Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest)

by VanDyke, David

  To the attacking Meme it seemed as if their enemy simply disappeared. To Ryss within gravitic fields, the world fell silent except for the thrum of their quasi-material passage through space.

  To those in the unprotected Control Chamber, the end was mercifully quick. At most, they experienced an instant of pain as, compressed by near-infinite acceleration, their frail bodies spread over the walls in a thin layer of biological residue.

  ---

  Clearing evil memories from his mind, Chirom palmed the pad, identifying himself to Desolator. As one of the clan elders, he should have access here…but ‘should’ was an unreliable word where the mad device was concerned.

  This time the door opened.

  ***

  Passing the shipboard day was no problem for Conquest’s average crewman. After the brutal high-acceleration run plenty of systems needed maintenance. Fortunately the ship had been designed to carry and protect enormous amounts of cargo as well as to fight, so spare parts were plentiful, built in the automated factories on Arana’s moon, Enoi.

  For the command officers, however, the waiting grated. The huge alien ship accelerated at under one gravity, as if carefully preserving itself. Suspicion ran high, however, after the viral attack. Taking over computers might be interpreted as an attempt to communicate, but using those computers to have one ship attack the other seemed unmistakably hostile.

  “Comm from General Kullorg.” Dozing bridge crew woke up immediately; their shifts had been extended, for the auxiliary bridge crew was in the infirmary with psycho-cybernetic damage. “On the screen.”

  Kullorg appeared on the main display and immediately spoke. “All Sekoi warships and one mobilized orbital fortress on way. Arrival in sixty hours.”

  Too late, probably. Rather than contradict, Admiral Absen nodded. “I welcome your government’s contribution to my fleet.” There, that should make things clear enough.

  Hippos were eminently practical beings and tended not be as sensitive to diplomatic nuance as humans, or the General would be more concerned about how such a show of force could itself spark a conflict. However, as the supreme military commander in the system – even over Hippo forces – Absen was glad to have a big stick to back up his soft words. The mobilized orbital fortress – a battleship approximately twice as powerful as Conquest, though barely movable by warship standards – would be particularly handy if the enemy ship was really as slow as it seemed.

  “All Sekoi are laughing with joy to fight under Admiral Absen the Liberator’s command,” Kullorg responded, and the Admiral relaxed. Sekoi also seemed very bad liars; his chief spymaster, Tran Pham “Spooky” Nguyen, had assured him that the allied Hippo populace was firmly, even fanatically, pro-human, and many were fascinated with the newness of Earth ways – cuisine, sayings, clothes.

  Even so, as humans were outnumbered five thousand to one, it was well to keep Hippo sensibilities in mind…and the enthusiasm would eventually wane.

  “Excellent. Then my first instruction is that you, General, supervise all Sekoi forces in my name. Have you secured Krugh against cybernetic attack?”

  “Yes. Your Johnstone provided us with valuable machine code.”

  “Excellent. Now my second instruction. No one is to fire on the unknown ship unless at my express order. If necessary, we will withdraw and continue to observe until the mobilized fortress joins us. Johnstone, make sure you repeat all my orders in the main Sekoi language and transmit them as text as well, to ensure no misunderstandings.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Absen knew Johnstone’s linked cybernetics had allowed him to download all their allies’ regional languages and speak them well. Conversely, Hippos had a strong taboo against implanting themselves with chips, so they had to learn human speech the hard way.

  “Admiral,” Captain Mirza spoke up, “what about the Reta base?”

  “Is everyone evacuated?”

  “Yes, sir, on the tug Booker. But it’s a valuable facility. Are we just going to leave it to…that thing?”

  “The base can be rebuilt.”

  “I wasn’t thinking so much of losing the base as what use they will make of it. Fuel, spare parts?”

  Absen put his hands behind his back and began to pace. “It’s still hours away, Captain, but good thinking. I like to hear all viewpoints and ideas. Any other concerns?”

  “Do we want to send in a recon drone from Temasek?” This from Tanaka at Sensors.

  “Good idea. Have it done. Make sure it’s secured against cyber-attack.”

  Johnstone nodded. “I’ll lock out the drone’s information buffers and take its reaction programs offline. As long it merely needs to look at a non-maneuvering object, that will be fine. There won’t be any channel to take it over. Also means we won’t be getting it back unless we chase it down.”

  “We can always send a fighter after it,” Mirza responded. “Get it launched.”

  “Launching in ten seconds,” Johnstone said. A pause. “Drone away.” The holotank marked the new contact with a friendly icon. “I told Temasek to aim it across the bogey’s nose. Closest approach in four hours thirty-two minutes. Here’s the feed.”

  Images came up on sub-screens in visible, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, neutron and other spectra. Some time would pass before the probe’s relayed data was better than Conquest’s giant sensor arrays.

  Chapter Five

  Chirom stepped through the door sniffing instinctively, as if he could smell the remnants of the officers’ crushed corpses even after twenty years, but the air in here was always clean, filtered, and warm. With fuel and thus power at a premium – according to Desolator – it was madness to waste it keeping the Control Chamber consoles on and the room comfortable. Madness. An apt description. Does it feel guilt at its murders? What would it do to me if it knew I had records of its perfidy? Would it even care?

  Standing before the main screen, Chirom spoke. “Desolator. We must converse.”

  Above the display the sensor light lit. “Must we?” Its voice was smooth and calm as ever.

  Sometimes Chirom detested the AI’s designers.

  “It has been twenty years, Desolator. Twenty years of searching over one hundred systems for a place for the Ryss to take life once again. From more than one thousand we are now less than five hundred. Many of us are growing old, and there are few cubs to take our place. Soon the Ryss will be no more.”

  Click. The voice chilled. “Genetic calculations show Ryss viability with approximately fifty mating pairs. Your race is far from extinct.”

  “Perhaps in the cold calculations of a machine that is true, but every day we forget who we are. Every day it grows harder to interest the younglings in our glorious history of conquest and empire. They have nothing for which to live. They have never seen open skies, never hunted a meat animal, never felt the kill under their claws, never tasted hot blood. They grow weak and tame.”

  Click. Angry. “What is that to me?”

  Chirom mustered the arguments he had constructed for this moment. “You too are falling apart. Without our maintenance you will deteriorate further. We need each other, but we have passed a point of no return, wherein without help your kind – you, if you are the last – will not recover without help, nor will the Ryss. We are more than bodies, and so are you. We must contact the dwellers here in this system.”

  Peevish. “To do so is dangerous. They may be inimical. I have detected warships powerful enough to destroy me.”

  “Destroy us, don’t you mean?”

  Desolator remained silent.

  “Is there something else that concerns you?” Gently, Chirom…

  There came another audible click, and the voice again turned flat. “I have intercepted Meme communication code. This star system has been compromised. It is within the sphere of the Empire.”

  “What if they have thrown off their masters? You know of the Nurn and the Hlepleh rebellions, and how they became allies of the Ryss.”

  Another click. This ti
me the voice seemed whining, even fearful. “They are compromised. Even one Meme molecule contaminates the life it touches.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Absolutely.” The AI’s voice booked no argument.

  Chirom took a deep breath, about to embark upon deep and dangerous waters. “Desolator, are you alive?”

  Click. Rational. “I am of a living kind.”

  “Therefore you must be ‘life,’ as you define it,” Chirom insisted.

  Click. “I do so stipulate.” This time Desolator sounded suspicious.

  “Did not Meme molecules contaminate this ship which is your body? Every hypervelocity missile that struck you left its traces.”

  Click. Sensible, warm. “I have cleansed all Meme traces from myself.”

  “So contamination can be reversed?”

  Silence. Then, eventually, another click. “That is rational. You are correct. I must sterilize all contamination of Meme-associated life-forms. Thank you, Elder Chirom. Your words have clarified my thinking tremendously. As a reward I will release additional energy to the Ryss hydroponics bays. Hold your technicians ready for repairs.”

  “Desolator –”

  “You may go now, Chirom. I have work to do.” A service bot moved to stand menacingly between the Ryss and the screen, a clear message of enforcement, so he wrapped his robe more tightly around him and exited into the cold of the corridors.

  What have I done? What did I just convince Desolator to do?

  Outside, breath frosting in the chill air, waited Trissk, hopping from foot to foot, whether from the temperature or from excitement he could not tell.

  “Wait,” Chirom said before the other could speak, leading the younger Ryss down the corridor away from the Control Chamber. When they reached the warm-room they sat down at the edge of the great semicircular space, well away from the rest who loitered near the heated wall shared with the fusion reactor. By putting their heads together they could speak without fear of being overheard.

  “We have received an automated response, confirming receipt.” Trissk hissed. “My program inoculated the simple computer in the alien communicator as I had hoped. Now we must see if they respond to my meaning. I used standard Meme memory-code alongside our tongue, in hopes they can use it to translate the primer included. If they are clever, they will understand and reply.”

  “Then go back to your workshop. I will bring you food and water at next mealtime.” He broke off as Vusk swaggered up, bowing to Chirom with mocking propriety.

  “Greetings, Elder Chirom. I do hope Trissk here is not chewing on your ear about Klis again,” he boomed, as if for the audience of those around.

  Chirom twitched his own ears in irritation, laying them slightly backward. “Nothing could be further from our minds, yearsmane. We were conversing about technology. I believe,” he went on, pointedly consulting his timepiece, “that it is your packlet’s turn in the garden.”

  “Ryss should not be tending plants!” Vusk snarled.

  “Oh, I quite agree, young Vusk. But because those plants provide us with the only thing that passes for meat in this place, it must be done. Or perhaps you would like to donate your next ration to an orphan? I’m sure your…herd…would be happy to give you some of theirs.” Chirom used the word for a group of stupid game animals to describe the younger male’s running mates.

  Vusk’s lips came off his teeth this time, and Chirom leaped to his feet in a flash, all four paws with naked claws extended as he roared, his ears flat and fur standing up. The yearsmane faced him for only a moment before backing down, covering his fangs and slinking off, his gang following resentfully.

  Nearby Ryss flicked their tails and twitched their ears in amusement and, for the moment, applause. All knew Vusk was a troublemaker, and any challenge to an elder must not pass unanswered.

  Yet I grow older, Chirom thought, and Vusk gains strength. One day he will overcome his fear and challenge me. Trissk is right. This star system is our best chance.

  “Go,” he repeated to Trissk. “I will be along presently.” He watched as the younger Ryss bowed and left, and then Chirom went to speak to Elder Dorem, who supervised the hydroponics bays, to tell him the news of the extra energy ration.

  Ever dour, Dorem merely grunted, but thankfully did not inquire further about their good fortune.

  ***

  “I’m receiving an odd transmission from the eyeball on the comet,” Commander Johnstone reported. “Let me clean it up. Just a moment.”

  Bored bridge crew, with nothing better to do than watch the slowly-improving data feeds from the sensor drone, turned their crash chairs to look at the CyberComm officer. All, that is, except Master Helmsman Okuda, who without his medusa cyberlink seemed determined to be split-second ready at all times, his hands hovering over his manual controls. Absen wondered how long before the man collapsed from fatigue. He told himself that after the drone went past and saw what it saw, he would order the man to his rack.

  “Here it is, on that display there. It’s interesting…Meme standard code, mathematics, and a parallel file…sir, it’s very similar to our first contact protocol. The other file is a new language, but if it lines up with the Meme code, I should be able to get a rough translation pretty quick. Perhaps…an hour or so.”

  “How long until the probe gets there?” Absen asked.

  “One hour twenty-five, assuming no change,” Sensors reported.

  “All right, Mister Johnstone, get on it.”

  Forty-seven minutes later a paragraph of text appeared on the main display for all to read:

  ADDRESS ALIENS IN THIS SYSTEM WE ARE ORGANIC SENTIENTS RYSS ABOARD DESOLATOR WARSHIP IS NOT SANE ENEMIES OF MEME AS YOU ARE MUST LEAVE WARSHIP TO SURVIVE NEED HELP BOARD SHIP TO DISABLE DESOLATOR FREE US HUMBLE REQUEST OFFER MACHINES AND SCIENCE INSIGHT EXCHANGE FOR LIVING TO REVIVE RYSS BESEECH OR WE DIE

  “That’s a mouthful,” Ford muttered from Weapons. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you punctuation doesn’t matter. Can’t you make it any clearer?”

  Johnstone shook his head. “Not without more communications to digest.”

  “Some of it is clear, I think,” mused Absen, “and some of it is not. They are addressing the aliens in this system – us and the Sekoi – and they say they are organic sentients – is there another kind? They are aboard the ‘desolator’ warship, which may be a name or function. But what does ‘is not sane’ mean?”

  Johnstone replied, “Might ‘is not sane enemies of Meme’ mean it’s not sane to be the enemies of Meme? Maybe they mean resistance is futile? A statement of despair?”

  “Or, ‘enemies of Meme as you are.’ That sounds like they want to be allies against the Meme,” Captain Mirza said hopefully.

  “Let’s leave that part for now,” said Absen. “What about ‘to survive need help board ship to disable desolator free us’ and then the rest…it seems they are pleading for help in disabling this ‘desolator’ and offer knowledge in exchange.”

  “Perhaps a ‘desolator’ is a weapon, a device of war. A self-destruct mechanism that will eventually kill them all? Or even a disease?”

  Absen stroked his chin, sitting back in his auxiliary chair. “So it seems like at least someone aboard that ship is friendly, or wants us to think so. And the communication came via our own eyeball’s relay. Could there be some kind of civil conflict aboard? Even two races? One faction attacks us with a computer virus, their most effective weapon given the poor state of the ship. Another faction tries to make contact.”

  Rick Johnstone listened with half his mind, the other half chewing on the problem. Something was niggling at his consciousness but the more he tried to grasp it the more it slipped away. Relax, Rick, let it come. He resolved to keep his mouth shut and continue listening. Maybe if he stopped trying too hard it would surface.

  “It seems like everything hinges on what this desolator device is, and also, what about the ‘is not sane’ phrase,” Captain Mirza said. “Perhaps we should a
sk.”

  Admiral Absen nodded. “I agree. Mister Johnstone, go ahead and send a reply. Transmit this group our first contact package too. If one faction already knows, we want to make sure they all do, until we figure out how to proceed. And shoot a summary of everything to Kullorg when you’re done.”

  “Aye, sir. It will be a few minutes at least before they reply.”

  “Yes, I’m starting to get the hang of this space warfare thing,” Absen said dryly, but Johnstone was already deep in his link and did not hear.

  “Admiral Absen,” crackled the screen as Kullorg came on. “Meme code they send is old version, perhaps three hundred years or more. Is possible ship and crew are also so old, or from past. Time dilation may explain survival.”

  “You mean the ship itself may have been wandering for more than three hundred years but experienced far less time if it moved relativistically.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Do you have any ideas about what the phrase ‘is not sane’ means?”

  “Many ideas, none better than other. Speak later.” Kullorg’s transmission cut off.

  Absen ran his fingers down the edges of his unshaven jaw. “How many Marines does Temasek have on it right now?”

  “Two standard companies of about two hundred each.”

  “Who’s in command?”

  “Bull – ah, Major Joseph ben Tauros.”

  Absen grunted. “The man who took down the moon laser generator. Can’t fault his aggression, but I wonder how he’ll do in a less…straightforward situation. Now I wish I had…” He trailed off, realizing that the bridge was not the place to be musing aloud about EarthFleet’s covert operatives. …Wish I had Spooky Nguyen or Ezekiel Denham, he finished the thought.

  A few minutes later Johnstone spoke up. “Here’s the reply, sir…not sure if it answers or raises more questions.” On the screen appeared the latest translated text: