‘There’s much to talk about, as we’re all here,’ Myrddin said making a bee-line for replicator.
‘Indeed,’ Brother Dakol agreed.
‘Starting with how in the next time-line, it’s your turn to be the “bad-cop”’ and my turn to be the “good-cop”, Nimue declared pointedly at Myrddin.
‘Is it? Already?’ Myrddin answered innocently, ‘Just when it was getting interesting…’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, you old rogue,’ she chided gently. ‘You know it’s my turn to be the heroine and you the villain...’
Myrddin responded with a sigh as Aquiline took his hand and squeezed it. ‘Perhaps more than one beer is required,’ she said and guided him to the replicator.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Planet Samarcia, Alrona mountain range.
The main ramp of the Karine sealed behind them, shutting out the bright lights of the cavern hangar, if not entirely the vibration and noise of three gargantuan starships and one small destroyer. Moss ushered Jennifer and their child through the small ship passageways and into the cockpit. They never uttered a word to each other, but thoughts flashed between them as the family mentally caught up with what had happened to them all. It would take a long time for them to come to terms with everything that had happened since they were last together, but at least they were now all together.
Jenson glanced at the parents and baby as Jennifer strapped herself and baby Arthur into a jump-seat and Moss planted himself back at his control station. ‘What the frack!’ He blurted out in surprise.
‘Lovely, to see you too Paul…’ Jennifer responded, leaning over and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Sandpiper turned and gave her an appraising look. In his best deadpan voice he said, ‘Funny thing the Multiverse ain’t it?’
‘Oh yes…,’ Jennifer replied equally deadpan, but with a tired smile. She glanced through the cockpit window at the huge hangar doors which had nearly reached their apex. Daylight flooded into the cavern, almost blinding in it’s intensity, but heart-warming after so many days of nothing but dim artificial light. They had only just made it in time. A few seconds more and the Karine would have left the lair. She didn’t understand everything that had just happened, and perhaps she never would, but for the time being at least, she was just relieved to be back with her husband and those closest to her.
Jenson gave his copilot a quizzical stare. ‘What?’ Sandpiper responded with an animated shrug, ‘I’ve been learning quantum mechanics on the quiet. Colmarrie finds it sexy…..’
Jenson was about to fire a retort, when the radio came to life. ‘Karine, this is Alrona control. Is everything OK? We saw the ramp open and passengers board your vessel.’ He shook his head and reminded himself to never be surprised, at being surprised, when it came to this particular family. The question of what, how, and when, could wait for later. ‘Alrona control. All is well, we just picked up a couple of late hitchhikers. Karine is ready for departure.’
There was a slight pause, as if deciding whether to ask more, before the voice of the controller responded, ‘Roger that, Karine. The main hangar doors are now open. Take-off at your discretion.’
‘Take-off at our discretion,’ Jenson read-back to the controller. ’Karine rolling…’
Vectoring increasing thrust downward, the Karine raised itself off the cavern floor, ready to move forwards, towards the vast open entrance. With a nod, Jennifer took over the control of the armament, the function being passed from Moss’s workstation in the cockpit to her own. Juggling baby and the Karine’s defences was the sort of multi-functioning that only a mother can achieve, and doing something constructive helped her put to one side recent events; at least for now. Moss smiled at the two of them, then concentrated on his own primary role.
He made mental contact with the starship Excalibur. The data flowed into his mind via the interactive flight system. It was raw in comparison to the refined flight controls he was used to in their own space-time, but it was at least operable.
Moss sat physically strapped into his seat in the cockpit of the Karine, but as far as he was concerned, he was the pilot of the starship Excalibur. The winglets were his arms, the power plant his heart, and the ship's computer an integral part of his mind. What he could sense, see, feel and touch was what Excalibur's own sensors were recording. However, a part of his mind remained his own. The ship didn't overwhelm his senses, so much as augment them, allowing him to become at one with the vast vessel.
Moss was no stranger to interactive flight controls; indeed most of his flying hours had involved piloting with such a system. But the untested flight controls of this new Excalibur were still at best an unusual experience. What was even more unusual was that the other two starships, Dominator and Valvia, were slaved to the flight plan of Excalibur. In practice, this meant when Moss willed Excalibur to do something, his actions were simultaneously passed to the other two vessels. They in turn would interpret the Excalibur’s flight path and follow suit. It was ‘follow-the-leader’ formation flying on an enormous scale. Nothing like this had been tried before, and probably would never be done again.
He remained in telepathic contact with Jennifer, Jenson and Sandpiper, who were ready to move the relatively tiny Karine like a minuscule “Piped Piper”.
'Are we ready people?' he asked his old friends mentally.
'I guess this is a bad time to go to the bathroom?' Sandpiper quipped.
'Put a bung in it,' Jenson replied glibly.
'Thanks, for your sympathy.'
Moss smiled at his companion’s flippancy. He knew it was just their way of dealing with the stress of the moment. In reality, they were as prepared as they would ever be.
'Well if you guys have no more complaints, then we may as well get this show on the road!'
'You go right ahead old boy! We'll be right behind you I promise!'
Moss willed the status fields to bring the singularities fractionally closer and felt the resultant surge of power course through his body. Linked as he was to numerous optic sensors he watched as almost miraculously, the three vast Starships shuddered with the vast power generated by their singularity engines and almost imperceptibly levitated a few centimetres off the cavern floor.
Only through penance could they seek redemption, and the penance was soon to be delivered. With great anticipation and what could only be described as ‘excitement’, Starweb member 3789/294 watched through the eyes of the drone overseers and the slaved orbital satellites, the massive hangar doors of the renegades lair begin to open. The hangars doors were set into a massive cliff face with a sheer drop of several hundred metres below, and a massive rocky outcrop above. Situated on the far-side of the mountain, some distance from the lair’s main portal entrance, there was no easy access for the robotic drones. Time was clearly of the essence.
In a flash of AI thought, Starweb member 3789/294 ordered a large number of the combat robots to dash to the rocky outcrop above the opening hangar doors, and hurl themselves off the edge. Without question platoons of combat robots left the main group and clattered rapidly towards the cliff face. As they approached the rocky outcrop and its sheer drop, the combat drones grabbed hold of two of the articulated legs of the robot in front, just before that robot disappeared over the precipice. Like a herd of lemmings throwing themselves off a cliff, the robots leapt into space connected one to another, mandible to articulated leg. This process continued for line after line of combat drones, each robot clinging on to the legs of the robot in front in a vice-like grip, until it looked as if the very last line of machines would also throw themselves into oblivion. However, it wasn’t to be. Instead of joining their team in an apparently pointless demise, these robots dug their jointed legs and tails hard into the ground, forcing them into crevices and gaps, wherever they could find a firm hold. Not all of them succeeded, but enough. The result was a vast mesh, something akin to a chain-mail made of interlinked robots, that hurtled out into space, before the rearmost line of
drones, their hind legs anchored to whatever they could find, took up the strain of the falling metallic mass.
With precision timing, the newly created screen of combat drones fell across the mouth of the now fully open hangar entrance. Although the mesh of robots wasn’t large enough to entirely block the vast entrance to the cavern, it was sufficient. The vast starships would have to fly directly through the robot chain-mail to exit the hangar.
Seeing the plan was successful Starweb member 3789/294 ordered the remaining robotic hordes to disengage from their assault on the heavily fortified main cavern portal and join their siblings. The masses clattered to the rocky precipice like a wave of crabs rushing for the sea shore. Then, without hesitation, they clambered over the backs of those already there, down the chain-mail wall and attached themselves at the very bottom and sides. Thus, they rapidly extended the height and width of the robotic obstruction. Once the hanging wall of combat drones was sufficiently large, another horde of the crab-like robots clattered over the backs of the others, but this time, instead of extending and strengthening the wall, they lifted their Gatling guns and poked the multi-barreled projectile weapons through the gaps, pointing them purposely towards the vast starships that sat inside the cavernous hangar. If the vessels tried to launch, they would have to run the gauntlet, with unquestionably dire consequences.
Sandpiper looked through the cockpit window of the Karine and saw the hordes of Starweb drones fall like a massive curtain across the entrance to the hangar. He watched as combat robots clattered over the backs of others, then point their Gatling guns directly at them.
‘Houston, I think we have a problem,’ he sad to the others with classic understatement.
‘Merde…’ Jenson muttered, looking up from the instrument panel to the view outside the cockpit. ‘Jennifer, you’d better get with those plasma guns. We’ll have to punch our way through that lot.’
‘If those critters open-fire with those Gatling guns, Excalibur, Dominator and Valvia will get badly damaged. They’re not yet equipped with the defences to take that sort of punishment.’ Sandpiper mused. ‘A load of ricocheting canon rounds in this cavern will also turn Rosalio’s team into mince-meat.’
‘Do we have any choice?’ Jenson responded, ’If we don’t punch a hole through that lot and get out of this cavern, we’re all mince-meat anyway…’
‘Why haven’t they opened fire?’ Jennifer asked aloud, her hands ready to fire the Karine’s defensive armament. ‘If they wanted to stop the seed-ships they could, but they haven’t…and I think I know why’.
Jennifer spoke mentally to Moss, who was still connected to the flight controls of Excalibur. ‘Dearest, can you tell Lollo Rosalio to hold-fire? If his team open-fire and those drones retaliate it wont be pretty.’
‘I have already done so, Lady Jennifer,’ Rosalio answered mentally, joining their discussion. ‘We have paused to see what our friends will do next.’
‘Lollo, meet my good wife Jennifer. Jennifer, meet Lollo….I asked him to join our chat, and have briefed him on events’. Moss interjected.
‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance Lady Jennifer. I just wish it was in better circumstances.’ Lollo thought. ‘I have heard so much about you and baby Arthur. It appears you have had many adventures here on Samarcia. Could your recent discussions shed any light on our predicament?’
‘Good question. Is there any chance there is a connection to what’s going on here? Could it be that Brother Dakol is behind all this?’ Moss also asked.
‘I still find it hard to comprehend that the late Brother Dakol has somehow become a part of the artificial intelligence network ‘Starweb’. We saw him pass away from his injuries. How could he become part of a computer? Our fight has always been against the Starweb corporation, but now it seems our enemy has morphed into something far worse? How could this happen?’ Lollo queried.
‘His memories, his essence, must have been recorded and uploaded to the Starweb network. Although I don’t know how.’ Jennifer replied, thinking of her encounter with the projection of Brother Dakol only a short while ago, albeit in another time-line.
‘The journalist, De Felke, has anybody seen him recently?’ Moss asked, a seed of suspicion in his mind.
‘Not since the death of Brother Dakol. Do you think he has something to do with this?’ Lollo asked.
‘Possibly; it would be worth asking his companion, Qbec. However, clearly now is not the time. I think we have to presume the late Monk is, at some level, involved with our friends at the door. Especially given what my wife and son have been through.’ Moss answered.
‘I concur,’ Lollo Rosalio thought back. ‘The question now is, what happens next?’
‘Well, if you boys gave me a chance to get a thought in, I could possibly tell you!’ Jennifer interdicted a little crossly. She was getting weary of people talking at her, rather than with her.
‘Er, yes, of course. Sorry dear, we got carried away,’ Moss replied sheepishly. He had become used to being the alpha male and had forgotten that Jennifer would have none of it. He smiled quietly to himself—lesson learned.
‘Indeed, please continue Lady Jennifer.’ Rosalio interjected.
‘The Brother Dakol I encountered in the other time-line told me that he had died, only to be reborn, assimilated as a founding member of the Starweb collective. Which confirms that out friend out there must have also died, and been assimilated into the Starweb network.‘ Jennifer explained, not convinced by their testosterone driven apologies, but willing to move on. ‘The Starweb network is based upon quantum computers, which utilise quantum entanglement. So, by definition, all entities of the Starweb are connected across all the multi-dimensions of space-time.’
‘I am sure you are correct Lady Jennifer, but as fascinating as this is, I fail to see how this knowledge can assist us in our current predicament?’ Rosalio queried.
‘Because, my dear Lollo,’ Jennifer retorted triumphantly, ‘If these starships don’t launch, there will be no Dyason race in the future of this time-line. So, there will be no brother Dakol, no catalyst to launch the Starweb into self-awareness, and no further propagation of the Starweb across the Multiverse.’
There was a brief pause whilst Moss and Rosalio digested what she had said. Then Moss asked, ’So, what you are saying, is that if those combat drones damage Excalibur, Dominator and Valvia, and they don’t launch—then the future wont exist, so Dakol can’t be thrown back into the past to create his own future. And also the future of the Starweb?’
‘Nearly…’ Jennifer answered. On a roll now, the pieces were falling together like a jigsaw. She could finally understand the what and where. ‘It took me a while to get my head around it all, but you see it’s not a question of ‘when’ it is a question of ‘where’… None of us have moved in time, because moving back in time is against the laws of the Multiverse. Instead, we have moved ‘dimensions’ from one reality to another. Nobody has moved in ‘”time’” only in “space!”’
‘Time is a measure of flow, and like a river it can only flow one way. You can attempt to paddle upstream and go back in time, but in the process you create another time-line, another reality. Thus, the past you attempt to reach by paddling upstream, is never part of the same time-line you were in before. The action of you moving upstream creates a new alternate reality by default.’ Moss added, understanding the thread started by his beautiful and intelligent wife. Another reason he loved he so much, he thought to himself.
‘You believe that in moving back in time to here in Samarcia, you have created a new time-line? An alternate universe; the one I exist in?’ Rosalio asked the pair of Terrans, gamely trying to keep up with the thread of their thinking.
‘Well, that’s what I thought initially,’ Moss answered, but I could never figure out why, when we entered Samarcian space, the position of the stars were the same as for the Samarcia in our own timeline. If we had “paddled-upstream”, back in time, then the stars should be in a different
position, due to the constant expansion of the universe…’
‘And there was the dimension-shift baby Arthur and I made from our time-line, to this one. That wouldn’t be possible if the two time-lines didn’t exist in the same period; if not the same dimension.’ Jennifer added enthusiastically. ‘The alternate realities would have to exist in the same moment of time and the same physical position, albeit a different dimension, for that event to be even remotely possible.’
‘So, why is this Samarcia historically the same Samarcia of the distant past, in your time-line? How can that be possible without going back in time?’ Rosalio pondered.
‘It could be for a number of reasons,’ Jennifer replied, ‘Maybe the planet only became habitable some millennia later than the Samarcia in our own time-line. Maybe, the early history of the Samarcian races took longer to get to the same point in civilisation.’
‘Or maybe, somebody manipulated it that way….,’ Moss interjected.
‘What sort of being, organic or artificial intelligence, could wield such power and influence over millennia, to change the historical advancement of an entire race?’ Rosalio demanded, shocked at the idea that the history of Samarcia and it’s people could be manipulated on such a vast scale.
‘The same sort of being that could change the course of humanity on Earth, Dyason and Heligsion,’ Moss answered, then added mysteriously. ‘And I suspect I know just the sort of being….’
‘Who would that be, dearest?’ Jennifer asked, but suspecting she knew the answer as well.
‘It will take a bit of time to explain that one, and we have other pressing matters to deal with.’ Moss replied, not wanting to be drawn into a long discussion. ‘It can wait, whilst our friends at the door cannot… So, what is the plan here, Jennifer?’
‘We do nothing…. ‘ Jennifer told them firmly. ‘We wait…. And if I am correct, we wont have to wait for long.’
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