The Immortal Game (Rook's Song) (28 page)

Rook swallows and nods.  “I yelled for Grass to get inside the ship, to come with me…but she just stood there.  I swear, she just…she just stood there.  Didn’t move.  I think she gave up, Bishop. 
Know what I mean?  I mean, we were bein’ driven to extinction the whole way…pushed across the galaxy…an’ I think she just…she just…”  Absently, he wipes away a tear.

“It sounds like you had great affection for her.”

“Hell, how could I not?  She was my friend.  My partner.”

“You were…linked to her?”

Rook looks at him.  “Naw, man.  Not like that.  Not cool to date wingmen and co-pilots, ya know.”

“It’s the other way for us,” says Bishop, downing his last drink.  “We are encouraged to court only those we serve with closely.  It means that you will fight harder knowing that your loved one is beside you.”

“Huh.  Ya know, I hear the Spartans did that.  Formed units o’ same-sex couples so they’d fight harder next to each other.”  Then, in his half-drunken mind, Rook suddenly has an unpleasant thought.  “Wait…you are, like, a
male
in your species, right?  And you’re, ya know, straight or whatever?  I mean, I’m not, like, tryin’ to offend you, or say you’re hideous or nothin’—”

“I have no romantic interest in you, not even inebriated.”  He looks at Rook.  “No offense.”

Rook sighs visibly, then chuckles.  “Jesus, look at us.  Just a pair o’ military squares without any mates, an’ no interest in matin’ one another.  Look, if we get outta this—”

“When.”

He gives the alien another salute with his empty cup and nods.  “
When
we do, we gotta think o’ somethin’ to do with our time.  Somethin’ besides chess.  Somethin’
physical
, ya know?  Somethin’ to commemorate our two cultures.  Like, I dunno, build a museum.  Somethin’ that tells them what our races did.”

Bishop looks at him.  “And what you and I have done?”

“Yeah, hell, why not?  Why not lionize ourselves with great big statues?  We’re heroes, right?”

“On my world, we have a saying.  ‘A true hero is one who lays down his life with the knowledge that those he’s saved will never know.’  I feel it holds true for avenging those that will never know, as well.”  He salutes Rook back.  “So yes, we’re heroes.”

That night, they sleep.  In the morning they both deal with mild hangovers, but get back to work.  They run a few more tests.  Rook stares at their pycno and tritium levels, all too aware that they don’t have many jumps left before they can travel no further.  This is it.  Kali is where they make their stand.  They have all their pieces in place and all that’s left is to make sure they don’t become dull with complacency.

Days pass.  A week.

The two of them spend some time together, but eventually they begin drifting apart.  They talk around meal times, but other than that they find other projects to occupy their time.  Lots of troubleshooting the systems on the Sidewinder.  There is some systems maintenance Rook has to do with the ship’s AI.  Bishop and the repair bot spend time looking over the graviton gun; he starts programming the little bot with what to look for in the gun, so that it can raise alarms in the future if it sees something wrong.

Another week passes.  No sign from their enemy.

Bishop, becoming more laconic than usual, spends more time down in the catacombs, gleaning every little bit of information he can get from the records.  Rook never asks him exactly what he’s looking for, but he has a guess, and so do we.  The alien is searching for the last known trajectories of the last ships that left here, though he knows much if not all of that information will be erased—his people wanted to be thorough when they left, leaving as little a trail as possible for Cerebrals to follow.  Still, he must know.  It’s the search that gives him hope.

There’s another reason for
Bishop to visit the catacombs, and Rook wonders how hard it is for the alien to go below and bring up the lifeless husks of his brethren and place them around the main cave entrance.  Still, it has to be done.  All part of the plan.

Rook plays chess with Bishop but hardly ever speaks to him during the games.  They are always focusing on opposite duties.

One evening, though, while sitting in the cockpit and sharing a meal before the Sidewinder’s next night cycle, he allows Bishop’s sophisticated schemes to come to the foreground.  Bishop’s chess strategy always begins smart enough, but quickly falls apart in an obviously purposeful way.  Rook starts making a few unwise moves, which really gives Bishop no other choice except to take advantage.  Before he does, though, the alien looks up at him and asks, “How long have you known?”

Rook smiles.  “What, that you’ve been losing on purpose?  Since you started working on the Turks.”

“Was I that obvious?”

“
No.  But a pattern started to emerge.”  He shrugs.  “You’re not as dumb or robotic as you like to let on, Bishop.  Makes me wonder what other secrets you’re hiding.”

“If
it makes you wonder, then the deception play has done its job.”  He makes a human shrug.  “Also, you did well hiding the fact that you figured me out.  A very good game of deception.”

“I learned from the best.”

Then, Bishop’s crocodile grin widens.

Rook starts to ask him if that’s
really his best rendition of a human smile, when an alarm goes off.  Rook spins in his seat and brings up the holo-display.  There’s no mistaking the readings.  Spacetime is being warped about twenty million miles out in space, on the western side of Kali.  The size of the hole being tunneled through the slipstream is enormous.  Fleet-sized.

He turns to look at his partner.  “
This is it,” he says.  “Battle o’ Thermopylae.”

11

When the four luminals exit the Bleed, the Supreme Conductor immediately orders probes
sent out, along with four squadrons of skirmishers from each ship.  The flagship takes the slightest of leads, and he orders that each ship maintain a sizable distance between them as they approach the rogue planet.

The datafeed tells him everything, and as the probes and the skirmishers get nearer the planet, that datafeed becomes more intense.  The information is causing him to bring up old files, passed down from other Conductors to him.  The giant twin spheres on every side of the planet, its atmospheric composition, its tectonic shifts, the detection of massive troglofaunal life beneath the surface
, it is all the memory-stuff of past Conductors. 
This is where one of the last groups of Ianeth met their end
.

The knowledge fills him with pride, and the holographic recordings of those battles are superimposed over the rest of the data, and he experiences all of them in a few seconds, imbibing all pertinent information.  It has been so long since the Cerebs
have had need to come here, the file on this patch of space has been buried so deep that if it were a physical file it wouldn’t just be dusty, it would be crumbling to pieces.

“Tachyonic distortion has bled away a hundred percent, sir,” reports one Observer.

“Good,” says the Conductor.  “Any sign of our missing survey team?”

“There are signs of energy signatures a great distance away from here, sir—the planet has been hurtling through space, but there is an energy well along the trajectory it came from that indicates there might have been a battle here involving particle weapons.”

“Send four squadrons along that trajectory to retrace the planet’s path, see if they find debris.”

“Space stations scan empty, sir,” reports another Observer-Manager team.  “No scans report biological signs
inside them…”  There’s a hiccup in the datafeed.  A nanosecond goes by, but for a Conductor, that is an eternity of expectation.  “…there is an energy signature, however.  Very strong.  Mass drivers on each of the space stations have been active in the last few weeks.”

“Are you certain?”

“Double-checking data now, sir.”  Another agonizing few nanoseconds.  “Confirmed, sir.  Mass drivers are cooled now, but energy dispersal indicates they were last active several standard days ago.”

“We’ve got confirmation of
Phantom-quality ionic trail dispersal, sir,” reports another team.  A full second this time!  “Ninety percent ice striations on the fragments along the frozen trail, and gamma levels match those near Four Point.  It’s confirmed, sir.  Data matches that of the Phantom’s Sidewinder.”

All at once, the Phantom File
is paramount in his mind.  It calls itself up, and is scrolling to the most pertinent areas.  Everything changes.  Those spherical space stations are now taken with new perspective, analyzed, scrutinized, and the very space around them is now untrusted, its unyielding darkness almost personified with brutality and illogic that can only be ascribed to a human element.

It’s almost damaging to the Supreme Conductor’s pride that the Elders would find it so imperative to filter this through to him.  It places an importance on humans—specifically, this human—that he feels is unjustified. 
The Phantom got lucky
. 
That is all
.  He is so certain.

Still, he has a job to do, and orders to follow. 
The Conductor sends out a burst of commands.  The Phantom File informs his decision.  “Contact all Conductors, have
each
of them send four squadrons to
each
of the stations.  Have them perform more intensified scans.  If they find nothing, have them enter and perform internal analysis.”  There are twelve of those massive spheres, and it will take untold days to search every nook and cranny.

But that’s what the Phantom File says to do
. 
We must adhere
. 
We live to obey Our Betters, and they are Our Betters for a reason—

Suddenly, the datafeed comes alive with a new ocean of information.

“Sir, we have a confirmed sighting of a vessel coming from over the planet’s far side,” reports one Observer.  “Scans show its hull is made of compristeel.”

“Biological signs?”

“Scanning.”  A full second.  “Yes, sir, it’s confirmed.”  Various waves of energy are sent out, penetrating the incoming ship’s hull, and based on the echoes it sends back, and the interference it receives, human tissues are detected.  “Signs are scant, but human-type physiology is detected.  And…sir!  Music!”

The Conductor will not make the mistake of the last Conductor by listening to it—that would only
accelerate his fall to his madness—but he does request an analysis of the music, to confirm that it is, in fact, human.

It’s confirmed.  It’s The Spencer Davis Group, song title “Gimme Some Lovin.”

The Conductor brings up the holographic displays and walks among them, stepping around the dark planet with skies choked by black clouds, and now he focuses his eyes on the dot, almost impossible to see in the immense darkness.  The dot is highlighted, outlined, and all of the data from its trajectory and speed is fed into him.  “He’s coming right at us.”  No one needs to respond.  It is obvious what is happening.  Here it is, the end of the Phantom, exactly what all of them expected to find at the end of their chase.  The Phantom’s ship shows low on fuel, and has suffered damage, probably from the Event Anomaly at the asteroid field.

He’s on a suicide mission
. 
He’s going to collide with us
. 
At least, that’s his plan
.  Such analysis stands logic on its head, but it also corroborates what is known about the Phantom’s erratic behavior, and foolish human sacrificial tendencies in general.

The Sidewinder is moving fast, borrowing more speed from orbital slingshotting than its own thrusters.  Now, though, it is breaking orbit and plunging into its last act.  And from here, the Supreme Conductor takes in the moment.  As the sk
irmisher squadrons receive instructions and coordinates to engage the enemy, he cannot help but view this as one of the most pathetic displays he’s ever witnessed.  It’s bad enough all of the races they have encountered in their journeys are woefully underprepared, because they never even thought that alien incursion was realistically something to prepare for, but to be among the last of such a pitiable race…

Better to die in madness, with Your Betters disassembling you and learning how to make future generations better, as will happen to me
. 
To fight against the inevitable defeat such as this, one would think they would have more self-respect, a better sense of how to die with dignity
.

“Sir, skirmisher squadron has closed distance and locked on.  Orders?”

Without hesitation.  “Engage and capture, if possible.  If not, engage and destroy.”

“Yes, sir.”  The orders are filtered down, sent across space, passed on to each squadron member.

We follow those orders, and follow the squadron as they receive them and close in on the Sidewinder that comes rushing at them.  They target the ship, close in around it, and cue up particle-beam weapons.  Two seconds pass.  When they fire, there is no cheering, no yelling as they cripple the last human.  The particle beams smash into the Sidewinder’s back side, taking out the last of the thrusters.

The music continues
as the skirmishers encircle the ship, now dead in space.

“
Well my temperature’s risin’ and my feet left the floor,

Crazy people rockin’ cause they want to go more,

Let me in baby I don’t know what you got,

But ya better take it easy, this place is hot!
”

It continues playing as tactical operators descend from the skirmishers, alight on the surface of the ship, and beginning cutting through the hull.

“
And I’m so glad we made it!

So glad we made it!

You gotta…gimme some lovin’!

Gimme gimme some lo—
”

The explosion is immense, and it’s exactly what the Phantom File warned of.  A final, stupid sacrifice.  The Phantom will not be taken hostage, he would rather die and take out as many Cerebs as he can. 
As though it makes any sort of difference
. 
Ridiculous
.  The Sidewinder disintegrates in a quiet blue-white plume, an unceremonious end to an unceremonious battle.

How fitting
. 
It’s where the Ianeth fled to meet their end, and it’s where the human race met its end
.  A portion of his Conductor-induced madness toys with the notion that there is some Greater Power behind this, a facet of fate that has guaranteed this poetic end.

“Five operatives killed, sir,” reports an Observer.  “Four wounded.”

“The Phantom is dead.  Tell the others to start collecting the wounded.  Inform the medical bays to prepare to receive.”

“Yes, sir.”

The skirmishers are turning around and heading back to their respective scanning formations.  The Phantom’s end is reported back to the fleet and its various Observer-Manager teams, and to the Conductors, of course.  A final scan shows human remains in the rubble.  When the news reaches the Supreme Conductor, he expects that he can start pulling his fleet back.

But something happens next that bothers him immensely.  The Phantom File doesn’t go away.  Indeed, it expands, and a plethora
of new commands comes at him, revealing a portion of the File that he was not privy to until now.  The File indicates that what was really wanted was the Phantom taken prisoner.  He wasn’t.  Now the File says the Elders will settle for the next best thing: a more thorough scan of the planet’s surface.

But why?
he wants to scream. 
It makes no sense!  There’s nothing to learn from such an unevolved simian
…

“Follow ionic trails down to the planet,” he says begrudgingly. 
“Locate any and all bunkers the Phantom might have inhabited.  Start with most likely scenario, that he scanned the planet and found former Ianeth installations.”

“Yes, sir.”
  A few seconds later, scans are finished.  “Sir, scans show all former installations are completely destroyed save one.  It’s the former staging ground in the mountainside where the last Ianeth scientists made their stand.”

“
The Elders wish to know more about the Phantom and his tactics.” 
Only the stars know why
, he thinks privately, fighting hard to keep those thoughts from leaking back into the datafeed.  “Assign one luminal to break through the atmosphere, and have them send down landing parties to enter the old caves and perform scans on foot.”

“Yes, sir.”

We now leave the Supreme Conductor on the luminal’s bridge, and we escape back out into the void, passing through the gases left by the Sidewinder’s end, through the pilot’s remains, and then on to the two giant spheres hovering above Kali’s western hemisphere.

Hundreds of skirmishers now fil
l the space, and are descending, breaking through Kali’s atmosphere and headed down to the surface.  As per the Conductor’s orders, one luminal ship now follows those skirmishers, and is dispersing thousands of seekers, each one streaking across the sky and diving for the surface.  A dozen or so fly past Thor’s Anvil.  Lightning and heavy static energies create contradicting data.  A number of them experience so much atmospheric disturbance that they can’t communicate effectively.  One or two even become lost.

A few of Rook’s and Bishop’s probes remain on the surface, and report what they see the seekers doing.  Some of the seekers find these probes, and when they do, they immediately neutralize flight systems and collect them for
later examination.

The signals from those probes are feeding back into a dark patch of space just like any other out here. 
The signals travel on channels with scrambled noise meant to reflect some of the interference Kali’s atmosphere provides normally—with some luck, the ultimate destination of that data won’t be picked up by either seekers or skirmishers. 
We
know where it goes, though.  We see the holo-display that organizes the data, and we see Rook’s gloved hand moving slowly over the panel below it.

“Looks like they bought it,” he says.

Beside him, Bishop looks at the weather screen.  “Perhaps, but we don’t know that for sure.”

“I do.  Look at this group here, moving to scoop up survivors from the derelict’s destruction.”  Rook points to a radar screen.  “They don’t bother with survivors until the mission is finished and all threats are neutralized.  They know that I’m dead.”  He checks for any signs that they’re being targeted.  So far, so good.  “Looks like they don’t yet recognize our connection to the probes down below.”