"Fine. But I can't keep it up for too long. You know that."
"I know. Did you get the information on the suits?"
"Already knew it. I dug it all out when I first put one on. It never occurred to me solid slugs would make people vulnerable in them."
"Me either. But then, we're not used to the lack of technology here. We need to adapt."
"Jane's on it."
"Wait, vid coming in."
"It's from Jane."
They both watched it at the same time.
"Intelligence is starting to come in about possible locations for Brotherhood cells, and mercenaries they use. None of it is good enough yet for action, but it's promising. The sector ambassadors are motivated for a change. Even the bats are shaking the trees, which is interesting since their people are so involved in dark things. In the meantime, I've fleets standing by to deal with them. I'm sending additional forces to the Cat Homeworld as well, in case we get a target in sector eight. And I've rerouted Duke Fred to the sector eight council, to see if we can get formal permission for fleet actions in their space."
Jane paused.
"In hindsight, I'm really sorry I didn't make sure Seasprite's crew were properly equipped and trained. The loss of everyone but Anna was a shock, and then the lack of training having the effects it's having on the current crew, is a continuing worry. I guess not really having any real civilian experience caused a blind spot for me. There's nothing more we can do for now. But see if you can get Seasprite to give Jamie some better combat training."
She paused again.
"Useful to know about the suits, and how they handle concerted fire from local weapons. But it doesn’t apply to most situations, since any half decent combat trained person would be moving or under cover, and it would be hard to hit the same place over and over again. I should have made sure they all had military belts, but at least making sure Jamie had one has paid off. Even if he doesn’t think so."
"Warspite, see if you can get them to stop longer somewhere, so Tranquil can catch up. It is important no-one knows your there Tranquil, but you can't fall too far behind. I'm concerned about that Battleship, and who else might be building something similar in the areas the cats know nothing about. We might find out when Fred talks to their council. Or not. But for now, it's better we assume someone in this galaxy is a match for us, and make sure Seasprite is never overmatched."
The vid ended.
"Told you," said Warspite, grinning.
"So did I."
"We better get on with it then."
"Indeed."
The channel closed.
Warspite took Seasprite into AI mode.
Thirty Eight
They matched star charts, and set a course for what they believed to be the reference from the star chart left by the 'gods', a place marked on current charts as a local word for 'Winter'. They assumed from the name it was an icy planet. But when they looked up all records they had about it, it turned out to be habitable, with earth-like atmosphere, and temperatures were temperate, but at the cold end of the spectrum. It also had a moon, but the moon was a dead rock.
They couldn’t find any references to standing stones, or other tourist destinations. Although the world did have a local population of sentient beings, they'd been colonised by another species, who decimated the population through war and disease.
There were little mineral deposits worth plundering, and any viable sites had been long since exhausted. The local population didn’t make good slaves, and they didn’t really have anything worthwhile to trade, or take as trade. The colonial powers soon got sick of the cold, and the colonial society collapsed, most leaving the world to its own devices.
"What do we do when we get there?" Snark asked Anna.
Anna shrugged her shoulders defensively.
"I’m not sure. I haven’t had any dreams about this place, but I could try to have them. It’s never really worked for me before, but I can at least try."
Snark humphed.
Jamie had his leg propped up on a large pouf type chair off to one side, while he sat doing simulations in the captain’s chair. He was testing a lot of different scenarios, after suggesting some different parameters to Seasprite.
Anna knew he’d be occupied for some time. She and Jamie were definitely closer since the Standing Stones situation, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to get more intimate. The 'other' Anna kept intervening, and although she knew Jamie would never treat her like Vasily treated Anastasia, it was just a bit overwhelming. She also didn’t want to get too close. She knew she was afraid. But of what?
She went to her room. Perhaps she could do as Maraid and the Grand Mother did, and summon dreams? She really should have been able to learn some control over them by now. She’d just never had anyone to teach her.
She lay down on the bed. Perhaps she just needed to rest. She tried meditating, but it didn’t produce visions, but did make her more centred, and more relaxed.
She thought hard about the stone. She filled her thoughts and consciousness with it. She closed her eyes. Nothing! It was frustrating. She thought about before they’d started out into this part of the galaxy. She tried to remember when the Seeings had come, and how. Perhaps she could replicate the conditions.
It was no use. Trying hard to See, meant she was even further away from having a Seeing!
Relax. Let everything go. Stay in the moment. She could hear some clattering coming from the kitchen. There was a slight breeze from the air circulating. She could taste the tinniness of it. Her eyes closed.
She was cold, so cold. Her feet through her boots seemed frozen. She needed to get inside and quickly. She could see nothing but grey driving at her, snow or ice blowing hard into her face and numbing it. It was dark, but white at the same time. She had no sense of direction. She staggered and almost fell. Hard crunching snowy-ice underfoot.
Something loomed up in front of her, and she moved slowly towards it. Black against the grey and driving whiteness of the world, it seemed to provide a sense of location in the nothingness.
A door. It looked like a door, but there was no handle or lock. She pushed at different panels, hoping something would happen. She felt a slight give, and pushed harder, as hard as she could manage. The door slowly opened on some unseen hinge.
It swung pendulously, and she collapsed into a wide entrance way. She pushed on the door the other way to shut out the weather, and it moved slowly back into place.
She looked about her. Movement sensor lights illuminated her progress.
The room was an entrance, with another smaller door opposite the outer one. It was hewn out of rock, but the door was set into metal surrounds of some kind. Black. The door was black. Impenetrable.
She shook herself, to get some of the snow and ice off her cloak, shoes and hood. She warmed her hands through the gloves with her breath, and rubbed at her face. She started to be able to feel her extremities again. It was getting warmer in here.
She moved to the inner door. It was the same as the outer one, with no indication of how to open it. She placed her hand to the smooth surface. It was warm. She pulled her hand away in surprise, and took off her glove, placing her bare hand to the door again. It was definitely warm, where it looked like cold metal.
She pushed tentatively, and then harder. The door seemed to hum, and then gave way slowly, pivoting from the centre rather than the side. The opening was wide enough for her to enter. She moved through the space to the other side.
As she moved, more lights came on. She had the feeling though of a great space, a cavern, or warehouse. The lights only came on enough to show a console and a chair. The chair was suitable for a human form.
She walked further than the console into the shadows beyond, and more lights came on as she moved, the ones behind her dimming. She could see a bank of units reaching out of view into the blackness above, and down in rows into the blackness in front. She moved back to the console.
The lights cam
e on at the console, and she sat in the chair. It seemed to adjust to her body.
The console had screens which blinked on as she ran her hands over pads below the screens.
She pressed one of the pads, and some data flashed on the screen. She moved her hands different ways in experimentation, and more data showed. She tried another pad. This one showed image after image of different plants. The next was a veritable ark of strange animals. Another, insects. As she tried moving her hands different ways, different screens showed, such as ranks and rows of numbers, graphs and swirls of things she couldn’t interpret.
She sat back. What was this place? It had saved her, but she was alone here. Was this an ark? Or was it just a memory of a planet? Perhaps this one? Just a record of the past.
She got her tablet out of her backpack. Perhaps there was audio, and she could translate it. She tried the controls again. There was a different control above each pad. A kind of round button. She pressed one of them carefully.
A voice came from somewhere on the console, and it was a few minutes before the translator unit started to pick up the language.
"…the hall of Whispers. Here you will find the riches of a once fertile planet. If the doors have accepted you, you are one of the righteous. We trust you with the seeds of our past, for the betterment of the future."
There was no more. She pressed the button again, and got the beginning of the welcome message and it played again to the end.
She felt overwhelmingly sad. What had happened to these beings and this world? It was an icy wasteland now. Nothing seemed to live here at all.
She tried one of the other buttons. Recordings of different animal noises could be heard. She pressed it again and it stopped.
And then she saw it. A logo at the top right hand console of the screen. A star chart and what looked like writing. It seemed tiny, but she used her tablet camera to zoom the image to be readable. It was a star chart. And the translator was humming, thinking about the words.
A translation showed on the screen.
"Those who enter the Hall of Whispers, are shown to be righteous. They are deserving of the talisman and amulet. They will be able to harness the power for the benefit of all life. Use the power against the evil threatening all, and you will see the gods."
The translation seemed stiff and awkward. She wished she knew what language this was, so she could feel the meaning for herself.
Only the righteous could enter this Hall. And someone had left the message here to be found by this screening process. She was deemed to be one of 'the righteous'. She felt a heavy responsibility. She didn’t feel righteous.
A huge booming noise resonated through the metal walls. It was coming from the outside door. The huge hall filled with its echoes. She felt fear.
"Anna," a voice said at her side. There was no one there. "Anna!"
She closed her eyes, and opened them to her room on Seasprite.
She looked up at Sissness.
"Anna, I’m sorry to wake you, but you’re wanted on the bridge."
"What is it?" she said, snapping into reality.
"Just come."
Anna followed Sissness through the door.
Thirty Nine
"…pirates," Jamie was finishing saying, as Sissness and Anna came onto the bridge. The others were all there.
"Anna!" said Jamie, smiling warmly.
She smiled back.
"We’re coming up on some ships, and wanted to agree what we do," said Snark to fill them in. "We could go around them, but it adds to our travel time. On the courses we’re both on now, we’ll intersect in four hours or so."
"What does everyone think?" asked Anna.
"Let’s keep going," suggested Brindle, "and take evasive action if we need to when we get closer."
"We’d give our location away," said Patters. "We’ll be in their sensor range in another three hours or so."
"How long for a detour?" asked Anna.
"It’ll add another half day at least to getting there," said Snark.
"Sensors don’t say much, but they are armed," added Jamie. "We could get closer so the sensors have more to go on."
"Sounds like a plan," said Anna cautiously. "Could we still go around once we get closer?"
"Yes," said Snark.
The others agreed to getting more sensor data before making a decision.
Anna filled the others in on her Seeing. She only gave the facts, not how she’d felt at the time. Sissness went to look for information on a possible ark facility on Winter, while Jamie tried to find any charts of the planet, which might help them pinpoint it. Everyone felt a sense of purpose for going to Winter, and they were back on ‘mission’.
As Seasprite neared the ships, the sensors showed them to be predictably heavily armed. There was no other information, apart from they were a standard Cruiser size. If they were pirates, they would likely try to attack Seasprite, without knowing how strong she was. On the other hand, they could alter course slightly to miss them, and use their superior speed to outrun them, and this last option was the one selected.
There was a possibility of them being Brotherhood hired ships, and they kept this in mind as they closed in on their position. Once closer, visuals of the ships showed them to be the standard shape and configuration seen before.
A message came in over the coms. They would have come in range of the other ships’ sensors some time ago, so they knew they’d been seen and scanned.
"Unknown vessel, this is Interception Lead. Please identify yourself."
"Interception Lead, this is Seasprite, on a trading mission in this sector."
"You are in a restricted area of space. Please stop engines, and prepare to be boarded."
"Really?" sneered Snark under his breath, and so it couldn’t be picked up by the coms.
Jamie muted it.
"Pirates?" he asked.
"Most likely," mused Patters. "But they could be a legitimate force patrolling this area for their own system."
"Any jump points near here we hadn’t considered?" asked Jamie.
"Several," confirmed Snark.
"We should just outrun them," said Brindle.
"I agree," said Snark. "Let’s get out of here."
They changed course slightly to avoid the ships, and the divergent courses caused the challenging ships to turn to follow them.
"Seasprite, this is Interception Lead. Please heave to for boarding!"
They continued on their way, the three ships altered course again, and were now chasing after them.
Seasprite started to leave them behind, and soon they disappeared from vision, and out of coms range. Seasprite was on its own.
"Could they know where we were headed?" asked Sissness anxiously.
"We’ve altered course several times," said Jamie, "just to confuse them. When they lose us from their sensors, we’ll go back on course for the jump point to Winter."
They all went back to chores and hobbies to wait until they arrived at Winter. Sissness and Jamie continued to look for information about the 'ark' facility.
Sissness had downloaded several databases from the Outlook station, at great cost, before she’d realised they weren’t a community service. She scanned through looking for information about Winter. She soon found some references, some she’d already accessed, but nothing seemed to indicate a period of time when the planet was uninhabitable, and had led to the creation of the 'ark'. She kept looking.
Jamie also had little luck in trying to find something on the maps of Winter, indicating a large facility like the 'ark' Anna had described. The continents and major landmarks were mapped, and there were some indication of where the local inhabitants were located, their cities, and spaceports.
"It was completely whited out with snow and ice," recalled Anna. "Winter is colder than average, but not completely an ice planet. Perhaps in the past there was an ice age, meaning they had to create the ark, and that was when my Seeing was."
"Or in
the future perhaps?" asked Jamie.
"It could really have been anytime. I didn’t notice anything to pinpoint a timeframe."
Jamie narrowed his search to the poles. Perhaps the facility had been located there, where it was completely icy conditions? Nothing seemed obvious, but he kept looking.
They finally came to the jump point, and jumped into the Winter system. The jump point was in a usual position just inside the Oort cloud, with the planet they were heading to down in the fourth orbit. Jamie plotted a course directly into the system, where once they were far enough in for the sensors to locate the planet, a direct course could be set.
Jamie sat there musing about sensors and their range. As good as theirs were, planetary dynamics still meant you had to head insystem far enough to find where the planet should orbit, and only then could you determine where in the orbit the planet might be. If you were unlucky to find it on the other side, you had to make your way around the sun before you got to set a direct course. It was a hell of a lot easier to find a planet if all you had to do was follow the other trade ships. On the other hand he mused, even with an up to date navmap, this was still real exploration.
The Winter system proved to be huge, and it was several hours before the sensors found the planet in the fourth orbit. Jamie started to scan the planet immediately, but it wasn’t until they came into orbit before any real data started appearing on the displays. He concentrated on the poles.
"Exactly what do you think you'll be seeing from up here?" asked Seasprite.
"You know what I'm looking for."
"Of course. What makes you think it will be obvious to ship sensors?"
"Because it's big enough?"
"Really? What if it's under the ice completely?"
"Shouldn’t it still be visible to the sensors?"
"If this was a survey ship, yes. But it's not. If what you seek is on top of the ice, you'll pick it up. If it has a very powerful unshielded power source, you'll pick it up. If not, it's very unlikely you will."
"Please don’t tell me we need to go down there."
Destiny Stone (A.I. Destiny Book 4) Page 17