The son of the couple who had departed on board the mothership had only vague memories of his parents. He was a grandparent. He worked the land, his body bent and worn by the physical labor of trying to produce enough food to survive. Once in a while he told his own offspring of watching the mothership depart, but with each passing year the story became more myth than real. Even the Revolution that had preceded the launch seemed distant, though the ruins of a city destroyed during the fighting could be seen on the western horizon. For those who lived in grass huts and caves, even the ruins of the city were overwhelming.
There were even those who wondered if their forbears had been right to revolt against the “gods.” Things must have been better when man could inhabit such glories as the ruined city indicated had once existed. The word freedom lost much of its strength when one’s back was weighted down with field work. Even the son wondered once in a while why his parents had abandoned him. What was out there among the stars that was more important than family?
Twelve years after the scout ship had landed on the planet, the Swarm Battle Core arrived. The couple’s son’s wife had died several years previously, her heart giving out as she worked in the fields. The son was confined to a chair and daily considered taking his own life rather than be a burden to his family.
When the Core appeared overheard, at first he thought it was the mothership returning, but then seeing how high up it was, he realized with a shudder that whatever was overhead dwarfed the size of the mothership. The shadow of the Battle Core covered half the planet, causing an unnatural eclipse.
The son remembered tales he had been told as a child and he spoke of the Ancient Enemy in whispers, but such babble meant little to his children and grandchildren who had not seen the mothership depart with their own eyes or remembered the wars and devastation that had preceded that event. Still, a feeling of dread swept over the surviving people as they gazed up at the behemoth.
The scout ship left the planet’s surface and rendezvoused with the Battle Core. The Core was in essence a self-sustaining mechanical planet with a star drive. Over six thousand miles long, by four thousand high, and two hundred wide, it was massive enough to generate a discernible gravity field.
The scout’s report indicated there was only one thing of value on the surface of the planet and that the inhabitants were no technological threat given the regression that had occurred. The report also said that the planet’s ecosystem had been so damaged by war that the intelligent life would not last beyond another two generations.
Report done, the scout was dispatched toward the site where the faster-than-light shift had occurred so many years previously and instructed to follow the track of the mothership.
Warships deployed from the Battle Core. The fleet spread out in equidistant orbit, bracketing the planet. Each capital ship was twice as large as a mothership and shaped differently, in the form of massive orbs with eight protruding arms bristling with weapons and launch portals. What was coming was exactly what they had been designed to do. The scout’s estimate that the intelligent life would be extinct in what was for those in the fleet a relatively short time mattered little. There was intelligent life there now.
Every arm on each ship launched planetary craft, spewing them out, smaller versions of the larger interstellar craft until there were over two million of them dropping down toward the planet’s surface. Like large black rain they descended, through daylight on one side of the planet and in darkness on the other, targeted toward population centers that had been mapped out by the scout’s infiltrators.
At precisely the same moment around the world the attack ships landed and portals opened.
The son saw one of the ships land in the field where his wife had died. When he caught a glimpse of what came out of the invading ship, it was worse than the horrible stories his father had once told. His heart gave in to the shock and he died in his chair.
He was one of the lucky ones.
When the rest of the inhabitants of the planet saw what came out of the invading craft the shock and fear paralyzed most. Some fought but were quickly overwhelmed. Then the harvest began and the screams reached into the heavens.
Duncan realized she was screaming in concert with what the Swarm had just shown her. The images disappeared and she opened her eyes, blinking away tears. She wondered how much of what she had seen was her memories, Swarm information, and her imagination. She knew the images of her son grown were her mind, projecting forward, as it had done so many times. But she also knew all she had seen was true in essence.
“Why do you do this?” she demanded. “Why do you kill and destroy?” “We keep the universe clean.” “‘Clean’?”
“Species like you are a disease that must be eradicated before you infect and destroy us.” “And the Airlia?”
“Yes. If we did not fight the Airlia, they would have destroyed us. We have found it is the way of all intelligent life. It centers on itself and sees all others as threats.”
“As you do.”
“Yes. And as you do.”
“Can’t species coexist?” Duncan asked.
“The history of the planet we just left indicates humans can’t even exist peacefully within their own species on a single planet. What do you think they would do with other species from other planets? They are a disease that must be stopped quickly before it infects us.”
“How much of Earth’s history has been due to interference from the Airlia?” Duncan demanded. “Have humans ever had a chance to make it on their own?”
“We do not care.”
Duncan wondered if she had led the Swarm to Earth. If the scout ship had successfully followed the mothership she and her husband, Gwalcmai, had been on. And her son? She had abandoned him to a terrible fate.
Garlin turned on the Ark and the probe blasted into Duncan’s brain, ending her ruminations as her head slammed back on the gurney from the pain.
The round table reappeared on the screen. But this time there were no knights sitting around it. Just a single man in battered armor seated facing the door to the chamber. A sword was on the table in front of him, the blade covered with dried blood.
The door opened and Duncan entered, walking around the table. She was in the same long robe with silver fringe as the previous vision. She took the seat next to the man, turning it so that she faced him.
The screen suddenly went dark and Garlin turned to the table. Lisa Duncan was staring at him, a muscle on the side of her jaw twitching. “No more. My memories are mine.”
Garlin turned back to the machine and upped the power for the probe.
Tension filled Duncan’s face as she consciously fought the invasion of her mind. Sweat poured down her forehead.
The screen flickered with color but no coherent images. Garlin continued to raise the power level.
The battle became so intense, the sweat was replaced with blood. But still no image appeared.
Mike Turcotte slept. And for the first time in months, he had no dreams. It was a deep, body-and- mind-replenishing slumber.
In the mothership control room, Yakov was carefully checking out the instruments, assuming that anything as drastic as a self-destruct for the mothership wouldn’t be easily accessible. He used the Majestic binder as a guide as much as he could. He was particularly focused on the part of the control panel that Aspasia’s Shadow had accessed. Weapons would be a useful thing to have ready when they reached the ship the Swarm was on and then Mars.