Amy quickly splashed herself across her console. "Analysis confirms that is how the mushbugs have been able to spread. The first one brings the bacteria. The second arrives on a world ready for it. If even a few of these bacteria make it onto our ship, they'll change our air, and all the oxygen breathing crew will die. Not only that, but bacteria can sometimes cross between frequencies. They'll get back to the Solar System and begin converting everything. We can't let them get on board."
“But that’s the outer planets. What about this one? Any sign?”
“Checking. Analysis confirms. Not as virulent but there are strains on the planet below.”
"And we've just sent Geo and Torus to capture a bacteria covered mushbug," said Puppy.
#
Geo and Torus looked on while five of the security personnel began herding a mushroom bug towards them. The personnel were chosen purely because they had arms and legs ideal for capturing something - appendages that both Geo and Torus lacked.
"I never thought we'd be out trying to catch something," said Geo, as a six-armed bear-like alien in a nanite suit held its arms out towards the creature. The mushroom bug turned each way, trying to find a way to get through, but the five personnel came closer, circling it. "I’m a first contact specialist, not a zookeeper."
"I do prefer utilizing the phase shifting magnet. It is much more professional. But with these creatures finding a way to appear to us in this frequency, there is a risk of them shifting out of it." Torus held up the wand that would create a force field around the creature. "At the very least this should hold it."
Just then their communicators crackled and Puppy's translated voice came through. "Update to the mission. Cyborg bacteria discovered. Taking the creature on board may cause problems for Earth later."
"Understood," said Geo. "But that means we can't even operate."
"See what you can find with external analysis. We might be able to work out what their secretions are actually made of, with what we've got."
Torus activated the wand and the mushbug froze, almost like it had been turned off. Their capture team quickly stood down and moved away.
"Yes, Puppy. “We will report as soon as possible."
There was a beep as Puppy disconnected, then Geo turned to Torus, holding up a drop. He’d noted the change the light before Torus had.
"I think I have some bad news."
Torus felt his body start to tingle, shift, and pull apart. "The suns are rising. Sorry, I need to return to the ship!" He immediately disappeared, and Geo turned to the extraction crew. "Alright team, let's see what we can find."
#
Moments later, Geo had his answer. He sent his team back for sterilization and called the ship.
“The nanite suits should have been able to unstick from this glue,” he said to the crew. “Either by changing frequency, or activating the scrubbers, but the glue has a subtle electromagnetic field that actually makes the nanites dormant. It could be why the queen didn’t let the mushbugs cover Cuddly with the glue. He wouldn’t have been able to use his antennae.”
“This is serious,” said Puppy. “If any of the crew’s suits are punctured while they’re down there, the nanites may not be able to help them.”
“Cuddly hasn’t been glued, so he should be alright,” said Torus.
“Spiney could survive for several minutes in a carbon dioxide environment if his suit ruptures, long enough for someone to repair it,” said Amy. “But captain Hogart wouldn’t last more than thirty seconds.”
“We need to get them out of there as soon as possible. But we don’t have any defense against the mushroom bugs.”
“I have an idea,” said Amy.
#
Outside their temporary jail cell, the mushroom bugs continued to stick rocks to their undersides, bounce away, unstick them, and come back and get more. There were about ten of them and they seemed desperate to get into the cell.
“Aargh,” said Hogart. “This is soooo boring!” He looked down on Spiney and Cuddly. Spiney still glued to the ground, Cuddly still curled up in a little ball.
They'd been there about an hour, and he knew that Cuddly's body needed to go every hour or so. He'd be ready to fire again any minute, and start to get stressed in about thirty.
Unfortunately, Cuddly hadn't moved and even hadn't responded to Hogart's repeated calls.
"Cuddly, are you alright?"
"I think he's still in shock," said Spiney. "He hasn't damaged anything before."
"Well, it's good that he had his training away from the Stellar Flash!"
"Captain, I've been watching the aliens. When they approach, their undersides are wet and sticky. When the rock is attached, their bodies are dry."
"So, it's like an alkaline, acid combination. They secrete the alkaline to stick things, then the acid to dissolve it. How does that help us?"
"Cuddly's bladders, when released, produce a chemical mixture similar to acetone peroxide in a liquid form. His right bladder is mainly acetone, which might work against the glue. If he can somehow release only one bladder, he could get us both out of here!"
"Spiney, that's brilliant." Hogart turned the volume up on his suit. "Cuddly. Cuddly. “Come on, man, we need you."
Cuddly remained quiet.
"Officer Cuddly. Emergency evacuation!" yelled Hogart.
Cuddly suddenly uncurled and jumped to attention like a viper.
If Hogart could have clapped, he would have.
"Cuddly, you're back!"
Cuddly looked around, dazed. "What happened?"
"You exploded the wall then went into a coma," said Hogart.
Cuddly looked around. "Oh no," he began curling up again.
"No. No…Officer Cuddly! We need you to program your nanite suit to only allow one of your bladders to release."
"Not this again," said Cuddly, almost annoyed.
"It's an order. Your acetone side."
"I don't know what my acetone side is."
"Spiney says it’s your right side."
"He's not an astrobiologist, and I'm not a doctor!"
"Aargh!" Hogart was starting to lose patience. "Cuddly, if you don't do it, we're all going to die."
Cuddly turned to Spiney, and without further argument, allowed the nanite suit to open the evacuation hole in his right side, and he began spraying over Spiney’s spines.
Immediately Spiney was able to unstick them from the ground. Cuddly worked around the rest of Spiney, freeing him from the floor.
When he was finished, Spiney got up and the sticky goo began to slide easily off him. His nanite suit seemed to spark and shimmer, then went to work completely sterilizing him.
“Captain, I think my nanite suit has been offline. Something in the glue. I think yours might be offline too.”
Hogart gaped, then looked resigned. He was glad the air filters had continued to work. “Well, it looks like I’ll have to go through this too, then. Alright Cuddly, now me. Program your nanites to project higher. I think you might be able to reach my head."
Cuddly set to work spraying Hogart. Even though Hogart had his helmet on, he closed his eyes. The memory of Cuddly's pissing leg would haunt him for a long time so he wanted the least amount of memory to work with.
"Spiney, flash out of here and get back to the ship. Don't forget your final sterilization procedure. Cuddly, I need you here until the last possible minute as I might need to communicate. But if you can get me out in time, we leave immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Just as Hogart began to fall forward from the wall, the mushroom bugs pushed the last remaining rocks away and bounced in.
"Spiney, go!" Hogart yelled. Spiney disappeared as the creatures piled on top of Cuddly and Hogart.
It wasn't long before they were before one of the queens again.
#
Spiney materialized in a featureless white room on board the Stellar Flash and was instantly sprayed with a concoction of chemicals while in his nanite sui
t, then blow dried. A high-pitched hum began as a red light flashed up and down over him.
He made sure he wasn’t blocking any part of his wide, spikey body as it was irradiated, and waited patiently until all the tubes and lights stopped flashing.
The AI's voice then said. "Stage 1 nanite suit sterilization procedure complete. Reintegrate nanite suit and begin stage 2." Spiney's suit retracted to a band around his base, and a new chemical concoction began spraying him. "This is definitely my least favorite moment of any mission," he said.
#
The queen’s antennae were moving so fast it was almost impossible for Hogart to see, let alone for Cuddly to translate.
Hogart wondered what had happened to the other queen. What was she doing? Was this the original queen or the new one?
“We witnessed your part with the many antenna disappear,” said the Queen. “You must have the same ability. Give it to me.”
Hogart laughed. “Over my dead body.”
“We understand you value your parts. You helped your other part escape.”
Hogart knew where this was going. He had hoped he wouldn’t have had to deal with another cliché so soon on his tour of duty.
“And so,” continued the Queen. “You will give me your technology or I will separate your other part.”
Hogart sighed.
“It’s alright, captain. I’m not important. Leave me. There are many more in my clan, and I can transmit my consciousness to be with them and come back in a new body.”
“What?” asked Hogart, surprised.
“These bodies are only temporary. I have many of them.”
“Look, I’m pretty sure that my job is to make sure you don’t die, no matter what body you have. So, forget about it. But thanks!”
Hogart shook his head. It didn’t matter whether consciousnesses could be transferred, or even if someone was going to be reincarnated. The fact of the matter was that this life here, in this moment in space/time, was the only one that existed in all of infinity. If you leave it, it’s not the same life. He wasn’t going to get a new Cuddly. He wanted this one.
And besides, he had a backup plan.
“Alright, Queenie. I love my parts and I wouldn’t want any of them hurt in any way. Release your heavies and I’ll give you my flash band. I’ll even show you how to use it.”
The Queen’s antennae moved and the bug holding Hogart unstuck itself. The bug holding Cuddly remained.
Immediately Hogart slid his silver fingers along his arm, trying to find the flash band within the nanite suit. The now dissolving glue made it difficult to feel the join but eventually he found it. He slipped his fingers under and carefully typed in a code.
“What are you doing?” asked the Queen, suspicious.
“Typing in my passcode for you, otherwise it won’t work for you or anyone.”
“Very well.”
Hogart finished and released the clasp. The silver flash system shifted to be outside his nanite suit without it compromising the internal atmosphere, and then slid off into his hand. He looked closely at it, then carefully walk-bounced closer to the Queen and held it up.
The flash band was more of a sleeve than a wristband. It contained several circuits, a read-out screen and an energy conversion system. The energy was eternal, taking its power from outside space/time. Such technology should never fall into the wrong hands, or antennae, and here he was giving it to someone who was not part of Earth government or the I.C.
He was going to pay for it at home if his plan didn’t work.
“As a gift to show our goodwill, and our plan for inviting you into the trillion-civilization-strong Interdimensional Coalition, I hereby gift you with this flashband.” Hogart bowed and handed the flashband to the Queen. To his surprise, the top two of her antennae flickered, and the flashband lifted out of his hand and floated in the air in front of it.
Telekinesis. But perhaps only the queen had it, otherwise the mushroom bugs would have used it on them.
“What does it do?”
“It is programmed with thousands of addresses across the universe. Scroll to go through the addresses, press to activate, press again to automatically return you to the previous location. As you have no hands, but you have telekinesis, that will work just as well.”
He saw that the screen was flickering and knew she was scanning through the addresses. He wondered if there would be enough time. Was she going to fall for the bait?
“There are so many. How can I choose?”
“Oh, they’re all good, queenie. I couldn’t possibly choose one for you. You should pick one and check it out, then come back and pick the next one.”
The queen kept scrolling, its antennae getting more agitated. “But none of these vibrations have additional information. I can’t detect atmosphere or energy about the location. How can I…”
Just then the Queen stopped. “What is that?”
“What?” asked Hogart, innocently.
“This one seems brighter. It has more energy around it.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s not really a place at all. Nothing special. A moon with lots of carbon dioxide, I think. Pretty boring place. I marked it to never go there again. I wouldn’t go there.”
The Queen’s antennae flicked. “I don’t think so. I’m sure you’re trying to trick me. You want me to go to any of the other places, but this one has been marked as special. Hundreds of addresses and only this one is marked!”
“No, really Queen, there’s nothing there. Honestly.”
The Queen lowered the flashband to be directly in front of her, then slid it under herself. Moments later she disappeared in a bright flash of light.
The bugs around them suddenly fell to the ground, Cuddly’s releasing him and collapsing. “Sir, they don’t have access to their Queen anymore. The System has broken down.”
“And now, the other Queen can take over this system.”
“Divide and conquer?” asked Cuddly.
“Something like that. If we had had to see both at the same time, the plan wouldn’t have worked. We got lucky.”
Hogart was pleased to find that they hadn’t had their shoes stuck to the ground this time. “Alright, get back to the ship, Cuddly. Spiney, I guess you’ve been listening to the conversation? Send me down another flash band.”
Just then, a new flashband appeared and Cuddly disappeared. Hogart put his on and also flashed away, just as the other Queen bounced around the corner.
She immediately lifted her antennae high, and activated the mushroom bugs again. “Now you are part of ME,” she said. “And together, we will take over their ship and conquer their star system.”
Chapter 9
Stellar Breeze
Heartness read through the reports. No other mushroom bugs had appeared, and they couldn’t track where that particular gold bug had disappeared to. They’d scanned as far as sensors could go, all the way out to Saturn’s furthest moon Phoebe and to the center of the gas giant. No other ones detected.
She was slightly relieved that there wasn’t an army of mushroom bugs waiting to invade, but she was definitely concerned that it had had Hogart’s flash band. Of course, she knew he could get more from the ship. They had thousands. But, all the same, she thought she should shift to their reality briefly, just to check things out. They weren’t due back for another few hours, but if they were in trouble, perhaps she could help.
She sighed. She knew she was just making excuses to get off the space station. Already getting itchy feet.
But there was something she was forgetting. Perhaps watching Watanabe’s lecture would jog her memory.
She went back to her cabin and tuned into his stream. A few hours had passed since she had spoken to him, so perhaps her ship was almost complete. She shifted the image of his lecture to display on the wall, and when it appeared it was almost like he was in the room with her.
Hangar Sixteen was on the outer edge of level eight, Ring One. It was used for building n
ew flash ships or running experiments on them. It was also the hangar that the Stellar Flash had been partly grown in. As the Stellar Flash was an equilateral triangular shape of approximately one kilometer on each side, it had just had one corner inside the hangar while the rest had been grown in space.
Thankfully, the ship she’d asked Watanabe to grow wasn’t going to be that big. Being just a scout ship, it would barely fit her, let alone anyone else. Just enough to flash to another reality, then travel to a particular location. A mini triangle with a spherical seat inside.
If she knew exactly where the Stellar Flash was now, she’d be able to just flash there immediately. Unfortunately, she could only guess the orbit. And even then, if Hogart had discovered a threat, he might have moved the ship elsewhere.
She started the stream about half way, then checked the time. An hour long, and uploaded an hour ago.
It opened with parts of the hangar showing open space, and Watanabe standing in a force suit, with Saturn moving slowly past him. Watanabe had already created the energy template for her ship, and a faint yellow grid outline of what looked to be a smaller version of the Stellar Flash hung in the space of the hangar. The energy lines remained aloft as Watanabe placed a large tray of black chemicals directly under them. Heartness turned on the sound to hear what he had to say.
"This bit will be in the test, so pay attention. Now that the EM field is holding the energy lattice in place, it is a simple procedure for the magnetic crystals to be attracted to the electromagnetic field and to react and grow. These are not going to just create a ship covered in large crystals like your grandmother might have owned. No, these are microcrystals with a structure that leaves barely any space between the atoms. Imagine interlocking hexagons on a subatomic level."
The chemicals in the tray swirled, and the black goo seemed to flicker and spark as it was attracted to the energy template like a magnet. Within moments the chemical had moved from slow seeping to rapid pouring, spreading across the energy shape at high speed. Heartness watched as the first 60-degree edge of the little ship rapidly formed.
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