The Nubl Wars (The Pattern Universe Book 3)

by Tobias Roote

  She needed to look deeper. Checking the transmit codes, Kelly tracked the routing for the previous message and followed it back. Both had arrived at the same moment when she re-activated her updated unit. They had been stored somewhere, there was a mailbox server on the shuttle, but it had no information other than its data collection point. There were two, Space Island Central Exchange and Alpha Station which was both originator and relay point for most transmissions.

  Kelly searched both for her comms ID and when it came up at both points, narrowed her search to the date in question. As data began to scroll up the screen, something caught her eye. Her eidetic memory pulled a phrase out from the jumble of unformatted text and number sequences. These were mainly the upgrade codes and authentication sequences as it registered her device. However, one shouldn’t have been there. It was a user over-ride code. She had seen them before on Space Island’s science reports distributed to the Academy, they allowed insertion of split codes that made the documents readable only on certain machines and by certain individuals. It ensured material wasn’t copied or seen by people not authorised to view them.

  Somebody had inserted a split code into her comms unit which they then must have used to hack into the mail system. The only way to find out would be to find out who issued the code.

  Her comms buzzed. It was Lang.

  “Hiya,” he said as soon as she answered.

  “Hi, you calling about Arty?”

  “Yep, I just thought you should know that Penny (their nickname for Pennington), is happy and running Arty ragged on simulations,” he confided.

  “I wish it hadn’t been necessary,” Kelly responded, the dejection in her voice evident. Lang immediately went to bolster her with his news.

  “I put in an extra piece of code into the Governor,” he confessed to her, adding, “ I loaded it up after Pennington had finished testing Arty’s compliance. I couldn’t risk putting it in beforehand in case Penny asked him to run some awkward ‘what if’ scenario questions.

  “Hmmh? What kind of update did you put in?”

  “I gave Arty a ‘suicide-avert’ over-ride. A reprieve from destruction in the event that Pennington decided that he and the two hundred thousand people on the station were expendable,” Lang told her.

  “You’re going to cop hell from Pennington if he finds out, after all the trouble we had to go through to get the Governor installed, that you put in a back-door for Arty to slip through.” Secretly Kelly was pleased, it hadn’t been her desire to turn Arty into a slaved machine when he was capable of so much more than any of the others.

  “I can live with myself, Ossie put his heart and soul into creating Arty for Zeke’s first ship. The AI has come a long way since - much to our benefit,” he added quickly.

  Kelly decided to trust Lang. She needed his help.

  “Yes, although I didn’t tell you that he had a fail-safe switch that activated when I attached the Governor. If I hadn’t manage to disarm it before the timer finished there would have been no me and no Governor,” Kelly confessed.

  “Wow! What kind of fail-safe? How did you disarm it?”

  “Well, there’s the strangest thing,” and she told him about the message and her revelations just before he called.

  “You should be able to find the ghost headers on the main comms server at Space Island. Everything is initially routed through there and parsed to each destination on a series of link drones. There will be a copy of the message which cannot be deleted, and it should include time and date headers as well as the point of origin,” he explained.

  “Ah, interesting. Where do I find this ghost header?”

  “Link me into your terminal and I’ll show you,” he said and seconds later a request came up on her terminal asking for secure access.

  She gave permission, then watched as Lang first read and copied her message from her original searches, then opened a new window and drilled down through successive linker drone histories until he found the original routing on Space Island. He found the file, which had been greyed out to signify it had been sent/received and deleted. He opened the headers and highlighted the sender and date.

  “What the friggin hell is going on here?” he asked as he saw who the sender was.

  “Hell! Lang, that can’t be the right date, surely?”

  “I..just..don’t..believe..it..,” was all he could say.

  ***

  Zeke hadn’t slept for two days and was beginning to feel the effects of the martial arts training he had been receiving from the volunteer fighters of the local Marines. They had express orders to hurt him, and like all Marines they enjoyed their abilities immensely, especially when ganging up on a senior officer. Not the type to disobey orders, they had come on him ten strong and pushed his strength and abilities to the limit. Some left with broken or bruised limbs, but that was the price they paid for mixing it with the famous ‘Callaghan’.

  Now though, it was a different problem. The dreams came to him more frequently. As the level of communication between him and the strange alien impacted his ability to function, he began to feel that his grip on reality was slipping away. A strange sensation would often embrace him and the more he physically honed his body, the more powerful the sensation became. He needed to get checked out, he decided reluctantly, not wanting to put himself in the hands of the science labs once again.

  Zeke decided there was only one person he trusted to help.

  He caught up with Kelly Moon as she was leaving her lab, she looked worried, certainly preoccupied. He wondered what was bothering her.

  “Oh, morning, Zeke,” she responded blandly to his own forced jovial hello.

  “You seem preoccupied, Kelly. Anything wrong?” he asked, forcing his own problem to the back of his mind temporarily. He could see Kelly was disturbed by something.

  “Mmmh! Yes, and no!” She hesitated, then turned to him, her white jacket flicking open to reveal her slim perfect figure beneath its generic fit. Zeke’s concentration waned for a second, but he pulled himself up sharp.

  If Kelly had caught his glance, she gave no indication, such was her own introspection.

  “You know Arty better than anyone here. How well do you trust him to... err’m, protect us?” she asked.

  “Arty? Well, I know he’s evolving, but I hadn’t noticed him becoming distant, or disassociated from us. On the contrary, I think he feels closely attached to humans. So, my answer would have to be that I trust him implicitly. Should I be thinking otherwise?” He looked into her eyes and saw that the trouble, whatever it was, ran deep into her thoughts. He was picking up subtle body language signals that told him that she perhaps didn’t think Arty was.

  “Whatever has occurred, I can see you have concerns... Do you want to tell me about them?” he asked carefully. He could sense the worry in her and where Arty was concerned, Zeke wanted to know if there was a problem. The AI had become crucial to the operation of the station and the defences. He knew there had been a restriction placed on Arty’s activities, and had meant to tackle Pennington about it, but his own problems had kept him preoccupied. He quickly realised there was something here he should know about.

  When Kelly looked as if she was going to dismiss him, he decided that he really needed to know.

  “Kelly, please accompany me to the bridge. I think you need to bring me up to date with what’s been happening.” He said it in a firm voice, he was issuing an order, and she suddenly knew it. She straightened her shoulders and looked directly at him, realising who she was talking to for the first time. It was the first time she had ever heard the Admiral issue an order to her, or anyone.

  “Yessir!” she responded, immediately realising that she would now have to explain everything. She wondered just how that was going to sound. Then she remembered this was Zeke Callaghan, he had more strange things going on in his world than the rest of the planet put together. He would make sense of it, if anyone could.

  As they walked Zeke watched her body move
ments. They seemed precise, measured and perfectly synchronised. Observing other people he noted that they were often at odds with their own physique, as if not all parts of their body were working together. Kelly was different, in some ways too perfect.

  When did he start to get so observant, he wondered, then realised that it was all part of his altering DNA. Something had changed in him, his awareness of things around him were increasingly accentuated, as if he was seeing in extra colours. He put it down to the increased exercise putting more oxygen into his bloodstream. If he weren’t so tired he would have been pleased at the change. Instead, he continued to fret that something was happening to his metabolism that might echo the same issues that Ferris had suffered.

  He needed Kelly’s help, but first he needed to get to the bottom of her concerns over Arty. As they arrived at his office behind the station’s bridge, Zeke gestured her to the chair opposite his desk rather than the sofas arranged in the other half of his ready room. He wanted there to be a formal element to this as he felt he might need to press her for detail.

  “Arty? Please shutdown all monitoring of this room until further notice.”

  “Affirmative. Shutdown in operation now,” Arty responded and a click seemed to signify the monitoring was turned off. Zeke had no idea if the AI actually did turn off its monitoring of the discussions in the room, but Zeke had learned to trust all of the AIs he worked with, thanks largely to his relationship with Pod and Ship.

  “Okay, Kelly. You have concerns about Arty. As the person responsible for the safety of all on this station including the AIs, I need you to bring me up to date with the situation that’s concerning you.” Zeke sat in his chair and caught her eye to better watch her response. He saw them focus sharply, as if something in what he had just said had crystallised in her.

  “Yes, I believe you should know, sir. However, I’m not sure I can explain all this adequately, at the moment,” she floundered.

  “Try me, Kelly. I’m a lot more familiar with the unfamiliar than most people you will meet.”

  Kelly looked at him and realised that he was probably right. She explained to him the day she arrived, the message en route, and the incident that prompted its recollection. Then, on investigating the source of the message, the strange circumstances that put the whole issue into the realms of the unexplainable.

  “I was just preparing to visit Arty’s inner sanctum to discuss the issue with him when you caught up with me, sir.” Kelly finished her explanation.

  Zeke had sat quietly throughout, not needing to prompt or ask questions. He had received a full and detailed explanation from the scientist and was now up to speed.

  “So, the message you received that was subsequently deleted, had been sent by none other than Arty himself,” Zeke mused.

  “Yes, no question, there is no doubt in my mind from his reaction, that Arty was unaware he had warned me – .”

  “ – and there’s something else that’s weird about the message. Lang discovered that the ‘ghost’ image of the message contained headers including an impossible transmission date.”

  “Which was?”

  Kelly paused and drew a breath preparing herself for the response to her answer.

  “It was sent from the past.”

  “There must be some mistake in the system, a glitch.”

  “No, we, ... that is Lang checked the send and receipts throughout the system to determine if there was an error recurring in the network. After an hour of searching It came back with a single anomaly. A tiny file that had been sitting in Arty’s original memory core from when he was your ship’s pilot AI. The file date was the same as the message.

  It had been created and sent, eighty-four years ago.”

  - 21 -

  Nubl Space: The Frenon War

  The Pelendar Queen sat, her throne carried along with her retinue ensured her history as well as recharging faculties remained within reach. Zirkos monitored her from his position in the adjoining room while he waited for an opportune moment to present himself.

  The exodus had arrived without incident after a three day journey that taxed their security to the limit. It was not assumed that the Shadowship that was jumped into the middle of a Belmaara fleet was alone and a great deal of time had been spent checking space around the fleeing Nubl.

  His moment arrived in the form of Fedillo who had been jumped into the system by Ship after manning the rendezvous point to assist other stragglers. In all they had jumped a further twenty eight ships, but Fedillo had remained until he was certain there would be no more following, then allowed Ship to jump his vessel to Frenon.

  As Zirkos walked into the temporary quarters of the Queen and her retinue, Fedillo turned towards him and, recognising the alien from the clandestine meeting on the glassed planet, began to welcome him.

  “The alien who is our ancestor, welcome!” He bowed his head by way of greeting.

  He turned to the Queen and introduced him.

  “This is Zirkos, an alien with an interesting story to tell. He is also behind our timely rescue.”

  “I see. I believe you have done us a great service Zirkos. We would be running still, had you not prepared a way for my people. Now, we are here perhaps you can find a way for us to help you?” she said.

  Zirkos was grateful for the opening she provided and stepped right in with his request.

  “Actually, Queen Pelendar, there is much to be done and your workers and your ships are most welcome.” He moved up with Fedillo which brought him abreast of the Queen who sat on her throne. The plinth on which it stood had not been replaced, which left the overall height no more than a man standing. The three stood close as Zirkos began to outline the workers needed and the jobs to be done.

  “And what of warriors, Zirkos? Have you need of them also?” she asked.

  “Well, of course, but I had thought your people were no longer of warrior caste,” he said surprised at her question.

  “Well, that may well have been my biggest single error, and one I wish to correct immediately. Fedillo here is a trained Warrior although not practised as such for a long time, he has kept many of the workers that followed us here in training, not as warriors, but as defenders. Now it is time for them to become what is needed. I believe we must fight for our survival and whilst I believe your planet is a long way off Celnista’s warpath, they will find you sooner than later. You will have to fight them - ‘we’ will have to fight them.”

  Zirkos was surprised. He had spoken at length with Fedillo while waiting for the stragglers and it was his understanding that his Queen was pacifist by nature and would not want to participate in the defence of Frenon. He wondered what had changed. For his part Fedillo looked pleased at the change in his Queen.

  “You look surprised,” she smiled. “You should know that when Fedillo informed me that you professed kinship with the Nubl, yet you are biological and we are... what we are,” she faltered momentarily not knowing how to describe her race. “I took a journey through my memories and traced right back to the beginning.” The Queen halted for a moment, her expression distant, then resumed.

  “We were once like you, I see that, and what we have become over millennia has been a result of distortion of fear and misinformation. I see that we created the very environment that fed our paranoia and produced the results that we have today.” Her face was animated, almost natural. “I will no longer sit by and watch events unfold and our race destroy itself as well as its beginnings. So, I insist my workers do what you require of them and that those who have training become warriors and take ship to fight against the Celnista Queen. She must be stopped at all costs. I see from the mistakes of our past that now, regrettably all our futures depend upon it.”

  Zirkos smiled graciously. “Thank you. Your people will be most welcome to join our ranks.” Turning to Fedillo, he said, “Let me know what you require and come see me later about ship building and weapons.” He thanked them again and left quickly, this was good news a
nd more than compensated for the time and resources he and Ship had spent rescuing them.

  ***

  The influx of warrior-trained Pelendar meant that many of the five thousand ships that had previously been built were now in space and patrolling the system while the new captains shook down their crews as an operational defender fleet. The upgraded hulls and new weapons that Zirkos and Ship had made available meant that although they were limited by manpower to fewer ships than anything the Crystal Queen could produce, their ability to withstand Shadowship laser beams meant they had a much better ratio of kills when up against patrols from the Celnista hive.

  The manufacturing was also stepped up with double the amount of Frenon workers and massive increases in mining. Within a few weeks there were two hundred ships a day being built and Ship was pressured into jumping them into space for their trials regardless of the reluctance by the Frenon for him to use technology he wouldn’t share. Zirkos was relegated to fleet master. He managed to get them to operate in mini-fleets, or flotillas of fifty ships. Each flotilla had a single g’Nal or fleet leader and the captains all served it, while the crews served each captain. The idea was they would attack as a unit and force the enemy fleet apart and into the arms of other flotillas. Zirkos had watched sea mammals on Earth in a similar role as the impenetrable masses of fish were broken into smaller and smaller shoals and then consumed in a frenzy of feeding. The style for the Frenon ships would work in the same way.

  Within a month the fleet stood at ten thousand ships, all manned with more coming off the line every day. The Haseel by the Crystal Queen was resulting in a continual flow of new exiled workers and ship crews from the hives that had been decimated. The word was that the Celnista hive were now hunting for the Frenon world and intended to teach them a lesson. They knew it was only a matter of time before she found them.

  It was agreed that being planet-bound left them at a disadvantage, so using the communication technology that the Pelendar queen provided, all Frenon were equipped with the same resonating crystals and the communication link that bound them all together was forged. They retained their free will and no compulsions remained in their systems for any Nubl clone to force their will upon them. The result was near-instant communication across the galaxy, there seemed to be little, or no deterioration in signal strength and all the workers and clones were familiar with the connection.