Onyx Javelin

by Steve Wheeler

  The tiger saw the creature walk, undetected by the herd, until it was beside one of the sleeping bulls. 'It then seemed to gently bite the bull, step back and do the same to a few of the other bovines before moving from sight, heading out into the plain. The tiger waited for it to return, but seeing nothing further crept back into the heavy undergrowth and made his way through the darkness to where the tiger matriarch had her lair, under another of the huge trees, kilometres away.

  Ayana was in a partially powered-down state and suddenly awoke as one of her favourites clawed at the entrance to her lair in the huge barrel-shaped tree. She checked the local time, seeing 3.00 a.m. of the twenty-hour day. She unplugged the dirct data feeds and power cables which had been recharging her systems and padded out from the centre of the hollowed out tree into one of the antechambers.

  As she came out of the tree and rubbed up against the Bengal tiger, she sensed his extreme unease. She brushed past his head with her systems activating the micro-sensors attached to his head hairs, so she could see what he had experienced.

  She sat still for a few long moments watching, absorbing the images, sounds and lack of smells. Her onboard systems uplinked to the local Haulers hub as she compared what she was seeing with the known threats from humanity and, in particular, the Games Board, from the predators that were known in other star systems and from the octopoids.

  Not finding any matches, she sent out a planetwide alert to all the other ACEs, including those that were in the sea amongst the dolphins, whales and seals. She then sent a formal alert to the Haulers hub and instructed it to pass on the message immediately.

  She turned back to the huge male tiger, preparing within herself a cocktail of chemicals, and then blew it into his face. It calmed him, wiped his fear and also identified the alien creature as a threat to be investigated further.

  As he disappeared back into the night, she switched on a series of batlike drones which, minutes later, swept out of the tree, flying away in different directions, and with their biological radar started looking for any other aliens in her area. Knowing that the other ACEs would be doing the same searches, she settled down to wait.

  Basalt

  Urchin Star System

  Two star systems away from Storfisk, the Basalt crew were settling back into the routine of doing what they did best: solving problems.

  Major Michael Longbow sat in his command pod on Basalt's bridge, ran a hand over his hairless head, sighed once and said, 'OK. So here we go again. Doing dumb shit because someone's decided that we are the best ones for the job. Can someone please remind me why we are here?'

  Stephine smiled across at her lifelong companion Veg who looked back at her with a slight smile and raised eyebrows as she replied: 'Because, darling major, I convinced the Administration that it would be a good idea to study the Urchins' life cycle. I mean, we know that they will do anything for antimatter, that they hunt in the upper atmospheres of some of the gas giants, that the adults can jump from star system to star system and that as a species they are on the verge of sentience as we know it, but we know very little of their breeding or their genome. We need to know a lot more about them, their initial stages, their chemistry and how we may be able to better avoid them.'

  Below them, slowly orbiting a massive gas giant, which had huge, fierce-looking storms moving around its equator, the primarily liquid-covered blue planet gathered energy from its local star and also electromagnetic energy from the energetic gas giant.

  The major sighed again, wishing he was relaxing on a beach and wondering how long he could keep up the frenetic pace of life that he and his crew seemed to be cursed with. Then he allowed himself a tight, private little smile, knowing he was at his happiest when burning the candle at both ends. He smiled again, realising what a gloriously archaic item a candle actually was. He looked at the disposition of the drones that they had placed in orbit days before. He nodded, tapped several of the screens and gave an order.

  'Very well. Let the show begin. Games Board monitors, you have clearance to descend into the atmosphere. Fritz, drop the drones when ready. Optimum warm ocean areas are identified. Let's go have a look.'

  The heavily armoured black spheres of the specially constructed monitors started their slow descent from their lander, which was holding station on antigravity over the mid-latitude shallow sea.

  The drones, which resembled the huge dragonflies of Old Earth, also dropped away, straight down from Basalt as it continued on its fast orbit. The semi-intelligent robots descended at a cruise speed of 200 kilometres per hour into the nitrogen and methane-rich, yellowish heavily clouded atmosphere.

  The crew watched the drones' telemetry, noticing the wings slowly extended when the atmospheric density supported lift and slowed down to glide in great circles above the icy cold ocean, riding the high-speed winds which encircled the moon.

  'Lily, you have a "go" to deploy the relay Fast Movers,' the major ordered.

  Lily smiled in her beautiful way at the major onscreen, which elicited a wry smile from him as she said, 'First Fast Mover, with twin combat drones, astronomical and comms package is deployed.'

  She watched as the unit dropped away from Basalt and slowed gently with its rockets firing to take up a slower orbit. An hour later, after the final Fast Mover had been deployed, they had total comms coverage of the moon.

  Over the next few hours, the dragonfly drones gathered greater amounts of information about the local environment as they descended below the thick clouds showing the dark sometimes shallow seas at the moon's equator.

  Once she decided that she had enough interesting information to pass on to the rest of the crew, who were going about their usual duties, Stephine said in a cheerful schoolmarmish voice, 'Right, this is for you lot who are interested and paying attention.'

  Most of the crew just smiled, except Glint and Nail who were plugged directly into the data feeds, absorbing everything and ignoring the slower-mind true humans.

  Stephine continued: 'The equatorial area that we are most interested in is only moderately cold. Average surface temperature is a balmy minus three. We have a band of moderately shallow fluid. It's only 350 metres to the sea floor, black smoker volcanic vents where the temperature at the surface gets up over fifteen degrees Celsius, so in those areas we have liquid water. We have a whole group of surface breaking reef-type formations which appear to be some type of coral. From those we can also see towering masses of what appears to be tree-type structures. They are either very light and strong, or are truly massive at their origin, as the single supported tips reach on average four kilometres up.'

  On hearing that, Marko grunted, sliding out from under the Skua combat craf t he had been working on and opening his wristscreen. He allowed himself to speed up, linked the external feeds into his cybernetics and opened his consciousness to the datastreams, seeing the spirit images of Glint and Nail as they too gathered information. Their conscious minds slid over next to his as they could see, hear, smell and taste everything the dragonfly drones were experiencing.

  The atmosphere was hazy and it smelt horrible and it was also cold. Marko edited those data feeds away as he observed the massive living structure of the treelike growths.

  He shared a comment with the two ACEs. 'Not so much trees, but more like an open fungal structure, don't you think?' The ACEs agreed and both said that they wished they were controlling the drones themselves so they could get much closer.

  Marko smiled to himself and switched feeds to one of the high flying drones as it circled the knobbly surfaced, mottled dull-red prominence. Looking at the radar signature and at the scanning laser signals between two of the drones, he saw that the internal mass of the plant was honeycombed carbon tube. Intrigued, he looked closer at the exterior, zooming in the image until he could see the metre-long slow-moving worms with their carbon fibre, tubular skeletal structures. They had hundreds of hair-fine netlike structures coming from their spines which waved slowly backwards and forwards i
n the thick, cold atmosphere.

  He smiled, seeing a similarity of structure to corals found on many of the worlds he had visited.

  He drew the attention of the ACEs to the worms. They shrugged as Nail sent across another piece of information showing tiny, flylike insects in their tens of millions which crawled or flew amongst the larger open spaces of the massive structure. He looked at the insects as part of the local biosphere showed itself as steadily larger insects revealed themselves to be engaged in the timeless battle for survival of eat or be eaten.

  He also saw what he could only presume to be the local equivalent of flowering plants dotted throughout the worms and, in many cases, living on them, which had little, iridescent dark blue blooms opened towards the local star, shining dully through the cloud cover.

  He watched as one of the three monitors hovered within touching distance of the coral mass with its cameras and sensors closely examining the creatures and plants. Wanting to examine the surface plant diversity more closely, he tried to jack into one of the Games Board monitors' feeds, but their system rejected his electronic requests.

  At Glint's insistence, they switched their attention to the drone closest to the sea's surface.

  'It was flying five metres above the highest of the waves that were washing through the huge buttresses of the massive coral growth.

  Nail slowed a part of himself down to normal human standards and opened a link to Fritz. 'Hey, Fritz. We are in conscious comms with the number 12 drone. Can I have control?'

  To Marko and Glint he seemed to take a long time to respond, finally saying with glacial slowness, 'Sure, Nail, switching control to you. Please don't smash it up, OK?'

  The other two saw a fast mental picture that Nail generated of the drone doing loops and rolls through the coral structure, and laughed.

  'Promise. Thanks, Fritz.'

  Nail took control of the drone, slowing it and rotating its cameras and sensors down to the surface of the sea. He slowed it further, increasing its wingbeat and bringing its little antigravity unit online so it could comfortably hover above the rolling waves. He activated the drone's small torpedo-like probe and lowered it on its tether into the brutally cold water. Below the surface they could see the gradually shelving base of the coral-like structure teeming with life. Fishlike creatures of bloated elongated shapes with numerous fins moved in small schools down amongst dozens of different varieties of sea anemones whose long tendrils slowly moved, sieving the liquid for anything edible. Moving through their bases were hundreds of different shrimplike crustacea: from those that were as long as Marko's hand, right up to the ones

  at a greater depth that appeared to be metres long.

  Stephine interrupted their watching. 'OK, crew. We know a bit more about this planet. We have determined that the local star has been very slowly decreasing in energy output, so this is why we are seeing higher life forms which would not naturally evolve in such a cold sea. They have had enough time to adapt to their environments and prosper. Also this particular area with its shallow sea black smokers, and other sub-sea volcanic activity, is warmer by up to fifteen degrees than other parts of the equator.'

  A high-speed message flashed to them from Fritz. 'You have incoming. Get to altitude as quickly as you can. A group of flying creatures is headed your way and we can only presume that they may be Urchin larvae.'

  Nail did not wait, but simply lif ted the nose of the dragonfly drone and started to fly skywards, towing the probe up through the sea as it was simultaneously winched in. Just as it was about to break the surface they all saw the image of a creature launching itself off the reef to hurtle upwards, moving far faster than anything they had seen.

  'What the hell is that?' Glint exclaimed.

  Marko's recognition files instantly mapped the creature as he replied. 'Looks like a massive version of a mantis shrimplike creature. Should not be surprised to find them here. Find similar animal layouts to fit that biological niche on most other water planets. Very quick. Nicely streamlined. Don't think we have a problem unless it can fly.'

  As the probe was lifted some metres above the sea and the dragonfly drone increased speed, the mantis darted out of the sea and rocketed upwards. Wings flashed open as twin blasts of fluid were rapidly ejected from the creature's abdomen, powering it easily through the air to grasp the probe with claws that opened a fraction of a second before impact. The drone dipped, struggling with the additional weight, and was only able to maintain its altitude by flying in a wide circle. Nail halted the winch, then reversed it, lowering it away from the main body of the drone.

  'Should I jettison the probe?' he called out.

  Glint answered: 'No. Not yet, just hold. See, the shrimp is trying to see if it is edible. It's feeling it all over and it probably tastes bad anyway. Be surprised if it wasted much more energy. See!Told ya!'

  The two-metre shrimp dropped away from the probe, extending its wings to fly towards the sea and seconds later retracting its wings as it plunged into the water.

  The drone winched the probe back against itself and continued to climb as Marko switched his conscious to the other drones' cameras to watch the Urchins.

  A flight of seven of them were bounding across the surface of the sea, slapping dozens of long winglike tendrils against the surface. From altitude, the watchers on Basalt could see they were driving a large school of fish creatures towards the base of the coral towers.

  Marko could see from his scales that the creatures were on average twenty-five metres across and up to fifty metres long. They had the same diaphanous structure as their much larger adult Urchin relatives, including the long spiked tail trailing behind them.

  He slowed himself down to standard human speed. 'Stephine. How far do you think these Urchins are into their growth cycle?'

  Nestled inside her comms and control unit the tall, statuesque woman replied, 'Hmm, I would say that they are ready to climb up into vacuum soon. They are about the size of the one we captured when Basalt was inside the ice-ball. Whatever happened to that particular animal? Became quite tame around us.'

  They all heard a growling cough coming from the major as he interjected. 'Bloody good that the thing is nowhere around us if it's all the same to you, Stephine. That thing gave me the shits.'

  Marko silently agreed, giving his artificial shoulder and left arm a stretch, remembering what had taken the piece of his flesh and blood arm some years ago. They looked back at the datastreams as the school of fish were suddenly pushed against a small amphitheatre in the coral whose rear walls lifted up out of the sea.

  Harry grunted. 'Well, they are smart enough to know their killing zones in the area. Perfectly executed drive so far.'

  The Urchins fanned out, slowing and slapping the surface harder, and then slashing their long spiked, barbed tails deep into the sea as well. The fish became even more tightly balled together until one of the larger Urchins suddenly flew upwards, contracted down into itself, then dived straight into the ball of fish. The remaining Urchins slowed even further, almost touching each other, furiously agitating the water, pushing the fish closer to the rapidly shelving shore and, as Basalt's crew watched, they took turns to fly up out of the formation and dive through the slowly diminishing ball of fish. As soon as an Urchin touched the outside of the ball, the Urchin's shape changed, reshaping itself to resemble a funnel gathering its fill of fish. Minutes after it had gathered its fill the Urchin would then erupt out of the sea and spew the dying fish high up on the flanks of the coral tower before returning to the other Urchins.

  Tiny pieces of destroyed fish discoloured the sea in the area as the watchers saw other predators and scavengers slowly move closer, creeping along the sea floor.

  'The behaviour of the other predators is interesting,' Veg quietly commented. 'Wonder why they are not having a feast at the same time? Would really like to see what is happening inside those tubes the Urchins turn themselves into. Not a lot escapes and they all come out mostly intact, but quickl
y dying.'

  As if on cue, dozens of the mantis shrimplike creatures lifted off the sea floor a hundred metres behind the Urchins, propelled themselves up through the surface, climbed fif ty metres above the Urchins and dived down towards the ball of fish.

  Marko called out. 'Spoke too soon, Veg! This will be interesting.'

  The Urchins twitched, as if linked, when the first of the giant shrimps curved above them. Everyone held their breath in anticipation as the Urchins suddenly reared up, their long spearlike tentacles hurtling up to impale, then slash, the shrimps into pieces that fell amongst the remaining fish. Those Urchins that were close to the fallen pieces of the shrimp seized them and threw the dripping remains high up onto the coral to lie amongst the growing pile of dead sea creatures.

  Stephine, thinking aloud, said, 'I am wondering if this is just the beginning of something larger. 'It would be logical if the Urchins were going to attempt to get into space that they would build up as great a body reserve as possible.'

  Veg, sitting beside her in his own comms pod, smiled across at his companion of 800 years, feeling a great love and affinity. He nodded. 'Been wondering when you would work that out! Those buggers would not survive on a few little fish. I don't! Hey, anyone want a sandwich? I am heading down to the galley. Have a feeling this feeding is going to go on for a while.'

  As he walked past, Stephine reached out and pinched him on the closest buttock.

  He laughed, slapping her hand away. 'Is that the best retort you have today?'

  Stephine smiled and raised her eyebrows, pursing a kiss at him.