Darklight Pirates

by Robert E. Vardeman

The girl smiled. He wanted to switch off the link, order the Shillelagh docked and let the maggots take them.

  "Like we do everything on Scrutiny. We do it right. You intending to come down on a dartabout?"

  "I am."

  "Then be welcome, but leave your attitude aboard."

  Cletus bellowed but his ire reached only those on the bridge. The woman had cut the comlink.

  "They are already moving to remove the swarm, sir. The dartabout is prepared."

  "I'll let your father know." Leanne reached out again, then pulled back before touching his arm. She pivoted and left the bridge quickly. Somehow she retained her composure in spite of her obvious desire to be away from him.

  Cletus glowered as he watched the small vessels from Scrutiny begin working from the stern forward to vaporize the nano swarm. As if by magic the blackness vanished, leaving behind the shiny aluminum-lithium alloy skin, glittering in the light filtering around the planet from the massive red giant primary.

  He ran a quick sensor probe on the One Ring. Its power consumption had increased, but nothing showed that it threatened the Shillelagh. He muttered, almost under his breath, "You have the conn, Captain Sullivan," then marched directly to the bay where the dartabout powered up for the descent to Scrutiny.

  "This is all the reception we get?" Cletus scowled. Two men dressed in work suits came to them from across the broad concrete floor.

  Dozens of robots clanked and hissed, sizzled and welded the craft hangared here. Nowhere did he see more than a few people gathered and speaking in guarded tones. These mostly worked together on HUD panels controlling the robotic workers.

  "The population is low. Most everything is done using robots," Donal said.

  "But you're the Programmer General!"

  "And you're the Commander in Chief Armed Forces," Leanne said in a voice so low he almost didn't hear.

  He jerked around and stared at her. The tone was mocking.

  "I deserve respect. So does my father. These people are only colonists. They are Burran citizens and─"

  "And nothing. Be quiet." Donal's rebuke caused Cletus to stiffen. Before he could say any more, his father went to meet the two with outstretched hand and hearty greeting.

  "Learn more before you act," Leanne warned.

  "It's not your place to tell me how to act."

  "I advise, nothing more. Hold your anger in check. They do not mean to intentionally insult you. They live on a frontier world where society is much different from yours─or mine."

  He saw that she tried to calm him. It only caused him to get angrier.

  "Cletus, come meet our hosts. This is Micah Ralston. With him is Scrutiny's scientific direction, Doctor Judson Germain."

  Cletus shook hands, trying to evaluate the two men his father so obviously admired. Ralston had the look of a bureaucrat, but Germain held the reins of power. His bright, sharp blue eyes fixed on Cletus, impaling him with his own appraisal. Gray hair cropped close to his skull might once have been brown. Bushy eyebrows wiggled as he spoke. Cletus got the sense that what Germain said mattered less than how he reacted. He tried to appear interested, but the words came to him as platitudes and nothing more.

  "What is your field, Doctor? I assume the title is academic and not medical."

  "That's so, Cletus."

  Cletus bristled at the informality, then remembered what Leanne had said. Life on a colony world held less pomp than a developed planet like Ballymore.

  "Does your research have something to do with the device circling the world?"

  "The One Ring? Of course it does." Germain glanced at Donal for permission to say more. This settled Cletus a little. The colonist knew who commanded. "I'm an astrophysicist."

  "Studying the neutron star lodged in the middle of the red giant?"

  "I see your father has revealed the reason Scrutiny was settled. Yes, that. The One Ring is a synchrotron designed to pump a near-light velocity stream of particles into the Pot o' Gold."

  "The neutron star?"

  "Some call it the Leprechaun but that never struck, I prefer to call it the pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow─the particles we direct are an effort to learn more of the dynamics of the system. Some day the gold will be ours."

  "What have you found?" Donal took Germain's elbow and steered him back toward the door where he and Ralston had entered. The rising construction din inside the hangar grew oppressive, making speech almost impossible.

  Cletus trailed the others, making one last look behind at the Shillelagh's dartabout. Robots worked to repair minor dings. A larger machine slowly scanned from stem to stern, possibly checking for the nano swarm that had shrouded the Shillelagh. He wanted a readout to see what the surveillance revealed, but the risk of being left behind outweighed his curiosity. He rushed after Leanne, who ducked through a closing door in front of him. He grabbed, caught the handle and pulled it open to slip through himself. His father and the two colonists had already seated themselves at a conference table festooned with small virtual displays showing various aspects of the repair work conducted in the hangar.

  Germain pointed out several of the holograms and built graphs to better explain what they did.

  Leanne stood silently to one side. Cletus looked for the best seat at the table but couldn't decide whether to sit at his father's right hand or remain standing behind him. In spite of seeming to be an inferior position where a subordinate would be stationed, he stood behind Donal.

  "Cletus, you wanted more information about the TZO. Judson has a streaming video of the red giant."

  In spite of himself, Cletus crowded closer and stared into the stellar furnace.

  "The dark spots? Sunspots?"

  "Created by intermittent blasts from the One Ring," get said. "This time we are firing Higgs bosons directly into the center of the Pot─the neutron star. We want to see if we can alter the mass of the inner star and how it affects the red giant."

  "Isn't that dangerous? If the neutron star is disrupted, won't the red giant send out a coronal mass ejection that might destroy Scrutiny?"

  "Our calculations show that it won't." Germain shrugged and smiled. "Without a little risk, how can we advance our knowledge of not only neutron stars but red giants and TZOs?"

  "You'd risk the entire planet full of colonists?"

  "We are increasing the emanations from the Pot. The special, should I say unique?, radiation gives us technological breakthroughs impossible to develop anywhere else."

  "What breakthroughs?" Leanne spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.

  Germain looked at Donal, who nodded.

  "We have revolutionized energy storage." Germain motioned, and Ralston took a small cube four centimeters on a side from his pocket. He dropped it on the table. "That battery contains enough stored energy to power a dartabout."

  "For how long?" Cletus scoffed. The engines aboard even a small spacecraft required a fusion engine. Given standard use, the fuel pellet lasted about five hundred hours.

  "Longer than that," Ralston said. He tapped the cube with his thumbnail. It gave off a solid sound, nothing hollow inside.

  "Longer than what?" Cletus felt his ire rising again. Nothing about Scrutiny pleased him. Most of all, his father had kept the entire planet's very existence from him.

  "Than whatever you were thinking. Most think of an ordinary fusion plant. This will keep the dartabout running for five thousand hours."

  "It is only a battery?" Leanne moved closer and stared at it, as if her gaze bored like an ix-ray into the guts.

  "That's like saying a supernova is only an energetic star. We can outfit your dreadnought and reduce the drive equipment by a thousand kilos in the engine compartment alone. Replacing the fusion generators on the laser turrets will give another five hundred kilos of mass saving."

  "But the cannon won't be as efficient," protested Cletus. "Not from a battery."

  "Longer duration firing, higher energy density. We've shown this."

  "How ca
n you do that? The energy? How?" Cletus clamped his mouth shut when he guessed at the source of the charging energy. "Radiation from the TZO. That's how you do it."

  "Yes," Germain said softly, reverently. "The physical storage medium is a major breakthrough because using standard batteries isn't feasible. And with a standard battery charger, well, it could take years to replenish just one of our super batteries. With the radiation from the Pot supplying the energy, though, well, let's say it is miraculous."

  "You have not worked out the physics of how this is possible?" Leanne reached for the cube, but Ralston pulled it away before her fingers touched it.

  "A great deal of theoretical work has gone into what is a new branch of radiation physics. Much more has to be done. We believe the energy is stored in higher dimensions, but this is only a hypothesis."

  "Doctor Germain has only scratched the surface of this new field. He's a brilliant man working with the best Burran has to offer, and the exact details are still a mystery." Donal looked smug at this pronouncement.

  "The broad effect is still something of a riddle. We are pioneers in many senses of the word, not only on this strange planet but also the even stranger physics involved in what we find."

  "Is the One Ring required to agitate the neutron star so it releases this energy?" Leanne stepped back and watched Germain like a snake watches a bird.

  "Not at all. Our initial charging stations on the starward side of Scrutiny were installed years before. We use the accelerator to find out details of the unique stellar configuration, not to excite radiation output which is quite steady and predictable." Germain pursed his lips, then asked, "Would you like to see the facility?"

  "What of the Shillelagh?" Cletus asked. "How far along is its scrubbing?"

  Germain moved his hand through one of the holograms, nodded to himself and leaned back.

  "Another day or two before we are satisfied that the dreadnought is clean. Then, if the Programmer General wants, we can begin refitting the ship."

  "With the batteries?" Leanne's voice broke with strain. "How long will this refitting take?"

  "A few weeks, no longer. We use mostly robotic crews to free up humans for what we do best: research."

  "Father, it is too dangerous to risk the Shillelagh with unproven technology."

  "The dreadnought's capability will be increased severalfold," Leanne argued. "Repairs must be made. It would be remiss not to use this opportunity for improvement."

  "What if the batteries discharge unexpectedly? They've never been tested in the heat of battle." Cletus felt his anger rising as he sensed he had taken the wrong side of the argument.

  "If you show Cletus the battery charging station on the far side of Scrutiny, this ought to convince him this is an established technology, not something you just came up with. Can you arrange such a tour, Doctor?"

  "Of course, Programmer General. About your ship ..."

  "Scrub it and then rebuild it. I want to have a warship powerful enough to take on the remainder of the Burran fleet."

  "From what I've heard, that won't be out of the question," Ralston said. "The level of tech remains quite primitive, in spite of our repeated requests to upgrade both ships and systems."

  "We should discuss this, Father." Cletus pulled free when Leanne took his arm and squeezed, warning him to silence. "Our lives not only hang in the balance, but those of everyone in Burran, too."

  "Boldness, Son, this is a time for boldness."

  "Might I see the One Ring?" Leanne moved just enough to insinuate herself between Cletus and Doctor Germain.

  "There is little to see. Robots build, repair and run the cyclotron. Balance is crucial, as you might guess, and when powered up, even a small fluctuation disturbs the energy path."

  "You accelerate Higgs bosons?"

  Germain laughed and shook his head.

  "On rare occasions. There's not enough power for that to be our primary particle, even in the One Ring. Our usual particles are ions of various metals."

  "But you do use the Higgs?" Leanne pressed.

  "Well, yes. We direct a beam of accelerated ions into a resonance chamber. The Higgs are created there and hurled into the Pot. Our instruments on the far side of the planet monitor any change in mass in the neutron star. It has given us great amounts of data and all too few ideas about the actual physical process. I─"

  "Judson," Ralston said gently, "I don't think they are interested in that."

  "Oh, yes, the battery station, the chargers, the Commander in Chief Armed Forces wants to inspect the facility. Arrange for it, will you, Micah?"

  "If you don't mind, I would discuss certain political matters of an urgent nature, Doctor." Donal tipped his head slightly, silently shooing Leanne and his son off.

  Cletus started to object, then decided he needed to inspect the research station. Not only his life depended on the batteries, but also that of everyone back home. He trailed Ralston from the room, Leanne once more pressed close to his side.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  "The crawler is powered by a super battery?" Cletus walked around the tracked vehicle, resisting the urge to reach out his gloved hand and run it along the mirrored exterior.

  The crawler used treads like a tank and, like such a carrier, had heavy armor on the top. Cletus stepped back and estimated at least a meter thick armor plate protected the roof. The two centimeter-thick sides sported only thin metal similar to the aluminum-lithium alloy used by the Shillelagh for its hull. A gaping door showed the cargo capacity of the heavy vehicle. Beyond the empty hold four chairs had been bolted down securely. Where most vehicles used a pilot and copilot, Cletus saw only controls for a pilot. He asked.

  "The HUD can be used by any of the occupants. Mostly," said the air-suited woman who had escorted them from the underground base, "we let the computer drive us. It knows the way, after all, having made the trip so many times."

  "AI?" Leanne crowded close to the access panel showing the tiny battery that powered the crawler.

  "You know the Programmer General's prohibition about using artificial intelligence," Cletus said more sharply than he intended. Their guide carried an unknown rank. The scientists and other colonists in the corridors leading out had deferred to her, yet Micah Ralston had introduced her simply as Anna, no title, no explanation why she of all those on Scrutiny had been chosen to take them to the battery charger on the far side of the planet.

  "We have to rely on robotic aides more than back in Burran, or so I am told. There are so few humans here. I was born here and this is all ... normal. As to plumping up the population, You know how colonization's been done. You're Commander in Chief Armed Forces, after all."

  Leanne interrupted. She pulled open the access panel and ran her finger lightly over the leads.

  "The engine is from a standard tank, but this is the only power source."

  Cletus saw how relieved Anna was to be distracted from his pointed question. The power held by the Programmer General came from dealing with the Blarney Stone directly and not allowing AI. The early experiences with a guidance computer had been disastrous and Ballymore had almost been obliterated by well-meaning AI. Burran had adopted the human control then to keep from being obliterated, leaving ultimate control in the hands of the Programmer General.

  Her relief told him Scrutiny used AI far in excess of what Donal would approve. Or did his father know? He had kept the planet's existence a secret. If Cletus believed him, the only one knowing its location not living on Scrutiny was the Programmer General himself. An old saying came to him. Two can keep a secret if one is dead.

  But to allow them to use AI? Cletus wasn't sure such autonomy was a good thing, especially so far from Ballymore.

  "The trip lasts about six hours," Anna said. "Provisions are stowed and the sooner we start, the sooner we arrive." She stepped into the crawler and went directly to the pilot's chair.

  Cletus settled into what should have been the copilot's chair, with Leanne directly behind h
im. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that she had already brought up an auxiliary HUD and worked through it. From this angle he couldn't tell what she studied, but he thought it had to be the engine and its power supply.

  "You can see what she does." Anna reached out and touched the blank panel in front of him. The HUD popped up immediately. "More primitive than that on a dreadnought, to be sure, but the crawler's mission is simple enough."

  "Out and back with the charged batteries?"

  Anna looked at him, her expression neutral. She nodded once, then reached into space in front of her and toggled a virtual switch. The crawler grumbled, a bone-shaking vibration passing through the vehicle, then began its trip. Cletus brought up an external view of the planet. Barren, rocky land extended in all directions. In minutes even the bulge of the mostly buried colony dome vanished behind a low range of mountains raked by surprising amount of erosion. He commented on it.

  "Scrutiny's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen with a fair amount of noble gases mixed in. Stuff that isn't easily blown away by the solar winds."

  "The product of radioactive decay?" Leanne spoke without looking away from her HUD.

  "You've noticed the thick shielding on the crawler's roof. When we get around the planetary curve and the primary rises, radiation levels will kick way up."

  "But these mountains aren't in direct line with the red giant." Cletus swung his external view around. "All the rocks are worn as if water flowed over them."

  "No water, just atmosphere. Fierce winds are created by the uneven heating on the world. The gas only has a pressure of a few hundred millibars but wind velocity can crank up to a couple hundred kilometers per hour, sustained for weeks. One memorable storm blew for almost a year because of sunspots on the red giant─or so we thought at the time. The Pot shifted position, settling itself into a more comfortable position. Quite an event, let me tell you."

  "Any idea what caused it?"

  "None, Commander."

  "Call me Cletus. You seem to know a great deal about the stellar dynamics."

  "Hardly anything at all. Micah is my husband. He's the one who knows those things and blathers endlessly about this and that. Me, I tinker with nano devices."