Attunga

by Peter Wood

  ‘Maybe it is a collision experiment and they want to hit the black spot.’

  ‘Interesting idea, Calen, but I don’t think so. It would hardly have any effect even if it is travelling super fast.’

  ‘It must have some effect. If it hit the Earth it would destroy the whole atmosphere.’

  ‘Well it would where it impacted but Jupiter’s so enormous there’s no comparison.’

  ‘What about the moons? Could they be taking it to one of them?’

  ‘I suppose, but what for? Has K74 got connections with any of the habitats there?’

  ‘Not from the big search I did. Their main connection was the Mars polar habitat. There were also some semi-directed habitats on Earth but they haven’t had anything to do with K74 since the quarantining.’

  ‘How many habitats are there round Jupiter?’

  Wirrin knew the main ones but he had to check for a full list. ‘Seven on the moons and three space ones. Callisto is the biggest and the smallest is a scientific community on Metis.’

  ‘Metis? I’ve heard of that,’ said Thom.

  ‘It’s the closest moon to Jupiter. Only 128,000 kilometres away.’

  The trio swapped ideas and talked over what questions and responses to send to Pirramar. With communication time-lag because of the distance, it meant trying to figure out sensible questions and likely answers.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ Thom shouted.

  Wirrin and Calen turned to Thom. ‘My scanners just locked on the asteroid a few thousand kilometres from where Pirramar’s data says it would be. I think it’s changed course again and Warrakan hasn’t picked it up yet. I’ve started tracking but we’re not close enough yet for my information to be as accurate as Pirramar’s. In another forty seconds I’ll have enough motion information for reasonable trajectory calculations and I’ll be able to confirm whether this new course is taking it to Jupiter or not. I’ve also found the three Cadre ships that were waiting at the big asteroid where Pirramar thought there was going to be a collision. I thought they might join the convoy but my calculations show they’re heading for K74.’

  ‘Why aren’t you using Pirramar’s data if it’s more accurate?’

  ‘I’m watching it closely, but it’s way behind ours so it’ll be another ten minutes before I can start checking them against each other.’

  Wirrin smiled at Calen’s blank look and Thom’s feigned exasperation. ‘At the moment we’re nine light minutes away from the asteroid and the habitats are twelve, so we get the information sooner.’

  Calen pounced. ‘That’s only three minutes difference. You said ten.’

  ‘And we’re nearly seven light minutes from the habitats so the relay brings it up to ten.’

  ‘Ah … right!’

  Thom busied himself at his console. ‘From this latest data the Jupiter system is definitely the target. To refine it any further I’ll need …’

  Pirramar shimmered into view.

  ‘Thom, habitat security thanks you for your immediate action, and with your current surprisingly high rate of acceleration we calculate a rendezvous in four hours and twelve minutes. We have examined your theory about the possibility of Jupiter as a destination and it is consistent with the last registered change of course. This change, however, means our habitats are still possible targets and will continue to be so for another fifty-eight minutes. With this in mind we have initiated a number of precautionary measures, which are now detailed on your secondary viewing screen for perusal and comment. Quambi has been unable to locate any information about why the asteroid is being moved and our direct requests to K74 have met with the usual wall of silence. I will continue to update you every fifteen minutes or as needed.’

  The holo shimmered off and the trio looked at each other.

  ‘He didn’t really tell us much this time.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like they don’t know anything new themselves. I wonder what Yajala has told Sonic and the dolphins,’ said Calen.

  ‘We’ll ask as part of our next transmission or it might be part of the details Pirramar sent. We’ll look through those first because it sounded like they want our ideas about them. Solution Brain ideas most of … What’s with the look, Wirrin?’

  ‘Thom, can we go any faster?’

  Thom and Calen stared in puzzlement. The ship was travelling at record thrust and they all knew it.

  ‘No, you know we can’t … Why?’

  ‘My brain tells me we should. I’m having bad thoughts.’

  There was no comeback or Solution Brain jibe. Thom and Calen could see that Wirrin was deadly serious.

  ‘Pirramar just said that Quambi can’t find out why the asteroid is being moved. The only way that could happen is if it’s been organised in the blocked areas and without any orders being transmitted electronically. That tells me the rogue’s involved, and that means we have to plan for the worst.’

  Wirrin looked Thom directly in the eye. ‘I think it might be up to us to stop this asteroid.’

  After a moment of silence Thom gave a snort of disbelief.

  ‘I know you don’t mean the asteroid itself, Wirrin. There are seven Cadre ships there. We wouldn’t have a hope.’

  ‘We mightn’t have a choice. Look, four of them can’t manoeuvre because they’re connected to the asteroid with those cradle things. You could use stealth and disable one of the convoy before they even knew we were there, and I know you can defend yourself against two of them.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be just two. The other four could still deploy their missiles and if they disconnect we’d be completely outnumbered.’

  ‘Disconnecting means they’re not controlling the asteroid. That’s exactly what we want.’

  ‘Why do you want to go faster?’

  ‘More time to apply any strategy you devise when we catch up. Every minute might be important.’

  ‘Yes, it would be.’

  Wirrin felt relieved. In the course of this short conversation Thom had switched from finding it hard to accept the reality of the situation to the serious analytical mode he used in his training.

  Calen still looked incredulous and horrified. ‘We’re going to fight seven Cadre ships?’

  ‘It looks like it, Calen. Wirrin’s brainstorms have always been vital and accurate when it’s important so we have to treat this one the same way. We’ll know for certain in another … fifty-four minutes.’

  ‘What will I do? I’m useless in this ship.’

  Wirrin felt somewhat the same. If fighting was needed everything would be on Thom’s shoulders.

  ‘Calen, you’re not useless,’ Thom said. ‘We’ll need all the help we can manage to get through this. Send a message to Pirramar about Wirrin’s thoughts while we look through their data. He needs to know straight away.’

  Calen looked startled but nodded and set to.

  Wirrin and Thom scanned the information on the screen. Thom had indeed been on the right track: the giant drive engines on all three habitats had been activated and were ready to move at a moment’s notice. Every Comet was on full alert with a full complement of crew, and Sonic and the enhanced dolphins were in the process of being moved to Turaku’s Comet.

  The Witness Council was being convened for a habitat spanning holo hookup.

  Picofactories were constructing heavy-duty versions of the multi-spectrum beam defences to augment the basic systems already in place on the outer walls of all three habitats.

  The list went on, and when Wirrin saw that all transport and travel between the three habitats was closing down he thought about what would be happening with the general population.

  ‘I wonder how much the word is spreading? People will know there’s something unusual happening when there aren’t any ferries working.’

  ‘It’ll be through every habitat in minutes. The InterWeb will make sure of that.’

  ‘Maybe not, Thom. I think the Witnesses will divert attention somehow till they know for certain whether the asteroid’s heading for J
upiter or not. They’d want to avoid panic.’

  A quick look showed that would now happen in fifty-one minutes.

  ‘Wirrin, can you get into the basic coding for the operation of the ship? If you can we might be able to go faster.’

  Wirrin put aside a thought about construction asteroids being used as barriers for the habitats. That could wait. ‘I can get to it easily, but making changes is harder if that’s what you really mean.’

  ‘The engines and the grav-compensators are set with maximum levels but if we override them we’ll get more acceleration.’

  Wirrin nodded but alarm bells sounded in his mind.

  ‘Isn’t taking them over their maximums risky? If we damage either system we’ll be no help to anyone.’

  ‘They’ve got safety factors built in. All engines and systems like the compensators have. I don’t know exactly what they are for this ship but as long as we don’t exceed them we shouldn’t cause any harm.’

  Five seconds of searching on the InfoSystem had the information.

  ‘The grav-compensators have a safety factor of five per cent and the engines’ twenty-two. That can’t be right? That seems way too much.’

  Thom looked surprised till he thought about it. ‘No it’s not. It means the engines have the power but they’ve been limited to 1G above what the compensators can cope with. It means we could go a lot faster but we’d feel it. Let’s see … The grav-compensators are the biggest concern so we can’t use the full five per cent. Four should be okay and we’ll monitor them every microsecond with fallbacks in case of any trouble … That will give us an extra … 0.9G. The engines at twenty-two per cent would give us an extra 5.2G but we can’t use that much because we’d soon be unconscious. Dingoes! If you can change that code we’ll get a minimum of one extra G plus as much extra as our bodies can cope with.’

  ‘What can we cope with?’ Calen was back.

  ‘Wirrin’s going to change the basic codings to make the ship faster, but anything after the first G won’t have compensation.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Mmm, I hope so. Will it save us much time?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  Thom and Calen watched Wirrin for several minutes as a bewildering flood of technical data and code flashed across the console.

  ‘Kadaitcha! It’s hard-coded. Big problem … No! I’ll make the picofactory burn the updated instructions onto a replacement circuit. Thom, when it’s ready you’ll have to power off and swap the circuits yourself manually. It’s … fairly straightforward.’

  Wirrin turned towards Thom.

  ‘The picofactory’s finished. Did you work out how much sooner we’ll get there?’

  ‘Finished? I thought you were figuring whether it was possible, not actually doing it. Where’s this circuit? I’ll install it then we’ll work out how much thrust we can stand.’

  After a short period of zero-G the engines powered up again and steadily increased to a new record thrust of 24.6G.

  ‘Okay, how much more? We have to cope with this for over four hours so I suggest that one extra G should be our limit. We’ll be mostly confined to our seats and we’ll get there eighteen minutes earlier. If we need to move around or it’s too much strain we can ease off. Will we give it a go?’

  There were nods all round and as soon as Calen was secure in his seat the heavy hand of acceleration pressed down and their effective body weight doubled. They were all used to this, from Thom’s habit of giving them bursts of up to 2.5G at the start of most of their trips, as well as from the excitement of variable G-force activities that were a large part of habitat leisure activities.

  The big difference here was the time factor and Wirrin wondered how four hours would affect them. He used his InfoSystem to see what Thom was doing to monitor the compensators.

  Whoo! Heavy arms!

  ‘Thom, can you control the ship properly?’

  ‘I’ve done it in training but I’ve never had to keep it up for more than fifteen minutes. I’ll hardly have to do anything though, not till we make the match-up, and then we’ll be out of this high G.’

  Wirrin checked. The current acceleration was an incredible 25.6G. At match-up that would diminish to the 3.4G of the asteroid. A huge drop.

  ‘Hey! New record.’

  That got the expected grin. Wirrin sent a transmission to Pirramar next, explaining how the ship was suddenly flying beyond its normal capabilities and why they felt it was needed, and also asking if the AIs knew whether it was sustainable. The trio settled to a determined type of relaxation with their seats adjusted for maximum support.

  As well as helping to cope with acceleration pressure they were aware of the need to ready themselves for the match-up, especially Thom.

  Chapter 35

  Wirrin came out of his quiet, almost meditative state at a signal and watched Thom respond on his console. From the set of his features it was bad news.

  ‘It’s another course-change and this initial data says it’s towards the habitats. I’ll soon have more accurate data but it’s enough to discount Jupiter.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  Wirrin felt the same disbelief as Calen, and watched with a hope he knew wasn’t justified while Thom checked the more precise course, which every extra second of scanned information allowed.

  ‘It is. This makes it definite.’

  ‘They’re insane.’

  ‘I know. What do we do?’

  ‘Thom, we’re already doing it. You’ve been planning in your mind what will happen when we match up haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course, but it doesn’t feel real, more like one of my simulator battles.’

  ‘Good, because you always say they’re harder than real ones.’

  ‘Yes, but not against seven ships.’

  ‘That won’t matter.’

  Calen interrupted. ‘Should we contact Pirramar?’

  Thom shook his head. ‘They’ll know before our transmission gets through.’

  Wirrin didn’t say anything for a moment. Calen’s words were ringing in his mind.

  ‘Yes we should. Calen’s right. This is insane. It really doesn’t make sense.’

  Wirrin’s thoughts whirled while Thom and Calen, seeing his intense expression, waited in anticipation.

  ‘This asteroid can only affect one habitat and they know there’ll be retribution from the other two. They must be going to do something to the other two to protect themselves. It’s the only way it can make sense.’

  ‘Do what? Throw more asteroids? There aren’t any.’

  ‘Yes there are. Lots of them, parked right next to K74. Thom, contact Pirramar and warn him … Tell him to get every Comet racing towards K74 as fast as possible. I need to think about this.’

  Thinking in this case meant a concentrated burst with the InfoSystem, only distracted momentarily by the authoritative sound of Thom prefacing his transmission with yet another PRIORITY ONE signature.

  Wirrin gathered every bit of information he thought relevant. As a stroke of luck, or more likely typical AI thoroughness, the data had been sent as a matter of course with Pirramar’s main situation transmission. He summarised for Calen and Thom who were again waiting in anticipation.

  ‘I hope I’m wrong but these course changes appear to have been purposely designed to keep us in doubt till the last possible moment, and that feels very much like a rogue strategy to me. The Cadre might be angry enough to try and destroy one of our habitats but the rogue would be too clever to let them because of the consequences they’d face. Unless it’s part of something bigger. Then they could be in a position where they think they could ignore the consequences.

  ‘We’ve always wondered why they’ve built thirty Cadre ships and this could be the reason. Seven are with the asteroid and those other three are on the way to K74. I looked for the other twenty and, according to Pirramar’s information, just over an hour ago not a single one of them was off on any sort of expedition. The whole twenty were in clo
se proximity to K74, along with thirty-nine of those large asteroids they’ve collected.’

  Thom and Calen still looked baffled.

  ‘Thirty asteroids are associated with construction sites but that leaves nine extras.’

  ‘And they could throw them at our habitats?’

  ‘It makes sense as a strategy, and I do remember Thom telling us one time that kinetic weapons could be very dangerous for Attunga.’

  ‘How big are the nine extras?’

  Wirrin checked the sizes and flashed the results for Thom to see.

  ‘They’re 0.9 up to 1.3 cubic kilometres … They could move them at about 5G … unless they doubled up, and then it would be close to 10G.’

  Thom did more calculations. ‘An asteroid that size would have trouble getting past the habitat multi-spectrum beams. They’re much more powerful than the Comet ones and the speed wouldn’t be anything like the really big asteroid’s.’

  ‘What about three at once?’

  ‘That would be bad. At least two would get through … Except they wouldn’t because of the Comets.’

  ‘How long to reach our habitats from K74?’

  ‘At 5G or 10G?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Um … at 5G it would be just over two and a half hours and at 10G it would be … close to one hour fifty minutes.’

  ‘And how long for the big asteroid to get there?’

  ‘Three hours and forty minutes from now. And we’ll match up with it in two hours forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Fifty-five minutes to spare. Will that be enough time to stop them?’

  ‘It’ll have to be, Calen. I’ve been thinking about it and Wirrin’s right. I’m sure I’ll be able to disable one of them before they can retaliate too much, but then time will be critical because once I activate our multi-spectrum beam they’ll all know where we are and they’ll send thousands of missiles at us.’

  ‘Thousands?’

  ‘That’s what they’re set up for and I expect every ship will be involved.’

  Calen looked stricken.

  ‘What will we do?’