Spinward Fringe Broadcast 13

by Randolph Lalonde

  "Sure, fair trade. What do you want to know?"

  "What happened here? It looks like this installation was on the losing end of a war but we haven't found evidence of the attackers."

  "We were attacked by a military group that didn't have emblems or markings like you. They didn't offer terms, they just arrived in orbit and started firing. We scrambled fighters, started firing back, but they disabled most of our defences in minutes. Before I really knew what was going on they were in the base and I was running for the controls to our secondary antenna. I wanted to call for help, even though I was sure our people wouldn't get to us in time, but they caught up with me. I got shot, they left me for dead, thinking I was human, and I waited for them to leave. I thought I could get back up and access communications, the secondary antenna is local to this station, but I guess I ran out of time, my secondary power system must have been damaged. Then you're waking me up centuries later."

  "What do you think they were after?"

  "First, tell me how you found this place, I need to at least try to make sure I'm not spilling my guts to a new enemy. That skull logo on your suit isn't exactly reassuring."

  "You can trust us, our people are on the way, they'll restore you, don't worry," Carnie said, putting the power cell into the android's wound. The machine winced as he turned it so the emitters faced the broken power systems in his chest. "Sorry, I didn't realize this would hurt."

  "Like a hot poker in the chest, but that new power source is plenty juicy, thank you," the android said. "I'll trade the pain for that kind of power any day."

  "So, why would they hit your facility?"

  "This moon contains vast deposits of rare materials in raw form. We're talking the makings of rare crystalline fuel containment, dormant organic metals, platinum, radioactive ores, you name it. There's a thousand years' worth of useful stuff in the ground here, so the Dammel Company kept it a secret, especially since this is our first effort. Everything we had was put into this ship, this crew, and we started drilling as soon as we got here. It took nine years to dig out a space for our colony ship, and another five to develop the tech to drill some of the heavier, more valuable resources out from under the crust. Our secondary operations pulled tons of platinum out of the ground every day, and we made sure that no one knew where it came from when we transported it to customers. I guess our attackers traced it back somehow, that's probably how they found us."

  "Hey, this panel just turned on," Pixie said, looking at the station the android was sitting against.

  "Oh, there's someone else here? I didn't notice her before," the android said. "Who is it?"

  Pixie ignored him, taking a closer look at the panel. "Someone's accessing communications, turning the secondary antenna on."

  "Ground team, we're picking up a new encoded transmission," Commodore McPatrick said on their communications channel.

  "Maybe there's someone else moving around the station?" the android offered.

  Carnie leaned the machine's torso forward and saw three cables extending from the android's lower back into a panel open on the side of the console he was leaning against. His first instinct was the pull the cables out, but he decided against it, leaning the droid back and yanking the power cell he'd put into its chest instead.

  "Wait! We can…" the android's eyes glazed over, his face stilled again.

  "Panel's dark," Pixie said. "I hope he was just calling home. It'll probably take a few years for the message to get where it's going, at least."

  "I probably deactivated this guy for no reason," Carnie said, turning the power cell over in his fingers.

  "You did the right thing, Carnie," Commodore McPatrick said. "Better safe than sorry. We're looking up the Dammel Company now, maybe there's something in the general galactic record. Hold there, don't touch anything else unless it threatens you until the Rhino Crew gets there."

  "Aye, Sir," Carnie replied, muting his end of the channel with Command so they couldn't hear what he wanted to share with Pixie. "Holy crap, do I ever get the feeling that I just screwed up somehow."

  "It was a little shady, how he followed through with communicating with the outside without warning us that he was about to. Wait a sec, I have an idea." She stared off into space in a way that suggested she was looking at something in her heads' up display that was hidden from him. "Just running the message he sent back, it came up on the console screen."

  "Can you read it?" Carnie asked.

  "No, but the rest of the interface is super clear. The system's communication security was trying to stop it from going out, completely alarmed that it couldn't decode it, called it a foreign data stream."

  Carnie looked down at the android, as still as a corpse and scanning as completely dormant. "I hope I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that this wasn't a defender."

  "I'm glad you took the lead on this mission," Pixie said, patting him on the shoulder.

  Twenty-Six

  The Slumbering Giant

  * * *

  ‘Traveller.’ It was a huge improvement over Hal's original call sign; 'Hot Chow.' He didn't mind the old one, it was based on something he shouted once to raise his fellow pilot's spirits once they arrived in the galley after a long patrol. Traveller had a better ring to it though, and it reminded everyone that he'd been around a little, seen some things that most people hadn't.

  Maybe that's why they sent him and Rip, a pilot that was picking up some officer training on her way to Samurai Squadron, to do a high-speed sensor sweep around the solar system's sun. The new Uriel fighters were perfect for that kind of duty, with much better shields and the ability to turn all that radiation into energy or bend it around the craft when capacitors and backup batteries were full. "Hey, a transmission was just sent to our sector," he said. "There's a ping back."

  "I see it," Rip said. "My passive scan is picking it up, and there's some kind of noise, no, encrypted transmissions ahead. Strong signals, big waves."

  "Yeah, my computer can't figure out what kind of encryption it is, but there are a lot of signals. If we can see them on passive scanners while we're this close to the sun, the transmitter's gotta be huge. Maybe a base?"

  "Oh, wow, big energy bloom! I'm marking it," Rip exclaimed.

  "That's not far from here," Traveller said, looking at the energy profile. "Flight Command, we're investigating an energy bloom ahead. It followed a bunch of transmission activity, nothing matching known profiles, all encrypted." The data became clearer as the energy passed by them. It cut through the solar radiation, wholly different. "It looks like someone's making a few micro-wormholes at a time, at least, that's what it reminds me of. There’s a lot of wasted energy, though. Their tech is either cheap or old."

  "Be careful on approach, we can confirm that what you're seeing isn't from the sun. Remember: cloaking won't be reliable," one of the Officers from Flight Control said.

  "Acknowledged," Traveller replied. "Let's hit the thrusters, we'll do a hard scan on a high speed flyby." He said, turning his throttle up to maximum.

  "I like your style," Rip said, accelerating along with him. "What do you think this is? I bet it's an old transport, like the ones they used to load up with Omni Virus patients then send into the sun."

  "That’s a dark thought," Traveller chuckled. "No one proved that ever happened, but it wouldn't make much sense, since it just started popping five micro-wormholes a second open and closed. It's trying to send signals to someone."

  The ship came into view. It was broad, with a thick, pockmarked hull under angled plating that was outrigged a few metres from its main body. "That thing's got almost as much mass as the Triton," Rip said. "Launch bays on all sides, most of them are short, wide, like they're made to send and retrieve a few dozen fighters at a time."

  Commodore Terry Ozark McPatrick's voice came over their communicator. It was being broadcast on all frequencies. "Unknown ship orbiting this system's star. This is Commodore McPatrick of Haven Fleet; we would like to open a dialog with y
ou or assist you if you are in distress. Please respond on whatever frequency you receive this message on."

  A knot in Traveller's stomach started to tighten as they waited for a response. The signals the ship sent out didn't change. They were heavily encrypted, and he assumed they were also compressed considering how short they were. Each corresponded to the opening of a new micro wormhole and finished before it closed.

  Minutes passed, and Traveller took a deep breath as he mentally reminded himself that he'd been through much worse than whatever that ship could offer. He recalled a churning sea of wreckage that was filled with murderous drones that he'd piloted a clever class corvette through with little help from his co-pilot. It put him at ease, and his focus on the instruments was renewed. "The hull has an active coating, looks like it's turning gravitational and solar energy into power. Doesn't match the silhouette of anything we have on file." They were closing on it fast. Their trajectory would take them within two hundred kilometres of it before they passed by. He waited until they were under ten thousand before he pointed his main scanner system at it. "Performing a hard scan now," he announced.

  The silhouette of the ship filled in with corridors, rooms, the shapes of hundreds of single seat pilots, and a few void spots where their scanners couldn't reach. The computer analyzed the ship's power systems, weapons, life support, where the crew quarters were, the antennae, and most of the other parts of a working craft. "This thing is armed to the teeth…" Rip whispered in awe. "Some kind of intelligent ammunition that looks like the hull diggers Fleet held back a while ago."

  "Life support's coming online," Traveller said. "I see what looks like crew pods, but they're too big. Maybe this ship was crewed by a giant race? There's room in those pods for twenty. I'm going to focus in on one of them and get another scan."

  "Be advised," said Fleet Control in a warning voice from the Triton. "We're fairly certain that what you're seeing is somehow connected to another developing situation."

  "Acknowledged. Vague as always, Command," Traveller said as he pulled the trigger on his scanner system. The image from inside the ship was crystal clear. There were dry stasis pods with thirty androids standing closely together. Each had a cable attached to the top of its head. “Can you give me a just a little more info about what’s going on?”

  "Traveller," the voice of Admiral Lamonthe said in his ear. "Those androids match the design of one we found minutes ago on a moon around the fifth planet. It sent a transmission to the ship you're scanning."

  "Doors are opening on the outrigged aft section of that ship," Rip said. "Missile launch!"

  One of the missiles exploded the moment it left the tube, but that left three each for Rip and Traveller. "Break! Go evasive and use countermeasures!" Traveller said as he activated the turret beneath his craft and launched nine micro-missiles to destroy the incoming projectiles. A beam of light crossed overhead before flickering out. "They've got a beam weapon on me, too, but it's not great. Grazed me and took out a tenth of a percent of my shields."

  "Don't get cocky, that might have been a sighting beam for something bigger," Rip said. "Two missiles down." The mini-missiles that she fired had already successfully sought out and exploded against two of the enemy projectiles.

  Traveller was relieved to see two of his mini-missiles strike one of the enemy seekers, then three hit another, setting them off before they could reach him. The third was catching up to him rapidly, and he fired at it with the small turret beneath his fighter.

  The enemy missile evaded most of his turret's rounds. Traveller kept trying to hit it, and finally struck it's head several times only to find the tip was armoured. The missile kept coming, getting closer and closer despite his acceleration and evasive piloting.

  "The last missile on me just took a beating from my turret," Rip said. "Survived it, I'm launching more mini-missiles at it before it's too late, this thing's got my number. Wait, the ship's launching more missiles, they're smaller, faster. What the hell?"

  A wormhole opened in front of the missile pursuing Rip's fighter, destroying the weapon, but eighteen fast, agile missiles emerged, quickly accelerating to catch her. Before she could evade or destroy more than three of them, they impacted onto her shields in rapid succession. A sickening sound filled Traveller's ears next, one he hoped he'd never hear. The missiles struck bare hull, rattling and blasting the metal skin of her fighter. The sound of her struggling to pilot her ship away at the last second was the only other thing in his ears.

  He snapped out of his momentary shock, flipped the body of his fighter around so he faced the blunted missile chasing him. The bloom of a wormhole was just starting to erupt from its head, and he accelerated into it. In a split-second, his shields were struck by the debris of the enemy missile, a few of the ones that were about to come through the wormhole, and the edges of the forming opening in space as the energy of the protective barrier around his craft disrupted the expansion of the wormhole. His shields were down to three percent, but the risk of the moment was taken care of. Multiple, smarter solutions to the problem began to cross his mind as he turned his fighter away from the hulking ship and continued putting distance between himself and it. They were all better solutions, but he didn't regret taking the course he did. "Rip, you still out there?"

  "I should ask you the same question," she answered. "That thing was chasing you, then you turned around and there was nothing but explosions and energy blasts on my scanners."

  Traveller sighed with relief. "Let's put more distance between us and that hulk."

  A set of six more missiles like the first erupted from a launcher. To Traveller's surprise, the Triton emerged from a tear in space next to the sun. Its beam weapons destroyed all six missiles in the blink of an eye. "Rip, Traveller, this is Flight Command," Commodore McPatrick said to them over their comms. "Bay Door Three is open, come on home."

  "Doesn't that sorta defeat the purpose of sending fighters out on patrol instead of having the Triton fly in circles, you know, putting itself at risk?" Traveller asked with a chuckle.

  "I'm not complaining," Rip said. "Acknowledged, Flight. I'll touch down first."

  "Oh, I'm not complaining either," Traveller said. "I'll be in right behind her, Flight."

  * * *

  Several red beams from the old battleship focused on the Triton, tracing the shape of its shields. It stopped transmitting. Even the micro-wormhole generators started powering down. "What's it going to do now?" Traveller asked himself as the bulky ship held its place in orbit around the sun, the white fire rolling beneath. He was relieved when the thrusters at the rear of the vessel, and the ones outrigged to the sides and along the bottom fired up. It was like watching a giant rousing as it accelerated away, breaking orbit and heading away from the gargantuan white sun.

  Twenty-Seven

  Daisy

  * * *

  Worry momentarily slipped away as Ayan cradled Little Laura, whose cries were abating at her touch. "She's grown so much, and she wasn't away for that long, even though it felt like years," Ayan cooed at her daughter.

  Daisy, who was still a perfect match for Ayan physically but had changed her face enough so she looked like a sister instead of a copy, smiled as she watched. "It probably felt like a long time to her, too. She knew I wasn't you, despite every effort I made to trick her. The two of you may not have had much time together before we went into hiding, but she bonded with you."

  The dimly lit nursery was finally decorated with all the things you'd expect. A nice rocking chair, a padded floor, changing table, a mobile over the crib with holo-projectors inside, and supplies. Leon was the one who made sure that everything Ayan wanted was delivered before her daughter returned, if it was up to her, she would have forgotten to put half the orders for furniture in. There would only be a crib and a rocking chair. "Really?" Ayan said, still doubtful, but reassured. She lowered Laura into her crib gently and tickled her belly. To her surprise, the baby kicked her feet harder than ever, gigglin
g loudly. "Oh, you're growing up fast, aren't you?" she said. "You're not going to sleep for a while, either."

  "She is getting a little worked up," Daisy said. "It's all right, she slept through most of the trip here."

  "You did such a good job," Ayan told her, watching Laura's hands hook around her fingers. "I know you're capable of doing so much more than standing in for me, taking care of children. What do you want to do?" She was the same model as Theodore, a rare creature who deserved more than what she was offered when Ayan first met her.

  "Oh, I love taking care of children, it's one of the reasons why I decided to remain female for the time being, it's the sex most associated with care givers. Unlike humans, my model doesn't have to aspire to be more if we know we're being useful. Helping you with Laura is a task I would go so far as to call noble, beyond simply useful."

  "I will still be thanking you for days," Ayan said, giving in to the urge to pick Laura up again, kissing her soft cheek as she settled in against her shoulder. "Weeks." A few moments later she asked; "What would you do if you could do anything, what interests you?"

  "I was programmed to care for children," Daisy replied in a whisper, watching Laura rest against Ayan. "I've seen so many grow up. I think I discovered their sense of wonder. When children see something incredible for the first time many of them have a reaction that seems almost spiritual. One day I realized that I could share in that experience, maybe because I'd seen them have it so many times. Perhaps I came to understand why seeing a picture of the galaxy, or a flower garden bloom, or a vast landscape extending as far as the eye could see was so incredible. Perhaps this isn't the answer you're looking for, Admiral, so I can rephrase more specifically. With the children returning to the War Forge, perhaps I could help you with Laura, remain aboard so I can see what we encounter, and when she gets older, perhaps I could run a child care centre for the service people aboard."