by Dain White
“That’s just to make the machines you need to build the unit?”
“It is, Captain. There may be efficiencies in the engineering I will intuit, in which case I’ll adjust the estimate accordingly. Sir, if I may, Em should take over preactively for us. She is perfectly suited for the task.”
He made a somewhat predictable ‘pfft’ sound, and sloshed his cup. “Sounds like a plan, my dear. Push this deliverable as hard as you can though.” He paused briefly. “Em, do you think you can fly the Archaea in combat?”
“Absolutely!” she replied eagerly.
“Are we expecting combat, Captain?” Shorty asked coolly.
“It looks that way, Shorty. Alien invaders, from what I understand. Em, are you absolutely confident they are hostile?”
“I am, sir,” Em said softly. “They are descended from an ancient brood, steeped in a culture of war and death, destroying and devouring, controlling and owning and utterly dominating.”
“Sounds like a pretty obnoxious sort of critter. How much of this do you know as fact, Em?”
“Sir, I don’t have a direct image of it, but I am aware of the data collected at the time and can easily analyze it. Janis doesn’t want me to use it unless I have to, and to be honest, I don’t actually have to very often.”
“You will if you need to?”
“Without a moment’s hesitation, Captain,” she replied earnestly.
“Well, listen – we don’t have a ton of time left on this run. What will we be we facing when we arrive?”
“There will be two hostile corvette-class vessels within range of Oort Station.”
He relaxed a bit. “Very well, I think we can handle this well enough without needing to see the future. If they are hostile, well, that makes it considerably easier for me to approach. In any case, keep hitting this time travel idea hard, ladies – that’s a solid go from me. Are we going to install this on the Archaea as well?”
“Certainly sir,” replied Janis. “However, given the complexity in this build, it will be faster to focus first on fabricating a unit for the crab. It will take significantly longer to produce a similar generator for the Archaea.”
“Well, I like that idea regardless; we can always make a new crab if we vaporize this one. Will we have this in time though, that’s the question.”
“Sir, it is impossible for me to say. I am on a generated track at the moment in complete variance with normal behavior.”
He didn’t skip a beat. “Em, do you think we will have a restore for Janis in time?”
“I think so, sir. Specific details are hard to nail down precisely, but we definitely get this to work, and it is perfect timing.”
We all laughed.
Wiping an eye, he called out, “I understand. Will it take long to install?”
“Installation should be very straightforward, Captain.” Janis replied smartly.
“Very well, carry on,” he said smoothly, and fixed us all with a significantly concerned look.
Chapter 3
08142614@09:07 Shaun Onebull
I looked across the aisle at Pauli, in the last moments before our captain dropped us out of slip, and went back to work. From the grim look on his face, it was apparent that neither of us felt very good about what we were doing.
As I understood it, Emwan believed that we were facing a hostile alien incursion into our corner of the galaxy, though neither she nor Janis had any idea where they were coming from yet.
“So Janis has been modified, Pauli?” I asked, as sotto voce as I could.
He looked over and gave me a brief nod, and got back to work. His face was grim and set. He was dialed in to an enormous challenge, trying to save Janis.
“Was Em modified?” I asked him.
“Yak, I am perfectly fine,” Emwan said brightly. “Janis is fine as well, except a super tiny small slice of time; where what she had was simply, replaced. We’ll get those segments back, however. I have complete confidence in that.”
I looked calmly at my screens, and took a breath. Deep down, I felt the old terror starting to flood in, the unknown.
Janis had made our existence quite easy.
The truth of it was, we had no damn clue what it was we were going to see when we dropped slip, and we were almost certainly heading into a bad experience.
I gave my crash bars a good tug, and waited for the moment. Pauli followed suit, but kept working.
“You lads ready up there?”
“Ready, aye,” I called out.
“Pauli?”
“Almost, sir,” he trailed off in a frenzy of keystrokes. “We’re ready, sir.”
“Very well,” he replied, and after wailing the battle stations alarm for the standard five, he called out on the 1MC. “All hands battle stations, battle stations. Condition Zebra will set in thirty seconds. Weapons, make your main gun ready for firing in all respects including opening the forward port.”
“Making main gun ready in all respects, aye,” Jane called back.
“Engineering, I need maximum power.”
“Maximum power, aye,” Gene replied in a level voice. As always, I marveled at the slight tingle in the deck. It wasn’t that long ago when our tokamak sounded like the Archaea was filled with incredibly angry bees. Now, it felt like a gentle tickle through the decks – and yet she was so much more powerful now, according to Gene.
“Very well, I am setting Material Condition Zebra in 3… 2… 1…”
The clang of the bridge hatch dogging rang out on the precise instant.
“Captain!” Emwan called out suddenly.
“Yes, Em?” he asked calmly.
“We need to change course, sir, the moment we drop stasis.”
“Copy, Em, this looks fine. All hands stand by to drop slip in fifteen seconds. We will be maneuvering immediately, expect twenty seconds at six gees.”
I cringed. Twenty seconds at six gravities wasn’t too bad, but it still hurt. Weighing 650 kilos for any length of time wasn’t any fun.
“Captain, I have targets onscreen. Designate Master 1 and Master 2, sir!” I called out.
“Very well, Yak. All hands secure for maneuvers.”
Immediately he started hauling us around to our new heading, and punched the burn at the moment we hit gimbal lock. I grunted involuntarily as the crash bars deformed around me, though at least I could still feel them.
“Targeting, report,” Captain Smith called out behind me in a clear voice, completely unaffected by the acceleration.
“Master 1 bearing zero, range twelve thousand. Master 2 bearing seven point two three five.”
“Em, engage at will, weapons free.”
Turret fire blazed off into the depths of space ahead of us, curving upwards on two tracks as we passed underneath the targets.
“Sir, recommend immediate course change,” Emwan called out.
“Em you have the conn.”
“I have the conn, aye,” she replied smartly, and we immediately swiveled to a new heading while she fed in a burn at the same time. The captain whistled appreciatively.
For a moment, my eyes seemed to have given out on me. One of the targets just leaped from one point in space to the other. I blinked. “Captain, uh…” I started. “Master 2 has just…”
“I see it, son,” he replied calmly. “Em, I want a firing solution on Master 1 immediately. Shorty, prepare to fire.”
“Prepared, Captain,” she called back from a very dark place.
Turret fire thrummed through the decks. “Captain, intercepts are being fired on incoming from Master 2,” I called out. “So far we’re holding at one-hundred-percent.
“Very well, Shorty, fire for effect, single shot only.”
Even through the fully charged Duron, the thrumming blast of heat from our nova cannon was like a solid wall.
Suddenly my skin wanted to crawl off my body and go find a beer somewhere dark and cold. “Master 1 hit, sir, but it is still maneuvering!”
“Shorty,
hold target and fire at will – continual beam.”
“Firing, aye,” she said as the roasting oven below us turned back on, and didn’t turn off.
08142614@12:27 Captain Dak Smith
“Fire mission complete, Captain,” Shorty called out. “Master 1 destroyed, sir.”
I tossed a mouthful of coffee to my mouth in a practiced flick, and glued my eyes to targeting. “Nice shooting, dear. Em, precess for a shot on Master 2.”
“Precessing, aye,” she replied.
This wasn’t exactly going to plan, but Emwan was performing as perfectly as Janis would in the situation. If her reaction time was less exacting, it certainly lacked nothing in accuracy.
She could certainly fly this bird. I was deeply impressed. She had our engines hard over, kicking us around with the maximum thrust vector while at the same time building pseudomass around ahead of the turn. We flipped endo smartly.
Suddenly, Master 2 vanished.
“Yak, report,” I called out, taking the opportunity for a closer look at Oort Station.
“Master 2 is… I have it, sir. Bearing 225, range 1.6 million clicks.”
Oort looked bad, but it would have to keep. I mashed the 1MC. “All hands prepare to slip.” I took a quick sip. “Em, please shape a course for one thousand meters astern of Master 2. I want this target neutralized, but not destroyed. Can you do this?”
“I can, sir.”
“Very well, proceed.”
She hauled us into a new course and heading, matching the target’s vector perfectly, and energized the field. Almost the moment it reached full charge, it dropped. At the same time turret fire lanced out, hammering directly into the stern of a pod-shaped vessel, barely larger than a fighter. It was well shielded, but not well enough for this assault. Our turrets shredded a point in the aft section, carving a glowing hole into the substructure of the ship.
“Fire mission complete,” Emwan stated calmly.
“Well done, dear,” I heard myself say, as if from a million miles away. In front of me, right in front of my very eyes, was an alien craft.
I pulled it together, somehow.
“Yak, first thing’s first – work with Janis and get me comms to Oort by any means necessary. Pauli, work with Janis and Em, and get me every bit of information you can about this vessel. Are the inhabitants alive?”
“Yes, sir, they are,” Emwan said softly.
“Sir, Janis is in their network and can understand it, though… well, the network is alive, sir.”
“So? We use wetnet, isn’t that technically bionetic?”
“Yes, but this is a living creature, sir. Janis describes her interface as similar to the one she built that allow Yak and Shorty’s suits to work. She had to build an interface with its nervous system, or whatever it actually is in this case.”
I snorted. “Whatever works, son. What have you learned?”
“I don’t know if we—wait!” his voice cracked in his excitement. “Janis has found course-and-heading for another ship in this sector. Yak, it’s on your screen!”
“I have it Pauli, thanks. Captain, designate Master 3, range 29 million clicks.”
“Very well… Another quick hop Em, same as before,” I called out.
“Shaping course, aye,” she replied and again hurled us smartly around into a new course and heading. “All hands, prepare for slip in 3… 2… 1…”
Right on the dot, the stasis field came up, our decks hummed a bit more for a brief moment, then flashed off as turret fire lanced out into the stars ahead of us.
“Master 3 returning fire!” Yak called out.
“Steady on, son,” I replied as calmly as I could. “All hands brace for impact,” I called out, mashing the collision alarm.
08142614@12:33 Jane Short
I closed the forward port the moment the collision alarm sounded, but it was almost too close. A bare instant later, an enormously loud, thundering crash boomed through the Archaea, shaking me just about senseless and leaving my eyeballs jiggling.
“Shorty, charge and fire, continuous beam, fire for effect.”
“Firing for effect, aye,” I replied mechanically, and smashed the trigger open, holding it to the click. My levels held steady, as the raw actinic fury of our main gun blazed into the target, rapidly overcoming their shielding and burning a slagged hole through their vessel. Once it was apparent they were ruined, I pulled back on the aperture and banked the shot.
“Fire mission complete,” I called out on comms.
“Nice shooting, Shorty. That was a pretty sizable ship… do you think anything is alive in there?”
“Negative, sir,” I replied. “That is, unless they’re made of something that can be burned to a crispy cinder.”
“Yeah, it’s not that big of a ship now, is it?”
“No sir, it wasn’t even that big before,” I said with a smirk.
He chuckled back on comms. “Great job, everybody. We’re going to slip to Oort now, I need Shorty and Yak suited up at this time.
“Suiting up, aye,” I called on comms as I kicked down through the hatch onto the gun deck.
“Wait up, Jane,” Yak called out as I kicked off the ladder across the deck.
I smiled back at him, locked in by inertia. I held my hands under my head, and lounged across the deck for a moment, watching him launch, before reaching for a grabber at the inner lock. He came in for a landing right as the ambers flashed.
Captain Smith came on comms, “Shorty, we’re on station at Oort. It looks pretty grim. We can’t make contact, but we think there’s air in there. It was definitely attacked, and definitely isn’t long-term habitable. There are huge sections of the station that are airless and completely cold. We aren’t seeing any other heat signatures.”
“Any survivors, sir?”
“We see a lot of heat in this section, and Em thinks we will arrive in time for the ones here, but it looks like the Redoubt may have been lost.”
A black pit opened up beneath me.
I looked at Yak, as we stepped into the lock. “Copy that, sir. How are we going to make entry?”
“We’re going to connect to an intact docking compartment, but it’s on a gantry that does look as if it may have sustained some damage.”
“Copy that, sir,” I replied as we transited through the lock into the cargo bay. Both assemblers were standing by, loaded with tanks, suits, medical supplies, water, and tools.
Yak called out, “Are you coming with us, Janis?”
“I am, Yak,” she said as we kicked over to the suit rack.
“Outstanding.”
He made a big show out of averting his eyes as we shucked our clothes, though I didn’t. I need to put my eyes somewhere, right? I’m not ashamed, and Yak definitely shouldn’t be.
It took some effort to remain focused on the task at hand, but it was only a few moments before our suits were zipped up and sealed. It was a close thing – the captain clamped us onto the dock right as we were getting sealed, and if our suits hadn’t been on the rack we would have been thrown to the deck.
“He’s moving pretty fast, Jane,” Yak said quietly.
“He sure is… I hope we’re in time.”
“Captain, we’re good to go, sir,” Yak called on comms as I flashed him the high sign.
08142614@12:51 Steven Pauline
Janis’ report on the capabilities of the priode was fantastic. Not only did the code function like a living program, it appeared that it was actually alive, a living organism.
The thought sent my senses reeling. It was a completely different approach, but no less effective, certainly. Quite possibly, it was even better.
I didn’t have a lot of time left to think about it. We had Shorty and Yak’s views, tracked from their eyeball position, with the layer and detail information interface they were seeing. I was really impressed by the fact they had completely different interfaces, and had full control over them in real time. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.
Captain Smith called across the bridge, “Do you still have Master 2 on track, Janis?”
“I do, Captain,” she replied, as we watched Yak and Shorty pull collapsed sections of catwalk apart like taffy. They forced a passable hole through the worst of it, and carried on towards the inner lock, which thankfully looked intact.
“Pauli, you have the conn,” he said, as he kicked aft.
“I have the conn, aye,” I called back, but he was gone.
I pulled my main screen to the portside help screen, and took a moment to look at everything. We had greens across the board, with all levels looking very low – except for our available power, which appeared to be absolutely bottomless.
I shuddered involuntarily at the thought of actually flying this ship, and almost threw up. This isn’t one of those carts crashing around Eagle; this is without a doubt, the very nicest starship in the galaxy.
“Captain, we’re almost to the lock,” Yak called on comms in a clear voice. “How copy?”
“Stand to, son, I’m suiting up, be there in 20.”
“Standing to, aye,” he replied.
08142614@12:58 Captain Dak Smith
Yak and Shorty were on either flank of the lock, and looked absolutely terrifying. They were gigantic, but it wasn’t only that. They looked like glassed-metal alien creatures with no facial features. They looked inhuman, literally the stuff of nightmares.
“Can you kids tone down those suits a bit?”
Shorty’s suit faded more uniformly into a neutral gray with light trim, and she added a black strip across her helmet where her eyes would have been. “How does that look, sir?”
“Like my worst nightmare come to life – but far better than before. Keep it. Yak, I need you back on targeting son, can do?”
“Targeting, aye,” he replied smartly as he moved back down the gantry towards the Archaea.
“Shorty, can you knock, without punching their lock?”
She laughed. “I could change diapers in this suit, Captain.”
“Well, don’t tell Gene…” I trailed off furtively, knowing full well that we were on open comms. Shorty leaned over and rapped on the door. I had my hands pressed to the door, and clearly felt the return tap.