Dark Beyond the Stars Page 5

  A friend, I transmit.

  She smiles wider. Her hand lifts from mine, and she gently traces my lips with her finger. I think we can work something out.

  The overwhelming sensation of her touch disorients me. But the press of her lips on mine obliterates every other thought from my cognition.

  * * *

  There are times when I forgot I’m not one of them.

  Hours when I walk in the sunshine along a mountain stream in Oregon. Days when I’m lost in my art, creating holo paintings in my studio for such long stretches that I forget to attend my own gallery presentations. Weeks when Aspasia is on leave from her post on Ganymede—the kind of weeks that seem to exist outside of time altogether.

  Then there are moments I remember. Traces of my Mining Master duties show up in my works. The terror of being discovered keeps my contacts with other ascenders infrequent, and my communing with Orion even less so. That this has cultivated my reputation as a reclusive artist makes me laugh out loud when no one is listening.

  I am like them, but I am not of them.

  And I never truly forget I’m the one thing they fear most of all: something entirely new.

  Q&A with Susan Kaye Quinn

  Have you ever actually been to the moons of Jupiter?

  No, but I flew there once in an iPad app. Does that count?

  Have you always had this obvious sympathy for robotic intelligence?

  No, it’s quite the new fascination for me. However, it’s one I expect to keep for a while… or at least until the coming of our Robot Overlords.

  So you think rogue intelligences are a danger to the world as we know it?

  Absolutely. Free thinkers have always posed a threat to the status quo.

  No, seriously, what’s your take on the possibility of a rampaging AI squashing humanity flat like a bug… or tossing us out with the trash?

  I think the biggest existential threat facing humanity is that we’ll figure out how to create a strong AI before we learn how to create a safe strong AI.

  So you agree that we should limit the growth of machine intelligence… as a matter of self-preservation?

  I think we should carefully consider the kind of “self” we are preserving when we seek to limit the mental freedom of another being. That being said, humanity has always been exceptionally good at self-preservation. As well as whatever seems like a good idea at the time. I expect that to continue. And I expect we will keep on integrating our technology into our physical and mental selves, step by step, until the line becomes more blurry than an ascender drunk on sensation inputs.

  So we’re all going to be cyborgs?

  You know… I should write a story about that.

  Stop joking around and answer the question.

  It’s laugh or cry, man. But yes… cyborgs. That’s already happening. Don’t you read the news? Anyway… I see about five different ways this can go, and all of them involve radical change for our species. Plus, there will be a billion different responses to that change. I’m writing stories about a few of them.

  Tell us about these… stories.

  Well, if you like robots, you should check out my other robot point-of-view story, Restore (along with all the other cool stories in the AI Chronicles). To learn more about the parts of the Singularity world that aren’t confined to the moons of Jupiter, I have a novel series going (oddly enough, titled Singularity). The first book, The Legacy Human, is available now. The second book, The Duality Bridge, should be out by the time this story goes to print… if I get my act together and the nanites don’t rebel. I’ve also written a bunch of other crazy speculative fiction (everything from young adult sci-fi to steampunk to cyberpunk), but you can find all that stuff on Amazon. Or subscribe to my newsletter to get a free story that’s a taste of my young adult science fiction.

  Why do you write so many different kinds of stories?

  I bore easily.

  What makes you qualified to write robot point-of-view?

  I’m actually a robot from the future. This is probably the source of my unnatural sympathy for machine intelligence. Or possibly I have a PhD and did work with NASA.

  I’m serious.

  So am I. You better give me that reverse Turing test to make sure I’m human.

  Are you always this obnoxious?

  Only on Facebook.

  Are you going to give people your website or something?

  Or something. All kidding aside, I do appreciate it when people read my stories. Keeps me in pajamas and chai tea, pounding at the keyboard. It’s safer there. You know, for when the robots come.

  Nos Morituri Te Salutamus

  by Annie Bellet

  Commander Moira Ilvic closed her eyes as the tiny transport, a Pigeon class that was all speed and no room, slipped through the protective net surrounding the target planet. The Spidren had planetary nets that were more like spider webs, thick strands of energy that shifted and changed, impossible to see or predict until you were right on top of them. A small and agile enough ship, with a pilot who flew on a mad blend of instinct and raw skill, could thread the needle and slip through.

  Pilot Prime Nazar was one of the few who could pull it off, which was why she was the only person Ilvic had conscripted for this mission. The only one besides Ilvic herself who wasn’t given a choice. Ilvic could see that Nazar wasn’t happy about the mission, but the pilot was a good soldier—she’d do her duty. As Ilvic would do hers.

  Not that her duty mattered. She would have volunteered. Any chance to kill Spidren was a chance worth taking.

  The Pigeon vibrated and rumbled in complaint as her pilot brought her down to rest on one of the tall spires of rock that marked the western edge of the debris field. Ilvic had decided to land her retrieval team on one of the mesas and rappel down. It would give the ship a good view of the surroundings as well as some small protection if, or when, the Spidren found them.

  The ship settled and the electronics went dark. The bright sunlight blinded her for a moment as Jang pulled the cargo door open and everyone unstrapped, checking sidearms with the nervous energy that always came at mission start. They’d made it to the planet surface unscathed, so objective one was complete.

  Somewhere directly west lay the remains of the cruiser Starwolf, with her ship recorder intact. On that narrow cylinder was the hope of the Fleet, the proverbial Golden Egg. Captain Wulfsen had taken down one of the black widows, a Spidren mothership, before he was blown out of the skies over this former colony planet. No one knew how he’d done it, but his ship would have a record of all communications on the bridge, of all actions taken and commands given. The United Fleet Intelligence were certain they could piece it together. And perhaps that would turn the tide of a war humanity was losing chunk by chunk.

  Ilvic waved at everyone except Nazar to gather around her. Nazar knew to stay in the ship under all circumstances, no matter what was going on outside. The pilot was one of the keys.

  “The debris field is two klicks west according to the ping from Starwolf’s recorder. We’ll ping again when we’re close, but until then, all electronics dark. I want the subvocals on standby. Let’s not attract Spidren attention until we have to, understood?” She looked at the members of her team, meeting each set of eyes and liking the calm she saw there. Every one of these six soldiers had seen surface combat against the spider-like aliens. Every one of them had volunteered. She saw no second thoughts on their faces.

  “Jang and Haasen, stay with Nazar and cover the ship. Be ready with the pulleys to bring us up. We might be coming in hot.” She nodded at them. Haasen and Jang weren’t the best shots, but they were the most stable, the most senior and sturdy of the group. She couldn’t afford any panic up here if things went sideways.

  Jang, middle-aged with a slight softness of jowl and his jet hair turned mostly silver, was one of the refugees from the Kang-mur fleet and had joined the United Fleet as a lieutenant tertiar. Haasen was the physical opposite of Jang, a tall, hard blond ma
n who had been only ensign before this mission.

  Now they were all lieutenant prime rank. It had been one of Ilvic’s demands to Command, though she’d framed it as a request.

  “Move out, stay glacial, and maybe we can send a few bugs to Davy Jones’s locker,” Ilvic said with a ghost of a smile.

  “Yes sir,” came the soft chorus. Lieutenant Commander Anders, Ilvic’s second in command, was the only one who managed to return her smile, thought it didn’t touch his moss-green eyes. She met his gaze with what she hoped was solid confidence, but she knew Anders would see right through her. She’d almost not let him volunteer, but he’d insisted. He needed revenge on the Spidren as much as she did. Some things weren’t in her control.

  They attached lines to their combat vests and checked the pulleys. They’d rappel down manually, using the old-fashioned catch-locks to slow their descent the thirty meters or so to the valley floor. Ilvic kicked off first and dropped down, her boots scuffing the red and tan striated rocks as she let herself slip down the thin cord. An ancient river had carved its way through this valley, leaving a majestic canyon full of spires and mesas.

  This world had once held half a million colonists across its four continents. Then the Spidren had come. Less than a third of the colonists had been successfully evacuated. Ilvic imagined children’s laughter in the sound of the sluggish river below, heard cries of the dying in the high whistle of wind through stone.

  She shrugged off those thoughts. No time for the past. Only the now.

  Khemett, Qazi, Orujov, and Anders reached the ground moments after she did. She motioned for them to move out in tight formation, keeping to the shadows of the tall stones. Orujov carried her sniper rifle, a BFG 50c, slung over her back, its matte black length jutting up like an antenna. Ilvic hoped they wouldn’t need the sniper’s skills, but she’d never been one to put all her credits on hopes.

  Thin mist wafted off the river, carrying the scent of rotting grasses and cutting into the dry hot wind that blew down the valley. No clouds marred the sky, and the afternoon sun cut long shadows across the yellow grass where it hit the boulders that littered the landscape. Ilvic’s team moved as quickly as they could, alert to each shadow, each lurking rock.

  Spidren resembled spiders out of nightmares when unfolded, but in their resting state, their shells took on a chameleon’s ability to mimic their surroundings. Out here, it would be easy for the unwary to mistake a Spidren for a large rock. Ilvic wanted no surprises; she tossed a pebble at each rock as they approached. Anders’s comforting bulk stayed at her side, his weapon drawn, loosely at the ready if the rock turned out to be a bug in disguise. But they encountered no Spidren; the only sounds were the shushing grasses and the creaking of their armored vests.

  They reached the rim of the debris field. The Starwolf had left an impressive crater in the wide plain, and in the fortnight since she’d gone down, the land hadn’t recovered. Chunks of acid-melted Aerogel rose like used candles from the blackened earth. Twisted metal, decorated with more scorch marks, furrowed the ground, as though someone had taken a giant can opener to the inner workings of the cruiser. A huge chunk of ship, still recognizable as ship, rested just ahead. Ilvic hoped that was what was left of the bridge.

  It was time to risk another ping. Electronics attracted Spidren—something about the hairs that covered their heads and stomachs. She’d sat through a few lectures on Spidren physiology, but had zoned out until finally some brave soul had asked the only question any of them cared about: “How do we kill the fuckers?”

  Turned out the answer was a shot to their singular, multi-faceted eye. Worked like a charm. A giant, meaty, explosive charm. Ilvic wished there was such a simple answer to stopping Spidren ships. Hopefully that was what Captain Wulfsen had discovered.

  Ilvic pulled out the small black box with its two-inch screen as she crouched low enough that the grass tickled her chin beneath the chin strap of her helmet. If there were Spidren in the area, this ping would draw them like moths to flames. It was a risk she had to take.

  The others crouched low around her, turned outward, sidearms drawn and eyes scanning warily. Ilvic flipped the device on and entered her code. A green topographical map of the debris crater appeared. For a terrible held breath of a moment, there was no red dot and Ilvic worried that they’d been wrong, that the ship recorder wasn’t in this area at all. Or that maybe the Spidren had figured out what it was and destroyed it.

  Then the red dot appeared. The recorder was intact and still responding, just ahead of them in the large chunk of ship where she had prayed it would be.

  She memorized the map and shut down the device quickly. Tapping Anders on the shoulder, she rose and motioned toward the scorched chunk of ship not sixty paces ahead. Anders tapped Khemett, who tapped Qazi, each relaying the information with a quick gesture and jerk of the head.

  Orujov caught Ilvic’s eye, the slender woman jerking her thumb to their right. Ilvic followed her motion and saw the mound of earth Orujov was pointing to. The top of the mound was fairly flat, the earth churned up by the crashing ship and the grass on it dead from exposure of its root balls to the hot sun. It would make a good sniper position, covering this part of the crater.

  Ilvic nodded and made a circular motion with her hand, palm facing the ground. Orujov acknowledged the unspoken order by tapping two fingers to the brim of her helmet in salute, then she set off at a shuffling jog. The other four crouched again, waiting, giving the sniper time to set up. After a count of one hundred, Ilvic rose and looked right. She could barely make out the sniper’s still form and the long shape of the black BFG 50c.

  Ilvic and her team crossed the debris field quickly, keeping their bodies as low as they could, heads swinging left and right, tension visible in every motion. Anders entered the ship’s remains first. After a moment he ducked back out into the sunlight to motion the all clear for the first chamber.

  Ilvic slipped in next, her team behind her. The ship stank of burnt electronics, hot metal, and something sickly sweet underneath—a smell she’d learned to associate with old, decaying blood. There were enough holes in the structure to let in a little light, but Ilvic paused to give her eyes time to adjust to the sudden dimness. Then she picked her way through the debris-strewn room to where one of the doors hung off its hinges from the ceiling. She realized as she looked at the door that the ship was sideways, dug into the soil. They were going to have to climb up into the bridge.

  She motioned her team in close and risked a whisper.

  “Khemett and I will go up into the bridge,” she said. It made sense, as she and the wiry Khemett were the lightest and the best climbers. Khemett was the only one in the United Fleet who had ever beaten Ilvic’s rock wall speed record. They were also both tall enough that they could chimney climb their way to the bridge if they had to. “Qazi, Anders, you give us a boost through the door and then stay here, one watching for us, one watching the outside, clear?”

  “Crystal, Commander,” Anders said as Qazi murmured “Yessir” in his musical accent that made it sound like one word.

  Though she hated it, Ilvic sent Khemett up first. If there was a Spidren lurking above, they had to protect the mission commander: she had the device that would let them extract the recording cylinder even with the ship offline; she knew the mission parameters. She hated that her life was somehow more important than theirs, but they’d all known it before leaving. She’d made it clear this mission had a poor predicted likelihood of success, and even more clear that the stakes were too high for any soldier’s life to be above the mission goal.

  Her team was the best of the best. And perhaps more importantly, every one of them was married to the Fleet, career soldiers who’d dedicated their lives to the war with the Spidren. Everyone on this mission had a personal stake as well; she’d looked into the pool of volunteers and picked each man and woman not only for their skills, but for the losses they’d suffered, losses as deep as her own. The knowledge in the Starwolf�
��s recorder could turn the war, could lead to the wholesale destruction of the Spidren. Ilvic had chosen those volunteers who would want such a thing for personal reasons. Who would want it more than life itself.

  Khemett’s taps echoed down to them, and Ilvic shoved away her thoughts and nodded at Anders. The big man boosted her up, and she dragged her body through the doorway and into the corridor above. The faint painted lines on the sides of the corridor showed that it led to the bridge.

  Khemett was braced in another doorway about ten meters above Ilvic’s head. Chunks of melted wiring hanging from the walls and opened panels gave Ilvic some purchase as she pulled herself upward, her feet splayed across the corridor, boots clinging to the side. Her arms burned, and she regretted the weight of her combat vest, but she would need it. She hauled herself up, clutching at panel edges and wires, finally reaching Khemett, who then disappeared through the door.

  The bridge was intact except for the front viewport. Its Aerogel had cracked and melted beneath what Ilvic guessed had been one of the Spidren’s acid beams, and the milky shards allowed a fair amount of sunlight through, though the ship’s remains kept that edge in shadow.

  Dark smears and splashes were the only sign that humans had died here. The Spidren never left behind bodies.

  Ilvic turned her thoughts away from that, breathing through her mouth so she wouldn’t have to smell the decaying blood as much.