by J. N. Chaney
“I do. And, wow, I barely applied any power at all and started moving.”
“Yeah, we’re going to need to recalibrate all of your flight controls and stuff, like we did with the Archetype. Until then, though, just pretend you’re carrying a glass full to the brim with that really good batch of plumato wine Freya made a couple of months back—you know, the one everyone raved about. Pretend it’s the very last glass, it’s on a tray you’re holding in one hand, and you don’t want to spill any of it.”
“As I recall, you drank the very last glass of that stuff.”
“Hey, there’s got to be some perks to being the Messenger, right?”
They flew on. Conover tried a few gentle maneuvers, yawing the Pulsar from side-to-side, pitching it up-and-down, doing a slow roll.
Conover came back on the comm. “Okay, I think I’m getting a grip on it now. It’s just way more sensitive than it used to be.”
“That’s what she said.”
“What? I—oh.”
Dash grinned, then checked their location. They were just entering the test flight range. A robotic cargo shuttle carrying food from the Greenbelt to the Forge was traversing it, the last traffic before the range was cleared.
“Okay, Conover, we’re entering the test range. You can get a little more assertive in your maneuvers. Just watch out for that shuttle. It should be clear in a moment.”
“Roger that,” Conover said, then applied thrust to the Pulsar—
And shot forward like a missile from a rail.
“Shit! Conover, whoa, there!”
All that came back over the comm was a strangled gasp. The Pulsar began to gyrate wildly, seesawing through all three axes seemingly at random. Worse, Conover’s course was taking him directly toward the Greenbelt’s shuttle.
“Conover, emergency all stop!”
“I—!”
The Pulsar did a cartwheel, spinning through almost a complete circle before Conover applied a hard burst of thrust. He’d probably meant it to decelerate him, but the timing of the mech’s spin meant it only accelerated him even more.
“Dammit, he’s lost control,” Dash snapped. “Kristin, take control!”
“I’m, like, trying, but Conover keeps overriding my command inputs. It’s so rude.”
“Oh, for—Sentinel, can you do something here?”
“I can watch. That’s about it.”
“Conover! Lock it down!”
Dash accelerated the Archetype after the flailing, tumbling Pulsar. Conover snapped out curses Dash had never heard him use before, and one he’d never even heard before. He fired the drive and thrusters desperately, trying to get the mech back under control, but everything he did just seemed to make matters worse. He’d become completely flustered and disoriented, and the Greenbelt’s shuttle was looming close.
“Conover, let Kristin take control! Conover!”
It was no use. The shuttle tried to evade, but it had all the performance of a rock. Dash could only watch in horror as the Pulsar slammed into the smaller craft.
It wasn’t much of a contest. The shuttle, made out of sheet alloy and good intentions, weighed in at maybe a thousand tons. The Pulsar was an armored behemoth in comparison. The impact smashed the shuttle, sending fragments of it and its shredded cargo sailing in all directions.
Dash blew out an exasperated sigh. At least that was as much damage as he could manage. There was nothing but open space ahead of him.
“Sentinel, can I put on my Messenger hat and just order the Pulsar to shut down?”
“Yes, you can.”
“Kristin, this is the Messenger. Shut all systems down except comms and life support.”
“Complying.”
The Pulsar abruptly stopped its wild accelerations and now just tumbled in the direction of empty space. Dash eased the Archetype into place a few klicks away and matched velocity.
“Hey, Conover.”
“Dash, I—I’m sorry about that.”
“Uh-huh. Why didn’t you just let Kristin take over? Or at least stop slamming in control inputs like a drunk toddler?”
“A drunk toddler?”
“First thing that came to me.”
“I don’t know, I guess I thought—” Conover cut himself off.
“You thought you could get the Pulsar back under control,” Dash replied, watching bemused as the Pulsar just continued to tumble lifelessly in the general direction of the galactic core. “Guess what? You were wrong.”
“I know.”
Dash contemplated just letting Conover keep rolling slowly, end-over-end, but he remembered his first flight with the upgraded Archetype. It had gone better than this; he hadn’t destroyed a shuttle full of what looked like cabbages. But not much better.
“Kristin, restore power. Conover, don’t do a damned thing until I’m well clear. Running the Pulsar into that shuttle was one thing. I really don’t want to see what happens if we slam two of these mechs together.”
“Did you hear Freya, when she found out what happened to her shuttle?” Leira asked as Dash stepped through the airlock. He shook his head.
“She was all, my cabbages! I learned that Freya has really strong feelings about cabbage. And vegetables in general.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Dash glanced around. The research ship Absolute Zero was state-of-the-art, a true fusion of human and Unseen tech. It belonged to the Rimward League, but most of the research conducted aboard it transcended anything the League themselves could have carried out. The ship had become the focus of investigation of the Radiant Points, and the gates, and also into the properties of DM2. The latter was the reason for Dash’s stop here, to check on their progress.
He and Leira found Viktor, Elois, and Kai poring over some intricate schematics depicted on a workstation. Behind a thick, transparent panel, a hexacore sat in a test receptacle.
“How’s it going, guys?”
“Kai unearthed some more documents related to these hexacores, so we’re looking them over,” Viktor said.
Dash nodded, then turned to Kai. “Did you find this in the stuff we retrieved from Procyon?”
“No, actually. We cross-referenced some documents from there with some we had in our original archives. We had no context to those, so we had no way of determining what they were about.”
“But now you do.”
“Indeed. In fact, the Procyon documents are giving us a number of insights into data we already possessed and just didn’t understand. That might very well lead to more useful discoveries.”
Dash nodded again. “That’s excellent—”
“There he is!” Viktor exclaimed.
Dash turned to see Conover entering the lab. He shuffled in, eyes downcast, face almost brick-red. “Alright, everyone just go ahead. Take your shots at me, and get it out of your system,” he said, his voice quietly flat.
Dash exchanged glances with the others. Conover had definitely given everyone fodder for poking fun at him for—well, forever, probably. But right now, he looked nothing but miserable. Dash opened his mouth, but surprisingly, Kai beat him to it.
“Conover, when I was a young initiate, there was a gruff old monk in my Order, a miserable bastard named Yalin. He was my instructor in martial arts. He trained me, along with a half-a-dozen other young monks. I was actually very good. I quickly rose to the top of the class. I could defeat any of the others, and did so, repeatedly.”
Conover had looked up from his feet while Kai was talking. “Okay, and?”
“And, I was convinced that I was the best in my class. The other initiates were determined to best me, but they just couldn’t. So I went from considering myself the best in my class to the best there was. I became prideful and arrogant. Brother Yalin let me. And then, one day, he walked up to me and said, “I’m going to defeat you now.” I took my stance, prepared myself, certain that this old man was no match for me. In fact, I looked forward to confronting and defeating him, the miserable wr
etch.”
“And he kicked your ass.”
“Oh, he certainly did, within a few seconds. And then he did it again. I had gone from believing myself the best to knowing that I wasn’t. It was a lesson in humility that I have carried with me ever since.” Kai smiled at Conover. “You have learned a similar lesson today. Don’t squander it.”
Conover stared at Kai a moment, then smiled back. “Thank you, Kai. I won’t.”
Dash gave Kai an impressed nod. The monk might not be on the front lines of the war himself, but he helped make it possible for those who were to triumph. He was as heroic as anyone in the Cygnus Realm and completely unsung for it. And that, Dash thought, was exactly how Kai wanted it.
Kai raised a finger, hesitated, then adopted a look so serious, Conver took a half step back.
“Y-yes?” Conover asked.
Kai bowed slightly, then locked eyes with Conover. “I would note that even in defeat—even when I was at my lowest point, awash in broken arrogance—”
“Um, yes?” Conover prompted.
Kai’s lips twitched. “I never destroyed innocent cabbages.”
Dash snorted as the room fell apart, and Conover’s shoulders lifted with relief.
“Thank you, Brother Kai,” Conover said with a small bow.
“You are most welcome. You were saying, Dash?” Kai asked, his face placid.
Sentinel came on the comm, breaking the moment of good humor with data. “Dash, we’ve worked out the nav parameters for the location where those two extrapolated Arkubator trajectories meet. The other AIs and I are confident that we can navigate to within approximately three light-years of that point.”
Dash had Sentinel plug in to the Absolute Zero’s data net and project her information onto a screen in the lab. The point was twenty-three thousand, three hundred light-years beyond the recognized galactic ring, putting it more than halfway to the closest of the two Magellanic Clouds.
“Considering how far that is, I’d say three light-years off is pretty damned good,” Leira said.
Dash crossed his arms and made an affirmative sound. The display showed a series of waypoints along the course proposed by Sentinel, where the mechs would have to return to real space for a nav fix. Again, the only usable reference points available were pulsars located in different parts of the Milky Way. Each spun at a unique but consistent rate. It would give the AIs something upon which to base their course corrections since the Milky Way itself would just be a glowing mass of stars, dust, and gas.
“How long is this flight going to take?” he asked.
“For the upgraded mechs, a total of seventy-one hours of flight time from the Forge’s current location, plus another seven hours total to conduct nav checks at each waypoint.”
Leira sighed. “So that’s, what, seventy-eight hours? Each way?”
Dash flashed her a grin. “Hope you didn’t have anything planned.”
“Wouldn’t matter if I did. That’s fast.”
“We’ll be cooking. That’s for damn sure,” Dash said, then turned to Viktor and Elois. “Do you guys need more time with this new data for the hexacores?”
Viktor shook his head. “No, this new stuff is mostly fine-tuning. It might improve them by three or four percent. That’s not bad, but it’s also not worth waiting for.”
“Okay then, as soon as we’re finished the upgrades and flight tests on the mechs, we’ll launch,” Dash said. The others fell into discussion among themselves, but Dash moved back to the display, focusing on the point where the two Arkubator trajectories had crossed.
Just a coincidence?
As soon as he thought it, though, he rejected the idea. Trajectories didn’t just randomly intersect like that. Consider the volume of space involved, the odds of that happening were beyond astronomical.
No, there was something there. That nondescript place twenty-odd-thousand light-years away was important.
And they were going to find out why.
15
“I spy, with my little eye, something starting with an n,” Amy said.
Dash sighed. “Is it the infinite, existential nothingness that is unSpace, the very existence of which makes me question the fundamental nature of reality?”
“It is! You got it right, way to go, Dash!”
Dash shook his head. They’d set up a schedule with two pilots awake and three asleep at any given time. One of the advantages of the Meld was it could be used to put any of them to sleep instantly and awaken them fully refreshed after just a few hours. They’d instituted a rotating system of waking pilots, though, since there were five of them. It meant they weren’t repeatedly paired up with the same person, which was good because much more of Amy’s unrelenting, good cheer was going to drive Dash space-happy. And it was only a short hop from there to murder.
Sentinel blessedly interrupted, either by intent or chance, Dash didn’t care. “Dash, we’re one hour flight time from our final nav fix. Once there, we’ll be able to calculate the distance to our theoretical destination.”
“Theoretical? Uh, no, I think there’s an actual point in space we’re going to visit, not a theoretical one. Or did I miss something?”
“No. However, this whole operation is predicated on there being something of interest at an arbitrary point just over twenty-three thousand light-years from the galactic edge, where the trajectories of two Arkubators intersected far in the distant past. That makes it theoretical to me.”
Dash smiled at Sentinel’s slightly aggrieved tone. The AIs had made it clear that sending all five of their upgraded first-line mechs to what amounted to a random point far, far in the middle of nowhere was, as Tybalt had put it, an unwarranted shot in the dark.
“You know what your problem is, Sentinel? You have no sense of adventure.”
“I wasn’t constructed with one.”
“Yeah, see, I’m not really buying that excuse anymore. You’ve changed a lot since we first met. You’ve loosened up. I’m glad. Now we need to work on making you a little more adventurous.”
“The Creators chose to rely on you, on humans, to add the daring, adventurous spirit to our endeavors. I’m just a drudge, keeping the lights on and the motor running. And I’m content with that. Also, I never have to wear pants, which, according to several of you, is an irritation.”
Dash laughed. All the pilots were awake now and chattering back and forth about the fact they were about to become the furthest-traveled humans ever. As the hour ticked down and the excitement grew, it struck Dash that Sentinel had been right. They’d already done half-a-dozen nav fixes since clearing the galactic edge, and each one had been the same, the five of them surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. The only thing that did change was the Milky Way, the vast, luminous sprawl of the galaxy shrinking a little bit with each hop.
There really wasn’t any reason to be excited. And, yet, here they were. That was something else Sentinel had gotten right. They were here because humans, impulsive, flighty, and irrational creatures that they were, had decided to make the trip based on two intersecting lines and a hunch. The AIs wouldn’t have.
Well, they’d soon find out which came out on top—gut-feeling or cold logic.
Thirty seconds before the translation drive cut out, an alert chimed. Dash braced himself. They should still be some distance short of their objective, whatever it was. But there was enough uncertainty that they could come out right on top of it, or even past it.
The translation drive shut down. The five mechs, led by the Archetype, plunged back into the four-dimensional solidity of real space.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the thrill and excitement of intergalactic space, twenty-three thousand light-years out. We are now the furthest traveled humans in history. Please keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times,” Dash said.
“It’s—pretty underwhelming, actually,” Leira replied.
It was. The Milky Way galaxy had receded a little bit more, the nearest of the Magellanic Clou
ds had become a slightly larger spot of fuzzy glow, and a few points of light otherwise speckled the vast nothingness. They were other galaxies, although only Andromeda, the closest, was recognizable as a tiny, whimsical spiral.
They waited as the AIs confirmed their location. It turned out they’d come out of translation within three light-years of their calculated destination, which was phenomenal navigation.
“Okay, so, the big, red-giant-sized question. Is there anything out here?” Leira asked.
“I’m going to put my money on no, there’s nothing except a whole lot of nothing,” Amy replied.
Dash swept his attention through the emptiness around them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t disagree. With a sinking feeling, he began to realize that this daring, adventurous flight had been a complete waste of—
He stopped in mid-thought. “Sentinel, I’m seeing a tiny sensor return at our current two o’clock high. Is that a glitch, or some type of sensor ghost, or is there actually something out there?”
“You’re correct. There is a signal suggestive of something metallic. It falls only just above the threshold of the system’s sensitivity, though, meaning it could be a false return.”
“Although, with no background noise to speak of, it is distinct, and therefore probably real,” Tybalt added.
Dash oriented the Archetype toward it and started to accelerate. But there was no need to make a tedious, real-space flight of several hours. There just wasn’t enough gravitation out here in the Big Black for them to translate there. Dash instructed the AIs to run the numbers, input the parameters, and make the hop.
They dropped back into real space and immediately found the sensor echo. Another hour of flying brought them to it.
“It’s a flattened cylinder, approximately two meters long, made of a ceramic-composite alloy,” Sentinel said.
Dash frowned at it from about two klicks away. “Is it on some sort of trajectory? Is it going somewhere?”
“Outside of the galaxy, concepts like going somewhere become problematic. It is almost stationary with respect to some objects and moving at extremely high velocity with respect to others.”
