Lights flickered and flared in the distance as more and more junk fell out of orbit. The orbital towers had been knocked down long ago, vast pieces of debris crashing to the ground and blasting dust into the atmosphere. Nuclear winter was a very real possibility, along with everything else. He grimaced at the thought. Shipkillers were tiny, set against the immensity of deep space, but on a planetary scale they were utterly devastating. He didn’t think shipkiller-sized nukes had been tested on a planetary surface, at least until the attack on Alien-One ...
“Come look at this,” a xenospecialist called. “I found something!”
Colin followed, trying not to get too excited. The settlement was little more than a hollow shell. The buildings themselves had been designed to survive - the techs hadn’t been able to determine what they were made of - but the contents had decayed long ago. Colin tapped his suit, wondering if some far-future xenospecialist would find the suit and wonder who and what had worn it. Would the xenospecialist be human or alien? Would they even recognise the suit for what it was? Or ... who knew?
“I found a chamber under the building,” the xenospecialist said. She stood next to an opened hatch. “Can we go down there?”
“Me first,” Colin said. He clicked on his suit’s flashlights, shining them down into the chamber. The floor wasn’t that far down, although it looked as though it was going to be a tight squeeze. “There should be enough room.”
He braced himself, then clicked off the lights and dropped down. Darkness enveloped him as he landed. The suit’s sensor suggested the air was breathable, but rapidly becoming less so. Colin frowned as he clicked the lights back on and looked around. The chamber was filled with odd pieces of machinery, all beyond his comprehension. He’d never seen anything like them. Chunks of raw matter, worked into ... into what? A sense of disorientation ran through him. He had to fight the urge to jump up and run for his life.
“I think we’re going to need more people,” he said. “Whatever this is, it’s important.”
“Got it,” Doctor Simpson said. “You let us handle it.”
“No worries,” Colin said. The chamber looked as if it had been designed for children, rather than grown adults. There weren’t many adults who could have fitted into the chamber without constantly scraping their heads against the ceiling. “You’re welcome to it.”
He clambered out, keying his radio to call the ship and make a full report. The major would have to decide if it was worth risking additional marines ... no, it wouldn’t be the major who’d make the final call. Colin’s eyes swept the upper chamber as Doctor Simpson and his team dropped into the lower chamber. In hindsight, it was blindingly obvious that the designers had been child-sized. Colin suspected that they’d never grown higher than a metre.
And none of the known host-races are so small, he thought. What does that mean?
***
Susan was almost grateful to receive the report, even though it threatened to open up a whole new can of worms. She’d had nothing to do, not personally, since the battle had finally come to an end. Her crews knew what to do, leaving her to wait for them to complete their tasks before she could take the fleet back home. She couldn’t do anything else. She knew from grim experience that nagging and micromanaging only slowed things down.
She looked up as she finished scanning the report. “Are you telling me that an incredibly advanced race set foot on that world and ... left behind a batch of their technology?”
Doctor Simpson looked tired and worn. He’d be back on the shuttle now, if Susan was any judge. Landing the research craft couldn’t have been easy. It had probably started to sink in that he might never be allowed back onto the fleet, not without going through an intensive decontamination procedure. And even then ... Susan told herself, sharply, that they hit the planet with a dozen BioBombs. It was unlikely, to say the least, that the virus was in any state to even notice the landing party was there. She’d seen the footage from the infected cities. The planetary ecosystem was coming apart at the seams.
“Yes, Admiral,” Doctor Simpson said. “Their technology is clearly more advanced than ours.”
Susan frowned. “And what does it do?”
“We don’t know,” the xenospecialist confessed. “Our investigations have started to map out some of their systems, but ... we haven’t yet been able to determine what they do. The technology is powered down and we have no idea how to start it up again.”
“And the virus didn’t manage to infect the colonists,” Susan mused. “It certainly didn’t discover how to duplicate the tech for itself.”
“The colonists might not have known,” Doctor Simpson pointed out. “With all due respect, Admiral, do you know how to build a Puller Drive from scratch?”
Susan shook her head. The modern world had been growing increasingly complex for decades. The days in which someone could repair a car with their bare hands or basic tools were long gone. She commanded a fleet she didn’t understand and couldn’t rebuild ... she had to admit he had a point. The colonists might not have understood how their tech functioned. The virus couldn’t have forced them to tell it something they didn’t actually know.
“Point,” she said. She glanced at the live feed from the repair crews. “Can you strip the settlement of everything you can and transport it to the freighter?”
Doctor Simpson blinked. “Admiral, we cannot ensure that the technology will remain intact,” he said. “Moving it may destroy it.”
“We cannot stay here,” Susan said. The remaining settlements within the system were effectively meaningless, at least until the virus started to rebuild, but it wouldn’t be long before the alien reinforcements arrived. “And we cannot guarantee that we will return to this system.”
She rubbed her forehead. There would be political implications, of course. The Great Powers - and their alien allies - would insist on having a look at the technology. Britain couldn’t keep it for itself, no matter how much certain people might wish otherwise. And yet, there was no guarantee the research programs would produce anything useful. The tech gap might be just too wide. Neil Armstrong would be freaked out by a modern-day battleship. Lord Nelson would be completely baffled. It was unlikely he’d even recognise it as a ship. Back then, they hadn’t even had the concept of interplanetary travel.
“You have your orders,” she said. “See to them,”
“Understood,” Doctor Simpson said. “If we could just have a day or two ...”
“Doctor, if a major enemy fleet arrives, we will have to depart the system at once,” Susan said, tartly. “We will barely have time to yank you and your fellows off the planet. If we get caught badly out of place, we won’t even have time for that. Get everything you can move out of the complex and into the shuttles, then launch it into orbit. We just don’t have time for anything else.”
She winced, inwardly, as she broke the connection. She understood his position. Archaeology wasn’t easy, even when humans had built the ancient buildings. It took time and care, painstaking care, to dig the old ruins out of the ground without damaging them still further. Susan had been fascinated, once upon a time, by the concept of studying the past, although she’d never considered making it a career. The future had called to her instead.
Her eyes darted to the near-space display. The fleet was working desperately to patch its wounds and reload the missile tubes before all hell broke loose. Again. Susan could practically feel the enemy fleet bearing down on them, although the long-range sensors were clear. There was probably a cloaked ship somewhere in the system, reporting up the flicker network to the relief fleet. Susan wouldn’t have cared to bet against it. The virus had had enough warning to detach a picket, relying on sensor jammers and decoys to allow the ship to sneak away without being detected. And, so far, she hadn’t located and destroyed the flicker station.
She tapped her terminal. “Set up a command conference to be held in one hour,” she said. If she was any judge, word would have already reached th
e rest of the fleet. She had to head any trouble off at the pass, before it led to problems she couldn’t handle. “And alert me if there are any new discoveries.”
“Aye, Admiral,” Richardson said.
Susan frowned as she sat back in her chair. The boffins had always speculated the virus wasn’t natural. There’d never been any proof, one way or the other. Whoever had designed it, if it was a bioweapon that had gotten out of control, had known far more than humanity about designing bioorganisms from scratch. And yet, if they’d designed and released the virus, they’d either been irredeemably stupid or outright evil. She wondered, idly, if the creators had released the virus on the planet below. Or ... if they’d merely been the first to die at the creation’s hands. She could see why someone might consider the virus an effective weapon. And yet, she could also see the risks of unleashing something that might easily get out of control.
And I may never know, she thought, as she called for coffee and a snack. She had enough time to consider what she was going to say to her officers, by the time their holograms assembled. Hopefully, they’d agree to put the alien artefacts aside until they got back to Earth. The truth may be lost forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“This system appears to be a waste of time,” Staci commented. “There’s nothing here.”
Mitch nodded. It was hard to disagree. The system - it had a number, but no name - was seemingly barren. There were no planets, no asteroids ... nothing of interest, apart from two tramlines. Mitch frowned as he studied the display, silently calculating the tramline’s path back towards the human sphere. If the captured data was accurate, that was the way to go.
And yet, we don’t know for sure the data is accurate, he mused. The virus hardly needs computers to store vast amounts of information.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the display. There could be an entire fleet of cloaked starships lurking in the system, completely undetectable as long as they didn’t do something stupid like activating their sensors. It was possible, but - hopefully - unlikely. The projections certainly suggested the virus would do everything in its power to save the industrial system, yet it was already too late. Mitch didn’t see any point in fighting for a system that had been blasted to scrap, then infected with the counter-virus. The admiral certainly had no intention of trying to hold the system. There was nothing there to defend.
“Deploy two stealthed sensor platforms,” he ordered. “Once they’re in position, bring us about and take us back to the fleet.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Mitch settled back in his chair, feeling oddly exposed. The enemy fleet had to be on its way, but ... how long did they have? The projections were little more than guesswork. He’d seen simulations that insisted the enemy fleet was about to come crashing into the system with blood in its eye and simulations that insisted it would be weeks, if not months, before the virus gathered the power to crush the human intruders. They had to be deep within the enemy’s rear area. The virus might see no point in basing vast fleets nearby. One might as well position warships at Tunbridge Wells.
He snorted at the thought, although it was far more likely to encounter a fleet of starships here than submarines in an inland town. There was nothing stopping the virus - or another race - from sneaking a fleet through the tramlines and hitting a core world or two. The virus couldn’t risk leaving its rear completely bare, even if it was trying to bring everything to bear on humanity’s defences. There would be other ships within range, probably trying desperately to concentrate into a fleet before the human fleet arrived. The flicker network would see to that, he was sure. The virus wouldn’t regard it as a pain in the butt.
“The platforms are emplaced, Captain,” Lieutenant Hannah Avis reported. “Their stealth systems are up and running.”
“Good,” Mitch said. “Helm, take us back to the fleet.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Mitch glanced at the other tramline as Unicorn rotated and headed back to the first tramline. Who knew what was on the far side, waiting for them? A massive fleet? An inhabited world? Or another barren system? He wanted to reverse course and poke his head through long enough to check, but he had to report back to the admiral. She’d send him back soon enough, he was sure. Unicorn was the finest scout in the fleet.
And completely expendable, he mused, thoughtfully. No one will give much of a damn if we get blown away.
He braced himself as the frigate jumped through the tramline. The display blanked, then returned to life as it downloaded a status report from the stealthed platform they’d left behind when they’d jumped. There was no sign of the enemy fleet. He breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t seemed possible that Admiral Onarina and her fleet had been jumped - and slaughtered - while he’d been gone, but the worry had nagged at his mind. They were just too deep within enemy space. He had no idea how hard they’d have to fight to get home.
Perhaps we should consider taking the long way home, he thought. If nothing else, we wouldn’t be following a predictable flight plan.
“Local space is clear, Captain,” Staci reported. “There’s no sign of the enemy.”
“No,” Mitch agreed. “Send our report to the admiral, then hold position.”
“Aye, Captain.”
***
“Unicorn has returned,” Admiral Onarina said. The holoconference was very quiet. “The next system is apparently barren.”
Thomas frowned as he studied the report. Captain Campbell had gone to some pains to remind everyone that he didn’t know what was on the far side of the other tramline, a fact that could hardly have been unknown to anyone on the fleet ... except, perhaps, the reporters. They couldn’t be expected to know anything. His message list was already full of requests for interviews, with long lists of pointless questions he didn’t have the time or patience to answer. A handful made sense, he supposed, but the remainder ... what on Earth had they been drinking? They couldn’t be that ignorant, could they?
He dragged his attention back to the holoconference. “We cannot remain here much longer,” Admiral Onarina said. “Once we have completed the transfer, we’ll head through the tramline as quickly as possible.”
“That will leave us no time to survey the remainder of the planet,” General Sampan pointed out, tightly. “We don’t know what else might be there.”
“And we shouldn’t leave it for the virus,” Admiral Li added. “If it learns to make use of advanced technology ...”
“We’ve removed what we can,” Admiral Onarina countered. “Do any of you think the virus can wave a magic wand, deduce how the technology works and put it into active service?”
“We shouldn’t take the chance,” Admiral Li argued. “The risk is too great.”
Thomas winced, inwardly. The truth, as far as he could tell, was that no one knew what had really been recovered. It could be anything from a secret stash of high-tech superweapons to an alien barrel organ. The xenospecialists were sure they’d unravel the mystery sooner rather than later, but there was no way to be sure. For all they knew, the process of removing the alien artefacts had broken them beyond repair. The facts were clear and yet ... everyone seemed to think they’d recovered something that would win the war in a heartbeat. It was going to be a disappointment when it sank in that they didn’t even know what the artefacts did.
If anything, Thomas thought. We might have stumbled across a patch of alien fool’s gold.
“The conditions on the surface are growing worse by the hour,” Admiral Onarina said, calmly. “We do not have the resources to sustain a position down below and, even if we did, it would be exposed to attack as soon as the enemy retakes the high orbitals. We’ll pull the team up once they’ve collected everything that can be moved, then destroy the site with shipkiller missiles. There will be nothing left for the virus to find.”
“That will not sit well with the politicians,” Admiral Li warned. “They’ll be afraid the mystery aliens pose a threat ...”
�
��They may already have died out,” General Sampan objected. “Or simply progressed to the next plane of existence.”
“If it exists,” Admiral Onarina said. She shook her head. “Do either of you - do any of you -believe we can hold this system indefinitely?”
“No, Admiral,” Admiral Li said. “However, it is my duty to make you aware of the implications.”
Thomas nodded, thoughtfully. There had been a great deal of debate, ever since humanity had first encountered the Tadpoles, over why they hadn’t spotted any signs of far more advanced races. The quest for alien life beyond explored space had turned up almost nothing, certainly no hints of a race significantly more advanced than humanity. He’d read papers that suggested there were no more advanced races, for reasons that ranged from the sensible to the crazy, and papers that argued that superior races regularly transcended into godlike creatures that stayed well clear of the lesser races. He had no idea which, if any, of the theories were actually true. There were standing orders regarding artefacts from more advanced civilisations. None of them included blowing the artefacts up.
Fighting For The Crown (Ark Royal Book 16) Page 24