by Nick Webb
Now, all they had was hope.
“Commander Urda—status of that ship? Any weapons systems activated? Fighters?”
The young man shook his head. “No weapons systems yet that I can see. Fighters? Yes, ma’am, a few thousand have just deployed.”
“And those escort ships flanking it?”
Escort ships. She laughed to herself. Many were as large as the Independence, and likely as powerful.
“Those are deploying fighters too, ma’am, and they’re starting to break formation. Looks like they’re reforming themselves to counter the movements of the other two task forces.”
“Damn. So they’re not dumb.” She glanced back at the CAG’s station. “Commander Yin—our fighters are deployed?”
“Last one just got out, ma’am. And joined up with the other fighters from the rest of the task force. Three hundred and twelve total.”
“Three hundred twelve against a few thousand. Well at least those are better odds than with the Swarm. That was three hundred against millions.”
“We’ve got this in the bag,” Commander Yin deadpanned.
“Ma’am! Looks like that main ship is activating its weapons systems. Several hundred turrets of some sort have just unfolded out and are targeting us.”
“Any indication as to what type? Antimatter? Railgun? Laser?”
“Not reading any antimatter signatures, ma’am.”
A small grace.
One of the turrets on the giant rotating drum surrounding the central stationary hull lit up in a blazing shaft of light that leapt out and slammed into the ISS Okinawa next to them. Overwhelming brightness momentarily saturated the screen, and when the cameras adjusted, a disheartening scene revealed itself.
“Goddamn,” breathed Proctor. “Casualty report?”
“I’m hearing at least a fifty missing, ma’am, that were in that section of Okinawa,” said Sampono.
The Okinawa had a hole in it, perhaps a few dozen meters deep, and dozens across, and it appeared to have lost main power since its momentum was still carrying it along its previous vector and had started to spin.
“It’s spinning. That blast must have had some serious momentum. Ion beam?” she called out to Urda.
“Aye, ma’am. And it fried part of their electrical system. They’re rerouting power, but not sure if they’ll get back up to full.”
“All railguns, all lasers, target their ion beam turrets. Take them out. Now.”
The railgun turrets dotting the Independence’s hull swiveled and came to life, erupting with hundred-kilo slugs that shot out at over twenty kilometers per second. Too fast to see, but Proctor could see the effect.
“Good. Good,” she said, and smiled. They might have a chance. A few dozen ion beam turrets had exploded, their debris flying into space as the giant rotating drum flung them like water flying off a spinning frisbee.
“Fighters have engaged,” said Commander Yin. A moment later he was shaking his head. “Damn, these buggers are fast. Reflexes like nothing I’ve seen. Better than the Dolmasi. Better than the Swarm. It’s like they can anticipate our every move.”
Proctor watched in dismay as, even while ion turret after ion turret exploded in the background, the foreground was quickly becoming a graveyard of IDF fighters. “Get the Independence in there. Maybe with our PDC cannons in the mix it’ll throw them off.”
“We’re opening ourselves up big time that way Admiral,” said Commander Yin.
“I’m aware, Commander. But we’ve no choice. We wait much longer and we won’t have any fighters left.”
The Independence surged forward, and before long plowed its way into the thick of the fighter battle near the edge of the rotating drum, which dwarfed it. The ship looked to be hundreds of kilometers long. Larger than a Skiohra generation ship. Larger than any ship she’d ever seen, with one exception.
The world-devastating Swarm ships that they’d just defeated two months earlier. Those nightmares had been almost as large as moons themselves.
“Admiral, the ISS Resolute has arrived,” said Sampono.
“Good. Get me Oppenheimer.”
“Channel open.”
“Christian? Looks dicey. Are they coming?” They didn’t talk about reinforcements over the meta-space conversations, given opsec concerns, but now that they were in the thick of battle, opsec was out the window.
A pause, then, “Negative, Shelby. The Dolmasi are sitting this one out. Skiohra too. Dolmasi wouldn’t say why, and the Skiohra gave me their typical cryptic nonsense.”
“So we’re alone.”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“What about the Valarisi?”
“The ships we’re building for them are still in the beginning stages. And most of them are swimming in a puddle at IDF’s research center on Kyoto Three.”
She shook her head in frustration. They’d had many arguments about this, and she didn’t want to continue them now. “No, you know what I mean. You followed my advice, didn’t you?”
“Shelby, now listen—”
She almost allowed her voice to rise to a yell. “You didn’t?”
“Goddammit, Shelby! We can’t keep them on our ships. I’ve told you that, time and time again. They’re a security risk. A huge security—”
“Well I kept one here, Christian.”
“You—”
“Yes, against your orders. Court-martial me later. We’ve got to try, Christian. I’ll let you know if it works.”
Before he could protest, she drew a thumb across her neck to indicate to Ensign Sampono to cut the channel.
“Channel closed, ma’am.”
“Get Ensign Decker to the bridge. Now.”
She’d ordered him to wait in the ready room, adjacent to the bridge, for just this moment. Of course, he was under heavy guard, and the ready room had been EM-hardened and meta-space shielded as best as could be done on short notice. Ten seconds later, he was there, flanked by two marines.
“Ma’am?” he said.
“Are you in contact with your Valarisi companion?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good—”
A violent shaking interrupted her, and the distant sound of an explosion made one of the new recruits on the bridge let out a brief yelp.
“Decker, we’re losing this battle. See what your companion can do. Reach out to them. See if they have a weakness. Try to find what they’re after. See if it can sense what will make them leave or stand down. Anything.”
Ensign Decker looked down, as if lost in concentration. Two months earlier, the entire fleet—every member of it—had been given a liquid Valarisi companion at the battle of the Penumbra black hole, infected with it—almost like with a beneficial virus. And as a result the Swarm had been banished, finally, from their universe. From inside each of them, the Valarisi had built a great meta-space network to replace the old Ligature that had been destroyed, and with that nascent connection they’d managed to coordinate the final victory over the Swarm.
But petty politics and operational security had intervened in the meantime. Nearly everyone in the fleet had been stripped of their companion, except for a very, very few.
And at least one without the knowledge or permission of IDF’s commander in chief.
Decker’s eyes had closed. “Yes, Admiral. They are indeed looking for something. Desperately. They want it very, very badly.”
“What is it?”
“Not a what. A . . . who.” Ensign Decker opened his eyes. “They want someone.”
Granger. “Someone? Like, a specific someone, or someone in general?”
“Yes . . . no . . . both? That’s not quite it. I’m having trouble figuring out what my companion is trying to say.”
Proctor impatiently waved a hand to urge Decker on, her eyes glancing up to the viewscreen where she watched the continuing destruction of their fighter squadrons and the occasional ion beam blast from the giant drum that was devastating their capital ships. “Then w
hat the hell is it, Ensign?”
“They want someone, yes. But . . . I’m sorry, Admiral, I’m trying to interpret the feelings and thoughts of an entire alien people through another very alien intermediary, this is not easy. Nor precise. But . . . it’s like . . . they don’t know who he or she is. They don’t know if it’s a specific person, or people, or what. But they definitely think of them as their . . . savior, I suppose the word is. They desperately want someone to . . . prepare them, defend them, from a devastating force.”
“A force? Like, a natural phenomenon?”
“No. From a great evil. A great scourge. From a fleet. A vast, incomparably powerful fleet. They thought it was our fleet, but they’re starting to have second thoughts about that. Turns out we’re weaker than they thought we’d be.”
Proctor’s blood ran cold. They’re running from a vast, powerful fleet? No. It can’t be. They’re gone. The Swarm is gone. “From who, Ensign? What fleet are they running from?”
“Not sure. But it feels like one almost as powerful as the Swarm.”
“Wait. From a fleet like the Swarm? Not the Swarm itself?”
“Yes, Admiral. These beings are running scared. They’re not out to conquer.” He closed his eyes again, and fell silent for several seconds. “Admiral, if I’m not mistaken, these aliens are not the Findiri at all. They’re another race that was nearly destroyed by the Swarm, and they’ve come out of hiding now that the Swarm is gone. Only to be running again from something just as bad.”
“From the Findiri.”
Decker opened his eyes again. “Yes, I suppose that’s probably the case. My companion wants me to send a message to the alien fleet. With permission?”
Proctor nodded. At this point, anything couldn’t hurt.
Decker practically ran to the comms station where Sampono gave up her seat. He sat down and began typing out a message.
“What language are you using, Ensign?” said Proctor.
“No language, but I think my companion is using some kind of mathematical logic-based series of symbols to communicate our peaceful intentions. Oh, Admiral, it also recommends we stand down. Stop firing, and withdraw all fighters.”
She took a deep breath. “Oppenheimer is not going to like this. Better to ask forgiveness than permission with this one, I think. Open a channel to the fleet.” She waited a moment, then began. “All fighters, stand down. All ships stand down. Immediately. We’ve established peaceful communication with the aliens, and there is a chance for victory if we immediately stand down.” And, anticipating what was coming, waved over to comms again. “Get me Oppenheimer. Hurry.”
Ensign Sampono nodded. “You’re on, Admiral.”
“Christian, listen. Let the order stand. I’m begging you. We have a real opening here.”
His voice was thunder. “An opening? What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, Shelby?”
“This is not the Findiri, Christian.”
“Of course it’s the Findiri, have you looked out the window? For Christ’s sake, Shelby, I—”
“Christian, it’s not them! Listen. Yes—I went behind your back and kept a crew member with a Valarisi companion on the Independence in isolation. The companion reached out to them and confirmed: this is not the Findiri. We must. Stand. Down.”
She could hear him grumbling under his breath, and after, a long pause. “Then who the hell are they?”
Proctor looked over at Decker, who smiled and nodded. “They call themselves Eru. Or The Eru, I’m not sure—kinda playing an extreme game of telephone here, but my companion says that they intend to stand down as well, if we do. It seems they only attacked because they thought we were imminently going to attack them.”
Sure enough, on the view screen, the ion turrets had fallen quiet and retracted back into their housings. The alien fighters withdrew to a distance of a few kilometers.
“Well. I’ll be damned.” said Oppenheimer.
Proctor came up behind Decker. “Ensign, are you in dialogue with them? Have they responded to you?”
“Not yet, Admiral. It’s just my companion reaching out through the Proto-Ligature to, basically, read their minds.”
“Wait,” Proctor paused. “Are you saying . . . these beings are connected to the Valarisi’s Proto-Ligature? Their minds are connected to meta-space? If so, that would imply that these beings were at one point under control of the Swarm, like the Dolmasi, the Skiohra, the Valarisi—hell, especially, the Valarisi.”
“No, I’m not getting that sense, Admiral. My companion isn’t so much in contact with them as it is sensing them. Feeling their brain patterns and interpreting from them.” Decker stopped, as if listening to someone speak, then nodded. “Ah. It says that it’s reaching out through their own meta-space transmitters aboard their ships and directly detecting the EM patterns of their brain waves using their own ships’ internal sensors. Huh. Pretty slick.”
“I’ll say.” It was impressive, yes. It also gave credence to Oppenheimer’s extreme caution when it came to the Valarisi. If they could accomplish technical feats like this, extending their influence through a combination of meta-space, EM, electrical, and biological signals, then damn. They were far more formidable than any of them had imagined. “I’m just glad they’re on our side.”
“Admiral! Incoming transmission from the main alien ship. It’s visual.”
“Onscreen.” Proctor pivoted to face the front of the bridge, and had to stifle a gasp when the feed began.
An alien. A being—not like the Dolmasi, not like the Skiohra, and most definitely not human—stood in the center of a semicircle of seven other nearly identical beings. The one in the middle had outstretched its hands.
And she counted. One, two, three . . . wow. Eight digits. What looked like five fingers and three thumbs extended from each hand.
Below each arm was a second, much smaller, thinner arm. She couldn’t be sure since they were lowered to the side, but each of those had perhaps three fingers and a single thumb each.
“Remarkable,” she said under her breath. Mimicking the alien’s pose, she raised her arms and extended her fingers up and off to the sides. “I sincerely hope this is their version of I come in peace.”
The alien slightly bowed its angular head and blinked its red-tinted eyes. Then it lowered its hands to chest level and closed its fists. It shook them a few times as if for emphasis. Then it raised one finger.
Proctor mimicked, raising one finger. “One?” she said.
The alien raised another finger. Proctor shadowed it. “Two.”
And on and one. “Three. Four. Five . . .”
Finally, they reached ten, as the alien had raised all eight fingers of one hand and two of another. Proctor, however, had run out of fingers. At that, the alien gestured animatedly toward Proctor with its ten fingers, and, after a pause, pointed the fingers back toward himself and rapidly extended the other six.
“Sixteen,” she said. “I wonder . . .”
The alien wasn’t finished. It then lowered all the fingers, and, with the two main arms outstretched, raised just one of its smaller under-arms, and from it extended a single delicate finger. It then, in sequence, raised each of its sixteen main fingers in sequence, until it lowered them all again and raised a second delicate finger on its under-arm.
“It’s counting,” said Proctor. “It’s counting in hexadecimal.”
“Sixteen?” said Admiral Oppenheimer through another channel. Apparently he’d been watching too. “They have a base-sixteen number system? That’s the first thing they communicate to us? How they effing count?”
Proctor nodded. “Its the only thing they can communicate to us. At least at first. Math is the universal language, Christian. And it’s only natural that a species uses a numeric base equal to its number of digits on its hands, or pincers, or grabbers, or whatever they use to interact with the world. But more importantly, Christian?”
“Yeah?”
“It means they’re most likel
y peaceful. Why attempt communication if their intention is to fight us?”
“Distract us while they get the upper hand?” offered Oppenheimer.
“You don’t really think that.”
A pause and a sigh. “No, I don’t.”
“This is an opportunity, Christian. Just think. They’re clearly formidable, force-wise. We seem to be about equally matched militarily. If we could form an alliance with them, against the Findiri, who, according to Ensign Decker’s companion, they are running from, well then—our odds go up.”
“They go up from vanishingly small, to depressingly small, yes.”
“But Christian, you add the Eru—”
“Eru?”
“That’s what Decker’s companion calls them. You add the Eru, to us, the Dolmasi, the Skiohra, the Valarisi, and pretty soon you’re looking at, well, a formidable alliance to be reckoned with.”
Movement on the screen caught her eye. “Hold on, Christian, something’s happening.”
The aliens were moving. All of them. The one in the center lowered all its fingers except for one, and pointed it directly at Proctor. The aliens behind it, all seven of them, had rearranged themselves from a semicircle to a straight line behind the central alien, and each of them held up a different number of fingers. Some of them held up one arm, one of them two arms, and some three arms.
“That— that’s a sequence of numbers.” She held up a finger of her own and performatively counted them all. “The first holds up seven fingers on one hand. The second holds up a single finger on one of its under arms, and two fingers on one of its main arms. The third has a single finger on a main arm . . .” She muttered under her breath for a few moments, then nodded. “Okay. That’s eight, eighteen, one, fourteen, eight, five, eighteen. Now what do you suppose that means, Christian?
“Ma’am?” said Ensign Sampono, the communications officer.
“Yes, Ensign?”
“That spells out a word in English.”
The entire bridge crew turned their heads to look at her.
“Explain please, Ensign Sampono.”
The nervous young officer stood up. “I mean, it’s a pretty basic cryptography trick, matching numbers to letters.”