Storm Assault (Star Force Series)

by B. V. Larson

  I flew toward the north pole of the ship. Behind me, the marines scudded over the surface toward the big nose-weapon area. It looked like a crater from the edge. One would have thought it was a natural structure due to the size of it, but it was just too damned evenly-cut to be natural.

  I led them all down into the crater and watched as they bumped over the honeycombed things behind me.

  “If this thing goes off while we’re this close, I bet we shrink down to the size of dimes,” Gaines commented.

  “Oh I don’t know,” I laughed, “Kwon here would probably make a half-dollar coin at least.”

  “Very good, sir!” Kwon laughed obligingly.

  I wondered if he laughed at my jokes for the same reasons I laughed at his. I shrugged, deciding it was as good a basis for a friendship as any.

  Soon we found the spot where I’d entered before and began the dangerous journey into guts of the craft. Marvin almost couldn’t contain himself when he realized the size and scale of the find.

  “This is fantastic, Colonel. Absolutely fantastic! I want to thank you for authorizing my addition to this exploration team.”

  “This is a combat mission, Marvin,” I said. “And you know full well I didn’t authorize anything regarding you.”

  “Really? Possibly, there was some kind of data-entry error.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We pressed ahead into the tight tunnel that led through the hull to main chamber. While we were in the tunnel, I became wary. Our numbers wouldn’t help us as much in a tight space. In fact, the close quarters might even result in friendly-fire problems if the bugs hit us now.

  But they didn’t. They passed on the opportunity and let us exit into the open primary chamber without incident.

  Marvin took flight once he wriggled free of the snake-hole entrance. He flew overhead, looking like Santa’s sleigh as he glided his segmented body around.

  “This is absolutely amazing,” he said, cruising in a rising spiral above my company. “The enclosed cubic space here is larger than anything we’ve seen—with the possible exception of the Centaur orbital habitats.”

  “Yeah, it’s big. If you’re done doing a victory lap, I need you to find the control system and figure out how it works.”

  “I see something this way. I’ll report back shortly.”

  He left, buzzing into the mist. I watched him go, shaking my head. “That robot is the best and worst thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Isn’t that what every father says about his kids?”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, but most kids don’t threaten the species with Armageddon every now and then. Are the rest of those marines in defensive positions yet? I want our exit secure.”

  “No sir, but they’re setting up. About that tunnel we used to enter—I think it’s part of the problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not natural, and it’s not part of the design. I think the cyborgs dug through the rock directly.”

  I examined the hole. It was smooth and clean, as if a machine had bored it with precision. I’d assumed it was part of the ship’s structure when I’d found it, but now that I thought about it, how had the cyborgs gotten in? How had they released the pressure inside?

  “They could make something that looks like this, I guess,” I said, running my gauntlets over the edges. They were rough at the seams, and there was no hatch to close over the hole. “I’d kind of assumed this was the way Tolerance loaded himself aboard. Being a cloud, he could blow right through here and dwell inside.”

  “Maybe,” Gaines admitted. “But that big of an air exchange would require something on another side to vent the expelled gasses out. Anyway, I think it’s too big of a coincidence that the hole leads back to the breach in the weapons system and is just big enough for a human or a cyborg to travel through.”

  While we puzzled over this, I had the marine company we’d brought inside spread out and watch the interior of the ship. It was too big, dark and hazy to see the far side. There was no way to dig a foxhole, as the hull was too dense. As a result, my marines were standing around in loose squads, playing their suit-lights over the interior and the smoky brown atmosphere inside.

  It wasn’t long before I heard a chime in my helmet. Marvin was requesting a private channel. I opened the connection and listened.

  “I believe I have, it sir. Really, it’s the only way.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The ship’s interface, Colonel.”

  “You’ve found it? You know how it works?”

  “In principle, yes.”

  I frowned, not liking that qualifier. But I was happy he’d found anything at all so quickly. I told him to stay where he was working on the problem, located his signal and triangulated my way over to his position.

  The flight crossing the central chamber took a good four minutes. This place was huge. I arrived and immediately checked my power supply: it was already down to eighty-three percent.

  “We’re going to have to build some kind of power station network in here,” I said, looking over Marvin’s find.

  I was under-impressed. I’d expected some kind of sophisticated control system. Instead, what I found was a patchwork of hexagons like the honeycomb structure I’d found on the surface. The only difference here was the variable depth of the hexagons. Some were deep holes while others were shallow, and a few poked outward, like a block sticking up from kid’s toy. Each of the hexes was about six feet across.

  “What have you got here, Marvin?” I asked.

  He was cruising around about twenty feet up, poking at one of the hexes. It shifted a little under pressure from his tentacles, sinking inward.

  I frowned in concern. “What is that, some kind of button? Don’t fool with it if you don’t know what it does.”

  My statement finally gained the attention of a few of Marvin’s drifting squad of cameras. A spotlight splashed over me, but he didn’t fly down to my level.

  “How else will I figure out how to operate the ship?”

  I ran my eyes over the scene again. Slowly, I was beginning to get it.

  “Are you telling me this is it? A control panel built on a fantastic scale?”

  “Blues are large beings. Especially in a low-pressure environment.”

  “Yeah…but none of these buttons are even labeled. How could he tell which one was which?”

  “I suspect they are differentiated by the proximity and pressure required to move a given button—I’m not sure as to the details yet. But yes, I am sure this is the control panel. There are few features in this entire vast chamber. As to the lack of labels, well, Blues have no eyes.”

  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. How could a massive gaseous being interact with a ship’s control panel? He couldn’t see it, he couldn’t flick a tiny switch—the physical interface had to be simple in structure. It had to be made up of something that could be moved with puffs of air.

  I imagined Tolerance hovering here, looking like a slightly darker haze. He could blow into these hexagonal holes—or maybe apply suction. He could push and pull the soft interior material around in each of the hexes, thus controlling the ship.

  That was cool, sort of like playing a giant harmonica. But it seemed impossible for a human to operate. You would have to have a dozen people all climbing around tapping on things. What a nightmare. Not to mention we hadn’t the slightest clue what any of the controls did.

  “Hmm,” I said, daunted by the task Tolerance had left us. “Figuring this out is going to be difficult. There must be a hundred buttons here.”

  “Two hundred and sixteen, to be exact. There are also two other smaller panels higher up.”

  “Two hundred and…that’s going to take months of experimentation to figure out!”

  “I hope not,” Marvin said, tapping lightly on a protruding hexagonal button.

  I saw it move a fraction, and ducked my head instinctively. For all I knew, he was warmi
ng up the big weapon to fire.

  “You hope not? Why’s that? Are we going to plow through the ring to Earth soon? I thought we were on a stable orbital path across the system.”

  I sensed doom in the midst of triumph. If we rode this monster into the Solar System, that was all well and good, but not if we couldn’t control it. We might as well find an asteroid and throw it at the ring. At least an asteroid wouldn’t be hollow.

  “The ring?” asked Marvin distractedly. “No, we aren’t headed that way. Not at all. Hasn’t anyone informed you of our new course, Colonel?”

  I shook my head.

  “Tolerance wanted to be sure, I guess—certain of your death. He set the ship into a death spiral. We’ll impact with Centauri B in six days—but the temperature and radiation will kill everyone aboard before that.”

  I stared up at him.

  “Marvin,” I said. “We need this ship. We need to ride it like a battering ram all the way to Earth. It can’t be that complex. Just figure out the basics. How to engage the gravity drive, how to steer—oh, and how to aim and fire that big weapon on the nose.”

  I heard a funny noise out of Marvin, one I’d never heard before. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was a snort.

  “Is that all, Colonel Riggs?”

  “No. There’s one more thing. I want control of this ship within five days. If you manage that, I’ll let you fly again, Marvin. I’ll strap your engines back on myself, if I have to.”

  Seven, eight—fully ten cameras panned and zoomed in my direction.

  “Is that some kind of joke, sir?”

  “No, it’s not. I mean it.”

  “In that case, I will begin my experiments immediately. I’ll need a large amount of cooperation.”

  “Good, what’s first?”

  “I would like you to dig a new tunnel to the surface in a safe location.”

  “And second?”

  “Get everyone away from the forward weapon. I’m going to try to fire it after repairing the wiring.”

  “You’ve got it, Marvin. You’ve got it. But what about the drive system?”

  “Can I please be allowed to carry out my experiments without interference?”

  I frowned inside my helmet but agreed readily enough. Marvin was my only hope of grabbing control of the biggest, baddest ship in the known galaxy.

  “You’ve got it. But can you tell me why?”

  “I’m under the impression that one of the smaller, simpler panels controls the weaponry. This large one does something else—either operates the sensors or the drive. If I can learn the simpler interface, I can then apply that knowledge to the larger.”

  “Right!” I said, slapping my gauntlets together with a loud crack. “Right you are. I’ll have the northern region abandoned immediately.”

  I turned and started flying away across the chamber, shouting for my officers. We were going to have five very, very busy days.

  -21-

  After two hard-working days, I’d landed a lot more equipment and personnel aboard Phobos. At last, Miklos couldn’t stand it anymore and came down to have look at my crazy project for himself.

  He wasn’t too happy with any of it. I’d stripped the bigger ships of several laser turrets each with their best brainboxes attached. These were fairly big units, ones that could stop a missile or a small ship with a single burning ray. That hurt Miklos’ soul, I think, as he knew it weakened the firepower of his precious fleet. But what bothered him even more was the removal of three factories, one from every other carrier, to manufacture supplies aboard Phobos.

  He came down to the surface, where I met him with a forced smile. Although we were on the sunside of the hull and his visor was pretty heavily darkened to keep out the radiation, I could see he wasn’t smiling in there.

  “Commodore!” I shouted, clapping his armored shoulder. “Come on down with me and see what we’ve done.”

  He muttered something I didn’t catch, and I was pretty sure we were both glad I’d missed it. I pressed on, showing him a small, shuttle-like elevator at the top of the shaft. We got inside, tapped the smart metal panel, and were whisked down into the depths.

  “Over a mile of solid rock. The first tunnel was small and winding, but this is much better. We’ve transported everything inside down through this shaft.”

  “Only a single exit? What would a fire marshal say about such a design, sir?”

  “I’ve never liked fire marshals. Too obsessive.”

  He gave me a wry look.

  When the smart metal hatch opened again, we stepped out into the interior of the ship. I could tell right away that he was impressed at the scale of it. A cluster of factories, personnel, and habitation bricks circled the elevator shaft as if it were a campfire. They looked lonely in the vast chamber.

  “Is this the ship’s hold, sir?”

  “Yes, essentially. This is where Tolerance himself hung out. Below this deck—if you want to call it that—is an equally vast chamber full of generators and other equipment.”

  “But how could the Blues…?”

  “How could a bunch of clouds build something like this? Well, first of all, realize that deep down in their own atmosphere they would become increasingly dense as the pressure built. Smaller, denser beings would have an easier time manipulating solid objects. The current theory is that they built robots to do most of the finer work—things that probably look a lot like the Macros and the Nanos.”

  He nodded, fascinated despite himself. He pulled himself together as I reviewed the rest of the encampment with him. He saw a lot of equipment he knew I’d commandeered from his ships and had transported down here.

  “Sir,” he said, stopping in front of one of the factories. “I must protest. This is very irresponsible. There are less than two days to go now before Phobos is scheduled to burn up. Why would we want to have her take these irreplaceable units into the star with her?”

  “They won’t,” I said, “for two reasons: one, I’d pull them out of here first. These factories will be on the first transport—before the crewmen themselves. Two, because Marvin isn’t going to fail. He’s going to figure out how to fly this thing.”

  Miklos looked at me with a distinct lack of trust. “I’ve heard such promises before, especially from that robot.”

  “Look, man,” I said, throwing up my hands, “you should be more excited than anyone about this salvage effort. If it works, just imagine what you can do with it! It will be your flagship. The greatest ship we’ve ever seen, with you manning the bridge. Hell, I might even give you the command chair.”

  He perked up slightly, but his face was still sour.

  “An incalculable honor, I’m sure,” he said.

  I continued the tour. I was accustomed to doubters by this time in my career. Sure, Star Force had had more than her share of debacles, but wasn’t that to be expected as you explored unknown space? Did people really expect everything to go perfectly the first time they tried it?

  “Many of the pioneers of science have had their bad days,” I said.

  “Yes, and this one makes me think of Edison and his pet elephant.”

  I frowned at him in irritation. Edison had once used an elephant to demonstrate the dangerous power of his competitor’s electrical power generators—by electrocuting the animal. The event had turned into a public relations nightmare.

  “An obscure historical reference that bears no relationship to this effort,” I said stiffly.

  “Uh-huh.”

  As I led him to the control panel he became more interested. We now had a series of black tentacle arms applying pressure to every one of the two hundred and sixteen buttons. They could pull or push any of them. These arms were linked to a control panel that was human-sized and displayed a related series of sliding virtual controls. You could push in or pull out any tiny variation of power.

  “It is odd,” I said, “that such a sophisticated people would use what is essentially an analog control syst
em.”

  “Do we know it well enough to make that determination?”

  A voice came down from the hazy air above us, answering his question: “Yes. Yes we do.”

  Marvin came drifting down out of the sky and settled near the control panel. “We have digitized it to some extent, but the original analog system is more precise. The slightest tug or pull will have an effect on the drive, navigation or propulsions system.”

  “But so many buttons!” Miklos exclaimed. “How can we ever master them all in time?”

  “We’ve determined there are actually two forms of buttons. These you see here do not actually control the ship.”

  Miklos gaped at the vast array of mega-buttons. “What the hell do they do, then?”

  “They are the sensory system,” Marvin said. “They provided tactile feedback from the ship’s sensors, which told Tolerance what was happening in surrounding space.”

  “Ah,” I said, catching on. “That’s very good Marvin. Of course! I should have figured it out myself. How else would he be able to respond to stimuli from outside the ship in space? He read these buttons like a blind giant, reading braille with a thousand sensitive fingers.”

  “Two hundred and sixteen of them,” Miklos said in an odd voice. “Incredible.”

  I could tell now by looking at him he had the bug. There was something about this ship, this alien monstrosity, that made a man want to figure out its mysteries and gain at least some degree of control over it.

  “Exactly,” Marvin said. He extended a long black tentacle toward the upper regions, which we could barely see. “Those units up there are the real control panels. They’re comparatively simple. There are three, separated by a considerable distance. Each grouping appears to control a different function.”