The Star Carrier Series Books 1-3: Earth Strike, Centre of Gravity, Singularity

“We’re trying, Admiral!” Brandt said. “Those rigid spears are like injection needles. They squirt digestive juice—sulfuric acid—into whatever they’re eating. Then they suck up the soup through those soft tubes.”

“They’re eating each other?”

“That’s about the size of it, Admiral.”

Moments later, the humans and robots together managed to get a firm grip on both of the alien combatants and drag them apart. Acid dripped from the harpoons as they slipped free, steaming on the deck.

But by then both of the aliens were dead.

Chapter Sixteen

17 October 2404

Senate Military Directorate Chambers

Phobos Space Elevator, Sol System

1010 hours, TFT

The preliminary Board of Inquiry was relatively relaxed and laid-back, a session designed simply to explore Koenig’s actions at Eta Boötis, and to determine whether any formal charges even needed to be made. The meeting was held virtually, since two of the board members—Admiral Jason Barry and Vice Admiral Michael Noranaga—were linking in from elsewhere. Barry currently was at Noctis Labyrinthus, on the Martian surface. Noranaga was a selkie who at the moment was swimming somewhere within one of Earth’s oceans; the current twenty-minute time delay between Earth and Mars meant that he would be represented on the Board of Inquiry by his avatar, uploaded from Quito Synchorbital to Phobia by electronic transfer several days before.

Koenig had already checked the flag officer listings for circum-Mars space, and found that no fewer than thirty-seven admirals were present within easy realtime link distances; why Noranaga was on the board, rather than someone closer at hand, was a mystery. Koenig’s best guess was that the genetically enhanced admiral—who held dual flag rank in both the Human Confederation Star Navy and in the surface navy of the North American Confederal Union—had pulled some strings in Columbus, DC. He held considerable authority in C

—the Confederation Central Command—and might have a political reason for taking part in Koenig’s hearing.

The third member of the board was an old friend of Koenig’s, Rear Admiral Karyn Mendelson, with whom he’d served back when she’d commanded the Lexington. She’d been waiting for him in the meeting chamber, offering him a recliner with the link pad already open and waiting.

“You don’t look so hot, Alex,” she told him as he walked in. “Are you that worried about this morning?”

“Not about the board, no,” he told her. “We have another problem. I’ll fill you all in once we get started.”

She shrugged. “Suit yourself. Shall we go in?”

He nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

He sat in the recliner, placing the network of gold and silver threads visible on the palm of his hand against the link pad. Immediately, he was in a different room, a virtual construct, facing Mendelson, Noranaga, and Barry across a broad, heavy table.

“Very well,” Barry said without other preamble. As the senior officer present, he would serve as the board’s voice. “These proceedings, an official Board of Inquiry into the command decisions of Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig at the Battle of Eta Boötis, 25 September, 2404, are now open. Admiral Koenig … do you have legal representation?”

He tapped his head. “Legal AI.”

There were still human lawyers, but most legal matters were handled by highly specialized artificial intelligences. Koenig’s was resident within his cerebral hardware. At this level of inquiry, fact-finding more than anything else, legal representation probably wasn’t necessary, but it was good to have one linked in just in case things went further, to a full-fledged court martial.

“Will your legal AI be fully on-line, or in observer mode only?”

“Observer mode, sir.”

“So noted. And do you have a statement for the board, Admiral Koenig?”

“Not a formal statement, sir, no … but I do have information that has a bearing on these proceedings. You should be aware of it before this goes any further.”

“And what is the information?”

“Carrier battlegroup America was operating under two principle mission orders—to retrieve General Gorman’s Marine Expeditionary Force from the surface of Haris, Eta Boötis IV, and to retrieve two alien POWs, a couple of Turusch fighter pilots shot down during the ongoing fighting on Haris before we got there. While the two missions were given equal weight in my operational orders, I was told verbally by Vice Admiral Menendez that it was imperative that I bring the aliens safely back to Mars, that that mission should be my primary concern. In his words, ‘If you don’t get the Trash back to Mars, everything Gorman’s grunts have gone through will be for nothing.’”

“Was this statement on or off the record?” Noranaga’s avatar asked. The virtual image looked fully human in the simulation, right down to the details of the man’s naval dress uniform. The reality, Koenig knew, was quite different.

“Off the record, Admiral. It was unofficial. What I need to tell the board, however, is that the two aliens are dead. That part of the mission was a failure.”

“Dead?” Mendelson said. “How?”

“I have the recordings here.”

He opened a new window in the virtual room. The four stood as silent and unseen observers in the compartment in America’s research lab, watching as the Turusch speared and murdered each other, as the medtechs and robots attempted to separate them.

Afterward, back in the meeting chamber, Noranaga shook his head. “Suicide, obviously.”

“We don’t know enough about the species, about their psychology or their physiology, to know that for sure, Admiral,” Mendelson said. “They might have been … hungry. Just that.”

“So hungry they couldn’t help trying to eat each other?” Barry said. “That doesn’t seem likely.”

“The research department told me they get at least some of their nutritional needs from light,” Koenig said, “through a process in their skins similar to photosynthesis. Their report suggests that the Turusch can go a long time without food.”

“They’re plants?” Noranaga asked.

“Words like ‘plant’ and ‘animal’ don’t have much meaning when it comes to the truly alien, Admiral,” Koenig replied. He was still getting used to that truth himself.

“It’s not even that alien, Admiral Noranaga,” Mendelson put in. “There are one-celled creatures on Earth—Euglena—that move and act like animals, but they use chlorophyll to manufacture food in addition to what it can catch.”

There remained, Koenig knew, an ongoing debate among biological scientists about how to divvy up the world of life. One popular scheme called for plants, animals, and four other “kingdoms,” including fungi and the protista—which included the genus Euglena that Mendelson had mentioned. More recent attempts to describe and group life forms discovered on other worlds than Earth during the past 350 years had so far succeeded only in bogging the entire process down in a morass of conflicting classification schemes.

None of which helped describe what the hell the Turusch were, or how they thought.

“We do have additional information on the Turusch, however,” Koenig went on, “and possibly about the Sh’daar as well. Brandt and George were questioning them shortly before they … died.”

Again, a new window opened above the virtual conference table. This time, the two aliens slumped side by side on the deck, apparently watching the robot camera hanging from above. Date and time stamps showed the session as having taken place just over twenty-six hours earlier, an hour before the aliens had killed each other.

Dr. George’s voice could be heard in the background. “But why are you attacking us?”

Again, the two spoke together, their buzzing speech creating peculiarly ringing harmonics as running translations appeared at the bottom of the window.

“We do not attack you,” said one.

“The Seed attacks to save you,” said the other.

“And just what is the Seed saving us from?” George asked.

“The Seed saves you from yourselves and poor choice,” said one.