by S. H. Jucha
Before Neffess could ask the question on her mind, Nata said, “Ude,” and dashed for her traveler.
The pilots lifted and shot for the horizon. The coordinates sent them nearly halfway around the circumference of the planet.
In Nata’s helmet, she received Neffess’s telemetry, which marked Ude’s location.
Nata found her pulse racing. Her eyes teared at thoughts of the expected reunion.
The target location was marked by construction. A fast transport route was being extended toward a distant encampment.
The travelers set down a safe distance from the heavy vehicles at work.
Nata was on the ground before Neffess, and she scanned for Ude’s approach. That he could send meant he’d adopted an implant, and she was happy for him. It implied that he wasn’t cut off from the sisters.
An enormous vehicle on treads came toward the travelers. Its multipurpose arms allowed it to shovel ground, dig support holes, and insert castings.
Unlike most of the sisters’ vehicles, this one had a cab, which would accommodate Ude. Without windows, Nata was disappointed that she couldn’t see his face.
The monstrous construction tool came to a halt twenty meters from the ships. Then the cab’s door flipped up, and a humanoid avatar leapt out. It hit the ground with an awesome thud.
The three-meter tall avatar strode across the ground toward the lieutenants, who exchanged frowns.
Linking with Neffess, Nata sent,
The avatar came to a halt in front of the pilots, and the metal faceplate slid away. Ude’s face smiled down at them.
“Wow!” Nata exclaimed. “The sisters built this for you?”
“They had to, which I’ll explain,” Ude replied. “But first, greetings, Lieutenant Neffess.”
“Greetings, Ude,” Neffess replied.
“I understand from the sisters that the two of you are close friends,” Ude said. “It does my heart good to know that Nata found someone with whom she could share her thoughts.”
“Well, it hasn’t been easy,” Neffess said, shaking her head in mock exasperation.
Ude laughed, and Neffess’s muzzle opened, and her long tongue lolled alongside her jaw at her tease.
“Can you step outside your avatar so we can talk?” Nata asked. “I’d like a proper hug.”
Ude’s laughter faded. “Those cycles are past, Nata,” Ude replied. “This is my permanent home. I was trying to gain access to Artifice, and I had a bad accident. My spine was crushed in several locations. The damage was so great that the sisters had to construct several machines to maintain my body’s functions. One morning, they put me to sleep, and I woke up inside this avatar.”
“Didn’t they ask you for permission?” Nata asked. She was livid at what she considered overreach by the sisters.
“They knew I’d say no,” Ude replied, laughing. “This avatar contains everything necessary to keep me alive and give me mobility. I need it serviced for about an hour every ten cycles.”
“You don’t sound angry,” Neffess pointed out.
“I was at first,” Ude said, chuckling. “I tried every way I could think of to shut it down.”
“To kill yourself?” Nata asked horrified.
“That’s what it would have amounted to, yes,” Ude replied. “When I couldn’t bypass the sister’s programming, I tried a little physical intervention.”
For a moment, Ude’s eyes defocused, as he recalled those periods of uncontrolled rage.
“What changed?” Neffess asked. “You seem content now.”
“It was this avatar’s power,” Ude replied. “I went rampaging around, thinking I could destroy it. Instead, I found it was nearly indestructible. Although, truth be told, the sisters did have to remove quite a few major dents.”
“What about you and Artifice?” Nata asked.
“The subject of Artifice is complicated,” Ude replied. “In some ways, I feel sorry for the AI. Artifice had so much potential, which was squandered in a misguided attempt to dominate life. Now, Artifice is isolated, although the sisters maintain constant contact. They hope to rehabilitate Artifice.”
“Do you think they can?” Neffess asked.
Ude’s huge metal head quirked to the side, as he examined Neffess, “Why do you look familiar?”
Neffess chortled and chided, “Why, Ude, we’ve only just met,” which set the three individuals laughing.
“Seriously, why?” Ude asked.
“My matriarch is Queen Nyslara,” Neffess replied.
“Yes!” Ude exalted. “I’ve seen imagery of the battle to take Artifice. Queen Homsaff led the raid at the pole, and she shared visuals of her time on Omnia with the sisters. Your matriarch is prominently featured. You’d be her heir.”
When Neffess replied in the affirmative, Ude tipped his head and touched a massive hand to his avatar’s chest. “I’m honored,” he said.
Nata couldn’t believe her ears. Gone was the rebellious teen that she’d known. In the boy’s place was a gracious adult.
“Come,” Ude invited. “I don’t want you to get cricks in your necks from talking to me.”
Ude led them to a small platform in the center of his vehicle.
“May I, Neffess?” Ude asked, indicating he wished to lift the Dischnya onto the platform.
Neffess chuffed, bunched her hocked legs, and sprung to land atop the platform.
“Impressive,” Ude acknowledged. Then he turned to Nata.
“Some of us do need help,” Nata remarked.
Ude picked up his sister wild one until her face was even with his. “I missed you,” he said, “and I hope you’ve found peace. We had so little of it when we were young.”
Then Ude whirled Nata in circles. She cried out through her laughter for Ude to stop before she became too dizzy. Then he set her on the vehicle’s platform next to Neffess.
For hours, the three talked about their different worlds and the lives they’d led.
Nata stared in wonderment at Ude, whose crippled body and tortured mind had found comfort in an avatar designed by caring sisters. Beside her sat Neffess, a Dischnya, as unlike a human in appearance as she could imagine. Yet, Nata only saw her good friend.
That the three could sit and pass the time in pleasant conversation on this planet far from where they’d begun was due to one human. He’d been someone who Nata had hated most of her life. Why? She couldn’t really say. But one thing was clear to her now. She owed Alex Racine a sincere apology, and she sent a request to the stars that they both survived until she could deliver it.
17: Apologies, Admiral
Ellie halted her steps and connected Hector and the rear admirals.
Ellie reached the city-ship’s bridge, and Hector had a wire model of the various outward fleets displayed on the holo-vid. She could see that Desdemona’s squadrons faced the Podarla fleet, which had held station. Jacinda’s squadrons were trailing the Syslerian wedge.
Ellie waited momentarily for a reply. Receiving none, she continued.
Ellie saw action on the holo-vid display. More likely, it was Lydia, who chose a detonation point for the banisher just forward of the lead battleship. Its focused detonation would encompass that ship, and it would marginally affect the two nearest battleships before its energy dissipated.
In the event eliminating the lead ship resulted in an attack by the remainder of the wedge, Ellie realized that she either had to turn the wedge around soon or prepare for battle.
The sisters translated the time span as they believed necessary. In place of the admiral’s quarter hour, they sent immediately. They knew the mindsets of Podarla and Syslerian commanders.
Without a response, Ellie was left with no choice. She sent an apology to Alex and the stars for what she was about to do.
Ellie waited until she saw the Talusian Tridents reversing course and heading away from the wedge. Then she sent,
Soon after understanding the events that had taken place in the Talus system, Ellie had devised a plan with Alphons. To execute the tactics, she had only one pair of captains in mind.
Étienne and Alain had slipped their Tridents toward the planet. Then they slid over the northern pole, where Artifice resided. Finally, they accelerated their ships into the dark, rising far above the ecliptic. When they transited, their courses headed them away from the Talus system.
After a relatively short transit, the twins worked outward of the system and then below it. Finally, they appeared beneath the Podarla and Syslerian wedges.
The captains laid their Tridents beside each other, bow to stern. Then they revolved their ships slowly around each other. Appearing as an asteroid blob on battleship telemetry, the Tridents coasted inward, slowly approaching the wedges from millions of kilometers away.
The technique of asteroid disguise was first employed by scout ships searching the Talus system for evidence of Artifice’s lair and to determine the system’s defenses.
The twins had loved the tactic. They would have been excited to use the subterfuge, except that they lamented the launching of the NNEMP weapons. No one knew what the loss of lives might be from the use of them.
Before Ellie’s order was received, Étienne and Alain had decided between themselves who would be responsible for which attack. Through a game of chance, Étienne became responsible for the Podarla wedge, which left the Syslerian battleships to Alain.
It was a phrase that the twins had frequently heard at Alex’s card games. Someone was always hoping that if they continued playing they could best Alex and Julien. After annuals of play, it became a throwaway line by the participants, meaning they were surrendering to the inevitable.
The Tridents stopped spinning and separated. Étienne’s ship reduced velocity to maintain a safe distance from the NNEMP detonation.
Already ensconced in environment suits, the crew members closed their faceplates. When they were ready, the chief signaled the bay doors open. Sliding aside, the opening gave the crew a view of the deep dark and the twinkling stars.
A banisher rested on a grav pallet, and it was moved to the edge of the bay’s deck. Then the banisher was harnessed to the tethering beams. Via signals to the beam controls, the banisher was moved outward.
The chief chuckled to himself. He was a longtime fleet veteran. He’d been a young crew member aboard the Rêveur, when the ship first left New Terra on its return home to Méridien. He remembered launching pallets of minelettes through the bay opening with the shove of a boot.
This is a lot easier but with a lot deadlier weapon, the chief thought.
Alain waited until the chief informed him that the bay was clear. Then he accelerated his Trident for an intersection point forward of the lead Syslerian battleship. He’d accessed Lydia’s program, which determined the operational distances for deployment depending on the type of ship.
Lydia’s program called for a near release, but Alain noted that the SADE’s ship specifications matched those of a Talusian battleship. The vessel he hunted was an order older and smaller. Accordingly, Alain moved the detonation point farther in front of the lead battleship.
On the bridge holo-vid display, Étienne watched his crèche mate’s ship accelerate toward the Syslerian wedge. A blue line indicated the optimal trajectory for the weapon’s release and the exit from the field. It was a straight line for two-thirds of the distance, and then it curved sharply away from the system.
Alain watched the same display aboard his ship. Something urged him to stay the course longer on the straight line, but images of his partner, Admiral Tatia Tachenko, flashed through his mind. His implant was full of their times together.
I must be getting old, Alain thought. When his Trident reached the critical point, he signaled the tethering beams to release the banisher, and his controller swung the ship away from the impending detonation.
Étienne breathed a sigh of relief. His twin and he had argued about Lydia’s programs. Étienne had stated emphatically that they should follow them, and Alain’s opinion differed. He thought they should get closer to the target battleship before release in the event the vessel changed course.
The responses that Étienne offered to Alain’s argument were twofold. The first was that the banisher was too small to be seen as anything more than a swiftly moving asteroid that would pass in front of the ship. The second was that the time from the weapon’s release to its delivery was too short to allow the captain to maneuver the battleship, even if he or she anticipated danger.
While the Syslerian commander, Zoza, harangued his captains to follow him inward, the bridge crews of those captains scanned every centimeter of telemetry for evidence of the expected attack.
A
sharp-eyed telemetry officer spotted an asteroid that resolved into two tri-hulled ships. He shouted to his captain to examine the visuals he placed on the central monitor. Immediately, the captain warned the fleet.
Zoza examined the two warships, and he promptly communicated to the fleet that the sighting was to be dismissed as nothing more than scouts.
The captains of the following battleships didn’t share their commander’s opinion, and they ordered their pilots to abandon the wedge.
The maneuvers of the huge Syslerian ships didn’t relate to any order of battle. The captains’ objectives were to maximize the distance between their vessels and the lead battleship. They’d fully accepted the Omnian admiral’s threat that Zoza’s ship was her target.
The telemetry officer aboard the lead battleship reported to Zoza that the wedge was disintegrating, and the commander swiveled to eye the display. He was in the midst of threatening his captains, when a blinding light blanked every monitor.
Sparks flew from the bridge displays followed by smoke and small fires erupting from the panels and the system control cabinets. Then the bridge was plunged into darkness.
“Fire suppression systems offline,” the first officer called out, and the bridge crew scrambled to employ manual methods.
Commander Zoza had done one thing right. He’d ordered all ships to battle readiness. That meant that the crews were ensconced in environment suits with fresh tanks. Hatches and fire doors were tightly secured.
At the first sight of fire, two of every Syslerian’s four hands reached out and locked the helmets over puggish faces.
“Departments, report damage status,” Zoza ordered.
“Commander, comms are offline,” an officer reported.
“First Officer, I need an engineering status,” Zoza directed.
The first officer raced to the bridge’s blast door. He mashed the access button several times, but the hatch refused to slide aside.
“Hatch not responding, Commander,” the first officer yelled. His suit lights were failing to penetrate the growing smoke.
