I blinked, typed it in, looked at the binary. Where had the Nanos gotten that one? I began to suspect they knew more than they were letting on. The message was confused, but they must have had something to work from.
“What language did you use as a basis for translation?” I asked aloud.
“Ancient transmissions from lost civilizations. The language used was the closest match, but error is highly probable.”
I rolled my eyes at the ship’s fear of errors and probabilities. It was better than nothing. Much better. “Alamo, when you transmit my messages to the Macros, I want you to transmit in the exact language of the lost civilization. Do not attempt to upgrade the transmission to match their current version. You will use the old language.”
“Ready.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure my hunch was right. How could I be? But I hoped that the Macro language was a newer version of an old language that the Alamo knew. If I transmitted in the old version, there was a reasonable chance they could understand it. If there was some degree of backward-compatibility, the kind of thing we often built into our human computer systems, they should be able to understand the old language. There were a lot of ifs in this series of suppositions, but it was the best I had.
What could it hurt to test my theories? At the very least it might keep this cruiser from blasting me for another few minutes.
“Message to transmit as follows: Do you understand this transmission? Please answer yes three times in this language if you do.”
“There is no translation of the please concept.”
I wasn’t surprised. “Okay then, omit that word from the transmission.”
The response came back in seconds. “Yes, yes, yes,” said the Alamo. I smiled. I had cracked the code.
What was my next move? Should I keep talking, or hand it all over to Crow and whoever was pulling his strings these days?
I sucked in air and froze, staring at the screens. This situation was getting bigger by the moment. Crow would want in on this. So would the people on the planet below me. They would all want in on it, right on up to the president and a dozen other presidents. But there wasn’t time for all that. This wasn’t a committee negotiation effort. The enemy was unbeatable and impatient. I believed they had been about to fire on me for taking too long just minutes ago. To be fair, the governments of Earth had every right to be involved in this discussion. But they weren’t up here sitting face-to-face with a Macro ship that was itching to blow them apart.
“Incoming message,” said the ship.
I sighed. Crow again, no doubt. “Let’s hear it.”
A bunch of beeping and squealing bounced off the walls. It was the Macros. “Alamo, is that the old Macro language? The same as the one you sent to them?”
“Frequency variations make it non-identical. Signal terminators match. Concepts are intelligibly structured.”
“Then translate it, assuming it is in the old language.”
“Incoming Message: Identify yourself.”
I smiled. I’d done it. Despite the worst interface in the world, I’d gotten this Nano ship to do what I wanted, again. “Contact Crow. Relay this conversation feed to him. Then tell the Macros this: I am Colonel Kyle Riggs of Star Force.”
“Incoming Message: You are the leader of the indigenous resistance forces.”
“Was that a question or a statement, Alamo?”
“A statement.”
“How did you figure it out, Kyle?” asked Crow, breaking in. He sounded incredulous.
“Never mind that. I’ve got them talking. What the hell do we do now?”
“What do they want?”
“I’ll ask them. But shouldn’t we get Earth into this?” I asked.
“No. It’s my policy that if something is above the surface of the planet, it’s Star Force business.”
“And I thought I had serious balls.”
“You do Kyle, you really do.”
“Do you want to talk to them directly?” I asked.
He paused. “No, you keep talking to them. You are very smooth with computers, mate. They like you. Get them to go away peacefully if you can… but don’t give away Australia.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Incoming Message: You are the leader of indigenous resistance forces.”
“Tell them yes. Yes, I’m speaking for this world,” I said.
As I spoke those words, they sounded extremely crazy to me. How had it come down to this? How had I gotten myself into this position?
-40-
“Send them this: What do you want from us?” I told the ship.
“Incoming Message: Peaceful capitulation with non-damage to our fleet.”
I snorted. Didn’t everyone want that? To win the war without a fight?
“Tell them we wish to end this conflict peacefully as well.”
“Incoming Message: Surrender terms accepted.”
“Whoa!” I said. “Tell them we have not agreed to surrender. We have agreed to a truce.”
“Incoming Message: Terms unacceptable.”
I thought about what they had said so far. They were hesitating for a reason. The only thing I could think of was the size of their fleet. Before, they’d thrown a ship or three at us. We’d beaten them every time. Now, however, they faced us with a big fleet. That meant they had a higher chance of destroying us. But it also meant that they would take a much bigger loss if we somehow managed to defeat them a third time. I tried to think like a computer. They were not emotional. They did not have self-confidence, they had probabilities. They did not have complete data about us. They had miscalculated more than once. Now, they were uncertain. To them, I expected that the risk-reward ratio limit had been exceeded. Attacking us wasn’t quite worth the chance that we might destroy their big fleet.
The line they had sent me, about wanting our capitulation without damaging their ships, that was very telling, really. They were simple in their diplomatic thinking. They gave away the truth immediately. I thought hard. If they feared a possible repeated miscalculation, another loss on their part, they could be bargained with. I could use that fear against them.
“Tell them we will cost them a great deal of loss if they attack. We have beaten them twice in space and once on the ground. We are stronger now than before. We want a truce.”
“Incoming Message: Terms unacceptable.”
I frowned. “What could we give you to make the terms acceptable?”
“Incoming Message: Your star system and its resources.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Incoming Message: Your species will be removed.”
A chilling message. What made it worse was that I believed, in my bones, they could do it. I thought hard. What did we have that might interest them—more even than our raw resources?
“We could become your allies.”
“Incoming Message: Your military is too weak to warrant such status.”
I nodded to myself. At least they understood the concept of an alliance. Perhaps they had other allied peoples. I decided to work that angle, to talk us up a bit.
“We destroyed Macro ground forces. Our ground forces proved superior to yours.”
There was no immediate response to that. Seconds stretched out into a full minute. I began to believe that I had blown it. I’d insulted them one too many times, and they had had enough. I felt sweat bead up all over me. I thought of a dozen nice things to say, but I held back. They hadn’t fired yet.