"Dismembered? Well," said Hogart, "I'm not ready for the higher frequencies just yet. Okay team, activate your flash bands. Let’s get out of here. Cuddly, don't translate that."
Cuddly's antennae moved. "I'm sorry, captain. The translator is on automatic."
Hogart suddenly found that, even though he was free of the mushroom bugs, they’d actually glued his feet to the ground. He realized that the others were equally stuck, glued to their positions. Perhaps he could program his flash band to take the glue with him?
Then he noticed the queen's antennae had started moving, and the mushroom bugs jumped them again. As soon as the bugs stuck to him, Hogart knew he wasn't going anywhere.
"Sir," interrupted Spiney. "I think we should go through the correct channels and follow the rules of queen unpronounceable. After all, we are a guest on her world."
"Queens," corrected Cuddly.
"Queens? Already?" asked Hogart.
There was another blast of gas, a large scraping sound, and suddenly the gold queen completely separated in the middle. The ends with antennae on the left and right turned to face the crew, both antennae going wild.
"Captain," said Cuddly, "I can't manage two queens at once!"
"Count yourself lucky. Some men never get the chance," muttered Hogart, as several more mushroom bugs bounced towards them.
#
Geo placed one of his drops against his white surface display, and zoomed the Center surround screen down to the planet. The rest of the crew watched as the images shifted from the suns to the planet then focused on a section of the city and continued to enlarge. The AI compensated for orbital drift, and the image stabilized.
From above they could see the mushroom bugs bouncing Hogart, Spiney and Cuddly down a pathway, with two huge yellow mushroom bugs sitting on a raised area, their antennae moving frantically at each other.
“That doesn’t look good,” said Puppy.
"Can you translate?" asked Geo.
"Working on it," said Amy. "Cuddly has transmitted the translation update, but it’s incomplete. He’s still analyzing the language. It might not be clear enough."
Two voices came through the intercom.
"I want dismembered them."
"No, their current shapes might use."
"I take ship leave."
"You first need there get. You just born. Know not anything."
"I enough. Your memories. Ice volcano, escape velocity, telekinetic guidance. Match velocity, land on ship."
"We negotiate. Technology for other planets. They help."
Puppy paused the image. "Both sides of herself fighting over the crew members. I'm betting on the ‘mother.’
"It is possible that the more mature alien will prevail in this discussion," said Torus. "But the younger one may just kill her and take over, or perhaps order other parts of herself to kill the crew. We need to work something out."
"Team," began Amy. "I’m not sure that the mushroom bugs are from here. Their chemistry seems to be more advanced than the planet they’re on."
Torus and Puppy were silent as they digested this piece of information.
"Invaders or panspermia?" asked Geo.
"I suspect both, based on what Queen Two just said. If they use volcanoes to launch themselves across space to other low gravity planets, who knows how many they occupy."
“So it’s possible that, if there was a more primitive group of mushroom bugs on this world already, this group nuked them and took over,” said Puppy. “They may have taken over other worlds.”
"But," said Geo. "This system contains thirty planets of different sizes. Do you think they have survived landing on all of them?"
"We don't know for sure, but after we rescue our surface team, we're going to have to investigate all the other planets."
"That could take months!"
Puppy thought for a moment, then spoke to the air. "AI, do we have enough information to create drones that can operate and report back in this frequency?"
"Yes, Officer Puppy.”
“Very good. Activate our robot construction bay and begin production. You will oversee the process."
"Confirmed."
#
On one of the edges of the Stellar Flash, lit by the brown and purple planet, a light began flickering. Inside the window, several robot arms began extending from the walls and pulling pieces together. Nozzles and tubes fell from the ceiling, wires and other items sprung from the floor, and a welder began connecting parts.
The AI's Japanese form looked seriously over the conveyer belt. She was interfaced with the ship and knew all the systems, but sometimes she enjoyed using her external hologram just for the different perspective it gave.
Sparks and beams of light played through her image as metal pieces began coming together in front of her - spheres about the size of a human fist, equipped with flash technology. As the final piece of each drone was inserted, it activated, glowed, then flashed and disappeared.
#
Closer to the stars, a blueish brown planet spun slowly. A flash appeared in the atmosphere, and a drone materialized in a low orbit, quickly flitting amongst the threads of clouds, heading towards the surface.
#
The AI watched as another drone flashed and disappeared.
#
This one appeared near a smaller, almost dark brown world, with the binary stars very small in the background. The drone engaged its EM thrusters to investigate, heading for the planet.
#
Another drone disappeared from the AI's factory on the Stellar Flash. Another signal was reported back to her. She displayed it on the analysis screen in the foundry as other signals began coming in, sent instantly via quantum entanglement, rather than the hours a normal signal might take to reach the ship.
As the messages flashed on the screen, she calculated that Captain Hogart may not be happy with this result.
LIFE DETECTED
LIFE DETECTED
LIFE DETECTED
LIFE DETECTED
LIFE DETECTED
Chapter 6
Stuck
Hogart strained again at the sticky glue that held him in place against the smooth red wall. They had been dragged to a room inside one of the nearby conical buildings, and unceremoniously thrown in, and then glued down wherever they landed.
The room was about eight meters square with flat walls but it didn’t really look like a cell. Hogart guessed the planet rarely had a use for a cell, if all the aliens were part of one creature.
The small entrance had been big enough to push them inside, but that was now filled in by a combination of rocks and glue. Even if the room had had an Earth atmosphere, the blocked door and smooth walls and ceiling meant they would have all suffocated within the hour.
Hogart strained against the glue again, but had already decided that, unless he dissolved his nanite suit, he had no way of getting out of this. And with no air nearby that he could breath, that would mean instant death.
Then Hogart saw that Cuddly was inching back and forth. He wasn’t stuck! Cuddly could click on his flash band at any time.
“Cuddly, get out of here. You don’t need to stay with us.”
“I’m still absorbing their language. You need a communications officer. I can’t leave you here.”
Hogart was quietly grateful that Cuddly didn’t want to leave, and he really did need a communications officer. But then he noticed that he was moving erratically around the room, his body showing signs of distress.
"I appreciate that very much Cuddly, but you look like you’re not happy about something. Why are you walking back and forth like that?"
"I have to go, captain," said Cuddly, with a slight panic to his voice.
"But, you just said you wanted to stay."
"No, I need to, you know, go."
"Oh. Well. You should just do it in the corner."
"But..."
"We're all adults here, Cuddly. "We won't be embarrassed."
>
"Captain,” interrupted Spiney from his sideways position on the floor. “I think what Cuddly is trying to say is that, as his waste is highly toxic, we might be affected by it."
"Really?"
"Captain," implored Cuddly. "It might cause your nanite suits to malfunction.”
"One of my colleagues was like that. Sometimes we couldn’t go into the restroom for days.” Hogart did his best to say it with a straight face.
“Did he blow up a wall?”
Hogart’s mouth open and closed again. Seriously? “Cuddly, I didn't study your genotype, but if you're able to release something so highly dangerous, how is it you're able to actually keep it in your body in the first place?" Hogart looked incredulously at him.
"Dual bladders," said Spiney. "When the chemicals mix they can cause some damage, even dissolve rock. Cuddly's race evolved this method of defense."
"Can it dissolve through glue?"
The aliens were silent.
"Well?" asked Hogart.
Cuddly came over slowly, almost like he was admitting some terrible secret. "I can dissolve anything."
"Wow, Cuddly. That's incredible. Why haven't you used this skill before?"
"Skill?"
"Come on ma... err officer, you should be positive about this. We can't carry guns unless we're on the offensive. You've basically got a secret weapon! Unlike Spiney here whose weapons are pretty obvious, and my fists have way too many other functions. You're a walking bomb!"
"Err. Thanks. I think."
"Start with Spiney."
"What? Captain, I object," said Spiney.
"He just needs to spray a bit around your edges, and it'll dissolve the glue, then you can get up."
"It'll dissolve my nanite suit. My spines are more like fingers than spikes. I'll feel every drop!"
"He'll be careful, won't you Cuddly?"
"Um, I'm not sure I can aim straight enough," said Cuddly, apologetically.
"Oh, for God's sake. I don't even know why I'm discussing this with you. Cuddly, I order you to piss on Spiney."
"Captain!"
"Spiney, get back to the ship using any means necessary. Once you're there, you can mount a rescue attempt, if they haven’t already organized one." Hogart struggled against the glue on the wall, but there still wasn’t any give. He would have to stay. "I'm hoping, err, I don’t think Cuddly can't spray this high."
Cuddly stood there, rocking back and forth, unsure, embarrassed, and no doubt wondering what kind of report he would get after urinating on a superior officer. "I'm really sorry, Spiney."
"Just do it," said Spiney, resigned.
Cuddly rose his front, and Hogart was surprised to see that the two middle sucker-like legs were extending, and the suit nanites were making holes in the front, ready to release their loads. He now knew he would be looking at Cuddly's private parts every day, and had already been doing that without even knowing it.
Hogart closed his eyes and shook his head. Too much information. He'll make sure he never notes this when he returns to Frequency Zero. Or, at the very least, avoid reading Jorjarar’s report of it.
Just as Cuddly was about to begin, there was a scratching sound, and the dramatic thump thump thump of several mushroom bugs pounding towards them.
Surprised at the sudden noise, Cuddly straightened up and emptied both his bladders at the filled-in doorway. As soon as both liquid streams hit the rocks and glue, there was a minor explosion and it collapsed, burying bugs and blocking their escape.
Cuddly shook from the reaction, then slowly inched back and curled up on the floor, the shame and embarrassment making him speechless.
Hogart looked at the mess, the struggling mushroom bugs, and the curled-up form of Cuddly. Not only were they trapped, they might have just started a war.
"Well done, Cuddly," Hogart sighed.
He wondered if Heartness had ever been in this situation. If she had, he'd definitely like to know how she had been able to get out of it.
Chapter 7
Breach
The six smaller domes surrounding the larger central dome creaked and shifted in the icy winds that streamed along the snow-covered mountains. The Enceladus base on one of Saturn’s moons was a new outpost, created by another of Earth’s research and development departments. Cratered ice stretched as far as the eye could see, rarely broken by the tracks of the landers.
Not far from the base, a force dome flickered, standing out starkly against the white environment. A lone suited figure peered cautiously through the energy barrier at a turquoise bulge of ice that poked through the otherwise featureless surface.
Doctor John Patel shivered in his space suit. Even though he was enjoying the twenty-four-degree warmth and slight humidity of his enclosed environment, what was under that ice bulge was not something he really wanted to be next to. Even with his decades of training and experience, and multiple knowledge upgrades, he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with unknown dangers in a darkened enclosed space.
He’d recently taken up spelunking on the various moons around Saturn, and had the experience needed for investigating air pockets under the surface. Though, when he was called in to investigate this one, he quickly learnt that it was a lot more than just an air pocket.
He scrolled for the address link and pressed the relocation button on his suit, rematerializing a few meters down. A dark, bubble-shaped space - he couldn’t believe that yesterday there had been no evidence of its existence. Just a few hours ago, all the base’s sensors had gone wild, detecting the vibration of this thing that had appeared out of nowhere.
As soon as he adjusted to the little light filtering through the solid ice above, he began broadcasting to X1-a. There would be a few seconds delay before the Admiral received his message, so he began his report without waiting for a reply.
#
Admiral Victoria Heartness looked at the image in shock. Patel had been playing xenoarchaelogist and he’d just started streaming a creature stuck half in the ice and half in the rock. The creature was frozen solid and looked like it had been there for a very long time.
But it was unmistakable. A mushroom bug. A small, gold-colored one.
She connected and immediately spoke. She knew it would be a few seconds before he got the message, and there was no point in wasting time with hellos and how are yous.
"How did it get there, Patel?"
On Heartness' monitor the space-suited scientist shrugged in the shadowed environment, his helmet light reflecting the creature in disturbing gold flickers. "I'm detecting a phase shift. It looks like it arrived out of phase with the matter around it, and quickly tried to change frequency. I've never seen a creature with rock actually interspersed throughout it before. It usually replaces it not merges with it. It's definitely not fossilized."
"Is there any chance it can phase out again? Is it dormant or dead?" She was getting a sinking feeling about this. How could the creature have crossed the frequencies? More importantly, how could they have crossed to this particular frequency? There were billions to choose from.
"I really couldn't say, admiral. But there's one more thing. I'm detecting negative time around it. According to the surrounding rock and ice, it's probably been here for thousands of years, but the system is saying that it doesn't exist yet. In fact, negative time will reach zero in about ten minutes. So, it's like it is in a holding pattern in time, waiting for time to catch up to it."
Heartness sat back in her chair and stared at the screen. If the mushroom bugs had suddenly found a way to get to their solar system without permission, then they were no longer a potential first contact species, they were a threat.
"Patel, get a contingent of guards down there. I want guns. I want forcefields. I want that entire area cordoned off. Get the Enceladus AI to run a scan around the nearby ice for any more mushroom bugs that may have made it through. I'd hate to think there was an army hiding in the ice. If these creatures start spreading here, who knows what damage the
y can do to the Solar System."
"Yes, ma'am. Understood."
Heartness disconnected, and pondered the situation. In a few minute's time that mushroom bug would officially arrive. Was it a coincidence or was it something that Hogart had caused? She needed more information, but she didn't have any Flash ships she could call upon. Of course, Watanabe was already growing her a small one. Her intuition had been right. But she needed more before she chased after the Stellar Flash.
But there was also Earth. Was this a foothold situation? She could send a quantum entangled signal to Earth for emergency help, but what if there were mushroom bugs monitoring communications? They’d be giving their position away.
She'd only been in the role of admiral, and responsible for thousands of people on X-1a for just a few hours, and already she was facing the possibility of a mass invasion of the Solar System from another frequency.
She wondered if previous Admirals had had similar situations and they were simply forgotten or covered up in the rush for the stars.
Well, she’d better make sure her first one was not her last.
She switched on the announcement system. "This is Admiral Victoria Heartness. A potential threat has been discovered on Enceladus. As a safety precaution, all transmissions to Earth will be suspended as of this moment. If there is some other absolute emergency that may cause a problem for everyone on the base, and require Earth reinforcements, come to my office directly to talk with me about it. All tourism and deliveries will be suspended until further notice. All scheduled delivery ships will be reflashed to Titan base until the emergency is over. I apologize for any inconvenience yada yada."
She ended the transmission and sat back in her chair. It would be just over an hour before Earth knew they'd been cut off, sooner if someone tried to flash jump.
She only hoped Hogart knew what he was doing. If he was the cause of the mushroom bug arriving in a few minutes time, she'd have words with him.
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