The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  For a long moment there was only a tense silence. ‘Legion Knight is displaying a far steeper acceleration profile than before. Intercept in 7.3 minutes.’

  ‘Align your projector battery and target any sensor or combat assemblies visible on its hull,’ Rosa said.

  ‘Done,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘Five hits, no primary or secondary damage registering, heat signatures only.’

  On the widescreen, one subframe showed a model of the crablike cyborg craft and five red glowing patches on its forward carapace. Other insets showed their course around the nearby planetoid and that of their pursuer.

  ‘Missile launched,’ the Ship said. ‘Same as before, an EMP-web device on random micro-evasive trajectory. Interception in 5.1 minutes.’

  ‘I’m starting to get irritated by this antique thug,’ Rosa said. ‘Split targeting. Set course for that next planetoid – I want to use the countergravity to effect a sharp trajectory change towards the rendezvous coordinates.’

  ‘Understood.’

  Listening closely, Robert began to understand seconds later and stared up at the widescreen. On the main frame, the nearby planetoid fell away as the Plausible Response turned in the direction of the next, whose diminutive diameter made it a moonlet, a perfectly featureless coppery orb. Then in another frame, a racing diamond point flared suddenly.

  ‘Missile has been destroyed,’ the Ship said.

  ‘Good shooting!’ Robert said.

  ‘Legion Knight is however accelerating – intercept now in 3.87 minutes.’

  ‘Where is it getting all that extra power?’ Rosa muttered.

  ‘Second missile launched – intercept in 1.92 minutes.’

  ‘Right, I’m cutting back on sensor function,’ Rosa said in clipped tones. ‘Additional process capacity now available for target systems.’

  The situation was becoming dire, doom was almost at hand, yet the bridge was a comfortable, air-conditioned centre of tranquillity. Rosa amazed him with her capability and confident handling of the vessel’s controls, as well as her calmness under fire. She might be an AI amalgam of the original Rosa’s characteristics and her body might be a synthetic simulation, but he couldn’t help feeling a father’s pride. When he wasn’t caught up in the fear of oncoming annihilation.

  ‘Time till countergravity maneouvre, 2.05 minutes,’ said the Ship. ‘Suspensors ready … missile destroyed! …’

  Thank God, Robert thought, recalling Reski Emantes’s demise.

  ‘Second contact! – port quarter, unknown vessel closing fast on collision course … time to impact, thirty-eight seconds.’

  Fear gripped his chest as he stared up at the widescreen, looking wildly for an exterior view of the second attacker.

  ‘Engage aft attitude thrusters,’ Rosa said. ‘Bring the stern round to starboard.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘What is that new ship?’ Robert said. ‘Another Legion cyborg?’

  Rosa shook her head. ‘It’s the same one, Daddy, the real one! We’ve been running from some kind of pursuit drone projecting a holoshell image …’ She stopped and glared at the widescreen. ‘There it is! Daddy, get ready …’

  On one of the subframes, against a view of the moonlet’s surface rushing past, the intervening space rippled and a large dark shape coalesced out of nothing. Robert glimpsed armoured limbs tipped with grabs and spines for just a moment before the collision knocked him out of his chair.

  ‘Four hull breaches on my underside,’ said the Ship. ‘I am sealing off all relevant compartments and rerouting networks and fluidics. Ready to attempt …’ Suddenly symbols lit up on Rosa’s console, neon-bright in the dimmed bridge, and a couple of small subframes opened on the widescreen.

  ‘Two more hull breaches,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘One of my main suspensors is out. I’m afraid that a ground swoop is now too risky – without fine gravitic control we would become another gutted wreck.’

  ‘What about your beam weapons?’ Rosa said.

  ‘I disabled the underhull array to avoid it being used against us, while my upper arrays have been pounding the enemy’s visible sections relentlessly. Some stretches of the Knight’s carapace are already melting or ablating off but with no noticeable affect on its close-quarters assault. In less than ten minutes most of my interior will be ruptured and open to hard vacuum.’

  Rosa nodded. ‘Our options have suddenly become limited. What munitions do you have?’

  ‘Twenty-five blast and forty shaped, in various grades.’

  ‘Good, and how many probes are left?’

  ‘One medium-range, six short-range.’

  Rosa looked thoughtful then smiled at Robert. ‘We’ll be all right, Daddy. You just wait here while I go and check on the probes, get them loaded up.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, trying to appear relaxed. ‘I’ll just keep an eye on our unwelcome visitor.’

  He watched her hurry from the bridge then turned back to the widescreen with its spread of exterior views. All showed the immense bulk of the cyborg Knight clinging to the underside of the Plausible Response, its clawed arms tearing off layers of hull material or instrument housings. Minutes passed, and the number of glowing alerts on the main console grew as the damage worsened. Suddenly Robert wondered what was keeping Rosa and was about to ask the Ship when a diminutive figure in dark body armour edged into view on the widescreen. Close-ups showed it to be Rosa, wearing a small transparent mask on the lower half of her face but otherwise lacking a vacuum suit.

  On the screen her lips moved, and her voice emanated from the console comm unit with perfect clarity.

  ‘Daddy, I’m fine – synthetic body, remember? No need to breathe, no respiratory system, no blood pressure. What I’m about to attempt will wipe my cores, whatever the outcome …’

  ‘Rosa!’ Robert cried out. ‘Dear God, I cannot lose you for a second time!’

  ‘You can only lose me once, Daddy,’ she said.

  Then she waved, turned and leaped away from the ship’s hull straight towards the Legion Knight’s lower carapace. One of the secondary armoured limbs, an articulated arm tipped with bladed shears, swung out and lunged at her. Mini-thrusters on her shoulders and elbows flared. She dodged the blow and darted over to the nearest shoulder mounting of one of the main jointed arms, whose serrated pincers were just then tearing into the Plausible Response’s underside,

  Standing at the console, Robert was transfixed by horror, unable to look away. They were well clear of the moonlet now and racing across vacant space towards another part of the planetoid ring. The brassy light from the sun lit everything up in harsh detail.

  Rosa just had time to take the circular munition from a waist pouch and slap it onto the shoulder mounting before a segmented tentacle swept round and slammed into her. But she had tethered herself to a hardpoint on the under-carapace so that instead of flying away she swung round in a curve to land on her feet. Then grabbing handholds, she scrambled across the uneven underside of the Legion Knight, getting a good distance away before triggering the munition.

  Light flashed amid the silent explosion. Metal fragments burst outwards and the severed arm arced away, now attached only to its victim. At the same time, the Plausible Response initiated a crash deceleration – impetus threw the Legion Knight up from its half-concealed position, swinging on the arms that still clung on to the Construct ship’s vitals. The segmented tentacle was reaching out to that torn, gouged hull, biting, grappling for a sturdy purchase …

  But Robert was watching Rosa crawl hand over hand towards the middle of the lower carapace. Then, without warning, jagged webs of energy erupted from her form, leaping and spreading out in all directions. For an instant the attacker’s various limbs stopped in mid-motion … then a convulsion seized them, joints spasmed, drill clusters and power grabs juddered and came away from the Plausible Response’s hull. The ship was free of that deadly clasp.

  Slouched in the main pilot’s couch, Robert stared at the images on
the screen. The Ship’s voice came from somewhere nearby, explaining that newer synthetic bodies like Rosa’s were designed to expend all integral power sources in an overload burst as a last resort. He heard the words but they seemed to float through him and away – all his awareness was frozen, focused on the widescreen where his daughter had died before his eyes.

  Eventually the energy discharge faded to nothing and, soon after, the Ship announced that neither the Knight nor Rosa was giving off lifesigns. Numb, exhausted, he got to his feet and stumbled off to his cabin, vaguely aware of the Plausible Response telling him something about Reski Emantes and the rendezvous. He lay down in the darkness, grief like a cold hand around his heart, and was unable to sleep as the last words they exchanged went round and round in his mind.

  At some point he heard his cabin door open but did not stir.

  ‘Good to see you taking it so well.’

  The voice belonged to Reski Emantes.

  ‘Thank you,’ he muttered into the pillow. ‘Now please leave.’

  ‘Sorry, but your superior diplomatic skills are required. We have reached the rendezvous and are currently parked alongside an impressively shiny vessel whose occupant, a representative of the Godhead, is awaiting your attendance.’

  He lifted his head to glare at the droid.

  ‘I’ve just watched my daughter die! – I’m in no fit state to undertake negotiations.’

  ‘That would certainly be a tragic and just cause for snivelling and moping around – if it was true.’

  ‘What?’ Robert said, stung to anger.

  ‘That’s wasn’t your daughter that perished out there,’ the droid said. ‘It was a spectrum-matched AI modelled on the holosim data that you brought with you from Darien.’

  Then Rosa’s last words came back to him – You can only lose me once – and he began to understand. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he rested his head in his hands, fingers covering his eyes. He sighed a long sigh.

  ‘She’s data,’ he said.

  ‘At last it dawns – exactly. In the moments before the Rosa AI sacrificed herself, the Ship made a recording of her mindmap state. When the Construct sends another, she can sync it with her own data matrix and she’ll be updated with everything till that point at least. But it will not be your daughter. I hope you understand that now.’

  Understanding, he thought, getting to his feet. Understanding is not the same as feeling.

  ‘How will the Construct know what has happened?’

  ‘The Ship has already sent an encrypted report and when we have some idea of what the Godhead’s mouthpiece is offering, and where we’re off to next, we’ll send an update before making the next tier jump. Of course, that depends on you successfully concluding negotiations for permission to petition the Godhead in person, as only an organic diplomat can do. Are you up to it?’

  In his mind he could see the way Rosa commanded the Ship, the way she smiled, the way she fought, and the way she died. He breathed in deeply.

  ‘I am.’

  He sonic-showered, drank a sweet-tasting nutridrink, then donned the suit that the Ship had produced for him. It was a predominantly black affair of austerely formal cut, with dark blue trim and an odd symbol, a quartered circle containing a smaller off-centre circle, impressed on his chest pocket in pale blue. Regarding himself in a full-length mirror, he had to admit that it made him look good, in a stone-cold, gunslinger diplomat way. A few minutes later he was waiting before the main airlock, Reski Emantes at his side, while an umbilical from the alien vessel adjusted and adapted to the Plausible Response’s exterior.

  ‘So how did you manage to survive that EMP missile?’ he said. ‘Did the Ship have a recording of you as well?’

  The droid’s sideways isosceles form turned his way slightly. ‘Crash-shunted into a shielded backup core, a little advantage not open to you organics.’ The droid chuckled. ‘Or those Legion relics.’

  A chime sounded in the low, dimpled ceiling and the inner lock doors parted, followed by the outer ones. A shiny roseate walk-way led along the oval umbilical, its opaque grey material punctuated by green strengthening ribs. Through it Robert could just make out the Godhead vessel’s flattened-oval lines. Together they proceeded along its gently down-curved length to a square hatch that parted diagonally. Before they could continue, tiny spotbeams winked on and swung round to converge on the floating droid. An odd liquid voice came from the dark, translucent passage beyond.

  ‘Only organic emissaries are permitted – the mechanical must return.’

  ‘I am Emissary Horst’s escort,’ Reski began. ‘There can be no exceptions,’ said the voice. ‘Safety is assured aboard this vessel. Escorts are not required.’

  ‘And of course, you are to be trusted in this regard.’ ‘We insist on it.’

  The droid turned towards Robert. ‘Looks like you’re on your own. Watch out for the hospitality drinks.’ Then it smoothly turned end over end and without another word floated back the way they had come.

  ‘Enter, Emissary Horst.’

  Inside, the walls had fluted surfaces in shades of green that had a slick translucence with a hint of fluid and rippling membranes beneath. Perhaps the Godhead’s vessel employed living tissue, he speculated. Perhaps the entire ship was a living creature – he had heard that such things existed in the starry expanses on the far side of the Indroma Solidarity.

  ‘Follow the lights, Emissary – they will guide you.’

  Three narrow passages branched off from this chamber but only one had small amber symbols pulsing on the soft textured floor. The passage colour changed to dark, shiny blue, the same as the large curved chamber he soon arrived in. Long ribs spread out from the ceiling and there were curious concave tiles underfoot. The chamber was oval and divided in two by a transparent wall beyond which a strange pale creature floated, as if in water. It had a squidlike, multi-tentacled lower torso yet the upper body was vaguely humanoid, a chest narrowing to a neck and a bulbous hairless head. Two large eyes stared from a mouthless face while several other eyes were dotted around the shoulders and upper chest. A pair of thin arms hung listlessly by its sides, each with a rudimentary hand. The skin looked waxy, soft and pale, and said little about the creature’s bone structure.

  ‘Welcome, Emissary Robert Horst,’ said a smooth, calm female voice. ‘You are aboard a postulate-craft of the Godhead, and I am the Intercessor.’

  The pale creature’s face grew a mouth as Robert approached and other details appeared or changed. Ears that emerged from the temples then migrated down to more familiar locations, a nose that pushed out of the centre of the face and went from conical to humanlike even before nostrils appeared, and arms that thickened while on the hands the stubby fingers divided and lengthened. It was as if this strange being was like a mask being moulded from within.

  Robert maintained his composure as the transformation took place, while trying to grasp the sense and possible meanings of the term ‘postulate-craft’. A postulate was an idea or proposal put forward without self-evident proof, like a Gedankenexperiment. So what did that say about the basis of this meeting?

  And did this creature have anything to do with the Legion Knight’s ambush?

  ‘I am deeply honoured by your invitation, Intercessor,’ he said. ‘We would have arrived sooner had we not been attacked by a hostile vessel which we managed to overcome at some cost. I wonder … if you were at all aware of the attacker’s presence here?’

  To Robert’s amazement, the Intercessor’s form suddenly convulsed and distorted, its pale, soft skin rippling, swelling and parting as easily as if the body were made of something pliable, even gelatinous. The Intercessor divided into three forms identical to the original, and swam around each other for a moment before drawing closely together. Waxy flesh merged seamlessly and a new form coalesced, a blocky torso with a long, arched and eyeless head ending in a pointed beak. A deep grating voice came from the ceiling just above the transparent wall.

  ‘The purp
oses of violent intruders hold no relevance for us. You have come a long way from the Prime Stratum, Emissary Horst – we are keen to hear the Construct’s message.’

  In other words, we do not discuss our motivations with lesser creatures, he thought as he gave a polite bow.

  ‘Intercessor, I am here not just on behalf of the entity known as the Construct but also on behalf of certain fellow members of my species who are trapped between brutal powers that have no regard for anything other than their own aggrandisement.’

  He went on to briefly sketch out the discovery of the warpwell on Darien, the involvement of the Hegemony and their Brolturan proxies, and the vulnerable situation of the Darien colonists and their Uvovo allies. He then laid out the Construct’s position, its ancient alliance with the Forerunners, its contention that various unsolved massacres and destructions in the lower tiers were carried out by agents of the Legion of Avatars, and the belief that the Legion Knight that dispatched the earlier droid to Darien would try again and perhaps succeed. If the Legion of Avatars were to escape from their aeons-old prison, the consequences for the galaxy would be catastrophic and would percolate down through the tiers of hyperspace, a poison that would then spread to other galaxies.

  ‘So I have come here at the Construct’s behest to ask for help,’ Robert said. ‘The Construct proposes that the Godhead put pressure on the vestigial civilisations of the Deep Tracts to work together to combat aggression and ensure the confinement of questionable elements to the depths …’

  At this, the Intercessor’s form again melted, split into three and recombined into an odd spiderish thing whose lumpy back sprouted dozens of tentacles ending in mouths or eyes, straining towards Robert, pressing against the transparent wall.

  ‘The Construct asks for much and assumes much.’ This time it sounded like several voices speaking in unison. ‘What part would the Construct play in this arrangement? What advantage would accrue to the Godhead?’

  ‘With the Godhead’s influence improving security across the Deep Tracts, the Construct can redirect some of its midlevel forces to the Prime Stratum, to the planet Darien to seal the warpwell permanently. The Legion of Avatars’ last chance of escape will be gone for ever and the Godhead will never have to face them.’