The Mothership (47 page)

“What is it?”

“It’s the ship’s nerve center. It’s the
only part of the ship that survived a direct hit. You have to get inside its
shielding to be sure.”

Beckman glanced at the schematic then
nodded to Nuke, who resealed the torpedo in his pack. “It’ll be guarded. I may
not be able to give you six hours. I may not be able to give six minutes.”

There was a moment’s silence as everyone
took in his meaning.

“We know,” Vamp said softly, voicing their
collective decision.

Quietly, Markus eased his MP5’s safety back
on, for now.

* * * *

Both fleets had
long since departed the Solar System by the time the crippled mothership
brought one of its main power plants back online. If any of the surviving ships
had still been in the Solar System, they would have detected the ship’s return
to life, but no one was listening. The interstellar war had moved on to more
important systems and even more desperate battles.

The ship’s meager energy supply was barely
enough for interplanetary travel. The Command Nexus knew it would never again
have the power to inflate spacetime and cross the interstellar void, but it
also knew it no longer mattered. Its crippled sensors had detected more than
four hundred radiation sources on the only habitable planet in the system. It
assumed the radiation blooms were the after effects of orbital bombardment,
rather than the cores of primitive fission reactors. It knew the Tau Ceti
target world was fourth from its star, but assigned its inability to locate another
inner world to its damaged sensors, and assumed the missing inner planet was
hidden on the far side of the star. It never considered that it was in the
wrong system, only that battle damage had corrupted its memory, allowing it to
consign every irregularity to faulty data or crippled sensors. The Command
Nexus detected a vast radioactive debris cloud out among the orbits of the gas
giants, counted hundreds of shattered, lifeless hulks and was even able to identify
wreckage that could only have been the remains of another mothership’s
superstructure, yet not a single functioning ship remained anywhere in the
system. Even to its disrupted logic cores, it was obvious that a battle of
annihilation had been fought, with one clear outcome.

It was the only survivor.

Rather than scuttle itself as it should
have done, it brought as many sensors, weapons and propulsion fields back
online as it could, preparing to repel an attack that never came. Its flawed
analysis led it to conclude that the enemy’s surface forces had been
neutralized by orbital bombardment and the opportunity to inflict a crushing
blow lay within its grasp. It decided to land immediately and establish a
secure deployment zone without waiting to complete vital repairs.

With so few propulsion fields operational,
the ship’s maneuverability was severely reduced. It approached the target
planet without decelerating, wary of enemy forces arriving before it landed,
while its few surviving maintenance drones repaired enough acceleration fields
to protect every hull breach from the extreme heat of atmospheric braking. With
the cargo holds mostly emptied by explosive decompression, there was little
equipment left, so the ship cannibalized empty decks for raw materials for its
nano fabricators.

While the ship drifted toward the orbit of
Mars, it surveyed its target, selecting a landing zone both remote from major
population centers and tectonically stable enough to endure large scale mantle
mining. It knew unpopulated areas tended to be less well defended, while the
dozens of mantle mines necessary to fuel its nano fabricators could trigger
significant seismic events if located near fault lines.

The mothership punched into the upper
atmosphere faster than any object in Earth’s four and a half billion year
history. The entry angle was steep, to avoid bouncing off the atmosphere, while
the friction of atmospheric braking sent the hull temperature soaring. With
only a fraction of its normal engine power available, the mothership’s rate of
deceleration was sluggish, and its in-atmosphere flight was unstable.
Acceleration fields prevented super heated atmosphere from penetrating the hull
breaches while the ship’s armor resisted the worst of the thermal assault.

The Command Nexus kept its few remaining
hull weapons powered in anticipation of air attack, even at the cost of
sacrificing some flight control, yet strangely, no attack came. It assumed the
orbital bombardment must have destroyed the ground based air defenses, confirming
its assessment that it had to strike fast while the enemy was vulnerable.

It plunged into the ionosphere, pulling up
sharply to near horizontal flight as it passed over a narrow isthmus joining a
pair of heavily populated continents stretching between the planet’s two polar
regions. It detected thousands of slow moving air vehicles far below, but none
emitted high energy signatures or tried to climb toward it, so it held its
fire, conserving the limited energy for a genuine threat.

The ship became a massive fireball as it
fell into the mesosphere above a great ocean that spanned half the world’s
surface. It had decided to make its final approach over the Pacific because
deep oceans were always less well defended than continents. The great ship tore
across the sky like a mountain of flame, a sight not seen on Earth since the
dinosaurs took their last breath, decelerating slowly.

The target continent appeared on the
horizon as the ship dropped through the stratosphere, still relying only on
atmospheric pressure for braking. The Command Nexus had chosen wisely,
selecting a natural fortress buttressed by wide seas to the north and sprawling
deserts to the south. Collision warnings sounded throughout the crippled
mothership, as it prepared to strike the ground. It commenced emergency braking
with maneuvering thrusters at the last minute, reducing speed just enough to
ensure the impact remained within the ship’s structural tolerances and the
internal acceleration field’s capacity to offset the inertial effects of the
impact. It could have slowed enough for a soft landing, but the kinetic energy
of a high velocity impact would eliminate resistance in the landing zone as
surely as if an atomic bomb had exploded. It was an attack that could not be
jammed, shielded against or intercepted.

When the ship made its final approach,
blasting down into the troposphere, its sensors detected plants and animals in
abundance. There were almost no energy emissions of any kind indicating the
lack of even a primitive civilization. The ship tried informing its distant
masters it was initiating a kinetic impact assault on the primary objective,
but its interstellar communications system was inoperable and the message was
never sent.

The ‘impact imminent’ warning sounded, then
the great ship nosed down into the vast tropical wilderness, which a moment
later, was transformed into a hellish inferno.

Nemza’ri found an
officer’s quarters, where she slept after eating, her first real rest since
escaping imprisonment in the hull several days ago. The heavy lift suit was
parked in the corridor outside, and the passageway’s pressure doors were
locked, ensuring the hot bloods in the sleep chamber could not surprise her.
She’d slept for little more than an hour when a pristine thought entered her
mind through her crew-net implant.

I have been monitoring your activities,
Kaleezsha(Alashra-Warm)Nemza’ri.

She snapped instantly awake, shocked. Never
in all the years she’d served aboard ship had she experienced a direct mind
link with the ship’s command consciousness. That kind of access was reserved
for senior officers only. And yet it had happened! The Command Nexus had spoken
directly to her, and it had used her formal spawn designation! ‘Kaleezsha’ was
her clan, which determined her bloodline. ‘Alashra’ was her crèche, the place
where she was raised and which determined her relatively low social status. ‘Warm’
defined her spawning season, while Nemza’ri was her hatching designation, more
a number than a name. With millions born at a single spawning, there was no
tradition of personalized naming among her kind, only a recognition of one’s
place in the vast sea of life.

Through a flood of astonishment, she recalled
the damage the ship had suffered and wondered how the ship had been able to
observe her.

A thought of perfect clarity appeared in
her mind:
Via the med drones.

The response startled her, because she’d
not meant to ask the Command Nexus a question. Because of her implants, it had
free access to her mind and understood her every thought.

 Your crew status has been restored.

She hadn’t expected that. She waited for
further explanation, or for orders, then sensed the Command Nexus was waiting
for her to say something. Why would it wait?

‘Do you have orders for me?’

 I have a request.

A request! Her hopes fell. The Command Nexus
never made requests to crew of her rank, it gave orders. ‘What request?’

I understand your intentions. They are
tactically sound.

It was something a fully functioning
Command Nexus might conclude. Undamaged, it was a master of strategy, capable
of the most devious and complex calculations.

You are the only functioning female alive,
and have transformed into a breeder.

Was the Command Nexus being obtuse? She
wanted to demand what it wanted, but her training and respect for authority
restrained her. ‘Yes?’

Therefore, I request you assume the mantle
of First Matriarch of this world.

‘What!’ The leap from lowly technician to
brood mother for an entire world was unheard of. Her genetic class alone should
have disqualified her from such a role, let alone her crèche and clan
affiliations. And yet, as the only healthy female, it was a logical step that
complied with the laws of maternal succession. Even so, it sent her mind
spinning, leaving her to wonder what good accepting such an exalted rank would
do?

I have been boarded by hostile forces. My
internal sensors are eighty nine percent inoperable, making it difficult to
locate the enemy. I am cannibalizing myself in order to produce combat units,
however, there are few maintenance drones available to carry out the work. I
must therefore prepare for defeat.

Nemza’ri had explored much of the ship, and
even though she wondered how clearly the Command Nexus was thinking, she knew
its assessment was correct. ‘What do you propose?’

This world’s oceans are not ideal for your
species, however, they are viable. The dominant species on this world are land
dwelling mammals. They have craft able to sail beneath the surface, but these
are crude and limited to relatively shallow depths. The oceanic parts of this
world would provide your species with a tactical advantage.

‘You want me to leave the ship?’ she asked,
surprised.

I propose to relocate a power plant, med
drones, clone tanks and nano fabricators to a deep ocean location where you can
breed in safety. You could then release your eggs into the oceans in vast
quantities.

‘You want the eggs to mature on their own?’

Compared to the mammals of this world, your
species has vastly superior intelligence. In time, your spawn will pose an
overwhelming challenge to them. With nano fabricators, you will be able to
equip your spawn with the technology necessary to overcome all opposition.

The thought of spending her life in
isolation at the bottom of the deepest ocean did not appeal to her, yet she had
to admit, if the hot bloods could not reach her, the plan could work.

I will continue to repair myself, however,
I have insufficient resources to restore my systems to operational levels
within acceptable timeframes. Even if I continue to function at current
efficiency, my simulations indicate I have a low probability of producing a
force strong enough to protect myself before enemy forces inflict unsustainable
damage upon my systems. Offensive operations outside the deployment shield are
completely beyond all baseline extrapolations. With the enemy inside my hull,
the probability of defeat is increasing rapidly.

She considered the Command Nexus plan
carefully, unable to fault its logic. She’d seen enough of the ship to know the
situation was desperate.

‘If I accept, what should I do?’

You would need to relocate immediately. I
would assign a battloid and two combat seekers to guard you, although the deep
ocean and the secrecy of your location will be your main protection. I will
also construct the equipment you will need. You and the two viable males would
then fly to a deep ocean trench north of this world’s equator. It is an ideal
location for your hatchery. After each spawning, you will be able to use the
vehicle to distribute your eggs to suitable oceanic zones around this world’s
equatorial regions.

Nemza’ri wondered how her naked offspring
could possibly survive a hostile world without technology and training. Again,
the Command Nexus detected thoughts she had meant for herself alone.