A group of armed forces walking in the desert. in the distance is a huge alien mothership floating in the air. [https://img.freepik.com/free-photo/group-armed-forces-walking-desert-distance-is-huge-alien-mothership-floating-air-3d-illustrations-digital-paintings_456031-168.jpg]
Credit: Image by liuzishan on Freepik (https://www.freepik.com/author/liuzishan). It has nothing to do with the chapter; vibes only.
How does it feel to be among the last of your kind? The knife glittered in Coronel’s hand. He watched the iridescence on the blade swirl as he tilted it ever so slightly, swirling colors mixed from metal folded a thousand times with hammer and fire, a dedication in art, not science, from a ghost he now only remembered. “I love you all these colors,” the ghost said.
He couldn’t feel the knife under his artificial fingertips. He could feel something, but it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t quite as he remembered it.
He was sitting in a dreary room, illuminated by nothing but red lamps. The Children of the Ancients—the Inheritors, the Machines, whatever people called them—insisted on energy efficiency for whatever they made. For the humans, they extended the courtesy of adding some lighting to facilities that were expected to accommodate them. He couldn’t blame them for the depressing shoddiness of it. There was something lost in translation between “efficient illumination” and “good lighting.”
A door slid open, and a humanoid Machine rolled in. Instead of legs and two feet, its metallic body was connected to a two-tracked base.
“Lieutenant Coronel,” its flat voice synthesizer buzzed, “the Council will see you.”
They’d told him they had a mission for him, and specifically for him. There were less than one million humans left, survivors of the Kartesian campaign from the galactic north and into the west. The Galactic Council refused to help the humans, fearing Kartesian reprisal. Only the Machines stepped up, and only the Machines had been their allies this whole time.
How ironic that a Machine had more heart than organics who needed two.
He stepped through the door, and it slid shut behind him. The Council he was meeting today wasn’t the Galactic Council, but the Alliance’s—the Alliance between Machines and Men. It sounded too fantastical to be a name, but it got the point across. It inspired the survivors of humanity, reminding them that they always had an ally.
Everyone knew, however, it was the Machines who were on the steering wheel. They fielded the most ships, the most troops, relegating humanity to a defensive role, away from the frontlines so they wouldn’t needlessly throw away their remaining souls.
Coronel faced the Council. Why did everyone resort to forming councils? Councils were for people who saw each other as equals. Whether it was in the Galactic Council or the Alliance’s, there weren’t any equals to be found. The Machines thought themselves to be humanity’s saviors—maybe they were, but they didn’t understand that putting a lid on the pot wouldn’t snuff out this fire, not when everyone whom Coronel knew, knew someone who’d lost someone else.
There were nine Machines and three humans up on their pedestals, looking down at him. The humans were off to the side. See? Where were the equals, here? What’s the point?
“Lieutenant Coronel,” a woman started saying. The white hair and dark, wrinkled face helped Coronel remember that this was President Tanya Ugwenu, the civilian face of the leadership of what remained of humanity. “… Marine Lieutenant, hailing from Cyberia. Is this correct?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered with a straight face.
“And you’re the one who cracked the Kartesian AB-2011 encryption?”
That encryption had been superseded by AB-2012 after just two weeks, but it was enough for the Alliance to gather a little bit of intel, or at least, he hoped.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you for your service. We’ve been able to apply your decryption technique on a slew of intercepted communications. General Roberts will give you the details.”
The man beside her nodded. He was wearing the Marines’ staff uniform. He had no hair—all according to regulation.
“Son,” Roberts said, “We’ve confirmed an enemy bioweapon deployment operation.”
Coronel winced. “Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Our systems are too heavily defended for their bioweapons to be effective. It doesn’t sound like a smart thing for them to do.”
“That’s because they’re not targeting our systems, and no, they aren’t targeting the neutral factions either.”
A map of the Milky Way appeared on the floor between Coronel and the panel. To the galactic west, humanity clung onto a mere three systems: two resource outposts and one core world. They were surrounded by a sea of Machine systems, and thousands of light-years away, the frontline between the Machines and the Kartesh raged in eternal combat—abstracted away into a narrow zone of red hatch lines.
The image zoomed into the galactic south. Why the south?
“When the war began,” President Ugwenu explained, “a secret operation was launched to preserve humanity’s existence. Several colony ships made the jump into the galactic south, hoping to establish new, quiet pockets of humanity, away from the war.”
Ugwenu looked to Roberts. “We have reason to believe the Kartesh have found them,” he said.
The bioweapons made sense, now. On a cost-effectiveness basis, the Kartesh would happily shoot a vial of whatever it was they made their bioweapons out of, straight into a lone, isolated world’s atmosphere.
Seated beside Roberts, the Navy admiral Iwatani Jones spoke up next. “Our probes have confirmed over eight billion souls in one colony.” He paused for a moment. “I loathe to admit, but if the Kartesh hadn’t found them, and if you hadn’t broken their encryption, we would never have even known they were there.” Images of this ‘Earth’ flashed before them, followed by snapshots of decoded media from the stray signals of its local network. “It seems their technology has regressed, and they don’t even remember where they came from.”
Thousands of years on an alien planet could do that to cultural memory. It wasn’t likely, but an example of it was staring them right in the face.
“Unfortunately,” Jones continued, “by our estimates, Phase 1 will have already begun by the time we get there, even on full burn with our fastest vessels.”
Coronel eyed his three leaders. They so casually just said to expect 90% of the population wiped out when they’d have gotten there. The Machines probably picked them because of their coldness. They liked rational things and rational people.
“Which is why,” Roberts said, “we’re sending you.”
Figures. He did this for decades, and they expected him to do it again.
“Tell me, lieutenant,” Roberts continued, “do you think 500 men, with all the best gear and mobile fabs we can put in their hands, will be enough to make the Kartesh redo their projections?”
“Permission to ask a question, sir.”
“Granted.”
“Are you asking if 500 men can win a whole colony world, sir?”
“We don’t have to win all the time, lieutenant. I’m asking if you can mess up the Kartesh.”
“Easily, sir.”
***
The purely-defensive human navy only had fifty ships, and it was sending eight of them. Of the 3,000 marines in service, they were sending 500. This was all of their remaining, spare offensive power.
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The plan was to intercept the Kartesh strike force before they could get into orbit and deliver their deadly payload. If that didn’t work—and top brass didn’t expect they’d catch the Kartesh quite fast enough—they’d blow up the enemy strike force, anyway, then put boots on the ground and salvage what they could, and save whomever they could.
Once the smoke cleared, a follow-up fleet would come around to pick up the refugees and transport them back to Sanctuary. It wasn’t worth rebuilding a broken world when it meant diverting significant forces just to defend it.
The Machines pitched in, of course. For every human marine and sailor, two Machines volunteered to follow. They came in various shapes and sizes: humanoids, dogs, cats, and spider-like quadrupeds with power drills for hands. There were many more types, but its surrealism didn’t faze the humans. They were all used to it by now, and even making decent conversation once you got used to the data-chirps and the buzzing.
Compared to humans, Machines were all-around better at war: more willing to make the necessary sacrifices, and more willing to cut losses, with none of that foolish human pride in the way. They made for better gunners, better planners, better soldiers—but this was a human colony world. It was only logical for first contact with a forgotten branch of humanity to be made by other humans, if only to smooth over the transition.
The Alliance force made the jump. Of course, plans never survived first contact with the enemy. On the bridges of all the ships, sailors all said mostly the same things:
“Kartesh signatures on the scope!”
“Five, ten—no, twenty!”
“All hands, to your stations! Prepare for combat!”
Where they’d expected just two or three Kartesh destroyers to deliver a small payload, they were confronted by a whole fleet. They were still an hour from contact.
Coronel was watching the feeds from the bridge of the flagship.
“It’s a reaper fleet,” he said. It made no sense. The reaper fleet didn’t show up until Phase 2. Was their intel outdated?
“Lieutenant! You sound like you know what’s going on,” the fleet commander said.
“Most of those are transports for picking up the new Lanan. They’re all armed, but there should only be five destroyer escorts.”
“Seven on five? Good odds.”
“Seven?”
“Lieutenant Coronel, I’m ordering you to get on a shuttle and transfer to the Arequis. We’re hitting fast forward on the schedule for ground operations.”
Coronel saluted. The commander was telling him to live a bit longer.
Every marine on every ship, from the battalion commander to the cook, transferred to the Arequis. It was a smaller recon ship, but it also had Machine stealth tech. Whether or not it actually worked was another story.
Once the fleet came into missile range and loosed volley after volley of dummies and live munitions, the Arequis went dark and peeled off. Even if its stealth wasn’t perfect, the Alliance’s electronic warfare missiles ought to be painting the Kartesh scopes white with noise.
The Kartesh escort ships were like gray whale bones, wrapping around empty space. That empty space came alive with the crackle of radiation before they spat out kinetic rounds, well beyond the Alliance’s own gun range, and well beyond the Alliance’s fire rate. Outboard lasers and missile interceptors lashed out to swat away the Alliance’s incoming volley. Only a handful made it through, sustaining pitiful scratches to the massive Kartesian destroyers, encompassing four times the volume as their Alliance equivalents.
To say they were equivalent, though, was an old officer’s joke.
The Alliance ships tracked the incoming projectiles. A cloud of gun drones screened the space in front of them, shooting at the same targets with their own smaller railguns to try and deflect their trajectories. Flashes of plasma erupted wherever their rounds impacted the incoming munitions.
One round grazed the side of one ship, venting out a near-dozen compartments. Another struck true, drilling all the way through, destroying the engine compartment, and coming out the other side. The disabled ship started to lag behind, but its weapons and remaining crew remained able.
The other Kartesh ships switched targets, concentrating fire on the disabled ship. Finally coming into gun range, the batteries of the Alliance ships frantically opened salvo after salvo, not just on the Kartesh destroyers, but also on the Lanan transports—ships like huge domes with happenstance engines stuck onto them.
While the Alliance vented out four of the transports, the Kartesh turned the disabled ship into swiss cheese. Even as its bridge was vented, and all command crew were killed, its sailors continued firing her guns, launching her missiles. Not until they were all out of ammunition did they consider the life pods—they fired those, too, onwards to the Kartesh. For the remaining survivors, the two remaining shuttles would have to do for lifeboats.
Then the Kartesh fired their missiles. From just five ships came hundreds of them. The Alliance’s smaller guns and laser batteries switched targets as they launched as many of their electronic warfare weapons as they could. Mowing down hundreds of the incoming missiles did nothing when just one of them managed to hit the flagship.
In the heat of a dying star, it was gone without a trace. Others fared the same. Only three ships remained.
***
The bridge of the Arequis omitted informing the marines of the fate of the fleet. Deep inside, everyone already knew where those souls rested.
Captain Iya-ves had ordered the engines cut to keep their IR profile down. As it was, they were coasting the whole way to Earth, adjusting course with auxiliary thrusters.
“We’re getting pinged!” an operator announced.
“Fucking Kartesh sensors. You’d think Earth’s magnetic field would do something about it,” Iya-ves muttered. The stealth tech had failed.
“Do not worry, captain,” a synthetic voice said. Iya-ves looked to his Machine co-commander, N309. It had an androgynous, humanoid body with a chrome sheen. Its face was mouthless, noseless, but there was a visor that flashed in different colors as an analogue for facial expressions. It was black for now.
“What? We’re getting pinged. We’ll have to make for a full burn and launch the marines out of the shuttle bays, then hold off the—”
“No need for sacrifice,” N309 said. “Redundant stealth functions will reduce the signature of the ship to an iron asteroid.”
“Missile launches detected! Fifty—no, a hundred!” an operator shouted.
Iya-ves shot a glare at N309. Its visor had two red circles on it. Iya-ves chuckled, having seen a surprised Machine for the first time.
He steeled himself once more. “Get the marines planetside! On the double!”
***
The Arequis’ guns and lasers blazed to pick off the forward wave of incoming missiles. It swerved, flinging out five heavy troop transports from its bay. Each held a hundred men, several APCs and IFVs, and enough materiel to singlehandedly sustain combat operations for three months, even without local resource harvesting operations.
As soon as the Arequis fired its missiles, the transports turned on their engines, matching their burn with the missiles’ IR signature. The Lanan in the Kartesian destroyers laughed at the futility of their “stealth” and “IR masking” techniques. Space was their domain, and no one else’s.
Coronel was behind the pilot in his transport. The ordinary grunts didn’t have a view of the outside, but he and the pilots did. The rear camera feeds picked up on several bright flashes, and their passive sensors picked up the radiation from a fusion blast.
But there was another signature.
“Gravitational sensors are going nuts—fuck, it’s a jump!” The pilot deftly flipped up several switches before facing his co-pilot, causing the screens to kick and scream with warnings. “We’re using the escape boosters!”
They’d be using the only way they had to leave the planet; once they landed, there was no way back.
Better that than getting cooked in the vicinity of the gamma ray burst of a jump. A regular ship’s shielding could take that, but not them, not some tiny transport.
The rockets ignited, and the acceleration trapped Coronel in his seat. The other pilots quickly caught on, and soon, all five transports were comets bound earthward.
Meanwhile, the final salvo of Kartesh missiles, seeing no easy way through the Arequis’ point defense net, decided to preemptively explode, cooperating to form a penetrative blast wave that punched through the Arequis’ midsection, splitting it in half.
A killing blow, it was not.
The engineers left in the rear engine compartment—now just a divorced, prideless chunk of the Arequis—battled to stabilize the jump drive, just long enough to survive their final act.
Lacking the computational assistance of the CIC, the Machines on board tapped into whatever sensors were left to try and triangulate their orientation against the stars—and the orientation needed to aim the dying engine of the Arequis towards the Kartesh fleet. They drained helium tank after helium tank, as both man and Machine worked to counteract the tumbling of their precious wreck. Hundreds of backup thrusters spewed out the inert gas, aiming the engine of the Arequis towards the Kartesh fleet.
The jump drive readied to heave its last breath. The Kartesh knew better, and concentrated its next kinetic volley on the center of the imminent graviton daemonization. Their projectiles were already so close, but nothing escaped a black hole.
To the front and back of the floating engine compartment, high energy particles lanced through space. The rearward gamma ray burst coasted through an eternity of empty space, but the frontal burst hit a Kartesian destroyer head-on. Half of its systems seized up, and personnel in less-shielded areas simply dropped dead.
The gamma lances stabilized, coalescing into stick-thin, kilometers-long particle beams that terminated in fountains of blue energy—evidence of reality just barely holding itself together. They were like hands that pushed apart two summoned anomalies: a white hole behind them, and a black hole in front, together making a cosmic pack horse that could rip through the very laws of causality and the limit of the speed of light. Were the two anomalies ever allowed to come together, however, the surrounding space would be baptized in quantoid collapse.
The white hole behind the engine pushed it along, while the black hole in front pulled it ever onwards. The engine accelerated across the vast nothingness between Earth and the Kartesian fleet. All the munitions, kinetic and directed energy, that the Kartesh threw at it only got sucked into its guiding black hole, only to become energy that served to pull the Arequis’ engine even faster.
To the Kartesh’s credit, they did have weapons that could counter the humans’ anomalous weapons and devices. To the Kartesh’s dismay, they didn’t expect to need them for such a simple reaping operation.
Finally, the engine met one of the Kartesian destroyers head-on. The black hole tore through the destroyer, but for just the briefest moment, the resulting debris disrupted the jump drive’s anomaly separator.
Black and white slammed into each other in the next instant, atomizing the engine, all its remaining compartments, and all its crew. Yet, in the crew’s perspective, they were cursed to forever watch the last moment of their lives, time having been rendered non-conceptual in this space where extreme and dipole gravities stretched time into different infinities.
Two possibilities existed at once: one of the immortal crew, and another where the crew have already become memory and entropy. One possibility, however, was absolute: the complete and utter destruction of the Kartesian reaper fleet.