Dark Matter (Star Carrier, Book 5) (28 page)

“You know about the Grdoch?”

“I saw a news feed editorial just the other day, yeah. Not people, I think, with whom we would be comfortable associating. Not when they might get the munchies in the middle of a trade conference.”

“Geneva’s been getting more desperate. I think that’s why they allied with the Grdoch. We’ll know more after our fleet returns from Vulcan.”

“Well, you won’t get an argument from me, if that’s what you’re looking for. I don’t like the idea of civil war with the Confederation. I don’t like the idea of Humankind divided against . . . against aliens, whether it’s the Sh’daar or the Grdoch. I think you and I are pretty close on that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “We are. I don’t like the civil war either . . . but we’ve got it. It’s not just the Sh’daar problem. It’s Geneva wanting to annex our Peripheries, control the free oceanic cities, control Konstantin and the other super-AIs . . .”

“None of which would be a problem at all if the Confederation really
was
united.”

“No. It’s the getting there that’s the problem. That . . . and the greed, corruption, and power-hunger along the way.”

“Denoix?”

“And others. General Korosi for one.”

She nodded. “He’s a mean one.”

“Dark matter.”

“What?”

“Stephen was telling us about dark matter this morning.”

“Yes. Gravitational leakage from parallel universes.”

“Uh-huh. But for me, the
real
dark matter is having to deal with Geneva. Ally with them.
Join
the bastards, despite the atrocities. And after that, just maybe, we’ll have to ally with the Sh’daar as well.
And
the Grdoch.”

She looked startled. “Why?”

Koenig was thoughtful for a moment. “Someone suggested once, a few centuries ago, that the only thing that would get all the rival nation-states of Humanity to stop fighting each other would be an invasion from someplace else. From space.”

She nodded. “It didn’t happen, though, did it? The Sh’daar attacked us, but here we are, still fighting with ourselves.”

“Unfortunately. But the principle’s valid, even if we’re still at each other’s throats. And what happens when the invasion isn’t aimed at Earth . . . but at our entire galaxy . . . maybe even our entire
universe
?”

“Ah. You’re thinking about the Rosette Aliens. Do we know they’re hostile?”

“No. We lost a ship out there but . . . no. So far, all the evidence suggests that they’re so powerful, so far beyond us, that they don’t even notice us.”

“You think we’d make an impression if we join with the Sh’daar against them?”

“I wish I knew. Look, the Sh’daar are terrified of
something
. We know they fear the ur-Sh’daar, the part of their civilization that transcended physicality hundreds of millions of years ago in some kind of technological singularity. That’s why they’re so dead set against anyone else developing high technology and entering tech singularities of their own. Maybe the Rosette Aliens are the ur-Sh’daar. We just don’t know.

“What I
do
know is that not even a united Humankind will be able to stand up to the Rosette Aliens. They’re just too far ahead of us.”

“Stargods?”

“Maybe. If they’re not gods, they might as well be, with the kind of power they possess. My God, Deb, if the strong anthropic principle is right, it’s possible that
they’re
the ones who created this universe in the first place!”

“That doesn’t seem very likely, does it? I mean . . . why would they pop up
here
, in this universe, right now? And just a few thousand light years from Earth? They have the whole universe to emerge in!”

“You’re saying, why did they pop up right next door, instead of off in the Leo Supercluster, or someplace like that?”

“Exactly. Some place a few hundred million, even a few
billion
light years away . . . not right next to Sol, right here in our own galaxy. . . .”

“Point taken. But the fact of the matter is, they
are
here, and with a level of technology that makes us . . . hell, we’re not even Stone Age by comparison. We’re like ants. Like
amoeba.
And if they do turn out to be a threat, maybe the only way to have any chance at all is for Humankind to join the Sh’daar and the Grdoch as allies.”

Slowly, she nodded. “My God. I see why you call it a dark matter. . . .”

“I don’t think it gets any darker than that.”

Chapter Nineteen

13 March 2425

Vulcan

40 Eridani A System

1433 hours, TFT

Lieutenant Connor’s Starhawk knew how to protect its pilot. She was unconscious when the fighter hit the planet’s atmosphere, but the SG-92’s onboard AI had stopped the damaged craft’s tumble on its own, then morphed the fighter’s nanomatrix hull, flattening it, growing broad, curved wings that bit the thickening air and slowed her meteoric descent.

The fighter’s medical suite, meanwhile, worked to keep her alive, pumping anti-rad nano into her bloodstream and exploring her brain from the inside out, searching for signs of serious trauma. By the time she groggily regained consciousness, the fighter was at an altitude of less than 20 kilometers, shuddering as it shrieked through the high, thin air.

She couldn’t see out, couldn’t see the terrain sweeping past below. Her Starhawk’s hull had been badly scorched in the explosions, and her external vid sensors were gone. An attempt to raise other ships in her squadron by both radio and laser com failed, as did an attempt to check on her emergency homer beacon. But the AI continued to feed a trickle of data through her in-head link, steady . . . reassuring . . . letting her know that her velocity had been reduced from kilometers per second to mere meters per second. She watched both her speed and her altitude dwindle, and wondered what was in store for her on the planet’s surface.

She knew that Vulcan was habitable without breathing gear or an e-suit. She would be able to find food and water . . . and there was a sizable human population. What she didn’t know was whether there were Grdoch on the surface.

Months before, Connor had been captured by another alien species, the Slan. She’d been a prisoner on one of their warships and been interrogated briefly . . . escaping only when a detachment of USNA Marines had boarded the ship, looking for her.

It had not been a pleasant experience. According to her briefing downloads, the Grdoch were worse than the Slan, a
lot
worse. The Slan, at least, weren’t interested in humans as food.

Less than a kilometer of altitude, now. She felt a surge of acceleration to port as her Starhawk dipped one wing and went into a broad, sweeping turn. The AI would be looking for a safe place to touch down . . . someplace smooth, not too rocky, not obstructed by vegetation, not out at sea or in a swamp or high in the mountains. She didn’t know anything about Vulcan surface conditions, save for the fact that people could live there without much in the way of technical support.

Her AI pilot would also be steering her away from anything obviously military, avoiding radar and lidar if at all possible. It wouldn’t do at all to survive re-entry only to be vaporized by ground-defense lasers as a possible incoming planetbuster.

Was it day or night now? Vulcan had been showing a half-lit phase when she’d been hit, but the Starhawk could be bringing her down almost anywhere.

Fighter AIs could speak with their pilots at need, but rarely did so. It was more efficient feeding necessary information directly into the pilot’s brain, while extracting intent and thoughtclicked orders the same way. They were not . . .
conversationalists
, and when Connor requested information about light levels, about terrain, about nearby enemy activity, all she received in reply was a sense of negation. The computer either couldn’t reply . . . or it didn’t know.

So she tried to impress upon it her desire to land somewhere close to a human population. Stay clear of military bases, yes . . . or large cities . . . but try to find a concentration of humans off away from the larger population centers.

In answer, she felt a sense of affirmation, of agreement.

The humans here would be Confederation, of course—the enemy—but at least she would be able to communicate with them.

At all costs she wanted to avoid the Grdoch.

To pass the time in the dark and close-quarters embrace of the cockpit, she ran through her list of her crash kit’s survival gear. Radio and emergency beacon, of course. Battery. A nanomedic pack. Enough water for several days. Knife. A dual ax-machete. A helmet and breathing gear that would turn her shipboard utilities into an e-suit. Vials of programmed nano that would grow her a pair of sturdy boots conformed to her feet, a self-heating blanket, and a small shelter, all from dirt, gravel, or local vegetation, plus additional nano vials that would recharge her suit’s air, food, and water cyclers.

And, perhaps most important of all, a Solbeam Mk. VII, a stubby, half-megajoule hand laser.

She still had nightmares about monsters dragging her from her crashed fighter on the Slan warship.

That was
not
going to happen again.

USNA CVS
America

40 Eridani A System

1436 hours, TFT

There’d been no reply yet from the Confederation squadron, and Gray was getting impatient. Damn it, what were they waiting for . . . a chance to jump the USNA fleet in a sneak attack? If that was the case, they’d be disappointed. They were heavily outnumbered and outgunned.

“Message coming through from the Confeds, Admiral,” Lieutenant Kepner announced. “Priority One. Time delay now seventy-eight seconds.”

At fucking last
. “Put it through.”

Several seconds passed . . . and then a bearded face came up within Gray’s in-head. “I’m Captain del Castro, commanding the Confederation Vulcan battlegroup. Admiral Gray?”

Gray waited, listening. It would take over a minute for his reply to reach del Castro. The Confederation commander appeared to be struggling with something.

“Sir,” he continued, “we find ourselves engaged in combat with . . . a truly horrific foe. We had thought the Grdoch to be allies . . . but . . .”

Wait for it
, Gray thought.

“Sir, our respective governments are at war, but out here . . . so far from home, we make what alliances we must. For
survival
. With respect, I put my squadron at your disposal, under your command. I am moving now to cut off the retreat of the Grdoch warship directly ahead of you. And I await your orders.”

Yes!
It wasn’t a surrender, not quite . . . but they could hammer out terms and definitions later. What was important now was beating the Grdoch.

“Make to all vessels,” he said, his mental voice sharp. “Do not fire on the Confederation warships. Repeat
, do not fire on Confederation vessels
. They’re on our side now.”

Acknowledgements came back. Gray leaned back against his seat, watching the display above him. The Confederation vessels were indeed moving to cut off the Grdoch warship, which was accelerating at about 80,000 gravities . . . too fast for
America
or the other USNA ships to catch.

“Can we just let them go, Admiral?” Captain Gutierrez wanted to know.

“No,” he replied. “We don’t know where they came from, where their homeworld is, and if they give us the slip here, I’m betting they’ll be back soon, in much greater numbers. But if their ships never return . . .” He let the thought trail off.

“They’ll still come looking,” Gutierrez said. “
We’re
here, looking for the
Intrepid
.”

“Sure . . . but it won’t be a major invasion fleet. They’ll be cautious. It’ll buy us time.”

“I hope to hell you’re right, Admiral. Just two of those monsters was
quite
sufficient, thank you.”

“They’re decelerating!” Commander Dean announced. “I think they’re turning to make a fight of it!”

“I see. . . .”

The huge alien vessel might still be able to slip away . . . but it appeared to be backpedaling now, trying to avoid the oncoming Confederation ships.

“Make to all ships,” Gray ordered. “Spread out. We’ll try for an englobement.”

The line-ahead formation began to disperse, individual ships moving off to left or right, high or low, and now they were closing on the Grdoch ship, cutting down the remaining thousands of kilometers in order to come to grips at last with the fleeing alien.

“All ships,” Gray said quietly.
“Fire.”

Grdoch Huntership
Swift Slayer

Vulcan Space

1437 hours, TFT

Swarmguide Tch’gok chattered a burst of orders at its subordinates. “Slasherclaws! Grow those weapons connections
now
! Shipguide! Orient us on the approaching prey! You have just three threes of
gh’gh’chk
before they are within slasherreach!”

Grdoch physiology was massively distributed. Each mouth had its own stomach; vision and other senses were distributed across the individual’s entire body, and rather than possessing a single brain, its neural processing was spread throughout its nervous system. The arrangement helped guarantee the organism’s survival; it could lose a dozen of the small, local pumping bundles that served it as hearts and not even slow down.

Grdoch ship architecture was based closely on their physiology, and that extended to damage control, with massively parallel systems for both flexibility and redundancy. Their immense, squat vessels could take terrible damage without significantly reducing their ability to fight
or
flee . . . and members of the crew tended to be cross-trained so that each could handle numerous stations.

Even Tch’gok was less a ship’s captain in the human sense of the term than it was an
organizer
. . . a first among equals tasked with keeping the entire ship and crew in perfect balance. Its role could easily be assumed by some hundreds of other Grdoch within twenty-seven separate swarmguide modules.

Swift Slasher
had been terribly damaged, had very nearly been killed . . . but it was quickly coming back to life.

USNA CVS
America

40 Eridani A System

1438 hours, TFT

On the well-established premise that it was necessary to know your enemy, Gray had downloaded all of the available intel on the Grdoch and the ship captured at Enceladus. There’d not been a lot available as yet;
Shenandoah
and the in-tow alien vessel had only just made it to Luna when Task Force Eridani had departed from the Sol System, and the XS people had still been in the middle of transferring their new POWs down to the XRD facility at Crisium Base.

Even so, a few things had become clear already, and there were some pretty solid guesses about Grdoch psychology emerging from the earliest encounters out at Enceladus.

Grdoch feeding habits were even more grisly than Gray had at first thought. The organisms apparently possessed a kind of neurological toxin, secreted by salivary glands, that worked to at least partly paralyze their prey. That was bad enough . . . but there was worse. The toxin also worked—at least with the immense praedams they fed upon—to control bleeding and heart rates, helping to keep them alive for multiple feedings.

Stomach turning . . . but Gray had been startled while reading the report to learn that at least one species native to Earth did the same thing. A particular shrew—
Blarina brevicauda
—secreted a similar paralytic toxin. Although shrews can consume their own body weight in insects, earthworms, and mice each day, this species had been known to “graze” on helplessly poisoned mice for days, and in one recorded case had nibbled on the same living mealworm for fifteen days before it finally died.

Nature, as was now well known, tended to repeat patterns of behavior, if not necessarily the specifics of biology, across the galaxy. The Grdoch toxin was tailored for the broadly distributed nervous systems of the ponderous giants they fed upon, the praedams, and probably didn’t affect humans, thank God. But Grdoch biology suggested that their psychology would be, from the human perspective, ruthless, opportunistic, and utterly devoid of such human elements as empathy, sympathy, or
mercy
.

And that was the horrible, screaming-nightmare point, wasn’t it? Aliens, by definition, did not think, emote, perceive, or reason like humans, if only because the environments in which they’d evolved and the conditions in which they lived held very little in common with Humankind’s. Mercy was a decidedly
human
attribute, despite a few thousand years of evidence to the contrary, and you couldn’t expect Grdoch—or short-tailed shrews, for that matter—to act like them.

How, Gray wondered, could you even communicate meaningfully with such creatures? Languages might be translated perfectly . . . but not the myriad emotions, attitudes, preconceptions, and innate behaviors behind them.

Dr. Truitt’s preliminary report on the captured Grdoch had emphasized this.
“The Grdoch appear to possess an opportunistic and manipulative approach to dealings with other species to a degree unknown even among opportunistic humans. They will tell you exactly what they believe you want to hear in order to win concessions or favor
. . . .”

Good enough. Humans did that sort of thing as well, using language to deceive, mislead, or manipulate, but Truitt’s implication seemed to suggest something more, that
any
behavior was legitimate if it advanced your own agenda.

Respecting cultural diversity and the validity of alien psychologies was all well and good . . . but there was a limit to what could be tolerated by others in the way of behavior. Gray could see very little in Grdoch psychology, at least as it currently was understood, to admire.

What was also clear was that the Grdoch ship design deliberately mimicked Grdoch physiology. Studies of their anatomy had only just begun, but portable MRI scans of the aliens on board the
Shenandoah
had shown extensive redundancy in their organs and organ systems . . . and their ships appeared to be built the same way. Gray remembered the Praedam and how hard it had been to kill, and the Grdoch that had swarmed the humans in that compartment had taken hit after hit from Kornbluth’s Marines before
finally
being burned down.