Ixan Legacy Box Set

by Scott Bartlett

  The others kept batons at the ready as Gamble raised his shield, rushing into the crowd and knocking aside anyone who didn’t scramble out of the way. The rioter throwing cocktails was near a street lamp, and Gamble used the shield to shove him against it.

  “Get him, too,” he ordered the marines through their earpieces, nodding at a short man nearby wearing a bandanna and holding a fresh Molotov. Two marines seized him, and the other two grabbed the rioter Gamble had pinned. That done, they pulled them back through the crowd and into a waiting van.

  “Good work, marines. Let’s find our next marks.”

  It quickly became apparent that Gamble’s wedge was pulling the most rioters, and he realized a big reason why: his access to the drones’ feeds. Once he made that connection, he patched the feeds through to all the other wedge leaders.

  The counterprotesters were finally starting to figure themselves out, and the area on the other side of the marine barricade was quickly emptying of beings. That didn’t deter the rioters, though—they simply turned their attention from the fleeing protesters to the surrounding buildings.

  “We need to work faster,” Gamble shouted over a wide channel. “A blazing Cybele is the last thing the captain needs.”

  A fresh wave of distant shrieks reached him from the counterprotesters’ side, and Gamble ordered the drone to investigate.

  He’d been about to plunge back into the crowd of Brotherhood supporters to snatch another rioter, but what he saw on the drone’s feed made him draw up short: a second group of rioters, roughly equal in number to the first, had swept in from the opposite direction to engage the departing counterprotesters. Fistfights were breaking out along the front between the two groups, and Gamble saw more Molotovs being lit and hurled—into the counterprotesters and into the nearby residences and businesses.

  They tricked us. Gamble wrenched his com from its holster and raised it. “There are more rioters sweeping in from the opposite side—somehow, they managed to organize a second group without our knowledge. I want the barricade between the first group and the counterprotesters dissolved. It’s no use to anyone now. The marine platoons stationed there, it’s up to you to follow the counterprotesters and shut this thing down. Things have gotten way out of hand. Marines on side streets, we’ve got the first group of rioters. I’m authorizing the use of immobilizing foam, rubber bullets, Active Denial Systems, and baton charge tactics. Baton charges should only be a last resort. And remember, never shoot for the head with rubber bullets. Get this city settled, marines. Oorah!”

  Gamble lined up next to one of the supply trolleys until it was his turn to collect a riot gun. He checked the action, loaded up with ammo, then turned to confront the roiling mass of Brotherhood members, more and more of whom were turning violent.

  He took aim at a tall man wearing a ski mask, who was winding up to throw a Molotov. Gamble’s rubber bullet hit him center-mass, and he went down, clutching his rib cage. Scanning the crowd with the muzzle, Gamble saw someone wielding a baseball bat and approaching a marine from behind. Down he went. Two for two.

  His Oculenses flashed red twice for a high-priority call, and he patched it through to his embedded ear piece. “Gamble here.”

  “Major, this is Sheriff Reynolds. It looks like this thing is way bigger than we expected.”

  “How do you mean, Sheriff?”

  “Pockets of Brotherhood members are springing up all over Cybele. This wasn’t just in response to the recent arrests the IU have been making, Major. That’s becoming pretty clear. The Brotherhood’s been planning this for a long time, and there are a lot more of their members on board the Vesta than we thought.”

  Damn it. “I’ll call in the rest of the Vesta’s marine battalion. We need to quell this before they can do much more damage.”

  “Roger that. It’s gonna be a long day, Major.”

  Chapter 35

  Quantum Engine

  Husher walked through the great hold that held Cybele, where the air scrubbers were working overtime to clear the smoke and circulate in fresh oxygen. Fesky walked beside him, her beak clacking softly every so often.

  “At least this should kill the idea that you’re some sort of hero to the Sapient Brotherhood,” Fesky said. “Look what they’ve done to your ship.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I don’t think this was necessarily targeted at me. It was targeted at the IU. Cybele’s an important city to the Union, and the Vesta remains one of their starships, after all.”

  Fires had sprung up all over Cybele, one after another, until Husher had been forced to make the call to turn on the overhead sprinklers, with the knowledge that the moisture would cause a lot of damage. After that, the Molotovs lost their effect, and the marines focused on containing the riots and making arrests.

  “What will you do with everyone detained by the marines and the sheriff’s deputies?” Fesky asked.

  “Someone will have to review all the footage, which is going to take a long time. But it will need to be done. I want the rioters off my ship. If they were defending themselves, well and good, but if they were inflicting unprovoked damage on people or property, they’re going to federal prison. If there’s no federal prison handy, I’ll dump them on a remote rock somewhere. They’re not going to be a liability on my ship anymore.”

  “Have you checked on your daughter?”

  Husher nodded. “She’s fine, thank God. She was with the counterprotesters, but she wasn’t hurt.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. What about Yung and Snyder? Do you know whether either of those participated in the violence?”

  “No. I’ve already had someone review the footage we have on them from during the riots—they were both careful not to be caught rioting.” As he and Fesky passed another charred ruin that was once a residence, Husher winced. “Seven dead, thirty-nine injured. They’ve used my ship as a battleground for their ideologies, Fesky. Cities on starships should never have been permitted to exist. Least of all on a warship. And yet, I was one of the ones who made it happen.”

  “The alternative was barely any military at all, as I recall. You did what you had to.”

  “Thank you, Fesky. But with the way things are going, I have to wonder whether the outcome won’t be the same.”

  Husher knew at least two of the injuries were third-degree burns that had resulted from Oculenses lying to their users about there being no fires. After learning that, he’d contacted the company that made the things, and they’d assured him the probability of it happening again was extremely low. But it happened twice in the same day. When overlays start erasing authentic threats, we have a problem.

  Those injuries had happened on the counterprotesters’ side, he knew, since most of the Brotherhood sympathizers had taken out their Oculenses, seeing them as tools of IU propaganda. But Husher didn’t think removing Oculenses would help either the Brotherhood or the counterprotesters to see clearly. Their ideologies themselves were overlays, and they concealed so much of reality they might as well be blind.

  He and Fesky reached Ochrim’s residence, which thankfully hadn’t been torched, and Husher rang the bell. The Ixan opened the door for them remotely, and Husher led the way to the trapdoor at the rear of the house, where they descended the ladder to Ochrim’s lab.

  Thank goodness the Brotherhood didn’t have the presence of mind to target this place. Few knew about it, but it was still a lot less secret than it had been. If something had happened to Ek and her children, Husher doubted he ever would have been able to forgive himself. And at this point, losing Ochrim would likely be a deathblow to the galaxy.

  But fortune had favored them, not once, but twice: Ochrim believed he’d discovered how to emulate the Progenitors’ mode of interdimensional travel, even before encountering one of the ships they’d tagged with trackers. If the Ixan was right, then those ships only had one thing left to tell them: how to reach the Progenitors’ home universe.

  Fesky crossed the lab, wings tucked n
eatly, to stand in front of the Fins’ great tank. Ek swam through the extension, surfacing at the top and regarding the Winger with her eternally calm eyes.

  “Fesky. It is good to see you.”

  “Hello, Honored—” Fesky seemed to catch herself, beak clacking softly. “Ek,” she finished.

  That brought a smile to Ek’s face. To Husher, that smile looked weary. She must be so tired of living inside that glass prison.

  He turned to Ochrim. “Tell me what you’ve come up with. Just try to go as light on the physics as you can.”

  Ochrim nodded, and to his credit, he didn’t seem to balk too much at the prospect of discussing quantum physics with Husher. “Do you recall my idea that interdimensional travel might be enabled by firing a photon at an atom whose spin and path are aligned, along the entire path integral? That is, in infinity directions?”

  “Yes, actually.” Maybe I was paying more attention than I thought. “But you couldn’t think of a practical way to pull that off.”

  “I still can’t. However, I’m beginning to think it may not be necessary. I believe that firing only one photon may be sufficient, as long as the action is executed within a decoherence-free space. That is, subspace.”

  “But if you travel to another universe from subspace, you’ll no longer be in a decoherence-free space. How would you get back?”

  “Exactly,” Ochrim said, his eyes lighting up. “That’s another issue, and one I think I’ve overcome. Of course, just as with your first voyage to subspace, my theory involves a lot of assumptions that are only testable by sending a sentient being to test them. If that person manages to return, then they can tell us that it worked.”

  “Right,” Husher said, sighing. “Hit me with it, Ochrim. Tell me what you need me to do.”

  “My main assumption is that each universe will be structured the same way—that is, a series of interconnected branes, subspace being one of them. If that’s true, then a quantum engine can be devised in such a way that it exists in both subspace and realspace simultaneously. That involves setting up the engine so that, once programmed, it’s unobservable by the pilot until each command can be executed. The spherical wormhole that sends the engine to subspace must also be concealed—you see, for the quantum engine to work, whether or not the wormhole is generated must depend on a quantum event that has a fifty-fifty chance of occurring within a given timeframe, much like Schrödinger’s famous cat. And if the pilot is able to observe the engine or the wormhole, the event will simply resolve one way or another, which won’t work for our purposes. For this to work, we need the engine to reside in realspace and subspace simultaneously.”

  “I’m lost. But continue.”

  “At the moment the wormhole does or doesn’t appear, the engine will fire a photon at an atom in the necessary configuration, along a preprogrammed trajectory. Because the engine exists in both subspace and realspace, it takes advantage of subspace’s decoherence-free nature while transporting the ship located in realspace into another realspace. That is, another universe. It’s my belief that every trajectory on the path integral corresponds to a different universe, and also that the universes loop back on each other. It’s quite likely that you can return to our dimension from almost any other.”

  “But with infinity possible choices, wouldn’t it take an eternity to map out?”

  “Well, I’m not convinced there are infinity choices. A lot of the trajectories will likely lead to different coordinates within the same universe. It’s possible there are only a handful of universes accessible using this method, and that trillions of the possible trajectories point to the same one. That would explain how the Progenitors are able to reappear at several points in the same system, after mapping it out.”

  “But how do they map those points so quickly? There’s still the issue of reappearing in the same general location within a universe. Universes are big.”

  “So they are. But I’m assuming that all the trajectories corresponding with a single universe likely cluster together. Still, as you point out, we would need an engine that cycles through this process extremely quickly, collecting data all the while. It would need to be an automated process. We can install the engine with an AI intelligent enough to handle the task, but galactic law still forbids using one that would be smart enough to test my theory for us. As for the engine itself, I know it’s possible, because I’ve already built it.”

  Husher raised his eyebrows. “So now you just need a volunteer.” He nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  “You can’t,” Fesky said.

  Husher turned to face her. “Why can’t I? I already risked myself testing Ochrim’s theories before.”

  “You weren’t captain of the Vesta then. Kaboh managed to get you removed from command, and risking yourself was your only option for getting it back. That’s not the case, now. This ship can’t afford to lose her commanding officer.”

  “Who, then? There’s not many I would trust with this, Fesky. Even the knowledge we might be on the verge of interdimensional travel is far too sensitive to risk getting into the wrong hands.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Husher shook his head. “I can’t lose you, Fesky. You’re my XO.”

  “You can find another XO if I don’t return. Like you said, there’s no one else we can trust with this, and it’s too important not to test. I’ll do it, Captain.”

  She’s right, he realized. He turned back to Ochrim. “How big a ship do you think we can send?”

  The scientist paused. “One roughly as big as the Vesta’s lifeboat, I should think. But I recommend starting with a starfighter, to test the theory. I don’t think a Condor will cut it, this time—they don’t have the energy capacity to ensure Fesky will be able to return to us. But a modified Python might.”

  Might. So much was uncertain about this, and losing his best friend was another thing Husher doubted he’d ever recover from.

  But he also wouldn’t recover from the Progenitors laying waste to the galaxy.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ll start working on one of our reserve fighters.”

  Chapter 36

  Every Parallel Fesky

  “The engine is programmed according to a few of my theories about how the various dimensions are related,” Ochrim told Fesky. “As soon as you leave this universe for the next and take the measurements I’ll need for future calibration, you can simply give the AI the command to begin executing the first preprogrammed subroutine. It will then attempt to start honing in on the route for returning to this universe. If, after an hour, you still haven’t reached a point in this universe that’s near enough to the Vesta for you to fly back to her, then you should execute the second subroutine, which operates under a different set of assumptions. If that doesn’t work, try the final subroutine.”

  “And if that still doesn’t get me back?” Fesky asked.

  “You’re on your own. Feel free to test any other theory you might have about how the multiverse functions.”

  “I don’t have a theory.”

  “Well, then.” Ochrim cleared his throat.

  The Python they’d spent the last week modifying sat in the center of the hangar deck. There was nothing left to do, and hesitating wouldn’t serve anyone. Fesky strode toward it.

  “Fesky,” Husher called from where he stood near the bulkhead, hands folded behind his back. He approached her.

  “Don’t say anything that sounds like a goodbye,” she said.

  He stopped, then put on a smile that didn’t look very enthusiastic to her. “Okay. Good luck, old friend.”

  “Thank you, human.” With that, Fesky pulled herself into the cockpit and punched the button that would seal it around her.

  She’d flown a Python during the Battle of Arrowwood, which had ended the Gok Wars. That had been the first time Pythons were deployed, and their advanced electronic warfare capabilities had dominated the engagement—the Gok sensors had been woefully inadequate for dealing with them.<
br />
  After that, she’d only piloted a Python in a handful of training exercises. But she had decades of experience flying Condors, and many of the same principles applied. True, Pythons used Oculenses instead of the old tactical displays, but the new way had proved much more effective in combat, even if she wasn’t altogether fond of it.

  You’re stalling, aren’t you? As soon as she made the realization, she sent the command to Ochrim’s quantum engine to isolate itself from the rest of the ship’s systems in order to perform the feat that would place the engine in realspace and subspace simultaneously.

  Here goes nothing. Husher had told her that when he’d first entered subspace, he lifted the Condor from the deck, to prevent the spherical wormhole from taking a chunk out of it. That wasn’t necessary for Fesky, since it was only the engine that would—or wouldn’t—be enveloped in a wormhole.

  Husher had also told her that when he made the transition into subspace, he’d been surrounded by an infinite number of Hushers, stretching in every direction.

  That didn’t happen to Fesky. Indeed, there was barely anything to mark her transition at all, except that sensors told her the Python was no longer inside the hangar bay.

  Switching to visual, she saw distant stars in the void, missing the trademark twinkle they would have had, viewed from within a planet’s atmosphere. Here, they were static.

  “I guess I made it.” She told the computer to begin taking the readings Ochrim needed, some of which were designed to check whether physics operated in the same way here. Other tests would evaluate the color as well as the brightness of the stars she could see. Any occultations would be noted as well—when a planet or other body passed in front of a star, it said a lot about the planet’s size, shape, and atmospheric properties.

  If the physics of any of the universes Fesky visited did differ from her native universe, it was probable the atoms of her body would no longer be able retain the structure that made her a functioning organism. Ochrim had told her that. He’s just full of comforting news.