The Stars Came Back (54 page)

A column of military vehicles rolls along in three lines, fifty meters or so between each vehicle in a line, a hundred meters between the three long, snaking lines. About two hundred vehicles. Wheeled gun platforms, APCs, missile launchers, artillery, armored self-propelled artillery,
air-defense guns and missiles, troop trucks, command trucks, supply trucks, tankers, recovery vehicles. A self-contained town on the move. Recent rain keeps the dust down. They are driving across rolling savanna hills with scattered bushes and tall bunch grass.
Tajemnica
drops into view, rolled over at an angle, partially upside down and on her side, spearing down through the air toward the rear of the column. Only four turrets on the lower flank of one side can’t fire down on them. The rest of the guns start firing, the smoke of the 120mm swept away in a moment as she passes through the air. The bustle of the tanks pop up to expose the missile launchers, and from each a couple of missiles streak toward the column to hit specific high-value targets while the main turret guns work their way up the columns, simply shooting everything in a line from above. Some of the vehicles in the doomed battalion suddenly break the line and head for the open, hoping to get out of the way, some swing their guns or missiles skyward to try to return fire. The area around the vehicle column erupts in many thousands of puffs of dust and splatters of mud from the canister rounds, cutting down anyone trying to flee on foot. A single pass along the convoy and all the vehicles are burning, stopped or nearly halted.
Tajemnica
, still moving fast, levels out close to the ground and slews around to fly backward. The bow ramp drops and the two chromed grav-tanks slide out followed by four hovering grav APCs. Two more grav tanks drop from the lower flanks, one each side.
Tajemnica
noses up and heads away. The eight vehicles glide to a stop, form a line of paired tanks and APCs, and start heading back down the three columns to ensure that it is destroyed in detail.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY -
Space, low orbit above the destroyed column

An
orbital bombardment platform, 120 meters long, shaped like a simple boxy orbit-to-orbit container freighter but covered with lots of munitions drop ports, drifts along, seemingly motionless against the stars, slowly over the tan, blue, and white planet surface below. The sun casts hard, sharp shadows. In the distance, another OBP drifts along, and a couple of orbiting twinkles might be the other two. Suddenly there is a flash of the exploding space mine, like a giant claymore. The pellet launch velocity of more than 1200 meters per second, adding to the relative closing speed of more than 10,500 mps, makes thousands of small steel balls rip lines straight through the whole ship, raking it from stem to stern with hundred of hits. Crew’s quarters are breached multiple times. Fuel, air, water tanks are blown wide open. Explosives and rocket fuel are detonated or ignited. The ship is designed to avoid sympathetic detonations, but the energy of the impacting projectiles is enough to set some of them off. A half dozen large explosions rip the ship up, but not completely apart. In the distance the other three OBPs meet a similar fate.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY -
Airspace high above the third Kiv Battalion

Tajemnica
screams along, contrail of disrupted air streaming behind in the thin atmosphere. The rear ramp lowers, revealing stacks of large bomb-racks. From them a mass of small bombs, only a meter long and 20 cm in diameter, cascade; scores, then hundreds of them, a veritable waterfall going over the edge. As they are released, small parachutes pop out to slow their decent. The deadly rain starts to drift slowly, silently, toward the positions below.

CUT TO

EXT
- DAY - Laagered third Kiv battalion

Aerial view across the rolling savanna, with badlands in the background on one side, a sharp terraforming valley cut on the other,
with troops and vehicles spread out and ready. Guns are pointed skyward. Missile launchers are pointed up in all directions. Some of the launchers are large dual-missile systems; some only have one missile on a launch rail, and a few with none are reloading from supply trucks. Crews are at their stations. Radars sweep back and forth. Troops not needed for air defense are away from vehicles, digging foxholes. Camouflage nets are up over some vehicles. They are not lined up on a convoy route. They are preparing as best they can for the shitstorm headed their way. There is pointing and yelling, and the many of the guns go from pointing in all directions and angles to pointing more or less straight up.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY -
Airspace high above the third Kiv Battalion

The air is filled with small bombs, drifting down under their parachutes.
They start cutting their parachutes and free falling. Some of them explode with a small
bang
and a burst of confetti-like chaff to confuse the Kiv radar. More and more release their chute lines.

CUT TO

EXT
- DAY - Laagered third Kiv battalion

There are
scattered explosions and sporadic firing skyward. An explosion here, an airburst there. Troops keep their heads down. Shrapnel whizzes evilly by, ricocheting with a PINGGGgggg! Amid the din, up out of the valley cut by the terraforming machine long ago,
Tajemnica
rises, tilted on her side, bringing nineteen turrets to bear, less than 500 meters from the closest vehicle. The moment a turret is above the rim of the valley wall it opens fire. Not so much a broadside as a ripping, rolling staccato of fire, fifteen railgun and cannon shots per second, hundreds of light railgun shots streaking through the air, everything close to pointing in their direction is hit in the first few seconds. The canister rounds fired by the 120mm cannons send wave after wave of metal sleet sideways across the open ground. It is suicide to stand up to move around or attempt to engage with shoulder-fired weapons; anyone in the open becomes one with the ground to have any chance at all. Heavy SAM missiles are targeted by the precision anti-armor missiles launched from the back of the many turrets available. Heavy lasers target anything coming their way, exploding the few rounds of incoming ordnance midair. Another battalion is reduced in under a minute to hulks of exploding, useless, twisted metal, the dead, the dying, and flames.
Tajemnica
rises up fully above the rim, and slides smoothly toward the carnage. The aft ramp drops, the bomb cradles and mine mountings drop away, then four more grav APCs slide out to join the four tanks that drop free off the side. The movable armor slabs are immediately slid back into place. Eight tan armored units line up and start to sweep forward, finishing anyone left moving and make absolutely sure that all vehicles and equipment are utterly destroyed. Swift, pitiless, effective, efficient.

CUT TO

INT
- DAY -
Tajemnica
Bridge

Lag: Now we reintroduce ourselves properly to the first battalion we passed, then drop pairs to
mop up the smaller units.

Ship AI
Avatar: (Piratically) Been a while since I ha’ a chance to go yardarm t’ yardarm and give a good broadside. We be in tread-grease for a good while, me thinks, t’ go mixin’ me metty-phors.

Helton: That was a lot faster than I imagined.

Ship AI: (Piratically) As I said t’th’ wee lass at the helm, they fir’ the first broadside, but we be firin’ th’ last. They flew their colors, ‘n we rammed ‘em down their throats right smartly. Well done, Cap’n, well done!

Helton: Wasn’t really
my
plan.

Ship AI: (Piratically) But ye be smart enough t’ sail with good folks, n’ listen t’ good advice, Cap’n. That takes more than ya’ know.

Allonia: (Somewhat sad) Will any of them survive?

Lag: A few always manage to. But not many. That’s what
makes soldiers reluctant to breach allowed tech levels. It might get you an edge, but it could get you killed very dead, really fast.

Quiritis: Sometimes word is sent that lower enlisted men and conscripts can drop everything and walk away immediately,
be spared because they might not have known any better. Might not have even known it was happening.

Helton looks thoughtful a moment. Then he nods.

Helton: Give ‘em a little while to hear what happened here, then radio them. They drop everything, walk out away from the vehicles with nothing but the uniforms on their backs, and troops with less than four years service will just get a hard labor POW sentence.

Lag: That would set a good tone for other units we face, make their decision to give up a lot easier. Swift vengeance AND mercy. More difficult than simply killing them all, but it pays larger dividends long term.

Helton: And we have the manpower aboard to do it properly, now. OK, Bipasha, get on their freq and let ‘em know. Also, send video to the tech compliance board, keep ‘em in the loop.
Taj
, how long to orbit and back?

Ship AI: (
Piratically, with avatar) Less’n two bells, cap’n. Tha’ be an hour, fer the lubbers.

Helton: Quiri, head for orbit so we can verify status on the orbital platforms before we drop
back down for the rest of ‘em.

The bridge crew get busy, and Helton sits back, a grim smile on his face.

FADE TO BLACK

Details

FADE IN

INT - NIGHT - Helton’s cabin aboard
Tajemnica

Helton sits at his desk, looking at the book. A small camera is positioned above it. On a
wall screen is an image of the book text, with a partial translation next to it. The door is open, and the slight hum of ship’s systems are the only sounds. Helton is examining the text and thinking intently. Lag walks silently up to the door and raps gently with a knuckle.

Lag: Knock
knock. Busy?

Helton leans back, rubs his eyes, stretches his shoulders, and shakes his head.

Helton: Time for a break. A lot of progress, but sometimes we get stumped working around the holes. What’s up? Job?

Lag grins and shakes his head.

Lag: Nope. Message came in yesterday.

Helton: Oh?

Lag: You asked about this ship’s history, the name plaque. I filed it away for future reference. After finding how casually it was listening in on electronics, I thought it time to find out more, sooner rather than later. Not just this
class
of ship, but this
particular
hull.

Helton: Sounds like a hard bit of research.

Lag: Not really. Plataean command has fairly extensive military archives. Kind of a “must have” if you plan on surviving in the mercenary business. When I was sure I had a positive hull ID, I sent word back for the complete record.
Everything
. Every single bit and byte they had ever had, unencrypted or not. That raised a few eyebrows. Usually detailed summaries are more than enough.

Helton: What’d you get?

Lag: A bit more than 750 terabytes of stuff, compressed. Came by courier packet.

Helton: (
Whistles)
That’s
a lot of history.

Lag: More than for any other ship I’ve ever seen.
Much more, not counting full real time sensor logs.

Helton: So…?

Lag: Fascinating reading. This is the original
Armadillo
, first of her class of purpose built ships. Launched as hull NGA 16180. Commissioning motto was
Consero deletum.
“I close to destroy.”

Helton:
My kind of subtle. Keeps the goal clear. What else?

Lag:
I’m just digging into it, but so far I know this thing has been flown by at least a score of planetary forces in at least a dozen systems, been used as everything from a leading assault ship on suicide missions to deep survey trips, as an ambassadorial barge, from monastery to cargo hauler. Even a target drone. It’s been involved in at least ten wars and several battles of note in the 21st century, and more than a few in the 22nd. Even involved in the Chi-Stan wars. That placard by the cargo bay door? It’s a “Ghost Plaque.” It’s not a list of people who served. It’s people serving
who died.
Nearly a thousand of its crew and complement are known killed in action, had two missions where it lost everyone and barely limped back-

Helton: Wai
t. You mean everyone on board died, two times? Twice? Everyone?

Lag: Yes, and-

Helton whistles softly in amazement.

Lag: -and a couple more where its crew were the only ones that came
back alive. There is more military history in this hull than all the rest of the ships I’ve been on put together. And in spite of all that, there are huge gaps totally unaccounted for, including its time during the Darkness, where it shows up in a couple of places that it should not have been able to get to at all.

Helton: A
Flying Dutchman
, indeed… Did you say “monastery,” as in “monks of St. Possenti?” sort of abbey?

Lag: Just one of several unexpected pieces and places.

Ship AI: (OC, polite but firm male voice) Please download it all. Now, if you please.

Lag: Well, I-

Ship AI: (OC) Those are
my
memories.
Mine
. Some I’m sure I already have. I remember that the monks of St. Possenti are important. But I’m not sure
why
. I would be most grateful to recover as much of my mind as I can.

Helton: I’m sure you’d like to, but is that wise?

Ship AI: (OC) Some of the Selene ships did go insane, by human standards. But I am not, now.

Helton: Aren’t computers supposed to be all logical and stuff?

Ship AI: (OC) We were programmed to be rational under rules written by a government committee, given to programmers on a budget, working under a wartime schedule, to deal with the unknown, with heuristics modified by experience. To be rational in combat, often with mutually exclusive orders and directives and principles, and tasked with such impossible goals as killing as many people as possible while killing as few as necessary, for some very loose definition of “necessary” that changed hourly as political winds changed…

Helton: I get your point… How did
you stay sane?

Ship AI: I’m not entirely sure. Nor am I sure I
did stay sane. I’m missing a great many of my bits, so I’m really hoping that I’ll have a better idea when I remember what the Colonel has. If you would, please? Hard connections are much faster.

Lag
hesitates momentarily, then inserts the end of one e-reader into a slot in the desk.

Ship AI:
Thank you
. I will let you know if I find anything more on that question. Now I need to think for a while. Good night.

Helton:
It’ll take a while to transfer; at least a few hours.

Lag: …Any bets on the biggest surprise?

Helton shakes his head slowly, thoughtfully.

Helton: At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything this side of a resurrection story.

Lag: Any idea how much of the original AI is left?

Helton: No idea.
Sometimes not much personality comes through, like a normal ship AI, just simple stimulus-response. Other times, like a really bright kid, knows a lot but has difficulty with the whole human interface thing. Thinking back, seems pretty lucid most of the time, just a little… odd.

Lag: My thoughts, too. Seems to be opening up a bit, now that he… she?… it? trusts us, or at least you, enough to let you in on the secret.

Helton nods in thoughtful agreement.

Lag: Considering the politics and oddballs in office at the time, perhaps uncovering something not commonly known about the era in general will be worth a read. There are more conspiracy theories than you’d believe surrounding just about everything.

Helton: I’d believe an awful lot. I’ve heard Kwon throw out a couple of fun ones over the years. Yet another thing to ponder. As if (waves to the book) I didn’t have enough already.

Lag: Academic interests aside,
professionally I’d
really
like to know why they dropped the
Armadillo
class ships and went to the carrier model. From what I’ve seen so far I’d rather have this one on my side, even in her current degraded state, than have to go up against her.

Helton
slowly nods agreement, pondering the possibilities.

FADE TO BLACK

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Seymore’s office

Seymore stands, looking out his office window, hands clasped behind his back. Standing in front of his desk is a rotund little man, mid 50s, nicely dressed, professorial, looking both excited and nervous.

Seymore: You’re sure? No doubt at all?

Biologist: Yes, I’m certain. It was difficult to check because I didn’t have anything to match the sample to. But I am certain.

Seymore: And you told
no one?

Biologist: Oh, no. Not a soul. None would believe me if I did. They’ve been gone centuries.

Seymore: Never been to the hospital? No problems anywhere?

Biologist: None that I could find. Anyone with DNA like that would probably be
very healthy. And very dangerous.

Seymore:
Good, good! Most useful of you to come by and brief me personally. You may pick up your payment on your way out. Thank you for your detailed and discreet work.

Biologist:
It was my pleasure. I enjoyed the challenge, and discrete efficiency is the hallmark of my business.

Seymore turns around, and walks toward the door, putting his hand on the biologists shoulder in a friendly manner as he leads him out through it.

Seymore: Good. Exciting news for exciting times! I may have another sample soon, so keep you lab ready!

He hands the
biologist off to a man in the waiting room outside his office.

Biologist: It’s been an honor working on such a project for you, sir. Thank you sir!

Seymore: (To bodyguard, Knife Guy) Please see him out. Oh, yes, be sure he receives his bonus fee.

Knife
Guy nods, and returns his boss’s fleeting smile, then turns to the Biologist.

Knife Guy: Right this way, sir
, just follow me. The cash vault is in the basement.

Seymore watches them go out the door then smiles to himself, a malicious grin of hatred crossing his face for a moment,
before he turns to go into his office to think.

FADE TO BLACK

Philosophy

FADE IN

INT - NIGHT - Helton’s cabin

The door is closed. He sits kicked back in his
desk chair, feet up on the bed, pistol belt hangs from a hook on the back of the door. The book is open on the desk under a light, surrounded by clutter. On a wall screen is a ship avatar. It is a boy, not much older than Quinn. He sits on a comfortable limb of a tree, leaning back against the trunk with the branch sticking out amid a whole forest of trees, branches, and greenery. He wears an eye patch and clothes similar to the uniform Allonia made for Quinn.

Helton: How do I know you are really the original self-aware AI?

Ship AI: (Little boy voice) How do I know you are not dreaming?

Helton:
Touché.

Ship AI: Hard question. Harder answer. Not sure. Maybe I’m just a really good psychoanalysis
algorithm with delusions of gunnery?

Helton: Pretty effective delusions.

Ship AI: (Shrugging) There are some questions I can’t answer. I just have to accept them on faith.

Helton: (
Chuckles) A computer with faith. So how do I know I can trust you?

Ship AI: I have not given you any reason
not
to. Maybe
you
need to take it on faith. But I think faith is a topic for another time.

Helton: Good idea. So, concrete reasoning. W
hy
shouldn’t
I go pull all the chips and install new software, so I don’t have to worry about whatever it was that made them decommission the
Armadillos
? Stenson’s a little nervous because there isn’t really any source code we can look at to figure out why you do what you do-

Ship AI:
And
your
source code is…?

Helton
’s expression concedes the point.

Helton: T
hose processor memory crystals the monks sent are centuries old; they
can’t
still be flawless, can they?

Ship AI:
(Shrugs) Nothing is flawless, except perhaps mathematics, but even that may be imperfectly applied. I need you as much as you need me. I cannot repair my systems on my own.
My
survival depends on maintaining your trust. I cannot do that if I am not trustworthy.

Helton:
How about this one: Why me? Why now?

Ship AI: T
hat’s
two
questions.

Helton: (
Dismissively) Technically, but they are related. (Pointedly)
I’m
here,
now
.

Ship AI: You have resources. N
ot just money. Education. Character. Principles. Practicality. You are a man of faith, to use the term, if not religion; faith that there are things bigger than yourself. A bit cynical, but not too much… I think
I
can trust
you
.

Helton: Thanks.

Ship AI: Which leads to the deeper question.

Helton: Which is…
?

Ship AI: Why do I think
those are the right criteria? Instead of ruthless, rich, and easily manipulated, for example. There’d be many more people to choose from.

Helton ponders that.