by Mark Wandrey
"You mean can power systems or fluid management systems freely adapt to each other?" The instructor was smiling and so was Pip. "There is some evidence of this. In the case of these systems it must be a two way street. If you take one of our computers and try to slap an EPC into it, you're going to be disappointed. The EPC has a brain that allows it to configure itself to whatever it is going to be used to power, as long as that device can tell the EPC what it needs. Our work with adapting transports and manufacturing have made the same discoveries, and not always to our advantage.
"I'm sure you know that we can purchase entire buildings from Concordia firms, just fly them through a portal, push a button, and a few days later, bingo, finished structure. The problems come in that the structure expects certain things to be there to aid in the process. Intelligent power inputs, data, water and sewage. These are all established norms in the Concordia that we haven't quite met."
"Why not just force the norms and get on with it?" Pip continued the line of questioning.
"Well, there you begin to run into politics. Pushing a button and making a road, or a building, or putting a factory into operation is all well and good, unless the district where the building is going to sit contains a brick layers union. No jobs putting up that building, no support from the politicians, no modern building."
"That's ridiculous," one student said and was followed by a near unanimous agreement. Minu saw a few dark looks and guessed what their families did for a living.
"Perhaps, but to date only about one in a hundred new buildings have been built with Concordia technology. And as we have just discussed, you can't just build and old fashioned building and fill it with Concordia wonders. They don't get along." He jumped up suddenly on the table he was using, knocking the Concordia computer spinning. He didn't bother retrieving it. He did bend and over and carefully, almost lovingly, move the old lap top to the other side. He stood and opened the light panel over his head. Inside were four brightly glowing bars and some electrical components. He touched a control and the light panel went out, dimming the room by a quarter. With both hands he removed one of the light bars, now looking like a solid bar of nearly translucent plastic.
"This is a hybrid of krypton and bio-luminescent lighting. Pip, how much energy does it draw?"
"Hardly nothing, sir. In our terms, maybe two hundred milliamperes? I'd have to check with some specialized equipment."
"Close enough." He jumped down and went behind the desk, pulling out another light bar that looked very different. "This light bar uses mostly neon and a very creative laser matrix. It draws quite a bit more power and is made by a very different species for an unknown application." He jumped up and held the bar into the light fixture. As they watched the connectors moved out and grasped the light bar. A second later it flickered on and then matched the output intensity and color of the other three bars in the fixture. "Seamless and completely automatic. Sub-micro computers built into something as commonplace as a damned light bulb. And you'll see this almost everywhere in the Concordia. If a part could possibly work, the machine will figure out how to configure it and make it work. I could plug in an Concordia made juice machine into this damned light socket and make smoothies for everyone in under a minute!"
He made the fixture release the new light bar and retrieved a third one. This one was readily recognized by everyone as a fluorescent bar made on Bellatrix. He held it up for the light that dutifully tried to fit it. After a couple seconds, it gave up and dropped it back into the instructor’s hand. He made a buzzing sound with his mouth and shrugged, the class laughed. "Sorry, wrong answer. Incompatible technology.
"So as you can see we have a very long way to go here on good old Bellatrix. And unfortunately it is damned difficult to take it one step at a time. We in the Chosen foster zones that are growing up where Concordia tech is used top to bottom. Of course they are few and far between, and sometimes met with open hostility. To their credit, the Tog don't push us. I can imagine they are occasionally bemused or outright frustrated at our Luddite tendencies. They have to be shaking their heads and wondering when we will start to walk, instead of crawl."
Minu's computer beeped and she looked down. It was a message informing her she had a mission. She opened the message and read the briefing which described simple courier job involving a meeting with a Tog representative in a distant star system. She sighed and wondered when she would get to walk instead of crawl. Still, it was exciting to be going off world again. The rest of the lecture was hard to sit through without squirming. When he dismissed them she was the first out the door.
The command center at Steven’s Pass was the brain of the Chosen operations on Bellatrix. Carved from the living rock of the Barrier Mountains, it lay more than two thousand meters below the top-side facilities and was accessed via a trio of high speed pneumatic lifts. Riding in them required sitting and buckling in, or a desire for multiple broken bones. The lift shafts were kept in vacuum and the capsules shot like projectiles. A few political visitors came through while Minu served a watch deep inside the mountain. They were so shaken by the trip the dignitaries needed sedation on the way back up.
"What's with the military bunker?" she'd asked the Chosen on her first ride down.
"You know, I asked the same question, and no one seems to know the answer."
"It must have been expensive," she'd noted.
"Actually, I think the Tog did it for us," was his reply.
Minu climbed into the lift and took one of the six seats arranged around the circular conveyance. After locking the three point harness she grabbed the hand holds with both hands. The computer in the pod recognized an occupant was prepared to go and checked the hall. Finding no one else arriving it prepared for departure.
"Please verify you are securely buckled into your seat," the reassuring female voice spoke. "All loose objects must be secured for descent. Any briefcases or computers must be stowed in the cargo compartments or under the seat. Please press the button on the hand holds to acknowledge your readiness of departure." Minu pressed both buttons and the heavy dualloy door slid closed with a reverberating thunk. "Five seconds to departure, three, two, one..."
The car fell away into free fall. A first time rider would say aloud or to themselves at that point; "This isn't too bad." Two seconds after falling away from the station, a gravitic impeller spun up on the top of the car and turned the gentle fall into a full blown gun shot into the abyss. "Coasting," the voice announced after one second of half G thrust. Minu knew she was now traveling at just over five hundred kilometers per hour. Moving at one hundred, forty meters per second, the bottom of the shaft was only about ten seconds away.
Breaking was a two part process. Seven eye popping seconds into the ride a gravitic impeller on the bottom worked for one second, cutting speed by about a hundred kilometers per hour. The rest of the stop was affected by air pressure. The tube wasn't really in vacuum, just almost. There was just enough air on either side of the car to act as a brake. As the trace atmosphere held in the entire two kilometer long shaft was compressed on one side of the car the deceleration increased rapidly. Almost nine Gs of force wrenched her back into her seat as the car slowed precipitously. The pressure finally stopped the car and would have sent it rocketing back up again if a hoverfield hadn't caught it and nudged it into position with the door. The massive pressure behind the car was vented and the door opened. "Enjoy your day," the voice said.
Minu shook her head to clear the cobwebs and unbuckled. Like usual she wondered how much farther down the tube went for safety sake. It took her a second before she could stand and walk out. A Chosen stood there, an honor guard with a shouldered rifle. He glanced over as she walked out in her midnight colored jumpsuit. "Not your first trip," he noted. "No puke and you can stand already."
"Do you ever get completely used to it?" she asked him.
"I hope not. You do know it has three speeds, right?"
"No, I didn't know that. What speed is i
t set for now?"
"Two," he told her. Minu shuddered as she turned to walk toward the command center. She wondered why it wasn't set for a slower speed. Wouldn't it be easier on the equipment? Then she tried to think what the fastest speed must be like. She gave up after deciding it probably wasn't survivable for humans.
The bunker complex was not overly spacious. A geothermal tap provided all the power it could ever need from Bellatrix's aging core. There was a small barracks, computers, conference rooms, and the command center where she went for a look. A round chamber about twenty meters across, every centimeter of wall was covered from floor to the five meter high ceiling with configurable fluid displays, and workstations circled the walls. In the center was a low podium where the Chosen in charge could sit. Around the podium was four more workstations for the leaders assistants. During training Minu studied enough tactics to recognize a CIC when she saw one. The fully operation Combat Information Center was a valuable gift from the Tog.
Only five Chosen were in the CIC when she looked in. One sat in a central workstation, not the big chair of course, and four more in different stations around the outside. They were mission planners and defense coordinators. Just enough to keep things running or call the alert. All the world’s active portals were displayed along the walls in live views. Should an alien species infiltrate (unlikely as Bellatrix was such a backwater world), they would know instantly and could respond such as the humans could manage.
Minu left the CIC behind and continued down the hall to the offices. Most of the programmable signs were blank indicating they were unused, other were in a subdued color showing they were unoccupied, a few were lit and their owners were inside and at work. Minu walked until she found the title she was looking for. Mission Planning Department. Following tradition of the Chosen the name said simply “Dram.” She smiled because they got along well then knocked once and tried the door. It turned in her hand and she entered.
"Minu?" was his deep baritone voice.
"Yes sir, reporting as ordered."
"Come in, come in. Have a seat," he offered and she did. Like most of the offices his was very utilitarian. A desk and chair, the former cluttered with tablets and hard copy printouts, two chairs for visitors, a couple pictures hanging on the wall and a single sickly looking plant in one corner. The office might have been three meters on a side. His massive black frame looked far too big to easily fit into his chair. Dram stood and shook her hand as she came in, his grip serious but not rough. "I've been reviewing your performance since graduation," he said.
Minu felt a little worry but covered it up. "I hope you like what you've seen," she said. A good host, he waited for her to get comfortable then offered her a drink. It was coffee from the southern hemisphere and she accepted gratefully, loading it with several sugars and a healthy dollop of cream.
"I do, but I'm also a little disappointed." Her coffee froze halfway between the desk and her mouth where she was blowing to cool it. "I'm disappointed that I couldn't get you into the scouts instead of command." He laughed and she breathed again, taking a sip of the rich brew.
"I'd like to say I was too."
"You'd be lying. I'd be very upset going into scout if my father had been a First." She nodded. "Well, down to business. You've been getting mostly routine courier and messenger work. What do you think of it?"
"Boring," she admitted. He nodded his head.
"Agreed, but it is the bread and butter of our service to the Tog. They point and we go. It can't be all glamorous rescue missions or technology retrievals. Well, you've been loaned to me for a mission that has a little more excitement." He picked up a control and pressed a button. One wall turned out to be pretending, instead of a plain wall with a picture it was actually a floor to ceiling display like out in the CIC.
The wall displayed their star system, a tiny blue green Bellatrix spinning around its aging star. He pushed a button again and the view zoomed out to the show the entire galaxy, then back in to show another system. "GBX49881 is the target world," he said and pointed with the control. One of the planets in the system flashed obligingly. The G stood for sector G of the galaxy (all the way on the other side from their sector A), the B was considered a planet mostly suitable for humans (Bellatrix was an A), and was not claimed by any one species, thus the X. The number was just its catalog number in the human’s database. Now her pulse began to quicken. This wasn't some civilized world in the core, it was the frontier. "This will be your first mission in the frontier, so I want you to keep in mind the ROE, Rules of Engagement. You will be in command of a small team and your mission is to retrieve a cache left behind by an earlier scout mission. That mission was led by your father, by the way."
"Really?" she asked. Minu already had her computer out and was taking notes.
"Yes. Chriso reported the world uninhabited and found a small technology center that was heavily picked over. One of his many skills was finding what others missed."
"Sir, can I ask a question that has been bugging me?"
"Go ahead."
"As long as the Concordian have been around, and as advanced as they are, why is junk still worth so much?"
"That’s a good question." He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. "We've been trying to figure that out for a while. Of course you have to remember that as a species, we're still like a puppy that hasn't yet been allowed out of doors. We poke around here and there, always in backwater areas of the frontier. With about fifty thousand unclaimed worlds in out catalog alone, chances are not high of running into trouble. Of course, by staying just off the main road, we don't find the really juicy stuff. Anyway, as you were asking, I have a theory."
"I'd love to hear it."
"Okay,” he shrugged and spread his massive hands. “but I had help in this theory. Do you know who my scout teacher was?" She shook her head. "You know him, it was Jovich."
"Really, sir?"
"Sure, best teacher I ever had. He's been to more worlds than any Chosen ever to live. He was the first one to get a portal controller and he took teams off world constantly. He probably spent more time off world than any human before. He was so successful, his First pretty much gave him free reign. Under his instruction I gained my understanding of the galaxy, learned the in and outs of the portal network, and stayed alive as long as I have."
"He's not really that old, why did he retire from active service?"
Dram looked at her for a long moment then sat up more straight. "That is a story he would have to tell you. I'm digressing, onto the theory." Minu nodded, but didn't forget her question. "Jovich and I sat down one fine day over a table load of empty mead bottles and started playing handball with a theory. Our conclusions surprised even us." Minu tried not to show how much suspense she was feeling. Dram should be an actor, she thought. "The short of it is, we believe the Concordia Empire is dying."
"What?!" she said incredulously.
"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" she tried to shrug; the motion barely reached her shoulders. "It's okay, most people do. Your about to embark on the next stage of your career, and it will take you away from the core. You're going to see things you haven't seen, and start to come to your own conclusions on the healthiness of the rather loose alliance of species were euphemistically call the Concordia. Marvelous and vast it might be, but that is nothing compared to what it once was."
Minu couldn't understand what he was saying. The Concordia Empire contained tens of thousands of worlds, many thousands of species, and literally spanned across the entire Milky Way galaxy. Dying? Ridiculous. Impossible. Almost heretical!
The meeting wrapped with her presenting him with a mission plan which he approved. She would command a seven man team, all new like herself, for an expected three day mission into the frontier. In minutes, Dram's wild theory was all but gone forgotten.
Chapter 4
September 14th, 515 AE
Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass
Minu hadn't been surprised
to find Aaron and Gregg waiting in the ready room. She was surprised to see Cherise gearing up while chatting with Pip.
"Boss is here," Gregg said and they all snapped to attention. Minu made a rude hand gesture and most broke out laughing. Three more young Chosen came in and looked around. Spotting her five gold stars they came over and introduced themselves.
"William, scout," the first boy said as Minu shook his hand. He was medium build with jet black hair and a laid back demeanor that immediately worried her.
"Luke, also a scout," the next one said. While he was almost as tall as Dram, Luke was so thin as to look skeletal. His eyes were bright and inquisitive and he kept his brown hair closely cropped.
"And that leaves me, Chester," the last one said, "logistics." His somewhat olive complexion was complemented with dark, well cut hair. He nodded acknowledgment to Aaron when he spotted him. Minu guessed right that we has from New Jerusalem like her friend, and they knew each other.
"Minu, command," she told them, though they likely knew that already since there were so few in command section from their class.
"I'm just glad it wasn't Ivan," Chester said and got enthusiastic nods from the other two newcomers.
"He's such an asshole," Luke put in. Minu's friends snickered and soon they were all laughing. She liked these guys.
"Been on many missions with him?" Minu asked them.
"A couple," Chester said.
"Only one," William told them, "but that was one too many."
"Same here," Luke said.
Minu introduced them to the others in her team then set about going over the mission briefing. Just as she was trained to plan and carry out a mission, they were trained to work with their leader to make that mission successful. The fact that she was their own age and a woman didn't affect them in any way that she could tell. The new members took note of how efficient she was, and that her three friends followed her naturally, and just went along. She said all the right things, and her stars were gold. That was enough for them.