Theocracy: Book 1.

by Doug Dandridge

  “There was a limit to the longevity that could be imposed by outside means,” said the ship.

  “What about cloning and mind uploads?” asked Alyssa, remembering that she had heard about experimentation with those technologies going on in her culture. But that was all she heard about, experimentation, with no true breakthroughs.

  “That was attempted,” said the ship. “And eventually it was outlawed because of, difficulties.”

  “Show us some more of what went on that day,” said Alyssa, not really wanting to see more of the carnage but compelled to do so.

  The holo switched to the promenade outside. More robots were burning their way through the crowd. Bodies and pieces of bodies hit the floor, or were blown over the side to start the long fall to the bottom. Alyssa felt herself sickening at the sight, but knew she had to gather all the information she could about this horrific event, if just to help her find what she needed in this place.

  “Where did the robots come from?” she asked, when she felt that she could not look at anymore slaughter.

  The scene switched to a long room that seemed to extend into infinity. People were walking along the room, or standing and sitting in the center conversing with others. Along the sides of the room there were gates that looked like something Alyssa had seen before, an inward bent beam over two supports. And between each of these supports and the overhead beams were a mirrored surface that shimmered periodically. People walked in and out of these gates with no seeming concern.

  “The wormhole gates that spanned the Galaxy,” said the ship, with almost a tone of pride in its voice. The view closed in on one gate. A trio walked through one at a time in an order than indicated practice in transiting the gates. The last entered and in a couple of seconds the gate went quiescent.

  And then the mirrored surface rippled, and one of the Hustedean robots came jumping out. It opened up with its weapon, a heavy beam of some type, as soon as it spotted the sentients that were its targets. The beam was visible as it moved through the air. When it hit an object, that object blew apart or shattered. And when it hit something living, that creature blew apart in the air.

  “Particle beam,” she said under her breath. But something much more powerful than anything they could put in such a small package.

  And then the creatures were flooding out of the gate and another one about six gates down on the other side. Within a minute there were a hundred of them in the now lifeless room, and they started to move out in groups while still more of the robots, these looking like large arachnids, came through.

  “No one raised the alarm in the station, did they?” said Derrick, his own face paling under his dark skin. “Why wasn’t the alarm raised?”

  “Orders were passed to the station from an external source to not raise the alarm,” announced the ship. “Some entity that had more access than any individual should have. And so the alarm was not passed, and the first anyone in the station knew about the attack was when they had sighted the robots, and then they were under fire. Until the control station was attacked and a manual alarm was passed.”

  The scene switched once again. The robots were assaulting a doorway that seemed to be resistant to their weapons. Beams or lines of tracers stabbed out from the structure and destroyed robot after robot. A rocket streaked from down a hall, curved, and hit the door. Sun bright light blossomed for a moment and then the scene disappeared. “The antimatter warhead took out the door and most of the interior of the control station. After that it was easy for the robots to overwhelm all resistance.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Alyssa, the links coming together in her mind. “You said there was one immortal being. How did he come into being?”

  “The Watcher project developed the one immortal being that was to be the first of many,” said the ship. “He was developed and housed at the central station for the Galactic Empire, The Donut.”

  “I wonder what he had to do with this,” said Alyssa, looking a the holo of the being in question. He’s definitely not ugly, she thought, looking at the larger than normal forehead, bald pate, and piercing blue eyes.

  “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” asked Derrick in an exasperated voice. “We have our own problems right now. And our own goals. Why are we worrying about a seven thousand year old mystery that has nothing to do with us right here and right now?”

  “I agree with Derrick,” said Patrick, his brow narrowed in thought. “While it is an interesting problem, it has nothing to do with our present needs.”

  “It’s good to know what we might be facing here,” said Alyssa in her own defense. “Any information is possibly relevant.” She raised her hand when Derrick opened his mouth. “But I agree we need to keep searching the station. Ship. Where is that wormhole room?”

  “There are two such on this station,” said the ship as a holo sprung up showing a three dimensional view of the massive structure. Two long hallways blinked on the same level, directly across the station from each other.

  “That’s about two dozen levels from where we are,” said Derrick, pointing a finger at first one, then the other hallway.

  “This Donut you talked about earlier,” said Alyssa, ignoring a glare from Derrick from changing the subject. The holo changed to show what looked like a thin ribbon stretched in a circular structure around a distortion in space. Alyssa felt a thrill run through her as she realized she was looking at a black hole, one of the deadliest forces in the universe. Of course there was also one at the center of this system, but that station looked to be awful close to the hole.

  “The station itself is over three million kilometers in circumference,” said the ship. A blinking dot appeared near the ribbon. “This is the current station you occupy in comparison.”

  “Damn,” said Derrick, looking closer at the tiny dot compared to the massive construct that no one in their civilization had ever dreamed of.

  “Just something to give us an idea of what we’re facing,” said Alyssa with a nod. “Now we can go, and walk with sufficient humility in our ability to deal with something like this. Now let’s get moving.”

  “A transmission has gone out,” said the ship. “From this station.”

  “A transmission to where?” asked Alyssa, fighting down the feeling of panic. If something had been mobilized against them with origins to this super civilization they were face to face with, what could they do?

  “From the gate the transmission went through it could only be one place,” said the ship. “The Donut.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Shit,” said Derrick as they walked down the promenade and heading for what were indicated to be lifts. “Wonder what’s coming for us from that damned man made planet.”

  “There’s no saying anything is coming for us at all,” said Alyssa, leading the way toward where the way down was indicated, still a couple of hundred meters to their front.

  “But if it does we had better be ready,” replied Derrick, gripping his rifle tight. “I don’t think these skin suits are going to be much good against those beams we saw in the holo.”

  “Best to be ready,” agreed Patrick, holding his shield on his left arm, with his rifle hanging by its strap where he could use it with his right hand.

  “I just hope that damned shield will stop them,” said Derrick, scowling at the monk. “If not, then we may all be blood rain on the floor.”

  “Here we are,” said Alyssa, looking at the recess in the wall, about ten meters square with rounded corners. She looked at it for a moment in confusion, then back at her partners. “So how the hell do we use it?”

  “You step into the shaft and it takes you the direction you want to go,” said the ship’s computer.

  “And how the hell does it know that?” asked Derrick, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the long drop.

  “Normally, the occupant would use their implant to tell the shaft where they wanted to go,” said the ship. “In your case that is not possible, since your im
plants will not mesh with the station’s computer.”

  “But, you are able to contact us,” said Alyssa, looking at the shaft that seemed to drop to infinity.

  “I am able to work through the controller’s implant as I altered it. And Derrick’s was altered slightly when he was in the med tank. So I can contact them, and you through them. I will try to make the station also take commands from their implants, but that will not be possible for you, at this time.”

  “So how do we use this thing?” asked Derrick, still giving the shaft a jaundiced eye.

  “I will give the station computer instruction to get you to your desired destination.”

  “I’m not sure I want to get into that thing,” said Derrick, still looking at the opening.

  “We can’t just wait here,” said Patrick. He stepped into the shaft and fell downwards. Alyssa and Derrick both followed his motion as he dropped, and the woman was afraid he would keep falling until he met his death at the bottom. But the monk fell the two dozen levels and stopped. He looked up and waved at them, then stepped out of the shaft.

  “Let’s go,” said Alyssa, holding her arms so that Shadow could jump into them. There was no way she was going to let the cat ride down alone. Not when she wasn’t sure how or if it would react to his presence.

  As her feet hit the empty air of the shaft she started to fall at what seemed like a normal rate. Shadow meowed nervously in her arms. She looked at him with a tight smile, then back down. From the movement of the levels she could tell that she had only accelerated a couple of levels, then had maintained a steady velocity. That eased her mind some, as it meant she wouldn’t reach a killing velocity any time soon. She looked up and could see the feet of Derrick coming after her, and was relieved again. She needed his help on this big station, and was happy that he had found the courage to use the ancient machinery.

  And then she could feel the pull of deceleration over a couple of levels. Her feet stopped even with one of the landings, and Patrick waited for her there. She took a quick step toward him and the shaft seemed to push her gently in that direction, until she was once again standing on a solid surface. Shadow jumped out of her arms and she took a step to the side to make room for Derrick.

  You stay in sight, she sent to the cat as it stalked off in the direction they would be going. The cat sent back love and acknowledgement in the same signal. Alyssa looked at the beast with a worried expression. If they ran into robots the animal’s natural and enhanced weapons would be of no use. Even if he did penetrate the outer skin of a machine, the substances his glands produced would have no effect.

  “What a rush,” said Derrick as his feet hit the solid floor.

  “Not totally terrifying once you start going is it?” said Alyssa with a smile.

  “I’m not a coward,” said the ex-marine, shooting her an angry look.

  “I didn’t say you were,” said Alyssa, shrugging her shoulders. “I was a little leery of it myself.”

  “He didn’t seem to have any problem with it,” said Derrick, nodding toward Patrick.

  Grow up, you fucking little boy, thought Alyssa, glad that she had resisted telling it to him to his face.

  “Let’s move, people,” she said, heading off behind Shadow.

  “We’re not going to the one that leads to the Donut?” asked Derrick, looking at the curving walkway heading the other way.

  “Not yet,” said Alyssa. “Let’s check out the one that doesn’t lead to sure death, at least for now. We want to get onto that control station. And we might as well check out this other one first. If we don’t find anything then we can backtrack and hope a horde of robots doesn’t pour out of the other gate room.”

  Derrick shrugged his shoulders and followed her, Patrick falling in at the rear and keeping a close watch on their tail.

  They jogged the corridor, covering the six kilometers to the gate room in swift fashion. Soon its door loomed ahead and to the left. There was another lift shaft here, but Alyssa had elected to drop some distance and make the trip in a condition that allowed them to fight if need be. She didn’t think hanging in the middle of open air was the best way to do that.

  “Doesn’t look like anything there,” said Derrick, looking at the wide doorway, then down the walkway ahead.

  “You cover us,” she said to her fellow agent, then looked over at Patrick. “You push those buttons to the side there.”

  Patrick nodded and trotted over to the buttons in question. He pushed the green one and nothing happened, so he pushed the red, still with no result.

  “Daedelus,” said Alyssa. “Can you open this door?”

  “I’m afraid that this door has been locked down by the station,” said the ship. “Only someone with the proper codes can open this door.”

  “And it’s made of the same ancient material as the vault door at the monastery,” said Patrick, running his hand over the door.

  “So your magic sword isn’t going to cut through that?” said Derrick, giving Patrick his best ‘what use are you’ look.

  “Not a chance,” said Patrick, pulling the sword from its sheath. “But maybe here.” He thrust the sword through the wall about four meters from the door. The blade slid in like the metal was clay. And stopped dead about six inches in. Patrick pushed, but had no further success, so he pulled the blade back out. “Not there either.”

  “They build forts like that on your world, do they?” asked Derrick, a grin on his face.

  “What do you mean?” asked Patrick, sheathing his sword.

  “With the gate real strong, and the walls real weak.”

  “What idiot would make a fortress so?” asked Patrick, confusion on his face.

  “Then don’t you think we would do as much?” said Derrick, shaking his head.

  “Leave him alone, Derrick,” said Alyssa in a stern voice. “It was worth a try after all. And I don’t see you coming up with any ideas on how to get through that door.”

  “I have an idea alright,” said the man, hitting the door with the flat of his hand. “Maybe a two hundred meg AM warhead might get us through.”

  “And tear apart this section of the station as well,” said Alyssa with a frown. She looked over and saw the expression on Patrick’s face that told her he was communing with the ship’s computer, probably trying to follow their conversation with jargon he had never before heard. His eyes narrowed, then widened, and a look of horror came over his face.

  “You really have such devices?” he asked, looking from face to face.

  “We really have such devices,” said Alyssa in a quiet voice.

  “They really aren’t too much worse than the kinetic devices the Theocrats bombarded your planet with,” said Derrick with a shrug. “The only difference is you don’t have to throw them at something really hard.”

  Alyssa could tell that the revelation was bothering the Monk, though she couldn’t tell why. After all, his people used all of their resources to destroy each other when at war. Didn’t he expect that the Republic would as well?

  “We don’t have time to dawdle,” she said, looking back the way they had come, then forward, and deciding that it would be more useful to cover the part of the promenade they hadn’t. “We need to get moving.”

  “Ask the ship about that other gate room before we waste our time,” said Derrick, looking at Patrick.

  “Daedelus,” said Patrick, his face showing comprehension of what Derrick was about. “Is the other gate room open? Or will we be blocked there as well?”

  “The main door to the other gate room is open,” said the ship, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  They started the long jog to the other end of the station, but this time they cut through the center of the station, running along one of the five kilometer long walkways to the central cylinder. Along the way she wondered if there might be something that would get them there sooner, a tram or elevator system. Probably be based on some kind of wormhole gate, she thought as she ran, holding Shadow
, who was no kind of distance runner, close to her chest. She wasn’t sure she wanted to trust any kind of wormhole gate yet. Not until she had more time to look the damned things over. Anything else would feel too much like sticking her head into a Tyranosaur’s mouth.

  The long hallway that ran through the four kilometer thickness of the central cylinder was also interesting, and Alyssa wished they could stop and explore the structure. There were countless doors along the way, all sending out a siren’s song of temptation. But she ignored their call and headed in, cutting across a wide internal plaza and into the next hall.

  Another four kilometers of causeway and they were on the promenade, just a hundred meters down from the gate room. This was really the one she wanted to avoid, leading as it did back to the Galactic control station that had spawned the killer robots.

  “There are visitors outside the station,” came the voice of Daedelus in their heads.

  “Oh shit,” said Alyssa, looking through the station’s eyes at the fleet of the Theocracy on their final approach burn. From the bright light of their drives she knew they had to be pushing over thirty gravities, which was totally against Theocracy doctrine, and common sense as well, when approaching a potentially hostile station they were trying to board.

  But they stole a march on us by boosting at max the whole way, she thought. They were risking all on an unknown prize that might give them hegemony over this area of space. And she was sure, if the situation was reversed, she would do the same.

  * * *

  Warning klaxons were sounding across the ship. Colonel Nathan Chung wished someone would turn the damned things off. Everyone aboard knew they were in a red alert status, and the piercing noise of the klaxons did nothing but add unnecessary stress to the situation.

  Men were running to duty stations, a little wobbly on their feet from so much time in the acceleration tanks. They were all dripping wet and as naked as the day they were born, not having had time to don clothing after exiting the tanks. Most carried some clothing in hand, so that they could get dressed at their stations as time permitted. In a culture with strong nudity taboos, it was hard on the men to be in such a condition, but the exigencies of combat sometimes made it necessary on a warship.