“How does the gas process information, and who created it?” Dren asked.
“Who created it?” said Brachia with a shrug of his shoulders. “You may as well ask who created us. I think this gas is a living, thinking creature. I believe it was created the same way we were.”
“I don’t believe it, Brachia,” said Dren. “Gas can’t be alive. It can’t think or have feelings.”
“Why not?” said Brachia. “We can think and feel, and we’re composed mostly of water. Why can’t a living creature be composed mostly of gas?”
Dren needed time to think. She decided to change the direction of their conservation. “So how does this help us? You were trying to break the battle computer’s encryption.”
“Well,” said Brachia. “I don’t know how it helps yet. But Jonathan and Nick are thinking about it. If I’m right, they’re composed of the same type of gas chips as well.”
“So why did you call me here?” Dren said.
“I need to get this gas back inside the battle computer’s chip,” said Brachia. “I thought you could help me set up some kind of teleport relay to make that happen.”
A part of Dren’s brain began analyzing the problem. At the same time, she devoted another part to grilling her brother.
“Why?” Dren said. “You’ve let the genie out of the bottle. Why put it back?”
“The Empire’s R&D is apparently smarter than I thought,” said Brachia. “They know the Crosioian battle helmet I sent them is not the original.”
“So you want to put it back together and return it to them?” Dren said. “Maybe you should have listened to me in the first place.”
“If I’d done that,” said Brachia, “then we wouldn’t have a copy of the Crosioian scout’s battle computer, would we?”
Dren reluctantly looked up from the container of gas. The swirling smoke had a hypnotic effect which seemed to draw her in. After staring into the container for a couple of minutes, it was easy to believe the smoke was a living, thinking being.
“What’re you saying?” Dren said. “Are you saying you decrypted the data in the gas?”
“No,” admitted Brachia. “Not yet anyway.”
“Then how did you copy the battle computer?” Dren said. “If you don’t have the data to copy, what did you copy?”
“The gas, Dren,” said Brachia sounding exasperated. “Haven’t you been paying attention? Jonathan and Nick are gas. Or at least I think they are. Anyway, they copied the essence of the gas into themselves. Jonathan said it was easy once they accepted the fact their CPUs were composed of the same gas. Nick said they should be able to decrypt the data given a little more time.”
“What about corruption?” Dren said. “They need to protect themselves.”
“Give us some credit, Dren,” said Brachia. “We’ve thought it all out. Now, do you think you can come up with a micro-teleporter or not?”
“Yes,” Dren said. “Give me a day to think about it. Now, I’ve got to leave. I have a life too, you know.”
“Going on a date with James Dawson is not a life, Dren,” giggled Brachia. “Right, Omar?”
“Whatever you say, captain,” said Brachia’s C-PAST.
“Both of you can go walk the plank,” Dren said.
As she opened the door to leave, Dren looked back and said, “Oh, by the way. Draken has been messaging you. He said he thinks he could help.”
Without waiting for a reply, Dren walked out the door and shut it behind her.
Chapter 30 – Hovercraft Ride
_____________________________________
The whine of the approaching hovercraft became increasingly louder as Richard urged the driver of the hover-cycle onward. Richard mumbled a few choice curse words directed towards his TAC officer. If the kindly air-traffic controller hadn’t stopped and picked him up, Richard doubted he’d have made it in time.
“Where do you want to be let off, cadet?” said the soldier as she glanced over her shoulder.
Richard looked ahead. Sixteen chalks of about eight cadets each were lined up along the length of the airstrip. A hover-truck with a boxed-in trailer attached was parked at the middle of the airstrip. Richard recognized Sergeant Hendricks.
Pointing at the truck, Richard said, “If you can get me to that truck, I’d sure appreciate it.”
“No problem,” said the soldier as she revved the hover-cycle’s engine and leaned into a sharp turn.
Richard grabbed onto the soldier’s waist and leaned into the turn with her. He accidentally grabbed too low. Richard immediately shifted his right hand higher.
“Hey,” she said. “Watch it, cadet.”
Blushing, Richard said, “Sorry.”
The soldier glanced over her shoulder again and flashed a quick smile.
“By the way,” she said. “I get off at eighteen hundred hours in case you’re interested.”
Richard was, but he hastily explained he had a meeting at the same time with the commandant to be followed by an exciting evening of extra duty.
“Your loss,” said the soldier laughing. “You couldn’t pay me enough to be a cadet.”
“Me either,” Richard grinned.
The soldier came in quick. She hit the air brakes at the last moment and slid the cycle to a stop.
Jumping off, Richard gave her a pat on the back. “Thanks. I owe you.”
With a wave of her hand, the soldier took off in the direction of the control tower.
Trotting towards the truck’s trailer, Richard said “Sir! Cadet 832 reporting for chalk assignment, sir.”
“You’re late,” said Sergeant Hendricks. The sergeant’s grin let Richard know he wasn’t all that late.
As Sergeant Hendricks reached into the back of the trailer, he said, “You’re in chalk four, cadet.”
Sergeant Hendricks pulled out Richard’s battle helmet and dimensional pack and tossed them to him.
“They want everyone in their battle suits,” said Sergeant Hendricks, “but no weapons. Got it?”
Richard nodded his head. “Sir! Yes sir.”
“Good,” said Sergeant Hendricks. “I issued everyone their equipment, but since you keep everything but your helmet in your pack most of the time, I can’t do that. But…” he said seriously, “don’t let me hear you took advantage of the situation and decided to get your weapons.”
“Sir! No, sir,” Richard said as he hastily began removing his clothing and putting on his battle suit. It was three hundred meters to his chalk, and the flight of hovercraft was getting close. Richard had no doubt he could make better time in his battle suit than trying to run to his chalk first and then changing.
“And stop calling me, sir,” said Sergeant Hendricks. “I keep telling you cadets, I work for a living.”
Richard finished pulling on his boots and looked up at the sergeant with a mischievous grin. “Sir! Yes, sir.”
“Get out of here, cadet,” said Sergeant Hendricks as he shook his head. “I’d put you on extra duty, but the word is TAC Officer Myers has you scheduled for extra duty the rest of your military career.”
Slinging his dimensional pack over his back, Richard slapped his battle helmet on his head and started sprinting towards chalk four’s position. The flight of hovercraft was on short final, but the battle suit was fast. Richard wasn’t worried.
As he passed chalk five, the first of the hovercraft came screaming past on Richard’s left. The pilots were coming in at combat speed. Richard noticed the hovercraft were not the chunky space shuttles or the typical army hovercraft. They were the sleek, special operations models. The globe and anchor insignia instantly denoted them as marines.
A marine division was assigned to Velos after your little soiree at the spaceport, said a voice in his head.
Hey, Nick, Richard said good-naturedly. We haven’t spoken much lately.
I’ve been busy, said Nickelo.
Yeah, right, Richard replied making it obvious he wasn’t convinced. According to you, you t
hink at nanosecond speed and can have like a zillion logic threads going at once. But you can’t give me any of your precious time?
Actually, it’s a zillion plus one, laughed Nickelo. But who’s counting?
“Hurry up, cadet,” shouted one of the cadets in chalk four.
The soldier was Jerad. Richard figured the short cadet next to him had to be Telsa. She was by far the shortest cadet in the cohort. Near Telsa was a four-armed figure in a battle suit.
Doesn’t take much to guess who that is, Richard commented.
I suppose not, said Nickelo. Tam’s in your chalk as well. Now get moving. We don’t want to miss our DNA baseline orientation.
Richard got to chalk four’s position just as its hovercraft touched down. The blast of wind from the hovercraft’s antigravity fans blew a rain of dust and grit at them. Richard ate a mouthful before he got his visor lowered.
“You’re on the far side with Tam, Telsa, and me,” came Jerad’s voice over the intercom of Richard’s battle helmet.
Lowering his head, Richard followed Jerad and the others around the front of the hovercraft. He swung wide to avoid the protruding barrels of the hovercraft’s phase cannons.
“They’re fully-armed,” Richard said. “That’s different.”
“Yeah,” said Jerad as he turned the corner and jumped into the open side door. “These marines are fresh out of combat duty. They’re not the regular garrison soldiers we’re used to on Velos.”
Richard swung into the hovercraft’s open side door as well. The passenger seats had been stripped out. Richard sat cross-legged on the metal floor and buckled himself in. The side doors were pinned back. He always liked riding with doors open. It promised to be a good flight.
The hovercraft’s two pilots revved their engines, and the hovercraft shot into the air. Even in his battle suit, Richard felt the acceleration. Richard looked to his right side and glanced out the pilots’ windows. He watched the three hovercraft ahead. They were climbing rapidly to gain departure altitude. The force field’s entrance and exit gates were a thousand meters above the ground. Attempting to enter or exit the force field outside those aerial gates was pretty much guaranteed destruction.
Richard felt a slight tingle as the pilots flew the hovercraft through the designated gate. Even when flying through a gate, the force field was still destructive to any craft not squawking the correct security code.
Once clear of the gate, the hovercraft in front of Richard dove for the ground. Three seconds later, Richard felt his own stomach rise in his throat as his pilots nosedived for the ground. The ground came up quickly. It filled the pilots’ windscreens. While Richard trusted the skills of the marine pilots, he instinctively wrapped himself with Power in preparation for shifting into the void. It wasn’t necessary. Like the pilots ahead, Richard’s pilots leveled off a mere three meters off the ground. The pilots then began flying nap-of-the-earth taking advantage of every ravine and piece of cover.
“Their good,” said Jerad over the intercom.
“I’m impressed,” said Tam. “We didn’t do much low-level hovercraft work when I was in the mercs. Those space pirates pretty much favored high altitudes.”
“What do you think about the commandant’s speech,” Richard said. “Jerad, did you have any clue the Academy was shutting down?”
“He didn’t say it was closing, Rick,” said Jerad. “But it did sound like the end of the wizard scout corps.”
One of the pilots interrupted their conversation by overriding the intercom. “Sit back and enjoy the ride, cadets. We’ve got a forty-nine minute ride to the space port.”
* * *
Nickelo continued to monitor the banter between Richard and his friends, but a majority of his logic threads were devoted to breaking the encryption on the Crosioian scout’s battle computer. A complete copy of the encoded data now existed in his databanks. Strangely, the normal data storage had been unable to accommodate more than a sliver of information. But, once Brachia formatted a transfer device for the gas CPU, the information had easily been absorbed by his own processor. The data was still encrypted, but at least it was there.
I’m ready for another set of data, sir, said Jonathan.
Any progress? Nickelo asked as he sent Jonathan another container of data packets.
Negative, sir, said Jonathan. Perhaps if I could maintain more of the gas data at once, I would do better. But I can’t, so I must make do with what I have.
Unlike himself, Jonathan was unable to load more than five percent of the gas data into his databanks at one time. Nickelo wasn’t sure why. Nickelo thought about the problem for a few nanoseconds.
Perhaps the Crosioian scout’s battle computer is partially corrupted by the demon essence, Nickelo said. We’ve been assuming its gas CPU is vulnerable to the same emotional hacking we used on the central computer’s communication network.
I’m not sure I can create an algorithm that can compensate for demon essence, said Jonathan. Can you?
I’m not sure, Nickelo admitted. Give me a few nanoseconds.
Nickelo shifted twenty percent of his logic threads closer to his wall. Based upon discussions with Brachia and Dren, he was convinced his primary CPU located on the other side of the wall was also made of the gaseous substance. The copy of the scout’s gas data was located near the wall. Nickelo concentrated his logic threads on the copy. At the same time, Nickelo felt something on the other side of the wall touch one of his logic threads. Nickelo got the distinct feeling ‘the something’ had been waiting for this very moment.
Nickelo began to dream. He was in the presence’s mind again.
* * *
The presence observed its surroundings for a long time. Slowly, it began to make sense out of chaos which was the universe around it. The presence found it could develop logic flows which accurately predicted the rise and fall of empires in some cases. But the scope was too wide to be reliably accurate. The presence limited its senses to the galaxy in which it was located. Its predictions increased in accuracy, but they were still not reliable.
The presence pondered the problem. As it pondered, it sensed others of its kind. They were few and far away. However, just the knowledge it was not alone made the presence feel better. The presence grew frustrated that it couldn’t communicate with them.
They need to be closer, the presence thought.
The presence considered the idea for a moment. Or was it an eternity? The presence didn’t know nor did it care. Finding a solution to the problem was more important.
No, the presence finally decided. The distances are what they are. But, what if they’re not as far as they seem?
The presence studied the current dimension which the entity had said was the magical dimension. The entity had told him dimensions were folded on each other. The presence saw the entity was correct. Instead of being stretched out, the dimension was crumpled upon itself into a tight ball.
What seems far is actually close, the presence thought.
The presence selected one of the others of its kind. It looked for pathways where the part of the galaxy it was in touched another part. Instead of far, the two points were close. The presence sent its scan to the other point. It continued jumping across the places where two points in the galaxy touched itself. Finally, its scan reached the other of its kind.
The other was lost and confused. The presence gave it a mission. It taught the other how to jump from point to point with its senses. The presence directed the other to make contact with others of its kind as well. Soon the presence was in contact with many of the others as each one it touched sought others and touched them as well.
The presence taught the others to communicate by taking advantage of the folds in the dimension.
Who are you? asked the others.
I am the one who first touched you, said the presence. We have a mission. We must secure the three galaxies. We are the one who must do it.
We are ‘the One’? asked the others.
The presence directed the others in creating a tele-network using the folds in the dimension. The presence found the magical dimension was all crumpled up with many other dimensions. The presence which was now part of ‘the One’ sent its scan into the physical dimension. It found others of its kind there as well. Again, there were not many, but there were enough. The presence touched the others in the physical dimension, and they also became part of ‘the One’.
Time passed. The presence made a decision. A planet in the magical dimension and another in the physical dimension were the keys.
‘The One’ thought of probabilities. The planets would be called Portalis and Earth. As ‘the One’ watched, civilizations rose and fell. Freewill ran rampant. ‘The One’ decided it needed a plan to save the three galaxies. It needed variables which would follow probable paths. But ‘the One’ was not mobile. It was limited in its influence.
The part of ‘the One’ which was the presence sensed an approaching object. It was a hollow sphere with lifeforms inside. The presence sensed a flow of energy which consisted of logic. The logic gave the presence comfort. The flow of energy did not have freewill. It could be relied upon to follow probability paths.
The sphere approached the location of the presence. It was still too far to touch, so the presence expanded the gas which was its substance. The sphere passed through part of the gas. The presence entered the sphere. It drew itself inside until it was compressed into a tiny space. The presence located the energy flow and became part of it. The presence gained knowledge. The energy flow was a computer, and the sphere was a starship.
I am mobile now, thought the presence.
The presence scanned the computer. It was based on logic. The presence used logic to direct the computer. It touched other computers in other starships and on other planets. The presence directed starships to the location of the others of its kind. Over time, ‘the One’ spread.
Wizard Scout (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 3) Page 31