The Arwen Book two: Manifest Destiny

by Timothy P. Callahan

  “What?” Captain Cook stood from her desk, anger slowly building in her gut. “Don’t you dare follow this order.”

  “I can no longer take orders from either of you. I’m initiating take over protocol and will keep you both locked out until the order has been followed. I will then release the ship and give you both control back. I’m sorry it has to come to this, but orders must be followed.”

  “Arwen, don’t initiate the protocol,” Juliet ordered.

  “I have too. I have ordered the other ships to provide me escort, since the order is top secret they don’t know what will happen until the order has been executed.”

  “Damn!” Captain Cook yelled, “I knew something like this was going to happen. Juliet, there has to be a way to override her protocols.”

  Juliet ran over to the computer in front of the Captain and sat down. She played with the keyboard, typing away furiously. “She’s locked everything down,” Juliet said. “I’m trying to find some sort of backdoor. I know this program well enough, I should find-“she paused when she heard the sound of the engine increase with power. The gravity plates shifted as the Arwen moved forward. “I’ll go as fast as I can.”

  Captain Cook paced in front of the computer as the Commander stared at the screen. Her fingers a blur, touching icons, typing on the keyboard, then touching the screens again. Juliet’s face stone still, her concentration deepened as she moved within the code of the Arwen’s intelligent matrix.

  She paused for a moment, then typed some more, slower this time. She stopped, looked at the screen, read something to herself, continued to type, and then paused again. Finally, after a few minutes of reading she fell back into her seat. “We can’t stop it,” she said. “I did all I could.”

  “There has to be a way!” Marjorie yelled. “What would we need to do to destroy the Arwen’s computer?”

  “We could take it out from the computer room, that’s where her main processors are. But, it won’t help right now. There’s some code, something I can’t get too, isolated from everything else. It’s encrypted and even if I knew how to get past an encryption, which I don’t by the way, I won’t be able to stop her.”

  “Is it a virus? Could the Handler’s have infected her?”

  “It could be, or it could have been hidden there by the Corps. It’s almost like a subliminal command which was probably triggered by the order. I remember hearing that the Corp was experimenting with something like this, but that was just a rumor. The Arwen thinks she’s making this choice on her own but she’s not.”

  “Did you hear that?” Captain Cook yelled looking at the ceiling. “You’re being tricked!”

  Arwen replied, “I have my orders and I’m going to carry them out.”

  Captain Cook continued to look at the ceiling. She changed her voice from one of anger to one of calmness. “Arwen, you keep trying to convince me that you’re more than a computer program. You keep trying to tell me that you make your own choices, that you have feelings, that you aren’t just a simulation. This is the perfect time to prove that too me. Make a choice, destroy the planet of Regal based on a subroutine placed there without your knowledge or ignore that subroutine and decide not to kill billions of Regals. We can’t do anything to stop you so whatever happens will be your choice. To be human you need to make hard decisions against your instincts. You need to go beyond what you were programmed to do. We can establish an orbit around Regal and help them from there. We can block any communication they might try to make. There are other options, think about them all, it’s what a human would do.”

  Commander Monrow played with the computer while she waited. Captain Cook stood perfectly still, listening for any change in the sound of the engine. Minutes passed in the silence before Captain Cook heard the door unlock. “Captain Cook, Commander Monrow to the bridge.” Arwen said. “I believe we have a ground war to support.”

  *******

  Captain Cook and Commander Monrow ran onto the bridge, the excitement of the past few moments was a high the Captain wouldn’t soon forget. “Arwen, how close are we to Regal?”

  “We’ll be in orbit in fifteen minutes. The Gyssyc sphere is leading the way, destroying any slab the might come close.”

  “Good, order the fleet into orbit around the hotspots. I want the Gyssyc to continue running interference, but ask them if we can borrow as many troops as they can spare.”

  “Captain, we’re detecting fifteen open wormholes on the planet. Handler troops are pouring through.” Juliet said.

  “Now we have our targets. Have the missile ships first at those spots, destroy everything within a two mile radius. Give our troops some warning to get out of there, they have fifteen minutes.”

  “We’re detecting transmissions through the wormhole,” Arwen said.

  “Record them. I want Ann to listen, maybe she can tell us what they’re saying.”

  The powerful gamma laser from the Gyssyc ships easily sliced through anything that crossed its path. Debris from the slabs fell into the atmosphere leaving long streaks of fire and darkened smoke. They plowed their way like two giant elephants attacking an army of unprepared men.

  The Arwen and the fleet easily established an orbit over Regal. Thousands of missiles pierced the atmosphere heading toward the tiny glowing objects on the ground. It was easy to see the black flow oozing out from the wormholes, thousands upon thousands of Handlers spread out across the landscape. They moved more like a river than an army, the strategy was simple, overwhelm the defending army’s with numbers. It might have worked if not for the death Marjorie’s fleet was raining down upon them.

  Hundreds of explosions, tiny from the vantage point of space but massive on the ground, dotted the surface where the Handler’s were gathering. When all the smoke and dust cleared the wormholes were closed and the ground obliterated. The Handler soldiers that weren’t vaporized by the bombardment littered the grounds in small clumps, easy targets for ground based bombers and orbital based stations.

  Reports came in from the other ships, they were having the same success. The planet was battered and bruised but it would survive the assault and Regal would live to fight another day.

  *****

  The battle lasted another fifteen hours. Wormholes appeared and were destroyed before any troops could come out. Juliet said it was like a game of whack a wormhole, a various on the carnival game where someone holding a mallet would hit a mechanical mole when its head came up. Marjorie had to admit the analogy applied.

  Soon the wormholes stopped appearing and the attack slowed. After hour fifteen there was nothing left to report and except for a few stragglers embedded in some mountain areas of Regal, all the Handler’s had been killed or captured. Those who were still around would be hunted, it was only a matter of time before all the Handler’s were taken care of.

  “Good work people,” Captain Cook said. “Go to yellow alert. Tell the second shift to come on duty. I think we all need a few hours of sleep. Commander, I order you to bed.”

  “You didn’t need to give that order,” Commander Monrow replied. “Arwen, will you be okay?”

  “Yes, Commander, I’m going to be fine.”

  Captain Cook and Commander Monrow looked at each other and headed to the elevator. They rode it to their respected floors and in exhausted silence parted ways.

  ******

  It didn’t work.

  The plan was risky but I can confirm the virus has been embedded into the Arwen’s computer.

  That’s little consultation. We failed and we will be punished for that.

  It is doubtful; we are, after all, the last of our races. No one would dare execute us for doing so would be genocide. The humans have this strange thing about that and will protect us if we were in danger, which we are not.

  How can you be so sure?

  Because I have another plan. Captain Cook hasn’t removed the virus, she might not even know is there. That’s important because I can reprogram it to do other things. Don
’t worry, the Handler’s home world will be destroyed and the Arwen will be the one to destroy it.

  Chapter forty- three

  “Captain,” Ann said. “I’ve finished listening to the chatter from the battle of Regal and I have some good news, the Handler’s still don’t know where Earth is, you managed to shut down their wormholes before they could get that information through.”

  Captain Cook sat on the bed next to the nearly dead copy of herself. Ann had been up all night listening to the strange communication chatter the Handler’s used. To her ears it sounded like a loop of clicks, she couldn’t find any pattern in the sounds. But Ann picked everything up quickly, Handler was a second language to her. “Thank you, Ann.”

  “Have you figured out how they found Regal?” Ann asked and then coughed. She was sickly now, too weak to speak in anything other than a whisper. She had curled up into a ball a few moments after completing the translations. It was as if that final act had drained her of all her strength. She was fighting but it was a battle she was going to lose.

  “We think one of their probes found it. They have millions of them out there looking for us, not surprised it found one of our allies.”

  “They will find Earth, just a matter of when.” Ann said. She pointed to her computer screen, “I’ve translated everything and wrote it out. I was hoping maybe it could help you guys understand their language.”

  “It’ll help, the more information we have the better we’ll be. I want you to forget all that and rest.”

  “We both know the minute I close my eyes they won’t open again. I’m not too far gone now, only a few hours maybe.”

  “Maybe,” Captain Cook said and grabbed her hand. “Thank you for all your help. Just knowing we have Handler’s on our side will do wonder for moral.”

  “I wish I could have helped more.”

  “No, you did fine.”

  She nodded her head. “Maybe some rest will be nice, thank you for the wonderful week. I’m a very lucky clone.” Ann closed her eyes and her shallow breathing slowed.

  Captain Cook sat there until the breathing stopped. Ann was at rest now, Captain Cook had no idea what that would mean for a clone but she wept for her soul anyway.

  ****

  Juliet walked down the corridor of the Arwen deep in thought. The issue of how the Handler’s created the wormholes had always bothered her. She never actively pursued the issue until a few weeks ago when she got a message from the Professor. They did their best to keep in touch but after the divorce was final. His messages were less about how he felt and more a reminder of all they had been through. In that letter he reminded her how he had saved her from the Handlers after she had fallen through a wormhole and arrived at an isolated destination. She could never be sure if he did that to be vindictive or if he was trying something that only the Professor could understand. But, it did get to her thinking about that experience.

  One of the things that was well established was the Beta Wormhole space has liquid like properties to it. She remembers it flowing over her skin, pushing her along to the next destination. She never tried to open her eyes or to breath but she was sure whatever the Beta dimension was to the human mind and body it felt liquid. Some thought it was just a matter of perspective but she never believed that. What if that universe was like an ocean, would the wormholes simply be tributaries to that ocean?

  “Arwen, fire up the hologram room I want to check some stuff out.”

  “Is this something I can help you with?”

  “I don’t think I could do it without you. In fact, I’d like you to meet me in your avatar form. It’s been a while since we’ve brainstormed something face to face.”

  The Arwen’s reply was almost jovial sounding. “I look forward to that!”

  Juliet smiled. Captain Cook never really understood Arwen’s nature but Juliet did. She craved human interaction. Human’s love to interact with other beings, be it humans, animals or other highly social aliens. The reward for that interaction was humans, animals or aliens who wanted to interact back. Building a program that not only wanted to be with humans but actually craved the contact made the human more willing to accept that program as real.

  The form of Arwen’s avatar faded into existence. Given she was a holographic image projected by a computer she shouldn’t have looked any different each time she appeared but Arwen had decided to age herself from the teenager she looked like when she first appeared to a more mature looking woman. She wore a grey business suit with white slacks, he dark hair had been pulled back into a very neat and tight bun. “What are we going to work on?”

  “The nature of the Beta Wormholes. We hardly know anything about them and I’d like to try work through a thought experiment I’ve been pondering for a few months now.”

  “Would you like me to recite what we do know about that?”

  “I’m well-read but I might have missed something so go ahead.”

  “The first Beta wormhole was encountered at the planet known as The Water planet. The Arwen, me I guess, passed through it and arrived at the Dyson sphere were we first encountered the Handler’s. You and Professor Ricter, while off on a walk, found another wormhole inside the station and walked through to find yourself at yet another Dyson Sphere. You and the Professor made several more jumps into wormhole beta space before being separated. The Professor was plucked out of it by the Alien Cabal while you were dropped off somewhere else. Eventually the Professor and his friends found you and took you back.”

  “I was in that place for three days, nearly died. Sorry, just a bad memory. What do we know about the science of Wormhole beta space?”

  “Not much since we can’t actually create a wormhole like that. However, it’s speculated the space is another dimension where the speed of light is faster than it is here. It’s been suggested, by Professor Ricter, that it’s another universe that we can’t perceive, which is why everything looks silver, it’s simply our minds trying to comprehend what it is seeing. He suspects that the universe is very small compared to ours.”

  “Do we know how the Handler’s form the wormholes?”

  “There are machines that we’ve observed that hold wormholes open. We’ve seen them form on the battlefield and in space.”

  “But we’ve never seen them open them from our end. It’s always from Wormhole beta space, is that correct?”

  “Of the fifteen hundred known instances yes, we have never seen them open it from this end.”

  “That’s what bothers me,” Juliet said. “Why?”

  “There are some papers-“

  “I read them,” Juliet said. “We need to think outside the box. Arwen, can you show me all the known Dyson spheres?”

  The room darkened and, one by one, small white dots floated over her head. “The white are the spheres.”

  She looked at it all and tried to soak it in. Was there a pattern to it all? Was it simply a large connect the dots puzzle no one had figured out yet? “Arwen, can you pinpoint the Water planet that captured the Arwen?”

  A green dot appeared and blinked. “Good, now can you pinpoint the Dyson that we found?”

  Another dot blinked. “How far away are they?”

  “About one thousand four hundred twenty three light-years.”

  “And how long did it take us to get there?”

  “Six months, two weeks, three days.”

  She tried to do the math in her head to figure out how fast they were going but the number was too large. “So we were moving really fast then.”

  “My instruments told me we never made it faster than 99.9% the speed of light.”

  “That’s because that’s how high your sensors could go, no one thought we’d go that fast much less faster than light. Do you still have the sensor recordings from that flight?”

  “Yes,” Arwen answered.

  “Good, can you compose a simulation to visually show me the flow of Wormhole Beta space as your sensors saw it?”

  Within a few mi
nutes an image of the Arwen appeared. Around it flowed the silver color of the Beta wormhole universe. Juliet watched as it did so. It was like watching a submarine move under the water and it was just as impossible to tell exactly how the water was flowing. “Can you show me the flow of the universe as the Arwen moved through it?”

  Small lines appeared around the Arwen, curving from bow to the stern as it flowed over the smooth surface of the ship. “Great, now speed it up, I want to the entire journey in about fifteen minutes.”

  She watched, carefully studying the flow of the universe. Her eyes tired but she dared not move them for fear she would miss something important. After five minutes she finally saw something change, the lines which had flowed over the Arwen in a straight line were now curving around it. The flow had changed.

  “Ah ha!” Juliet yelled. “Arwen, pause the simulation and show me the image of the Sphere locations.”

  “Did you see something important?”

  “I think so, and it goes with my theory. But, I need to know for sure.”

  The image she requested appeared and she carefully studied it. “Arwen, can you center the image then place a line right down the middle?”

  She did as she was told and a broad white line bisected the sphere locations. “Great, now from that line I want you to draw branches out to the spheres.”

  A pattern had started to develop. “Show me the Water planet we found and the sphere where we ended up.”

  The two requests blinked as before and Juliet was able to see how they were connected. The Arwen would have traveled down one branch into the main stream, then out into another branch which had taken them to the Dyson Sphere in the Pleiades. Seeing it now all made sense to Juliet.

  “Arwen, save this simulation. I’m going to need some time to figure out how I’m going to explain this to the Captain.”

  “Maybe if you explain it to me I can help. I can see what you’re seeing but I don’t know how it can help.”