They Answered The Call

Derelict Insectoid Cruiser

6,982 light years from Earth, 2175 A.D.

Six hours after boarding action

“Davis, what’s the status on those engines?”

The comm chirped in response before Davis answered. “Captain, we are trying to figure this crap out as fast as we can. It is a confusing mixture of mechanical and organic components. I bet the chief would have been able to figure this out by now.”

Captain Navarra cringed at the mention of the chief. He had not gotten off the John Cabot before it self-destructed, probably refusing to leave Jim and staying to the end. He heard Davis come over the comm again. “I’m sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean to bring him up.”

“That’s okay, Davis. I wish he was here too. Just do the best you can and keep me posted.” He replied before closing the channel.

He looked around the chamber at the other survivors as they tried to figure out how to operate the ship. This was their first exposure to Insectoid technology, and he was starting to wonder if he made the right call.

The panels had obvious buttons and toggles, but there weren’t any markings or symbols indicating what anything was.

At least there is air and water, he thought to himself as he watched the crew hesitantly try to activate the panels, terrified of breaking something or accidently blowing up the ship.

His comm came to life again, and he pressed the button to open the channel. “Captain, we have finished sweeping the ship. We found one of them hiding in an air vent. The rest of the ship is clear.”

He put a face to the voice. It was Simmons, and she was one of the surviving security officers. He could hear in her voice that she didn’t know what to do with it. “Why is it still alive, Simmons?” He replied, wondering why they were even having this conversation.

“Sir, it looks terrified. The poor thing has not moved since we opened the grate, and I can swear that it is pleading for mercy with its eyes.” She answered, her voice filled with concern.

He felt a surge of anger rising inside of him at her words, and he slowly counted to five before replying, his voice cold as ice.

“Simmons, those bastards killed almost 90% of our crew. They attacked us without provocation, and we lost twelve people taking over the ship. Are you really trying to tell me that you are feeling sorry for it?” He asked incredulously.

“Sir..” She hesitated before continuing; her voice tinged with doubt. “I lost people too. I am angry, and I had no problem killing them while boarding the ship. But this? This is murder, and I won't do it.”

He fought down the desire to relieve her on the spot, counting to himself until he felt in control of his emotions again and replied to her. “Stay there and activate your locator. I will be there shortly to take care of this. Who is there with you?"

“Jameson and Cho, sir.” She replied.

“Put Cho on the line.” He ordered, his voice dripping with anger. Cho was a veteran, a pathfinder who knew how to follow orders. Maybe he won’t have to go there after all. A new voice came over the comm, “Cho here, sir.”

“Sergeant, why is that thing still alive? Kill it and finish securing the ship.” There were a few seconds of silence before Cho answered him in a strong, clear voice. “Negative, sir. I am a marine, not a murderer. This drone is not a threat, and I will not violate the Paris Accords by murdering an unarmed combatant.”

What the fuck is wrong with you people? He screamed at them in his head, suppressing the desire to smash the comm node against the bulkhead.

He pressed the button and spoke into the comm node. “All of you stay right there. I will take care of this.” He closed the channel and got off the odd bench of the raised platform in the center of the chamber, shaking his head in disbelief at what just happened.

He had noticed the furtive glances the crew had been sneaking at him during the conversation, and he glared at the back of their heads as he stepped off the platform and headed out of the chamber.

A few minutes later, he finally entered the tunnel they were in after getting misdirected a couple of times by his wristcom because of the strange layout and the numerous openings made by the crew during the boarding action.

They were standing in front of a small vent in the tunnel wall along the rough organic floor, weapons pointed towards it. Next to the opening was a grate, and Jameson had a flashlight pointed at the vent itself.

They came to attention as he entered, and he glared at them in response as he pulled his pistol from his hip holster.

They moved out of his way as he reached them, clearing the area in front of the opening. They avoided his gaze as he tried to make eye contact to show them just how pissed he was at them for wasting his time with this nonsense.

He squatted down and pointed his pistol at the dark recess where the drone was hiding.

“Give me some light.” He snapped at Jameson as he deactivated the safety. The flashlight swept towards the opening, illuminating the interior.

He could now see the drone in the back of the vent, pressed up against the interior vent fan and completely still. It was looking away; its eyes pointed towards the vent wall as it avoided looking at the opening.

He sighted the pistol, aiming for what he thought would be the location of the brain, and was just about to pull the trigger when it looked at him, the two large black eyes looking right into his.

He froze at the sight of them. As he looked into them, he could see his own reflection in the shiny, black oval shapes. He shifted his pistol slightly to aim in the center and slightly above where the eyes angled down towards each other.

He saw his reflection moving in them, and he no longer saw a warrior killing an enemy in combat. Instead, he saw a murderer pointing a pistol at a defenseless creature hiding in an air vent, scared and alone.

He slowly took his finger off the trigger, his hand starting to tremble slightly from the knowledge that he was just about to commit murder.

“Goddamn it.” He muttered to himself as he flipped the safety back on and pointed the pistol slightly downward and away from the drone.

He heard Jameson breathe out a deep sigh of relief, and he looked at the three of them, finally understanding why they refused to kill it. He looked each of them in the eyes before standing back up and holstering his pistol.

“I’m sorry. I am ashamed of myself for being angry at you for refusing to kill the drone; I understand now.”

All three of them nodded at his words, relief flooding their faces at his admission that he was wrong and that they had done the right thing in refusing to kill the defenseless drone.

Cho responded. “Captain, we are grateful that you came to see for yourself and reacted as we did.” Glancing at the opening, he continued speaking. “I am a marine, and I have no compunction about killing the enemy in combat. This though? It wouldn’t have been right.”

He nodded at Cho’s words, looking at the vent opening and thinking about what to do now.

“Does anyone know if we came across anything that might be food for them? We will seal the tunnel, and leave water for it and food as well if we can scrounge some up for it.”

“I’ll find out for you, sir.” Simmons answered, pulling her water canteen off her belt and looking around for something to pour it in. Among the debris scattered on the floor, she found a shallow piece of wall material that was concave enough to serve as a water bowl for now.

She emptied her canteen in it, and Jameson shined his light at the opening again as she knelt and pushed the water bowl into the air vent, murmuring softly like she was addressing a scared puppy.

He shook his head at the sight of the security officer babytalking to an insectoid drone and addressed Cho and Jameson.

“Seal the tunnel back up and leave a recorder here to keep an eye on it. I want one of the crew members always posted outside, just in case someone comes looking for revenge. I do not want it molested in any way, and make sure it has water. And food if we can find some.”

“Aye, sir.” They both responded. Simmons was still kneeling in front of the opening, murmuring softly to the drone as she pushed the water closer to it with a long piece of metal she had found among the debris.

He shook his head again in disbelief and left the tunnel, heading back to the chamber. He arrived a few minutes later and resumed sitting on the awkward bench, his lower back starting to ache from the lack of something to lean against.

There was still no progress on the panels in the chamber, and he was just about to call Davis to check in when his comm beeped, showing that Davis was calling. “I hope you are calling to give me some good news, Davis.”

Davis responded with a carefully neutral tone. “Possibly, sir. One of the engineers thinks she figured out how to activate the thrusters. They are still working on the null drive, but at least we can leave the immediate vicinity for now.”

“How are we going to guide the ship if we fire the thrusters?” He asked. They had no way of controlling the ship from the chamber, and blindly thrusting to nowhere didn’t seem like a good idea to him.

“The thrusters have a limited form of thrust vectoring that can be controlled from down here, so we will have some ability to point the ship in the direction we want to go, Captain.” Davis responded.

“Excellent, Davis. When you are ready, fire the thrusters and turn the ship towards the Republic. Once we get moving, cut the engines. I do not want to risk breaking something or being detected. We will coast until we figure out the next move. Navarra out”

He closed the channel, feeling the first glimmer of hope since they abandoned the John Cabot.

They were in interstellar space, and if they could fire the thrusters and get out of the area, they had a good chance of successfully evading any Insectoid vessels. As long as emissions were kept to a minimum, it was very easy to disappear into the void between star systems and evade detection.

It would also make it more difficult for the Republic rescue ships to find them, but that was not really a factor in his planning.

Despite his misgivings about the Republic, there was one fundamental truth he knew they could rely on. The Republic does not abandon its people, and they do not leave anyone behind. Ever.

He had no doubt they would come, and he knew they would not stop looking for them until they found them and brought them back home to their families.

One of the panels started blinking two different colored lights, scaring the crap out of the crew member that was playing around with it.

Jumping away from the panel and disavowing any responsibility, they held their hands up as another crew member hurried over to see what was going on.

His comm node beeped and displayed a text message from Davis. They were starting to prime the engines to fire the thrusters, and he was warning them to brace for the acceleration.

“Hold on to something. They are about to fire the thrusters.” He called out in warning.

The crew started grabbing onto panels and support columns in response, and the two blinking lights changed colors. Another light came on a different panel, an unblinking blue. The other panels followed suit, all of them displaying a steady blue light.

A few seconds later, a distant roaring sound could be heard, followed by an increase in gees as the cruiser surged forward. He grabbed the bench and pulled himself against it as the cruiser kept accelerating.

A few seconds later, the insectoid version of inertial dampeners kicked in and canceled out the gravity of the acceleration, and he felt the weight returning to the normal 0.8 g that the cruiser had when they first boarded.

They accelerated for just under two minutes when the distant roaring sound stopped and the steady blue light on the second panel turned off.

He connected his wristcom to the AI controller of the escape pods still attached to the hull and waited for it to confirm their new speed and heading.

A few seconds later, a small holo map was projected above his wrist, showing their new course. They were coasting at 132,367 kilometers an hour, and they were now heading towards Republic space.

He smirked at the additional calculations the AI controller decided to add. According to it, the cruiser would reach the nearest star system along their course in 12,784 years at their current speed.

He ordered it to deploy four rescue beacons with their current speed and heading. The tiny beacons would drift cold, sending out a brief pulse of a specific frequency every twelve hours before disappearing again.

Two of the beacons would stay in normal space, and the other two would flash into null space.

Any Republic search and rescue ships in the vicinity would detect the pulses and be able to triangulate the beacon’s positions. Once they receive the proper codes, the beacons will transmit the speed and heading of the cruiser before self-destructing.

As the cruiser continued to coast, he reached up and unzipped the left chest pocket, pulling out his most prized possession. Jim grabbed it before dragging him off the half-destroyed bridge and had put it inside the chest pocket while he was still unconscious.

He didn’t even realize it was in there until after the John Cabot was destroyed and they were on their way to board the derelict Insectoid cruiser. Leaning over, he placed it on the panel next to the bench he was sitting on and pressed against the tape for three seconds to reactivate the adhesive.

He took his finger off the tape, and it stayed there. His eyes lingered on it as he looked at the faces of Evelyn and the twins. He whispered a quiet thanks to Jim as he continued to gaze at the faces of his family. He will retire as soon as he returns, and he will never leave them again.

Republic Hive World

TOI-700 d, 101.4 light years from Earth, 2175 A.D.

Seventeen days after the destruction of the John Cabot

Command unit 273 guided the two squadrons of upgraded nullships towards the opening of the Hive ship’s massive cargo bay, taking control of the docking thrusters of the sixteen vessels as the Hive ship stabilized its orbit.

The two troopships and the automated repair/factory ship that accompanied the nullships had entered the Hive ship and were already in their assigned berths.

As the last of the nullships slipped into their assigned positions, Command Unit 273 reviewed the mission directives one last time before ordering the nullships to power down for the estimated twenty-nine-day journey to their location.

Before powering down, Command Unit 273 archived the battle plans it had created while running over ten million war gaming scenarios.

Its neural pathways surged with anticipation at the prospect of battle. It was created for a specific function, and it had yet to engage in battle since it was constructed six months ago.

As its secondary systems powered down, Command Unit 273 connected with the other nullship AIs to give them the final sleep command.

As they responded, it could detect the same anticipation in their neural pathways. They too wanted to fulfill their functions and save the biologicals. They, too, were eager to destroy their enemies.

Command chamber of the Hive ship

The command drone got off the raised dais as the Hive mother entered the command chamber and started to bow in a show of obeisance when the Hive mother sent a command to her.

She froze at the anger she could sense in the thought, and her mind raced as she tried to understand what she had done to anger her Hive mother. Another thought entered her mind.

She had been looking down on the floor, expecting further recrimination from the Hive mother.

She looked up in surprise at the thoughts being sent to her, and she now looked in the Hive mother’s eyes, feeling her love and loyalty towards the Hive mother growing even greater.

She responded, continuing to look in the eyes of her Hive mother and stopping herself from instinctively looking away.

The Hive mother, seemingly mollified by her response, turned slightly and held out a tarsal claw to one of her attending worker drones. There were fifteen drones with her, and they all had the same container.

It placed the small container it was holding into the Hive mother’s claw, and she turned back to face her as she opened the container. She gingerly removed the object that was inside and held it out for her to take.

She was momentarily stunned, seeing that the Hive mother was offering her a focuser that she had created from her own silk glands. More thoughts entered her mind.

As she carefully took the focuser from the Hive mother’s tarsal claws, she could feel the echo of the Hive mother’s imprint within the delicate lattice.

With the focuser in hand, she would be considered a royal representative above all others. None would dare to challenge her authority.

She could order a million worker drones to commit suicide, and they would do it without hesitation. The trust the Hive mother was placing in her by giving her this object was absolute. She felt unworthy of the honor, and she wanted to deny it.

The Hive mother must have sensed her thoughts, and she stepped closer to her.

The Hive mother stared into her eyes, and she could feel the Hive mother entering her mind and sharing with her.

She found herself in a Hive nexus, and she was alone. She looked around, and she could see four openings leading to other chambers.

As she looked at the first opening, she could sense the emotion contained within it. The one she was looking at radiated sadness, and it threatened to overwhelm her.

She looked at another opening, and from this one she sensed fear. It radiated pure terror, and she recoiled from it, looking away.

She turned to look at the third opening, and waves of anger poured out, consuming her. She felt like tearing something apart, and she felt hate rising within her. She was barely able to force herself to look away and escape it; it was enticingly powerful.

She turned again, looking at the fourth opening. It radiated happiness and love, and she could feel it calling to her.

She felt the command enter her mind, and she did as she was bid. She walked towards it, feeling the emotions get stronger and starting to pull on her as she neared the opening.

She entered it, finding herself in a world of beauty and pure love. She felt the warmth of the sun on her exoskeleton, the sky showing billions of fractals, each one a memory.

In the distance she saw figures, and she walked towards them. As she drew closer, she saw that the figures were behind occluded partitions. She entered through one, and she saw the young queen. The queen was sitting, trying to touch a floating hologram of an animal that was being projected by a device on the ground.

An overwhelming sense of love and contentment settled upon her, and she could barely withstand the power of it. The desire to protect the queen at all costs swirled all around her. She withdrew reluctantly, wanting to stay there forever.

She entered another partition, and she saw Bandit-Friend sitting on the grass across from the young queen. They were moving objects on a board, and she looked at the machine animal.

A deep feeling of trust, friendship, love, and gratitude swam all around her, and she felt what the Hive mother felt for Bandit-friend. She withdrew from there, finally understanding their relationship.

She entered the third partition, surprised to see the animal queen within. She was making animal noises and displaying her teeth. She felt emotions of gratitude, respect, friendship, and regret for killing the animals swirling around her.

She felt the deep bond the Hive mother had with the animal queen, and the desire to prove that they could coexist as friends and equals.

She withdrew and entered the last partition. She saw herself leaning on a console in a command chamber as she waited for the Hive mother to finish initiating the self-destruct. She looked into her own eyes, seeing the resignation and defeat in them, knowing that she was about to die.

She felt a variety of conflicting emotions. There was regret, uncertainty, and a desire to save her. She saw herself respond to the Hive mother, bowing and naming her Hive mother for the first time.

New emotions came, and she felt trust, friendship, certainty, and love caressing her gently. The Hive mother considered her a true sister, and she had no doubt of her loyalty.

She did, and she was suddenly back in her own body, staring into the eyes of the Hive mother.

She felt woefully inadequate to the task being assigned to her. How would she be able to deceive the specialized command drones?

They were above her, and she knew she would fail her Hive mother. A desperate thought came to her, and she seized on it.

The Hive mother stared at her, making her wilt under the powerful gaze. Finally, the Hive mother answered her.

After some time, she felt the Hive mother’s thoughts enter her mind. They were tinged with unhappiness, and she felt like a failure already.

Relief flooded through her at the thoughts of the Hive mother. She knew that she would not be able to fail her now if the Hive mother took over her.>

The Hive mother turned around and departed, leaving the fifteen worker drones that had accompanied her behind.

She sent a thought command to them, telling them to go to the worker drone cells and eat. As they departed, she returned to the raised dais and resumed her seat.

The animal ships had entered the Hive ship, and as soon as the Hive mother returned to the surface, she would enter null space and go to the forbidden area and save their animal friends.