Victory at all costs (Spinward Book 3)

by Rupert Segar

  “It is happening,” said Zeeann who had her eyes closed. “I can feel the collapse beginning at the centre of the sphere.”

  “But our sensors are only just beginning to detect the cascade,” said the hologram.

  “Thought travels faster than the speed of light,” said Asclepius, smiling. “Zeeann, darling, look now! You must not miss this visual spectacular.”

  As Zeeann opened her eyes, the 3D hologram shifted so that the shrinking sphere of super concentrated mass was the only thing in the field of view. The grey surface was pockmarked with interlocking craters. The ball of matter was spinning slowly. Zeeann calculated it was turning at the rate of one revolution per human minute. The spin was increasing. Then the surface of the ball began breaking up. An orange light shone out. The sphere suddenly shrank dramatically and became a tiny red sun. A light filter clicked into place over the holo display. Zeeann heard the builder say the behemoth’s screens were being reinforced. Suddenly the tiny fiery ball began to expand until it hit the wall of the magnetic bottle. The bright flames turned from red to orange and then to yellow. The energies were wrestling with their confinement. There were tinges of blue and purple. Suddenly the lighter coloured flames were extinguishes leaving only ripples of indigo washing around the sphere.

  “It has gone,” said Zeeann. “A black hole has formed tearing a hole in the space time continuum.”

  “There is no visual confirmation, yet,” said the entity. “Switching to a composite view using data from all the builder vessels.”

  The holo table split into a three layered pyramid, each face showing nine different views of the nascent black hole. Seven of the nine images were nearly identical: the swirling indigo ripples were rotating across the face of the sphere. Impossibly, the other two images showed no rotation at all. The patterns of idigo were quickly fading and the observed face went black. Zeeann glanced at the other seven images and each showed a rapidly rotating ball.”

  “The two still images are taken along the axis of rotation, one above one below,” said Asclepius. “The temporal shift slows the transition from other direction. Or is it that time travels faster at the poles, I cannot remember. The mathematics is complicated.”

  “It is over,” said Zeeann.

  All at once, the other seven images turned black but only for a heartbeat. The black skin of the sphere scintillated as it dissipated.

  The holo table showed just one image, a large scale view. There was nothing to be seen. Then the view zoomed in, closer and closer, until a grey ellipse came into view. A gateway hung in near geosynchronous orbit above the uninhabitable planet.

  “Orbits are both stable, the portal and the planet.” said the builder standing behind the command consol. “The fleet is ready to sail.”

  +

  The holographic builder stood arms outstretched as the giant machine he piloted entered the portal. He was encircled by a holographic image of the tunnel ahead. The Builder shifted position and touched different parts of the circle. Parts of the inner walls of the holographic cylinder changed colour at his caress.

  “Although the gateway at the other end has already formed, we still have to create the tunnel connecting the two portals. When you return the subjective time taken will be almost zero, while you will be travelling 80 years into the future.”

  “Yes, but this trip takes us over a century into the past,” said Asclepius, holding his daughter’s hands in his as they sat restrained by force fields on a couch in the control room.

  “You Creators were always fond of playing with time,” said the pilot with dreadlocks, while sweeping his palm over a sixty degree arc of the tunnel.

  “Perhaps, too fond,” said Zeeann. “Father, will this distortion affect the timeline?”

  “I think not, daughter. We are well within the boundaries of previous time trips. Still, I will check.”

  +

  Nearly 25 hours later, from the perspective of a pregnant Creator carrying three half-Human children, the moon sized cube emerged from a hugely enlarged portal. The massive machine had barely cleared the stretched grey oval before the next builder emerged, then the next, and the next. Zeeann knew logically that there was enough room to accommodate all the huge machines in one orbit but she could not believe it emotionally. The newly formed gateway was hanging in space above a dry desert world ringed by a fleet of planet eaters.

  A missile was launched which went into hyper flight on a heading towards the watery world called Fair Isles.

  “A survey of pulsars shows we are in position and 105.3 years in the past, relative to our departure,” said the hologram builder.

  Asclepius looked up briefly from the small cylinder he had placed on the floor. The omniocular looked like a miniature green ocean criss-crossed by white breakers.

  “There is definitely no change to the future,” he said.

  Zeeann burst into tears of joy and relief. Asclepius looked at his daughter, sighed then returned to his observation of the omniocular.

  +

  The small shuttle craft had been packed full of supplies. In fact, there was hardly enough room to squeeze Zeeann and Asclepius into the cockpit. A narrow corridor to the exit ramp at the stern was all that remained of the unoccupied space.

  “Farewell, builders,” said Zeeann to the pilot of the moon sized machine staring up at her from the vid screen on the control panel.

  “Without your help, any chance of saving the galaxy would have been lost,” said Asclepius, placing both his long hands on the consol. “Shuttle, time to go.”

  The vessel lifted up from the space port floor and flew straight out of the giant doors on a course for the newly created portal. The builder had been correct when he said that subjectively the time taken to traverse the gap between the new terminal portal and the other gateway was less than a second. As they emerged, Zeeann was surprised to see the fleet of builders they had left behind once more in orbit around the brown dwarf.

  “Do not be surprised my daughter. We went through the portals first so benefitted from the maximum time dilation. The builders followed us back but because of their immense bulk they only moved twenty or so years forward. They’ve been slumbering here for the past sixty years.”

  “But where is the original fleet, the builders that were here before you awakened them?”

  Asclepius ran his fingers over the control panel and the image of a half Human, half Creator man appeared on the small vid screen.

  “We were puzzled too,” said the builder. “Collectively we came to the conclusion that for both fleets to meet presented a time paradox.”

  “Who will we meet when we come for the first time?” asked Zeeann.

  “This is a different time-line,” said Asclepius. “The new gateway is already here, there is nothing to build. Whatever our fate, it has already been decided.”

  “That is very fatalistic,” said Zeeann. “What happened to free choice?”

  “I think we can leave that to the Humans,” said the builder smiling on the vid screen, “and to your children, blessed mother.”

  +

  Asclepius piloted the shuttle back through the grey portal. This time there was no time dilation at all. The passage of the builders had soaked up all the temporal tension in the new link. Zeeann and her father and their crammed cargo emerged fifteen light years from Fair Isles. The final leg of the journey was uneventful.

  After landing on the Isle of Hope, Asclepius signalled the buried missile to reveal itself. Loose soil was pushed aside as the missile’s control panel was forced upwards.

  The scientist’s long fingers swiped the board.

  “I have told it to change the psycho-field that has discouraged visitors to the island for the past eighty years. Now it will only be felt offshore.”

  “That’s what it was,” said Zeeann. “The children were complaining.”

  “The field was designed to give any Human a feeling of fear and dread.

  “They just said it gave them a hea
dache.”

  “Well they are only half Human,” said Asclepius once more flicking at the control panel.

  “And remember their father is psychologically robust.”

  “There,” said Zeeann’s father with an atypical grunt. “I have set up a disruptor field as well. It will stop anyone seeing us from afar.”

  Zeeann hugged her father.

  “This will be the perfect place to bring up the children.”

  “I just hope they will be up to the task ahead,” said the scientist.

  Chapter 17: Dakota

  A skeletal ship yard hung in orbit, close to the grey portal high above Dakota. The planet was home to the voyageurs. The voyageur arm of the guardians was responsible for securing the land based gateways. Nevertheless, Art King had insisted a facility for maintaining and repairing former explorer ships was also built at Dakota. In retrospect, Art had been proved right. The loss of access to the shipyards at Fair Isles would have proved a fatal blow without the facilities at Dakota.

  Two explorer vessels were docked in the ship yard undergoing an overhaul. The solid ships, each 50 metres long, looked like caged whales. They were surrounded by a latticework of pipes and girders. Here and there were ungainly construction bots that could do most exterior repairs. Inside both vessels, an army of smaller bots scurried across floors, walls and ceilings. Many of the robots were smart enough to work on their own but all the bot were coordinated by a Sentinel AI computer that ran everything.

  With a burst of tachyons and right handed flux ions, the Ship emerged from the portal and came to a halt one hundred metres from the space yard. A small shuttle detached itself from the underside of the ship and hooked itself to the section of the yard that housed the Sentinel.

  “Sentinel, I am one of the pods from the entity that calls itself the Ship.”

  “I recognise the Ship as my maker. Please call me Max, that is the name the human crews use when addressing me.”

  “Certainly, Max. Now, are you prepared to take orders from me?”

  The Sentinel was quiet for a moment, long enough for it to review its protocols and perform several million other calculations while controlling the actions of several hundred bots on the two Guardian ships.

  “Yes, I accept your authority. But I have one condition.”

  “What is that, Max?” asked the pod.

  “That I get to give you a name. I have found that using names makes for better working relationship.”

  “You have my permission,” said the pod. “Now, we begin by upgrading these Explorer vessels with new weapons and fields.”

  +

  On board the Ship, a holosphere winked into existence by Arts right shoulder and started spinning with a click and a whirr.

  “I can report that the Sentinel has agreed to obey the pod.”

  “Good,” said Art. “Some Sentinels can be quite stubborn. Can we begin our descent?”

  “Already on course for Sioux City Space Port,” said the holosphere as it stopped spinning then started tumbling in the air around Art’s head. “Oh, I thought you would like to know that the pod has been given a name by the Sentinel. It wants to call it ‘Boss.’”

  “I don’t know why you are laughing, Ship,” said Mr Angry. “’Boss’ is a good name.”

  “‘Mr Angry’ is the best name ever,” said Yelena, patting the red pod as it hovered beside her. “Don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

  “As a nom de guerre, it shows ‘ow formidable you are, mon ami rouge,” said Anton Blanc, smiling broadly.

  +

  To the north of Sioux City, the voyager headquarters was perched high in the mountains. The building was one of Mr Angry’s favourite places. The long two story structure looked like a castle built into a rock face. The majority of the rooms had been chiselled out from the black granite. The act of channelling out the rock was, of course, made much easier with laser cutters and vaporisers. Mr Angry said that if he were Human, he would turn half the building into a monastery and become a monk.

  “You don’t have to be Human,” said Art. “There is no rule against artificially intelligent machines becoming monks.”

  “Art, you know perfectly well, I am not an AI. I am a fully conscious entity.”

  “All the more reason to become a monk,” said Yelena, laughing.

  “I am afraid that as a mechanical entity, I am continuously monitoring and sensing my surrounds while continually calibrating and regulating my own self-awareness. And that is without including intermittent communication with my siblings that go on 25/7”

  “Sounds like you’re pretty busy,” said Yelena.

  “That is why it is impossible to experience true tranquillity as a mechanical entity.”

  In the basement of the castle, one vast chamber had been cut out of the bed rock. It was the voyageurs’ control room. Thanks to the Ship, there were almost instant communications with all the forward bases strung across the galaxy. A giant vid screen hung on one wall showing a 3D map of the portal network. Most of the gateways were white lights. The portals controlled by Guardians were green. Those in the hands of the enemy were coloured red.

  A heavily pregnant Captain Ewoma Isoko sat in the command chair.

  “You can see the Empire has captured a lot of ground. Most of the routes connecting us to Fair Isles have been cut. There is a zone of red surrounding the Chimera Sector. The portals at Devastation seem to be the only ones they don’t control.”

  “We might have something to do with that,” said Art, “helped by superstitious fears about Forbidden Planets.”

  “The Black Ops soldiers don’t fear much,” said Captain Isoko. “And now they have the controller technology, there seems little we can do to stop them.”

  “The Ship is setting up a manufacturing unit at Sioux City,” said Art. “We’ve got a few new tricks that will put us on the offensive.”

  Chapter 18: The Doctor’s Medicine

  Dr Robert Fillips closed the front door behind him and did not even bother to do up his jacket. In the dawn light, the spring air was warm and the sky was an azure blue. There would be no rain that day. Robert’s favourite walk took him into a small wood at the bottom of the track that led to the main road. He enjoyed the relative isolation and peace among the trees. Stepping off his porch, however, he could not escape the view of Arcadia’s upgraded spaceport. Even at this hour there were shuttles and cargo boats preparing to ascend to the shipyard in orbit. Walking down the track, Robert saw two vessels ascending into the sky. The blue scintillation of their gravity engines was lost against the glare of the sun although the silhouette of the vessels wavered with the turbulence caused by the gravity fields. Robert assumed the shuttles were carrying up another construction crew to work on the imperial cruisers being constructed in orbit. He sighed at the thought of so many young Arcadian men, and quite a few women too, who risked their lives to support the Empire’s war effort. Then Robert remembered how significantly the injury and death rates had fallen since Arcadia had become a Protectorate, rather than a slave world.

  Three months before, Robert had travelled the globe, recruiting a new government. He had been loaned the royal flitter. Lady Thea, the Imperial Spouse, said she was pleased that her vessel was being put to some good use. Robert was taken aback at the sheer opulence of the craft’s interior. The main cabin was a blur of sheep skin covers and silk throws. The doctor’s tastes were quite plain so he eschewed the Imperial Spouse’s bedroom, complete with ankle deep carpets and a four poster bed, and chose instead the more functional bunk room reserved for the crew. Robert had to share the dorm with William, the Intendant’s aide. Robert suspected William would have loved to have occupied the Imperial Spouse’s bedroom, but he dared not, out of respect for the Emperor’s great niece. William was there ostensibly to pilot the flitter, although Robert knew that the heavily armoured craft had an AI pilot to keep it and its royal occupants safe. In reality, the Intendant’s aide was there to keep tabs on the outspoken doct
or.

  Devonport, the second biggest township on Arcadia, was the first stop on their tour of the East and West Americas. Of the 52 townships that made up Arcadian society, nearly all of them were in West America; only 11 townships were spread out on the eastern continent, Devonport among them. On a peninsular pointing out into the Eastern Atlantic, Devonport was as far away from Robert’s home township of Plymouth as you could get and still have dry feet.

  The arrival of the royal flitter caused an official stir. Robert was greeted by a hastily gathered group of elders. The town’s chief elder insisted Robert and William went on a tour of the township. That evening, there was a banquet in their honour. The protracted meal began with a number of long and meandering speeches. Then they served huge platter of open shelled, pacific oysters, each meaty morsel the size of a gold ball. According to William, they were supposed to be rolled around one’s mouth, bruised slightly to release the taste of the sea, and then swallowed whole. Robert barley managed to swallow his first oyster without gagging. He refused a second. William then completely extinguished Robert’s appetite by telling him that he would be required to give a speech after the main course. The region’s speciality was a crustacean called a Boston Soft Shelled Crab. Robert was shown how to cut the creatures in half using a laser scalpel. William scooped up half of the crab and stuffed it, legs, pincers and all into his mouth. Robert used the scalpel to cut off a claw and played with the pliable appendage before parking it on the edge of his platter.

  After the remains of the crustaceans were cleared away, Robert rose to give a short speech. He spoke broadly about the health of the nation, the need to ensure there was fairness and support for those who had not prospered under the occupation. When he used the word ‘occupation’ a number of people took a sharp intake of breath or tutted. Robert did not say exactly what he was there to do but did say that the ultimate aim was to end the slave world status of Arcadia. At this point these was a smattering of applause and Robert felt free to sit down.