This is a fan translation of Dark Skies (Тёмныенебеса) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the fourth book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 11
Admiral Valdez
Valdez was looking at Cro Lightwater's artificial arm. His shapeshifting friend had been wearing the guise of a Navajo for two hundred years now, and, in accordance with Native American customs, he was characterized by deep calm. Grief, joy, or excitement were almost never reflected on his face, his gestures were brief, and his voice was emotionless, and only his biomechanical arm sometimes lived its own life. Actually, the Chief had several prosthetics replacing a limb he'd lost in battle: he had a manipulator with dozens of tentacles for precision work, a powerful combat claw with a laser cutter and a blaster, and even a special device for connecting to a computer network. But now Cro Lightwater's arm looked like a normal human arm: tanned skin, five long powerful fingers, neatly clipped nails. Its fingers were moving rhythmically, tapping out the march of the marines on top of the desk. Valdez assumed this meant that, despite his external equanimity, Cro was experiencing joyful excitement.
"Mark asked a question," Lightwater spoke, breaking the silence in the Admiral's cabin. "But, as usual, the mental package included tons of other information. A question always requires an explanation to the situation, in which it appears, and the brain emits this data intuitively, as the boundary conditions to the problem. Basically, now I know what's happening on T'har."
Cro fell silent, and the Admiral did not rush him. The rhythm of the marines' march sped up; the Chief's fingers were tapping on the desk with an inhuman speed.
"Here is the problem: some of T'har's inhabitants have been captured, while the rest are free and want to rescue the prisoners. They have weapons; Mark plans to open the Arsenal dating back to the Second or Third Void War. But they can't defeat the Dromi tribe. There are too few of those who are alive and free left."
"So what did he ask about?" Valdez spoke.
"About a tactic that would give him a chance for victory."
"And what did you advise him?"
A mysterious smile appeared on the Chief's face.
"That's not important. They had zero chance, and my recommendation provides a possibility of success, but it's small, five-seven percent. Ten at most." He paused for a short while, then said, "I think you understand what this means."
"Yeah. They need support, or, nine to one, they'll be slaughtered." The Admiral frowned, tearing his eyes away from Cro's fingers and asked, "When do we need to act?"
"Within approximately fifteen to twenty days. Mark has yet to reach the Arsenal. In order to take everything out of there, arm the people, and redeploy the fighters to the Dromi planetary bases, they will need at least two weeks. So we still have some time."
Valdez thought about it. A military commander of his rank was inevitably a politician, and, from that viewpoint, he saw the situation fairly clearly. The Fourth and final Void War had ended over forty years ago, and humanity, weary of the fighting that had lasted for over a century, sighed with relief. Defense production had been frozen, the Fleet had undergone a partial reduction, the ships had been mothballed, and thousands of experienced veterans had found themselves with nothing to do. Many, like Atigem and he, signed up as mercenaries to the Lo'ona Aeo, exchanging one enemy for another. This had been pretty much unavoidable; Earth's history confirmed that wars, especially long ones, produced a special kind of people, who did not know and could not accept peacetime, and that this tribe of condottieri, true descendants of Ares, was prone to discontent. Such had been the case in all eras, during the ancient times, during the Middle Ages, and during the age of nuclear weapons, and in the twenty-third century, after the Faata had been dealt with, the situation was exacerbated by the huge numbers of those who had fought and the advances in medicine: a fifty-year-old veteran could hope to live for at least as many years, remaining in excellent health and being a source of rebellion and strife. Which was why the outflow of at least some of the former soldiers to the Lo'ona Aeo had been welcomed by the Federation; on the one hand, they had remained in reserve, on the other, the care for them was in the hands of a wealthy, wise, and friendly race.
Things had been more difficult with the equipment. It had been believed that warships, equipped with annihilators and contour drives, represented such a mighty force that there was no reason to build anything else, something more powerful and deadly. Besides, ships built out of materials that were not susceptible to corrosion or aging, pierced by force fields, were extremely long-lasting; those that had not been destroyed in battle could continue to serve for decades. Another factor preventing the renovation of the Fleet had been the bad memories of the arms race in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which had brought poverty to many of Earth's peoples and caused many cold and hot wars. Humanity had not wanted to return to those dark times and waste resources on weapons, which could be instead used for the colonization of other worlds, the creation of a suitable atmosphere and ecology, and the terraforming and settling of virgin planets. The sector of human influence among the stars had been rapidly expanding, and the Fleet was no longer capable of protecting all the borders and new colonies in its reduced state.
The Federation had not been well-prepared for the war with the Dromi, who might not have annihilators but did possess an enormous numerical advantage. This problem needed to be resolved in battle, putting up one ship against ten, recalling the mercenaries of the Lo'ona Aeo, evacuating some colonies and protecting others, and starting the construction of new cruisers at a frenetic pace. Until very recently, the Federation had not had the strength for an offensive or even for a global defense of all border planets, which was why the Far Worlds had needed to be sacrificed. But Valdez knew that the situation was changing: hundreds of ships had been laid down in the Asteroid Belt shipyards, and at least seven dozen of them were of the Pallas class. Since he had been sent reinforcements, that meant that the other cruisers were at the finishing stage, and, most likely, ten to fifteen of them were already completed. Why not make them the new Frontier Fleet? Under the guiding hand of his ancestor Paul Corcoran, that fleet had crushed the Faata, and now it could kick the greenskins out of the Far Worlds… Kick them out, save his children, his fellow T'harans, and the colonists on Ro'on and Aezat, those who were still alive…
He raised his gaze to Cro Lightwater, "I will hand the command of the training exercise to Commodore Brana. I need one or two days to come up with a campaign plan and send a report to Earth. I hope you'll help me, Cro." The Admiral thought for a second. "I think I'll send all the information with one of our cruisers, let's say the Pallas, instead of via an interstellar message. It's under the command of Gleb Prokhorov, our fellow Patrolman from Danwait. Remember him? We took the Rathole [The Rathole is a nickname given by the Patrolman to one of the Dromi space citadels at the edge of Lo'ona Aeo space. It was taken by human mercenaries in 2266.] together."
"I never forget anything," Cro Lightwater said.
"I'll send him my best officers. If Fleet HQ approves my plans, Prokhorov will go to Gamma Malleus, along with a flotilla of new ships, and make sure that order is restored on T'har. I don't think he will refuse me this favor."
"No doubt, Sergey."
The Admiral raised his hand, wiggled his fingers, drew the letter "V", the ancient symbol for victory, in the air, and his personal tactical computer activated at this signal. The gray mist of a hologram rapidly spread through the compartment's bulkhead, then the space expanded in width and depth, and a three-dimensional map of the galaxy came into being on the whole screen. This was the Daskin Portolan [The Daskin Portolan is an ancient map of the galaxy, marked with areas of expansion of sentient lifeforms. The exact age of the Portolan is unknown; it is assumed that it coincided with the time of the flourishing of the civilization of the Daskins or the Ancients, who ruled the galaxy millions of years ago. Much has changed in that time, but, despite the age of the map, it has retained its importance, as there does not exist another document describing the galaxy in such detail and completeness.], known to all star-faring races; it had been delivered to Earth by the Servs, the envoys of the Lo'ona Aeo. Naturally, this ancient map had been supplemented and clarified, mostly in reference to the human and neighboring sectors.
"Area?" came the computer's dispassionate voice.
"Gamma Malleus," Valdez said. "General plan of the star system."
The Void between two of the galactic arms, which first seemed to be a thin black line, came closer, spreading out into a wide stream, and its distant edge, directed towards the Perseus Arm, vanished in the darkness. Then the map indicated a border: on the one side was the Void, full of cold and darkness, on the other were billions of flaming suns of the Orion Arm. One of them kept growing brighter and brighter: first, it was a barely noticeable dot, then a drop of orange flame, and, finally, a blinding sphere in a fiery corona of protuberances. Smaller spheres were circling it: three tiny planetoid, too close to the star and, therefore, burned by its flaming breath, then Ro'on and T'har, the fourth and fifth planets, followed by two more, small, lifeless, covered in stone and sand, and, finally, a gas giant, a protostar, more massive than Jupiter. There was no asteroid belt in the Gamma Malleus system, only hundreds of small stellar bodies and an Oort cloud with eight comet swarms.
"Enemy?" the computer queried.
"The Dromi."
"Numbers and disposition?"
The Admiral turned to Lightwater, "What did Mark tell you? Is there information about their numbers?"
"There's one clan on T'har, and that's all Mark knows. But I have information from another source. I did tell you that today was a lucky day." After a moment, the Chief spoke, "Two clans on Ro'on and two more on Aezat. As I assumed, all five are our old acquaintances."
"From the border?"
"Yes. My informer told me that they're called the Splinters."
Valdez had to repeat what Lightwater had said, since the computer only accepted information in his voice. The diagram, showing the worlds of Gamma Malleus, blinked, and two X's appeared at Ro'on and one at T'har, then other symbols appeared; the computer was positioning the enemy's space and ground forces using the standard battle plans used by the Dromi. The planets' positions changed; using the data from the Star Atlas, the computer calculated where each of them was currently located. Now the Gamma Malleus system was portrayed in real-time, and the Admiral frowned involuntarily: T'har and Ro'on turned out to be on the same side of the star, although at a distance twice their closest approach. This meant that the clan on T'har could get reinforcements from Ro'on in only a day, maybe a little longer. On the other hand, the enemy ships would be moving along the ecliptic, which meant they could be attacked from above and below and surrounded. The concepts of "above" and "below" were, of course, arbitrary, as well as the local coordinates, whose center matched the star's position.
"Composition of the invasion force?" came the computer's next question.
"Flotilla-sized. Pallas-class cruisers–" the Admiral began, but then crimson lights flared along the perimeter of the holographic screen.
"No information on ships of that class," the warning came.
"Link with the Ural's computer and receive the new data," Valdez commanded.
"Such a dumb machine," Cro noted, while passwords were being verified and information exchanged. "Can't figure anything out on its own… Remember our Lancelot? Now that was a smart computer! Even had a sense of humor!"
"We can't make them like that yet," the Admiral said. The beyri Lancelot, a ship, on which Valdez, along with Cro and Atigem, once fought the Dromi, had been an almost sentient being, a high-level artificial intelligence. Like the biorobots Servs, it had been made by the Lo'ona Aeo, and the production of such systems was a highly-guarded secret. Besides its intelligence and a sense of humor, the Lancelot could fight and, while it could not fire the weapons, some of its capabilities violated the Glick-Cheney Law [The Glick-Cheney Law or the First Theorem of Psychocybernetics determines the level, beyond which an artificial intelligence is equal to a human and is virtually indistinguishable from it (the Glick-Cheney Threshold or the Turing Boundary). One of the consequences of this law states that any artificial intelligence that is above the Turing Boundary is incapable of killing or acts of violence. This prevents the creation of combat robots, whose intellectual capabilities are similar to a human's or a member of another star-faring race.]. Human psychocyberneticists had trouble comprehending this.
"Information received and recorded," the tactical computer informed him. "Composition of the invasion force?"
Valdez started to list, "Pallas-class cruisers: twelve units. Attack frigates: twenty units. Defense frigates: ten units. Corvettes: six units. Heavy transports: also six. Fighters and combat robots: as prescribed by the tactical and technical data of the frigates and the cruisers. Two marine companies plus the resistance forces on T'har."
"Their capabilities?"
The Admiral glanced at Cro Lightwater, "How many rebels, Chief? Did Mark tell you?"
"Ten thousand."
"That's one marine division. Vehicles and outdated robots of unknown numbers."
"Point of concentration of the flotilla?"
"Gondwana, Purple Heather space forces base."
"Mission goals?"
"The destruction of the Dromi flotillas with a simultaneous landing of marines on T'har. Then an assault on Ro'on. After the Gamma Malleus system is cleared of enemy forces, redeployment to Beta and re-capture of Aezat."
"Accepted. Estimated time of development of the first version of the operation is ninety-six minutes."
The screen faded. The cruiser Ural took her place at the tip of the flying cone, the escort ships, each in her prescribed position, were following the flagship, their crews were busy working the control sections and turrets, combat, command, and marine decks, and this mighty armada was quickly floating along an elliptical trajectory to the area designated for the training exercise. Meanwhile, the Admiral's personal computer was also moving cruisers and frigates, but in virtual space. Their electronic phantoms were moving in giant leaps from Gondwana to Gamma Malleus, gathering into a fist in the Oort cloud, crossing the orbit of the outer protostar, surrounding T'har, and, having launched fighters and marine pods, engaging the Dromi. Plasma thrower bolts were snaking through space, streams of antimatter were burning enemy ships, the marines were landing, and hundreds of combat robots and thousands of people in armored suits were going on the attack, some in the light of day, and some under the cover of darkness. Of course, that was just an approximate outline of the battle, for no computer, not even a Lo'ona Aeo AI, could possibly anticipate all the tiny factors and unexpected situations that appeared in battle. But there had been many battles in the Gamma Malleus system, so the tactical computer knew which models to start with. There were at least half a dozen of them, starting with Operation Counterstrike in 2125 and ending with the Seventh Attack of the Frontier Fleet, which had taken place a century later.
Valdez contacted his second-in-command Brana over the intercom, ordered him to take command, then sighed with relief, and turned to Lightwater, "So, you insist that today is a lucky day… Because of Mark?"
"Not only. I've received information from Fytarla-Ata, the Dromi homeworld, where the heads of their ruling clans come to gather. There is news from our emissary… I mean my people, not humans. The distance is great, and the contact between us is sometimes akin to a conversation of a mute person with a deaf one, not just because of the great distance, but also because I don't always understand him."
"Why is that?" Valdez asked.
Cro shrugged, "There's too much of a Dromi in him, and I'm too human. The dictates of the body, genotype, and psyche… It's difficult for us to adapt to one another." He reached out his healthy hand and wiggled his fingers. "Figuratively speaking, Sergey, he has claws, and I have fingernail… But this time, I understood almost everything. Definitely a lucky day."
Valdez was looking at him in confusion, strange for a man who was used to giving orders. The Admiral's cheeks flushed, his breathing grew quick, and the mask of a stern commanding officer was replaced by a look of hesitation. He coughed and cleared his throat.
"You want to ask?" Cro said.
"Yes. If that doesn't offend you and isn't a secret to be kept from the primitive and restless humankind… Why are your people helping us? When the Faata had invaded the Solar System, you destroyed them… I know what that did to you, I've read the Haley-Chavez Memorandum and the other secret documents. After that, you went with Corcoran to Gamma Malleus and fought alongside him until my great-grandfather's death. You're a veteran of all the Void Wars, and, when those wars had ended, you turned up on Danwait and became my comrade-in-arms and friend. Even now you're with me, only there are greenskins facing us instead of the Faata. You're helping me, and your emissary on Fytarla-Ata is also doing that, helping us instead of the Dromi. You get advice from him without giving anything in return, like, say, information about my flotilla… Is that right?"
"It is," Lightwater confirmed, and a brief smile appeared on his face.
"Therein lies my question: why?"
The fingers of Lightwater's artificial hand started to tap out some complex rhythm. Not the march of the marines and not Gornji's symphony, Mark realized, something older, maybe the war songs of Native American drums that had been heard in the forests and prairies hundreds of years ago, when the stars were seen as the fires of heavenly hunters. Suddenly, Cro's fingers started moving too fast for the eye to see; the final measure, and the melody ended.
"Don't think that I'm answering your question with one of my own," Cro spoke. "I do, however, want to know what you think of the Metamorphs, my people?"
"You watch the younger races, limiting their ambitions when they carry a universal threat," Valdez said. "You're the galaxy's stabilizing factor."
"Only one of many, Sergey, only one. Our backs couldn't bear all the galactic disorder, if it fell on them."
"You have backs?" Valdez chuckled.
"I do, at least." Cro slapped himself between the shoulder blades. "Ignoring the doubts about the back, you're probably right about the rest. And my colleague on Fytarla-Ata, who is as much a stabilizing factor as me, believes that the Dromi must lose this war. During our last communication session, he expressed his opinion on this subject with complete certainty. The galaxy cannot belong to just one race; this would violate the balance. You need to stop these rapidly and uncontrollably breeding creatures."
"Let me rephrase my question," Valdez said. "Why us? Why not Haptors, or Kni'lina, or Faata? Well, all right, the Faata are too far away… But the Kni'lina and Haptor sectors of influence border the Dromi empire. The Haptors have been fighting them for a long time, and the Kni'lina occasionally clash with them as well."
"Why you…" Lightwater mused. "The answer is simple, my friend, but, first, tell me: which goal are you pursuing in this war?"
"To end the rapid expansion of the Dromi and their pressure on our borders," Valdez answered quickly.
"And how can this be done?"
"They have to solve their demographic problems. They should not remain prisoners to their physiology. If they can't do it themselves, they need to accept help from other galactic races. Not from humans, probably from the Lo'ona Aeo or your people."
"Very precise wording." Lightwater nodded in satisfaction. "The Dromi have a right to live, but they must, as you say on Earth, stop eating someone else's pie. That is your opinion, as well as that of the majority of humankind. This is why it is your people that need to fight the Dromi and win this war. Do you understand?"
"I do," Valdez muttered. "Our blood for their lives… ours and our children's…"
"Even grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's, since the war will be long and fierce," Lightwater replied. "Your blood, not the Haptors', not the Kni'lina's, since you, after winning, will let the Dromi live. If those others were to fight, what do you think would happen to the Dromi if they lost?" Cro's fingers tapped out the funeral march. "The Haptors would exterminate them, as would the Kni'lina and the Faata. Each and every one of them."
"Yes, that is a possibility," Valdez nodded. "The Haptors are brutal, the Kni'lina are arrogant and don't much care for aliens. But still, still…" He fell silent without finishing the phrase, then asked. "Who is it, this emissary of yours among the Dromi? Has he been there long?"
"About eight hundred years. Now he holds an important post in a ruling clan. A Zong-ap-sidura and a mentor… As far as I can tell, his name is Tihava."
