by Bodicea
“Has there been any progress toward an anti-agent?” Keeler asked.
Specialist Mastermind, the same who had initially discovered the pathogen, gave the brief version of the good news and the bad news. “In order to be effective in the complete destruction of an ecosystem, such as we saw on Medea, the pathogen has to be dispersed across the planet. Its effect is primarily localized. As for an anti-agent, we have discovered a kind of molecular off-switch that renders the pathogen impotent. We have yet to develop way of flipping the switch or an effective delivery mechanism.”
“Well, at least you’re trying,” Keeler deadpanned. He slid a datapad in her direction. “See if this information will help.”
She picked up the pad. “Where did you get this?”
“I could tell you, but I would have to kill you. Next issue.”
“What can we expect upon arrival in the Aurelian System,” Lear wanted to know.
Lt. Commander Miller was on leave again, mourning the loss of his wife, so it was thought.
Lt. Honeywell was Acting Tactical Chief. It was his duty to tell the ship’s command staff that according to the most thorough possible analysis of the data Caliph had gleaned from the World-Ship, and review of the battle of Bodicéa, Tactical Section could state with confidence that they had absolutely no idea what to expect on approach to the Aurelian home-system.
As Honeywell explained, “The Aurelians are an aggressive culture. The natural expectation is that the home-system will be the center of their empire, and, as such, heavily defended with their finest warriors and most capable weaponry. However, it is also possible that just the opposite is true. If the Aurelians have yet to encounter another culture capable of mounting an offense, the home-system may be only lightly defended.”
Honeywell pointed to the star map projected on the wall of the chamber. “Although this data has given us the position of the Aurelian System, it has not given us a location for the precise planet, or other structure, the Aurelians might inhabit.”
“What do you mean by ‘other structure?’” Lear asked.
Honeywell’s tongue flicked thoughtfully over the corner of his upper lip. “The Aurelians have made several comments that suggest that they were not bound to terrestrial bodies –
planets – the way that we are. ‘We build worlds,’ was one such comment. The construction of the World-Ship suggests that they are capable of feats of Macro-engineering.”
He projected an image above the center of the Conference Table. “One possibility is a ring-system. Built around the orbit of a stable sun, it would provide a land area equivalent to millions of inhabitable planets.” He paused long enough to let them take it in, then switched to a different image, in which the sun was surrounded by a kind of latticework sphere. “This spherical structure is based on a modeling study undertaken by the University of Sapphire at New Tenochtìtlan. The structure provides a surface area equal to hundreds of millions of inhabitable worlds. The open structure traps much of the sun’s energy, while allowing solar wind and other energy to escape, avoiding the build-up of deadly radiation.”
“I thought this was a tactical review, not Mornings with Mr. Science,” Keeler said.
Honeywell grunted agreeably. “I bring these up only to point out that either of these structures would be invulnerable to Pegasus’s weaponry, including Nemesis bombs.”
“How likely is it that we would encounter either type of structure?” Lear asked.
“Not very,” Honeywell conceded. “However, we may encounter something almost as challenging, maybe, a whole constellation of world-ships. Even if we encounter a force with firepower equal to what they used against 10 255 Vulpeculus, we are going to have great difficulty hanging in without using Nemesis missiles.”
Keeler realized everyone was looking at him expectantly. “When the time comes, we’ll do whatever we have to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
“Transition in sixty seconds,” Eliza Jane Change reported, not adding, not needing to add, just wait and see how close I’m gonna put this ship to the system. In fact, if we weren’t trying to be stealthy, I’d put this ship inside the system.
Not that it would have mattered. There was tension on the Primary Command Deck, thick enough to make a winter coat out of, electric enough to keep milkbeasts in their pasture-lands, but it was not over the accuracy of Lt. Navigator Change’s calculations.
“All stations secure,” Lear reported from Keeler’s left. The damaged condition of Pegasus’s outer hull called for special attention to the ship’s structural integrity.
“Tactical Situation Two,” Lt. Cmdr. Miller reported from the right. “Defensive systems on hot stand-by.”
“We can always outrun them,” Keeler mumbled.
“We can outrun the ships they were building 200 years ago,” Miller corrected, the idea having just now occurred to him.
“That’s the spirit.” Keeler leaned forward, his fingers forming a tent in front of his nose, the way actors posed when they wanted to appear thoughtful.
“Forty seconds to transition.”
Lear soberly repeated the plan. “Helm, prepare to maintain maximum space coming out of transition. If we come under fire, put us back into hyperspace as quickly as possible.”
“Acknowledged,” Change said confidently. “Prepare for transition in 10… 9… 8… 7… 6…”
Lt. Alkema grabbed the oh-shit handles at his station and quietly whispered in unison.
“…5…4…3…2…1…”
“Transition.”
There was an instant of transformation, barely imperceptible, after which it was though every thing on the ship had disappeared and been replaced by an exact replica.
“We have re-entered normal space,” Change reported. Her voice was matter-of-fact, even though she, and everyone else knew, that passing between universes was never totally safe.
She displayed several star charts and tables around her station. “Confirming position, zero-point-four light days outside unidentified system.”
“Is it the system we were aiming for?” Commander Keeler asked.
“Affirmative.”
“Then, we’ll think of a name for it later.” Keeler shifted in his command seat, eyes locked on the screen ahead of him. It showed black space, stars, and a fierce red sun at center stage.
No Aurelian warships, yet.
“Let’s get to work.”
For the next two and a half ship days, Pegasus’s best astro-cartographers, planetologists, and tactical specialists analyzed a stream of data from sensors and probes. They mapped the star system. They looked for world ships. They looked for assault ships. They looked for defensive emplacements, for ring structures, for inhabited worlds.
They found that the primary star of this system was a red giant that had swollen to its current state approximately 140 to 160 million years previously. A secondary star orbited outside the plane of the system, a red dwarf. They came up empty on the world-ships, assault ships, defensive emplacements and ring structures. The question of planets remained a definite maybe until day three.
When they found the small, warm, moist world, it fell to Lt. Geologist Kennecott to do her bit as Master of Ceremonies, and introduce it to the ship’s officers. “We detect one inhabitable world. It is approximately two-thirds the size of Sapphire and orbits the star at a distance of only eighteen million kilometers; so close, the sun will fill most of the sky from the surface. The climate seems to be warm, equatorial type climate, relatively unvaried across the planet. The planet is half ocean, half landmass. These are the latest images from the four orbital probes.
Three meter resolution.”
The planet was displayed as a sphere, one meter in diameter. The first detail that struck the crew was the color, a sharp contrast in monochrome. The seas were black, the lands were white. Solar illumination made the planet red all over.
The next thing that struck them were the fissures. All across the face of the planet were lo
ng slashes and gouges, as though the world had gotten a bad haircut from a gang of mad celestial hairdressers.
“What are those?” Keeler asked.
“They do not appear to be natural features,” Kennecott answered. “They appear to be areas where strips of the planet’s outer crust were removed. They range from three hundred to fifteen hundred kilometers long, and are uniformly ten kilometers wide. They cover 26% of the planet’s surface.”
“What do they do?”
“We have no idea. It appears…”
Eliza Jane Change spoke up. “They’re clean extraction lines.”
Lt. Kennecott stopped. “Excuse me?”
Change explained, her tone unfortunately like that of an impatient algebra teacher explaining for the tenth time why x must equal x. “The normal process for mining materials from an asteroid is to blast it apart and separate out the useful minerals from the dross … the waste material. However, for mining operations on the outer moons, which are larger, more regular in shape, and in stable orbits, the mining ships extract a swath of crust to get at the material underneath. It requires several large ships, two or four to fire cutting beams at the surface and at least four to pull the material into orbit.
“The technique was only used a few times in the Republic system to extract hydrocarbons from two of the Collossus moons before the technique was banned. It is incredibly destructive.
The thought that someone would use it on an inhabitable world…”
Another reason to dislike these Aurelians, Keeler thought.
“There are several other points of interest,” Kennecott rotated the sphere then magnified a portion of the eastern hemisphere. It was pitted, as though blasted with a shotgun.”
“The Aurelian signature,” Keeler said grimly. No way could this have been the Aurelian homeworld. More likely, it was just another conquest.
“There is evidence that the gravitational forces around one of the outer gas giants have been altered within the last two centuries, as though one of their moons had been removed.”
She displayed the data. “The mass of the missing moon would have corresponded closely to the world-ship we encountered.”
“They must build a new ship every time they take over a world,” Miller said, even more grimly than usual. “I guess you could call it ‘Living off the Land.’”
“Getting back to the planet,” Lear said. “Is there any indication of survivors, of any human life at all?”
“Affirmative.” Kennecott rotated the planet and zoomed in on a spot fairly remote from the scarring. There was a collection of overlapping domes covering an area of almost 1,400 square kilometers. “There’s people living in these domes. A few hundred, a thousand at the most.”
“Survivors?” Lear asked.
“Or a garrison,” Miller suggested more grimly.
“We will have to ask them,” Keeler said curtly. “Ready a couple of ships, let’s pay them a visit.”
Pegasus held orbit on the nightside of the planet, shielding itself from the sun. The ship could take the radiation, but the repair crews patching and removing debris from the secondary command tower preferred not being cremated alive. ( “Wimps!” the commander said.) The Aves Zilla and Amy, having come through the Battle of 10 255 Vulpeculus without a scratch, descended to the surface of the still nameless planet. The two ships contained a combined landing party of twenty-one, led by Keeler and Miller. Twelve marines would guard the party.
The ships swung around to the sunny side. Fiery red light filled the command modules and Flight Lieutenants Arumbaruzubala and Toto covered their eyes with shades. Miller was in Amy’s second seat, but left his face bare, and squinted into the firelight until Arumbaruzubala made the canopy opaque.
Susan swung into the atmosphere in a shallow diving arc. Zilla followed. They came down from a red-on-red sky and settled onto a gently rolling plain just one kilometer from the domes, landing just a few meters from each other. Trailing them were eight Shrieks that came down and hovered in the air protectively over the two ships. The side-hatches of the two ships came open and six Marines ran out of each. When they determined the landing zone was safe, they signaled inside.
Keeler and Alkema, in full, danger-zone landing gear, the kind with extra personal defensive shielding, exited Zilla. Lt. Cmdr. Miller and Marine Lt. Honeywell came out of Amy.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” Keeler asked Miller.
“Don’t ask me stupid questions,” Miller answered. “Sir.”
“I think he’s up to this,” Keeler said to Alkema. Alkema used his tracker to project a terrain map into the air. “The domes are a kilometer north-northeast of here.”
Keeler heard Honeywell’s voice in his earpiece. “Zeta-squad, move forward, take point, 150
meters ahead of the main landing body.”
Moving behind the protective screen of big men with big guns, they crested the first hill.
From the summit, they could look down into the wide plain. The domes huddled in the distance, sleek and broad, burnished from the swollen red sun. There was also a lake nearby, its waters colored bloody by the light from the sky.
“Check out the view to the south,” Alkema said.
To the south stretched a vast expanse of what looked like clear Marjani coral. Miller had once seen something like it in Carpentaria after an ice storm, when the trees were coated with ice and gave the appearance of a magical crystalline forest. Here, though, the day was warm, and the cut-crystal trees were pulsing slightly and swaying in a breeze as warm as a lover’s breath. The forest picked up the ambient light and refracted a million shades of pink, fuchsia, crimson, even lavender.
“Would you look at that?” Honeywell whispered.
When the wind blew through it, the branches chimed with a kind of musical hum.
“Crystal trees?” Keeler asked.
“It’s not a forest,” Alkema said in a kind of awe, with his sensor glove toward the forest.
“Those aren’t trees.”
“What are they?”
“They are … part… of a single massive organism. Those are just the parts that protrude above the ground, part of a combination pulmonary and photosynthesis system. We’re standing on the rest of it.”
Miller and Honeywell instinctively looked to the ground.
“Most of the organism is underground. Those … organs… convert light into energy. It’s feeding.”
“Is it dangerous?” Honeywell asked.
“I don’t think so, I don’t think it can move.” He commented on his readings. “I can see why the Aurelians would have wanted it. One of those things could provide a far more efficient air purification system than any artificial construction. The concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is 80% richer within a kilometer of the creature.”
“Just don’t start any campfires near it,” Keeler muttered. “Remember what Blazey the Griffey says, ‘Only you can prevent alien macroorganism fires.’ We’ll have Agro-Botany study it. Maybe we can adapt it to Pegasus. This way. The human settlement is just beyond that ridge.” He adjusted the pack on his back and motioned forward.
“Commander!” Miller yelled out, but his pulse cannon was firing before the words left his mouth.
A horde of thirty to forty Aurelian Swords came charging over the hills. The crew had never seen them in action before. For such heavy, thick-skinned creatures, they moved with surprising quickness, skittering over the land, almost like crabs, but with a better sense of direction.
“Take them out,” Honeywell ordered. His Marines lined up and began firing long-range pulse cannons. The Swords could usually sustain a single blast across this distance, but repeated hits weakened them quickly, and Honeywell’s men were very good.
Then, there was a rushing noise in the air above as the Shrieks came charging in. They made frighteningly short work of the Swords, chasing them down and blasting at them with high-yield, short-range pulse cannons. They blew little charred bits of Sword high
into the air and cratered the ground with the few blasts that missed. They attacked from above and dove down to strafe them almost straight on.
“It would have been nice to have had a few left intact for study,” Keeler said, not quite feeling the ugliness of his words until he was done saying them. He shook his head hard, trying to shake off the terribleness. “Let’s keep going, one more hill and we’re there.”
“Great Coogilly Moogilly,” Keeler whispered as they crested the last hill.
Before them was an enormous dome, perhaps forty kilometers across. It was white, and its surface was dimpled with thousands of concave indentations.
“You know what that reminds me of, now that we get close to it?” Keeler said to Alkema.
“What, sir?”
“The moonbase back on Bodicéa.” He began walking down the hill. A short march brought them to the cluster of domes. The Marines remained attentive, but if there were any Swords left, the Shrieks were keeping them at bay.
The domes went all the way to the ground, with no evidence of entry points. Alkema speculated that whoever or whatever was kept inside was intended to be permanently isolated from the planetary environment.
“So, how do we get in?” Keeler asked, it being the Commander’s prerogative to ask the obvious.
Honeywell drew out his largest cannon. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Direct application of brute force,” Keeler looked a little downcast. Was it too early to feel war-weary.
“It does seem to be the only thing that’s consistently effective against the Aurelians,” Lt.
Commander Miller offered.
“Agreed, this is no time for subtlety. Lieutenant, have at it.”
“Put on your re-breathers, just in case the atmosphere inside is hazardous,” Miller reminded them.
With the rest of the landing party at a safe distance, Honeywell blasted away, one hard blast of a full-force Molecular Disintegrator Ray, what the Sapphireans called a Pulverizer. A section of the dome disappeared, leaving behind a great raggedy hole.