“Yeah, I saw that,” said Gonzaga, on one knee beside the laser’s regulator unit that the techs had attached on Phoenix to try and get it to work independently of a hacksaw drone. So far it was running like a dream. “Don’t really want to shoot one, though.”
“Warning shot,” said Lani. “But only if you have to.” She didn’t like it either. The big creatures gathered around them like spectators at a sporting event, fading in and out of the night-time dark with flashes of the laser. Periodically they’d flash back, and those electric-blue displays would be echoed by others, lighting up the lake bottom with what looked like coordinated patterns, before fading to dark once more. Lani had all her marines’ helmet cameras on, feeding the mission progress, and the toulies’ display, back to PH-3 and up to Phoenix. If nothing else, Lani wanted to have a record of it, because the displays were possibly the most beautiful and mesmerising thing she’d seen in her life.
The laser was operated by the rest of Lani’s Third Section, Privates Ram and Berloc, who’d been at it for an hour-and-a-half now, and had a rhythm going that no one wanted to interrupt. Third Squad’s Second Section was helping, led by Lance Corporal Penn, who was somewhat senior to Lani in experience, but deferred to her here since she knew more about water operations. Ram and Berloc had cut an enormous, cone-shaped crater into the lakebed, Ram holding the laser on one shoulder while Berloc pulled the trigger. The crater was now four metres wide at the entrance, and big boulders of sliced and cauterised rock had been rolled aside in great piles amidst the waving fronds of seaweed. Even now, Private Herman emerged from the crater, slowly hauling another huge chunk of rock, as a laser blast from below backlit him in the glare.
“How you doing, Chunky?” Lani asked him.
“I’m good Corporal,” said Herman, heaving the rock toward its pile. Herman had been wounded on Joma Station three months ago in the hacksaw attack that had killed six marines and seventeen spacer crew, including Private Bernadino, whose death continued to leave a hole in Penn’s section. Herman had only been back on full duty for a week, synthetic leg and all, and everyone was keeping an eye on him. “Damn rock’s scratching the hell out of my armour.”
“Yeah, they didn’t think to issue us with rubber gloves,” said Lani, watching her visor-feed from Ram and Berloc, working to free another chunk. “Sheep, what’s your depth?”
“Should be another three metres, Corp,” said Ram through gritted teeth. “I’m gonna make a diagonal slice after this last bit, start working around it to make sure we don’t cut it.”
“If it is what we think it is, it shouldn’t be attached to the surrounding rock,” Lani told him, trying to sound confident. “The last bit of rock should just lift away.”
“Yeah, what do you think old Drakhil put in there to defend his prize?” Gonzaga wondered.
“Maybe the toulies know,” said Lance Corporal Penn, peering into the crater on one knee, directing traffic amongst bubbles and boulders. “If their memory’s as good as those parren scientists say, what’s to stop them from telling perfect stories for thousands of years?”
“Yeah I thought of that,” Lani admitted. “But this was dry land when Drakhil buried it. The lake was a kilometre away or more, the toulies wouldn’t have seen any of it.”
“Way to shit on my cool theory, Eggs,” Penn grumbled.
“Eggs, this is the LT,” came Jalawi’s voice. ‘Eggs’ was Lani’s nickname, for ‘Egghead’.
“Go ahead LT.”
“If we get hit out here, you’re to stay in the water. Phoenix doesn’t have complete coverage of the atmosphere, Aristan could sneak a shuttle in and inflict casualties. If you don’t know what’s happening on the surface, stay in the water and wait for Phoenix to send support.”
“I copy that LT. Think happy thoughts.” Even a jokey instruction, from a Lance Corporal to her Lieutenant, could have gotten her in trouble with some other platoon commander.
“You know me, Eggs,” said Jalawi. He had that odd way of managing to sound both grim and cheerful at the same time, like a man who expected bad things to happen, but was confident his people could handle it. After four years in Phoenix Company, and three years under Jalawi, Lani couldn’t imagine serving under anyone else. “And try to make it quick, huh? I’d like to get us off this rock before Aristan’s friends arrive.”
“Yeah, me too LT.” Why Aristan had not yet sent shuttles down to mess with Phoenix Company’s three deployed platoons, no one had seen fit to inform a marine Lance Corporal. Probably, Lani thought, because Aristan’s marines weren’t anything like Phoenix Company standards… and even more likely, because of the fear that Styx would find some way to mess them up completely if they did. Lani, too, had been on the rock in Argitori, and had seen friends die there. Being fascinated by all things old and science, she’d gotten more positives from the experience than most of her platoon-mates, but it had still been the most terrifying event of her life. Styx had been in command of that terror, on the other side, and this current accommodation with her just felt… wrong.
“Eggs, I’m getting odd sonar,” said Ram, taking a pause between laser bursts to test that. “I think we’re nearly on it.”
“Try hitting it,” said Lani. She wanted to get into the hole personally, but with Ram and Berloc, the laser, mount, Gonzaga monitoring the regulator, and then the power cables and Penn’s section pulling out the rubble, there simply wasn’t any room. “Use a rock instead of your fists, don’t risk your suit.”
The feed from Ram’s helmet cam was confused, a closeup of bubbling hot rock, still cooling, as he handed off the laser for one of Penn’s marines to hold, all crushed together in the deepest part of the hole. Then he unstrapped his big Koshaim rifle, which Lani reflected was probably a better idea than a rock, and held it butt-down against the rock. A sharp blow produced a solid thunk through the microphones, then another. It sounded a little hollow. Then another storm of bubbles, as the rock fractured.
Ram racked the rifle on its back-armour attachment, and then he was on his knees, pulling up a big slab of volcanic rock, and handing it off to someone else. Berloc announced loudly that he’d put the laser on safety standby, to assure all that they weren’t about to be cut in half by an errant move in the crowded space, even as Gonzaga kept the regulator powered in case they needed it again. And then, after several minutes of commotion, terse conversation and teamwork, the camera showed Lani a one metre hole in the rock.
Beneath it was a hollow space. The camera contrast struggled to adjust, until Ram shone a helmet light into it — unnecessary for marines themselves, as night-vision worked better than harsh visual light, but very necessary if anyone looking at the video feed was going to see. The object within appeared round, like a giant ball, considerably larger than the hole. They’d need to widen it considerably to get the entire thing out. It had a ridged ring about the circumference, as though two halves had been joined together. Other than that, it appeared featureless, and utterly black.
“Grafy?” said Ram, with equal excitement and tension. “Whatcha think?”
“I think we should relay this to Phoenix,” said Lani, her heart thumping as hard as it ever had in a situation that didn’t involve being shot at. “And hope that Styx’s encryption is as good as they say, or else Aristan will have a shuttle down here in no time flat.”
Erik stared at the poor-quality image on his side screen, from where he’d temporarily shunted the nav display to see. It looked like a large black sphere, viewed through a small hole in the rock. There was no use asking the regular Phoenix crew what they thought, he realised.
“Styx, what do you make of that?” His orbital window of opportunity was now seven minutes out, and Phoenix was on full combat alert. His mouth was dry and stomach knotted with the tension that came from being at the mercy of events he had no personal control of. Either Charlie Platoon got confirmation that it was the data-core, within the window of opportunity, or they didn’t. Trying to hurry that result from up here wa
s like pushing on the end of a piece of string.
“The statistical likelihood that it could be anything other than the data-core seems improbable in the extreme,” Styx replied. “I advise the marines to be very careful moving it — that sphere appears to be a containment shell, and containment shells of that type are designed to remain functional for very long durations in extreme environments. The technology is drysine, though I am unfamiliar with the exact design. Counter-measures may be installed against tampering.”
“Captain,” came Geish’s call from Scan, “the Corusan is manoeuvring in orbit. It looks like it’s adjusting upward to a higher cover position.”
“Coms!” Eric snapped, his head abruptly full of new trajectory variables. “Relay what Styx says down to Charlie Platoon, I’m about to become very busy here.”
“I copy Captain, I’m on it,” said Shilu, as the bridge echoed in a flurry of activity, each officer intent on their own post. “Styx, I’m going to put you through to Charlie Platoon directly so they don’t miss anything.”
“Well, it’s going to be very hard to get it out of this damn hole without touching it,” Ram said testily, taking his rifle butt to the rock once more, trying to enlarge the hole.
“Physical contact may enable countermeasures,” came the creepy-cool voice on coms. Most Phoenix marines or crew had not yet spoken to Styx directly, though many had heard her voice… if this synthesised projection could be called a voice. No doubt Phoenix command weren’t thrilled with the idea of every spacer or grunt on the ship striking a conversation with her. From what they’d heard, she could probably do that simultaneously. “Physical contact will prove unavoidable, but you should be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Lani asked, on her marines’ behalf. “What’s it going to do?”
“I do not know. I am personally unfamiliar with this technology.”
“Well that’s not very fucking helpful,” Berloc muttered.
Lani wondered if it could contain a nuke. If the entire thing had been a big, elaborate trap, designed to lure the greedy and unworthy down to Cephilae in pursuit of unimaginable riches, only to vaporise them.
Ram and Berloc lined up another laser shot, the regulator powering the main cell with a high-pitched whine that carried a long way under water… and Lani wondered if that was what drew the touli as much as the bright flashes…
“It’s got lights!” Ram exclaimed. “It… look, it just lit up!” On his helmet cam, the black sphere was indeed flashing, small spirals of plain white light, inset on its surface. And now on Lani’s coms registered a new signal, and she sent her suit computer chasing down the frequency… it was short-range and unencrypted, and the suit made sense of it quite quickly.
On her visor coms display, a picture lit up. It appeared 3D, but her visor ignored much of the data to give her a simpler version. There were a lot of flashing lights, pulsating in rhythm, and spiralling patterns.
“Eggs, are you getting this com feed?” asked Lance Corporal Penn in consternation. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s fucking talking to us,” Lani muttered. “This is some kind of message… Styx?” She sent the whole thing, just in case Styx wasn’t reading it. “Styx, it’s giving us this, what do you make of it?”
“It is a code,” Styx said with certainty. Was it Lani’s imagination, or were her synthesised tones not nearly as calm as they had been moments before. Could she synthesise anxiety? And why would she? “The countermeasures are asking you for an access code. There is a countdown timer.”
“A countdown to what?”
“Unclear. I suspect the interior of the containment shell holds a self-destruct. Supply the code, or the data-core will be destroyed.”
“Well we don’t have any fucking code!” Lani exclaimed in rising panic. This wasn’t fair. What kind of stupid alien fool asked explorers from a future age to supply a code from his own age? An age so long ago that even the language they’d spoken had been forgotten in the millennia since? “Styx, tell us what the code is!”
“I do not know.” Definitely there was anxiety there. An absence of the usual cool. “I am a command designation, it has not been my requirement to study such low details.”
“Eggs!” came the LT’s voice, cutting off her retort. “You’re the smartest one in the platoon. Don’t freak out, think!”
“How much time?” Ram asked grimly.
“I do not know,” Styx repeated. “A localised self-destruct will be useless over long durations. I would guess a matter of minutes.”
We can’t have come all this way, gone through all this nonsense with the tavalai, the parren, then all our crazy stuff in Kantovan System, just to lose it all here! Lani stared about in despair, past the dark gloom of the seaweed forest, lit only by the red light of Pashan high above, the toulies momentarily silent in their displays. Why would Drakhil have made these damn things so hard to find, only to punish the first people who were smart enough to find one?
Well… and she stared up at the red-lit lake surface overhead. There were plenty of smart people in the galaxy. Deepynines for one, who knew drysines well, and probably their parren allies too. Other parren, whom Drakhil might have suspected would still be dominant in the galaxy, twenty five thousand years later. Probably he wouldn’t have suspected it would be the tavalai who’d be supreme now… or had been, until displaced by the Triumvirate Alliance of humans, chah’nas and alo…
So how would Drakhil ensure only the right people found it? Well, who would the wrong people be? Drakhil, it was said, had been an intellectual more than a warrior. The great danger of leaving such things as the data-core behind was that the people who found it would use the knowledge it granted for ill. Had Drakhil been the kind of guy who’d worry about that sort of thing?
He wasn’t supposed to be. The machine age had been a horror, and he’d been the leader of the one organic race to support it. Only he hadn’t actually supported it, because he was helping the drysines against the deepynines, and the deepynines were ten times worse. It had been a civil war between the machines, and the drysines had actually been willing to make allies with organic beings, while deepynines had just exterminated them.
Was that it? Was that the great difference in behaviour that mattered most to Drakhil? Had he found the one group of machines who wouldn’t slaughter organics without a second thought, and decided to try and civilise them further? Because if you couldn’t actually defeat a civilisation so powerful, surely that was the next best option?
And now that Lani thought about it, didn’t that pattern on her visor look suspiciously like what the touli had been flashing at her for the past several hours?
“Styx!” she said hurriedly. “Have you been studying the toulies’ communication? I’ve been feeding it up to Phoenix in realtime!”
“I have had more important things to do than consider non-sentient xenobiology,” Styx retorted.
“Listen, what if that’s the code? Drakhil can’t expect us to know some code from anywhere else, it has to be from right here under our noses! The main reason he took the drysines’ side against the deepynines was that drysines actually gave a shit about organics… maybe that’s the test, maybe to find the code you have to give a shit about the organics, and the only organics flashing signals that look like this code are the toulies…”
“I am analysing now,” Styx announced. “Hold all functions, I am diverting full processing capability.”
There was a pause. Lani imagined the techs on Phoenix abruptly concerned when the fabricators in Engineering stopped working, as Styx shifted all attention elsewhere.
“Eggs?” said Gonzaga. “I thought you said the lake wasn’t here twenty five thousand years ago?”
“Sure, but the sun’s phases are predictable, Drakhil must have known it was going to warm up. Which gives this place more camouflage, if he knew the lake was going to rise up and cover it eventually.”
“And so he teaches the toulies a pattern,” Penn said
slowly. “And now… if the data-core plays us the first half of the pattern…”
“Then the toulies should still remember the second half!” Lani completed. It sounded crazy, but the parren scientists said touli could recall binary patterns down to billions of digits with no mistakes. Creatures who stored data in some kind of electrical or chemical binary would probably be incapable of forgetting, and would pass on that code from generation to generation. And on a low-traffic world with few sentient visitors, it wasn’t like the touli of this lake were going to forget some guy who came and fed them a pattern for days, weeks or months on end, even if it had been twenty five millennia ago…
“There is a match,” Styx broke back in, without preamble. “Lance Corporal, you need to find a way to communicate this portion of the message to the creatures.” And the coms display graphic on Lani’s visor began a short, spiralling sequence of flashing lights. “It is only five seconds long, it is buried in your recordings of the creatures’ communications, but they make one reference every ten minutes or so.”
“Shit.” Marine armour came with no holographic projection, they were designed for combat, not alien diplomacy. How did you communicate a visual display to a creature that wasn’t sentient enough to know what modern coms were? “Guys, all lights off! Everything off, I want all their attention on me!”
Behind and about her, all the marines’ lights switched off, plunging the site into darkness, save for Lani’s own lights, and the dull red glow of the mother gas-giant on the water above. Lani abandoned the buoy cable and walked toward the toulies, flashing her lights on and off. It set off a mad ripple of activity, blue-light patterns radiating outward across and about the encircling animals with unmistakable coordination. But they only flapped to hold their position, and made intricate shapes with their tentacles, not showing any fear.
Defiance: (The Spiral Wars Book 4) Page 18