by James Palmer
“So, those are machines capable of eating almost anything and using that mass to create new copies of themselves. They are what is destroying our colonies, not the Draconi.”
Captain Carter’s tough, all-business facade began to crack, her eyes suddenly unsure, fearful.
“Together we might have a chance of defeating them,” said Kuttner. If we—”
The view screen suddenly went dark.
“What happened?”
“Sir,” said Hudson. “The swarm just made contact with the Heinlein. Detecting hull breaches on all seven of its decks. They even chewed right through the defense field capacitors.”
“Receiving a priority message from the Archive,” said Brackett. “It’s Dr. Solomon.”
“On speaker,” said Kuttner.
“Hank,” she said in a fear-tinged voice. “What is going on out there? We here hit by something. And what are those things out there?”
“Helena,” he said as calmly as he could muster. “I don’t have time to explain. You need to evacuate the Archive immediately. Everyone there is in great danger.”
“What are you talking about? Evacuate? Do you know where I am right now? This structure has withstood eons in space.”
“None of that matters now,” said Kuttner. “Just listen to me.”
“Sir,” said Hudson. “I’m detecting stress fractures in the Archive’s outer hull. Its mass is decreasing.”
“On screen,” said Kuttner.
“Commander Hamilton’s shuttle has docked,” said Brackett.
“Good,” said Kuttner. “Tell him to get his ass up here now.”
The screen flickered to life once again, this time showing the Archive. It appeared a bit smaller from being further away behind them, but it looked normal. Then he saw them. Millions of them, crawling over the pyramid’s huge surface like a hoard of dull gray insects.
“Helena,” he said again. “Get everyone out of there. Get them on every ship you have and—”
They watched in horror as the Archive was taken apart right before their eyes, the hull disappearing under the swarm’s attack. The Heinlein wasn’t faring any better.
Hamilton stepped onto the command deck panting, followed closely by Drizda. “Why is the Heinlein here?” he asked.
“To demand our surrender and take me into custody,” said Kuttner. “Get eyes on her.”
The view screen split into two fields, one showing the slowly collapsing Archive, the other displaying the dying frigate is it listed sideways, its hull crumpling inward as it lost integrity.
Cade fired the ion guns, no doubt lashing out against a stray swarm machine that had wandered too close for comfort.
“Mr. Hudson,” he said. “Get us the hell out of here.”
“With pleasure,” sir.”
They felt the thrum of the engines as they powered up to full, and the terrible images they were seeing quickly shrank behind them.
“Destination, sir?” Hudson asked, his hands on the thruster controls.
“Anywhere but here,” Kuttner replied.
Chapter 14
End of the Line
The Onslaught emerged from the Q-gate seconds after entering it, but there was no sign of the carnage they had left. The effect was disconcerting, jarring, even for the ship’s computer, which always took a few seconds to catch up and figure out their new position.
“Hudson,” Kuttner snapped. “Where in the hell are we?”
“End of the Line,” said the navigator.
“Pulsar navigation confirmed,” said Brackett. “We have arrived in Sector 3363. End of the Line.”
Kuttner nodded approvingly. “Good work, Lieutenant.”
End of the Line was what the League of Worlds and its military arm the Solar Navy called the most remote system in human-inhabited space. It was so named because it contained the last Q-gate node. This was as far as the Progenitors got in their exploration and colonization of the galaxy. There was nowhere else for a ship to travel through the quantum network of gates but back down the line. From this remote star system, it would take three thousand years at top speed to reach Earth without using the Q-gates.
Kuttner always imagined some impossibly strange Progenitor vessel setting up a Q-gate, and then moving on at sub-light speed some unimaginable distance away to set up the gate’s quantum-entangled twin, going on and on like that for centuries until they had a grand network of such portals spanning light years. He often wondered if that lone vessel ever gone back through the Q-gate it had just installed to return to its people. Did the crew of that vessel even feel any connection, or bare any resemblance, to the people they left behind?
Kuttner stared at it through the ready room window until he heard movement behind him. He turned and found Hamilton and Drizda taking seats on the opposite end of the table. He gritted his teeth and sat down.
“If only there was something else we could do,” he said. He thought of Helena Solomon in the Archive, besieged by those things. Watching the ancient structure being slowly eaten out from around her. The process would take several hours, even though the actions of the machines had been swift, and the Archive was already starting to fall apart when the Onslaught left the system.
“They would have gotten us too,” said Hamilton. “We need to warn the rest of the Fleet.”
“Fleet be damned,” Kuttner muttered. “It’s like they don’t even care. They already sent another of their own to their doom. The captain…she was just a kid.”
“I know, sir,” said Hamilton. “She died serving the Fleet. Many of us could do a lot worse.”
Kuttner pounded his right fist upon the table. “Well, it’s over and done with now. What have you got for me?” He looked directly at Drizda.
“I believe these machines are molecular dissemblers,” said the alien. “They can break down any material at the molecular level, and then use those individual molecules to build whatever material or structure they need.”
“Like von Neumann probes,” said Hamilton.
Kuttner and Drizda stared at him.
“On pre-Singularity Earth,” Hamilton explained, “there was scientist named John von Neumann. He postulated that we could explore space by building probes that could make copies of themselves from the alien environments they encountered.”
“But these aren’t exploratory craft,” said Kuttner. “They’re on a seek and destroy mission.”
“I do not believe they are being intentionally malevolent,” said Drizda. “It is more likely they are just following their ancient programming. Maybe that programming got corrupted somehow. Perhaps the race that built and launched them died out, and they just kept going, only without guidance from their creators.”
“Or maybe this was their programming all along,” said Hamilton. “They could be like soldiers fighting a war that has been over for eons.”
“Either way,” said Kuttner, “there has to be a way to stop them.”
“Yes,” said Hamilton. “But how can you bomb something that can eat the bombs?” He turned to Drizda. “Any idea how fast these things can replicate?”
Drizda flicked her tongue into the air. “I assume as fast as they need to. They can break down raw materials at a molecular level and turn it into anything they need, probably within the space of several minutes. With each individual unit capable of reproduction at that speed, we’re talking exponential growth.”
“And I had Hudson do some course extrapolation,” said Hamilton. “They’re heading for the heart of League space, probably Draconi space too.”
“They’ll decimate our forces,” said Drizda. “All life in the galaxy is in danger.”
“Did you find that piece of the Progenitor puzzle you were looking for?” asked Hamilton.
“I have the necessary data,” said Drizda. “But I still need to go through it.”
Kuttner nods. “Get to it then. Let us know as soon as you find something. Hamilton, you and I need to find someone at the Admiralty who will lis
ten to reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“They didn’t send a frigate after us because I’m late for my retirement party,” says Kuttner. I think we’re a fly in someone’s ointment.”
Hamilton thought for a long moment. “Who did you tell about Drizda’s presence on board?”
“Just Admiral Sheldon,” said Kuttner. His eyes grew wide. “I called her while you were down on Verdant. She’s been getting de Gray treatments.”
Hamilton arched his left eyebrow. “Pretty expensive, even for a Fleet Admiral. You think someone’s paid her off?”
Kuttner nodded.
“What else?”
Kuttner rubbed his stubbled chin. “I expected her to tear me a new one. She just shrugged it off, told me to go on to Zephyr as if nothing happened.”
“That is odd,” mused Hamilton.
“You think the higher ups in Fleet have been compromised?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Hamilton said. “What if they’ve known about these things all along? And what if they want to make sure no one else does?”
“Why would they do such a thing?”
Hamilton shrugs. “What could technology like that be used for?”
Hamilton’s blue eyes grew wide. “It would be the perfect weapon. Especially against the Draconi.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know how that would be,” he says. “Boy, Special Operations would love to get their hands on something like that. I’ll bet their funding really took a nose dive after the treaty with the Dragons was signed.”
Hamilton snapped his fingers. “That’s it. It’s got to be.”
“What?”
“I need to make a call.”
Hamilton nodded once. “All right. You can use the ready room. I’ll give you some privacy so you can call your old girlfriend.”
Chapter 15
Old Wounds
The chime of her tightbeam receiver woke Leda Niles from a troubled sleep. She got up as quickly as she could and padded across the room to answer it. She rubbed sleep from her eyes while the viewer warmed up, and stared at the security glyphs floating in the sea of decaying tachyons. Whomever this was from, it was important.
She sat down at the desk and opened the channel. “Yes?” she said sleepily.
A three-dimensional face coalesced from the quantum chaos. She wasn’t surprised to see that it belonged to Lt. Commander Noah Hamilton.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you, but this is important.”
Leda nodded, rubbing her left eye. “I’ve been reading of your exploits. You’re becoming quite adept at disobeying orders.”
“We have good reason,” said Hamilton.
His face looked cold, fearful. All thoughts of sleep left Leda’s mind.
“What the hell is going on, Noah?”
“I wish I knew, Leda. We answered a distress call, and now suddenly we’re in the middle of an interstellar incident. Listen, I’m going to send you something, and then I’m going to ask you a question about it. I want your honest answer. And I don’t want to hear about security clearance or protocols.”
Leda nodded, and Hamilton punched a series of keys on his end. His image was replaced by a snippet from the Onslaught’s visual log. It showed a Navy vessel in orbit around a blue-green planet. Suddenly a swarm of small, strange craft descended upon the ship, like ants on a bit of food dropped at a picnic. Her mouth opened wide as the craft seemed to devour the ship right before her eyes.
The image froze, and Hamilton’s face reappeared.
“You got away from those things?” she asked.
“Barely,” he said. “We think they’re some kind of ancient, extraterrestrial von Neumann machines. Have you ever seen anything like them?”
Leda chewed her bottom lip. “I’ve heard rumors,” she said. “Unconfirmed reports from Oort cloud miners and vessels probing the fringes of explored space. But it’s nothing more than hearsay.”
“Let me guess,” said Hamilton. “Ships and mining colonies going missing. Not destroyed, just gone without a trace.”
“Something like that, yes,” said Leda. There was also the thing in Silo Six, she thought but didn’t say. She wasn’t sure if Hamilton knew about it from his time in Special Ops. She didn’t know much about it herself.
“Are you recording this?” asked Hamilton.
She gave a small grin. “What do you think?”
Hamilton smiled back. “Good. Download the video I gave you and put it someplace safe. I have a feeling it must might get us out of hot water with the Admiralty.”
“What do you mean?”
Hamilton rubbed his face. He looked tired. “I don’t know. I think someone high up is intentionally trying to sweep knowledge of these things under the rug.”
“That’s insane. Why?”
“So they can blame the missing colonies and ships on the Draconi and restart the war.”
“Why would anyone want another war with the Draconi?” she said. “Noah, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’re telling me,” said Hamilton.
“We’re talking about a conspiracy within the Solar Navy,” she said. Leda had served proudly since her eighteenth year, as had her father before her. The thought that a portion of this proud organization could be corrupt was inconceivable.
“Yes,” said Hamilton. “The same Solar Navy who blackballed me and kicked me out of Special Ops when I started asking legitimate questions, exiling me to this used up rust bucket.”
He looked down at something, apparently self-conscious about what he’d just said.
Leda felt a frisson of guilt. If she had spoken up, helped him, or had just gone to bat for him with the Admiralty. But she had her own career to think of.
“I’m sorry, Noah. I—”
Hamilton held up a hand. “It’s all right, Leda. I was angry at first, but I know why you did what you did, and if I were in your shoes I probably would have done the same. This isn’t about that. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about us. This is about the future of life in this quadrant. Leda, while we and the Dragons are blaming each other for the destruction of our colonies, those things are out there eating every form of life they encounter.”
Leda steadied herself. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need you to find out everything you can about who’s involved in this. Off the record.”
“What are you going to do?”
Hamilton looked away for a moment, as if lost in thought. “I’m not sure yet. We’re looking for a way to stop these things. I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.”
Before Leda could say another word, Hamilton cut the connection, leaving her alone in the dark, her mind racing with unsettling thoughts.
Chapter Sixteen
Drizda
Drizda had been studying her slate for several hours, and the lines were beginning to run together. She blinked her nictitating membranes a few times, then squeezed her eyes shut. There was a rap on the door, startling her.
She sat there silently, unsure of the protocol. Her kind simply entered a room when they wanted to come in.
“Enter,” she said finally.
The hatch opened and Commander Hamilton stepped through the portal, a smile on his face. Drizda stared up at him. She was amazed at the sheer range of facial features of which humans were capable. She still couldn’t read them, even while she recognized their import.
“Hello, Commander,” she said.
“I thought you could use a break,” said Hamilton. He tossed a metal tube onto the desk in front of her.
“What’s this?”
“It’s what passes for food aboard Navy ships,” he said. “It’s kind of like meat. It doesn’t taste that great, but you can live on it.”
Drizda picked up the tube and opened it, sniffing it carefully before putting it to her mouth and squeezing its contents onto her tongue.
It wasn’t the freeze-dried insects served aboard Draconi vessels, but it was passable.
“Thank you, Commander,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Any luck?”
Hamilton gestured to her slate, and she took it up again, holding it so Hamilton could see.
“What am I looking at?”
“These are Progenitor glyphs,” Drizda said. “Before I could begin searching the Epics for references to these swarm machines I had to reintroduce myself to their written language, which as you can see is very complex.”
Hamilton nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. Any luck?”
“Yes. I’ve been able to reacquaint myself with it quite easily. Now I’m going through the Epics to find that familiar snippet that I believe refers to these von Neumann machines.”
“The Epics are huge,” said Hamilton. “Without having a particular word or phrase to search for—”
“I have to go through it line by line, yes.”
Drizda stared at the lines. The Progenitors had apparently communicated physically using musical tones, described by one of her teachers as an eerie piping over a wide range. At some point they developed a written language, a complex method of sharing not just individual words but thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Hamilton sipped his coffee. “An instructor told me once that the Progenitor Epics have more in common with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony than Homer’s Iliad.”
Drizda nodded her head once, trying to mimic the action she’d seen the humans perform. “I’m not familiar with those works, but if a symphony is akin to one of our war hymns, I’d say your analogy is correct.”
“So what have you found out?”
“Not much so far,” said Drizda. “I’m isolating bits of the Epics that speak of various events in their history and tagging them so I can tell them apart. The Epics are more like one long piece of literature, or a song that gets passed down from one generation to another, each generation adding lyrics to it as they go.”
“Wow,” said Hamilton. “No wonder they’re so large.”
“I’m moving through it more quickly now. I’m up to what the Progenitors referred to as the Crystalline Age. I just wish I knew a time frame for their encounter with the swarm. Looking for the reference I need is like pinpointing a particular nucleotide sequence in a strand of DNA.”