Forgotten Worlds

by D. Nolan Clark

  “Ma’am. May I ask a question?”

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “What’s the plan, going forward, now that you know all this?”

  Varma sighed. For a second he thought she was going to refuse to answer. Well, that was her right, of course. She had no reason to discuss high-level decision making with a field officer like him. But then she surprised him by giving him an honest answer.

  “It will have to be discussed. At length. The Sector Wardens will want to put together a fact-finding committee, and the International League will have to approve a budget for that. A panel of experts will be put together to examine the evidence you’ve brought us, and then they’ll make recommendations about how to proceed. Independent analysts will go over their conclusions, make sure they’re sound. Eventually a policy document will be created, and that’ll be instituted as a new protocol. We have to be careful about how we do things, you see. We can’t afford to panic, not now.”

  The look she gave him, when she finished, was almost apologetic.

  It had happened. The thing he’d feared most. Valk’s information was going to be suppressed. Turned over to—of all things—a committee.

  Which meant, in all likelihood, that nothing would be done at all. There would be endless meetings and discussions. The polys would work their influence. In the end, humanity’s response to the Blue-Blue-White would be decided by a cost-benefit analysis.

  And the right thing, the only moral path forward, would be deemed too expensive to pursue. Until, perhaps, the Blue-Blue-White attacked another human world. Until more people died.

  He imagined she knew all that. He thought maybe she didn’t like it any more than he did. But she didn’t say so. And even if she did think maybe he was right, that it was the wrong move, well—she had people she had to answer to. Everybody has a boss.

  He considered saying something. Making an impassioned appeal for action. He knew better than to try. He’d made his best play already, and he’d failed. The information he’d been so desperate to get into the right hands was out in the open now, and he couldn’t turn back time.

  “Now,” she said. “We’ve dismissed your little revenge fantasy. You aren’t going to be allowed to fly off to the center of the galaxy and start shooting aliens. That will not happen. Instead, let’s talk about what you are going to do.”

  Chapter Ten

  I have a job for you,” Varma said.

  “Ma’am, I’m retired. I’m not on the active list—”

  “Perhaps you’ll hear what the job is before you refuse it,” she said. She picked up one of the minders from the floor, one cued up to show a video. She handed it to Lanoe and gestured for him to hit the PLAY key.

  The video showed an image he was familiar with, though from a perspective he’d never seen before. In the display he saw the queenship, the biggest spacecraft of the alien fleet he fought at Niraya. It had been built out of a hollowed-out asteroid, with a massive opening at one end surrounded by a ring of long, tentacle-like fibers. Not unlike a jellyfish itself.

  As the video played out, fire erupted from the opening. The entire queenship shook and a crack ran down its rocky length, searing red light pouring out from the inside. The tentacles went slack and then all light inside the queenship slowly burned out.

  The video was surprisingly clear. He could even make out a couple of tiny dots shooting out of the opening, even as the asteroid’s molten core erupted.

  Those dots represented Lanoe and Valk, flying out of the exploding queenship under the power of the jets built into Valk’s suit.

  The video abruptly cut to black. Two words appeared, in a generic white typeface:

  WELL DONE

  Lanoe looked up but Varma shook her head. “There’s more,” she said.

  The view changed to show a map of the galaxy. Certain stars had been highlighted, specifically those closest to Earth—the stars humanity had settled. On the map one and then another of the stars flashed orange, as if they were on fire. Each time the screen would go black to show a string of numbers. Lanoe knew enough about celestial navigation to recognize that the numbers indicated galactic coordinates, bearings, and velocities. Other numbers indicated dates, some of them many years in the future.

  MORE WILL COME

  Lanoe understood exactly what that meant. The coordinates indicated the present locations of other drone fleets, just like the one he’d fought. The orange-flashing stars indicated where each fleet would strike next—and when.

  Varma paused the video. “We checked those out, of course, with our best space telescopes. The fleets it lists are all there. All headed toward human planets. Some of them will take centuries yet to arrive, but they’re on their way.”

  Lanoe nodded and chewed on his lip. He scanned the dates, looking for one in particular. “Adlivun,” he said, pointing at an orange star. “That’s where they’ll strike first. In seventeen years.”

  Varma nodded. “We’ll be ready for them.”

  Lanoe certainly hoped so.

  Varma started the video again. One by one the stars changed color. Eventually, every single star humanity had colonized turned orange. Every one of them.

  Finally the screen went black. Words started to appear, one line after another.

  WE CAN HELP

  COME AND FIND US

  HERE IS THE KEY

  Below the words appeared a complex shape, a tangle of lines and sharp curves. This was the end of the message—there was no more to the video.

  “What—what is that?” Lanoe asked. “That shape, the key?”

  “It’s a set of directions. A route through wormspace, leading to an area we didn’t even know was there. It ends at a wormhole throat we’ve never seen.”

  She took the minder back, set it on the floor.

  “It’s a map. It might as well be an engraved invitation.”

  He stared at her for a long time.

  “Who sent this?”

  “No idea,” Varma told him. She took a drink of water. “The metadata on that video doesn’t tell us anything. And there’s no encryption on this message. It was received in clear, by a Navy ship on a long-range reconnaissance mission outside the Avernus system. Avernus is the closest planet to the destination on that map, but that isn’t saying much—even from Avernus, the destination is still a week away through wormspace.”

  “So it wasn’t a Navy unit,” Lanoe said, thinking it through. “One of the polys?”

  “Again, I don’t know. The message was sent specifically to that one Naval vessel. It could have been a poly, trying to back-channel information to us without letting their competitors overhear. But that raises other questions. There are plenty of ways for the polys to contact the Admiralty directly—and discreetly. Easier ways.”

  Lanoe nodded. “Could be a trap,” he said. “A mysterious message out of space … it would give them plausible deniability. Centrocor or one of the other polys could be setting us up.”

  “To what end?”

  Lanoe had to admit he couldn’t see the angle. Why would any of the polys send such a confusing message? Just to distract the Navy? To make them look foolish by chasing after a mysterious signal? There was no money to be made out of that, and the polys never did anything unless they could profit by it. “Maybe … I don’t know. Maybe it’s just some fool with a radio playing a hoax on us.”

  “Unlikely,” Varma said. “The message they sent us included information nobody has, not even the Navy. You see this?” She showed him the “key” again, the pattern of curves and lines included with the message. “If you zoom in on this image, it just gets bigger and more complex, like a fractal.” On the screen the pattern expanded into a snarl of lines that ramified like the branches of a tree, or the veins of a human circulatory system. It looked a great deal like the maps Lanoe had seen of wormspace, though it was different, somehow. Bigger, more complicated. Tags popped up at various points around the image—standard navigational glyphs, annotations pointing out
wormhole throats and hazards, dead ends and places where wormholes simply looped back on themselves. There were a lot more tags than Lanoe expected. Some he didn’t recognize, though they looked like they were just strings of galactic coordinates. Right at the center of the map was a single white cross. As Lanoe’s eyes passed over it, it pulsed with light. He knew what that meant—it was a destination. X marks the spot.

  “This is the most complete map we’ve ever seen of wormspace. It shows sections of the network even the Navy has never gotten around to exploring. Whoever sent this,” Varma told him, “has a lot of information. Perhaps most interestingly, they have video of you defeating the alien fleet at Niraya. Footage of it, Lanoe. Which means they had to be recording it as it happened.”

  “Then, if it is a hoax, it has to come from someone in the Navy, someone who had access to Admiral Wallys’s information—”

  “No,” Varma said.

  “No?”

  “No. No one had that footage. Not from that particular angle. Not us, not the polys. Not even your AI.”

  “Hellfire,” he said, the word slipping out unbidden.

  “Lanoe, are you foolish enough to think I would tell you about this if I didn’t have a damned good reason?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, and swallowed thickly.

  “Whoever sent this—we need to find out how they got that footage. We need to know how they have better information about the wormhole network than we do. We absolutely need to know. It’s what we in the Admiral business call a strategic advantage, and we can’t afford to pass those up when they come along.”

  Lanoe nodded.

  “It’s been decided that we should send a small delegation immediately, to check it out.”

  “And you want me to do it,” Lanoe said.

  “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it quietly. You already know what happened at Niraya. If I send somebody else, I’ll have to brief them, and right now I want as few people as possible to know about the other fleets.” Varma lifted her hands and let them fall again. “You’re the best man for the job.” She tapped the minder to blank its display. “You’ll leave as soon as possible. You can have that Hoplite-class cruiser you came in on. You can pick your own crew. Obviously you’ll need to operate in secrecy. If the polys find out about your new mission—well. We cannot let that happen. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He understood exactly what was at stake. The Navy and the polys were in a state of constant cold war. The interplanetary corporations were always looking to get an upper hand on Earth’s defenders. If they ever gained a truly significant advantage, something that would make it possible for them to overcome the Navy, the polys would conquer Earth the very next day.

  “So you’ll tell no one where you’re going, or why, and you will keep a low profile. Within those parameters we’ll give you as much support as we can.”

  “And what if I say no?” Lanoe asked.

  “Not an option,” Varma said. “This is an order.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Tell you what. You do this thing for us, complete this mission, and we’ll pretend that you didn’t betray the Admiralty. The fact that you kept the Valk AI from us, that you had information from Niraya that you didn’t share—we’ll forget all about that. This is the best, and only, offer you’re going to get.”

  Lanoe tried not to grimace.

  This wasn’t what he’d planned on. When he defeated the alien drones, he’d lost too much to just take the win and go back to his old life. He’d changed out there, where he’d lost the woman he loved. Where he’d sacrificed so much, to save Niraya.

  Something had died inside him. And something else had been born. A desire.

  He’d tried to bring Valk’s information to the Admiralty not because he thought the Navy would take care of the problem. He’d planned on making a case before the Admiralty Council, petitioning them to give him a fleet. So that he could take the fight to the thrice-damned jellyfish—himself.

  He’d known that was naïve, but it was the best idea he had. And now—everything had fallen apart. The admirals weren’t going to help him. Which meant he would never be able to convince the Sector Wardens to back his plan.

  He couldn’t do it alone. He had no way of traveling ten thousand light-years toward the center of the galaxy without help. Earth had been his best bet, and now that hope was crushed.

  Whoever had sent this message, whatever they wanted—they were offering to help. They wanted to help him put the Blue-Blue-White down.

  He would take help wherever he could find it.

  He tried to keep his face very calm while he pretended to mull things over. When he thought that an appropriate level of soul-searching had been conveyed, he slowly rose to his feet.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll leave at once.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Maggs was terribly busy when Lanoe came out of the little room. He hardly noticed the old man’s reappearance.

  He was engaged, you see, in the time-honored activity of kicking little rocks off of a high place and watching to see how many times they bounced on the way down. His record at that particular moment was six, and he’d hoped to beat it before it was time to go.

  Ah, well, needs must, et cetera, et cetera. He leaned up against a decaying support column and watched Lanoe blink as he came back out into the light.

  For a moment he thought the ancient pilot looked like a pole-axed steer. It was rather nice seeing him look at a loss, for once. “Bad news?” Maggs asked.

  Lanoe’s face hardened the moment he realized he was being watched. Of course. These old fellows, these veterans of antique wars—they always had to come off as so tough. So enduring.

  “What are your orders now?” Lanoe asked.

  Maggs shrugged and made a point of examining his gloves, to make sure they hadn’t gotten dusty while he waited. “I’m supposed to take you back to the Hoplite. It’s yours now. I’m to facilitate your assumption of command, and then get out of your way. Consider me at your service. For the moment.”

  It was rather odd that Lanoe didn’t take the opportunity to insult or berate him, but Maggs supposed one shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Likely to be some nasty teeth in there.

  Instead Lanoe just hurried off toward where they’d left the cutter. He was of the rank of commander, after all, and was used to being in charge. Maggs had enjoyed the time when their roles were reversed, but now that was over. He hurried after the old man and warmed up the flying wing while Lanoe just sat in his crew seat and stared at nothing.

  Only once they were aloft, soaring high over the ruins of North America, did Lanoe speak again. “Is this thing shielded against eavesdropping?” he demanded.

  “Naturally,” Maggs said. “All flight data is encrypted, Navy fashion. Not that it truly matters. Stealth being the whole point, we aren’t broadcasting so much as an IFF signal, and anyone trying to listen in with passive sensors would find us as quiet as mice. Something on your mind, Commander?”

  Lanoe grunted. “How much do you know? What was your briefing, when they sent you to get me?”

  “Precious little,” Maggs said, pulling back on the stick. The water-filled Ohio Crater shrank behind his shoulder. The sky turned dark, then filled with stars as they shot upward through the atmosphere. The hull hissed and then fell silent and they were in space. “I was sent to bring you to an official briefing, that much I was allowed to know. I knew you were to speak with Fleet Admiral Varma. I know you’re to take the Hoplite wherever you choose, and that you’re allowed to pick your own crew. Where you’re headed, what you’re meant to do when you get there—well. All mum. Care to fill me in?”

  “No,” Lanoe said. And then nothing else.

  Maggs sighed. It was a truism that the Navy was fueled by secrets, and that not every lieutenant was to be privy to the doings of the Admiralty. It was ruddy unfair, though. The Navy made no allowance for the quite basic human need for gossip.

&
nbsp; The Hoplite-class cruiser had moved since they left it, navigating its way through the thick sky around Earth until it reached a Naval provisioning facility just on the far side of the moon’s orbit. Maggs had no trouble slipping the cutter in between two big Griffin-class ship’s tenders—bulky and unarmed ships designed to resupply warcraft with ammunition and stores. The tenders were nursing a Toxotes-class battleship and three destroyers just then—Earth did like to keep quite a lot of capital ships around, just to scare the tourists. The Hoplite was inside an inspection slip—a construction of girders like an enormous skeletal hand—while dozens of suited figures flitted around its sides, opening inspection panels and retracting ablative armor sections to make sure everything was in working order.

  “Your chariot awaits,” Maggs said, and deftly nipped into the vehicle bay.

  Lanoe unstrapped and clambered out the hatch without a word of thanks for the poor fellow who had to drive him around all this time.

  You ungrateful bastard, Maggs thought.

  You ungrateful bastard, sir, his father’s voice corrected, by reflex.

  The vehicle bay was a busy place. Its hatch was kept down to allow small craft to come and go, a weather field shimmering across the opening as cataphract-class fighters were loaded in. BR.9s, the most common fighter in the Navy’s arsenal—Lanoe counted eleven of them, nestled in beside Maggs’s Z.XIX. A full complement, snug in the docking cradles that would keep them from rolling around inside the hangar during maneuvers. “How many pilots have they given me?” he asked.

  Maggs touched his wrist and looked at the display that jumped up there. “Ten, all of them veterans,” he said. He made it sound like a wonderful gift.

  Lanoe scowled. “Veterans of what? Any of them fight during the Establishment Crisis?”

  “Well, no,” Maggs pointed out. “But these ten all served in the conflict between DaoLink and Soltexon. Nasty bit of scrapping, that.”

  “Which side were they on?” Lanoe asked.