Nemesis (64 page)

Will stared at her, his mind tripping over the ramifications of her words. Godhood, or some sick parody of it, wasn’t optional, apparently.

‘Never,’ said Will. ‘I’d rather die.’

‘We’ll be making some modifications to your mind, of course,’ she said, ‘so as to minimise the damage you can cause, and to ensure that you’re suitably aligned. I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to be conscious during that process. We need to read your cognitive feedback, you see. That’ll hurt, but don’t worry, by the end you won’t care.’

‘Do you think you can scare me?’ Will shouted. ‘I’ve had my mind taken apart before. I’ve been tortured to the edge of sanity. There is nothing you can throw at me that I haven’t already beaten. Do you understand?
Nothing!
’

‘I’m not trying to scare you, Will,’ said the Transcended reasonably. ‘I’m just helping you get in the right frame of mind. We need a good imprint of your motivational architecture to inform the things we’ll eventually want to make out of you. Every gingerbread world needs strong weapons.’

Will reached uselessly for her face with hands bent into claws. The Rachel-thing receded back into the fog, leaving Will alone in pristine oblivion.

He twisted with all the mental force he could summon, desperately willing his way out of the vision, but he didn’t stand a chance, of course. The Transcended had always been with him. They’d never let go. Being free was never an option.

And then, in a bright moment of exquisite horror, the surgery began. Rachel’s face suddenly filled Will’s mind like an explosion and then was gone, along with all memory of what she’d looked like.

‘No!’ Will screamed.

Memories blossomed in his mind like fireworks. His half-son Mark came and went. Poor Amy, who he’d watched die. His friend Ira, grave but determined. Gustav, blood pooling in his mouth as his eyes implored Will to action. Each vision left a curious gap in its wake, like a tooth yanked from an open mouth.

‘No! No! No!’

Will’s years of political suffering, his long war days and finally his youth, all were snipped out a piece at a time. In the end Will still knew fear and rage, but had no one left to aim them at.

‘No …’ he said, and wondered what he meant.

‘There there,’ said the Transcended. ‘Time to sleep, Will Monet. Time to sleep.’

The snow-white simulation faded into nothingness, taking Will along with it.

19.4: MARK

Mark looked at the radiation profile on the wall display and knew there couldn’t be any doubt. A sick sense of injustice welled up inside him.

‘Our hands were just tied,’ he said. ‘We don’t get to go to Earth – we have to make our stand here and now.’

Citra regarded him blankly. ‘Why?’

‘Because of the target-size problem,’ said Ash grimly. ‘If we let the Nems take over this system, they’ll be that much smarter by the time they get to Earth. If the swarm wins here, they’ll gain an army of hosts and about a thousand IQ points.’

‘I’m not sure “swarm” is the right word,’ said Zoe. She was already frantically typing on the nearest surface. ‘Take a look at this.’ She posted a window to the wall-screen. ‘This is an interpolated image from our primary telescopic array.’

Six bright points hung against a backdrop of fuzzy darkness.

‘They look like starships,’ said Mark.

The Nems had brought a human-style fleet with them this time, not a swarm. With each passing second, the image resolution improved. The Nem craft all had the same curiously knobbled exterior. And they were diving in-system at almost a full light – a real achievement so close to a star.

‘They look like giant raspberries,’ said Citra.

‘They’re not all the same type,’ said Zoe. ‘I’m seeing two ship-forms. Three of them are round like our ships and three are elongated.’

‘I’ve never heard of these things,’ said Ash.

Mark rifled through Ash’s borrowed memories. ‘Me neither. They’re new.’

Fingers of dread stroked up his spine. The Nems had changed again.

‘We have to wake Sam,’ said Citra. ‘He’s been preparing for this moment. I listened while he organised defences for the whole system.’

Ash looked sour. ‘I’d rather not.’

‘Unfortunately, Citra’s right,’ said Mark. ‘We need all the information we can get.’

Zoe shot him a dry look. ‘Are you sure we’ll believe it when we get it?’

‘No, but that’s a chance we’ll have to take.’ He pushed off the wall, back towards the med-bay.

At first, the medical SAP refused to rouse Sam.

‘He requires extensive facial reconstruction,’ the room told them. ‘Surgery is ongoing.’

‘I don’t need him sitting up,’ Mark told the machine. ‘Isn’t he carrying a subvocal tap for heavy-gee dialogue? We can talk to him while he’s still in there.’

‘He also has a concussion with mild brain damage,’ the med-bay insisted. ‘His mental functions are still under repair and should not be utilised. I cannot recommend stimulation at this time.’

‘I don’t care,’ Mark snapped. ‘This is an emergency.’

The wall-screen on Sam’s cabinet swapped to a simulated display of his face. He groaned as the med-bay dumped stimulants into his blood.

‘What the fuck …’

His voice emerged as a digitised mess while the SAP selected a vocal interpolation program that would work. The simulated face blinked and looked around. The camera in the corner of the display went live.

‘Hello, Sam,’ said Mark.

‘Where am I? What’s happening?’

‘You’re in recovery.’

Dawning realisation crawled across the simulated face. Sam scowled.

‘Well, you got your ship back,’ said Sam. ‘Congratu-fucking-lations.’

‘Sam, the Nems are here,’ said Mark.

‘Of course they are, you stupid little shit. What did you think was going to happen? Did you imagine that bullshit prank at Nerroskovi was going to buy you time? The Nem carriers are made out of adapted drones, you idiot. Where did you imagine they came from? Kill one carrier and the others cluster and fuse to make a new one. Everything they do is made out of drones.’

Zoe’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course!’ she said. She sounded more fascinated than afraid.

‘We didn’t wake you so you could insult us,’ said Mark. ‘We need to know the state of Carter’s defences. We’d ask them but they’re not in a talking mood.’

‘Do you imagine that anything I can tell you will do the slightest bit of good at this point?’ said Sam. ‘Do yourself a favour and leave the system. It’s fucking over. You’ve doomed these people already. Let them die in peace.’

‘The defences!’ Ash shouted. His voice squeaked with rage and spittle flew from his mouth. ‘Tell us about the fucking defences or I swear you’ll come out of that box a cripple.’

‘There are two colony police gunboats about six AU out,’ said Sam, his voice dripping scorn. ‘They’ve got orders to release decoys in the event of a swarm to draw the Nems’ attention.

‘But the best ship in the system by far is the
Gulliver
. The colonists were going to equip it with some weapons, but you fucked that up, Mark, before they could even start. We were supposed to act as an escort for the evacuation ark. Most of the population were already aboard before you trashed my comms. I have no idea if they ever finished that process.’

‘Where’s the ark?’ said Mark.

‘At Carter’s primary moon.’

‘And how about the people in the Flag colonies? You were going to burn them from orbit, weren’t you?’

‘Do you really think they deserve rescuing?’ Sam drawled. ‘You saw them up close.’

‘Of course they fucking deserve rescuing!’ Mark shouted. ‘They’re
people
!’

He struggled for calm. Every second he spent in Sam’s company came with a heavy emotional cost.

Zoe passed an image feed of the approaching Nem fleet to Sam’s visual field.

‘The Nems didn’t send a swarm this time,’ she said. ‘Their carrier brought these raspberry ships instead. Any idea what they’re for?’

The silence that followed spoke volumes.

‘You’re screwed in any case,’ said Sam at length. ‘You took out the orbital defence platform. That was your best tool for making a stand, or even just for target reduction. The Carter colonists have Nem-cloaking now. I made sure of that. They’ll just have to fire it up and hope. The
Gulliver
has one option and that’s to get the fuck out of here.’

‘Wrong,’ said Zoe.

An icon appeared in Mark’s sensorium. ‘I’m receiving a signal from those ships,’ he said.

He passed it to the nearest wall. A beautiful woman with decorative orange striping on her face appeared. The backdrop behind her was a field of shimmering blue like a summer sky.

‘Greetings!’ she said with a warm smile. She looked somehow familiar, in a friendly, approachable way. ‘We come in peace. We are the Photurian Collective and we offer an alliance with the human race. Please do not be alarmed by our arrival. We are here simply to engage in face-to-face dialogue with the people of the Carter System. We bring gifts: extended life, telepathy, social harmony and a host of biological and technological enhancements. We offer all of them freely in return for the chance to meet you and learn about your culture.’

Mark stared at the woman and almost wanted to believe the message. Maybe the Nems had grown up. Maybe after all the horror they’d brought, this was what they’d been trying to turn into.

‘Run,’ Sam breathed. His simulated face started to distort into fragments. ‘Run
now
!’

The vitals on his readout display started to spike.

‘My patient is entering a state of neural strain due to your intervention,’ said the med-bay.

‘What is it, Sam?’ said Zoe. ‘What do you see?’

‘Don’t you recognise her? That’s Meleta Keth, the head watcher we posted at the Tiwanaku System. She was in the League. She had access to our data – battle plans, projections, fallbacks, all of it. She would never have let them take her. If they’ve got her …’

He didn’t need to say more. They all knew what he meant. The League was over.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Sam shouted, his voice deteriorating into static. ‘
Go!
’

‘No,’ said Zoe. ‘Here’s what we’ll do: we attack digitally. Sam used their comms protocol before. We can use it again. They don’t like changing it, otherwise Nem-cloaking wouldn’t work. That gives us a way in.’

‘Stupid,’ said Sam. ‘If you soft assault the Nems they’ll swap up their security and the evac-ark will lose its cloaking.’

‘That’s the price we’ll have to pay if we want to shut this invasion down,’ said Zoe.

Mark stared at her. ‘How can we do that?’

A weird smile quirked one corner of Zoe’s lips. ‘This is the moment I was born for,’ she said. ‘The Vartian Institute has been planning for this for a long time. The
Gulliver
has more alien-hacking tools packed into it than a fleet of soft-combat ships.’

‘Where?’ said Mark. ‘They’re not in the ship’s core.’

‘Of course not,’ said Zoe. ‘They’re in me. What did you think all those aug defences were for? For this. Nobody fucks with the Vartian Institute. Nobody. And this is when they learn that. We’re going for a two-phase attack. I need to work on that protocol of theirs. I don’t have enough data to subvert it yet – we need open communication channels for that. So the first thing this ship has to do is act as bait. Mark, I need you to fly us over to that Nem fleet and announce yourself. Without getting caught, of course. As fast as you can.’

Mark nodded. ‘Go to the lounge and strap down,’ he told the others.

‘Use my bunk,’ Ash called after him. ‘Sam sabotaged the top one. I’ll work from the lounge and do what I can to help.’

Mark ran to the bridge, slammed home the fat-contact and opened the link to the lounge while the engines ramped to full power.

‘You’re confident we can do this?’ he asked Zoe as she strapped in.

‘This day has been thirty years in the planning. They don’t stand a chance.’

‘Why now?’ said Citra. ‘Why not at Tiwanaku, when we could have saved Yunus?’

‘Didn’t have enough data,’ said Zoe. ‘I had no idea what I was looking at. Now we have everything Sam’s been hiding. That’s years of research. And the best part is that the Nems have spent this entire time cannibalising our technology, which we know inside out. You can see it screaming from their message signatures. That lack of imagination levels the playing field plenty.’

Mark brought down the gel-sleeves, locking his crew in tight. Breathing support and virtual interface assist kicked in.

‘Hold on, everybody,’ he said. ‘Here we go.’

He threw them into warp. The hammer of the
Gulliver
’s mighty drive smacked them into their crash couches and kept on smacking. For the next twenty minutes, the Nem fleet slid up to meet them.

Mark flicked open the channel the Nems had used and called them back.

‘Hey there, Photurian Collective,’ he said, his tight-beam transmitter blasting. ‘I was in two minds at first, but on balance, your offer sounds
great
! Could you sign me and my crew up to join the Collective, please, at your earliest convenience?’

Of the six ships, the three spherical ones changed course towards him as soon as the message reached them. The ovals apparently weren’t interested. They remained doggedly aimed at Carter.

‘Three out of six is a good start,’ said Zoe. ‘Work on the round ones and keep at it.’

With light-lag, the Collective’s response took five minutes.

‘That’s wonderful news, human ship. We will rendezvous with you and commence what I hope will be a very fruitful dialogue.’

‘Terrific,’ Mark sent back. ‘Say, is there some assurance you can give me that I’ll retain my identity after we meet face to face?’

‘Of course you’ll remain you,’ the swarm eventually replied with Meleta Keth’s benign smile. Mark could have sworn she hadn’t been that pretty when they met her the first time. The Photurians had given her a makeover as well as tiger stripes. ‘But you’ll also be so much more. Please power down your vessel and allow us to approach.’

Mark kept moving straight towards them, so the Nems slowed instead. The gap between them closed to a light-minute and kept shrinking.