by Crucible
Scout thought for a minute. “We could try going into the BrainCore and initializing it directly… it might work. I would just have to bypass the command-ports.”
“I suppose this means we won’t be getting any rest then?” Fangboner said.
“This shouldn’t take long,” Scout said, but she was yawning when she said it. She re-opened the BrainCore Access Hatch. “You can go Fangboner. I can handle this. It’s just a matter of swapping some photon circuitry. I can handle it.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lear said, standing a little unsteadily from her command chair. Churchill and Sukhoi moved to help her.
Pegasus – Keeler’s Quarters
Commander Keeler’s Quarters looked more like the summer home of an eccentric professor than the inside of a spaceship, mainly because of the big, stone fireplace and the collection of heavy, expensive furniture.
There was also the weird black casket in the hidden alcove Keeler was currently pounding on the lid of. “Okay, Old Man, I need you to describe the recipe of a drink that has not been drunk in four thousand years.”
Lexington Keeler‘s ghostly form appeared above the casket. “Hmm, I did once hear of something called a Lawn Gileland Ice-T.”
“Do you have the recipe?”
“Vodka, rum, tequila, gin, Rigelian Blue liqueur, sweet and sour mix, and Jizz citrusoid carbonated beverage.”
“That’s basically a Harpoon,” Keeler told him. “Except you would use Borealan Yakbeast urine instead of vodka.”
He took a swig. Then, gulped the rest.
“How do you like it?” asked the dead man.
“It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everybody’s throwing up,” Commander Keeler told him, and began looking for his bottle of yakbeast urine. “Also, where’s my damned cat?”
“Cat business,” Dead Keeler told him. “No concern of yours.” Failing to find the urine, Commander Keeler grabbed a bottle of something green, flopped himself down on the largest, plushest sofa he owned and pulled a quilt around himself. “Before this knocks me out, what have you got to tell me about this situation?” The Dead Guy answered, “The only way you could have screwed this up worse is if you pissed on the Primary Fusion core and blew up the ship.” Commander Keeler considered this. “Well, there is still time and you know how these Lawn Gileland Ice-T s go right through me.”
“Let’s start from the top,” Dead Keeler said. “Your combat against the enemy has been defensive and tentative. You let them smack you around like a small child in a discount retail outlet, to use a colorful ancient metaphor. I would have chased that big alien ship down and blew it up real good, for starters. Also, rescuing the Keeler, overall, was a good choice. I won’t give you grief on that. But as for TyroCommander Lear, if any second officer had pulled that crap on me, I would have smacked them into the middle of the next space-week.”
“Oh, trust me, she will feel my wrath.” Live Keeler took a long hard swig at this beverage.
“I’m going to have her dragged back to this ship in full restraints, on a dolly, with a gag in her mouth. And when we get to Chapultepec, she’s off my ship, permanently, along with her family and anyone else who sided with her.”
Dead Keeler faded slightly, and looked dour. “I had assumed, there would be some slapping around?”
“I’m not a violent man,” Live Keeler countered. “I’m a petty, arrogant, and… what’s the word that means when people make an ass of you, you feel especially obligated to destroy and humiliate them?”
“Vengeful?”
“Vengeful, exactly,” Live Keeler finished off his drink and poured another. “I don’t know exactly how I am going to humiliate and destroy Goneril ‘Mutinous-Backstabbing-Bitch’ Lear, but I will. Oh, I will.”
Pegasus – Alkema Family Quarters
David Alkema and his wife, Pieta, lived on the top level of a junior officer’s bloc. Both the block and the living space were Z-shaped. Pieta had decorated with a sumptuousness that ordinary Sapphireans or Republickers would have considered garish. In the living room, where she lovingly massaged her husband’s temples, were hung satin curtains of dark white and Egg Blue. Tapestries from Independence and Aurora hung on the walls. A thick white carpet specked with gray and blue covered the floor.
“My theory is, Lear doesn’t have anything to lose, so she’s going to try and destroy the captain,” Alkema summed up, recounting his duty period. Pieta had gradually become a better at pretending to listen to him when he related a particularly stressful day. He lay on a couch with his head on her stomach, knowing that his child was incubating inside.
“When I was on Bodicea,” Pieta told him. “My mother had similar battles in the Outer Circle. One advocate would suggest building a lavish habitation for teachers in her city.
Another advocate would point out that current habitations were adequate and the construction of new facilities would cost a large amount of money. The first advocate would then accuse the second of not caring about teachers. Then, all the teachers would complain, and threaten to have the second advocate removed. And the second advocate would then have to give in. But the teachers would never forgive her, and they would vote her out at the next election.” Alkema didn’t see the connection, and at one time he would have told her so, but he knew better.
Pieta sighed, impatiently, “You see, the teachers never really wanted the bigger habitat until the politicians told them they could have it. Lear’s doing the same thing. She’s making the crew want something they didn’t know they wanted until she brought it up.” Alkema was not quite sure that was what Lear was doing, but he appreciated Pieta making the effort. Before he could move on, or change the subject, the Visitor Alarm played some notes from an Auroran pop song that Pieta had been fond of, telling them that someone was at the door. They argued briefly over who should answer it. Alkema lost that argument, as usual.
He rose from the big, pillowy couch and walked, barefoot to the hatch. When it slid open, Sam Jordan stood there.
Sam was Max Jordan’s younger brother. He was at the younger end of adolescence, and was the more shy and bookish of the two, a thin, freckled boy who probably would have worn wire-rimmed spectacles had he been born a few thousand years earlier. When Alkema met him at the door, he extended a warm greeting. “What’s up, Sam?”
“My mom is gone,” Sam said sadly. “May I stay with you?”
“Sure,” Alkema told him, suppressing an urge to scruff his ginger hair. “You can stay in the extra bedroom I use when your sister is angry with me.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll go back for the rest of my stuff in the morning.” Alkema was taken aback by this. “You don’t think your mom’s coming back?”
“She isn’t,” Sam said. “Her ship disappeared after flying into the big alien ship. Search teams have been scanning the ground but they haven’t found any wreckage. They haven’t heard any transponder signals. Her ship probably collided with or was destroyed by the alien ship. Either way, it was completely annihilated.”
“Who told you that?” Alkema asked, taking in shock himself. He had just sort of assumed that TyroCommander Redfire… and by extension, Flight Commandant Jordan … would return, just because they always had before. Besides which, there had been so much else going on.
“No one, I have been following the Tactical Net.” Sam paused. “You know, someone on the ship should have explained this to me. I am just a kid.”
Lexington Keeler – SC-2
The hatch to SC-2 slid open. With power restored to the deck, it didn’t have to be pried, like before. Synch Christmas entered first, Muffy followed him, sashaying sultrily into the empty command center. Driver and Trajan Lear entered last, with no discernible sashaying.
The hatch closed behind them.
“Hey, Dead Man!” said Move-O-Bot with enthusiasm.
“You!” Christmas snarled.
Move-O-Bot chuckled. “That’s right I survived… So, how’s your whore?” Christmas grunted.
“At least I once had a soul.”
“So, you and turbo-slut both survived the deep freeze. Congratulations.”
“A talking mechanoid?” Driver said.
Christmas growled. “Indeed. A side-effect of our contact with the Electroids. Since they did not distinguish between human and artificial life, they made most of the robots and androids on our ship quasi-sapient.”
“Oh,” said Driver.
“Thus, they forced us to confront the ethical dilemma our worlds had avoided by forbidding the construction of sentient machines,” Christmas concluded.
“How did you resolve that dilemma?” Trajan Lear asked.
“We deactivated most of the robots,” Christmas said. “Some few escaped, stealing an Aves and fleeing the ship. Move-O-Bot survived by endearing himself to our Chief Engineer.”
“Paramus Elf-Aquitaine,” Move-O-Bot said. “God rest his filthy soul.”
“Move-O-Bot, have they attempted to reactivate the BrainCore,” Christmas wanted to know.
“They tried, they failed. You monkey-wrenched it good, Dead Man.”
“Where are they now?” Christmas asked.
“In the BrainCore Pit, attempting a direct re-initialization. Also, by the way, the head witchin-charge is also plotting mutiny against the commander of your ship,” Move-O-Bot told Driver and Lear. “I thought you might want to know that.”
“Oh, my mom is here,” Trajan sighed. “What exactly is she proposing to do?”
“That’s not important right now,” Christmas snapped. He was already opening the hatch.
“How many of them are there, Move-O-Bot?”
“Let’s see… there’s the old witch, her two goons, the hot babe with the toolkit, and the beanpole. And some other loser. That makes five.”
“Goons?” Driver asked.
“Two goons… she called them Centurions. They’re conspiring to help her overthrow the commander of the other ship.”
Muffy caressed her inner thigh. “Christmas will deal with the commander. I, of course, will seduce the goons. Because I am a …”
“… sex slave,” Muffy, Matthew Driver, and Trajan Lear completed in unison.
Christmas opened the hatch leading down to the BrainCore. “I hope we have enough firepower to kill it quickly. If Lex resists, one or all of us will probably die, but not me, I am …
”
“… already dead,” Christmas, Matthew Driver, and Trajan Lear completed in unison.
And then, they were in the tunnel.
Chapter Nineteen
The Surface
Taurus, Rook, and Jordan hiked across the stony floor of the canyon, through a sparkling white mist that crackled with static ion charge, moving toward… they could not exactly see what. Whatever had torn apart the Trauma Hound and stolen its brain was hiding in the mist-shrouded bottom of the canyon.
“Between the canyon walls and the EM interference, I can’t get any kind of link back to the base,” Taurus told them. “Or, Pegasus.”
Rook peeled back his helmet and mopped a light sheen of sweat from his brow. He peeled back his tactical goggles. The mist had a strange, crystalline quality that seemed to amplify the ambient light in the canyon. Without the lens filters, the effect was like being caught in the middle of a blizzard and sun-blinded at the same time; surprisingly warm though, and humid like a stormy summer day.
“Also, our suit sensors are blind beyond a radius of four meters,” Rook told them, although they could plainly see that in their own Spex. “It was eight when we entered the canyon, and it’s been getting worse.”
“Stay sharp!” Taurus ordered. “I refuse to be ambushed by Aurelians, or whatever.”
“The last time they captured someone, they transplanted an Aurelian brain into his body,” Rook said, re-attaching his face mask. “I don’t think I’d like that.”
“They don’t do that to all prisoners,” said Max Jordan. “Sometimes, they just torture and kill them, or lobotomize them for use as slave labor.”
There was a pause. Footsteps crunched on the canyon floor.
“You know what I like?” Rook said. “That spicy orange sauce we got from Independence; great on sandwiches, hot wedgies, as a dip for when friends drop by, or just for anytime.” Then, suddenly, the sensors in their tactical suits failed entirely. All the little hints and depictions in their Spex-lenses turned black and they were quite completely blind. “We have to turn back,” Taurus said.
“Good plan,” Rook agreed. He disconnected the mask and wiped some sweat and spit that had accumulated around the rim.
While he was doing that, Max Jordan walked smack into a black, metal strut that was protruding from the ground. “Ow! Intercourse! Excrement! Place of eternal damnation! More Intercourse.”
Then, Rook said, “I think Jordan just found something.” They could not see the structure clearly in the electric fog. They got an impression of girders and metal, like the arm of a crane stretching into the sky. Taurus alone had seen something like it before, on the top of an ArcoTower on the planet Meridian.
“Increase your suit’s shield strength to maximum,” Taurus ordered. “These towers are pumping out massive EM radiation, camouflaging every energy signature in this valley.” Examining the structure, they moved closer, alert for life signs. At the base of the tower was a shelter, constructed of metal girders and thick, transparent sheets of polymer. There was a sliding door, which was locked down.
“May I?” Rook asked. He leveled his pulse weapon at the lock and unleashed a bolt of energy. The plasma charge hit the lock, but unleashed massive feedback into the tower’s energy field, which stung the energy shields of their suits.
“Ouch,” was the tri-lateral consensus.
“You should have waited for me to deny you permission to do that,” Taurus said.
Max Jordan pulled the door open, using the tactical suit’s strength enhancing capability.
Inside the shelter was a basic control set up, a kind of table with a console in the center of it.
When Taurus touched the screen, it lit up with a brownish-gold light. A representation of the tower appeared on the right side of the screen, text rose up on the screen to the left of the tower icon. At least, it could be assumed to be text. It was all scratches and slashes, arranged in random chunks rather than orderly lines.
“That looks nothing like the text in the bunker,” Taurus said out loud.
“It’s not Aurelian either,” Max Jordan put in, sounding a little disappointed.
“Then, it’s alien,” Rook said. “Kumba yah!”
Taurus scowled at the screen. There was no keyboard, and no obvious way to make inputs.
She began looking for a Processing Unit, something they could take back to the ship for additional study. “Jordan, give me a cutter.”
Max Jordan detached the laser cutter from his toolpack and handed it to Taurus. She checked its beam, and then began to cut into the display unit
“What are you doing?” Rook asked.
“Bringing back something for Technical Core to chew on,” Taurus finished cutting and pulled the display loose from the console and began poking inside for a processing core. “I don’t think its likely that this is the only tower in the canyon. If this canyon is filled with towers like this, their energy output might explain why we haven’t been able to scan anything.”
“What are they trying to hide?” Johnny Rook asked.
Taurus stuffed the display in her pack. “It’s a big canyon.”
“A base maybe?” Rook suggested.
Taurus thought about this, and then nervously fingered her weapon. “If there is a base, then the invaders… the aliens who took this planet, they didn’t come to settle it. That’s why we haven’t found any new settlements. That’s why they wiped out the human population and built a base.”
“How could you know that?” Jordan demanded.
“I’m just putting all the clues together,” She cocked her gun. “It would explain the const
ant attacks on Pegasus; we violated a military zone.” Rook looked upward. “If we could take the electromagnetic distortion down, Pegasus could detect any alien base with her sensors.”
“We don’t have the firepower,” Taurus regretted to inform him. “And there’s probably a hundred more towers…”
Max Jordan looked out through the portal, into the fog. “What if TyroCommander Redfire is in that base somewhere? If the aliens captured him and … they could have taken them there.”
Taurus put a hand on his shoulder. “If we’re going to take a closer look, we’re gonna need a lot more warfighters, and a lot more weapons. Let’s get back to the Redoubt and get reinforcements from Pegasus.”
Deep Space
Aves Ginger was following the course of the ship that had passed Pegasus after rising from the planet. It was flanked by four silvery accipiters, two from its own wingtips, and two more flying close escort.
Its course took Ginger through a planetary debris field. The system’s innermost planet had been destroyed millions of years earlier, and its remains were being sucked into the sun’s gravitational field. Usually, such debris fields were rocky, widely dispersed asteroids. But some combination of solar flares and the composition of the destructed world had produced a close-packed field of polished spheres. Each of the five ships of the flight was reflected perfectly in thousands of round black mirrors, a mind-bending vista no human eyes would ever behold.
Inside Ginger’s command deck, Flight Lieutenant Hadrian Columbia – a sandy haired man with a face that looked like a great big jaw that a face had been attached to as an afterthought from the City of Clear Judgment on Republic – checked the telemetry connection with Pegasus and found it strong.
In the second seat, Flight Lieutenant Garth Atreides checked the telemetry of the other Aves currently on Deep System Patrol. “Flight Lieutenant, we are now further from Pegasus than any other patrol ship.”
“Ah, good, doesn’t that make you feel secure?” Columbia said dryly.
Atreides double-checked the tactical readout on the Accipiters. “If we’re attacked, we can just hope the Accipiters keep them distracted enough for us to make our escape. I’m going to update their tactical protocols.”