Black Sun (Phantom Server: Book #3)

by Andrei Livadny

  “I’m not surprised,” Arbido crossed his legs, casting skeptical glances at the picture. “Avatroid remembers Phantom Server from the times of the Founders’ heyday. Which isn’t helping. Still, the long-range communications are still functional. They’re de-energized, but look at this,” he pointed at a weak signature that flashed across the screen. “Besides, our jump has been successful which raises another question: who or what is responsible for the ship’s materialization on this side? If I remember rightly, it has to be the station’s AI, no less. Zander, am I right?”

  “You are. At least that’s what the system notes on the Colonizer ability say.”

  “The station's AI? Then we need to get out and find it!” Vandal said.

  “And where are you going to look for it?” Foggs zoomed in on the station’s model. Any potential power imprints were lost in the maze of countless rooms. Only a few blurred spots glowed weakly within the depths of the gargantuan structure. The nanites hadn’t yet got that far, busy inspecting the primary hull decks.

  “Let’s start with those,” Vandal pointed at the blurred signals.

  Phantom Server was eighty-seven miles in diameter. That was doable for the Relic’s scanners which had actually provided the data for creating the holographic model. Still, the transport hubs had been destroyed, blocked in many places by emergency bulkheads. I’d have hated to barge into the station using brute force but there didn’t seem to be any other way to get past all the obstacles. We’d already made several fruitless attempts to lay a potential course.

  “I got the impression someone’s barricaded deep inside the station,” Ralph offered. “In which case we should expect traps in our way.”

  At that moment the station’s communications systems kicked back in. Their activations seemed to be random and lasted but a few seconds, creating the same kind of power surges over the hull structures as those we’d already witnessed.

  “Now that’s interesting,” Liori highlighted a weak power trail. “Take a look at this! This is definitely a data transmission!”

  “So what?” Foggs raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Why did it have to deviate toward the station’s center? What prevented two communications modules within direct line of vision from reaching each other directly?”

  Ralph shrugged. “How do we know? Maybe that’s just the way they do these things.”

  The next time the communications sprang back to life, I was prepared. I connected my Synaps to the Relic’s systems and was able to track the data exchange channel.

  “Zander?” Charon craned his neck.

  “Same thing. It passes through the center. And look, here’s another signature,” I added another power imprint to our plans of Phantom Server.

  Jurgen peered at the faint imprint. “A respawn point? Compare it with this,” he opened a similar image in the operative window.

  “It looks identical,” Charon agreed.

  “This might actually solve the problem,” Arbido decided to show off his new knowledge. “Two respawn points can be connected to make a transport channel, am I correct?”

  “You are indeed,” Jurgen nodded his approval. “Changing the settings might take some time but I think I can do it.”

  An emergency alarm echoed through my mind.

  “A wormhole’s opened!” Charon exclaimed.

  A fiery dot appeared within one of the openwork structures, followed by the vague outlines of five gigantic spaceships.

  We anticipated their materialization, expecting the Phantom Raiders patrolling the station to jump into action. They didn’t.

  The cruiser, the frigate and three cargo ships remained semi-transparent. We were looking at the real ships’ optical phantoms. They drifted through the debris and disappeared.

  * * *

  It took us almost twenty-four hours to reset the respawn point and connect a transport module to the Founders’ navigator (which incidentally was how the hybrid had beamed me up on board Eurasia). Doing so proved to be a job and a half. Mnemotechs, engineers and technologists — in the end we all had to join in.

  In the meantime, we counted ninety-seven individual jumps plus five more incidents of wormholes opening. We witnessed the arrival of three more groups of miscellaneous spacecraft and two fleets: one military, the other commercial.

  The designs of most of them were totally unfamiliar to us. None of them had ultimately materialized: all we’d seen were their optical phantoms.

  We stopped paying attention to new hyperspace jumps. The Relic’s systems continued to register new instances of interstellar communications all the time.

  I wasn’t surprised that this central node of the interstellar network had long become a myth. Phantom Server! — the name fit perfectly. The star system was supposed to be a point of transit but something was preventing ships from entering our 3D continuum. Their crews were bound to see the station’s phantom image on their screens complete with all the hull structures and fleets of Raiders surrounding it.

  Why had it allowed the Relic through, then?

  Liori and I had a theory but we still needed to check it out. And the truth lay deep inside Phantom Server.

  “All done,” Jurgen finally reported. He'd run the test three times to check the system for any glitches.

  “Good,” I nodded my encouragement to Liori, then clicked my helmet on. Here, realism was key which was why all of us were clad in pressurized combat armor.

  The transport pad could only fit five people so we had to split into groups. Jurgen had to stay behind to keep an eye on the Server’s performance. Vandal’s men were to go first. Their job was to mop up the arrival zone and ensure its safety. Liori, Charon, Foggs, Danezerath and myself were to go next. The third group was comprised of five engineers and mnemotechs: I was pretty sure the depths of the station were chock full of all sorts of obscure devices. They all had to be scanned and studied.

  If everything went well, more backup groups would arrive. But at the moment, we were impatiently waiting to see how the first group would fare.

  We’re ready, Vandal reported.

  “Off you go,” Jurgen touched the sensor.

  A green aura surrounded Vandal and his men, swallowing them.

  One second... two... three...

  “It’s dark in here,” Vandal’s voice came, distorted by interference. “No enemy resistance.”

  “Let’s go!” I stepped onto the platform.

  My mind shifted. It felt like falling from an enormous height, followed by a leg-shattering jolt. My armor’s servomotors rustled in the midst of a dull fading glow.

  Our helmets’ flashlights sliced through the dark. You didn’t really need lighting with mind expanders, but our Synapses were down, forcing us to use backup devices.

  Our implants’ sensors were still working but their range was minimal — three feet at the most.

  “This is a large closed space,” Vandal reported. “No doors, hatches or airlocks observed.”

  We stepped aside to vacate a space for the next group.

  Darkness surged with flashes of green which looked just like a regular respawn. Transfer successful.

  “Jurgen, do you read me?”

  After a second’s delay, his voice came back. “The line is very bad. Can you stream the data to me?”

  I did.

  “You’re slightly off,” he reported back. “You’re supposed to be about a hundred and fifty feet from where you’re now.”

  “But this place has a respawn device!” Liori exclaimed.

  “It’s probably the backup,” Jurgen replied. “It must have kicked in and taken over the transfer channel.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. We need to have a good look around first. There’s something that stops our mind expanders from working. Don’t send anybody else quite yet. Stay posted.”

  “Roger that. Be careful.”

  * * *

  The room was huge but empty, with the respawn point
at its center. This place looked eerily reminiscent of Founders Square back on Argus.

  “Come over here,” Vandal’s voice sounded in the earphones. He flashed his light a few times to direct us.

  The place had an atmosphere. Our sensors had already analyzed it. The insides of our visors flashed a biological hazard warning.

  “Someone’s beaten us to it,” Charon said.

  The floor was strewn with the remains of some creatures. Pieces of gear glistened under the flashlights.

  “Jurgen, can you see this?” I pointed the light under my feet.

  “The picture isn’t good but I can. Should I send in Novitsky?”

  “No. We’ll do some scanning now and I want him to receive and process the data.”

  I turned, motioning Ralph to come over. “Go and check if we can get back.”

  “I don’t understand,” Liori studied the remains. “They came here and died. But Zander, this is organic matter! Whoever they were, they didn’t use nanite matrix replication.”

  “Foggs, take your men and study the perimeter.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “An entry point.”

  A popping sound came from the center of the room.

  “The transfer system works,” Ralph reported. “I’m back on board the Relic.”

  Good news.

  “Right! Join your mind expanders to make a network,” I ordered.

  The darkness shrank back. The sensors of our Synapses and Neurons now worked in synch, consolidating the data. Still, the results weren’t exactly optimistic. The room held no hidden devices. All the bulkheads were safely shielded.

  “I observe traces of fire damage! A couple of large patches exceeding human height,” Foggs reported.

  “Stay where you are,” I said. “Jurgen, I want you to guide me. Where do you see the signatures? Aha, right... I can see them,” I headed toward a new marker glowing in the gloom.

  Another patch on the wall! Its shape didn’t suggest a breach hole. Most likely, this was where a corridor had once been, leading to the part of the station we needed.

  “Zander, watch out!” Liori exclaimed.

  I froze. What now?

  “Do you see the deformations?”

  I took a better look. Indeed, the structure of the wall around the patch seemed blurred, rippling vaguely. “Release a probe.”

  Vandal obeyed. Slowly the probe floated off at about three feet high, its spherical surface studded with sensors.

  With a flash, it touched the wall. The scorched probe dropped to the floor and rolled aside.

  “This is a hologram protected by a force field,” Jurgen said. “I’ll now search for the resonance frequency. You’ll need to wait. I’ll send you new scanner settings.”

  I stepped toward the wall.

  “Zander, don’t!” Foggs shouted. “It’s too dangerous!”

  The threads of energy reached out toward me. The signature of the force field changed.

  Liori’s voice was the last thing I heard,

  “Step back, everyone! Zander can do it, not you! He has the right!”

  I hope so, my love.

  * * *

  The place was well lit. No signs of damage here. My Synaps had finally kicked in, allowing me to see tons of equipment lying around. These were the signatures that had been registered by the Relic’s sensors.

  The place was flooded with streams of energy coursing around me, changing their signatures. They didn’t extinguish as I approached.

  No one would ever have battled through here by brute force. Pointless trying to hack the codes or destroy the defenses of what was Phantom Server’s heart. Created millions of years ago, it would probably last the same again. Powered by the energies of hyperspace, its components didn’t depend on external conditions.

  I stood within infospace.

  * * *

  A Black Sun slowly rose over the dull horizon of a dying planet.

  I was looking at the Founders’ world. They had created an artificial casing for their own star and very nearly fallen victim to their own scientific progress.

  Why, might you ask?

  Now that I stood within infospace I knew the answer.

  They wanted to travel the Universe, free from its laws and boundaries — but creating space metrics by trial and error had proven too difficult. None of their spaceships could accommodate a reactor powerful enough to do so. That’s why they’d thought that utilizing the energy of stars might be a solution. In theory, a single diamond-shaped accumulator segment orbiting their sun could produce the desired impulse without hurting their planet’s environment. The segment’s surface was too negligible compared to that of the star’s photosphere!

  Still, the road to the stars is paved with thorns. The accumulator segments kept breaking down, failing under the star’s extreme conditions. Repairing them didn’t seem worth the time: it was much easier to create a new one, sturdier and better than the last.

  That’s how the Founders had come up with the concept of the “protomineral life form”. Now these segments could self-replicate to replace the broken elements when necessary.

  This had become the Founders’ undoing. The replication process took on a life of its own. Very soon a second segment was born in the star’s photosphere, followed by another. And another. And yet another.

  The Founders had been on the brink of an ecological disaster. Desperate for a solution, they’d discovered cargonite’s properties which had allowed them to create the first nanites. Still, by then it had been too late.

  The artificial mantle around the sun had closed. Obeying their initial programs, the protomineral segments diligently channeled the accumulated energy into forming the first wormholes. But it wasn’t the Founders’ spaceships that had performed the first jumps but samples of this protomineral life form.

  I paused, unable to take in the entire scope of those ancient developments and their consequences for the Universe.

  These almighty beings had fallen victim to their own technology. Many of them had died — but those who’d survived, persevered with their research. They went underground where, warm in the heat of their reactors, they continued experimenting with nanites until they’d learned to build artificial neuronets and digitize their identities.

  The periodical release of energy which had resulted in creation of new wormholes had allowed them to study hyperspace — but how were they supposed to enjoy life after centuries of digitized existence when new emotions weren’t available and old ones had long faded, forgotten?

  Too late had they realized that there was another way of instantly traveling the Universe. Hyperspace was capable of transmitting information, wasn’t it? And the process didn’t take too much power.

  Had this discovery liberated them?

  I didn’t think so.

  Now I knew exactly why the Founders had formed their AI fleets, sending them on millennia-long voyages between the stars.

  The Founders had come up with a new system allowing them to interact with the Universe. Still, in order for it to work, all its destination points had to have the technological foundation necessary for the travelers’ complete replication, otherwise they risked remaining ethereal phantoms capable of perceiving but not interacting with new environments.

  The Founders sent countless nanites to thousands of planets, hoping to respawn and rectify their past mistakes by stopping the expansion of Black Suns. But once again they couldn’t contain their urges.

  They were so few, so desperate to live and enjoy life that they couldn’t fight off a new temptation, disappearing in the midst of other civilizations, changing worlds, eras and guises as they pleased.

  Only few had remained loyal to their initial goal. It was they who, in their foresight, had created the universal nanite control interface, hoping that young space races might one day study their legacy and follow its unique development branches — and hopefully go one step further than they had.

  But what if we
hadn’t?

  In such a case, we still had a secure survival tool that would work even if all the stars in our Galaxy died of old age.

  As long as a single reactor still glows, I couldn’t stop thinking of Kimberly’s farewell.

  * * *

  Past yet another wall of energy, I was confronted by rows of devices that looked marginally like our in-modes.

  These were the cameras of biological reconstruction. This was where the ancient beings had built new organic bodies for themselves whenever they wished to re-experience real life after long periods of phantom existence.

  Information streams washed over my mind. My skills kept growing impressively. I kept scanning, saving new scanner files in the knowledge that I wasn’t likely to ever come back here.

  You know why?

  The quest I’d accepted, that’s what had granted me access to the heart of Phantom Server.

  I wasn’t here to ask for anything for myself. I had the right to be here. I had come as a Colonizer responsible for the fates of three civilizations.

  * * *

  You have crossed over into the System’s Heart.

  Use the celestial map to switch to the Colonizer interface.

  Spend the available Action Points wisely. You can:

  - Lay a new route;

  - Open a new wormhole;

  - Establish contact with a star system of your choice;

  - Transport identity matrices and other objects within the limits of the interstellar network.

  Warning! The number of available Action Points is limited!

  Here in the heart of Phantom Server they had the same force escalators as in the Temple of Light back on Darg. Its vast space was similarly split into rooms by force fields.

  As the elevator brought me up to the next level, I had some time to pull myself together and prepare to face the awesome future.

  A stream of energy brought me into a gigantic spherical hall.

  I found myself on the inside of a 3D celestial map with the star system housing Phantom Server at its center. Fiery stars crowded me in the dark.