POD (The Pattern Universe) (24 page)

None of them would have the stomach for an all out war, she was certain. However, she would have to overcome the biggest of the hives to enable her to quickly and painlessly subdue the smaller ones. The first battle was going to have to result in a total subjugation of the enemy queen. If she failed, then it would only be a matter of time before the Nubl died out. She would be dismantled long before that happened.

For the first time in their history as Nubl, she would take prisoners instead of despatching them. Her scientists had provided a conversion of their inbuilt programming to enable them to be receptive to her frequencies and loyalty to her would be assured with a loyalty bolt built into their cores. She could then despatch them with a mere thought. Evil, but that might prove entirely necessary.

The Queen had even considered placing them within her own hive workers, but there would be enough to do with the planned expansion of her tribe in the forthcoming periods as it was. Later perhaps, she would modify the more volatile ones purely as a means of increasing the harmony of the hive.

They had embarked on an expansion of the Shadow-ship building programme while at the same time creating another thousand clones to pilot them, absolutely unheard of in the history of the Nubl. There were problems sourcing the components to meet the growing needs of the expanded infrastructure, but they were managing by scavenging parts and materials from old dead hives.

To Cebrel the challenge of eliminating the silver beings appeared to be a simple biological extermination. He had no experience of anything that could better the Nubl in any form of technical weaponry, or combat skills. There didn’t appear to be any threat to his noble future, or that of his ship. He would gain considerable esteem for himself and his hive.

He and the Queen had discussed the need for expansion of the hives and he was behind the plan to the depth of his being. As a loyal clone, he could be nothing else. Unless of course, his Queen left herself unguarded again. That might prove unfortunately fatal, he thought on a low level unsupervised by the Queen’s network.

No, the challenge when it came, would be his alone. He would take his finest Warrior Shadow-ship into the alien system and strike the first blow against the sentient species that bred of its own kind. He would not call for a swarming unless it was desperate. He did not anticipate that need, such was the arrogance of youth and inexperience. He had already decided the outcome, the technology of the silver ship was old; good quality, but antiquated. One ship would master theirs, he had no doubt.

Cebrel crooned with self adulation when the transponder announced itself to his networked link. The vessel, he was informed, had been halted and boarded. Its location was known. It was in the fourteenth segment, an edge system that had been systematically cleansed in the previous millennia.

He shimmered visibly, his crystals creating a dazzling effect reflected in the light of the palace forum. He required that the Queen acknowledge him. She smiled, and connected with him.

‘How can I help you first son, my ‘Ta? Do you have news of your Guut’Ar?

‘Yes, my Queen, I have transponder coordinates of the home system of the silver biologicals. As you surmised it was along the trajectory you ordered it returned.’

‘Then proceed with your personal challenge and be valiant and cunning. I will broadcast your success across our hive and all shall share in your victory.’

‘It will be so, my Queen of the new Crystal Empire, it will be so.’ as he signed off and proceeded to ship.

The Queen turned to the clone nearest her, and spoke out loud and not across her channels. “He is young and arrogant, he will race in and take on more than he can handle. Prepare a Celnista g’Nal of two hundred ships and launch them four microns after my ‘Ta departs. It should be just long enough for him to get himself into trouble.” The Queen had considerable experience of ‘Ta’s. They were headstrong and brave, but lacked the ability to step back from a situation and analyse it correctly. She had read his thoughts and knew this would be so.

It was Cebrel’s first Guut’Ar, a quest of personal valour. It was reserved for the most special of the hive’s clones. He, being ‘Ta, the first in order, had only recently been appointed, the last having been ruptured into shards by the Queen’s rage at the unfortunate escape of the silver being.

Cebrel looked over his crew. Hand-picked by him they were the best the Crystal Queen had cloned. From the greatest warriors that had been re-compositioned, lesser by far than he, but good hive brothers nonetheless. He stood proud and confident at his helm position as the navigator input the set coordinates given by the transponder relay.

The view-screen illuminated with their route. Cebrel noted with a passing interest that it would take them to the point at which they previously despatched the silver ship. Their direction would be the same, except their journey would be shorter,but time itself was nothing to their race.

The navigator looked to him for final approval; the pilot was waiting to engage the hyper-drive

“Proceed!” Cebrel ordered looking at the Pilot, who efficiently brought the ship to its correct bearing and engaging the drives, thrusting them forward at an increasing speed until, to all visual appearance, the universe itself flashed past them in a blur. They sat, or stood in complete detachment requiring nothing of themselves, but with full attention on their tasks at hand. The time flew past until the warning bells sounded their proximity to the fourteenth segment, their destination was at hand.

Their preparations were made. Weapons primed, sensors optimised for detection of biological sentience. They would arrive at the coordinates in moments. Their travel through hyperspace had not been long, but to a Nubl, time was irrelevant, they endured stasis, tuning their activity to mere maintenance levels. They required no sustenance, no rest, or entertainment. They were the Nubl.

As the sleek black ship transitioned from hyperspace, it reflected no light. They called them Shadow ships for a reason, you never saw them coming. Their hull seeming to drink the small amount of light encountered in space like being sucked into a black hole. Its surface was a material only known to the Nubl and uniquely constructed by the Crystal hive.

The radio interference as it completed the transition to normal space was minimal, no eddies or turbulence to measure. Like a ghost, it moved toward the mapped location provided by the transponder. The skilled navigator, following the trail into the system, could see where the transponder had halted, been moved, dragged and then released and set back on its course, the silver line on its viewer showing the ship’s course continuing towards the system’s sun.

”Gemeel, what do you see?” asked Cebrel of his navigator.

“They were here, there is sign of interception ahead of this point not two thousand measures further. The measure being the length of their shadow ship.

Their ship halted, motors that powered its sub-drive now silent. The shadow drifted. On Cebrel’s order it cloaked, and the shadow disappeared behind a transparent shroud that hid it from view, yet allowed the ship to see all around it. Undetected.

They sat silent for some time. Cebrel had the navigator plotting every asteroid and planet’s rotation and direction. They then waited for a further period, looking for anomalies, things that weren’t natural. At first nothing moved.

Bradeen, the brother in charge of the communications and sensors reported no background interference. There were no pulses signalling spaceships in the system. All was silent. Cebrel was nonplussed. It had the right of it, the transponder did not err, yet there was no...

“Contact, Celnista'Ta,” the comms officer called.

"They are using old communication frequencies, this is not an advanced civilisation, they broadcast everywhere, everything. There is so much noise."

Gemeel, now aware of the need to verify the comms officers information, tuned his instruments down lower. Then, he too advised, “Contact, bearing twenty slips to fractal green. There is interference coming from the sixth, no, the fifth planet. It appears to be electronic debris, large amounts - it could be shipwrecks.”

Gemeel rechecked his readings and turned to Cebrel. “Correction, they are communication devices, simple and orbital.” He added tuning his sensors further.

Cebrel gave the order to proceed. “Quietly now, there may be little risk, but they have spaceships. We know this from the silver relic and it was intercepted by something. This confirms they have technology with which to detect, hold and repel ships. We are still missing something here. Proceed with caution.”

“Celnista'Ta,” Bradeen called Cebrel by his formal title out of deference. “I am detecting a communications relay of high sophistication. It differs totally from the simplistic machines in orbit around the fifth planet... Yet, wait. The signals are relaying to and from that point of origin.”

“We are detected,” Cebrel announced disappointedly. “They expected us.”

He had hoped to survey the planet, work out the best means of eradication before getting into a fight with the alien species. Now, he surmised they were warned so they should expect retaliation.

“Cebrel,” Bradeen warned, “We have multiple contacts, approaching from all directions.” He frantically tried to get distance, bearing, size and some detection of threat level. After a moment, his head twisted completely one hundred and eighty degrees. “Celnista'Ta, they are just surveillance drones?” He said, confused. “Yet they approach as if they are ships.”

“Maintain shields at maximum,” Cebrel ordered.

Cebrel turned to another of his crew, T’chakra and ordered him “Weapons master, shoot one of those drones and let us see the results on the viewer.”

The viewer homed in on a drone that was approaching their location, the closer of all of them, but not by much, a few measures was all.

A slim multi-faceted crystal rotated toward the drone and immediately fired a white beam at the puny threat. A millisecond before it exploded, they detected multiple flares which illuminated the sides and top of the surveillance drone as it responded with an unknown threat.

“Inbound missiles. I’m counting two hundred.” Bradeen shouted.

“They are Nubl missiles, old stock, very old.” Puzzled, he turned to his leader. “Celnista'Ta, these are antiquated Nubl missiles being fired upon us.”

The viewer panned to show pinpoints of red lights indicating the detected missiles. Then, one by one, a large number of lights began to wink out as if their motors had failed them.

“Wait, there appears to be a high failure rate.”

“We now have eighty inbound,” the Weapons Master chimed excitedly.

“Set for multiple burst on all front crystals,” Cebrel ordered. He was rewarded with a bright flash of illumination as the viewer relayed the contact.

“Forty two destroyed.”

“Keep firing until all destroyed,” Cebrel ordered unnecessarily. He knew they would take them out; lightning fast and deadly accurate, they would surgically remove the threat. Antiquated Nubl missiles being fired at them, how strange. Was there a hive remnant here? Were they trespassing another hive’s bounty?

“All threats destroyed,” announced the Weapons Master after a few seconds.

“Multiple threats incoming, time to impact variable from forty to ninety microns. The computer counts eight hundred and dropping. These missiles seem to have unreliable power drives, their failure rate is nearly fifty percent,” said Bradeen monitoring the sensors and updating the screen which now showed the Shadow in the centre with the threats coming from multiple directions.

The swarms of missiles were not large, but Cebrel wanted to incur zero damage. Yet they could not halt all of them. Some would connect with their shield. As the mass of inbound missiles slowly approached, their numbers were whittled down until the first of the remaining missiles hit their shields.

Expecting a high level of shield degradation, the Weapons Master stood surprised when he read the sensors which showed there was little, to no reduction in shield efficiency. As missile after missile hit the shield, the ship weathered them without any adverse effects until the final anti-matter explosion signalled the end of the barrage.

They turned to Cebrel; an explanation was required.

“These missiles could not be Nubl,” he assessed. “They were designed to behave and look like Nubl missiles, but ones that we have not used for millennia.”

“Bradeen, analyse explosions and calculate payload of missiles.”

While he was doing that, Cebrel continued his analysis, with his artificial brain set as superior to all of theirs he could analyse the information that was available to him and come to some very accurate conclusions.

“Celnista'Ta, these missiles were not designed to penetrate our shields. They have a payload of insignificant amounts. We use more powerful ones for celebrations,” Bradeen scoffed from his display where he was still analysing the results from the sensor logs.

“So,” Cebrel continued, “We have an enemy that is not very advanced, they have few basic ships, crude communication systems, but a surveillance system that indicates a different - higher - level of advancement, yet we are assailed by playthings that have no effect on our shields.”

Cebrel’s head nodded causing the crystals around his head to chime musically.

“More input is required. My initial feeling is, they are not familiar with shield technology. Had those missiles hit our naked hull at the rate they did, we would have suffered substantial accumulative damage. They obviously had not planned on that being the case which was why the attack was ineffective.”

He looked over them brazenly confident. “We have nothing to fear, if they are not familiar with shields they will have no means of overcoming them. Proceed at full speed to the fifth planet. I want to see this pestilence for myself.”

“It shall be so, Celnista'Ta,” said the navigator as he spun round, instantly feeding the information required into his console to proceed to their destination.