Infinite Exploration

by D. L. Harrison

  One ship fired a single beam, and the other ship immediately started to explode, like it didn’t have shields at all.

  Jessica whistled.

  Diana smiled, “Obviously, anyone with a quantum resonation pulse defense would be immune to this. We wouldn’t be able to open up a quantum connection with lower subspace. But it would work to counter a shield modulated to block disintegration beams. Basically, an enemy ship would need to be protected from both to resist the attack.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  Diana nodded, “It could also be used to subdue a ship far less advanced, without harm. Just open the connection near a ship, and it will drain their shields and then their main power systems. It won’t come up much I’d imagine, but it’ll be in the upgrade.”

  Jessica tilted her head, “Wait, why wouldn’t it jump them there?”

  Diana smirked, “It’s not a jump field, it doesn’t match resonances exactly. Melody was able to determine all the quantum fabrics that make up our universe are connected through harmonics. They all naturally interact, leak if you will for lack of a better term to seek balance. This field increases that leak, literally makes the entropic force in lower subspace come into normal space in a torrent and consume any energy it touches.”

  I nodded, “I get the weapon application in that, but how is that supposed to enhance our own defense. Wouldn’t it drain our shields.”

  Diana smiled, “Yes.”

  She waved at the hologram, and ten more ships jumped around the one that was left, and all of them opened fire with ten beams each. The ship in the center disappeared behind a powerfully glowing shield and a hundred beam strikes. Five seconds passed, then ten seconds, then half a minute, it was fifty-six seconds later when the shields finally buckled, and the ship was destroyed.

  With our old ships, that ten on one attack would’ve killed it in five or six seconds. The newer Keldet shields would’ve at least doubled that, but the attacking ships had been firing the newer energy dense Keldet beams, so it should’ve been a wash.

  She said, “Shield emitters fail when they’re overloaded by an attacking beam. When they can no longer contain the shields in a tight configuration. The new lower subspace field, a much smaller one grant you that lets in a whole lot less entropy, applied to the inside of the shields will drain off some of that energy overload. Obviously, it’s not perfect, or a ship could take the beams forever, but it greatly enhances the amount of punishment the shields can take.”

  “Ten times as much.”

  Diana nodded, “Almost. It’s also a balance with the quantum resonance pulse beacon. We could do a bit better if we were willing to give up that defense and didn’t have to keep flashing the field, but sacrificing that defense would be foolish.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  Diana shrugged self-consciously, “It was mostly Melody, I just took her theories to practical because she’s not allowed to work on combat applications yet.”

  “But the upgrade adaptations all were yours, for the denser beams and shields.”

  Diana blushed.

  Cassie said, “So much for the Chinese being a threat?”

  Diana nodded, “They’d still be dangerous if they wanted to be, but we’re definitely a step ahead.”

  “I’ll get the upgrades started after lunch.”

  We all headed out.

  After lunch I started those upgrades on all our ships, and then turned to the custom builds.

  All of our ships were tubes, or tube like because of the cost of wormholes in energy being directly related to the size of the aperture. The cost in energy went up geometrically to the size of the wormhole opening as well. But with jump drives being mainstream even in merchant vessels at this point, though theirs didn’t have the software that would enable crossing universes, that requirement was no longer such a hard requirement.

  Jump fields didn’t care what the ship was shaped like, though up until then we’d still been designing long and thin ships, probably out of habit.

  The custom civilian ship I was designing was aesthetically pleasing to the eyes, sleek, thin, and rounded in the front, but far too wide for the old days of wormhole drives. It was thinner as it went back but also taller. The customer knew what he wanted, and I was doing my best to design it as he’d described.

  The second custom ship was a typical merchant vessel in shape and capability, with the shuttle cargo bays. The custom part was more the creature comforts. The owner wanted a recreation room with pool, darts, and a foosball table. He also wanted a hot tub, sauna, workout room, and pool. Bigger living spaces as well, he planned to take his family along on his deliveries and sales trips.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next day we had stealth networks in ten more universes. I hoped it’d be a simple day so we could take the next day off. Of course, it was life, and unbeknownst to me at the time it was a about to get more complicated.

  There were two more universes that morning where the Stolthrim and Vrok needed to be dealt with. That seemed to be the most common so far, at least where we were stepping in. The decision to move in, remove the Vrok, and protect borders against other empires was easy to make, when Earth had become a cattle ranch of tasty humans.

  If I had my way those Earths would never learn the truth, mostly because they wouldn’t trust my intentions. It was enough for me that they were free to make their own destiny and either reach for the stars and flourish in trade with other civilizations like we were, or perhaps choose self-destruction. I didn’t need their thanks, that wasn’t what it was about.

  I didn’t even need the approval of my Earth, this was a top-secret undertaking, obviously. Not more than ten people were even aware we were doing it. That decision had two edges of course. I imagined there’d be as many humans that would cheer me on for doing it as there would be those that called me out as reckless for getting involved.

  Less than an hour later I had two more universes to stash fifty trillion ships in, half of them cloaked. The building would catch up eventually to the point it’d take two days for a new universes ships to be ready, but right at the moment it’d take another five days before I could generate enough to follow the plan.

  Obviously, the more universes I had with fifty trillion ships to split, the faster I’d be able to keep up since our exploration speed would remain steady while the building potential would ramp up quickly.

  I looked up at Jessica as she looked my way.

  “Sir, the approaching shuttle has an odd power signature. I don’t recognize it. It also has about ten times the mass as a normal shuttle, it’s a flying brick save the flight room, filled in with nanites. It’ll be a few minutes before they arrive.”

  I brought up the readings, it didn’t look like there were any life-signs on it either, which set off flags in my brain. I ran the power signature against the database, I didn’t recognize it either, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t in our data somewhere.

  “Crap. We got very similar readings on our ships, when we were upgrading from the first generation vacuum nanites to the second generation. For the few milliseconds we were running both simultaneously during the handover of power generation. I’m also detecting a subspace pulse device on the shuttle.”

  I looked at Cassie, “You sure you settled things with the council, because someone is trying to blow us up right now. They must be hoping with a layer or two of second-generation reactor nanites that we won’t know what it is until it’s too late.”

  The first generation nanite reactor overloaded with millions of times the energy when that subspace pulse went off. It would be more devastating than the subspace energy beams, especially if it docked inside the shields before exploding. It just might destroy the whole station.

  Cassie frowned, “You almost sound like you hope they are.”

  I sighed, “Sorry, but I kind of do. If a country is legitimately behind this, for some reason, then it’s an act of war against Astraeus and a terrorist act against three
million civilians. That’s not something I can allow to pass, a first strike weapon meant to wipe us out.”

  Whoever was behind it, they were insane.

  Jessica said, “It took off from Russian space station.”

  Cassie cursed, drawing our eyes back.

  “I’m reviewing the travel to that station. The Russian’s don’t have the new nanites yet that I’m aware of. They stole the first-generation plans, but they never used them since it’s a death trap.”

  I said, “So you think it has to be a vampire, who got the data from the Chinese and came up with this plan? At least they didn’t compel the Chinese again, but this will turn the world against Russia. What the hell are they thinking? Should we set it off, or do I steal the shuttle?”

  Cassie shook her head, “That second one might be their plan. They may have assumed you’d catch it coming, and they want to catch you doing that to turn the world against you. That’s why the Russians, if the Chinese complained about you hacking one of their ships the world would laugh at them, since everyone knows they hacked your tech.”

  I nodded, “When it’s halfway between Earth and the moon, send a pulse to remove it.”

  Jessica said, “Will do.”

  Cassie said, “A shuttle went up to the station last night, and just left this morning a few minutes before that other shuttle was launched. It both originated and landed in their military spaceport outside Volgograd.”

  The other space stations didn’t get nearly as much traffic as mine. They were basically build platforms for England, Russia, the United States, and China, so all they really saw was personnel transfer.

  I sighed, “Give me a minute.”

  I dropped into my magic and followed my earth-sat link for internet and television, then bounced to the surface following that signal. From there, my magic routed through the internet to the Russian spaceport. From there, it was easy to find video of who’d been in that shuttle from their security cameras. I wasn’t happy about hacking their stuff, but it wasn’t Gray technology and there’s no way they’d ever find out.

  As I came out of it, I brought up the video over my table as a rendered hologram. Even I recognized the person in it, it was the vampire Abe.

  Cassie hissed.

  Jessica said, “Initiating pulse.”

  A bright white light lit up space like a second sun had formed between the Earth and the moon, then it faded away over a few seconds to reveal there was absolutely nothing left.

  Darrell said, “Standby, I have him.”

  A booth rose up out of the floor, which was intriguing. What was more intriguing was most of the nanites ran back into the floor, revealing a thick barred cage with a very frightened Abe inside of it.

  Darrell must have cloaked micro-ships on the planet keeping an eye on our allies, which really shouldn’t be a surprise to me at all, but I hadn’t known about it.

  I didn’t even see her move, but the next second Cassie stood in front of him with red eyes.

  “Explain yourself,” she ordered, her voice angry and compelling in a way that couldn’t be denied. It also told me she was older than Abe, and more powerful.

  Abe said, “You two are a danger that needs to be removed, the council was foolish to come to an accommodation.”

  Cassie’s shoulders relaxed slightly at that news, that it wasn’t the whole council trying to kill us.

  “So, you took it upon yourself to kill three million innocents, and turn the whole world against Russia? We’re a stabilizing force, you idiot, and without us Earth would be a whole lot less protected.”

  Abe snorted, “Arrogant. He lords his technology over the world.”

  She laughed, “No, he’s the only world leader that’s successfully kept his technology from you. From the council, that’s why you don’t like him, and why you fear us. Fool. He also has no ambition to rule, which makes him the perfect steward of it.”

  Abe shook his head, “I’ve heard that argument before, still not impressed.”

  “I’m done with him. I think for attempted murder against over three million beings, there can only be one penalty.”

  Cassie looked at me, and then nodded.

  With a few quick keystrokes and an application of magic, a shield snapped up around the barred cage to contain the heat, and Abe was turned to ash with small energy beams. It was quick, and merciful, his head had gone first.

  Cassie sighed, “I’ll report this to the rest of the council, hopefully it will be an end of this foolishness, but Abe had a lot of friends. I fear his death will change some of their minds back against us, regardless of the cause. He thoroughly earned that end, however.”

  “Do I need to do a press conference, it’s doubtful anyone missed that explosion.”

  Jessica snickered at my begging off tone.

  Cassie shook her head, “I’ll have our press secretary do it.”

  “Fallout?”

  Cassie shrugged, “The Russians won’t look good, but we’ll make it clear we believe it to be a terrorist act by an individual and not the Russian government. Unfortunately, they’ll be stuck trying to explain the lapse in their security to the rest of the world. Given such a shuttle device could render the planet uninhabitable, no one’s going to be happy about it.”

  Yeah, not good.

  “Explain how that’s an exposure risk, for the supernatural. Maybe that will persuade those idiots who might turn against us for simply defending ourselves from uncompromising stupidity to take a step back, and a deep breath.”

  Cassie smiled wanly, “I’ll give it a shot.”

  “Umm, thanks, Darrell. How long have you had stealth micro-probes on the planet?”

  Darrell said, “Since the China incident. I’ve been tracking down all the members of the vampire council, and as such had no choice but to infiltrate our allies.”

  Not good, but at the same time espionage was part of the human condition, apparently. As a president of a country intelligence and counterintelligence was just a thing, even if I didn’t like or really approve of it at all.

  “Alright, I’m off to lunch.”

  “Hey, gorgeous,” I said as I gave Diana a hug and then a kiss.

  Melody said, “Eww, stop that.”

  I grinned, “Good to see you too. How was school?”

  Or you know, her morning at work doing research. She was still only working a couple of hours a day.

  Melody said shortly, “Fine.”

  I sighed, my garrulous and excitable daughter had fully turned into a sullen teen, but I knew she was still excited about knowledge and research, she just didn’t want to show it. I hoped it was a short phase as we sat around the table and started on lunch.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way to preserve a quantum pair in another universe, so it works again when it’s returned to this one?”

  Melody shook her head, “Impossible. We might be able to make a field that preserved it, but that field would prevent a jump field from forming correctly.”

  Diana asked, “Why?”

  I said, “Our emergency measures. If we’re blitz attacked from another universe, the station and perhaps even the Earth itself, would be jumped to one of our other universes as a last resort defense. That would break the quantum link on every phone and data device we ever sold. The fleets are upgraded, but not our commercial products. Assuming we survived and came back, we’d have a lot of unhappy customers. Over eight hundred million of them, really.”

  Diana frowned, “Jump us within this universe, to a dead system.”

  “That might work, unless they have a comprehensive stealth network like we do, and they see our new spot immediately. We might just have to eat it and replace them all for free. Better inconvenienced than dead.”

  Melody said, “Or find a spot a few billion light years away, or a few trillion.”

  I nodded, “We could do that, but I’m not sure risking starting a fight with an empire that far away in our quantum universe is worth avoiding an inconvenie
nce.”

  Melody sighed, “Good point. Let me think about it.”

  Diana said, “You could upgrade the phones to non-paired communicators. If you give a discrete hard locked frequency to each one, you could still have a centralized datacenter for switching.”

  I nodded, “I thought of that, but it’s not just the phones and our service center on the station. It’s the augmented reality implants and their phones.”

  Melody giggled, “You’re screwed.”

  I sighed, “Thanks. Although that reminds me of a project I trashed. I tried to create a layer of nanites around the Vax augmented reality implants, instead of a physical phone for voice and data applications, but I couldn’t figure out a safe way to power it for insertion into a body. That upgrade could solve the problem, if I went the non-paired route. But bioelectricity doesn’t work to power our nanites like the Vax implants.”

  Diana nodded, “I’ll look into it, you should’ve asked me. The small amount of the superconductive alloy required for non-paired quantum communications might be able to power a few hundred nanites, just from body heat as it’s converted to electricity. I’ll let you know.”

  Melody said, “That could work.”

  I smirked, “Now all I need to do is rework our datacenter and convince over eight hundred million people to upgrade. Assuming it works.”

  Melody said, “I want one already.”

  I grinned, and we got back to lunch.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Darrell asked, “Got a minute?”

  It was the same day, back in the command center that mid-afternoon.

  “What’ve you got?”

  I noticed Cassie and Jessica stopped working as well to listen. It wasn’t often Darrell took initiative.

  Darrell said, “For your peace of mind I’ve been avoiding speaking of the universes where Earth has been scoured of life, or just humanity was destroyed. But I believe two universes may indicate a possible threat in our own. In those two universes not just the Earth was destroyed, but every living planet with sentient life was destroyed down to the bedrock in the hundred million light year radius sphere around Sol. There is no life at all, in those two universes, at least in range.”