by G. P. Eliot
Knowledge wanted to be free. Knowledge made no sense if it was contained or suppressed.
But knowledge was also dangerous, wasn’t it? He remembered. The meson-gluon equation had led to the development of the heavy meson cannon, after all…
Which is why I have to be the one to liberate it… Serrano narrowed his eyes as he looked at the Message. His hands stopped shaking. His breathing deepened. He was going to crack this. And he was going to do it for the good of all humanity–not just the Union…
“Babylon software results,” he told the Dalida’s computers. It paused on its 987th pass of the document and said:
“Human-language derivative. Translation as yet Unavailable. Continue processing? Y/N?”
A few minutes ago, and Serrano would have swiped or said Yes, but that was the thing about Serrano. He was a scientist. He knew about probabilities. If the Babylon translation software had failed in over nine hundred and eighty-seven attempts to get any meaningful information–then there was only one option left.
He had to change the parameters.
“It’s not that the translation software is faulty–it’s that it can’t see the information…” Serrano said. No matter how good an A.I. or a computer program was, it didn’t have the horizontal intuitive functions that a human’s neural networks had. People thought that scientists were all logical and mathematical–whereas Serrano knew that was far from the truth. Scientists needed to be able to leap sideways with the data in front of them.
To see it from a different direction.
“Aha!” the realization hit Serrano as forcefully as the Pequod’s batteries were hitting the Dalida’s rear shields.
“Each proposition is numbered…” Serrano instead made a scan just for the numbered start of each ‘sentence’.
360, he saw.
“Exactly the same as the points in a compass….” Serrano breathed, and the discovery that bloomed in his brain felt like a cool summer breeze.
“Commander! I think I’m onto something!” he dropped the privacy force field to communicate with Lory. And now, with his genius mind in hyper-gear, the ship’s alarms, and Lory’s shouts and growls no longer bothered him at all.
“Well–what is it?” Lory was saying.
“The information was never meant to be read as a vertical text…” Serrano said, working quickly, his long-fingered hands flicking in and out of holo controls. “Compute–arrange message propositions in a circle…”
The zoomed-out text suddenly flew apart and reformed at every degree in a circle. “Re-play Babylon software!” Serrano said.
“Processing…” the computer told him.
“Professor–we haven’t got much time…” Cox was saying. On her own smaller holo screens, the small model of the Dalida was starting to flash red in several places.
But Alan was in his element. Nothing could stop him now.
“Human-language derivative. Translation as yet Unavailable. Continue processing? Y/N?” the Babylon software replied.
No! Serrano thought in alarm. Had he been wrong? Had he been entirely mistaken? Alan opened up the software dialogue box to look at the actual diagnostics that the software had produced. The problem was that it had started to process each and every numbered proposition, but then each and every one abruptly failed before moving onto the next! Almost like…
“There’s no neat circular linking…” Serrano saw. “Computer, rearrange message not in a flat globe, but orientate numbers and repeating elements into a full sphere,” he said.
The compass diagram flew apart again, and this time expanded as the repeating patterns of letters flew across to join their fellows at different locations around the inside of a sphere. All of a sudden, Serrano was looking at a world of code, with letters grouped together according to type–which meant that he could start to decipher them.
“Babylon software re-initiate!” he said.
“Processing…” the computer told him–and this time, instead of the ‘thinking’ icon that meant that the computer was making no head way at all, Serrano saw parts of the code-globe start to flash green.
“It’s working. We’re starting to receive parts of the Message!” Serrano said excitedly, pulling the translated parts into another holo pane. They were equations, numbers, algorithms…And there was a data stamp attached to each packet of information–coordinates.
“I’m getting spatial coordinates,” Serrano said. “It must be the originator of the Message…” he breathed in awe.
Lory too, must have been swimming in relief and excitement, as she was momentarily distracted from her task of keeping them all alive.
The Dalida’s tactical systems didn’t even have the time to warn them before the largest weapon on board the Pequod–the Orbital Laser–slammed into the side of the generation ship, and all the lights went out…
“Dalida, come in! Lory–respond!” Hank was shouting at the screen ahead of him, but there was no response.
The generation ship was slowly listing to its side, its engines still glowing a dim red, but Hank knew that was reserve power only. The kind that was left functional after an extreme ship-wide power failure.
And it was clear to the Captain just what must have caused it, too–there was a blackened hole high up in the side of the generation ship. From it, Hank could even see small components and wreckage spilling as whatever was inside that section of the Dalida succumbed to decompression.
“Ida–scan for bio signs!” Hank’s heart was in his throat as he swept forward. The Pequod had shot ahead of the Dalida, clearly having just made its devastating attack run. As the thrusters of Hank’s ship burned and roared, he could see the Union light destroyer starting to wheel about for a returning, final attack.
“I’m picking up bio-signatures, Boss!” Ida said a moment later. “Cortez, Cox, Ryan, Serrano. They all appear to have elevated bio-signatures, but none are in a critical condition.”
“Thank god,” Hank thought. His crew–his friends–the people who were depending on him had survived.
For a moment.
“The Dalida must have activated internal force fields around the breach…” Hank thought. That meant that the ship was completely dead in the water–or vacuum, as the case may be…
“Boss, detecting power surge from the Dalida…” Ida said, just before Hank could see the same with his own eyes. Small operational lights flared up and down the thing’s body and then the dull red gleam of the engines was brightening once again. Slowly–too slowly!–the ship was righting itself.
“She’s deploying repair drones,” Ida told him, as across the surface of the generation ship ports popped open with little gusts of steam. Hank saw the scuttling repair bots released and move towards the hole to begin welding the puckered pieces together. Above each drone’s carapace glowed a miniature blue force shield, and together they created an ad-hoc haze of blue shielding to protect them and their home.
It wasn’t going to be enough, Hank saw the large spike of energy starting to rise again on his HUD. It wasn’t coming from the Dalida though, but from the Pequod.
“Ida, is that energy spike what I think it is?” the Captain murmured. He even forgot to add his usual ‘baby’ to the end of her name, as he was so stressed.
“If you think that it’s the Union light destroyer re-powering its Orbital Laser, then yes, Captain,” even Ida managed to sound subdued. The A.I. pulled up a magnified image of the wheeling and returning Pequod, still far away but about to be amongst them any moment.
The entire top section of the light destroyer was opening up as the Orbital Laser–a massive particle-acceleration cannon capable of taking out satellites and habitats–was slowly rising from its weapons port.
Another shot like that and she’s gone… Hank knew. There would be no way to evade it. Everything that he had worked for would be thrown away. The Message would forever be silence.
My friends will die.
“Attention fighter squadron–mama’s got h
it bad,” Hank was saying, seeing that at least the two green ‘friendly’ vectors of Madigan and Steed were still alive and operational. “She’s had a system reboot. We need to protect her as…” Hank’s voice petered out as he heard himself talking.
“Captain?” Steed was the first to query his orders. “What do you want us to do?”
“Hank! This is Commander Cox–we’re on emergency stations here but Cortez says he has enough power for a jump…” Lory’s voice was filled with static as her face appeared on his view screen. “You and the others get back on board–now!”
But there was no time left, Hank saw. The Pequod had now fully turned and was starting its attack run. Its final attack run. He could see the energy spike of the light destroyer’s main weapon growing higher and higher, turning from a warning orange to a violent red…
There wasn’t going to be enough time to dock each of the three fighter jets and them to initiate jump, was there? Hank knew.
Not for all three of us, the Captain thought.
“Captain?” this was from Madigan, sweeping ahead of him.
“Begin docking procedure, Madigan; Steed. That’s an order…” Hank knew what he had to do.
The other two members of his fighter squadron didn’t question his orders. Hank smiled grimly as he realized that they must have thought that he was following on straight behind them–but he wasn’t.
“Boss? What are you doing!?” Ida said in his ear.
“Full power to thrusters. Punch her with everything we’ve got please, baby…” Hank’s knuckles tightened inside their soldier suit gauntlets around the piloting handles as he pushed them forward.
“Boss…? You do know that your attack vector is—” Ida was saying. Hank didn’t know if artificial intelligences could feel alarm, but Ida was certainly doing a really good impersonation of it.
“Straight at the Pequod, I get it, Ida–now prime the last three meson missiles, and fire at my mark.” Hank said as he shot across the stern of the Dalida, heading straight for the wedge of evil that was the larger, fiercer, Union light destroyer.
“But that’s suicide, Boss!” Ida said. “You haven’t got a hope of winning!”
“Depends what you call winning,” Hank growled. “Fire all weapons!”
15
“What in the name of sweet and holy Drokkite balls is he doing!?” Lory was looking in complete astonishment at the sight on her view screen.
It showed the tiny single-person attack fighter, the Dalida Attack Alpha, racing ahead of them on the burn of its white-hot thruster rockets.
“Straight towards the Pequod,” Serrano said, his voice catching.
“Docking Procedure: Dalida Attack Beta completed,” the generation ship’s computer, blissfully unaware of the emotional turmoil that the crew were facing, chirruped at them.
Lory saw the tiny tactical readouts glow above the Captain’s vessel as he was firing on the Pequod. “He’s released three meson missiles, dead ahead…” Lory felt sick in her stomach. From the projected lines of their attack vectors, the Captain had targeted the Bridge of the Union light destroyer and nowhere else.
“He’s making a run for the Bridge,” she breathed. It was a sort of awe and nervousness all rolled into one. Like the feeling she imagined you would have if you were about to abseil down a thousand-foot cliff.
“But surely the sort of tactical shields on a warship like the Pequod…” Serrano was saying.
“I know,” Lory cut him off abruptly. The Bridge, where all the most critical command crew of the entire vessel would be was traditionally also the most heavily shielded. The second-most protected place in an entire space ship was usually the engines.
“And a Union light destroyer has some thick shields…” Lory murmured. Even meson missiles might not be able to take it out.
There was a sudden bright spear of angry red light from the clustered forward weapons ports of the Union light destroyer, which made Lory flinch. But the Pequod hadn’t fired on the Captain, Lory saw–it had targeted the first meson missile, which blew in a wide, expanding globe of white energy.
“Captain!” Lory burst out as the ship swam straight towards the explosion.
But at the last moment the Captain’s ship veered around it, coming so close to the explosion that his thrusters tore at the perfect sphere of violent particles.
Lory was almost frozen in shock as she saw that the second and third meson missiles were still racing towards the Bridge of the giant enemy craft. Their Captain hadn’t made any move to change the direction or the trajectory of his attack. It was too predictable. Too obvious.
“He’s not even trying to outwit them…” Lory shook her head. She hadn’t known Hank Snider long, she had to admit–but she was pretty certain of one thing: That he was a smart guy.
He’s ex-Union Marines, Lory knew. He had been a senior field officer of some kind; a sergeant or a captain, she remembered. And you don’t get to survive that long, and get to that rank, if you aren’t at least smart, she knew.
The realization settled onto her shoulders like a heavy blanket. “I don’t think that the Captain is even trying to outwit them…” she breathed.
“What!? But why…?” Serrano began to stutter as Lory guessed that he knew as well, deep down in his heart, what the Captain was doing.
“Docking Procedure: Dalida Attack Gamma completed,” the ship’s computer interjected helpfully.
“He’s buying us time…” Lory said. “He’s sacrificing himself so that we can make the jump!”
“Boss–this is madness,” Ida was saying into his ear as Hank swerved the attack craft once again as the Pequod’s battery of forward lasers sought him out.
“Ida-baby, you know I love you–but what I need right now is navigation and tactical support, not—”
WHAM!
“Warning! Ship Impact! Right forward wing compromised!” the attack craft’s minimal tactical computer chirruped at him.
But I’m still flying, Hank thought, as he threw the piloting handles to one side once again, swooping under the second explosion of his meson missiles. The Pequod was picking them off with ease. But that was kind of the point, wasn’t it? Hank knew.
“How bad is it?” Hank hissed. The Pequod was much larger now ahead of him. It almost filled his forward viewing screen.
“Through and through, Captain,” Ida said. “Light laser fire burned a hole straight through the wing casing. We’re losing lubricant–but I don’t think that you care much about that right now, do you?”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Hank said.
“Eleven O’clock,” Ida said, and Hank responded automatically, not even having the time to check whatever threat the A.I. had spotted before his slower human eyes could. He spun the ship on its side, and this time a heavier line of medium laser fire seared the void where he had been.
“Last missile approaching target,” Ida confirmed.
There was another flash from the Pequod’s weapon ports, and just like all of the others, it was shot from the sky in an expanding globe of white.
Ah well, worth a shot, Hank thought. “Divert all available power to forward lasers,” he said, just as the screen ahead of him crackled into life.
“Captain Snider! What in the blue hell do you think you are doing!?” said the irate face of Lory that appeared on his screen. “You know that I am acting Commander of the Dalida, and I order all my attack ships to dock, immediately!”
“Nice try, Lory,” Hank thought as he swerved again to avoid another burst of light lasers. “Did Serrano get the Message?”
“Partially–but that’s got nothing to do with—” Lory was saying.
“Then jump. Now. That’s my order, Commander Cox,” Hank said, before clicking off the communication channel, and diverting its power instead to the forward lasers.
“What if she doesn’t go?” Ida said in his ear.
“She will,” Hank was certain of it. “She’s not stupid. And she knows that we’re in
too deep now for a rescue and extraction…”
WHAM! This time, the attack vessel was flung to one side by a burst of red and purple plasma. The Pequod hadn’t even bothered to target the attack vessel with lasers and had instead moved to plasma blasts. Even if the things didn’t hit the vessel directly, the shock waves would be powerful enough that they would send the craft flying.
“He’s playing with us…” Hank snarled at the Union vessel as he pulled the attack craft up and away, before turning again.
Hank could almost feel the Jackal inside the distant Bridge of the light destroyer below them. The man would probably be laughing, and directing his Wolverine officers to throw the plasma blast up at him in a barrage as casually as a child might play with a ball.
