The roar of explosions filled the command deck of the Hurusankham until the communications officer unfroze and told the computer to cut off the sound, the mental equivalent of a lunge for an off switch. The appalled silence in the control center that followed was a stark contrast to the sheer violence of the images flooding the main screens. Ankaht stood back and controlled herself with an effort. (Shock, calm through will.) The captain, Nefarat, of the First Wave Flagship, sat without motion, even in his lesser tentacles. (Calculation/aggression.) The low-level belligerent response was so much a part of him that it almost didn't bear commenting on, but she wondered at the Council choosing him as captain. It was less puzzling when one considered that he and the senior admiral were very alike, both well respected Destoshaz, the warriors. "Senior Admiral to the bridge," he said quietly, his words passed on from the command nexus in his control niche.
The lighting was brighter and bluer than human eyes would have found comfortable, and the predominantly yellow light flaring and blasting from the screens looked washed out.
Communications Officer Yegire (Distress, fear.), who had never expected to encounter alien communications, had her hands up over her face as if she could shut out the hideous images flooding in from the planets they had hoped to make a new Ardu (Comfort embodied.) A new home. She had been cycling through to contact the Buvastash when that excrescence had exploded on the screens, freezing everyone in their places.
The commander second had his emotions well in claw but his skin tone was chalky yellow-flecked red. All of the control crew were so frozen that even the under-flow of emotion, the selnarm, was dampened, the equivalent of an emotional whisper.
On the screen, tiny ships flew over the planet below and ugly clouds marked where nuclear strikes bloomed, clustered in horrible precision. The ships fought each other and larger vessels, and monsters stood and spoke and waved what looked like normal arms save they lacked tentacles and some lacked claws. The digits were disgustingly stiff. Almost all of them had fleshy appendages upon their heads that tended not to move much, and not one of the monstrosities blowing each other up seemed to have more than two eyes.
Some were the varying browns and beiges of diseased skin; some were completely coated with fur. There seemed to be a scattering of patches of fur on various places on most of these monsters. The ones coated with fur like yihrt had fangs as long as that extinct predator, others were birdlike with what looked like proper feathers, like gigantic flixits. A full cluster of odd things sat around a desk? A table?
The door hissed open quietly, the only announcement that the senior admiral had arrived. Torhok relieved the captain from the command niche with his (Assumption of command.) and the (Acknowledgement, relief to a superior.) response. He was medium size for Destoshaz, compact and solid as a shield generator, his skin smooth gold. And his attitude always set Ankaht's tentacles into a knot. He did little matsokah, or "training of the soul," and his sulhaji was not the "true seeing" or "true vision" that she perceived. All in all, there was no good narmata between them. She set her mouth grinders together firmly and clamped down on her emotion. It was no time to spread ill will and discord through the selnarm.
"Yegire," (Firm support.) Admiral Torhok spoke more gently than his usual harsh style as he sat down in the command niche, trying to bring his communications officer out of her shock. "What are these things saying? Are they communicating at all?"
"Sir, there is only noise. (Distress dampened, emphatic.) There is nothing on the selnarm frequency. They're like machines, sir."
"Illudor's Nightmares." The admiral didn't look around as someone whispered it (Revulsion, sinking despair.), but his attention snapped like a thunderclap, enough to make Ankaht flinch back. (ATTENTION.) "We are not first-borns. We have countless lives behind us and we will act accordingly!" (Implacability.) "We are, by Illudor's will, Dispersed by Sekahmant and as reflections of the Mind of Illudor, we Remember." He turned his chair slowly. "I am assuming that the other ships of the fleet have been picking that up"—he nodded at the screens where two things with various colors of fur on their heads sat behind a barrier of some kind, making yapping noises at each other—"and that panic will be spreading" (Calm, controlled will to defend.) Yegire, set up a conference in one hour with all ships captains and their councils that we may consult and act in narmata under Illudor's eye."
(Relief and relinquishment of control.) flowed from most of the bridge. Ankaht, as eldest Sleeper-Wakened, let only a trickle of (Reserve.) out as part of the narmata. She disliked the way the latest ship generation resigned their self-control to the officers, often without thinking. It was a diminishment of the race, a lessening of potential holodah for every individual as far as she was concerned and it made her uncomfortable to be in the flow of the ship generations. Their narmata were limited and harsh in a way that grated on her nerves.
"Yes, Senior Admiral. Within the hour."
He turned his attention to Ankaht. "Eldest, if you would gather your fellows and give us the benefit of your (Suppressed resentment.) knowledge?" Though he was known by other shaxzhu as a Warrior commander, he himself had no memories of past wars and commands held. If, by Illudor, there was no one else but "Us," then why choose a War Leader as senior admiral of the First Fleet? But now, obviously, there is more than "Us." And someone must have had a thought that perhaps we would find something that required an aggressive response.
She was better at reducing her unintended emotions than he was, even though biologically they were of an age. Her shaxzhutok and planetary experience gave her an advantage that he could not even begin to swim. (Soothing deference.) "Of course, Senior Admiral."
A full ship's day later, the awakened sleepers all sat quietly in the darkened gathering room, swimming in their narmata. They had been in hibernation as generations had borne incarnation inside the ships, growing more and more distant from their shaxzhu of the planet born. They were also aware of the pressure of the disincarnate, waiting for the race to expand onto a planetary surface once more. On the flagship, though there were only 452 shaxzhu, it was still easier for smaller clusters to meet before bringing the consensus together in the full cluster that would gather shortly.
Ankaht had set the light in the gathering room to just past sunset and before Sekahmant-rise, the dimness lending itself to calm reflection. She sat in the cluster of deliberation with the others of her immediate collect, their tentacled fingers interlaced to better facilitate narmata. For all that the room was a perfect miniature copy of any gathering room at home, she was acutely conscious of the differences that made it clear they were not home and never would be again.
The artworks that represented sulhaji, there to remind everyone that holodah was ultimately attainable for every individual, on the planet would have been more that just holograms, meant to be touched and shotan if the discussion grew too heated. It was an acceptable way to break cluster when emotions ran high, to contemplate an artwork. Here, if someone needed to let narmata settle both in themselves and the group, they could only look at the works and not touch. There was no weight to them, no heft more than the weight of a photon, and she missed it.
The hiss and sigh of ventilation and the faint smell that was like nothing but the most sealed of environments was a constant low-level irritation that she had to brace herself against, and the minute vibration in the air, even in a ship this size marked the monstrous faint thunder of the drive. She pitied the first generation who'd had to raise children knowing nothing but this, and praised their disincarnate selves. They would surely be the first in line to be born when the new-planet generations began. Unless these aliens stopped them from settling.
The newly awakened had been spending more of their waking hours in each other's company rather than with the ship generations, despite their best attempts. Both Ankaht and Thutmus, a shaxzu with many lives in common with her, had counseled that they were there to connect the old narmata with the new, but they'd all found the new generations very hard to be with, save two. Neferek and Silar, both of the tall, bright variant, found the Shiplings more comfortable than their peers out of sleep. Their presence was a simmering thread of discord in narmata, the sharpness of spoiled fermentation in a sweet soup.
Ankaht reminded herself of this firmly, sending tendrils of (Openness, acceptance.) in their direction, as fully capable of controlling her dislike of them as she was of the senior admiral. She was fairly sure that none of those who upset her knew that they did. It is my duty to the race to ensure narmata. It is our survival and the future incarnation of those who wait and our hope of holodah. She drew comfort from the other-flow of contact, the solid clench of tentacles on either side of her. Thutmus was as dark as she was, calm enough even in the face of this disaster that his central eye was closed.
Hathrok, on her other side, was as bright as soul as he was cool and Ankaht was happy that she had them both.
"Clearly, we are not the only Reflection of Illudor," Thutmus said quietly. (Reasonable reflection.) "We have had the obvious held under our eyes." He clicked his claws decisively, without disengaging the cluster.
"Not so!" Neferek closed even her central eye. (Rejection, rejection, negation.) "We have no proof that these things are even intelligent!" (Betrayal, rejection, anger.)
The narmata in the room was clearly against her, but she continued swimming against it. "They are not. Perhaps there were People once and these are their semi-intelligent pets? (Hope?) We've been watching these things for days now and there is no sign of conscious selnarm! Nothing but meaningless noise, like a flixit!" There was a tiny wave of grief for lost pets, for there had been deemed no room for even things as small as flixits. Ankaht felt a small pang of loss for the song hers had sung.
It was not as if the animals of home were lost, after all, they just could not be alive and awake in the ships. They existed only as viable embryos frozen in the gene banks in each ship waiting for the New Home. In the few weeks she'd been awake, Ankaht had had far too many dreams of being frozen in the banks, but awake and not able to let anyone know she was conscious, no one able to hear her distress for some reason. As reasonable as all dreams were, of course, unless they were shaxzhu memories coming back. Before the recollection of her dreams could spread by selnarm and contaminate narmata, she shook herself mentally. (Agreement one, Uncertainty twelve, Disagreement twenty.)
"Clearly they are intelligent or they could not create new technology . . . that is obvious from some of the images. We think that we are beginning to recognize extra-selnarm indicators like the gestures. Perhaps their selnarm is olfactory or on another frequency," Ankaht said firmly. "Illudor's Mind is bigger than we credited." (Wonder, joy, fear, apprehension.)
"These things kill each other in their thousands," Silar said. (Closed to reason, obdurate.) "They clearly do not communicate properly. And it is clear that they arbitrarily choose a species to disincarnate, groups against groups. Illudor would not think of such hideous creatures." (Fanaticism.)
"That is yet to be determined." (Reason in the face of ignorance.) Hathrok, as impulsive as ever, snapped. "It is kind of you to let us know the Mind of Illudor since you obviously have a personal connection!" (Cont—)
(—Calm.) Ankaht cut in. "We cannot bicker amongst ourselves." (Reasonable judgment, continuing.)
Neferek shut down her flow of selnarm to a trickle. (Offended, slighted.) "You cannot deny that these creatures have killed at least two entire races from what we've seen and seem to repeat the story of how they did it many times, casting it out into the universe. They smashed planets together to destroy a race."
(Silent terror.)
(Stillness before a predator.)
(Defensive rage.) The room was filled with the click and rustle of claws against each other and that of their neighbors. The cluster looked like an anemone of defensive claws as the ancient reflexes seized them.
"Yes." (Uncertainty.) Ankaht said pulling her hands down gently, bringing the defensive ring down with them. "But we may simply be misunderstanding them. We do not want a repeat of the mob action that happened in the time of Harrok the All Encompassing. Several of us were there and couldn't stop it."
A suppressed shudder as she reminded them of that life, that atrocity. It had all been a manipulation by the First of Warriors, a time of fire and blood when many were sent disincarnate for all the wrong reasons.
(Openness, Curiosity tempered with caution.) "We cannot assume anything."
(Agreement 30, reserve 2, disagreement 2.)
Senior Admiral Torhok was sick of listening to his advisors tell him that he should be more cautious, less aggressive. These things were a clear danger to the race. They killed and seemed to celebrate it. Part of the noise in the transmissions was music if one could call it that, and there was enough congruity that one could almost pick up selnarm from it. It seemed to glorify the planet smashing. The genocide.
He didn't take his hands out of the palm rests of his niche, only clicking his main claws gently against the buttons to show his restraint. He'd been in that recess far more than anyone had thought he'd be, since everyone had thought that Illudor would, of course, have thought of a suitable new home for the race who reflected Him, having just driven them out of Home.
The First Wave was his responsibility, every one of the twenty-six ships. And all the subsequent Waves right up until the radiation and shock wave had killed the last Wave that had failed to outrun the stellar explosion. They would have had to be up close to the speed of light to have a chance of the shielding working and they hadn't had time. It had been dust almost more than the radiation, moving at near light speed and in high concentrations that had killed the last three million who had tried to flee.
There were some disincarnate who would undoubtedly remember the Crippling, when the planet itself evaporated and the last ships were caught and overwhelmed by the expanding star. The selnarm had transmitted the shock wave of the dying, giving them all nightmare proof that the frequency of that sense lay beyond the speed of light. Selnarming another death was often uncomfortable, but not particularly shocking. Often enough, one would be tired of a lengthy life and the death would come as a minor relief. In this case it was the enormous amount of death felt that sent the entire remaining race reeling for weeks. The Sleepers were spared that and the ingrained memory of that, when the race as a whole became a defensive cluster and it was his job to see that that cluster survived.
It had been the scientists of that generation who had gotten the bugs out of transmitting selnarm between ships without requiring massive trauma. And it allowed communication that was faster than light.
He tapped with his fore-claw, which brought up the latest analysis on his command screen. At least whatever happens to us, all the rest will selnarm. They might not know details but they will be prepared for whatever happens.
These monsters—he refused to think of them in any other way—obviously had some way of traveling between stars that wasn't Myrtakian space. Either that or they could create ships out of nothing, which seemed even unlikelier. This was also an explanation for the sheer number of physical types—different species apparently. All of whom showed no signs of selnarm, and displayed consistently violent, genocidal behaviors. In his thought, that made things easy. They were all monsters and threats to the race.
The soft chime at Sean's desk caught him just as he was tabbing up his pants. It chimed again as he cleaned his hands and he called, "Remko here," over his shoulder.
"Sir, we're coming up on sensor range of the alien fleet."
"I'll be on the bridge in a moment."
"Yessir."
As he straightened his tunic, his mouth twitched at an irrelevant thought. None of the vid heroes ever seem to get caught in the head. That was more the thought of his younger self, and a sure sign of the stress he was under, the stress they were all under.The fleet was heading out to intercept and that meant far more time in regular space than anyone was used to. It was one thing to spend hours or days between warp points but quite another to be heading out into the immensity, the vastness that was Newtonian space, to contact a new alien race. Which was another whole can of worms.
The effect was also doing so in force. Every tin can that was armed and could be called spaceworthy was part of what the media were calling "Greeting Fleet." There were a full dozen SMTS, fifteen DDs, a handful of antique battlecruisers and even the Orion CV, that Showaath had been reporting on had been rushed back into space. A solid group of politicians were screaming that sending out a fleet armed to the teeth was hardly a gesture of goodwill and fellowship. One small faction was even promoting sending a single drone broadcasting, "We come in Peace," and other arrant nonsense in all the sentient languages currently known.
Thank God that people with more military sense quashed that idea, Sean thought. We've been fighting interstellar wars for hundreds of years and people want to go out to meet someone who could be a carnivore—wearing a steak suit with a sprig of parsley in the lapel. He came onto the flag bridge moving briskly, but not rushing; no need to make anyone nervous by looking harried. He moved to take the command chair from Captain Gilford. The Haida was a missile-heavy SMT, meant to stand off and pound an enemy from long outside the range of known energy weapons. In the fleet he also had the Williamsburg, the Nunavut, and Dallas, all designed to wait out the missile exchanges and close to energy range, if necessary. All of which, he hoped, would be unnecessary. But no one knew what they'd be facing.
It was all different somehow; having someone coming at you from directions that you couldn't predict, like having the whole sky suddenly becoming a closed warp point. These aliens were approaching space travel a whole different way, which pointed to a whole different attitude from everyone else. They were willing to plow through regular space over thousands of years to travel between stars, and could come from anywhere—which the journalists seemed to have mercifully stayed away from. Thank God. The last thing we need is all twenty three million souls on Bellerophon imagining another Bug invasion coming from unpredictable directions. As he settled into the chair, he made a mental note to himself to spend more time training because the short jaunt had left his heart rate up. Not good, even if I am almost halfway through my second hundred. Of course, I have other reasons than mere exercise to elevate my pulse.
"Admiral on the bridge."
"At ease. What do we have, Nora?"
Nora Thompson, a lieutenant new enough that she nearly squeaked, adjusted the image on her screen minutely. "We're just at the edge of the range, Sir. I'll have it clearer in a moment. . . ." He settled back into the command chair as she tinkered with her sensors. " . . . Ah. Here, Sir." For all her youth, she was one of the best, practically making her sensors purr.
"I have Admiral Waldeck for you, sir," Jorge Miezaki, his com officer, spoke quietly.
"Good, pipe him through."
"Yessir."
Waldeck was on his own flag bridge aboard the Antietam, another of the missile-heavy supermonitors that the Rim favored, and Sean could almost imagine the lean patrician form intent on the information finally coming clear in the tank.
"Admiral Remko, are you getting this?" Waldeck's voice was clipped, blunt to the point of rudeness, as usual. For an instant Sean was transported back to when Cyrus was his flag captain and while still doing everything brilliantly, managing the Waldeck sneer down his nose at the Rim accents around him. He shifted one shoulder minutely, the ghost of a shrug, as he thrust that ancient feeling of irritation that the Corporate World drawl still sometimes brought up.
The image Lieutenant Thompson was calling up sprang up in the tank and everyone stared, though they tried to focus on their own duty stations. Where the usual display showed various colored points of light, with the distances between them vastly reduced to allow showing the whole thing in one image, this time the alien ships showed appreciable disks. "Magnifying," Thompson said quietly. She brought up one of the alien ships.
"Yes. Yes, Cyrus, I'm seeing them." Sean's voice was an atypical monotone as he gazed at the image, realizing what he was looking at. It was almost worse when Thompson brought up a schematic of an SMT to give the proper scale.
"Jah love us." The whisper came from Ensign Perry over at fire control. Privately Sean agreed with her. It was a monster.
"Smallest ship, Sir, is twelve kilometers long." Thompson's voice shook as she read out the figures. "Twelve kilometers."
"Sean." Waldeck's voice stumbled only slightly before he continued. "Admiral." He was shocked enough that he was retreating to formality and Sean was just as glad. He was having a hard enough time keeping his own face impassive.
"Yes, Cyrus." He took a breath and pulled himself back in iron control.
"I do not believe this is a social call, not with twenty-six ships this size. Unless these aliens are giants and they need ships that size—which is extremely unlikely—there are thousands of aliens on them."
"I agree. A bit much for just a hello, but we can't assume they're going to arrive guns blazing."
"I must however advise extreme caution, Sean. The largest is . . . over four hundred billion tons."
Sean's lips pursed in a soundless whistle. I hope to God they aren't here to start another war. "It's your job to be cautious, Cyrus. I hope you're wrong." He turned to his communications officer. "Mr. Miezaki, anything on any channel?"
Jorge looked up and shook his head, pressing one finger against the skin on the implant over his left temple in a gesture as old as ear-speakers. "No, Sir. Nothing on any frequency and the computer is monitoring ranges both above and below everyone's normal hearing."
Sean nodded. "Thank you, Jorge, let me know the moment anything comes through. In the meantime, start hailing them—"
"Sir! The aliens are launching smaller ships! Fighters?" Thompson's voice rose in a slight question because the ships being launched were so big. "Multiple launches. I've got seventy-five birds already, sir. They're the size . . ." She paused for a second. "They're SD sized, sir, and they're reactionless-drive."
"Ms. Marcus, all ships, we need to be stopped relative to them." They have no choice but to come to us, they are in full deceleration and can't cut their drives. I have to deal with those parasite ships since they can maneuver against us.
The vast ships came on in the same stately deceleration, unwavering in their arrow-straight course for Bellerophon, while the smaller ships darted toward the Contact Fleet, like water bugs skittering away from a ponderous turtle.
"Multiple launches, sir! Smaller ships, about the size of battlecruisers."
Sean snapped out his orders, after the barest hesitation, that no one noticed but him. "Cyrus, pull all ships back, we don't want to look unnecessarily aggressive. Least Claw Zteeffwiit'gahrnak, ready to launch your fighters if we need them, on my command."
"Acknowledged," the translator took all the emotion out the Orion commander's response but it was just as crisp as Cyrus's, and the Contact Fleet slowed and flattened into a loose wall.
"The alien ships are slowing, Senior Admiral. They're spreading out."
Torhok, as little as he felt it, sent (Reassurance.) "It could be the beginning of an attack formation."
Ankaht protested from her observer's station. (Negation.) "Admiral, if I may . . . that's an assumption. They are not attacking."
(Anger.) "Yet, Elder. They may be slowing, but they are still coming on."
"Senior Admiral, a communication."
The alien on the screen was a wide individual, wearing what the People believed to be a cloth covering associated with the genocidal creatures that had control of the armed ships. The creatures that they had seen destroy races. It spoke and Torhok looked to Senior Communications Technician Nerfiht, who shook his head and shrugged (Distress, nausea, fear.) "No selnarm. Nothing but the noise."
"Admiral," Ankaht said quietly. (Calm reason, peaceful harmony.) "They are talking to us, not just shooting."
(Suppressed contempt.) "I understand that they are attempting communications, Elder. It is, however, my job to protect the People. We are the first hope. Nothing will stop me from getting them to their New Home. I am Destoshaz and this is my narmata. Shaxzhu or not, if you continue to obstruct my sulhaj I will assume that you are challenging matsokah. (Building rage.) I would be loathe (Suppressed lie.) to lose you in this life, but would manage."
"They are indeed communicating, but it could just as easily be a warn-off." His flow of selnarm shut down almost entirely as his rage and fear grew. "That could be an attack formation!"
"Junior Admiral, the squadron is awaiting orders." (Fear.)
"Then let them. We await orders from Senior Admiral Torhok." Junior Admiral Vakelnar let his anger at his captain flow. The squadron was his responsibility but the larger responsibility were the Home Ships behind them. He was young for his rank, and his shaxzhu said he was young in soul, as most Destoshaz were and he was horribly afraid for all the people behind him. His ship, the Hurusankham, where his raising circle was, where his selnarm partner prepared for her ship launch, were horribly vulnerable and his tender, Rahrahmpaht and her consorts were a thin shield against machinelike monsters.
His tentacles curled into a tight knot on the armrests of his niche as he waited for word from Torhok, waited to defend the race. He was clenching his grinders, blinking all his eyes more than needed. His selnarm poured loud, combining with the rest of his bridge crews'. (Fear, rage, anxiety, nausea.) Even as the People focused on their duties, the air seethed with their fear and confusion, the clicking of claws angry and unconscious, unnoticed. The air stank of fight-rage and defensiveness.
"Entering extreme sensor range, Junior Admiral."
"Put it up." He and his partner had just spawned in anticipation of Home and the children were in the raising circle on the Home Ship. It didn't matter that he didn't know his children, that wasn't his job. It was his job to protect them and all the others new or old spawned. He swallowed as the alien ship appeared on-screen—a killer ship from the broadcasts, he recognized it and had studied what it could do.
"Admiral! Scanning intensity has decreased dramatically! We're being hit with multiple energy signatures!" He froze for a terrified instant before exceeding his orders.
"That's targeting scan! Launch missiles! Fire!"