Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Read online

  “It’s more than just this notebook,” Tag said. “Everything else I told you is evidenced by the rest of the crew, data logs we recovered from the Mechanic casualties and stations we encountered, and, for the gods’ sake, your own experience with the Drone-Mechs. What I have here, even if it isn’t our end goal, is the first step of the trail that might lead us to the Drone-masters.”

  Now more of the Mechanics carried on disgruntled conversations until L’ndrant raised a trembling fist.

  “Quiet!” she said. The chatter ceased, and her golden eyes narrowed, focused on Tag. “We truly do admire your courage in defending our people and helping us retake Meck’ara. But we have only just retaken this world. Bracken’s show demonstrated the work we have to do here, and, machine willing, the Drone-Mechs or their Drone-masters won’t be back before we can at least reorganize our forces.”

  “She’s right,” a grizzled Mechanic admiral said. “Our fleet is spread thin as it is, and my time would be better spent organizing naval restructuring instead of listening to this factually unsupported thesis.”

  Tag shook his head, half-admiring the scientific way the admiral spoke. He had never heard such language from an SRE admiral, though it was common enough in his scientific circles.

  “This may be true, and I am inclined to dismiss the human’s claims outright,” L’ndrant said. The fur on her head smoothed, relaxing. “But I do think we at least owe it to him to hear what he’s requesting before we turn it down. Give us something we can work with, Brewer.”

  This earned a few reluctant huffs of agreement.

  “Go on,” L’ndrant said, motioning to Tag.

  “We are asking for your support to travel to these coordinates. My ship expended a great deal of our ordnance on route to Meck’ara. We graciously request a restock. In addition, if the coordinates are, as we suspect, the origin of the nanites and the Drone-masters, we believe it’s best if we act immediately. There won’t be time to send courier drones back and forth; we want to strike quick and we want to strike hard. I think it would be wise to send a Mechanic strike group with us.”

  The room erupted into shouts of dismay, and discordant voices clanged against Tag’s eardrums. He stood tall, like a lighthouse against the storm, and waited for L’ndrant to order them into silence again.

  One of the admirals shouted, “We cannot spare a single cruiser, much less a dreadnought and its escort!”

  “And what shall we defend ourselves with, the ruins of our planetary defense space stations?” another asked.

  L’ndrant held up a fist. “This is quite simply unreasonable.”

  Tag opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Bracken gave a slight shake of her head.

  “They are right, of course,” L’ndrant said, addressing Tag. “We cannot spare an entire strike group. It is best that we err on the side of caution, focusing on our defensive efforts at this point. We will, however, allow you to restock your ordnance. That, I believe, we can spare.” She looked to an admiral for agreement, and his black fur wrinkled in a furrow before he gave a sigh that Tag took for a yes. “But a strike group I cannot grant you.”

  Jaroon did not so much stand as float upward, his gelatinous body shifting vertically. “The Melarrey pledge their support. We have only a few dozen ships remaining. That is, as far as we know, the entirety of our species. I believe it’s best for my people that we leave most of our ships here to protect our civilians.”

  “Of course,” Tag said.

  “But we can commit my ship to your charge.”

  A Mechanic elected official stood, claiming the floor. “One ship? That’s all the Melarrey offer, and the human asks for an entire strike force from us?”

  Bracken stood next. “Because we can afford to do more. Even among the remnants of our civilization, Mechanic firepower reigns supreme, and it is only logical that we would shoulder the burdens of attacking those who have done our species wrong.” Her golden eyes narrowed. “And I will remind you, it is us who the Drone-masters insult. It is us who they enslave. Would it not be the pragmatic thing to do—to destroy them when they do not expect it?”

  Her chest swelled. “If I may borrow a phrase I have come to admire dearly from these humans: Let us catch these Drone-masters with their pants down. That is when they will be most unprepared. That is why we should support Captain Brewer’s mission.”

  Before the room could devolve into chaos once again, L’ndrant raised a preemptive fist. “Your argument isn’t without merit.” She stroked the mussed fur along her cheek. “But still, it would be most inconvenient—I think you’d agree—if the Drone-masters caught us with our pants down once again.”

  Bracken’s gaze drooped, and Tag felt something slide through him. Defeat. He and his crew would have to carry out their mission alone, with only the escort of a single Melarrey ship. As enthusiastic as Jaroon was to help them, he imagined their chances of success would be greatly improved with a squadron of Mechanic vessels to support them.

  “All that being said,” L’ndrant said, “it might be beneficial to offer some Mechanic support on this mission. If for nothing else, it may be a worthwhile intelligence-gathering exercise, as foolish as the odds of your little paper document yielding valuable information may be.” She looked around the room, searching the audience, before her eyes landed on Bracken. “Bracken, I believe you and your crew will be best suited for this mission.”

  Before Bracken or Tag could appeal for more reinforcements, L’ndrant continued, “Now go. We’ll have your ships restocked and prepared shortly. Go catch the Drone-masters with their pants down, and prove us wrong.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tag marched beside Sofia as they walked toward the Argo. They dodged a Mechanic-driven exo-suit carrying an armful of cargo destined for the Stalwart. Other exos moved about the Deep Origin’s dockyard, loading and unloading a host of Mechanic vessels.

  “L’ndrant is a real peach,” Sofia said.

  “Sure is,” Tag said. “Definitely not the type of a leader I’d expect from the Mechanics.”

  “What did you think she’d be like?”

  “I figured an accountant or something. Not someone as fiery as that.”

  “And, dare I say it, emotional?”

  “Yeah,” Tag agreed. “Very strange coming from the elected leader of the most robotic flesh-and-blood race I’ve ever met.”

  They merged with the stream of Mechanic technicians and droids resupplying the Argo, following the others into the cargo bay. The air car Tag had thought was beyond repair had indeed been repaired, much to his relief, and Coren had been sure to tell him it had everything to do with the Mechanics’ technical acumen. Alpha checked in new cargo and ordnance on her wrist terminal. She paused long enough in her inventory to spare Tag a perfunctory nod.

  “Captain Brewer, can you show us where to unload the torpedoes?” a Mechanic asked him.

  “Alpha, mind doing that for me?” Tag asked.

  She nodded again and led the Mechanic workers deeper into the ship. Tag almost smiled to himself. Never in the three hells could he have imagined a scenario where he was on an alien planet telling others where to drop off warheads on his ship. The medical bay and the laboratory still called to him, and he felt a little uncomfortable sitting in the captain’s crash couch. But more and more, he realized he was becoming accustomed to his new role.

  After all, this is what he had joined the SRE to do—to command a ship. It wasn’t the circumstances he thought he’d be doing it in. But when had the gods ever done anything according to a human’s plan?

  Sofia whistled, drawing Tag from his distracted thoughts. “Look at those torpedoes.”

  She pointed to the warheads that looked strikingly similar to the design of the Mechanics’ navy vessels. Each torpedo resembled a jet-black shark with sleek curves that would make it practically invisible in the depths of space.

  Bull sauntered over from where he’d been helping the marines load supplies into the bay. “Hell
of a lot more compact than the stuff Starinski Labs makes,” he said.

  “How does it compare in terms of power?” Tag asked.

  “Not much of a payload specialist,” Bull said, “but from what I gathered from Coren, these things are four or five times as powerful as the top-of-the-line Starinski ramjet warhead.”

  “So in other words, this will more than compensate for the ones the Drone-Mechs stole from us,” Tag said.

  “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

  “Starinski or Mechanic-made, that’s all that matters,” Tag said.

  “You got that right, Captain.” Bull slapped his hands together, rubbing his palms. “We’re going to blow these damned Drone-master xenos to the high heavens.”

  The redheaded marine gave Sofia and Tag a shit-eating grin before sauntering off to where the rest of his squad was bent over a crate, examining its contents. A dream-like expression crossed Sofia’s face. She pinched a bit of the foam-like packing material from one of the crates and crunched it between her fingers.

  Without looking up, she said, “You know, there is something I’ve been wondering.”

  Tag leaned against the bulkhead, checking the schedule for their launch on his wrist terminal. He didn’t have time for what felt like an impending esoteric philosophical or extraterrestrial anthropological conversation with Sofia. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Alexander the Great.”

  “Alexander the what?” Tag strained his mind trying to place the name. It evoked a vague memory from pre-interstellar history, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  “He was a great conqueror.” Sofia let the crumbles of the white packing material fall from her fingers. “Conquered most of the ancient world in Old Asia and Africa.”

  “Look, we’ve got a lot to do before taking off. Ancient history is certainly interesting, but—”

  “You lab scientist types are all alike,” Sofia said. “Always thinking about the future, but neglecting history. Where we’re going is determined by where we’ve been.”

  Tag raised a brow. “Fascinating.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sofia raised her hands defensively. “Here’s the deal. Alexander was a tremendous military leader. Had a lasting impact on the dispersion of culture throughout the ancient world. But most importantly, he was a brazen leader and great strategist. His victories weren’t purely on the battlefield.”

  “Okay, Professor Vasquez, where’s this going?”

  “Spies. He made good use of spies. Sent them to meet with dissidents to sow discord in his enemies’ cities and support his campaign. It worked well enough, but eventually he came in with the cavalry, revealing himself and breaking through their city walls.”

  Tag was a little more interested now. “And you’re suggesting we’ve seen the spies, they’ve sowed the dissidence, but we haven’t seen our Alexander.”

  “Precisely, Skipper!” Sofia clapped her hands together. “No sign of Alexander. No cavalry. Why is that?”

  “I’d say we showed their cavalry what we can do. Maybe we took down their cavalry when we deactivated the grav wave signals controlling the Drone-Mechs.”

  “Maybe,” Sofia said, but her expression showed she didn’t believe him. “But what if it wasn’t? What if the cavalry is still out there? Why hasn’t our Alexander shown himself?”

  “The answers to those questions would assume the Drone-masters are trying to unify the intergalactic empires they’ve conquered.”

  “Right. And so far, the massacre of the Mechanics and genocide against the Melarrey don’t fit the typical conquest goals of most cultures I’ve studied. Think about it. Why destroy a species and then just leave their stations and planets? What’s the goal here?” She shook her head. “Basically, every war in human history centered on conflicts over resources, and occupying nation-states almost always sought some kind of economic advantages after conquering another.”

  “From what we’ve seen, the Drone-masters haven’t set up mining operations or trade centers or anything like that on any of the Mechanic planets or stations.” Tag rubbed the back of neck, leaving his hand there. “They enslaved the Drone-Mechs, which I guess counts for using them as a resource. Even so, they didn’t make the Drone-Mechs do anything, just kept them hanging around the Mechanic planets.”

  “See, Skipper? The Drone-masters had the rest of the Mechanics dead to rights. But they never made any gesture to tell the Mechanics who they were or what they wanted. They never gave them the option to surrender or die. It’s all just...odd.”

  “And why bring this up now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sofia said. “It just seems important. Like something we should be thinking about. When we’re in the war room with the Mechanics or the Melarrey or the SRE, we can’t assume these enemies are like any we’ve faced. It’s imperative we figure out who we’re fighting and why they’re acting the way they are. We’ve got to understand them.”

  “Are you volunteering to go on an anthropological study with these Drone-masters?”

  “Fat chance. But—”

  “But your point still stands,” Tag finished for her. “This might be more than a quest for monopolizing all the galaxy’s resources. Something more nefarious might be going on.”

  “A-plus for you,” Sofia said.

  Tag felt a shiver snake down his spine. Even the most ferocious of predators killed because it needed to eat. But a creature—or race—that killed and enslaved others for no apparent reason?

  That was far more frightening.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The scent of sterile air reminded Tag of the Argo’s med bay, the space that had been his home for so long. It evoked images of smooth, contoured surfaces draped in blank whiteness and a uniform cleanliness, a universal tableau in a place of healing and medical research. But the Mechanic version of a hospital looked nothing like what Tag had imagined.

  Coren strode, tall and lanky, beside a Mechanic medical scientist named Pradr’n. Pradr’n didn’t wear the white lab coat or unisuit typical of human researchers like Tag but instead chose the same formfitting, black garb all the other Mechanics did. His, in contrast to the others, had three white bands on his upper arms; Tag presumed these signified his role as a researcher or doctor.

  Pradr’n led them through silver corridors filled with pods in columns like the fingers of dead giants reaching for the heavens. Stacked vertically, each pod contained a slumbering Mechanic. As normal as they looked, Tag knew these were no regular Mechanics. Each was a Drone-Mech with a self-assembling nanite antenna embedded within their brain. When Tag and Bracken had taken over the Lacklon Institute on Meck’ara, they’d interrupted the normal signaling that led these Drone-Mechs to act like barely sentient zombies, effectively shutting down the entire Drone-Mech fleet within the solar system.

  Though the Drone-Mechs weren’t dead, they weren’t quite alive either. They were like droids without a power source. Their bodies still pumped blood, still functioned on autonomous signals, but their minds had been seemingly erased. Researchers like Pradr’n were working to restore the neurological functions of these Drone-Mechs in hopes they could save the huge portion of their population more or less stuck in suspended animation.

  The aliens were visible through a polyglass shield with wires and tubes draping from the tops and into their ear slits, nostrils, and mouths. A few droids, each the size of a sparrow, buzzed around the huge room, scanning the comatose Mechanics, emitting a few beeps and then plugging in new cartridges of glowing solutions into the pods.

  “This is how you take care of patients?” Tag asked.

  “Similar to your regen chambers,” Pradr’n said, “if memory serves me correctly, only we employ far fewer live aids to our patient sectors.” He waved a hand around the atrium as his voice echoed against the alloy walls. “I am the sole medical officiant assigned to these chambers.”

  “All these patients and you still have time for research?” Tag asked.

  Coren and Pradr’n both scoffed as if
Tag had asked something ridiculous, like whether humans needed oxygen to breathe.

  “Most of the actual medical work is handled by the droids.” Pradr’n indicated one of the swooping, hovering droids with his gaze. “This frees me up to perform my research.”

  “With so much free time, have you made any progress?”

  The condescension in Pradr’n’s demeanor faded. “No, unfortunately our efforts have so far been unsuccessful.”

  “Their minds are difficult to read?” Coren asked.

  “Yes,” Pradr’n said. “None of our conscience-recording sensors show any sign of sentient activity within the Drone-Mechs.”

  Their footsteps clinked against the dark alloy floor, punctuating the momentary silence between them.

  “Does that mean their brains have essentially been wiped?” Tag asked, afraid of the implications. If they did find a way to recover them from their neurological stasis, they’d be literal shells of their former selves, nothing more than infants trapped in adult bodies. All traces of their personalities, memories, and knowledge would be swept away like light sucked into a black hole.

  “Their minds are, I regret to say, utterly inaccessible,” Pradr’n finally replied. “We can’t tell whether they are imprisoned somewhere behind the nanites or not. All we get when we probe the remnants of their conscience are wisps of static.”

  “I see,” Tag said. He imagined the scene was like this all across the Mechanic homeworld. Hospitals and research facilities, even warehouses filled with Drone-Mechs in stasis pods. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the Mechanics those Drone-Mechs had once been, trapped somewhere behind a proverbial nanite prison cell, yearning to break free of the mind-slaving technology. It brought back memories of his father, stuck on Earth, his own mind lost to neurological disease. There was many a day when he wondered if his father remained somewhere deep within his half-rotted brain, hidden behind the repeated questions and the dull glaze over his eyes.