Lastly, several mercenary ships and a small pirate ship joined. Admiral Slaught’s fleet numbered 26 military ships. He was often busy performing his favorite task: managing a large military operation and choosing the next target.
CHAPTER 17
Downloading
The floating chair spun away and slowed to a halt inches from the wall. Steo yelled in frustration. He’d tried to throw the chair but its LBDs prevented it from going far.
Yuina and Renosha were in the bridge. The internal sounds clanged, indicating the damage the ship had taken, so Yuina turned them off. Based on the data they had, they determined the Fire Scorpion definitely survived their attack. Hawking could hear and speak, but his eyes needed replacing. He stayed off to the side, more subdued than normal.
Yuina talked to Governor over the comm. They identified an air duct that connected the two sections. A person could crawl back and forth, but not during battle.
“What now?” Yuina asked Renosha.
The robot nodded to the holobridge. They both went in. There were no holograms up, just a hovering chair. Steo paced back and forth.
“What is your assessment, Steo?” Renosha asked.
“What else could it be? Failure again! We barely scratched the Fire Scorpion, they’re stronger than ever and they have Cyrus!”
“Didn’t Cyrus go with them willingly?” Yuina asked.
“He came with us willingly too!”
Renosha said, “Why do you think that is?”
“I’m tired of saying I don’t know to all your questions!” Steo said. “Cyrus is new. He’s a couple weeks old. His brain is full of memories and thoughts that aren’t even his own. How could he know what he really wants?”
“Did you believe Cyrus when he said he honored Tully’s sacrifice?” Renosha asked.
“I did! Now I feel like a fool! How can I believe anything now?” Steo blamed himself for the whole mess.
“Then what do we do now?” Yuina asked.
“We’re going to steal him back!” Steo said.
Renosha smiled. Yuina was taken aback. “How?” they asked together.
“The first thing we need is repairs,” Steo said, waving his arms broadly.
Renosha said, “There is a bounty on this ship. There is nowhere safe.”
Steo stopped pacing. “Then we’ll go where there are no people.”
“I already plotted a course,” Renosha said.
They traveled 18 hours at high FTL speed to get to Muliar. The buoys around the green planet still transmitted a general warning. While the corvette descended, none of the defense systems fired. Steo looked haggard, more drained than usual. He had categorized the extent of damage. Governor couldn’t pester him to rest or eat except by comm because the robot couldn’t get to the bridge.
Glaikis slept, recovering from her injuries.
“There are no discernible signals on the planet,” Hawking said.
“The planet’s systems don’t need to transmit active signals like ships in space, so they’ll be quiet. Low energy transmission. What I want to know is how the war robots are coordinated.” Steo’s eyes were red and he needed a shave.
Normal decoy drones flew at millions of miles an hour in space so launching them in atmosphere would destroy them instantly. Steo reprogrammed an atmospheric missile as a decoy drone. He launched it without letting it emit a signal. Once it was ten miles from the ship, flying in a circle over the jungle, he activated it. It broadcast the electromagnetic signature of the Fire Scorpion.
War robots soon appeared on the scanners. The decoy drone fled and the war robots pursued. The crew scanned for signals.
Hawking said, “On a low, amplitude-modulated carrier wave, I found a steady stream of data, Master Steo.”
He went over and looked at the robot’s console. “That’s it. Where’s it coming from?”
The war robots dutifully blew up the decoy.
“Should we follow the war robots?” Yuina asked.
“No,” Steo said. “They’re probably stored in secret facilities across the planet. We need the command center. Can we follow that data stream?”
“Barely, sir,” Hawking said.
The war robots returned to their bunkers.
The crew triangulated the signals. Steo pointed to an area about four miles wide, out in a large plain. It was covered in concrete. There were no signs of civilization anywhere. Once there, he had Yuina hover low over the concrete slab. Soon he found what he was looking for.
“The signal is so weak.” He went back to the holobridge, which was soon a web of icons and images.
“What’s he looking for?” Yuina asked.
Hawking said, “Master Steo is building a new hacking application. He needs to break into the planet’s computers but their signals are quite faint.” The science robot was blind, but he was still connected to the ship’s systems.
Steo increased reception on the signal. He organized the holograms, moving his applications aside. A simple flat surface appeared in the center of the room. He walked around the purple, featureless plane.
Renosha joined him but stood out of the way. “What is it?”
“I think it’s not done rendering? Is that possible?”
Before long, a white image appeared in the purple plane.
“It’s just a symbol. I think it’s a loading screen,” Steo said.
Soon the white-on-purple image was clear. It looked like geometric shapes connected together, more complex than a single letter of an alphabet.
“Renosha, Hawking, please evaluate everything we see here.”
The loading screen didn’t change, so Steo reached up and touched one of the shapes. It acted like a button, depressing, changing color and rising again, but nothing happened.
Steo studied it a while, eventually deciding to try hitting each of the different buttons. The loading screen remained.
“Hawking, how big were the lafiou?”
“How big, sir?”
“They were humanoids, but were they the same size as humans?”
Hawking checked what information they had saved from an old civilian computer system. “Judging by elements in the images, the lafiou were taller than humans. Perhaps eight feet tall, not including the horn-like protrusions from their heads.”
Steo looked at the image and held his hands out to each side. The purple plane was about three feet wide, and the white image about half that.
“It transmitted this image with the recommended size. I didn’t choose it. Hawking, how many fingers did the lafiou have?”
“They had four fingers and an opposable thumb, as most humanoids. However their thumb was on their wrist and was much longer than humans,” the robot responded.
Steo took the corners of the purple plane and shrunk it a bit. Then with his right hand he touched four parts of it, and with his left he touched the bottom center. The image flashed.
Renosha raised his metal eyebrows.
Steo said, “They don’t push one button at a time like we do. They press their whole hand. When it’s large like that you can’t see it, but if you shrink it, you can see a lafiou hand would fit on that image.”
“Quite insightful,” Renosha commented.
The image disappeared and was replaced with five faces, all lafiou. It wasn’t possible to touch them all with one hand, so Steo touched one. It spoke in a language they didn’t recognize. There seemed to be no pauses between words, but possibly between sentences.
“It is a representation of the lafiou species, but only that – a representation,” Hawking said of the faces.
“The language is beautiful. Sadly we cannot understand its beauty today,” Renosha said.
Steo touched each of the five faces and got different answers. He repeated them and said, “Maybe. Each says the same thing each time.”
“If they are giving instructions or asking questions, how will you interact with them?” Renosha asked.
Steo touched one. It spoke. He repli
ed, “I am Steorathan Liet.”
The gray face soured. It leaned back, frowned and shook its head.
“That was a no.”
“Does it seem like the fifth one speaks slower?” Renosha said.
“Yes, I noticed that. Like it’s trying to be clear.”
“Or it doesn’t speak as well.”
“It’s like it speaks technically correct, enunciating each syllable. Maybe that application is damaged. It’s worth a try.” Steo brought up an array of icons to the side and scrolled through them. He selected one and opened it, making a few changes. “I don’t speak their language but their signal is binary.”
He moved the hacking application to the fifth face and released it. The image scrambled. Steo waited. Then he tapped it and all the faces faded. A library of text opened on the purple panel.
“Wow, that was easy,” Steo said.
From the other room Hawking said, “Access to database complete. You will be happy Master Steo, to learn that this may be the language database.”
“Really?”
Hawking said something that sounded like the lafiou language, a string of syllables.
“What was that?”
“That was ‘Yes this is a lafiou language library’ in their language, Master Steo.”
“I don’t see much else but trash in here. Let’s step back and translate what the other four faces are saying. In Glish please, Hawking.”
When tapped, face one said, “What is your standings please?”
Face two said, “What does you share?”
Face three said, “What is our accomplishments?”
And face four said, “What is our association?”
Steo dragged and dropped the hacking application to the fourth face. The icon slid off and did nothing.
“Hm,” he mused. “The defenses on these other four faces are much tougher. No matter what, we need to answer all of these to enter. It’s like touching all five buttons.”
Renosha said, “If I may, Steo: I believe this alien civilization was old and fixed in its ways.”
Steo rubbed his jaw. “These don’t need to be answered in any order. Let’s start from the left, with number one. What is my standing? My security clearance? My access level? That makes sense to me.”
“What if it means your standing within lafiou society?” Renosha asked.
Hawking said, “That is correct, Master Steo. I have translated news articles from their lost civilization. They were a status-oriented society. Even the way the lafiou stood in images was organized by status.”
“Then shouldn’t you state you’re king of the planet?” Yuina interjected.
“Be reasonable,” Renosha said. “After what Cyrus did, we don’t know if their planetary defense systems recognize us as lafiou or simply non-saru. Not an enemy, but not a friend.”
Steo tapped the first face. “I am captain of the Eye of Orion. I fought against the saru, the ship that recently attacked this planet. Translate for them, Hawking.”
“Yes, that will do. That will do nicely,” Renosha said, sounding pleased.
Hawking translated and sent the reply. The first face tilted its head forward and shook its antlers. It turned sideways.
“It’s moving aside. That means it’s unlocked,” Steo said, a little breathlessly. He was in his element. “Face two. It’s asking what I share.”
Hawking said, “Interdependent: that is how I would describe the lafiou society.”
“I don’t get that,” Steo said. He walked around, thinking. He retrieved a different application, made some changes and tried applying it to the second face. It ignored him.
“This may be where I can help,” said Renosha. “An interdependent society values working together more than individually.”
“Yeah and look where that got them. Extinct!” Yuina said.
“Unlike you I won’t tell you to ‘shut up,’ Yuina,” Renosha said. “We don’t know how the war played out. The saru simply could have outnumbered them. Since our limited records say that the saru are extinct, it is entirely possible the lafiou were responsible for that. Now let me speak.”
Renosha turned to Steo. “You are a visitor of sorts here. You wish access to their computer systems. Their social convention is about shared understanding and context.”
“Okay …” Steo said. “I should share information?”
“Yes,” Renosha said.
“Like with the first face I don’t think I should just upload a ton of data. Context?”
“Context.”
Steo contemplated this. “They don’t want information on the saru and we don’t have anything on them anyway. I doubt they want regurgitated info on themselves.”
He thought for a bit. Steo tapped the second face. “The galaxy hovers on the brink of war. We are trying to stop it. Your protection has saved us in the past and we respect that. Together, we can save countless lives.”
Face two tilted its head, shook its antlers and turned sideways.
“Again, no hacking needed,” Steo said. “What’s number three?”
He hit the third face and heard it ask, “What is our accomplishments?”
“I’m at a loss here. Does it mean what have the lafiou accomplished?”
Renosha said, “A technologically advanced civilization that valued status and interdependence also might hold their history in great esteem.”
“That’s in the past,” Yuina said. “What good is it?”
“History doesn’t always have a monetary value,” Renosha said. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have great worth … to someone.”
Steo’s face lit up. “The Gleen!” He tapped the third face. “All that the lafiou culture achieved is worth saving. We will take this information and give it to a species with undying memory. They will hold your wisdom for eternity.”
“Excellent!” Renosha said.
The third face allowed access.
Steo tapped the fourth face, which said, “What is our association?”
“How would you establish credibility with them if they were still alive?” Renosha said.
Steo didn’t wait. “We represent the lives of many people who would want us to succeed if they knew of our struggle. We are committed to stopping the powerful harming the weak. Our will is strong but our ship is humble.”
The fourth face nodded and tilted sideways.
“Done! Let’s go. What’s next?” Yuina said from the doorway.
“No,” Steo said. “Something’s wrong. Four of them needed cultural answers. One had to be hacked. That fifth one feels out of place. It was about facts.”
Steo thumbed through several of his own applications. He opened the fifth face and worked on its guts.
His instincts were right. “Got you. That fifth one is a saru virus!”
“What?” Yuina asked. “What kind of virus acts like a library?”
“That’s not its function. It was installed and never broke through the four lafiou systems.”
“Because it didn’t understand the lafiou culture,” Renosha said.
“Right, so it got stuck. It was a mole, presenting itself as another entry application. If I entered, the fifth would follow in behind me. It had the lafiou language to enable it to understand what the four faces were saying, but it was all out of context. It didn’t know what to say. The saru must have been real bastards.”
Yuina asked, “What happens if it gets in?”
Steo checked. “It would shut down the planetary defenses for one. Then it would wipe every computer system it could find. That’s what the saru wanted.”
“For us to gain repairs, we need those systems functioning, Master Steo,” Hawking said.
“I know.” He took an icon that looked like a pair of knives and dragged it on top of the fifth face. It went wavy, then the image scrambled. Each pixel making up the image disappeared, until finally it was gone.
Steo said, “There goes the last vestige of saru culture. Dead and gone.”
> He pressed each of the four faces and the purple pane flew apart. Purple and white icons filled the holobridge, many connected with pulsing lines.
Yuina returned to the bridge. She suspected they would be moving soon.
Steo said, “Here it is. The planetary defense system is run from here. It’s everything about the lafiou people. First – as promised – Hawking, check to see if we have room to store everything.”
“Master Steo, your personal memory book could store all of this. There have been many advancements since the lafiou built this.”
“Download it all.”
Steo worked for a while in the holobridge.
Eventually he said, “Okay get ready. We’re going in.”
“In where?” Yuina said. She looked at an empty plain in all directions.
“Down,” Renosha said.
Steo wiped away most of the icons and put his palm to another. It glowed and throbbed. Eventually, when his arm was getting tired, the icon turned red.
Yuina switched one of the panels to show beneath the starship. Dark seams appeared in the flat concrete mantle, as if it was cracking. The interlocked shapes slid down, separated, and revealed a black hollow.
“Take us down, Pilot Yuina,” Renosha said. “Slowly.”
“Slowly. Right.” The ship descended.
She turned on the floodlights to illuminate whatever they descended into. Metal walls soon surrounded the ship.
“What’s that red glow below?” she asked.
“The source of power for the planetary defense systems. Geothermal energy,” Hawking said.
“Lava,” she said.
“Magma,” Hawking corrected.
The tunnel led straight down. Hundreds of feet became thousands. The bottom glowed dull red. After more than two miles, they came into a large open chamber, miles and miles wide. A wavy radiance lit the bottom of the ship.
“I don’t see anything,” Yuina said.
“The magma is below the surface of the water, Pilot Yuina,” Hawking said.
She frowned and changed the lights. They hovered over the surface of a large lake.
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