“Amp it up, Yuri,” Callum said in an uncharacteristic snarl.
“We will never surrender,” Yuri said. “Know this: We will have our vengeance. If not today, then your reckoning will come before the heat death of the universe. Life on every planet will combine to thwart the evil that you bring. Your God will die amid pain and suffering as it sees you fall in flames.”
“Not bad,” Kandara admitted. “A bit Old Testament, but…”
Yuri flashed her a grin and shrugged.
Nine Deliverance ships were still in pursuit of the Avenging Heretic. One fired an energy beam. The power was reduced from the colossal output it was capable of—intended to damage, to weaken.
The Avenging Heretic exploded in fury as Jessika released the magnetic confinement holding half a kilogram of antimatter. The radiation flash overwhelmed the fuselage of three Deliverance ships, which ruptured in a near synchronous cascade of ultraviolence. Two more tumbled away, ruined. Dead.
The brutal plasmasphere expanded, momentarily rivaling the galactic core’s luminosity. Then it began to fade.
Alik watched it dissipate in silence, awed and disturbed by its force. Yet it was nothing compared to the power of the Olyix ships.
“Sweet enough, as funeral pyres go,” Kandara said. “I couldn’t wish for a better one.”
“Jessika?” Yuri asked.
“I’ve switched the cell nodule’s entanglement to purely passive. We’ll still be able to perceive the onemind’s thoughts, but that’s all. There’ll be no more loading our own quiet queries into the neuralstrata.”
When Alik reached for the onemind’s persistent background stream of thoughts, he found them muted. It didn’t entirely displease him; having the massive alien’s deliberations and memories weaving through his own brain had always left him on edge. Now all he could feel was the Salvation of Life directing a scan of the cooling ion cloud that was the remnants of the Avenging Heretic, its own puzzlement at how they had eluded it for so long, self-examination of its thought routines. A flicker of annoyance as it purged Jessika’s neurovirus contamination from itself, restoring full perception to the hangar.
“Are we clear?” Callum asked nervously.
“I think so,” Jessika said. “I can’t sense much suspicion in its thoughts. Of course, it’ll have analyzed the neurovirus and formatted countermeasures, so we’ll never be able to use it again.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Yuri said. “Once we trigger the Signal transmitters, our mission is over.”
“You mean: successful,” Kandara said.
“Yeah. Then we just have to keep our heads down and wait.”
Alik let the bridge simulation dissolve and sat up. The cavern was a bleak contrast to the clean elegance of the bridge; even the Avenging Heretic’s too-small cabin was preferable. He hadn’t been anywhere near a non-urban environment for decades, not since his last mandatory Bureau survival training course in Alaska’s Denali Park—an area seemingly immune from the anthrochange warmth that gripped the rest of Earth. A week shivering in a sleeping bag at night, cooking on a thermal block that either burnt the food or left it raw, making snares that caught nothing, no showers, waterproofs that weren’t, colleagues trying to be jolly, which made him want to punch them, and thick snow covering everything. Snow, he’d discovered, was not the white Christmas ideal everyone loved; it didn’t make the excursion a fun-laden ski break. Snow halfway up a steep mountain was cold. It oozed through clothing, it made walking difficult, it hid treacherous ground that could twist ankles and break legs. It interred any dead branches that might have been used for a fire. Snow was shit. Now here he was, camping in a cave for what could be years; with a closed-loop waste recycling/food printing system that he really didn’t want to think about. But at least there was no snow.
He walked over to the stack of equipment and switched on the food printer. “Who wants breakfast?”
* * *
—
They took it in turns to monitor the Signal transmitters as they flew toward their allocated radio telescopes. Each of the targets had been chosen because they had a dish that was aligned on the section of space where Sol was located. Positioned correctly, the vessels could use a dish to focus their broadcast back toward Sol—though by the time it had traveled fifty thousand light-years, it was doubtful it would have the strength to be detected. Interstellar gas and the inverse square law would be severe debilitating factors.
Whether anyone would ever detect it became their main talking point. Alik shouldered the monotony of such a circular argument of unknowns as inevitable. He treated it like a stakeout. You didn’t know the outcome, nor even when it would come, so you just waited patiently and tolerated your partner’s bullshit. That was provided by Callum, who’d decided their mission was now pointless.
“Fifty thousand light-years,” he complained. “We expected it to be two, maybe three thousand at the most. We’re past the bloody galactic core here. We can’t even see Sol.”
“The longer it takes, the more powerful humans will become,” Kandara said. “Think how much progress we made in the last five hundred years. And we’ll have numbers on our side. The exodus habitats will expand exponentially.”
“If they’ve got any sense, they’ll head out in the opposite direction. I would.”
“Great idea.” Yuri laughed. “And how do they know what the opposite direction is?”
Callum gave him a glum look.
“We’re committed,” Jessika said. “All we can do now is wait it out.”
“We planned on waiting for a year maximum,” Callum said.
“Before we knew where the enclave star system actually was,” Alik reminded him. “Now we just have to make the best of it.”
“Bloody hell, man, we can’t even go out of this cave.”
“What do you suggest?” Kandara asked sharply. “Go and surrender to the Olyix?”
“We still have a mission,” Yuri said. “Not just a mission—a purpose. When the human armada gets here, we have to show them where the five of us and all the cocoons are. That’s what we focus on; that’s all we focus on. Anything else is crap.”
“A-men to that,” Alik agreed—even though he knew it was all hopeless. A hundred thousand years! Jez-us.
After ten days, the Signal transmitter spheres were closing on the giant radio telescopes. They were just in time. The Salvation of Life was about fifteen hours out from the gateway. More than half of the sensor clumps they’d placed on the arkship’s exterior had been lost. After the Avenging Heretic had exploded, the onemind had dispatched thirty quint in armor suits to scour the hangar for any further signs of human subterfuge. They went into every ship, no matter what condition it was in—a sight that put Alik in mind of SWAT teams busting into nark labs back in the day. Everything was suspect.
The Salvation of Life proved him right about that soon enough. After the search parties departed, Alik perceived the onemind’s orders without any need to concentrate on the disparate threads murmuring away in the back of his head. This requirement was clear and singular. Every ship in the hangar was ordered off the arkship. They were given a trajectory, and in each case it was one that sent them down into the huge star’s corona.
All the activity in the hangar had managed to sever half of the gossamer data threads that had been so carefully laid over many months. Thankfully, several had been laid over the roof, which gave them enough sensor clumps remaining to watch the enclave’s gateway approach.
It was a phantom sphere a hundred kilometers across, surrounded by a swarm of Resolution ships looping around it like electrons circling their nucleus. If it hadn’t been for them, he would never have known it existed. The silver light from the galactic core that shone so flamboyantly off their fuselages shimmered and twisted within the strange forces that defined the gateway’s boundary. It was a bubble of emptiness with a m
onochrome aurora that he couldn’t even be certain was there. But on the other side was the enclave: an area, or state, or realm—some otherplace—that the Neána said was a zone where time passed slowly. Jez-us, I hope to hell they weren’t lying about that.
Its existence generated a satisfaction within the Salvation’s onemind that grew in proportion to its approach.
“Smug asshole,” Alik said as he sat down on the stone ledge he’d claimed as his own.
The bridge enveloped him again. There were fewer data displays now, and the consoles were mostly blank shiny surfaces. Still got the Goddamn blue trim, though.
He reviewed the sparse data quickly. The transmitter sphere’s telemetry was showing him it had used up more than eighty percent of the active molecular blocks that comprised its thick fuselage, losing more than half of its original size.
The image coming from the transmitter’s sensors showed him the vast dodecahedrons washed in splendid silver corelight. The dishes were made up of hundred-kilometer hexagonal segments. He guessed they’d been mirror bright the day they were manufactured, same as human astroengineering structures. But centuries of exposure to space, and the star’s intense light, had abraded the surface down to a dull white, with a few polished streaks remaining on areas where shadows lingered. I wonder how long they’ve been here, listening for radio signals.
“That’s got to be the worst bad luck in the universe,” he said.
“What is?” Callum asked.
“Being a species evolving on a star anywhere near here, the heart of the Olyix crusade. I mean, if you’re living on a planet out where Sol is, at least you’ve got a slight chance. The Neána warning you, time to build a few escape ships, come up with mad plans like ours. But here, it’s an instant response. One minute you’re lifting your head up above the parapet to glimpse the wonder of the universe, then—bam—the next thing you know you’re in a cocoon on board an arkship. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Maybe this is where the Neána came from,” Yuri said. “They were at the same stage as the Olyix technologically, just a couple of light-years away, and saw what they were doing. They’re not warlike, so they ran, and swore to warn any species they could find.”
Jessika shrugged as they all looked at her. “Seriously, all of you. I. Do. Not. Know.”
“Sorry,” an abashed Callum muttered.
As the transmitter sphere drew closer to the radio telescope, Alik could make out flaws in the giant swathes of polished metal. The huge hexagonal segments were warped from thermal distortions so they no longer fitted together smoothly. Some had lifted; others had gently crinkled. Micrometeorites had punched small holes clean through, which had gone on to vacuum ablate, leaving the punctures with ragged edges, as if the surface was rotting like damp wood.
Alik waited while the onboard G8Turing steered the transmitter into position, thirteen hundred kilometers out from the center and off to one side. Theoretically, from there, any electromagnetic emission would be reflected toward the section of space containing Sol, boosting the signal strength in that direction.
“I don’t know about anyone else’s,” he said, “but this radio telescope needs some serious maintenance.”
“You’re lucky,” Callum said. “Mine needs scrapping and replacing altogether. One dish has a hole the size of Loch Ness.”
“This is good,” Yuri said.
“How?” Alik asked.
“It means there’s not much Olyix activity out here. All their ships are concentrated over in the ring and around the wormholes. It’ll take them time to fly anything out here when we trigger the transmitters.”
“Mine’s almost in place,” Kandara told them.
“Jessika?”
“Five minutes. The transmitter’s sensors haven’t found any ships out here.”
“These telescopes are big bastards,” Callum said. “We don’t know what’s in the middle of them. Something has to be watching the receivers.”
“The lack of ships and the state of the dishes is promising,” Yuri said. “We might get away with a full broadcast.”
“Ninety minutes, if we’re lucky,” Callum said. “But it’ll take a miracle for anyone to catch it.”
“They’ll be watching,” Kandara said. “They will.”
Ten minutes later, everyone was in position.
“Salvation is going to go apeshit,” Alik said happily.
“I hope so,” Yuri said. “Stand by.”
Alik checked the transmitter’s position for the last time as the timer counted down. On zero, he triggered the Signal.
The center of each transmitter was a dense sphere of active molecules that formed a dynamic lattice to sequester individual anti-protons. The lattice was designed to deactivate in a long sequence, allowing a full-blown matter/antimatter annihilation, with the liberated energy burst powering a phenomenally powerful electromagnetic pulse. In theory, the deluge would last for ninety minutes.
Alik’s entanglement link to the transmitter immediately ended as its delicate onboard electronics died instantly from the energy bombardment. “Well, something happened,” he said. “Mine’s out.”
The others all acknowledged they’d lost direct contact with their transmitters.
“We’re seven AUs from the nearest Signal,” Jessika said. “It’ll take an hour for us to see what’s happened.”
“If it worked, the Salvation of Life is going to know about it a bloody sight quicker than that,” Callum said. “Every ship and station in this star system has entangled communications. They’ll all know at once.”
Alik closed his eyes so he could concentrate on the thoughts that whispered away at the back of his head. Sure enough, within a minute, one thing rose out of the onemind’s babble to eclipse everything else—surprise and concern. It originated from the oneminds that governed the radio telescopes as they shared their perception.
He concentrated on the thoughts issuing out of the radio telescope his transmitter had reached. A tiny potent star hung above it, burning away at the upper end of the violet spectrum. Below it, the dish helped reflect and concentrate the Signal into a beam that was heading in the general direction of Sol.
“Goddamn, it worked,” Alik said in a tone that betrayed his surprise. We got something right.
“Happy for you,” Kandara growled.
As Alik examined the onemind’s thoughts, he saw four of the Signal transmitters were now intense violet sparks, while the fifth— Something had gone wrong with the annihilation procedure. All the anti-protons had escaped their lattice confinement at once, producing a massive explosion, most of which was in the form of gamma and X-ray emissions—an outpouring of energy that for a brief instant rivaled that of the Olyix star. Already the dodecahedron of dishes was starting to crumple from the rampant flare, the curving continent-sized surfaces melting and fracturing. He saw long cracks tearing open, splintering the dishes even as the surface facing the antimatter explosion started to boil away. Then the closest viewpoint of the disaster vanished from the onemind’s thoughts.
“What happened?” Callum asked.
“My transmitter core got overenthusiastic,” Kandara grumbled.
“Come on, stay positive,” Jessika said. “Four of them are working. If the active molecules maintain cohesion, they’ll last for almost another ninety minutes.”
“But without mine, we’ve lost twenty percent of the broadcast power.”
“There’s certainly enough left to piss off the Olyix,” Callum said contentedly.
Alik had to smile at the furious thoughts churning within the arkship’s onemind. They’d been right about the radio telescopes not having any ships nearby. Eighteen Deliverance ships and eleven Resolution ships were being ordered to divert and intercept the signal generators. But the closest were more than an AU away. Even at maximum acceleration, it would take the
m a couple of hours to reach the radio telescopes, by which time the Signal transmitters would have exhausted their supply of anti-protons.
They carried on reading the onemind’s thoughts until the last Signal transmitter flickered out. In total, the Signal had been broadcast for ninety-one minutes and seventeen seconds.
“It was a good strength,” Jessika said. “Any exodus habitat with a decent sensor array should be able to receive it.”
“A ninety-minute window in fifty thousand years’ time?” Callum said bitterly. “Sure thing. Let’s crack the champagne open and party.”
“Oh, lighten the fuck up,” Alik told him. “You can sense how disturbed the Olyix are. Even if humans don’t pick up the Signal, other species will. Half the galaxy will know something is here. And anyone who’s fleeing an Olyix invasion the way the Neána tell them to will have a pretty good idea who and what that something is. It’s the beginning of the end, man.”
Callum ducked his head. “Maybe.”
Eight hours later, the Salvation of Life arrived at the gateway. The escort ships no longer spiraled exuberantly around it; there was no celebration. The onemind’s thoughts had descended into a dour formality.
The remaining sensor clumps on the arkship’s exterior showed them the barrier approaching—an insubstantial hemisphere refraction haloed by the galactic core, growing until it dominated space outside. Then they were passing through, their passage kicking up a delicate splash plume of silver scintillations.
GOX-QUINT
SALVATION OF LIFE GATEWAY ARRIVAL
I fucking knew it! Those sneaky little human shits put together some kind of dark operation. We should never trust them. Never.
They must have used a Neána neurovirus against the transport ship somehow and subverted its onemind. Just like Soćko did thirty years ago. They flew it into the hangar while we were retreating from Earth. There was a lot of confusion that day. We never did understand why they didn’t attack all our positions simultaneously. They could’ve launched those deadly portal missiles at the Salvation of Life first. Not to destroy it—that would kill too many of their own, and they are laudably sentimental. But they could have taken out the wormhole generator. We would’ve been stranded, all alone. Well, now we know what they were actually doing. Everything about that assault was deliberately chaotic, thousands of our ships fleeing their attackers; even the onemind didn’t analyze the maneuvers in any detail.
The Saints of Salvation Page 30