Marcus Donovan was deep inside Legacy’s secondary hull, her factory complex. From the observation platform where he stood, he looked out over a cavernous chamber lit in blue-green and filled everywhere with activity. The Shackleton Explorer was there, docked inside a series of orange constructor rings whose countless biomechanical arms twitched about and inspected the vessel. Legacy wanted to know more about human technology, and they both agreed the most direct route was to take a closer look. Faulkland was against it at first, but after six weeks of constant badgering, he finally caved and reluctantly allowed his boat to be brought inside.
The last of Shackleton’s crew moved to more comfortable quarters aboard Legacy, although the engineering team maintained a presence on the Shackleton to monitor its nuclear reactor. The chief engineer, Olli Enqvist, insisted the reactor was perfectly safe and could operate itself, but he preferred to err on the side of caution. Marcus smelled subtext.
All the while, Legacy was in a state of transformation. She had been quiet and despondent when she woke up, but the crew’s presence raised her spirits. Marcus didn’t completely understand it, but humans invigorated her somehow. She had been incomplete without them; now she was filled with purpose and an eagerness to please.
Legacy’s factory especially had become a constant hub of activity. She quickly constructed a small fleet of utility vessels shaped like pill-bugs, which the miners called tugs and adopted as their own. With the miners as their pilots, the tugs swarmed out to assay and retrieve asteroids, feeding them to the factory complex which hungrily digested tonne after tonne of ore. This led to the construction of yet more tugs, some of which joined in acquiring minerals, while others went about repairing Legacy’s hull.
Repairs across Legacy were moving faster than anyone expected, thanks primarily to the efforts of Juliette St. Martin, whose insights into the alien technology were unmatched by any of the engineers. Legacy’s internal systems more closely resembled biological structures than they did machines, and healing her was more like medicine than car-repair. Being an exceptional physician with plenty of experience and a keen interest in alien biology, Juliette was the perfect woman for the job.
Marcus suspected Juliette and Legacy were bonding in ways he never could, and the ship all but confirmed it. She was in fact growing quite fond of the doctor, and Marcus felt a twinge of jealousy which he realized was utterly absurd. The most confounding part was that he couldn’t figure out which of the two he was more jealous of.
The rest of the team were busy adapting their equipment to Legacy by trial and error. Mostly error. The ship learned to produce compatible electrical outlets after a bit of practice, so power wasn’t an issue, but all attempts to mate their computers to her information network failed. They were forced instead to setup their systems in tandem with hers, including a comm system which she essentially ferried signals to and from. Rao likened it to visiting a cutting edge radio-telescope and then being forced to use one’s own Victorian spyglass.
As Marcus stood there in the factory watching the machines do their work, Legacy repeated a request which she’d made a dozen times already. She explained that whole swaths of her memory had faded during her eons-long slumber, and she needed new patterns to fill in the gaps. Specifically, she wanted to dismantle the Shackleton and analyze its construction. She was sure she could interface with the crew more easily if she could better mimic their technology.
Marcus had done his best to put the decision off, but she was becoming more insistent. The honest truth was that the decision wasn’t his to make, though; the Shackleton wasn’t his ship. And even though he was now a permanent resident aboard Legacy, he doubted the rest of the crew were so enthusiastic about the idea. Dismantling the Shackleton would mean total commitment, and there could be no turning back.
“Alright, I’ll ask him,” Marcus said. He closed his eyes, looked around for Faulkland’s position, and received a picture of the Commander seated in one of the recreation facilities. They were like indoor parks, complete with simulated sun, wind and sky, and the crew had become enamored with them. The ship was also working on artificial grass, and by all reports was getting damned good at it.
Marcus spoke, and the ship echoed his voice at the Commander’s location. “Donovan to Faulkland, please meet me in the Shackleton’s docking bay.”
Then he leaned over the railing and waited, watching the constructor rings’ arms gingerly probe the Shackleton’s surface. Less than a minute later he heard the whoosh of the transit tube, followed by the dull clack of Faulkland’s boots on the hard floor.
“What’s on your mind, Marc?”
Faulkland was a straight shooter, and Marcus figured it best to come straight out. “She wants to dismantle the Shackleton.”
“Hell no.”
“Fair enough. I told her you’d say that, but she still wanted me to ask. She wants to improve how she interacts with us, and she thinks the most direct way would be to tear the Shackleton down and replicate its interfaces.”
Faulkland leaned over the railing next to Marcus, and he too watched the small insectoid arms examine his ship’s hull. “Do you know how long I had to waited to get my own explorer? I ran freight to the moon and back for ten years, Marc, then Mars for another three just to get my name on the list. This ship’s the only thing I ever wanted.”
“I know,” Marcus said, “and she’s a beauty. Best we ever built.”
“Don’t exaggerate. Seed I… now that was a piece of work. Brought a whole dang colony to Mars. I know it only had to do its job once, but man I woulda liked to be there to see it. Still amazed that it worked at all.”
“You and me both. How about the best I ever built then?”
Faulkland laughed. “See, that’s just it, Doc. The Shackleton’s just another project to you, another toy for you to fix, wind-up and send along its merry way. You don’t understand that she’s my ship. She’s my purpose.”
For the first time in his life, Marcus was in a place to understand what that meant. He had no intention of moving on ever again, because he’d found his purpose and he was ready to spend the rest of his life aboard her. “This may surprise you, Commander, but I get it. I’m understanding it better every day.”
Legacy understood, too. She considered the bond between ship and crew to be sacred. A crew was her purpose, her reason for being. A way to solve both of their problems occurred to her, and she passed it along to Marcus.
“She’s wants to offer you something in return,” Marcus said.
“I can’t imagine what would make me change my mind.”
Marcus turned towards him with an earnest look in his eyes. “How about a new a ship?”
“Come again?”
A number of faint memories flew through Marcus’ head, different ships of different types. “Once Legacy has adapted her systems for our use, she’s promised to build you a new Eireki cruiser. No more primitive fission reactor or spinner section. We’re talking about a hollow-drive powered, trans-atmospheric living ship with artificial gravity, able to make the trip from Earth to Mars in eight minutes flat.”
Faulkland was silent for a long time while he looked at his ship and considered. “Eight minutes to Mars?” he asked.
“Eight minutes.”
He turned to Marcus and motioned to his own temple. “I don’t need one of those things, do I?”
The neural interface on Marcus’ head had grown during the two months since it was attached, and the sight of it still disturbed the crew. He could hardly blame them. “No neural interface. That’s the point of pulling the Shackleton apart, right?”
“Good. I want to bond with a ship, but I don’t really want to ‘bond’ with a ship, if you catch my drift. I don’t need anyone else in my head.”
“So that’s a yes?” Marcus asked with a tentative smile.
“Yeah… just do it before I change my mind. I get input on the new ship’s design, too.”
“Of course,” Marcus said. “She wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Faulkland tapped his comm headset. “Faulkland to Enqvist, are you aboard the Shackleton?”
Marcus heard the transmission echo through his interface. “Yes, sir,” Enqvist said.
“Shut the reactor down, and then join us on Legacy.”
“Sir?”
“We’re scuttling the ship.”
“Roger. Does the big beast know how to deal with a hot reactor, sir?”
Faulkland looked to Marcus who nodded.
“Donovan claims she does. I’m inclined to believe him.”
“Aye aye, sir. Inserting control rods now. I’ll be out in five. Over and out.”
The Shackleton’s running lights went out and true to his word, Enqvist came out four-and-a-half minutes later. He waved up at the platform, and the constructor rings’ arms immediately began pulling the ship apart and examining each component. Faulkland grimaced, but didn’t look away. “It’s like watching a spider eat a fly.”
Legacy checked Marcus’ memory for images of spiders and was slightly offended at the comparison. Marcus didn’t feel the need to pass that along.
Both men watched the carnage for several moments more, until an incoming message interrupted them. “Shen to Faulkland and Donovan. We’ve just received a priority encrypted transmission from Ares Colony with your names on it.”
“On our way,” Faulkland said. He continued to watch his ship’s destruction for another second, then they both headed for the tube and left for the bridge. The trip took them from the factory to the primary hull and more than another kilometer to the bridge, all within thirty seconds, after which they were lowered down to the landing pad on the other side.
Faulkland marched double-time to Mason’s station down on the second tier, while Marcus used the gravity systems to fly there directly. This new trick left a look of surprise on everyone’s face.
“The transmission came straight from the office of the Colony Administrator, and requires both your biometric keys to decode. It’s pretty big. Would you like it transferred to private quarters, sirs?”
“No need,” Faulkland said, and placed his right hand on a lit pad where its measurements were scanned and converted into a decryption key. When he finished, Marcus did the same. A progress bar crawled across Mason’s monitor, and then flashed to say it had finished.
“The archive contains two separate files: a brief message from Ares and another larger file labeled… Radio Free Copernicus?”
Marcus cocked an eyebrow. “Play the message from Ares,” he said.
The screen went black and then showed Administrator Saladin, the greying but still potent head of Ares Colony, seated at his desk. The Great Seal of Mars was behind him, the Roman god of war posed triumphantly atop a caricature of Olympus Mons, motioning across the barren Martian plains. The administrator straightened his shirt and received a cue from someone off screen, then began. “This is a priority transmission to the heads of the Shackleton Expedition. As you’re aware, Earth has been silent for the past seventy-four days, and we’ve been monitoring the situation with cautious optimism. Today, we received and decoded a transmission that, if true, surpasses even our greatest fears.
“While we’re still working to confirm its veracity, I’ve decided to send you an unaltered copy. We would appreciate any thoughts you and your specialists might have, and we patiently await your response. Be blessed.” With that, the transmission ended.
“That was cryptic,” Faulkland said.
“And ominous,” Marcus added. “Mason, go ahead and load up the other file.”
Mason tapped at the keyboard a couple times, and the other transmission began. This time, the screen showed a video feed of the Earth from orbit in crystal clear and excruciating detail. The northern edge of the Amazon was visible, as was the horribly defaced northern coast of South America. The former territories of Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname were blackened husks, as if some force had simply burnt them away.
Even more striking were the two blue circular structures that had taken root in the rainforest, each measuring nearly twenty kilometers across. Tendrils spread out from them, reaching into the embattled jungles which were being overtaken by some kind of orange and purple growth. It looked like an infection.
Legacy was noticeably silent in Marcus’ head.
A voice accompanied the video feed, and Marcus thought it was familiar. ”…from here, you can just barely see what remains of Trinidad. I went there for vacation last year, and lemme tell you, it was a hell of a time. Great food. Good music. I suppose I can go ahead and add that to the list places I’ll never see again.
“And now for a station break. For those of you just joining us, this is Nils Jansen for Radio Free Copernicus, your eye in the sky in these troubling times. The footage is, as always, streaming live from our position three-hundred and twenty kilometers high above the Earth.
“But how did this happen? Well, it’s a funny story. Actually, it’s not really funny, but humor me… It all started about seventy-four days ago…”
Soon, all of the crew were on the bridge, and they watched the forty-five minute transmission from beginning to end in stunned silence. When it was over, they watched it again. As the second play-through finished, Faulkland asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Is it the Nefrem?”
Marcus didn’t know and Legacy was confused. The enemy shouldn’t have had any reason to come to the Garden. The whole system should have appeared dead and uninteresting to them. She was sure of it. The invaders’ craft and tactics were unfamiliar, too. Then again, a lot things can change in sixty-five million years.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe. If it is, Legacy’s not strong enough to engage them. Not yet. We need more time.”
“What about the men on Copernicus?” Sarah Park asked. “They don’t have much time left, sir.”
Jansen had been clear about that fact. Their rations were running low, and he didn’t know how much longer they could hold out. “We have to hope someone on Midway heard them. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else we can do.”
Park didn’t seem satisfied with that answer.
Marcus put his hand on Mason Shen’s shoulder and said, “I want you to send a priority classified message to Administrator Saladin.”
“What should it say, sir?”
“Transmission source confirmed and considered reliable. Shackleton Expedition now en route to Mars aboard new vessel. ETA three weeks. Tell them we aim to retake Earth, and to prepare for war.”