Starship Paradiso (Helltroopers Book 3)

by Isaac Stone

  “How do we know the ship managed to get it?” Ash questioned Haddo. “There was quite a bit of rock down there and that EMP pulse fried most of the target zone. But can you track it? Can you prove it was there when the strike hit? I’m only asking because I don’t want to come back here and repeat the job.”

  Haddo smiled and turned to the spherical screen over them. “Viktor, is the beacon still there?” He waited for a response from the ship AI.

  It came very quick. “Beacon destroyed on the first three seconds of the pulse connecting with the surface of the planet,” the floating head told him. “No signals from it, nothing to indicate it was ever in the location.”

  “Then how did you know it was there?” Ash questioned the AI.

  “Signal was steady before we fired,” Viktor responded. “Our ground imaging tools showed it to be located far below the surface. From there it was a simple matter to focus the beam on it. Did you want to know anything else?”

  “Yes. How do you know where the other beacons are located?”

  “We follow the signals. Right now, we’ve located all of them. They are in communication with the Sigillum Inferno.”

  Ash noticed the combined looks of confusion from this crew. “The what?” he asked Viktor.

  “I’m certain I could explain the exact nature of what it is,” Viktor responded. “But Simon can do a better job, in the absence of your android Barbara Ann it is recommended you allow Simon Haddo to function as your guide. Besides, I have a lot of work to do right now and could stand to focus my processing capacities on the job at hand. Do you wish me to continue?”

  “No, that will be all,” Ash told the floating head. He watched it fade away.

  “Explain to me this thing Viktor just mentioned,” Ash demanded from Haddo. He knew the tall man wanted to say something as he could tell by the anxious expression on his face.

  “The focus of the entities which want to enter this reality,” he explained to him. “There needs to be a center point to concentrate all the energy from the Hell Beacons and that which is sent forth by the power packs. It focuses on the Sigillum Inferno, a metal engraving in deep space orbit. Dr. John Dee, when he found a way to breech the wall which separates the universe from the one where the angels dwell, was instructed to create a wax engraving with a series of symbols on it for his communications with them.”

  Haddo bowed his head as if he was trying to avoid something. “When I found the way across, whilst under the employ of the EAC, I was given a similar set of instructions. But my engraving, the Sigillum Inferno, was created to let the demons of the Other Side into this reality. I found out too late what they had in mind. By the time I discovered what they were up to, there was no way to send them back. Now they’ve multiplied and work to bring about the end of all life as we know it in the solar system.”

  “So that is our final target,” Ash said. “Why don’t we just go to it first and destroy the thing.”

  “If we leave the beacons active,” Haddo told him. “They can be used as soon as someone else finds a way to make another Sigillum Inferno, and considering the EAC’s vast resources, that is assured. Those things are clever and will find another fool to help them.”

  “You were the man who brought these things across,” Ash spoke aloud. “If it wasn’t for you, none of this would have happened.”

  “You are right there,” Haddo replied. “I have brought humanity to the brink of destruction. None of what you’ve seen would have occurred if I had let matters alone. But I had to see more, I had to know what lay beyond this reality. And at the behest of my employers I made a deal with these entities which brought them across.”

  “What deal was that?” Kris asked him.

  “Eternal life,” he explained. “I will never age.”

  “But someone can still kill you,” Makulah pointed out. “Like with a gun.”

  “I didn’t say I was immortal. Just that I will never age.”

  “You have a lot of talents,” Ash mentioned. “You were the one responsible for the creation of Barbara Ann?” He fiddled with his gun.

  “I didn’t grow her,” Haddo responded. “If that is what you wanted to know. But I was the one who brought the force of Babalon into her. So I suppose you can say I did create the form that was Barbara Ann.”

  “So you can bring her back,” Ash said to him. He wondered if Haddo understood where he was going with this conversation.

  “In theory, yes. But I have to have another artificial human vessel. And just any one you can locate won’t do. I need a special one, the way for Babalon must be prepared. This isn’t worth a discussion because you are millions of miles away from any such form.”

  “But you could do it.”

  Haddo showed some frustration. He rubbed his shaven head and glared at Ash. The rest of the crew could tell something was about to boil between the two men.

  “Look,” he tried to explain to Ash. “This process isn’t something from A Thousand and One Nights. It’s not a matter of a few words chanted over clay pots. It’s long and involved. You seem to think I’m Merlin. It involves bringing the force of Babalon into the vessel. You can’t snap your fingers and accomplish it. If Babalon doesn’t want to ensoul the vessel, she won’t do it. You have to give Babalon a reason or the process won’t take place. This isn’t a chemical process to make water from hydrogen and oxygen.”

  In truth, Ash was still attached to Barbara Ann’s memory. He wanted her back. So much of the mission had taken place with her help. He didn’t want to admit to everyone, but he worried they wouldn’t be able to pull it off without her. If there was some way Haddo could recreate another Barbara Ann, Ash was willing to take the risk. As far as he could tell, Haddo was the only person who could bring her back.

  “You pulled it off once,” Ash told Haddo, “you can do it again.” He fingered the impact gun he carried to one side.

  “It will take time,” Haddo announced. “I will see what I can do. Eventually, we’ll be near the android factories and I’ll search for a suitable replacement, but this will take a long time.” He turned to face a corridor. “Now if you will excuse me, I have had a long and tiring day. I need sleep. I suggest you all follow my example. Viktor will tell you where the sleeping quarters may be found.” They watched him march down a long corridor to the right.

  There was a pause among Ash’s crew. “At least we destroyed the first beacon,” Costa mentioned. “Now all we need to do is find the rest.”

  “Which shouldn’t be too difficult if our friend Viktor has all the locations stored in his memory,” Char, the AI in the box attached to Theo’s waist, noted. “At least the job doesn’t fall on me this time. You do have all those locations stored, don’t you, Viktor?”

  The head rematerialized in front of them. “I have the locations of all the beacons in the solar system,” it announced. “I have the location of the Sigillum too. Finding them won’t be a problem. Taking them out may be a matter for your team.”

  “How is that?” Kris asked. “You fried the one on Mercury from orbit. Can’t you do the same thing for the others?” She backed up a bit.

  “You may not have the same opportunity in the future,” the AI explained. “What if the next beacon is located beneath a school? Perhaps we can find the general location of it, but not the exact one. In such a case, someone on the ground may be forced to locate the beacon. Eliminating the beacons is far from simple.”

  “We all need to turn in and get some sleep,” Ash said. “Viktor, will we be able to have our own quarters close to each other? I’m sure everyone would like their own private room.”

  “I have them ready,” the head told him. A large diagram appeared in the air, which showed the team’s location in relation to the living quarters on the starship.

  “As you can see,” Viktor continued. “There is quite a bit of room inside the Paradiso. It was built to hold hundreds for long voyages. I had no issue finding a suite of interconnected rooms for the lot of you.�
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  They followed the directions to a small gallery of accommodations. It wasn’t possible to tell for whom these were intended, but Ash had the impression it was for the officer staff on the starship. Each room had a joining door, which might come in handy in the event of an emergency. Ash made certain everyone was settled in before he went to his own room.

  He needed a shower bad. The ship had a plentiful supply of water, which he used to get himself clean. It was one thing he was grateful about, personal hygiene was a necessity, but hard to maintain in the cramped conditions of a gunship. At least now he had a decent place to stay.

  They spent the remainder of the trip to Venus exploring the starship.

  There were many levels to Paradiso, but it was impossible to see all of them without an understanding of the ship’s nature. It was designed as an interstellar ship capable of long voyages between stars. Although the Paradiso was not designed for faster than light travel, it could approach relativistic speeds. At the time of its construction, the government who built it had several jump drive engines under research. One of them made it into the final construction of Paradiso. However, the project was canceled before it could be tested. No one knew if the jump drive worked.

  Viktor appeared to give them advice or warning about any dangerous areas they might encounter on the ship. The armament areas where places to avoid, but there were also observation decks where the wonders of the universe were viewable. They had complete access to the ship, although no one really knew much about it.

  The cybernetic maintenance crew was visible at all times. Small robotic cars would be seen hauling tools into chambers for routine service and larger robots spun down the corridors on their way to fix something else. Paradiso was about to be launched for duty when the original project was canceled. No one knew why it was never placed into service.

  Simon Haddo kept to himself. Ash didn’t see much of him, but Haddo would appear whenever there was a general meeting. If Ash had a specific question, he would answer it. No more information on Barbara Ann’s resurrection was forthcoming, Ash soon learned.

  For some reason, the corporation never attempted to get in touch with them. They could observe the activity of radio traffic, but there were no further attempts to attack them. Ash decided it had to do with the corporation and what it had planned. As far as EAC was concerned, Team Omega was rogue and the starship with it.

  “Contact with Venus in two standard days,” Viktor told Ash one morning. “I am certain you will be glad to know your boredom is about to end.”

  “Glad to know we have a chance to take out another beacon,” Ash responded to the floating head. “Not so glad to wonder about what deviltry the corporation has in store for us.”

  He knew they would strike soon. All the inactivity had to be in preparation for something big. No way would the corporation stand by idle and allow them to destroy their Hell Beacons. It would happen soon, of that there could be no question. But all he could do was speculate on what the corporation had in mind.

  3

  “Viktor has the location of the second beacon,” Haddo told Ash the following morning. “He’s found it in orbit around the planet.” Haddo, as always dressed in the same long black coat, swept his hand upward to indicate the viewing screen, which had materialized in the air over them.

  Ash looked up to examine the point of his gesture. He could see the clouded surface of the second planet from the sun as they neared the orbit of it. On the event horizon, several objects glittered back at them. Ash was glad to hear the location of the beacon was in orbit, as he had no desire to descend to the surface. Humanity had done little with Venus since it was the surface was first explored hundreds of years ago. The heat and pressure made it too difficult to stay down there for any length of time. As far as he knew, there were only a few research stations on the face of Venus.

  “Should make the elimination of it quite simple,” Ash commented. He heard a sound from behind and turned to see the rest of his crew coming up from their private quarters.

  “I don’t think you want to do that,” Haddo pointed out to him. “Yes, this starship could take it out in a matter of seconds, but the publicity would not be good. Right now, we only have the wrath of the corporation to bother us. Destroy the station where the beacon resides and you’ll have every government in the system after you.”

  “And why is that?” Ash questioned. He was already dressed in his standard Team Omega uniform, as was the crew behind him.

  “The beacon is inside a gas factory which employs several hundred people. Blast the beacon out of the sky and you’ll kill all of them with it. Therefore, I don’t recommend that course of action, while it might be expedient in the short term, the overall complications are compounded.”

  Ash looked down. He’d expected this. It was too easy for them to travel around the system and destroy the beacons wherever they found them. No, whoever placed these things knew where the good places would be to set them. Even if they were discovered, anyone who desired to destroy them would have second thoughts. The one on Mercury was easy to destroy from orbit, but the next ones would be much more difficult.

  “Appears we might have to go in and do it ourselves,” Costa spoke up with a smile, too much idle time wasn’t good for anybody. He’d voiced what everyone had in mind.

  Team Omega was in a better place than when they’d left Mercury. The wounds had time to heal and they were recuperated after the travels through Inferno Station and the Fortress Purgatory. Still, he didn’t have a clear idea what was inside the gas mining operation and it caused him plenty of concern. Ash tried to remember what he’d heard about these orbital processing centers.

  “Let’s see what Viktor has on this place,” Ash told Haddo. “Viktor, transmit the diagram and history of it overhead. I want to see what we’re up against.”

  Gas Plant Number Seven, or “Major Gas”, as it was called by the people who worked there, was an orbital refinery that knew service for the past twenty years. It was built by EAC to provide xenon to their fluoride processing operations in lunar orbit and was very profitable. The factory was built by a collection of other concerns, each contracted out by EAC to do a small part of the job. It wasn’t the best place to work, but was a vast improvement over what they’d seen on Mercury.

  Most of the processing and collection was accomplished by robotic probes. They descended into the upper atmosphere of Venus to gather the rich gases that made up the planet’s atmosphere. Once their tanks were full, they would return to Major Gas and deposit their collections. The orbital factory would refine the gases down to the point to get what needed. It was sent out for the processes in the lunar operations. Once they were ready for another run, the probes would descend to the upper atmosphere again.

  Every few months, gas liners would arrive to pick up the refined xenon that the orbital factory processed. The gas liners where enormous, but required few crew members to operate. They consisted of enormous tanks hundreds of yards in lengths that were linked together by metal girders. The crew operated the liners from the rear, the same location where the engines where placed. They would transport the xenon to the lunar production plants that used it, unload, and return for the next batch.

  Although the gas they hauled was valuable, none of the gas liners was ever in danger of being attacked by pirates or smugglers. The gas would drain into the void of space if the tanks were compromised. It was too much work and the pirates concentrated on ore freighters where the return on the operation was much higher.

  Somewhere between the orbit of Old Earth and the sun was a large repair yard for gas liners and ore freighters. They would put in for fitting and maintenance ever so often. It happened when there was a major disruption inside one of the large ships. Unless attacked, ruptured tanks didn’t happen very often. The repair yards were in constant service for the liners.

  Viktor brought up the diagram of the Major Gas plant. They were able to pinpoint the location of the beacon inside it.
Ash starred at the diagram for a while until he found the exact location of the beacon.

  “They’ve placed it in a power plant,” Ash noted. “Smart. We’ll have a fun time getting inside and working our way to it. This was done intentionally. It reminds me of the stories I heard about the wars on Old Earth where guerrillas would hide ammunition inside hospitals. You can’t take it out without killing a bunch of innocent people. Funny how they had the same problem.”

  “We’ll have to find a way in from the side of the plant,” Kris observed as she studied the diagram. “I don’t see any other way to do it.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Ash commented. “All we have to do is study it.” He turned to Haddo. “I need a word with you.”

  “Of course, your highness,” Haddo smirked. “There are many places we can talk in private. I suggest that room to the right of us.”

  The two men walked across the control room floor to the open room. The rest of the crew watched them leave, but didn’t say a thing. The mission had gone far beyond what they expected. It unlikely they would ever receive any of the money promised them.

  Costa turned to Makulah after he watched the two exit. “This is a fine situation for us. We were supposed to deliver that freak back to the corporation and get the big money. Now we have to save humanity from it.”

  “I don’t think there is anything else we can do,” Makulah responded. “Got to find a way to save the universe I guess. At least we’ll have that as an objective. I hope there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow because I could use the cash.”

  “Won’t make a difference if those Hell Beacons activate,” Kris pointed out. “Then no one will be safe.” She watched Ash and Haddo vanish into a small room.

  “Too bad about Barbara Ann,” Jack said. “We could’ve used her right now. She seemed to know what was going on everywhere we went. Never got a scratch on her. Floated from that pirate ship to us in space. Walked barefoot across a fiery oven and didn’t get one burn. I know she was supposed to be some kind of super android built by the bad guys, but we could still use her right now.”