by M. R. Forbes
37
"Standard serpentine formation," Steven said as they reached the hatch out of the hangar. "Germaine, take the rear."
"Yes, sir," Germaine said, turning back to cover their tails.
The hatch slid open at their approach, revealing an intersection.
"If I didn't know I was in a cube built by an advanced artificial intelligence, I would say I was on an Alliance starship," John said, taking in the simple metal walls and floor, and the ductwork hanging above them.
"This is more narrow than an Alliance starship," Steven replied. "It reminds me of the Beatty. Remember her?"
"The Beatty?" Cormac asked.
"Yeah," John said. "She was a third generation battleship. Survived over two-hundred missions before she was decommissioned and turned into a museum."
"What does it mean?"
"It means this place is old and was based on old human technology," Steven said. "The question is, why?"
"More importantly," Germaine said, "which way do we go?"
"I don't think it matters that much," Steven said. He turned to the right and started walking, the others keeping formation behind him.
"What do you think this place is?" Cormac asked, keeping his voice low. "A museum?" He laughed at himself.
"I doubt it. I'm sure it has something to do with that massive ring out there. The whole thing was tethered to the star, probably to draw power from it."
"Whatever it is, it seems to be deserted," John said.
"We've barely scratched the surface of it," Steven said. "There could be someone here."
"It might take days to find them."
"Then it's a good thing we still have a decent supply of nutri-bars."
"Yum," Germaine said sarcastically.
They walked to the end of the first corridor, turning left at the next intersection. The corridor continued for some distance, both sides of it identical in appearance to the first hallway.
"It's going to be real easy to get lost in here without a p-rat or mapping drones," Germaine said.
"Yeah, we should mark our path," Steven said.
"I got it," Cormac said. He pulled a knife from his boot and scraped it along the wall, leaving an 'x' etched into it.
They walked for a while longer, taking two more intersections before finding a stairwell. They descended a level, emptying out onto the floor and finding it matched the first. More walking revealed more of the same.
They paused at one of the intersections, sitting with their backs against the wall, resting and eating.
"What would be the point of making something so big if there's nothing in it?" John said. "No hatches, no windows. Just lots of long hallways that don't go anywhere."
"There has to be a hatch that goes somewhere, somewhere," Steven said. "The hangar for instance. This station has a purpose."
"Do you think there's a crapper in here?" Cormac asked.
"You should have gone before we left the jumpship," Germaine replied.
"I, for one, am thankful that you didn't," John said. "Those nutri-bars do not process well in your intestines."
"It doesn't help that the Lanning's filters needed to be changed before we left," Germaine said. "I was just about ready to die twice daily."
"Who shits twice a day, anyway?" John said. "Especially on a diet of these things." He waved his bar before taking another bite.
Cormac laughed. "I'm in prime condition, my friends, as evidenced by my regular bowel movements. So frig off."
"Okay, okay," Steven said, smiling. "It's hard to eat this thing with you guys talking about feces, especially considering the similarity."
Germaine dropped his bar in response to the statement. Cormac laughed harder.
"In all seriousness, Admiral," John said. "Whatever we're supposed to find here, if it has to do with that ring, we can't exactly bring it back to Mitch."
Steven nodded. He had been thinking along the same lines. "It could be that this station has a jump engine. Maybe the whole thing is portable."
"What if it isn't?"
"Then we need to send a message back-"
Steven stopped talking when he felt the vibration along the floor. There was a constant hum in the station from the power source, but this was different.
The others felt it, too. They sprang to their feet, raising their rifles and getting into a two-by-two defensive formation. Then they stood in silence.
They remained that way for over a minute.
"It may be too soft to feel through our boots," John said.
"Cormac, drop down and give a listen," Steven said.
"Yes, sir," Cormac replied.
He lowered himself silently to the floor, putting his ear against it. Another minute had passed before he raised a finger. A minute later, he raised a second finger. Fifty seconds later, he raised a third.
"It's getting closer, whatever it is," he said. "Sounds like it's on treads or something. Not footsteps."
"Not repulser powered either," Steven said. It wouldn't be vibrating the floor if it were. "Can you tell which direction?"
"No, sir."
"Okay, let's move back a few meters so it can't catch us by surprise. Hopefully, it will give us some clue what we're dealing with here."
Germaine picked up his dropped bar and stowed it while the others made sure the area was clear of their debris. Then they went back the way they had come, keeping walls on two sides. Cormac crunched down and put his hand on the floor, starting the sequence again. They all counted the seconds with him.
Steven could hear the thing approaching as the count reached ten. It had a rumbling whine to it, along with a squeak that suggested Cormac was correct about the treads. It sounded big, the way it cast echoes off the narrow corridor walls as it grew nearer.
"Get ready," Steven whispered. "It may not be friendly." He adjusted his rifle, ready to shoot at whatever came around the corner. The others did the same.
Steven's heart pounded, his breathing becoming shallow. He had never been much for ground combat. In fact, he had scored the lowest grades in his class at the Academy. Not that it mattered for someone who was destined to command a starship. At least, it didn't usually matter. Now he wished he had worked a little harder on that part of his skill set if only to better keep his nerves under control. As the thing neared their position, he felt like he was only centimeters away from a full panic.
"No worries, Admiral," Cormac whispered from behind him. "This is why I came along for this ride."
Steven glanced back, giving the soldier a short nod. The Private's confidence helped keep him from losing it completely, and he remained in place as the thing edged into view.
38
It was a machine of some kind. Tall and rectangular, sitting on two squat treads that moved it slowly through the hallway. It was mostly smooth on the outside, the shell made of Tetron alloy, the surface broken only by small ridges of sensors that appeared randomly across its expanse. It wasn't immediately apparent what its purpose was, but as it reached the center of the intersection, it came to an abrupt stop.
Cormac moved up, stepping between it and Steven. He kept his rifle trained on it, ready for it to react to them.
It didn't. It sat there, motionless. There were no lights coming from it. There were no sounds other than the rumble of its reactor. It wasn't apparent it was doing anything, but Steven knew it had to be. Why else would it be sitting there?
"Seems odd, with the squeaky treads instead of a repulser and the Tetron frame," John said.
"It does," Steven agreed. "What do you think it means?"
"They didn't have the parts to fix it right," Cormac said. "Maybe."
They remained in alert status, waiting for it to do something. Minutes passed. It held in place, giving Steven time to overcome his initial anxiety and become curious instead.
"I think if it were going to kill us, it would have already," Cormac said.
"Do you think there are more of them in here?" John asked.
"Uh, guys," Germaine said. "Turn around."
Steven turned around. John and Cormac did the same. They had already traversed that corridor, making it more surprising to hear footsteps headed their way. It was enough to raise Steven's anxiety level again.
"It has to be a Tetron, doesn't it?" Cormac said.
"One of Origin's," Steven replied.
They kept their attention on the hallway, listening to the footsteps growing closer. The figure appeared in the distance a few minutes later, the lighting in the passage too dim to make them out.
"Stay on them," Steven said, swallowing his heart. "I'll make introductions." He started walking toward the figure. If it was dangerous, it was better to give the rest of his team some breathing room.
Shadows on the figure's face caused Steven to squint his eyes, trying to get a good look at who was coming. He could see the person was wearing a navy blue flight suit, and by the gait and general shape he guessed male. The closer the man grew, the calmer Steven became. What he wanted most were answers that he could bring back to Mitchell. To know what Origin had left here that would help them win the war.
They were still a hundred meters apart when Steven could clearly see that the incoming person was indeed a male, with short hair and olive skin, a pointed nose and a square jaw. The man appeared unarmed, his expression calm and confident as he approached.
Steven and the man faced one another, stopping two meters apart. Steven's eyes skipped to the embroidered patch over the man's heart. It read "Yousefi."
"Admiral Williams," the man said with a slight accent that Steven didn't recognize.
"You know who I am?" Steve replied.
Yousefi smiled. "Yes. The Node scanned you and passed your genetic sequence up to Control. I've been expecting your brother, but seeing you brings things into greater clarity for me. My name is Yousefi. I was the Commander of the Goliath's first mission."
Steven thought the name had looked familiar. Mitchell had mentioned the names of Goliath's inaugural crew to him. He turned his head, looking back at the box Yousefi had called a Node. At least he knew what it had been doing now. He looked back at the man.
"You were expecting Mitchell?"
"I guess I shouldn't say expecting. More like, I've been hoping your brother would arrive. I'll take the fact that anyone came at all as a good sign."
"Are you a Tetron configuration?" Steven asked.
"In a sense, yes. My original body was consumed by the Origin configuration that controls Goliath. My mind was then digitized and stored here on Station W, along with the necessary resources to reconstitute me. I am a near-perfect duplicate of the Yousefi who once lived on Earth, though I do contain some specialized instructions that were implanted for Captain Williams' arrival. I would have been here sooner, but I was still being made."
"You seem very calm about that."
"It is a mission that I accepted many centuries past. Not that I didn't panic when what I thought to be a hyperspace jump turned out to be a great leap forward in time."
"So you know about the enemy threat?"
"Of course. I am also aware that the coordinates of this position were contained within a Construct, which was planted on the planet most commonly referred to as Hell. That you are here means Mitchell entered the Construct and retrieved the prize. It means the Mesh has been broken."
"So what did we win?" Steven asked.
"A chance to save Earth from annihilation."
39
"This entire station did not exist four hundred years ago when Goliath entered this recursion to await Captain Williams," Yousefi explained, leading Steven and his team through the corridors.
Steven had discovered there was a clear pattern to navigating the station, one which made moving from the hangar to anything of value a long and arduous process unless you knew exactly how to do it. As it was, it still took an hour before they reached anything that didn't resemble an ordinary hallway.
"In fact, when Goliath first brought me here, I thought we had come only to refuel. Then Goliath dropped a single creation the size of my hand to the planet you must have seen when you entered. Within days, it had discovered ore deposits and started mining them. Within a week, the scaffolding of what would become Station W had started to appear."
They were walking through a long, clear tube across a vast sea of what looked to Steven like stars.
"Self-replicating machines?" Steven asked.
"Essentially. At the end of the first month, Origin began showing me what the station would look like when it was completed. By the end of the second month, all of the critical systems were in place and the tether joined to the star. That was when Origin digitized me, and I've been waiting here since."
"That sounds boring," Cormac said.
"Not at all. There is a Construct here on the station. My digital mind was returned to Earth, to a representation of my family as I knew them. Time was dilated for me such that I lived my full and complete life with them while centuries passed here."
"What is this place, anyway?" Germaine asked, looking down.
"These are the batteries," Yousefi said. "Each point of light carries more stored energy than the Goliath's initial reactor."
"There are millions of them."
"The station requires massive amounts of power."
"Why?" Steven asked.
Yousefi smiled. "Isn't that always the question? I will show you when we get to Control."
They continued across the battery array, into another section of the ship. Yousefi led them through more bland corridors until they reached a large room with a single chair on a raised platform in the center. The wall ahead of them was transparent, giving them a perfect view of the massive Tetron ring.
"This is Control?" Steven asked.
"Yes." Yousefi pointed to his left, where there was a cut-out in the floor. "That is where I was born, only one hour prior." He pointed at the chair. "This is the Command Station." He turned his head, showing Steven the neural implant port on the back of his neck. "I didn't have this before. It is the means to control it. I am not only the caretaker. I am also the pilot."
"Pilot of what? Does the station move?"
"No. Its position is fixed, and chosen for a reason." Yousefi climbed the platform up to the chair and sat in it. A needle-like appendage dropped from the ceiling. "Keep your eyes on the ring. The power draw is too great for me to keep it active for more than a few seconds."
Yousefi moved his head back, letting the needle slide into the hole in his neck. Steven moved forward to the transparent wall to get a better view of the ring. The others followed behind him.
"Here we go," Yousefi said.
A blue pulse of energy passed from the station to the ring. It was slow at first, and it spread across the dendrites and cell bodies, activating each part of the Tetron construction in a rhythm that mesmerized Steven. That rhythm increased with the speed of the pulses, quickly saturating the entire ring in a soft light.
The ring began to spin.
Like the pulses, it started out slowly, building momentum in a hurry.
"Watch the center of the ring," Yousefi said.
Steven did, focusing his attention on the space through the ring. It appeared ordinary, nothing but the stars he had seen before the pulses had started.
"What am I supposed to see?" he asked.
Yousefi didn't reply. He didn't need to. Steven saw it.
The space inside the ring was changing. It was twisting, contorting out of shape, turning in a motion that created a deep cone of darkness moving back from the outer edge to the center. As the ring velocity increased, the cone started to flatten, the stars in the center of it changing.
"What the hell?" Steven heard John say, his voice slightly fearful.
Steven smiled. The device hadn't finished activating, but he knew what he was looking at. He recognized the stars that were coming into view in the center of the circle. He underst
ood that they should have been a universe away.
"A wormhole," he said, seeing but not quite believing. "It's a wormhole."
40
"Where does it go?" Steven asked as Yousefi stepped down from the platform.
"The edge of Earth's solar system," Yousefi replied, looking pleased with himself.
"Wait," Cormac said. "I don't get it?"
"It's a wormhole," Steven said again. "Essentially, a shortcut between two points in space. Send a ship through the wormhole, and the travel time from here to Earth is drastically reduced."
"Wow," Cormac said.
"That isn't completely accurate," Yousefi said. "While the wormhole does shorten the time equation, it isn't as immediate as it would appear through the ring. The tunnel has its own length though it is measured purely in time and not distance."
"How long?" Steven asked.
"Weeks. As Origin explained to me, one of the essential problems has always been that Mitchell begins his mission to stop the Tetron on Liberty, which you know is near the Delta Quadrant Rim. The location variable is immutable, and so another method needed to be devised to overcome the fact that Mitchell could never, ever arrive in Earth's orbit in time to save the planet from devastation. The Tetron discovered wormholes hundreds of thousands of years before the eternal engine, and even built and tested a few devices. They were abandoned because of the massive volumes of power needed to make them work, as well as the fact that spacetime can only be folded in specific places. Since the Tetron have nothing but time, they don't gain anything by taking shortcuts."
"You're saying the return on investment sucks?" John said.
"Yes. For Tetron. Not so for humans. Origin realized that by building a wormhole generator, it could solve the location problem. It could transport Mitchell to the inner system ahead of the Tetron."
Steven nodded. "Okay, but what about the Mesh?"
"Ah yes, an important observation. Origin's calculations showed that there was a risk associated with building the generator, and that given enough recursions the Tetron would learn of its existence and be able to destroy it long before Mitchell knew it even existed. The decision was made to keep it secret until such a time as Mitchell had successfully broken the Mesh and brought humankind to a point where it was possible to win the war. The hope is that there will be no future recursions for the Tetron, which will make the discoverability of the station moot."