Sonata in Orionis (Earth Song Cycle Book 2)

by Mark Wandrey

  “Thank you!”

  “Yeah, thanks for a night of sin,” Gregg said from the backseat, obviously eavesdropping. Cherise elbowed him in the ribs for being rude, and he woofed out a lungful of air. Minu knew she had a long, busy day ahead of her, probably several. But for the first time in a long time, she felt like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8

  May 14th, 518 AE

  Science Branch, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  “What the hell is that?” Pip asked when he came into the lab. He handed her a metal case full of sifted Concordian data and stared at the intricate schematic on the wall. For two weeks, Minu had spent every spare minute in her office, working alone. Her team had more than enough to do without her taking time away from their personal projects. She wasn’t a real scientist or engineer like they were, but she had exabytes of Concordian data, schematics, and manuals. She’d started messing around with preexisting designs and completed the idea by herself. Of course she’d stood on the shoulders of giants, many of whom had probably been dead for a million years.

  “I’m going to call it a shock rifle,” Minu said proudly. The stock was a standard firearm design, the same one used on their slug throwers and beamcasters. From there, the design looked nothing like the beamcaster or a standard firearm. Shaped roughly like a rifle, it consisted of numerous metal conduits, tubing, electronic assemblies, and improvised metalwork. As a whole, it evoked memories of the weapons used in old Earth sci-fi movies.

  “This is what you’ve been working on in the dark of night?” She grinned and nodded. “Well, that and Christian.”

  “Is my sex life public knowledge?” she moaned.

  “Every Chosen’s sex life is public knowledge.” She glared at him. “What do you expect? We’re a closed community of a thousand or so, and ninety-nine percent of us are male. Sex is what we talk about, since most of us aren’t getting any. When the youngest, most beautiful, most eligible, most famous female Chosen finally decides to take a lover…” Pip shrugged, and she scowled more deeply, “it’s front page news.” Minu managed to turn red, glower, and giggle, all at the same time. It was funny enough to make Pip laugh, too. Most famous?

  “What’s a girl supposed to do?”

  “Have fun once in a while,” he said and patted her hand. “I’ve been dating that girl from Chelan. You know, the chubby one at the movie theater?”

  “The one with acne? Pip, you can do better than that.”

  Now it was his turn to look mad. “Don’t talk like that about Cynthia,” he said. “I like her a lot.”

  “Got lucky, eh?” she said, unable to resist a jab at his expense. He looked sheepish and nodded his head. “Good for you. She’s kind of pretty. Probably needed a boy as bad as you needed a girl.”

  “Thanks, I think. Anyway, explain this Frankenstein you’ve got here.”

  “What’s a Frankenstein?” she asked. “You downloaded so much stuff, I’m having a hard time getting through it all, so I started looking for specifics. We’re after an infantry weapon, so I searched for successful infantry weapons.”

  “You found a million designs, I bet.”

  “Sure did. I realized I was wasting my time, because most engineers are in love with their own work.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  “Instead, I searched for despised designs. I only found a few. After cross-referencing negative comments with positive results, I came up with this. It was widely liked by engineers but hated by soldiers. Enemy soldiers, to be precise. The down side? The only species to deploy it ceased to exist a long time ago. I can’t even find out what they looked like.”

  “Probably wiped out because they invented that gun.”

  Minu shrugged. “Anyway, this design shows that weapon with a few changes I came up with.”

  “I would have never thought of that approach.”

  “Sometimes it takes a woman.”

  “I whole-heartedly agree.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Why do you think Mandi is on the team? Don’t give me that look; you agree she’s brilliant. I’ve seen her performance reviews. Women have different thought processes and often come to the same or better conclusions as men through entirely different approaches. I realized that early in life. It’s why I latched onto you in the Trials and Mandi for this team.”

  “Pip, you never cease to amaze me.”

  “That’s exactly what Cynthia said last night.” Minu punched him in the arm, but not too hard. He rubbed it, looking annoyed.

  “This weapon combines laser and plasma technology,” she explained.

  “Plasma weapons waste more power than beamcasters,” Pip complained. “Remember all the workups on them we read last month? Wasted energy is the principle reason particle accelerators became the norm, despite being larger and more complex.”

  “Sure, but this isn’t a normal plasma gun. Plasma weapons spray stuff around in great, messy globs. It’s hard to defend against a few million degrees of star-stuff. An EPC small enough to carry doesn’t hold a lot of power, not when you use it like that. The shock rifle is a hybrid.” She displayed a computer animation of a woman holding a shock rifle on the lab wall. The woman raised the gun from port arms to her shoulder and pulled the trigger. Then the computer zoomed in to show the weapon in cutaway view.

  “You’ve been busy,” Pip said distractedly.

  “You like it? One of the Command classes was on animation presentation. I figured it was a big waste of time, until this. As you can see, the system energizes a targeting laser. Once the user triggers the firing sequence, the targeting laser pumps up to a thousand watts for a millisecond pulse, then uses a beam splitter to spread focus to a millimeter-wide hollow circular beam. It injects a plasma stream through the laser tunnel, which travels down, by negative attraction, from the ionized channel.” The graphic showed an ambiguous, hideously-snarling alien. The laser burned a tiny spot on its chest, then the plasma traveled down the laser tunnel, hitting the alien instantly, causing living flesh to flash boil and explode. The animated results were gruesome. “Boom,” she said as the animation finished, showing the grinning gunner holding her weapon and flashing a thumbs-up.

  “Damn,” Pip said. He reached for one of his tablets, and she handed him the one preloaded with the gun’s details. The prototype was almost as heavy and unwieldy as the beamcaster, because she’d used salvaged parts and other components that weren’t intended for use in a weapon. The computer displayed a slicker finished product made from designed components. It weighed a third of what the beamcaster did and used 1/10th the power. “Damn,” he said again.

  They sat next to each other, and Pip toyed with the design. “What are you up to?” she asked.

  “Look,” he said, “the laser can be used as a weapon, too.”

  “I know, though it isn’t as powerful as the plasma’s punch.”

  “Agreed, but if we increase the output of the laser to ten thousand watts, give or take, and provide a user control, it can be used in a pinch as an long-range sniper weapon. Doing that gives us a small advantage in armored combat, too.”

  “How?”

  “The common Concordian combat armor is resistant to plasma to some degree. At least it is against the small amount you’re using.”

  “I know; it’s the only shortcoming of this design.”

  “But the armor isn’t as resistant to lasers. The problem with a laser is that it lacks the punch to do any serious damage after cutting through the armor.”

  “It’s less lethal, too,” Minu agreed. “A laser tends to drill a hole through someone but leaves them operational.”

  “Right. But what happens if you pump up the laser enough to penetrate the armor, then discharge a plasma bolt?”

  “Oh, damn!” she exclaimed.

  “Yep. Zip, zam, splat.”

  “I’m glad you’re on our side.”

  “Me too!”

  The oth
er team members arrived carrying coffee and doughnuts. They moved quickly to the table to look at the new gun.

  “What did you come up with, Pip?” Alijah asked.

  “It’s not me this time; that’s a Minu Alma special.” None of them looked more surprised than Mandi. Minu sat serenely, drinking it all in, a half smile on her face. She’d never been happier that she’d started taking college classes. As the team settled in, she began describing her design, already incorporating the improvements Pip had suggested. From the looks on their faces, she could tell it was a good idea. Now they just needed to build it.

  * * *

  May 21st, 518 AE

  HERT, Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass

  It was late afternoon and the HERT was empty, just as Minu had hoped. She didn’t want any curious Chosen to witness the test or wind up victims of an unintended outcome. The team’s preferred testers, Gregg and Aaron, arrived. When Minu saw Aaron, she suddenly felt strange. He spotted her, smiled broadly and said, “Hi.” She returned the greeting, then turned toward the control room. Once inside, she closed the door and suddenly broke into tears. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” she asked the empty room. When Aaron appeared at the door, she gasped and did her best to recover.

  “We about ready to—” he broke off when he saw her wiping tears from her red eyes. “What’s going on? You okay?”

  “Nothing, I was just having a girl moment,” she stammered. He looked at her, his dark brown eyes full of concern. He was much closer to her height than Christian and much more muscular, as well. Suddenly, she felt like she’d betrayed him, and tears started running down her cheeks totally unbidden.

  “I was afraid this would happen,” he said, entering and closing the door behind him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She said you might get emotional when you found out.”

  Minu stopped crying. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Aaron took a deep breath. “Mandi and I have been seeing each other for a while.”

  “Mandi and you?”

  “Yeah.” He looked concerned, almost guilty. In the blink of an eye, Minu went from guilty, to confused, to angry.

  “That bitch…”

  “Minu!”

  “I’m sorry. You don’t want me bad-mouthing the woman you’re fucking?”

  “Minu!” he roared. “What has gotten into you?”

  “Nothing,” she said in a cold rage. “How long?”

  “Huh?”

  “How long have you been ‘seeing’ each other?”

  “About three months.”

  That was before her first date with Christian. Her guilt dissipated in the cold breeze of realization. Her face calmed, and she smiled, wiping away tears. The change was enough to scare Aaron, as her calm was much more frightening than her rage. Her father once said, “I’d rather face a T’Chillen than your mother when she’s mad!”

  “I’m sorry, I should have told you when it started.”

  “Why?”

  “You know…”

  “No Aaron, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” He stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. “When I caught Mandi trying to fuck Jacob, I told her I didn’t care who she screwed as long as she didn’t do it on the job. Why should I care if you’re the one poking her?” Minu turned around, hands on her hips, heart racing. The prototype shock rifle rested in its cradle. She snatched it up and turned around. Aaron’s eyes bugged out, and he took a step back. Minu pushed by him, noticing his tension when they touched, and stalked out the door without a word.

  When Minu exited the control room with the shock rifle cradled in her arms, Mandi looked like she was going to scream. The rest of the team craned their necks to see past her, no doubt wondering if Aaron was a smoking crater.

  “Do we need to mop up Aaron?” Gregg asked, leaning calmly against a firing bench. He was by far the calmest, given the situation. Even Pip, who probably knew her the best, looked fearful at her rage.

  “Shut up,” she snapped and marched over to him. He shrugged and faced her. She shoved the gun into his hands so forcefully he almost doubled over. “Get to work!” Minu went to the instrument controls and initiated the pre-programmed test sequence. The signal was unmistakable; the boss wanted to get to work. Aaron stuck his head out of the control room. Everyone ignored him except Mandi, who offered him a tentative smile. He scowled and walked over to stand next to Gregg.

  “Ready to get to work?” Minu asked him.

  “Sure,” he said and started prepping the gun.

  “Okay,” Pip said. “Let’s begin static discharge tests.”

  The first battery of tests took an hour and consumed a charged EPC. The proceedings would have bored anyone watching. The team monitored the shock rifle’s laser system a dozen ways to test accuracy, thermal blooming, and power output. Then they did a series of dry runs, testing the laser’s ability to create a charging tunnel. Finally, they tried channeling a plasma charge. They loaded the second EPC, and Gregg fired the weapon at its lowest power.

  Minu watched through monitors as the gun went through the three-stage firing sequence too quickly to follow with the naked eye. Energize, discharge laser, release plasma, Bzzsnaaaap! Gregg staggered back from his shield, almost dropping the weapon. Aaron and Pip raced in to help him. Minu was too busy watching the slow-motion replay to realize a plasma backlash had burned Gregg. She saw it in agonizing slow motion.

  “Gregg!” she yelled and turned around. Aaron and Pip were tending to his wounds. Luckily, Pip had insisted on extra precautions, installing a ten-centimeter-thick moliplas shield in front of the firing range. The shield had a half-meter round hole for the gunner to push the barrel through. The laser had fired for such a short interval, the positively charged channel it created didn’t focus the intense squirt of plasma. Instead, it dissipated into a cloud and superheated the air. Without the shield, Gregg might have had his face burned off. Even with the shield, his face looked sunburned, and the heat had ruined his moliplas goggles.

  “I’m okay,” he said, “but Aaron can have the next shot.”

  “No problem,” Aaron said, taking the weapon with a swagger. Pip replaced the ruined goggles with a full-face shield, earning Aaron a taunt from Gregg.

  “Oh, be a man,” he laughed.

  “Drop it,” Minu said, and the test continued. Pip and Alijah adjusted the laser sequence and intensity. The data cable hooked to the prototype relayed the commands and altered the firing sequence. This time there was a harmless flash of plasma, but still no proper discharge.

  “I don’t think the laser is strong enough,” Pip said after two more adjustments.

  “The plasma discharge is overpowering the laser,” Alijah agreed, “even at the lowest setting.”

  “Max it out, if you have to,” Minu said.

  “We’ll burn out the discharge chamber,” Mandi warned.

  “It’s just a test,” Minu reminded them. “We have spares.”

  They continued to increase the laser power until they achieved the desired results. After two more shots the laser burned out with a spectacular flash. The team took a short break while Pip installed another one. “This is the most powerful laser I have that’ll fit the mounts,” he said. The gun was awkward looking, with an improbably big bulge on the barrel end. “I know, we’ll work on it.” Though it made the gun look strange, the new laser did the trick. Gregg reclaimed it, and it fired perfectly. Bzzsnaapp! Bzzsnaapp!

  “Between ten and twelve megajoules at discharge,” Alijah said.

  “About twenty thousand degrees centigrade at impact,” Pip added.

  “Good. Okay, next step,” Minu ordered.

  “Oh God,” Mandi moaned, not looking up from the laser discharge chamber she was fiddling with, “do we have to?” Minu looked at Aaron and nodded. He shrugged, went to a control panel, and lowered the energy test target at the far end of the range. A wire mesh rose in its place, and a door opened on one side. Slowly,
as if it knew what was in store for it, a big pink pig walked in, prodded by a squat crab-bot. It sniffed the bitter ozone and smoke from multiple plasma discharges. “I can’t watch,” Mandi complained.

  “It’s just a damned pig,” Gregg said, cradling the shock rifle and waiting for the ‘go.’

  “Do your job,” Minu ordered. Mandi groaned, but stayed quiet. Gregg resumed his firing stance. Even though the shock rifle was firing reliably, he didn’t relinquish his face shield. “Single shot, center of mass, power at twenty percent,” Minu ordered. “Pip, try for an optimal laser discharge.”

  “Hard to estimate with a hairy target,” he said.

  “Real world test, then. Remember, we won’t be shooting this at humans.”

  “Let’s pray that never happens,” Aaron agreed. Gregg waited for the team to finish programming the weapon, watching the display until it flashed ‘ready.’

  “Okay, here we go.” He didn’t hesitate as he raised the weapon and fired. BzzaSQUEELsnaap! The pig jumped when the laser hit it, and the plasma charge hit the wall instead. Aaron laughed, and Minu sighed.

  “The laser discharge made the pig jump,” Pip noted. The pig squealed loudly and ran back and forth in the improvised cage, a tiny smoking black spot on its flank. It trod on the crab-bot several times, forcing the machine to run up the wall to get out of the way.

  “Shoot the damn pig again,” Minu said.

  “Poor thing,” Mandi cried.

  BzzaSQUEELsnaap, BzzaSQUEELsnaap!

  “Damn it,” Gregg said, “the discharge sequence is too slow. The fucking pig keeps jumping.”

  “You would too, if I kept burning your ass with a laser,” Pip said. “Let me try to speed up the ionization sequence.”

  “You’re torturing the poor thing!” Mandi cried. The pig now sported a trio of black burns, two on one side and another on its opposite rump.

  “We could lose containment,” Alijah warned as they adjusted the gun.