The Dark Between The Stars

FORTY
GENERAL NALANI KEAH

Within fifteen minutes, General Keah ran out of expletives. This was supposed to have been a routine patrol with the Ildirans, not even a surprise war-game exercise—and the ships had stumbled upon an infestation of black robots.

“Those bugbots should have been wiped out twenty years ago,” Keah said. The beetlelike machines had caused incalculable damage to all sides in the Elemental War. “Let’s finish this damn job—it’ll increase my career satisfaction.”

After seeing his exploration crew slaughtered on the screens, Adar Zan’nh’s expression clouded like a storm as he called on his ships to retaliate. Keah had never seen the cool Ildiran commander so furious. She liked him this way.

Their ships reeled in the ferocious surprise attack from the frozen base, the bombardment of high-velocity ice projectiles, but General Keah could give as good as she got.

“Full jazer bursts, Mr. Patton. Fire up the railguns and use kinetic projectiles—hell, use harsh language! Pass the word to all ships in our battle group. Hit them with everything. And if we do this right, each crewmember gets a piece of bugbot shrapnel for a souvenir.”

The moon’s surface cracked and collapsed as implanted explosives blasted away the ice sheet to expose a half-dozen monstrous angular vessels that sent a chill down her spine. She leaned forward in the command chair. “I’d say that’s an invitation for a full carpet bombing, Mr. Patton.”

The weapons officer responded with a hard grin. “On it, General.”

Six robot ships began to rise from their cold underground base, heaving up out of the curtains of steam and flash-melted ice. Gases boiled around the black vessels like a smoke screen.

She addressed the Solar Navy flagship. “We better hit them before they head off into space, Z. They’re vulnerable now.”

“That is my intention, General.”

When she saw the heavy armor on the ships, Keah realized the bugbots must have been planning for defense and outright combat for some time. The massive vessels ascended from gaping craters blasted through the ice, and the first four headed out to open space. The Solar Navy warliners and CDF battleships closed in.

Their main targets were the last two robot ships, which were still rising from the crevasses. Concentrated bombardment damaged the fifth sufficiently that it barely managed to lift itself above the surface before it crashed down like a dying whale. The sixth fleeing ship exploded just as it cleared the ice.

The other four robot ships did not turn back to defend their comrades, did not work together—they simply increased engine power and accelerated away from the Dhula moon cluster.

Keah yelled, “Helm, increase engine speed. Keep pace, and keep firing.”

The Ildiran warliners spread their extravagant sails, fired up the stardrives, and accelerated as they blasted at the fleeing vessels. They gained on the robot ships, and the rearmost enemy vessels launched a fusillade of energy bursts that struck the shields of the CDF battle group, forcing three Mantas to veer off so their systems could recharge.

Adar Zan’nh’s flagship took point as the Solar Navy septa closed in. One robot vessel fired another round of energy blasts—targeted on the lagging robot ship. The barrage damaged its engines in a sacrifice play, and a crippling explosion sent the vessel tumbling backward in an uncontrolled spiral. It careened into the oncoming warliners, striking one and caroming off into a second warliner, taking both out of the chase.

Adar Zan’nh let out a loud curse. “Bekh!”

Keah had never even heard him raise his voice before. While her battle group streaked past the reeling Ildiran ships, she gave him a reassuring smile. “We’ve got it, Z.”

The engines of the last three enemy vessels were bright and hot as they burned their systems to tolerance levels. Black robots could withstand far more acceleration than any fragile biological body, but Keah pushed the Kutuzov’s engines as hard as she dared.

She loathed the bugbots, and it was more than just a philosophical disagreement—this was personal. She had been there on Earth when the robots launched their worst betrayal, wrecking numerous EDF ships, including hers. As a young bridge officer, Keah had seen the explosions all around her, watched her commander killed, could still recall the names of her fallen comrades.

Keah gritted her teeth and ordered another full weapons volley, just because she was pissed. She raised her voice to the green priest on the bridge. “Mr. Nadd, use your tree to tell the King that we’ve flushed out an infestation of leftover black robots, but we’re in pursuit.”

Nadd blinked. “Shouldn’t I wait until we’re done, General?”

“Some news is too good to sit on.”

The three surviving robot ships had left the ruddy gas giant behind and plunged headlong into open space, racing beyond even the cometary cloud.

The five intact Solar Navy warliners caught up with the Kutuzov. “We’re causing damage,” she transmitted to the Adar, “but the bugbots will get away if they can keep up that acceleration without exploding their engines. We can’t match it.”

On the tracking screens, the three robot vessels increased their lead, pulling ahead into the emptiness. Keah yelled to her sensor chief, “Lieutenant Saliba, do not lose track of them—that’s an order!”

“Scanning ahead, General, keeping my eyes on—” Saliba paused. “Detecting something odd outside the system. Some sort of black nebula or dust cloud. I can only tell it’s there because I can’t read anything else through it.” She shrugged. “It’s giving no readings at all—like a hole in space, and I swear it wasn’t there when we entered the Dhula system.”

On screen, the black nebula swirled, darkness mixed with deeper darkness. Keah thought it must be an illusion, because any dust cloud so large would grow and change on a cosmic timescale, nothing the human eye could ever notice. She hit the comm again. “Z, do you see that shadow cloud up ahead?”

“There is a deep shadow, and I find it unsettling—we have no record of anything in that area.”

“There’s definitely something now.”

The three robot battleships changed course and veered directly toward the cloud.

“They probably want to hide in the dust,” her navigator said. “If we lose them inside the nebula, they’ll get away.”

“Then don’t let them get there,” Keah said.

As the Kutuzov raced toward the looming dark nebula, several bridge screens flickered and blurred. Bursts of static danced across the display panels before they sharpened to clarity again.

Keah’s throat went dry. During the Elemental War, the Klikiss robots had introduced insidious viruses that wrecked EDF command-and-control systems. “Did those bugbots sabotage our core programming? How is that possible?”

When Adar Zan’nh contacted the Kutuzov, his image was out of focus. “We are experiencing difficulties, General.” Behind him, the lights in his command nucleus flickered.

“Ditto over here.” She turned to her weapons officer. “Mr. Patton, please tell me that our jazers still work.”

“I suggest we test them out, General.”

She grinned. “I like the way you think. Indulge yourself.”

Patton opened fire, and a barrage of energy beams streaked toward the fleeing robot ships, but the aim was wildly off. He looked embarrassed. “Sorry, General. Our systems seem to be out of whack.”

The warliners blasted as well, a haphazard flurry of discharges that went far afield, although several struck and damaged one lagging robot ship. The other two enemy vessels pulled forward, careening straight toward the black cloud.

The shapeless nebula surged and roiled, which Keah found disconcerting. She leaned forward. “What the hell?”

The robot ships pushed toward the blackness, and suddenly, like the pseudopod of a nightmare amoeba, it lunged out and engulfed the two enemy vessels.

The third robot ship kept struggling along. The CDF and Solar Navy ships charged forward to intercept it, but the lights flickered on the Kutuzov’s bridge. Diagnostic screens went to complete static. The engines sounded as if they were laboring.

The navigator fumbled with his systems. “We’re losing control, General. I can’t figure out these glitches.”

From Engineering, Mr. Kalfas transmitted on the override line, “Systems everywhere are going haywire.”

All the pursuing ships were struggling as they raced after the last robot vessel. Adar Zan’nh signaled from his command nucleus, “I do not like this, General. If these malfunctions continue, we will be dead in space.” His face looked drawn, his eyes haunted. “One of our rememberers has reminded me of a similar black nebula from our past. I am not sure I believe it myself, but it could be very dangerous.”

The lagging robot ship finally made it to the shadow cloud and vanished inside the darkness.

The Kutuzov lurched, and the deck tilted as the artificial gravity systems became unstable. Two Manta cruisers sent distress signals and abandoned the pursuit, changing course. Systems flickered on the Juggernaut’s bridge, and competing alarms began to ring out. Many systems had already dropped offline.

No robot vessels were visible on screen, but the shadow cloud continued to swell toward the pursuing ships.

In disgust, Keah muttered under her breath, “All right, dammit!” She activated the comm again; it took her three tries to connect with the Solar Navy flagship. “This is frustrating, Z! Break off the pursuit.”

The battle groups veered away from the dark nebula and retreated. The robot ships were gone.