by James Evans
Skar took off her own helmet. She had collected a tiny HUD of her own from the stores on Ornament and now she fitted this before replying.
“Yes.”
“Good,” said Warden, leaning against the wall and staring up at the main displays. The view was changing as Palmerston slipped slowly back, but even from here the damage was obvious. As they watched, an explosion tore open the wheel and sent debris spinning out into space. “It doesn’t look like the station will survive much longer.”
“What?” snapped Skar. “But what about Ornament?”
Warden shrugged. “Sorry, she’s taking too much damage.”
“Bring us above the wheel, Corn. Let’s take a look at this pirate ship,” ordered Cohen, settling into the command chair.
“Aye, sir,” said Corn, fingers on the controls.
“Arm weapons, Mr MacCaibe. Prepare to fire on the pirates. Railguns only.”
“Railguns it is, sir,” said MacCaibe. “Palmerston has only two, more’s the pity, but they’ll make short work of these pirates, so they will.”
A crack appeared in the fabric of the station as Palmerston shifted and the pirates’ vessel came into view. They had broken free, but a huge piece of Ornament trailed from the outside of the ship, firmly attached to the docking mechanism.
“We’re being targeted as well, sir,” said MacCaibe as fresh wounds were scored across Ornament’s flanks. “Brace for impact.”
“Keep us moving, Corn,” said Cohen. “And fire now, Mr MacCaibe, a sustained burst.”
“Aye, sir.”
Palmerston’s attitude thrusters fired as a stream of railgun rounds raked the ship. MacCaibe’s hands flashed across the triggers and Palmerston’s railguns returned fire, punching a neat line of holes across the pirate ship’s hull. The ship seemed to jump, and some of its thrusters fired frantically as it began to tumble.
“She’s struggling to bring weapons to bear, but she’s still trying,” said MacCaibe.
“Another burst then,” said Cohen. MacCaibe obliged, stitching another row of holes near the first. The thrusters stopped, and the ship’s lights went out. It drifted alongside Ornament, tumbling gently. Then a series of explosions tore through the ship, one after another, shaking and battering it until one last blast ripped it to shreds.
“That’ll do nicely,” said Cohen, nodding to MacCaibe. “Take us back to Child of Starlight, Ms Corn.”
“No, wait,” said Skar, her words translated automatically by her HUD. “What about Ornament? Must be recovered.”
Cohen looked round at the scientist, annoyed, then pointed to a display that still showed the station.
“Ornament is finished,” said Cohen as another hole appeared in the station and a crack, kilometres long, ran down the edge of the wheel. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.”
“Not the station,” said Skar in angry frustration. She pushed MacCaibe from the console, ignoring his complaints, and punched at the controls until the view shifted to show the station’s hub. “Ornament,” said Skar, pointing at the hub. “Must recover Ornament.”
Cohen frowned, unsure what was being asked.
“Oh, shit,” said Warden as realisation dawned. He looked at Skar then at Cohen. “The AI. She’s talking about the station’s AI.”
“Yes, AI,” said Skar. “Research citizen Ornament, there, in hub. We must recover.”
“We can open a channel,” said Cohen, shaking his head dismissively, “download the AI and take it back to Child of Starlight that way, if you like?”
“You have quantum neuro-processors and two thousand yottabytes of storage?” snapped Skar.
Cohen looked blank for a moment, then raised his eyebrows at MacCaibe.
“Not even close, sir,” said the weapons officer.
“Go to hub, recover Ornament before station and irreplaceable citizen lost,” said Skar.
“An AI?” asked Cohen incredulously. “You want me to risk the ship and everything on it to rescue an AI?”
“Ornament more valuable, more useful, more important, than everyone on this ship,” snarled Skar, clearly angry and, to Warden’s mind, unused to being denied.
Cohen stared at her.
“Can’t leave anyone behind, sir,” said Marine X quietly from the back of the bridge. “Can’t fail the mission.”
Cohen rounded on the penal Marine, teeth bared in anger at the interruption, but Marine X’s grim expression made him pause. Then he nodded.
“Of course,” he said. “Turn us towards the hub, Corn.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And Skar. Can you put us in touch with Ornament? Prepare it for collection?”
“Maybe,” said Skar. “Normal channels down, but maybe emergency channel.” She moved to another console, allowing MacCaibe to resume his station, and stared at the controls for a few seconds. Then she began to make changes, brow furrowed as she worked at the unfamiliar keyboard.
A minute later, as Palmerston nudged accelerated towards the hub, a message flashed onto the screen.
Skar gave a tiny grin of relief as her HUD translated the message. Then she turned to Cohen.
“Ornament,” she said.
“Right, let’s give this a go,” said Cohen, tapping at his slate.
An hour later, Palmerston had backed off to a position three thousand kilometres from Ornament station. The crew, the Marines, Skar and Agent O all watched the camera feed as Ornament bucked and shook under the force of the explosions that continued to wrack the station. Then the lines that held the hub in place failed. There was one last crack, and Ornament was sundered at its seams.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t do more,” said Warden, breaking the silence.
Skar nodded, then left the bridge. Cohen watched her go then gave the order to make the jump back to the asteroid.
15
“The handover went smoothly, sir?” asked White as Cohen walked back into Ascendant’s command suite. White poured a cup of coffee and pushed it forwards as Cohen sank into a chair. He grabbed at the cup and took a deep sip.
“It did,” said Cohen, putting the cup back down and pulling out his slate. “You’re not going to believe the scale of Child of Starlight.” He flicked at his slate, then pushed some images to the main display.
“They gave you a guided tour?” said White, watching a video recording by Palmerston’s forward monitors as it was led into Child of Starlight’s dock.
Cohen snorted. “Not even close. See this?” He pointed at the screen as Palmerston drew close to the rocky face of Child of Starlight. “Everything’s hidden. Even when you know it’s there, you can’t find the door without assistance because it’s in a darkened tunnel. There’s nothing – absolutely nothing – on the outside of this bloody rock that might lead anyone to suspect it was occupied.”
Now it was White’s turn to be sceptical. “I know our sensors are a bit buggered, but surely we’d have spotted Starlight if we’d been fully operational?”
“Palmerston didn’t,” Cohen pointed out, “not even when we were right on top of the bloody doors. There are no antennae, solar arrays, weapons, ports, windows or hatches. Nothing.” He paused as the display showed Palmerston slowing almost to a halt relative to Child of Starlight, then twisting through ninety degrees to enter a huge canyon that led into an equally vast cavern.
T
he screen went dark as the camera flew into shadow. Then the rock face appeared as the forward thrusters flared to slow Palmerston’s approach still further and turn the ship as it flew more deeply into the cavern.
The thrusters flared again to bring Palmerston to a dead stop, then the display went blank.
“Total darkness. A spot utterly invisible to the outside, shielded by miles of rock in all directions. Then they just reached out and pulled us into their bay,” said Cohen, miming a hand reaching up to seize Palmerston and drag her down into the heart of the asteroid.
“Seriously?” asked White, eyebrows raised.
“Seriously. Something reached up, took hold of Palmerston, and pulled us down into a bay that was twenty kilometres long and ten wide. Watch.”
White watched, incredulous, as the video showed Palmerston sinking through a rock tunnel to emerge into a volume the size of a large city.
“Are those clouds?” he asked, squinting at the display.
“And trees. A full forest, in fact, at the far end of the bay. Behind some sort of glass wall, apparently. Palmerston’s passive sensors recorded everything, but the active sensors were glitched and got nothing, so all we know about Child of Starlight is what we could see in this bay.”
“Glitched?” asked White, frowning. “That seems,” he paused, searching for the right word before settling on, “implausible.”
“Quite,” agreed Cohen, “especially as they started working again as soon as we were clear of the approach canyon. Something screwed with our active sensors, and it can only have been the Valkyr.”
He sat back for a few moments, watching the display as the Valkyr went about their daily lives in front of Palmerston’s cameras.
“We need to get off this rock,” he said eventually, “or get a message back to HQ. The longer we’re here, the more risk there is that the Deathless will take advantage of the fleet’s destruction, if they haven’t already.” White nodded his agreement. It was a conversation they’d had several times, but there was a limit to the speed that Mantle could work, even with the Valkyr delivering tons of processed materials every thirty hours.
“And I really don’t like the fact that we’re sitting on top of a technologically advanced civilisation of unknown power and scale.”
“There’s always Palmerston, sir,” said White. This was another conversation they’d already had.
“A very last resort if we can’t put Ascendant back together. Until then, no,” said Cohen. Palmerston could make the voyage, but that would mean leaving Ascendant and at least half the crew amongst the Valkyr.
He pulled up images of Ornament and flicked through them, both the ones Palmerston had shot from the outside and the video that the Marines had recorded as they raced through the station.
“This station was huge, and it had two crew. It could have housed millions, but they were running some sort of experiment that needed total isolation and security.”
“Any idea what they were doing?” asked White as the images flashed by.
“No, but let’s get Mantle up here, and Mueller, and see if they can shed some light.”
White nodded and summoned the two offices, then he and Cohen watched the video of the trees under the atrium on Ornament.
“You wanted to see us, sir?” said Mantle, coming into the command suite with Science Office Mueller.
“Take a seat,” said Cohen, “and then take a look at this. It’s the video from our mission to Ornament, the Valkyr research station. I want to know what you think.”
Mueller and Mantle watched the video in near silence. Mueller seemed particularly interested in the exterior shots, and took them to his slate for a more detailed examination.
“There are no people,” he observed, “no inhabitants except for this scientist, Skar?”
“And an AI that identified itself as ‘Agent O’,” confirmed Cohen.
“But it’s huge,” said Mantle. “You could house millions – tens of millions, probably – in a structure that size. Why would anyone build such a thing without populating it?”
“Research, apparently,” said Cohen, “but that’s all they’d say. Any ideas, Mr Mueller?”
The science officer was quiet for a long time. He sat with his chin resting in his hand, staring at his slate and flicking through the images of Ornament.
“Mr Mueller?” prompted White eventually.
“Hmm, what? Yes, sorry. Well, it’s a ring, and if it is all devoted to research, then I would have to be thinking about high-energy physics, specifically a giant particle accelerator.” He shrugged. “But if that were right, it would be the largest ever built by a very long way.”
“Really? I thought all particle accelerators were vast,” said Cohen.
“All? No, not at all. Many are very small, but it depends what you wish to investigate. But even the largest in the Commonwealth would be a fraction of the size of this monster.” He fell silent and went back to reviewing the images on his slate.
“So, is it a particle accelerator?” Cohen pressed, when it became clear that Mueller wasn’t going to say anything else. “Or is it something else?”
Mantle shrugged. “Not my area, but I’d have said it was a habitat if we didn’t already know it was a research station.”
“Yes, research,” said Mueller. “A very high energy particle accelerator. Look, these parts here are similar to what you would see on a more normally scaled version. The power requirements would be stupendous.”
“And what would the Valkyr learn from this facility, if it was operating?”
Mueller shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea whatsoever, sorry. But my guess is that it was uninhabited either because its research was virtually complete or because there was some degree of risk. Or both, of course.”
Cohen sat back and stared at the main display. He replayed the video of Palmerston’s entry to Child of Starlight and the four of them marvelled again at the vast scale of the Valkyr’s civil engineering.
“It’s like they just don’t know when to stop,” muttered Mantle.
“I don’t think we’re going to learn anything more here,” said Cohen after an hour, putting away his slate. He stood up and made for the exit, with Mantle and White following.
“Oh,” said Mueller as Cohen neared the door. Cohen turned back with a sense of foreboding. Mueller’s face was as white as a sheet and his eyes darted around as if he suddenly feared being overheard.
“Mueller?” said Cohen softly, walking over to where the scientist still sat at the table. “What is it?”
“Well, it’s obvious, when you think about it,” said Mueller quietly. He glanced around at the other officers. “You may need to sit to hear this.”
Cohen, now thoroughly spooked, settled himself back into his chair and leant forward to listen.
“There’s a branch of physics – the name is unimportant – concerning the focussed twisting of spacetime and the near light speed transmission of highly compressed, super-heated matter.” He paused to take a swig from a long-abandoned cup of cold coffee. “It’s hinted at in the theory, but nobody has ever been able to demonstrate the principles or achieve the practical effects in the real world, although plenty of people have tried.
“The Navy itself tried, for a while, but the costs were astronomic, even by the scale of the Commonwealth’s multi-planetary operations, and they never made any progress.”
He flicked at his slate, pulling up an image of Ornament and pushing it to the main display.
“But what if you’re a super-concentrated, technically advanced civilisation with essentially unlimited resources? What if you had access to enough energy and mass to build whatever you want, and you had a stable society with a long-term, unified outlook on life and access to genuine, multi-purpose, artificial intelligences?
“What if, in other words, your civilisation had no practical limits on the research projects it could undertake?”
Cohen frowned. “I don’t see where you’re
going with this.”
“Let’s take this further,” Mueller continued. “What if you have an aggressive and potentially unstable near neighbour – the Deathless – whose resources are even more vast but whose outlook on life not only precludes the necessary long-term effort, but also pushes them simply to focus their attention on other aspects of life? Might the threat posed by a potentially aggressive neighbour persuade even the most peaceful of societies to turn their attention to matters of defence?”
And now Cohen was getting seriously worried, even though Mueller hadn’t actually done more than describe a string of poorly-evidenced hypotheses.
“But what does this all mean, Mueller? What were they doing on Ornament?”
Mueller looked up from his slate. “A weapon, Commander. A most dreadful weapon, one whose research costs and experimental risks have always prevented anyone from building it. That’s what they were doing. They were conducting research into particle beam weapons.”
He dropped his slate onto the table and flopped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.
“Are you sure?” asked White. “What if they were just looking for new fundamental particles?”
“Pah!” said Mueller dismissively, sitting back up again. “That avenue of research was completed decades ago. No, the only reason for building an accelerator this large is to conduct tests into the manipulation of energy and matter for the creation of a beam weapon.”
Cohen shook his head, relieved. “Okay, I don’t think we need to worry about this too much. Any weapon system that’s four hundred kilometres across isn’t going to be hugely mobile, so I don’t think it’s going to be a threat.”
“But Ornament isn’t the weapon.” Mueller cast a disgusted glance at Cohen. “Once you have the experimental results, the station would be redundant. At that point, you could work anywhere, as long as you had a powerful AI, some smart researchers, a huge team of engineers and a sophisticated manufacturing plant. No, Commander, I’m afraid Ornament was never a direct threat, but the product of its research might very well be.”
“Shit,” muttered Cohen. “Is that as bad as I think it might be?”