The Dark Between The Stars

THIRTY-FIVE
GENERAL NALANI KEAH

After General Keah returned to the Lunar Orbital Complex at Earth for a tedious meeting with her Grid Admirals—all quiet on every front, as expected—she insisted on heading out again. She didn’t bother to manufacture a reason; she felt more effective if she kept moving.

The Lunar Orbital Complex was the administrative heart of the CDF, with enclosed military bases, spacedocks, construction yards, and civilian habitats. Although Theroc was the Confederation’s capital, the military headquarters remained at Earth in the rubble of the Moon. Traditional Theron culture didn’t have the infrastructure to support a major military complex (those gigantic verdani battleships orbiting Theroc, however, scared the crap out of Keah every time she went for an official visit).

Her Juggernaut was the most powerful ship in the CDF, and she liked to think of it as her office. With a green priest on her flagship, she could be contacted immediately, wherever the Kutuzov might be. The real command center was where she was.

The Juggernaut continued its long patrol, accompanied by nine Manta cruisers selected from the various grids, “taking them out for a test drive.” This time, Adar Zan’nh also joined them with a septa of graceful Solar Navy warliners. During this joint exercise, all the ships followed the more optimistic scenario that the CDF and the Solar Navy would operate together against an outside enemy. Keah preferred that option. She and Zan’nh had already traded formal dinners on each other’s flagships along the way.

Following a previously agreed-on course, the patrol group headed toward a cold gas giant named Dhula: a world with rusty red clouds orbited by a crowd of small moons. Dhula lay at the fringe of Ildiran space, unclaimed and unremarkable. Its atmospheric composition made the planet an unlikely candidate for ekti skymining; it was too isolated for human colonists to take notice, nor did the Ildirans seem interested in the world.

Under the pretext of their patrol, though, General Keah could have a look at the moon cluster, take a few readings. Maybe someone in the Confederation would figure out what to do with Dhula, or maybe it was no more than a planet on a list, a destination for these military exercises. She could live with that.

She glanced at the sleepy-looking green priest at his station beside his treeling. “Mr. Nadd, anything to report?”

Startled out of a doze, Nadd touched his treeling, then shook his head. “No emergencies, General.”

She considered telling the green priest to go back to sleep, but decided that would set a bad example for her commissioned officers. She sat back in her command chair. “Part of me longs for a little excitement—you know, the kind of thing that makes for great CDF recruitment loops. On the other hand, a nice quiet patrol is how things are supposed to be, and it means that all is right with the Spiral Arm.”

“There’s a boost in pay for hazardous missions,” First Officer Wingo pointed out.

“Only if you survive to collect it,” said Tactical Officer Voecks.

After her heroic performance during the Klikiss space battle at Earth twenty years ago, Nalani Keah had worked her way up through the military. She was a golden girl, but also willing to call out inefficiency or stupidity when she encountered it. She made few friends among the old-guard sedentary bureaucrats, but she drew applause from up-and-coming officers who appreciated the improvements she suggested. Now, as the commander, her mission was to make the CDF lean and agile—an adaptable response force, rather than a bloated and showy institution.

Keah turned to her comm officer. “Open a channel to the flagship warliner, Mr. Aragao. I need to ask Adar Zan’nh if it’s his turn to come over for dinner and strategy sessions, or for me to go over there.”

The Ildiran commander’s image appeared, as if he had been waiting for her to call. “General Keah, I have developed a plan for us to map the Dhula moon cluster. I would like your approval.”

Keah nodded. “It’s approved, Z.”

“You don’t wish to study it?”

“Not in the least. I know your capabilities, Z. No one’s better at it than you are.”

“Very well, we will arrange our exploration ships accordingly.”

Keah gestured to her first officer, letting him take care of the matter. She hated paperwork and did too much of it when she was stationed back at the Lunar Orbital Complex. Mercer Wingo had won her over when he proved that he could ghostwrite most of her reports.

First Officer Wingo projected a map of the Dhula moons. The smaller CDF scout ships would do a quick flyover of the outlying satellites, while the Solar Navy would take larger squadrons, because Ildirans tended to get anxious when flying alone. Her Remora pilots could have done the entire operation with far less manpower, but she let the Solar Navy do it their own way.

Remora scouts flew out on their assigned surveys, while others arced around to “assist” the Solar Navy scouts. Dhula’s first nine moons were rocks and snowballs, with no interesting mineral content, nothing that would attract even the most optimistic and impractical industrialist. Two of the moons showed denser metal concentrations, and Keah flagged them in case anyone wanted to bother with a deeper survey.

The twelfth moon was in an erratic elliptical orbit, probably knocked off course by a collision or gravitational perturbations. It had an icy outer crust, but it emanated thermal energy, an unexplained heat spike.

The Solar Navy sent a squadron of sensor-equipped cutters to cruise above the outlying moon for detailed mapping, but Keah called two of her Remoras to join them. “Let’s pull together and do a full analysis. Maybe we’ll find something interesting after all.”

Her first officer gave her a skeptical look. “Are you prepping us for another war-game scenario, General?”

She shook her head. “Not unless Adar Zan’nh has a trick up his sleeve—and he never has a trick up his sleeve, unless he’s really pushed.”

The survey ships orbited the small moon, and the readings were unusual enough that Keah decided they warranted a hands-on surface investigation. Adar Zan’nh agreed. The group of Solar Navy cutters kept their distance, using remote mapping equipment. The ruddy gas giant cast a glow on the moon’s surface, and one of the CDF Remoras skimmed over the pockmarked ice, sending sensor pulses down. Keah watched the images flood back in.

Suddenly the frozen landscape took on a different character. Artificial shapes rose up, smooth towers that looked like termite mounds made of ice. Geometrical patterns were scribed on the ice crust, even a trapezoidal structure, a familiar framework that looked fresh and new—under construction.

“This is some kind of base, General! A whole settlement down there.”

“Now that’s a surprise.” She contacted the flagship warliner. “Z, does this ring any bells?”

“I have no bells,” the Adar said. “I have transmitted a greeting and request for information to the site. It is not an Ildiran splinter colony. We will see if they acknowledge, whoever they are. I also dispatched a ground inspection team.”

Keah gritted her teeth. “I would have preferred to use a little more caution. Keep me in the loop, Z.”

One of the Ildiran cutters landed on the ice near the strange structures. Adar Zan’nh was moving quickly, perhaps to stay one step ahead of his rival. “No response from the base, as of yet, General. Three of my soldiers have donned environment suits and will make initial contact with the inhabitants.”

On a private channel, Keah instructed her Remora pilots to keep a close watch. “I don’t like this at all.” The scout pilots flew in a grid pattern overhead, crisscrossing, keeping an eye on the Ildiran expedition.

“Thermal spike is increasing,” said her sensor chief. “Like somebody’s opening doors and powering up systems.” The frozen moon had a faint glow as energy seeped through the thick frozen layers.

“They know we’re here.” Keah transmitted to the flagship warliner, “Adar, I recommend that your team exercises extreme caution.”

The three suited Ildiran soldier kithmen emerged from the landed cutter. The alien space helmets were elongated, reminding her of a conch shell. Adar Zan’nh provided the Kutuzov with a direct feed from the helmet imagers so Keah could watch the progress. The contact team walked in a slow-motion march across the landscape toward the base, following the edge of a deep, straight trough in the ice.

The explorers shone blazers in front of them. The pool of bright light sparkled from ice that had been melted and refrozen many times. The three approached some kind of access hatch into the underground facility, or base, or hiding place—whatever it was. The Ildirans studied the hatch.

Adar Zan’nh contacted Keah, breaking her train of thought. “General, our rememberers have finished reviewing historical records. A discovery similar to this was made on a frozen moon of Hyrillka.”

Keah knew that Hyrillka was an Ildiran planet, the site of several battles in the Elemental War, but she didn’t know how that might apply here.

The three suited explorers stepped back as the access hatch shuddered, then cracked open. No wisp of atmosphere bled out, so this was not an airlock, simply an access door to an airless base. The helmet imagers showed movement behind the hatch, a wink of crimson eyes… dozens of them, then hundreds.

The Ildirans shone their blazers ahead, suddenly revealing a mass of black beetlelike machines with flat geometrical heads, glowing eye sensors, articulated limbs. The machines surged forward.

“Klikiss robots!” Keah yelled.

Adar Zan’nh commanded his soldiers to retreat. Now that they had been discovered, the black robots boiled out of their underground base. Keah saw hundreds of attackers before the Ildiran helmet imagers went from static to black.

“I thought the bugbots were all wiped out at the end of the war!” Keah sent a signal throughout the scout group. “I’m not inclined to sit around and chat, Z—I say we attack.”

The Adar had already issued orders. “I agree completely, General.”