Frozen Sky- Battlefront

by Jeff Carlson

  The sunfish believed in courage, wits, and little else. They were unforgiving. Harmeet was softer. She hated the sin yet loved the sinner. Let go and let God, she said. She believed in the intrinsic worth of the clay and in a divine hand that shaped them and ushered them through their lives from the cradle to the grave. She spoke, somehow, of free will and destiny intertwined.

  Vonnie wasn't religious. What she liked most about Harmeet's faith was Harmeet's serenity, which reminded her of the sunfish. They didn't waste energy on worrying or guilt. They regarded many aspects of their existence as inevitable. So did Harmeet. Vonnie envied their composure even as she struggled to change the future.

  Harmeet might have said Vonnie's struggles were her fate. Vonnie saw herself as refusing fate.

  She'd slipped her chains.

  Alexis Rose Vonderach had traveled to Europa under a restrictive and detailed set of orders. She'd also had private goals, although her goals had been innocent. Half-consciously, she'd wanted to get away from her family. At the forefront of her mind, she'd liked the idea of becoming famous and earning her father's approval.

  Mostly she'd volunteered for the mission because she loved a challenge. That was why the ESA selected her. She put her work above everything else. She hadn't been politically or socially active. She had been a little quiet and a little shy, still a girl at thirty-six, too good with machines and math to need many friends. The possibility of fame had been like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. They must have thought she would follow any command.

  She hadn't taken long to assert herself. A Catholic upbringing had instilled her with a powerful moral compass. The more deaths she'd seen and the more deaths she'd caused, the more fiercely she'd questioned Berlin's objectives.

  She was a late bloomer but she'd matured. That was the most complimentary word for what had happened to her. A frank, veteran poise had filled her heart, darkening it. She was battleworn. Their failures had taken most of her innocence. Maybe she would accomplish more now that her heart was colder... though not too cold.

  She hadn't forgotten her passions. She still felt enthusiasm and wonder. Deepening her relationship with Ben, befriending the sunfish or exploring the remains of their empire could lift her spirits from the blackest despair. The woman who'd laughed in excitement while learning an alien language was alive inside her.

  She was also cynical as hell. She was more volatile in her convictions. She'd screamed curses at Peter when he decided not to fire on the PSSC; she'd deliberately erased the personality and memories of her friend Choh Lam, the human-based AI inside Probe 114; and she had done everything she could to help the tribes.

  Her critics said she was an idealist. She didn't think anyone was a saint.

  Earth's leaders placed no value on the individual lives of sunfish because the sunfish were so numerous. They were low-tech, low-information creatures without faces or skin color or normal voices. To a certain mindset, that made them interchangeable.

  Astronauts and soldiers were worth more because their training was expensive, but the big ticket items were spacecraft. The cynical part of Vonnie was glad their material costs had been steep. Money and power were Earth's motives to fight, and it was the forfeiture of money and power that would guide them to peace.

  The FNEE had lost two ships, an automated tanker, their hab module, all of their scout suits, all of their mecha and nearly all of their supplies.

  The ESA had lost two ships, three modules, one lander, most of their scout suits, most of their mecha and support vehicles, and the lion's share of their food, gear, meds and ordnance.

  They were down to the wire.

  They would have been compelled to leave Europa except the cease-fire was predicated on a "mutual reduction of forces" near the PSSC camp. That meant the Americans would leave their site and the catacombs they'd searched for months. In any case, those catacombs were barren.

  More to the point, the Americans were no match for the PSSC. The decision had been made for NASA to join the survivors of the ESA and the FNEE.

  Saving face, Washington touted this consolidation as a fine deal with many benefits. NASA would gain access to the sunfish of Top Clan Thirty. Their labs and genesmiths could provide new scientific gains. Most important, they'd put some distance between themselves and the armed camp of the PSSC... but while the allies played a shell game with their resources, Chinese mecha were digging toward the Great Ocean.

  Vonnie supposed the allies had no choice except to reorganize. NASA had also taken a beating, losing one ship, two tankers and four spy sats.

  Even the PSSC paid a price for their victory. Their destroyer, the Dongfangzhixing, had been struck by a Japanese hunter-killer that tore open its belly, causing extensive damage if no casualties.

  The reality was that the People's Supreme Society of China had enjoyed a position of strength on Europa before the fight. They continued to hold the upper hand. Everyone knew it. Safe at home and far away, Earth's governments had purposely arranged the battle even though the Western nations knew they couldn't win, marshaling their assets like an ancient ritual that must unfold. They were no better than cavemen armed with clubs. The battle had been a waste. Nineteen people were dead and nothing had changed.

  In the days ahead, there would be more saber rattling between the Jyväskylä and the Dongfangzhixing and the lone FNEE ship that had survived, Behind closed doors in Berlin, Washington, Brasilia and Beijing, negotiations were surely underway.

  In the short term, they would broker a new price for deuterium. In the long term, the Americans might downgrade their missile bases in Vietnam, the EU would withdraw their military advisors from India, and, in exchange, the PSSC would permit the allies to bring a limited number of tankers and mecha to Europa, renewing their deuterium production.

  Money in, money out, the chess game was actually a rigged game of Monopoly. Even the losers won, clinging to power, clinging to their paychecks.

  Not a damned thing would have changed without one astonishing event -- an unidentified radio transmission. Who had sent it? Where had it come from?

  Vonnie was ready for anything new. She was anxious to heal and get out of bed.

  Inside the remains of Module 01, the ESA and the FNEE had cobbled together a single pressure-tight room. Formerly the armory, it had become their whole base. The walls were stacked with cases of rations and gear. Gel mattresses covered the floor.

  Tell me what happens next, she thought.

  Sitting in a circle with her were Peter, Ash, Harmeet and Captain Araújo. Outside, she knew, the ice was a wasteland. It was cracked and charred.

  She enjoyed the feeling of gathering with her friends. Their circle was small but it was warm. She turned her head with exaggerated movements, craning her neck from left to right. Otherwise she couldn't see their faces with her only eye, and she wondered what she must look like with her skin grafts and the big white bandage on her face.

  Moments ago, she'd kissed Peter and Harmeet. She wanted to kiss him again, but it wouldn’t be right - not without talking to Ben.

  Peter seemed as if he wanted to kiss her again, too. Leaning close, he said, "We're sending a new mission into the ice."

  "Good. Where are the sunfish?"

  "They're waiting for you. A few scouts approached our mecha. They invited us to follow. They said the matriarchs are establishing a new colony."

  "I don't blame them. Give me another day, then I can lead the mission."

  "Von, it's bigger than that."

  She'd expected him to say she wouldn't be fit for duty for another week. Instead he'd opened the possibility of needing her soon. She saw anticipation in Araújo's face, distress in Harmeet and stubborn pride in Ash.

  Ash's mood was contagious. Vonnie welcomed it. She lifted her chin and said, "Tell me."

  Peter said, "The blitzkrieg ended when we hit the Dongfangzhixing. It wasn't a terminal blow, but it must have scared them. They transmitted crisis codes across the system."

&nb
sp; "That's when Leber called for the cease-fire."

  "Yes. But there was something else, an ELF broadcast."

  "I watched the sims. Was it Iranian or Russian? I know they use old tech in their probes because it's harder for SCPs to fox twentieth century gear."

  "It was not Iranian," Araújo said, turning his display to show her. He was a ROM specialist.

  Look at what he's consulting on! she thought.

  Araújo was in possession of classified NATO briefings about the unidentified transmission. He had become a liaison with military analysts in Berlin, Washington, Tokyo and Jerusalem. That was how profoundly their situation had changed -- a FNEE captain with full access to NATO intel.

  Extremely low frequency broadcasts were used on Earth for communicating with submarines and mining operations because ELF waves penetrated salt water, earth and rock, which distorted or blocked most radio transmissions.

  Salt water, she thought.

  Araújo handed his display to her and said, "Here. These are the best calculations from Earth."

  In tandem with Japanese and Israeli HKs, the Jyväskylä had triangulated the broadcast. It had emanated from a spot eighteen kilometers north of the ESA camp.

  North. That's where Lam said he heard new enemies.

  No mecha belonging to allied forces were closer than ten kilometers to this location.

  The PSSC camp was south and east.

  More startling, by measuring the attenuation of the ELF waves, the AIs could prove that the broadcast had not only originated beneath the ice. The source had been forty klicks deep in the water.

  They'd been blindsided again.

  Vonnie stared at Araújo's data. She said, "Something inside the Great Ocean is transmitting?"

  2.

  Araújo said, "The broadcast was not FNEE. It was not ESA or NASA. The signals you pirated from the PSSC indicate the extent of their progress, and NASA conducted a series of radar sweeps before they withdrew their mecha from the ice. The PSSC have traveled deep into a series of hot springs, but they are at least five kilometers from the ocean."

  "Maybe they sent probes ahead," Vonnie suggested. "As soon as they reached the water, their probes could have gone anywhere. For some reason, they went north of us. Anything that far from their grid couldn't contact the surface or the Dongfangzhixing without an ELF broadcast."

  "They seemed as unprepared for it as we did. We studied the actions of their destroyer and their men on the ice. Immediately after the broadcast, they doubled their communications. Within an hour, the destroyer dispatched new contingents of mecha to Europa."

  "That could mean anything. We're at war."

  Araújo shook his head. "Your people on Earth agree with ours. The PSSC did not send that broadcast. It had none of the hallmarks of ROM-20 data/comm."

  "It wasn't encrypted at all," Ash said. "At first we thought it was just static, no information. Then our AIs figured out there was a message in ultrasound -- sonar."

  "That's weird."

  "Many forms of information can be transmitted by radio," Araújo said. "Music. Images. The difficulty is if the people who are listening are equipped to decipher the message. Human beings don't combine radio and ultrasound. We send data or voices."

  "I know how radio works," Vonnie said. "Transmitting ultrasound is what a sunfish would do. They wouldn't design receivers for normal sound. They'd start with a more convoluted design. So would any creature that evolved using sonar. Does the broadcast sound like sunfish?"

  "Yes and no," Ash said. "It consists of two squeals and eight chirps. The squeals are louder and overlap the chirps, which are spaced as four pairs of two. Our guess is the broadcast was an identifier, maybe a clan name. The mentality seems like a sunfish. If we're interpreting it correctly, they arranged their signals so the big squeals are on the inside and the small chirps are on the outside."

  Vonnie wanted to ask if her crew had retrieved the blasted remains of Probe 114, the doppelgänger that had contained Choh Lam. Analyzing his wreckage, especially his brain, could determine how thoroughly he'd been infected by SCPs. If they could verify that his warning hadn't been a sham invented by the PSSC, his account of hearing new creatures in the ocean was a vital clue.

  She personally believed Lam, but she couldn't mention his name in front of Araújo. She said, "Why would we receive a native broadcast now? We've been here for months."

  Peter said, "We think some kind of lifeform on the fin mountains heard us fighting. If their radio technology is limited to ELF, they'd miss our normal data/comm. Then the Dongfangzhixing sent its crisis codes. That included an ELF pulse to their mecha in the ice... and whatever's down there, it responded."

  "Have we heard anything else?"

  "No, but it would take a tremendous amount of power to transmit through the ocean and the ice. They may be transmitting at lower power levels right now. They may be waiting to hear more from us, but we're acting like we didn't notice the broadcast. So are the PSSC. Everyone is listening but we're not transmitting down into the ocean."

  "Are any of our ships broadcasting at Io?"

  "Not yet," Peter said.

  Before the battle, the Jyväskylä had located sunfish remains on Europa's sister moon. Some were on the surface. More were in pockets and holes inside Io's rock mantle. The remains were dry, knotted lumps like origami formed out of leather and cartilage -- and they were on the wrong moon.

  These remains, plus stone carvings buried in Io's snowfields, had been an archeological find on par with anything in history.

  How in God's name had the sunfish traveled from Europa to Io? Had they come from another moon first? What if the sunfish empire had developed rocketry or spaceships? Were there more of them inside Io or Ganymede or Callisto? What about Saturn's moon, Titan, which shared many of the "terrestrial world” properties of Europa?

  "The Jyväskylä left Io while you in your coma," Peter said. "They're almost here. That was our quid pro quo with the PSSC. Captain Leber is bringing us supplies. In exchange, he pulled all of his defenses from Io. The PSSC have uncontested access. They sent a fighter and drones to explore for themselves."

  "We gave up on Io? We just let them have it?"

  "Von, it was a good trade. By sending that fighter, the Dongfangzhixing reduced its offensive capabilities around Europa, and Captain Leber will bring the Jyväskylä in close to us. He'll tip the balance. Instead of being at their mercy, we'll have a new stalemate. As soon as we can, we'll send more eyes and ears to the other moons. We're not blind now. Leber stationed a few probes near Io, although their activity has been minimal. Everyone is walking on eggshells. We can't handle another fight."

  "Okay," she said. "Okay."

  Nobody wanted more killing, but abandoning Io seemed like a terrible error in judgment.

  She knew the allies had been stretched thin. She also knew that many of their leaders on Earth were ignorant shitheads. They looked at Jupiter as if the gas giant and its moons were as flat as an old-fashioned paper map.

  They viewed Europa through their own Earth-bound experience. There were opportunities they didn't see and connections they didn't make.

  She said, "There must be a civilization in the ocean if we heard a broadcast."

  Peter shrugged. "Not necessarily. It could be an automated system, some kind of machine left over from the empire."

  "Is that what Berlin told you say?"

  "It's a possibility. We need to keep an open mind. For what it's worth, I agree with you. I think we're dealing with an intelligent species. As far as we can tell, they're in an area away from the volcanoes. They must have a city down there, more than one city, or why develop long-range communications?"

  Too many mistakes had been made while she was unconscious. She clenched her pink hand into a fist, struggling to keep her voice level as she said, "We can't let the PSSC establish treaties with a native civilization before we reach the ocean. They could tell the natives whatever they want. They could turn them into armies who
'll attack us on sight."

  "You're overreacting."

  "I'm not. We've used our sunfish like a military force. That's exactly what we've done."

  The sunfish hadn't been as compliant as human soldiers or mecha. Their nature made them ineffective at times. So had difficulties with language and concepts. The tribes often worked against the ESA, but, overall, the might of Ghost Clan Thirty had been an asset.

  If the PSSC were allowed free reign with an ocean civilization, they would try anything to win the natives' allegiance. Lies. Bribes. Coercion.

  Vonnie said, "They're near the finish line and we refused to even consider the idea that we were in a race. What if they heard earlier broadcasts from the ocean? That's why they aren't interested the sunfish." She glowered at Peter with a familiar, simmering rage. "Our friends are dead, we're going to let the PSSC reach the ocean first and we gave up Io? Leber shouldn't have conceded his position. He could have placed defenses around Ganymede and Callisto while we delayed the PSSC in the ice."

  Peter shrugged again, a new gesture for him -- a gesture that looked like surrender. He said, "You'd be a prisoner if Leber hadn't traded for our lives."

  "We could have dictated terms to Beijing! We should have expanded from the beginning! Berlin was so caught up in saving money, they hamstringed us every step of the way. Now we've lost everything."

  This time, Peter didn't shrug and he didn't back away from her vindictiveness. He threw it in her face. "You're the one who wanted to go slow," he said. "You're the one who pushed us to treat the sunfish as equals."

  "Not at the cost of ignoring the bigger picture! O'Neal was right to explore on his own. He made us look at things we missed. We could have sent probes into the Great Ocean and protected the other moons."

  Peter was uncharacteristically sarcastic. "Well, as usual, you're smarter than everyone else, but we need Leber or we'll starve."

  "We never would have starved! Don't you get it? The sunfish can bring us eels and fungus. We can eat the same things they do. We should have hidden in the catacombs. We wouldn't have been here for the PSSC to attack. We could have saved our clan and our friends would be alive and we would already have moved into the ocean!"