by Terry Mixon
“I’ve tried making a map of the various multiflip points that we’ve explored, but it looks like spaghetti. Honestly, I don’t think a visual representation is ever going to be useful to us humans, but I’ve come up with an analogy that might give you a better idea of what the multiflip point network looks like.
“When I was growing up, my mom gave me a toy ball made out of hand-carved wooden dowels and wheeled hubs. Basically, each dowel led to a hub that had more dowels coming out of it that led to different hubs in turn.
“The multiflip point network doesn’t form a sphere, but each individual multiflip point is like those hubs and branches in the toy. While it’s possible to jump from one hub to another and even back to the one you came from via a different hub, the truth is much grander than that.
“I suspect that if you explored nothing but multiflip points, you could cross from one edge of the galaxy to the other, given enough time. It’s like each multiflip point covers a small subset of the stars within range of it. I call those nodes.
“Obviously, a node is an extremely small subset of multiflip points, but other nodes nearby incorporate a new subset of systems. If we look at all the nodes that are within range of Twilight River, the chances that one of those multiflip points has a branch that leads to Twilight River is quite high.”
Kelsey pursed her lips. “I think I understand what you’re saying. If I remember right, the normal flip points only cover about one in ten stars. You’re saying that the multiflip points cover a much wider and deeper zone than that. If you add the two kinds of flip points together and add in far flip points, what kind of coverage are we looking at? Are any stars unreachable?”
“You can’t prove a negative,” Carl said with a shake of his head. “The closest we could come to determining that is to have a lot of ships scouring a relatively small sector of space until they’d found every single flip point. Even then, you couldn’t be sure that you didn’t miss one.
“But, if I had to guess, I’d wager that there are some stars that are unreachable. The percentage is going to be lower than what everyone has always assumed.
“I think we’ve got a roughly three-in-four chance of finding a way into Twilight River. The trick will be exploring all of the potential locations without having someone see us or having events overtake us.
“With the Clans going to war against the Rebel Empire, that’s going to stir the pot. Maybe it’s going to help us, but I’ll bet it won’t be long before they strike at Twilight River as well.”
Kelsey sighed. The Clans might’ve descended from the crews of Old Empire Fleet vessels that had escaped the Fall through what had turned out to be a multiflip point that seemed like a one-way trip, but they’d grown into a strange society that had been raiding the Rebel Empire for unwilling colonists—particularly women—to bolster their population numbers for centuries.
They were the most paranoid and aggressive group that Kelsey had ever met. After Commander Raul Castille—a now-deceased Rebel Empire security officer—had used the stolen Dresden orbital to smash one of the Clan’s defensive stations, Kelsey had been forced to destroy the responding ships, because they just wouldn’t stop shooting.
It was a blessing that the Clans believed that the Rebel Empire was responsible for the attack—which it was—rather than the New Terran Empire, but that didn’t help them all that much.
The Singularity—a polity that had been at odds with the Terran Empire since before the Fall—had found the Clans and had been reinforcing them for a long time. That meant they had a lot of ships that they could use to fight the Rebel Empire or the New Terran Empire if anyone ever discovered it existed.
And with the existence of multiflip points and far flip points, that meant that discovery was always possible. They needed to get the information they had back home so that Fleet could map the new flip points, or an enemy might be able to waltz right past their defenses, just like they intended to do to the master AI.
As for the Singularity, no one really understood what they hoped to gain from all this, but Kelsey was willing to bet it wasn’t going to be good for the people living in the Rebel Empire or the New Terran Empire.
Kelsey checked the time via her implants. Since they weren’t at risk of immediate discovery and it would take hours before their probes gave them any detailed information, she might as well get something to eat. She was starving, which was basically her normal condition with Marine Raider augmentation.
“Stand down from battle stations, Angela,” she ordered, slapping one hand against the back of the command chair. “Rotate people off of their duty stations to get something to eat, and take a little bit of downtime yourself.
“Carl, if you’ve got some time, I’d like to sit down with you and Fiona and try to increase my understanding of the multiflip point network.”
He nodded and rose from his station. “The passive scanners will continue compiling data, and I’ll keep an eye on the process remotely while we talk. I’m not sure how much more effectively I can describe things without going into mathematics that might be a little… obscure to the uninitiated.”
“Use the smallest words you can. If my eyes roll up into my head and I fall out of my chair, you’ve gotten too scientific for me.”
He laughed as they made their way off the bridge and headed toward the cramped wardroom.
Kelsey didn’t doubt that he was right, but she had to try and grasp the new reality they’d found themselves in. That knowledge might prove critical to saving everyone that she cared about.
2
Talbot opened the pinnace’s hatch and scanned the ground around it as the ramp extended and lowered. The science people had declared that this world was eminently habitable, with decent temperatures and plenty of oxygen. The gravity was slightly less than on Avalon but not so much that he’d notice.
The air around them was clear and smelled of nature. It wasn’t precisely like what one would find on Avalon or Terra, but it was refreshing and wholesome.
There had been no indication that humans that ever been to this system. It only had a multiflip point, so that made sense. The Old Empire hadn’t even suspected such a thing existed.
Admiral Mertz had ordered a complete search of the system, and they’d found nothing of an artificial nature. To all appearances, this was a world that had never developed a civilization of its own or been visited by humans.
That didn’t mean there were no mysteries to be solved, though.
He took a couple of steps down the ramp and pivoted to cover the left side of the pinnace with his flechette rifle as the rest of the platoon came down behind him.
The final person out the hatch was Jake Peters, formerly a major in the Marine Raiders from the Old Terran Empire. They’d found him on Terra, and he was a mystery all his own. He was living proof that the nanites that ran in Talbot’s blood could grant a life span measured in centuries.
Peters was also a cautionary tale. He’d been a real mess when they’d found him, a paraplegic with only one crippled hand, a single eye, and a lot of pain. The people that had been supporting him on Terra during the Fall had slowly morphed, generation by generation, from his caretakers into his captors.
They’d seemingly venerated him as a god but didn’t allow him much choice in anything they did. It seemed to Talbot that Peters had become more of a status symbol than anything else, a figurehead that the leaders of the group used to justify their rule.
Now that Lily Stone had fixed him up with Raider-grade artificial limbs and a replacement eye, the man looked absolutely normal. That didn’t mean that he’d recovered from the trauma he’d suffered over what would typically be multiple lifetimes, but it was a start.
Talbot had taken the lead in his physical therapy. Being there for the man had helped him through some really dark places, but he thought Peters was on the upswing.
For the first time, Peters was along on a mission as part of the team. He didn’t have an official slot in the chain of
command, because he wasn’t ready for it.
Talbot was hoping that this outing would cement things for the man so that he could get on with his life. While he was happy to have Peters’s insight and advice, he’d like to have the man’s skills and experience at his beck and call as well.
He and Kelsey had been fumbling their way along. They’d learned what they could and made do with the gaps they’d suspected they’d never be able to fill. Peters had irrevocably changed that equation.
He’d gone through the original training and learned everything. Then he’d risen through the ranks and become the commander of a strike ship like Persephone. He was the real deal, and the New Terran Empire needed him and his know-how badly.
Over the last six months, Peters had reviewed their training regimen and made many changes. He’d highlighted gaps that they hadn’t even been aware of and provided training that they’d never have figured out on their own. Now they’d be able to train men and women like Peters, but no one living could match his experience.
But that was something to think about later. Talbot needed to focus, or something might very well eat him in the next few minutes.
The humid air smelled like there was rain in their future. A couple of clouds off to the west certainly held the potential of becoming a storm.
The plant life was relatively primitive. No trees as he recognized them, just various kinds of ferns that occasionally looked like monster shrubs.
The animal life trended reptilian, though he’d seen some images of what were probably mammals. In fact, the wildlife was what was causing so much consternation in the fleet.
Even though there was no evidence that humanity had ever visited this system, the life on this planet certainly seemed to be Terran in origin. Not from modern times, geologically speaking, but from far earlier.
“Any sign of the critters?” Peters asked, swinging his rifle to the right while the marines set up a perimeter.
“The drones say they’re not very far off. If they’re what the eggheads think they are, they’re going to be aggressive. I know that they’d prefer we take one alive, but I’m not sure how well stunners will work on a velociraptor. Or whatever they are.”
“Don’t forget that those things probably hunt in packs,” Peters added. “In a way, I suspect they’re a lot like wolves. If you take your eyes off the group as a whole to focus on one, one of them will slip up behind you and try to bring you down. We’ve got to use the drone feeds to tag every single hostile. One moment’s inattention could kill someone.”
That was the voice of a hard-bitten professional who knew his business. Talbot approved.
Talbot brought up an overlay of the area based on feedback from the drones. They’d identified a pack of several dozen velociraptors—if that was really what they were—just a short distance away.
Based on how they were slowly circling the landing site, they’d seen the pinnace come down and were investigating. Once they’d determined that the strange metallic object contained what they might consider snacks, they’d probably come running.
“Stunners at the ready, First Squad,” he ordered. “Everyone else, be ready to eliminate any leakers. Nobody gets through. Got it?”
Acknowledgments flowed back to him through the tactical net, and Talbot found himself standing in the center of the group arrayed around the pinnace’s ramp with Peters watching the other side.
“You know we could’ve probably had one of the drones tag one, right?” Peters asked in an offhand tone, never taking his eyes off their surroundings.
“Maybe,” Talbot admitted. “The problem I see with that is that its buddies would probably chow down on it as soon as it fell over. We’re also going to gather some vegetation and take a look around to see what else we can find.”
“Are you expecting to find aliens? I don’t think that’s very likely.”
“I’m not ruling anything out. These last few years have been odd, and you’d be surprised at some of the things we’ve stumbled across. You know about the Pandorans and the aliens that probably created them, but there are other things that you’re not cleared for yet. Trust me when I say that the universe can get very strange.”
The velociraptors abruptly changed direction and set off directly toward the pinnace. Talbot sent out an alert via his implants and waited.
The ferns were reasonably thick, but they’d picked a spot that had a clearing of sorts so that they’d have some visibility when their targets broke into sight. He thought that would be enough, but it turned out that he was mistaken. Velociraptors were fast.
They charged right out of cover and tried to throw themselves onto the marines. There was no subtlety to the attack at all. He had just a few moments to confirm that these were the two-legged, feather-covered predators he’d been expecting before the marines opened fire.
First Squad’s stunners proved effective against the attacking creatures, taking down the first wave without any trouble. Unfortunately, the second wave was right on its heels and already leaping to the attack, undeterred by what had happened to their companions.
The rest of the marines opened fire with flechette rifles, blowing the offending predators into bloody chunks. Talbot expected the survivors to flee, but they continued the attack, and in just thirty seconds, there were none left standing.
A quick check revealed that none of his people had been injured. It turned out that his plan to gather samples had been riskier than he’d anticipated. He’d make a note of that going forward and maybe just send down people in powered armor.
Let the local wildlife chew on that.
Getting the living samples would be disgusting, because the surviving creatures were covered in blood and gore. It was difficult to tell at a glance which ones they were going to take alive and which would end up as tissue samples.
Worse, the critters smelled terrible.
It wasn’t just the scent of blood and death. The creatures literally smelled like rotting meat. The stench probably came from their mouths, where the remains of their last few meals were likely caught in between razor-sharp teeth.
“First Squad, move out and secure the samples,” he ordered. “Use the cages that the eggheads provided for some of the live ones. Everyone else, keep your eyes open. We might get more visitors.”
His implants signaled an incoming signal from Invincible.
“Talbot,” he said out loud, using the com attached to his uniform to answer.
“Mertz here,” his brother-in-law and fleet commander said. “How’s it going?”
“We had a little bit of excitement, but everything’s under control now. We should have the samples gathered in about twenty minutes.”
“Excellent. Before you come back up, I’ve got a new mission for you. A com signal just started up in a mountain range about fifteen hundred kilometers to your west. It’s covering a lot of bands and is strong enough to reach orbit.
“It’s only a repeating tone, so it looks like a beacon to me. I have no idea who’s down there, but it looks like they’ve detected your landing and would like to chat.”
Talbot personally doubted that it was the aliens who’d populated this world with creatures from Terra, but he wasn’t going to rule it out. Like he’d told Peters, the universe was strange.
“Copy that. We’ll check it out.”
3
Carl watched the small display in his makeshift office aboard Persephone with growing frustration. He’d expected this system to be heavily defended based on how close it was to Twilight River, but the AI forces present had exceeded his expectations by a wide margin.
Currently, they’d detected more than fifty destroyers moving throughout the system, all continually scanning for threats—threats that couldn’t possibly be there based on the information the AIs had. All of the system’s known flip points were heavily guarded, implying that there were also defenses on the other sides of the regular flip points.
The defenses at those chokepoints were mostly n
onmobile. Large, heavily armed battle stations sat in a globe around each of the flip points. He supposed they would be equally good defending against something coming out of the flip point or anything trying to get into it.
Since they’d determined that the layered defenses for the master AI started about five flips away from Twilight River, this wouldn’t be the heaviest concentration of defending units that they’d have to face, either.
There was absolutely no way that the fleet that Admiral Mertz had brought from the New Terran Empire could possibly breach the flip point leading toward Twilight River, much less deal with the forces in the next system. If they couldn’t find a back door to Twilight River, they weren’t getting at the master AI at all.
None of the ships or stations were communicating with one another, and he’d only been able to detect the ships because they were moving at a decent clip through normal space, so their gravitic signatures gave them away. It was likely that other ships were lying in wait at various locations scattered throughout the system.
Frankly, that wouldn’t surprise him at all.
The AIs had already proven themselves clever by positioning robotically controlled battlecruisers deep in the atmospheres of gas giants in a number of systems that they occupied inside the Rebel Empire.
As Carl had expected, there was nothing of interest in the system. It had never been occupied by humanity, and that hadn’t changed in the centuries since the Fall.
He’d mapped out the unexplored branches leading from this system’s multiflip point, to no avail. Each led back to systems they’d already explored. To get into any new systems, Persephone would have to backtrack a few branches and expand the search.
It had taken them six months to get from Terra to the general area around Twilight River. They’d been probing the multiflip point network and searching out far flip points the entire way, trying to find the elusive back door they needed. This system was the closest they’d gotten, but it was a bust.