by B. V. Larson
“There’s nothing wrong doctor,” I told her with a slight slur to my words. “Nothing serious, anyway.”
“My instruments tell me otherwise,” Kalu said. “You’ve been exposed to radiation, extreme G-forces and God knows what else. Did you know you’ve had a small stroke, sir?”
“Stroke? I’m fine. Let me up.”
“You’re off duty for the day,” she said, shaking her head.
I growled in my throat and sat up. My armor had been stripped away. When had that happened?
Kalu put her small palm against my chest, but I barely felt her touch.
“Look,” I said, “give me a nanite refresher and some stimulants. Get me on my feet.”
“Can’t do that, sir. Tomorrow is another day.”
I put my hand over hers. I didn’t mean to hurt her, but she winced.
“Doctor,” I said, “there might not be a tomorrow if you don’t get me back onto the bridge. Do you understand?”
Her eyes finally met mine, and her face shifted into a look of alarm. She stopped talking and began mixing up an injection. She shot me up with several battlefield brews, the kind of stuff we usually used to get fallen soldiers moving again.
I felt great about ninety-seconds later—sort of. The sensation was a nasty mixture of trembling adrenalin and an urge to puke.
With sweeping strides, I exited the med bay and marched up the central passage to the bridge. I only hit the wall once on the way there, a glancing blow with my shoulder that I didn’t even feel.
“Sir?” Hansen said when he caught sight of me leaning against the open hatchway. “Cody? You look like hell.”
“I feel worse. Get me to my chair.”
He complied without a lecture—or maybe he was lecturing, and I didn’t hear it.
When I sank into my chair, I took a micro-sleep. Just like when you drive all night, and your eyes roll up into your head. For a moment I was dreaming, and it felt good.
“Captain Riggs! Sergeant Major Kwon!” Hansen’s voice penetrated my consciousness, and I realized he’d been repeating our names for at least a minute.
“Riggs here.”
“There’s a fusion flare erupting from Tartarus, sir!”
“Like a solar flare?”
I fought to focus my eyes on the sensors. The arrays were all swinging around to focus on the brown dwarf.
“Exactly. The solar mass will reach us in about twenty minutes.”
“I guess Astrolyssos is throwing a tantrum.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“The creature—there’s something living in that star, Hansen. An Ancient. He’s been playing god out here in this war-torn system.”
Hansen stared at me in shock.
“Yeah, I know. It sounds like I’m crazy. Tell him, Marvin.”
“How did you know I was listening?”
“Because you always do, you nosy bastard.”
“Yet another pejorative. I looked up the colloquial term ‘tool’ by the way, Captain. I understand the reference now, but I fail to see how I, in any fashion, could be mistaken for a phallic symbol.”
I chuckled. Hansen did too.
“You seem very phallic to me,” I said. “Right Hansen?”
“Definitely.”
“Interesting…” Marvin said. “I’ll have to examine my physiognomy for—”
“Look, Marvin,” I said, taking in deep breaths and drinking a cup of coffee someone had pressed into my hand. “Just tell Hansen what you did.”
“The stellar being known as Astrolyssos is an Ancient,” he explained. “He attacked me with an advanced hacking technique and briefly controlled my person. In addition, he threatened all humanity. Captain Riggs and I took appropriate action in response.”
Hansen looked at me and snorted. “Appropriate action? You started a fight with a star-being, didn’t you? This is a new one even for you, Captain.”
“As far as I can tell, Astrolyssos started it,” I said, “but we intend to finish it.”
“The problem is I’m not sure if my agent will be effective,” added Marvin.
Gazing at the forward screen, I nodded to myself. “I think it was undeniably effective, Marvin. Look at that flare! It’s like an arm grown by a star. If I don’t miss my guess, it’s curling around in our direction, too.”
“Yes, it will reach us in approximately fourteen minutes,” Marvin said calmly. “My agent clearly caused discomfort to Astrolyssos—but that wasn’t the goal. I’d hoped for incapacitation.”
I frowned, getting Marvin’s point. The goal hadn’t been to just piss-off this star god. We’d hoped to knock him out or even kill him. Instead, it looked to me like we’d missed our target and merely kicked him in the ass.
“Hansen,” I said quietly.
“Yes sir?”
“Get us the fuck out of here.”
“Through the ring?”
“Absolutely. I want to put some real distance between ourselves and that son-of-a-bitch star.”
Our ships wheeled and headed for the ring. When we’d almost reached it, the enormous jet of plasma twisted and came after us. A finger of destruction pointed at our aft engines, reaching…reaching. Tartarus might be a tiny star, but it was still a star, with enormous energies held within it.
“If it comes much closer, it’s going to roast the Demon planet,” I observed.
“Maybe he doesn’t care,” Hansen suggested. “Maybe he’s planning to start over with a new race of monsters.”
“Perhaps he’s trying to destroy the ring or cause it to lose its connection to Trinity-9,” Adrienne said from the ops officer seat.
She’d come to the bridge and had been fussing over me ever since. I realized it was she who’d given me the coffee. Damn, I was a little out of touch.
“Interesting idea.” I said, staring at the holotank. “What will happen when that plasma hits the ring?”
“One would think—nothing,” she replied. “The rings are made of stardust, which shouldn’t be affected. Even nuclear weapons haven’t been able to harm rings or any other example of Ancients’ technology.”
We watched as Stalker flew through the ring ahead of us, and then we followed.
We were immediately surrounded by a hundred Whale ships and contacted by Farswimmer.
I reassured the alien all was well, but I suggested he pull well back from the ring.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because there’s a huge plasma flare about to hit the other side, and I presume some of the stuff will come through. There’s no point in taking chances.”
Hansen piloted us further along the gas giant’s orbit, putting thousands of miles between us and the ring.
Right on schedule, the ring spouted gouts of hot plasma, and caused the region to glow bright with burning matter. It didn’t damage the ring in any way we could see.
I expected the plasma burst to die out as it neared us, but interestingly, the mass continued to grow and grow.
“What the hell is happening?” Hansen said aloud, getting up from his seat to stand next to me at the holotank.
I rubbed my jaw. “I think I know…and I’m starting to wonder if I overplayed my hand.”
“Dammit, sir, this is impossible!” Hansen said.
My eyes swept the people on the bridge. They were all staring at me, waiting for an answer.
“Normally I’d agree with you,” I said in a quiet voice, “but now, I don’t think we’re watching a solar flare. I think it’s Astrolyssos himself—and I think he’s trying to follow us through the ring.”
-31-
Everyone froze and stared at their view screens and data readings in shock. The idea that a creature was coming after us—a living creature as big as a planet and made of living plasma—that was a stunner.
“Good Lord, do you really think that nebulous mass is alive?” Adrienne said, jumping up to stand between Hansen and me.
I didn’t answer because no one was listening to me anyway. They wer
e all talking excitedly at once.
In the holotank, we watched with growing concern as the plasma cloud continued to pour through the ring, expanding rapidly.
“Okay, okay,” I boomed, causing everyone to fall quiet. “We’ve got a situation, here.”
“I’ll say,” Hansen threw in.
“Can Astrolyssos send his entire substance through?” Adrienne asked. “I thought he was attached to the star—it’s so far. Millions of miles…”
“We don’t have a clue,” I said, “but we have to assume the worst.”
“Well, if you’re right, we really screwed the pooch this time,” Hansen muttered.
I felt a surge of annoyance—but to be fair, he was right. Maybe if we’d simply left Astrolyssos alone, he’d never have gotten mad enough to do anything extreme.
“I get the feeling he’s angry,” Adrienne said. “What happened out there, Cody?”
“This response is my fault,” I said. “I let Marvin run wild. The robot jabbed a needle into him, so to speak.”
Adrienne’s console bleeped, and she ran to it. I signaled for her to answer the call.
Farswimmer’s image loomed on the main screen. He wanted to know what was going on and what I was going to do about it. After he finished explaining his concerns at length, I jumped into the channel to answer him.
“We’re working on it,” I told him. “You’ll be informed when we take action.”
“We were not informed the first time you took action,” he pointed out. “This situation exceeds anything we’d expected in the wake of our attack upon Tartarus.”
“We feel the same way, Farswimmer. Are you able to calculate how long we have, at the current rate of transfer, before the plasma cloud starts causing problems to your orbital facilities or your planet? It seems to be heading in your direction.”
“Our preliminary estimates show it will take several days before any of our infrastructure must be evacuated. The cloud’s progress is slowing down—perhaps coming through the ring or gravitational effects are reducing its velocity.”
“Days?” I asked. I’d hoped to have more time.
“If it’s going for the planet,” Hansen said, “they won’t have time to evacuate their population.”
Unfortunately, Farswimmer overheard Hansen’s comment.
“Evacuate our…” Farswimmer began in alarm. “Are you suggesting, Captain Riggs, that this creature means to scorch our world?”
“It’s a possibility,” I admitted. “I don’t know what he’s trying to do. Valiant, give me your analysis of this phenomenon.”
“Tartarus itself masses approximately seven thousand Earths,” began the ship, “which is over thirty times the mass of the target gas giant. Measurements indicate this plasma’s mass is approximately one percent of the original star’s matter.”
“Seventy Earth’s worth of mass,” Hansen said, whistling.
“When the entire mass has passed through the ring,” Valiant went on, “Trinity-9 will begin to deform due to gravitic and tidal stresses. If the cloud continues to encroach upon the planet, Trinity-9 will start to come apart. These predictions are based on the effects of gravity alone. There are other possible threats from purposeful destruction.”
Oh, God, I thought, have I killed your world, Farswimmer?
Outwardly, I projected confidence.
“Plenty of time,” I said firmly. “We’ll kill this cloud, or chase it off long before it comes down to that. Cease analysis, Valiant.”
“Analysis incomplete,” complained the ship.
“Yes,” I chuckled, wishing I had a kill-switch for both the brainbox and Hansen. “You keep working on those numbers in your head. I’ll get us some real data to go on.”
“I don’t have an actual ‘head’ to contain my software. Are you by chance referring—”
“Mute on, Valiant,” I said sternly.
The ship finally shut up. I turned toward the holotank and faked a smile. “Don’t worry, Farswimmer. I already have a plan.”
“What would be the nature of this plan?” he demanded. All of his normal sense of detachment was gone. “Billions of shared-minds want to know the details.”
“Before I alarm you with radical thoughts, let me consult with my crew and my AI, all right? We’ll be in touch shortly.”
“All right, but please don’t become distracted. You have three days, Captain Riggs, according to your own machine.”
“Not a problem!”
The connection faded out, and I let loose a vast sigh of discontentment.
Hansen eyed me. “You’ve got nothing, right skipper?”
“Not a thing. Valiant, mute off.”
“As I was saying—”
“Valiant, that conversation is at an end. Work on the problem as directed, please.”
The brainbox finally shut up, but I sensed a certain resentment in its attitude. Maybe this was why Star Force periodically wiped these boxes and reset them. There was definitely such a thing as too much personality when it came to AIs.
“Why would you give Farswimmer false hope?” Adrienne demanded.
“To prevent panic,” I said. “Also, people with hope generally function better. If I’d told them the probable truth, they might have become paralyzed with fear. Besides, I didn’t want to listen to his recriminations. This is a time to work on solutions, not point fingers.”
“But you’ve killed our world as well,” Cybele said quietly from behind me.
I turned and raised my eyebrows at her. Normally, I was happy to see her lovely form, but today, she’d stepped onto the bridge during the conversation without authorization.
“Ellada won’t last long against a mad god,” she said, staring out at the glowing mass that was an Ancient in the flesh. “You’ve brought this creature so close to us…”
Cybele looked so sweet and worried it hurt me to look at her.
“I’ll figure something out,” I mumbled without conviction.
“I hope you do, Captain Riggs,” she said. “You think that our ways are odd, but for ten thousand years our civilization has stood the test of time. Now, after one season of battle, we find ourselves on the brink of annihilation.”
Giving her my warmest smile, I felt like putting my hands on her shoulders—but I restrained myself.
“I accept the responsibility for this screw-up,” I said softly. “At least the endless war with the Demons is over. Isn’t that worth celebrating?”
“Yes…if we survive the aftermath.”
“How, Captain?” Hansen asked from behind me. “How’re you going to get us out of this one?”
“You’ll see,” I tossed over my shoulder at him, “Marvin has a plan. It’s in motion right now.”
Hansen snorted. “We can see that, sir.”
One of the screens was, indeed, showing Marvin’s last known position. He’d flown far away, running for cover, it appeared. I gave Hansen a glare, and he withdrew. The crew turned away with him to attend their stations. Everyone was worried.
Cybele walked close to me and lowered her voice.
“Do you really have this matter in hand, Captain?” she asked.
“Don’t worry. You’ll see.”
She gave me an angelic smile of relief and squeezed my hand.
I felt a pang of guilt. Sure, I was making her happy, but I wasn’t being truthful. Still, the look on her face was almost worth it.
She took another step closer. I felt her warmth. She looked like she might even kiss me. I was mesmerized for a moment, unable to move.
Suddenly, Adrienne stood up from her post. Her chair was left spinning behind her. I avoided her gaze as she came uncomfortably near.
“Thanks for coming up and visiting the bridge, Cybele,” Adrienne said evenly, “but don’t you have work to do below decks?”
“Yes, of course,” Cybele said, and she retreated.
Adrienne watched her go with hate in her eyes. “She’s been coming on to you lately. Why do all these Ell
adan girls have to be so sexy?”
“It’s just a cultural thing, Adrienne,” I said. “You don’t have to feel threatened. Uh…where are you going?”
Adrienne trailed Cybele off the bridge.
“I’m going to make sure she doesn’t strip down and climb into our bunk,” she said over her shoulder.
Hansen came up to me laughing after the two women had left. “Two girls, double the trouble! You’re just like your old man, you know that Riggs?”
“Far from it. I’ve stuck to Adrienne since we left Earth—well, almost.”
“Well, it hardly matters now,” Hansen said. “In my opinion, we’re screwed anyway. Discipline will hold for a while, Captain, but once the crew realizes their promised paradise is likely to be destroyed, they’ll start to waver.”
“Then we’ll have to stop that cloud, won’t we?” I asked. “Let me get off the bridge to think and grab a meal. When I get back, we’ll start work.”
“You’ve really got a plan to fight a god?” Hansen asked.
“I’ve got a plan to come up with a plan,” I replied. This seemed to amuse Hansen. “Astrolyssos is big and powerful,” I continued, “but he’s not a god. He has his limits, otherwise we’d be dead by now. All we have to do is figure out where he’s vulnerable and exploit that area.”
With that, I left my XO standing on the bridge. There’d be plenty of time to explain later. Besides, I didn’t have it all worked out in my head yet.
I dumped my suit, showered and stuffed my face, then returned to the bridge. I wanted to talk to Marvin, but he’d vanished again. Greyhound was nowhere to be found. I had the feeling he knew that if Astrolyssos could find him, there’d be hell to pay.
Frustrated, I decided to make an all-out attempt to reach Marvin. I used the ansible system, and I pumped it up to maximum power.
“Marvin,” I said, hoping my voice was booming into whatever passed for the auditory portion of his mind, “I know you can hear me, wherever you are. Talk to me.”
I waited a dozen seconds. Then a full minute. There was no response. Not even static.
“Okay then,” I said, “I’ve got no choice other than to reveal Valiant’s projected estimate of your current course and position. Astrolyssos might take that information as part of a bargain to let us off the hook. It’s up to you, Marvin, if you—”