by Andrew Beery
The lighting in this ship seemed to use some type of field-induced polymer electroluminescent technology. It was ultra-efficient, lasted for decades and could be fashioned into virtually any shape. More to the point, Rasta-Tckner knew this type of lighting was tunable. It was a little more yellow than he was used to. He suspected the people who built this ship must have evolved on a planet with a larger, and therefore yellow, sun.
He saw nothing of interest until a motion to his left caused him to swivel an eyestalk. Incredibly, his encounter suit's helmet dissolved into the table top as an undulating silver sheen enveloped it! He quickly (and regrettably) brushed a manipulator appendage across the surface where the helmet had disappeared.
Immediately the silver sheen reappeared and travelled up the exterior of his encounter suit. To his utter horror the suit began to dissolve and slough off of his chitinous exoskeleton. If he was concerned before, he was in a full panic now. In mere seconds he was completely stripped of his technology. The remnants of his suit soon dissolved into the floor much like his helmet had into the surface of the shelf. At the same time the single door to the room swished open.
***
Cat carefully checked each of the shuttles' crew again. Their forced crash into the top of a mountain ridge on 47b had brought their rescue mission to an abrupt end. Once the shuttle was down and disabled; the several hundred drones that had latched on and forced the ship down disconnected from the hull plating they had latched onto and departed into the swirling mist.
Only a few dozen of the small craft– those that had been crushed by the crash– remained to show that the Honey Dipper had even been attacked. Cat had checked each one as she exited the wrecked shuttle. None had survived. It was clear they were dealing with some type of intelligent insectoid race.
Cat's concern was for more than the crew of the shuttle. They had been in communication with the Yorktown when suddenly the transmission was cut off. Her internal quantum link with the ship's AI was intact so she knew the ship survived, but Cal indicated a large portion of the ship had been damaged by a low yield thermonuclear explosion. She knew Ken would be capable of handling the situation at least as well as she could, but this was of little comfort when she was stranded half a dozen light years away.
Out of concern for her current situation, and the need to focus on their own survival, she kept the full news of the Yorktown's current status from the rest of the crew. Ken had the situation in control and that was enough for the moment.
The shuttle's owner and captain, Ricky Valen, had suffered a bit of bruising and a mild concussion by the force of the 'landing.' His civilian encounter suit was not as robust as the military grade hardware most of her crew wore. Not that that had made a difference for Ensign Matthews. The security officer had fallen off a cliff shortly after they had exited the shuttle. The thick atmosphere was almost impossible to see through and had prompted Ricky to nickname the planet 'Mud Soup.' In point of fact, Cat's Heshe enhanced vision meant she was the only one able to see clearly in the dense atmosphere. This is why she was now doing the reconnaissance.
"OK, I make us about four kilometers from the smaller of the two Heidman crash sites." she reported to the others. "In this gravity four kilometers might as well be four hundred. There is no way we are going to walk that half blind, on unknown terrain, and in this gravity. I need suggestions."
Ricky raised his hand. "If I may, Madame Commodore?"
Cat smiled despite herself. Ricky always called her 'Cat' when they were in a group of friends, but in a command setting she was 'Madame Commodore.' He was not military and enjoyed the casual freedom it represented.
"Go ahead, Captain."
"On Uranus we would typically fly from site to site."
Doctor Riley stood up and moved to check the bandaged pilot. His head injury might be worse than he anticipated. "Ve are not mit a verking ship Herr Captain... Yes? Das makes de flying difficult."
"True," Ricky said while batting the doctor’s hands away from his bandaged head. "But floating in a dense atmosphere is surprisingly easy. If we can find or make a suitably rigid balloon and control ballast we can make this trip as easy as sitting in a bath tub."
Cat shook her head. Ricky had a habit of using nonsensical metaphors. She supposed it was a part of his charm. "I'm not sure I fully understand the reference but I'm game to try," she said. "My nanite systems should be able to fabricate what we need. I'll start them making a geodesic framework sized to displace a six ton load. That should allow us to transport the medical and engineering supplies as well as crew," Cat said.
Lt. Scott, the other security officer, spoke up. “How do we control the direction we travel while floating?"
Ricky grunted what might have been a laugh. "Sand bags and ropes son, sand bags and ropes."
"How..." the Lieutenant began.
The shuttle's captain interrupted before he could finish the question. "Ya tie a rope to each of two weights. Then you toss one in the direction you want to travel. As long as the rope is long enough to reach the ground..."
"…you can use the two ropes to walk along the surface!" Cat finished.
The prospector stood and walked the three short steps to the side of his shuttle. The servo-motors in his suit made a deep whirling noise that carried surprisingly well in the thick atmosphere. "I hate to leave my girl. She's treated me well over the years." Ricky said, while placing a heavily gloved but loving hand on the shuttles' exterior hatch.
"I have a plan for that," Cat said with a smile, "but it will take some time." The form-fitting metallic shell that covered her entire body was expressive enough that even this simple gesture was clearly visible to the others locked away inside their far more bulky high pressure encounter suits.
She began to pull at some of the scattered wreckage, much of it from the nearby disabled drones. She formed the metal scraps into a small pile and placed her hand on the pile. Cat sent a mental command to her Heshe nanites. The pile was shortly enveloped in a shimmering silver mass. This mass split and moved like quicksilver. One amorphous blob moved towards the shuttle while the other started to form geodesic shapes.
Embedded within Cat's abdomen was a small, spherical, Heshe-designed encounter unit. It was little more than a handheld calculator to the Heshe but for humanityit represented the pinnacle of supercomputer development. Cat’s encounter unit controlled her Heshe nanite systems. She instructed the device to clone itself. The new unit would be left on the Honey Dipper and, along with a small number of self-replicating nanites, would begin the repair process. Ironically the destroyed drones would be salvaged for raw materials to start the work. It would take several days to complete, but once done the Honey Dipper would be better than new with a self-repair mechanism that could be rivaled by few ships in the fleet.
***
Mike Jeffries reached his hand into the holographic display and rotated the field of view. Manipulator arms pinned the creature to an examination table. It looked to be some type of wingless wasp with a hard beetle-like shell.
"Cindy, prepare a medical probe. I want to see how hard this shellis.”
“Unable to comply, ethical overrides in place. This being is conscious.”
“Cindy, on my authority as Captain, I authorize you to bypass ethical protocols.”
"Protocol override acknowledged. Ethical safeguards disabled."
"Proceed with previous instructions." Captain Jeffries indicated a location midway down one of the rear legs. "Attempt penetration here. Go one centimeter deep, extract a biopsy, and seal the wound with surgical cement."
The creature strained against the restraints as the probe entered. The computer recorded the relative strength of each limb as well as the force needed to penetrate the creature's exoskeleton. This information was added to the ever growing– however gruesomely obtained– database on this species.
At some point the captive stopped struggling. Jeffries assumed it passed out because sensors in the lab continued to show c
onversion of O2 to CO2 indicating some type of respiration was continuing to take place.
Jeffries had no idea how to communicate with it, but he now knew a number of ways to kill it, and in his mind this was far better information to have.
Chapter Seven - Recovery...
Ken pulled at a piece of bent metal that was blocking access to corridor B5. It shifted easily. This corridor was the last passable one before the devastation caused by the drone explosion limited access to the hangar deck. Automated repair systems were minutes from sealing the hull breeches, at which point the ship's primary AI, Cal, would open the intervening corridors.
Sixteen crew were killed in the blast. Fortunately, medical nanites were able to save eleven of them. In some respects he was relieved that technology, which so often could be used to take life, was finally becoming as adept at saving life. But despite the truly unbelievable advances made because of the newly acquired access the GCP had to Heshe technologies, he would still be called on to perform his role as the ship's chaplain for five funerals. That they had died on his watch did nothing to help the situation.
To further burden his soul was the knowledge that his friends, not to mention his wife, were stranded several parsecs away. He was more than eager to get the Yorktown underway as soon as possible.
He had been in communication with Admiral Faragon. The Admiral was arriving by fast shuttle in an hour or so. He would take command of the Yorktown while Ken would assemble a combat ready team to go after the away team as well as any potential Heidman survivors.
He briefed Cat via a persistent entangled quantum link between her encounter unit and the Yorktown's Heshe AI. He was saddened to learn that the gregarious Ensign Matthews had been killed in an accident after Cat's shuttle had crash landed. Ken would stop by the galley as soon as he checked out the progress on the structural repairs. The ensign's fiancé was a second shift cook. She would be devastated by the news.
***
Admiral‘Bud’ Faragonlooked out the port window of his admiral’s yacht. The flagship of the Coalition, the GCP Yorktown hung dead in space. He had the pilot do a top down spiral around the ship so he could see the effects of the attack on the Yorktown. He had to admit, he was surprised by what he didn't see. The exterior damage was, just two hours after the initial explosion, barely discernible. The advanced nanite repair systems had done their work.
The Admiral still found humanity's new technologies almost beyond comprehension. Ten years ago, the task of building a starship the size of the Yorktownwould have taxed the combined fabrication capabilities of each of the world’s five superpowers. Even then the task would have been measured in decades, not weeks. With the gift of core Heshe nanite fabrication technologies and good old human ingenuity starships like the Yorktown could be assembled almost as fast as the raw materials could be collected. It represented an unbelievable paradigm shift in the way humanity, and by extension, the Coalition, viewed technology. This paradigm shift was a big part of the current thoughts that ran through the Admiral's mind as he inspected the damage.
Had the Heshe not shared their technology at the beginning of the D'lralu war, humanity would have been wiped out just as they took their first steps towards the stars. Bud Faragon, the Admiral and military man, had been immediately taken by the thought of what the Heshe tech could mean for humanity's war machine. At the same time Bud Faragon, the man and father, was aware of the awesome responsibility the Heshe technology represented. That which could heal a body or repair a starship, could just as easily be used to do the reverse.
There was an inherent danger when integrating new technologies within a society. Just as a parent keeps matches away from children, the Heshe had kept certain technologies, technologies that humanity was not mature enough to handle, away from mankind. Humanity and the GCP recognized this discernment was a critical aspect of surviving the cultural shock such technological advancements represented.
The GCP existed in part to explore and exchange technologies with member races. Cultural discernment was a part of that sharing process. The race that had attacked the Yorktown and stolen data had bypassed this discernment. This was concerning on many fronts. Irresponsible use of technology could damage a society and lead to war, death, and destruction. The Admiral had lost some of his own children in those first days of the D'lralu war, as humanity struggled to grasp and understand how to best use this gift the Heshe had given them. The father in him wanted no more sons and daughters lost because of what had been stolen today, and yet he knew such a hope was fleeting at best.
He turned from the window and spoke to the pilot. "Ensign, go ahead and take us in. I've seen enough."
***
Rasta-Tckner awoke still pinned to a table. Instinctively he reached for the hive mind. For a second he connected via his purely organic hive node. This node operated in what humans called a frequency modulation mode. That of course meant it was limited to the speed of radio waves. The hive mind was currently engaged in a much tighter synthetic quantum entangled link. By comparison, the latency of his radio link was slow and from the hive mind's perspective, his thoughts crawled at a similarly slow pace. His mind was expelled from the link without so much as a conscious thought by the hive mind.
Rasta-Tckner never felt so alone. All he had wanted to do was help. It had been said by the famous Hymenopteran philosopher Yrogerg-Eriuqam in the time before technology that 'No good deed goes unpunished.' It seemed this was sometimes still true. Never the less, the optimist that was Rasta-Tckner refused to give in to pessimism. His captors were only responding in kind to the treatment they had received at the hands of hive.
He noted the wound to his leg had been patched with some type of chemical adhesive. It was effective but the smell was atrocious. It smelled like the scent plants gave off when they were allowed to ferment, producing hydroxylated sugars. The only good news was that such compounds were often used by medical personnel to sterilize surfaces, so he knew his injury was disinfected.
With a soft click his restraints were retracted and he was able to right himself on the table. A basin was visible in the corner of the small white-walled room. He noted the temperature, air pressure, humidity, and oxygen levels seemed to be ideal for his species. He guessed the biopsy taken earlier had been used to determine the specific needs of his physiology.
The basin, when he inspected it, was divided into two sections. One side held water while the other held a slightly sweet synthetic nectar. It seemed his captor wanted him to survive a bit longer.
***
Commodore Cat Kimbridge surveyed the scene from the edge of a platform mounted on their improvised dirigible. The Heidman, or at least a piece of it, was just ahead. Lieutenant Scott and Ricky Valen were both swinging their rope 'toss and pull' anchors. One after the other. They weren't making great speed but they were making steady progress. On the positive side, the piece of the Heidman they were approaching seemed to be located just high enough on the surface terrain that the atmospheric pressure was reduced to a mere seventy-six bars. This had profound implications for visibility.
"The mud soup is clearing up some more," Ricky said as the servos in his encounter suit helped him toss the pull anchor yet again.
"I've got a good view of the bridge and environmental decks of the Heidman," Cat confirmed. "It looks like it’s got power and is actively reconfiguring itself. This may be a good sign for survivors."
Rebecca Kirkland pulled her way over to where Cat was standing. "I can see it now, too. What's that silver and copper colored thing off to the right side?"
"I think it's one of the attack drones, but it looks intact. And if I'm not mistaken," Cat said while instructing her nanites to enhance her vision with an optical zoom, "it's attached to the Heidman."
***
Ensign Pete Sanders stood by the makeshift airlock. He felt surprisingly well for a man who had been all but dead fifteen minutes ago. Most of the survivors in this smaller section of the Heidman had been awake no
w for about that long. Sanders was a new engineering officer who was taking a training rotation on the bridge, which was why he was not lost with the rest of the engineering team who had been on the lower decks when the Heidman broke in two.
He had awoken with six others, including the First Officer, in a small room just off the captain’s galley. When they had gotten to the bridge they discovered their captain totally engrossed in some activity by one of the science stations. He was using a holographic interface to control what looked to be remotely actuated medical equipment. Sanders couldn't see who the patient was because the more senior officers were blocking his view.
Before he could move to take a closer look, the First Officer had cleared the bridge, apparently so that he could have a private conversation with the captain. Sanders was not an expert on reading people, but he sensed a tightly controlled anger within the First Officer. He supposed it might be in response to what had happened to their ship. Moments after leaving the bridge he had received an order via his internal commlink to report to the airlock. The ships AI Cindy had detected a human presence just outside the ship and established a direct low-band radio link. It seemed a rescue party from the Yorktown was just outside.
Ensign Sanders was glad they were going to have help. He was still in shock from seeing the level of devastation on the ship. The GCP Heidman had been virtually destroyed in the crash. Most of the crew, including himself, would have been killed if it had not been for the ship's advanced automated systems. Ensign Sanders took great pleasure in this. Not that they had almost died, but that the systems had responded so well... His systems.