Arianne’s hearing seemed to cut out before she felt the shockwave of the impact. Her vision quickly gave in to the searing white light around her. All she felt was a scrambling of her limbs and a deep quaking of her soul. She was engulfed with smoke and water which turned to a hot mud as they collided together in the air. Her lungs fought to retrieve the breath stolen from them.
Then, just as suddenly, there was stillness.
Chapter 12
“What was that?”
Dart was staring out of the ship forward window at the plume of smoke that was curling up from the massive complex in front of them.
“Something came in from orbit,” said Holt. He was wrangling the flight controls, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar layout. So far, the automated systems were doing fine, but he was sure that he’d need manual control at some point.
“From orbit? What would … what do the scanners say?”
“Don’t know,” said Holt, hitting some random buttons.
Dart covered her face with her dreadlocks in frustration.
“Come on, come ON,” she said, “Can’t this heap of junk go any faster?”
“It’s all I could get at short notice …” Holt began,
“It’s a strange kind of ship,” noted Kotlin, who was sitting quite calmly on a small chair behind them, typing into a terminal.
It was indeed not his idea of a well thought out vessel, thought Holt. It was made up of hundreds of small cubes that had been stuck together almost randomly to form a giant structure like a wasp’s nest. The room they were in was barely big enough for the three of them and the control console, but all the other rooms were exactly the same. The only variation was which of the sides had doors in them. It had taken almost an hour of searching to find the path to the control room. The delay had cost them extra credits for holding up the departure bay. Not that the slimy huckster who’d sold them this pile of scrap would mind much, thought Holt. He knew he had paid too much, but there just wasn’t any other way to get an unregistered vehicle.
They were now flying above the main conference hub. An undulating sea of domes, arenas and gigantic pavilions stretched before them. Dart was jumping up and down on the spot.
“Don’t we have, like, a rocket booster or something?” she moaned, looking at the flickering control panel once again. It appeared to have no cohesive design. There were eight readouts of geometric shapes and patterns that were jumping about, dozens of buttons, half of which were flashing. There were also a set of speakers that were emitting grating noises every so often, a kind of sprinkler system that was sending wafts of lemon scented water into the air, and the gel mat beneath them was undulating weirdly.
“I think whoever designed this system assumed we’d have a very specific kind of synesthesia,” said Dart.
“Kotlin, any progress?” asked Holt.
“Hmm, I’m having some trouble,” said Kotlin. “I’ve logged into the mainframe, but it’s giving me convergence errors, something about negative Hessians and the random effects being almost unidentifiable.”
“What?” shouted Dart, wheeling around to stare at Kotlin. “This is no time to be doing your research Kots!”
“I’m not, this ship is just really weird.”
Dart span back to look at Holt.
“I’m going to press it,” she said.
“What?” said Holt.
“The big red button.”
Holt took his hands off the controls and looked her in the eye.
“NEVER press the big red button!” shouted Holt, grabbing hold of Dart’s wrist. “Rule one of unfamiliar craft navigation!”
“Well, what about the big green button you just pressed?” asked Dart, pointing behind Holt.
Holt turned around, exclaiming “What big green button?” When he turned back, Dart’s free hand was pummeling the big red button.
A very large number of creaks joined into a chorus to drown out Holt’s disciplinary language.
Chapter 13
Idris surfaced above the water, spluttering at first then coughing in the thick smoke that surrounded him. He reached desperately for Arianne, but felt only churning water. He wiped at his eyes and tried to look around. He spotted Arianne running across the shattered walkway between the fountain and the fridge-sized capsule that was half-buried in the floor. Beyond her, a hoard of guards were slowly regaining their feet.
She’s abandoning me, thought Idris.
He watched as Arianne reached the capsule and punched at its side. A hatch opened and a six-foot crate fell out, narrowly missing her. It was only then that the smoke cleared enough to see a sign stenciled across the face of the capsule:
Small Support Grant G67HS995A
Arianne kicked the lid off the crate and used her foot to leaver a large white log up into her hands. It was a laser fountain cannon.
“Grant accepted,” said Arianne.
She held the cannon at hip-height by two handles along its length, aided by the graphene aerogel chassis which made the massive object almost buoyant in air. Tiny flat disks popped off the sides of the cannon and began rising into the air. At the nozzle there was a tilted mirror mounted on a motor which now began to spin. Raw energy glowed from the inside of the cannon.
“Idris!” shouted Arianne. “Get behind me!”
Laser light streamed out of the cannon, but instead of shooting straight out of the gun, the mirror deflected it in a dozen slicing angles up into the air. The tiny, disk-shaped drones had positioned themselves in a wide halo above them and were directing the laser stream back down onto the guards and robots in all directions. The drones sent requests for different wavelengths of light as they found target materials that would give way to particular energy frequencies, and the cannon adjusted accordingly. Some even maneuvered behind the guards and caught them with shots reflected off multiple drones. The effect was like a pulsing fountain of multicolored light shooting up and then bouncing down like a disco laser show. The entire courtyard was suddenly matted in neon lightning. Idris simply cowered with his mouth open.
“That way!”
Arianne began walking steadily towards one of the entryways, muddy water still streaming down her aching legs. The guards in front of her were suddenly sliced from all angles by frantic ribbons of light. In a few moments, the path was clear and Arianne and Idris ran through the doorway. As they disappeared into it, the drones followed, covering their exit.
They ran into the relative calm of a large conference room. A hundred attendees were cowering behind their chairs. A huge banner above the stage was half on fire, but the words could still be read: 18265th Annual Symposium of the Society for Active Theory Alignment: The End of Cultural Evolution?
A speaker was halfway through their talk, but was currently using the lectern as cover. All eyes were fixed on Arianne as she backed into the room, still firing the cannon back out into the courtyard. Several attendees shrieked as she turned towards the crowd, but Arianne turned swiftly away to the huge window that ran the length of the room.
“Idris – get to the window!” shouted Arianne. Idris, apparently in the presence of his peers, gave an embarrassed smile to the crowd and started to trot stiffly down the isle. He attempted to give a combination of a warm nod of recognition and a grimace of apology to some of the more senior members.
A soberly dressed presiding officer at the front was peering down at a stopwatch and made a harsh shushing noise, then turned calmly back to the stage and held up a sign: “1 minute remaining”. The speaker clinging to the lectern gave out a bitter whimper.
Arianne backed into the room, spouting Technicolor lightning.
Arianne: Holt! Location?
Holt: Converging, 20 seconds
Arianne and Idris reached the window at the end of the room. Arianne scanned the horizon, desperately searching for the getaway ship, but Idris only stared down towards the ground – nearly a kilometer away. Arianne used the cannon to send several fingers of laser light to attack the
thick window pane. Quicker to give way was the wall behind the speaker, which was demolished by a 12 foot armored bipedal robot. It surveyed the room with a head full of glassy lenses and began firing a gigantic rifle towards Arianne.
The speaker on the stage cowered back from the robot in terror, looking to anyone for help or even just an explanation, but the presiding officer simply coughed lightly and held her sign a little higher. The speaker swallowed hard.
Arianne pulled the cannon around to point at the robot, and beams of light started hitting it. Half of the drones focused their beams on the robot’s eyes. The shining surface of the robot started to smolder, but held together. It started firing on the drones, severing fingers of light as it took down one, then another.
The presentation slide on the large projector advanced, revealing a list of conclusions. The speaker had managed to tear the microphone off the lectern and was now ensconced inside it.
“So” said the speaker, his voice cracking with terror, “to conclude -”
The robot made a darting run along the room to flank its targets, firing now at the drones cutting the escape route. Arianne pulled more drones off the robot to focus on cutting the window.
“- the Great C-C-Convergence signals a t-t-turning point in our field…”
A laser struck a weak point in the robot’s joints and took a leg out of action. The robot staggered and fell, pinned down by a stream of lasers. It kept firing its weapon, but was now way off target.
“… c-c-cultural evolution was just a blip in our history, the future of linguistics is the study of the universal language – deep structures that are now revealed on the surface, too. Active Theory Alignment is the future.”
A slice of window suddenly gave way and started a long fall towards the ground. Arianne grabbed Idris and stepped towards the open hole. A gust of cold air rushed into their faces. She turned towards the audience and shouted
“Align this, motherfuckers!”
She threw the cannon behind her and dived out of the window, a yelping Idris in tow. The cannon began to pulse loudly as it rose gently into the air above the crowd. The presiding officer rose to her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, “and now we have a few minutes for questions.”
The cannon detonated and the room was engulfed in plasma fire.
Not that Idris saw it – he had his eyes screwed tightly shut in the hope that gravity would not be able to find him. He felt something shaking him, and was convinced it was the hand of death, come a moment too soon.
“I’m falling!” he shouted.
“Not falling,” said Arianne, shaking him once more, “flying.”
Idris blinked, and realized he was lying on a red metal cube, about 5 meters on each side. And that the cube was moving through the air. And he still wasn’t dead. Arianne was lying next to him, clinging onto a hand-hold on the outside of the small spaceship.
Arianne sent a signal to Holt.
Arianne: Good timing, the conference just finished.
Holt: Sorry for the delay. Welcome aboard the Invisible Hand.
Arianne: It’s … quite small.
Holt: The rest of it is still on the way.
Arianne looked behind her. A cloud of red cubes was following them. It was a fleet of tiny spaceships, identical to the one they had just landed on. There must be over a thousand of them, thought Arianne.
Arianne: Is that –
Holt: Yes, turns out our ship is quite modular.
She had no time to reply, as one of the cubes was struck by something and exploded. It was close enough that she could feel the heat for a brief second before the screaming air around her leeched it away.
Dart: They’re firing on us!
A hatch opened in the roof and Kotlin poked her head out. She grabbed hold of Idris before he could say anything and dragged him inside the ship. A missile rose up from the ground and struck another one of the ships to their left.
Holt: Hold on, I’m going to try blending in with the rest of the cubes for protection.
Arianne just about managed to grab onto a second hand hold before their ship turned abruptly and flew full speed into the mass of red cubes. They zig-zagged past ships, several of which were exploding around them. Suddenly, they collided with one of their sister ships, grazing off the side and shaking the whole structure violently. Arianne lost a handhold.
Arianne: Holt! I’m not -
The ship was wrenched sideways again, and Arianne lost her grip completely. The whole ship rolled over and she bounced off the roof once, and then she was falling through the air.
Dart: Arianne!
Arianne saw another red cube rushing towards her and flailed out desperately. Her fingers closed on something and her arm was nearly torn from its socket as she grabbed on.
“Look where you’re going!” Dart shouted at Holt. The view in front of them was just a maze of blurred cubes.
“And move with the flow! They can tell which one is us!” added Kotlin.
“I’m trying!” shouted Holt. He tugged at a lever, and the whole ship flipped upside down, careered off a neighbor and then they were flying with the pack. Holt exhaled briefly.
Holt: Arianne, are you alright?
Arianne: I’m OK, I just moved to the buffet carriage. It’s a bit boisterous out here.
The missiles were playing havoc with the ships. Every time one exploded it pushed several sister ships out of line, causing them to run into each other. The ship next to Arianne was suddenly smashed by one above it. Arianne looked around the roof of her own ship, but there was no entry hatch in sight.
Arianne: What’s going on? Shouldn’t our ships be avoiding each other at least?
Kotlin: Attempting to run pathfinder distributed stabilization algorithms. Navigation is not working, some kind of error with system resources.
Arianne: Give me access.
Kotlin: Sending.
Arianne adjusted her grip, held on with one hand and took out her terminal with the other. She switched it over to ebrain interface mode just as Kotlin sent the access codes to the swarm’s mainframe. She scanned the system resources.
Arianne: Specs look fine, 12 gigabit wireless, 15 TB processors, 12 K memory …
Dart: Incoming hostile ships! They look like insurance fighter drones.
Arianne turned over and could indeed see a fleet of shining yellow ships heading straight towards them.
Dart: Turn away!
Holt: Can’t – they’d single us out from the rest.
Kotlin: WAIT, what was that last stat?
Arianne: 12 K mem – OH SPACEBALLS. 12 kilobytes of memory? That’s barely enough to run a barebones operating system!
Holt: I knew that slimy dealer was shafting us somehow! Everything was working fine when the ships were connected up, but now they’re separated …
Arianne tried to think clearly. They needed to escape, but they couldn’t leave the protection of the crowd. But with the ships all clustered together, the insurance company would just slowly pick them all off. In any case, there was no way to build a program small enough that would give them command. They had no weapons to fight back. No tactical advantage. And she was clinging on to the outside of a chunk of metal she had no control over.
Resister: Space Funding Crisis II Page 11