“Lattice?” Eris asked. “Are the constituent joints ready for docking? If the Zalians are willing to get us into position, we might as well dock and couple to Alpha while we have the chance.”
“Especially as the thruster and rocket fuels are nearly depleted,” Jenna stated as she gazed over the gauges and readouts. “Less than one percent of thruster fuel remaining, and rocket fuel levels on the needle ship read zero.”
“A good point,” Eris stated. “AI Ogma? Are the Zalians willing to maneuver us to a docking point?”
AI Ogma answered. “The people understand that you must leave now. They know time is short. They know Alpha and the needle ship, the two remaining parts of the Conestoga must be joined. They tell me they will hurry. Captain Eris, I am liaising between the Conestoga people and the Zalian people, but I must tell you, there is an unsettledness in the Zalians I am having trouble comprehending. Fear, anxiety, stress, dread, and horror are all mixed together in their consciousness. There is a fatalism, perhaps that is the wrong term, but they are disturbed. I am sorry if this sounds too nebulous, but I cannot better describe it. It also involves their collective conscious, supraconscious, mega-body with its multisensory unfocalized awareness. The major message I keep getting is ‘You leave now’ but there is a strong undercurrent of resignation and impending doom.”
“I do not know what to do with that, I am an engineer,” Eris replied. “Convey my thanks and gratitude.”
“Coming up on interception,” SB Pinaka replied. “Matching speed and trajectory. Constituent joints for connection to Alpha are responding appropriately. The repairs to those connectors have worked. Couplings on the needle ship are expanding.”
The display showed the seven constituent joints each flipping their leaf-like petals open. Those large flaps of permalloy folded back and out of the way, as the inserts from Alpha extended and telescoped outward to penetrate into the joint.
“All seven attachment points are lined up and the fittings look good!” Jenna said. “Power in all constituent joints. Hydraulics, electronics, gravimetrics, and atmospherics ready to connect. I do not know how that ship is pushing and pulling us, but we are moving right toward an easy docking.”
“Excellent,” Eris replied.
“Captain Eris. There are objects revealing themselves in orbit around Zalia,” SB Pinaka stated. “Multiple, unidentified power signatures and configurations.”
“Other Zalian spaceships?” Monika asked.
“Use the left display to show me them,” Eris commanded.
That display screen shifted and a view of the greenish yellow planet Zalia was shown. Small purplish glowing balls or globs were pulsing in various places around the planet. They were fuzzy and indistinct. They looked uniformly spaced apart, and were winking in an undulating manner.
“Magnify on a single one of those,” Eris commanded. “Jenna keep monitoring the docking.”
“Yes, Captain,” Jenna replied.
The display shifted again, and a single purplish-blue thing was in the center. It was not a sphere, but more of a multisided form. It was spinning and pulsing at the same time, but it was still fuzzy and hard to focus on. The light was slightly painful to look upon.
“What is that?” Eris asked. “Lattice, sharpen the image and give me an identification, please.”
SB Pinaka replied, “That is the clearest image available. Our equipment cannot focus any better on that object. It is in orbit, along with one hundred and sixty others. They surround the planet in equidistant positions. There are emanations from those objects which we cannot identify.”
“Did they just appear there?” Jerome asked. “They are strange.”
“It is the enemy’s detection satellite network.” AI Ogma’s voice came on, a bit too loudly, and with tones of stress. “You must leave now. My position has been identified. The people here report that the Apex Predator Species knows they have flown again. The people say, ‘We have violated the covenant which required us to never leave our home again. Those sentient beings which just ascended must leave now! The Apex Predators will be coming. You must reach the thin-place in space and go to this location’.”
A gorgeous Earth-like planet appeared on the display. It was a soothing blue color, with bands of white clouds over the top of green and brown continents. Under the image of the stunningly pretty world, reams of data were scrolling along.
“Docking completed Captain. The Zalian ship has pulled away. Alpha is secure. We did not slow our velocity at all, nor did the Zalians do that for us. Nonetheless, all constituent joints are locked and holding. Latched, sealed, and tenable! Pressurization of compartments underway!” Jenna’s voice was joy-filled. Her eyes were bright and gleaming. “We did it. The Conestoga is reborn!”
A cheer went up, all except for Eris. She was looking down at her conservation slate which was plugged into the command controls on the bridge.
“AI Ogma. I am receiving a massive amount of information. Star charts, telemetry, and so much more. What are your sending?” Eris asked. “And why?”
AI Ogma replied, with a more rapid cadence to its voice. “You must leave now. Go to the thin-place, then to that other planet. The people say that is essential. I am transferring all the translated information the people have on the Apex Predator Species. They are coming. They are coming. My physical location is compromised. Unknown ordinance is incoming. Satellite network attacking. I am severing ties here and through the shadow….”
“AI Ogma!” Eris yelled.
On the display screen, the purplish blue glowing object quit pulsating and blazed with an eye-hurting intensity. Its color was a weird mix between blue and purple.
“Filter out that light!” Eris commanded. “What are those things, and what are they doing?” She glanced down and saw her conservation slate showed it had completed the information feed from AI Ogma.
The screen shifted and drew back to show the planet Zalia, ringed by the glowing purple objects. They all glowed with equal intensity. Suddenly, in unison, from each of the satellites, concentrated, pink-colored beams shot out, heading toward the surface of the planet.
“Captain,” Jenna stated, “I am seeing massive explosions where we had plotted Delta, Eta, and Theta to be. No wait, those are only the first detonations. There are…”
“Look at that!” Monika cried out. “The Zalian ship!”
The V-shaped ship was soaring toward one of the purplish-blue objects. It rammed into it, and the object quit glowing, but some chunks of the Zalian craft were left in the wake. The ship turned and headed toward the next of the orbiting objects. The others in the network continued discharging pink beams at the planet.
“Look at Zalia?” Jerome said.
The planet’s atmosphere was changing colors. The chartreuse color it had been, with its mixed greens and yellows, was becoming splotched with tans and mucky browns.
“No, not tan!” Jerome cried out and sat down heavily. Monika kept him from falling over, and both babies began to cry loudly.
The Zalian ship rammed several more of the satellites. They quit glowing, but the ship was obviously stricken. The orbital network stopped blazing in purple, and flickered and flashed from blue to white, to blue, and then the various surviving satellites all were flashing separately and in different hues, mostly purples, and deep blues. A few still fired the pink beams at the planet, but those were random and chaotic.
“Hey rube, you wanted orbital bombardment, right? Hated the Crocks, right?” Bigelow said with slurred speech. He took another long draft from his bottle. “Open your eyes and see what you thought would work. Want me to sing a dirge about this too?”
“Bigelow, be still,” Eris commanded.
The crippled Zalian spaceship struck one more satellite, and both exploded in a silent blast of energy. It nearly overcame the optical filters, but then the display showed a rippling out of the debris. Nothing else remained of the Zalian ship.
“Oh no. They saved us. Thank you,”
Eris whispered. She then prayed for the dead and dying. “Jenna, or anyone, is that a global effect on Zalia? What do we know?”
SB Pinaka replied. “We are unable to analyze the composition of those pink beams, however, they have caused massive explosions on the planet’s surface. Atmospheric alterations are visible, and look to be increasing, despite the purple satellite network no longer firing. I detect no energy signals from where those satellites were located.”
The purple glow of the remaining satellites was gone, but the tan blotches on the planet were expanding and swirling. The greens and yellows were dividing and looked like they were fragmenting into ever smaller globs against a beige to brown background.
“Sandie! Sandie! Tell me what I am seeing!” Jerome wailed, yet with his hands he gently rubbed the baby he held. “It looks like Earth! Oh dear, no! No!”
“That planet is dying. A chain-reaction is in process. Tectonic plates have been obliterated. Extreme winds are tearing across much of the equatorial regions. Chemical instability is observed in the remaining atmosphere. Basic elemental conditions are mutating,” Sandie the AI replied.
“I am getting a signal,” Jenna stated. “Weak and small, but here it is.”
Over the speakers came the voice of SB Virginia Dare. “Delta needs extraction. Delta needs extraction. Delta nee…” It faded into nothing.
The newly reconstituted Conestoga moved away from the solar system where the once chartreuse planet Zalia and all its ecological biosphere was dying.
epilogue
With only a single habitat attached to the needle ship, it looked unbalanced, ungainly, unusual. Yet, in space, the dynamics of shape did not matter nearly as much as many other factors. Velocity was one of those factors, and the reconstituted Conestoga had velocity.
“I have been monitoring Zalia since our departure,” Sandie stated to Eris as she returned to the command bridge.
“Is it as bad as I fear?” Eris said as she slipped into the control chair.
“I can show you,” Sandie replied.
Eris gulped and blinked her eyes. Her mind was unsure if she wanted to see it. She looked at the main display screen which was only showing the blackness of space and the sprinkling of stars on that background.
“Go ahead, show me.”
The display shifted. The red sun of Zalia was obvious, but the globe which was in the center of the view was a dirty brown color. There was no green. There was no yellow. There was no chartreuse. Mottled brown covered the entire surface of Zalia. The planet’s name was now a tragic joke.
“Did any other spaceships leave the planet?”
“No, Captain Eris,” Sandie replied. “We only observed the one which was destroyed while disabling the automated satellite network. I conjecture it was the last remaining Zalian spaceship.”
“And they saved us,” Jerome said as he entered the bridge. “Excuse me for interrupting. The babies are sleeping with Monika, and I could not rest.”
“Me either,” Eris said. “Come and join me.” She gestured to the control chair which was next to her. “Maybe you can give me some insights. I am sort of glad you are here.”
“The tube vehicles are working so well, it was easy to get here from the Goat Room,” Jerome replied as he sat down. The chair recognized his presence, so the small screens, and the interactive three-dimensional controls which were in front of him activated. “All those engineering automacubes that were built in Alpha have been incredibly busy. SB Bodowa was industrious.”
“Yes, and the systems between the needle ship and Alpha are working smoothly. Siva and Peter have crews of automacubes working on the main drive right now.”
“Zalia reminds me of Earth. They are both dead worlds. We may be all that is left anywhere,” Jerome stated. “Well, there might be other colony ships, somewhere, I hope. I certainly wish I knew how the Dome 17 people are.”
“Perfectly understandable, yes, that is perfectly understandable. Do you mind if I review with you how we are? I think it is important,” Eris said.
“Well, I know we are heading away from Zalia, but not under our own power,” Jerome replied. “Coasting along, to use an old-fashioned term.”
“Right, but toward a specific destination,” Eris answered.
“Where?” Jerome’s eyes were wide and he leaned toward her.
“First, let me play Captain and review. Thanks to you and the others we now have in suspended animation a total of 19,811 out of original 112,000 people. Those came from Theta, Eta, and Alpha. It is only about 17% of the original compliment, but it is far more than I ever expected to rescue. AI Batibat has them all secured in Alpha. So again, Jerome, thank you for all you did.”
“It was all of us, even Cammarry,” Jerome replied and looked at his feet. “So where are we headed? You said there was a specific destination.”
“Yes, I will get to that. I want you to know more about how successful Project Ascension really was. There are over a thousand people up and about on the reborn Colony Ship Conestoga, between the needle ship and the survivors in Alpha. The lattice is still figuring full estimates, since so many do not have tracking or identification devices,” Eris stated. “But we are working on that as well. There are still places in the needle ship which must be explored and restored. Our food supplies are excellent, with all the resources of Alpha’s farms and orchards. Some of the people from the needle ship have already started to migrate there. The Fruit People took Beta’s horses there as soon as they could. The horses are happy, form what I hear.”
“Old Bill and Poco, good for them. Khin would laugh about some wizard quest,” Jerome quipped. “You still have not gotten to the destination.”
“Have you tried to contact Cammarry?” Eris asked. She knew Cammarry was living with Alizon on his farm in Alpha’s habitat, for she had dispatched a security automacube to covertly assist them and keep them safe.
“No. I see no reason to, not now anyway.” Jerome put his head in his hands. “It is said that the fear of death follows from the fear of life, but I do not understand that. I have seen too much death. Dome 17 is gone, and my only connection to that, Cammarry, is all but gone as well. So much death on Zalia, but I yearn for life. Eris, that message said something about ‘they are coming’ and then AI Ogma was destroyed. Was that just about the destruction of Zalia, or is there more? Is it about the destination, or what? You see, someone also said that anyone who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. But that is malarkey. I am not prepared to die, and I must know if my sons are in special danger.”
“The Apex Predator Species?” Eris asked.
Jerome nodded.
Eris touched a few controls on the arm of her chair, and a different screen rose from the control panel and opened up.
A still image came on.
“That jellyfish thing we saw in the caverns? That is the Apex Predator Species?” Jerome asked. “I wish John could see this. He loved fish.”
“The Zalians gave us reams of data, and Sandie and the lattice of compeers are collating it right now. But it is no fish, not at all. You saw what its, robotic system, did to Zalia.”
“It looks so odd,” Jerome replied.
“Jerome, even more troubling, these things apparently know about humanity. There is a small part of the data where we, or people very much like us were mentioned. The Zalians were eavesdropping on this species, and there was a small message they intercepted and recorded. When translated it says, ‘The gas breathers are resisting. They are on a crude ship called the Long-distance-racer. They are a bipedal gas-breather species,’” Eris paused for a moment, then she went on. “The Apex Predators gave a biological description which I think can only mean humanity. Then they finished the message with, ‘They call us Jellies.’” She looked directly into Jerome’s eyes. “Jerome? That word Jellies was in our language, not the language of the Apex Predators, and not in Zalian conveyances. AI Ogma, may its mind rest in peace, discovered that in the records and made sure to get it to us
. The Apex Predators know about humanity, somehow.”
“Long-distance-racer? Could that mean Marathon?” Jerome touched his hands to his mouth. “Oh, no, the Colony Ship Marathon?”
Eris nodded, and silently prayed.
They both stared at the still image of the Apex Predator.
The Apex Predator hovered in some kind of fluid. A basic bell shape with flowing tentacles. The overall color was bluish purple. The body had darker striations of deep blue, and violet. It reminded them both of the glow from the satellites which had destroyed Zalia. The pinnacle was a fist-sized ball which sat atop a dome shaped like a half globe. Jerome was reminded of the mushrooms which Khin so liked to find. The dome, or top of the bell, had segments which looked to be able to fluctuate in and out, but it was hard to know in a still image. A thick and heavy stem came down from the middle of the dome. That stem ended with a sharp looking hook or curved spike. Around the stem were tentacles, most of which were connected under the dome, but a few smaller ones were directly off the stem. The tentacle tips varied with some having a broad sort of leaf-like appearance, and some others tapering to a fine point.
The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books Page 219