Book Read Free

ARMS Helm's End: (Book 7)

Page 6

by Stephen Arseneault


  Two of the scientists left the room only to return minutes later in a panic. Discussions ensued, with the ten scrambling out of the room toward various duty stations.

  Milos paused the log being watched. "The Frizoid were here... in this space. This is bad. Very bad."

  The afternoon was spent reviewing one log after another. Over the span of a few weeks worth of logs, Midelon had been attacked. A single Burrell had been stranded at Gondol while another seven emerged from stasis. All had been captured and killed topside, leaving the final three hidden away below in stasis.

  The cave entrance had not been found as the broadcasts for the boson field were not detected. The Frizoid had their own method of faster-than-light travel without the use of wormholes, bringing them to the Midelon system after only a five month journey.

  Harris said, "I don't get it. They were here. They took out your people. Why'd they leave?"

  "Only they can answer that question. The colonies you refer to as Domicile and New Earth had only just completed their terraforming conversions. Humans had yet to arrive. Perhaps this planet was only seen as a forward outpost. With the occupants dead and no other evidence of Burrell in this sector, the Frizoid may have just gone home."

  "So tell us a little more about your Denzee alliance? The Hoya eventually allied with the Frizoid, but it wasn't always so. Were those two fighting back when you went under?"

  "No. Both the Denzee and the Hoya were independent empires. Our alliance with the Denzee had only just begun. If there was war between them, I have no knowledge of such. At the time, the Hoya were fiercely independent."

  Harris asked, "How fast is this ship? It is spaceworthy, right?"

  "It is. However, I can't in good conscience reveal parameters such as drive speed, defenses, or weapons."

  Harris chuckled. "We're standing on your boat and we have access to all your systems."

  Milos sighed before looking back at the display in front of him. With his left hand and fingers, he began flipping through displays. Tawn grabbed him around the back of his neck, pulling him backward from his chair.

  "No you don't."

  Flashing on the display was a holo-button with Burrell text above it.

  "What's that say?" Tawn asked, as she shook the furry, striped Burrell with her hand.

  "I—"

  Harris opened a comm. "Idiot. Translate this text for us."

  "Emergency system lockout."

  Harris leaned close with a less than friendly face. "Now that doesn't seem like the move of a peaceful, trusting species."

  "Your line of questioning indicates the same from you."

  "I guess it's time we set things straight. This is our territory here. Our planet. This island and everything on it, under it, and around it, belongs to Humans. Your people caused us to leave our world. Even with all the systems in our travelable space, you still owe us big."

  Milos sighed. "Please. I won't attempt anything like that again. I panicked. And you are right, the Burrell owe you for the loss of your planet. We were attempting to make up for that by allowing you to come here. Unfortunately our plans appear to have been thwarted by the Frizoid monsters. They wipe out entire defenseless colonies, you know."

  "As do the Burrell with their military experiments."

  "Military? How so?"

  "What other purpose would a species have for aiming a gamma burst in a single direction?"

  "To protect ourselves and others? We cannot prevent the supernova from exploding, but we can prevent it from obliterating a defenseless world."

  Harris nodded. "You keep telling yourself it was for that purpose. We both know it was for use as a weapon against the Frizoid. You could take out their capital planet without risking a single ship. I give your people credit for thinking on such a grand scale, but the result was the loss of our world, and from what we can tell… about twelve billion Humans."

  Milos was silent in thought for several seconds. "Perhaps. I never made that consideration. Regardless, none of that was of my doing. I joined the effort to come to this sector to help."

  "Then offer help. Bring us up to speed on the Burrell. Customs, capabilities... tell us what you know and what to expect if more of you arrive. We aren't your enemies unless you make us so."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Who runs your government? The stripes? Spots? What's their temperament? Easygoing? Combative? I would have gone with your people being benevolent except for that little move you just tried to make. You burned any goodwill you’d earned by talking with us."

  "The stripes are thinkers. We contemplate and are not quick to action. The spots, on the other hand, are aggressive and forceful. They will intimidate and bully to get what they're after. Both factions have been in charge during our history. As few as fifty of your standard years before I went into stasis, the spots had control of our government. Their successes led to a period of peace that was followed by a slow transition to the stripes. The stripes were in charge when I went under."

  Tawn said, "The splotches? They ever in the mix?"

  "They don't have the intellect or the muscle to govern. They mostly go about their daily lives just doing as they are told. Both sides are constantly seeking their loyalty. May I be set down now?"

  Tawn chuckled. "Sharvie? Can you clear that display for us?"

  "Can do."

  Milos was set on the deck.

  Harris said, "Are the splotches in the minority? Which contingent is the largest?"

  "The spots are by far the largest. It used to be the splotches, but not for the last several hundred years before I went into stasis. The stripes are the minority. Our families tend to be on the smaller side, whereas the spots are breeders."

  Tawn winced. "It's been two thousand years. They may be the overwhelming majority by now. The spots I mean."

  "Possibly. However, those numbers are often self-correcting. Spots in charge means war. War takes lives, primarily those of spots. It troubles me that you have heard of species interacting with the Frizoid, such as the Hoya."

  "If you were aligned with the Denzee, they didn't give any indication of it. Hope your people are still around."

  "If you are referring to the Frizoid winning and wiping us out, I find that highly doubtful. As to the Denzee relationship… it was in the early stages when I went under. They were an independent species and could very easily have reverted to such."

  Trish said, "All this talk about the way things were two thousand years ago is driving me batty. How are things now? What about the Burrell now? You don't have any method to communicate with home? You people made a wormhole go from Earth to here. Why can't you do that from here to home?"

  Milos replied, "I wasn't involved in that project. But from what I've been told, it was a spinoff of the supernova effort. That isn't an event that happens on a daily basis, so even if one was happening now, I highly doubt it would be used to open a wormhole from Magion to here."

  "Magion? That your capital?"

  "Just the closest colony. Or it was, as the case may be. If you would permit me, I could send a message to Magion. Prior comms took a hundred and sixteen of your standard days to reach home, and an equal number for a reply."

  Tawn pulled Harris to the side for a whisper. "That message from Gondol only took sixty-six. Sounds like they've been expanding this way."

  "Or they have faster comms now."

  "True."

  Tawn moved back to Milos' side. "The speed of this ship. How does that compare to light-speed? And please just answer honestly because you know we can just look it up."

  "Thirty-eight hundred times the speed of light, or thereabouts."

  Alex asked, "How is that possible?"

  Milos shrugged. "I don't fully understand the physics, but I'm told it's accomplished by utilizing a series of short wormhole jumps. The generators elsewhere in this facility are reduced in number to fit on a ship. That ship broadcasts the field, a wormhole is opened and the ship jumps through to the edge
of the field. The process is then repeated."

  "Interesting. So if you had more power and more generators, you could create a larger field and jump farther, essentially moving you faster."

  "Yes. But I believe there are limitations to the process that prevent a larger field from adding to the speed achieved. It has something to do with how far the field can effectively be broadcast. Remember the gamma ray burst and the subsequent wormhole that connected Earth to here? Now think about trying to harness that power for use on a starship."

  — Chapter 7 —

  * * *

  Alex tilted his head to one side. "This whole sequence of mini-jumps is an interesting concept. In our ships, we can jump across our space here maybe a half dozen times if we jump the entire distance. It would take a substantial fuel store to travel, let's say, a thousand light years. How is it your ships can travel that far?"

  Milos replied, "If we take this ship out into space, you would see a mast that extends behind the ship by nearly half a kilometer. As the wormhole collapses behind us, that mass is caught in the flux. The instantaneous change in temperature that results is captured and used to regenerate the fuel supply. We've achieved just over 98 percent efficiency with that design."

  Harris said, "That make your ships vulnerable during a fight?"

  "It does. Or it can. When you evaluate the systems on this ship, you will find a powerful laser as the main weapon. In space, that would normally have the limitation of traveling at light-speed, requiring a close-in fight. However, if utilizing the wormhole generator with that laser, we can stretch its reach out by a factor of fifty. A five hundred kilometer shot suddenly becomes twenty-five thousand kilometers. It can be very effective against the Frizoid rail cannons."

  "The Frizoid, do they have wormhole travel?"

  "They have a gate ship. That larger ship can open a wormhole big enough for their fleet to move a quarter light-year. The recharge time for a second jump is longer. And their fuel regeneration is not as efficient. Hence their travel distance and speed is limited as compared to ours. But what they lack in technology they make up for in numbers. A Frizoid attack fleet can easily outnumber one of ours by a factor of ten."

  Trish scowled. "As of two thousand years ago."

  "Correct."

  Harris asked, "This ship or this facility have an AI?"

  "Both do, yes."

  "How do they compare to the AI topside?"

  "I believe they are the same."

  Alex shook his head. "They used to be the same. We made modifications. And I think you, Harris, made modifications to that. If this is like the one we originally encountered, you'll find it to be usable, but rudimentary as compared to ours."

  Harris opened a comm. "Idiot, connect into this ship, load all its data into your archive, and then provide us with a full evaluation of its systems. What can we make use of or what should we research?"

  "Partially there, sir."

  Milos asked, "There are more of you here?"

  "Uh, sure."

  "In the time since I went into stasis, have the Human populations grown?"

  "Substantially, even though we spent much of that time fighting each other. For some reason, Humans have been very fertile since we got out here. Except for Tawn and me—they tinkered with our DNA, so no reproduction coming from us. Other than that, we number just over a billion. Was double that until the Denzee wiped out our second most populous planet."

  "A billion? That is astounding. That is far more successful than—excuse me—far better than we had hoped for you. Have you spread beyond the two planets and here?"

  "We had forty-eight colonies. Most small. Some decent-sized. Had we not been fighting each other for most of that time, we'd probably have this whole sector settled."

  "Our earlier history is filled with similar tales. That all ended with our movement out into the stars. We've been a united empire since, only having to fight hostiles such as the Frizoid."

  Milos looked at the others in the room. "I also have to ask, are the rest of the Humans as intelligent as you here appear to be?"

  Tawn chuckled. "No, this is definitely an above average crowd. Harris and I are the dumb ones here, and we're probably slightly above most of the population. New Earth had its share of clods too, but I guess they're gone now. How do the other Burrell stack up to you?"

  "I am a stripe. We are the more intelligent of the three. The military is only slightly more so than the workers. When placed on a scale with the average stripe being one hundred, the military, last I knew, measured sixty-two, with the workers coming in at fifty-eight."

  Harris nodded. "Sounds about right for most of us, although, after spending so much time away from Domicile, I do feel smarter than I used to."

  Milos returned a nervous stare before Tawn let out a chuckle while looking at Harris.

  "You're just as dumb as the day I met you."

  "Me? You were the one working for Bax back then. At least I was out on my own."

  Tawn rubbed her chin. "Speaking of Bax, should we fill him in on the current situation?"

  "Why?"

  "Maybe he can offer a few suggestions. We have new tech here that might be at our disposal."

  Harris opened a comm. "Idiot, how goes the transfer of data and the evaluation?"

  "The transfer was complete four-point-three seconds after our prior comm was closed. The evaluation is ongoing."

  "Can you control the AI on this ship and in this facility?"

  "I can."

  "Good. I want you to lock our friend Milos here out. No access to any systems on this planet. That doable?"

  "Done."

  "Thanks. You can return to your evaluations."

  Harris smiled. "There, we can now discuss whatever we want with Mr... Milos. You have a last name?"

  "Just Milos. I do have a numeric family designator if that is what you are referring to. 8443677955."

  Tawn chuckled. "Hello Mr. 84436—whatever."

  "Hello?"

  "Do your people not have a sense of humor?"

  "We do. However, I would place it as being more clever and less sarcastic than what I have witnessed here. Your displays of amusement appear to be geared to crass and base behavior. I apologize if this offends, but you might do well with that among the worker class."

  Tawn threw her hands up. "I knew it. We're splotches."

  Harris chuckled. Milos stared. Trish shook her head.

  Tawn gestured toward the giant door leading out into the depth of the ocean beyond. "Is that a single door?"

  "Yes."

  "You have to flood this whole place to get in and out?"

  "No. A gravitational field holds the water back. When a ship comes in, any water retained in crevices or cutouts falls harmlessly to the floor, where it is collected and pumped back out. Going out has no such issue."

  Alex asked, "The broadcast field coming from this facility, how is it that it goes so far out?"

  "Eight hundred kilometers beneath us, the inner dynamics of this planet's core are used as a giant power generator, delivering the energy required to run the broadcast generators."

  "What about the fusion reactor?"

  "That is used to power these facilities."

  "Why not place more of these generators on more planets, going all the way back to your home? Would that not allow a jump all the way there at once?"

  "The core of this planet is an 80 percent osmium-iridium alloy. There are very few planets with such numbers. This sector of the galaxy just happens to have two. There are only three others in all of Burrell space. The Frizoid are rumored to have four. That dense core is the main reason this smaller planet has a gravitational pull almost equal to your Earth standard."

  Alex said, "I find the generation of a boson field on a ship to be fascinating. Add the fact that you're able to regenerate fuel and I can see star travel as an entirely different enterprise. Crossing the galaxy would take many generations, but to explore a star system a hundred light-years
distance? That would become commonplace."

  Milos nodded. "As it has."

  Alex turned for the door. "I'll be in my lab studying these phenomena."

  Milos asked, "You mention the modification of an AI. I would offer a warning. Internally, the Burrell have fought several wars among ourselves because of them. This is the reason they are limited in their abilities. The more autonomous they become, the more dangerous they are."

  Tawn replied, "We're having a bit of that issue now."

  Milos nodded. "Before the restrictions were put in place, we had built an army of nearly ten million units. They were powerful, fast, and deadly. In a single engagement with the Frizoid, we enjoyed a five-to-one kill ratio during a fierce ground battle, a battle the Frizoid are generally superior at.

  "However, we made the fighters too smart. They turned on us, wiping out nearly a million of our soldiers while attempting to escape the planet on transports. They also had the knowledge needed to replicate themselves. Had we not stopped them there, this might be a galaxy dominated by androids."

  Gandy said, "They're smart. And they can make their own decisions."

  Harris nodded. "They are, but they still lack the drive to be fully autonomous. I have the feeling if we just dropped one on a planet by itself, it would just stand there and do nothing for eternity. They do what they're taught and told, and they have the ability to learn, but I'm not so sure about the ability to think. A Human would build a shelter and find food before looking for a way to get off the planet to home. I don't think our metal friends have that in them yet."

  "Then you are possibly only one stage before trouble."

  Tawn smirked. "We're already in trouble. One of our people took a force of sixty thousand or so bots from here only days ago. She also took forty thousand ships that are controlled by bots."

  "You gave them control of ships? This is grave news."

  "They still require a master to tell them what to do. We take out that master and our problem will largely be solved."

 

‹ Prev