Captain to the bridge.”

  -6-

  I burst out of Sokolov’s room and past the marine guard leaving both staring after me. I nodded toward the door and the sentry nodded back. I wanted him to keep his primary mission in mind, which was to make sure the old general stayed put.

  Striding onto the bridge, I looked at the holotank, which was alive with a tactical display of planetary space around Orn Six. Our position next to the Square showed clearly and so did the ring’s location. It lay flat on the other side of the world along with icons representing the four Raptor mini-fortresses hanging above it and a smattering of drones, space junk and tiny orbiting spy-eyes used to keep watch on each other. All those were the same every day for the last few months.

  The new thing that riveted every eye on the bridge to the tank was a large, blinking yellow symbol different from anything I’d ever seen on the display. The contact hovered far above the Raptor installations. For an icon to be that big, what it represented must be…

  Huge.

  I manipulated the holotank’s controls ignoring the frantic buzz of terse jargon filling the bridge. Hansen obviously had the crew getting ready for a fast lift leaving me free to look at the situation. Soon I was staring at a picture of something both familiar and utterly strange.

  Dull gold in color, the ship—if that was the correct terminology—was a ragged, mottled rectangular slab almost half a mile across. It was twice that in length and looked to me like a shoebox. The measurements nagged at my mind.

  “Valiant,” I said, “compare the length of the smaller sides of this bogey with those of the Square.”

  “Dimensions are congruent within less than 0.0135% variance.”

  “But not exact?”

  “Negative. There are slight differences.”

  I chewed my inner lip, thinking. If the Square was an artifact of the Ancients, this ship might be too. It was a close match in size with one flat side to the Square’s…

  Then something occurred to me.

  “Hail Marvin,” I ordered.

  The robot’s response was less than I’d hoped for. “I am busy, Captain Riggs. Please do not interrupt my observations.”

  “Damn your observations, Marvin. A ship, probably one built by the Ancients, just came through the ring. I need you now.”

  “I agree that you are in need of my expertise. I’m aware of the ship and I’m examining it in as much detail as possible. My neural chains are fully engaged. That’s why this conversation is detrimental.”

  “My brain is working hard too,” I said. “Sometimes two minds can exceed the output of one. The ship’s smaller sides are almost exactly the same size as the Square. Does this suggest anything to you?”

  “Yes. It suggests that the Square is merely one side of a buried ship of the same sort.”

  I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. I’d been about to suggest the same thing, but Marvin had beaten me to the punch. I wondered if he’d known this all along and had withheld the knowledge or if the appearance of the boxy ship had provided insight to him as it had to me.

  “I’d appreciate any more useful observations you have while you analyze the intruder. Valiant is preparing to lift and we’ll be off the ground in…” I looked over at Hansen.

  “Emergency lift in seventeen minutes, if that’s what you want,” Hansen responded.

  “Hold at one minute and keep prepping,” I told him, knowing that an emergency lift meant leaving equipment behind and a lot of things undone. In our current state we’d be ripping loose some connections to auxiliary surface gear. “Let’s see what the thing does. Marvin, you need to lift off too.”

  “I can depart the surface within three minutes time. I have not allowed my ship to devolve into a state of unpreparedness,” Marvin huffed. “Until then, I’ll continue my analysis.”

  “So why not continue the analysis from within your ship?” I retorted. When Marvin didn’t answer, I provided the reply he refused to. “It’s because you’d have to leave critical equipment behind or shut it down and package it up, right? You’re in the same boat as we are, so don’t get all high and mighty with me, Captain Marvin. Besides, I have over sixty crew members to manage, but there’s only one of you.”

  A text message popped up on my holotank with Hansen’s tag on it. Quit arguing with the robot, it said.

  Despite my reflexive irritation, my XO was right. Marvin’s orneriness was distracting me. “Marvin, pass critical updates as your analysis yields new info. Otherwise, you’ll have to balance self-preservation with curiosity. Riggs out.”

  I turned my attention back to this supposed ship of the Ancients. The holotank showed it motionless in relation to the planet, which meant it was actually in a perfect—if impossible—geostationary orbit around Orn Six. It was impossible because the big ship stayed precisely aligned with a straight axis composed of the Square, the center of the airless rocky planet, and the ring, all without
drive emanations that we could detect.

  “Valiant, patch me through to Benson.” Once I had him on the intercom I asked, “Do you still have that gravitic detector in the lab?”

  “We’ve made some improvements in our detection suite, Captain, but—”

  “Spare me the details, Doctor. I need readings on the ship that just appeared.”

  “Ship? I hadn’t heard about any ship.”

  I rubbed my forehead, marveling at the obliviousness of scientists to the events of a General Quarters announcement. “Valiant, pass all sensor readings to the science lab and continue to do so in any heightened alert situation. Doctor, take a look at what we see and get your people figuring out what we’re facing. I want to know what makes that thing tick—its drive, sensors, weaponry, crew, and material composition—anything. We could lift at any moment so stay at your stations.”

  “Yes, sir. And may I say—”

  I cut off the intercom before he could blather on. “Get me Hoon,” I said next.

  “Hoon here. Please be concise and brief.”

  “Professor, I assume you have been notified about our current situation?” I knew the Crustacean had continuous access to the ships’ sensor feeds from within his water-filled quarters and workspace, and while his manners left something to be desired I had a lot of confidence in his intellect—more than in our own human braniacs, unfortunately.

  “Yes, Captain,” came the lobster’s translated voice.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Ideas are for times of creative thinking. I have deductions,” he said testily. “I deduce this ship arrived because of some triggering event, probably initiated by the recent actions of the robot Marvin.”

  “Any idea what kind of actions could cause this intrusion?” I asked.

  “There are too many variables to calculate probabilities, but based on my highly educated intuition I would say the worm program Marvin released into the Square is the likeliest.”