The Phantom in the Deep (Rook's Song)

by Chad Huskins

  Rook taps a button. “Begin log,” he says. “Call sign Rook. I have initiated contact with the Cereb, and begun interrogations. He calls himself Leader, and seems very confident that…” Rook trails off, and sighs. It is hard to go on. Who am I even recording this for? A question that returns frequently these days. He sits for a moment, stares out the viewport, watches time and space slip by. He stares so long and hard that he forgets to blinks, and his eyes begin to water. Finally, he blinks, clears his throat, and finishes. “He seems very confident that his people will find me, and finish me off. He…he has indicated that I am the last. I held out hope this long, but it appears…well, Cerebs don’t lie. They just don’t. It…it looks like I am the last. The words I speak are the last humanity will ever have, and I think…I think I’m still in shock?” He says it like a question, trying to wrap his mind around it. “If not in shock, then…” Then what? He sighs. “End log.”

  The Sidewinder moves smoothly through the cleft between the two halves of the Queen’s body. It’s like passing through a dark, narrow valley—the rock split almost in two, creating a large V that had collected its own floating debris.

  Rook has cued up some music to settle his nerves. He prefers very old music, pre-2000s. There was something about that era, particularly from 1950 to 1995. His father was a musician, and was enamored of the many musical revolutions and the sheer energy of that age.

  SEARCH: CLASSIC BANDS: ERA/YEAR: 1986

  ARTIST NAME: KENNY LOGGINS

  ALBUM NAME: TOP GUN (SOUNDTRACK)

  SONG TITLE: DANGER ZONE

  Hands on the controls, his mind focused on his sensors and his eyes locked on the forward viewport, Rook sings along. This part of the ride can be rather thrilling, as we soon find out.

  “Revvin’ up your engine,

  Listen to her howlin’ roar.

  Metal under tension,

  Beggin’ you to touch and go.

  Highway to the Danger Zone!

  Ride into the Danger Zone!”

  Asteroids everywhere. Moving through this field is exceedingly dangerous, as the random debris is in constant flux. The Wild Cards part for the Sidewinder as it comes through, then assume their previous positions once the ship has passed.

  Rook runs yet another diagnostics check. The ship’s collision-avoidance system seems to be working at nearly full efficiency, guaranteeing no unwanted bumps or scrapes. He taps a few buttons, flips a switch, primes the torpedo pod. It fired its last torpedo eight years ago, and since then has been used to jet extra supplies over to Queen Anne. The Queen functions as a secondary supply depot—as commonplace as collisions are in this field, Rook learned a long time ago never to put all his eggs in one basket. His supplies are therefore split between the King and the Queen. The radar-guided pod will float down to Queen Anne’s “north” side and deposit a few supplies into a crater that runs almost a mile deep. There, Rook maintains a cache.

  Presently, he taps a few more buttons, sending a signal over to the nuclear mass drivers on each side of the Queen, telling them to run a systems check. The thrusters of each mass driver were placed there some thirty years ago, by asteroid miners who planned to take some of the choicest morsels from the asteroid field. Now all but consumed by the Cerebs and Rook himself. Such enormous thrusters were sometimes placed on a large asteroid, at enormous expense, if it was considered dangerous and could possibly interfere with such mining. The thrusters could be activated to move the asteroid in any direction. It cost a handsome sum for companies to produce the mass drivers and place them on an asteroid, and it was a technique that became outmoded as soon as more nimble ships and better deflector shields were developed.

  Rook discovered the derelict thrusters on the Queen some years ago, and immediately concealed them with sensor shrouds that he salvaged from other damaged Sidewinders. He used them from time to time, activating them remotely, keeping the Queen from colliding with her King. Though, he tries not to do this too often, because the enormous power it takes to move the Queen, once activated, cannot be concealed even by a sensor shroud. If a Cereb luminal ship happened by while he was using it, his largest and most important caches would be discovered and obliterated, and he likely with it.

  Over the years, he’s placed smaller caches throughout the asteroid field. At times, he’s had to retreat deeper into the field for weeks on end, too concerned about leading his pursuers to his base camp.

  With the supply pod safely on its way to Queen Anne, the Sidewinder begins to circle around the smaller half of the asteroid and approaches King Henry VIII. The landing cycle takes three minutes to run through. As Rook adjusts the roll, the Sidewinder’s computers begin to opine, as they often do, that really he ought to try to adjust his rate, and that his yaw isn’t quite right, nor his pitch for that matter.

  “Headin’ into twilight,

  Spreadin’ out her wings to tonight.

  She got you jumpin’ off the track,

  And shovin’ into overdrive.

  Highway to the Danger Zone!

  I’ll take you right into the Danger Zone!”

  Seven asteroids float about, all of them as false as the Wild Cards, only these are much bigger; about four times as big as the Sidewinder. Each one is covered in the same shape-shifting mimetic clay, and contains a high-powered automated turret that fires a particle beam at ten terajoules of energy, roughly twenty-five percent of the power unleashed on Hiroshima when the A-bomb went off. They were once sentry satellites, placed in high orbit above the Eye of Shiva, the farthest moon from Shiva 154e. Rook salvaged them eight years ago, only had to repair one. He nicknamed them the Seven Dwarfs: Sleepy, Happy, Dopey, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful and Doc.

  Rook rolls the Sidewinder over and pulls back on the cyclic, increasing the Sidewinder’s descent rate. He passes into a narrow opening on the King’s surface. A hole was bored straight through it, probably by some ancient miners, splintering off into various other pitch-black caverns. At first, this cave looks as nondescript as any other, but after a few twists and turns, the Sidewinder kicks on its lights and we begin to see small cylinders hanging from the ceiling, no longer than a human arm. Motion sensors, all of them. Just now, they only detect the Sidewinder.

  Deeper and deeper into the lair.

  The Sidewinder comes close to a complete stop, the reverse thrusters halting forward momentum, while the portside thrusters control the yaw and creates a flat spin. He turns down a cavern, moving slowly, testing the darkness as one might test the water’s temperature with their toes. One never knows when a random boulder-sized asteroid may ricochet into these tunnels.

  Deeper and deeper.

  Rook must slow down again, this time adjusting his pitch, heading straight up into a cavern above our heads. He initially explored this asteroid for a whole month, working out a twisting path so it would be difficult for skirmishers and seekers to find his camp. Of course, if a Cereb luminal ship ever finds the King, it won’t matter how deep he goes.

  The cockpit is filled with an alarm. It’s okay, though, it’s just a warning to Rook that proximity mines have been detected. He merely needs to transmit his IFF signature (Identify Friend or Foe), along with his ship’s transponder code to the mines embedded into the walls. Once the mines have this, they deactivate, allow him to pass, and reactivate once he’s well beyond them.

  Deeper and deeper.

  The Sidewinder makes one more adjustment to yaw, turns down another cavern, and proceeds on the final leg of its odyssey. The King is riddled with these wormholes, some of them jagged with stalagmite-like teeth, others smooth and non-threatening. Rook selected one area amid this labyrinth for its many possible escape routes.

  When he finally reaches base camp, where everything has been bolted down (no artificial gravity here), he sails clearly over it and flares suddenly to shed the remaining speed. The Sidewinder glides down to the area he’s designated as his landing pad. Sensors detect him, and a few halogen lights cut on to outline the landing zone.
The Sidewinder touches down softly, its landing gear fitting neatly into magnetized clamps that have been drilled into the rock. Rook stands up from his seat, does a brief scan to make sure all is right with his campsite, and then powers down the engines.

  While flying, the computer has made another move on the chessboard. He looks at it, and realizes the computer is two moves away from a checkmate. He resigns, sets up another game, and has it transmitted to his micropad so he can play while working about the base. The computer is White this time, so it goes first, and the game opens with the classic King’s Indian Defense: White pawn moves to D4, Black knight moves to F6, White moves another pawn to C4 and Black pushes a pawn to G6.

  The first order of business is to offload some of the materials that the Sidewinder has been making in its own fabricator, which is mounted to its belly. There is only so much stuff it can make these days. Much of the asteroid field holds the same elements, so variety is hard to come by. The fact that the fabricator is breaking down doesn’t help much either, but what it gathers and creates, basic screws, though not very strong, and iron plates that can be used to fortify sections of his base, are welcome. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” That was his mother’s advice to him, echoing down through the decades, still giving him guidance.

  Rook pulls on his environmental suit, activates the atmosphere, and tastes the acrid metallic air. Actually, it’s not so acrid as it used to be. He’s gotten used to it. About a year ago, he realized he could no longer recall what real air smelled or tasted like.

  He cuts the music off, goes to check on Badger and make sure he’s strapped in, switches off artificial gravity inside the ship (so that there’s no distortion when he steps outside), and then heads down to the cargo bay. His prisoner is bolted tightly enough that he isn’t floating or moving much at all. Rook has his sidearm clipped to his thigh, and moves cautiously towards the Leader with his hand on the grip, ready to draw it if he has to. The Leader seems resigned to his bonds, and doesn’t move as Rook injects him again, putting him out. Rook undoes the bonds, and places the Cerebral in an environmental suit of his own (Badger’s old one). It ought to work, since the physiology between the two races is very close.

  Rook floats the alien to the bottom of the ramp and ties his bonds to a guardrail as he cues up “Moonlight Sonata.” It’s a somber piece that fills Rook with other memories of home. Soft breezes and even softer nights. Time spent on the farm, looking up at the starry sky, dreaming of one day swimming through it. The song is ominous, though. Portending the end of humanity?

  Rook’s unconscious requiem for us, perhaps?

  After leaving the Leader behind, he can’t get the image of the black, pulsating eyes out of his head. Nor can he forget the creature’s words. And there is another problem with your race, of course, the Leader said to him. Sacrifice. When asked how he could be a soldier and yet not understand the concept of sacrifice, the Leader responded so matter-of-factly, like an adult not understanding why a child can’t grasp it. Why sacrifice, when you may plan ahead, get a feel for your enemy’s technological capabilities, and allow them to make all the foolish mistakes? Such as sacrifice.

  It is in that moment that something occurs to him. It occurs suddenly, and is quickly gone. It has the feeling of an idea that may return later for a visit, if it’s feeling neighborly.

  Rook hums along to Ludwig van Beethoven’s masterpiece, cues up the holographic screen of his micropad, and plays a bit of chess while he unbolts the compristeel cases, one at a time, and unloads them.

  White knight moves to C3.

  Zero-grav has its various challenges. Rook floats outside. He uses the steel guardrails to guide himself along. The guardrails were constructed from pieces the Sidewinder’s fabricator produced. Rook glides through the lit cavern. Each of the cases contain other items he’s produced while on the go, more iron supports fashioned in the fabricator, so as to bolster the integrity of his growing structure.

  His mind is split between his work, the chess game, and the Leader’s words. Why sacrifice, when you may plan ahead, get a feel for your enemy’s technological capabilities, and allow them to make all the foolish mistakes? The idea from moments before returns to him, a bit more formed this time, yet still lurking somewhere in the murk. Like a tongue returning to the empty socket where a tooth has been removed, his mind would return to this thought a few more times, picking at it.

  Black bishop moves to G7.

  It’s the best move, he figures, floating back to the ship to gather another case. With this move, he intends to allow White control of the center with its pawns, with a mind to challenge it with either the moves to E5 or C5. All in all, a very complex and dynamic opening, favored by players like Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, and, of course, Bobby Fischer.

  Over the years, Rook has had a chance to study up on Bobby Fischer, the man once held to be the greatest chess player that ever lived, all the way up until eighty years ago, when the Japanese player Akira Kimura had played a hundred games with a hundred separate Grandmasters, defeating all of them. Back on Nomar 442b, just before Cowboy died, he imparted knowledge of this player to Rook. Rook was much younger then, only twenty-one, and had spent most of his time idolizing Kimura and a handful of other modern players.

  So many chess players have come and gone since Fischer, he’s practically been buried in the congested annals of history. While Rook was fleeing Nomar, hopping through various systems, he used the Ethernet to communicate with the few others out there also fighting for survival. One week, while floating in a dead part of space, desperate for any human contact and feeling utterly alone, he decided, quite out of the blue, to look up Fischer. What he discovered about the young player astonished him.

  Born to Hans-Gerhardt Fischer and Regina Fischer, a biophysicist and a teacher, respectively, in 1943, Bobby Fischer first learned to play chess with his sister at the age of six, reading the instructions off of his first chess set. Seven years later, at thirteen years of age, Bobby Fischer won a “brilliancy” (a beautiful and spectacular game of chess) that was chronicled as the Game of the Century.

  The story of the game was simply incredible. Fischer was playing against Donald Byrne, a man considered to be one of the strongest American chess players of the 1950s and 1960s, if not the greatest. Byrne was White, so he had the opening move, giving him the statistical advantage. Byrne opened with a noncommittal move; knight to F3, very simple, just seeing if he might control the center. Fischer responded with knight to F6, basically just mirroring Byrne’s move. From here, Byrne played pawn to C4, trying to gain a little more control of the center. Fischer responded with pawn to G6, getting ready to fianchetto his bishop to the G7 spot that his pawn had just moved from.

  With these simple moves, Fischer pretty much invited Byrne to establish a classic pawn “stronghold” at the center of the board. Of course, Fischer was merely attempting to fianchetto with his bishop (a piece known from “coming out of nowhere” in chess, especially in games Rook played with his father), which will target and undermine Byrne’s defenses at the center.

  The next few moves were fairly simple. Byrne moved his other knight to C3. Fischer moved his bishop. Byrne moved his pawn to D4. Fischer quickly castled on the king’s side. Now, typically after this, a player in Byrne’s position would move his pawn at E2 to E4, but Byrne didn’t do this. Instead of playing the King’s Indian Defense, Byrne opted to move his bishop from C1 to F4. He did this because it was becoming known that Fischer was adept at playing to the King’s Indian Defense.

  This was important, because it indicated that Byrne had been studying Fischer as a player, not just studying the pieces and game theory. Just like Rook’s father told him to do. “Think about the mind sitting across from you,” he said, time and time again until finally Rook, becoming frustrated with his inability to win the major tournaments, stopped playing in them altogether.

  Fischer: pawn to D5; the classic Grünfeld Defense. Byrne: queen to B3. Fischer: pawn to C4
, taking an enemy pawn (giving up the center for the moment, but it did remove the “tempo” from Byrne’s queen, meaning the White queen must waste a move on recapturing).

  A few more moves that were pretty much to be expected, just a few exchanges, the taking of a piece here and there. Nothing exceptional. That is, until Byrne maneuvered his king as such that he could get it into F1, which made sense because Byrne was still putting pressure on Fischer’s queen at B6, which Fischer had allowed to get cornered. Byrne figured Fischer was going to play his queen somewhere, so he was just sort of waiting for Fischer to make that move.

  But Fischer didn’t do that.

  What happened next was what most chess players of that era called the greatest sacrifice in the history of the game. Rather than move the queen, Fischer moved his bishop to E6. Many people saw this as a horrible mistake at the time. It even astonished Byrne, who took Fischer’s queen, for how could he not? The queen is the most powerful piece in chess, after all, it can move in any direction it wants, combining the powers of the bishop and the rook, so to remove it from the board means you’ve just come a great deal closer to defeating your enemy. Fischer elected to move the bishop and leave his queen in the spot where he knew it would get taken on Byrne’s next move. It was something that most people thought was a rather stupid move.

  Byrne didn’t see the lure. He only saw a mistake. He probably figured there was something else Fischer was playing at, he just didn’t know how big of a ploy this was.