Metal in the Sand
Part 1
by Lynne Corbett and Garrot Kole
Prologue
Gliding past the tired ochre surface of the Bara System's least significant planet, two Firebringer-class heavy fighters cruised slowly towards the asteroid cluster leading its orbit. Slow being a relative term in space, as the speed at which they were traveling was measured in kilometers per second. The planet's space station lights seemed to wink at them as their small JAHPA scouting force wandered by.
Wayla and Rist, the AI-human Flight Lead team, broke the silence across ships with the characteristic dual voice harmony of a rider pair in agreement. Baz, pivot another two klicks off my 90.
Baz and Losf, neural link enabled, replied in unison. Nothing on the scanners, Flight Lead. Sure starting to feel like the reports were bad.
We would laugh, but it seems like every time you say that something goes wrong.
Not every time, Losf mumbled, hoping his partner wouldn’t give its two cents. No luck.
The AI ship chimed in, its artificial voice instantly recognizable to the other three sentients. Yes, every time. My records are 100% accurate on that.
Whatever, Baz… What about Elly Seven?
Flight Lead Wayla, Rist's rider and Losf's controlling officer, continued the ribbing. You mean the time you had Baz set down on ground that clearly...
Hey, that happened three soldays afterwards, Losf was quick to defend, cutting her off mid-story.
Baz responded: You never specified—
Interrupting suddenly, Rist’s voice penetrated the banter, the sound of the AI's linked communication sharp and pointed. Anomaly detected, 312, 13, 92k.
Rist and Wayla, minds in sync via the neural link, transmitted in unison once more. Baz, scan and tighten up, those rocks are supposed to be oreless—we shouldn’t be getting such a strong metal signature from them.
Baz and Losf quickly replied. Scan confirmed: ambush assumed. Advise defensive approach.
Weaponized light splashed against Rist's hull, prompting an abrupt course change that accompanied the lead team’s harried response: Return fire authorized—engage defensive maneuvers!
The Firebringers, zagging in unpredictable flight courses, both fired full salvos of energy weapons back at the offending target. Quick scans indicated it was some sort of makeshift asteroid weapons platform, an assessment confirmed as more energy lanced out from multiple locations towards the JAHPA spacecraft.
Rist and Wayla’s transmissions were laced with the adrenaline of combat. Blue Flight, get back to that planet's shadow, max v now!
Rist launched nanosmoke canisters as concealment between them and the weapons platforms to buy Wayla time to alert the distant fleet and call for aid, but it wasn’t forthcoming. Damn! They’re jamming our long-range communications!
Wayla engaged the short-range comms, preparing to reach out to the station they had just passed for help. It responded before she could speak.
"Be advised, JAHPA forces, we've registered weapons fire and are deploying friendly forces to assist you."
A sigh of relief replaced the plea she’d been about to utter, and she and her ship commanded Baz and Losf to reverse course and accelerate back toward the gravity well. Wayla and Rist adjusted their own heading to bring them closer to the friendly station. The two ships modified their cover deployment pattern to provide concealment on the new course, quickly calculating that the long path they needed to cover would require most, if not all, of their nanosmoke stores.
Losf busied himself trying to find a way past the comm jamming. His dismay at what he found was apparent in a shift in his vital signs, prompting Baz to demand a status report.
Shaking with adrenaline, Losf frantically warned the others. The comm jamming—it’s coming from that station! Flight Lead, those friendlies are hostile!
Numerous small ships swarmed from underneath the shadow of the space station. All four soldiers realized that they were most likely going to die.
They all felt the same event unfold on the ships’ sensors as multiple rapidly accelerating bogeys spawned from each of the newly arrived enemies.
Blue Flight, sling maneuver… NOW!
Rist and Baz's point defense weapons began to rapidly seek out and pop the numerous incoming missiles. Losf desperately fought with the jammed comms, trying to get a message out to the fleet in a vain attempt at a warning. Wayla coordinated their maneuvers as both ships rotated and directed max thrust back toward the planet, vectoring to use the planet’s gravity to slingshot them away from the hostiles’ line of sight.
But the wave of missiles was unstoppable. All four of them knew just by the sheer numbers. It was a matter not of escaping, but simply of how long they could survive. Baz and Rist were barely making a dent in the rapidly approaching storm, like spitting into the winds of Screech at their most furious.
The station had quickly placed a nanosmoke field between them, preventing the two Firebringers from getting clear shots at the ships guiding the missiles. Rist and Baz continued to concentrate on the missile swarms as Wayla and Rist silently made a decision.
Losf noticed instantly as the Flight Lead team moved in between Baz and the station. Wayla, Rist—don’t. We're more effective if...
Don't you dare talk to me about tactics, rook. Your priority is to get the comms back online and relay this to the fleet.
The swarm of missiles thinned as it got closer, but wasn’t nearly thin enough. Even so, it almost felt like they had a chance. For a brief second. That they might shoot down just enough to start skimming atmo and catch a gravity assist to the other side. Or at least they wanted to feel like they had a chance. Until they didn’t.
Rist disappeared violently, broken into a silent cloud of jagged shrapnel that peppered the sky with debris. A linked group of seven missiles that had acted as if they had lost guidance two seconds earlier had suddenly made a sharp correction, directly into the Firebringer's flank, the damage making it instantly vulnerable to the incoming salvos.
In an instant, a decade-long friendship was snuffed out.
Wayla! Rist! Baz… I… what do we do?
Baz continued its evasive maneuvers as Losf stared blankly at the monitors. Through the grief, the routines drilled into them intruded. They were alone, and with only one ship's worth of defensive weaponry. As they prepared to square off and go down firing, the expanding shrapnel field that was the remains of Rist detonated a large portion of the remaining missile swarm—their Flight Lead having their back a final time—allowing Baz to maneuver away and pick off the few remainders.
The AI had quickly regained its military focus, but Losf still struggled. Baz, I...
Two pairs of missiles tore into Baz's hull with almost uncanny precision and shattered through the armor. A last-second roll and lateral thrust dodged most of the rest of their swarms, but the damage had been done. The remaining ship fell into an uncontrolled spin.
* * *
One
The featureless landscape was bliss for a wandering mind. Set the MTEV on autopilot, have the metal scanners operating kilometer-deep sweeps, and let the thoughts drift where they willed. Except where Cressida’s mind chose to wander was nowhere pleasant.
“Please, sir,” her father pled, “look at this not simply from an economic perspective, but also from a humanitarian one. The vein we’ve been mining ran dry last month, and we’ve been searching high and low for a new site, but everything nearby’s been gutted already. We won’t be able to deliver this month’s quota, but I promise you, if you still grant us this month’s rations…”
The mayor’s disinterested face turned sour.
C’mon, dad, don’
t beg—these riving, money-hungry paper pushers have no patience for weakness, Cress implored silently. They’d made the trip to the town of Deadsand with empty tevvers and slim hopes, the weight of their village’s survival resting heavily on their shoulders.
“A...a...and… you can choose to look at it from an economic point of view, too, Sir Mayor. Think of this as an...an investment. You keep us afloat, just as long as it takes us to find a new vein, and we’ll deliver twice the normal tonnage….three times!”
Desperation was creeping back into his voice. The mayor raised a hand to pronounce judgment. His dry, cracking voice shattered across the clean, open room.
“Am I to understand,” his voice deliberately pronounced, “that you are unable to fulfill your half of the bargain?”
Wringing his hands and barely keeping a quaver from his voice, Cress’ father interjected. “Well, technically, sir, but as I said—”
The mayor sliced a hand into the air for silence, his words final and unrepentant. “You will receive supplies when you deliver ore. This was agreed upon, a mutually beneficial contract since the Founding, and we hold to it faithfully. There is no room for renegotiation.”
Cress shook herself back to attention. That conversation was in the past, and rehashing it wouldn’t improve the outcome… or her mood. Here she was, three days into her most recent—and desperate—recon mission, feeling the weight of Peripheri’s survival grow heavier with every unfruitful hour. They only had four operational MTEVs at the moment, the multi-terrain excavation vehicles good for everything but hauling ore, and she supposed it was a great honor to be chosen as one of the scouts. It showed they had faith in her.
No pressure, she lamented. Not like the scouting even took much skill. Cut the unexplored and unclaimed territory into grids, and slowly quarter each grid. Each unsuccessful, ore-free grid. She hoped the other scouts were having more luck. Three days, and not so much as a ping. If they were going to harvest enough ore to deliver to Deadsand before they ran out of food and water, they had about 13 days. Three weeks, if they went on half rations. Three weeks, to determine the lives of 200 villagers. All because of a corrupt government, run by greedy, good-for-nothing, powermongering—
Blip.
Cress threw the drive into neutral. The cab rocked as the four wheels at the end of their independent limbs lost power. Like a lurching spider, the tevver lumbered down the dune. Surely it was just an anomaly, the beat-up machine working too hard for too many years in the hot, dry conditions…
Blip.
Controlling her breathing with effort, Cress activated the viewscreen. There, just in range to the northeast, the scanner was pinging something. Something metal.
She eagerly diverted her course, threw the MTEV in high and raced towards the signal’s source, praying to all the gods she’d ever heard of, and a few new ones for good measure. The land looked too sandy to contain a vein as shallow as the screen was reading, and the planetwide scan performed when Bara Skar was colonized should have revealed anything this close to the surface, anyway. But the sands were constantly shifting, and who knew what buried terrain was now revealed to the elements. Most of the planet was like that, outside of the biospheres.
The MTEV climbed the gentle dune, scanner indicating that she was sitting right on top of the metal, whatever it was. But the readings on the screen looked too small. An ore vein should be stretching from side to side, not just hovering around a 250 square meter area. These scanners are useless. Hopefully it just isn’t reading accurately enough.
Cress jumped down from the tevver onto the dune for a closer inspection. Pushing aside the top crest of sand and wiggling her arm shoulder-deep into the dune was about as useless as she’d expected, but one could hope. Cress popped back to the tevver and activated several controls. The vehicle’s bucket, tucked out of the way of the four independently articulating tires, disengaged from its storage position alongside the cab, and the stabilizing feet extended from its sides to brace the rig. Cress carefully began excavation. It looked like the metal was pinging around four meters under the sand—it wouldn’t take long.
She had to reposition the tevver several times during the following hours as the hole sloped away, but by the time the scanners indicated she was within a half-meter, Cress had abandoned the vehicle and was on her feet. The metal teeth of the bucket probably wouldn’t hurt whatever was down there, but the closer she dug, the more this seemed like it wasn’t an ore vein. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to take any chances—it could be valuable. She was on her knees, scooping away armfuls of sand when her hands encountered something unyielding. Unyielding, but smooth.
Flinging the sand aside in showering arcs, dull yellow lettering was partially revealed, seemingly etched onto a black matte metallic plate. Baz Yellow 129.01 was boldly emblazoned on the panel. Scraping away more sand revealed more letters below the text: Losf Ullor.
Cress scrambled back, almost as if she expected it to bite. A spaceship. When was the last time one of those flew anywhere near her village—not to mention being shot down? It must have been a relic from the war before the Founding, maybe even one of the enemy AI ships. Buried in sand, forgotten, for over 20 sols.
Why was it never retrieved? But a more important question soon surfaced. How much is it worth?
Even if nothing was operational, almost every spaceship had fusion power tech, and contained parts that could be repurposed for many of the machines in the larger cities. Her village might have walkers and tevvers and EMG sensor suite units, but everything big came from the city. Bring this scrap to Deadsand...surely it would earn enough for a month’s rations! Even if it wasn’t an AI ship, the technology and metal would still be worth something.
The sun was sinking towards the horizon, and the night would quickly turn cold. But Cress didn’t set up her pop tent—the excavation was too compelling. The top of the ship had what appeared to be a rotating turret. The lettering was situated below it on the left side of the hull, and she uncovered two forward-facing missile pods mounted below the turret, and a nasty gash sprawling across a panel. Explosive damage, if she had to guess. She had unearthed most of the left wing before an entry hatch became visible perched up behind the turret. Gauging the sun, Cress figured she still had about 15 minutes before she absolutely had to get set up for the night.
It probably won’t even open, she warned herself, trying in vain to temper her excitement. The hatch wasn’t clearly defined—its edges blurred aerodynamically into the rest of the shell, but a touchpad was slightly raised right off to the side of the door. A hopeful palm was, unsurprisingly, met with no response, so Cress prepared to turn to more arcane means. She took out her 25cm miner’s multitool from its pocket at her thigh, and was in the process of selecting a thin, durable appendage to wedge around the edges of the door when a faint metallic noise came from the hatch. The touchpad, disused and sandblasted, flashed weakly in some sort of emergency pattern, and the door panel clicked and popped slightly open.
Rocking back on her heels, Cress stared at the door for a few moments, nonplussed. But surprise didn’t deter her for long. Straining to heave the heavy hatch open without hydraulic assistance, or whatever this thing ran on, she pried the door back, and clicked on a flashlight to look down into the cabin of the ship.
Everything was sleek and chrome. Not shiny, but a dull, utilitarian chrome of unadorned competence. It wasn’t a large cabin—clearly just made for a crew of one. Enough space to move around a bit, with a head in the back and the pilot’s chair to her right. Rounded corners to avoid snagging spacesuits; the small compartments that riddled every inch of the walls (and floor, in places) hardly presented a profile, and each was labeled with military efficiency. Cot. Medical Supplies. Rations. Spacesuit. Yig. Personals.
Her light’s beam illuminated two arm-like metallic appendages that were suspended from the ceiling, one pointing fore and one aft. Both seemed to be anchored to the same location, though one was stored neatly away while the fo
rward one hung down limply. Nothing had jumped out at her or shown signs of life. That was good. And the cabin didn’t smell like something rotting, either. Even better.
With a final glance at the retreating sun, Cress dropped in, bound and determined to make the most of her first exploration. The nav system had to be worth a good sum, and it looked like she could remove it fairly easily. And the pilot’s chair had the same neurolink capabilities as walkers, it appeared, but at a level of sophistication commercial walkers would never need. She could strip the control panels, and the chair, hauling them back in her tevver tomorrow. That should buy them enough food to tide them over until the rest could be salvaged. Bring a few walkers back out here as soon as she arrived, and they could drag this heap of scrap back to the village within a week.
It wasn’t as good as a new mining site, but the scrap metal itself should be worth a month’s rations, and the technology… Well, they’d probably get screwed over in the negotiations, but even being paid a fraction of its worth, it should still give Peripheri some breathing room in their search.
She began to poke around the cockpit. The light’s beam didn’t illuminate much, but Cress was transfixed. This was definitely an AI ship, perhaps once even a sentient one—something that didn’t exist in her world. Yet most people in the galaxy dealt with this every day; they lived in a place where sophisticated, self-governing AI existed and worked in conjunction with the general populace. Sands, it would have been commonplace here, just 25 sols ago, to work and live alongside AI. But that was before the Founding, and apart from a few stories her father had shared of his youth, it was as alien a concept as the technology in front of her.
It was necessary, but it seemed a shame to strip such a marvel. Even beat up, with obvious signs of whatever trauma had killed it, and decades of disuse leaving a thin film of grime, the ship had an elegance to it. She sat in the pilot’s chair, the blank screens coming to life in her mind, enemies on the horizon, and she, the lone stanchion of justice, the only one who could stop their nefarious plots. She ran her hands over the manual controls, flipping a few impressive switches haphazardly, imagining those chin turrets engaging, when the world was violently yanked out from under her.
Metal in the Sand: Book 1 Page 1