Tales From The Edge: Emergence

by Stephen Gaskell

  “If it’s secret, it’s bad. Could be a weapon, could be worse.”

  Gweid looked wide-eyed at Orich. “What’s worse?”

  “Something that builds.”

  Orich managed to show he was grinning behind his thick beard. “Don’t worry. Ananzim’s is full of tales like that. I’ll tell you a few.”

  “Is that where we’re headed next?” Gweid sounded eager.

  “Let’s check the CO2 scrubbers,” said Orich, still grinning.

  *

  Two days later, with the crew strapped into their acceleration couches, the Hagfish reached the cybel gate. Gweid knew that their fusion drive would make them highly visible, but Orich explained that it would be more suspicious if they came drifting towards the gate.

  “If you’re doing something suspicious, best to act like nothing’s wrong at all. Besides, considering that Weinkurst hasn’t sent anyone else after us, I’m pretty sure they don’t want to call attention to the cargo either.”

  “Can we see the gate?” Gweid asked.

  Orich didn’t reply, but just switched their viewer to a rear camera. The Hagfish’s deceleration meant she was moving tail-first at this point. The gate was modest by cybel gate standards, but was still hundreds of meters across. The camera did well at cutting out the glare from the fusion drive.

  Gates were usually larger than this one, in order to allow more sizeable ships through, but it was the dearth of infrastructure around the gate that tipped off this system as a backwater. There was a small cybel refueling station, a supply depot and a repair scaffolding that looked as if it could use some of its own services, as well as the obligatory Comm Guild station. The gate itself was well maintained and less… dreary was the best work Gweid could come up with.

  The two sat in silence, watching the gate slowly grow larger. Orich had told him again about their next destination: Ananzim’s. A free station that allowed spacers of all stripes to dock and trade there, Orich’s stories painted a picture that obscured more than it revealed. It was frequented by the Broken Collective, Epirians who wanted to work outside of their own laws, any number of aliens, and even Artarians.

  The gate was close now, and Gweid could see the slight waver where the cybel tunnel met the gate. Going through the gate should have excited him more, but all he could think about was what it would be like to see Ananzim’s.

  STATIC PREVAILS BY TOMAS L. MARTIN

  The cybel network is the means of fast travel along the Spiral Arm, and the only known way to travel beyond the speed of light. It consists of a network of gossamer-like energy filaments attracted to objects of large mass such as stars and planets. The cybel network is spun out across space like a web, each filament acting like tunnels between two points. Ordinary matter cannot interact with the cybel network, which is normally completely invisible and undetectable. Cybel energy reacts strongly to certain electromagnetic forces however, which when applied near areas of strong gravity can pull open a tear between the cybel tunnel and real space. Once inside the tunnel, a ship disappears from real space. Inside, spatial dimensions are compressed and a ship can travel along the far shorter effective distance of a cybel filament between stars, making a journey of several light years in a few hours.

  The Maelstrom has had a catastrophic effect on the stability of the cybel network. The Maelstrom spreads from system to system along the cybel network much more quickly than in real space, turning the cybel energy into Maelstrom energy. There have also been concerns that each activation of a cybel gate may draw the Maelstrom closer to the system along the cybel network, acting like a backdraft. The Maelstrom also has the potential to spill out of an active gate, given vast amounts of extra energy by the open tunnel. This results in an explosive growth of the Maelstrom in that area of space, something humanity deems to be avoided at all costs.

  As a result, many cybel gates linking to Maelstrom-compromised systems have been destroyed in an attempt to slow the Maelstrom. Destroying a gate also removes the possibility of the Maelstrom entering the network through the idle pinpoint tunnel opening that is ever present, dooming every nearby system without warning.

  In Tomas L. Martin’s ‘Static Prevails’, a entreprenurial space pilot is enticed into the cybel network during an energy storm to track down a tempting prize...

  Hanging motionless in space, the cybel gate pulsed at twice its normal size, straining at the magnets keeping it held in place. The cybel energy within the portal became a violent purple as it reacted with the real world. Azure lightning lashed out from the gate’s closing iris at the spaceships hurrying back to the safety of the station. A couple of brave souls appeared to be entering through the gate into the cybel network, the pathway between the stars. I doubted many would return.

  "It's pretty bad out there," I said, turning back to my drink. I hoped whatever Alex contacted me for didn't involve braving the storm myself.

  "Yeah man, it's totally violent," Alex said. When Alex Prosenecki looked this excited it usually involved a lot of property damage. I’m not usually one to trust people, least of all those as manically close to chaos as Alex, but he was assistant to Mbo, the implacable head of the station, so I listened, against my better judgement. "Last time the cybel network was this bad ‘round here, seventeen ships didn't make it back. Rather you than me."

  Damn.

  "Alex, what's this about?"

  "Dext, there's a weird guy you really should meet." He led me to a booth in the corner, occupied by only one person.

  I think he'd been human once. Maybe Tetrian. Whatever he used to be, now he was mostly altered. He had a pair of wings for a start, small black ones, designed like the rest of him for moving about in Zero-G without a suit. His body was covered in black shell plates and scales.

  A silver merc badge was carved into the chitin of his hip, an eagle impaled on a spear. My interest piqued

  Alex sat down beside the man, and I pulled myself into the opposite couch and chucked my empty bottle at a trashcan. It bounced off the inside wall and smashed. The can rumbled as it ate the remains. Alex patted the merc on the shoulder.

  "This is Ted Feature," Alex told me, "hull walker on the merc ship Hawk-Killer. They just got into port, in a pretty messed-up state. Just got out of the storm."

  I looked at the man, expecting to see a scowl. It wasn't going to happen. He didn't have a face. To shelter him in vacuum, his head was smooth grey shell. An inset rectangular visor of dark glass had replaced his eyeballs, as one of the more vulnerable spots on the body to atmospheric decompression.

  "So," I said, "Ted. What do you have?"

  "I'm not sure of the precise details," Feature told me. His voice, a metallic, obviously artificial sound, emanated somewhere a lot lower than I expected. The droning monotone was aggravating in its bluntness.

  "Alright," I said, "tell me what you have."

  "We put out of port forty-five hours ago," Feature said. "The Captain got a message from our employers about an Epirian Foundation convoy. They wanted a particular item. We could have the rest."

  "Okay," I said. The employers were the Karist Enclave, no doubt. The cargo likely had something to do with souldrivers, the digitised souls that the Karist manifesto called a travesty that should be wiped from the face of the galaxy. Like my late friend Jericho. The fact that one of the leaders of the Karist Enclave was my ex-wife did nothing to simplify matters.

  "Where was this?" I asked, getting curious.

  "Somewhere between Gus Torta and Shiguran."

  "You don't have the co-ordinates?"

  Feature shook his head. "I'm just a hullwalker. If it doesn't involve the shields, I don't hear about much.

  Hullwalkers like Feature spent their time out in the dark of space, attached to the hull, controlling the cybel energy in the shields, changing its polarity, shunting concentrations around with the powerful magnets and buffers of the ship. It was an age-old profession filled with danger and uncertainty.

  “So where are the rest of the
crew?” I asked. “The navigator would know, or the Captain."

  "Dead." The hullwalker slumped. "The storm hit us while we were looking. I couldn't control the shield in time. It broke through and blew out the bridge."

  "Woah!" Alex spluttered." "You didn't tell me they were dead! That sucks!"

  "Hey Prosenecki," I said, glaring at him, "get me another drink, hey?"

  Alex stared at me for a second. Then he cracked the smile and leapt up, nodding profusely.

  "Ah, sure man, yeah!" He said, glancing towards likely female targets at the bar and fingering his cred-band thoughtfully. "You're the boss. Same again?"

  "Right," I said, and turned back to Feature.

  "Thank you," he said, his bland computer voice betraying no emotion. "He annoys me."

  I laughed.

  "Join the club." I leaned forward and looked into that expressionless dome. "So, what was on this convoy, exactly?"

  "Most of it was Foundation military supplies, cybel tankers, electronic goods, the usual."

  "Uh-huh," I said. "And the unusual cargo?"

  "I heard you were interested in..." His voice sunk to a whisper. "Uploaded? Foundation souldrivers?"

  I nodded. Feature stood up, his armour plates scraping against each other slightly. He stood close to me and beckoned me towards the voicebox in his chest. Grudgingly, I bent down and put my ear next to the chitin.

  "Gunther-Heisendorf," whispered the voicebox. "The main ship was carrying the datachip of the last Foundation CEO."

  I blinked. This was huge. Max Gunther-Heisendorf had been the last leader of the unified Epirian Foundation, before the destruction of the Maelstrom and petty squabbling between the surviving franchises had led to its dissolution into scores of smaller companies. If the datachip with the last CEO could be recovered, he could theoretically merge the franchises back together, creating a force powerful enough to save most of the people living on the Edge. And if the ship was carrying an uploaded consciousness that important, it might also have thousands of others – maybe even including a way for me to repair Jericho.

  The hullwalker started to leave. I grabbed his arm. My fingers slipped along the smooth shell.

  "Hey Feature," I said, "are you available to hullwalk today? My shield computer's bust and I don't have time to fit a new one.”

  “I...” he tailed off, looking out through the bar’s viewport. “It will take a good offer for me to go out there again.”

  “Triple pay enough?"

  He nodded and left. I followed soon after, flipping the display imprinted on my retina down, putting the necessary contracts in place for Feature's employment, handshaking the deal with the station's central computer.

  I confirmed the transaction and flicked the contract window out of my field of vision with a twitch of my optical nerves to a specific spot. As I approached the bar, Alex offered me another bottle.

  "Hey, where'd Teddy go?" Alex asked.

  "To get his things," I replied, "we're going out there."

  "Ok..." Alex waved the drink around forlornly. "What about your beer?"

  "Keep it.”

  *

  Twenty minutes later I was in the cockpit of Ellouise, my ship. Halfway through the start-up sequence, I heard a floor panel creak behind me. I spun around.

  "That was quick."

  Feature shrugged. The smoked glass visor stared out past me, through the viewport at the space station’s hangar bay. I followed his gaze.

  Feature’s ship, the Hawk-Killer, was in three pieces, scattered across the bay. The cockpit was a blackened crater. One of the engines had flown off and lodged in a small pleasure craft. A chunk of hull floated in the space just beyond the bay.

  “How the hell did you make it back?"

  Feature's voice betrayed no emotion. "I regained control just after the shield collapsed. If the storm surge had come at any other time, that debris would never have punched through the cockpit. Cybel energy is fickle."

  "So it is," I muttered, looking out past the mechanics cleaning up the crash site, at the opening to the cybel network, at the energy spitting and hurling itself from the gate, creating arcs of blue and purple plasma against the ruddy light of Gus Torta's red giant star.

  The same cybel energy used as a conduit to travel between the stars or as fuel to power our lives was held in check by magnets acting as the ship's shields. When the energetic plasma’s stability was threatened by the surge of a storm or weaponry impacting on it, the results weren't pretty.

  I'd never trusted a man, even an altered one, to control the magnetic shields which kept the extremes of space and the cybel network from destroying my ship. Just in case, I queried the station computer if I could quickly install a digital shield controller. It brusquely informed me none were available.

  "You sure you're okay to go back out there?" I said, jerking a thumb at the violence of the tempest. With the Maelstrom’s Edge only a few star systems away, the cybel tunnels that linked Gus Torta to other stars were getting more and more unstable. There was a distant flash as something exploded as it left the gate.

  "The ship was badly made," Feature said. "I told the captain we needed new shield units, but he couldn’t afford it. I trust that won't be a problem with your ship."

  "Here's hoping," I said, "Bob put the generators in yesterday.”

  "May I?" he said. I gestured him towards the shield station. He linked in and scrolled through. "You usually use a computer."

  "Yeah," I said, itching the scalp below my headset nervously, "it's not that I don't trust you hullwalkers, it's just that I've always worked without one."

  "You prefer to work alone?"

  "Nope." I glanced into the static of Jericho's VR chamber. "I've had co-pilots over the years. Good ones. I'm looking for another one now. But Ellouise was made in the Foundation. They don't use people where they can use computers, or uploaded souldrivers. I've had the same computer controlling the shields for years."

  "Why the change? Have you seen the error of your ways?"

  I laughed.

  "Not yet, buddy. The new computer I bought didn't work. New one's coming next week."

  "Unless I’m so good that you have to hire me," Feature said.

  "Right," I said, doubtingly.

  Ellouise slid her way out of the bay. The shields came alive as we left. "What's the capacity of these shields?"

  "Get it above four and a half Tesla and the force rips the hull apart" I told him. The shields hit three Tesla.

  Around the star, several gates orbited, each one a pathway to another star. I selected Shiguran from the dropdown menu on my eyeball and slid the ship towards the highlighted gate, the opening irising open as we approached, exposing the pulsing purple energy of the cybel network. Ellouise shuddered as we transitioned through the gap between realspace and cybel space. The darkness of space and the stars beyond winked out as the surface of the gate gave way, flooding the control room in purple light.

  "I'm having some difficulty with this control system," Feature announced as I steered Ellouise into the cybel tunnel.

  "What kind of problems?" I broke away from looking at him as a current swept us towards the side of the tunnel. The ship shook as it bounced against the concentrated energy of the side wall. I gritted my teeth and swung Ellouise back under control.

  "The controls are crude, too unresponsive," said Feature, "I have to do it all through a computer interface. All of which is wasted time. If I was hullwalking I would have much better use of my reflexes."

  "Ok," I said, "I guess I agree. I'll get the computer to install the best hullwalker program we have." I tapped a couple of commands in, got the computer looking amongst the torrent of data floating along in the energy with us. "Even if I do find something, it may be corrupted," I warned.

  Feature nodded. "I'll only go out there if I have to."

  "So," I said in a quiet moment, "why did you come out here again?"

  "The heroic part of me would say I was here to avenge t
he deaths of my shipmates," Feature's computer voice intoned. "But that wouldn't be true. They were stupid pirates that barely acknowledged me. And how would I avenge them, if they were killed by nature?"

  "So why are you out here then?" I said. "Guilt?"

  He looked at me. "The shield's failing was the captain's fault for not updating them. But yes, I suppose I am a little guilty. I don’t like to let a storm beat me."

  There was an awkward silence. "Why are you out here, Mr. Dext?" Feature asked. "The Maelstrom is not far from Gus Torta. Surely you are not a believer?"

  "I don't care much for the Karist way."

  "Then why do you ask for information on the movements of the Enclave?"

  I sighed. There was no way out now.

  "They killed my best friend."

  The conversation paused as we moved to avoid an asteroid that span past. Occasionally space debris found its way into a ruptured tunnel or open gate, gradually ablating away as the matter reacting the cybel energy around it. From the size of this rock, it must have only recently entered the tunnel. I swung the ship around its bulk, but its spin brought it closer than I anticipated and it brushed against us. As it came close I could see the scars and pits where debris had impacted against it.

  The rock glanced against the shield and for a second began to pass through. But then Feature bulked up the shield strength, sending the asteroid off in one direction and us the other. The next half an hour disappeared in manic calculations and quick momentum shifts.

  I boosted the port thrusters, pulling us past the remains of something. We slipped into a smoother current and I spoke to fill the sudden calm. "I had a co-pilot who got called up for ten years’ service as an uploaded souldriver. The Karists killed him at Eriadu."

  Feature didn't reply and I didn't make a move to continue talking.

  "The hell?" I leaned forward, implants in my eyes tightening to see what was happening at the side wall. The purple energy, usually so focused, dissipated outwards, gushing into blackness.

  "The tunnel wall burst," said Feature tonelessly. Amongst the fading purple, the dark forms of a broken convoy could be seen.