The Lost Tech

by Vaughn Heppner

  -46-

  Dag sat strapped in his crash-seat inside the pod, waiting for the assault to start. He was the largest Merovingian in here and like the others wore EVA gear over his armor. All the seats were pressed together, some back to back, and the warriors breathed heavily in anticipation, most of their EVA-helmet visors open.

  The entire pod jolted.

  “Screen,” Dag said.

  The pod’s pilot—having trained for this in the “hellish simulations”—tapped a switch. Several screens brightened so all of them could see what was happening outside. A loader raised the pod in its forks, attaching it to the underside of a flyer’s wings. Three pods per wing.

  Soon, the flyer shook as its engine started up. Through a screen, Dag saw the hangar-bay door opening.

  This was it. They were about to leave the safety of the hauler and race through a QX-Tube, entering a null region.

  Their flyer rose, heading to the great door. The flyer left the hangar bay, entering space, normal space with stars. The flyer went to its position outside the giant hauler, waiting as others like it joined for the adventure.

  The breathing grew louder in the pod. Dag felt his stomach twist and seethe. They had all done this many times in the simulator. They should all be used to it by now.

  This is the real thing. It’s different. We could all die.

  “W-What’s that?” a warrior asked in a shaky voice as he stared at a screen.

  “You know what it is,” Dag said. Matter swirled as if it was a comic whirlpool. “That’s the tube forming. We’re about to leave.”

  “I don’t like this,” another warrior said.

  “We’re nothing but stooges,” said the first.

  “We’re warriors,” Dag said, forcing himself to sound confident. “We’re more than that. We’re the Merovingians.”

  “Yeah? And what does that mean out here?”

  Dag turned to the speaker. “That I’ll kick your ass if you keep bitching.”

  The others laughed nervously.

  “I won’t mind that if I’m still alive.”

  “Sing!” Dag shouted. “Sing, damnit!”

  “Sing what?” a warrior asked.

  “Anything!” Dag roared. “Just quit whining like a bunch of pussies.”

  There was more laughter. That ended abruptly as a QX-Tube formed. The entrance swirled with ominous power: leading to…to what appeared as dead blackness.

  A warrior moaned in dread.

  Dag burst into a drinking song, roaring out the words—something bawdy about fighting and women. “Sing!” he bellowed. “If you don’t, I’ll kick all your asses once we land.”

  Other warriors began to sing.

  The QX-Tube stabilized, and their flyer lurched toward it.

  Dag was too busy belting out his drinking song to take much notice. He studied his warriors. Their fear was palpable and growing. The singing wasn’t helping much. What could he do?—Dag threw back his head and forced harsh laughter from his throat.

  “Why are you laughing?” an ashen-faced warrior shouted at him.

  “Because I laugh at death!” Dag roared. “I laugh at whatever thinks to challenge me. Will I die? Maybe. Someday. Who in the hell cares? While I live, I will have victory—and you can be sure I’ll fight to the death, if that’s what’s needed. Thus, I laugh at any and all comers. What about you, boys? What are you going to do?”

  Some stared at him as if he was a lunatic. Some stared at the screens and trembled in fear.

  The opening of the QX-Tube neared, and the hideous darkness down there grew worse.

  “Here we go!” one of them shouted.

  At that point, every one of the warriors stared at the screens showing their tube entry. Dag tried to laugh once more, but it died in his throat. Then, they plunged into the opening. The pod shivered, shook and—they seemed to elongate as they sped through the exotic tube. There were sounds, they might have been laughter but it also sounded like screams.

  The horrible feeling of elongation ceased as a grim chill gripped Dag. He assumed it must have been doing the same to the others. He shivered as his teeth chattered, and then he began to sweat as fever-heat washed through his body. He bit back a groan, tried to laugh—

  The pod began shaking, and it was hard to keep his eyeballs from rolling around inside his head.

  The scene on the screen shifted—

  The shaking stopped; the chill and the heat vanished.

  Dag found himself slumped in his crash-seat, collapsed as if exhausted. It took a great effort of will for him to straighten. His head felt stiff, but he turned his neck and glanced at his men. Some had vomited, staining their EVA suits. Others sat like dead fish, with their mouths open.

  He eyed a screen. He looked closer at what he saw, understanding that he witnessed the curvature of a planet. It was black and gray with points of lights down there.

  “Launches,” one of the warriors said, the pod’s pilot, named Rock.

  “Eh?” asked Dag.

  “The points of light,” Rock said. “Those are from the bloom of surface rocket launches.”

  Dag glanced at the man. “You can’t know that.”

  Rock shrugged.

  “Those would have to be giant rockets for us to see the blooms,” Dag said.

  “That’s right, gigantic.”

  The pod shivered.

  “What’s that mean?” Dag shouted.

  “Easy, big fellow,” the pilot said.

  Dag glared at Rock.

  “Uh, no insult intended, Champion.”

  “None taken,” Dag said a moment later. “What does the shaking mean: that we detached from the flyer?”

  “That’s part of it,” Rock said. He grasped a joystick between his legs and switched on a panel. “I’m the best we have at this. We’ll make it down, Champion. I promise you that.”

  Dag glanced at Rock and then looked back at the screen. The points of lights—the rocket blooms—had gotten bigger. Just how massive were the rockets?

  Before Dag could ask the question aloud, flyers zoomed ahead of the pod. The flyers showed hot exhaust, powering down at the rising rockets. None of those flyers had any pods attached to their wings. They must have already unloaded.

  “They’re crazy,” Dag said.

  “No more than us,” Rock said.

  Dag stared at the pilot again.

  “I suspect the flyer pilots are hypnotically pre-programmed to kamikaze for the Queen,” Rock said.

  “What does that mean?” asked Dag.

  “Kamikazes were Japanese suicide soldiers in an ancient conflict called World War Two,” Rock said. “The Japanese were losing bad, running out of stuff, including experienced pilots. The kamikazes were trained in the tactic of diving into enemy ships, guiding their attached torpedoes or bombs into the enemy vessel.”

  “Why didn’t they use AI drones?”

  “That was before AI, or even computers.”

  “How do you know things like that?”

  Rock shrugged, moving the joystick so the pod pitched to the left. “It’s going to get rough, I bet. There are methane storms near the surface. The winds might make it hard to find the heat of an entrance.”

  “How do you know about kamikazes?” Dag shouted.

  “What? Oh. I was a librarian before the Queen found me. I loved ancient history, anything before our modern Space Age.”

  “You remember your past life?”

  “Not too well,” Rock said, shifting the pod to the right. “I remember history stories best, but usually only when they’re appropriate to the moment.”

  The gray and black planetary surface now took up the pod’s entire screen. From up here, it appeared as if the surface was constructed out of sheet metal and bolted with massive rivets. That couldn’t be right, though, could it? There were swirls down there as well, the methane storms Rock had mentioned.

  At that point, the blooms of light ceased. Dag could make out monstrous rockets approaching the
m. The cone of the nearest exploded—or so it seemed—and twenty new smaller lights appeared, the exhausts of new thin rockets speeding up at them.

  “Cluster rockets,” Rock said.

  “Is that bad?” Dag asked.

  “Yup. Too many for the kamikazes to beat. Okay. It’s time to take us out of here. Hold your water, Champion.”

  The pod veered hard left, did a summersault and then seemed to plunge straight down.

  Someone else vomited.

  “I hear and obey,” Rock said in a rote voice, moving the stick the other way.

  The pod shook the worst it had so far. They summersaulted again, heading the other way. On the screen, in the distance, explosions showed. Missiles and flyers disintegrated into fireballs.

  A horrible yet glorious lightshow appeared with red, orange, yellow and white streaks crisscrossing every which way. Dag shielded his eyes and his teeth chattered. His stomach roiled as the men rocked violently—and then part of the pod simply disappeared. Shrieking winds howled. One of the warriors flew screaming out of his crash-seat, vanishing from sight.

  Dag held his breath as he activated his EVA visor to whirr shut. This was bad. This was very bad. The pod had been hit. The pod could not possibly make it down to the surface now. Surbus must have known the Queen would try something like this, and had been alert. The damaged pod rolled over and over. Dag grew dizzy, faint and might have passed out. He did not remember anything for a time.

  Then, he wheezed. His head pounded with pain, and colors danced before his eyes. He attempted to sense movement and heard shrieking wind instead. It did not sound as intense as he remembered earlier.

  “Rock?” he called, using the helmet comm.

  “Coming to, huh, Champion?” Rock asked.

  Dag moved his agonizing neck. He saw that Rock’s EVA visor was up as well. He could no longer see the man’s face, but he sensed a humorous glint in Rock’s eyes.

  If that was meant against him—

  Dag attempted to rise, and found straps holding him down in his seat. He craned his neck and looked out the jagged broken hull. He saw swirling methane and dark metal heading nearer.

  “We’re almost down,” Rock shouted. “This is the last moment, as we’re out of fuel. I hope we still have a chute.”

  “A what?” asked Dag.

  Rock pulled a lever, and a bundle of fabric flew up, grew to enormous size and jerked their pod hard. They began to float after a fashion.

  “A parachute,” Rock said. “I’ve aimed us at a heat signature, a hatch into the planet. The storm is moving us away, though.”

  Dag peered out of the jagged opening. There were other chutes blossoming above them. One crumpled as a dark swirl of methane struck it. That pod plunged down.

  “Five seconds,” Rock said. “Four, three, two, one, zero—”

  The pod crashed with a clang, hitting a metallic surface. They rolled until the pod came to a stop.

  “Go,” Dag said, as he clicked off his restraints. He stood on wobbly legs, heading for the exit. His pod was down. How many of his Merovingians had made it with him and how soon would Surbus throw something else at them? Could they find a hatch into the subterranean planet?

  With a gloved hand, the Champion gripped his lance. He had other weapons strapped to his back under the EVA suit. He was ready for anything—he hoped.

  -47-

  Victory’s tiny scout shuttle moved through velocity alone, Maddox having shut down the thruster. They’d witnessed an amazing sight: a tube appearing as if from nowhere. The tube end had vomited flyers with pods into the planet’s low orbital space. Those flyers had headed down to face huge rockets roaring up at them.

  They hadn’t witnessed the end of the contest, as the giant metal planet had rotated away from them, taking the sight from their view.

  The shuttle moved toward the massive metal planet nearly 600,000 kilometers away. In normal space, they could have seen events easily. Here, in the null region, their sensors lacked the same range and scope.

  “The tube has disappeared,” Maddox said.

  “Interesting, interesting,” Ludendorff said. “This begins to explain several mysteries.” He was hunched over a sensor panel, tapping here, tapping there and studying the readouts. “I believe that was a QX-Tube, which would indicate Lisa Meyers at work.”

  “QX?” asked Maddox.

  “Old Builder technology, an unstable technology, I should add. It’s like a short-range hyper-spatial tube with differences. I suspected Meyers might have used such a method to escape from Tortuga, but I discounted it after some serious thought. Now, I see I might have been in error. There are dread consequences to using a QX-Tube. It can affect the thinking, the reasoning of those traveling through it.”

  “Meyers clearly launched an assault upon the planet,” Maddox said. “That’s the salient point. That would indicate Surbus was telling the truth earlier.”

  “Agreed.”

  “The surface rockets indicate Surbus anticipated Meyers and is fighting back,” Maddox said.

  “Obviously.”

  “Where did the tube originate?” Maddox asked.

  “A key point,” Ludendorff said. “Yes, a critical point. The tube deposited Meyers’s forces as close to the planet as possible. Does that mean the planet affords protection against the null region?”

  “There’s something else: namely, the precision of the assault. How far out is her main force? Is it inside the null region or outside?”

  In his photon suit, Ludendorff leaned back in his seat, putting his helmet back. “What do we know for certain? Meyers put Surbus in charge of the null region while she went elsewhere—Tortuga at the very least. During that time, Surbus obliterated the planet Olmstead. Now, he’s maneuvered the null region into the Solar System. Clearly, he must have gained the data for operating all this from her. Now, Surbus has backstabbed Meyers, as he attempts to gain great wealth. She’s responded by sending a retribution team to eliminate or teach him an agonizing lesson, would be my guess.”

  “The planet must contain the control mechanisms to the Ring Accelerator,” Maddox said.

  “We don’t know that with any certainty.”

  “Weren’t you listening? The assault shows that.”

  “Unless the assault is a diversion,” Ludendorff said. “Perhaps that little show was meant for us. That would make better sense than the coincidence of us both reaching here at the same time.”

  Maddox stared out of the polarized window. The giant metal planet, the nullity of this place— “Where’s the ring? Why haven’t we seen it yet?”

  “Patience, my boy; we’ve hardly gotten into the null region. I find it illuminating that we’ve found the heavy planet and seen Meyers’s people make their assault. That is fortuitous for us.”

  “You just said the assault could have been a diversion,” Meta said.

  “I did, I did.”

  “You don’t believe that now?” she asked.

  “As soon as I said it, I asked myself, ‘Why divert? What could Meyers gain from that?’ No. I’m inclined to believe we saw the real thing.”

  “We lack time for extended bickering,” Maddox said. “If we take too long deciding what to do next, Surbus might launch more icy planetesimals, maybe at Pluto this time. Or he might move the null region closer to Earth—”

  “No!” Ludendorff said. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly wrong. Surbus has given Earth a precious gift, time. He shouldn’t have made his demonstration from the inner Oort cloud, but closed in on the Asteroid Belt and launched surprise assaults. Following that procedure, he could well have pulverized the Earth as he did Olmstead. I wonder if the horror of this place has gotten to Surbus and he wants out of here. In other words, we caught a break because Meyers has been using inferior personnel. I suspect the Yon-Soth ray has something to do with that.”

  Maddox grunted. “I’ll grant you all that. Now, how do we use this time? Do we slip out of the null region and contact the Lord High
Admiral? Does he send in the fleet?”

  “How would the fleet personnel operate in the null region?”

  “Take a day, two, three maybe and manufacture enough photon suits for them,” Maddox said.

  “Can you ensure that the fleet bypasses the Hormagaunt’s envelope?”

  “We come in from the other side,” Maddox said, “thereby doing just that.”

  Ludendorff snorted, shaking his helmet. “No, no, no. You don’t understand because you’re thinking in terms of normal time and space. This is the null region, something else altogether. For instance, I suspect the Hormagaunt’s envelope circles the entire null region like the white of an egg protects the inner yolk.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The technical nature of the Hormagaunt and its powers isn’t as important as the practicality of the situation,” Ludendorff said. “Notice, the Koniggratz was a Star Watch vessel, yet failed to foil Surbus and company.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Take this one on faith, my boy.”

  “Okay…” Maddox said. “Suppose you’re right about that. The fleet would have to pierce the protective Hormagaunt envelope first. Yes, the Koniggratz failed, but one battleship isn’t anything like ten, twenty or fifty battleships.”

  “You’re missing the point, my boy. Meyers sent a commando team to the planet for a reason.”

  “Maybe because that’s all she has left,” Maddox said.

  “I doubt that. Notice, the Hormagaunt told you to pick the smallest shuttle. Don’t you think that was for a sound tactical reason?”

  “Maybe…” Maddox said.

  “I think, my boy, we’re in a classic di-far situation. Meyers controlled the null region. She must therefore know about the Hormagaunt. It’s the reason the mobile-null-region operator can take it deep into a star system to collect its rocks and launch them. If ships can replicate our feat—Victory’s feat—they will find themselves trapped and neutralized by the Hormagaunt’s envelope. Given your unique gifts, you were able to awaken in that place and meet a curious and perhaps lonely creature. It has told you to destroy the null region in order to free itself. How does one destroy such a region?”