by Ian Cannon
Norg heaved open another hatch and entered one of the hubs where more junk was stored in columns and piles. Waving his cane to-and-fro, he said, “I’ve surrounded myself with bits and pieces of junkery and machine stuff, enshrouded myself with ingots and bits from all over.” Tapping pieces with a tink-tink, he said, “From Golotha to Omicron, from Molos to Orbulon. But, that’s not enough. No, not close. It’s about information, see?” He stopped at another hatch and cranked it open, turning with a grin to say, “In. For. Mation.” The doorway opened into another hub—a vastly different one than the last. “And that, I have surrounded myself with as well.”
Tawny and Ben stepped inside having to duck before gawking forward in awe. It was a dark space without a light source, except for the impossibly delicate network of light threads stretching and braiding through the space. It was a 3D representation of each DPM satellite network in the solar twin system—a map, nearly eternal in its data streams, all crossing and crisscrossing each other in brilliant, exquisite symmetry. This was a dark-comm hub.
Neither Tawny nor Ben had ever seen one. They knew of their existence but considered such samples of broad technology rare, used by the war echelon to dissect vast ports of data entry and to peer into the undulating infrastructure of comm transmissions amongst the planets.
But Norg having one?
They looked at each other, impressed. This was remarkable. It answered many questions about their Dekorran friend.
“It’s beautiful,” Tawny said as she moved through the holographic threading.
“Oh yes, isn’t it though?” Norg replied enjoying their awe. “The paths of our peoples. The very mapping of our voice. Here,” he said lifting his cane and moving it through one of the multiple random data threads. It triggered a window to open overhead showing the data in its native language. He expanded the window, adjusted it. “This is a comm slice from … hmm … looks like a Nevin light farmer to one of their Orbin sister moons. Ah, yes. Omnus. And this,” he switched over to another, opening the data window and reading, “A Cabal subcontractor over Iot discussing mineral rights with, well, we needn’t pry. You get the point.”
He gazed over at them collecting their attention. “It’s called serum data. It’s a collected mass of data earned from the DPM network, but with one vital difference. Unlike the Dot Product Manifold systems, serum data is never dumped. It’s preserved on a viewable timeline. And much of it is surveilled information. Not only can we glimpse who said what,” with the characteristic grin of a Dekorran, he concluded, “we can also track one’s movement through the DPM network. We can see who went where ... and when.”
Ben’s face broke into a large, slow grin. He said, “The Krutt.”
With both hands resting atop his cane, Norg leaned forward and said, “Precisely, my friend. Here,” he lumbered over to a control podium and rotated the entire map around the whole room, paused it, tilted it off its cosmic access, zoomed in to a dark planet. A glass planet. Tawny and Ben both recognized it.
Speculus.
“This was your last sighting of the Krutt, yes?” Norg said.
“Yes,” Ben replied.
Currently, they could see the lit blip of Station Oficium orbiting the planet. Threads of serum data looped and whorled through local space. He manipulated his control panel causing the threads to bend and shift and snake around as he reversed the time codes on the holomap. They were watching real data rewind through time. Another blip appeared. It was the collected wreckage of hub one-oh-four, more commonly known as Guilder’s Mix, as the demolition crews had escorted it to the opposite face of the planet. Along with it, collected bits of surveilled serum data showed the arrival and departure of multiple vessels. They orbited the planet, docked, came and went.
Norg crooked his beak observing closely, searching for anything suspect. He froze the map suddenly. There were two vessels that had behaved separately from the others. One had approached Oficium, paused, then moved in reverse orbit around Speculus. Norg tapped it triggering a data window.
Type/Class: RX-111 freighter. Privateer.
Registry: Guild member.
Flight Crew: Tawnia and Benjar Dash captains.
DPM Data Port ID: 77234.0718.634251
Etc.
“That’s us,” Tawny pointed out.
“Yes,” Norg said. “So who is this?” He highlighted the other vessel. It had taken a course through Speculus’ sub-orbit and mirrored their motion toward hub one-oh-four, Guilder’s Mix. Someone had been watching them, shadowing their motion—like patient eyes in space. They’d stayed far enough away to appear innocuous to any short-range scans, but close enough for a matter transfer jump to and from the hub. Norg tapped the data blip:
Type/Class: Auxilliary Karbatt long-range cargo barge.
Registry: Private
Crew: Unknown
DPM Data Port ID: 39201.9989.290922
Etc.
“That’s him!” Tawny cried. The vessel had nestled up between the doomed hub and the planet’s surface, hidden amongst the auto-demolition vessels, perfectly in sight, yet hidden amongst its kin.
“Yes,” Norg said. “He was there, perhaps two kilometers, give or take. And now we’re beginning to understand the range of their famous—or infamous—transport technology, eh?”
“Play it forward,” Ben said, his interest deepening.
Norg allowed the holomap to move forward in time.
The hub disappeared.
REX leapt away.
The Karbatt vessel leapt away, too, in the opposite direction.
The timeline continued to play on. Silence fell over them. Tawny finally said, “Where’d he go?”
“That, my dear, is a matter of data entry in my search criteria. I will show,” Norg said, and he gesticulated his tri-fingers across a lit-up pad with bubble keys, entering the Krutt vessel’s unique DPM Data Port ID number. The entire map went into a dizzying auto-performance mode, zooming back out, rotating and spinning in a dizzying blur as Norg’s search criteria hunted for recorded instances of 39201.9989.290922 through the entire DPM system of satellites. The entire display slowed as it narrowed down the Krutt’s location, zooming down into the holomap, illuminating entire quadrants of the system, then regions, then districts, then cubed areas, syphoning down and down until it froze on a single, pulsing blip.
It was a planet. Mostly water. A single land mass. Multiple moons. Chillingly familiar.
Ben gasped.
Norg bellowed, “That son of a gitch! He’s here!”
They each looked directly up as if to see beyond the domicile, up at the dark sky and into Norg’s field of junk. It became obvious. The Krutt had followed them to Outer Landing and was now waiting for them to leave. He was hiding amongst the wreckage, far enough away to look like another innocuous piece of junk, but close enough for a matter transfer jump.
Tawny bolted for the airlock crying, “REX, fire up!”
“Hold, my dear!” Norg yelled. She stopped, spun around. Ben switched a frantic look to Norg. The old Dekorran said, “This is not the place. We have no advantage. But I cannot have him ghosting around in my junkyard, the little hogger-splat!”
“What do we do?” Ben barked.
“We ping him, let him know he’s not the only one with eyes.” He smashed a fist into his DPM console, and the holomap showing the Outer Landing local space pulsed an eruption of light bright enough to make them flinch, see colorful starbursts behind their eyelids. When they recovered, Tawny and Ben looked up, both blinking and shaking off the strobe effect. Norg’s field of junk was still visible on the map. Almost immediately, one blip angled for open space and boomed away in a flash leaving a dissipating inner-warp trail—gone; the Krutt making a panicked escape into the unknown.
“What the hells was that?” Ben said.
Norg chuckled triumphantly. “That, my friend, was a DPM blast.” They looked at him blank. “Oh,” he admitted, “there’s more floating around up there in all my rubbish and
rubble than a bunch of junked trollies and blasted cargo haulers.”
Ben smiled, impressed yet again. “You have DPM sats up there.”
Norg grinned his Dekorran way but said nothing.
“This place is a dark-com hub,” Ben said.
“Well …”
“You just fried his comms.”
Again, Norg admitted nothing, but his grin broadened.
“So what do we do now?” Tawny asked.
“We track him,” Ben said.
“Or better,” Norg said pointing a big, fat finger in the air. “We bait him. The Krutt will recover shortly. He isn’t through pursuing the two of you, dear friends. So … we let him know where you will be, and when,” Norg said with a wise acumen, “thereby knowing where he’ll be … and when.”
“Any ideas on that?” Tawny asked.
“Of course,” Norg replied, chuckling. “This is where your old friend Axum comes back into play … at Raider’s Bay.”
Eleven
Neural overlays quilted the subject’s brain with a webwork of gossamer pathways so fine they registered less as real, and more like the threading of thought tunnels. But they offered an array of cascading experiences so intimately connected to his senses they became tangible participation, crafting in their own bio-systemic ways a world of thought, understanding and reality. The subject was in a world not his own, yet the place was as real as any other. There-and-gone had become the here-and-now.
A tunnel. Rock walls. Piping running high and low. He heard his own footfalls on the floor. A jet of steam. He turned, inspected. A long blade was in his hand. He felt its weight. It was there—it is here, in my hands. It was long and evenly formed, tempered from rare sun-ore and formed into a shimmering saber designed for the shadowy order of the Kruual—a Kruual assassin blade. He waved it left, right, searching. There was nothing else. He was alone. A noise from behind. He turned, sensing the rise of tension. A room at the end. He stepped inside, observing coolly. A high ceiling of metal grating. Light fell through in bands. A heavy door across the room. It slid shut. Then slid open. Again and again. Emergency lights in the tunnel beyond flashed a strobe effect. It clouded his vision, made him squint. There was danger here. He could sense it.
He glimpsed a being standing motionless at the far end of the chamber. He spied him dressed in blood-red armor over black undercoating, a sash and cape, and a silvery bald head with intense eyes. The man was not there, yet represented a cerebral afterimage of his sensei, an encoded program within the digicom world observing him, training him, acting as his guide. The sensei nodded, inviting him to carry on.
A sudden motion to the left. It did not belong. The subject spun, poised himself. There was only a glimpse, more a notion than anything else. A Chalorian assassin-bot. Fast. Lethal. It moved to kill.
The sensei called out, “Defense: Kiroroshi.”
As if melded with his very brain waves, the subject raised the sword simultaneously. The assassin bot’s weapon deflected against his own.
“Strike: Chiburi.”
He swung hard, sliced the bot’s control center. Sparks bloomed. It fell, disabled.
Another bot. Behind.
“Defense: Spinning Suwari.”
He dropped, sword held high. The blade came down across his own, blocked.
“Counter: Jodan’jua.”
He severed the attacker in halves. It clattered to the floor.
The subject gathered himself, inspected three-sixty degrees. No more assailants.
That door sliding open and shut was like a thorn in his mind. He moved toward it, had to time his motion. Closed. Open. Closed. Open. He leapt through, cleared the threshold. Another room, this one much the same, but bigger. There was railing at the far side. A deep drop into a cavernous unknown. Machinery throbbed and moaned. Heat vexed in waves. He had to keep his senses cold, sharp.
He scanned left to right. There were operation consoles, auto-cranes, mechanical gimbals swinging above. Many places to hide, to attack from.
The sensei-image called, “Kruual distance engagement.”
The subject housed his sword, unleashed his Kruual blaster—a plasma semi-auto single burst repeller weapon. It required accuracy. No spraying. He stepped forward inspecting the nearby console, a big squared monolith with tubing extending toward the ceiling. He checked the floor. No shadows, but the light shifted. Nothing. It was a trick. He sensed something, sank back, moved like a phantom around the perimeter, gun poised. He inched forward from the opposite direction, looking, probing. Something emerged, fast. Attacker.
BAM BAM BAM!
Triple tap. The guy dropped.
“Senses up!”
Another shot from across the chasm. The subject sensed it more than saw. He dropped straight down. A miss. An explosion overhead. He searched through the distance, his mind reading the vague layout through undulating heat, steam and shadow. There! Must be. He fired. Another assailant, nailed, this one screaming as he fell into the chasm.
No time for recovery. Another Chalorian-bot came forward. It jarred him. The gun dropped, clinked off metal flooring. He went for the sword. Gave up a defensive posture, got thrust to the floor.
“Combat scenario: close quarters.”
He rolled, popped up, got to his feet.
“Stance: Kumite’shan.”
The bot initiated a full flurry.
The subject’s own biomech-metrics took over—Defense 1: Kose. Defense 2: Hicho. Defense 3: Duko. Assessment: Terminal. Flee.
The subject dropped, rolled backward, took off. The bot followed.
Observation: Industrial surroundings.
Philosophy: Kruual’aat survival tactic—Defense. Draw. Attack.
The world is a weapon …
He leapt onto an automated, floor-mounted crane swivel, bounded up the load-bearing frame and onto the long jib arm. It extended way out over the railing. Balance was precarious. Below was a fifty-foot drop into a river of …
It froze his feet to a standstill making him gasp in terror.
There was molten ore. Lava popped and spumed. Licks of flame reached up at him.
The sensei called, “Kruual temperament. Control is paramount.”
The bot pursued with efficient, mechanical grace climbing onto the crane mount. He backed away along the jib. He was beyond the point of no return. The bot hesitated, checked its footing, inched forward along the jib. The subject halted. Nowhere else to go. There was nothing below but the glowing churn of fire and heat.
Fire. And heat.
Fire.
And heat.
Panic began to rise up. Heart rate spiked. Pulse quickened. Needed control. Must stay balanced.
“Take the fear. Cast it aside.”
The bot encroached, preparing an attack.
He looked left, looked right. No way out. More panic. He looked down. It glowed a blood-colored, body-charring, life-searing, soul-sucking …
Ahhhh!
Everything disconnected. Program delayed.
All went momentarily dark. What flooded back was the real world, the sublime. His eyes fluttered open. Anger driven by the slimy grip of frustration flooded into him and he smashed his fist against the cerebro table on which he lay, releasing a steal-on-steal clang. It reverberated through the room.
But he was back. He was back, now.
The cerebro table auto-adjusted bringing him to an upward position as the apparatus cupping his face released its grip. There was a hiss as the hermetic seal around his facial reconstruction frame broke, and it lifted away on its umbilicus. A second robotic arm lowered, swiveled and connected his bio-sensory facial overlay shield onto his facial frame, twisted, and locked it down with a click. Everything opened in his brain—vision, smell, hearing, even taste. Another arm dropped a cranial top and connected it to the rest, completing his incubatory masking and allowing him to fully re-engage with the world of the real.
He sat up and looked into his hands, still frustrated beyond words at his
failure inside the neuminal throws of the digitally forged world. Both hands were gone requiring prosthetics, one from the wrist down, the other requiring a full robotic infusion. Even the elbow had been fitted with a neural responsive joint, entwined in flexi-weave musculature and tendon reconstruction. Slowly, as if capitulating, he held his arms forward and a bot-machine hovered over encasing the arms inside their new, artificial derma sleeves.
Like emerging from a nightmare, he collected himself wallowing in the bitter rhythm of his auto-lung. It breathed in, out, in, out, forever operated by the implant cluster of his bio-hub girdle. Even his dermis, what dermis he had left, had been reconstructed from cloned organic matter and infused with mol-bot technology to reconnect his mind and body with sensation. The spine was all but gone, replaced by a braided bundle of neural pathways translating sensory perception into digicom, transporting it to a brain with reconstituted bio pathways, and then translating it back through a complex micro-operating supercomputer imbedded at his nervous center/brain junction for lifelike action/reaction responsiveness. Ultimately, there wasn’t much left of him.
The man that had crawled out of the wreckage of his past emerged a myopic piece of his previous whole, sustained now by the alien technology of an augmented, cybernetic, artificially enhanced monster-machine.
And yet he still failed to defeat his greatest fears.
Fire.
And heat.
Perhaps, that meant he was still alive somewhere inside all that multi-tech.
“Don’t be discouraged,” a voice said. “You’ve done very well, sire.”
He looked over. His mask had no eye holes or visor, but rather a single sensor fitted into the sleek molding that collected the world’s input at speeds far beyond the normal alien kin, feeding it into his cerebral inputs. The sensor throbbed subtly in its white illumination. The man he looked at stood in the entryway having joined him in the virtual room—blood-red armor, sash and cape, chromium head. This was his sensei.
Manotaur sentries stood to either side of the entryway—smaller versions of their monolithic tank droids, yet large in their own right at seven feet tall, heavily armored and standing like silent guardsmen.
