Long Shot

by David Mack

  Kavalas stewed as the suggested route appeared on his vehicle’s navigation display. “That would add seven hours to our trip!”

  “Sorry, Doctor. But the bridge’s guidance nodes are off, and we’re under orders to divert all northbound traffic to the Ribik Bridge.”

  The scientist’s temper got the best of him. “But this is an emergency! If we don’t reach the generator in the next four hours—”

  “Take it up with the Ministry of Transportation, Doctor. Safe travels.” The two constables stepped away from the transport and waved it on its way.

  Flustered, Kavalas closed his window. “They’ve used a law enforcement override to commit us to the new route. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “I disagree,” Terrell said. “But I’m going to need you to trust me, Doctor.”

  A dubious reaction. “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “This transport’s engine is in the rear, correct?”

  “Yes, but I don’t—”

  Terrell snapped orders over his shoulder. “Taryl, trade places with the doctor—you’re driving. Hesh, use your tricorder. Override the nav system. Master Chief, dig into the engine and disable the accelerator’s governor circuit. We’re about to need some serious speed.”

  “Roger that,” Ilucci said, as Hesh powered up his tricorder and Taryl clambered forward between the front seats, initiating an awkward round of musical chairs with Kavalas. Within a matter of seconds, she was in the driver’s seat, and Kavalas had strapped himself in behind ­Terrell. Meanwhile, the quiet interior of the transport resonated with the high-pitched oscillations of Hesh’s tricorder and the screech of Ilucci’s phaser cutting through the back chassis panel.

  Kavalas shied away from the activity, seemingly in shock. Terrell thought it might be a good idea to reassure him that the landing party wasn’t crazy. “Relax, Doctor. We’ll have everything under control in a ­moment.” The scientist said nothing; he just watched in horror.

  Ilucci pried open the red-hot plate he’d cut free behind the backseat. “Okay, then. Let’s see. What do we have here? Primary dynamo? Check. Ignition system? Check. Fuel cell reserve? Check. Transmission system? Check. So where would our governor circuit be?”

  Hesh entered commands into his tricorder. “Captain, I’ve isolated the frequency for the transport’s guidance control system. I can interrupt it on your command.”

  “Good, stand by. Taryl? Think you can figure out the controls?”

  “Steering wheel, accelerator, brake, automatic transmission. Good to go, sir.”

  “Glad to hear it. Get ready to bring us about and take us over the bridge.”

  The chief engineer let out a whoop of victory from the backseat. “Got it!” He turned around, holding up a broken computer chip. “Say adios to your governor circuit.”

  Terrell took hold of the armrest on his door. “Now, Mister Hesh.”

  One flipped switch on the tricorder scrambled the nav system’s display, which went dark a few seconds later.

  Taryl tested the wheel with a few quick swerves. “I have manual control.”

  “Ensign, bring us hard about, then take us over the bridge as fast as you can.”

  “Hard about!” She stomped on the brakes and twisted the wheel to the left. The transport spun as it skidded to a halt. As soon as its nose was most of the way around, Taryl stepped on the accelerator and pointed them back toward the bridge. “Stand by for flank speed!”

  The constables rushed into the road. They waved their batons and flailed their arms, but they seemed to have no idea how to stop a rogue vehicle from defying their orders. At the last moment, they dived out of the transport’s path. Taryl swung through the turn and picked up speed as she did, pinning Terrell and the others against the vehicle’s right side and one another.

  Painted lines on the bridge blurred past, then zigzagged as the vehicle raced over the broken section. Deep rumbling filled the air—a roar like thunder, though the skies were clear.

  It was the sound of the bridge collapsing directly behind them. Broad sections of the roadway writhed and weaved as they raced over it. Ear-splitting cracks heralded the snapping of high-tension wires, which whipped across the fracturing asphalt on either side of them. The edge of destruction chased them clean across the river, until the last stretch of road fell away and vanished into the water below. Safe at last on its far side, they sped away on solid land.

  In the backseat, Kavalas was all but paralytic. Hesh shivered.

  Ilucci’s eyes were frozen wide, a gaze of horror. “So that happened.”

  They picked up speed on another straightaway as Taryl tested the transport’s limitations. “On the bright side,” she quipped, “we’re finally making good time.”

  Terrell smiled back at Hesh. “Still need a pit stop, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir.” A slow, stunned blink. “Also? I think I could use a sedative.”

  9

  A beeping from the arm of the command chair drew ­Theriault’s attention to the switch for the engineering deck’s internal comm channel. She thumbed the flashing button. “Bridge here.”

  Threx answered, “Commander, we’re ready to launch the comm buoy.”

  “Good work. Stand by.” She closed the channel and swiveled toward Razka. “Chief, deploy the communications buoy to maximum subspace booster range.”

  “Now, sir? We still have a lock on the landing party’s communicators.”

  “I want it in place early, in case we need to fall back in a hurry.”

  “Aye, sir.” He made a few adjustments on his panel. “Launching now.” A brief whoop from the buoy’s thrusters resounded through the hull, and then a bright light streaked across the main viewscreen before arcing away from the planet, into space. “Buoy’s away, sir.”

  “Good work. Track it and make sure it comes online as expected.” Theriault got up and moved aft to hover beside Sorak. “Any progress mapping the distortion field?”

  “Some.” On the display above his console, he called up a series of animated graphs that showed circular wave fronts moving over the planet’s surface. “As we noted, the distortions are more pronounced when wave fronts intersect. What we didn’t expect is that each new intersection generates new wave fronts, which in turn multiplies the number of intersections and their intensity, on a logarithmic scale.”

  On the screen, the proliferation of distortion wave fronts grew so rapidly that it obscured all other details of the map. Unable to mask her concern, Theriault turned a worried look at Sorak. “How long a period does that simulation represent?”

  “The next six hours. Beyond that, the variables became too much for our computer.”

  She pointed at a map with a conspicuously blank space. “I take it that’s the generator?”

  “Correct. Although the inner perimeter of the distortion effect is quite severe, inside it everything appears to be calm. The ‘eye of the hurricane,’ as I believe it’s called on Earth.”

  “So, the generator is immune to its own effects?”

  Sorak nodded. “So it seems. Though it’s not yet clear if that’s an intentional safeguard against self-disruption of its operations, or an unintended consequence of its malfunction.”

  Dastin backed away from the sensor hood, his manner troubled. He looked at Theriault. “More bad news. We’re detecting violent tectonic shifts in the planet’s crust and major movement in its mantle.” He transferred the sensor readings to his overhead display while Theriault hurried to his side. “The flip-flopping we saw in the magnetic poles? It’s got things stirred up big time. We’re talking earthquakes, spontaneous volcanic eruptions, you name it.”

  Theriault let out a low whistle. “This planet’s about to shake like a wet dog.”

  “And our landing party’s right in the middle of it. We need to get them out of there.”

 
“No. You heard the captain. Unless he calls for an evac, we stay clear of this.”

  “When he said that, I don’t think he knew the planet was about to melt itself.”

  She sharpened her tone. “He knew what he was doing, Lieutenant. Now here’s what I need you to do: Run a geological scan of the planet’s crust. Identify weak spots, subduction zones, or regions where tectonic plates are colliding or separating. I want a detailed map of every high-risk area on this planet. Which are the most vulnerable to earthquakes? Which have the greatest risk of mass casualties due to volcanic eruption? If the landing party’s driving into one of these areas, I need to know right now—and the planet’s government needs every warning we can give them so they can start evacuating endangered regions. Do you get me, Lieutenant?”

  Dastin absorbed the reality check with a deep breath and a short nod. “Aye, sir. I’m on it.” He leaned back over the sensor console and resumed working with laserlike focus.

  Theriault returned to Sorak, who was running a new simulation. “What’s this?”

  “By removing some of the more granular data points, the computer is able to provide a more big-picture forecast of the field’s eventual expansion. Within the next few hours, its effects will extend well past low and middle orbit and encompass most of this star system.”

  “We already knew that. But I didn’t realize how many factors it would affect. If the distortion field can stir up activity inside Anura’s core, what might it do to objects in space? Such as Anura’s moons? Or its parent star?”

  “Difficult to say.”

  “Take a guess.”

  He cocked one eyebrow to convey his disdain. “If I were to offer an educated hypothesis, I might speculate that the distortion field could trigger any number of solar events, including an increase in solar flares, coronal mass ejections, or possibly even a supernova.”

  “A supernova? Are you serious?”

  “It’s a remote possibility. The star’s extreme range from the generator might diminish the risk. But any profound disruption of the laws of probability increases the risk of catastrophic events that might affect the planet—and also us, assuming we remain here.”

  An uncomfortable silence stretched between them for a moment, until it was interrupted by Chief Razka. “Sir? The buoy is in position and confirmed as operational.”

  “Thank you, Chief.” To Sorak, she added under her breath, “Dastin has an eye on the planet. I want you to keep an eye on the rest of this star system. If you detect anything—and I mean anything—out of the ordinary, notify me immediately.”

  “Understood.” The centenarian set to work turning the ship’s tactical sensors into their watchful eye for dangers that might soon appear from the endless black.

  Theriault settled back into the command chair and stared at the planet on the viewscreen. A pinpoint of light appeared on its night side, commanding her attention. “Nizsk, magnify.”

  Nizsk adjusted the viewscreen, which shimmered for a moment before presenting a greatly enlarged and enhanced image of the planet’s surface. A yellow-orange ball of fire raged in the darkness, a portrait of geological violence.

  Dastin looked up from the sensor readout. “The good news? That eruption’s happening in the middle of open ocean, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest population. The bad news? It’s major, and it won’t be the last one.” Mournful, he faced the viewscreen. “I hate to say it, but it looks like we’ve got front-row seats to the end of a world.”

  • • •

  The whole planet was falling apart, but Kilmarlic Tritur was almost certain it had to be some kind of a scam. He hadn’t become Jefgis Amalgamated’s youngest-ever factory foreman by being gullible—and the stories being called in by all his tardy workers, and jamming all the broadcast channels, were just too outrageous to be believed. Who’d ever heard of a ground transport’s fuel cell melting in mid-drive? Or of inventory computers suddenly going blank? It was absurd.

  He was prepared for just about anything when he heard the knock at his office door. He muted his vid player and swiveled his pad to face Desmar Lahdik, the strangely tall and narrow-bodied union representative from the warehouse. “What now, Lahdik?”

  “Things are getting too weird, sir. The team wants to go home.”

  “Home? They just got here! Are they crazy? Are you? Anyone who leaves early is fired.” He dismissed Lahdik with a broad wave of his hand. “Get out of my office.”

  “With all respect, sir, I don’t think you understand what’s going on.”

  “And you mean to educate me? How generous of you.” He hoped Lahdik would take the hint and go away, but the union officer held his ground in Tritur’s doorway. “Okay, Lahdik. I’ll give you two minutes to persuade me to send the crew home.”

  The lanky champion of the rank-and-file pointed with one freakishly long arm at the muted vid screen. “Have you been watching the news?”

  “Off and on. I have to say, they’ve become quite brazen in their quests for ratings.” He picked up the remote and switched from one channel to another, narrating their sins as he went. “These talking heads say the planet’s magnetic poles have been flip-flopping for the past four hours.” Click. “This channel says it has authenticated vids of alien visitors, and that they’re working on a secret project with a government scientist—with the full blessing of the tribune.” Click. “Some terminally ill moron who’s probably hopped up on more drugs than I can count claims she survived a jump off a hundred-story building because of a freak wind.” He switched off the vid and pushed aside the remote. “Do they really expect us to believe this junk?”

  Lahdik clenched his fists and puffed out his vocal sac, clearly overwrought. “Sir, it’s all true. Something strange is happening right now, and it’s happening everywhere. Half the team has seen things today they can’t explain, and so have I.”

  “Really? What have you seen, Lahdik?”

  Now the union rep looked abashed. “Well, I heard it. On the wireless, I mean. Driving to work, a song came on that I didn’t like. I tried to change the channel, but it was on every channel. All of them, sir. What are the odds of that?”

  “Considering the way our one-world government loves to meddle in the affairs of its citizens? I’d say you can probably lay the blame for that one on the tribune. I bet she issued an executive order to make all the wireless stations play the same song, just to remind us all that she makes our decisions for us.” He lifted his voice to add with sarcastic venom, “Thanks, Saranda!”

  “You can’t write all these coincidences off as government conspiracy.” He pointed out the door. “You don’t believe me? Come talk to the team yourself. They’ll tell you the same.”

  In the mood for a confrontation he knew he couldn’t lose, Tritur got up from his pad. “All right, Lahdik. Let’s go hear what your tool-pushers and load-lifters have to say.”

  He followed Lahdik out of his office and downstairs to the floor of the warehouse, where the hourly employees had gathered in a throng. Behind them yawned the cavernous interior of the warehouse, with its towering stacks of high-capacity storage grids, arranged in long parallel rows. Piled at various points on the concrete work floor were irregular pyramids of crates and mounds of palletized cargo optimized for the rolling hydraulic lifts the union insisted on keeping under manual control, even though management was certain automation would be more efficient.

  A few steps from the bottom of the metal staircase, Tritur stopped and rested his hands on the railing. “Who wants to explain to me what’s so pressing that I need to close the warehouse?”

  A cacophony of voices was shouted down by Lahdik and a few of his deputy foremen. Lahdik pointed at one employee, an older female, who stepped forward and spoke in a loud but tremulous voice. “Every single person in my town who played the lottery this week won it this morning!” She held up a ticket. “Including me! We all had the
same number—and it won!”

  “That sounds more like a conspiracy to me,” Tritur said.

  “There were more than nine thousand of us. Most of us don’t know each other. And because we all won, no one got more than a few credits. Why would we do that?”

  “Because you’re bad at business?” He shot an impatient look at Lahdik. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  Another tumult of voices. From the din, Tritur picked out a few stray exclamations:

  “Every transport on my street had engine failure!”

  “All the males in my pod have gone sterile!”

  “We had forty-seven new job applicants this morning—all named Torlas!”

  “Stop! Stop! Everyone, enough! I think half of you are being pranked, and the other half are probably in on the joke. I don’t know who’s crazier—you or the idiots running the news!” He pointed at Lahdik. “Get your people under control, and get them back to work before I—” The rumble-purr of a lift engine’s motor interrupted him. He looked down at the unmanned machine. “Who switched that on? What are you trying to—”

  The lift put itself into gear—something that should have been impossible with its manual safety engaged. It sped away from the stairs toward the crowd of workers, who croaked and screeched in alarm as they scattered. By luck—Tritur refused to call it a miracle—the lift didn’t hit anyone. It raced off across the warehouse floor, straight toward a stack of wooden crates.

  He pointed at the retreating lifter. “Someone stop that thing!”

  A few workers stumbled after it, to no avail. None of them was fast enough to catch it. The heavy lifter slammed into the crates. Its front forks impaled the sides of one box on the bottom. The jolt of the collision knocked a crate off the top of the pile. It crashed and broke apart on the concrete floor, scattering its load of precision-milled ball bearings. They spread across the concrete floor. Tritur watched with bulging eyes and bated breath as the bearings rolled to a stop in a perfect grid formation, one hundred rows by one hundred columns, each perfectly aligned with its neighbors, every one as straight as if drawn by a master draftsman.