Starweb

by Warren James Palmer

  They looked on in silence as the doors slowly opened and revealed the hulks of wrecked Snubfighters and Flyships. Scorched, battered and dismembered, the remains of Excalibur’s once proud air combat squadrons lay strewn across the hangar floor. There wasn’t a single serviceable ship in sight. The group looked on at the sad vision before them, the carnage tearing at their hearts. Competent pilots each one of them, they could imagine the hell their fellow pilots must have gone through to bring these battle damaged fighters home. It was too painful to think of all the pilots who never made it back.

  The Karine drifted slowly through the atmospheric force field, which secured the pressurized hangar from the vacuum of space. Landing gear extended, they compensated for the artificial gravity within the hangar and headed for one of the few clear areas on the deck. Looking at the shape of the area, it was clear that is was recently occupied by another Leopard class destroyer. One, that never made it back. They descended gently and cut the Karine’s engines when contact with the armour plating of the deck had been made. Sandpiper and Jenson shut down the ship’s systems without saying a word. Then they all sat and stared out the cockpit window at the scene of devastation. Afraid of what they might find, nobody wanted to break the silence and move.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Jennifer eventually whispered. ‘Where are the ground crew teams? Where have they all gone?’

  ‘I don’t know Jennifer. All I know is that something is very wrong.’ Moss replied quietly. ‘We’re not going to find any answers sitting here. We need to get to the bridge if we want to get to the bottom of all this.’ Jenson and Sandpiper nodded in agreement, got up from their flight seats and headed out of the cockpit. When they had left Moss turned to his wife, who was still cradling baby Arthur and said to her, ‘Maybe it would be best if you and Arthur waited here onboard the Karine? We don’t know what’s happened to everyone. I think we have to presume it’s not good. You’ll both be safer here.’

  ‘What, and risk being separated like last time?’ Jennifer responded hotly, shaking her head. ‘I’m not going to sit here quietly and worry about what’s going on out there, and what’s happening to you! Not when we’ve only just found each other again. From now on we do everything as a family, or we don’t do it at all!’

  This was the response that Moss was actually expecting. He knew his wife well enough to know she was no ‘wilting lily’ who needed protecting. Jennifer was more than capable of looking after herself and their son; as her recent adventures had proven. Yet, his new role as a father was bringing out a protective streak which he found it difficult to suppress; it would take some getting used to. He said nothing, simply smiled and nodded in agreement. Jennifer handed him the sleeping baby Arthur, stood up, and with her shoulders pulled back, strode out of the cockpit. Moss tucked the swaddled baby into the front of his flight jacket and followed his wife.

  Jenson and Sandpiper waited on the hangar floor as Jennifer and Moss descended the Karine’s belly ramp. They all carried automatic weapons, cradled in their arms with familiar ease; nobody was taking any chances. Moss carried his rifle on his hip, so as to remain clear of baby Arthur’s face, who peered out from a secure baby pouch attached to his father’s chest. They looked around at the wrecked fighters and small destroyers, which littered the entire hangar deck. It was eerily silent. Tools and equipment lay strewn everywhere, as if they had been dropped by their users in the middle of what they were doing. Whatever had happened, had happened quickly.

  ‘Feels like we’ve boarded the ‘Mary Celeste’, Sandpiper said, gazing at an abandoned tool kit just metres away. ‘Everything is here except for the crew…’

  Jennifer shuddered involuntarily. ’Don’t say that…I’m spooked enough as it is…,’ she admonished. ‘Comparing Excalibur to the legend of that abandoned clipper just makes things worse.’

  ‘Well, there’s no welcoming party,’ Jenson said dryly. ‘Clearly, nobody’s coming to meet us. Whoever opened the hangar doors isn’t making themselves known.’

  ‘I don’t think we’re going to learn anything down here,’ Moss added. ‘There’s a transport pod over there. I suggest we take it and head for the bridge.’ The others muttered their agreement and together they threaded their way past wreckage and abandoned equipment, heading towards the rear of the large hangar. There was no sign of anybody on their route to the transport pod, only more Flyship carcasses and deserted workstations. The pod doors opened and they boarded in silence. Even baby Arthur was subdued, watching everything that was happening from his pouch. The doors closed behind them, Sandpiper manually punched in the command for the bridge, and they were whisked away.

  The bridge of Excalibur appeared, at first glance, to be as deserted as the rest of the ship. They stood there, just inside the threshold, as the doors to the transport pod slit shut behind them. Before them, everything was so familiar, yet so alien…The large holo-viewer displayed the scene outside as the ship slowly orbited the small-moon sized, asteroid. The navigation console was lit and blinked information. The communications console displayed the unanswered ‘hail’ from the Karine, the one they had sent as they approached Excalibur. The weapons desk was primed and functional. In fact, all the consoles and workstations, the heart and hub of the systems which guided and controlled the vessel, were all active, all working, all flashing new data. However, there was nobody paying them any attention, because there was nobody there…

  Moss strode to one of the consoles and slid his hands over the unit. The information he required was instantly displayed, but it gave no clue as to what had happened to everyone. ‘The lifeboats are still in their docking bays,’ he told the others.’The crew didn’t abandon ship that way…’

  ‘So, where the frack is everyone?’ Sandpiper exclaimed. He strode to another console and attempted to look at the ships log, but without success. ‘Damn it! I’m locked out of the logs. I can’t access them! I should be able to, but I can’t…’

  ‘Here, let me try,’ Moss said, stepping over to the same console as Sandpiper and entering his own access code.

  ‘Moss..’ Jennifer interrupted quietly.

  ‘Hmm?’ he answered in a distracted manner.

  ‘I think you need to take a look at this…’ she told him firmly.

  He looked up and saw her nodding her head in the direction of the captain’s chair, which sat in the centre of the bridge. Moss turned away from the console and glanced in that direction. He gasped in surprise and elbowed Sandpiper who looked up, turned and stared at what they were looking at.

  Facing forward, staring fixedly at the main holo-viewer was a figure. Silent, unmoving, and somehow insubstantial, it was easy to miss the person who sat in the padded commanders chair. Yet, there they were, the only member of Excalibur’s crew they had thus seen. There was no mistaking who it was, and now they could see him, they wondered why they had not seen, or felt his presence before. It was as if he had only just appeared. Motionless, saying nothing and bolt upright, sat Peter Black, Excalibur’s captain and their close friend.

  Jenson stepped forward, slowly turned the chair around so that Black faced him, then quietly asked his friend, ‘Peter, it’s me…Paul. Are you OK?‘ There was no response. Jenson waved his hand gently in front of Black’s eyes in the hope of eliciting a response. After some time, he was rewarded with a blink and the eyes began to focus. ‘Can you hear me Peter? What happened here?’ He asked again, looking directly into the sunken eyes of his old friend.

  Moss stepped forward to help, but found himself gently, but firmly held back by Sandpiper, who shook his head, saying, ‘Leave them Moss. They go back a very long way and have a special bond. Leave this to Paul.’

  Moss thought for a moment, then nodded, cursing himself. He still had a lot to learn about relationships. ‘Of course. Sorry…’ he replied, flushing slightly.

  ‘Not a problem…’ Sandpiper smiled and winked.

  Black’s eyes blinked once more and there was the faintest shake of his head. Then he sa
id in barely audible words, ’Ah…now I know I must be dead, for I can see you, and Sandpiper and Moss and Jennifer and… a baby? Which, of course is impossible…’

  ‘Peter, we’re all here..’Jenson told him gently, taking one of his hands in his own. It was cold, clammy and somehow insubstantial. ‘We’ve come back. We’re here to help… Can you tell us where everyone is?’

  The faintest of smiles appeared on Black’s bloodless lips. ‘Can you not see them?’ he answered. ‘Of course you can’t…you don’t exist, except in my dreams….Why, they’re all around us… either dead; or worse…the nanobots have got us all. They’re changing our DNA, turning is all into those Starweb crab things…I’ll be joining you soon. Don’t leave without me…’

  Jenson turned and looked quizzically at the others. They’d heard snippets over the sub-ether TWDF comms about nanobots and a pandemic, but this didn’t explain why Black was the only person onboard.

  ‘He’s clearly delirious, bless him.We need to get him to the sick bay,’ Jennifer thought at them all, reluctant to speak verbally and interrupt the bond between Jenson and Black.

  ‘We do, but we also need some answers,’ Moss thought back at his wife, including Jenson and Sandpiper in the mental conversation. ‘We have to know where the crew is…let me try to contact Excalibur once more.’

  They all nodded at each other in agreement and Jenson turned back to his old friend asking once more,’Peter, there’s nobody onboard Excalibur except yourself and ourselves. Can you tell us where they have all gone? Have they abandoned ship?’

  ‘Abandoned ship? No…..’ Black answered shaking his heard slightly. ‘Nobody abandoned ship….Everyone fought until the very end…until there was nobody left who could fight…Maybe, you can’t see them because you’re dead? Perhaps that’s it?’

  ‘But we’re not dead Peter. We’re right here…’Jenson responded gently, a frown creasing his brow.

  ‘No, no…That’s not possible….You all died soon after the last battle above Dyason,’ Black told them, his head moving slowly from side-to-side.

  Jenson tried to squeeze Black’s hand a bit tighter and look into his eyes, in an attempt to keep his mind from wandering. ’That’s not how it happened old friend,’ he told him. ‘We all survived the battle, and together we helped form the ‘Three World Defence’ alliance. Think carefully, do you not remember?’

  ‘Hmm? No…if only that was how it happened…’ Black whispered in reply. ‘You were on a shuttle heading towards the planet surface soon after the end of the battle. It was sabotaged and you all died…but, I think I will like being dead, like you. That past seems to be so much better..’

  Jenson turned and looked at the others once more, his forehead creased with confusion and concern. ‘I’m not getting anywhere…’ he told them, an anguished look on his face.

  ‘Excalibur! I know you’re there….stop hiding! We need some answers! What’s going on!’ Moss called out, mentally shouting in frustration and irritation.

  ‘Hello Moss, Jennifer, Han, Paul, and of course Arthur. It is so very good to see you all safely here.’ the soft female tones of Excalibur’s AI computer finally greeted them all. Not mentally, as she might have done with Moss and Jennifer, but verbally. So, they could all hear what was being said, and how.

  ‘Her voice is different…’ Sandpiper blurted in surprise. Jennifer, Jenson and Moss looked equally surprised. ‘The tone is deeper, the accent different? Certainly not the familiar voice we’re all used to.’

  ‘Maybe there have been some changes whilst we’ve been away?’ said Jenson, still gazing at Black with concern.

  ‘Excalibur, can you tell us where the crew are? Have they abandoned ship?’ Jennifer called out directly to the sentient AI.

  ‘The crew are all here onboard, Jennifer. However, they are not visible to yourselves.’ Excalibur calmly told her.

  ‘What the hell? Why not? I don’t understand?’ she exclaimed, looking at Moss and Sandpiper who seemed equally confused. Abruptly, there was a tingling at the back of her head, similar to the one she felt in the caverns of Samarcia, before rejoining Moss on the Karine. She looked towards her husband and mentally asked him, ’Are you feeling this too?’

  ‘I am…’ he replied.’I can also see a glow surrounding Peter. Do you see it?’

  An eerie light surround Peter Black and his captain’s chair, it was a glow that seemed to emanate from no particular source, but it’s luminance spread outward from a central core.

  ‘What the frack?’ Jenson blurted, dropping Black’s hand and taking an alarmed step backwards. The eerie glow spread throughout the bridge. It was as if a glowing mist, a translucent fog, a membrane; had enveloped everything. Faint, ghostly figures became visible through the mist. Many were lying on the deck, unmoving. Some sat bolt upright, staring directly ahead with blank, lifeless, sunken eyes. Others lay prone, their limbs flailing weakly, but without purpose. Here was the crew of Excalibur, all around them, but equally, not entirely there. Only, their insubstantial, ghostly forms were visible.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Jenson exclaimed.

  ‘As you can see, the crew are all here onboard Excalibur, just as the Captain correctly told you,’ Excalibur told them calmly. ‘They have not abandoned ship. However, they have all been incapacitated by the bio-nanobot pandemic. It is yourselves who are not quite here. Your dimension is slightly different. There is a membrane between your reality and theirs…’

  ‘Oh crap! Here we go with the quantum realities again….’Sandpiper said wearily. ‘I’m getting really tired of all that…’

  ‘What’s the pandemic about? Why is our dimension out of sync Excalibur?’ Moss demanded, his rising irritation clear in the tone of his voice. ‘Why could we see and interact with Peter Black, but nobody else onboard? Why are we constantly playing silly buggers with quantum universes!’

  ‘Amen, to that…’ Sandpiper agreed heartily.

  ‘Steady, dearest…’Jennifer cautioned her husband mentally. ‘I know this is all very frustrating, but clearly, there’s a reason behind everything that is going on. We need to tread carefully…’

  Moss responded with a grumpy mental, ‘Harrumph…’

  ‘The Terran human population has been infected by biological nano-robots created by the British conglomerate Steel Industries. These nanobots have been created to change human DNA into Starweb crustacean DNA. The crew of Excalibur have been infected with these nanobots and thus, incapacitated.’ Excalibur told them in a maddeningly calm manner. ‘The nanobot pandemic was timed to ensure the TWDF fleets were incapable of fending off a Starweb invasion force. The Terran home fleet and global defences have been defeated. There is no further resistance.’ Her words left them stunned, as the enormity of what they were being told, sunk in.

  ‘The Karine left the sub-ether conduit and emerged in a parallel dimension, separated from this reality by a membrane,’ Excalibur continued to explain to her spellbound audience. ‘Captain Black was allowed to be visible to yourselves. The rest of this reality is quarantined and not accessible.’

  ‘For the love of God, why?’ Jenson exclaimed. ‘Why bring us back to this, horror show? What possible purpose can it serve?’

  ‘And who would do such a thing?’ Sandpiper added in an agitated and exasperated voice.

  ‘I am not at liberty to divulge the Who,’ Excalibur continued. ‘However, I can explain the Why.’

  ‘I bet I can guess the Who…’ Jennifer thought at Moss.

  ‘So can I,’ he replied. ‘But, there’s time for that later. Now we need to know the Why...’

  ‘Then tell us, why we have been dragged here, Excalibur?’ Jenson demanded.

  ‘To give you information in the most secure way possibler—in person,’ the sentient AI declared.

  ‘What information is so important, that we have to be so horrendously manipulated?’ Jenson asked in outrage.

  ‘This information….’ the sentient AI told them.

  Images and data flowed int
o their minds, like scenes from a film. Recent events on Terra, the Triplanetary Church, the popular uprisings culminating in the Amazonian debacle, the hostage crisis in the UN building, the bomb at the Statue of Liberty, the spread of the nanobot pandemic, all played out in their minds, like a streaming news service set at ultra-high speed. There was the invasion by the Starweb fleet, the attempts by the TWDF to slow and then halt the attack. The spread of the nanobots throughout the personnel of the TWDF and their eventual demise. Nothing was spared, or left to the imagination.

  Finally, there was the artificial ‘mental-concert’ created by Josh Brabazon’s sub-ether algorithms. The same algorithm transmissions which had alerted them onboard the Karine, whilst in transit through the sub-ether. There was data on how successful the artificial mental-concert had actually been at jamming the Starweb network. Then there was the data on the metamorphic code-virus embedded in the algorithms, which had so nearly infected and nullified the bio-nanobots and the Starweb itself.

  It felt to them all, that the hyper-speed flow of information went on for ever, but of course it all happened in the blink of an eye. When the ultra-fast streaming ended, they were left momentarily disorientated, physically swaying and mentally exhausted. For Jennifer and Moss, experienced and capable operants as they were, the transfer of data directly into their minds was tiring. For Jenson and Sandpiper, who’s experience of such things was very much third-party, it was brutal. When it ended, each of them was forced to either find a seat, or sit down on the deck. Their legs were simply not up to supporting them; for a little while at least.

  As they sat there, distraught, tired and emotional, the glowing mist and translucent fog, along with the ghostly outlines of Excalibur’s tragic crew, faded and disappeared from view. The membrane between their reality and the one occupied by the ships crew, closed. Only Peter Black, slumped in the captains chair remained visible.