Hammer and Crucible

by Cameron Cooper

  In the very long lifetime of the Fourth Carinad Empire, the array has been the foundation of their power, and the Crystal City their glittering statement of that power.

  Eugorian is a binary system, which the Crystal City takes full advantage of. The domes of the city are not smoothly curved, but angular and faceted. The largest dome, the one which encloses the Imperial Palace, is a fractal geodesic structure a full five kilometers across. Inside the dome were parks and public areas and the palace itself.

  Domes made up the city. The last official count I have heard was five hundred domes of various shapes and sizes. Every year, more are built, hooked up to the city, pressurized and gravitized and the real estate sold in a flurry of eye-popping deals.

  From the top of the palace, it is said, the light of the suns bouncing from dome to dome, making them glitter and dance, could blind anyone who stared for too long.

  I doubt it’s true. I’ve been to the Crystal City once or twice and my first glimpse of a dome was disappointing. The facets I could see were dirty and grimed. Later, I learned that the dirt was exhaust from ships pulling away from their landing bays. The dirt was caught by the edges of the gravity fields which extend a little way beyond the dome itself. The gravity pulled the crap against the dome, to stay there until some mug in a suit and waldos got to clean the facets.

  The magic of the city was ruined for me, after that.

  We eased through the gates before the rise of either sun, on the day of the Birthday Honors. We were all on the bridge. Even Noam had returned for this moment and stood out of the way, next to Lyth. We all held our breath, even those who did not breathe.

  “Any warnings or notices, Noam?” I whispered, as The Supreme Lythion swung around in a big arc, skirting the mass of the Imperial fleet where it had been parked off to one side of the city. Shuttles buzzed around the monster-sized ships like bees, for even at this hour, the preparations for the parade and the festivities were in full swing.

  “Nothing,” Noam said.

  “Regulation speed, remember, Lyth,” I said.

  “Slower, actually,” Lyth said. “Just over one gee, for Dalton’s sake.”

  Dalton didn’t bother being offended or apologetic. He had his back to the captain’s shell, ready to take over. He glanced at me. “You should probably get going. Even at this crawl, we’ll reach the city in less than an hour.”

  I nodded and looked at Juliyana. She gripped her hip above where her gun once sat. Her fingers squeezed, then she turned and moved off the bridge.

  I lingered for a moment next to Dalton.

  “Yeah, yeah, don’t let the big chair go to my head,” he muttered.

  “I was going to say thanks.”

  He looked at me, startled. “For what?” He pulled his attention back to the control panel.

  “Lyth and Noam may have pulled you to Badelt City on this ship, but it was you who stepped through the landing bay door and whistled to get my attention. No one else made that decision but you, and it saved our lives.”

  He glared at the windows before him. “What was I supposed to do? Stand there and watch them mow you down?”

  “You could have. It would have saved you a packet of trouble. No one would have known, if you had. That’s why I’m saying thanks.” I walked away without waiting for his reply. I didn’t want one, for this was part of my ritual; squaring up debts, so nothing lingered.

  I moved down the ramp to the still-empty living area, where our personal possessions were strewn across the floor like a child’s toy collection. There was still far more empty gray floor than there was mess to step around.

  I moved directly to the corridor that led to the dropship and down it to the ship itself.

  Juliyana was strapping herself into the pilot’s chair. She had protested over this. “I am a shitty pilot, Danny! I’ve done basics, but I’ve been in the bowels of stations for years!”

  I pulled rank. “I go first,” I told her. “The AI does most of the flying, anyway. You just have to pat it on the head and tell it it’s doing fine. No arguments, Juliyana. Or I take Dalton instead.” That shut her up, as I had known it would. She wanted to be there, to confront the Emperor. To see his face.

  I punched up the viewscreen. The Lythion drifted underneath the city, an aspect rarely seen by residents and visitors. The underbelly was a complex of service modules, shafts, pipes, exhausts belching noxious fumes. Recycling plants, bio scrubbers, air conditioners and more scattered across the city’s ass in a maze that defied solving.

  We watched the far edge of the city draw closer, and the clear sky beyond, lit blue by the first sun rising from behind Eugoria II. “Second sun, twelve minutes away,” Lyth said.

  “We’ll be ready,” I replied.

  I got out of the chair and moved to the interior of the drop ship. The bag with the suits sat on the bench where Moroder had been sitting. I pulled out one of the suit packs and eased my arms into the straps, settling it on my back. I was wearing a supple bodysuit that covered me from neck to toes. The feet of the suit were super-non-slip, to the point where I had to lift my feet properly when I walked or risk tripping over them if even part of the sole brushed over the floor as I walked.

  Juliyana wore the same outfit, and her pack rested in the bag.

  “Coming around,” Juliyana announced.

  I glanced at the screen. Nothing but planetary crescent ahead, and the glowing dawn of the blue sun.

  Juliyana played her hands over the controls, bringing the drop ship to a dead stop. “How’s that second sun going?” she asked.

  “Two minutes,” Dalton replied. “Hold until my mark.”

  “Holding.”

  I moved over to the side door that generally remained closed, opposite the one Lythion was usually attached to, and prepped it for opening.

  “Start your ascent,” Lyth said. “Ten meters a second…now.”

  The ship lifted with a roar of the hover engines.

  “…and…” Dalton said. “…hold!”

  The ship came to another dead stop, as the engines reversed sharply, then cut out. Not a meter lost or gained. “Neat,” I told Juliyana and threw her pack to her.

  She scrambled out of the pilot’s chair and shrugged into the pack. We both touched the control pad on the straps.

  And I held my breath, despite having gone through this process a dozen times, testing the speed and function of the process.

  The nanobots swarmed over us at a speed that felt like the run of water from a shower, only they were moving upward. As they rose around my face, I closed my eyes.

  Then…light once more and air around my face. I opened my eyes, to look through the faceplate that had formed. Juliyana wore the same matte black environment suit. Her eyes were wide behind her faceplate, but she nodded at me and bent over the arm of the pilot’s chair and hit the door controls.

  Warning klaxons sounded. She muted them.

  Air was sucked out of the cabin until the door had equal pressure on both sides. With a clank I could feel through my feet, but couldn’t hear, the door slid open.

  “Ten seconds,” Dalton warned in my ear.

  Between the edge of the floor at the open doorway lay nothing but vacuum and a very long way below, the surface of Eugorian II. We hovered ten meters away from the very lowest section of the bottom of the Imperial dome. Ten meters was just outside the borders of the proximity alarms. One facet, forty meters across, was directly in front of us. It was opaque with dirt, for this tucked away corner of the dome was right up against the Emperor’s private landing bay.

  Then the second sun rose, a dazzling white ball which spilled its energy upon the planet and the city…and the dome itself.

  I threw up my arm as the glittering array blinded me. Then the faceplate compensated, adding a layer of polarization that cut the dazzle.

  I lowered my arm, still blinking, and watched the dome, waiting.

  The polarization ran down the dome like water over an upturned bowl. As it
reached the facet we hovered beside, I eased back a step or two and took a running leap out of the door.

  All I needed to do was push beyond the reach of the pseudo gravity field of the drop ship. Momentum would do the rest.

  I got my hands and feet out in front of me as I floated through the air. I was aiming for the top of the facet, for the dome’s gravity would reach beyond it a meter or two, and pull me down.

  Halfway across, when I could feel the lightness of zero gravity, I pressed my left thumb against the sensor on the side of my glove’s index finger. There was no sensation that anything had changed, but the sensor glowed a muted green.

  I began to drop as the gravity from the dome kicked in. I pushed forward with my hands, reaching for the glasseen steel. I slapped my hands against it as my body was dragged down.

  My hands stuck like limpets.

  Using them as leverage, I swung my feet up and planted them squarely against the dome. They stuck, too.

  I bent my knees and elbows, pulling myself in against the facet. Then I broke the grip of my right hand by rolling it slowly to one side. I reached into my belt, pulled out the tether launcher and turned carefully to sight toward the drop ship. Juliyana stood in the doorway watching me.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  The drop ship was coated in the same masking nanobot skin as the rest of the Lythion. With the suns blazing behind it, it was a dark shadow. Nothing glittered or even gleamed. It also shielded me from the blast of the suns, letting me aim at Juliyana.

  I triggered the launcher. The guiding weight shot toward her, trailing unbreakable cable behind it.

  Juliyana caught the weight as it slapped her belly, then wrapped it around her waist and hooked it to itself. She couldn’t attach it to the nanobot environment suit, because Lyth wasn’t certain a sudden jerk against them wouldn’t disperse them the way his fist dispersed if he tried to put much effort behind it.

  But the bots would withstand the few minutes we would be outside.

  I attached the rear end of the launcher to the facet next to my hand. It used the same powerful suction devices that were on my hands and feet.

  “Attached,” Juliyana said and disappeared inside the ship. She would be firing up the self-directing program that Lyth had left in the AI’s core for this moment.

  The ship dropped sharply, as the hover engines reversed. The cable played out, then slowed, as Juliyana reappeared at the open door of the drop ship. She stepped out into vacuum.

  I reversed the launcher and the cable wound up, bringing Juliyana with it, while the drop ship floated back beneath the city and disappeared from our view.

  “The drop ship is heading back to you,” I told Dalton.

  “Copy.”

  “As soon as you have it, go park yourself on the back side of the gate,” I added, watching the cable slow even more as Juliyana drew closer.

  Twenty hours ago, Noam had suggested the Lythion hide behind the gate.

  “It won’t hide a damn thing,” Dalton had argued back. “When the gate isn’t active, with a wormhole showing, you can see the stars right through the middle of it.”

  “As soon as the Lythion is through, I will deactivate the gate and set up an ion screen that will reflect the view behind the Lythion. It will look like you’re staring through the ring. No one will realize anything is wrong, unless someone tries to leave Eugoria through the gates.” He smiled. “Then they will find it doesn’t work.”

  “Okay, so the chances that anyone is leaving the system today is pretty small,” Dalton said. “But there has to be a shit ton of ships trying to arrive here in time for the celebrations. What happens to them?”

  “There are, indeed, many ships traveling toward the gate,” Noam said. “The first of them will request the gate form an exit one hundred and three minutes after we emerge.”

  “That’s our window, then,” I said. “We have just under two hours to get this done.”

  Now Dalton growled at me through my earpiece, “I know my bit.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I know you do. Can’t help being a Colonel.”

  “Shit, and she apologizes,” Dalton said. “Now I know the impossible can happen.”

  I reached out and took Juliyana’s wrist as she was drawn up alongside me and pulled her hand up against the facet. Her hand anchored and she quickly anchored the other and her feet and pulled herself into a crouch like me.

  “Ready?” she asked me.

  I nodded, and realized that unlike most environment suits, in this one, Juliyana could actually see my head nod.

  She rolled her hand away from the glasseen and prodded at the control panel on the strap of her suit pack.

  The back of the pack opened and a nanobot soup flowed over us as we hunched in small and tight.

  This was the second reason why Juliyana had to be hauled over from the ship instead of jumping. Not only did she have to start the program for the drop ship’s return to the Lythion, it also turned out that nanobots were heavy. That had surprised all of us.

  “To build the structure you are requesting requires trillions of nanobots,” Lyth explained. “In zero gravity, it is of no matter at all. But you will be clinging to the side of a gravity well.”

  “How much will they weigh?” I asked.

  “More than either of you weighs.”

  So, Juliyana had carried the extra weight and I got to make the free flight jump. Now the nanobots spread over us like a miniature dome, attached to the glasseen facet. The shell hardened and adjusted colors to match the grimy Glasseen.

  “Retracting faceplate,” I said, and touched the control panel.

  The plate eased open a crack and air hissed out, to be held inside the tiny dome. Juliyana did the same. Our suits retracted down to the base of our necks, and more air vented from the nanobots themselves, who had carried oxygen molecules along for the ride.

  “Ready?” I asked Juliyana.

  She nodded and reached for her dome-construct control panel and tapped it. Then, quickly, she returned her hand to the Glasseen, planting both hands flat.

  At first nothing happened. Then I heard a soft scratching sound. A crunch, and a hiss of air. An aroma of green growing things registered. Air from inside the imperial dome had filled our little hut.

  Then the circle the nanobots had cut through the glasseen gave way with a grinding sound and fell inward, for we were leaning on it.

  I quickly unfastened my feet and tucked them into the space between the edge of our dome and the edge of the circular glasseen cutout Juliyana and I were clinging to with our hands. Juliyana did the same.

  Our feet landed softly on grass.

  The cutout was heavy. Lyth had warned us it would be, but I was still caught by surprise. We both staggered.

  “Against the dome,” I murmured.

  We turned together and moved over to the dome and rested the cutout against it. Then we detached our hands. The cutout rolled to one side by a few centimeters, then settled.

  In the meantime, the little dome of nanobots had sunk inward until it was flat, and at the same angle as the facet it stuck to. It had replaced the cutout, sealed the hole, and now looked identical to the opaque corner of the dome. It was possible that the plug would never be found. Someone would have to run their hands over the edges and discover the different textures, to find it.

  As the Glasseen looked as thought it had been untouched throughout the entire fourth empire, I figured we were safe from untimely alarms.

  I touched my suit’s control panel for the last time. So did Juliyana. The suit flowed and shifted and became the uniform of a full Colonel of the Imperial Rangers. I set the suit and took off the harness. Inside the pack on the back was a personal shriver. The nanobots could not manufacture a working shriver, so we had raided the same antique gun locker Sauli had found, in the far back of the ship. The shriver was an antique, too, but it still worked.

  So did Juliyana’s. She shoved it into the ho
lster on her hip, with a satisfied expression.

  Rangers and Imperial Shield were not permitted to bring weapons into the Imperial dome, but a Ranger looked odd without a shriver in their holster. It was likely that no one would notice we two were armed. I had no intention of moving through the dome without a weapon. The gun was not all I had on me, either. The nanobots had supplied the rest, for solid blades were within their capabilities.

  Directly in front of us, reaching out and up to the sunlight blazing through even the polarized facets of the dome, was a forest of small trees and shrubbery. We were at the back of the public park.

  We moved around the edge of the dome, skirting them, looking for a path through. When I spotted a thinner section of growth, I pushed my way through. Juliyana followed.

  “The suit will guide you now,” Lyth murmured in our ears.

  Haptics in the suit tapped on my right shoulder, giving me a direction. I turned in that direction and felt a gentle pressure on my back, encouraging me to move forward.

  “I feel like I’m three and being walked to the bathroom,” Juliyana complained as we followed the tortuous path through the trees.

  “People,” I breathed, hearing the murmur of voices ahead of us through the trees. We walked out from the thick growth onto verdant parkland, with the newly risen suns slanting through the treetops to cast dappled shade over the lawn.

  Down the middle of the five hundred meter spread of grass was a series of fountains playing in concert. The fountains ran in a straight line directly toward the palace, which sprawled at the end of the lawn.

  This was the front of the palace, which was positioned to greet the rising suns, but today, the focus of the festivities would be on the back of the palace, in the balcony at the top of the middle of three spinarets. The Emperor would remain on the balcony to watch through the dome as the bulk of the Imperial fleet drifted past the Imperial dome.