Annihilation (Star Force Series)

by B. V. Larson

  My anger deepened. My next thought was a dark one: I considered bombing their cities. They hadn’t given us any ships to shoot at, but their civilian populations were vulnerable. We knew where they lived in their shallow reefs and deep grottoes. We knew some of them were still alive.

  I lifted a fateful hand to press the transmission button again. The crews were waiting for my order to fire. I could feel it in my bones.

  But about a second before I gave the order to commit a billion intelligent beings to death, I had another thought.

  “Scan those missiles!” I roared. “Has anyone done that? Are there Macros flying those things?”

  My thought was simple and horrible. What if the Lobsters themselves, god love the son-a-bitches, weren’t actually attacking us? What if the Macros were behind it all?

  I knew the Lobsters weren’t easy to get along with, but I also knew they weren’t suicidal. They must know what we could do to their populations. They would have done the math long ago. I could understand an ambush, but why would they let us get in so close before launching their surprise attack?

  Perhaps they hadn’t. If Macros held their underwater cities, and were the ones firing the missiles, perhaps it was their math I was witnessing in its perfection.

  The Macros had a treaty with the Crustaceans, we knew that. Just as they’d had a treaty with several other races. Of course, the first thing these machines always did when they signed a new treaty was try to find a way to break it. It was like making a deal with the proverbial wolf at the doorstep: it never stopped seeking a way in, a way to devour those it has bargained with.

  The Macros might have suckered us in, then launched this late attack to provoke our response. That way, the Lobsters would suffer mass casualties, we would lose a fleet, and the machines would be smiling as they presided over our collective funerals. They’d achieved the deaths of millions of fools at the cost of a few missiles and transmissions.

  “Answer me!” I roared. “Are those missiles piloted by Macros or not?”

  “No, sir,” Marvin said. He sounded as calm and unruffled as he always did.

  “No? Confirm that. The missiles are from Crustacean bases?”

  “Yes, Colonel,” he said. “Every indication is that the Crustaceans have launched this attack.”

  “I have no choice then. Commanders, target their civilian populations. Input special order Z.”

  “Do we have to, Kyle?” Sandra asked me on a private channel.

  I ignored her. I stared at the blue, blue world below me. I wondered what it would be like to sail a ship on that glass-like sea. The water was warm—hot now, even. The skies would be cloudy. But on a clear day, the world would be an endless perfect expanse of blue. The tides were very large due to the gravitational tug of the gas giant in the sky, but I knew that even tidal waves back on Earth were small bumps in the road when out in the open ocean. They only became deadly when they washed up on shores. Those seas had to be idyllic. And I was about to turn them into radioactive soup.

  Two minutes left. Everyone was waiting for my final order to fire.

  “Is that channel to the Crustaceans still open, Marvin?” I asked.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Okay, transmit this: we do not understand your actions. Possibly, we never will. We are different from you, but not without compassion. It is very possible the make-up of your brain structure does not allow for compassion. In that case, there can probably never be peace between our two peoples—not until one of us is wiped out.”

  I paused, then continued on. “We came here to help you. We came here because you called us. We know your oceans are draining. We know they’re heating up. We suspect that the machines have opened a ring under the sea and the water is escaping from your world. Worse, this is causing the temperature to heat up, due to the hot-ice in the deepest—”

  “Where did you come by this information?” a voice asked.

  I blinked in surprise. I’d been in the middle of a death speech, a haiku that was to lead to the annihilation of a world at the end—and quite possibly my own death. It took me a precious second to realize the enemy had at last responded.

  “Where did we get this information?” I repeated. “We figured it out on our own! You said you needed help, and we came to give it. Along the way out here, we deduced what your problem was. We aren’t stupid.”

  “Congratulations. You’ve achieved civilization. Please stop firing at our missiles. They have been deactivated. We have lost a fair number, and we need the rest.”

  “Marvin, mute the channel for a second.”

  “Done.”

  “Are they telling the truth? Are the missiles deactivated?”

  “Yes—apparently. They are no longer powered. Many have deviated course.”

  “Don’t trust them Kyle!” Sandra said with vehemence. “They are just playing yet another trick. Melt their cities! It’s all we have left.”

  I was surprised she’d been listening in. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I didn’t have time to try to kick her off the line now, so I tried to ignore her words.

  But I found that I couldn’t. She could be right. This could be one last trick, designed to cause us to absorb the blow of a thousand missiles, letting them get in even closer before igniting the sky with the light of a million suns.

  “Divert your missiles and they won’t be destroyed,” I told the Crustaceans.

  I switched to the command override channel a second later:

  “Commanders, gunners, this is Colonel Riggs. Cease firing on any missile that is not directly targeting your vessel. That is an order. I’m attempting to negotiate a cease-fire.”

  The point-defense lasers that had been chattering steadily for several minutes slowed, then came to stop. The sound reminded me of the final beats of a dying drum.

  Next, I opened the channel to both my people and the Crustaceans. “This is Colonel Kyle Riggs. If one of those missiles gets through, just one, and destroys a Star Force ship, I want every ship in the fleet to bomb your preassigned civilian targets. That is an order.”

  There were thirty-one seconds left. No one said anything to me as the clock ticked down. I had time to wonder how many Star Force personnel I’d just gotten killed by trusting the Crustaceans one last time.

  -7-

  For the most part, the crews obeyed my orders. They stopped firing on missiles that weren’t a direct threat to their own ships. This was possibly the biggest risk I’d taken. Not all my ships were able to defend themselves against incoming missiles. The gunboats in particular were vulnerable to this type of weapon. The cruisers and destroyers had numerous point-defense systems, which were essentially automated laser turrets controlled by brainboxes with their own sensors. Normally, these larger ships had the job of screening the smaller ones. But today, I’d ordered them to turn off that screen to comply with the deal I’d made with the Crustaceans.

  I couldn’t even watch as the two lines converged on my screen. A shower of red splinters met with my ragged row of ships.

  But there were no hits, no explosions. The missiles diverted themselves or simply sputtered out and drifted. They sailed away from our fleet, falling into a broad orbit over Yale.

  Within a few minutes everyone on my staff was sighing with relief and a few were high-fiving one another. I guess they felt happy just to be alive. My own mood was much darker. I was angry with these aliens who’d tricked us and then turned the trick into some kind of test. I felt I’d been toyed with, and that the Crustaceans were playing a deadly game with countless lives for their own strange amusement.

  My ships flew past the moon and scattered. When I was sure none of the missiles were following us, I ordered Marvin to reopen the channel. I wanted to talk to these crazy shellfish personally. I wanted to know what the hell they thought they were doing.

  “Channel open,” Marvin said.

  “Hello, are you listening, Crustaceans? This is Colonel Kyle Riggs, commander of all Star Force and Ear
th’s representative in this system.”

  “We’re listening. We’ve always been listening. Your every statement and action since our first encounter has been weighed and judged.”

  “That’s great. Who am I talking to? Please identify yourself.”

  “This is Professor Hoon.”

  “Professor?” I asked. I’d been expecting something more like a governor or an admiral. But I had to remind myself that these people valued an academic structure more than anything else.

  “Yes. In addition to teaching at the highest levels, I’ve been a Principle Investigator in many ontological—”

  “Yeah, that’s great,” I said. “No need to give me your full resume, Hoon. Let’s talk seriously for a moment. Did you realize as our ships approached Yale that we were coming on a mission to render aid to your people?”

  “Of course. I’m afraid I’m going to have to lower your cognitive score by an additional 1.5 points. Your question was poorly worded and worse, it demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of the situation.”

  I stared at the walls for a second, my eyes unfocussed. I was beginning to get a black, sick headache. When my eyes came back together, I spent a few seconds gazing at the deep blue of Yale’s oceans, covered by swirls of white clouds. My expression shifted into a mask of rage.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Do you think this is some kind of game? Why did you fire on my ships when you knew we were on a rescue mission?”

  “Because by our estimations, you could not help us. A hostile barbaric fleet in orbit over our dying world represented nothing other than an additional threat.”

  “But you called us out here!”

  “Immaterial. I must warn you, Riggs, you’re dangerously close to losing another half-point.”

  I muted my mic and cursed for a while. Around me, the staff looked nervous. The battle was on hold, but clearly the situation could go bad again at any moment.

  “All right,” I said when I’d calmed down. “You called us out here, but figured we couldn’t really do anything to help you. So, you decided to blow us out of the sky with an ambush at the last moment so we couldn’t cause any harm, either. But it is your logic that I find greatly flawed. Your test results are coming back in, and the tally is woefully low.”

  “Absurd. Our actions were impeccably logical.”

  “I will give you this single opportunity to improve your score,” I said as officiously as I could.

  There was a brief hesitation while they mulled this over.

  “What form will this opportunity take?” Hoon asked finally.

  I smiled. They’d taken the bait.

  “The assessment will take the form of a series of questions,” I said. “Remember, your responses are being carefully judged. Every word is recorded and weighed by our academic panel.”

  “We are prepared. Ask your questions.”

  “Why did you nearly cause me to attack and kill millions of your own population?”

  “Because the population of World Three is doomed.”

  I frowned. “You mean that if they were going to die anyway, you figured it didn’t matter if we killed them all right now?”

  “A follow-up query was not specified, and breaks the format agreed to. Worse, the answer to your follow-up is self-evident and thus unnecessary. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. You’re cognitive score has been lowered by a half-point.”

  I felt like having another round of cursing. I passed on that, but raised my arm to hammer on the chair armrest. I stopped myself with difficulty. Somehow, their nonsense about tests and constant insinuation that we were uneducated rubes—barbarians, really—was getting to me. I didn’t want to prove them right, no matter how irritating they were, so I held back my fist pounding display with difficulty.

  “Fine,” I said. “You’re saying that you decided we couldn’t help, and since we were a possible threat, you ambushed us. You didn’t care if we killed the population of Yale—um, World Three, because they were as good as dead already. I have to ask, however, did you ever consider the possibility that you were wrong? That your actions might have needlessly killed my people and yours?”

  “Certainly not.”

  I thumped my helmeted head back against the headrest. Around the command center the staffers were listening in, and they murmured to one another. No one could believe it. Compared to the risk I’d taken, these people were insane. They were so arrogant, they never seemed to question their own conclusions.

  My anger had faded somewhat during this interchange. After all, they’d been at greater risk than I had from the start. I’d nearly lost a fleet, but they’d nearly lost a world. What mattered most was the fact the disaster had been averted. I told myself I needed to focus on that. Then a new question sprang into my mind.

  “What was it that caused you to change your judgment concerning our capacities to help you?” I asked.

  “Your last transmission stated that you knew about the lowering sea levels, and the physics behind the rising temperatures.”

  “That was it?” I asked incredulously. “You were waiting to hear that we understood your problem?”

  “If you’d been unable to discern the nature of the emergency on your own, you certainly could not be capable of rendering significant aid.”

  I thought about it, and there was a certain twisted logic this. After all, their engineers were probably working on the problem desperately. If they hadn’t been able to stop the draining of the oceans, then it must be a difficult trick to pull off. Anyone capable of solving this problem probably would have quickly figured out what the problem was based on the data presented. They’d given us a couple of days in-system, then judged us morons when we didn’t seem to figure it out. The penalty for academic failure among the Crustaceans was a harsh one: death.

  “All right,” I said finally. “We’re here, and we’re at peace. Now let’s discuss the political state between our two species. Let’s agree to a peace treaty.”

  “Is that absolutely necessary?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I think it is. Before we agree to work with you, we have to be at peace. Can’t you see the logic of that? Or do I need to lower your scores yet again?”

  “You’re confusing your own cultural norms with logic, but the error is excusable in this case. We find this sort of confusion is common in alien species, and does not represent a lack of mental capacity.”

  By this time I was rubbing my temples and wondering what had possessed me to fly out here and help these people. It was going to be a long mission.

  Professor Hoon wasn’t done yet: “Another significant failure in your response is represented by the nature of your fleet: it is essentially made up of warships. These are not the best vehicles to render the aid we require.”

  “That’s because you didn’t tell us what kind of help you needed. We assumed you were under some kind of attack.”

  “We are, but we still feel the nature of the attack is, and always was, self-evident. Before you even launched your fleet, many on the committee had lowered your percentile chance of rendering significant aid to the single digits. I would point out that I did not go with the prevailing trend of my colleagues on this matter. I estimated, and still do, a fourteen percent chance you will manage to provide us some type of meaningful assistance.”

  “Well,” I said, “at least I’ve got that going for me.”

  “I request that you do not embarrass me by failing too grossly at the task.”

  “We wouldn’t want that, would we? By the way, where are you located personally? I mean, are you on Yale, or one of the other moons?”

  “What is the significance of using the term ‘Yale’ to describe our stricken world?”

  “It’s a famous university back home, on our homeworld.”

  “Indeed? Then it is a complimentary term, and I will adopt its use during our discussions. In response to your original query, yes, I’m on Yale.”

  I smile
d slightly. We’d named their worlds after famous colleges back home precisely because the Crustaceans reminded me of snooty academics. I decided not to enlighten Hoon, as I doubted he would get the joke. If he thought it was a compliment, maybe that would help us all get along.

  As a secondary thought, I was impressed that this Lobster had the gonads to still be sitting on Yale. He’d pretty much ordered his own death by firing on us. That took a serious belief in oneself, not to mention a willingness to self-sacrifice, which was rare in my experience. Perhaps for the Crustaceans self-sacrifice wasn’t an unusual trait. I reminded myself that the “ambassador” that had flown out to my battle station months earlier had done so knowing she was going to die. She’d killed herself and my electronics in an EMP blast, arrogantly insulting me with her last breath.

  “Have you tried plugging the hole?” I asked.

  “Of course. Unfortunately, the hole is large and the pressure difference between our ocean depths and open space is too great to withstand for any material we’ve put in place.”

  I questioned him then on the precise depth and size of the hole in their ocean. From those numbers, I knew our people could calculate the amount of pressure that was involved. Without getting into the math, I was able to estimate that it would be tremendous, more than enough to fold foot-thick steel like tinfoil.

  Really, they were talking about suction. On one side of the ring in question there was open space. On the other side was a deep, dark ocean. The water at that depth was crushing in the extreme. When faced with a hole, very little friction, and a vast pressure difference, the water must have been gushing through with fantastic force. Probably, wherever it was coming out, it was a spectacular sight. It would turn instantly into ice and form a long, frozen stream like a glittering comet’s tail that grew steadily in space.

  “How did the hole in your oceans come to exist?” I asked.

  “The Macros opened it. Is this not obvious?”