“See you in a couple hours.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Vongst’s boots thudded against the platform as he descended the ramp. Each step also offered a faint click, swoosh, and click, although the doctor no longer paid it any attention. It was the sound of the space armor keeping him anchored to whatever surface he was stepping onto, ensuring he didn’t drift off into space.
Thud.
Thud.
The next step down the ramp was perfectly silent. A sensor inside his helmet noted that the gravity had also just changed.
Vongst had passed through the invisible containment field that protected the ship’s artificial living environment and simulated gravity from the cold and oxygenless void of space.
In the earpiece in his helmet, the doctor heard Tragedy ask the second of its two standard questions.
“Why are you doing this, Doctor?”
Vongst didn’t turn back to look at the android. In front of him was an expanse of rock as large as a moon. Beyond that, the infinite ocean of black space. With one more step Vongst reached the asteroid’s surface. He was standing on an object that was hurtling through space at an average speed of 55,923 miles per hour.
“For research.”
2
What Tragedy didn’t understand, at least from Dr. Vongst’s perspective, was that they weren’t on any normal hunk of rock soaring through the galaxy. Space was littered with meteors and asteroids. The Gordian Asteroid, however, was unlike any of the other billions that were out there. Vongst liked to provoke his boss at the Outer Rim Scientific Station—a Trachdorian astronomer with an unpronounceable name but who everyone called Dr. Phillips—by saying that there were only two types of asteroids. The Gordian Asteroid and everything else.
It was larger than Terst-minor and any of the other moons in the sector. Big enough to have its own core and slight gravitational force. Every seventy-five years, it completed one giant, elliptical orbit around the blue sun of the McKessel system. But what made the asteroid unique wasn’t its size or trajectory. It was the fact that a fleet of almost one thousand flagships was encased within its rock.
It went by many names. The Gordian Asteroid. The Army in the Stone. The Excalibur. Some people called it the Red Armada because of the way exposed parts of the ships glowed during its closest orbit with the mighty star, Eta Orbitae.
Parts of ships jutted out at odd angles from various chunks of the rock. There was no discernible organization to how the vessels were arranged. A pair of enormous thrusters stuck out from one area. Further down, the bow of another ship protruded from the rock. At the far edge of where Dr. Vongst was located, he saw a line of cannons sticking out from the asteroid’s surface.
A fleet of ships larger than any ruler had ever obtained was encased in an asteroid and everyone knew exactly where the treasure was located, yet no one could free the ships from the stone that kept them prisoner. Ever since its discovery, one ruler after another had wanted the fleet for themselves. But one thing ensured the armada remained elusive: any attempt to free a vessel from the stone resulted in that ship’s self-destruction, along with anyone and anything that was nearby.
3
“Doctor, are you sure this is a good idea?”
Even as Tragedy asked the question, the android lifted the helmet of Vongst’s space armor over his head.
“Positive.”
Man and android walked to the rear of the transport, then waited as the ramp lowered to allow the doctor yet another chance to explore the asteroid. Before it was all the way down, Vongst began across the length of plank without stumbling or even slowing. It was amazing how confident his balance was in the advanced space suit.
At the bottom of the ramp, he paused and turned. Tragedy was standing at the top of the ramp. Even if the android accidentally walked through the clear containment field separating ship from space, it would be unharmed. It didn’t need oxygen and its systems were designed to be resistant to cold. It nodded and Vongst nodded back.
The doctor knew what would happen after he began across the Gordian. Tragedy would return to the cockpit and take the transport a safe distance away from the asteroid in case a ship detonated. A safe distance was roughly five miles. Everything within that blast radius would be incinerated.
It was fine that Tragedy left. Vongst wanted to be alone on the asteroid anyway, and he was aware that the android had been installed with self-preservation software. As long as it wasn’t doing something to harm the doctor or the research, Tragedy was within its programming to ensure its own safety. Surely, it was reasonable to want to be far away from an object that could explode at any moment. That also explained why no one else from the Outer Rim Scientific Station had volunteered to join Vongst.
He was only a couple paces across the stone terrain when he heard the android’s next question come through the speaker inside his helmet.
“Why are you doing this, Doctor?”
“Research.”
4
Dr. Vongst’s answer suggested something new could be discovered about the Gordian Asteroid that wasn’t already known. Explorers and treasure seekers had already determined that each of the enormous vessels contained within the asteroid was identical. This had been proven using mapping technology that scanned the various segments of the ships protruding from the rock, along with an analysis of scans taken through the asteroid. Each craft had four engine thrusters in a diamond-shaped pattern, twenty-two cannons on either side of its hull, and was comparable in size to the latest flagships that met in battle across the galaxy. The vessels were constructed of seamless metal that made it look as if one piece had been stretched over the entire frame.
It was also apparent that the ships were constructed of a material far superior to any current technology. Humans and aliens who spent their lives on one planet liked to think of space as a void and that as long as you had oxygen you would be okay. The truth is that the galaxy is a harsh and unforgiving environment. There are extreme colds. Objects that orbit near a sun, like the Gordian Asteroid, also face tremendous heat. That exposure to both extremes is enough for the average flagship to deteriorate and is why fleets require all vessels to return for maintenance every four years. But the ships locked inside the Gordian Asteroid, even though they are thousands of years old, look like they just came out of the shipyards for the first time. Nothing makes the ships’ indestructible nature more obvious than the distinction between the vessels and the rock that imprisons them. The asteroid was littered with thousands of craters where meteors impacted. Just as many pieces of space debris must have hit parts of vessels protruding from the rock, and yet not a single ship had a scratch on it.
That question—what are the ships made of?—led to dozens of other unknowns. Who built them? Why was there no other trace of that civilization left anywhere in the galaxy? How had their fleet become encased in rock? How did an ancient armada have technology that surpassed modern capabilities? Why are the ships rigged to explode if tampered with? What kind of self-defense mechanism was smart enough to remain dormant when an asteroid struck a ship but was triggered as soon as a man-made object tried to drill a tiny hole into a vessel?
They were the questions that plagued everyone who learned about the Gordian Asteroid, and they were the reason Vongst walked across the uneven rock day after day.
His current destination was a giant thruster jutting out from the stone. When the ship’s engines were ignited, an immense amount of energy would be funneled out of the thruster, sending the ship across space. The pair of thrusters on the transport that Vongst and Tragedy had arrived on were approximately six feet wide and six feet tall. Each of the four thrusters at the back of the ship that Vongst approached was larger than a stadium capable of seating one hundred thousand people. The sheer size of just the lone thruster protruding from rock made Vongst pause and admire the enormity of the object he was standing on. As large as the thruster was, it was but only a small piece of the ship. There were almost
a thousand other vessels all around him. There was enough rock to cover all of them. It reminded the doctor of a fact he had heard about the fleet when he was a child: A human could spend every waking moment of their life walking through the hidden armada and not see even a tenth of the fleet.
The arcing, curved metal of the thruster was within reach. It rose hundreds of feet in the air above him. From the schematics Vongst had reviewed, he knew it also dove hundreds of feet into the rock below his feet. If he tried to chisel away a piece of the metal to test its composition, the ship would explode. He knew this because it had happened to other explorers before him. It was also how he knew the nearest ship would explode if he tried to chip away a piece of the rock.
“We all die someday,” Dr. Vongst mumbled to himself as he bent and ran a glove across the asteroid’s surface.
Tragedy’s voice came through the speaker in his ear. “Feeling melancholy today, Doctor?”
Part of the android’s responsibility on the mission was to help Vongst whenever needed. As such, it listened to everything the doctor said while out on the asteroid. All this ever did, however, was annoy Vongst, who liked to be able to talk to himself in privacy.
Rather than acknowledge the question, he said, “You might lose contact with me in a moment. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”
He took a deep breath, then stepped onto the section of thruster in front of him. After waiting to ensure the boots of his space armor were locked onto the surface, Vongst took another step. The clicks sounded inside his helmet and a sensor on his visor confirmed he was attached to the metal of the ship. The suit of space armor not only allowed him to remain upright as he began up the sharp vertical slant of the thruster, it also took care of balancing him and carrying the hundreds of pounds of protective material needed to keep him alive.
Step after step he climbed. Pausing, Vongst turned and looked back at where he had come from. There was no down of course. Not in space, where gravity was nonexistent. Had there been gravity and had his boots disengaged from the ship’s surface, he would have fallen to his death. Instead, he continued to climb the length of the thruster’s main nose cone.
“Your heart rate is elevated, Doctor. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
At the top of the enormous sheet of metal that funneled energy away from the ship’s engines, Vongst leaned over the open edge. Even with the high intensity ion light activated on his shoulder, he couldn’t see the end of the inside of the thruster. Unused and dark, it looked more like an endless pit than it did a source of unknown technology.
“Here goes nothing.”
His hands held onto the ledge until his boots adhered to the opposite side of the thruster’s cone. His suit stabilized his equilibrium. Then he began walking into the depth of darkness.
5
As soon as Vongst got back to the ship and his protective suit was off, Tragedy asked what the doctor had found at the end of the thruster’s exhaust.
Vongst rubbed his hands and feet. Both seemed to lose sensation when he wore space armor for too long. After a couple minutes of not having the suit’s advanced breathing system, he began to cough.
“Just the wall to the pressure chamber,” he said, referring to the cylinder that focused a ship’s energy before it passed through the slits of the thruster. “It was sealed, though.”
“What did you expect to find?”
Vongst looked up at the android and gave a snide laugh, which only made him cough again. Tragedy—all androids for that matter—seemed to have a way of asking questions that made the logical seem absolutely absurd.
“Exactly what I found.”
“And yet you still walked a hundred yards into the thruster to make sure?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll go back out tomorrow and do the same thing again?”
Vongst shook his head and sighed. “Not the same section of the same ship, but yes, I’ll continue to investigate tomorrow.”
“There have been two thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-seven organized expeditions to find ways to free the ships from the rock. All of them have failed.”
“I know that,” Vongst snapped. His throat burned with the urge to cough but he managed to croak out, “Don’t you think I know that?”
Rather than take offense, Tragedy said, “That does not include the plethora of space pirates, treasure hunters, and warlords who also tried to free them for themselves.”
It took a while for Vongst to regain his composure, for the blood to drain from his face. “So?”
“So, I’m curious, Doctor, why you think you will be able to do something no one else has accomplished.”
What Vongst wanted to say was, “You know what? You’re a real asshole sometimes!” He didn’t, though, because Tragedy wasn’t trying to be rude. It was simply trying to figure out why a scientist from a prestigious institute would risk his life when all of his associates were happy to sit in a laboratory with magnifiers and scanners.
He was also tempted to ask why Tragedy was there if it was going to be a nuisance. Vongst knew, though, that the android would provide a logical answer—that the chief scientist had assigned the unit to Vongst’s project. Until the doctor blew himself up or quit, Tragedy would have to be there.
Instead, Vongst said, “I guess Adventure, Drama, and Satire were already booked on other projects.”
Tragedy didn’t speak. Instead, its irises illuminated as it tried to assess whether the doctor was joking or being serious.
Vongst helped it by offering a smile and adding, “At least they didn’t give me Horror.”
6
When it finally arrived, sleep was fitful. Vongst knew he was dreaming because he found himself out on the Gordian Asteroid’s surface without a suit of space armor on. It was also easy to understand he wasn’t really out in space because two men who had died long ago were standing on either side of him.
Rumanov Excalibur, the man who was credited with “discovering” the asteroid many thousands of years earlier and the reason many people referred to it as the Excalibur, was on one side of Vongst. Unlike the doctor, who didn’t have much hair left, Excalibur had thick blond hair that was perfectly combed.
On the doctor’s other side was Gordian the Stubborn, the ruler who had spent his entire life and all of his kingdom’s riches trying to find a way to procure the fleet for himself. Dark bags hung under Gordian’s eyes, showing the extent of the stress he had suffered upon realizing he had lost his kingdom for nothing.
“As soon as I saw it, I knew the ships would be trouble,” Excalibur said, his voice confident, his chin slightly raised. “A couple days after my discovery, the first dimwit blew himself up trying to free one of them.”
Gordian scoffed as he nodded in agreement. The motion caused the loose flesh under his neck to wobble from side to side. When he spoke, the words were drenched in bitterness.
“Do you know what they called me before I became obsessed with that asteroid? Gordian the Brilliant. Gordian the freaking Brilliant! I lost thousands of workers, along with much of my fleet. More importantly, though, my people lost faith in their ruler.”
Dr. Vongst found himself nodding as he listened to both men. He could think of nothing, however, to add to the conversation.
Rumanov Excalibur ran a hand through the gold hair of his neatly trimmed beard. “Every time someone tried to chisel away rock or drill into a ship, the same thing happened. Boom! And yet they kept showing up to try it for themselves.” He scoffed at the amount of people who had died at a place that was associated with his name.
Gordian the Stubborn bit his lip to keep from letting out a string of curses. When he regained his composure he said, “Do you know what’s left of the ships I sent here? Nothing. The explosions were so intense there isn’t even a trace of my fleet. That asteroid didn’t just take the ships I used to protect my people. It took my legacy.”
All three men stared out at the expanse of rock that stretched so
far in every direction that the ground looked flat. Here and there, parts of the ancient fleet jutted out in no discernable pattern.
Vongst said, “Don’t you wonder, though, how they’ve been able to sustain no damage through the millennia? What material can withstand thousands of years of exposure to radiation and debris and cold?”
Excalibur sighed and shook his head. “You’re no different than all the others.”
Gordian gave a scornful laugh and narrowed his eyes at the doctor. “You think you can’t lose everything the same way I did? You think you’re better than me?”
“No, it’s not that. I’m—”
Gordian wouldn’t let him finish, though. “It wasn’t just me. Many kings and emperors spent their entire lives trying to figure out how to free the armada. So did countless pirates and warlords.”
Excalibur nodded. “And scientists.”
7
“Doctor, are you sure this is a good idea?”
Dark rings were under Vongst’s eyes. After not getting much sleep, he was in no mood for the android’s self-preservation spiel.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he said as he coughed.
Tragedy’s irises glowed a faint yellow as it processed something in the doctor’s tone. It finished putting the final piece of Vongst’s suit on without saying anything else.
With the helmet in place, Vongst felt a stream of cool air wash over him, felt the space armor stabilize his tired and weak frame. He stood and began toward the transport’s rear ramp. Tragedy followed. The familiar pair of beeps sounded and the ramp began to lower.
“Do you mind if I ask another question, Dr. Vongst?”
Expecting to be asked the same thing as usual, Vongst said, “For research.”
“No, not that. This place has many names. Why do you refer to it as the Gordian Asteroid instead of the Army in the Stone, the Red Armada, the Excalibur, or any of the other terms that have been applied to it?”
Vongst squinted at the android. A hand reached up to scratch his scalp—a nervous habit he had formed during his graduate studies—but with a suit of space armor on, the result was a thick gauntlet tapping against the metal of his helmet. He stared at Tragedy and the android stared back.
Bridge Across the Stars: A Sci-Fi Bridge Original Anthology Page 13
