by Robert Culp
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Two days later Engineering informs me that they are ready for another capacitor prototype test. As before, Prophecy drops out of Transit. Just like the first run we push the maintenance droid out of the cargo bay and maneuver the ship to a distance of 100 kilometers. Various cameras and sensor systems—as well as more than a few more looky loos—are observing it. “Okay,” says Gorb. “Any minute now…” his finger stabs at the screen we’re all watching. “There it goes!” The lights themselves are almost naked eye observable. If one knows where to look. I look at one of the monitors with a closer view of the robot. It’s slowly tumbling in space due to the whirling apparatus on it, nobody thought about countering the torque that is being transferred to it. At least if they did think of it, they didn’t care enough to do anything about it. I can see the treads on it spinning like crazy, I hope the bearings don’t burn out. The arms are out and whirling, every articulating joint it has is in motion. Add to that the fans, the lights, and I can see the arcs of the discharging stun batons. And since we were looking for ways to deplete the battery, we can read the robot’s internal diagnostics thanks to the transmitter wired into it.
“The droid’s operating temperature is high,” Jenkins consults the monitor. “It has disconnected its onboard battery, so all of its power is coming from the experimental cell. The output of the cell has pegged the instrumentation we have on it. So it’s still showing a full charge. But to all appearances, it’s a stable system.”
“That’s good news, how big did you say this cell is? Physically?”
“About the size of a five-pound coffee can.”
“How long will it last?” Rikk asks. “The charge I mean.”
“No way to know for sure,” I say. “I mean the chemistry people can tell us how much energy is created by the reaction and how long it should last based on the amount of material, but there are a lot of factors involved. Will the cell deplete its charge as fast as possible? Will it slow down? I give it a few hours.”
“Days.” Gorb says without emotion. That means he’s not joking. “Like I told you. Woss was right, but I was righter.”
“So we wait,” I say to everyone present.
“For how long?” Celeste asks. “While we weren’t given a particular schedule…”
“I was given a little discretion, while we were at Trelnar longer than expected, we were only at Vlondra for a few hours. We’ve got some wiggle room in our time line. And at the worst, they chew me out for it. We’ll wait.”
“As you wish, Captain.” The way she says it, I can’t tell if she’s upset with me or not.
I finally get a report. “Ninety-three hours, seventeen minutes, twelve seconds,” Jenkins says through my desk holoCom. I’m in my office preparing personnel reviews. The ship has been drifting while we’ve been waiting. We’ve made minimal efforts for station keeping, but we’ve tried to stay within monitoring range.
“Until it stopped?”
“Until the monitoring equipment became ‘unpegged.’ This is what we’re seeing now.” He holds the portable device up to his holoCom so I can read it. “As you can see, it’s still going.” A small portion of my holoCom display has the imagery of the robot on it. It’s still tumbling, if anything it has sped up. Not surprising, physics and transferred movement and stuff. Wait, are the lights slowing?
“Hey, Ross?”
“I see it too, yeah. The output is falling off. Crikey, when that cell quits, it quits. Nope, that’s it. Show appears to be over except for the tumbling robot.”
“That fits what we found though,” I say. “When we found the machine all of the cells around it were spent.”
“There is that, ma’am.”
“Is the robot worth retrieving?”
“Up to you, ma’am but the silly thing is bound to need a complete overhaul. But I’d rather we have it, you can never have too many maintenance robots.”
“There is that. Very well, I’ll arrange a recovery operation. It shouldn’t be too much harder than wrangling a satellite. MacTaggert out.” I open up a call to Flight Operations and direct them to recover the robot. Once they have it back aboard, Prophecy goes back into Transit.
I give Gorb the go ahead to start building the full size cells. How in the nine hells are we going to make that much cesium? And how long will it take?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As it happens I’m on watch ten days later we come out of Transit at BeshbiKct’soh.
“We are one hour from orbit, ma’am,” says the helmsman.
“Athena?”
She’s already at the Intelligence station. “I see two ships in orbit, approximately 400-ton hull configurations, they look like System Defense Boats. Both appear to be adrift; we detect no energy emissions from either. The planet is Class VII, toxic atmosphere, approximately 28% of the surface is a liquid—I hesitate to call it ‘water’—the land seems to be either mountain or desert, very little in between. We’ll have to launch probes to learn anything more.”
“Any signs of life on the SDBs? What about cities? Might there be survivors of some sort down there?”
“No signs of life on either ship. It is possible for personnel to be in TMOD. The units could mask their life signs, confusing the computer.”
I don’t feel like taking chances today. “Flight Ops, this is the Captain. Deploy a flight, eight ships minimum, close flybys, shots across the bow, the whole nine yards.” Da used to call it “Spilin’ for a fight.”
“Captain, Flight Ops, Red flight is on their way. Trying to provoke a confrontation, aye.”
“Athena, launch two probes.”
“Two probes, aye. Are they looking for anything in particular?”
That’s the problem with probes. They can fly right by a singing, dancing frog but if they aren’t looking for it they’ll make no note of it. “Any human life. Until we know otherwise, we’re presuming humans brought those boats here.” Some would call it racism that I’m presuming the crews are Homo sapiens but I’m sticking with it until I have a reason to change.
“If you want me to search those ships,” Rikk is standing beside my chair now. “I’d rather not do them simultaneously.”
“That’s your department. I agreed to tell you what to do, not how to do it. Prep your team.” I turn to Athena. “Designate the closer SDB as Alpha and the other Beta. Chief Sergeant Okkam, as Alpha is closest it presents a greater threat. Please search it first.” We lock eyes. I feel a smile start but stop it, he doesn’t react. He just nods in understanding and leaves the Bridge.
“Captain,” Athena says. “I’ve been studying the detected stealth ship problem. Given the technology we are employing, cloaked vessels—or troopers—can be detected; it’s just difficult. In the case of the space station, they had a huge sensor array. There’s also the possibility that the meson weapons had an unexpected reaction with the cloaking fields.”
“I don’t have evidence to refute any of that, but the desire is for future space farers to say ‘cloaked ships cannot be detected.’ It would have been nice to get a look at their sensor logs. I’m leaning away from the meson theory. I’m satisfied it was the transponders.”
“I disagree. One of the aspects of the stealth system is that the transponders are encrypted and frequency hopping. There’s no way the signal could be decrypted.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We have beat into all of our pilots to have their transponders squawking so we can find them if we need to. We haven’t told the stealth pilots not to. Now we’ll have to undo all of that training.”
“I…I do not understand.”
“That’s because you don’t understand the military mindset,” Celeste chimes in. “There’s a process to doing things. They respect the process. I’m astonished we didn’t think of it sooner. All they have to see is a transmission. They don’t have to understand it.”
“XO—”
“I’m typing it in to the training plan now. Transponder power set
ting to ‘off’ for stealth flights.”
“Bridge, Flight Ops, the patrol reports no activity or response from either SDB. The trooper shuttle is departing, six troopers.”
The flight to the nearer ship, Alpha, is five minutes long. “Prophecy this is Avatar the airlock is blown open—as in breached. We’re already seeing armored corpses, two significantly different armor styles. Suffice it to say there was a big firefight here. I’m sending over pictures of a logo that’s on one of the armors. It’s where a unit patch would be for an official military unit.”
“I have it, Captain,” says Athena. “According to prior research it is a subsidiary of the Sureman Corporation.”
“Avatar this is Prophecy,” I say. “Once you declare the ships secure we’ll send over some IT types to download sensor logs.”
“Prophecy, Avatar, the good news is these ships aren’t that big so we—wow, a TMOD room. I didn’t expect to see one of those here. They all appear to be empty.”
That’s good; I’ve not had the best luck with TMOD personnel.
“Spoke too soon,” Rikk says.
I shake my head. I have a very bad feeling for what’s going to happen next.
“One humanoid female,” Figures! And she’s… “And she is drop dead gorgeous. Shall we wake her or transport her? Belay that. No atmosphere here.”
“Down boy,” I say into the holoCom, “You leave her right where she is. Are you calling the ship secure? Do something to secure that TMOD unit. As in chains and padlocks unless you have welding capability.”
“Roger that, Boss,” he says. “There are no obvious threats here. We don’t carry chains or padlocks on a regular basis. I’ll have to send out scroungers if you want us to use that kind of time.”
“No, don’t use that much time.” I think for a few seconds. “Very well, gather your troops and head to the other ship. The IT flight will head over to grab sensor logs. I’ll send locks and chains with them.”
“Wilco.”
It’s another short flight from Alpha to Beta. While the troopers investigate Beta the IT team—with an armed escort—powers up and accesses the empty ship’s computers. Two troopers stay with them while the other four go to the TMOD room and wrap chains around the occupied TMOD unit. It may turn out to be unnecessary, but then again…Rikk reports in shortly. “Prophecy this is Avatar it’s pretty much the same thing here. The airlock is blown open, there are two sets of armored dead guys, same logo as the team from the other ship. The cargo pod has a couple dozen TMOD units…”
“All empty except for one with a beautiful humanoid female,” I finish his sentence.
“You’ve been peeking, Captain. But you’re correct. The only difference I can see is this one is brunette, the woman on Alpha is blonde.”
“Prophecy this is Sidecutter,” a woman’s voice says. “I studied cybernetics and artificial life forms prior to joining the infantry. I’d bet a month’s pay these two are androids, and if they are, they may also be ‘cousins’ of the Ops officer.” Athena’s head snaps up. “They’re as flawless as she is.”
“Sidecutter, this is Athena. I’m accessing your helmet camera. Could you give us a full visual scan, please?” Sidecutter, Trooper Ashley Donovan, slowly scans her field of view up and down the woman. Rikk was right; she’s beautiful. “Flawless” was a good choice of words.
“Sidecutter, do you have any reason to expect they’re cyborgs?” I ask.
“I don’t see any of the typical signs, Cap’m. Most manufacturers of cyborgs brag about it so I’d expect to see some indication of the presence and/or type of implants. And I’m not seeing anything like that. If they’re artificial—and let’s be honest, they’re just too perfect to be natural—I’m thinking android. And they’d give the show models of DEBIs a run for their money.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say into the holoCom. “They stay where they are until the logs have been downloaded and perused. As with Alpha, the IT team will have chains and padlocks. Am I understood?”
“Perfectly,” says Ashley.
“No question here,” says Rikk.
“Prophecy out.” I look to Celeste. “Put together an expeditionary team; a minimum of one computer type, one engineer—not Gorb—a dedicated cyberneticist, and two troopers. At least five meters of the heaviest chain or cable you can find. If you want to lead it, that’s fine.”
“Do you really think it’s necessary to add means of keeping the TMOD closed? They all have external locks. Well, every model I’ve ever seen.”
“It may not be, I’ll concede that. But I’m in charge, I am responsible and accountable, so I say they get chained shut. I presume that’s not going to be an issue?”
“Not at all, ma’am.” She turns to leave but turns back when I speak again.
“I hope they aren’t cyborgs. Cyborgs have a very unpleasant habit of killing every life form they encounter. Maybe these, if they are cyborgs, will be nice and not want to murder all of us.”
“I’ve read that such exist,” says Celeste. “But I—like you—have yet to encounter one.”
“Celeste,” I say. “See that the troopers make a thorough search. Perhaps there’s a male equivalent of a DEBI over there somewhere. I believe the series name is ‘RON.’” We both grin; she leaves the bridge.
Rikk’s voice comes over the holoCom. “Prophecy this is Avatar. Everyone we’ve encountered that isn’t in a TMOD is dead. I suppose salvage would be clear and unopposed, were it not for these two.” All the more reason to space the TMOD beauties.
I call Celeste on my perCom. “Take at least three engineers with you. We’re exercising salvage rights so see what you can do to restore power.”
“Wilco. Heading over in ten.”
“Captain, the probes have completed three orbits each,” Athena reports. “There are no signs of human life on the planet. Nor are there any signs of any artificial construction.”
“So whoever survived the battles aboard the SDBs, left on the ship that brought…one side. Do we know if the ships were from the Sureman Corporation?”
“There are no markings on the exterior to suggest that, Chief Sergeant Okkam has not reported seeing the logo anywhere except on personal armor.”
“So is this what happened?” I turn to face her. “The Sureman troopers force their way onto both SDBs, kill a significant number of people while losing a few of their own, and leave both ships here each with what may be a terabuck android locked in a TMOD tube, and two relatively intact system defense boats, each of which will probably bring in a few million on the black market.”
“That is what the evidence suggests.”
“Prophecy this is Cheshire,” we hear Celeste’s voice over the holoCom. “We’re powering up Alpha.”
“Cheshire, Prophecy roger.” On the viewer we see the running lights illuminate and some of the darkened windows light up as well. “Cheshire, Prophecy Actual, congratulations it looks like you have lights.”
“Actual, Cheshire, indeed we do. We’re restoring life support and other systems before worrying about propulsion,” I nod silently. “We found a spacer at the power plant control panel, the primary one adjacent to the engine room, dead of a single pistol round; apparently self-inflicted. I’m really the only pair of idle hands here, so I’m going to get on with that search you mentioned.”
Rikk finds a similar situation aboard Beta and starts to power it up as well.
And we wait.
Two hours later we hear from Celeste again, other than the periodic perCom checks we make to verify they’re still okay. “We found the logs, we’ve downloaded them and will bring our copies back shortly. The Sureman troopers appear to have been a part of the crew. The last entry speaks of pirates and after that—”
I look over at the communications technician. Her hands are already flying over her console. “The channel is open, ma’am. Over the raw audio I can hear her breathing, it’s like she just stopped—”
“Welcome, humans.”
“It is Commander Mac Fadden’s signal, and it’s her voiceprint,” says Chief Nicholson. But not her words!
Celeste’s voice continues, “We are happy to meet you, I assure you we mean you no harm. Please take us to your government so we can establish diplomatic relations and lay the foundation for trade ...”
I close the channel. “Battle Stations! Weapons, warm up the meson cannons, all missile launchers loaded, all energy weapons charged. Deploy ice armor! Active weapons lock for all systems! Targets Alpha and Beta.”
He looks at me, disbelief all over his face. “Firing to disable?”
“Negative,” I say. “Fire to destroy.”
“Our people…”
“Will be mourned. And if they want to kick my ass in the afterworld for all eternity, so be it.”
“We’re being hailed, ma’am. Chief Sergeant Okkam.”
“Avatar, this is Prophecy Actual, say your status and position.”
“Welcome, humans,” Rikk’s voice says through the communicator. Oh, Rikk! Not you, too!
I mute the holoCom and turn to Athena. “I suppose you understand both SDBs are quarantined?”
“I had surmised as much.”
I don’t know if it makes a difference which one I talk to, I may as well stay with this one. “So, being who has possessed the Chief Sergeant, who are you and what has happened to the people whose bodies you are occupying? And the two women in the TMOD capsules, are those your bodies or are they also victims of yours?”
“Those bodies are ours, I am speaking to you through this man you know as Chief Sergeant Rikk’Srjhan Okkam. He has not been harmed in any way. My name is Hannah. We ask only for transportation to the seat of your government. I promise you that if you comply, no one will be harmed. We do ask that each body be released.”
Over the comLink we hear, “Sarge, what are you doing?”
Another voice says, “Up arms! Prepare to engage!”
“What happened?” We hear Rikk say. “What’s going on?”