by M. D. Cooper
“You don’t think this would have been useful sooner?” Terry asked.
“Yes, I do, but it’s not my secret to tell. I’ve already said more than I should have, but I don’t want you overlooking viable theories.”
“You know it’s possible that Myrrdan is not here and there is no threat to the ship anymore, right?” Joe said.
Tanis nodded slowly. “Yes, I do know that, but I also know that vigilance costs us nothing, but if we are lax and there were a threat it would be unthinkable.”
“I just had to say it in case it gets me an ‘I told you so’ in a hundred years,” Joe grinned.
“I just got another ping aft in Old Sam,” Terry said.
“Do we have anyone else we can send to look at that?” Tanis asked.
Terry shook her head. “No, everyone is either up with Amy or we’ve already sent them.”
“Joe, Jessica, you’re with me,” Tanis said. “Let’s see what we can find out there.”
The three grabbed light armor and pulse rifles from the SOC’s armory and were on their way in minutes. Tanis led them to a nearby maglev train that merged with the dorsal line.
“Shouldn’t we take a train down to the cylinder?” Joe asked.
“I checked the maintenance schedules and that line isn’t in service right now, some sort of issue with power distribution,” Tanis replied. “We’ll go out to Engine and then back into Old Sam that way.”
“Glad I have you two here,” Jessica shook her head. “I still get lost trying to get to the can in this place.”
Joe laughed. “How did you make it on High Terra for so many years? It makes this ship look like a kid’s park.”
“It was always online,” Jessica replied. “This ship is so powered down even the walls are bare.”
Tanis nodded her agreement. The stark surfaces of the ship’s bulkheads were normally alive with directions and various information deemed important. Those systems were all offline now to conserve energy.
There was a train waiting in the station. The team boarded it and set the station north of node eleven as their destination.
“Think more sensors are corrupt?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know…” Tanis sighed. “The servitor that Bob has in the A1 dock is one of the new updated ones with its programming locked in crystal. If it can’t accurately report on its surroundings, then we’re entirely screwed.”
“Unless the data transmission between the servitor and Bob have been tampered with,” Jessica said ruefully.
The statement was akin to being told that no data is trustworthy. No one had a response, as deep down they each feared it was possible.
Three minutes later the maglev entered Engine. Tanis was standing to disembark at the station when the train shunted to another track and flew past the platform.
“What the…?” Joe pulled up a track diagram on the car’s information display. “Hmm, it looks like the station was offline so it diverted us to the next one. I guess Abby put fail-safes in place after too many people got lost in dark parts of the ship.”
“Where are we headed?” Jessica asked.
“Looks like the annihilator. We can cut across it to another line that is connected to Old Sam,” Joe said.
ANNIHILATOR
STELLAR DATE: 3241804 / 08.29.4163 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space near LHS 1565
The team disembarked from the train and rushed through the station and into a wide corridor that lead to the MSAR—or matter separation and annihilation region, as the signs told them.
Being in Engine was almost like entering an entirely different ship. Rather than relying on holo displays and VR prompts, information was printed on signs or painted directly on bulkheads.
Joe chuckled as they passed the sign. “Only on the Intrepid does a small part of Engine get deemed to be an entire region.”
“Chances are that it’s going to be a tiny room. Engineers like to do that.” Jessica shook her head.
They rushed down the corridor at a quick trot toward a wide door. As they approached it slid open, revealing that the MSAR was most certainly a region and absolutely nothing like they would have expected.
“How did I not know they have a forest down here?” Tanis asked.
“Ummm…I imagine Earnest has a good reason for it,” Joe replied.
The chamber before them was vast, well over a kilometer across—something that was not unexpected on the Intrepid. However, the fact that it was covered in a dense forest with a small plain in the center was an usual feature for Engine.
Toward the bow of the ship, the tail end of the particle accelerator entered the MSAR and spread like a wide, flattened horn until it split in three. Two of the shafts arched down several hundred meters and disappeared below the surface of lakes on either side of the chamber. The accelerator’s main shaft fed into a large sphere high in the center of the space.
The sphere shone brilliantly, and was the only light source in the chamber. Massive energy conduits connected to it, leading out the chamber and providing energy for the entire ship. Several smaller containment conduits syphoned off exotic matter produced by the annihilator.
The particle accelerator syphoned off deuterium, tritium, and heavier atoms while delivering protium to the annihilator. There they were compressed and smashed together, creating both energy and small amounts of antimatter used in secondary power generators.
The corridor ended one hundred meters above the treetops and the team took a lift down to the forest floor. They stepped out into a small meadow with a stream running through it. Birds chirped in the trees and a few squirrels ran by with acorns in their cheeks.
“No wonder the engineers always stayed back in Engine. They don’t need to visit the cylinders or forward parks.” Tanis looked around in wonder.
“I don’t understand how they have gravity here,” Joe said.
The Intrepid provided artificial gravity in a variety of ways. Areas above the matter accelerator achieved gravity through manipulation of the magnetic fields the accelerator created, while areas below used GE MBHs. Other areas, such as Engine, had decks perpendicular to the direction of thrust and gained gravity from acceleration.
However, the forest floor was parallel to the direction of thrust and aft of the matter accelerator. Placing miniature black holes near the atom smasher would be a recipe for disaster, which meant they should be in free-fall.
Tanis decided not to get into that.
“Hah!” Tanis said. “Engineers, always exploiting the dark corners of quantum physics.”
The journey through the forest took longer than it should have, mostly because one of the party kept stopping to marvel at some nook or cranny. The forest started out dark and mysterious with little undergrowth, gradually brightening and gaining more ground cover until the trees gave way to the broad plain in the center with the matter annihilator shining above. Hardy grasses swayed in a slight breeze caused by the warm air flowing from around the annihilator.
&n
bsp; “I feel like we should be wearing radiation protection.” Joe shielded his eyes and looked up at the annihilator. “But I guess this forest would look a bit different if that were needed.”
“What is that?” Tanis pointed at a shape moving across the field in front of them.
“Your eyes are better than mine, I don’t see anything,” Joe said squinting into the bright expanse.
Jessica peered into the bright light of the meadow and shook her head. “Me neither.”
Joe and Jessica followed as Tanis raced through the tall grass toward the annihilator.
In the center of the field, amidst the annihilator’s support struts, a lift which provided access to an inspection platform encircling the annihilation chamber activated and began to rise.
The team picked up the pace; tall grass pulled at their legs and they spread out to better navigate the rocks and burrow-holes that dotted the plain.
“Shit, is that another one?” Jessica asked, pointing off to her right.
Tanis looked in the direction Jessica indicated. “Yeah, there’s definitely another person out there. Looks like they saw us and are running back toward the forest.”
“I’m on it,” Jessica said as she broke away and raced after the second figure.
Angela didn’t respond for a moment as she paused to help Tanis quickly hack the lift, stalling its upward motion as she and Joe neared the support struts.
Angela didn’t respond. Getting into a conversation about the possibilities of multiverses and interlinked particles between them would disrupt her focus. Tanis needed her help.
“Angela,” Tanis said as she clambered up one of the annihilator’s support struts. “What do you think this person is up to? I can’t imagine the annihilator is susceptible to casual sabotage.”
“Good, then a simple blow to the head will put an end to this,” Tanis grunted as she pulled herself up a vertical support.
“Is the elevator connected to the local net? Maybe you could stop it?” Joe asked Angela.
A minute later, Joe boosted Tanis level with the elevator. She pulled herself onto its roof and found the access hatch open. Looking up and squinting, she couldn’t spot the figure anywhere, but here the light was muted and the shimmersuit was likely doing its job.
Tanis pulled Joe onto the top of the elevator and issued the commands to get it underway once more.
“Going up.” Joe grinned.
Tanis cast a judging eye at him. “I must be having some sort of effect on you. You used to take life and death situations more seriously.”
They dropped into the elevator’s car before it reached the top, and when the doors opened, stepped out onto a wide catwalk that ran around the base of the matter annihilator. The sphere was roughly eighty meters in diameter at this level.
“Let’s split up and take ’em from both sides,” Tanis said and Joe nodded in response. The two moved cautiously around the catwalk, all too aware that their opponent could be hiding right in front of them.
Tanis took the left-hand path after sending a cloud of nano ahead of herself and Joe. If they couldn’t detect the shimmersuit, the robots would at least bump into it.
A minute later the nano had completed a circuit around the catwalk without detecting anyone.
Tanis sent an affirmative and turned to go back the way she came when a sound caught her attention. Her augmented senses picked up slight movement in the air and she ducked as a light-wand arced through the space her head had occupied a second earlier.
Rolling back, Tanis drew her weapon and fired two shots where the attacker had to be.
The pulses passed through empty air and Tanis swore, scrambling to her feet and firing at the railing. The shots didn’t hit any solid objects and she felt a tendril of fear creep into her mind.
Tanis caught the ghost of an attacker again and pivoted to avoid a strike. The lightwand appeared and nicked her shoulder. She raised the butt of her gun and struck a solid object.
Her opponent grunted and Tanis pushed her advantage, swinging a leg out, hoping to sweep her attacker’s leg. Again she met empty air.
“Coward,” Tanis grunted. “Is that you, Myrrdan? The great and powerful man is afraid to face me?”
She knew the attempt at angering her opponent was a long shot, but it felt good to do it.
Tanis avoided several more strikes while firing at every possible location her enemy should have occupied, only to strike air.
Tanis gritted her teeth. This was significantly harder than fighting Kris back in the Sol system. Kris had moved in a way that Tanis could anticipate. Whoever she was f
ighting reacted before Tanis knew she would act. She had no idea how to win this fight.
Her opponent scored a hit, jamming the wand into Tanis’s prosthetic arm. She seized the opportunity and grabbed where the wrist had to be, making contact and twisting hard.
The other person let out a cry and let go of the wand. Tanis tore it out of her arm and tossed it over the edge of the platform. The voice relayed that she was facing a man.
At the same time Joe added his voice to the local net.
Tanis let out a cry and rushed forward, her arms spread to sweep the catwalk. She hit no one—as expected—and spun, firing her rifle at the top railing of the catwalk where she had been.
Her opponent bellowed in pain as pulses hit his legs in rapid succession. The kinetic hammer blows caused him to lose his balance and fall over the edge.
Tanis gave herself a dose of go drugs and leapt to the top railing. She gauged the distance to the next catwalk up—a good ten meters—and jumped.
Her knees snapped straight and she sailed into the air eight meters, just high enough to wrap an arm around a support beam. She hauled herself up and scampered up the beam to the outer edge of the catwalk above. She grabbed the railing and, in a fluid motion, swung herself up, out and over the railing.
Her limbs were shaking from the adrenaline she had pumped into herself for the jump and she slipped, landing hard on her side, but still on the catwalk.
The sounds of a scuffle came from ahead and she scrambled to her feet, racing toward it. She rounded the curve and Joe’s form came into view.
He was gripping the hilt of a lightwand, struggling for control of the plasma blade with an unseen attacker. Joe swung an arm out, connecting with his assailant and then took a hit in return.
Tanis watched the scene unfold in slow motion as both struggled for control of the lightwand. Then the wand slashed the railing and it buckled under the weight of the pair. A second later, Joe and his attacker were gone. Tanis arrived a moment later, sliding to a stop on her stomach.