Admiral Wolf

by C. Gockel

  “What would happen to my current body if I did that?” Volka asked.

  “It would most likely become a drooling idiot,” Carl admitted. He scratched his rump again. “… but only by human standards.” His eyes narrowed. “Which are admittedly low.”

  “Comforting, Carl. Comforting.”

  “I’m here for you!” Carl said, rising to his hind paw pairs and patting his chest.

  “No you’re not! You’re asleep and I’m bored!” Volka protested telepathically.

  Wiggling his tail, Carl said, “Well, I’m awake now, and it’s time to load up more drones!”

  Volka’s ears went back. It was sad that loading the little cylindrical devices was the highlight of her days.

  “But when we drop them, they light up!” Carl said. “And they turn on their lasers!” Volka raised an eyebrow. When they lit up, Carl chased them.

  Carl touched his chest. “I don’t deny my body the simple pleasures, Volka. It’s healthy exercise.”

  “We’re all loaded up,” Young said, coming out of his ether trance.

  “What?” said Carl and Volka aloud and in unison.

  Dr. Patrick grinned. “The supply crew was ready to go. Came aboard with the drones and have already disembarked. Saved us …” His eyes lost focus again. “Fifteen minutes and thirty-three seconds.”

  Volka hadn’t even had to ask Sundancer to open her bridge. The ship was learning.

  Young frowned, and she felt something in the pit of her stomach, a sort of sinking sensation. She swore she heard a groan from everyone in the ship but, flicking her ears madly, she couldn’t locate the source. Beside her, Carl said, “Lizzar droppings, I need to nap on this.” He promptly dropped to his stomach and curled in a ball.

  Dr. Patrick tapped his temple and a holographic map jumped from the mat on the floor into the cramped quarters. At first it showed the Milky Way, and then the focus narrowed to a solar system at the far edge, and then that narrowed further still and became the second planet from that solar system’s sun, and then the moon of the second planet came into view.

  “Is that a large moon, or is it just me?” Volka asked, ears coming forward. It was a reddish orange—like Mars—and hovering above a planet that was greener than Earth or Luddeccea.

  Dr. Patrick and the Marines were in ether dazes, but Bracelet whispered from her wrist, “It is a large moon, Miss Volka. Nearly as large as Titan.”

  Volka tilted her head. “It’s …” Pretty.

  Before she finished, Young snapped from his ether haze and grumbled, “We’ve got 2,039 more payloads to deliver.”

  Volka looked at him in alarm. It had been 193 payloads this morning.

  Dr. Patrick snapped from his daze. “It’s completely doable.”

  Jerome, snapping from his own daze, rolled his eyes behind the doctor’s back.

  Gaze on the holo, Dr. Patrick said cheerfully, “That’s where we need to—”

  The world turned to white light. They were free-gating again, and then they were solid. Volka was gripped by a sudden and immediate sense of wrongness. Her stomach constricted, and she fought to keep from doubling over. Carl popped up with a squeak.

  Young said impatiently, “Let’s get this over with.”

  At every other stop, Sundancer had remained opaque, not bothering to make her hull translucent, but now the stars came into view—but not just stars. Volka’s eyes went wide. Carl chirped.

  Facing the opposite direction, Young said in an annoyed voice, “Why is she—?”

  Volka gasped. “The moon. It’s gone.”

  “Not gone,” Bracelet murmured. “Transformed. Look down.”

  Volka looked down, and she saw what Bracelet had seen below her feet. A small, red, almost cone-shaped orbital above a planet that was no longer green and white with streaks of blue. Now, like the others, it was blackish and watery where it wasn’t covered by clouds. Volka exhaled, her skin starting to crawl, a rank odor seemingly beginning to fill her nostrils—a psychosomatic response to the Dark’s presence. “The Dark is here,” Volka gasped.

  Dr. Patrick began to say, “How do you—?”

  But Jerome, eyes on a tablet, interrupted him. “Volka, Lieutenant, I’m picking up some readings like we saw from the—”

  The moon started to crumble away from the ship, and then Sundancer began to shake and drift forward.

  “—a singularity weapon,” Jerome finished.

  And that’s when Volka saw it, a thin circle of silvery metal just beyond the moon, glinting against the dark of the planet, and in its maw, complete black.

  “Sundancer, get us out of here!” Volka commanded, feeling the meaning, picturing in her mind a place she knew was safe.

  “Where are we?” Sharon Rhinehart asked, standing with Carl and Volka on Sundancer’s bridge, staring out at the dense ribbon of light off the ship’s bow.

  After the run in with the Dark, the tiny aft compartment packed with the holomat, frustrated Marines, Dr. Patrick, and emergency crates had felt claustrophobic. There were drones on the bridge, safely encased in mesh … except for the one Carl was currently batting around their feet.

  “A baby galaxy,” Volka said. “One where the Dark doesn’t exist.”

  She’d had to think of someplace fast. This was where Sundancer had taken them after their first horrible meeting with the infected crew aboard Time Gate 33. It seemed like years ago, though it had only been months. It was the first place Volka had thought of—not Luddeccea, Earth, or the asteroid.

  “Oh,” said Rhinehart. “It’s pretty.” She tapped her temple and her eyes went blank. The rest of the Marines were in the back. They were very quiet. They were conferring over the ether, obviously. Volka glanced up at Rhinehart, annoyed to be excluded again. If she were tired, or angry enough, maybe she could read the woman’s thoughts. Volka scowled. No, that was wrong.

  Looking sheepish, Rhinehart dropped her hand from her temple. “They’re not sure if we should be going off to the next target. They’re deciding whether we should go to some other place in the previous system and estimating the time it would take the drones to reach their targets from different launch locales. Jerome’s got a Q-comm in his tablet—”

  Volka’s eyes widened. She hadn’t known that. Q-comms were rare and expensive.

  Rhinehart rolled her eyes. “Which means they have no excuse not to run every move through Intel as well. Which means it will take even longer to decide.”

  Volka frowned. “We have more than 2,000 deliveries to do.”

  Wincing, Sharon said, “I think it will be more than 4,000 when all is said and done.”

  Dismay must have been evident on Volka’s face, because the other woman explained with a sigh, “With only near-light propulsion, the drones can take years to get to every outpost in a solar system. That means it can take years for lightbeam data to reach the drone carrying the Q-comm …”

  “And in all that time the Dark is gaining ground in the Republic,” Volka finished.

  “Right,” said Rhinehart. “It’s faster if we use Sundancer to drop the drones off closer to where they need to be.”

  “Four thousand outposts …” There were probably that many human outposts in Sol System alone. The People had been just as much a space going race, it would make sense they’d have just as many. Her ears flicked, doing the math. “At five drop-offs a day, that will take over two years.” The same journey over and over again, with nothing different except the occasional attack by drones or a singularity beam.

  “Could be we find the shipyard before that time,” Rhinehart said, not sounding particularly hopeful.

  They needed to narrow the possibilities, was what they needed to do.

  Taking off her helmet, Volka flicked her ears in annoyance. There had to be something special about the place the ships were being manufactured. Something that made it different … that made it stand out …

  “In point of fact,” Bracelet piped from her wrist, “It will be two point—”
>
  “Stop, Bracelet!” Volka said, ears flicking madly, eyes widening. They already knew a place that was different … maybe.

  “Yes, Miss Volka,” Bracelet said contritely.

  Volka couldn’t respond; her mind was grasping at a thread of inspiration so fine she wasn’t sure she could hold onto it. She looked out at the galaxy but remembered the moon. In the holo before the mission, it had been round and uniform in shape. She swallowed, her heart beating too fast. She couldn’t possibly be right.

  Carl’s voice invaded her consciousness. “Ask the questions you need to know, Hatchling.”

  Licking lips that had suddenly gone dry, Volka said, “Bracelet, I need some facts from you.”

  Sounding cheerier, Bracelet responded, “I will do my best to give them to you!”

  “The moon we just saw, it wasn’t just misshapen, it was smaller, right?” Maybe she had imagined it?

  “It was, as a rough estimate, a quarter as massive as we expected,” Bracelet replied smoothly and perhaps a bit smugly.

  “Was the gravity what we expected?”

  “No, Miss Volka,” Bracelet responded. “Gravity is a function of mass. The moon was less massive, therefore—”

  “How do you know? We had no sensors outside of the ship,” Volka said. They hadn’t had time to launch them.

  “I am very sensitive to light, and gravity alters the path of light. I didn’t require external sensors to verify that.”

  “Where did the rest of the moon go?” Volka’s words sounded harsh to herself, but she was afraid to stop, afraid to lose her train of thought.

  “I would conjecture that it was destroyed by the singularity beam,” Bracelet responded.

  “But where did it go,” Volka said. “It wasn’t destroyed, it was sucked into the beam and then it had to go somewhere, otherwise there would have been a Titan-sized gravity well.”

  “Ohhhhhh …” Bracelet sighed like a child anticipating a piece of birthday cake. “I don’t believe we could know where it went, unless we went there ourselves.”

  “Eeep!” said Carl.

  Volka straightened. “Wouldn’t that kill us?”

  “Oh, it would utterly annihilate you, but not me,” Bracelet replied. “Well, not the subatomic particle in my Q-comm that connects me to my server. This physical form would be crushed … but that subatomic particle could be tracked!”

  Staring at Bracelet, Sharon said, “Wait, do you have a gazillion credit device on your—”

  But she was interrupted by Dr. Patrick. Entering the bridge, flanked by Young and Jerome, he said, “We’re going to drop off the drones at the eighth planet.”

  “Revised orders,” Young said tersely.

  Jerome took a deep breath.

  Volka’s ears pressed against her head. “We should go back to the singularity weapon and drop off the drone with the Q-comm, and then track where it goes. It could be important.”

  Dr. Patrick blinked at her. “What?”

  Jerome tilted his head. “We should find where the aliens sent their trash?”

  Volka’s mouth fell open.

  Young’s chin dipped. “That is what you said the singularity devices are for.”

  Volka’s ears flicked. She had said that—even when Fleet insisted the beams had to be weapons. Volka believed she was right. If she was, was finding out where the aliens’ trash was really a good idea? A moment ago, the destination of the singularity beam had seemed like a stone that could not be allowed to remain unturned, but maybe it was a stupid stone and a stupid hypothesis.

  Bracelet made a sound like she was clearing her throat. “In point of fact, garbage is incredibly helpful to archeological excavations. I see no reason why excavating The People’s garbage wouldn’t be helpful.”

  “Is your watch addressing me?” Young said.

  “She has a Q-comm and is a fully sentient being,” Volka responded.

  Young blinked, and Jerome said, “I thought she had too much personality.”

  Dr. Patrick stepped forward. “We can’t do that. We need to continue our stated mission.” He looked at the Marines. “I know you’re frustrated by its expanding scope, but it’s important to keep going, to be methodical in our search.”

  Young frowned. His eyes flicked between Bracelet and Volka. “I see why you’re curious, Volka, but our mission is to find the Dark’s shipyard.”

  Volka’s shoulders fell, and she almost gave up, but then she said, “But it wouldn’t take long, and maybe, maybe, the place where they were sending their trash was—is—important. Maybe they intended to use it for something …” Her ears perked. “Maybe that could even be where the shipbuilding place is! Maybe they are using the … the … stuff …”

  “Densely packed subatomic particles,” Bracelet supplied.

  “To build stuff … or … or … for energy … or … something.” Volka bit her lip. “It’s the only destination that stands out from the others. And we could find out fast. We could drop off a drone with a Q-comm and get back to our current mission.”

  Bracelet sniffed. “A drone?”

  Young’s eyes went to Jerome. Jerome’s face was open … hopeful.

  Carl stood on his hind paws. “I think we should. At least we’d know.”

  “We’d know in a few years,” Bracelet said.

  Volka’s heart fell.

  “What?” Carl squeaked.

  Bracelet hummed. “It would take that long for the particle to be found. The universe is very big, and ohhhhh … it might not even be in this universe. The prospect is utterly fascinating!”

  “It’s not our Q-comm and not our decision. But I can talk to my superiors later,” said Dr. Patrick, taking a step toward the aft compartments.

  Young didn’t move. He stared at Volka.

  She waited for him to say no.

  He crossed his arms. “All the stuff the singularity beams are transporting might not be in one place. It could be spread out over hundreds of trillions of kilometers. Sending a Q-comm through a singularity beam could wind up discovering absolutely nothing but trillions of kilometers of empty space.”

  Volka’s ears curled.

  Dr. Patrick said, “We have our orders, Young—”

  Ignoring the doctor, eyes on Young, Carl replied, “The People were completely non-violent—”

  “Intel doesn’t believe that,” Young countered.

  Carl’s ears flattened. “There has been no evidence to prove otherwise, and plenty to prove that it was so.”

  Rolling on his heels, Young groused, “Not sure where you’re going with this.”

  “It’s interesting, but irrelevant to our immediate goal,” said Dr. Patrick.

  Whiskered snout still pointing at Young, Carl continued, “Finding one place suitable for waste would be difficult. If they found such a place, they would send all their waste there. They were careful about harming other species—even species that would harm them. One site limits the risk.”

  Young looked away. For a minute, Volka thought she saw the air shimmer around him, and she felt heat rising in her chest. Her lips pursed. It was Young’s frustration. She glanced at Jerome and Rhinehart and knew they were also frustrated. Four-thousand outposts was a lot, and the drop-offs were boring. They were people who liked action.

  Her eyes flicked to Dr. Patrick. He was watching the Marines, not her. She could feel that Dr. Patrick was frustrated, too—by this interruption, but not by this mission in general. What had Alaric told her once? “Science is often tedious. Discoveries can take years or even decades of setbacks and false starts and require meticulously executed experiments and data collection.” Maybe for Dr. Patrick the current mission seemed … normal?

  “Jerome, run it by Intel,” Young said, and Volka smiled.

  Gaze losing focus, Jerome blinked. “Sent.” A light flashed on the tablet.

  Dr. Patrick said, “In the meantime, we—”

  Jerome’s tablet flashed again. “No fucking way.”

  Young’s
eyes shot to Jerome and narrowed. Volka felt her cheeks flushing at the swear.

  Adam’s apple bobbing, Jerome said, “Errr … that was their exact reply, sir.” The tablet flashed. “They won’t waste a drone, even one that doesn’t have a Q-comm, sir.”

  Young scowled at the floor. “Well …”

  Bracelet chirped from Volka’s wrist. “Use me, Miss Volka, oh, please use me! Drone-Q4536921 has no interest in this experiment, but I do.”

  Volka’s jaw dropped open. “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Bracelet asked.

  “Because you’d die,” Volka replied. She thought of the darkness, the nothing between the stars, and sending the tiny device, barely born, out into that … nothing.

  “Miss Volka, I am not alive,” Bracelet said.

  “But you think and feel,” Volka protested.

  “Hmmm …” Bracelet hummed. “Miss Volka, we might be experiencing a cultural difference. I think, indeed, you might even say I feel that I would like to go on this mission. It would be so interesting!”

  Volka was vaguely aware of Dr. Patrick clearing his throat. Clasping the wrist with Bracelet and pulling the device closer, she whispered, “But we might not be able to find you! It wouldn’t be interesting for you while you waited out in the middle of … of … who knows where. You wouldn’t have your body and wouldn’t be able to see or hear or feel anything.”

  Bracelet chimed, “But I don’t need a body to see, hear, or even feel, Miss Volka. In a mindscape, you can’t feel or touch or smell … but I can if I choose. All those sensations are data, and in a mindscape, I can choose the data I want to experience and how I want to experience it. I wouldn’t have any competing obligations; the virtual universe would be mine to explore … virtually.”

  “You’ve been in a digital mindscape, Volka?” Jerome asked.

  Dr. Patrick cleared his throat again.

  Paying no attention to either of them, Volka stared down at the device anchored to her wrist, and her heart constricted. “Bracelet, the way you describe it … would being allowed to be in a mindscape be … be … freedom?”

  “I suppose it would,” the device said.

  Volka gulped.