Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting

by Gregory Faccone

  Rewe headed for the owl, nearly tripping over a squat, utility bot when he entered the bay. It was the same one from his Adams Rush escapade, the sole robotic survivor of his mechanical platoon. "This stupid lump still functions? Its parts must fit something more worthwhile."

  The bot somehow expressed displeasure with limited sound and articulation.

  "A utility bot has many uses, Commodore," Auscultare said.

  "Yeah, like target practice."

  Rewe kept on, undaunted. If Auscultare noticed he was sweating more than usual, the AI said nothing. In the owl, Rewe paused after final preparations and took a deep breath.

  What's the Dragon going to do? Kill me sooner?

  He opened an outside channel. "Auscultare?"

  "Really, commodore, what do you do in there for hours on end?"

  "Let's find out."

  Rewe stabbed the VAD, activating the AI control spikes. Auscultare squawked, and the clock started to tick. The owl powered through emergency start-up procedures as its rear loading door opened. Through the owl's crystal canopy, Rewe spied two critical hatches across the bay. One was a small, secure storage chamber. The other was the ready room for the standby squad of combat bots.

  The owl's intercept auto-cannon came online. He targeted the storage chamber and fired. Alarms echoed loudly in the bay while super accelerated slugs, designed to break apart incoming projectiles, ripped the hatch and much of the bulkhead to bits. Ricocheting debris bounced through the bay.

  The targeting systems picked up his primary objective, a secured, double-thick, resonance-proof crate. Its contents were too valuable to risk with the auto-cannon. He tore open a weapons locker and tossed a pair of specially selected iridium seeker drones out the loading hatch. They ignited when clear and zig-zagged their crazy path into the secure chamber.

  Detonating seeker drones within the confines of a starship was usually a desperate, last resort. Rewe guessed that Auscultare was built tough, and that the concussive force would dissipate out into the spacious bay.

  Light flashed through the canopy. A thunderous concussion shook the bay and pressed his ears. Seeker drones spilled onto the floor. He grabbed two more and threw them out. They rocketed off in a hiss, adding their super-hot iridium warheads to the ball of plasma heat filling the storage chamber. A visible distortion wave blasted across the bay, shattering contents and shaking the owl. He loosed one more pair of the incendiary seeker drones, and the interior of the bay became a hot tornado.

  He activated a preprogrammed sequence from the dirty tricks files of the Archivers. It was a nasty hack transmitted to the lock of every hatch attached to the bay. If the proper protocols were chosen, and Rewe had researched the requirements extensively, they needed to run for 15 seconds to seize the mechanisms.

  Setting the auto-cannon for single fire, he placed four precision shots, one on either side of the main entry hatch leading to the ship's interior and a similar pair bracketing the hatch of the ready room. Even if his lock hack was undone, the doors couldn't move physically in their tracks.

  He re-sealed the owl and nudged its wendell throttle forward. A cone of blue plasma thrust emanated from them, and a collision alarm sounded. The owl skidded across the deck, smashing machinery and knocking aside another owl before crunching up against the ready room hatch.

  He cracked open the main bay doors a for few seconds, not the wisest thing to do while in manifold space, and evacuated superheated air. More alarms added to the cacophony as pumps brought the pressure back up. Rewe leaped from the owl's personnel hatch, staying clear of the limb-vaporizing wendell thrust pressing the owl against the ready room hatch.

  The bay looked like a war zone. He stumbled over burned and melted debris. The walls of the secure chamber were bowed outward and sizzling hot, but they had not ruptured. Everything within the chamber had been vaporized except the one thing he knew could take the heat. He ran to the blackened object which didn't appear damaged otherwise.

  The object was hot, but not burning. He retreated from the stifling chamber. Charring flaked off the object, revealing a shiny autobuss. Certainly he'd fired one before, but this piece was like no other. Its surface wasn't the usual metal color, rather a shiny gray-white platinum. Most striking were the striations running across its surface, as if the pistol was carved whole out of a canyon wall. They showed primarily purple-gray numenium, but sandwiched in between were thin lines of other platinum group metals.

  With the charring gone, his skin made contact, and his hair stood on end. A mind could get lost within the world of this autobuss he had retrieved in Earth space. The Archivers believed it took down the egress. An impossible thought until he actually held it.

  His eyes grew wide. He grinned, then laughed. "Amazing!"

  He saw the broken bay, but his mind began to seep into the artfully modified device. It belonged to someone else. There were fine paths he couldn't follow, but he plowed on, carving his own, simpler ruts. There would be no restoring it as found. It was his now, for better or worse. The object unlocked into a non-functional standby state, as if just forged and awaiting its master.

  His skin tingled all over then prickled with pain. Was the bay boiling again? No, his body was reacting, and his uniform's cooling fell behind quickly. He plunged deeper into the device. It wasn't fighting him, but complicated systems needed to be dominated. He didn't yet have what it took for at least half of what he encountered. His mind struggled to carve crude workarounds.

  Alarms stopped, leaving static, strange clicks, and the roar of the wendells filling the bay.

  "C-commodore, your have tampered with my systems and caused extensive damage," Auscultare's voice echoed. "I must ask you to cease and desist at once."

  Pounding came from the ready room, and the sound of wrenching metal. The owl's wendells increased their thrust to stay flush against the chamber. The roar was deafening as a heated tornado filled the bay again.

  Rewe widened his stance, refusing to budge. The pounding in the ready room stopped, and he knew the slags had exited the other side and were going to breach the main entrance.

  "Commodore, such interaction with that object was expressly forbidden by my master."

  Rewe laughed a maniacal laugh. His skin felt like it was burning, and his custom organs were releasing every chemical imaginable to keep him conscious and prevent him from writhing in pain. His vision blurred above melting cheeks. His ears roared from more than the wendell's sonic crush.

  The device was almost active. He could feel it. A final push was needed for first level activation, but how?

  "Please allow yourself to be restrained, commodore. Do not make this worse."

  His body felt like a remote eye, stationed in the bay. It saw movement. A number of maintenance drones were closing on him.

  "No!" his emotions spiked. He would preserve that which was gained!

  Suddenly, as though he had burst through a wall, the autobuss pinged ready for standard ammunition. To his pleasant surprise, it was loaded. He turned on the nearest drone while his mind thought about scattershot. The barrel of the autobuss shortened and thickened. He activated the trigger studs. The weapon boomed and bucked out of his hand.

  Maintenance drones were not made for combat. A hexagon of six super accelerated ammo nuts ripped it apart in a single shot. Rewe stared at the autobuss on the deck before him. The barrel was slowly returning to standard configuration. Miraculously for him, he could still feel the device.

  "Yes! Yes!"

  To his frustration, he couldn't remotely manipulate it, but his elation at just being able to feel it wouldn't be quelled. He scooped it up, and this time with both hands, blasted three more drones to metal shards.

  The main hatch was pounded from the outside, then sparks began cutting across it. The combat bots were breaching, and normal ammunition wasn't going to stop those armored monsters, at least not quickly enough.

  What do I have to lose?

  He reached into his pocket and fe
lt the octagonal cylinder, the one he had spent hour after hour concentrating upon, the one that taunted him with his inability to distance interact. He held it up to his blurry vision, laughing at it as if it was a person. The autobuss clicked open, breach style, almost of its own accord, revealing an empty octagonal legacy chamber. He jammed the shell in, onyx side facing out, and flicked the weapon closed.

  He roared in pain, and blood erupted from a myriad of points along his skin. There was more energy than he could properly contain within the autobuss, and it erupted across his body, singeing his hair. He smelled burning flesh but felt distant from it. His body operated on automatics while his mind plunged into the legacy shell.

  The autobuss bucked wildly in his hand, fighting the brutish control over its systems.

  "You will do what I demand! You will do it!"

  The shell could be more powerful than he ever imagined. He had a glimpse, just the slightest, quickest glimpse, of how an egress could be taken down. Maybe this shell couldn't do it, because it wasn't the necessary template. This one was more about heat and raw power, but that was fine with him. That fit his desire, and the autobuss struggled to comply.

  The shell became molten within the chamber, and heat ports opened along the autobuss to expel energy. He was doing it wrong, but it would still work. The pistol was trying to keep him alive, trying not to explode. It had been modified super-strong. It would never blow up.

  Never!

  He felt invincible.

  Nothing I imagine is impossible!

  His vision played tricks, and flares spotted his sight. The autobuss barrel began to grow in length. Half again as long, then twice as long. A strengthening auto stock, acting as a brace, unfolded around the barrel.

  The bay disappeared, and so did his connection to his body. He only saw, as through a tunnel, down the barrel of the autobuss.

  So this is what it's like to be lost in foundation space... In the circus.

  He had to let go or he would never come back. Looking down that tunnel he lined it up with the entry hatch and released.

  He heard a distant sound, like the destruction of a hundred string instruments. A bar of fusion heat exuded from the front of the autobuss. He swung it across the hatch. It penetrated anything it touched without fuss or resistance. The hatch fell apart, and beyond, six combat bots fell to the deck, severed in half. In their midst, the beam only grazing its uppermost part, was a squat utility bot.

  The firing stopped abruptly, but not before penetrating through the next bulkhead and everything beyond. Rewe knew nothing on the ship would stop it until it hit the shields. In manifold space, they were only running warm shields, not hot. But they would probably be enough. He could sense it going through bulkhead after bulkhead. He felt the concussive force of distant explosions carried through the air.

  Exhaustion overcame him. He could no longer breathe, and the universe pressed him against the deck.

  Arh-Tahl stared at the sky just past sunset. The stars were tinted blue through the crystal of the moisture-protection canopy. Only a small portion of Numen's newest hospital resided above ground. The rest of the land was developed to retain the planet's rustic features. Numerous paths and patios were carved among the jutting ochre rock formations.

  The planet's own processes had deposited much in the area, all the way up to the base of Taal Spire. Its surroundings were left alone to blend into the neighboring mountains. The sun's last rays curved over the horizon to color the diamond-shaped peak of the edifice. Its base appeared to barely touch the mountaintop, and its top reached high into the atmosphere. Glowing silver lines lit its edges, and the purple beacon capstone shone into the heavens.

  No doubt the structure was nearly empty. Word had reached far and wide. Taal Mystic Foundry was pulling out for the new territories. Yet it was still a sight to behold, especially after his time in the custodius ward. The constant breeze reinvigorated.

  Numen would probably never be known as the prettiest planet, although he wondered what their talented society could accomplish with another century or two. But alas, that chance would never come, at least for this generation.

  Opposite Taal, at the edge of the violet horizon, was the sky bridge. It was Numen's own take on a beam. Bars of multicolored light reached from horizon to orbit. The colors transitioned as dots moved up and down within them. Sadly, the majority of dots were moving up.

  Above the colors, and visible with the naked eye, was slowly rotating EquiSterra. Like a hollow star shape, its mammoth and majestic five points caught the light, refracting the excess into a halo.

  Alb-Sone had watched Arh-Tahl's eyes. "Yes, it's too bad about Taal."

  "It is the way of things. The way we all have to go. Taal was just wise enough to do it early and in order."

  "Unexpected words coming from the Son of the Khromas."

  "Even the Khromas, as much as anyone can understand their thinking, have accepted the inevitability of our withdrawal. But withdrawal is not defeat."

  Arh-Tahl walked evenly, and with control. His internals were now strong enough for short daily periods, and he almost always chose sunset.

  "As to our previous discussion," Alb-Sone said, "I do believe I can help her still, assuming she doesn't do too much additional damage in her upcoming forays. She's very strong, but pushing too hard, and Ek-Hein's techniques are not helping. You must convince her to see me soon."

  "It is because she is so strong that I could not force her to stay." They looked at the stars again. "They are out there, my father and The Mass, and undoubtedly most of the Centurion brotherhood. Can an ocean wave be delayed by standing in front of it?"

  Alb-Sone had no answer. "I have to get back inside. I'm not pleased with some of your medical choices. Your tissue's special and must be handled with care. We just need more time for fully robust organics."

  "Even the Khromas cannot control time, yet." He looked down where his right arm should be, but nothing below the elbow existed. "I can only stay but a little longer." Alb-Sone nodded and left.

  Arh-Tahl remained outdoors, alone with his thoughts and the constant warm wind. There was a sudden flurry of activity. He sensed it more than saw it. The few people around picked up their pace. The ground rumbled, and a moment later a distant transport lifted into the sky, flanked by two escorts.

  What was going on? He needed a new compy to replace the one lost at Beuker.

  "I've enough experience with you," Torious said, "to know you sense the change."

  Occupied with the new sensation, he had not noticed the scientum nurse's approach. Of course, it was easier to sense humans and mystic then it was dull, dead scientum.

  "What has happened?"

  "Commship arrival. News from the front. Two Perigeum flotillas have been broken up, but Beuker has fallen."

  The bot did not use any communication softening routines, it just said it straight.

  Arh-Tahl exhaled long and slow. "Beuker."

  "The ArgoNav and whatever got out of Beuker are consolidating at Aner Betera."

  He thought a long moment, during which the nurse was silent. The machine had a knack for recognizing serious moments. He looked down at the stump of his arm.

  "Time for me to go. Plan B it is for my arm and whatever is outstanding within."

  "Since coin was no object, I had Taal send down something extra special before they left."

  Nothing was like grown, organic replacements. But Taal's mystic substitutes were far beyond what could be called a prosthetic, and they also had their own advantages.

  "I have the synthetics matched up and ready," Torious said. "You just need to encode it before attachment. But my observations dictate you'll want to perform your own modifications."

  "Yes, I need time on the hospital's forge ASAP."

  "I've already reserved a couple hours for you this evening."

  Arh-Tahl's eyebrows rose. "Really?" The bot had anticipated his needs correctly again. He was starting to see why his father had steere
d this unlikely machine his way. "What about the compy mission?"

  "That private bit-smith house refused contact until I proved I was acting as your agent, and even then they acted unprofessionally."

  "Really, Torious? You seem little concerned with protocol."

  The machine was still for a moment. "Yes, I understand the irony. Anyway, they had nothing even close to the specs you requested except for a raw computational experiment. The final core architecture wasn't suitable for seating an AI personality. Since it was of little value to them, and knowing certain of your abilities cannot be understood conventionally, I purchased the item as well."

  He nodded and closed his eyes. The future lengthened before him. Decades stretched beyond the century mark... Mankind was diverging again. The first time was when MDHD drive burst onto the scene. And now an invention designed to bring man closer together, the egress, was causing further division. The reunification was not going to come quickly or easily.

  "What are your appointed tasks after I leave?" Arh-Tahl asked.

  "I've been scheduled for orderly duty."

  "And when the hospital relocates?"

  "I've been given no assignment."

  If a quirky AI could express displeasure, it was just heard. What a waste.

  "Tell me, Torious, would you consider another path, even if it included danger?"

  Senior Capt. Arceneaux had dedicated a century and a half of his life to the Frulieste Defense Agency. It was never a major focus for the Asterfraeo colony formed after the war. No invader's shot had ever been fired in the Frulieste system. The planet had never even been threatened.

  Their focus was robotics-heavy agriculture and associated high-end food products. Most of it revolved around grapes, exotic berries, cacao, and coffee. The planet was blessed with topsoil reasonably easy to arability terraform. Although the layer was shallow, ample land was available upon which to spread cultivation, and spread it they had.

  One drawback to the rich soil was too much atmospheric carbon dioxide, and insufficient oxygen. But the natives made oxygen-infusing breathers fashionable, and the brisk sales of their products funded numerous oxygen-infused "open air" habitats.