Dark Matter (Star Carrier, Book 5)

by Ian Douglas

  Grdoch young on the home planet emerged from any convenient mouth-snout, dropped to the ground, and scuttled off. The concept of parenting was alien to the Grdoch; infants were mindless animals to be ignored—even eaten—until they’d learned to survive on their own. After several years of growth, the survivors were rounded up and the training began. Within Grdoch society, there was far more emphasis on the swarm, the Grdoch collective societal group, than on any purely incidental ideas like parent. Biology and genetics were understood and accepted . . . but which Grdoch in the swarm might be your offspring—or your parent—was unimportant.

  The birth process was a mild annoyance, especially on board ship, where the young were periodically culled to prevent them from adversely affecting shipboard operations. It was especially annoying in that adult Grdoch tended to give birth—often shedding hundreds of infants at a time—whenever acute danger threatened the individual. The biological imperative was well understood; as Grdoch evolved side by side with the nightmarish tch’tch’tch, their reproductive rhythms had developed to give them the best possible chance of passing on their DNA. Besides, if you were fleeing through a swamp with a monstrous tch’tch’tch splashing close on your wake, a few hundred chirping babies might confuse the predator—or at least distract it enough to slow it down.

  But that had been on Gr’tch’gah, the Swarmworld of millions of gretch past, not the control center of a modern interstellar warship. Here, the things were a nuisance at worst, a light snack at best.

  Tch’gok felt one wiggling up into one of its snouts and held it fast, using its rasping teeth to peel the thing open, then sucking the juices in a pensive way. The danger, it knew, was extremely bad. The two Grdoch ships were outnumbered to the point where even their self-evidently superior technology was not enough to overcome the enemy. Worse, that enemy had not fled when Swift Slasher had charged them earlier; both the enemy’s fighters and the larger ships had exhibited an almost suicidal persistence in bearing in close to slam missiles into the Grdoch vessels, behavior that the Grdoch found difficult to understand. When you faced obviously superior strength, you rolled . . . fast. No other tactic made sense.

  But that demonstration of superiority hadn’t deterred the enemy in the least, and the tactical balance had suddenly shifted from that of predator to prey. The maneuver had separated the Swift Slasher from the Blood Drinker to such a degree that they could no longer support each other in proper swarm fashion. Worse, when Swift Slasher had become immobilized in planetary orbit, Blood Drinker had fled, putting yet more distance between the two.

  And now, Blood Drinker was dying out there in a blaze of thermonuclear detonations, a food beast beset by a ravenous swarm of hunters.

  It released the crumpled, emptied husk of the infant and opened one of its wired-in internal communications channels. “Shiphealth!” it demanded. “What is our status?”

  “Seventy percent, Swarmguide!” was the response. It could hear the chirp and yelp of infants over the connection, a sure sign of the rising stress levels throughout the ship.

  Tch’gok studied nearby space . . . taking note of a small squadron of enemy vessels now approaching planetary orbit. From its study of human military technology, it could identify the various types—a railgun cruiser, several cruisers, destroyers, and frigates . . . plus six of the human star carriers, two large, four small. Those carriers were especially dangerous, since they carried swarms of human fighters . . . and those fighters had already demonstrated how deadly they could be, even to the far vaster and more powerful Grdoch hunters. It had been one of those fighters that had crippled the Swift Slayer, firing from almost point-blank range.

  This was . . . an opportunity.

  The small squadron most likely was planning on launching an assault against Grdoch forces still on the planet below . . . probably in the form of a fighter assault from those carriers. Human military philosophy, Tch’gok had noted, was quite different from that of the Grdoch. They seemed to have warships with differing capabilities—and not all human ships carried fighters. In fact, only specific, quite large vessels—what the humans called star carriers—could launch and recover fighters. For the Grdoch, every vessel carried out every function, with no differentiation between ship types, though some were larger, some smaller. In fact, the species didn’t even distinguish between military and civilian vessels; every Grdoch starship could fight, and transport cargo or colonists, and explore new worlds . . . whatever was necessary at the time.

  The Grdoch had carefully studied the species that called itself “human” during their brief alliance with the weird little prey-creatures. They were truly alien in how they thought and acted; an entire population seriously outnumbering a few Grdoch could seemingly be paralyzed by indecision or by fear, could actually recoil from an attack from strength . . . while on the planet’s surface, unarmed gangs had attempted to attack Grdoch foodkeepers or even whole feedingswarms against literally hopeless odds.

  Why the aliens thought like that was as yet unknown. Tch’gok had no doubt that captive members of the species would be carefully studied in order to determine what stressors affected them, and how. For now, all it and its fellows could do was take advantage of any opportunity the enemy’s irrational behavior afforded. A sudden, belly-slashing attack against those alien star carriers before they launched their fighters would cripple that part of the human fleet attempting now to retake their planet before the main body of their fleet could finish with the Blood Drinker and return to face Swift Slayer.

  By the time they made it back here, Swift Slayer would have destroyed the six enemy carriers and be long gone.

  At this point, the chief goal was no longer defeating the human presence in this system, but a return to the swarmworld, to Gr’t’och, with a warning of human capabilities . . . and weaknesses. Human irrationality in combat could be exploited. With a major push into this sector of space—a few threes-of-threes-of-threes-of-threes of ships—the human empire could be smashed, and its colony worlds converted into vast hunting and feeding preserves. According to the reports Tch’gok had seen from the planet’s surface, humans were not nearly as satisfying in the kill as were gorchit—the gene-engineered food beasts designed to serve as both long-term nourishment and as amusement . . . nor were they as nourishing. The pathetic things tended to die almost immediately, despite every attempt to keep them alive and pleasantly kicking.

  The good news, though, was that the things were so numerous. A single one of their colony worlds would feed many 35 of Grdoch for many, many gretch, and it might eventually be possible to make them breed in order to replenish the stock. How many more there might be running around on their homeworld, wherever that might be, was unknown . . . but likely numbered in the billions. Grdoch history had been plagued by cycles of famine as food sources ran low, which was why they bred and kept gorchit now. Humans might, ultimately, prove to be an even more reliable protein source than the great food beasts.

  They would never be as much sheer fun as the gorchit of course . . . but this was all about the one absolute of existence . . .

  Survival.

  Chapter Twenty

  13 March 2425

  Vulcan

  40 Eridani A System

  1445 hours, TFT

  Connor’s Starhawk banked sharply enough that she felt a catch in her breath. What the hell was going on out there? She still had no visual, but her AI was telling her—as a sequence of impressions and ideas—that it had spotted a large population center to the north, just outside the planet’s capital city of Himmel-Paradisio.

  There were no signs of planetary defenses or military sensor systems. Her fighter was going to attempt to land there.

  The AI was also able to let her know that it had detected several USNA warships—including the Marine transport-carrier Inchon—approaching the planet, and that it was now in communication with shipboard AIs. Her fighter’s commo suit
e had been damaged, but the AI had been shifting nanomatrix assets from the damage control reserves to the electronics suite, and had been able to at least partially restore communications.

  I wouldn’t be long, the AI suggested, until she could be rescued . . .

  . . . if she wasn’t killed by hostile colonists or Grdoch as soon as she touched down.

  USNA CVS America

  40 Eridani A System

  1450 hours, TFT

  The procession of six star carriers drifted toward the planet, their fighter screens deployed, the smaller frigates and destroyers in the squadron out ahead of the main body. The two largest—America and Constitution—trailed the other, smaller carriers, shielded in part by their point defenses and fighter screens.

  “What’s the status on that hulk?” Gray asked, looking at the alien vessel’s magnified image coming through from the battlespace drones in close to the planet. On the overhead display, it appeared to be drifting, powerless and inert . . . charred in places by nearby thermonuclear detonations. There’d been no sign of life there since the main USNA force had swept past the world, pursuing the second Grdoch ship. One of America’s fighters had gotten in pretty close with a pair of Fer-de-lance shipkillers, and a couple of megatons of thermonuclear blast at very close quarters apparently had burned the alien out. And yet . . .

  “Admiral Gray!” It was Gutierrez. “Our sensors are picking up power readings from the derelict! Ten to the twelve . . . and climbing damned fast!”

  Gray checked his own readout, and swore softly. The Grdoch ship was coming to life.

  “Hit him! Hit him hard!”

  The enemy vessel was still at fairly long range—almost a 100,000 kilometers—and it would take time to reach it with a missile volley. The Grdoch ship, as though aware that the human ships had spotted it and knew it to be alive, rotated suddenly, then leaped out from the planet . . . a predator striking.

  Missiles streaked from the human fleet, accelerating hard across the intervening kilometers, but powerful, coherent X-ray beams were already slashing through the carrier battlegroup, scoring hits, wreaking terrible damage.

  The Shiva was hit first, her shield cap taking the full brunt of an X-ray laser bolt, her water storage tank flashing to a vast and fast-moving cloud of steam that almost instantly froze into sand-sized crystals of ice as it hit hard vacuum. The Saratoga was hit an instant later, followed by the heavy cruiser Calgary and the destroyer Sandoval.

  “All ships! Spread out! Don’t bunch up!” Shit, shit, shit! . . .

  The combat tactics for carrier battlegroups were still similar in most respects to those developed in the era of wet navies four centuries before. The modern carrier task force was the direct descendent of the Imperial Japanese navy’s Kido Butai, in World War II, a six-carrier task force assembled for the express purpose of attacking Pearl Harbor. Until later in the war, the U.S. Navy had tended to use single carriers with associated escorts, combining several groups as needed for special operations. Ultimately, the term battlegroup was dropped in favor of carrier strike group, or CSG . . . but the term carrier battlegroup had come back into vogue with the Sh’daar Ultimatum and the development of star carriers.

  The modern battlegroup was generally centered around one or perhaps two star carriers, together with cruisers, destroyers, and frigates as close-support vessels deployed in support of their larger companions. Larger ships—battleships, monitors, and railgun vessels for planetary bombardments, might be included for specialized operations.

  Task Force Eridani was unusual, though, composed as it was of six carriers, and Gray was uncomfortably aware of just how vulnerable those carriers were. He’d ordered them away from the close assault on Target Bravo . . . and now risked losing them to the unexpected resurgence of Target Alfa.

  HQMILCOM had never explained just why they’d sent so many carriers with the task force . . . but Gray suspected there was a reason—a blatantly political one. Shiva and Slava both represented new USNA allies as they closed ranks against the Confederation, in particular against the Europeans. And having four USNA carriers in the fleet drove home the fact that it was the North Americans who were leading this new alliance. Six carriers, he thought, might also be an attempt to overawe the Grdoch.

  But Gray knew how thinly stretched the USNA naval forces were. He’d blundered by not making certain that Target Alfa had been destroyed . . . and that blunder just put the entire battegroup, the mission, and the United States of North America itself at considerable risk.

  The railgun cruiser Decatur began slamming high-velocity rounds into the Grdoch ship. On the flag-bridge display, Gray could see the hits as a brilliant flashes, as hot as the surface of the sun, and as each explosion cleared it left a crater in the alien’s scarlet hull.

  That hull possessed a remarkable ability to heal itself. As Gray watched, the craters slowly puckered shut and sealed over . . . but Decatur continued her relentless and savage bombardment, pounding the Grdoch ship’s prow again and again, until super-heated fragments began spilling off into space.

  Missiles began striking home as well, and that took a lot of pressure off the carrier group. The Constitution took a hit from an X-ray laser—a near miss that damaged her shield cap in a spray of ice particles—but then the Grdoch began concentrating instead on the nuclear warheads swarming in from every side.

  Grdoch fighters now were passing though the USNA fighter screen, and nuclear detonations flashed silently in the empty gulf between the adversaries.

  “Get America’s railguns in action,” Gray quietly ordered. The twin spinal-mount launch rails emerged at the center of the carrier’s shield cap, and were used to accelerate fighters two at a time, but now they began slamming one-ton lumps of depleted uranium into the enemy ship, adding their kinetic fireworks to those of the Decatur.

  “Carriers! Break off! Escorts forward . . .”

  The combat display showed schematics of the various ships’ paths, the USNA task force breaking apart as the carriers decelerated and the escorting destroyers, frigates, and fighters sprinted ahead. Nuclear fireballs engulfed the alien . . . and then the enemy fire ceased, cut off as if by a switch.

  But Gray didn’t want to be caught short again. “Fighters! Get in close and finish him!”

  “We have more enemy fighters coming up from the planet, Admiral,” Mallory reported. “But . . . but it looks like they’re trying to get away.”

  It was true. The Grdoch fighters were accelerating hard, slipping clear of Vulcan’s atmosphere and scattering into darkness. So far as anyone in the task force knew, those fighters could not manage faster-than-light travel, but needed to be on board one of the larger vessels, like fighters aboard a carrier. With both of their carriers destroyed, the rational choice for them was surrender, not flight.

  The Grdoch, Gray thought, seemed to exhibit markedly black-and-white thinking—either fight like hell or run like hell . . . with no reasonable middle ground.

  Maybe it was just as well that they were willing to either fight to the death or perish alone in the cold emptiness of the system’s outer reaches. Communication—talking to those creatures—would be a real problem.

  There was a final, terrible flash of radiance, and an expanding sphere of star-hot plasma.

  Target Alfa, he saw, was breaking up.

  Vulcan

  40 Eridani A System

  1527 hours, TFT

  Connor’s crippled fighter had slowed to 100 kph, continuing to drop toward the unseen terrain below. The waiting was unbearable . . . a drop into darkness with no reassurance at all save for the unworded assurances passed into her consciousness by her AI. She could feel the fighter’s nose coming up slightly . . . feel morphed-out wings biting the air to slow her speed . . .

  She felt the AI telling her that they were about to hit . . . and then the fighter lurched hard, shuddering as its keel dragged a
cross hard-packed ground. The craft’s nanomatrix hull shifted and adapted to each shock, dispersing and absorbing the force of the impact, but it was still a damned rough landing. The grinding and jolting of the touch-down went on for long seconds, and then the Starhawk came to a halt, cocked at a 45 degree angle to starboard.

  Connor felt a surge of panic . . . and a mental flashback to the Slan dragging her from her fighter inside the darkness of a Slan warship orbiting 36 Ophiuchi A III just four months before. “Open!” she snapped. She was not going to wait helplessly in the dark this time. “Get me out of here!”

  The cockpit rippled, then flowed open, revealing the cloudless dome of a brilliant green-tinted sky filled with brilliant orange sunlight. She thoughtclicked the icons releasing her from her seat and stood up shakily, reaching out to steady herself on the side of the cockpit. The landscape surrounding her looked almost indistinguishable from the middle latitudes of Earth . . . somewhere in New York or Pennsylvania, perhaps. The gravity felt about the same as Earth’s . . . and briefing downloads had told her that the air was breathable, a rarity among the millions of worlds known to Humankind. She wasn’t going to remove her e-suit helmet, though, not just yet. There might be local pathogens against which local humans had been immunized, but for which she had no natural defense.

  There were trees—odd-looking with feathery tips, but still definitely the local evolutionary equivalent of trees, with compound leaves that tended to be more orange and yellow than green. The fighter had come down in a broad, open meadow blanketed by an orange, mosslike ground cover. A broad slash through the moss stretching astern showed where her AI had guided the crippled ship in for its landing.

  She heard a shout, and turned. People were approaching . . . humans . . . naked humans, quite a few of them. What the hell . . .?