In Stephen Gaskell’s short story ‘Crisis Point’, the Epirian controllers of one cybel gate face a difficult choice when a refugee fleet arrives in the system...
The waiting was the hardest.
Not the vacuum-packed protein sachets that tasted like gruel from the beginning. Nor the stale smell of the uniforms from being washed in the base's recycled water. Not even the constant sight of the purple-red slash of the Edge that dominated the dark skies, a persistent reminder that this system's days were numbered.
The waiting.
That was the hardest.
His second-in-command, First Officer Kopak, had it worst.
Every day he paced in front of the command hub's viewing window, eyes scanning the glittering rings of the gas giant about which they orbited. Isco had told him to knock it off to begin with, but Kopak always ended up striding back and forth, and eventually Isco had dropped it. Let him pace. It wasn't as if the claustrophobic base with its riddle of narrow passages and low-ceiling spaces had any place where his crew could let off any steam. The place was pure cold function, no thought--or time--for the niceties of human comfort. Any way I can help him get rid of that nervous energy I should.
Eight orbits they'd been stationed on this barren rocky satellite that circled the system's biggest gas giant. They'd silently watched their colleagues in the Foundation's Engineering arm, together with their massive robots charges, finish constructing the secret cybel gate, a backdoor to the stars. The gate would allow the system's Epirian High Command and the upper echelons of the Merida government to escape, away from any potential flashpoints. The gate had been completed two orbits back and now hung dormant overhead, an oval shadow only visible by the stars it blocked.
Now they just waited for their leaders' arrival.
Until that time came they weren't going anywhere.
Isco shifted in his chair, making himself comfortable.
"Commander," Comms Officer Landra said, "I'm picking up a signal."
Silence swept over the hub.
Finally.
Isco cleared his throat, smartened his uniform. "Patch it through."
"Sir," his comms officer said, turning in his direction. "It's not coming from the direction of Merida Prime. It's coming from the rings."
*
14/10 27:35:13 [ITCP.434] packet request 10.1.2 I/O
14/10 27:35:23 [ITCP.434] request accepted 10.1.2 I/O
Connecting . . . . . . .
Grainy light spills over dozens of huddled forms, faces upturned to the camera like sunflowers tracking the noon sun. No, not dozens, hundreds, the packed masses disappearing into the darkness of the cramped space. Men, women, and children, largely human but mixed with a smattering of aliens. They look weak, bedraggled, hungry, eyes too big for their gaunt faces.
The camera pans right, sweeping out a slow arc, the image fracturing so that all Isco can discern are the contours of the rust red bulkheads. The panning ceases, and the tesselated image reconstructs itself, its focus settling on a man with piercing eyes wearing tan fatigues.
"I am László Fischer," he says, his lips partially hidden by his wiry beard. "I am the named leader of the Freighter Vessel of Our Hopes, a craft formerly known by the Epirian designation DGO1752, Callahan's Folly, but which has been commandeered by the Broken Collective to serve those who would otherwise be left to the mercy of the Edge." He smiles, shifts on what looks like a skimmer engine, a tinpot throne. "Commander Isco, I imagine a look of surprise haunts your face as you watch this transmission, but I should inform you that the Broken leadership has known about Black Rock, has known about the Foundation's secret backdoor out of the Merida system, for quite some time." Perspiration dapples the man's brow, and his whole body shakes near imperceptibly from the freighter's stellar drives.
Must be like an oven in there, Isco thinks. A freighter like Callahan's Folly normally ships industrial parts--bot chassis, cybel drives, lightning farm equipment--not people. They must be desperate.
László stands. A scrawny boy joins him. Then a woman. She's dressed in a hika, the traditional dress of the nomadic people who roam the southern wastes of Merida Prime. Soon he is surrounded by a diverse shoal of humanity interspersed with the odd alien--mainly gangly-limbed Kasmenai in rags or squat Drubaks, filtration masks hiding their scaly faces. He moves towards the camera, waves of people rising as he passes. The cameraman edges backwards in response, the view see-sawing as he or she navigates a path through the hordes.
"We come from all corners of the Merida system," he intones. "We are welders, farmers, miners and market stall holders, mechanics and couriers, all the trades that you don't see, but which keep the system spinning, keep you in a life of luxury in your gilded cages. All we want is the same freedom of movement that you, as a Foundation contractor, enjoy." He stops, an army of people at his side. "We bear no arms, we proclaim no ideology. All we want is access to the network." He gazes hard at the camera. "Spin up the gate and let us go on our way."
Disconnecting . . . . . . . .
14/10 27:42:15 [ITCP.434] packet received 10.1.2 I/O
14/10 27:42:16 [ITCP.434] transmission terminated 10.1.2 I/O
*
Commander Isco broke his gaze from the revolving Epirian Foundation logo that had replaced the grainy feed, deeply unsettled.
Black Rock Military Base, wedged into a long escarpment on the airless, otherwise uninhabited gas-giant moon, Pallisto, was a claustrophobe's worst nightmare, a narrow maze of concrete grey corridors that connected bunker-style spaces furnished with cold and spartan fittings. The command hub was by no means the worst place in the base, overlooking as it did the breathtaking cratered plains of the northern basin, and beyond, at the right time of the year (as it was now), the million glittering shards of the gas giant's ring system, but the price for these spellbinding vistas was a perpetual twilight inside the hub so as to minimize the escaping light.
Was the message for real? Or was it a recording?
One thing was for certain. Nobody was supposed to know of the base's existence. Nobody but a select few. Not the Broken Collective for sure.
Damn.
On the other side of the command grid, the large table-esque holospace where sitreps bloomed and died like firework trails, First Officer Kopak loitered in the shadows, hands gripping the rail, itching to speak.
"Hail them," Isco said, ignoring his second-in-command, and walking over to the smart glass that separated him and the rest of his men from the vacuum. "If the freighter has an up-to-date network license and all passengers have digital clearances for entry into one or more rimward systems, then they may proceed through the gate. Otherwise they turn back."
Ensign Landra gave an affirmative, began tapping out the communiqué.
Isco studied the view. The hundred thousand islands of rock and ice that composed the gas giant's rings sparkled like a choppy sea. He realized that the refugee vessel must've hidden itself among the rocks, and he made a note to send a scouting mission into the rings once this situation was over.
There'd be no more surprises.
"Ensign Adair," Isco said. "Scan the freighter for weapon-system signatures. Visual inspection, ion emissions, IR spectrum, the whole shebang. I want to know what we're dealing with if things get nasty."
Isco craned his neck, seeking the tell-tale silhouette of the cybel gate that sat in geostationary orbit high above the moon. The gate was currently dormant, fully operational but powered down while it awaited a raft of vessels tearing out of Merida Prime on clandestine trajectories. It couldn't be seen directly, only inferred from the ovoid portion of the brilliant starfield which it occluded, but this night Isco easily spied the gate.
The gates meant everything.
They were a route into the cybel tunnels, a transport network that spanned the galaxy like the silken threads of a spider's web. A web that allowed men to skip between the stars as fast as a stone skimming over water.
The gates meant escape from the Ed
ge.
Escape from certain death.
Somewhere over his shoulder, Kopak muttered to himself.
Isco sighed. "First Officer?"
"You know they won't have the clearances."
"I know."
"And when they don't turn back. What then?"
Isco turned away from the window, faced his second-in-command. Vasar Kopak carried a gaunt, weather-beaten face, a veteran of many years fighting gun runners in Merida's southern wastelands. When folks talked about brilliant Handlers, they talked about Vasar Kopak. His ability to project--inhabit the shells of his robotic forces like a ghost in a machine--was legendary. The whole experience had made him hard, inside and out. Ruthless, some said. Isco knew that his superiors had chosen Kopak for Black Rock precisely for that reason. He still remembered his surprise when he learnt that the man had a wife and son.
"They'll turn back," Isco said, hoping his words were true.
Kopak tried to hide it, but his disdain was clear. "I doubt it."
"Noted." Isco didn't want to encourage Kopak in his insubordination, so he turned to his communications officer. "Ensign Landra?"
"We've had no response from the freighter, Sir."
"Tactical?"
Second Officer Uzbek, stationed in the middle of a compound eye of screens, swivelled in his chair. "Flight characteristics are unchanged, Sir. They will reach the gate in forty-seven minutes."
Isco didn't like it.
"Ensign Adair?"
"No weapon systems detected, Sir."
That was something at least.
"Issue them a final warning, Ensign Landra," Isco ordered. "Tell them to turn back or we will fire."
Kopak spoke. "We could let them go on their way."
"Let them go?" Isco could hardly believe the words coming from his First Officer's lips. "And risk tunnel collapse because their ill-trained pilot ploughs into the tunnel walls halfway to the next star? Not to mention the danger they pose to this installation." Isco shook his head. "Just because they have no weapon systems, doesn't mean they can't harm us. The freighter itself is a weapon system." He issued a stream of commands to the grid interface, and an imposing freighter vessel blinked into holographic life. "Let them get too close and a ship like this could flatten Black Rock back into the stone age. We need to act. Now."
What had gotten into Kopak?
He knew the score.
Only those with the necessary clearances could use the gates.
The law was the law.
Especially with the Edge closing.
Anyone who disobeyed--anyone--would have to deal with the consequences.
Isco walked back to the command grid, thinking. They'd have to nuke the freighter, let nothing more harmful than a radioactive hail fall over Black Rock and the rest of the moon. A hail composed not just of the ships remnants, but of the passengers' body parts too.
The idea filled Isco with revulsion, but his hands were tied.
Those aboard were innocents, the dispossessed of Merida Prime and beyond. People who, if they hadn't fled the planet, would have been left to the mercy of the Edge. Did they deserve to die huddled together like defenseless livestock? Maybe Kopak was thinking of the bigger picture. What would happen when word got out that the mighty Epirian Foundation, a vast corporation with interests across hundreds of light years of the Arm, had slaughtered a freighter full of refugees? And word would get out. The Broken Collective would make sure of that. It might be the spark that lit the tinderbox of unrest on Merida Prime, sending the planet into outright civil war. Usually when he wore the uniform he could keep thoughts of his dead wife and daughter out of his head, but the visions of rebellion brought back the day they'd been killed in a street bomb in the capital.
Even fewer would escape if Merida went up in flames.
But what choice did he have?
He pinched the bridge of his nose, composing himself. "Third Officer Thorn, target the freighter with the Hellblazes."
Third Officer Thorne's hands hung over her keyboard for a fraction of a second, before she began typing in the instructions. "Hellblazes primed, Sir."
"Commander, please," Kopak whispered, keeping his voice low so nobody but Isco heard. "Spin up the gate."
Isco snapped back, voice low and angry. "You know I can't do that."
"Please, hear me out."
Isco studied Kopak's narrow face, met his cold fierce eyes. The man had behaved impeccably as his second-in-command, never once questioning his orders. Isco owed him the chance to explain himself.
He nodded.
"Commander," Kopak said, his gravelly voice softening a shade. "What do we gain by destroying the freighter? Nothing. All we do is kill hundreds of innocents."
"So we do what? Spin up the gate and do exactly as they ask?" Isco shook his head. "No, we follow the rules. Besides, it might be a decoy." He gripped Kopak's shoulder. "Sometimes we have to make hard choices, Vasar. This is one of those times."
After that Kopak remained silent, stood stiffly by the viewing window while Isco issued more orders.
The first Lance was a shot across the bows, exploding a few hundred klicks to the side of the freighter's path, briefly lighting up the night sky with superheated lead fragments.
A last warning was issued.
The freighter neither responded nor deviated from its trajectory.
With a heavy heart Isco issued the Vessel of Our Hope's death sentence.
*
The cluster of Hellblaze Lances accelerated hard out of the moon's weak gravity well, spread into a mass obliteration formation en-route, and slammed into the broad prow of the Vessel of Our Hopes with an energy release equivalent to a millenium's worth of meteor strikes on Merida Prime.
Kopak visibly jolted as the light flare blazed brighter than a supernova.
Gods, let nobody be aboard, Isco prayed.
The smart glass darkened in response to the photonic wash, and by the time the window lightened again, a million fragments of superheated slag lit the night sky like hot cinders off a windswept bonfire.
"We had no choice," Isco whispered in Kopak's ear.
His second-in-command didn't move.
Isco withdrew to his private quarters that adjoined the command hub. With shaking fingers he opened his desk drawer, pulled out the old box of cigarettes he kept for emergencies. Lena had made him stop smoking when Amelie was born, but he'd never kicked the habit entirely, needing the nicotine rush to calm his nerves when they were most frayed. He closed his eyes, inhaled, but drew no solace as his mind's eye filled with stills of the huddled refugees. A couple more drags had him coughing, and he stabbed out the cigarette.
He paced.
Somebody knocked on the door.
"Sir?" Ensign Landra.
"What is it?"
She came in, but her hand didn't let go of the handle. Her knuckles were white. "The message was a recording."
Isco slumped with relief. He gave an involuntary laugh. "The ship was empty." He marvelled at how sweet such innocent words could sound. "The ship was empty."
"Probably."
An ill-feeling prickled Isco. "What is it?"
"I think it's a trap."
*
Back in the command hub, several of his officers stood around the viewing window, rubbernecking at the blooming field of hot debris. Red and orange and yellow motes illuminated the darkness, and Isco was reminded of the firework displays which happened every year on Merida on Settler's Day. Beyond, the rings of the gas-giant loomed large, a curving path scything across the viewing window's entire width.
"How do we know the message was a recording?" Isco asked to no one in particular.
"Thermal analysis," Kopak answered, animatedly. Where his face had been alabaster white a few moments ago, it was now flushed with colour. "Drexler ran a thermodynamic simulation of the freighter's hull, concluded that, based on the radiation spectrum, the interior temperature must've been minus seventy tops. Every one of them refug
ees should've been frozen solid as a deep-freeze microwave dinner."
"They recorded the message days ago." Isco glanced at expanding debris field. The cooling remnants would soon rain down over the moon. "They knew we wouldn't let them through."
"Indeed." Kopak nodded at the glass. "The whole charade was a diversion."
"For what?"
"That's what we're waiting to find out."
Isco rubbed his chin. "Everyone back to their stations."
What was he missing? There'd been no sightings of military vessels, Broken or otherwise, for months. Only the usual steady stream of civilian craft, shipping transports and the rest, making runs to the system's outer colonies. A hydrogen mining facility on Galbraith. A low-gee medical complex on Janis XII. The operations bases of a hundred prospecting firms scrabbling for what they could before the arrival of the Edge. None of the type of craft that could trouble Black Rock and its defences. Could they be planning a land attack?
"Any activity on the dark side?"
"Nothing."
He wasn't cut out for this. He'd barely seen combat, a smattering of incidents at an Epirian robotics factory, certainly none as a ranking officer. Not like Kopak. The only reason he'd been given this commission was because he knew a few people in the civilian government, could be trusted.
His gaze settled back on the coloured motes. "What effect will those pieces of debris have on communications?"
"What communications?"
"Communications that we might want to relay to our auto-defense forces should they be scrambled in the eventuality we're attacked."
Kopak eye's locked on Isco.
Oh shit, they said.
A key part of the defences of Black Rock consisted of a full complement of Eradicator-class drone fighters, sleek, agile craft with no human pilots. The absence of any mortal passengers allowed them to pull off manoeuvres that would make a flesh and blood man pass out. Simple cognitive cores allowed the ships to perform basic moves autonomously, but for most combat situations instructions were relayed from the controlling cloud, an algorithmic mind, still unaware but of magnitudes greater complexity, that could synchronise the actions of dozens of fighters in a harmonious--and devastating--pattern. If more creative responses were required when fighting an especially devious enemy, handlers--skilled practitioners of neural interfacing--could project part of their consciousness into the ships, and join the battle as if they were flying one of the craft themselves.
Tales From The Edge: Emergence Page 11
