Singularity: Star Carrier: Book Three (31 page)

His Starhawk’s AI was far more powerful and flexible. A standard Gödel 900 series, it was, technically, sentient, but only within certain, very tightly defined parameters, “of limited purview,” as the techies said. It was very good at what it did—directing and overseeing the fighter’s systems, correlating data, operating weapons, and performing maneuvers at super-human speed—but it wasn’t exactly a brilliant conversationalist.

Gray had always felt somewhat ambivalent about his AI. Most other pilots he knew named their fighter AIs, established emotional bonds with them, even thought of them as fellow pilots. Gray had never been able to manage that, not that he’d tried all that hard. The fighter AI was a
tool
. It interfaced directly with Gray’s personal AI and with the fighter’s electronics, allowing Gray, in a quite genuine sense, to
become
the fighter when he engaged the connections between his brain and the ship.

And now it was gone.

His personal AI maintained its link with his fighter systems. He could still download data, monitor system function, and the like. If he’d wanted to, he could have opened the cockpit and gone outside, not that he saw any point to doing so. His fighter’s external sensors indicated a temperature of minus 200 Celsius, no light, and no atmosphere, and if there were machines out there—like automatic doors—his implant circuitry wouldn’t be able to operate them. His jackies, his flight utility suit, could keep him breathing for a while with the helmet closed, but they wouldn’t hold off that bitterly frigid cold for more than a few moments.

He was far better off staying where he was. His fighter still had power—at low, barely maintenance levels for life support, but power enough to keep him warm and alive. His communications systems were still operating, in case Lieutenant Schiere surfaced again.

But Trevor Gray had never felt so inexpressibly alone as now, sitting there in the dark, imbedded in the close-fitting embrace of a high-tech fighter cockpit that was now little more than inert nanomatrix and dead electronics.

He waited. There wasn’t anything else he could do.

And the wait stretched out longer . . . and longer . . . and still longer, and he wondered if this was where he would die when his power gave out and his heat and atmosphere finally failed.

Chapter Twenty

30 June 2405

Admiral’s Office

TC/USNA CVS
America

Omega Centauri

1700 hours, TFT

I
t had been one hour since the assault group had begun accelerating. The magnified view of their destination—the tiny, slightly flattened hexagon of six suns—gleamed against the backdrop of massed cluster suns on their forward screens.

Fifteen hours to go. . . .

The image was repeated on one viewall of Koenig’s office, where he’d retreated shortly after the battlegroup had commenced acceleration.

“Admiral,” Karyn’s voice said, “the virtual conference is ready.”

“Very well.” Leaning back, he closed his eyes and placed his left palm on the contact plate of his chair. The reality of office, of viewscreen and desk and waiting reports of combat damage and tactical assessments all faded away, and Koenig sat at a virtual copy of a certain conference room at the Ad Astra Confederation government complex in Geneva. Outside one in-slanting wall of green glass, sunlight, the light of Earth’s sun, sparkled on the waters of Lake Geneva out beyond the broad, labyrinthine Plaza of Light, with its towering epic statue,
Ascent of Man
, by Popolopoulis.

Koenig had chosen the simulated venue for the conference of ship commanders and staff carefully and with great deliberation. He’d discussed it at length with Karyn—with Karyn’s electronic ghost, rather—and it had been she who’d first suggested the towering green pyramid of the Ad Astra complex.

It was all rather elemental human psychology, actually.

Koenig himself was widely seen as being in rebellion against the Confederation government, especially after HD 157950. Many of the North-American officers in the carrier battlegroup disliked the fact that the United States of North America was a mere member state of the Earth Confederation. There’d always been a strong secessionist flavor to the North Americans, ever since the creation of the
Pax Confeoderata
out of the war- and disease-savaged survivors of Humankind 272 years before. Those officers would have joined Koenig more because of his perceived rebellion than anything else.

Other of the officers here had deeper, older ties to the
Pax
—Harrison, of the
Illustrious
, for instance . . . and Michel of the
Jeanne d’Arc
. Harrison and the skippers of the British contingent might well share some of the USNA’s historical doubts about both Confederation grand strategy and about Confederation legitimacy as the
de facto
government of Earth. The French, Germans, and other Pan-Europeans, though, were only here because they’d been convinced by Koenig’s argument that the
only
possible way Humankind could hope to survive this war lay in taking an offensive path, that a defensive or appeasing strategy would end with humanity’s subjugation or with its extinction.

And then there were the Chinese, excluded from the Confederation for 272 years because of the Wormwood asteroid attack, but nevertheless determined to participate in this final expedition against the alien Sh’daar. It was still tough to see where their primary loyalties lay.

But the green glass pyramid of the Ad Astra complex offered a powerful and tangible symbol, not only of the Confederation Government, but of a united humanity as well. And that was what this mission was all about—a united humanity against an empire that had arbitrarily decided to set limits upon the shape and scope of human technology.

Koenig studied the mammoth statue for a moment. The
Ascent of Man
was gaudier than he cared for, but that, too, was an enduring symbol, like the corroded and crumbling Statue of Liberty outside of the Manhattan Ruins.

“Admiral Koenig?” his AI said. “Captain Buchanan would like a private word.”

“Put him through.”

A window opened. Randolph Buchanan’s long and worry-lined face appeared. The worry looked deeper, now.

“Thank you, Admiral,” Buchanan said.

“You’re wondering,” Koenig said in a matter-of-fact manner, “just what the hell I think I’m doing.”

Buchanan showed a moment of surprise, then nodded. “I wouldn’t put it quite that harshly, Admiral, but yes. That’s not why I simmed you, though.”

“Why did you?”

“To wish you luck . . . and let you know that I, my officers, and my crew are behind you one thousand percent, no matter what you’re up to!”

Koenig grinned. “I appreciate that, Randy. Don’t worry. I don’t think I’ve gone
too
far around the bend.”

“It’s a relief to hear that, Admiral.” The window closed. Buchanan’s simulated image, however, had taken its place among the ranks of officers now dropping into place one by one around the virtual table.

The captains and senior officers—CIC heads and staff, mostly—from all of the ships on this side of the tunnel had been directed to come. There were forty-one ships in all, including both those in the assault group and those left guarding the tunnel leading home, and that meant more than two hundred people. The room appeared to be full, with places at the table reserved for captains, with smaller desk workstations for their staff behind them out to the walls of the room.

Koenig’s place was at a simulated lectern at the front of the room, just to one side of the broad glass window looking out over the plaza.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “ladies, and AIs, thank you for coming. With luck, this could be the last briefing session you have to attend with me.”

Gentle laughter rippled through the room, though some of the expressions showed uncertainty. Was he saying that the campaign was about to end in victory? In death? In a return to Earth?

Well . . . yes, actually. Any of those was a distinctly possible outcome.

“I imagine most of you have been curious about what I’m planning . . . on why we’re pursuing that mobile planet we spotted zorching off toward the Six Suns.

“Up until now, the battlegroup has been staying ahead of the enemy, surprising them, getting in and hitting them where they weren’t expecting us, and getting out before they could bring in reinforcements. Eta Boötis. Arcturus. Alphekka. Texaghu Resch. Even on this side of the tunnel.” He gave a wry smile. “We were always outnumbered, and we’ve taken some heavy casualties, but we were always able to hit them before they could get their shit together.

“This last time, they were able to throw fighters at us numbering in the
millions
, however. We’re following what’s left of them into what is probably the very heart of the Sh’daar Empire. We can expect manufactory centers capable of producing further large numbers of spacecraft. Think of it as a target-rich environment.

“If this is indeed the center of the enemy’s empire, possibly his homeworld, then this will be our final encounter on this mission. They may be ready for us in there. But this is also our opportunity to end this war.”

“Admiral,” Captain Hernandez of the cruiser
Libertad
said, “if they could throw millions of fighters at us at the tunnel mouth, what are they going to have waiting for us in there?”

“I don’t know. But what I do know is that we have a singular opportunity here. An opportunity we’re not likely to see ever again.”

“What opportunity?” Captain Jiang of the Chinese
Cheng Hua
asked.

“A chance to end the war. A
negotiated
end.

“From the very beginning, thirty-some years ago, we’ve been fighting Sh’daar client races. Turusch. H’rulka. Nungiirtok. God knows what else. So far as we know,
we have never directly encountered the Sh’daar
. Everything we know about them, or
think
we know about them, has come through the Agletsch . . . and they’re a Sh’daar client species as well. What does that tell you?”

“That they’re very shy.” That was Harrison, always something of a jokester.

Koenig smiled. “Possibly. Seriously, though, the galaxy is a hell of a big place. We’ve only been engaged at the very outermost periphery of the Sh’daar Empire. I’d expect the Sh’daar are in towards the center, somewhere. There are just too many stars, too many intelligent species, for the Sh’daar to personally try to manage each and every one.

“It is my intent to seek out the leaders of the Sh’daar Empire and to negotiate a peace.”

That
struck home. The avatar images seated around the table didn’t change position or expression, of course, but Koenig could hear the swell within the undercurrent of conversations.

“How do you propose to communicate with those . . . those monsters?” Captain Paulson of the cruiser
Burke
asked.

“I think more to the point is how to talk to them while they’re doing their best to kill us,” Captain Harrison pointed out.

“We know,” Koenig continued, “from our contact with the Agletsch that individuals within each client race carry tiny communications devices, called Seeds, implanted within their bodies. The Sh’daar apparently keep track of what’s going on in their empire by monitoring events through those individuals. Every so often, when a Seed-carrying individual has acquired important information, that data is uploaded to the local Sh’daar network and eventually makes its way to a Sh’daar node. We believe the TRGA tunnel is such a node, and there are others. We’ve followed this node here. If this is not the Sh’daar imperial capital, it’s likely to be the next best thing.

“And now that we’re here, it is my hope that our two Agletsch guests on board the
America
will be able to help us make direct contact.”

Koenig had already discussed the possibility with the two Agletsch, Gru’mulkisch and Dra’ethde. They’d been brought along on this mission, after all, as liaisons and translators for any alien species encountered along the way. That applied to the Sh’daar as well as to Sh’daar client races. Gru’mulkisch carried a Sh’daar Seed, a microscopic knot of circuitry carrying a kind of Sh’daar emotional and cognitive presence. The Agletsch had not even been aware of carrying the thing until a close biological scan had detected it.

“Sir, the Sh’daar have
never
shown any interest whatsoever in negotiations,” Commander Conway of the destroyer
Fitzgerald
said. She sounded shocked. “How do you intend to make them sit down and talk?”

“A fair question,” Koenig said, “and an important one. I have two answers for you.

“First of all, our contact with the Sh’daar themselves so far has been entirely through the medium of the Seeds. As I understand it, based on what our Agletsch guests have told us, Sh’daar Seeds have a certain amount of hard-wired AI intelligence to them, but they can’t really make decisions more important than whether or not to transmit the data they’ve accumulated. The various Sh’daar client races we’ve encountered so far—the Turusch, the Nungies, and others—have evidently been working under orders relayed to them down the chain of command, but only through the Seeds. They’ve not been as . . . as
flexible
in their relationships with other species as they might be otherwise.

“Dealing with the Sh’daar directly might give us a better chance of being heard.

“Secondly, if we’re in orbit over their capital, we have them by the balls. Their technology is advanced enough that they’d be able to swat us down eventually . . . but I think they’re not going to want to risk
any
significant damage to their infrastructure. A barbarian with a club can take out a battle-armored Marine,
if
he can get close enough.”

“That’s a very large ‘if,’ Admiral,” General Mathers said, and that raised a chuckle from the others.

“Agreed. The important thing, however, is that we’ve got the bad guys reacting to us for a change,” Koenig observed, “and that is a vitally important distinction. For thirty-eight years, the Turusch and the other Sh’daar client races have acted, and Humankind has
re
acted. That means that the Confederation has constantly been on the defensive. It does not take a military genius to recognize that the Confederation can never hope to win a purely defensive war fought on the enemy’s terms.

“On the other hand, the Sh’daar face a serious disadvantage in not knowing the capabilities, the strengths and abilities, of all of the species they control. Even the word ‘control’ is misleading. I’ve never liked the term “empire’ as it applies to Sh’daar space, simply because an empire carved out of a significant chunk of the entire galaxy would be so unwieldy, so large and cumbersome, that they would not be able to rule it in a conventional sense. The Agletsch tell us that we are the twenty-thousandth-and-some species they’ve encountered that employ carbon, oxygen, and water in their biochemistry. That implies a staggering number of mutually alien races within their . . . jurisdiction, for lack of a better term. Evidently, all they’re really concerned about is that developing civilizations not evolve too far along a path that could lead to a technological singularity. Though we don’t have a lot of information about it, it sounds as though a majority of species can’t develop high technology—they’re marine species, or evolved within gas giant atmospheres, or are trapped under the ice caps of gas giant moons or even in hard vacuum. Species that evolve in non-oxygen environments, obviously, can never develop fire, and that puts a sharp limit on what they can do in the way of metal smelting, alloys, steam power, radio, and other early industrial technologies. Many of the rest are capable of developing nanotechnology and computers and other dangerous technologies, as the Sh’daar think of them, but they don’t. They don’t have the philosophical or ideological mind-set that drives them, the way humans do.