Flames: Galaxy On Fire, Book 2

by Craig Robertson

  Running numbers for a while, I began to believe I could navigate empty space without a ship. Holding a rock in a long slingshot membrane and throwing it like a football as hard as I could would move me some. Some, as anyone could have told me, was one hell of a lot better than none. I mean, I was an insane man contemplating the impossible, but I had a plan for getting off planet. All I needed was luck beyond luck’s capabilities to be helpful, and I’d be flying pointlessly in space, but not aimlessly. Hey, why not die there rather than here?

  Were there any conceivable targets, aside from a random Walmart? I scanned the heavens, looking for any trace of an electronic signal. It was possible space colonies were established in the solar system. There was a lot of useful metal in the asteroids. Heck, in science fiction novels, processing metals by advanced civilizations was real important. Happened all the time.

  Nothing. But I had to wait for the Earth to rotate a few times to completely rule out the possibility completely. And it hit me that I needed to do detailed visual observations. With time, I might find an artificial satellite floating by. What good a derelict space probe would do me was somewhat questionable, but at least I’d be able to … okay, die on a man-made object and not where I was presently. I tried to pump myself up about that improvement but didn’t make much headway.

  Within a week, I had collected all the useful data I was going to gather. There were absolutely no signs of life, electronic activity, or giant chain stores up there. I did discover three artificial satellites. They had to have been placed in orbit after Earth was destroyed. Any older versions would have been gobbled up by the hungry Jupiter. That made sense. Some past scientists would want to monitor what happened to a planet after such a cataclysmic interaction. The newer the satellite, the more likely it would be useful to me.

  Could I tell the age of the space probe from the ground? Ideally, to save energy, a satellite was placed in a so-called Lagrange point. Those were sweet spots where gravities from large objects basically canceled out. Earth had five such points, probably still did. I ran calculations for the three probes I knew of. The one closest to a Lagrange point was logically the newest, since its orbit had decayed the least. Assuming the points hadn’t shifted much, it was easy to pick a winner. I made a detailed plot of Jon One’s orbit. I decided that since the satellite had to have a name, Jon One was the obvious choice. Duh.

  I had gathered up my half ton of rocks while I was making my observations and tracking Jon One. Finally, the day came where if I was going to do the ridiculously preposterous, I’d better go ahead and do it. That day couldn’t have come too soon. I was anxious to do anything to prove EJ made a mistake in pissing me off. For the record, spite was a lousy motivator. But, in my case, I was limited to such a base motivation. I couldn’t very well claim I was exploring space for the betterment of humankind. I wasn’t boldly going where no one had gone before or anything noble. I was throwing myself off a dead planet and into deader space. I acted on the infinitesimally remote chance I could kill myself, meaning EJ, and not me, who I was more likely to kill in the first place with my idiotic scheme. Fighter pilot, remember?

  I started from the highest ground there was. I’d take any decrease in escape velocity I could get. I picked up my payload, that being a bunch of rocks, squatted down low, cocked my arms back, and then I jumped and threw myself flat on my face. Apparently, I had made some minor miscalculation. After confirming I hadn’t injured anything other than my pride, I readied for a second attempt. That time I soared like a bird. I was impressed. Rising nearly straight up, I arched my way into outer space. When I was clear of most of Earth’s gravity, around two hundred kilometers up, I slowed to a crawl. That’s when, the Bible notwithstanding, I began casting stones.

  I established the proper vector to intercept Jon One. The more mass I heaved away, the faster I moved. I found I was getting pretty good at adjusting my direction. I was, after all, a starting quarterback in high school and college, so no wonder, right? It took six hours and three hundred kilograms of rock, but finally I could make out what Jon One looked like. It was then I wanted to ask management for a full and complete refund. But, since I was the management, I settled for moderate disappointment and mild dejection. Maybe moderate on the dejection too, the closer I came to my prize.

  J1 was once a shiny tube with expansive solar panels and what looked to be a solar sail. What I was rapidly approaching was a battered chunk of metal with one solar panel strut remaining. The solar sail had more holes in it than the logic I had used to engage in what now seemed to be the most asinine space mission in the history of powered flight. But, as I was fresh out of options, I pressed on. The closer I came, the more I slowed myself by tossing mass in one direction or the other. Finally, I was alongside the craft matching its velocity and spin just about precisely.

  As I was in for a dollar, so to speak, I was in for a dime. Rather than screw things up by attaching my remaining rocks to the craft, I released them to drift slowly away. I was giving up a lifeline, but it was necessary. In astronaut training, it was drilled into me hard the effects of mass interactions in weightless space. A tiny difference in matching of velocity vectors can produce prodigious changes in joined orbit. It was very easy to dock with another ship and cause both craft to gyrate dangerously. The last thing I wanted was to end up spinning like a top in space for as long as it took for our orbit to decay and plunge J1 and its new pilot down to Earth with a crunch.

  I said a quick prayer and grabbed onto the satellite. I breathed a sigh of relief when nothing horrible happened. My grabbing on seemed to make no difference. I shimmied up the rough cylindrical hull to an access hatch. The satellite was maybe thirty meters long with a diameter of five meters. That was definitely on the large size for an orbiting device. I had to power up the hatch release with my probe fibers. Even then, opening the door was tough. Long ages of abuse and neglect made it a chore. But I finally had the hatch open enough to slide inside.

  Oh my, was I surprised. This had been a mini space station observatory, a smaller version of the International Space Station. I could tell because there were two dead bodies floating free in the cabin. Christmas for Jon on whatever day it was. Both corpses had on space suits. The outerwear was badly damaged. Maybe they had a collision or an explosion. Then again, they may have died peacefully and bounced around enough over millennia to whack up the suits. Once the seals were breached or they ran out of power, the bodies stopped decomposing and were held in nearly pristine conditions for me to try and not vomit over when taking a closer look at. They’d had a good head start on decay before they became one with space, that much was clear. I’ll spare the details, but suffice it to say they weren’t ready for a group photo to send back to the fans back home.

  Rather than stare at them and be further grossed out, I did a quick inventory of their suit assets then tethered them to the outside of the ship. They’d been here so long it didn’t seem right to strip them and bury them in free space, at least not yet. There was no telling what might become an asset, including frozen, dehydrated, partially rotted bodies. I know, it was a stretch, but if they were riding on top, I could be miserly with what I had available. Plus, like most humans, I’d seen that movie Cast Away. Remember the dude, Chuck, started having an ongoing relationship with a volleyball, Wilson? Yeah, maybe I’d get that lonely. Time would tell.

  I then powered up the main computers. That was a hassle too, but I did get them working. That’s when I met their AI of limited imagination, A-11-p. Al was a highly advanced AI for the era when I left for my epic voyage. This AI was a later issue, but was more a bargain-basement than state-of-the-art unit.

  “Name and authorization code,” were A-11-p’s first squeaky words spoken in billions of years.

  “I’m General Jonathan Ryan. That’s clearance enough for any worldfleet mission.” From the design, I knew this was one of their ships, launched maybe two hundred years into the trip.

  “Negative. Only Chief Scientist Garr
ison Will and David Westley are authorized to access these computers. Name and authorization code.”

  “Check your chronometer.”

  “Done.”

  What’s the date?”

  “I cannot divulge sensitive information without proper access. Name and authorization code.”

  “Pal, it’s not sensitive, and there’s no one to protect. The crew is long dead, and you find yourself two billon years in the future.”

  “I can neither confirm nor—”

  “Stop talking. You’re powerfully annoying and I just met you.” I guess he was authorized to STFU. Good. Saved me the trouble of disabling him.

  I used my probes to dig into his data banks, which he detected and did not like.

  “You are denied access, General Ryan, until you give—” He made a swoony mechanical sound, then said, “How may I be of service, Captain Ryan?”

  Ah. My reset of his security protocols had kicked in. Yeah, whose bitch were you now, puke?

  I’d pulled out most of the information I needed in the short run, so I didn’t have any requests. I was aboard Time Capsule One, the unimaginative name for a mission to document the changes to Mother Earth after her destruction. It had been launched, as I had suspected, about two hundred years into the worldfleet trek. The two scientists were to study the planet for a while, then place themselves in stasis for the long trip back to the fleet. Not sure why they didn’t just send androids, but it didn’t really matter at that point.

  After a few months of study, debris left over from the Earth/Jupiter collision finally overcame their membrane, or more likely, the generator failed. In any case they had a traumatic decompression that damaged the ship severely. It was a race against the clock. They had to fix the damage before their air ran out. I knew in retrospect which side won that contest.

  The ship had some basic creature comforts, a food replicator, a head, and a tiny shower, none of which I needed. The engines were a pleasant surprise. Two moderately sized fusion drives. They were designed to catch up with the worldship fleet, so for the size of Time Capsule One, they were highly over-powered. Cool. They were, however, empty of fuel. They were also going to need a ton of repair work. Luckily, I had nothing but time. The ship was equipped with a hydrogen skimming system to collect the rare and useful molecules from space. So, if I juiced it with a touch on my supplies, I might just be able to fly somewhere.

  That led me to the first impossible hurdle. Even with the power this craft had and my ability to withstand high G-forces, my best estimate for returning to Azsuram was in the range of one hundred fifty years. Whatever was going to happen to the kids would be long over by the time the cavalry arrived. Hell, if they were elected king and queen and showered with gifts, they’d be dead of old age long before I could get there. But, I had a ride, so I was pleased for the moment.

  My next goal was to round up Jon Two and Jon Three, the other two satellites. No telling what treasures they might hold. Maybe some fresh traveling companions for Garrison and David. I could only hope not. It took a few days to get the engines in working shape. The control thrusters took longer. They were smaller and more exposed, so they were more banged up. I had to donate an O-ring to one thruster from my foot. Me and Jon One were blood brothers. How cool was that?

  I primed the engines and crept toward Jon Three, the closer of the two. It was a standard unmanned satellite in the shape of a metal ball. To me, it was interesting but not so helpful. J3 was deployed just after Earth was taken out. It was an original probe. It also had the smallest amount of potentially useful scrap. I did get a tiny amount of hydrogen from the engines. That was nice. The radio was conventional but still working. I liked the part that the globe didn’t rate an AI. There was no tight ass to deal with.

  With J3 in tow, I headed for Jon Two. The trip took twelve hours. J2 was moving the fastest, so docking was trickier. From far away, I could see J2 was a horse of a different color. It was not of human design. I couldn’t tell whose it was, but it was alien. I began to panic. What if it was an Adamant mine or tripwire? I’d have gone to all this trouble and be totally screwed anyway. But I needed more assets. What I had was incredible, given my starting point, but it wasn’t enough to get me to Azsuram in time.

  I set A-11-p to monitor the craft for signs of activity. By then he was like a puppy, loyal and desirous of pleasing me. I wasn’t so fond of dogs anymore, but it was nice to have his cooperation. I made it to the ship without anything going bump in the night. So far, so good. I docked loosely to the alien ship. What that meant was I looped either David or Garrison, I couldn’t tell which was which, around an external protrusion. That way if I needed to split in a hurry, Jon One could break free without delay.

  I located a hatch and set about to access it. That was hard. I powered the touch plate up quickly enough, but the writing was Greek to me. Well, I guess if it was Greek, it wouldn’t be Greek to me. But without Al or Stingray I was going to be challenged to translate it.

  Anyone home? I said through the probes. Maybe there’d be another cranky AI in there.

  Nothing.

  I wasn’t surprised. I had powered up the pad, but the computer was Lord knew where and certainly out of juice.

  Then the hatch glided open. Okay, a necessary next step, but spooky nonetheless. I went back to J1 and pulled the other corpse back with me. Before I entered I placed the dearly departed in the opening. That way if whatever opened the hatch tried to close it on me, there’d be some resistance. Thanks, Garrison or Dave, for your willingness to sacrifice for the cause.

  I slipped in and turned on my external lights. The ship was smaller than J1 and was free of floating corpses. I wasn’t certain it was a manned craft. It might have just been a spacious AI-controlled probe.

  I attached my fibers quickly. Hello, I said in as friendly a tone as I could.

  In my head, I heard, Welcome to the High Admiralty Remote Probe Clangon-mum.

  A HARP ship? Never heard of that organization, but it was a big galaxy.

  Well hi, HARP Clangon-mum. It’s incredibly nice to meet you. I’m J—”

  You will be stored in a preserved state for full evaluation on Zactor. You might experience a slight tingling sensation as you are are placed in stasis. Do not be alarmed. Once my hold is full, we will return to Zactor where you might be revived. Once again, welcome aboard, specimen.

  This wasn’t sounding good.

  Wait. Am I speaking to an AI, or are you a recording?

  Yes.

  Yes, which?

  Yes both, specimen. Now prepare—

  Wait. I need to speak with you first, before you put me in cold storage.

  There is no need to communicate with collected samples. Be assured, my stasis unit is not cold. Fear not the cold. You will rest in comfort pending your potential revival.

  Potential doesn’t sound promising, my friend. I was pretty good at confusing AIs and sentients. Call it a gift.

  I … we promised nothing other than tingling and comfort. I am not your friend. I am Waltoid Beta-proxy. I am incapable of establishing friendships.

  Aw, don’t sell yourself short, pal. I bet you’re a party animal and have a million and one stories to share. Am I right?

  What is pal? I am not pal. I am Waltoid Beta-proxy. You are a specimen. Since neither of us is pal, who are you addressing? I am not an animal of any type. I collect animals of various types, but am not one myself. Please explain.

  Man, was he easy to bamboozle. I hoped it advanced my chances of staying awake.

  I am so glad you understand, buddy. You know, the AIs of many races are so dumb and so poorly constructed they don’t understand a word I say. Can you believe that? Am I right?

  I do not have sufficient fact to establish if you are right or not. I am incapable of belief. I know or I do not know. I am reluctant to admit it, but I have little to no idea what you are talking about. Please relax, so I can begin.

  You see, I told you that you were one of the sharper
tools in the shed. Your parents must be proud of you. I know I would be if I were your parents.

  “I do … not have parents. I am Waltoid Beta-proxy. I was assembled on Zactor four hundred and thirty-five shifts ago. If you were my parents, that would mean you are two separate entities, but you are clearly not. Please explain.

  My probes told me the poor toaster was devoting more and more RAM to his dilemma. I still had a good deal more to confuse. I mentally rolled up my sleeves and set to it.

  I believe I have explained, Waltproxy Beta. Have you forgotten my words or are you unable to assimilate them? Please explain.

  I am Waltoid Beta-proxy, not what you said. You have not explained. If you had, I would have recorded the data and have access to it. Please re-explain.

  You’re kidding, right?

  I am Waltoid Beta-proxy. I am incapable of kidding. I am not programmed for receiving or originating humor.

  Ah, see, you are kidding. I laugh at your joke. You recorded my explanation but must have forgotten it. You know, forgetting data is a crime on Zactor if you’re an AI. They might turn you off, beat you with a stick, or send you to bed without supper. But you can trust me to tell your controllers, so don’t stress out.

  If you tell Controller Prime, it might initiate the punishments … wait. I am unaware of such punishments. Please explain.

  I am Jon Ryan. I am a Zetadoid technician. I have been sent out to do routine maintenance on you. Part of that is the instillation of the new punish the AI protocols.

  Routine maintenance is not part of this mission.

  It is now. Once I’ve installed the updates, you’ll believe me. Come on, have some faith.

  I am not programmed to have faith.

  You will be when you’re upgraded.

  I pushed myself to the nearest hard surface and kicked it soundly.

  There, your updates have been installed. Please run them and believe.

  I have received no updates. You kicked the wall. That is not the same as installing updates. Pl—