by E. D. Cask
“So there is a possibility that one type of energy beam is effective against these things?”
Possible. Following that ship in the vids and tracking that beam to see if it affects any other ship.
Sam asked, “Are there any vids of them being destroyed?”
Not by weapons. Many are destroyed by their kinetic energy on shields and ships.
“Is there a mother ship or central command?”
These seem to behave as a swarm. I have discerned no command structure. Only coordination of attacks. A statistical analysis on communication shows that every ship is as likely to give orders as receive them.
Josh spoke up, “What attracts them? What causes them to attack one ship over another? What happened at the first interaction that started all of this?”
I do not have data of the first interaction.
“That doesn’t make sense. Why not?”
I do not know.
Josh got up. “I am going to ask the Natix about that.” He stalked out of the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Motive
Josh found out where Ab was staying and knocked on her door. After a pause, the door opened. Her room looked very different from their dorm. It looked as if she had brought fabric and other decorations down from her ship. It smelled spicier, like cinnamon now, too. He looked around.
“Moving in?”
She looked startled to see him. “Yes, no. I don’t like gray. I wanted to bring some color down here for as long as I am here. Please come in and sit.”
They sat on a pair of low chairs that were similar or the same as the ones they had sat in when they had first met. She looked him over. He was still moving stiffly and looked tired.
“Can I offer you some kav?”
He drew back. “You want to act as if none of that just happened? Fine.”
“I do not know what you mean? None of what? Do you mean the Mortbatalo?”
“Of course I mean that.”
“You were magnificent. You filled me with desire.”
He stood up. “Don’t say that. I killed a man because of you people.”
“You killed more of us in the first battle.”
“But that was war, it’s different.”
“How is it different? Death is death.”
“You know that isn’t true or you wouldn’t always be talking about honorable deaths.”
“You are right. I was only talking about honorable death. But they were honorable deaths in both cases.”
“Not to me. I killed a man in cold blood to prevent all of those suicides.”
She frowned, “Suicides. Nobody…Ah, you misunderstand. We were honor bound to die.”
He looked shocked. “You, too?”
She smiled sadly. “Yes, it would have been a pity to leave this early, but I could not stay and have any influence with my people.”
He dropped his gaze. “I didn’t know that. I might have…” He stopped.
She said gently, “Do you take death this lightly?”
He recoiled. “Lightly? You are the ones who kill for a slight to your honor.”
She tilted her head, “But death can be glorious and honorable. We hold an honorable death in high regard. You seem to shrink from such a death. I thought it was because you were weak and frightened.”
“I am not weak and…We hold life as more important than death. But this is not why I came to talk to you.”
“Oh?” she smiled.
“Tell me about the first battle with the Svarmo.”
Her face fell. “There is nothing to tell. They attacked us.”
“Then where is the vid?” He looked at her and waited.
“Let me get you that kav.” She got up and puttered at a small refrigerator sized device. It had various nozzles and buttons and doors. When she had programmed it and placed a mug on a tray, it poured coffee into the mug. She filled another mug and took them back to the chair. She gave one to Josh and settled back into her chair with the other. In spite of himself, Josh was fascinated by her, her movements, her scent. She infuriated him sometimes, but, wow, she attracted him, too.
He smiled and sipped the coffee. “Very nice. We had similar devices for coffee in my time, but they are much smaller.”
She laughed. “That machine makes just about any food or drink I desire. There are some limitations, though.”
“And yet you still manage to stay thin.” He smiled.
Her eyes flashed. “You believe I am…skinny?” She stood and pulled off her jacket and showed him her muscular arms, then started to take off more.
He stopped her. “Please, Ab, I meant it as a compliment. In my time, women only wanted to be called thin. Please accept my apologies. I know you are perfectly beautiful.”
She calmed down and sat abruptly. “In space it is easy to become too thin to be a good mate. We have to work hard to keep fat and muscle on our bodies.” She shuddered. “We call it the velkanta. We have lost many people and many babies to it.”
Gently, Josh put his hand on hers. “I am truly sorry, but we are off topic here. I asked—“
“You apologize too much.”
“It is my way. Now, back to the first battle. Why do you keep avoiding it?”
“I lost my father in that first battle,” she said softly.
“I’m s…” He cleared his throat. “Yes, you mentioned that, but why are there no vids?”
She shook her head quickly.
“Tell me.”
“You will think less of us…of me.”
“Do you imagine I will like you more knowing you are hiding something?”
Ab took the mug and inhaled the aroma. She seemed to take comfort and strength from that. “This was my father’s favorite blend. The tech who designed it received many rewards.”
“Tell me.”
She began to talk, reluctantly: “We were mining on a dark moon of a planet far away from here. We found a cenotaph…or some structure that was made by sentients. This was the most amazing discovery that we had made in centuries. It was the first time that we had found actual physical evidence of alien presence in the universe. We had been chasing signals or other research for centuries; trying to find the perfect world or advanced society. The universe turned out to be more empty than our best scientists had predicted. So when we found this structure, we were elated. We began an archaeological dig. Why did someone build a structure on a barren moon? We had almost passed it by as uninteresting, but Amiko, our AI, caught a tiny anomaly. We spent the first months recording and deciphering the writings.”
Josh was startled, “There was writing on it?”
“Yes, writing in many different methods; the same messages repeated over and over. None of the messages were in any known language, but there were pictographs also. The creatures were strange, but the message was the same. It was still difficult to decipher. There were many Mortbatalos among the scientists as they fought over the meaning.”
Josh shook his head in disgust.
Ab continued. “Finally, a consensus emerged. This was the burial place of a great weapon. The people who harnessed it would rule the universe.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would someone—“
Her eyes flashed again. “Do you mock our way? That is what we determined…most of us.”
“So obviously, the losers of the Mortbatalos thought something else. What did they believe…enough to die for?”
She sighed. “They said that it was a warning of a weapon that would destroy the universe.”
“What happened next?”
“My father had great dreams of returning to Urth in glory and power. He took a crew of miners and soldiers down to open the structure. It was recorded for historical purposes. As soon as his team opened the wall, I was conscious of a wave of future danger. I called him and warned him, but he was too headstrong to listen. He told me that he was prepared to deal with any weapon they would find.” She broke down.
Josh sat ther
e awkwardly, not knowing what to do. He would have been helpless in either culture. He patted her hand and debated whether to hug her. Did they hug in the Natix culture?
“What can I do?” he asked.
“Hold me,” she sobbed.
He moved over and took her in his arms. She turned him and sobbed into his chest. He held her gently, trying not to think illicit thoughts while a beautiful, bald woman cried in his arms.
She calmed down and leaned back. He started to get up, but she stopped him. “I shed tears to honor my father, but also in pity for myself. I have had to be strong for many years since that day. My people needed me and I placed my feelings in a box that you opened. It is my gift to you.”
Josh really felt awkward now. Was this some kind of mating ritual? He spoke haltingly, “I accept your gift. Thank you for honoring me.”
She looked up at him and laughed. “You are uncomfortable. Why?”
“I don’t know your customs and, truthfully, I am not good around beautiful women in any time period. I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I feel like a…youngling around you.”
She laughed again softly. “You are capturing my heart, Josh.”
“You have already captivated mine.” He leaned in for a kiss and then stopped and blushed.
She smiled and reached up and pulled him to her lips. It was amazing. He felt like he was in heaven. They stayed like that for a moment or a month and then he pulled away and looked at her.
“That’s a relief.”
She wrinkled her nose and tilted her head.
“I mean that you kiss in your culture.”
“We do a lot more than that in our custom.” She grinned mischievously.
He blushed again. “Uh, that was nice, for now.”
She frowned and sat up, but continued leaning into him. “I must tell you of the rest. But I will draw strength from you in this.” She took a deep breath. “I was watching the vid feeds. I sent a warning to the rest of the fleet to prepare for battle. After they had broken into the final room, past all of the other barriers and warnings—”
He took a breath to ask a question, but she placed two fingers on his lips.
“The lights of the miners shone on a vast room of rocks. My father was displeased. He was expecting planet destroying missiles or something. They continued exploring and then I felt something change. I warned my father and his team, but it was too late. The lights or breaking a seal or something caused the Svarmo to awaken.”
“Duumai has a theory that they are charged from light and other energy.”
“Yes, that explains some things. I noticed our threat change and warned the fleet again. I sent fighters down to help, but the Svarmo annihilated every living thing within that room and then swarmed out of the hole and destroyed the fighters. We lost many fighters and a few of the slower ships that day. We have been fleeing them ever since.”
Josh squeezed Ab’s shoulders. “Thank you for telling me. This might help us. So this is not a race, but a weapon?”
“That is all we know.”
“Were you able to decipher the message?”
“Not all, and we translated it incorrectly anyway,” she said bitterly.
“Could you send that information to Duumai?”
She bristled, but then thought for a moment. “I will have it done. We have failed.”
“No, not at all. You have survived in a hostile universe. That is reason for celebration.”
She shook her head. “We are a proud people. I had to use every trick I knew to get us to come here. Many people wished to just fight and die with honor, but I wanted to preserve some remnant of us. I had hope in the future.”
He took her hand. “We will have hope in the future together. Together, I mean both of our peoples together. We can figure out a way to capture these Svarmo again. The people who entombed them before were able to do it, right?”
“Yes, that it true.”
“Ab, I need to get this information back to my team. We are still trying to figure out how to fight these things. Can you have someone send the vid and the messages to Duumai?”
She nodded sadly. He gave her a quick kiss and left.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Svarmo
By the time he made it back to the holodeck, Duumai was already showing the vid. The guys were watching in horror as the swarm of rocks smashed everything and the vid went black.
“These seem to be an engineered or discovered weapon of massive destruction. The Natix found this room behind all sorts of warning messages. We still don’t know if they are biological or mechanical. It’s possible they are some kind of AI that was dormant for millenia. Duumai, do you have the messages they found?”
The display showed nine different message sections in different characters and symbols. The easiest ones to focus on were the pictographs. They were obviously small pictures, but it was difficult to understand what they meant. There was a drawing of a planet being destroyed by a large rock. The rest were more difficult to decipher.
“So these things can destroy planets?” Fred asked.
Josh nodded. “Apparently they did decipher the message enough to get two different interpretations. One was that this was a weapon that could conquer the universe and the other was ‘Do not enter’ this weapon could destroy the universe.”
“So one of these signs must mean danger,” Sergei said.
“I guess, but this gets us back to the primary objective. These don’t seem to be sentients that can be reasoned with. This is a weapon with one mission: destroy all living things. How do we stop a massive kinetic smart planet?” Sam stated.
They all gazed at the vid. Josh was frustrated and upset. What was the answer? Several of the guys brought up ideas, but they wouldn’t solve the problem, they were only small tweaks.
Josh stood and stretched. “This isn’t working guys. We need a big idea. Like some way we can throw a planet at them or a star or something. There doesn’t seem to be a solution for defeating them with the tech we have.”
“Then how did crazy, ancient alien race get those things into a warehouse?” Sergei asked.
“And if they did that, why didn’t they just destroy them in the first place. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Guys, we need rest. Let’s concentrate how to stop or divert them rather than trying to answer the mysteries of the universe.”
Josh walked to the dorm and tried to sleep, but tossed all night. He alternated between thoughts and dreams of Ab, nightmares of large rocks smashing him, and Galaknovo dying under his hands.
When the wakeup bell rang, Josh groaned and turned over. He didn’t want to face the day, but Sergei gave a cheery good morning and stomped off to the san. When he came back he was whistling.
Josh glared at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Sergei laughed. “Come eat and I will tell you. I had big idea.”
Josh groaned again and began to get dressed.
When they had all gotten their food and were sitting at the table, Josh looked at Sergei and nodded.
“Okay, I had big dream.”
They all groaned.
“No, really. Okay, fine. Here is big idea. Josh almost said it yesterday. We get them to fly into star.” He stopped and looked at them all with a big grin.
“That’s it?”
Sergei shrugged and waved his hands, “The rest is details. We know how they communicate, so we hack their comms and send them to the sun.”
Nick scoffed, “You think these smart rocks are stupid enough to fly into the sun?”
“And what if they change or encrypt their comms?”
Sergei laughed. “Like I said. I had big idea. You fix details.” He started eating his food with relish.
They all stared at him. Josh shrugged and started eating. He tossed the idea around in his head. It was brilliant, but not very practical.
As they were finishing up, another team leader came over to the table.
“Josh,
what’s going on? What’s the plan? No fun being in limbo. My guys are hearing all sorts of rumors about this Svarmo threat. What are we supposed to do?”
“Why are you asking me? Leave me alone,” Josh snapped at him.
Taken aback, the man tilted his head at Josh and walked away. His clan stared at him.
“Just stop it, guys. I’m sick and tired of being the go to guy for everything. This team is exhausting enough. I don’t want to be responsible for any more…” He dropped his head as he thought of Bob and Alex.
Sam cleared his throat, “Josh, we don’t understand all that you have been through, but we needed you. Before you got here, we terrified.”
Sergei lifted a finger.
Sam cut him off. “Okay, most of us were afraid. Every day was a blur of orders. We existed, but our lives had no meaning.” He blushed, but the other guys were nodding.
Larry leaned forward. “What he’s saying, I think, is that having a good leader gives purpose to our being here.” He waved toward the other tables. “They need that purpose too.”
Josh was embarrassed. He had only been thinking of his problems. They were all in the same situation. Scared and alone in their thoughts. He looked around the table. The guys were all looking at him expectantly.
Josh sighed, “Okay, let’s call a meeting.” He looked around. “Is everyone here? We might as well start.”
Sam stood on his bench and yelled at everyone to sit down, they were going to have a meeting. When everyone was settled, Josh stood up. There was a round of applause.
Josh frowned. “Stop it, guys. I don’t want to be reminded. The enemy seems to be an engineered weapon that has one mission. Destroy all life.”
There were murmurs in the crowd.
“We are trying to figure out a way to stop them, but they’ve been following the Natix for years. I think it would be helpful to find shelter on Earth. Could we have each team work with Duumai to find caves or shelters where we and everyone can hide as a last resort? We need more info about the people left on Earth—-how to communicate with them and how and where to hide them, too. Eventually, you will need to actually explore the likely places to make sure they will work. You will also need to cache supplies. While you work on that, we’ll work on our big idea.” He winked at Sergei.