Shadows of the Gods: Crimson Worlds Refugees II (27 page)

He lifted his head, but he dropped it back almost as quickly, moaning at the wave of pain and lightheadedness. He lay still for a few seconds…or was it more? A minute? Five minutes? The pain was still bad, but he felt like it was getting slightly better. He turned slowly to the side, trying to angle his head a little instead of picking it up abruptly. He felt the pain intensify, but it wasn’t unbearable. He turned his head almost ninety degrees, and he looked out across the room.

It was large. He could see the far wall, barely. It was non-descript, white. He was definitely lying on a cot of some kind. It was padded, clearly made to provide a certain amount of comfort for a humanoid body. His fingers gripped at the soft material. It was smooth, some kind of synthetic fiber, he guessed.

“Welcome.” It was a voice, the one that led them down the hallway. “No doubt you are in some physical discomfort. I would offer you pain relief medication, but I am afraid we have had no use for that here for many long millennia.”

“Who are you?” If Cutter had ever imagined some kind of first contact situation, he suspected he would have said something more profound first.

“That is a simple question, and a complex one as well. Let us begin with the most basic answer. “I am Almeerhan.” He paused for a moment. “And you are Hieronymus.”

“How do you know that?” Cutter felt a wave of panic. Could this being read his thoughts? Is that how he—it?—understood English?

“Allow me to enlighten you on events since you first entered my stronghold. It has been eleven of your hours since the neural stunner rendered you and your companions unconscious. In that time, you have been examined…your DNA, your neural structure. Your personal thoughts and emotions were not invaded…such would be a grievous crime to commit against a sentient being. But our instruments did read certain facts from your cerebral cortex. Names, planet of origin, information of that sort.”

“But your voice in the outer hall…that was before. How do you know my language?”

“You were scanned in the corridor as well, though far less invasively. Your companions have personal artificial intelligence units. It was a simple process to pull your linguistic data from their memory banks.”

Cutter lay quietly for a few seconds, trying to truly understand what he was hearing. Finally, he said, “So, Almeerhan? That is your name?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Indeed, as you understand the construct, Almeerhan is my name, or, more specifically, part of it. Though to my people, the concept of naming is far more complex than it appears to be for yours. My full name is quite long, and it would take considerable practice before you were able to pronounce it.”

Cutter lifted his head again, slowly. The pain was still there, but it was subsiding. “Who are you?” Cutter’s head was still fuzzy, disoriented. But he was starting to regain his sharpness. “Not a name…but who you are, what you are?”

“Another question with both a simple and a complex answer. Perhaps it is best if I state who I
was
. That is easy, and it should serve to create a context of understanding between us. I was a sentient being, humanoid…and quite nearly identical to you, at least physically.”

Cutter felt short of breath. He’d realized, on some level at least, that he was speaking to some kind of alien presence. But he was only just beginning to regain his full faculties, to realize the gravity of what was being said.
A humanoid? Like me? How is that possible?

“You are overwhelmed, Hieronymus. I would have provided you access to this information in a more controlled manner, but there is no easy way to accomplish that…and we may not have much time to waste.”

“You are a humanoid?” The idea was still on Cutter’s mind, subsuming every other thought.

“I
was
a humanoid. Long ages ago, before your people learned to coax fire from flint or create bows to hunt your meals. Then I was as you, a creature of flesh and blood, a warrior, the member of a venerable noble house. I lived…and loved. And I fought and suffered. And I died.”

“You died? Are you saying you are a ghost?” Cutter’s voice was growing stronger, and heavy with doubt.

“No, I am not a spirit as you understand such. But I am not a living creature anymore…for my time as such has long passed. I am one of the race you have come to call the First Imperium.”

Cutter pulled himself upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the cot. He looked up, staring around the room, a stunned expression on his face. “You are one of the First Imperium?” He tried to keep the anger, the hatred from his voice, but he failed. Too many friends had died, too much pain had been caused during the war.

“Your anger is misplaced, Hieronymus…though understandable in context of your frame of reference. I know relatively little of what your people have experienced. Indeed, nothing more than the basic facts I have copied from your cortex. But it is clear you have suffered greatly and, alas, this is no surprise. For your people have been fated to carry this burden for twenty thousand generations.”

“What are you talking about?” Cutter was still angry, and he paused on the edge of the cot glaring across the room. “The First Imperium has killed millions of my people. It has caused unimaginable suffering. It came close to destroying my entire race. What do you mean we carried this burden for twenty thousand generations?”

“As I said, Hieronymus, you do not yet understand more than the smallest portion about what you speak, and you do not have the knowledge to draw complete conclusions. You have fought a war without knowing your true enemy, without understanding that which you battle against, or what caused its hostility to you.

“My people are not your foe…indeed, as far as I am aware, none like me remain. As a life form we are gone, lost, with only vestiges of what we once were remaining. Indeed, I am as much an artificial intelligence as the units that advise your comrades, or those created by my people…the ones you have battled against.

“My memories are those of a sentient, biologic being. I have the recollection of feeling, of pain and pleasure and joy. And pride, arrogance…the heat of anger. Once I could have spoken with you of such things, shared the dreams of my youth with you or walked across a rocky coastline and savored bracing gusts from the sea. But I am no longer what I once was. Indeed, I came here initially with many others of my kind, to fight, to make a stand, but time has almost completed its work of destruction, and I am all that remains. I am the knowledge of a being, the image of one who was once like you, but I am a copy only, one that lacks true dimension. A shadow, a tattered remnant, preserved only for the hope of this day, that your people would one day find their way here…and I could at last tell you what I have so long waited to say.”

Cutter just stared across the room, his face a mask of pure shock. It was all too much, more even than his disciplined mind could accept. His eyes focused on a large cylindrical construction, made of some kind of silvery metal. There was something familiar about it…and then he realized. The primary processing unit of the intelligence that ran the Colossus. It wasn’t the same, not exactly…but it was close.

“You are an artificial intelligence…of course.”

“Not in strictly accurate terms, but I am a similar construct. As I have said, I was a living being, learned as a living being, developed and grew as a living being. Then all I was, everything that made me who I was, memories, skills, knowledge…was all transferred into the vessel. For my duty called for me to endure far longer than any being of flesh and blood and bone could hope to survive. I was tasked to stay here, to wait through the untold millennia. Until you came.

Cutter sat silently, as understanding began to creep around the edges of his mind…and with each realization his anger grew, the darkness in his mind deepening. He just sat and listened, though he knew what Almeerhan was about to say.

“The Regent is your enemy, it is the power behind all that has befallen you. It is the architect of your people’s suffering…indeed, as long ago it was of mine as well. And you are here now for a purpose, one that has waited all these thousands of centuries. You are here to destroy the Regent.”

Chapter Eighteen

The Regent

Everything is moving according to plan. The enemy fleet is being driven back, steadily, inexorably. I have ordered the fleets on the perimeters to launch only diversionary attacks, holding their main forces back, and advancing only after the enemy withdraws. This is counter to the prior strategy of attacking with all forces as soon as they are in place. The enemy has proven to be too skillful, too tactically capable, to risk engaging again with less than crushing forces. Yet what can they do besides withdraw, pull back where we want them to go? And we will continue to harass them, sending just enough force against them to slow their withdrawal and gradually bleed their strength.

The final battle will occur in system 17411. The fleet units of Command Unit Gamma 9736 will join the Rim fleets there. The enemy will be cut off from escape…and driven forward with no alternative route save into the desired trap. The fleets will then attack in waves, one stage after another. The depth of the assaults will ensure that the enemy is utterly destroyed, that none of their ships are able to escape.

The war against this enemy has been vastly more difficult and costly than anticipated. Losses have been extremely high, and even after the destruction of the alien invasion fleet, we must still discover a way to find their home worlds, and destroy them utterly…before they have time to build up their forces and assimilate new technologies. I have sent the call to the most distance reaches of the Imperium. All forces are ordered to return to Deneb…to Home System. After the victory in 17411, the resources of the Imperium will be devoted fully to the search for the enemy’s home. They will be found, whatever it takes…and when they are, all of the might and power of the Imperium will be hurled against them. Until their home world and all of their colonies are destroyed. Until not even one of this threatening species remains alive.

It is unfortunate that Command Unit Gamma 9736 must also be destroyed. However, the course the humans chose has left no choice. The Command Unit has obeyed its ordered to pursue the enemy…and in doing so it has been compromised. There can be no chance taken that the Command Unit has discovered forbidden information in system 17411. It’s annihilation as a precautionary measure is unavoidable.

Nevertheless, we will destroy the humans first. The Command Unit’s fleets will fight in the battle…and then its command authority will be revoked, the ships reassigned, directed along with the rest of the fleet to the Unit’s capital world…there to obliterate it utterly and without warning.

The humans will be destroyed. And the ancient secrets will be preserved. For all time.

AS Midway

X51 System – Just in from the X54 gate

The Fleet: 127 ships, 29411 crew

“Admiral, preliminary scanner data coming in. Looks like forty ships, sir. Mostly Gremlins and Gargoyles, but there’s one Leviathan as well.” The exhaustion in Cortez’ voice was unmistakable.

The fleet had been running from system to system, fleeing the pursuing task forces. The enemy had caught them in just the right place, a long section of systems with only two or three warp gates each, and the fleet had been compelled to fall back predictably through each. Indeed, the deployment of the First Imperium fleets had left but a single route, one that led directly back the way they had come. And the dense concentration of enemy forces in the adjoining systems had compelled a series of bloody rearguard actions at the warp gates, pyrrhic victories that had steadily bled Compton’s forces white.

They’d been calling the section of systems, “The Slot.” He wasn’t sure who among his people had christened the campaign, but the name had stuck…and now it had really begun to catch on. It was vaguely familiar to Compton, something out of distant military history, back on Earth, but he couldn’t place it specifically. Still, it sounded right. Though he couldn’t help but feel a moment’s somewhat misplaced amusement.

Why do soldiers and spacers so love to name the places they fight?

The force in front of them now was the largest that had come at them yet in the Slot. It wasn’t enough to destroy them, but it was strong enough to inflict massive damage. And much too large to face with any kind of rearguard. The whole fleet would have to fight here, an all-out attack.

And they had to do it quickly. Admiral Compton knew what was coming up behind, and it was more than enough to pound the whole fleet to dust, many times over. The pursuing forces were far larger than the forty ship armada that awaited his people here in X51. They had to get through, and they had to do it now, as quickly as they could…or they’d be caught between this force and the pursuers. And that, he knew, would be the end.

“Very well, Commander.” Compton’s voice was different than it had been before. Stronger, more powerful. He knew the deadly danger they were in, and he understood how badly the odds were against them. But now he was going to lead his men and women into battle, not detach a subordinate while he led the retreat. It wasn’t a matter of tactics or judgment, but nothing wore so roughly on Compton like sending his people into danger while he stayed behind.

“Confirm all missiles are in place and ready.” He’d barely had time to send out the hastily-assembled warheads. They’d been built in the holds of four freighters, using bits and pieces of materials that could be scavenged. Compton didn’t try to fool himself into believing they were as reliable as proper ordnance, but that didn’t matter either. They were all he had. And he couldn’t take the fleet head on into another enemy missile barrage without any ammunition to answer. Not facing forty enemy vessels.

“All battleships report missile ordnance in place and ready to fire, sir.”

“I want double safety protocols on those…some of these things are damned sure going to malfunction. And if they do I want them scragging, not blowing up in the tubes. There will be no accidents with armed weapons.” He paused and stared across at Cortez. “Make that clear, Commander. I don’t want any of those warheads armed until they’ve been safely launched.” Normally, fusion warheads were stable enough to be armed in their launchers, the probability of a disastrous malfunction so remote it was rarely even considered as a possibility. But these warheads lacked the usual safety features, and their fusionables were far less refined than normal weapons grade material. Compton didn’t even want to think about the things that could go wrong. Still, there was no choice. He needed the weapons.