The general’s voice came through the receiver all tinny and muffled, an unfortunate side-effect of the truly epic amount of electronic scrambling performed on the line between him and the President. “Captain Sadaf and XO Takh corroborate Captain Tocco’s story, ma’am. Sounds like a clear case of him acting in defense of others, then when the other three returned fire it turned into self-defense.”
President Alicia Correa rubbed at her temple with her free hand and wondered yet again why she’d fought so hard for this job. She was alone in the Oval Office, seated in front of windows so layered with bulletproof material that it made the outside look as if it was underwater. The agents outside the door had been told that under no circumstances was she to be disturbed.
“Who were they? The shooters, I mean.”
“Low level drug dealers. They were cooking meth in the woods and Captain Tocco chased ‘em off. Seems they took exception to this and came back to sneak into his house and…well, best not to dwell on that. Anyway, Tocco figured they’d try it and lay in wait. He claims his intent was to make a citizen’s arrest and call the sheriff.”
“Do you believe him?”
There followed a pause which said everything. “I think he’d have tried to arrest ‘em, ma’am. He had zip-ties in his gear.”
“Buuut he wouldn’t have hesitated to do what he wound up doing anyway.” There followed another meaningful pause from the general. “All right. What’s your suggestion?”
”We make it go away. I’ve already got the area cleaned up, it’s like it never happened. We did get proper forensics of the scene beforehand, though. Just in case you want to prosecute him.”
“But you don’t want me to do that.”
“Ma’am, we all have quite a bit on our plate as it is. Do you really want to go through with a top secret trial? We can’t do a court-martial, this happened way outside of military jurisdiction.”
President Correa continued her one-handed migraine massage. Thus far, somehow, she’d managed to avoid doing anything in her career which caused her to lose sleep at night. Sure, she could throw political elbows with the best of them but she hadn’t done anything which she would consider shady…yet. Now she was faced with a dilemma. As naïve as it sounded, she believed in the rule of law even for herself. Still, she had to admit De Vries had a point.
“Squash it,” she said.
“Consider it squashed.”
“Do you need any other assistance?”
“I’d like to get a medical expert in here as well. It’s not strictly necessary, but our guests have medical tech that makes ours look like trepanning and leeches. I have a few people in mind.”
“Get whomever you want. Just make sure they have the proper clearance. How are our guests doing?”
“They’re settling in. It looks like they can ingest some of our food without problems, which makes their supply situation a lot less dire. We’re in the midst of figuring out what assistance we can provide for repairing their main ship.”
“Do we have to render aid? I mean, we can set up more comfortable secure facilities for them. Surely they can understand we need to keep this whole thing secret. It’ll prevent mass panic.”
“I understand your instinct, ma’am. But there are several issues. First, this ‘Coalition’ knows they were here. They could come calling, asking what happened to their crew. I don’t think we’d want them to find us holding their people as prisoners. Second…well, let’s just say that our guests might have options in place to prevent themselves from becoming prisoners.”
President Correa thought for a moment, then realized what he was driving at. “Self-destruct?”
“Maybe. Also, from what I understand we’re gonna need Coalition help if we get discovered by these ‘Breakers’.”
“What are they? And why do they want us dead?”
“Short answer is, they’re semi-intelligent robot probes who track down technological civilizations and destroy them. Utterly. As to why, that’s a bit confusing. These ‘Breakers’ are run by something or someone else. Someone who really doesn’t like anyone using technology.”
“Well that’s just wonderful. What the hell are we supposed to do about an interstellar invasion? Humanity has the sum total of a couple of space stations and a few manned capsules.”
“It’s not all bad news, ma’am. Apparently these Coalition folks are well armed, plus they're getting assistance from another mysterious group. We’re having a briefing in a little while to get filled in on the situation.”
“I’ll let you get to it, then,” she replied. “Let me know as soon as you can. Oh, before you go, how is security holding up?”
“Our OPSEC is holding for the moment, but the big problem is that a lot of the data we used to find ‘em is in the public domain. Anyone could do the same analysis and come to the same conclusions. If we render aid, that will for certain get noticed by everyone. In my opinion, ma’am, we’re going to have to go public with this sooner rather than later. If the rest of the world found out a couple years from now that we’ve had aliens stashed away somewhere and didn’t tell them…again, I don’t think we’d want that.”
“Yes, that would be…unfortunate.” The president sighed. “Okay. Let me think through our options. Take care.”
“Good day, ma’am.”
She dropped the phone back into its cradle and spun her chair around to look through the fishbowl-like windows behind her. At least now she had both hands to perform the migraine salute. Damn it all, she’d wanted nothing more than to leave behind a legacy of quiet competence. To be a modern Calvin Coolidge rather than a Teddy Roosevelt. To her pride, she’d succeeded to the point where even her political rivals would shrug and say ‘well, she’s not that bad, I guess’.
Now aliens, actual damned aliens, had come waltzing up to give humanity a big hello. Oh, and to tell of a genocidal force out there seeking humanity’s complete destruction. Not to mention they had technology which would cause economic and societal dislocations the likes of which had not been seen since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
And all of it, all of it, was going to be Her Fault if things went wrong.
“Two more years,” she muttered. “I just had to make it through two more years and this would have been the next poor bastard’s problem. Why the fuck did I run for reelection?”
__________
They’d managed to set up at least a few creature comforts in the limited space available. That included a weight rack – something Sergeant Shaw was very grateful for, since he knew that a group of bored soldiers was a force for mischief which could rival anything on Earth. They had a reasonably big TV with a game console and an ever-growing selection of (carefully selected) movies. Not that they had much chance to use the latter; Shaw and his team had been voluntold to ‘engage their guests in cultural exchange’, which was a fancy way of saying ‘sit down with them and go through places on Earth you’ve been to, describe them, and have them do the same for you. Write down everything they tell you.’ Oh well, at least it kept them busy.
Shaw had to admit that getting glimpses of the aliens’ lives was fascinating. The auhn’s homeworld had been destroyed, and their species tended to now prefer orbital habitats. A holographic display on board the boat now showed a huge cylindrical space with long transparent windows set into the ‘ground’. In between each of the windows were strips of alternating parks and building. Sunlight streamed into the colony from the giant windows, making the scene look serene.
“This is your home?” he asked Sadaf, who sat on the other side of the display.
She nodded her horns. “This is the main habitat for the Shakka clan. We are very prestigious clan among the auhn.” Sadaf regarded the picture with a steady look. “I hope to show it to you in person one day. It is quite beautiful.”
“That would be nice, ma’am.” Shaw said it out of automatic politeness, just before the sheer magnitude of her casual comment crashed down into his brain. He’d jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, fast-roped out of helicopters, partaken in all sorts of life-threatening shenanigans, stared death in the face with a steady eye…but going out into space? To another star system? Somehow the thought made his mouth go dry.
Chao stuck her head in the door. “Okay folks, Nadash is ready.”
Shaw rose and followed the captain out of the boat. He took one last, lingering look at the picture of Sadaf’s home habitat before he left.
__________
With some hasty on-board fabrication, they’d managed to make large holographic display which took up the rear wall of their quarantine area. Nadash stood next to the display; in spite of her making no gestures, the screen seemed to respond to her every whim. Chao stood on the other side of the display, with the rest of the quarantined humans and aliens gathered in a semicircle around the display.
Matt blinked in curiosity as a single equation appeared in the middle of a neutral background.
Emin = kBTln2
Nadash pointed at the equation. “Working with Chao, I have found that humans have independently discovered the principle which spells our potential doom. You call it the Landauer limit. It is the minimum possible amount of energy required to erase one bit of information.”
“Why would that be a problem?” asked Matt. “I mean, I’m sure it’s of academic interest but why would that create killer giant robots?”
Chao pointed at the ‘T’ in the equation. “That’s why. That stands for the temperature of the system in question. The lower the temperature, the less energy you need to perform computation.”
McCoy, who sat cross-legged in front of the rest of the humans, raised her hand. “I still don’t get it. Can you explain it for those of us who sat in the back during math class?”
“Do you recall that fascinating film you showed us?” asked Nadash. “I showed you a partial fragment I’d detected, and you had it brought in so that we could watch it entire?”
“The one with the black leather and the punching and the kicking!” added Kifa with obvious glee.
Matt gave a disbelieving chuckle. “Wait…you mean ‘The Matrix?’” The movie had been dubbed ‘safe enough’ by De Vries, and it had been a welcome little diversion for the entire group, especially the aliens. They’d found it fascinating, if their rapt attention was anything to go by. At the time Matt had figured that enthusiasm was due to watching humans doing kung fu fighting. But maybe it was due to something else.
“Yes!” said Nadash with gusto. “That film was, shall we say, halfway to the problem. In your film, human bodies had their brains plugged into a digital network. Now imagine you’re a very advanced civilization, so advanced that you have become completely digitized and no longer need physical bodies.”
De Vries rubbed one temple. “Hoo boy, I do believe I’m starting to see the problem. Let me guess, this hyper-advanced civilization is thinking long-term?”
“Exactly,” said Chao. “There is such a civilization out there, they were the first to arise in this galaxy about a hundred million years ago. They went fully digital probably a million years or so after they evolved into sapience.”
Now Shaw raised his hand. “Okay, so the computerized dudes would like low temperatures so they can think…faster?”
“So that they can think more efficiently,” Chao replied. “They can run more cycles using less energy. Like the general said, you need to think long-term. They need energy, but they’d like the overall temperature to be colder as well. With the right conditions, they could run themselves for millions of years off of the equivalent energy of a light bulb. Such conditions will exist, but not for a long time. A long time.”
“Billions of years from now,” added Nadash. “As the universe expands, our galaxy will also begin to cool as stars die out and fewer are born. The average temperature will be lower, with still plenty of energy available to run their civilization for a few billion more years.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Martinez, of all people, was the first to have the penny drop. “Aw, shit. They don’t want to share, do they?”
Everyone looked at him in surprise, especially De Vries.
The narrow-faced man held up his hands as if to ward off attack. “Hey, it makes sense! They wanna hog all of the energy and matter for their uber-simulation Valhalla in the far future, and they don’t want any pesky upstart species coming along and using up all of the good shit before they can use it. So that’s why they have their robot flunkies flying around and smacking down anyone who evolves into using technology. Huh. I wonder if they’d go after a dolphin-like species? You know, someone intelligent but they can’t develop the use of fire…” He trailed off as he realized everyone was still staring at him.
Matt raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re a knuckle-dragger, kid?” But he was smiling as he asked.
Martinez shrugged one shoulder. “I read a lot of science fiction.”
“I fear Corporal Martinez is entirely correct,” said Nadash. She turned to the display, and it switched to showing a three-dimensional image of a metallic sphere, covered with a complex patterning which suggested the thing’s surface bristled with weapons and sensors. Ten long ‘legs’ stretched backward in arcs from the sphere’s equator. Matt wondered how big the thing was, until a scale marker appeared at the top. Wait, that couldn’t be right…thirty kilometers long?
“This is a standard Breaker search drone.” Nadash’s voice was now almost robotic. “It is equipped with long-range sensors to detect any artificial electromagnetic radiation, or atmospheric life signatures on nearby planets. Depending on the level of technology it detects, it may take action by itself or call in others of its kind to form what we call a ‘wrecking crew’. For pre-spaceflight civilizations who cannot resist it, this single drone is quite capable of destroying an entire planet’s biosphere.”
In the stunned silence which followed, the picture switched again. Matt’s breath seized in his throat. It showed the curve of a planet with a star just rising; in its form it looked similar to pictures he’d seen of the Earth from space.
But instead of a lovely blue-white globe, the planet below was nothing but a sea of black basalt sprinkled with occasional tiny gouts of lava. From this altitude, those ‘tiny’ eruptions must have been huge volcanoes.
Nadash’s voice remained emotionless. “A Coalition exploration team detected their EM transmissions when they were multiple light-years away from their planet. The team tried to get there as soon as possible…but the Breakers had arrived first. This is all the exploration team found left of their homeworld.”
The image changed again, showing a fuzzy video which showed purple, amoeboid-like creatures moving in random patterns upon an expanse of ground covered with a mossy blue-black lichen. At first Matt was confused as to what they were doing, then he saw a little ball getting tossed around among the blobby aliens. Each time one of them caught it, they made a hop of evident delight. It was a game; the little blobs were playing. After a minute, the video cycled back to the beginning and repeated again.
“This intercepted signal is all that remains of them,” said Nadash in a quieter tone. “We landed a follow-up expedition on the planet, but we found no survivors. No trace that they’d ever existed.”
Sergeant Wilkes removed his cover and bowed his head while his lips moved in silent prayer. De Vries walked forward and studied the repeating video with an intensity which Matt had never seen before.
Finally the general spoke. “Nadash, please tell me you have some good news to go along with this.”
“I do. To start, the Coalition has significant military resources. We have been able to destroy Breakers in direct confrontation. It’s not easy, but we can do it. In addition…” She tapped one of her temples, right over one of the silvery patterns which Matt had wondered about. “As you must have surmised, my brain has been augmented with cybernetic hardware. What you do not know is the source of those cybernetics. You see, not all of that ancient race agreed with going down the route of the Breakers.”
“So there’s a faction who wants to help us?” asked McCoy. “Well, it would be nice if they stepped in more often!” She sniffled just a bit while she regarded the playing blobs in the display.
“My sponsors do what they can. Sadly, they are not omnipotent. They deploy what you could call ‘anti-Breakers’ which destroy drones where and when they can. I suspect such an encounter, long ago, is what left the wrecked Breaker we encountered. I am part of their intelligence network within the Coalition which assists with such efforts. They have also taken some steps to spread intelligent life beyond the current reach of the Breakers.”
Captain Sadaf spoke up. “The auhn and udhyr were the first species discovered by the pro-life faction, back when both of our species was in a pre-technological level. They took many members of each species and placed them on multiple life-bearing planets. We call them seedworlds, and we are still discovering them to this day.”
“I suppose that’s better than nothing.” De Vries growled. “Nadash, Chao? I’m going to ask someone to come here and you will both give them this same presentation. I think it’ll help clarify her decision making.” His tone made it quite clear that he was not asking. He walked off towards the communications rack.
McCoy stood up and turned away from the display. She wiped at her eyes a bit. Matt was the closest to her at the moment. “You okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yeah. It’s just…those little blob-dudes looked so happy. And they died. They got nuked from orbit for the crime of existing.” She looked up at him. “Not even gonna shed a tear, eh? Guess you have a hardass reputation to maintain.”
“I’m not sad. I’m fucking furious.” Matt looked down at her, and there was something in his gaze that made McCoy flinch. “We’re gonna make those robo-fuckos burn, Corporal. Count on it.”
__________
The mood in the quarantine area was somber during the next day. The special forces people decided that it was a good excuse to double down on working out. It turned out McCoy could bench press her own bodyweight; Chao wondered if the small corporal was part ant.
She herself was in the midst of showing Takh pictures of her homeland from her phone. “I took these when we went back there to visit family. This is the main city, Bangkok. We flew in at night, and I managed to get a decent picture out of the plane window.”
Takh’s mandibles slowly clicked as he examined with obvious interest the photographed sea of colored lights and tall buildings. “Hmm, it seems very…crowded. But very beautiful.”
Chao laughed. “It is very crowded. Here’s a couple of photos of us getting to the hotel. These three-wheeled vehicles are called ‘tuk tuks’ and you can hire them to take you places in the city. But most of my extended family live on the seaside…here, this the place. Khanom, south of Bangkok.”
Her phone now showed palm trees and other greenery coming right up against a white sand beach, beyond which stretched a pristine blue ocean. Chao smiled at the memory of swimming in the decadently warm water.
Takh perked up at the sight. “Oh! This looks very much like my homeworld!”
“Really?”
The XO gave his equivalent of a nod, a double-click of his mandibles, and tapped at small device mounted at his wrist. A holographic image appeared above it, showing a similar beach scene…but the colors were so ever-slightly off. The foliage looked more fern-like, and had a strange purple-green sheen. But the water was just as blue; Chao could practically smell the sea air.
“This is my favorite swimming spot,” said Takh. “I love hunting from here.”
“You go spear-fishing? I mean, hunting underwater?”
He straightened up in pride. “Yes, although we do not use spears or any other weapons. We are a semi-aquatic species; we evolved from animals similar to your crabs. This is the main animal we hunt, although such hunting is now strictly regulated. I’ve only participated in two hunts myself.”
He performed a few more gestures, and now something appeared that looked like the unholy union of a squid and a shark. The rear of its gray conical body had several large flukes, while at the front gaped a large toothy maw surrounded by long tendrils that reached out in obvious search of prey.
Chao let out a low whistle. “Wow. Looks like a tough customer. How big do they get?”
Takh pointed back at the landing craft. “The adults are usually around twice the size of this boat.”
Her eyes went wide. “And you hunt these things bare-handed? In the ocean?”
“Well, not all by myself. A typical hunt has three or four participants.”
“That does not make it sound any less insane.” Chao chuckled and looked down at her phone, at the peaceful beach scene she remembered so fondly. A sudden, horrifying vision arose in her mind.
The sky turns black and becomes engulfed in fire. A far-off blinding flash of light appears in the ocean, followed by a giant wall of water which scours the land clean of life. A second flash, this one closer, one which fuses the white sand of the beach into glass…
Chao realized she was gripping her phone far too tight, and breathing far too fast. She snapped out of her terrified fugue when Takh gently gripped her arm with one of his upper hands. The touch brought her back to herself as she looked up into Takh’s deep-set blue eyes.
Somehow the translator got across the calming tone in Takh’s voice. “Chao. It’ll be all right. You’re not alone.”
“I know, it’s just…we humans are only on this planet, you know? We could get wiped out, just like those cute little blob guys.” She put her hand on top of Takh’s; she could feel small leathery plates covering the back of his three-fingered hand. Somehow the additional contact, although alien, made her calm down even further. “Thank you, Takh. I needed that.”
“What is your expression…don’t mention it?”
McCoy strolled over to the pair as she wiped the sweat from her forehead with a towel. She considered the holographic monster still hovering over Takh’s wrist with interest. “Oof, that is one nasty-looking bastard. Hey Takh, can you let your peeps know that they’re welcome to use the weights if they want? We forgot to mention that earlier.”
Takh turned and regarded the weight rack with interest. “I will pass the word, although I fear it might not do me any good.”
McCoy grinned. “Oh? Is that a challenge?”
Takh held up his lower hands. “Wait, I didn’t mean anything demeaning by that…”
“Ah, I’m just joshing you. I’m thinking a little demonstration would be just the thing to lift spirits around here.” The corporal turned and yelled out. “Hey, Saaaarge! Takh just said he could lift more than yoooooooou!”
Takh shot to his clawed feet in obvious panic as Shaw came strolling around the ship. “Sergeant, I said no such thing!” he protested.
Shaw wore a big smile plastered over his face. “Relax, Takh. I know McCoy very well, she’s what we humans call a born shit-stirrer. Still, wanna give it a go?” He looked over Takh’s tall frame. “Bench press or squats…maybe deadlift?”
“I don’t know any of those terms.”
“No worries, I’ll demonstrate…”
__________
It turned out squatting was the most appropriate exercise for Takh’s alien build. Shaw managed to do over four hundred pounds, which Chao found pretty impressive…until Takh had his turn. Or turns, as it turned out. The soldiers kept adding weight on the bar until they’d put on every single plate available. It was clear the alien was the winner; it was now an exercise in human curiosity. Chao could swear she saw a visible bend in the bar during Takh’s last lift. The udhyr settled the bar onto the rack with a hearty clank. Chao and the special forces soldiers gave a hearty round of applause and whistles of appreciation.
“Well Takh, I think it’s safe to say you beat my ass but good,” said Shaw. “Did you even feel that?”
The alien looked back at the fully-laden bar. “It was heavy, but I could lift more weight.”
“We could duct-tape some barbells on it!” said McCoy with far too much enthusiasm. “Let’s keep going!”
Shaw gave her a mock dope-slap up the back of her head. “Duct tape doesn’t solve everything, corporal.”
“That’s just because most people are too cowardly to try it as a solution."
The sergeant stepped forward and shook Takh’s lower hand. “Good job, my man. I suspect that if you entered a human strongman competition you’d clean house.”
Chao was still getting the hang of interpreting alien ‘facial’ expressions, but she thought Takh looked embarrassed. “I mean…it’s just a fluke. My homeworld’s gravity is higher, so my species is naturally stronger. I keep fit, of course, it’s part of the job…but I don’t try to increase the amount of mass which I can carry.” He tapped his uniform, which resulted in a soft thunk as his finger contacted the leathery skin underneath. “Udhyr have natural armor plating, which makes it difficult for us to increase muscle mass in the same way that humans can.”
Martinez chuckled. “I love it. You’re just a normal dude and you still make Arnold look like a girly man.”
Shaw shot the corporal a shut your mouth look, but the damage was done.
“Arnold?” asked Takh in a tone which was the very essence of innocence.
After an uncomfortable silence, Chao spoke up. “He’s a famous person who started out in bodybuilding…um, lifting weights to make himself really big?” She flexed her arms in front of her in an imitation of a bodybuilding pose. “He went into acting, usually silly action stuff.”
“Hey, I will not tolerate any slander against ‘Commando’,” said Martinez. “It’s a classic!”
Takh tilted his head. “Do you think we could watch this ‘Commando’ during our next group cultural exchange?”
“Sure!” replied Shaw with forced cheerfulness. They all knew that the aliens had intercepted bits and pieces of various human transmissions during their trip through the solar system. One thought passed through all the minds of the humans present.
Please oh please, don’t have seen anything from ‘that’ movie.
“Actually, do you have any pictures of this ‘Arnold’?” asked Takh, again with the innocence of a babe. “I might recognize him from the media we detected.”
Ordinarily this would have been as simple as one of them pulling out their phone and doing an image search. But all of their phones had been disabled from any transmission in or out; the only internet connection was at the communications rack.
Chao figured that it was time to pull off the band-aid…if such a thing was necessary. “All right, Martinez,” she said. “Why don’t you ask Major Morris to call up some pictures of Arnold in ‘Commando’ for our friend Takh to look at?” She hoped the slight stress on the exact film was enough to get across the unspoken message.
Martinez nodded with a fake grin. “Sure. I’ll go ask him.” He scuttled off to the communications terminal.
Before Takh could follow, Chao intercepted him with a question. “So do the udhyr do theater or drama?”
The question stopped the huge alien in his tracks as he pondered the question. “Not as such. Certainly not in the same manner as you or the knuall-toua. We do perform re-enactments of historical events. We also perform events which have never occurred, but they are more what I believe you would call ‘what-if’ scenarios where past events are different from what actually occurred. What if this ruler had won out over that ruler? What would it be like today? I hope that makes sense.”
Chao nodded. “Oh yes, we have something similar, it’s usually called alternate history.”
From across the room, Martinez turned and gave them a thumbs-up. As the group trouped over to the communications terminal, Shaw slipped up beside her.
“Very smooth distraction, Chao,” he murmured. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” she murmured back.
Major Morris looked a little surprised at the crowd descending upon him, but he stepped aside to show the terminal’s screen. “Here he is, starring in Eighties cheese at its finest.”
Martinez, for his part, said nothing and stood on the other side with a big shit-eating grin on his face. The corporal was trying very hard not to meet his sergeant’s angry eyes.
Takh regarded the mosaic of images, showing an almost impossibly muscular man with camo paint on his face and toting a quite ridiculous number of weapons. The udhyr tilted his head as he regarded the pictures. “My, he is quite big.”
McCoy piped up. “This was earlier in his career, closer to his bodybuilding days. He was known as the Austrian Oak. Um, Austria is a country on Earth and an oak is a type of tree…did I show you trees? I think I did.”
“Indeed you did, Haley,” replied Takh. “As I recall, oaks are very impressive examples of trees.”
Behind his back, Chao looked over at the corporal. Haley? she mouthed. McCoy shrugged.
“I just know I’ve seen this human before,” said Takh. Then he pointed one triumphant finger up to the hewn-rock ceiling above. “Ah! Yes! Was this ‘Arnold’ in a movie where he fought an alien that looked a little bit like an udhyr? Nadash discovered a fragment of that film.”
Sergeant Shaw performed a face-palm which could have been heard all the way down in Colorado Springs. But his voice remained steady. “Yes, Takh. It’s a movie called ‘Predator’.”
Takh gave a few rolling clicks, somehow getting across the idea that he was very pleased with himself for having figured it out. “Hmm, an interesting title. Can we watch that instead of ‘Commando’?”