by R. M. Meluch
“I can’t find the res chamber. This might have been it.” The drone hovered over another amorphous plastic mass. The melted heap was of a size and in a position where one might expect to find a ship’s res chamber.
“Mister Raytheon. Get a drone inside the Xerxes’ displacement chamber. Determine if anyone displaced out of that ship.”
Wraith’s drone found the displacement chamber blackened and scored with a special fury. There was nothing to inspect. Nothing to retrieve.
Romulus was dead, and he’d taken his secrets with him.
TR Steele’s Fleet Marines had a word for this situation: BOWASS.
Bend Over We Are So Screwed.
All the Hive spheres renewed their assault on planet Earth. More spheres arrived. No one alive knew how to stop them.
Augustus glanced from the ship’s chronometer to his own.
Farragut noticed the glance. “Are you waiting for a shuttle, Colonel Augustus?” Farragut asked, cross.
Just as Tactical sang out, “Striker on the grid! Sublighted inside the Solar System, heading ten by three by sixty-six.”
Augustus’ black and red Striker now appeared on the tactical display. Its hatches hung open to the vacuum, exactly as they had when Merrimack abandoned the little Roman ship in the Myriad, a half year ago and two thousand parsecs away.
“You told me your Striker was heading to the galactic hub,” Farragut said.
“So it was. At the time,” Augustus said. “My Striker got far enough and turned around. Here it is.”
Tactical sang out again, and he brought up another display. “See the gorgons.”
The gorgon swarm nearest to Augustus’ Striker moved toward it. Already the gorgons were turning themselves inside out, breaking out their gluies. They mobbed the Striker with the frenzy reserved for the irresistible harmonic.
“Colonel Augustus. What are you doing?”
“Not my doing,” Augustus said. “But it’s not unexpected. I knew Romulus wouldn’t just leave my Striker unsecured in the Myriad. He would either destroy it—he didn’t, obviously—or he would rig it with a booby trap against its possible return to Near Space.”
“You were right,” Farragut said. “He rigged it with the irresistible harmonic.”
Translucent white gluies quickly obscured Augustus’ red and black Striker, and kept piling on.
A shiver roughened Farragut’s skin. Gluies.
“Augustus, your Striker is well and truly finished now. What did it gain you to bring it here? Can I assume you brought it here?”
Augustus stayed maddeningly calm or else he was just sick to death. He said indolently, “Romulus never played enough moves ahead, and he always undercounted the pieces left on the game board. A player begins the game with two knights. I knew I might need to sacrifice one of mine.”
“You’re talking in symbols, Augustus. Can’t you just say what you mean?”
“In terms you can understand, John Farragut, I hit a sac fly. Look for the runner coming in to home. Tactical! See the plot at ten by three by sixty-six. Same vector as my Striker came in, but two light-years behind it. There’s something to be said for redundance, John Farragut.”
Given the precise vector, Tactical was able to locate the FTL object and put its image on display.
The target was a small ship, sky-blue and white, recognizable as a Roman Striker by its waspish lines.
The Striker kicked down from FTL. It wasn’t attracting gluies as Augustus’ Striker was.
Sacrifice fly.
Augustus got the Hive to chase his own Striker while—while what?
“You’re bringing it in a little close, Augustus.”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Augustus said. “I need to get on board that Striker.”
“You know what’s in it?”
“I do. I don’t know if it’s alive. If it’s dead, so are we.”
Farragut ordered Space Torpedo Patrol Boat One to be readied for immediate launch. He ordered TR Steele to report to the hangar deck with a team of Fleet Marine gunners. Full suits, breathers, swords. He invited Jose Maria to come with him, and he charged off the command deck. “XO has the deck and com!”
On board SPT 1, crossing the void from Merrimack to the blue and white Striker, a team of Marine gunners were seated, ready at the guns. The guns were loaded with fragmentation rounds.
TR Steele stood at a porthole, glowering intently at Merrimack. Kerry Blue was back there. The space battleship grew smaller with distance.
Not small enough that he couldn’t see the gorgons. His heart dropped. “Captain!”
“I see it, TR. Pilot, stay the course.”
Merrimack was taking on gorgons.
It took all Steele’s discipline to keep from requesting permission to open fire. Only the futility of it kept him in place.
He wondered if it was possible to choke on his own beating heart.
It was killing him not to be there, with her, repelling boarders.
His only shot was right here. This sortie was grasping at a miracle that he just couldn’t see happening.
The Striker, where they were headed, hadn’t attracted gorgons yet. The Striker was visible by the forward lights from SPT 1.
Farragut nodded ahead at the Striker. He asked the monster patterner, Augustus, “Whose ship is this?”
“This Striker belonged to the patterner Secundus.”
“You knew him?”
“No. Secundus died sixty years ago.”
The blue and white Striker filled the Spit boat’s forward view ports. The pilot pivoted the Spit boat one-eighty and closed in, presenting the Spit boat’s sternside air lock forward.
At Augustus’ clicking request, the Striker formed an opening in its inertial screen to allow the Marines to establish a soft dock between the Spit boat’s aft air lock and the Striker’s only air lock.
Steele knew, because Merrimack had hangared another Roman Striker for way too long, that this Striker’s air lock probably accessed its living compartment.
The living compartment couldn’t be much more than seven by seven by eight feet empty. It housed all the patterner’s possessions. Steele’s own berth on Merrimack was smaller, but Steele had the rest of the space battleship to move around in. He wasn’t confined to his quarters for months on end.
The Marines fixed a short flexible walkway between the Spit boat’s air lock and the Striker’s air lock and pressurized it. Then they withdrew to stand rear guard at their guns on board SPT 1.
Augustus took the point position in the walkway to board the Striker. He shut the Spit boat’s hatches behind him.
He crossed to the Striker’s outer hatch in three long strides. When the pressure gauges read equal, the locks on the Striker’s outer hatch relaxed. Augustus advanced into the Striker’s air lock.
He grasped the handle to the Striker’s inner hatch.
Farragut’s voice sounded over Augustus’ suit com. “What are we expecting to find in there?”
“I’m expecting a dead mess of aliens from the Deep End and a nest of dormant gorgons waking up to devour me. I’m hoping for a Deus ex machina.”
Saying so, Augustus pulled the inner hatch.
The hatch sucked open with a billow of dense, damp, heated air. Condensation formed on Augustus’ bubble helmet.
The Striker’s living compartment had been converted into a tropical biosphere. Green plants dripped. The rubbery trees were breathing. Their black-green leaves hung like rags. Their trunks bent over as they had been forced to grow across the low overhead. Where there was a bed in Augustus’ Striker, there was a pond here. Creatures moved in it.
There was no fear of alien microbes. Terrestrial life made incompatible hosts for alien infection. Basic airborne poisons—carbon monoxide, cyanide, and hydrochloric acid—were rea
sonable fears, but they were not present here.
Augustus spoke into his suit com, “Send Doctor Cordillera over.”
Farragut: “I’m coming.”
Augustus: “If you must. But I need Doctor Cordillera yesterday.”
Farragut and Jose Maria were already suited up.
With the opening of the Spit boat’s outer and inner hatches, the heavy scent of chlorophyll and damp, heated air spilled inside. Moisture condensed on all the surfaces and fogged the portholes.
Farragut bounded out the air lock. “TR! Your boat!”
“Sir.”
Farragut crossed the walkway in three bounds. On entering the Striker, Farragut resisted swatting at the insectoids. The compartment was tight and it was clogged with living things. He didn’t know where to step.
Toad-skinned rays with pulsating, bristling warts trembled and spat at him.
“Friends of yours, Augustus?”
“These are natives of a world deep in the Deep End of the galaxy.”
“No. That’s not possible. The Deep End is plagued with Hive. Nothing lives there.”
Augustus picked up a warty ray. Its lizard tail twitched. Its bristles stood out rigid from its warts. “Life emerges where it can, and it evolves to survive the conditions present. Life on this creature’s world evolved to coexist with a Hive swarm. All the life in here is resonating the Hive harmonic.”
Augustus passed the wart ray to Jose Maria as he stepped in through the air lock. “The Hive mistakes these creatures for part of itself. Doctor Cordillera, you may get the Hive harmonic off of anything in here.”
“You think that can be done?”
“It’s been done. The patterner Secundus did it. It needs to be done again, very, very quickly.”
“Then plug into patterner mode and analyze these creatures,” Farragut ordered.
“No.”
“You’re refusing an order, Colonel Augustus?”
“Yes. If I get the Hive harmonic in my head, I will join the other side. I can’t allow that to happen.”
Jose Maria regarded the wart ray in his gloved hands. “Young Captain, I believe I can analyze the shape of the natural res chamber of this creature, and, from that, perhaps, derive the harmonic.”
“You sound reluctant, Jose Maria.”
“This is so, young Captain. It requires my taking a resonant sounding.”
“Can you do that?”
“Understand that a resonant sounding entails resonating,” Jose Maria warned. “This will provoke the Hive.”
“Odds of success?”
“Better than not doing it,” Augustus answered for him.
Jose Maria nodded assent.
“Go,” Farragut said.
In the instant that Jose Maria took the res sounding, all the creatures inside the chamber made noises of protest. The creature under Jose Maria’s direct observation shrieked. Its warts spat.
“Now what?” Farragut demanded.
Jose Maria wiped the viscous spit off his res reader. “There is a new harmonic in my chamber.”
“Is it the Hive harmonic?”
“I do not know.” Jose Maria stepped carefully over the pond creatures and crossed back to the Spit boat at a run. TR Steele stepped away from the air lock to let him board.
Jose Maria wiped condensation off a porthole to give him a view out.
Through the clear spot, TR Steele could see Merrimack out there, covered in gorgons and razors.
Jose Maria announced loudly, “I am resonating the harmonic that is currently lodged inside my resonator now. And—”
Steele watched the gorgons. Held his breath.
And?
And nothing.
There was no change in the behavior of the marauding gorgons out there.
Farragut barreled through the air lock. His heavy footfalls sent the flexible walkway bouncing in his wake. “Any reaction out there?”
Jose Maria’s answer fell on Steele’s ears like an epitaph. “Negative response.”
Steele glowered out the porthole, his brows lowered, his jaw set.
So this was it. Negative response. End of the world.
By the light of the sun he could see gorgons continuing to clot onto Merrimack.
This really was the Alamo now. Kerry Blue was in there, in that living tomb. And he wasn’t with her. Was she alone? Were her mates around her? Kerry Blue loved her team. God, if I can’t save her, if I can’t be with her, please don’t let her be alone.
He was dumbfounded to hear the captain shouting with a sound like hallelujah. “Jose Maria! You mean it?”
Steele was bewildered. Farragut sounded happy about it. Joyous. Was negative response a good thing?
“Yes, young Captain,” Jose Maria confirmed with a fragile smile.
Farragut bellowed, crowing now: “We are singing with the choir!”
Jose Maria looked to be trembling. “We have the Hive harmonic.” It was the end of a long dark ordeal.
Farragut ordered, “Send the complement of the Hive harmonic. Yesterday!”
Jose Maria made entries into his handheld resonator. As he did, he warned Farragut, “Know that resonating the complement of the Hive harmonic will cause both harmonics to cancel each other out. Neither will exist.”
“That means the Hive will cease to exist?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Near to a certainty. Resonance is the nervous system of the Hive. The Hive is a resonant entity. It cannot exist without its harmonic. Resonance knows no distance. All the Hive swarms on this harmonic, everywhere in the universe, will cease. The ramifications are far reaching. For example, what the absence of the harmonic could do to those creatures in Secundus’ Striker, I could not say.”
All the strange creatures from Constantine’s Deep End world—the bristling little wart rays in their shallow pool, the weeping stalks, the rag trees pushing at the overhead, and the pulsing sponges—all of them were resonating a harmonic that was about to go extinct. Might they die? Might all life on their home world die?
Steele struggled to keep from bellowing, So what!
To Steele’s huge relief, Farragut said, “I’m not doing an impact study, Jose Maria.”
Merrimack was now coated with gorgons so thick there was no making out her spearhead shape anymore. Merrimack was dying.
Farragut said, “If anyone has objections, keep ’em to yourself. I’m destroying the enemy.”
Jose Maria took a breath. His voice came out shaky. “I have it. I have the complement to the Hive harmonic.”
“Kill it,” Farragut said. “Kill the Hive.”
“In my lifetime, if you please,” Augustus added.
Jose Maria paused over his resonator. He looked to be praying.
Captain Farragut reached around him and activated the harmonic.
In the next moment Jose Maria cried, “Dios! Dios!”
THE ALIEN CREATURES INSIDE the Striker’s living compartment shrank, withered, and closed. The plants turned dull and curled into their mud beds.
Part of Steele died. He stared out the forward viewscreen. His heart pounded. It wanted out.
Merrimack was visible only as a gorgon tomb. Nothing of the space battleship herself showed. She looked like a mountain adrift in space.
But something was different. The surface of the mass wasn’t crawling. It wasn’t moving.
Then, like a slow shrug, a crack appeared in the mass. A great sheet sheared off, split. Pieces, they were gorgons, slowly crumbled in the vacuum. Tentacles lazily broke off and drifted.
Now part of Merrimack’s hull showed through the crust of gorgons. The space battleship’s running lights were on.
The American flag broke surface, furled, but still there.
The motions of all the individual gorgons in space changed. Their tentacles dreamily detached and drifted away from their bodies.
Inside the Striker’s swampy compartment, the alien creatures from the Deep End stopped contracting. Slowly, they expanded again, unfolding. They thrust out bright stamens and spread their fins to the compartment lights. The wart rays shed their dull skins. They chirped. They were alive.
The Hive was dead.
Black grit like volcanic ash fell to Earth. Meteors streaked across the skies. Dead gorgons clouded the atmosphere. Earth was facing a climatic nightmare.
Most people considered themselves blessed to be alive to have the nightmare.
Cleanup efforts started immediately. It was a different sort of battle, another scenario for the U.S. Fleet Marines to train for. New equipment was installed on Merrimack to turn back the new threat.
President Catherine Mays publicly thanked Caesar Numa Pompeii for all his assistance during the recent crisis. Numa had given none. She declined any further assistance from Rome and privately advised Caesar that should Roman troops attempt to occupy Earth during the reconstruction, she would personally stab him in the heart with a sword.
Kerry Blue and Alpha Team waded in the little swamp on board the Roman Striker. They crated up the aliens and hovered them as fast as they could to an identical hold on board Merrimack. Orders were to move everything. Slime. Ooze. All. They needed to get it done before Caesar Numa Pompeii could demand the Striker be returned to Roman custody. Numa could lawfully do that. The Striker was Roman property.
The aliens inside it were not.
They got the compartment battened down. Twitch and Dak stood in the hatchway and took a last look inside to see if they’d broken anything in transit.
Nothing floating belly up. A couple of leaves were a little crinkled, but they may have already been that way.
As the Marines turned to go, a wart ray, wallowing in the shallow pool, made a break for the hatchway. Carly pointed, cried, “Get it!”
Twitch and Dak grabbed for the slithery wart ray.
It went airborne.
“I didn’t know they could fly!” Carly cried.
The wart ray came down on Kerry Blue’s head and held tight with its rubbery sides.