Sung stared at the alien, wondering how much of what he was telling her was the truth, and how much lies to get her out of her defensive armor. She brought up a timer on her HUD, aware that time was ticking off. And if I get out of this armor, they can do anything they want to me.
The timer ticked down to a half minute, and the aliens continued to keep their distance and watch her closely. If the cylinders were filled with the best explosive these people had, it would cut holes through her armor without a problem, sending jets of superheated alloy burning through the alloy and into her flesh. They would blow her apart, vaporizing her brain and thoracic organs. She could feel the sweat rolling down her face despite the environmental controls in his armor, and the HUD clock continued to count down. It ticked down to fifteen seconds and she decided that she wanted to live after all.
With a thought her faceplate rose into her helmet, which split along the seam that hadn’t existed a moment before and moved away from her head. Seams appeared on all of the limbs and along the sides of the torso. Moments after they appeared the suit opened, and she jumped out of it, tearing out the body connections to her veins, urethra and skull plug. The Warrant staggered a meter from the suit, and two aliens rushed forward, grabbed her, and hustled her away.
“Stop the devices,” ordered the leader, and a pair of makes pointed remotes at the suit and pressed large buttons on their tops. The lights went off and the beeping stopped, and the leader let out a breath of relief.
“Get her armor on the next transport out,” said the leader, and Melissa felt her heart sink.
She had just handed over a completely intact set of medium battle armor to the aliens. There were systems in place that she could have used to disable the electronics of the armor, but she had bailed out before she could activate them. And without that connection there was no way she could rectify that error. And now they have something they can look at, and maybe figure out some tricks to use against us. She really wasn’t worried that they would be able to reverse engineer it. The circuitry in the suit was a millennia beyond the tech of any of the native cultures, and nothing they would be able to duplicate, without that much of an increase in their basic tech and manufacturing base.
“What about me?” she asked, trying to contact the ship once again on her implant, and again running into a wall.
“Now we will ask you some questions. And if you know what is good for you, you will answer.”
* * *
Rear Admiral Nguyen van Hung watched the holo as the two liners accelerated out of orbit, on a heading for the hyper limit. Each was filled to capacity with emigrants, sixteen thousand five hundred each. Not all were in cryo, yet. About three quarters of the chambers, which had been specifically calibrated to their species, were filled. The rest would be prepped and frozen on the way to the limit, to be reanimated when they reached the base system, where habitats similar to the one used by the Command were being built.
In three months we’ll have five habitats built, enough for half a million of the Klassekians. With protein vats and hydroponics enough to feed all of them. In another five months we’ll have the facilities for half a million more, but will we have the lift to get them all there?
“Message coming in from Commodore Khrushchev,” said the Flag Com Officer.
Nguyen nodded and sent his acceptance through his link, and the woman who had brought the liners here appeared on the holo. She was taking Tyger with her, as well as a destroyer. This was precious cargo, and no one was about to let it go unescorted through space that might be teeming with hostile ships.
“Make sure base gets my dispatches, Natasha,” he told the Commodore as soon as the connection was made. The cruiser had an additional five hundred passengers aboard, all they could handle without compromising their combat capabilities.
“Will do, sir. And I’ll add my recommendations to yours, if they’ll carry any weight.”
That was the problem. They needed more ships here, if they expected to get the planned two million or more refugees away. The shelters they were building on the planet might help, but he was not completely confident that they would keep everyone who took refuge in them alive. And we need these people, as many as we can save.
He was still waiting for the courier bringing word from the Empire. Base was over a month away from the closest sector capital in the Empire, one which would have a wormhole link to Capitulum, and contact with the Emperor. Only the monarch, or in his absence the Minister of War, could make the decision to send more ships out this way while the Empire was fighting for its life on the other side of its expanse. Once his dispatches got to the sector capital, it would only take from seconds to hours before they were in front of the decision makers, and the same amount of time before their orders were at the Imperial Fleet base.
Of course, at that point, it would take another month for a courier to get back to the Command base, or two and a half months for hyper VI ships to get to Klassek if they came direct. Hyper VII ships would be soon to follow, and they could reach here four times faster.
Nothing I can do about the laws of physics, unless we can get a wormhole cut loose. And what are the odds of that?
“Get those liners unloaded and back here as soon as possible,” he told the Commodore. “And anything else you might be able to beg, borrow or steal.”
He terminated the com, then brought up another one and waited for a moment until Captain Susan Lee appeared in the holo.
“What’s the progress on interrogating our new prisoners, Susan?”
“The medical staff think we are making progress, but it could take some time before we have enough baseline readings to determine their surface thoughts. And, of course, much longer before we can read deeper thought patterns.”
Shit. We have a pretty good handle on what we think is going on, and who's responsible. But we don’t have proof, and I’d hate, during a first contact situation, to start acting like fascists. We’re already having enough trouble with getting them to trust us.
“Keep at it. If we capture any more of the terrorists, they’ll make the acquaintance of our researchers. But we need to know where the orders are coming from.”
“You know, sir, eventually they will discover what we did, and develop their own ways to counteract it.”
Nguyen nodded. That had always been part of the spying game. Either within a species or between several, methods were developed to get information. And methods were developed to counteract those interrogation methods. Until counter counter methods were discovered, and on and on.
“I agree that they might develop some somatic methods to keep us from reading them. But as far as higher tech methods to deal with our drugs, nanotech or mental probes? I don’t see them getting anywhere until they advance at least five hundred years. So keep the pressure up on the research boys and girls.”
He killed that com and sat at his desk thinking for a moment. We could just wait until I have more ships in the system, and pull the locals off and away whether they want to go or not. Get the rest of my people off this planet, and let the natives fight it out over ideological issues.
He looked back at the holo that showed one of the ancient artifacts, the one they were working on. They had abandoned the first site, the one that had been subjected to the nuke. There was still a rescue effort going on at that site, even though it was past the time where they could realistically expect to find any more survivors. It was thought better to start over at another site, since many of the locals of that region blamed the destruction on the humans.
And still no way in. I have to wonder if finding an entrance might lead to losing the people who tried to enter. He thought back to the attempt on one of the blue giant orbiting artifacts made by the team from the Lewis. Their probe had gotten aboard alright, and then had done something that made the artifact think it was hostile. Since then, everything they had tried to put aboard had been destroyed. And there was no guarantee that anyone who tried to penetrate one of the pla
net bound artifacts wouldn’t also be destroyed. But it was the only chance they had to explore what looked like truly advanced technology.
Sometimes I wish I was still just a ship’s captain, thought the Admiral, looking back down at his flat comp, which had yet another report on it. His captains all had maybe one task in front of each of them, at most two. While he felt like he was juggling all the balls at once.
Chapter Thirteen
Sometimes, when you poke the unknown, the unknown punches you back.
Fenri saying.
MARCH 1ST, 1001. D-128.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Helen Moyahan followed close behind the excavating robot she was controlling through her suit. The plan was to excavate into the bedrock down to the ten kilometer mark and establish sensors. From there they would tunnel around the artifact, looking for an entrance, filling in and re-fusing the rock behind them. A number of the ratings she was in charge of were running their own machines, one ton robots equipped with cutting blades of the hardest carbon alloy, along with powerful lasers.
“How’s it going down there, Helen?” asked Commander Jaques La Clerc, the XO of the Challenger, and the commander of the excavation.
“Fine, sir,” she replied, checking her HUD to check her progress. And I’m not really sure what we are accomplishing here. The material of the artifact doesn’t change no matter how far down we go. It still absorbs all energy, and we can’t probe into it at all. Maybe we should admit it’s just too advanced for us.
“As soon as you get everything set up, let me know,” said the Commander, and the com died.
It took several hours to get to where the deep radar said they needed to be. There was a depression here in the surface of the object, and it was hoped it might lead to a way in. Moyahan watched as a pair of ratings played the beams of their lasers over the surface of the object, the rock in contact going from red to white hot and flowing away, while other robots sucked up the molten material and sent it up the insulated pipes that led to the surface.
The Lieutenant could feel the temperature rise around her for a moment before her suit got a handle on it and lowered the temp. The air started to thicken with superheated vapor that had once been solid rock. A couple of robots started pulling the rock vapor from the air and sending it away as well, and the air cleared.
The purplish surface of the artifact glowed as well. Helen pointed a sensor wand at the surface and started taking readings. Interesting. No variation of temperature, despite the lasers and contact with molten rock. Amazing. It’s like it’s wicking it away. But to where?
They waited the required time for all of the rock to be removed, and for that which remained in place to cool back to the ambient temperature of the ground. “OK. Let’s get these sensors into place.”
The ratings first attempted to place standard contact sensors on the surface of the object, with no luck. Not even molecular bonding or nanotech could attach to the unknown substance that made up the artifact. So they went with plan B, setting up frames that held the sensors up next to the artifact.
“Probes are in place,” she reported to the Commander. “But I can’t see a way in here. We’re heading back.”
She really wasn’t sure about the next part of the experiment. Two other teams had burrowed down and also attached sensors. Later, after this part was over, they would work on opening up other areas and planting more probes.
“Let’s go, people,” ordered the Lieutenant as soon as they reached the surface. She and her team took to the air, flying low over the ground on grabber units. Twenty kilometers away were the temporary shelters, hard bombproofs that had been placed and then erected themselves.
Inside were a number of technicians monitoring the experiment they were about to perform. Links had been established with the battle cruiser HIMS Challenger, the platform which would be conducting the experiment.
As soon as Moyahan was in her chair the Commander looked over at her, then back at a com holo. “We’re ready down here, Captain.”
“We’re firing in ten seconds,” replied the commander of the battle cruiser. “Ring A, two emitters at twenty percent power.”
Helen listened to the com, doing the math in her own mind. Each of the eight emitters in a ring could put out one hundred gigawatts of energy into the circular laser unit, which was about ninety-eight percent efficient. So the first shot would be forty gigawatts, from a ring that was capable of putting out eight hundred gigawatts of coherent energy.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” counted the com, and the battle cruiser put forty gigawatts per second onto the top of the artifact. There was really nothing to see, as the beam was invisible, transmitting through a very clear atmosphere out in the desert in which the artifact sat. There was a slight glow on the object, but the aerial sensors flying around it picked up no energy reflection, as if every erg other than some visible photons had been absorbed.
“Anything from the deep sensors?” asked the Commander, and Helen checked her board.
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“Second shot in ten seconds,” came the voice of the ship’s captain. The first had been exactly one second. The next one would last five seconds, and put two hundred gigawatt seconds into the object.
I wonder what the natives would think if they knew we were shooting one of our primary close in weapons systems into an object they thought was sacred, she thought. The Tsarzorian leadership knew what they were doing, since the target was in their territory. The Honish did not, and were sure to raise holy hell if they learned of it.
“Firing,” said the battle cruiser’s tactical officer, and the beam struck again, this time for the five second period that put five times the energy of the first shot into the object.
“Still nothing, sir,” reported Helen, after hearing the same report from the PO monitoring the atmospheric sensors. The energy has to be going somewhere, she thought. But so far all they knew was that the object was absorbing the energy, and it was not being reradiated in any manner they could discover.
They tried a ten second shot, then added two more emitters at twenty percent for another one second shot. They worked their way up the same procedure, then added two more, and then the last, until every emitter was engaged. After that they started raising the percentage power, until the entire ring was blasting away for ten seconds at eight hundred gigawatts, for a total of eight pentawatts, enough to blast through the electromagnetic cold plasma field of a battleship and deep into its armor. And the object was still absorbing all of it, with no sign of radiating it out.
“We ready to bring the B ring into play?” asked the Commander over the com.
“B ring charged and ready,” replied the Tactical Officer of the ship. “Just give us the word.”
Helen checked her board, making sure they were picking up nothing from the last shot. Eight terawatts was a hell of a lot of energy, and it had to be going somewhere.
“What if it’s just one large capacitor,” she said over the com, so she could be heard by everyone in the decision making process. “This thing is bigger than a thousand battle cruisers. We could be pumping light amp energy in it until all of our ships are out of antimatter.”
“She might have a point,” said the Tactical Officer.
“It’s the only thing we can come up with to check its capabilities,” said the Captain. “Nothing we have attempted to probe it with has worked, and the Admiral approved this plan.”
And it had been decided that light in the visible part of the spectrum would be used, since that was where a lot of the energy of a star came from, and it was hypothesized that the artifacts in orbit around Big Bastard were there to collect energy for some unknown purpose. Later, if light in those frequencies didn’t work, they would try something else.
“Firing both rings at full power,” called out the Tactical Officer over the com net. “Ten second duration. In ten.”
The battle cruiser shot the full power of both forward laser rings into the object
with no effect. According to the probes which floated around it the artifact didn’t even radiate an extra erg of heat. One of the probes exploded, caught in the excess laser light that had not impacted the target for one fraction of a second before the ship’s fire control could get everything onto the target.
“Going for a full power shot, all four rings,” called out the Tactical Officer. Again the battle cruiser fired for ten seconds, putting thirty-two terawatts of power into the artifact, which it absorbed without reaction.
“Should we increase the duration?” asked the Commander.
Helen really didn’t think that was a good idea. The laser rings could overheat. Most times, in a real combat situation, they would only be fired for twenty seconds of full power each, spread across multiple beam solutions, mostly in a missile defense role.
“I don’t see why,” replied the Captain. “As the Lieutenant said, we could drain the ship dry and not get a response. So it’s time to start trial B.”
Helen really didn’t like that one. The ship would be next firing its particle beam weaponry into the object, and see if it absorbed that energy as well. I just hope they don’t decide to hit it with antimatter to see what happens, she thought. She didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to do that. The beam would come down from orbit exploding its way through the atmosphere as it contacted the matter of the air, then would have to interact with the matter of the artifact in a manner that would not be conducive to its wellbeing.
“Lining up particle beam one,” called out the Tactical Officer. “Twenty percent capacity.”
At the end of the count down the angry red beam seemed to link the ship to the artifact instantaneously. It was travelling a mere point nine nine light, as fast as the accelerators aboard the ship could speed it before it was shot out of it projector. As fast as just about any ship could accelerate the protons up to. There were ships in the Empire that shot faster beams, but the protons were accelerated on enormous stations and sent to the ship’s projectors through wormholes. No such weapons existed in the Command.
Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. Page 15