Crystal Conquest

by Doug J. Cooper

  He found the organization of the record confusing. After some effort, he understood that its sophistication pushed the boundaries of his ability to decipher it. My instincts were correct. You are hundreds of times more capable than me.

  Allocating a large portion of his intellectual resources to studying the Kardish record, he started with two topics—the status of the invasion and personal information that Goljat had collected about him and his leadership. Among Criss’s early discoveries was information on the snag traps the gatekeeper had spread, all lying in wait for him to reveal himself. The nip he’d felt in the scout was from one such trap.

  Criss broadcast a pulse that branched and subdivided as it zipped around the world to all corners of the web. A spoof, the pulse announced Criss’s presence everywhere, springing the traps all at once. It must be pretty, he thought as billions of tiny signal packets arrived at the multiplex, flashing to gain the attention of the gatekeeper.

  During this torrent of stimulus, he monitored the Kardish crystal. When Goljat reacted, Criss raised his guard. But, stupefied from the flood of pleasure, its only action was to sever itself from all external inputs. Satisfied with this outcome, Criss bolstered the walls and blocks he’d constructed, creating significant challenges for Kardish techs who might try to slow the pleasure feed and free their gatekeeper.

  Returning to the data record, Criss discovered how the Kardish king had found Earth.

  He already knew that, years earlier, the young prince had chanced upon the planet when fleeing from the king after a failed coup. Believing the prince posed a mortal threat to Earth, Criss had obliterated the Kardish vessel and all on board.

  For months afterward, that decision had bothered Criss. He’d reviewed the facts and circumstances and, unable to pinpoint the basis for his unease, concluded that the death and destruction he’d caused had been unnecessarily extreme.

  But from information in the Kardish record, he learned that his unease stemmed from a mistake he’d made. I suspected it but couldn’t bring myself to admit it.

  He’d destroyed the prince’s vessel in a cataclysmic explosion—one that propelled minute particles of the ship at fantastic speeds in all directions. Over the next months, the particle cloud blossomed ever bigger, eventually reaching astronomical proportions. In a quirk of fate, a Kardish survey ship had flown through the edge of that cloud. It had detected a few atoms of the prince’s vessel, traced the fragment trail to the center of the explosion, and from there it had identified Earth.

  Criss failed by leaving evidence that could be traced. What’s done is done. He couldn’t clean up the cosmic dust from the prince’s vessel. But I won’t add to it by destroying the dreadnaught in the same manner.

  To advance his plan, he impersonated a message from the king to his minions and announced that the Earth crystal was in custody. All Kardish and every craft—drones, troop transports, cargo vessels—everything that had been deployed since their arrival, must return to the ship and prepare for immediate departure to their home world. The royal command made clear that nothing Kardish should be left behind.

  Every craft received the message; one ignored it. The three crystals on the Mars probe had been given a level of independence that bordered on free will. They chose to continue their journey.

  * * *

  When the green dot lit, Juice exhaled the breath she’d been holding.

  “Good day, young lady.” She heard his voice in her head for the first time in almost a week. Excited to reengage, she began to verbalize her response. Criss interrupted her using the scout’s audio system.

  “We have defeated the Kardish gatekeeper crystal. The dreadnaught is under my control.”

  Sid hugged Cheryl, and Juice, staring at the green dot, said, “Good job, young man.”

  Juice turned to the synbod and closed the crystal receptacle. The synbod put on its shirt and reached out to hug her. She rested her head on its chest.

  Criss spoke to her in private. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

  She pulled her head away from the synbod and, looking up at its face, shifted her focus from one eye to the other. The scientist in her made a dispassionate judgment. The blood drained from her face.

  Over the past days, she’d allowed herself the fantasy of seeing him as a living person. It seemed so real. This event, the transfer of his crystal being from a synthetic body to the ship’s console, forced reality into her illusion. The synbod wasn’t a confidant or partner. It wasn’t a lover. It’s a machine.

  The pain of that realization, combined with the humiliation she felt because she’d let her delusion be so public, crashed through her psyche and hit her emotional core. She glanced at Sid and Cheryl standing with their arms around each other. She started to look at Lenny but couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact.

  “I’ll be in my room.” She hurried down the passageway and entered Lenny’s quarters. As the door shut behind her, she saw his pack and carryall sitting on the bunk. She picked them up, opened the door, dropped them in the hall, and let the door close.

  She lay down on the bunk, faced the wall, and curled into a fetal position.

  “What’s the matter, young lady?” Criss asked in her ear.

  “Go away.”

  Her face twisted in grief. Her eyes reddened and her body shook. Tears rolled down her cheeks. I’m an idiot. They’re all laughing at me. She hugged herself and started to weep. I miss him.

  She heard a tap at the door and, trying in vain to muffle her sorrow, turned her face into the pillow.

  Cheryl stepped inside and let the door shut behind her. She sat on the bed next to Juice, rubbed her shoulder, and stroked her hair.

  “I’m so dumb,” Juice said between sobs. “I thought I loved him...loved it.”

  Cheryl lay down next to Juice, held her, and murmured soothing words. “It’s all right. Everything will be okay.”

  Chapter 39

  Sid sprawled in one of the two chairs behind the pilot’s seat with his eyes closed. “What’s the plan?”

  Lenny slumped into the other chair. “You asking me?”

  Criss spoke through the ship’s audio so they both could hear. “All the Kardish are returning to the dreadnaught. The armada never made it to Earth, and the first craft will arrive here within the hour. Those on the ground have been ordered to clean up all signs of their presence before departing. It’ll take half a day to get everyone and everything on board.”

  Lenny looked over his shoulder at the console. “You aren’t going to let them leave.”

  “No, Len. I’ll be flying them into the sun.”

  “Really? Hitting the sun is a lot harder than it sounds.”

  Sid opened one eye and smiled. “Is it? Help Criss understand the complexities.”

  “Well,” said Lenny, sitting upright, “the sun’s gravitational pull is huge. If you lob an object at it, the sun will pull on it hard, making it go faster and faster. But the sun moves through space. It’s not sudden or anything. It’s gradual, but it moves. Anyway, the thing you lobbed gets zipping super-fast, and the next thing you know, it’s headed at something that’s no longer there. Your object misses the sun and ends up flying on around.”

  “Interesting,” said Sid. His attention drifted while Lenny lectured. Juice seems upset about something.

  “You know that old saying,” said Lenny. “Aim for where your target’s gonna be, not where it is right now.”

  Sid couldn’t put his finger on it. Cheryl saw something I missed. He decided he needed a private chat with Criss and waited for Lenny to take a breath.

  “…that’s why Halley's Comet—a ball of dirty ice—doesn’t hit the sun. It flies right at it, the sun moves, the comet misses, swoops around behind, and gets flung back out into space, only to return again seventy-five years later.”

  Sid took his opportunity. “That’s great information. Thanks. Criss, can you recheck your calculations?”

  “I appreciate the guidance. I’ll i
ndeed recheck my calculations.”

  Sid knew Criss well enough to hear his sarcasm. From Lenny’s demeanor, the mocking tone appeared to have passed over his head.

  “Hey, Len,” said Sid. “How long has it been since you slept?”

  “I don’t know. A long time.”

  “From what Criss is saying, we’ve got hours to kill. I’ll take first watch.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Len.” Sid projected a no-nonsense attitude. “The team’s stronger if we take advantage of opportunities to eat and sleep.” He thrust his chin toward his room. “Go get some rest. Use my bunk. You can relieve me in a bit.”

  Lenny stifled a yawn and looked down the passageway. “Okay. You talked me into it.”

  As soon as the door shut behind Lenny, Sid put it to Criss. “I think Crispin caused some emotional pain for Juice. Am I wrong?”

  “You know I don’t discuss my private interactions with others of the leadership.”

  “I was clear about this, Criss. It’s not about your intentions. It’s about the outcome. I’m sensing it’s not good. And I meant it when I said I’d punish you if the romance between you and Juice went bad.”

  He rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked at the synbod. “Let’s get it out of sight. Put it in the drone room. I don’t think she’ll be going in there.”

  * * *

  While Criss chatted with Sid, he deployed his intellectual capacity to monitor activities outside the dreadnaught. The Kardish were acting under the orders of their king—or so they believed—and he sought to ensure their continued compliance.

  Multitasking to the limit of his ability, he also worked through a threat assessment inside the dreadnaught. He sped through the ship’s central array and noted areas of concerns. During this effort, the scout started to plunge.

  The dreadnaught’s gravity is ramping up! Pulling intellectual capacity back into the scout, he engaged the engines in time to slow their descent and land on the field deck with a modest bump.

  “Is their crystal awake?” asked Sid, shifting forward into the pilot’s chair and activating the ops bench.

  “It’s not Goljat.” Criss turned his attention to the Kardish inside the vessel. Got you.

  A group of Kardish techs, huddling around a panel in a major junction center, worked frantically to find back doors into the ship’s central array. They’d made some progress, and their activities now centered on reestablishing links to Goljat’s life-support subsystem, which included the crystal’s pleasure-feed flow.

  Impressive work. Criss unleashed a power surge that knocked out every panel in the center. Working systematically throughout the vessel, he located and disabled all worksites that provided similar routes for Kardish mischief.

  If they know the problem, this isn’t their only effort. Making a second pass through the dreadnaught, he zapped panels, deactivated weapons systems, and immobilized heavy equipment that soldiers could use to stage an uprising. His confidence rose as he neared completion of the task.

  Sensing activity in an area designated as a repair shop, Criss linked with the sensor feeds inside that room. He saw a Kardish soldier step onto a platform in the center of the shop. The soldier looked forward, and the image of an exoskeleton—a large robot-like body—grew out of the platform and surrounded the alien, fitting him like a monstrous suit.

  The soldier moved his arms and legs, and the huge exoskeleton duplicated his actions. Stomp. Stomp. When the soldier lowered his legs, Criss heard the pounding of the image’s feet on the platform. This is no sophisticated light show. Somehow, a framework of real material had sprouted around the alien.

  The soldier-operator made a motion with his leg, and the oversized automaton descended to the deck. Stomp. Another Kardish climbed onto the platform, and as he positioned himself, Criss launched a power surge that fried every link to the exoskeleton-growing unit.

  Sorting through options, Criss sought a way to disable the existing exoskeleton. The Kardish operator is its brains. To stop the monster, I need to stop the alien driving it.

  The soldier inside the machine-suit turned to look at the wisps of smoke rising from the platform. Cocooned inside the automaton, he lifted his arm and made a grabbing motion with his hand. The giant exoskeleton mirrored his movement and reached upward, its hand punching through the ceiling.

  Criss watched from a dozen different angles as the huge hand grasped an overhead conduit. Yanking his arm downward, the Kardish soldier pulled a tangle of debris to the floor. The alien’s actions disabled all feeds from the room, and Criss’s view went dark.

  Shifting into the corridor, Criss accessed the sensor pickups along the hallway. He focused everything on the walls and door of the repair shop. Tweaking the visual, audio, thermal, and motion feeds, he organized data so it might give him some sense of the activity within the room.

  Before he had time to fine-tune the data, two huge hands punched through the repair shop door, pulled back on the wreckage, and tossed the twisted pieces out of the way. Stomp. Stomp.

  The giant machine ducked through the gaping hole into the hallway, punched up through the ceiling, and pulled down internals that disabled the local feeds, again blinding Criss. He shifted to the sensor pickups at both ends of the corridor and waited. Stomp. Stomp. Criss could hear the monster approaching on the end that led to Goljat’s crystal housing.

  Aiming the Kardish security armaments on the point where the suited soldier would appear, Criss waited. The stomping grew louder as the monster approached. Thud. Crash. Criss glimpsed a shower of debris, and his feeds deactivated. I can’t stop it this way.

  Inside the scout, Criss animated Crispin. The synbod dashed to the rear of the craft, grabbed two weapons from the munitions cabinet, and slapped one on each wrist. Reaching to the back of the cabinet, the synbod lifted an energy cannon off its mount and slung it across his back. Secure inside the scout’s console, Criss directed Crispin to the bottom hatch.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sid as Crispin raced below.

  Projecting an image of the scene forward of the ops bench, Criss replied, “We have a concern.”

  Sid watched a replay of the lumbering monster smashing through the repair shop door and stomping into the hallway. “Is that coming for us?”

  “It’s headed for Goljat. I’m not sure what it hopes to do when it gets there, but I can’t wait to find out.”

  Criss switched the image to show a view just outside the scout. Moving in fantastic leaps, Crispin sprinted across the field deck. The whine of the scout’s weapon’s battery preceded a flash. An energy bolt flew over Crispin’s head and blasted a hole in the dividing wall. Crispin ducked as he raced through the smoldering opening, disappearing from sight.

  Flipping to Kardish vid feeds, Criss tracked Crispin as he directed the synbod through the vessel. They watched Crispin sprint across decks, up ladders, through hatches, and down ramps.

  “What’s going on?” Cheryl walked up behind Sid and rested a hand on his shoulder.

  Sid pointed to the display. Crispin had stopped at the corner of intersecting corridors. Stomp. Stomp.

  “The sensor feeds in the passageway ahead are disabled,” said Criss. He flipped the projected image so Sid and Cheryl saw the same view he would be using—Crispin’s eyes.

  Crispin stepped around the corner. His hands came into view as he raised his arms and primed his wrist weapons. Cheryl gasped at the sight of a three-dimensional monster seemingly marching toward her. Stomp. Stomp.

  Advancing on the automaton, Crispin took quick steps and then dove down the hall. The suited soldier was slow to react, giving Crispin time to grab the monster’s shoulder and rotate onto its back.

  Crispin held on with one hand and reached back for the energy cannon with the other. Swinging it in front, he pressed the muzzle of the weapon against the monster’s neck. The Kardish soldier grasped and clawed up over his head, and Crispin ducked and weaved to avoid the huge hands swiping all aroun
d him.

  Hanging on with his knees and one hand, Crispin tilted the cannon downward so it pointed at the soldier. He leaned his shoulder against the stock of the weapon and fired.

  The monster glowed for a moment, the Kardish soldier threw his arms forward as if he were walking in a trance, and then an energy blowback washed over Crispin.

  Criss stabilized the synbod, restored control, and had Crispin fire two more times in rapid succession. The exoskeleton blazed, the soldier convulsed, and an energy rebound drove Crispin off the monster’s back and onto the deck. Crispin lifted his head in time for Sid and Cheryl to see the monster drop to its knees and fall face first onto the ground.

  “Whoa,” said Juice as she stepped from the passageway onto the bridge. “I’d worked all this noise into a nightmare, but it’s actually happening.”

  The projected image display showed the feet of the fallen monster. As Criss moved Crispin into a sitting position, the angle shifted enough to see the prone body. The Kardish soldier lay still inside the suit.

  “What is that thing?” Juice asked. “And where’s the vid coming from?”

  The view swooped as Crispin turned to look down the corridor behind him. A dozen Kardish filled the passageway, arms raised and weapons aimed forward. Their hands twitched in unison as they fired their weapons. A brilliant flash filled the scene, and the projected image went dark.

  “Crispin!” Cheryl brought her fingers to her lips.

  Juice looked at Cheryl. “What? I’m so confused.”

  Cheryl put an arm around her, pulled her close, and guided her back to her bunk.

  * * *

  Sid felt a slight pressure as the scout moved up through the dreadnaught’s hangar door and into open space. Moments later, Criss positioned the craft so it shadowed the Kardish vessel in its orbit around Earth.

  Sid tapped the ops bench and raised his eyebrows as he digested the panoramic display. He’d been inside the dreadnaught during the troopship deployment and remembered the exodus from that perspective. Amazing. The sight reminded him of the story of Noah’s ark.