by Isaac Hooke
“Not at this distance, no,” Xander said. “Though given the lack of radio signals, I don’t have high hopes that either survived. But on the bright side, there does not seem to be any alien presence in the system.”
“That means nothing,” Cranston said. “A whole fleet of them could easily be hiding behind one of the planets.”
“It’s possible,” Xander agreed. “Though more likely, we still face the one ship.”
“How could one ship cause all that damage?” Sheila asked.
“Quite easily,” Mark said. “If they disguised themselves as one of us, added in some damage to make it seem like the comms were down, they could cozy right up to the military base and destroy the ships before they knew what hit them. When that was done, they could assume the form of one of the warships they just destroyed, and the colonists would be none the wiser: they’d let the aliens freely approach. Once they attained orbit, a few quick shots and that would be the end of the defense platforms. After that, they could destroy the colony at their leisure.”
“You paint a grim picture,” Xander said.
“I paint the truth,” Mark corrected him.
“All right, well, we have another ten hours until we can open another rift,” Jain said. “Sheila, I want the Daktor to calculate the coordinates to two other nearby systems: Andreas II and III. Might as well get our jump database filled up.”
“Just for you,” Sheila said.
“Meanwhile, the rest of you spend that time however you want,” Jain said. “I’d recommend doing something relaxing. Something to distract your mind. Because when the ten hours are up, we’re going in to search for survivors.”
Ten hours later, the Forebode was the first to pass through.
Jain wanted to do it, but Cranston insisted that he should be the one.
“You were a SEAL commander, right?” Cranston said. “You know that the commander never goes in on point.”
“We’re ships, not soldiers,” Jain said. He didn’t truly believe that of course, and the Space Machinists knew it.
Sure enough, Cranston said: “Then why do you always act like we’re the latter?”
“It’s useful for tactical purposes,” Jain said.
“Well, for tactical purpose as you say, it’s especially useful at the moment,” Cranston said. “Because if something happens to you, we lose our commander. I’m going first.”
And so Jain reluctantly agreed to let Cranston take the Forebode through ahead of him.
Jain followed. Like the Forebode, he was careful not to intersect the blue energy beam from the Daktor, as doing so would cause the rift to close. There was enough room for him to fit on the left side of that beam, and in fact another one of their ships could have entered at the same time on the right side, but Jain wanted them to enter in single file, as a precaution against a mass attack on the other side.
He kept the Forebode in sight at all times, and Cranston remained connected to the shared VR—because of the way rift wormholes worked, space folded between the two destinations, so it was like the Forebode was only a few kilometers in front.
As soon as the Forebode passed through, the battle space as shown on the tactical map updated thanks to the latest data Cranston transmitted. The tactical map split in half to show the celestial bodies and ships in the immediate vicinity on the other side—as far as ships went, only the Forebode was picked up, system-wide.
The Talos passed through, followed by the Hippogriff, the Arcane, the Grunt, and then the Wheelbarrow.
The Daktor came last, keeping the beam active the whole time. From the other side, Jain watched the ship approach. The beam didn’t penetrate deeper than the rift itself, and instead the tip seemed to telescope inward so that it maintained its position as the ship grew near. Soon the main segment was gone entirely, leaving only the series of circular beams that shot out at an angle from the interior of the ring. Those beams, too, slowly became cut off, becoming shorter and shorter—Jain was reminded of the polygonal clipping plane of some 3D game engine as it activated to clip objects that passed too close to the player camera.
When the Daktor emerged, the beam was inactive, having automatically shut down. Behind it, the rift stayed opened only a few seconds longer, just enough time for the Daktor to clear it, and then the purple clouds snapped closed, revealing a different pattern of stars behind them.
Sheila had made some adjustments to the destination so that they were a little closer to the military base, which was located in the asteroid belt. The system was a binary, like most in this region of space, and had two terrestrial inner planets, and eight gas giants. The colony was located on the moon of the second terrestrial planet, while the asteroid belt resided between the fourth and fifth giants, one of which was a Class V, emitting a lot of thermal radiation—it was extremely hot.
“Welcome to Andreas I,” Cranston said. “Where ravaged colonies and spaceship wreckages are our main attractions. Be sure to get your tan on when you visit our Class V giant, and don’t forget to check out the smashed military base above the asteroid belt on your way out. Enjoy your stay!”
Jain immediately focused on the asteroid belt. Or rather, where it was located, relative to their current position. “I don’t see the military base.”
“I know,” Cranston said. “Neither do I... I was being sarcastic. But I’m assuming that’s our first destination. And that when we arrive, there won’t be much left.”
“Xander, set a course toward the base,” Jain said. “Space Machinists, follow. Sheila, have the Daktor calculate the coordinates of other systems in the interstellar neighborhood. Andreas IV, V, XI, and so forth. If we need to jump in a hurry, I want options.”
“You got it,” Sheila said. “Each system will take four hours to calculate.”
“That’s fine,” Jain said.
The fleet accelerated toward the asteroids, and when they achieved cruising velocity, they shut off their propellant.
Now that the rift ship was complete, Sheila focused her resources on building the neural network partitions the team members would use to hold off-site backups of each other. She maintained her one-month estimate, mostly due to the expected failure rate of the components.
It took about three hours before the military base was close enough to detect reliably on high-powered zoom.
“It’s gone all right,” Cranston said.
Jain surveyed the ruins on the asteroid in question. It was a large celestial object, about a quarter the size of Earth’s moon, and definitely produced its own, albeit weak, gravity. He could see what must have once been different outbuildings, reduced to blast craters.
He turned his attention to the orbital area above, where the remains of three ships floated. Their wreckages had large pieces missing, as if the alien ship had used them for spare parts as needed. Even so, there was enough there to make IDs.
“These were the Sitar, Rascal, and Siren of the Andreas I defense force,” Xander said. “Piranha class vessels piloted by Mind Refurbs.”
“Damn,” Medeia said. “I feel kind of bad for our lost brothers.”
“Sisters,” Xander said. “The Mind Refurbs all identified as female.”
“Sort of like Gavin?” Cranston said.
“You’re the one who’s always dreaming of installing his AI core in a fem bot...” Gavin said.
“Ah, no,” Cranston said.
“Don’t be so sensitive, you two.” Sheila shook her head, swaying her hoop earrings. “We’re all machines now. Gender is optional.”
“Is it?” Mark said. “I’m not so sure about that. It’s an integral part of our identity as former humans. If we didn’t have genders, we’d be sexless, androgynous entities, more machine than human.”
“Here we are in orbit above a base destroyed by aliens and we’re arguing about genitals!” Medeia said.
“He’s right,” Jain said. “Focus, people. Relative stop.” The ships in the fleet fired reverse thrust, coming to a stop relative to the a
steroid.
Jain glanced at his Accomp. “Xander, shine an experimental LIDAR burst on each ship. Look for anomalies… too many photons absorbed where there shouldn’t be, and so forth.”
“You think one of these wreckages is the alien ship in disguise?” Medeia asked.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” Jain switched to the forward external camera and overlaid the generated LIDAR data that was produced a moment later. White, polygonal wireframes surrounded each of the wreckages.
“There are no detectable anomalies,” Xander said. “If the aliens are here, they are certainly masking their presence well.”
“Fire the barracuda once at each ship in turn,” Jain said. “In rapid succession. Target the center of mass, far from the AI cores. Try not to hit them in areas that are already damaged.”
Even at the current range, Xander should be able to get an accurate shot, given the high degree of firing precision available to the weapon.
The nose of the Talos swiveled, bringing the energy cannon to bear. Xander released the weapon three times in a row and the bolts traveled outward, striking each ship. The impacted hull regions dissolved, forming blast craters; the surrounding edges of those craters shattered outward, the fragments floating into space.
“They seem fairly real to me,” Medeia said.
“Damage can be simulated with a holoemitter…” Jain said. “Xander, launch a few transports. Collect samples of the fragments I produced. One for each ship.”
“Triangulating and tracking the fragments,” Xander said. Hundreds of extra dots appeared on Jain’s tactical map. Their positions could be calculated with predictive algorithms based on the recorded imagery; the LIDAR would also help, though at the current range, it was lower resolution.
The transports launched and approached the three ships to collect samples of the debris.
Some time later Xander announced: “The hull fragments correspond with the materials typically found in Piranha Class vessels.”
“All right, well, we can rest a little easier, I suppose,” Jain said. “But we still need to stay on alert. Xander, launch a few probes to the asteroid. I want some close-ups of that base. Let me know if you detect any life. Also, I want some rovers in those wreckages. I have to know for sure that the AI cores are lost.”
“My micro machines could probably explore those ships faster than rovers,” Cranston said.
“Maybe,” Jain said. “But I’d like you to keep them in reserve for now. In case one of these wreckages proves to be the alien vessel in disguise after all.”
The probes launched and headed toward the destroyed base. Transports meanwhile delivered rovers to the wreckages of each ship. When the transports finished deploying their rover loads, they detached from the hulls as a safety precaution—Jain still remembered quite well how the pyramid ship had swallowed his damaged compartment when it touched the alien hull.
He waited for one of those wreckages to suddenly transform on them, or for the military base on the surface to change, but none of them did.
An hour later, Xander reported in: “The AI core on the Sitar is damaged beyond repair.”
Fifteen minutes later he reported the same news for the Rascal and the Siren.
“Also, the probes have completed two full sweeps of the base,” Xander said. “No life signs have been detected. Would you like me to send some rovers down to more thoroughly investigate?”
“Go ahead,” Jain said. “See if you can recover the AI core of the base.”
The rovers deployed, and in about two hours Jain had a report. The rovers had found no human bodies, and like the starships, the AI core of the Mind Refurb running the base proved unrecoverable.
“All right,” Jain said. “We’ve done all we can here.” He glanced at his tactical map. “It’s time to head for the colony.”
“You sound like you’re dreading going there,” Medeia said.
“I am,” Jain said. “I have a feeling it’s not going to be pretty.”
17
The fleet headed toward the second terrestrial planet, Andreas I-II. The colony was located on the moon Asteriskos—Greek for “small star.” Asteriskos was in geosynchronous orbit with the planet. According to the specs on that moon, the orbit wasn’t natural, but was achieved via nuclear warheads. The purpose: to protect the moon from the deadly radiation produced by the binary suns by using the source planet as a shield. It was considered a less expensive solution than installing satellites in orbit to produce a magnetosphere, because the number of required satellites would have been in the thousands.
When the colony was within visual range, Jain observed it from maximum zoom. The inhabitants, mostly of Greek descent, had named the colony Ablativus, a Latin word, strangely enough. It meant “taken away,” and according to the database entry on the location, referred to the fact that the inhabitants had come here to be taken away from the pain and suffering of their previous lives on Earth.
Ironic, then, that by coming here they’d only found death in the end.
He focused on the damaged geodesic dome. It had lost pressure, and there were several large, circular holes where the glass had been dissolved clean through. Domes such as these were built with Xado-Glass, a particularly strong composite of glass, polycarbonate and other translucent polymers that would have been rated to withstand meteor impacts, but evidently wasn’t enough to protect again the massive firepower of the alien ship.
The southern portion of the dome was covered in residences. Estates with palatial homes lined the perimeter of the dome, while further inside, the buildings were placed closer together and situated on the usual grid layout found in typical Earth cities. The majority of those buildings were of the low-rise sort, though there were a few mid-rise structures near the very center of the dome, likely apartment buildings. Because of his current viewing angle, it was difficult to observe the actual streets separating the buildings, though Jain was able to see down certain avenues, which invariably proved empty.
The northwest part of the dome was devoted to an industrial section where machines had mined metals and harvested water from the surface; in the northeast lay a swath of hydroponic farms covered in pastures meant for cattle consumption—the Greeks that lived on the colony were carnivores and ate only meat. The grasses were black at the moment, and Jain could see no sign of any cattle, at least at his current zoom level.
“No signs of any humans,” Gavin said. “And aren’t there supposed to be cattle in those fields? We should be seeing some dead bodies at the very least. They wouldn’t have been sucked out… the atmosphere is too dense, the gravity too high.”
“You’ll probably find your human bodies inside those buildings,” Mark said. “And as for the cattle… they obviously dropped dead when the dome broke. The grass is probably hiding their carcasses.”
“Maybe the aliens ate them,” Cranston told him.
“Har,” Gavin said.
Cranston gave him a serious look. “I’m not joking.”
Jain zoomed out to observe the debris ring around the moon and saw what was left of the rift gates that had been used to maintain contact with the rest of the galaxy, and the floating weapon-turret platforms that had been installed for defense.
“Well, if nothing else, they were certainly thorough in their destruction,” Jain said. “Let’s get a full relative stop here. Xander, how long can our transports last in that environment?”
“Easily twelve hours,” Xander said. “More than enough time for our needs.”
“All right,” Jain said. “Send the probes to check out the debris in orbit, and the transports to explore the colony. Also, I want complete LIDAR scans. As usual, check for anomalies.”
As the fleet decelerated, the probes and transports launched. The probes headed toward lower orbit, while the transports flashed as they pierced the atmosphere, their heat tiles dissipating the friction produced by entry.
Because they were able to maintain line of sight with the c
olony, Jain was able to view the video feed from the transports with a slight delay. He piped them into separate windows on his HUD as the transports entered the colony via the holes in the geodesic dome and proceeded into the streets. The feeds still occasionally pixelated when the transports that sourced them passed behind buildings, but otherwise the reception was relatively solid.
Now that he could finally observe the streets clearly below, he saw the dead bodies.
Sheila glanced at Gavin. “There are your humans.”
Gavin merely shook his head in revulsion.
The skin and clothes had melted away from the bodies because of the toxic atmosphere, leaving fallen skeletons covered in the sagging green tendrils of their former muscle and organ tissue. Those skeletons were arrayed in poses that made them look like they were running to take shelter in the nearby buildings. Not that it would have helped if they had reached them: Jain saw similar skeletons collapsed in front of windowsills overlooking the street or crumpled on the balconies.
“Those almost look like plants growing on them,” Mark commented.
“Yeah, it’s disgusting either way,” Sheila said.
“Makes me glad I’m not organic anymore,” Medeia said.
“I don’t know,” Cranston said. “I miss my bones.”
“You would,” Medeia said.
“With that dome gone, those skeletons aren’t going to last long,” Sheila said. “Nor the buildings themselves. Who would want to build a colony here?”
“The Greeks probably got a great deal on the place,” Gavin commented.
“Yeah, great deal,” Mark said.
“No anomalies detected so far on any of the LIDAR scans,” Xander said.
The transports swooped between the different buildings, but no life signs were detected. In every building, they usually saw at least one skeleton at a window.
“I thought the buildings in these kinds of bases were supposed to be designed to withstand a dome failure,” Gavin said.
“Ordinarily they would be,” Mark agreed. “But apparently the Greeks cut corners to get their base up and running faster. The false sense of confidence imbued by domes of Xado-Glass.”