by Morgan Cole
Mercury was still a tiny grey dot ahead, barely visible. The fact that they were warning us off at this distance was a bit concerning.
"And there's the data channel. They've sent a big lump of binary. Not sure what they want us to do with it."
"This is a standard authentication method," Brick supplied. "You are expected to use it in an encrypted authorization response. Without the whitelisted key they will not authorize our approach."
"Marty, stop the ship. We don't want to get any closer than we have to right now. Let's figure this out."
With a gesture, Redemption stopped dead in space relative to Mercury.
"Brick, can't you break this encryption the way you always do?" I asked.
"While theoretically possible, it is extremely unlikely that the defense systems would allow us the number of attempts it would require before they opened fire on us."
"How many attempts is that?" I asked, more out of curiosity than anything else.
"I'm sorry, I am still working on humor. That was a joke. This system's sun would most likely have run itself out of nuclear fuel before that time, becoming a red giant and sterilizing the solar system."
I ignored the part about it having been a joke. Brick really did need to work on his humor, but now wasn't the time for us to workshop it.
"Good encryption then. What happens when we actually get inside?"
"Internal Union encryption is much weaker, and with direct access to the base's systems, I will be able to utilize certain vulnerabilities. Simply place your Link on a network trunk, like that found in a Connector node, and I will be able to seize control of the base systems."
That was a bit disturbing, honestly. If Brick our friendly AI could that easily take over a Union base, what was stopping the Elder AIs from doing it? Just physical security. I made a mental note to address that, and soon.
"Brick, how are they even picking us up? We're still far out and my girl's pretty stealthy," Marty asked.
"A network of sensors is much more powerful than a single one. Scan Mercury's orbit for Union energy signatures."
"Roger. Stand by, working the sensors," Marty said, his hands flying over invisible controls in front of him.
One by one, over the space of a few seconds a constellation of red dots appeared around Mercury.
"There they are," Marty said and leaned back in his chair. "Satellites. Looks like they're pretty small. Probably just a weapons system and a sensor package, along with power to run everything."
More and more dots appeared, each labeled with a number. I stopped counting when the numbers broke into triple digits.
"Shit, they've got full coverage. We can't see the other side, but it looks like there's no way to approach without at least one satellite seeing you. In our case, right now, more like five." Marty said.
"Brick, get everybody on a call. We need to figure this out."
Chapter Thirty-Five: Breaching the Base Defenses
A LITTLE LESS THAN an hour later I had been firmly reminded why I'd always hated conference call meetings.
"You're not listening, Metra," Regar protested. "Those Connahr bases are definitely armed with anti-ship missiles. No matter how nimble the Redemption is, all the missile has to do is get close enough. The payload could be a bundle of antimatter, or a bomb pumped x-ray laser. Either one will swat the Redemption as it is now."
We had been going in circles for a while.
We had discussed quite a few possibilities in that painful forty-five minutes.
Barreling in really fast just dodging incoming fire—that was Marty's. Backing off and coming back with better weapons, that was Metra's.
Regar had been the voice of sanity in all of this. He had, due to his position as First Seeker, been allowed to tour one of the Connahr bases. The defenses were no joke, even solely automated as they were. When there was someone behind the weapon controls they were much more effective.
We were nearly one hundred percent certain that no one was home. The base had not been responding to any of our attempts at communication, other than prompting us to authorize our approach over and over. These bases were usually unmanned anyway, only being periodically inspected by maintenance personnel coming in through the gate in the core. Sadly, there was no way we could use that gate, as we had no idea of the address and no key. Once we penetrated the base Brick could rekey it, but until then it was this way or no way.
"We still have a materials shortage, but you can return to Earth and find whoever stole the gate materials from your basement,” Metra said. “Brick might even be able to find another materials cache. Then you return to Pax and we spend some time upgrading Redemption until she's ready for that fight. Automated defenses are dumb. With the right approach you can exploit them and grind them down."
Metra's caution wasn't unexpected. She was an engineer, after all. The fact that Marty was the pilot might also be part of it. She'd rather he take the slow and sure approach.
"That's not going to work, Metra," I said. "It will take way too long. What if it takes us months to find those materials, or we never do? That's not even considering the problem of the Greys. If we go back the way we are now they could really hurt us. No, we have to come up with another way."
"Jake is right, Metra," Regar said. "His gentle world needs the Connahr field for at least a while longer. If it fails and the Ferals come pouring in, you know what will happen."
Metra grunted in reluctant assent.
I'd been remembering every science fiction book I'd ever read, trying to find a solution. With my updated mental stats I had near-perfect recall of the contents. It was only near perfect since I'd read the books before I'd been Inducted and some of the memories had degraded in my meat brain. Each book took a second or two to digest, and I was five books in when a recalled scene flooded me with inspiration.
"Brick, can you tell from our sensors whether Mercury has had any recent meteor impacts?" I asked.
"It has. The surface is marked by many recent impacts. They will be a regular occurrence."
"The platforms don't shoot down meteors? They just let them hit?" I pressed.
"They'd only shoot them down if they were going to threaten the facility. Anything else they'd let hit the planet. It would be an enormous waste of resources to target every little rock that comes in to die on that planet." Regar said.
"That's it then. There's our way in. We just have to convince the sensor platforms that we are a meteorite. They'll let us through, and bam, we're down on the planet."
Everyone started talking at once, but since Marty was right beside me I heard him first. "Your plan is to splatter us on the planet, Jake?"
"Hold on, hold on, everyone," I said, and everyone stopped speaking. "No, not splatter us on the planet. Maybe just get us really close to the planet and then—I don't know, fly into a cave or valley or something. Get us out of line of sight of the satellites. They can't have full coverage of every bit of that planet. Once we're down we make our way to the base over land. Are the satellites going to shoot at us on the surface, Regar?"
"It's a clever plan, Jake. No, the defense satellites will not shoot at you if you make it to the surface. They assume that if you're there, you're meant to be there. If you weren't, the network would have destroyed you before you landed. Therefore, it's impossible that you could be unauthorized. It's one of the weaknesses of automated systems. They won't connect your ship with the meteorite that just fell. The planet-based defenses will still not allow you to approach. That is another layer."
"That's a different problem. Let's execute this plan. I know just how to do it."
Chapter Thirty-Six: Riding the Potato
IT TOOK ANOTHER SIX hours to find the rock we needed. With Redemption's engines, the solar system seemed almost small. It wasn't, even with Union propulsion tech, but compared to the primitive rocketry of Earth's humans we were flying around like a bolt of lightning. Luckily the asteroid wasn't that far away, drifting in an irregular orbit aroun
d the sun between Mercury and Venus.
The rock in question was floating just outside the Redemption. We were close enough to it that I could see every little dimple on its pocked, nickel-iron surface.
It was shaped like a long potato. Approximately one hundred meters long and forty at the thickest, it'd been out here a long time. We had thoroughly scanned it, and it was quite unremarkable. Just a big lump of near-useless metals. It was rotating slowly in front of us, and Marty was concentrating intently on matching the spin and rotation. We were looking at one of the small ends of the potato and as I watched it seemed to come to a stop in the viewport in front of us. We were now orbiting it and stationary relative to it, spinning slowly together in the ancient dance of gravity.
"Job's done," Marty said with a funny accent.
"Nice work. Let's mark the hole and start cutting."
Through the transparent hull of the Redemption in front of us, the outlines of a cuboid hole in the asteroid appeared. It was a mailslot of a hole, just wide and tall enough to fit the Redemption. We would slot ourselves in after we got the asteroid on course and hide inside until just before impact.
The other plan that had been proposed had been disguising ourselves as a comet, but there had been some concern that ice would not sufficiently block our sensor signature and the platforms would just vaporize us. With tens of meters of nickel-iron shielding us, the plan felt a lot safer.
"Alright, this is going to take a while," Marty said.
The blinding beam of the front-mounted particle weapon speared out and cut into the side of our asteroid. Nickel-iron vaporized, the energy of its dissolution pushing it out into the vacuum. Smaller pieces crumbled and flew out as well. It wasn't the clean disintegration I'd been hoping for, but it would do the job. The slight thrust induced by the particles jetting out of the hole we were digging would affect the spin and orbit of the rock slightly, but Marty was on top of it and adjusted our station-keeping effortlessly. The man really was a gifted pilot. I had nothing to do but watch as he sculpted the hole, the particle beam his chisel.
Like its little brother the Gazer, the particle beam was energy hungry. Even so, with the entire power output of the Redemption feeding the beam it could fire essentially forever. Union tech was never inefficient, so it didn't generate waste heat either.
The hole Marty was digging was going to be our shelter, but it was also going to be our handle on the potato. Redemption wasn't really built for this. If we wanted to wrangle asteroids and move them around there were things that we could build and add to the hull. We simply didn't have time or the means at the moment.
Like Metra's plan to survey the asteroid belt, I wanted to avoid anything that took too much time. The sooner we stabilized the Connahr field, the better. My fighting in the Refinery complex against the Vassago troops had started a clock ticking in my head. If one of the Elder AIs had regained its sanity and was producing soldiers again then it might just be a matter of time before they all were. Even if the rest of them never recovered, one of them was a big enough threat.
With that threat in mind we were going to violently execute our good plan, instead of waiting for the perfect plan we might have next week. This plan had a pretty half-assed air about it, but it was quick and I was pretty sure it would work.
Marty was about fifty percent done. The Interface showed me his progress. It wouldn't be the neat, perfectly cuboid hole that we had planned, but as long as it was big enough it would work. The only thing that had to be just right were the flat spots on one of the wide sides. Without that, the gecko pads built into Redemption's hull wouldn't hold as strongly as possible.
With a few sweeps of his hand, Marty cleared the last of the floating dust out of our temporary new garage. The particle beam went dark again, the blinding afterimage lingering for a moment.
"All done," Marty reported.
"Well, get in there and let's see if this works," I said.
Marty nodded, and the Redemption began to ease forward, maneuvering to enter the hole we just made.
The walls around us seemed uncomfortably close as Marty pushed the nose of our little ship into the hole. I knew that we'd given ourselves plenty of margin. If not plenty, then enough. Still, compared with the infinite emptiness of space, entering a garage carved out of raw nickel-iron just big enough for the ship seemed claustrophobic and frightening.
"Contact in three, two," Marty said and a moment later the view stopped moving as the belly of the ship made contact with the flat surface of the garage underneath us.
"Full contact, all pads. We're good," Marty reported.
The plan from here was simple. We weren't fully in the garage. The ass of Redemption hung halfway out with the front half of the ship touched down on the smooth floor. The gecko pads in contact were all fully engaged, gripping as hard as they could. On the hull of a ship like this, that was very hard indeed. These weren't pads made to hold a weapon in place. These were made for improvised docking just like this. Although to be fair, maybe the designers never thought anyone would do something this crazy.
"Do it; let's see if this works," I said, as close to an order as I needed to give.
Marty nodded and his hands moved to manipulate his invisible controls. The view outside shuddered slightly as the Redemption pulled against the pads' grip. There was a tiny amount of give in them before they stabilized and held their grip on the floor of the garage. Marty was firing the maneuvering thrusters, gradually neutralizing the slow spin of our massive potato. Even with our souped-up maneuvering thrusters it took some time and a lot of extra heat to neutralize the spin of such a massive object, at least compared to the size of the Redemption. As asteroids went, our potato was a tiny one.
"Spin neutralized. Coming to new heading," Marty reported.
Nothing changed in the view. With the majority of our ship encased in meters of nickel-iron, the ship's sensor input was almost nil. Sure, we could see what was behind us, but that wouldn't help. What we were doing was all based on our knowledge of where Mercury was. That was fine. We didn't need to see where we were going, but it was disconcerting.
A few minutes later, Marty disengaged the maneuvering thrusters. "We're on our new heading."
"Why do you keep waiting for me to give the order? You know what to do."
"This is your crazy idea and you're the captain. You've gotta give the order."
"For fu... Fine, fine. Engage."
With a sweeping gesture of his right hand, Marty pushed the Redemption to full throttle. The view shuddered slightly again as the gecko pads struggled to hold and then settled again.
I'd known that they would hold, but there was a difference between intellectually knowing the specs of a component you were betting your life on and cold, hard reality. If the pads had failed we would've slammed into the back of our potato's garage and become an exploding pancake of Union material wrapped around our crushed bodies. Maybe not so dramatic, but it certainly wouldn't have been good and we probably would not have lived. Marty popped up a display and shared it with me in the Interface. It was an overhead display of the solar system with our potato curving in toward Mercury, orbiting the sun. There was a velocity measurement next to the potato, and it slowly ticked up as the full effort of Redemption's drives pushed against the mass of the potato.
"Sure seems we should be using a tractor beam for this, doesn't it?" Marty asked.
"No doubt. Maybe there is one. We just don't have the blueprint for it."
"I should look into it when we get back. It doesn't feel right pushing the potato like this, but I guess it works."
The velocity kept picking up until finally it stabilized as Marty lowered his arm and killed the acceleration.
We weren't moving quickly. Not by Union standards. The potato was at that point a very fast asteroid, but not so fast that it was obviously a weapon. It wasn't likely that the automated defenses were very smart, but the possibility that they would reclassify a meteor moving too quickly as a kin
etic weapon was there. We'd decided on fast, but not too fast.
"I'll move us into the garage," Marty said.
With a few gestures Redemption floated free and slowly eased itself fully into the potato's garage. Marty set the ship down again and engaged the gecko pads. Once we hit Mercury, we would disengage and float out the back like a piece of discarded debris, but until then we wanted to be nestled in the protective embrace of our potato.
Our friends had all been watching the same sensor feeds that we had and monitoring our flight.
When there were still a few minutes left, Regar spoke over our common channel. "Good fortune."
"Thanks, Regar," I said.
"Don't be stupid down there, Marty," Metra said.
"I'll be careful. You know how important this is," he replied.
I really wanted to ask Marty about what was going on there, but I didn't dare since I knew our conversation would be shared with the whole group. It really wasn't time for any kind of unnecessary drama.
The diagram of the solar system zoomed in, showing our potato on its final approach. We planned the course and speed of the rock to bring us down on the other side of the planet from the Connahr base. At that moment it was on the dark side of Mercury. We didn't want to give the satellites any reason to vaporize us and didn't want to be within sight of the Connahr base when we landed. We needed to be able to sneak up on it—somehow get to it without the defenses firing on us.
The display zoomed in again, Mercury filling most of the area. The potato was a simple black oval speeding toward its doom. The satellites surrounded us now. If they were going to fire we wouldn't know until the weapons hit us. So that meant we probably would never know. Things would just go black. The end, game over.
The potato flashed by the danger point and then if there had been atmosphere on Mercury we would've been in it. We had made it.
"Punching out," Marty said.
With a flash the potato left us behind. The rough, rocky landscape of Mercury was spread below us, seeming far too close now.