Battle Station sf-5

by B. V. Larson

  “Ship, talk to me. I’ve beaten this poor fellow. Let him live, I command you.”

  More clicks, squeaks and a few new sounds: gurgles. I frowned. Could this be the language of the crustacean? It did sound watery, ghostly. Like the noises undersea creatures made.

  I kept talking to the ship, but it didn’t say anything back I could understand. After about ten minutes however, I smelled something-something mouth-watering. With a shock, I realized what it was: burnt lobster.

  The ship had been heating the floor, cooking the poor alien I had pinned to the deck. I hadn’t even felt the heat due to the air-conditioning in my suit which was working overtime. I’d thought the warmth was for the comfort of the being I had pinned below me, but the truth was much worse.

  The situation was horrible, and I quickly stood up and tried to lift the alien away from the hot surface. The carcass was limp, flopping. The limbs hung loosely and dribbled steamy fluids. I sighed and put him back down, as gently as I could. A moment later, the ship’s nanite flooring swallowed him and ejected him into space.

  “Heartless tin monsters,” I said. “You’re just as big of a bastard as Alamo ever was.”

  The ship finally responded in English. “How do you wish to address us?” it asked.

  “Oh, now you can speak English, eh?”

  The ship said nothing.

  “You aren’t the same ship I called Alamo before, are you?”

  “This vessel has never utilized the name Alamo.”

  “All right then, I’ve got a name for you. I’m going to call you Butcher. How about that?”

  “Rename complete.”

  Butcher was my third Nano ship and this vessel had a true Nano mindset. It wasn’t like the ships I’d dealt with lately. Star Force ships were tame, and didn’t have agendas of their own. I had to keep reminding myself of this as I dealt with Butcher. I couldn’t trust this ship to obey my orders forever. At some point it was likely to do whatever it damned well pleased. We called ships like this “wild” Nano ships.

  “Butcher, I need information. How many Nano ships are in this system?”

  “Reference unclear.”

  I frowned, then nodded. “Ships built with nanites such as yourself are ‘Nano ships’, at least, that’s what I call them.”

  “Reference clarified. Language lookup table updated. There are three hundred twenty-nine Nano ships in this star system.”

  My eyebrows lifted in surprise. Three hundred ships? Could this be the fleet that had ditched Star Force years ago? I was about to ask this question next when I heard the distinctive sound of large, firing lasers. The Nano ship was shooting at something. I put my helmet back on in a hurry. If the ship took a hit, I didn’t want to be caught floating in space without it.

  “What are you shooting at?”

  “An unknown aggressor.”

  “It is a Macro?”

  “Unknown.”

  I thought fast. Could it be one of my own men, or even one of my ships? I didn’t have time to teach this ship to put up sensory images on the walls. That took careful work. I stared around at the blank, metallic walls. They were frustrating, just like all Nano ship interiors. No screens, no cameras. No intrinsic way for a pilot to see what the hell was going on.

  “If the target is not firing at us, I order you to cease fire.”

  “Command invalid. Defensive systems engaged. Command personnel must be protected.”

  The ship lurched then, almost knocking me off my feet. I stumbled, using my magnetics and the exoskeleton armor to keep me from falling on my face. Even if I had fallen, it wouldn’t have hurt much, but my reaction was instinctive.

  “Dammit Butcher, what are you doing now?”

  “Defensive maneuvers engaged. Enemy is too close for weapons systems to target it.”

  Too close? I shook my head. These guns had very nearly a complete field of fire. The standard issue Nano ship came with two large laser turrets, one on top and one on the bottom of its oblong disk-shaped body. Just about anything could be hit with one turret or the other, if not both. In order to be too close, the target would have to be touching the hull itself, or perhaps clinging to one of the turrets.

  I suddenly had a hunch. “Butcher, is this target in physical contact with the hull?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is approximately equivalent to my mass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Butcher, this entity is known to me. Cease fire, cease evasion efforts.”

  “Command personnel must be protected.”

  “I’ve undergone nanite injections, and I’m wearing a battle suit that is tougher than your hull. I’m in no danger.”

  Reluctantly, I managed to talk the panicked ship into standing down. It has been flying around erratically, like a bucking bronco. It couldn’t do anything to the hitchhiker however, so after a while Butcher reluctantly paused and let me climb up to the top levels, where the intruder was located. After a few minutes of arguing, I managed to get the ship to dissolve a region of the hull so I could poke my head up and have a look around. I finally had to force the issue by threatening to burn my way out with my lasers.

  When I finally was able to get a look at our visitor, I smiled. Marvin had wrapped his body around the base of the laser turret. He looked like a bundle of wires up there. As I waved to him, several cameras swung to examine me. A tentacle-like wire extended toward me. I allowed it to make contact with my battle suit. It was a good thing Butcher wasn’t watching. The ship was in mother-hen mode and would have objected.

  When we were in contact, I transmitted to him over a closed circuit intercom as we had done when riding his little scooter together. “Hello Marvin, welcome back to this star system.”

  “You are uninjured? I presume this ship is now under your control?”

  “You presume correctly. This is my new Nano ship, I’ve christened her Butcher.”

  “An apt name,” Marvin said. “Why didn’t you stop it from firing on me? My scooter was destroyed, and I barely managed to crawl over the hull to this safe point.”

  “Sorry about that. The ship’s actions were automatic and defensive in nature. It doesn’t have any kind of display systems. I couldn’t see it was you.”

  After a while, Marvin finally stopped complaining about how close he’d come to annihilation and began asking questions. After survival, the urge to explore and study the universe was his greatest driving motivation. Unfortunately, I didn’t know most of the answers to his questions. I promised him we could learn more about our environment if we were inside Butcher and spent some time programming a sensory system for it.

  Getting Marvin inside the ship took a considerable amount of effort. I didn’t know if I could ever convince Butcher he was harmless, but I did finally convince the ship to let him aboard. The only requirement was that I remain inside my battle suit at all times while in his presence. It was annoying, but workable.

  We spent the next half-hour assembling sensory-input scripts and the like in the ship. Marvin was helpful in this regard, as he had recorded the precisely worded instructions that had worked on Nano ships in the past. Obviously, this ship knew something about Earth and humanity, or it would not have been able to speak English. But I had yet to get out of it any details as to its current mission and whether it had previously been part of Star Force. Both Marvin and I were more interested in seeing the star system layout right now.

  First, the three big planets came into view. There were more than the dozen moons around each of the three large planets. There were seventy-seven major satellites, in all, plus rings of fine dust particles that had a gray-orange color.

  There was only one world that could support life, as we’d detected earlier. The moons themselves around the warm world, seen with more detail, were the amazing part. Three of them had liquid water on the surface. The planet they orbited was about half the size of Jupiter, and many of the moons were tidally-locked with the gas giant. They still received light from the two
stars, however. As they swung around their planet, different portions of their faces were exposed to sunlight from both the nearby stars.

  Watching the orbital patterns of these Mars-sized moons, I tried to imagine life on such worlds. It was not ideal. Days would be long and hot, while nights would be cold indeed. The worst times would be when the moons entered the long shadow of the titanic planet they circled. During these frequent eclipses, darkness would be total.

  Finally, Butcher added the presence of ships to the display. At first, nothing showed up. I was surprised. Could this Nano ship be the only one in the system?

  “Where are the rest of the ships, Butcher? You said there were over three hundred of them.”

  “All independently mobile systems that meet filtering requirements are displayed,” said the ship.

  I saw only a single greenish beetle, right near the ring. That was us.

  “I think the parameters need adjusting,” Marvin said. He quickly gave me instructions to display neutral ships-ships that didn’t register as friendly or hostile. These were to appear as golden beads of metal on the forward wall of the bridge.

  The scene changed dramatically. Tiny beads welled up in a mass. As more and more of them appeared, I frowned. “Where are they all headed? Butcher, give me an overhead, system wide view.”

  The image swam and shifted. As it reconfigured itself, I was reminded of a pool of water, being drained so that the stones at the bottom came up in full relief.

  “Uh-oh,” I said aloud as I began to understand what I was looking at.

  “They appear to be coming this way, Colonel,” said Marvin, stating the obvious.

  There did indeed appear to be three hundred of them. They were moving as a mass, coming toward our position, having gathered into a swarm around the gas giant and her moons.

  I had a sudden, unpleasant thought. I’d come into this system, and assaulted the sole Nano ship that had been left on sentry duty at the ring. When they’d lost contact with their lookout, they’d decided to come and investigate. Perhaps they’d even heard the pitiful cries and burblings of the ex-pilot, while I sat on him and cooked him.

  I imagined the lobster pilots, hell-bent on revenge. So much for sneaking onto this side of the ring to have a quiet look around.

  — 5

  I knew I had to get out of this situation, and get out of it fast. I had no intention of running off with Butcher. I wanted peace with the Crustaceans, not only because I had enough enemies, but also because I’d had enough of killing fellow biotics.

  “Butcher, begin recording a command script. Do not execute the script until I order you to do so.”

  “Ready.”

  “You will eject the two occupants of this ship into space and then fly to rejoin the approaching fleet. You will not fire on fellow Nano ships. You will find a new pilot, going back to your original programming. You will not reveal anything about myself or this entity known as Marvin.”

  “Command script is self-contradictory.”

  I gritted my teeth. We had less than an hour to get out of here, and I didn’t want to spend it all arguing with a Nano ship. “What portion of the command sequence is in conflict?”

  “Joining the approaching fleet will not allow us to acquire a new pilot. None of the orders given match my original programming. Auto-defense mandates require returning fire when fired upon, thus-”

  “I get it, I get it,” I said in frustration. I tried to focus. It was hard to sort out a verbal program for an alien ship while hundreds of enemy vessels came closer with each passing second. I felt a growing urge to just run. I could use this time to set up defenses on Eden’s side of the ring. If I had blown it, and three hundred lobster ships were about to come through and attack my forces seeking vengeance, I needed to get to my side and gather up my destroyers. The mines would get a lot of them, and I figured my destroyers could outgun the rest. Tactical solutions sprang to mind easily. We’d fall back, letting them plow into the mines. When the survivors advanced, we’d open fire. The destroyers were equipped with three guns each, all of which were larger and had a greater range than any of these Nano ships. We could pop them one at a time with concentrated fire, burning them out of space before they were even within range of my ships. If they turned around and ran, I’d let them, but otherwise…

  “Combat appears inevitable, Colonel,” Marvin said calmly.

  I shook my head. No, dammit! I didn’t want it to go down that way.

  “No,” I said aloud. “I’m not going to start a new war. I’ve cooked one sentient being today, and that’s quite enough. They may not even have full control of their ships. This ship didn’t even have its new pilot acquisition program turned off.”

  Marvin swung a number of cameras toward me, but said nothing. I wondered what he was thinking about this entire sequence of events. I didn’t know, but I suspected he was taking notes and enjoying the drama he’d helped stir up between three species-two biotics and the Nanos themselves. Perhaps he thought of it as a grand, sociological experiment.

  I recalled the early days of dealing with the Nano ships, back when they would mass up and charge anything that entered our system, oftentimes suicidally. Those had not been fun days for the pilots. For all I knew, the lobsters were madly trying to figure out how to stop their ships from attacking.

  I spent the next ten minutes or so working out a script Butcher would accept. I wanted it to dump us, then fly back to where the Crustaceans came from-I suspected it was one of those hot-water moons I’d scanned-and pick up a new pilot. Hopefully, the rest of the ships would stand down and not try to destroy us.

  There was one more obvious step to take before exiting the system. I needed to make contact with the pilots of these Nano ships. I needed them to know we were not invading monsters-if they could be convinced at this point.

  “Butcher, open a channel with the pilots of the approaching fleet. You will translate our English into the natural language of the pilots.”

  “Channel request sent.”

  It took about thirty tense seconds before we heard anything else. They were still a long way off. “Channel open,” the ship said.

  “Hello fellow ship captains. We are not hostile. Break off your attack. We wish to exchange information, not laser fire.”

  About half a minute later, the response came in: “Your threats do not impress us. You are alone. We have the advantage.”

  Threats? I mulled over my words. Perhaps they’d taken my reference to laser fire as a threat. I heaved a sigh. Another touchy bunch of aliens. At least they weren’t talking in pictures.

  “Colonel Riggs?” Marvin asked. “Could you tell the ship to transmit the original alien speech to me as it comes in? I would like to learn this new language.”

  “Don’t know this one, huh? Okay,” I said, and gave Butcher the orders. I watched as a black tentacle of nanites extended down from the roof of the bridge and intersected Marvin’s body. He watched it descend with a large number of squirming cameras. I could tell he could hardly wait. Nothing turned on Marvin’s brain like a new alien language.

  “I come in peace. This ship attacked me and forced us to participate in tests. I was forced to kill the pilot. I apologize, and will now return the ship to your people. A new pilot can be selected. No one need lose another life.”

  After the delay-which was fractionally shorter than before, the response came back: “Claiming your errors were made from ignorance will not save you. Errors are crimes, and you will be slain for having communicated these concepts. I can’t believe such a creature as you overcame one of our principal investigators.”

  Principal investigators? Errors were crimes? I thought about that. These lobsters sounded different than the Worms or the Centaurs. The Worms were brave individualistic warriors. The Centaurs thought of little other than herd honor. What I was hearing from these guys was something that reminded me of a group of prissy academics. I’d known plenty of those in my college-teaching days. They were pride
ful of their intellect and scornful of others. To them, there was no greater crime than mistakes, lies or cheating.

  “I speak the truth,” I said. “I’ve investigated primitive cultures such as yours before. You have much to learn from me. I offer you a helping hand-in the spirit of friendship.”

  “Insults!” came the response. “It is as we suspected. Insults often follow errors.”

  “I’ll prove my point,” I said. “Your investigator failed because he did not alter the programming script of his ship. He allowed it to continue picking up new pilots to test against him. This function can be turned off.” I continued, explaining how to stop a Nano ship from picking up new pilots and killing people whenever it felt like it. I didn’t stop there, however. I lectured them on the niceties of the nanite injections, which would allow the pilots to pick up passengers without chaining them to walls. I even explained how individuals could be picked up and dumped at low altitude, harmlessly. That would mark them as failures and trick the ships into ignoring them. Lastly, I told them how to script visual systems into the ship’s walls so they could perceive their environment using the ships sensors.

  There was a pause when I was finished. Marvin squirmed his metal body closer to the forward wall. He rasped on the hull, making a grating sound that set my teeth on edge. He studied the display of metallic beads with a number of cameras. “I believe they are decelerating, Colonel Riggs,” he said.

  I smiled and nodded. “They know another professor when they hear one.”

  What came next was a barrage of questions. I fielded them all, and told them everything I could-with certain reservations. I didn’t reveal our numbers, or our strength. I didn’t tell them about the minefield that lay beyond the ring, either. I simply indicated we had nothing to fear from their paltry three hundred-odd ships. My arrogance was complete, and before they were within laser range, they’d come to a complete halt. Their fleet faced my single ship, and we sat there in space, eyeing one another suspiciously.

  “Colonel Riggs,” Marvin said, interrupting me during one of my lengthy speeches. This one was on the topic of defeating Macros with ground forces.