Swarm

-39-

Peace went on until I began to think it was permanent. Every morning as I ate breakfast, I thought of the Macros out there behind Venus with butterflies in my stomach. Were they still there? Were they building something to destroy our world forever?

But a man can only worry for so long. It was on the very first day I’d forgotten to think of them at breakfast, that they came back. It was as if they had waited until that weak moment.

It had been a fine week. Sandra and I were talking seriously. We might even get married. Something about that had lifted the cloud that had dampened my life and heart since the kids had died. Perhaps, I thought, there was still time to grab something good from life before it was over—before it ended one way or another.

Then the message came. It came in the form of a long black arm. It popped the bay window of our modular home, which I’d set up on Mangrove Cay some miles to the south of the big base on Andros itself. Some of the other Marine officers lived in the area. It was a pleasant, secluded place. We had a nice hill and an even nicer view of the Caribbean. Geckos came out in droves to hug the banana trees on warm, sunny days. There are a lot of warm, sunny days in the Caribbean, and today was no exception.

The arm, however, was unusual. I jumped up and my first instinct was to avoid those three, thick, cable-like fingers.

Alamo? Is that you?

I am Alamo.

Are you reaching in my window for me?

Yes.

So, I let the ship take me. The glass scratched a line down my back, but I knew the nanites would fix the cut quickly.

Why are you picking me up, Alamo?

You are command personnel.

Are there ships attacking Earth?

Yes.

That was all I needed to know. I had known it, really, the moment the arm had shown up. The ship had not been set to give me a verbal warning. But in its inner programming it clearly knew it needed its captain before it launched itself up with suicidal eagerness to face the enemy.

I thought of Sandra as I sailed into the sky and was swallowed by my ship. I hadn’t kissed her good-bye. I knew without asking that my ship wouldn’t let me take the time to go back and kiss her. We’d made love that morning, and it had been very pleasant. I thought that perhaps this was the best way. If I was never to return, her last memory of me could be one of peace and happiness. Wasn’t that better than a tearful good-bye?

I scrambled to my command chair. Things were much more organized aboard the Alamo these days. I had chairs that didn’t roll around the place. There were straps and harnesses that didn’t have fingers on them. There was a range of proper communications and visual equipment, too. We’d melded our own technology with that of the Nanos as effectively as we could. Large flat screens were attached to the walls in spots, showing the world outside and whatever the military networks saw fit to send me. We still used the metallic bumps on the walls, as they couldn’t break and the Nanos had better range with their sensory equipment than we did. We still didn’t quite understand how they did that, but we were more than happy to make use of the capability.

“Open channel to the Snapper.”

Channel open.

“Crow?”

“Kyle? What do you know about this?”

“I was hoping you knew something, sir.”

“No. The regular military didn’t give us any warning. All of our ships just launched themselves. We are heading out toward the sun, though. I know that much.”

Sunward, I thought. One of the few directions in space that meant anything. “Toward Venus, in other words? So the Macros are finally making their move?”

“Looks that way.”

“Ship count?”

“We total just under eight hundred strong now, including the new ones you built on Andros.”

I’d spent some time building a handful of new ships. They weren’t really the direction I wanted to go, however. If only we had been allowed the time, we have could build bigger fabrication units and bigger weapons systems. We certainly didn’t need more of these small science vessels. We needed a ship meant for war. One that bristled with weaponry. But that would take years.

“If you don’t have anything special for me,” said Crow, “I’m out.”

“I’ve got something.”

“Talk to me.”

“We can try to order our ships to maintain a set distance from the enemy. Rather than wading right in, I mean.”

“What the hell for?” he asked.

“There will be a lot of them this time. We need everyone massed up into a single swarm to fight together.”

“Or to die together. Never mind that, sorry. Good idea.”

“Admiral? Good luck, Jack.”

“You too, Kyle.”

He broke the connection. Our ships lifted us up, out of the atmosphere. Soon, I was pressed back in my seat only by the mild gee-forces of acceleration, not by Earth’s gravity. I looked around the bridge. I missed Sandra. Maybe I should have tried to grab her out of the shower. I smiled at the idea of her, naked and angry, being dragged up to the ship. It would have been like old times. At least, we could have died together.

Kyle’s voice gave the commands I’d suggested. We ordered our ships to approach the enemy, but stay at a defined maximum weapons distance from them. The ships had allowed this order. They wouldn’t allow us to run from the enemy, but they would let us stand in formation if properly coerced.

Then the enemy appeared on my walls, and I lost all hope. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even a thousand. I didn’t bother to ask the Alamo for an exact count. It didn’t matter.

I took a deep breath and looked at their approaching formation with my hand over my mouth. What could we do? Attack one flank? Take a few with us, out of spite?

They came on slowly in two ranks. The first rank was of ships I’d never seen before. They seemed triangular in shape. They were smaller than the big Macro ships we’d seen before, but larger than our ships. I figured they were cruisers of some kind. Ship-to-ship killers. Something like the ships I had wanted to build, if I had been allowed the time to do so. The second rank was made up of the big, fat, slow ships, exactly like the one that had dropped invaders on our world months ago. There were about twenty of these.

I understood better now, looking at them. During the first attacks they had sent only invasion ships. When we had destroyed the first ship, they had sent three more. We had managed to destroy two of those and the third had gotten through to drop its deadly payload of self-replicating machines on Earth. When we repelled the invasion, they had changed their tactics.

This time we faced their true battle fleet. This time, we were seeing the strength the Macros had never shown us before. At least, I thought grimly, it was clear that we’d gained their respect, if not their mercy.

It was going to be a matter of selling our lives dearly. We could not hope to win. The best we could do for humanity was spit in this enemy’s eye. We would bite and kick as they gunned us down. I could only hope the Macro’s were capable of feeling pain at a loss.

Crow hailed me again. “Any bright ideas, mate?”

“Stand off. Try to talk to them. When they come in, let’s ignore the combat ships up front and try to take out the invasion fleet. If we can do it, maybe humanity will live another year.”

“As good a plan as any,” said Crow, signing off to make the fleet-wide announcements. His voice was grim. He knew the score as well as I did. Probably everyone did.

Our ships floated up to form a ragged line some thousands of miles from the enemy ships. The others approached. I knew that communications crews were transmitting to them, trying to talk.

The enemy rolled nearer. They were inside the orbit of the Moon now. Then they were about a hundred thousand miles from Earth—very close. We would have to engage them soon. Our ships wouldn’t let us run from this fight.

Just as we were about to charge past them and go for the invasion ships, the enemy line halted. I blinked at the wall, not quite sure if I was seeing correctly.

“Alamo? Did the enemy halt?”

“Enemy velocity reduced. Their relative distance is being maintained.”

“Are they within range of our weapons?”

“No.”

I chewed on my thumb. “What are they doing?”

“They are transmitting a message,” said the ship.

“They are? Put it on audio!”

A continuous screeching sound came from the walls. I listened to it carefully. It didn’t sound like any language I knew. “Alamo, translate the message.”

“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”

I thought about it. I knew that Crow and his communications team were no doubt poring over the meaning of this right now and transmitting their own answers in every way they could come up with. But would any of them know what they were doing?

“Alamo, can you analyze this language? Can you figure out the meaning of it?”

“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”

“Try ASCII. Is it ASCII? Or Unicode?”

“No match.”

“Try all known human computer languages.”

“No match.”

I went back to chewing my thumb. After an hour or so, it was getting sore. I’d contacted Crow a few times, and he said he had a team working on it, talking to the Earth teams on the ground. They were trying to puzzle out the meaning. The Macro fleet sat out there, patiently repeating the message all this time. I had to wonder, how long would it be before they timed out on us and began shooting?

“Alamo, record a portion of this transmission. Wait, hold on. Record one second of what they sent to us and send it back to them.”

“Done.”

The sound of the enemy transmission stopped a few seconds later. It had gone on for so long, the sudden silence was shocking.

“Alamo,” I said, trying not to panic, “continue playing their transmission.”

“Enemy transmissions have ceased.”

“Oh shit.”

“Admiral Crow requests a private channel.”

“Open it.”

“Kyle? They stopped talking. What do you make of it?”

I hesitated. “I’m not sure… but I did send them back part of what they were sending.”

“You did what? When?”

“Just before they broke off.”

A stream of harsh language erupted from the air around me. Crow’s accent grew so strong, I wasn’t able to make out many of the words. But I felt certain they were uncomplimentary.

“Why couldn’t you just keep out of it? I’ve got a team of techs on this, Riggs.”

Enemy ship approaching.

“Ah… Crow, something is happening,” I said. I watched as a single contact broke off from the enemy fleet and slowly approached our swarm.

“Alamo, do not fire on that ship,” I said. “Crow, relay that to everyone. Don’t fire. We don’t want to start this.”

“What if it’s some kind of super-bomb or something?”

“If this comes down to a fight, we are screwed anyway. This might be a diplomatic effort on their part. I think they are trying to communicate. Let’s not start what we can’t finish.”

Crow snorted. “They are probably demanding our surrender.”

I had to admit, that did seem likely. But what kind of terms could they possibly offer? They wouldn’t bother asking for surrender if all they wanted was to wipe us out. “Just hold on. Let’s see what they’re doing.”

Crow gave orders to every ship in the fleet to stand and hold. A few drifted forward, as their pilots were doubtlessly struggling to get the correctly worded commands spoken aloud to their ships. But no one fired.

Over the next few minutes, the Macro ship slowed and drifted close to our line. I noticed something then. The Macro was close to my ship, which I’d recently configured to show as a greenish bump on the wall. My heart tripped harder. They had come to talk to me. Perhaps, due to my transmission in their language, they believed I could understand them. Suddenly, my mouth was very dry.

The Macro was one of the new ships, the type I had come to think of as a cruiser. One thing was certain: it was not an invasion ship. It floated out there, in the same void I did, only a few thousand miles away. I knew it had to have its weapons trained upon my tiny vessel. The feeling was unnerving. A heartless machine eyed me, deciding whether or not my destruction was warranted.

Crow contacted me again when the situation appeared stable. “Riggs, can you stay bloody well out of this?”

“No sir, I don’t think I can. The ship has halted right in front of me. It obviously wants to talk to me.”

“Because you went and transmitted to it without authorization!”

“Yes sir. If you come up with anything intelligent to say, relay it to the Alamo.”

Crow disconnected with an expletive.

I sat there for another hour, thinking about it. The ship transmitted a short message in periodic pulses to me. I had the Alamo break it down into binary and I typed it into a file on my tabletop computer. I stared at it. The pattern was definitely binary. They probably didn’t use the same number of digits we did, and certainly our symbols would mean nothing to them. Even if I could translate their message into human phonetic letters, how would I know what the words meant? Assuming they were words at all?

“Alamo, have you picked out anything intelligible from the mass of stuff they are sending? Give me estimates that are even ten percent or more likely to be accurate. You don’t have to be certain.”

“It is a short, repetitive transmission. High probability that it is a command form statement.”

“Could it be the command is to surrender?” I asked.

“Unknown meaning. No frame of reference provided.”

“Can we respond yes or no, at least?”

Hesitation. “We can attempt a positive or negative response. There exists a chance of error, however.”

I thought about it. By now, I was sweating. I wanted one of the beers in the fridge, but I got out a highly caffeinated drink instead. I needed to think. I studied the binary transmission for a long time.

“Enemy energy emissions are changing,” said the Alamo after the third hour.

“Are their weapons systems charging?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Transmit both the signals for yes and no. Right now.”

The ship was quiet for several seconds. I had just told them yes-no. I hoped that would be interpreted as a maybe. Hopefully, that would buy us more time to figure out how to talk to them.

“Enemy energy emissions dampening.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Alamo, you’ve had hours of processing time now. You know the enemy are probably transmitting a demand for our surrender. You know how to say yes and no in their language. Can you translate their message? Give it to me, I don’t care if there are errors. Give me your best guesses.”

“Transmission has high probability of error.”

“Just do it.”

“Message translation: Immediate defensive reduction suggested. No further loss required.”

I blinked, typed it in, looked at the binary. Where had the Nanos gotten that one? I began to suspect they knew more than they were letting on. The message was confused, but they must have had something to work from.

“What language did you use as a basis for translation?” I asked aloud.

“Ancient transmissions from lost civilizations. The language used was the closest match, but error is highly probable.”

I rolled my eyes at the ship’s fear of errors and probabilities. It was better than nothing. Much better. “Alamo, when you transmit my messages to the Macros, I want you to transmit in the exact language of the lost civilization. Do not attempt to upgrade the transmission to match their current version. You will use the old language.”

“Ready.”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure my hunch was right. How could I be? But I hoped that the Macro language was a newer version of an old language that the Alamo knew. If I transmitted in the old version, there was a reasonable chance they could understand it. If there was some degree of backward-compatibility, the kind of thing we often built into our human computer systems, they should be able to understand the old language. There were a lot of ifs in this series of suppositions, but it was the best I had.

What could it hurt to test my theories? At the very least it might keep this cruiser from blasting me for another few minutes.

“Message to transmit as follows: Do you understand this transmission? Please answer yes three times in this language if you do.”

“There is no translation of the please concept.”

I wasn’t surprised. “Okay then, omit that word from the transmission.”

The response came back in seconds. “Yes, yes, yes,” said the Alamo. I smiled. I had cracked the code.

What was my next move? Should I keep talking, or hand it all over to Crow and whoever was pulling his strings these days?

I sucked in air and froze, staring at the screens. This situation was getting bigger by the moment. Crow would want in on this. So would the people on the planet below me. They would all want in on it, right on up to the president and a dozen other presidents. But there wasn’t time for all that. This wasn’t a committee negotiation effort. The enemy was unbeatable and impatient. I believed they had been about to fire on me for taking too long just minutes ago. To be fair, the governments of Earth had every right to be involved in this discussion. But they weren’t up here sitting face-to-face with a Macro ship that was itching to blow them apart.

“Incoming message,” said the ship.

I sighed. Crow again, no doubt. “Let’s hear it.”

A bunch of beeping and squealing bounced off the walls. It was the Macros. “Alamo, is that the old Macro language? The same as the one you sent to them?”

“Frequency variations make it non-identical. Signal terminators match. Concepts are intelligibly structured.”

“Then translate it, assuming it is in the old language.”

“Incoming Message: Identify yourself.”

I smiled. I’d done it. Despite the worst interface in the world, I’d gotten this Nano ship to do what I wanted, again. “Contact Crow. Relay this conversation feed to him. Then tell the Macros this: I am Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force.”

“Incoming Message: You are the leader of the indigenous resistance forces.”

“Was that a question or a statement, Alamo?”

“A statement.”

“How did you figure it out, Kyle?” asked Crow, breaking in. He sounded incredulous.

“Never mind that. I’ve got them talking. What the hell do we do now?”

“What do they want?”

“I’ll ask them. But shouldn’t we get Earth into this?” I asked.

“No. It’s my policy that if something is above the surface of the planet, it’s Star Force business.”

“And I thought I had serious balls.”

“You do Kyle, you really do.”

“Do you want to talk to them directly?” I asked.

He paused. “No, you keep talking to them. You are very smooth with computers, mate. They like you. Get them to go away peacefully if you can… but don’t give away Australia.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Incoming Message: You are the leader of indigenous resistance forces.”

“Tell them yes. Yes, I’m speaking for this world,” I said.

As I spoke those words, they sounded extremely crazy to me. How had it come down to this? How had I gotten myself into this position?