Trail of Evil

by Travis S. Taylor

  “Enough,” Alexander raised his hand. He looked at his inner circle. His wife and daughter and Boland and Penzington were the only others who now knew the entire story. Did Madira’s bloody means justify the end? Moore didn’t know and he wasn’t the judge, for now. There was still a part of him that wanted nothing more than to put a HVAR round through her brain bucket, but humanity came first.

  “You have something to say, ‘son’?” Madira raised an eyebrow at him.

  “First, stop calling me ‘son,’” Alexander told her. “Second, we’ll worry about your justification later. You will somehow pay for all the deaths. You will pay for the 91st on Mars. You will pay for killing Sehera’s father in cold blood. But not right now.”

  “You don’t think I cry every night about having to kill Scotty? He was the love of my life! He was the father of my only child.” Madira actually looked angry. Hints of the Elle Ahmi persona showed through as the corners of her mouth almost turned up into a smile. “He was starting to do end runs around the plan and could no longer stomach it. No matter how much I loved him, I couldn’t put my love above the survival of the human race.”

  “Mother, there must have been another way.”

  “You weren’t there, child. I’ve wargamed and simulated every scenario down to what I’ve eaten for breakfast every day for the last century and a half. It was the only way for it to successfully play out. I’m so sorry.” Madira’s eyes looked sad. Alexander could see the deep, soulful brown eyes of his wife and his daughter. For a brief moment he almost let himself get wrapped up in her pain and her woeful tale.

  “We’ll discuss your crimes another time,” Moore grunted gruffly. “Right now we have more important business.”

  “You need me and you know that I’m right,” Madira said.

  “We need you. And, I believe that your solution is a viable solution. I don’t know that it is the only one,” Alexander replied. “The way I see it we have maybe a couple years to mount a complete plan. But that may be waiting too long. I’d prefer we strike now, as soon as possible. We need more on the threat. We need more on this Alpha Lyncis colony of theirs. If you have better intel then now is the time to share it. Somehow we have to confirm this intel because it will take a hell of a lot more than a good story from an old lady to convince humanity to invade the first aliens we meet.”

  “I agree that your timeline is right. If we wait until they get here it will be too late. And I do have intel on the Chiata Expanse.”

  “Pending that intel, I’d suggest within a month. And then move on to the next target if we can. I assume you recognize this ship?”

  “Of course I do. I left it for you. This is a good ship. I used it for a few years during the Martian Exodus. Where are the others?” Madira looked out the window. “I did my best to create ships with the best of both Separatist and U.S. technology, plus additions of my own.”

  “We have the others at one of your bot bases nearby. We have taken that system. Forty-four ships, all supercarrier class. We had to, uh, sacrifice three of them,” Moore said with a slight frown.

  “Forty-four?” Madira laughed. “Forty-four?”

  “What’s the joke, Mother?” Sehera asked.

  “Dear, I’ve been bouncing back and forth out here for almost seventy-five years. I have nearly thirty billion clones under my control in this system alone. I built over twenty-five automated defense posts. You think I would only have the one weapons cache?” Madira laughed almost maniacally. “There are two more. The one you found was the first and smallest one I had attempted.”

  “How did you manage that, Mother?” Sehera asked. “That seems impossible.”

  “No, not impossible at all. Not with AICs and bots. I found a paper from the mid-twentieth century by a Hungarian scientist from the Manhattan Project who had the right idea. He suggested that the best way to colonize space was to send robots first to build the infrastructure. Then humanity could venture out and supplies would already be in place for them when they got there. Very clever idea for a time before humanity had ever even been to space. And AI and robots were not even invented yet.

  “I simply sent single AIC-controlled builder bots at maximum hyperspace speeds to fledgling star systems. Once they were there they would start self-replicating using the materials in that system. Once enough replicated they then turned to manufacturing starships. They had blueprints for everything right down to toilet paper in the bathrooms. Have you been to Vega lately? It is one of our backdoor locations. Well, it’s more like a side door, but it was loaded with materials. The bots are having a field day there. There are hundreds of starships being built there.”

  “Hundreds?” Deanna gasped. “We might stand a chance.”

  “Not likely, dear.” Sienna tilted her head slightly and looked at her granddaughter the way an elder does a child. “I’ll download all the Chiata data to you and you will see how outgunned we are. Although I am very intrigued as to why I couldn’t detect your ships and mecha and how you could possibly spy on me without me knowing.”

  “You’re not the only clever one in humanity,” Nancy told her. “We have some tricks even your alien hasn’t thought of yet.”

  Chapter 37

  January 2, 2407 AD

  61 Ursae Majoris

  31 Light-years from the Sol System

  Sunday, 1:35 PM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  Alexander wasn’t sure what he thought of the Copernicus clone body. It wasn’t one from his old squad and as far as he could tell it was very plain. There was nothing extraordinary about it, if you disregarded the fact that it was a human cloned body that an alien entity had somehow managed to download itself into.

  Madira explained that they had taken multiple DNA strands from the clones she had acquired and created a particular one for Copernicus. Copernicus had helped pick the DNA sequence hoping to make assimilation into the body least troublesome. Moore wasn’t sure exactly how they’d managed to do that, but since he’d first met Elle Ahmi what he’d believed could be done had continuously been a moving target. And knowing there was some advanced alien species involved made it even easier to believe.

  “So, you’re not humanoid, uh, I mean you were originally something else?” Alexander asked. The clone body displayed the strangest expression Moore had ever seen. It was clear that the alien didn’t understand facial communication. Madira made no notice of it. Alexander assumed she had been around him enough as to not be shocked by the weird and out-of-context facial expressions.

  “No. Your species would consider us more like your mollusca animals. We were multipedal amorphous invertebrates, and only about thirty centimeters or so across our largest dimension. It was quite strange the first time I entered this mammalian form. But it is not unlike the bipedal warm-blooded creatures we formed a symbiosis with and parasitically controlled for mobility on my homeworld.” Copernicus answer was very animated, with all the hand gestures and facial expressions in exactly the wrong places.

  “Controlled?” Moore was shocked. “Were these creatures sentient?”

  “Oh, get off your high horse, son,” Madira scolded. “They were damned aliens with alien morals. Your Southern values don’t apply here.”

  Alien morals, he thought. That troubles the hell out of me.

  Yes, sir. Abigail agreed. Would a parasite even be concerned with controlling a sentient creature?

  My thoughts exactly, Abby. Sounds a lot like slavery to me.

  “I think I understand your concern, Alexander.” Copernicus appeared to be laughing as he said it. Moore wasn’t certain if he meant to be or not. “But no, the creatures were more like your large primates or maybe bears from your world. They had very dexterous digits that were useful and highly controllable. My people believe that they evolved to become our perfect vessels. But the Chiata killed them. They killed them all.”

  “I see.” Moore replied.

  “Enough with the small talk,” Madira grunted. “We came here to show him tan
gible proof and the type of destruction the Chiata are capable of. So fire up this behemoth and let’s go.”

  “Very well,” Copernicus turned to a large wall that was either a wall screen or a window, because Alexander had a clear view of the large QMT transmission system outside. Sixty-one UM was very small at the Oort Cloud distance where they were, but it was still the brightest star in the sky. Moore realized that he was about to see how the alien had managed to contact Madira across the galaxy all those years ago. What he didn’t get was how he had managed to build this facility by himself.

  Copernicus reached into the clear wall with his left hand and the surface morphed around his fingers like pudding. The clear, glowing substance danced about his fingertips with each movement, sending trails of green light shooting through the image in the window like fireworks. Then the large spires over the central QMT pad of the facility began to spark and glow. A large circle of rippling watery blue light appeared and then flashed like an explosion. There was no sound or shock wave and there was no damage, but the phenomenon left Moore briefly lightheaded.

  “What was that?” He shook his head back and forth to clear the stars from his vision.

  “You get used to it,” Madira said.

  “As you can see, this is my home star system over a thousand light-years from here,” the alien explained.

  “Did we just jump the entire facility here?” Moore was amazed. There was a bright yellow star not much farther than four astronomical units away. If he hadn’t known better he’d think he was back at the Sol system.

  “No, son, we’re snooping on it,” Madira replied. “We ain’t really there.”

  “Snooping?” Moore asked, all the while gritting his teeth wishing that Madira would stop calling him “son.”

  “What she means, Alexander, is that we are in a hyperspace dimension, or more closely to your people’s understanding of modern physics, we are on a parallel quantum membrane peeking in at this one. They can’t see us and we can’t impact them. I have tried many times but cannot seem to connect with the Chiata brains the way I have with the human one. Their brains are quite different.”

  Alexander looked out across the star system. As far as he could see there were glints from the inner star. That meant very large ships or material or asteroids. Moore wasn’t certain.

  “What is all that?” He asked.

  Abby, are you getting all this? Moore thought to his AIC.

  Yes, sir.

  Make note of everything.

  As always, sir.

  “All of those glints you see are fragments of my homeworld or from one of the other planets that used to fill this system. Here, take a closer look.” Copernicus zoomed in to the largest glint. There was a large asteroidal object that had been transformed into some sort of factory system.

  “I don’t get it. Where are the planets from this system? There had to be gas giants, right?” Moore hoped the answer wasn’t going to be what he thought it was going to be.

  “There were seven planets, as you call them here. There were thousands of smaller bodies. The Chiata came here. In only twenty-five thousand years this is all that is left of my system.”

  “Holy shit.” Moore said under his breath.

  “Now you get the picture, son.” Madira slapped him on the back. “They have even taken apart the gas giants for their purposes. They appear to have left nothing standing.”

  “How many of your people lived here?”

  “Well, there were over seventy billion of us, but many of us were able to escape before the invasion. Over forty billion of us died delaying them.” Copernicus attempted to make a sad face.

  “What are they doing here?” Alexander asked.

  “What they always do.” Copernicus turned his head toward him as he continued to manipulate the translucent pudding wall. “They used every bit of resources in this system to support their expansion across the galaxy. As far as can be estimated, the Expanse covers tens of thousands of star systems. We have no way of knowing exactly how many, or if they are all used up like my world, or if they are being inhabited. We only know what the worlds on the edge of the Expanse are like. They appear to prefer to inhabit red star systems. Most of the other younger and hotter star systems on the edge are being used up in this fashion. My many millennia of observation tell me that these metal-rich systems are used to build their war machine and their habitation infrastructure, which must be exceedingly vast.”

  “If you didn’t catch that, son, he’s telling you that the Sol system will be devoured by these bastards just like this system was.”

  “Right, I got that.”

  “Yes, Alexander, I fear your only real hope is to escape. But Sienna has explained to me time and again that will not be your first response. You humans have a propensity to fight, even in hopeless situations.”

  Well, that’s one thing me and the crazy bitch agree on, he thought.

  Oo-rah, sir.

  “Wait, why can’t you just use this device and spy on the other systems deeper into the Expanse?” Moore asked.

  “It can only ‘sling forward,’ as you say, so far. We are close to that limit now. The Expanse is too great.”

  “Shit.”

  “My sentiments exactly, son,” Madira added.

  “Well, can you show me a skirmish between any other aliens and the Chiata? How about these Goothlyears you’ve talked about.” Moore was tipping his hand as to intel they had on their conversations. Madira looked surprised but only slightly so. Copernicus had the ultimate in poker faces in that his expressions were always random or off-cue.

  “Ah, the Ghuthlaeer are indeed in a continuous, bloody struggle with the Chiata, and they would make a great ally, but probably not good, as Sienna says, bedfellows.” Copernicus replied. “Unfortunately, the nearest engagement zone between them and the Chiata is more than another thousand light-years from here. That far exceeds the range of this device.”

  “Well, we need to figure out how to pay them a visit in the very near future,” Moore said gruffly. He hated being at the mercy of Madira and this alien, for all of their important intelligence information.

  “I will think on that one,” Copernicus replied. “But for now, I would like to go back. Seeing this system is more than distressing to me.”

  “I can understand that.” Moore believed the alien was sincerely distraught. Somehow he had to figure out a way to prevent humanity from suffering the same fate. While Alexander had some pity for the creature, he had been through too much shit because of the son of a bitch to start trusting him now.

  Chapter 38

  March 12, 2407 AD

  61 Ursae Majoris

  31 Light-years from the Sol System

  Sunday, 5:55 PM, Expeditionary Mission Standard Time

  “Well, all I can say, sir, is that it is a tactic, or, eh, a strategy that hopefully the aliens haven’t thought of yet,” DeathRay told Alexander.

  “Or perhaps they have long forgotten it or decided it was too small a threat to consider,” Nancy added.

  Alexander wasn’t sure where they were going with the conversation, but after two weeks of studying the data handed over by Madira, he hoped that somebody had come up with a strategy. He looked out the window of the “living room” of the Hillenkoetter. Nancy had been true to her word when she said she was going to make it a home. The lavish Victorian-style furnishings were so different from military style and function that one could almost forget where they were. But the view outside the window immediately brought Alexander back to the reality that he was in a starship over thirty light-years from home and contemplating going even farther out—much farther out.

  Several squadrons of mecha were engaged in combat training and were flying madly about chasing each other’s energy vectors about space. There were mecha squadrons from the Madira chasing others from the 61 Ursae Majoris military. They were learning how to fight together. Moore leaned back in the high-backed green and mauve chair and almost laughed at the con
trast.

  “Okay, okay, what small threat are you talking about?” he asked.

  “We are clearly going to be fighting an asymmetric war with the Chiata. So, we should follow ancient asymmetric warfare tactics,” Nancy explained. “Just like the Afghans did during the war with the Soviet Union in the late twentieth century.”

  “Or the Spartans at Thermopylae,” DeathRay added.

  “The Spartans died, Jack,” Nancy frowned at him. “The American Revolution is a better example. The first Martian Separatist movement is as well. The Boer War between the British and the South Africans is another. There are hundreds of examples throughout history of a smaller force holding off or at least pissing off a larger force. But the point is, General Moore, that we need to strike targets hard, violently, in as visually horrific ways as possible, and get in and get out as quickly as possible. And we need to keep doing it until we make the aliens tired of dealing with us.”

  “Either that or they will decide to accelerate their timetable and eradicate us as quickly as they can,” Moore added. “But the strategies used on both sides at Thermopylae might be of use.”

  “How so, sir?” Nancy asked. “Would you like some more wine?”

  “No, thanks. While I’m off duty right this second, I’m never really off duty.” He shrugged. “To answer your question though, the Spartans, Greeks, Thebans, and the others on the low side of the engagement used a small passage to bottleneck the Persian army so that they couldn’t use all of their might at once. We need a bottleneck.”