The Ruins of Arlandia Complete Series

by William Wood

The image of the robot filled the center monitor. Calvin stared at it. It was a faceless, lifeless thing, with slits for eyes and an elongated jagged oval opening for a mouth. It looked angry, but Calvin knew the makers of it must have wanted to it to look that way in order to intimidate their enemies. It worked.

  “Are you detecting any power readings?” Astra asked.

  “No mistress, it’s not functional.” Calvin turned and looked at her. He could almost see what she was thinking by reading her expressions. “Let’s bring it on board. Maybe we can figure out who made it. If it’s the No’Rath, we can see what technological advances they’ve made in robotics.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Ion said. “We might also be able to recover intel from its memory.”

  “Oooo, that’s perfect!” Astra exclaimed.

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Calvin asked. “It looks undamaged. The last thing we need is an enemy robot running around inside the ship.”

  “It will be OK, Master Calvin,” Ion said. “We can put the robot behind a tri-phase force-field, in case it powers up. That will provide enough protection for us.”

  “OK,” Calvin agreed reluctantly.

  “We can’t pass up this opportunity,” Astra said. “Remember the video we downloaded from Scribbles? If we’re lucky, we could find something similar on that robot. It might not be much, but anything we learn about the enemy is worth it. But I can give you an even better reason for capturing it. If the No’Rath have significantly upgraded their technology, we’ll need to know in order to program the super-weapon correctly.”

  “So we can destroy their technology,” Calvin said. “I guess I can’t argue with that.” It made sense to him. That was after all, the purpose of their mission. It wouldn’t do them any good to only destroy the Goremog, and leave the No’Rath free to devour the galaxy.

  “I’ll bring it aboard with the tractor beam,” Ion said. “Then take it to the lab.”

  “Ion,” Astra said. “Please make sure you secure it behind a tri- phase inhibitor force field, and take Dev with you, he’s good at diagnostics.”

  Calvin wondered why she reminded Ion on what was probably basic security protocol. It must have been for his benefit.

  “Yes, mistress,” Ion said and left the bridge. Calvin kept a steady eye on the way ahead, and wondered if they should go any further into the debris field. There seemed to be little point until they had more information.

  “The sensors have finished scanning this side of the debris field,” Astra said. “I see four objects that are radiating a signature that matches the super-weapon. Any one of them could be the sixth segment. We’ll have to check them all. I’ll load the coordinates into the navigation computer.”

  “Right,” Calvin said, feeling there might be hope after all. It took Ion twenty minutes to retrieve the robot. Calvin spent the time trying to find the easiest way to the first possible segment location. It wasn’t a direct route, but he found a safe path. Once the lifeless robot was secured in the lab behind a force-field, Calvin gently eased the throttle forward. Their target wasn’t far away. It was hiding behind the burned out hulk of a Goremog destroyer.

  “There it is,” Astra said. “It has a segment signature. Let’s capture it. Ion, I’m sending you the location of the segment, will you please tractor it into the bay, and take it to the lab.”

  “Yes Mistress,” Ion replied.

  “I’m gonna go look at the segment,” Astra said, standing up and walking towards the door.

  “I’ll take us to the next location,” Calvin said, doubtful that they would find anything useful.

  “OK,” Astra said, getting up. “I wonder why they have a residual energy signature that matches the weapon.”

  “Because the segment was destroyed,” Calvin said. “Our sensors are detecting pieces of it scattered throughout the debris field. That’s what I think happened.”

  “I think you’re right, but I’ll let you know for sure when I inspect the first piece.” Astra left the bridge. Calvin increased power and turned the ship towards the second location. Again he took it slowly and carefully. He eased Azure Frost around a very large ship with massive gaping holes in its hull. He stopped on the other side, right where the navigation computer said it was supposed to be. Calvin looked out the window. According to the computer, the segment piece was right in front of the ship but no matter how long he stared at the screen, he couldn’t see it.

  Thoroughly confused, he got up and went to the main computer station in the back and sat down. The computer located the fragment and displayed it on a monitor. The only thing he could see was a stray damaged fragment of a space ship. What else could it be? It was burned, and it looked like part of it was missing. One side was torn off and had wires sticking out of it.

  ‘That doesn’t look good,’ He said to himself. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. He could feel hope draining away. They finally arrived at the location of the sixth segment, only to find it destroyed. What were they supposed to do with that? Could it be fixed?

  “Calvin, we have a problem,” Astra said over the comm. “You were right, it looks like the sixth segment was broken into several pieces.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” Calvin said. “I think I found another piece. It’s floating right in front of us, and it’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “Oh, OK. We’ll tractor it in.”

  Calvin watched as the object was slowly pulled into the cargo bay. He waited until Astra contacted him again. “Calvin, we have it. You’re right, this thing is a mess.”

  “Is it part of the segment?” Calvin asked, sure it was going to be bad news.

  “Yes, it is,” Astra said sadly. “You can take us to the next piece now.”

  “OK,” Calvin said simply. The next piece was further away. Several enormous warships blocked his path, surrounded by clouds of debris so thick they were nearly a solid mass. His options going forward were limited, and he tried to avoid the worst areas, but he wasn’t completely able to. The last thing he wanted to do was damage Azure Frost by hitting a large piece of debris. He’d never hear the end of it.

  Then he remembered something he’d learned in the simulator. The shields had other uses than just coating the ship in an energy absorbent field. He increased the strength of the forward shields, and used them to gently push the clouds of garbage away, creating a path. Deeper and deeper into the ship graveyard they crept, slowly and carefully. The sight was ghastly; the damage was extreme. The computer tried to help him plot a course, but as sophisticated as it was it seemed to bog down with the myriad of info it was trying to track.

  Twenty minutes passed and Calvin’s eyes were starting to hurt from concentrating so long on objects outside. His hands were sore from gripping the flight controls.

  It took forty nerve-wracking minutes to reach the next piece. The computer led them right in front of a massive spaceship. It was so mangled and damaged it was impossible to determine what type of ship it was, or who it belonged to. It was broken in half, and the two sections were being held together by a loose collection of power cables and shards of metal. Directly behind the largest piece was another ship, larger but not as damaged. It was black, with round bumps running up and down the hull. The design looked familiar, but Calvin couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before.

  Gaping holes were peppered along the sides and much of the internal sections were visible from space, although they didn’t look like corridors with rooms inside. All visible space was packed with machinery, wiring, conduits and computer components.

  “We’ve got another problem,” Calvin said. “There are two ships in front of us that are smashed together. According to the computer, the fragment is somewhere inside.”

  Astra didn’t answer right away. When she did, she said, “Yikes, that’s a mess. The sensors can’t penetrate it. Not only is there a lot of wreckage, but there is leaking fuel and heavy radiation.”

  “We’re gonna have to put on space suits
and go out into that to look for it, aren’t we?” Calvin asked with skepticism. There was no way they could do that. He had the worst feeling; he could see himself floating around looking for the fragment by hand.

  “No, we’re going to send out a Sipper,” Astra said. “With any luck, it should be able to find the fragment and bring it back without us having to risk our lives.”

  “That’s perfect, I like that idea,” Calvin said, relieved. He didn’t have to go out and search for it himself, certain that would have been a nightmare.

  “We’re prepping the Sipper now.”

  Calvin cut the engines and brought Azure Frost to a dead stop right in front of the mangled wreckage. He wanted to get up and watch Astra launch the Sipper, one of the most advanced pieces of technology he knew of, but he knew someone had to be on the bridge, so he sat back and made himself comfortable, keeping an eye on the long range sensors. The computer was still scanning the debris field, but was not reporting any live contacts.

  Calvin tried to imagine a scenario that caused these two ships to have ended up this way, with pieces of the sixth segment between them. They must have collided head on, at high speed. The front ends of both ships were missing and they were embedded deeply into each other.

  While he was staring out the front window, a small dark object shot by. It moved so quickly it was nothing more than a blur. Calvin was startled and leaned forward. Whatever it was, it was gone.

  Something was alive and moving in the debris field. He wondered if he should activate the forward lasers and have them shoot anything that moves. Calvin hesitated, not sure what he should do.

  “Sipper has been released,” Astra said. Calvin relaxed a bit. That was the answer; he’d seen Sipper dart by. What else could it be? There was nothing alive out there, right?

  Sipper was an amazing tool; a special purpose robot that was used for reconnaissance missions and going places nobody else could go.

  “Here you go Calvin,” Astra said. “I know you want to watch its progress.” One of the monitors switched to a view from the robot’s forward camera. Sipper was heading straight for the wreckage. It was amazing how fast the little robot could move. It had no problem weaving its way between pieces of drifting metal, through tiny gaps in dense clouds of debris much faster than a big ship like Azure Frost could do.

  Sipper reached the first ship and skimmed the outer surface until it found a wide crater. The crater led to a dark tunnel. The little robot flew inside without hesitating; the surfaces were scorched and lined with razor sharp shards of metal.

  “Calvin, are you seeing this?” Astra asked.

  “Yeah, I see it,” Calvin said.

  “It looks like a laser beam did this,” Astra said. “It sliced right through the ship!”

  Next to the Sipper’s optical view was a display of its scanners. The fragment was ahead, and the burned tunnel was taking it in the right direction.

  “Now this is how it should be done,” Dev said. Calvin turned around, startled, and saw Dev standing right behind him. “Send the robots in to do the dirty work.”

  “I agree,” Calvin said. “Have the little guy go into the hazardous environment, not us. Hopefully it can bring the pieces back to us too.”

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Dev agreed. Sipper flew to the end of the tunnel and found a narrow duct, then followed that for another two minutes. It traveled a winding path through the ship, all through narrow ducts and very tight spaces. Calvin watched with fascination, but started to lose interest after fifteen minutes.

  “This is a strange ship,” Calvin muttered. “I haven’t seen any corridors, or rooms. Is the Sipper trying to avoid open spaces?”

  “No,” Astra said. “Look at its sensor readings. I don’t see any open spaces anywhere. You’re right. That is very strange.”

  “Where does the crew live?” Dev asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Calvin sat up and leaned forward when the screen changed. Sipper entered a new room. It was large and round, and had a very big round object in the middle.

  “What is that?” He heard Astra gasp. “Now it makes sense. This ship doesn’t have a crew.”

  “What?” Several voices said at once.

  “No, think about it. That is the brain. This ship isn’t run by robots, it is a robot! One big robot.”

  “That’s incredible,” Calvin said, stunned. “Is it a Goremog robot?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Astra said. “I recognize this technology. It’s No’Rath.”

  There was an audible groan. “I had a really bad feeling it was them,” Wexton said. “Now we have proof. They’ve rebuilt their space fleets and are challenging the Goremog. This can’t end well.”

  “Rebuilt and upgraded,” Astra muttered.

  “If we do our job right, it will end well,” Calvin argued. “Besides, as long as they’re fighting each other, it’s good,” Calvin said. “For now,” Wexton said.

  Sipper zipped past the brain to the other side of the room then plunged into an opening where a large bundle of cables led into a narrow crawl space. In his mind, Calvin was thinking if Sipper failed, there was no way they were going inside there; they wouldn’t fit. How did the fragment get inside that ship? Did the robot ship eat it? No, that didn’t make any sense.

  Sipper careened with lightning speed and stunning accuracy through a series of sharp turns that were almost too quick for Calvin’s eyes to register.

  In the next second, Sipper entered into a small boxed shaped space, with strange looking spheres in the corners of the room. There was a flash, and the video blacked out.

  “What happened?” Calvin asked.

  “I don’t know,” Astra said. “The sensor feed stopped too. We lost all contact with Sipper.”

  Nobody spoke for several minutes. Calvin looked at the longrange sensors again; still no red dots.

  “It’s no mystery,” Dev said. “Those round things destroyed it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Astra said. “Hold on. I’m looking at the last few seconds of data from Sipper.” More time passed. Calvin shifted in his seat. He was getting tired of waiting and wanted to do something.

  “There was a minor power surge in the vicinity of Sipper, right before we lost contact,” Astra said. “I can’t tell what it was, but I think it was directed at Sipper.”

  “I have been detecting very faint levels of power fluctuations,” Ion said. “I didn’t detect them at first because they were so low.”

  “What does that mean?” Calvin asked. The answer came from Ion, and it was an ominous one.

  “The ship is not totally dead.”

  Calvin could hear Astra exhale over the speaker. “I don’t think we have any other option,” she said. “We’ll have to go inside and find it.” That was not at all what Calvin wanted to hear, but for the others, like Wexton, Petori, and Freks, who were dying for a fight, Calvin was sure it would be music to their ears.

  “Now we know we can’t get through the No’Rath robot,” Astra continued. “Sipper could barely fit. We need to try and get in through the other ship. It’s a Goremog battleship, so we should be able to get around inside it a lot easier. Calvin, take us around to the other side. We’ll look for another way in.”

  “All right,” Calvin said, pleased to finally have something to do. He reversed the engines and the Frost slowly pulled back then took them around to the other side.

  “Oh yeah,” Calvin thought, seeing the Goremog side. “It’s going to be much easier.” All along the hull, there were dozens of gaping holes. In most of them Calvin could see corridors and rooms.

  Calvin parked Azure Frost directly in front of a large hole that had the least amount of debris around it.

  “All right,” Calvin said with an air of finality. “We’re here. Dev and I are on our way down.” He stood, ready to go, but hesitated, knowing he couldn’t leave the bridge unmanned. “I need someone to come up and man the bridge.”

  “I’m
on my way,” Ion said.

  “Calvin, meet us in the science lab.”

  Calvin waited for Ion to get there before he left. On the way to the Science Lab, Dev, walking alongside Calvin, said, “Here we go again. We’re going to go climbing around on a dead Goremog ship. I’m not sure this is going to end well.”

  “It never does,” Calvin said. He didn’t say anything else, but a sense of dread had been building in him all since they dropped out of hyperspace. He couldn’t explain it, just that when they left Azure Frost, things rarely went the way they planned.

  Calvin and Dev found everyone else waiting in the Science Lab. Wexton, Nils, Petori and Freks were standing in a semicircle around a computer station with a large monitor. Astra was standing behind a table examining mangled pieces of metal and circuits. Astra was moving the pieces around, examining each one carefully. When Calvin and Dev walked in, all conversation stopped.

  Astra stepped to the computer and turned it on. An image of the wrecked battleship dominated the screen.

  “I’ve directed the scanners to this area,” Astra said. “To help us see what we’re getting into. It turns out this one isn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped, obviously.” She zoomed the screen in on the hole in the side of the Goremog Battleship that Azure Frost was parked next to. “The signal from the fragment is very strong now, and I can only confirm that it’s in that mess somewhere. Since our only Sipper robot failed, the only way to get it now will be to go inside and get it.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” Wexton said confidently. “We can handle this.”

  “Well, actually,” Astra said. “I wanted to give you one other option; we could send only the combat robots in to find it. That would be safer for us.”

  “It might be safer,” Wexton argued. “But it wouldn’t be wise to send in only robots. In my experience you can trust robots to do certain things, but searching for something as small as the segment fragment isn’t one of them.”

  “But sending the Sipper was OK?” Astra asked.

  “That was different, you were in control of Sipper.”

  “We could guide and direct the combat robots too, just like Sipper,” Astra argued. “It would be the same thing.”