The Gardens of Nibiru (The Ember War Saga Book 5) (6 page)

“The Xaros…” Malal flipped the faceplate over several times. “They’re using the jump gates to get from system to system. They don’t want to repeat the disaster from their home galaxy. Quaint.”

“You act like the Xaros wouldn’t have been much of a threat to you and your people,” Stacey said.

“Would Earth fear a tribe of spear-wielding savages?” A ripple spread over Malal’s body. “And to think here I am, trapped by an even more primitive collection of intelligences. This Alliance is nothing compared to us. You hadn’t evolved beyond pond scum when we ruled the stars.”

Malal pressed the edge of the faceplate to the force field. It drew an arm back and the hand morphed into a blade. It slammed the edge against the seam where the force field and the mask touched, and a cascade of disrupted energy reverberated away from the impact.

“Let me out!” Malal slammed the blade against the wall again. “Let me out of here and I will eat your soul last!”

Stacey backed away, her heart pounding as she looked around for any kind of help as the ancient being attacked the force field. Malal’s rage ended suddenly as it shrank into a ball and floated back to its original place in the cave. The General’s mask hit the ground without a sound.

“You were in no danger,” the braided woman said, her head appeared next to Stacey. “It has tried to escape before. The privacy filters are in place. We can speak freely.”

“A little warning next time?” Stacey asked.

“Malal isn’t this cooperative with us. Good work,” she said.

“How do you figure? I got some nice trivia out of it, nothing that’ll help us fight the Xaros.” Stacey looked at the mask on the other side of the invisible force field and decided that trying to recover it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Malal isn’t the first remnant of the Ancients we’ve encountered, but it is the first we can converse with,” she said. “You must speak to it again, get it to cooperate further.”

“Hold on for a quick second. That thing is millions of years old, passes for a god to most cultures, and you want me to just
get it to cooperate
?”

“Of all the ambassadors on Bastion, you have the greatest chance for success.”

“I’m the newest ambassador. I have no training in dealing with—” she waved her hand at the orb “and I couldn’t even get the council to help Earth when the Toth came knocking. Explain what cooperation you want and how I’m supposed to have such great success with that thing.”

“You are human. It sees you as an energy source and we can use this as leverage.”

“Oh, that makes me feel better.”

“I will explain more once you’ve returned to Bastion. Malal needs time to feel trapped and isolated. This will enhance your bargaining posture.” The cave darkened as the braided woman spoke.

Stacey found herself alone on the sled and surrounded by an abyss with nothing but her thoughts to accompany her for what would be a long trip back to the station.

It took the form of a black hole, one glowing accretion disk across its equator and another as a halo, as an affectation to research conducted long ago in a galaxy that no longer existed. Dozens of pedestals surrounded the Minder, each supporting a scan of the human mind in various degrees of decay. Some were still coherent, the trillions of neural connections mostly intact but degrading rapidly, falling apart like icicles breaking free from a roof at the first spring thaw. Other scans had coalesced into the human’s face; some screamed silently while others looked around in confusion.

The Minder collated its finding for the master to review and considered the scan in the center of the room, his only success in a sea of failure. If this one lost coherency like the others, he could always make another copy, but the scientist at the Minder’s core hated inefficiency.

Night fell over the laboratory. Keeper appeared as a star-filled nebula stretched across everything above Minder.

+Report.+

Great success, master. After much trial and error, I can access the primitive’s overt memories and will have the blacked-out segments recovered in the next two rotations through a parallel reconstruction and synaptic fusion. My models show 99.999% certainty of success.

+You annoy me with projections?+

The distribution of the primitive’s memories is chaotic, inefficient, and laughable by the standards of perfection attained by our transition to photonic existence. To fully exploit this resource…I must engage in direct contact.

+You will be erased once the mission is complete.+

As is our law. But, given that this is a scan and not an actual member of a polluting species, perhaps an exception—

+Erased.+

Yes, master. The next phase begins forthwith. I will quarantine myself from the other Minders…oh, you’ve already done it. Thank you.

Keeper vanished.

The Minder floated toward the last fully functional scan and spun around on its axis.

You had better be worth the end of my immortality.

****

Torni opened her eyes and found herself in a sunlit glade. The smell of pollen and the chill of a nearby snow-fed brook washed over her. A white robe covered her body as her bare feet played in moist grass.

Wind rustled through tall birch trees. A dove flew into the air from a tall branch.

She remembered this…a summer spent in Falun with cousins.

“Is this to your liking?”

Torni whirled around, her hands up high to guard from attack, her body settled with knees bent, muscles taut, her instinct to fight triggering a cold burst of adrenaline through her system.

A man in his mid-twenties stood before her, clad in the same white robe. Fair hair and sapphire blue eyes accompanied a gentle smile.

“What is this? Where am I?” Torni asked.

“Your mind often comes here. It is a source of comfort, relaxation. But judging by your autonomic response to my presence, I see this location isn’t helpful,” he said.

“You have exactly five seconds to start making sense or I will beat you bloody.”

“Yours is a…delightful…species.” His lips pulled into a slight sneer, then broadened into a smile. “But you deserve an apology. You fell victim to a terrible misunderstanding in our drone programming, one we are just beginning to correct.”

“You’re…Xaros?” Torni felt the blood drain from her face.

“I am no more one of those drones than you are a worm,” he said. “After your ship, the
Breitenfeld
I believe, visited Anthalas, it triggered a contingency program. The human presence on Anthalas was impossible without the ability to travel faster than light. Examining local space around that planet after your—and the Toth’s—departure revealed you used wormhole technology. Very dangerous wormhole technology.”

“What? Where the hell am I?” Torni dropped her arms and spun around, looking for some kind of escape. There was a cabin…over the brook and next to a well. She ran to the sound of the running water. Her feet pounded the grass and her lungs burned as she sprinted onward, but the tree line got no closer.

“Torni,” the man said and she felt the tension gripping her chest ease away. She turned around and found him in the same place. “We have much to discuss.

“I attempted this interaction many times before. Yours is the first not to fail to psychosis or de-coherence.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He raised his hands up to his head and took a step toward her.

“I am the Minder, and I need you to help me save what’s left of humanity.”

****

Minder and Torni sat in the grass, he with his hands wrapped around his knees, she pulling tiny weeds from the soil and tearing them apart as he spoke.

“The drones weren’t meant to destroy all intelligent life,” Minder sighed. “The initial drone that arrived in the galaxy was damaged by the species that gave it the name Xaros. The damage, coupled with its self-defense protocols, resulted in aberrant programming when the probe replicated. Every drone after the first was created with two flawed functions: replicate and destroy. We’re trying to catch up with the forward maniples before they wipe out what’s left of the galaxy’s sentients.”

“So the drones that wiped out humanity and God knows how many other species, are an ‘oops’?” she asked.

“We’re terribly embarrassed. We weren’t aware of the error until the
Breitenfeld
anomaly came to our attention. I was brought out of stasis to deal with the issue,” he said.

“There was…” She closed her eyes as the image of a red armored giant played across the back of her mind. “I thought I saw…how did I get here?”

“We managed to scan your body on Takeni. Our technology is such that we recreated your brain, perfect down to the synapse connection, and now I’m here to enlist your help.”

“I’m a Marine, not a damn doctor. Are you saying you’ve got my brain in a jar somewhere and all this is some sort of simulation?” she asked.

“If you want to be pedestrian about it…” Minder shrugged.

“What happened to my ship? My team? Me!” Torni pressed her palms against her face.

“All escaped, with the Dotok I’m happy to report.”

“Why me? Are there any others?”

“You are the only one. The situation on Takeni was fluid. We’re lucky that you happen to have information vital to saving what’s left of the galaxy.” Minder got to his feet and brushed grass from his robe.

“I have vital information?” she asked.

Minder snapped his fingers and the glade transformed into the deck of the
Breitenfeld
. Torni was now in her armor, standing next to the frozen form of Hale and Yarrow.

“Sir?” Torni reached out to touch Hale, but her fingers passed through his body.

“We’re in your memories…but there have been some modifications.” Minder walked to the edge of the flight deck and peered into the abyss.

“What did you do?”

“Not us. Someone else. The same someone, I’m certain, who gave you the jump-drive technology. Here, look out there.” He motioned into the expanse with his chin. “See that?”

Torni saw a dark fleck against the gray, then Yarrow was on his feet beside her.

“You have a hole in your mind.” Minder came back to her. He rolled a fingertip and Yarrow spoke until a black line covered his lips and the memory froze. “Each time you tried to remember this event, more holes appeared.”

“Then how the hell am I supposed to help you? Assuming I even want to.”

“What has been done can be undone. The species that meddled with your mind is advanced, but not compared to the Xaros. I can repair the damage. Quickly, if you assist. I’ve managed one lead, a double connection to a concept that is both blocked and available. Tell me, what is an Ibarra?”

“Nothing.” Torni’s mouth went dry. She felt for the gauss rifle stock over her shoulder. Her hand gripped the weapon, then held nothing but air as it vanished like it had never been there.

“This is difficult for you, I understand.” Minder reached out to touch her arm, and she slapped him away. “I know what the Xaros have done to you and your planet. Your hostility is warranted and expected. Would it make you feel better to bash my skull to pulp? Give in to some atavistic desire? I would simply reload this avatar and continue on.”

Torni’s hands balled into fists.

“Humanity is at a crossroads with three possible outcomes. First, the drones follow their programming and send an overwhelming mass to annihilate what little resistance your fleet can offer. I’ve seen the battle for the Crucible from your eyes. I know how many ships you have left. Your planet has no chance to survive the next wave. But. I can stop the armada before it ever leaves for Earth, provided you cooperate.”

“If killing us was such a mistake, why don’t you cancel the attack right now?”

“Second. Humanity continues using the jump-drive technology and triggers a rupture that will annihilate every atom of matter from one end of the galaxy to the other. We will destroy Earth to keep the rest of the galaxy intact, hence the armada massing near Barnard’s Star. An acceptable trade, don’t you think?

“Third. You help me identify the species risking a cataclysm with the jump engines. Their identity is in your mind, Torni. Help me find it and I will spare Earth. We will lift your people up to the heights of technology and civilization, make you greater than you could ever imagine as penance for what we did to you.”

She shook her head.

“I’ve seen your drones at work. There was no mercy, no attempt to communicate. You expect me to believe what you promise when I’ve seen Xaros actions on three different planets?” she asked.

Minder folded his arms, then tilted his head to the side slightly.

“Why tell when I can show?” He clapped his hands together.

The
Breitenfeld
vanished and Torni found herself standing in a tower. The clear glass beneath her feet and surrounding her glowed with tiny circuits. She and Minder were thousands of miles above a planet. The tower stretched to the distant surface, cutting through clouds and reaching the very edge of space.

The planet around them had many more identical towers. The surface was nothing but a web of glowing connections and blinking lights from an urban sprawl that covered every mile but for a few lakes. 

“This was my home,” Minder said. “Eight hundred billion Xaros lived here, a minor world, nothing compared to the grand archologies in the core systems.”

“Why are we here?”

“See that?” He pointed to the starry sky. A black mass grew in the distance, snuffing out stars one by one as it grew larger, like an approaching tidal wave. “That is the annihilation wave. We used wormhole engines, the same as the
Breitenfeld
has, to travel from planet to planet. The risk was theoretical…so when we weighed the benefits of a star-spanning civilization against the miniscule chance of disaster, we chose to gamble.”

The darkness grew and touched the very edge of the planet. The tower shifted beneath their feet as the planet’s crust cracked open.

“We were warned,” Minder said, “and we didn’t listen.”

The darkness splashed over the planet, devouring everything it touched.

“Enough…enough!” Torni backed away and put a hand over her eyes as the inky mass came to the edge of the tower. He brought her hand down and she was back in the glade. 

“A few of us escaped.” Minder frowned. “But only a few. Our home galaxy, our empire…all gone. I have to stop this from happening to your galaxy, Torni. Will you help me?”

“And Earth? Humanity?” she asked.

“Spared.”

“What do I have to do?”