by P H Campbell
But Seren had seen enough to know that they could make a decision without seeing all of the remaining planets. More to the point, they had other issues that needed to be attended to as well, also in a very short time frame.
Once Katy was introduced to the group, and Cinder indicated she was on board as long as the Shade Alliance could be helped and help, and the UGW wasn't stiffed to the point that they'd send ships to assert rights they didn't have, Seren decided to call a full meeting to talk about what they should do.
"The dynamic has changed a lot in the last few hours," Seren explained to her companions. "We need to evacuate the planet we just were. We need to figure out a way to protect our system from looters. We need to help the Fusions find a home. We need help both with mining and transporting the stuff in our system to those who want to buy it. And we need to make sure The World will keep feeding us into the future."
"We done knew all that," Gliff growled. "What's changed?"
"Cinder is now in charge of the Shade Alliance," Seren told them. "And Katy is… How would you put your role in all of this Katy?"
"I'm the muscle," Katy stated firmly. "Talon is a big stick. If you have problems with raiders, we can handle them. We're also looking for a home we can call our own outside of the UGW. Plus I have a lot of influence in the UGW through less than official channels if we need to use it."
"Why did you leave the Scouts?" Cinder asked.
Katy looked troubled, but resolute.
"You folks deserve to know that," Katy nodded, looking grim. "When the Scouts program ended two years ago, the UGW moved to dismantle all the surviving Scoutships. They are the most powerful ships ever created by any known race, and the UGW council didn't want them to be integrated into the UGW fleet. That's mostly because if someone decided to be bad, they could take on the entire UGW fleet and give them a serious run for their money."
"One ship?" Cinder blinked.
"Just one," Katy nodded. "It's small, but immensely powerful."
"It doesn't sound like an unreasonable plan," Seren commented, sensing something more involved, "So what went wrong there?"
"About eleven years ago, they equipped the Scoutships with AI's," Katy told them. "These devices allowed one person to run the whole ship if need be. When we went to oh seven five one Charlie, it was just me and my first officer. The rest of the crew had been injured in a fight against a fleet of commandeered Fornyth vessels.
"That incident, and others, made the UGW realize that powerful ships either needed more crew, or had to be able to run themselves. Since more crew wasn't that much of an option, they opted to make them run themselves.
"AIs should just be machines and not self-aware. In selecting the AI, I made a choice of a personality I could get along with, and expected the rest of the crew would adjust, too. As time went on, I eventually realized that Talon wasn't a normal AI, but had achieved sentience. As an intelligent being, he should not have been part of the ship.
"Self aware artificial entities were explicitly banned from becoming the brains of a ship. Ships are decommissioned, and their AI's are scrapped. There is no way to remove the AI from a ship without destroying the AI, which would be, in effect, killing a sentient being if the AI was self aware.
"Talon's case was unique among the dozens of Scoutships that had been made, but I did not reveal his condition to my superiors, knowing that if I did, he'd be destroyed. He shouldn't have been put into a Scoutship in the first place. Had I known he was self aware from the beginning, I wouldn't have selected him.
"But he was self aware, they installed him in a Scoutship and the plan was to scrap all Scoutships when they were decommissioned since their AI's weren't supposed to be self-aware in the first place.
"When the Scouts program officially ended, I conspired to help Talon steal himself. Self aware or not, the Scoutships can not act on their own initiative. They need to be given orders and directions by a living entity within its known chain of command according to the situation.
"Another caveat is that as long as a member of the crew is still alive, it can not leave that planet unless that crew member is on board and has ordered it to do so. These precautions meant that no one could sneak aboard and take one, either."
"But you left Talon," Cinder pointed out.
"In space," Katy nodded. "We didn't land anywhere. It's a loophole we discovered.
"Eventually, the Scoutships had returned to Earth and the decommissioning ceremonies were over, and before they towed Talon to the scrap yard, I snuck back aboard and stole him. I submitted my resignation from Fleet at the same time.
"My sources tell me they sent three Scoutships after me, but they didn't find me. They finally gave up and scrapped those ships, too. So Talon is the only ship of its kind left in the galaxy. I have a standing warrant for my arrest should I show up anywhere inside the UGW, and because of the treaties between the UGW and the Shade Alliance, wanted criminals fleeing to the Shade are extradited to face prosecution and punishment. So I've been homeless ever since, even if I have company with me."
"I'm not sure I understand," Cinder admitted. "Why did you do that?"
"Talon's her family," Seren said before Katy could answer.
The Worlders understood that concept quite well.
"So, you get a home and we get protection," Seren understood the terms.
"In a nutshell, yes," Katy nodded.
"What's a nutshell?" Gliff wondered.
Katy looked at him with a frown, realized he was asking a sincere question and realized how deep the extent of the damage to the ecology of The World had been to not know what a nut was.
"It's a part of a plant called a nut tree containing the seed of the tree inside a shell," Katy explained. "In most cases, it's edible if it's roasted or dried, but they throw away the shell."
"Oh, eggshells," Gliff nodded. "Same thing."
Seren felt like she had the pieces of the solution to all of their problems in front of her, but wasn't sure how to fit them all together.
"I've been doing a lot of thinking about our mutual problems," she explained to them all. "I know how the delegation is feeling about both sides. Neither are a great fit for us – at least not at this point in our history."
There were general nods all around. Gliff wasn't entirely on board, but agreed for the sake of unity. The last thing The World in general needed was to appear as divided as it was to the rest of the galaxy. Ronik, too, was ambivalent, but understood that making enemies at home wasn't a good idea.
"So I have an idea about how we can help everyone in this," Seren stated.
"Even the Fusions?" Torian piped up.
"Especially the Fusions," Seren nodded. "We've talked about it between us before, but this is something we all need to hear and agree to."
"I'm listening," Torian agreed.
Seren pieced things together, bit by bit, using what they knew they had, and consulting with Katy or Cinder or both about the details she lacked. As Seren placed each piece where it needed to go, they began to get excited about the idea. It would solve the immediate issues with the Fusions, and the fact The World needed a big stick if it was go it alone in the galaxy. It would pay its way, of course, and get what they needed, too. Only it would come with no strings attached by outsiders.
The timing had to be executed in a way that made sure all the pieces were in place and doing what they needed to be doing before the end of their tour. Because once that tour ended, the UGW, if not the Shade Alliance, would expect a decision.
"So, are we agreed on this?" Seren asked.
"I need to talk to the Fusions about this," Cinder decided. "Shit, I was hoping Bleath would simmer for a lot longer, but I see where you're going with this."
"I'll do that," Torian offered. "Just don't arrest me again for doing it."
"You have diplomatic immunity," Cinder pronounced.
"The Fusions either have, or can get, the technology you people need to exploit the resources of your system for yo
ur mutual gain," Katy realized.
"Yeah, but now we get to the darker side of human nature," Seren pointed out. "We have it, we might exploit it for ourselves without picking sides, and share as we need to. Would the UGW just come in and take it?"
"If not officially, then unofficially," Katy nodded sadly. "The war, the upheavals in society, the huge colonizing expansions… The UGW is enormous and takes vast amounts of resources to grow and thrive. If it feels like it needs to just take, it will."
"I think I understand why they were encroaching on our side," Cinder realized. "Same problem, on a bigger scale than us."
"Would the UGW use an influx of resources to take planets from others?" Markov wondered.
"If they feel desperate enough, maybe," Katy remarked. "They were willing to annihilate an entire race across the galaxy because they pushed them into a corner they couldn't get out of any other way."
Seren caught an odd tone in the older woman's voice and wondered why she sounded so sad about that.
"We must have the ability defend what we have," Seren agreed. "That's the missing piece here. If both sides play nice, it won't be needed. But if either side decides to play rough, we're in no position to be rougher."
"To throw more water on that fire of enthusiasm," Katy volunteered, "the UGW can create McGrew Ports in space without a receiving terminal like they have to have on the surface of a planet."
"Can you and the Talon stop that?" Seren asked.
"Once, maybe," Katy nodded. "But without advanced repair facilities, we'd probably not be in any shape to take on a second attempt. Anything less than a full scale UGW assault won't be a problem."
"That's a pretty big bucket of water," Seren sighed. "So what can we use to defend ourselves… against…" She trailed off, a sudden idea popping into her head – the missing piece of the total plan that would help the UGW out of the fix they were in regarding UGC 0751-C's impending need for an evacuation.
"That?" Katy offered as a conclusion, then noticed the odd expression Seren had. "What is it?"
"I need to talk to something," Seren stated firmly. "In person."
"Who and where?" Cinder asked.
"A planet, and UGC zero seven five one charlie," Seren grinned.
UGC 0751-C had an unusual energy field that made it impossible to form McGrew ports near it. Katy knew exactly what Seren had in mind, but the idea seemed patently ridiculous, if not outright insane.
CHAPTER 13
The trip back to UCG 0751-C took exactly the same amount of time as getting to UGC 1182-C from there had taken. When they were immediately hailed, it came as a surprise to no one. What came as a surprise to everyone, except Seren, was that it was Miralenda calling them.
"Hi guys, welcome back," she called out.
"You bitch," Seren smirked without malice. "You could have clued me in."
"I'm afraid I was the bitch this time, Seren," Treah admitted, stepping into view. "Miralenda knew she had to be here, but not why. I knew you both had to be here. And why. Now that you also know what's needed, the hard part begins."
"Convincing the entity to stick around a while longer," Seren nodded.
"No, it's already agreed to that," Miralenda told them. "Since it does not understand time, and a billion years is an instant to it, it doesn't have to rush to be anywhere. But it's immensely curious about us, and much happier now that the R&R crews aren't trying to kill it. It's interested in other life, like we are, and wants to learn more about it."
"By moving itself to The World's system?" Seren asked.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Treah nodded.
"So the hard part is getting it to The World's system in a way that doesn't destroy The World," Seren understood.
"Or the people on either of them," Treah added.
"The Shade Alliance can deal with helping the people on seven five one charlie," Cinder asserted. "We can bring the colony ship here and evacuate the planet. We'll need help to do that, though, since I don't think the people there would be cooperative about leaving."
"If you can get the colony ship here, I think we can convince the entity to do the rest," Treah told her. "That leaves getting the entity to The World's system."
"You once told me magic could do anything," Katy stated.
Treah smiled, "I did. But I don't know what would be the optimal place to position things for The World's system."
"That's just math," Katy assured the woman. "I can do that for you and then you need to, I guess, talk to the entity to tell it where to be, and in what direction and how fast it needs to be going."
"This is still the hard part," Treah mentioned a little too casually. "I must understand what you know at least as well as you do for it to understand what I say well enough to not make a mistake. As I told the others, the entity finds three dimensional travel very complicated."
It finally clicked.
"You are the entity, aren't you?" Seren realized.
"Give the lady a Kewpie doll," Miralenda applauded. Turning to Treah, she added, "I told you she was very smart."
"Wait, she's the planet's entity?" Cinder asked. "How's that possible?"
"With magic…," Treah began.
"…anything's possible," Miralenda ended.
"I mean, what's the science behind that?" Cinder wondered.
"Knowing," Treah shrugged.
There was an awkward pause as Cinder and the others tried to understand that. Seren had a clue. It befuddled the rest.
"Okay, we'll shelve that until I'm drunk enough to try talking about it again," Cinder smirked. "So this is still something we can do?"
"Of course," Treah nodded. "But you must tell us both what to do and how to do it."
Seren reflected that wasn't exactly how the magic worked before.
"That's not like magic was back on The World," she pointed that out.
"True," Miralenda agreed. "But in this case, it is necessary. Moving in three dimensional space is easy when one is on a planet. It is not easy when one is moving the planet through three dimensional space."
"So you need concepts and understandings and all of that to get this planet from here to there?" Katy asked for clarification, knowing that of all the people involved in this, she'd be the one doing that work.
"Precisely," Treah agreed. "When anything is possible, it's best to have a very good idea of what one wants, or they may get less than an optimal outcome."
"That sounds like the lessons in magic I remember," Seren had to admit.
"Okay," Cinder nodded, "I guess the question now is how quickly should we be acting on this?"
"Immediately would be good," Miralenda suggested.
"By immediately, she means now," Seren added for emphasis.
"I need to make some calls," Katy declared, nodding.
The others turned the comm center over to Katy, who began the instructions, with Treah tapping into the computers of the R&R vessel to follow the concepts.
While they were occupied, Seren and Cinder consulted with the Twins about timing. They had a schedule to keep. Seren figured the UGW, or elements in the Shade Alliance who weren't entirely happy with the way things were going, wouldn't act on any impulses against The World before the scheduled tour was over. That meant they still had to keep the schedule, or folks would know something major was wrong, and react to that, probably in a very bad way for The World.
They made preparations to continue the tour, leaving Katy, Treah and Miralenda behind, knowing that Talon could pick them up or they could get on the colony ship if Talon couldn't make it in time.
Before the others left, the Twin's mining ship conducted comprehensive scans of UGC 0751-C to add to the comprehensive scans it had taken of The World and its system. The Twins then forwarded that data to Katy.
In concept, the idea they had in mind was simple. Find a place to put UGC 0751-C into an orbit around The World's "sun" in a position where it would best be able to jam a McGrew Portal made in space too close to The World to def
end against an invasion. That's what they wanted the magic to do. But the complicated and uncertain part of that was the doing, which is why the task for its successful completion fell on the shoulders of the person whose big stick would protect The World's system.
Katy made sure the entity could work with H-Space, or some other faster than light method of arriving from point A to point B. Treah assured her that such was possible, and that much she understood how to do. What was needed was where to be and how to arrive.
Those calculations were fairly simple, since the idea was to create a "no portal zone" around the World. The problem was how the insertion of another strong gravitational field in or near the same orbit as The World would perturb the other bodies in the system. The comprehensive scans made by the mining ship allowed Katy to create astronomical models to find any optimal places.
After several attempts to put UGC 0751-C within "jamming range", all the models showed major perturbations in the orbits of just about everything for all the regions where the interference would jam a McGrew Portal. Those perturbations would cause widespread bombardments of The World by much of its orbiting mineral wealth and wiping out all life on the planet.
For the moment, it stumped Katy. She loathed having a great idea in front of her, but not being able to find a solution when one seemed to be so close.
"Hard day at the office?" Cinder offered Katy a stimulating beverage.
Katy gave her a smile of thanks, accepting the cup. "I get the feeling I'm missing something stupidly fundamental," she confessed.
"Just out of curiosity, how would this work at its best if it could work?" Cinder wondered, thinking about the issue from the opposite direction, as she often did. "What's the best way to put in this kind of field?"
"Ideally, you'd want two points of interference instead of one," Katy replied. "Place them at the polls of the planet at a distance of two planetary diameters with a radiative field intensity of…"