'Hello.'
'Just wanted to ask, Stephine, if the Games Board Soul Saver lance unit is intact?'
'Yes, as far as we can tell. Well, shall I say that nineteen entities appear intact. I don't believe that any were interrupted when they did their terminal uploads. But we are surprised, Marko, that they lost control of their antimatter units so quickly.'
Marko shrugged, dozens of possible scenarios flashing through his head. 'I have not had ·a look at the images of my Skua or Lily's Hanger. But I know that they had at least three adult Urchins tearing their way through the hull. Is it possible that the adults may have had young small ones attached to them? More creatures would equate to greater damage in those few moments. And the thought occurs that we are now in charge of our own recording and editing. I like that!'
Stephine laughed. 'See you in a few hours. We have found a sizeable piece of palladium and have the major's blessing to get it.'
The major had a smile on his face again. 'How you doing, Marko?'
Marko quickly looked over his screens, before he reported: 'Tanks full, boss. I am good to go. I see everyone else is onboard as well. Could keep going for another hour and fill all the fighters' and shuttles' tanks as well. But otherwise we are OK.'
The major tapped his chin, thinking. 'Hmm, tempting. You have a-half-hour, so do the best you can and then we pull out. Patrick, hold off bringing the astronomical drones back in. Going to top up a little bit more.'
Twenty-five minutes later Marko instructed the water harvesting units to detach themselves and over the next five minutes they folded back into themselves and locked against the exoskeleton. He opened a comms link to the major.
'Boss. Sorted. We are a shade under ninety-nine per cent capacity. All stowed.'
'Good. Thank you, Marko. Patrick, hold the astronomicals in pattern and let's ease away from the asteroid. Where is the biggest local Lagrange point?'
Basalt's AI replied a moment later. 'The most efficient one is 4284 kilometres from here. I have plotted in a course. Or we could return to the predator-inhabited one?'
The major shook his head. 'No, I think that we have had enough of that one. Whenever you are ready and keep our speed up at this stage. Ah, yes ... and from our most up-to date information, where is the closest Games Board presence?' 'There is an all-system carrier still in the Storfisk system,' Patrick replied. 'Looking at the sanctioned battle between the
two Gjomvik forces of Leopard Strike and Aquila, I would say that we have ten days to get there before they leave. You keen to unload the Games Board data core?'
'Yes, Patrick, of course I am. Quicker we can off-load that and send them the information on how their frigate was destroyed, the happier I will be. Have no great desire to ingratiate ourselves to them, but nor do I want to piss them off again.'
'Understood, major. We will be at the jump point in approximately two hours. I presume that we jump back to the planet above the Urchin queen, see how the mind recovery is going, then back to Storfisk?'
'Yes, correct. All crew: let's have an early dinner, then final checks around the ship as we are going to go for a sedate orbit above the Urchin queen to see how our tech is behaving.'
As the rest of the crew had a quick meal and carried out as many final repairs as they could to the Hangers and Skuas, Patrick rotated the astronomical drones back to Basalt for refuelling. Close to the time for the jump, he pulled the drones back against the hull while everyone waited, either at their stations or onboard the available fighters sitting in their launch cradles.
Just before the package of electronics called the popper - tethered to the front of Basalt - was launched, an instant before the jump to ensure that they were not jumping into an obstacle, the major directed: 'All crew: be prepared for a hostile welcome. Jasmine, as soon as you can, trigger the comms unit to talk with the nanote unit on the queen.'
Seconds later, the power of the jump energy was discharged, driving the ship into a wormhole that connected to the leading Lagrange point of the blue Urchins' planet. As they appeared in real space, Jasmine focused her visual systems, looking for the enormous tower in which the queen lived.
'Major,' she said, 'I see that we are about ten minutes from a visual. I am querying the Fast Mover we left here, but I am not getting a return signal. Possibly it is out of sight. Launching astronomicals.'
'Hold them close, Jasmine. We may have to take them back in a hurry.'
'Understood. Seeing numerous Urchins in close orbit. Patrick?'
On everyone's screens, the position of the creatures was obvious. Veg frowned and was about to speak when Patrick said, 'I see them, increasing speed. Everyone, stand by for possible violent evasive manoeuvrings.'
Veg, sitting inside his command pod beside Stephine's, on the flight deck of Blackjack,tapped his screens to indicate something unusual to her. She grimaced and spoke quickly. 'Patrick! Look at the area we are indicating on the long-range screens. The Urchins!They are fleeing something!Look at the pattern!'
All the crew witnessed the Urchins in that particular quadrant moving at speed and the largest ones were starting to disappear altogether. Stephine spoke again. 'The big ones are jumping. Look at the trajectories. They are jumping in every direction. There is something big and very nasty there. Urchin killers!'
'Get us out of here, Patrick,' the major said urgently. 'All fighters, you are not to deploy. Get to your internal fighting stations now and man the heavy weapons. Jasmine? Anything?'
'Yes! Fast Mover is reporting that the minds of Fritz and Nail are sort of intact and that they have effectively gained control of the Urchin queen! 'It is remarkable!'
Stephine yelled into her microphone. 'Michael! It is imperative that the Urchin killer is either killed or severely injured. They hunt Urchins and will wait for years to attack a queen when she finally comes out of the atmosphere to mate.'
'Stephine, we can hear you just fine. How do you know that it's an Urchin killer and why would the queen come out of the atmosphere now?'
They could almost hear Stephine's teeth grinding as she tersely replied: 'Because, Michael, nothing makes Urchins react that way, and why do you think the queen was feeding so ravenously when we left here. It is rather obvious, I would have thought!'
'Right. How big will that bloody killer be then? And how the hell will she get up through the atmosphere, anyway?'
'The central mass will be anything up to 500 metres across, fully deployed like a bloom. Its tendrils will be in excess of ten to fifteen kilometres long, though at the base about fifty metres across. How will the queen get into orbit? I think if we look closely enough we will see that the jet streams around the planet, for the current stage of this small world's orbit of the gas giant, will be very powerful because the gas giant's closest approach to its star is coming soon. Those jet streams will dip down quite low into the planet's atmosphere. Also remember that this world has a lightweight central core, so the gravity is lowish.'
There was a short silence from the crew before Lily spoke. 'So it launches itself up into the high wind from the top of its tower and flies to the edge of space? How does it do that?'
'I am sorry, Lily,' Stephine sighed, 'of that I am not sure. I had hoped that we would find out a lot more about the Urchins, but I did not anticipate such large numbers of them here.'
Before she could continue, Patrick interrupted. 'Major, I have run the figures. Indeed, Stephine is right. The cumulative effect of the orbits will peak in just under four hours' time. The datastream from the Fast Mover is now complete. I have instructed it to rendezvous with us as soon as possible so it can refuel.'
Everyone spent the next little while working their way through the information. Stephine, Veg, Blackjack, the ACEs, and Marko in his sped-up state, assimilated it much faster than the others, and started a conversation between themselves while they waited for the rest of the crew.
'OK,' Marko began, 'the nanotes did their job. Gathered the recognisable parts of the two minds toget
her, then created a working matrix of themselves to house it in and once Fritz and Nail gained consciousness they brought the outside reserve nanotes inside to map and take control of the queen's proto mind. Damn! I can see why you are so keen to preserve this creature, Stephine.'
'Yes. Utterly unique. They can give us such extraordinary insights if we can save them. Also clever of Fritz and Nail to use the Urchins' own camouflage system to communicate with the Fast Mover by changing patterns on its surface.'
Blackjack chipped in. 'But how do we map the killer? 'Itis logical to conclude that it has even more advanced camouflage measures as it hunts Urchins and they are noted for that ability. And of course it would stand to reason that there will be more than one.'
'Marko,' Veg asked. 'How much antimatter can you spare?'
'Hmm, hold on ... yes, a bit over two kilos. Why? Ifthose things hunt Urchins, they would have a love of antimatter too, wouldn't they?'
Veg gave a short nod. 'Yes. But if it was a dust and was sprayed over the surface of the creature, we could possibly see it for a few seconds. But we would have to follow it up with compressors very quickly to damage it.'
Marko slowly nodded, allowing himself to come down to standard speed now that the other crew members were starting to talk amongst themselves.
'But what I want to know first,' Julie asked, 'is how many other queens are there on the surface? And if these killers are here, how many of them will we have to fight to protect that one? Would it not be better to shadow it, like a guard, as it came out of the atmosphere?'
'Yeah, you are right,' Harry answered. 'That is the smartest way to do it. We do not have that many compressors onboard anyway. And only a few dozen cobalts. And the fighters with their normal munitions loadouts would piss something that big off only a little bit.'
'Fuck it, why try to kill it? That great long stream of tentacles must mean one thing: they probably act like squid, as in shoot that mass forwards, grab the prey, then pull themselves up on it to chew away. Chop off the tentacles and they are stuffed. Nah. You lot can talk. I will go get to work.'
With that he rose from his pod and walked off, heading down the central staircase. Harry grinned.
'Bet ya the little bugger will make a very large garotte or a bolas, like Marko is so fond of. And probably string a couple of cobalts on it to give it a little extra bite. Major, I think that that is the best weapon to use. Fritz is right, they are hellish big to kill, but if we maim it at least the queen will have a fighting chance. But may I also suggest that we try a compressor against the core of it first? We have ten in our magazines.'
'OK, yes. I agree, Harry. Let's try a compressor first if we have to. Now, let me see if this is where you are headed with this wire weapon, Harry? Two drones with a 500-metre-long piece of mooring wire between them and a cobalt at each end. They race out and release the wire against the tentacles of one of these monsters and the ends wrap around. So not only will they cut -or should I say, we hope that they will cut -but it does not really matter if they do, as the cobalts when they come in contact, having whipped around, go bang anyway cutting everything away. Yeah. Good one!Do it. And if we do use it, let's make sure that it is recorded, as I love bonuses for novel weapon use.'
'But what if the mass of the tentacles is not that great?' Marko asked. 'Would it be like Urchin material? Enormously tough, but very lightweight. Will it have enough mass to make the wire bend around it? Think that it might be an idea to go have a look at one of these things first. Hellish dumb if we launch an attack at a critical time, when the queen is at her most vulnerable, and it does not work.'
Veg chimed in. 'Fritz. Is this what you are thinking of?'
Fritz was already in the engineering workshops, furiously programming the builder drones. 'Not quite to your plan. Three pieces of graphene mooring line. All tied to a cobalt at the centre. And the smallest rocket motors we have. So we use a missile at each end. We take them out with the lander, come in at high speed and drop them. They spin up when we fire the missiles, so they will spin like crazy and when they hit the killer, pull themselves down and then go boom bang. Except it will be in total vacuum so no sound effects.'
The major gave a short laugh. 'Good one, Fritz. Patrick, how long have we got before the queen will make her move?'
Stephine touched Veg so they could communicate mind to mind. 'He might not be totally all there, but his engineering mind is working brilliantly.'
'Agreed.'
Then Veg spoke aloud. 'Yeah. That's better. Higher speed. More impact and it would not matter what part of these beasts it hits, it will still do damage.'
Julie, with Minh Pham, was quickly walking down to the engineering workshop deck.
'No-one has answered my question yet,' she said. 'How many queens are there that look like they are about to get into space?'
Patrick spoke. 'I have your answer, Julie. The Fast Mover estimated over 723.'
Minh Pham cleared his throat to ask, 'So has anyone got an idea of how we are to identif y the one controlled by the Fritz and Nail mind?'
Stephine answered. 'We are working on that, Minh. According to the Fast Mover, from its conversations with the queen, they are quite slow. Like a standard human, but slowed by a factor of ten. And of course we need Patrick to interpret the light patterns for us.'
'OK, everyone,' the major said. 'Just so we are all on the same page here. We are going to have to keep moving. There are far too many Urchins around here anyway, to say nothing of the killers. Just hope like hell the predators don't decide to join in as well. Right. Looking at what Harry has sent me, we have enough materials to build ten of the bolas. Fritz, I just did some quick research. Two short lengths and one long. We release them with the two short ones to the front, and then the long one does the wrapping.'
A terse-sounding Fritz replied. 'I know! Just send as many as you can of the crew down here to help.'
The major smiled and shook his head. 'Yeah, same old Fritz. I was just trying to help. OK, ACEs go help Fritz. Harry and Veg are also on the way. Julie, Marko, Minh. Try and get that damaged Skua serviceable, please. We only have the three Hangers and two Skua, plus Harry's two-seater Skua ready to fight. Jasmine, Lily and Stephine. Start figuring a way to see those killers. We could try Veg's antimatter dust trick, but I fear that will just get a shitload of Urchins all fired up and looking for the source. Find us a better way, please. Patrick, try to hold us so that the astronomicals can see and communicate with the queen. Go to it, people.'
The major looked over his screens. 'Well, Patrick, what are your thoughts?'
'I am talking with the queen. It is most interesting. Incidentally, as one entity, the combination of minds now call themselves Zawgyi. And they are basically one entity. I wonder if this has occurred, as they are effectively ghosts inhabiting an alien, so that it is easier to get along, or maybe it is a side effect of the nanote matrix that they are within. We will have to learn more about this. Oh, and this Zawgyi is female which is understandable, I suppose. And she is overcome with the urge to get her offspring into space, mate with the gathering males and then leave this system to look for another warm water planet with a better food source.'
The major sat very still for a few moments, wondering about the ramifications of letting such a hybrid loose on the universe.
'Oh, shit. You know, Patrick, the most logical thing would be to drop a compressor down on it and run away. But ... Stephine would not forgive us for that. OK, pass all that information on to her, Veg and Marko. We need to talk about this. And we have to make this decision.'
While he waited, Michael climbed out of his pod and did a few stretches to loosen up tight muscles, wondering why the really weird stuff seemed to happen around him and Basalt. When his comms screen chimed, he climbed back into the pod, allowing the seat to grasp and gently restrain him just in case Patrick decided that rough manoeuvres were required. The faces of his friends looked at him as he opened the discussion.
'It is logical to
kill it. What happens if this queen decides to go and settle on a human-occupied planet? The entity now known as Zawgyi would have Nail's and Fritz's memories, would it not?'
Stephine was shaking her head. 'Really need to pull in Lily and Jasmine as they have more knowledge on this, but it's my understanding that the immersion transference would only have been of the subject's conscious mind ... more about emotions, self awareness, interests, and the questions that were going on in the individual's head.'
Marko looked very serious. 'Quick way to find out. Patrick, ask Zawgyi where it intends to go on leaving this planet. And how long it will take to mate?'
'The questions have been sent, Marko.'
'So while we wait for the answers,' Veg said, 'I also have serious qualms about letting this chimera loose on the universe. If we allow it to live, will its future offspring also be further down the road towards complete sentience, and is this method of uplift to sentience a natural evolution or an interference?'
Stephine nodded. 'It is a good question. Yes, it is an interference, but evolution does not care how the action occurred, only that it did. We do not know how stable the sentience is. I have looked through the octopoid Library records again and cross-referenced them with Lily and Jasmine's Hauler knowledge. The nanote design that they gave us for the containment matrix is a quite stable one. The creature is now a chimera of a non-standard human, an ACE and a proto-sentient Urchin queen. If it is stable, I feel that it must be given a chance to survive, even for knowledge's sake. We know a lot about the Urchins, but there are still many questions. I would suggest that the test of that mental stability is coming very soon. If it can get itself out of the atmosphere, I would say that it should be given a chance.'
Patrick spoke up. 'Well, I am not sure if we are going to like the answers. The mating will be achieved quickly, in that the courtships have been going on for weeks with displays of physical prowess and patterns on the males' surfaces that give the female pleasure. These all go on at night when the queens observe the males dancing above the atmosphere at a distance of 220 kilometres. Zawgyi has already selected three males. She told me that any one of them will be absorbed and, if available, all three.'
Onyx Javelin Page 19