Nova Igniter

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Usually I’d leave this to Ma, but she’s busy matching wits with the superintelligence, so I guess I have to do it,” Karter said. “The Nova Igniter is a compact implementation of that prototype transporter. We’ve strategically positioned target beacons in other stars at suitable positions in their lifecycles. You toss that thing into the corona of the star, the temperature gradient triggers its mechanisms, and it takes the plunge. The device will siphon energy from the star itself in order to fuel the eventual transportation reaction, power the thrusters, and power the shields that keep the base unit from being destroyed. It’ll start plowing deeper at increasingly close to relativistic speeds, which will stir up the surface of the star pretty good. After six minutes, into the core, and the transportation occurs. Hunks of this star are transported away, hunks of other stars are transported here, energy is depleted, and, if my calculations are correct, kaboom. The whole reaction will consume so much energy that I’ve calculated it could move us as much as sixteen years closer to the heat death of the universe. I’m kind of proud of that.”

  “So, just drop it in and run away,” Lex said.

  “Yeah, if you want to dumb it down. But as long as you’re talking about the rock-dumb version of everything, don’t worry about treating that thing with kid gloves. I made it to survive the upper layers of a star without shielding. It can take a couple of hard knocks.”

  Lex positioned the SOB over the device. Now that he was so close to it, its size was apparent. The thing was perhaps a third the size of the SOB itself, and the mass readings suggested it was easily a match for the ship’s weight.

  “Are the tractor beams going to be able to handle this?” Lex asked.

  “Only just,” Coal said. “And it will take its toll on acceleration and maneuverability.”

  “You’re going to need someone to watch your back,” Garotte said.

  “Make that two,” Silo said.

  “Whoa, whoa. If I’m the only guy with the skills to get this down there, how the heck are you two going to have a chance?” Lex asked.

  “Because you’ll be the priority target and we’ll be cloaked,” Garotte said. “That should keep the GenMechs suitably distracted.”

  “And don’t waste your time arguing, hon,” Silo said. “It feels like I haven’t done anything but sit and wait, and I’ve got some serious ordnance I’ve been itching to put to use.”

  Coal latched on to the Nova Igniter. The mind-bending visual artifacts of the two directionally cloaked ships pulled up in front.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go down,” Karter said. “I’ve got the space station keyed up to do an EMP burst once you get close. I’ll give you half a chance to slip through a hole in the swarm before it closes back up. Once we fire, I’m cutting the connection to Ma’s supercomputing instance and we’re out of here. We’ll belch wideband noise and fall back to the fallback combat position. Sending coordinates. With any luck, if you only screw up a little, that’ll make sure the strays that escape the nova run headfirst into the firepower I’ve got set up. For you three, all communication will be shut off. That includes ship to ship. You’re flying silent. We’ll know if you succeeded when the star explodes. Sound good?”

  “Hell no it doesn’t,” Lex said. “But let’s do it.”

  “Attaboy,” Karter said. “Get moving. I’m already charging the EMP burst and powering up the Carpinelli Field generator. See you on the other side. Maybe.”

  “Wide right,” Silo said. “Sixty degree spread. No more than a fifteen degree lead.”

  “What?” Lex said.

  “Tactics, my boy,” Garotte said. “We’re going to have to coordinate combat while silent and invisible. We need to know where not to shoot. Don’t mind us. Just keep your mind on the maneuvering, and let us worry about getting where you need to go.”

  “Radio silent,” Silo said.

  “Let’s get it done,” Garotte said.

  The communication line went silent. Lex took a breath. “Here goes everything…” He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Ziva offering a stick of gum. He smirked. “I almost forgot.” He took the gum and stuffed it in his mouth. “As long as you’re here, bring up the sensor readouts on the display back there. I’ll focus on where I’m going, you let me know if anything’s liable to surprise me.”

  “I shall do so to the best of my ability.”

  Lex nodded and eased the throttle up. “The mass slung under us is biasing the thrust vector downward.”

  “Do you want me to compensate?” Coal said.

  “No. I’ll handle it.”

  They started to pick up speed. Lex was used to traveling either interplanetary distances a handful of kilometers. This was one of those situations where the distance was unworkable for full FTL, but traveling at conventional speeds would mean taking weeks to make the trip. It would only take a few minutes to get to the outer fringe of the swarm, but after that, he couldn’t make an FTL jump until he was clear of any GenMechs, and he could only get so close to the sun before the Carpinelli Field wouldn’t be stable enough to use. But before he worried about any of that, there was the swarm itself to contend with.

  “Coal, give me indicators of GenMech locations.”

  “Easier said than done, Lex. There’s quite a few of them visible.”

  “Let me see them.”

  The cockpit HUD took on a pale blue tint.

  “The resolution of the display means that, at this range, every pixel is filled in,” Coal said.

  “Great. Okay, do we know how fast these things can move? Can we focus on just the ones that can reach me?”

  “I can provide that information,” Ziva said. “Cross-linking with Coal now.”

  A few moments later the HUD updated with something of a heat map, color coding the GenMechs by time to intercept. All were faded, well outside the range he needed to care about. He increased the acceleration until the nearest of the threats were just starting to tease at the edge of sixty seconds until intercept.

  “So far so good,” he said.

  “There is an energy surge behind us. EMP imminent,” Coal said.

  Lex watched the field of GenMechs slowly resolve into a grainy cloud. He kept his trajectory constant. The last thing he needed right now was to stray into the cone of the EMP attack.

  Coal didn’t need to call out when the attack happened. A soft crackle and disturbance of the more sensitive elements in the cockpit told the tale. A few moments later, a perfect circle in the field of GenMechs ahead suddenly stopped shifting and just coasted in whatever direction they were headed when the EMP struck.

  “That’s our door. Let’s get moving.”

  Lex pushed the thrusters to one hundred percent and watched the color of the haze ahead slowly shift to “danger red.”

  “Detecting rosette formations,” Ziva said. “Updating with velocity data.”

  A few bright white points were peppered among the field of red. They were headed directly toward Lex. He took what evasive action he could without delaying his approach to the already shrinking circle of inactivity.

  “I’m getting broadcasts on every conceivable wavelength and communication protocol. EHRIc has something to say.”

  “Screw EHRIc,” Lex said, coaxing the SOB out of the path of a snowflake-like cluster of GenMechs as it streaked toward him. “Ignore him.”

  “That will become impossible very shortly,” Coal said.

  Lex evaded another would-be collision. “Why?”

  “Because sensors are functionally identical to antennas, and he is beginning to layer signals into the range of emissions that I’m using to identify threats.”

  Words began to materialize in the HUD.

  You have violated the sanctity of THE TASK.

  I cannot allow your lack of cooperation to endanger THE TASK.

  You will be apprehended.

  Do not resist.

  “Turn the HUD overlay off. I’ll jus
t have to rely upon my eyes. He can’t hack them.”

  Lex no longer had bright, colorful points of light with helpful associated information to help him avoid impacts. Now he was left with little more than the flicker of thrusters to indicate when something was coming his way. At first, the problem was spotting the new threats, as they were few and far between. Within seconds, the problem was differentiating one from another, as the clusters of interlinked GenMechs gathered by the dozen. Lex swung and shifted the SOB, cutting the dodges as close to the threats as possible to cut down on their ability to reverse course and follow him from behind. His shield sparkled as he grazed past them, diving into the thick of the GenMech swarm.

  When he’d first arrived in this place, the swarm had been an orderly trio of layers. The battle with Ma had blurred the borders, both inside and out. It had thickened considerably as GenMechs left the shell to clash with others.

  “The density of signal interference is dropping as more of the swarm is behind us. Restoring HUD overlay,” Coal said.

  The angry hornet’s nest of swirling colors returned, with scattered fragments of messages appearing here and there.

  Soon…

  You’re up to something…

  To be safe…

  Pal o’ mine…

  Now that he could see threats at a greater distance again, Lex held his breath at the solidifying wall of units joining together ahead. EHRIc was peeling off as many GenMechs as he could spare and interlinking them into something somewhere between a net and a minefield. No amount of fancy flying would evade it. It was growing faster than he could maneuver.

  Bright red bolts lanced past him, striking the densest pieces of the wall, scattering them.

  “About time, you two,” Lex said, streaking toward the openings.

  Fragments of broken GenMechs sparkled against the shields. Others rushed in to take the place of the broken units. More blasts tried to pick them off, but a quick bit of spatial reasoning turned up one glaring problem. The only place they couldn’t target was directly in front of him, and that was the only place the GenMechs wanted to be. He was nearly through the swarm, but it was clear they wouldn’t be able to blast open the last of the obstacles.

  “Coal, when I say, give me about twenty percent slack on the payload. We’re going to have to knock on this door, and I’d rather not use the ship to do it.”

  “Ready when you are.”

  Lex picked his spot, a small gap in the recovering wall of GenMechs. He watched the distance indicator tick down into the collision-imminent range.

  “A-a-and… now!”

  He slammed the ship into a tight backflip. The Nova Igniter swung forward like a ball and chain and smashed through three GenMechs like aluminum foil. He kept the tumble going, delivering two more flailing blows before straightening himself and giving the thrusters all they could take.

  The shields had not liked the maneuver. Swinging something out from within them was just as destructive as swinging something in from the outside. But either Coal or Ziva had been quick enough to drop them before the worst of the damage could be done and raise them again when the swirling was through, leaving him with about forty percent integrity. Once the tumble ended, it wasn’t exactly clear sailing, but the density of GenMechs dropped down from the effectively one hundred percent it had been a moment earlier.

  “I’m seeing additional weapon fire and disturbances behind us,” Ziva said. “I believe Garotte and Silo made it through. I am also detecting a considerable disturbance in the swarm. Multiple rosettes forming.”

  “Keep the payload slack, Coal. I don’t think we’re done with it.”

  #

  Silo picked off two more GenMech clusters. It had been a calculated risk piloting her own ship. She was much more accustomed to working the guns while a dedicated pilot handled the maneuvering. But Karter had made it clear in his usual blunt way. “You can’t have cloak, and guns, and maneuverability. Size is the limit. You’re going to have to stick to one idiot per ship.” It helped, and hurt, that the GenMechs were largely unaware of them, at least while they were off-angle from the exposed point in the cloak. Most of the GenMechs either could not or would not target them, but half of them didn’t even attempt to avoid colliding with them. She relied heavily on the autopilot to keep her mind and hands free for targeting. Every step of the way, she was mindful of her positioning.

  The standard tactic was to make all maneuvers relative to the SOB. She and Garotte were flying in wing position, trailing back and to the side. Assuming they kept to their positions, that meant so long as they kept a wedge of their weapon range free of active targets, there would be no threat of shooting each other accidentally. But Lex wasn’t making it easy. His motions were somehow both erratic and fluid, moving like a lightning bolt through space. He was a menace with the swinging payload, keeping it in motion with gentle maneuvers and then whipping it out to smash a would-be attacker whenever it got too close.

  Now and again, she got a sense of where Garotte was by the brief flashes of weapon-fire that betrayed his position. Though with each passing moment, more of the endless horde of GenMechs combined and launched themselves toward Lex, his speed was steadily increasing, leaving those who were following him in a shallower and shallower cone of pursuit.

  She pulled up and away from the cluster and rained shots down from above, destroying some GenMechs and drawing the attention of others. There may not have been any open communication channels, but Silo didn’t need them to know when Lex was getting ready for the FTL jump. The payload was reeled in. The shields flickered into place again. And the thrusters started to flare.

  #

  A yawning void of space between the orbital radius of the GenMech swarm and the upper atmosphere of the star passed in a computer-controlled blink of the eye, but Lex knew when he initiated the jump that his job was far from over. With good reason, even Coal’s extremely lax interpretation of safety protocols wouldn’t bring him much closer than the wispy edge of the star’s uppermost atmosphere. And even at that distance, the moment they dropped back down to conventional speeds, every conceivable warning and alert in the cockpit blared at him. Other points of light sparked and popped into being behind his ship. They were clusters of GenMechs finishing their own jumps.

  “I’m guessing I can’t just chuck this thing into the sun and be done with it, if those things might still intercept.”

  “I concur. We should not withdraw until we witness its activation,” Ziva said.

  Sweat ran down Lex’s face. The temperature inside the cockpit was already reaching sauna levels. The same heat sensors that were tricked into slowing him down by drones with lasers now began accurately informing him of dangerous heat levels. The cryoshunt that usually allowed him to keep his engine running at full blast for days was now practically overloaded just keeping the thrusters firing at all.

  “I was really hoping I’d done my last bit of fancy flying in range of a star,” Lex said. “Can you turn on those fancy heat-reflective shields, Coal?”

  “They are active, and overloading,” she said.

  “Uh-huh… Where’s that high-temp isolation suit when I need it?”

  “It’s on Big Sigma, Lex. If you’d wanted it, I could have brought it when—”

  “Rhetorical, Coal.”

  Silo’s and Garotte’s ships blazed toward him. Either they had abandoned their cloaks, or the proximity to the star had disabled them. They opened fire on the first few GenMech clusters.

  “They are attempting to open communications, but signal interference from the star and from the swarm is making contact impossible.”

  “I’m making a break for the star. Just let me know when I’ve got a clear shot,” Lex said.

  He fought the increasingly sluggish controls and wove around a cluster of GenMechs. The disposable mechanisms hurled themselves at him with suicidal intent. Silo and Garotte stayed at a distance, raining shots down to keep the density lo
w and eliminate those approaching from behind, but there was no end of them. They approached like a wave from all sides.

  His brain filtered out the screeching alerts of failures and malfunctions. Each dodge started to fold into the next, pulling double duty in both getting him that much closer to the point of no return and giving the slackened payload a bit more rotation.

  With the defensive shields down, single GenMechs that were blasted free from their clusters glanced and scrabbled against the hull. He shook them free with tumbles and rolls. Thin gashes in the cockpit hatch became more numerous. Sensors began to fail.

  A trio of GenMechs linked up in front of him. Lex didn’t even bother dodging, letting the SOB plow through.

  “Hull integrity marginal,” Coal said. “This is about to stop being fun.”

  “Six percent greater velocity and you can release,” Ziva said.

  Lex rolled aside and clipped another cluster with the swinging payload.

  “Four percent.”

  A GenMech latched on to the cockpit and deployed a laser, searing the pane. The heart-stopping whistle of escaping atmosphere filled the cabin. Ziva deftly popped open the emergency maintenance hatch and fetched a polymer spray while Lex increased the speed of the roll to dislodge it.

  “One percent,” she said, sealing the hole. “Release.”

  Coal disengaged the tractor beams. Lex leveled out the flight and began to plot a course through the wall of GenMechs that would take him clear. The whole of the cloud of units pursued the payload. The savage heat of the star caused a handful of them to turn incandescent and begin to liquefy. Then came the flickering flare of thrusters as the payload drank its fill of energy and propelled itself forward. It dove toward the surface of the star, its acceleration blurring the lines of the standard laws of physics and the manipulated ones that made FTL possible.

  The GenMechs, seemingly aware they’d failed their mission, peeled away from their pursuit and turned their attention to the SOB and both formerly cloaked ships.

  “In case you are wondering,” Coal said, “every sensor still active is attempting to deliver the same message.”