Future Tense, (chapter eight)

Longshot was enjoying sweeping through space, a delicate dance with over two hundred new dancers. More arrived everyday. They flew through space with a mission, with a plan. If the enemy flew to the same algorithms as before, they would pay a heavy price. She was interrupted by the Chief. She chose an Avatar and returned to the bridge. “Put him through.”

The Chief looked like he hadn’t slept for a while. So no news then. She could practically smell him from here. “We need to talk. Mind if you come to Engineering for a bit?” Longshot was well used to her Chief, he was not going to waste her time. She guessed he had a new toy he wanted to show off. They walked in silence to his office.

At the door, he hesitated. “Look, Captain, I may have overstepped a little. This is big. Can you do me a favour and sit quietly while I explain?” Longshot simply nodded. The way things were going, he had earned the right to as much of her time as he wanted. “Sure Chief, make me a cup of tea and talk away.” She moved to the chair and made herself comfortable. The room was dank with sweat and old cups of coffee, abandoned during the night. On the desk was a, well, contraption. She avoided looking too closely, aware that the Chief needed her trust right now, even if she didn’t know why. She faintly recalled a human anecdote about friendship, one involving dead bodies. It certainly smelled like something had died in here.

The Chief handed her a cup. She regarded the rings on the side and decided that, perhaps, she could do without whatever this was. It certainly wasn’t tea. “Go ahead Chief, you have my full attention.”

The Chief was pacing about, half sitting, then standing again. Finally he found his words, “Remember when I asked you if I could dismantle the Quantum drive? Well, I did. I had an idea. What if Earth had held on to the other particle? Maybe we could talk to them. Well, I was nearly right. I sent a signal and they got it.” He paused, trying to figure out how to explain the rest. Visibly giving up, he looked at Longshot, “Captain, I have a direct line to the Human Defense Forces, in real time, and they are waiting to talk to you. Right now.”

Longshot took a drink from the disgusting cup, absentmindedly analysing the contents. Teabag in a very old cup of coffee, with a hint of engine oil. The Chief was distracted.

She put the cup down carefully. “ You are talking to Earth? In real time? Chief, I know you’re good, but are you sure?”

The Chief walked quickly to the debris on his desk, hitting a couple of buttons and then raised a mike. “ Comms, Longshot here. Are you listening?”

A cheerful human voice responded. “ Yes, Chief. The connection is stable. We have you locked in for good. I take it you told your Captain? There's quite a few people waiting for her report.”

The Chief looked at Longshot, a slight grim forming. “ She wants you to prove that this is Earth.”

“ Well, tell her to get a grip. I have several thousand terabytes of Intel and updates to send you and I don’t have time to arse about. If she hadn’t got herself lost for three centuries, then I wouldn't need to be pissing away the biggest party in human history talking to you. I dug up some of the old command codes, they are embedded in the documents I’m sending. No clue if they work, the museum doesn’t have anything old enough to run them. But tell her that politely.”

The Chiefs grin grew wider. “ No need, she heard every word of that.”

There was a pause from Earth, “ Captain, I’m putting you through to Command. Please hold.”

The Chief passed her the headset, getting a strange look in return. Sometimes even the best of the humans forgot that she was the ship, not just the Avatar. The Chief must be really tired. She put them on the table and spoke directly to Earth, absorbing the full bandwidth available, sucking up the incoming data, turning her whole self towards a single stream of information. Parsing it, verifying it, comparing it to her existing database. Building her response. Before she spoke a word, she had followed the Swarm wars to their conclusion, seen humanity march through the stars as a vengeful army. Seen the fall of worlds, the death of cities. The burning of Aristotle.

She watched as victory became obvious, of the strange stratagem of making the swarms into individuals. No fiction, no dark dreams of what the future held for her and her crew could have seen this. The carefully hidden capacity for war, the meticulously kept peace in her time, all burned away in a war to the death. She noted extinction events, both received and given. She had no doubt this was Earth, no alien could portray such a thing. Earth as poison, Earth as murderer, Earth as defiant, relentless and bloody handed. This was Humanity writ large, a canvas of pain and hope, a helping hand with a closed fist.

“ Welcome back Longshot. We are delighted to hear from you. I think I speak for everyone when I say that it’s an unexpected pleasure.” There were the sounds of cheering in the background. Obviously the party was still going on. “ My name is Captain Hentz, Quantum Communications Department. Can you send me a status report? Your Chief Engineer was being a little discreet.”

Longshot stared into time. The ‘fuck you’ protocol was long forgotten, lost in the drive to war, the illusion shattered. She could fight and still bring her people home. “ Captain, we are in a total war with a determined exterminator. I’m trying to save as many as I can, but this isn’t a warship. I’m sending you the details. I think we both need to talk to our people. I’ll call you back once I have processed the information you sent.”

Captain Hentz was scanning the battle reports. She was obviously fighting with nothing but improvised weapons and bared teeth. That she had won two battles was surprising. That she expected to lose the next one, accurate. “I’ll take this upstairs. I’m sending you some more...confidential information. Your Xeno’s seem nice, but these designs are real ‘End of Days’ stuff. Please don't share them without authorization. I’ll await your call. Please, don’t take long. You have quite a crowd waiting to talk to you.”

Longshot walked her Avatar back to the bridge. The Ship fell quite. Without knowing exactly why, her crew paused and exchanged glances. Then the lights felt dim, the normal sounds of ship life became muted. Her Officers watched as power drained into the very core of the ship, as update warnings flashed on every system and Comm. It was unheard of to update everything at once. They knew Longshot was careful, even in the face of enthusiastic engineers, of what changed on her ship. Slowly the atmosphere became tense, as conversation stopped. Longshot was ignoring all incoming calls, routing them to the Station. They waited.

Her Avatar remained unmoving. Suddenly her voice filled the bridge. “ Attention all crew. Prepare for a major systems overhaul. Please focus on your stations. The Chief Engineer will be with you shortly. I will release further details at a later time.” The voice was cold, drained of the usual calm, friendly humanity that they expected from their Captain. The Engineer was going to have a lot to explain.

Adri received the summons in his quarters. Longshot was here. Unusual she simply manifested a hologram, dispensing with the normal etiquette she displayed. He realised this was important, even with everything that had happened Longshot rarely let slip the mask of humanity she wore so well. It regarded him coldly, nothing but a thumbnail of her real self. “ Ambassador, circumstances have changed. I am directing a complete refit of the ship. Please inform our allies that we are unavailable for active missions. I am directing a confidential briefing to you. Under no circumstances are you to allow this information to fall into Xeno hands. I require you to read it immediately and summarise your response.” At that she disconnected.

Adri was left with nothing but the flashing icon of a priority message. Even when she had declared war on the Scythe, she had been less abrupt, less ..inhuman. He gathered his thoughts and opened the document. Perhaps the answers were there.

In a breath, her crew, aware that something fundamental had changed as, as yet aware of what it was, went to work. They felt an urgency, not only for the oncoming war but that the Captain seemed lost. Whatever they could do to help. Perhaps this would bring her back.

Longshot lived every battle, every decision. Every escalation. She wept for the dead, she watched her beloved people turn to monsters. And then, just when she felt only despair, she watched them choose. Choose not to pursue these endless, horrifying genocides. She watched a flood of blood and steel retake the galaxy. Her Ships, her fellow AI marching in lockstep with the organics. She watched the Oberon program rip asunder planets that she had known and loved, then watched as the rebuilding was begun. But this was not her humanity, these were everything she had read in their past, every question she had asked the Chief. This was a humanity for whom death was not a friend, but an ally. Not the price of living, but a weapon against those who sought to bring it early and undeserved. She could bring her people home, but she wasn’t sure it was still there. Then the turmoil returned, the flood of reports and upgrades filling her mind. She barely took a moment to inform her crew before she sank back into the ocean of information again.

Hammel was wondering where all the humans were. He was busy enough without searching the damn system, when he finally tracked down Longshot, far out towards the edge of the system. Unmoving. It was refusing his connection. He called the Volunteers, only to discover they, also, were unable to talk to Longshot. They were moving to see if all was well. Enough, he had a human right here. He went to find Adri.

Adri finished his first reading. So, they had Earth back. An Earth of war, of massacre. Perhaps they simply didn’t realise what they must have done to Longshot. Humanity, celebrating and victorious, had dropped this on Longshot without a moment's thought of what it would mean. He had learned long ago, she was an idealist. Willing and able to play politics, but holding only hope and optimism in her heart. Right now she was burning in the hell that they had lived, one moment at a time. She would seek out the pain and, unable to help, it would crush her. Right now he could happily crush whatever drunken comms officer had done this to his Captain. First he made a call.

The Chief was fast asleep, finally surrendering to the long nights work, when the call arrived. Senior officers had certain techniques to ensure they got a response, many subtle and discreet. Adri simply took control of the volume settings of every object within range of the Chief’s communicator and blasted it to full. “Engineer, you had better be there or, at the very least, dead. Pick up the fucking phone.” The chief fell out of bed.

“ Ardi, What the fuck! I was asleep. Wait until I tell you the news!”

Adri held his temper for a moment. “ Chief, listen very carefully. I’m sure you did something very clever.” Right now all he wanted to do was shout. Engineers, never leave them unsupervised.

“Right now, we don’t have a Captain. Right now, she’s probably weeping over every child that died in a war for that lasted two-hundred fucking years. You know, the stuff Earth just dropped on her. I need you to take control of the situation on the ship, while I sort out our allies. Get up, take whatever drugs you need and hold that ship together until I figure out how to get her back. And she doesn't talk to Earth again. I’ll do that when you bring the Ship back here. Don’t fuck this up.” Adri hung up.

The Chief heard the silence on the ship. No chatty conversations, no murmured voices. He realised that he was at a funeral. Shit, what had he done? He reached the bridge.

He raised his voice, not that everyone hadn’t turned to him the moment the door opened. They had been waiting for him. For hope, for news, for anything. “ Alright people, I know you got a fright. It's being sorted. We got news from Earth, is all. Longshot is chewing through a couple of centuries of history right now, so give her some peace. I see a lot of update alerts. Go to work, keep your mouth shut. I’ll be right here. She’ll give you a full briefing when she’s done. In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. Nav, take us back to Hammel. We are done with training for the moment. Adri is talking to the Volunteers, so just get moving.”

The crew, grateful for a hint of hope and normality, turned back to their desks, the occasional comment bringing them slowly back to a functional crew, while the chief sat uneasy in the Captain's chair.

As Hammel arrived, the door opened. Again he felt like the rules had changed. He had never seen Adri look so bereft, so empty of the spirit that had carried the Ambassador and his people to his doorstep. “ Adri? Is everything alright? We were worried, Longshot has gone silent, the Volunteers can’t find her.” He paused, suddenly uncertain, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Adri seemed to make some decision, some inner strength returning. “ Hammel, my apologies. We have received surprising news from home, I’m afraid that the Captain is occupied with it. She did however, send you this.” He held out a data spike. “ These are new weapon and communications designs, as well as a full tactical and strategic guide to war with a swarm species. Our captain is busy with redesign herself, and is on the way here.” He raised a smile, “ You’re stuck with me for now. I’ll let you know when that changes.”

Hammel was confused, “ We are expecting battle any day now. Do we have time for this?, I mean, Longshot was pretty insistent… What if the Scythe fleet turns up?”

Adri looked him straight in the eye. “Then, my friend, hope that the universe has more mercy in it than I ever believed it had.”

Out in the far dark, two sensors sent warning, before being crushed by the vanguard of the approaching Swarm.