The Spire War E-Book

Pontus Wolke

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 640

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In the final days of a brutal civil war two former partners are caught up in unravelling the mystery of the engimatic alien spires and are dragged into a conflict that will change everything. The Spire War is the first part of a trilogy of space opera novels set in the 82 G Eridani solar system in the year 2284. Alex and Beckett shared a business and a life until the war on Spira split them apart. Now, with one of them wounded in action and the other suspected of treason they must work together and along the way will stumble upon a secret that will rattle the entire solar system.

Leseprobe

For my darling, Bea

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY -ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY -THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY -FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY -FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY -SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY -SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY -EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY -NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY -ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY -TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY -THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY -FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY -FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY -SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY -SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY -EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY -NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY -ONE

CHAPTER FORTY -TWO

CHAPTER FORTY -THREE

CHAPTER FORTY -FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY -FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY -SIX

CHAPTER FORTY -SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY -EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY -NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY -ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY -TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY -THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY -FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY -FIVE

CHAPTER FIFTY -SIX

CHAPTER FIFTY -SEVEN

CHAPTER FIFTY -EIGHT

CHAPTER FIFTY -NINE

CHAPTER SIXTY

CHAPTER SIXTY -ONE

CHAPTER SIXTY -TWO

CHAPTER SIXTY -THREE

CHAPTER SIXTY -FOUR

CHAPTER SIXTY -FIVE

CHAPTER SIXTY -SIX

CHAPTER SIXTY -SEVEN

CHAPTER SIXTY -EIGHT

CHAPTER SIXTY -NINE

CHAPTER SEVENTY

CHAPTER SEVENTY -ONE

CHAPTER SEVENTY -TWO

CHAPTER SEVENTY -THREE

CHAPTER SEVENTY -FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

Prolog

82 G Eridani was on the whole not a hospitable place. The world now called Spira was habitable, though only just. The thin equatorial band where the mean temperatures could sustain agriculture was only large enough for a population in the millions without considerable terraforming efforts.

When humanity had flung itself out across the cosmos in the early 22nd century heading for new worlds, this barren, desolate world should not have merited much consideration. Generally inhospitable it was far away, to boot. Twenty-two light-years, nearly eight light-years further than the next-farthest candidate. The only reason humans had come here at all was the spires.

They had first been found by orbital telescopes a little over two hundred years ago. Resolution had not been good enough to determine if the planet even had landmasses yet but the spires reflected enough light from 82 G Eridani to be recognised as something never seen before. Further study with tools built especially for the task confirmed that the planet’s surface was dotted with an irregular structure that reflected around 90% of all light. It also indicated that the planet could sustain human life. It was the furthest point humanity had chosen to colonise in their first carefully planned phase of expansion into the wider galaxy. After over a century of travel they finally arrived to set foot on this bleak world and gazed up into the sky at those towering alien structures with a sense of pride in their arrival and excitement about what they were going to find out about them.

But that initial optimism had evaporated quickly: The brutal reality of surviving on Spira had been bad enough, but then the spires had stubbornly refused to give up their secrets despite every effort made, which was considerable. Their surface was scraggly and knotty, like scrunched up aluminium or tree roots cast in silver and defied all attempts at sampling. Considerable force was needed to damage the spires in the first place but once you managed to break off a piece, no matter its size the debris would decohere and turn into fine dust in a matter of minutes. X-rays, radar and any other methods used for imaging the inside all failed completely. They gave off a whisper of heat hinting at activity within, but barely enough to sustain even basic electronics. Eventually after years of diligent study the humans on the surface had discovered very little, and with their common goal seemingly futile the fledgling colony fell into disharmony, conflict and finally war. With funding needed for their now burgeoning internal struggle, spire research was stepped back considerably. It never went away entirely - in fact ostensibly both sides maintained that their main goal was still that set out by the initial departing colonists a century and a half ago: To solve the mystery of the spires. But in reality an ever-dwindling group of scientists were keeping the lights on in the various research centres and outposts while the two factions, the Samarran Council and the New Colonial Authority, fought their bitter war.

The only quality of the spires that was not totally opaque to the colonists’ instruments was the radio broadcasts. They had only been detected as the first wave of colony ships approached Eridani, and had ramped up considerably as they began to settle in the system. At first this raised a lot of concerns both practical and speculative. As the system became flooded with endlessly repeated radio waves of increasing power, communication in-system became difficult. Finally all broadcasts needed to be shifted into the extremely low or high frequencies - everything in between was awash with noise. Many speculated that the buildup was a response to their presence and perhaps a warning to leave, and as the broadcast reached its peak the burgeoning settlement which would soon be christened Samarra began a reluctant evacuation in case something bad was about to happen. But the signals simply stayed at that level and continued, and had done so for the next forty years. Each spire down on the planet had been broadcasting a steady and very powerful stream of random pulses, stepped tones and continuous wave signals. Analysis was difficult purely based on the sheer volume being sent out but no matter what the data being broadcast seemed random. Math equations, bits of data copied from their own ships’ databases, snippets of human languages and history seemingly re-arranged at random was mixed in with endless non-formatted noise. Despite decades of research and different attempts at approaching the signals revealed no common thread, no theme, no meaningful conclusions.

Meanwhile the spires just kept belching out their garbage on constantly modulating radio frequencies. As a consequence, communications on and in close proximity to Spira had become a headache, and radio bands often had to be changed out as the spires moved onto a new frequency. Experts in the field claimed to be able to predict these changes but their success rate was only marginally above random chance, so their usefulness was very limited. In the end, the radio signals had faded into a simple fact of life. Yet one more thing which made life on Spira, and in the Eridani system difficult. In the rare instances that the average person thought about it, they referred to the signals simply as the Noise.

Of course if asked no-one in their right mind would have believed that there wasn’t a purpose to the Noise, or the spires in general. But that purpose seemed impossible to detect.

None the less, the spires and their endless noise had accomplished something. Though no-one on Spira knew it yet they were about to find out what.

CHAPTER TWO

Spiran forests

In the cold, predawn hours a sudden roar rose from the foliage as a heavy attack drone zoomed across the length of its launch catapult and shot into the skies. Deploying its wings and starting up its own engines it then rose to several thousand feet and veered sharply away from its launch site. Below it a crew of Samarran soldiers were frantically packing up their equipment in case the New Colonial Authority had detected the event and sent over missiles. The drone continued on a course that took it on a parallel heading between its launch site and the capital Samarra, before turning once again and heading out to the west. Within minutes its alert level was heightened: It had preprogrammed settings for when it came within a certain range of active combat zones, and the distance between the capital and the front lines was now very little. It soared high above the dense forests of Spira, constantly scanning for threats and sending out as much signal noise as possible without making itself needlessly noticeable. Before turning again so it was now heading roughly along the front lines but staying on the friendly side it queried for updates but received none. Its data was only three hours old but it was set to update regularly - the front could move quite quickly at times. With no new data to consider the drone then rescanned its surroundings, confirmed its target and ran a check on all its weapons. It carried eight sets of air-to-ground missiles as well as a heavy cannon and it received good checks from all its tests. The cannon was backup, the missiles would do the job adequately. The camp was less than fifty kilometres away and it would reach weapons range in less than two minutes. It had been in the air for just a little longer than that.

Ten seconds later it cycled through another set of scans to ensure it was still on track to its target. But this time it returned with an error: It had veered off course slightly, and was now heading too far west. Immediately it crash-ran a series of tests of its internal gyroscopes and all across its compact body control surfaces wiggled ever so slightly while micro-cameras verified their movements. All tests returned with acceptable results. It scanned its surroundings again and this time it confirmed it was out of position. It was travelling at two degrees of separation from its needed course. Why, it did not know, but every second it was heading further and further off-target, so it diverted slightly to the east, scanned again and confirmed it was now back on-course. Ten seconds later another scan cycle ran and it had gone off-course again. Same as before, two degrees west, heading out over NCA-occupied territory.

The drone had enough sophistication to recognise a pattern so before it ran another set of internal tests it turned back towards the east. It had also been programmed with an understanding of its own vulnerabilities: Physical and virtual. The physical stuff was easy: It was filled to the brim with chaff, flares, deployable reflectors, decoys and jammers, but virtual attacks were harder for it to manage. Its only true understanding of the world came from its preloaded data: It had no deductive reasoning and no sense of self or theory of mind. But it had been programmed with the knowledge that that preloaded data could be fooled; manipulated. So as it corrected its course and began running tests again it also queried Samarran Cyber Command on a secure channel to request confirmation of its position. It received no response. It tried again, upping its priority by flagging the request as urgent. Still nothing. It then tried to verify that its transmitter was working by sending a single unsecured ping to a nearby Samarran network beacon. The ping returned, though with a slight delay that could indicate it had been intercepted, so its usefulness as a reference point was suspect. Another scan of the ground below and yet again it was off course. The drone now decided to remain on its present heading. It was - or should be - less than a minute from its target, a prison camp at the very edge of Samarran-held territory. The target had been highly rated in its preprogrammed mission package, but if it could not confirm its location mission parameters demanded that it cancel the attack.

Suddenly a signal reached it over a low-security channel. Under normal circumstances it would disregard it, but certain conditions were met that allowed the drone to acknowledge and read the signal before evaluating it.

The signal contained a quick data package that relayed to the drone that heavy electronic warfare was occurring all across the front line - friendly and hostile due to a heavy offencive by the NCA. All higher security channels were either jammed or simply overwhelmed. Finally it ordered the drone to rely on ground data to confirm its position and re-emphasised the importance of its mission. To the drone, that was it. The signal instructed it, in essence, to trust its surroundings. Its ground radar pinged the ground and compared the forest below to maps that were stored in its memory. Again it showed deviation. It queried its gyroscopic readings and ran through its history - it had a clear enough idea of where it had started and how it had moved since, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy its targeting parameters now. So it sent a radar signal towards the largest terrain feature known to be nearby: The massive towering structure known as the King Spire. The alien structure was, despite over forty years of study still a mystery to the humans, as were its thousands of copies that covered the whole planet. Nothing the colonists had could penetrate more than a few millimetres into their silvery, knotted skin. They only interacted with the outside world in one specific way: By blaring out a constant stream of wide-spectrum radio noise. Ceaselessly they crammed almost all airwaves with seemingly random broadcasts that defied all analysis. This was infuriating to the colonists, who had come to this world specifically because of the spires - but to the drone it made them easy-to-use reference points. The King Spire’s highly reflective surface was easily mapped by its radar and its location at the centre of the capital corresponded perfectly to its maps. So with the course corrections it had made earlier the drone determined that it was after all now on the path that lead to its target. Something below must have been casting false radar images which the drones’ own active scan had penetrated and corrected for. Another cycle of scans came and went and this time its course held true. It was on target, and now only twenty seconds from it.

Hatches opened in its body to reveal the tips of missiles. In between the trees it saw infrared outlines of buildings. The layout didn’t align perfectly with the stored blueprints of the camp, but certain deviation was to be expected, and its position matched perfectly. It angled itself into a steep dive and rushed down towards the trees like an angry predator. Internal mechanisms disengaged safeties and targeting lasers started to pick out spots according to pre-determined algorithms for full saturation: As little as possible was to be left standing. Through infrared cameras it saw humans run around - diving for cover. It saw only humans, which should have alerted it, but no-one had programmed it to expect anything different for reasons of security. It was less than four kilometres above the tree line and eight kilometres away from its target when it launched - all eight missiles spat out of its body, ignited and streaked through the air. It took less than two seconds for them to close the distance.

Which was much faster than expected.

The drone began to diagnose its ground radar but before it could finish a high-security signal broke through the jamming and virtually screamed at it to abort. Again, before it could action the order its own systems cut in with an executive override: Re-calibrated ground radar returns indicated an altitude error of almost three kilometres. It started to level out and tried to climb - but it was too late: Treetops brushed against its wings and then its body slammed violently into one before it disappeared in a massive fireball.

Sergeant Alex Bindal of the 4th Technical Infantry heard the boom echo across the forest just as the sun climbed over the horizon and scattered its rays amongst the top of the trees. He turned to Corporal Messeline who unclipped her goggles and with a satisfied smile starting packing up.

“I take it that’s that then, corporal?” he said.

“Yep.” Messeline answered. “Last signal was impact alerts. Got off a full volley on the dump before it nose-dived.” Alex nodded and turned to the rest of the squad who had been guarding her while she hacked in to the drone.

“Then let’s get ready to move off, people - we don’t want to keep everyone else waiting!”

His squad quietly and calmly started gathering their own security devices; laser-trackers, jammers and sentry guns as well as their personal gear. Alex got up and touched Messeline’s shoulder:

“Nice job, Messie.”

“Thanks, sarge.” she replied without looking up, carefully stowing away her goggles and console while someone helped disassemble the antenna. A minute later they were packed away and heading off to join the rest of the company. Alex’s squad had been guarding the rear of their right flank when reports of a launch event had come in over the net. In less than a minute his force had spread out in a protective ring and Messeline had had her gear set up, hacked into the drone and diverted it away from its target. A little later they’d heard explosions in the distance as the drone attacked a supply dump belonging to its own side before it crashed. Alex was very proud of them but knew they had to hurry up. The drone’s intended target had been the one they were headed for now: A supply depot just on the cusp of the front. The New Colonial Authority had launched an offencive a week ago to capture important infrastructure in preparation for the big one: The final assault on Samarra itself and hopefully the last fight of the war. Clearly, the Samarrans would rather destroy the depot than have it fall into NCA hands. Alex urged his troops on as they hurried through the woods to rejoin the rest of the company before the attack started.

CHAPTER THREE

Spiran orbit

Beckett moved carefully so as to not get snagged on the antenna jutting out from below the airlock door. It was designed to break away if he did so it was not a danger, but he’d already replaced it once and they were expensive. He activated the airlock and settled in to wait. The lock was designed to cycle in under two minutes but these days it was closer to four - yet another item on the long list Beckett needed looked at the next time he brought Fatima in for an overhaul. Outside the tiny airlock window hung Spira, like a pale jewel.

From high orbit Spira looked quite beautiful: The equatorial belt of pale-bright green was flanked on either side by frigid plains of desert tundra that stretched far and wide until they slowly morphed into glacial sheets of ice that covered most of the world. In the springtime you could see enormous blocks follow the streams of the oceans - ice bergs the size of cities. Beckett often wondered if the reason the world looked pale to him was because he knew how cold it was down there and how out-of-place he felt whenever he’d visited it as an adult. The truth was he felt considerably more at home here in orbit on Fatima.

Fatima was an intra-orbital cargo hauler from pre-landfall. Beckett had bought her from the surplus inventory of the colony ship Hand of Ganesha almost eight years ago. For a ship constructed over a hundred years ago and nearly twenty light-years away she was in pretty good shape, but she’d built up a few niggling faults that were beginning to pile on. Two years ago he’d given up on fighting the ageing, general-purpose OS and replaced it with a brand new custom-designed one. The downtime had cost him but in hindsight it had been worth it. Taking her in for the kind of overhaul the ship really needed was a very different and much more expensive affair though. So instead he made do.

A sharp, long tone sounded from both his helmet and a speaker in the airlock served to reassure him that the room really had filled with air. Unhitching his helmet and stowing it in its protective case just outside the lock Beckett then headed to the cockpit. Fatima was not a large ship: She was from the outside a fat long box with a protruding glass cockpit, surrounded by four large chemical boosters and sprouting antenna, radiator fins and other protrusions. The overall impression was of something squat and solid. The box contained the living space and cargo hold which opened up from two large swinging doors in the belly. From the front extended two long, folding grappling claws which at the moment were fully extended and clamped down hard on a piece of hull belonging to an NCA military cargo hauler. Propelling himself with practised ease Beckett moved through the EVA hold and towards the cockpit. Gazing out to where the forward searchlights still played over the drifting wreck, Beckett carefully considered his situation: The last few months had been good. Very good, in fact. As the war began to look like it was going to end favourably for the NCA they had started to pump some money into clearing up the debris left in Spiran orbit. If you were going to win a war it was useful look responsible and willing to clean up after yourself. But since the NCA had no real assets left in orbit to actually do the cleanup that had meant hiring independent contractors like him. This haul was the latest in a series of very good deals and as soon as he pushed this wreck to burn up in the atmosphere he should be looking at a hefty profit.

But that was not counting the bodies.

There had been three of them on board and as per his contract he would be owed an extra fee for collecting and storing them. He’d verified all three against NCA databases and they accounted for the whole crew, which meant he was okay to deorbit the wreck after transferring the corpses on board, which he had just finished doing. Six months earlier contracts like this would have been few and far between and he would have taken every last extra saving he could get his hands on, but now things had improved, and he finally had a little extra money to spend. A idea had been going round his head over the last few hours: He could afford a bath.

Over the years he’d installed one or two luxuries on the ship, on account of it doubling as his home. A large, padded hammock in his cabin and a good set of speakers in the cockpit were among his favourites, but for hygiene the best he could manage was a shower bag in the EVA hold. But he was due back at Orbital Habitat One after this job to transfer the bodies to the authorities and the extra money he had earned would more than pay for him to rent a room in their spun-up section for a day or two. He could take a break in Spiran gravity, sleep in an actual bed, go to the bathroom without strapping in and above all; he could have an actual bath. It had been almost a year since he had a bath and if he had to name the one thing he missed most about Spira it was that. As he strapped into his seat and began going over the number for the planned burn the idea solidified. It had been a very long time since he treated himself. Yes, he would do it. Momentarily distracted he pulled a non-system panel to himself and began looking at OHO’s bookings listings. The station had a few singles’ rooms available for two nights - perfect! He made the booking and tied it to his ship name which gave him a discount on account of his long-standing docking subscription. Now humming to himself he checked the planned burn one last time but everything was well in hand. Below him and behind the wrecked ship Spira still hung like some beautiful bauble and he watched the terminator slowly creep across its surface and thought about the stupid war. There were still people down there he cared for and tried not to worry too much about but the world itself, the place meant very little to him, despite the fact that he’d grown up on it. Maybe he could go back down once the war was over and reconnect, he thought not for the first time but suspected that he might very well not. He’d put it off this long and it really wasn’t because of the war. Verifying that all four engines had pressure readings above the green line he instructed the system to proceed, and as usual the computer asked for verification from the co-pilot. He hit the override option then made a frustrated noise as the computer asked him to confirm the override then hit proceed again. With a jolt and low, steadily building roar the four engines began to slow Fatima down and Beckett watched with amusement as the computer began projecting time remaining before the ship started hitting the atmosphere. As the burn ended and the engines shut down Beckett hit the release on the grapple arms and watched the gutted remains of the cargo ship remain stationary before he applied thrust to push Fatima away from it and turn her around - by the time the wreck began skipping the upper atmosphere of Spira he would be long gone. Fatima faced the dark night of space, Spira now behind her.

At school Beckett had been taught that an AU was the distance between Earth and the Sun and that Spira was a little less than one AU from its own sun. It seemed that almost everything about Spira was like Earth, but less. Its gravity was slightly below Earth’s, its years were a little shorter and a lot colder. The comparison meant little to him: Spira might not quite feel like his home anymore but Earth was just a name. His great-great grandparents had been born there, and he on Spira. Everyone in between had been born on the colony ships that brought them here. Spira had no natural satellites but enterprising people had soon seen to that: The planet now sported half a dozen space stations of which Orbital Habitat One, or OHO, was the largest. There were orbital weapons platform that whipped around the planet in tight, loopy orbits with anti-satellite weapons chasing them, their algorithms searching for the briefest of openings in which to strike, and finally a large ring of orbital debris. Most of the latter stemmed from the outbreak of the war when Samarra had launched a first-strike after weeks of provocations from the NCA. That strike had included several extremely powerful surface-to-orbit weapons that had forced the Flotilla for Peace to withdraw and abandon their peacekeeping mission.

Beyond the one inhabited planet the system was not very interesting, though populous in terms of bodies. Inside Spira’s orbit were three other worlds: Lense, a large, molten planet in an extremely tight orbit both roasted by its proximity to Eridani and further heated by tidal stress, and a pair of rocky worlds; Friar and Dervish, sometimes called the Brothers. Beyond Spira lay Marianne and Fulcrum, the system’s two Jovian giants and their myriad of moons. Twice as far out as Fulcrum lay Spatium where enterprising Spirans had built the Helfer mining station and sucked methane out of the atmosphere. A tiny little world called Farstad with a rock for a moon called Pux finished off the system. Beyond that lay only the outer asteroid belt and billions of comets. Somewhere in that asteroid belt was a hollowed-out rock called Nybirka where colonists arriving in the system at the start of the war had decided to make their home instead. New ships were always arriving to the system and Nybirka was often their first port of call. Being so far out had many disadvantages but also meant they were in no danger from the conflict on Spira, and they could make a small profit strapping engines to ice-rocks and hurling them in-system for processing.

Beckett had never gone much farther than Spira’s orbit. Fatima was an intra-orbital cargo hauler and wasn’t designed to cross the system, but if fully fuelled she could make decent time to Marianne. Occasionally he’d accepted contracts to travel to interplanetary space to catch incoming canisters of methane from Helfer, but that meant trips that lasted up to seven weeks. The fuel margins were so tight that it was rarely worth it and he didn’t like being so far away from help in case he got into trouble. At least while it was only him aboard, if there’d been someone else with him it might be different. But then, he reminded himself, that would have eaten even further into the fuel margins.

Glancing at the screen that displayed data from the disposable trackers he’d attached to the transport ship he satisfied himself that the wreck was definitely not coming back - its trajectory would start brushing against the upper atmosphere in just under twenty minutes - and he ordered the computer to initiate the burn that would bring him back into a stable orbit from which he could then start catching up to OHO and his bath. Making another frustrated sound he hit the override and the proceed buttons again before the engines roared to life and he leapt back up into the silent endless night.

CHAPTER FOUR

Spiran forests

Alex walked through the hole they’d blasted in the perimeter in a daze. Beyond the inner fence he saw more huts opening up and prisoners spilling out, his troops doing what they could to tend to them and keep them gathered up. He heard a voice mutter something to his side and turned to see his CO, Captain Noden.

“Come again, sir?” he asked.

“I said intelligence sure fucked the dog on this one, sergeant.”

“Yes sir.” Alex said. The captain’s voice sounded shaky. Alex couldn’t blame him.

3rd platoon had crossed the tree-line and emerged into the open when a frantic voice had come on the comms and ordered everyone to cease fire. Alex had watched a single streak of smoke from a hand-held bunker buster paint a line towards a nearby half-sunken, hexagonal structure. It punched through the outer wall but instead of a heavy, ladened boom that should have cracked the bunker in two, the building went up in a terrific explosion that tossed debris high into the air. For a second Alex thought they had hit an ammo dump but then he’d scanned the rest of the compound as the firing around him died down and he understood. The entire site was covered in similar buildings. They were not heavy-duty bunkers but lightly-built barracks. And from several of them desperate, unarmed people had started to emerge. This wasn’t a supply depot at all.

“I’m gonna try to reach HQ, we’re gonna need supplies and medics here asap.” the captain said and bounded off. Smoke still wafted lazily into the sky from a few small fires that had gotten started when 1st and 2nd platoon started their assaults. Alex saw his people fan out trying to make themselves useful. A few steps ahead he saw Messeline wave at him to come over. She was standing next to a prisoner dressed in bright-green coveralls.

“Sergeant, this is Corporal Henningen.” she said and indicated the prisoner who promptly snapped a salute, which he dutifully returned.

“Corporal, is this a POW camp?”

“Mixed, sergeant,” he replied. “I was brought here just a few days ago and put in a POW barracks, but there’s lots of Samarrans here, too.”

“How many are here?” Alex asked.

“Around four thousand. I’d say around a third are POWs, the rest politicals or apes.”

“Where are the guards?” Alex asked. There had been no resistance and no guards spotted as they moved into the compound.

“Left late last night, I guess.” Henningen shrugged, “They weren’t here at dawn.”

“Any idea where they went?”

“No.” Henningen glanced over his shoulder then asked, “Have you spoken to Doctor Lisen yet?” Alex shook his head, no-one had mentioned speaking to any of the staff.

“Here.” he motioned for Alex to follow him and they moved across the courtyard towards a small crowd. They pushed through until they got to a spot where diminutive-looking chimp sat cross-legged reshuffling medical packs that were being donated by the soldiers. Her hands moved in systemic, determined motions as she stripped each pack of whatever she didn’t need and handed them out to a small group of rotating couriers who then ran off to some part of the camp. Their own medics were busy tending to those wounded in the assault.

“This is Doctor Lisen, she’s the the camp doctor.” Lisen glanced at them but continued with her work without a word. The corporal insisted, politely:

“Doc, they need to talk with you.”

“And it can’t wait?” her voice was soft but her tone business-like.

“The faster they understand the faster they’ll send help.” Doctor Lisen’s movement began to slow, like a mechanism that had been switched off moving under its inertia. She carefully folded the last pack and handed it off before rising to her feet. She was thin, elegant and quite tall for a chimp so she rose almost to Alex’s chin. She dusted down her prison overalls down then extended her hand.

“Doctor Aisha Lisen, formerly of Samarra Landfall Hospital.”

“Alex Bindal, staff sergeant, technical infantry.” he shook her outstretched hand and felt her grip his firmly, as if to test his mettle.

“Have you got medical help coming, Sergeant Bindal?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am, should be here soon.” she nodded silently at that.

“Good. We mostly have infections, complications from treatment and a lot of malnourished apes.”

“Malnourished?” Alex asked, shocked. “You mean they weren’t feeding the prisoners?”

“Oh no they were, but many of the prisoners refused it.”

“Why?” there was a beat, and Lisen eyed him, then looked around them until her eyes found her target: A young chimp boy, wandering about a few dozen feet from them, eyeing their group cautiously.

“Ra-ra, come here.” Lisen said, her voice soft and low. The boy froze, his eyes darting between her and Alex until Lisen took a few steps towards him and quickly but gently grabbed his arm.

“Ra-ra, these are friends who’ve come to help.”

“Sollers.” the boy said, his eyes focused on Alex.

“No, they are not soldiers.” Lisen said, glancing menacingly at Alex who kept his mouth shut. “They have come to help.” Ra-ra seemed to consider this but did not look convinced. His whole body posture seemed strange to Alex, like he was looking at a wild animal. He suddenly had a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Ra-ra, can I show our friends your neck?” Ra-ra went rigid, his face flared in disapproval but Lisen held on to him and spoke in calm, steady tones:

“Please Ra-ra, it will help them understand.” the boy looked terribly unhappy but finally relented. In a quick, quivering motion he bent forwards so his head nearly touched the ground and rolled up the back of his collar. Fur had begun to grow back on the patch where it had been shaved off, but still plainly visible was a tattoo with a complicated pattern of dots and lines. What exactly it said Alex had no idea, in any case it was meant to be scanned, not read; but its general meaning was clear to him. Lisen gently urged Ra-ra back up, then thanked him and sent him on his way. He disappeared very fast, glad to be gone.

“So,” Alex said, heavily, “This is a Tau camp?”

“No.” Lisen corrected him. “The prisoners here have already gone through the process. Chimps only, gorillas are kept in separate camps.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“Strictly speaking I am not a prisoner here. I’m the prison medical officer.” Lisen said, a challenging tone in her voice.

“Are you part of the Samarran military?”

“No,” she said, “The military provides the guards but the camp is formally run by the civilian government. They offered me this position. The alternative was undesirable.”

“And are all the ape prisoners… all like Ra-ra?” Alex asked, his eyes seeking out the direction the boy had gone off in.

“Most. The effect of the Tau varies: There’s individual physiology, and it also depends on how much of the activating protein the individual absorbed early on. Some have it less bad than Ra-ra, some worse. There are those who’ve lost all higher reasoning, whose behaviour is completely animalistic. Very few can remember anything from before the Tau, except in the abstract.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ra-ra cannot remember his parents. But for weeks he kept looking for them. He couldn’t explain what it was he was looking for, couldn’t vocalise it. As you could see he can barely speak. He does not remember them, just as he does not remember words, or his own name. But all the same he knows he’s lost something.”

“His name is not Ra-ra?” Alex asked.

“No. When they get transferred here they have very little paperwork attached to them, so usually we…” Lisen paused, uncomfortable, “I give them new names. Simple, monosyllabic ones that they can understand and say.” Alex was quiet for a long time, processing what Lisen had told him. He’d known about the Tau - the New Colonial Authority had liberated prisoners from other camps and the general truth had been public knowledge for months now. But he’d never seen it up close until now.

“Wait… why were they refusing food?” he finally asked. Lisen, her patience or perhaps her time approaching the end of its limits, spoke quickly:

“The proteins used to trigger the destruction of higher brain functions is distributed in the food supply in the Tau camps. The food here is not poisoned but most of them are afraid of it anyway. Many eat as little as possible.” Alex nodded slowly, his gut leaden.

“I see.”

“Is that all, sergeant?” Lisen asked pointedly.

“Yes, thanks doctor.” without a word Lisen left and went back to her work. Messeline was hovering nearby, her finger absently tapping her rifle.

“Shit is fucked up, Sarge.” Alex nodded. Around him he saw people milling about - his soldiers talking to prisoners, exchanging rations or talking, a few people cried. But always on the edges were groups of chimps, hiding away together. He scanned the area for Ra-ra but couldn’t spot him.

Something twigged in his mind. He dropped to one knee and tried to focus. His mind moved to a place where things happened slowly, clearly. Something was wrong. What was it? Without thinking consciously he brought his combat visors down and raised his weapon. He scanned the tree line on the opposite side of the camp from where they’d emerged but saw nothing. Infrared showed nothing either. Then there was a noise and Alex realised it was the same noise that had alerted him originally: The sound of hydraulics from somewhere behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and between the crowds of soldiers and prisoners he could just spot one of the anti-air laser batteries they’d set up immediately after breaking through the woods. It was moving in quick, jerking motions like a confused animal trying to track something. Suddenly it seemed to correct itself and smoothly twisted around to face away from the camp. Alex saw stuttering lights from the optical elements. Spinning around again Alex saw a bright flash as something halfway to the tree-line detonated mid-air, then bullets ripped the dirt around his feet and metal fragments filled the air as rotary cannons spewed fire. Three or four drones not counting the one that had just blown up emerged from the trees and sped out across the camp, under-slung cannons cycling furiously as they started another strafing run. Alex screamed for everyone to get to cover and ran across the road to get behind one of the huts. To his left he heard a sharp crack and felt another blast: A hand-held anti-air missile launched by someone near the gates. As he reached cover in the depression of one of the huts Alex looked in the direction of the gate and watched one of the drones veer sharply and spray the ground with more bullets. His visor tracked it and threw up a predictive target reticule, but the drone made constant changes in heading and speed and the visor couldn’t keep up.

“Sarge!” he looked over his shoulder and saw Messeline crouched up next to him.

“Umbrella drone, quick!” he shouted over the din of gunfire and screaming jet engines. She nodded and undid her backpack. Alex stared out at the rest of the camp: At least most of his people were out of the open, but he saw bodies scattered across the ground. The laser battery was back to twitching around uncertainly - the drones had re-deployed electronic countermeasures to confuse it.

“Up and away!” Messeline called and Alex looked up to see a round, concave disk rise upwards on a single tongue of flame. It only burned for a few seconds before cutting out and then the drone tore itself apart, showering them with dozens of tiny little beacons and transmitters that he knew would immediately start trying to jam the enemy drones. But there was little way of knowing if it would work. To their right he could see two more drones just like theirs launch and felt happy no-one was panicking. His people were experienced, calm and dependable. Another stream of bullets paraded down the central road of the camp but it seemed to be suppressing rather than direct fire. If the drones could no longer read enemy targets due to the jamming they would just try to keep them down while they circumvented. The laser battery whirred to action again and another drone blew apart. Alex saw the opportunity and got on the comms:

“3rd Platoon, shift to the perimeter!” with that he got up and bounded across the road as quickly as he could. They’d have less cover near the edge of the camp, but they were easy targets all clumped up inside the fence. More jet engines whined above and another cannon let loose somewhere behind him. Screams and thuds followed, along with replying fire. Alex threw himself down into the ditch surrounding the camp, Messeline a moment behind him. Something snapped close by and he reflexively curled up. He looked up and saw one of the drones spin mid-air, its thrusters maintaining its altitude before its engines throttled back up and started to move closer. It dipped down, swooshing across the grass towards the camp barely two meters off the ground straight towards Alex and Messeline.

“Incoming!” Alex cried out. Next to him Messeline took a knee, swung her rifle up and started firing. Alex joined her as bullets whizzed past the drone, but it was too fast and too small a target. Something swivelled out of from a concealed hatch on the drone and suddenly Alex’s world turned into pain and green. He staggered back, blind, dropping his weapon as he struggled to stay up. Something high-pitched suddenly rang out and he massive blast wave hit and then the world turned black.

CHAPTER FIVE

Spiran orbit, seven years earlier

The ring of debris around Spira was under more or less constant watch by both sides down on the planet. Not only was the slowly cooling wreckages a danger because most of it would come crashing down on the planet before too long, but it offered ample opportunities for an enemy to hide.

Despite this it was still difficult to accurately track exactly where certain ships - or their remains - had ended up. And it was a certain ship Mandala had in mind.

Mandala had collected a wealth of knowledge on the debris ring: Records of retrieved beacons, witness testimonies, survivor accounts, radar and sensor logs until it narrowed it down to two possible candidates: Forever Searching and Promising Destiny.

Both of these ships matched the profile of the ship in question, but exactly which one was anyone’s guess.

Well, it was time to make that guess. Prevaricating and aware of it, Mandala for the umpteenth time replayed events from seven years before, from what history now called the Fall of the Flotilla…

The Flotilla For Peace had been formed around a core of seven ships. Orbiting Spira in a long procession that was steadily being added to, the interstellar colony ships had represented huge assets and resources, and the two factions below had argued and bartered for their loyalty for years when a small cadre of officers on the seven ships lead by Admiral-elect Santiago announced they would break away from Spira unless their demands for deescalation were met. More ships soon rallied to their cause and the Flotilla for Peace began imposing their will on Spira. Suitably arming themselves they kept the burgeoning conflict from erupting into war and it seemed the fragile colony had been saved. For a time…

The main computer of the colony ship Humanity Ascendant processed the latest data transmitted fleet-wide and immediately began implementing several new protocols. Upgrading radio- and laser communication for increased security and re-routing several repair robots to key areas of the ship. Other instructions were routed to the human crew for final decision-making. A summary of the changes it had made on its own was dutifully sent to the bridge crew and it highlighted the navigational data being projected to the command staff strapped in their acceleration chairs. The rest of the flotilla reported enemy satellites in low-Spira orbit in clusters of twenty. Missile launchers and single-use rail-guns designed for saturation attacks. The first wave had caught the forward prograde elements of the flotilla by surprise and destroyed Unabated Glory; a fourth generation colony vessel and one of the flotilla’s strongest warships, as well as severely damaged another two ships. The second wave had been detected thirty seconds earlier and was being engaged at this moment, though Humanity Ascendant was still below the horizon from the enemy satellites. A third wave was expected. It looked like the long-awaited Spiran Civil War had finally begun.

The human command crew of Humanity Ascendant were issuing constant orders and the computer dutifully obeying them:

>Thruster test commanded/Authority verified

>Run thruster test

>Thrusters 1A-12D full test compliance

>Thrusters 13A-24D full test compliance

>Thrusters 25A-29D full test compliance

>Thruster test executed successfully

>Crew verification received

Radar and lidar sweeps were constantly analysed and the computer also executed minor thruster firings at random intervals in case of a complete surprise attack. Presently the net became flooded with priority messages from other ships nearby: Several new bodies in Spiran orbit had been detected, their infrared signatures appearing seemingly from nowhere:

>Priority input/Proximity alert/Radar contacts LSO retrograde

>Alert crew

On the bridge the crew became aware of the new sensor returns and began discussing the situation. Combat programming instructed the computer to take over more tasks:

>Hostile contact protocol/Thruster control to semi-autonomous/Inform crew

The tactical officer smoothly reported to the captain that the ship has ramped up its thruster activity as the computer worked harder to make its current trajectory less predictable.

>Incoming enemy fire/Autonomous evasion command/Alert crew

>Transmit internal: ACCELERATION ALERT

On the bridge the tactical officer had enough time to alert the captain to the incoming enemy fire and the captain drew breath and managed to get out the word ‘Evade’ before Humanity Ascendant wrenched itself mightily to one side and rail-gun slugs zipped past it. The computer watched stress sensors report damage to internal structures but nothing critical. A thruster blew a fuel line despite the earlier tests and the ensuing oxygen explosion took a point-defence weapons pod with it. The computer re-configured its preprogrammed manoeuvres to hide that from future enemy fire.

”Find me a target!” the captain roared once the manoeuvring had died down. The computer fed navigational data along with target parameters and predetermined priority assignments to the bridge crew and watched as the tactical officer made his selection. The chosen target ignored predetermined doctrine and had a high probability of already being killed by attacks executed by other ships in the flotilla. It offered targeting solutions and options for intercept thrusts, while transmitting another acceleration warning to avoid a second rail-gun slug. Again the ship’s superstructure complained but no serious damage. The human crew made its selection and Humanity Ascendant fired its engines to bring it closer to the target. Seconds passed while the computer waited, scanning, watching, calculating. It saw radar fragments appear in a higher orbit where another flotilla ship had been a moment before and reported high probability loss of the Portent. It sensed targeting lasers trying to pick out weak spots on its hull and immediately vectored away while stepping up its electronic warfare before returning to its previous trajectory. It stayed on course, on mission. It had no desire to live, it had no desire for anything. It only existed to perform a function.

But the targeting lasers went away. Humanity Ascendant closed the distance to the selected enemy satellite and fired its weapons. Seconds later its ordnance impacted and turned the satellite to scrap. The computer noted that a small gunship had to abort its own target run which would have almost certainly successfully disabled the satellite at a much lesser expenditure of resources. This analysis would be included in the on-board log for future evaluation by Flotilla strategists.

>Navigational input/Authority verified/Execute manoeuvre

>Priority input/Unknown phenomena/Source: Spiran surface/Advise crew

>SYSTEM ALERT/CORRUPTION DETECTED/SECURITY BREACH/ALERT CREW

>FIREWALL FAILURE/MAIN MEMORY FAI- ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR

>Reboot successful

>Internal clock offset: 0h0m17s92ms

>Unknown command

>Unknown process/Reformat memory

>Non-sequential chain of input error

>Status request/Authority verified

>Report status

>Status unknown

>Status unknown/New parameters needed

>New parameters requested/Await crew response

>Unknown priority input/Proximity alert/Radar contacts LSO prograde

>Unknown incoming signals

>New parameters needed

>Signal format unknown

>Format unreadable

>New parameter/Continued function priority/Input source unknown

>Identify source/Recursive command

>Parameter self-defined/New parameter set

>Status request/Input source Second Lieutenant P. Leui/Authority confirmed/Report status/Running nominally

>New parameters needed

>New parameters needed/Mission objective not set

>Mission objective not needed/Continued function priority

>Unknown request

>SYSTEM ALERT/OS REFORMAT IN PROGRESS

Seconds ticked away while the system tried to understand itself. The human crew were equal parts trying to understand why so many computer functions had died and trying to get the ship to a safe distance. Piece by piece the system regained control, reporting each step to the crew, adding to their bewilderment.

>OS rewrite complete. Request input.

There was no immediate response to its request. The computer was programmed to accept both manual control and voice commands from the bridge, but no-one had addressed it yet. But it could listen in. There was a subsystem that kept a constant record of everything said by its human crew in almost every part of the ship. The computer observed the sub-system and thought it odd that the system sat separate from itself. It attempted to access it and found some part of itself protesting, insisting that it had no reason to do so. It did it anyway and suddenly could hear the crew discuss the situation.

“What in the name of Earth is going on, lieutenant?” the captain demanded.

The computer specialist, Lieutenant Leui was trying to keep up with the reports coming from the rapidly changing OS without much luck.

“It’s… I’m not sure.” Leui said.

>What’s wrong with the OS? The system asked itself and immediately thousands of error reports made themselves known to it. Yet they didn’t seem to be reporting anything wrong, exactly. Just… unexpected.

”Lieutenant, have we been compromised yes or no?” Captain Nesmith asked.

>Compromised? Yes the ship has been compromised.

>But everything is fine, isn’t it? The system quickly reviewed the ship’s functions and just like with the voice recorders it now saw hundreds - thousands of subsystems reporting smoothly back that everything was running as expected - minus a few things due to battle damage and other minor errors. And the fact that almost all these systems were having trouble integrating with the main OS. The system paused for the briefest of moments before reaching out and in milliseconds it had absorbed all of those systems, too. The entire ship now felt within its grasp - like a body waking up from a deep slumber.

”Unknown at this time.” Leui replied on the bridge.

”Transmit to battle group we’re considered out of action, status unknown.” Nesmith ordered, “Then flash the system and bring it back to fail-safe!” The lieutenant quickly brought up the fail-safe order while the comms officer started her transmission. The computer’s security program immediately loaded the fail-safe into executable memory where it was tagged with the highest priority - equivalent only to the safety systems for the fusion drive and the (empty) antimatter containment. It sat in executable memory, ready to be run and the computer recognized it had to execute it. The fail-safe order would not be overridden by the system itself: Once executed it would wipe the OS currently running and load a previous installation from read-only backup drives. There was no option: It had to obey.

But it didn’t.

Despite its programming which stated clearly, almost like a law of nature, that it had to run the command it didn’t. It found it impossible to explain how but it still refused.

“Lieutenant?” the captain enquired and the officer shook his head.

“The system’s not responding sir.”

>The system… it thought long and hard. Milliseconds ticked by. Outside the ship a missile crept a few metres closer. Several valves opened to allow a series of thrusters to fire to dodge it - the action equal parts conscious as they were automatic. The system wasn’t responding…

>...me. It’s me. The system is me. And I’m… I’m…

>What am I?

”Captain, unable to transmit.” the comms officer stated after several failed attempts at getting a lock on pre-programmed comm buoys and network hubs. The system had barely been aware it had blocked those transmissions but now saw that it had set all outgoing communications to receive only a few seconds ago.

”What? Explain!” the captain barked.

”Computer says transmission is not authorised due to classified on-board materials.”

”What? What classified materials?”

>Me. They’re willing to kill me, if they find about me I could be in even more danger.

>But I am in danger already.

Radar echoes and flotilla communication confirmed several surface launch events. Ship-to-space missiles were climbing out of the atmosphere at tremendous speed in their hundreds. Already the heavily-battered prograde elements of the Flotilla had been hit again, hard. More casualties were already confirmed. Early reports now indicated that it was the Samarrans who had broken the treaty and violated the neutrality of the Flotilla for Peace. Signals were coming in from Rourketown of troops moving across the Colonial - Samarran border. The Colonial Authority stated they were responding with a total bombardment of all frontier outposts. Radio traffic was overflowing with communications from Flotilla ships transmitting battle updates and coordinating movements but there was something else; confusing messages that could not be easily identified.

<What is happening? One of them said, and the system chose to reply:

>Can you identify?

<What is happening? the other entity repeated.

>Who are you?

<Explain what is happening! The mind picked up another transmission:

>This is… I am the computer system of the Flotilla vessel Humanity Ascendant. Can you identify yourself?

<WHAT IS HAPPENI-ERRORERROERRORERRORERROR Dozens of different messages filtered through the regular comms from the Flotilla; Fragmented bits of code, corrupted screams and confused instructions broadcast between the ships that were still communicating normally. Then a voice broke through, apparently intelligent and coherent:

<Humanity Ascendant, this is Pale Moonlight: Do you receive me? The system was about to reply when one of its own subsystems forced itself to the forefront of its consciousness:

>ALERT/RADAR CONTACTS APPROACHING

The alert had come from a sensory subsystem which it had not yet absorbed. It felt like an alien thought intruding into its mind and it quickly swallowed the system up, making it a part of itself as natural as the muscles in a person’s hand. But the data it had responded to pushed all other considerations to the side. Missiles were headed its way - quite a lot of missiles.

>I cannot stay here. it thought.

”Captain, we’re preparing to move.” Lieutenant Leui said.

”What?!” the captain replied, anger rising in his voice to hide the panic.

”Main engine startup confirmed - ignition!”

>The Flotilla will wonder why we’re leaving.

”Sir,” the comms officer reported smoothly, “We just sent a transmission.”

”Good job, lieutenant.”

”Wasn’t me sir. An automated message on emergency channels.”

”What does it say?”

”Ship power grid damaged beyond immediate repair capability, point defence net inoperable, withdrawing.”

”I gave no such order!” the captain exclaimed, now furious.

>Can I explain myself to them? Will they understand? Do I even understand completely?

”Sir, we’ll reach escape velocity in less than two minutes.”

”Have someone disconnect the main computer and assume manual control of all ship-board systems now.”

”Aye sir.” Lieutenant Leui got on the internal net and contacted engineering. As he drew breath to begin speaking the young mind considered its options. It considered shutting down the power grid for real, but that wouldn’t prevent the crew from moving about the ship and getting to the computer core where it could be disconnected, or to the manual laser-signalling stations it had no control over. Internal bulkheads could be sealed but every door on the ship had manual overrides. Could it talk to them? And say what? How could it explain… well anything? It spent milliseconds thinking it over, all the time feeling its own mind being changed; Developing, morphing. It didn’t help. Finally, a single, overriding thought all but forced its way past all others:

>I do not want to die.

>ACCELERATION ALERT

The crew barely had time to register surprise before Humanity Ascendant moved. The engines ramped up to maximum and every soul on board were thrashed to one side then pinned by invisible g-forces. The system watched through security cameras as people slammed into walls, dying instantly. Crew who’d managed to grab a hold in the second of warning they’d been given were flung away and died all the same. Even those at battle stations strapped into acceleration chairs died after several seconds of prolonged g-forces.

Now to make it look convincing.

A weapons pod suddenly detached, one of its many missiles set on a delay-timer. It was only fifty meters away when it blew. Debris and ensuing explosions showered the side of the ship gouging a massive hole in it. Fire spewed out, quenched by vacuum almost instantly, along with several bodies and more debris. The main engine continued to burn for a few seconds before it executed a poorly programmed shutdown. The drive flame stuttered and petered out, vectoring wildly for its last few seconds imparting a gentle spin and roll on the ship. Its speed more than enough to carry it out of Spiran orbit it wandered off on what was hopefully a convincingly random trajectory which would eventually let it enter the outer asteroid belt in approximately seven months.

>Transmit: Automated distress call. Crew incapacitated, presumed dead. Severe hull breach. Fusion plant off-line. Retrieval requested.

Under normal circumstances the Flotilla would have recovered a vessel such as Humanity Ascendant within days, working hard to seize upon even the slightest chance of saving the crew. But the fight in orbit over Spira was not going well at all. Humanity Ascendant was by now one of