by Mark Wandrey
“Thinking,
“Maybe,” Jim said. He had the distinct feeling the thing was indeed alive. Had it been sitting there for thousands of years, just thinking? Had a cult grown up around it when someone stumbled onto it by accident? It was an interesting mystery, but it didn’t bring him any closer to the information he wanted and needed. Maybe the chip Daikichi had given him would have something useful. “Nothing here but an old machine,” Jim said.
The chamber had an odd symmetry to it. Jim couldn’t put his finger on it. The walls weren’t bare rock, either. They were covered with a strange tapestry woven of iridescent fibers which caught and reflected the nucleic light in a million different colors. It felt almost like being in a church. A tiny part of him understood how a cult had formed around it. Kind of.
With one more look at the machine sitting in its solitude, he turned to go. He was most of the way back to the entrance when he realized Splunk was gone.
Jim came to a sliding stop on the rocky floor and turned to see where she was. She was nowhere in sight. “Splunk?” he called. His voice echoed, creating an eerie stereo effect. “Where are you?”
“Here, Jim,
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing,
Jim couldn’t help but be skeptical, regardless of how emphatic his little friend was in her statement. He reached out and caught her, swinging her compact form onto its customary place on his shoulder, all the while hoping she hadn’t done something he would someday regret. She’d been missing for, what, a few seconds? How much damage could she do in a few seconds? He resumed his careful loping movement back to the exit.
When he arrived and passed through the entrance, he noted nothing had changed. None of the Knights had moved so much as a millimeter. Of course, the Daikichi hadn’t budged. The visual receptors on the array of Knights slowly moved to track him as he returned to where he’d started.
“We never talk about what happens when meeting Maetel,” Daikichi said.
Good, Jim thought. There’s not much to say about looking at a rusty old computer. Only, there was no dust. “Thank you for the opportunity,” he said, calling up as much sincerity as he could manage. “We’re leaving now. I need fuel for my ship. You have it?”
“Yes. I have instructed our people to fuel your ship.”
“Thank you. Goodbye.”
“What do we do now?” Daikichi asked, like it had before they’d gone to see the computer.
“I’ll come back,” Jim said without thinking. He immediately hissed in frustration at himself. “Someday,” he added hastily.
“Then the Disciples of Singularity will wait.”
“But you need to stop striving for machineness,” Jim said. “Abandon that path.”
“Our mission now?”
“It is for you to understand my visit. Contemplate Maetel and an answer will come to you.” They made for the exit. Jim glanced back once to see the Knights silently watching him go.
* * *
It was a good thing Splunk knew the way out, because Jim didn’t have the slightest idea which way was which. The caverns possessed no logical pattern he could understand. It was like a termite mound. The asteroid didn’t have a regular magnetic field either, so his pinplants’ built-in navigational aid was worthless. Jim guessed Splunk’s innate abilities, learned from living in subterranean caverns on Kash-kah where her species was from, made it second nature to memorize the path.
In only a few minutes of dizzying twists and turns, they came out of the older tunnels and emerged into the habitat. “Good job,” he told her and patted the Fae’s hand on his shoulder. She cooed appreciation back, and they quickly made their way through the more recognizable layout of the habitat toward the docking area.
As they went, part of him worried about what would happen to the Disciples of Singularity, and the larger Machine Empire. The other part didn’t really care. They were borderline psychopathic. He was looking forward to getting away and seeing what was on the chip Daikichi had given him. As he walked, he had a growing feeling of disquiet.
When he turned into the final passage of the corridor leading to his ship, he collided with another being going in the opposite direction.
“Shit!” Jim exclaimed, pushing the creature away as he speed-drew his handgun.
“Calm!” the elSha cried and held up mechanical arms to cover his biological face. It was the customs agent, Aseeth.
“Sorry,” Jim said, holstering his pistol.
“You nearly scared me unto death,” the alien said and looked past Jim.
Jim still had the 360-degree radar scanner attached to one of his pinplants, and, using it, he could see a bird-like head quickly pull back from the nearest corner. That’s what I’ve been feeling, he thought.
“You had best leave, Human,” Aseeth said.
“Has my ship been fueled?” Jim asked. Splunk floated over to the wall and used a handhold to launch herself toward the lock which led to their ship.
“Yes,” Aseeth said, “though I do not know how you managed to convince the Sky Knights to part with fuel. It must have come at a very high price.”
“You would be surprised,” Jim said, continuing to watch the spot where he’d seen the NapSha. Will they make a play for me, here, now? Few merc races were violent enough to do such things in public, especially in a special Peacemaker ward such as the Kikai system. He began to understand the Peacemakers had an impossible task.
“Perhaps it is best you depart,” Aseeth said.
“I agree,” Jim said and slipped by to the lock.
Splunk had already worked the door, and it stood open, waiting for him. As he moved inside, using handholds to keep from losing control in the almost nonexistent gravity, Jim saw another Splunk sized rifle fastened to the inside of the lock. It was out of view of anyone in the corridor outside, yet within easy reach should she need it. The Fae never took her eyes from the place he’d seen the NapSha until the lock door was closed.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said.
“Yes, now,
Jim had left many of Pale Rider’s critical systems on standby because he’d been concerned they would have to make a hasty departure. With one of the ship’s two fusion power plants idling, it only took seconds to get power flowing through the necessary systems and to detach from the magnetic docking collar holding them to the asteroid habitat.
With Splunk manning the other systems, Jim removed his radar module from his pinplant connection and clicked a link in place, hooking him directly into the starship’s controls. Jim used the ship’s thrusters to push away from the habitat, then transmitted, “Promethium Control, this is Pale Rider, departing.”
“Cleared to depart, Pale Rider,” was the simple reply.
Jim engaged the ship’s ion drive and pushed slowly away from the habitat. He didn’t want to risk the fusion torch cutting a chunk out of the habitat. They might be a motley collection of raving lunatics, but they didn’t deserve to lose what little life they had left to the vacuum of space. However, others didn’t have the same concerns.
An alarm screamed as a weapon hit Pale Rider’s shields, which Splunk had activated as soon as they’d undocked. The energy field glowed an angry red as the laser burst was absorbed.
“Fifty megawatts,
“Human ship, we know you have something from the machines.” His pinplants told him what he already knew: the speaker was NapSha. “Give it to us.”
“I told you I’m not recruiting,” Jim replied. “Back off, and I’ll leave.” Jim used the ship’s sensors to locate the other ship. It was 500 kilometers away, holding position relative to the habitat. The tactical system identified it as equivalent to an escort frigate. He entered a series of evasive maneuvers, and Pale Rider slid sideways and skewed on its thrusters.
&nbs
p; The NapSha ship fired again. The laser hit the edge of Pale Rider’s shields, and as the ship maneuvered according to Jim’s order, the beam pulse passed and sliced a 100-meter-long gouge out of the habitat’s glass enclosure. A half kilometer wide section of the dome exploded outward from the atmospheric pressure inside.
“Damn you!” Jim screamed. The ship’s sensors showed hundreds of tiny bodies cartwheeling into space amidst a growling plume of freezing atmosphere.
“Surrender, or we destroy your yacht,” the NapSha said. “You Humans must be poor mercenaries, to come out in a yacht instead of a warship.”
“Splunk?” Jim asked.
“
“Light them up.” Jim returned to the radio. “Just because I called it a yacht doesn’t mean it’s unarmed,” Jim said.
On the side of Pale Rider, the panels slid aside, and its laser emitters snapped into place. “You got it,
The NapSha ship’s shields flashed repeatedly from the impacts, and, as the enemy ship realized they weren’t facing an unarmed foe, it began to maneuver. A pair of missiles flashed away from Pale Rider, accelerating at 1,000 Gs. Pale Rider had started life as a Crucible-class light cruiser back when Humans were fighting over the Nile River Basin. Jim’s grandfather had bought it practically for scrap. He’d trimmed the ship down, removing most of the armor and weapons to make it capable of landing and operating for extended periods—most of the weapons, but not all. He’d also made sure the remaining weapons were well concealed.
Occupied with the laser fire, the NapSha crew was unprepared for the missiles. Both slammed into its rear-quarter shield, and Jim saw the computer update to show the enemy ship’s shields in one quadrant were down. A part of him wished they’d been nuclear missiles, or shipkillers, as Bucephalus routinely carried. However, landing a ship on many planets with nukes aboard was frowned upon.
“Eat it!” he yelled. “Splunk, there’s your hole!” The Fae targeted the weak point, but the NapSha weren’t presenting a stable target anymore, and she missed. Jim checked their orientation to avoid further damage to the habitat. Seeing they were safe, he powered the fusion torch, and the yacht shot ahead. He spun, performing a less-than-perfect skew turn around the bulk of the habitat. A couple more laser beams flashed at them, but only one hit before they were protected by a million-trillions of tons of rock.
“I’m making for the stargate,” he told Splunk. “Full power to the aft shields.” Five Gs of thrust slammed him into the acceleration couch as Pale Rider began to stretch her legs. With gigawatts being channeled into the power-hungry shields, five Gs was the best she could manage. The ship quickly built to full power, and Jim worked hard to keep air moving in and out of his lungs. He much preferred a CASPer, or even better, his Raknar, over this kind of fighting.
The computer alerted him the NapSha ship was coming around the habitat far faster than Jim had thought it would. He struggled to read the data being dumped into his mind by the pinplants. The computer said they had to pull at least 11 Gs to make it around that fast. Shit, damned birds. They’ll be on us in only a minute or two. He concentrated on their movement plot and verified, even with the short distance to the stargate, they’d never make it before the aliens were in close range.
Splunk was already reloading the missile tubes and was targeting the NapSha frigate. At least firing directly astern, they’d be able to use all four laser emitters, but with the enemy ship chasing them, it was impossible to target the damaged shield.
“We’re…going…to…have…to…fight,” he told Splunk between heaved breaths. Then the tactical threat alarm warned of another ship ahead of them. No, Jim thought, another?
“Not shooting at us,
Jim reduced thrust so he had more control, and in his clearing perception he saw a missile streak past and hit the NapSha ship. A wave of radiation washed across Pale Rider’s shields; it was a nuclear warhead.
“NapSha vessel Screaming Vengeance, this is Peacemaker corvette Observance. You will cease all hostilities or be destroyed. Kikai is a neutral system.”
“Their shields are down,
The Peacemaker corvette was lateral to their course. He could make the stargate before it could stop him. The thought of carving up the birds was tempting. Extremely tempting.
“No,” he told Splunk. “Don’t.” She looked at him imploringly. Damn, he thought. She has a cold-blooded side. But hadn’t he just been thinking the same thing? “We don’t need to be on the wrong side of the Peacemakers,” he said. “Stand down.”
“
“Pale Rider, this is Peacemaker cruiser Observance. Are you okay? Do we need to render assistance?”
“We’re fine, Observance.” The transmission switched to visual, something it hadn’t done before. The live Equiri was even more intimidating to look at than the images of their race had been. “Thank you for the assistance.”
“Peacemakers are empowered to intervene in some situations and given a great deal of latitude in how we pursue our duties.” The alien smiled, white fangs flashing. “The Machine Empire representative radioed to inform me you stuck to your word on your visit and acted honorably. It also added the NapSha were attempting to recruit from their number. I’ll be having a talk with them.”
But not about trying to kill us, Jim noted. Damn, the universe could be a stone-cold bitch. “We’ll be leaving then,” Jim said. “Thanks again.”
“Would the Cavaliers be interested in doing work for the Peacemaker Guild in the future?” the alien asked, catching Jim completely by surprise.
“What kind of work do the Peacemakers need from a merc company?”
“We have a lot of power, but not a lot of force,” the Equiri Peacemaker said. “When we need help, we hire it. Before this assignment, I employed the Winged Hussars to hunt down some pirates. We’re having trouble with a group of slavers in the Cresht region of the Tolo arm, near your home world. If you are amiable, I will contact the Enforcer in that area to work out the details.”
“Slavers? Cartwright’s Cavaliers would be honored to help the Peacemakers Guild in such a matter,” Jim said.
“Very well,” the alien said and nodded his long head. “I am Enforcer Copho, and it has been pleasurable dealing with you.”
“Enforcer Copho?”
“Yes, Commander Cartwright?”
“What if I’d destroyed the NapSha ship when I had the chance?”
“While you would have been within your rights, I would have been disappointed. I certainly would not have offered you work.”
“But would you have stopped me?”
“No.” The answer was sobering. “Now, if you will excuse me, the NapSha and I need to have a talk.”
Jim signed off and programmed the ship to rendezvous with the stargate. He would have to think about the encounter some more. The Peacemakers were an enigmatic group. Media on Earth liked to portray them as being a sort of galactic Texas Rangers—law officers with incredible power moving around a galaxy which resembled the Old West. He shook his head, thinking they were more like Judge Dredd. There weren’t a lot of laws on the Galactic Union’s books, but God help you if you broke one and a Peacemaker was around. And to think, someday there would be Human Peacemakers! He wondered what Copho thought of the idea.
Jim checked the schedule at the gate and found it set to open in less than an hour. Just enough time to run a full damage diagnostic. Pale Rider was an old ship, and he wanted to be sure no lasting damage had occurred. “Splunk, go ahead and run the diagnostic and get the guns tucked away before we transition to h
yperspace.”
She nodded and started working. As she did, Jim pulled out the data chip Daikichi had given him and slid it into the data port on a slate. Petabytes of programming data on the operating systems of Raknar! Jackpot!
Kikai and the Empire of Machines was a win after all. The computer programming language of the Raknars had been all but impossible to work with; they were completely alien in design to anything he’d ever seen. It was more like a 3D construct than a linear program. With this, he had a reference point to start.
Still, he felt there had to be more intact Raknars out there; he just had to find them. Being fresh out of leads meant he had no choice on his next destination. He programmed the hyperspace computer for Occul, home of the Science Guild of the Galactic Union.
As they waited for the stargate to open, Jim glanced at the navigational plot, which showed Enforcer Copho’s ship coming alongside the NapSha vessel. He couldn’t help but fear he’d made a poor impression during the avian merc race’s first meeting with humanity.
* * * * *
Chapter Five
Jim watched the computer data scroll through his mind, fed directly to his brain via the pinplants he’d possessed since he was in high school. Shortly after his father was reported dead, lost on a contract somewhere out in the galaxy, Jim defied his mother’s wishes and took all the credits he’d squirreled away and went to Houston startown. There he’d paid an alien medical clinic an exorbitant fee to have the pinplants installed in his brain.
Pinplants were an old technology. As best as Jim could tell, it predated the Great Galactic War, just like his Raknars. No records remained on who invented them. It could have been the Dusman or the Kahraman for all he knew. Even though humanity had been part of the Galactic Union for over a century, pinplants had only been adapted to his species’ biology for a fraction of the time. When Jim had the procedure done, it was still considered risky.