James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 06

by Crucible

  “Days went by. The plasma moon stayed near the planet. It appeared above us like a great red and purple orb, pulsing with energy. We didn’t hear from Lexington Keeler, the signals were jammed. We were caught on the orbital energy platform. We were afraid if we tried to launch for the surface, the plasma moon would destroy us.

  “After seven ship-days of waiting, we decided to position some instruments to study the plasma moon, in hopes of discovering a way to escape, or at least to communicate through its interference. We dismantled a sensor package from one of the Accipiters. The only location where we could deploy it was on a narrow beam above the daisy-blades that caught the sunlight and transmitted it to the planet. I was wearing an environment suit, because this part of the station was not pressurized.

  “As I made my way across the beam, I somehow lost my balance, and fell into the spinning blades of the energy collector.

  “I have no memory of what happened next, but apparently, my injuries were severe. The blades severed my left arm above the elbow, my right leg above the knee, my left leg below the knee, and cut deep gashes in my face and chest.

  “The rest of the party decided to take the risk of transporting me to the planet’s surface.

  Our Aves launched, with only myself, the pilot, and a Medical Technician on-board. Those left behind watched and waited to see if the plasma moon would fire on us. It did not. We made a safe transit to the surface, the site of the largest city.

  “When I opened my eyes, I was dead. I had died on the descent. But the creatures on the planet took my corpse and reanimated it, using their technology. They did not understand human physiology. To them, my body was a machine in need of repair. They repaired it, restoring all of my biological and neurological functions. But make no mistake, I am dead. My soul is elsewhere. I felt the absence of my soul then, as I still do.

  “As a result of my metamorphosis, I also was able to communicate with the aliens who occupied the planet. I learned they were not exactly aliens.”

  “Not exactly aliens?” Driver repeated.

  “They – or their ancestors – had been the colonial inhabitants of the colony.

  Unfortunately, the Commonwealth collapsed before terra-forming was completed. The colonists slowly began to die out.

  “However, the third planet of the system had also been colonized. At the time of the Commonwealth, humanity had been allied with a species of intelligent machines, a species humanity had created, and who were our partners in building and administering the Commonwealth. In this case, machine-kind had colonized the third planet, which was rich in the silicate deposits that were the basis of their life forms.

  “The machines had seen the human colony failing, and decided to intervene. They transformed the humans into a life-form that could survive and thrive in the planet’s environment, a life form that derived energy from photosynthesis. They called themselves

  ‘Electroids.’ The machines had also left behind a machine they called Watchdog, to protect the colony.”

  “The plasma moon,” Trajan Lear guessed.

  “Za, once it had been communicated to the Watchdog that we were the human brethren of the original colonists, it returned to orbit around the fifth planet, and left us alone. Lexington Keeler returned soon thereafter. When I returned to the ship, Doc Ellis debated deactivating me,” Christmas continued.

  “Doc Ellis?”

  “The Ship’s Secondary Chief Physician,” Driver explained. He had downloaded the ship’s crew into an accessible memory slip of his landing gear.

  Christmas nodded once. “Correct, Doctor Ford died later at Surya Namaska. In any case, I requested to remain activated. I think the real Tactical Lieutenant Christmas would have wanted that.”

  “What was Surya Namaskar?” Trajan Lear asked him, not ready to get up yet.

  Christmas grunted “Surya Namaskar was a small planet twinned to a white dwarf star that made for nearly perpetual daylight on the world. As the red dwarf primary sun set in the east, the white dwarf would rise in the west, and the sky would turn from orange to blue, the land from brown to white.

  “Its colonists were bizarre,” Christmas continued. “Quite xenophobic. They weren’t actually hostile to us, they more or less refused to even acknowledge our presence. They said they refused to believe in us. Doctor Ford died because the colonists stopped believing he was alive.

  “It all had to do with some manifestation of the white dwarf’s magnetic field interacting with that of the planet. It caused disembodied spirits to howl through the air in places. Some of our crew became possessed by them.”

  “How truly bizarre,” Driver agreed

  “We went to a bizarre planet,” Trajan Lear said. “It was called EdenWorld, and it was populated by genetically-engineered human-animal hybrids.”

  “Fiddler’s Green was more bizarre than EdenWorld,” Driver put in. “It was a planet where the normal laws of cause and effect were suspended, and logic was irrelevant because things only behaved the way you expected them to behave.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Christmas.

  Matthew tried to think of how to explain it. “An Aves crashed into a swamp. They got it out of the swamp by pretending their climatologic sensor was a ‘spaceship deswampificator,’

  and the swamp spontaneously ejected the ship.”

  “I think the human-animal hybrids on EdenWorld were more bizarre,” Trajan countered.

  “These human-animal hybrids,” Muffy asked. “Did anyone have sex with them?” Matthew and Trajan looked at each other awkwardly, and read each other’s thought about TyroCommander Redfire.

  “I’m horny,” added Muffy.

  When they finished resting, Christmas pried open another hatchway. Beyond it was a linking tunnel toward the more forward sections of the ship.

  “Let me know if you need rest,” Christmas said. “Being dead, I require no rest. But if you need to rest, be brief. If your repair crews manage to reactivate the Central Braincore, the results could be catastrophic.”

  “Imagine that,” Trajan Lear muttered, thinking back to deck after deck of catastrophe they had already witnessed.

  Christmas maintained his urgent monotone. “Lex has been trying to eliminate the human crew and take over the ship from the second he became self-aware. We have to stop your crew from re-initializing the BrainCore. I would rather see this ship destroyed than that abomination reactivated.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Pegasus – Command Suite

  “So, how do I do all that stuff I said I would do?” Keeler asked Alkema when he was done swearing.

  “Removing Lear from Lexington Keeler? ” Alkema gave the requisite low whistle. “She’s isolated herself in the Secondary Command Center. If she doesn’t come willingly, that won’t be easy to get to.”

  “How would it look to the crew if I had to send a squad of warfighters to drag out my former first officer?” Keeler snapped. “Half the crew thinks I’m a fool on a good day. If Lear says I’m incompetent, there’s more than a few who are going to nod their heads. How do I contain that damage?”

  Alkema disagreed. It was a quarter, a third of the crew at most. He had never thought the commander cared. “Handle it like you always handle it. Stand tough and finish the mission.” Keeler sighed, “If I had known this many people would be killed and there were no survivors on the Lexington Keeler, I probably wouldn’t have started the mission.”

  “You had no way of knowing there were no survivors without going to the ship,” Alkema reminded him. “And if you back off now, you’ll just hand her a victory.”

  “I can’t have that,” Keeler said. “Not here, not now, and not ever.” A thought occurred to Alkema. “Get all the Core Chiefs together, show them who’s in charge, and show them you’ve got everything under control.” Keeler warmed to the idea immediately. “Right. I’m in charge. Everything is good. We’re fixing Keeler. The ship is safe. We’ve got landing teams exploring the planet. Right,… good…
<
br />   Make it happen,” he ordered Alkema.

  Then a moment later, he added, “But also make sure we can get her out of there… if it comes to that.”

  Pegasus – Office of the Watch

  Tyronius Octavius Fitzgerald Sukhoi was one of the leaders of Pegasus’s Ship’s Watch.

  Since Pegasus was an almost entirely law-abiding ship, and because the ship was seldom threatened by intruders, there weren’t that many in the full-time watch. His sub-specialty was machine maintenance. This took him frequently into the UnderDecks, which he knew as well as Queequeg’s new friend Hunter whom he, in his alternative identity as the Centurion Constantine, had been trying and failing to capture for most of the previous five years.

  As Sukhoi entered Chief Churchill’s office he saw Technician Third Class Arsanjani Kong, leaving. Kong was also known by the name of Invictus when he wore the shadow-black armor of The Notorium. The last time Churchill had called the Centurions individually to his office had been on the planet Winter, when they were charged with hunting down a suspected Aurelian infiltrator. Ipso facto, some major operation was afoot.

  Sukhoi took a seat without being asked.

  “You heard Executive TyroCommander Lear’s conversation with Commander Lear,” Churchill asked.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t,” Sukhoi said. “Not in real time, anyway. But I saw the playback. Her criticism of Prime Commander Keeler was… very strong.”

  “Right, but that’s unimportant. Under the main transmission, Lear sent a very discreet, encoded signal, authorizing us to implement the 22nd Sanction.” Sukhoi could not hide his surprise. “That’s rather extreme, isn’t it?”

  “The 22nd Sanction provides for non-lethal removal of command staff in the event that gross incompetence imperils the Odyssey Mission, the security of the ship, or the security of the HomeWorlds,” Churchill said. “Depending on how one views the current situation, it could be said to apply. It is the position of Prime Centurion Lear that it does.” Sukhoi had to choose his words with utmost care. “A command disruption under the current circumstances might weaken the ship’s security even further. We could come under attack again at any moment, and a lack of clear command authority could hinder our response.”

  “Our situation is further complicated by the fact that Commander Keeler has lawfully suspended Executive TyroCommander Lear,” Churchill went on. “If we removed Keeler, Redfire would be in command.”

  “Redfire is missing, possibly dead,” Sukhoi added. “Lt. Navigator Change would be in command.”

  “And she, according to our profile, does not want to command the ship. She might reinstate TyroCommander Lear.” Churchill frowned. “Of course, Lt. Navigator Change is quite unpredictable.” Churchill did not like unpredictability, especially in people he was supposed to spy on.

  “Which would appear to make it more dangerous,” Sukhoi added.

  “The choice is not ours,” Churchill said. “The Prime Centurion has issued a sanction. We are bound by it.”

  Sukhoi nodded. His duty was set. “How does she propose that we take down Keeler’s command.”

  “She is not in a position to transmit a detailed plan,” Churchill told him. “But the inference is that his ability to command must be undermined until he loses the confidence of the crew.”

  “How?” Sukhoi asked.

  Before Churchill could answer, his COM link activated. Specialist Shayne American’s face appeared. “Chief Inspector Churchill, the commander requests your presence in his command suite, and requests you bring an officer of the Watch.” Churchill’s demeanor changed, and he became avuncular. “For what purpose?” he asked.

  “I’m not in trouble, am I?” he added with a self-conscious chuckle.

  “All I know is he’s asking for a lot of people,” American answered. “And he wants everybody in his suite at the top of the next hour.”

  “You may count on our presence, Churchill out.” The screen vanished. He turned to Sukhoi. “Now, what do you suppose this is about?”

  The Surface

  After an hour and a half of searching through the structure, Morgan, Anansi, and Ing finally found the sub-basement laboratory when the floor collapsed and Ing fell into it. They commented briefly on the irony that Ing had fallen through the ground twice in one day, when he had never fallen through anything before in his life.

  An additional technician named Honda (a Republicker female) joined them in the structure and also needed the better part of an hour to find them. They found the sub-basement filled with long tables in center and a perimeter of cubicles along the walls. A few minutes of searching revealed that the desks and file storage areas had been emptied.

  Morgan was more than a little frustrated. “So, should we return to the upper stories, move on to another structure, or should we just inform Pegasus that when the inhabitants left, they took every scrap of information with them?”

  Honda shook her head. “That’s not necessarily true, they didn’t clean out everything. Just the stuff they thought was important.” She indicated the wall, where there was a long line of posters. Twenty in all, four of which were devoted to the religious virtues of “Teamwork,”

  “Ethics,” “Efficiency,” and “Leadership.” The other sixteen were all promotional posters related to the Redoubt Project.

  “Those are purely decorative,” Ing protested. “They may not mean anything.”

  “They mean something,” Anansi argued. “Building the Redoubts was very significant to these people.”

  “Besides, at the moment, it’s all we have to go on,” Morgan decided. He studied a faded map, tacked against the wall of posters. “If I am reading this correctly, there were once hundreds of cities and settlements on this planet.”

  He moved his hands over the map. “This is the area that would have taken the blast wave from the Megasphere. There were a lot of cities in it, but there were a lot outside the blast radius. But only this city, of all of them, has so far been detected by Pegasus.”

  “What does it all mean?” asked Ing.

  “More and more, this planet looks like it suffered some massive catastrophe three hundred years before the attack.” Morgan explained.

  Ing suggested, “The solar flares.”

  “Possible, but I think the damage would have been more evident,” Morgan said.

  Ing shot himself down. “A flare would have burned this city as well.”

  “Perhaps they were invaded and conquered by the Aurelians,” Anansi said.

  “Possibly, or maybe another race, or maybe another human colony,” Morgan said. “If we could find a redoubt, it would provide us with a lot more data.”

  “What if we tasked the probes to make a geological survey of the planet’s continental surface,” Ing suggested. “We could isolate suitable areas based on stability, accessibility… the same criteria the colonists would have used. We could isolate ten or twenty locations at a time, and send the probes in, low orbit, with ground penetrating radar…”

  “Um, gentlemen,” Honda called. “Take a look at this poster, will you?” Honda indicated one of the redoubt posters, a high resolution image of a rock face distinguished by a two-step waterfall. Very realistic-looking people were marching into it, under the gaze of satisfied-looking construction workers standing on enormous machinery. (A cultural anthropologist would have noted the clothing; men, women, and children wearing the same one-piece coveralls.)

  Honda asked, “Doesn’t that look like a very distinctive geological formation? How many two-step waterfalls do you think there are on this planet?”

  “You’re supposing the poster is accurate,” Ing said.

  “She’s right,” Morgan said. “This poster must reflect an actual landmark. It’s possible some of the others do as well.” He tapped his COM Link. “Technician Sloane, task probes to scan the surface for this rock formation.”

  A technician on Pegasus answered him in the affirmative. Morgan took a look around the room. “Do any of these o
ther posters look distinctive?”

  “They all seem to be near water,” Ing said. He indicated a wall bedecked with four posters.

  One showed more enormous boring equipment chewing into a cliff-face by the side of a large lake. Another showed construction of a redoubt on the floor of a canyon, a mountain stream washing by. Another showed another cliff face by a broad river, where a redoubt was under construction. Another showed a formation of four table mesas rising above a river bed, each one being made the site of a redoubt.

  “That one!” the three said in unison.

  Pegasus – The UnderDecks

  The chamber in which he awoke was dark, but to Queequeg this didn’t matter. His eyes glowed in the tiny amount of light, and two thousand tiny red eyes glittered back at him. His sense of smell had already told him what they were.

  “Rats,” he hissed.

  Cat and Human, said a voice inside his head. He noted that one set of eyes was larger than the rest. His finely tuned feline senses, coupled with his ability to grasp the obvious, told him those eyes were the source of the voice.

  “Who are you?” Queequeg asked. He tried to move his paws, but they were tightly bound in some kind of twine.

  “Hunter,” said Hunter.

  “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to the rat voice inside my head,” Queequeg told him.

  Hunter pondered this. “Oh,” he finally said.

  Rat-voice, yes-s-s-s-s-s-s. The tiny red eyes sparkled. Your mind must be enhanced in order to per-c-c-c-c-c-cieve us.

  “I’ve sensed your presence for some time,” Queequeg told him.

  I suppose you’re wondering why we brought you here.

  “To recite clichés at us?” Queequeg guessed.

  We have achieved critical mass, the rat told him. Everything is in place, and we are ready to carry out our purpose.

  “Which is what?” Queequeg asked.

  We were created as a disease vector to carry the Bacia plague among humans. We were stranded on the Cold World, and could not reproduce. Therefore, it was impossible to create the critical mass necessary to spread the disease through its population. But now, there are enough, and this ship will carry us to a world, and we will feast on its dead.