by Mark Wandrey
Rick lifted it closer to his suit’s main sensors, where his eyes would be if the helmet was open. The tank had a miniature regulator, probably to keep the user from inadvertently doing exactly what he was trying to do. “Dammit!” He tried to figure out how to remove the regulator, but quickly gave up. The longer he delayed, the more the range and speed became a problem.
“Always playing it by ear.” He grabbed the regulator, and, using his considerable strength, snapped it off. The pressure surprised him. He should have realized, since it was rated to 500 bar. That was a fuckton of pressure in a little cylinder, and a good amount of compressed air. His trajectory changed, fast.
Rick did the best he could, more of a wild-assed guess than an estimate. Since he no longer had a way of precisely estimating the time needed, he shoved the bottle away when his guess was close enough. It spun away wildly, almost hitting him as it effected a crazy flightpath before flying off into the black.
He stabilized his flight (more oxygen) and then instantly regretted getting rid of the oxygen cylinder. Rick doubted he’d used half its capacity, and would have been nice to put the rest into his armor. Too late to worry about that. He spent another minute of air waiting for the navigational data to update to the best of its ability. He was pleasantly surprised by the results, mostly.
He was on course, plus-minus point-one degree. With 31 kilometers to go it meant a deviation of up a kilometer. A pretty big range. It was all he had to work with. The other datum was his speed was increased to 122 meters per second from the maneuver. We would arrive in a little over four minutes. We was coming in at just under 440 kph. Wheeee!
Rick would have taken a deep breath and tried to enjoy the view, except he wasn’t breathing with his lungs. The view, however, was beautiful. He was directly over the green equatorial band. He could see now that it was composed of every conceivable variation of green, with tiny golden strips mixed in. Then as his time was running low, he noticed a perfectly shaped black spot far below, roughly in the center of the green band. The little golden strips seemed to be coming from it, or formed by passing it.
Then he was down to a minute and should be within the suit’s minimal radar range of seven kilometers. It wasn’t there. He fought down a jolt of panic. He wouldn’t burn up in the gas giant’s deep, dense atmosphere if he missed. The truth was, he would asphyxiate long before he burned up. He considered simply opening his helmet.
The radar pinged a large target at 7 kilometers, but it was also two kilometers to one side. He instantly rotated and brought the other tank into position. This time he left the regulator alone and just let it exhaust as fast as it could. With a radar fix, he couldn’t monitor both velocity and course much more precisely. The course slowly changed, and velocity slowly fell.
After 30 seconds, he was almost dead center on the supposed battleship, but still going 108 meters per second, and only 2,800 meters from touchdown. He ran the numbers. The bottle was scrubbing, and he reached for the regulator. Now 2,700; 2,600; 2,500; his destination was coming at him pretty damned fast. The bottle was only giving him a 1-2 meter per second decrease in velocity.
Down to 20 seconds, 15 seconds, 10 seconds! Velocity 63 meters per second. Rip the regulator off and eat the coming ship’s wall face on at whatever the tank could do, or take the hit backward. He snarled as he spun around and curled into a ball.
“This is going to fucking suck,” he said and hit the battleship hulk at 225 kilometers per hour.
* * *
Sato gasped and opened his eyes, breathing hard and reeling from the recall. How long had he been floating in this room? Had it been 10 years, or 100? How long to remember a lifetime? His logical mind told him it could only have been hours at most, or he would have at least soiled himself.
“How long?” he said through dry lips.
“An hour,” Dakkar responded, still in direct contact with his brain.
Sato sobbed quietly. “I killed, I murdered, I destroyed. My God, what had I become?”
“A tool,” Dakkar said. “A weapon.”
“End it,” Sato said. “Like Nemo should have back on Azure.”
“He didn’t then, and I won’t now.”
“Why not?”
“Because what you were is not what you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When Nemo caught you trying to escape after stealing the genetic information on Azure, he examined your mind and saw the proctor, a weapon of the Science Guild.”
“Exactly,” Sato said.
“He also saw Taiki Sato, a man who’d been damaged beyond repair.”
“Stop,” Sato said.
“In your depths of despair, you were vulnerable to the desire for revenge. The Science Guild recruiters used that as a tool to first recruit, then shape you. The Mesh they used was far more than just pinplants; you may not have ever realized.”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters immensely.” Dakkar forced images into his mind, details of the pinplants. It was what Sato thought he’d invented. “This is the Mesh that was installed in your brain. Unlike pinplants, it uses nano-connections to every part of your brain, including your medulla oblongata. Using this level of integration requires an AI to install, monitor, and ultimately control you.”
“Are you saying there was an AI in those implants?”
“I am saying that at one point, there had to be. Possibly it was installed and removed at different times; it is impossible to say. Nemo was certain some degree of AI was controlling your actions on Azure, and that is why he disabled you in that way, and why he lied to the Humans there and said he’d found you drowned.”
“But Nemo allowed me to have him reinstall the Mesh?”
“It was never gone,” Dakkar said. “Due to the nature of the nano-connections, Dr. Ramirez was unable to detect them with the medical technology at his disposal. What Nemo did was reconnect the Mesh’s power supply. He had made sure the Mesh was wiped of all artificial control. He integrated with it, read all the data in your mind, and then stored the essence and memories of you before wiping it clean. The implants remained; the monster was gone.
“Are you not now different? Do you wish to run back to the Science Guild and report? This is a guild facility, after all. The bits and pieces Nemo put back in would lead you here. All you have to do is yell to the Peacekeeper.”
Sato thought. Yes, it was all there. His mind had all manner of command codes and details of the guild’s operations. He could activate the Peacekeeper with a word, free himself from the paralysis, and kill Dakkar. Report on his long-abandoned mission.
No. Why would he do that? The Wrogul had offered him nothing but compassion, all the way back to Nemo sparing a spy who had unknown, though obviously nefarious, intentions. He would never do that. Not now, anyway.
“I see what you mean,” Sato said. He felt the disturbing sensation of Dakkar’s tentacles withdrawing from his brain. He had complete control of his body back. He turned his head to look at the Wrogul floating just behind his head. “You maintained the connection while I worked through it all, at the end.”
“Yes, I did. We trust you, but we’re not fools. Nemo could have been wrong; we wouldn’t know until now.”
Sato smiled. “You Wrogul are amazingly Japanese in your manners.” Dakkar pulsed dispassionately, the equivalent of a Human shrug. He felt his memories roaming back over his father and how the man would listen to his son talk about some newly discovered alien technology while quietly smoking a pipe and nodding. My father smoked, he thought. He hadn’t seen anyone smoking in a very long time.
“What now?”
“That is up to you,” Dakkar said. “My mission is done.”
“Mission?” Sato asked.
“Following you here, letting you run down the mystery.”
“Wait, you said all my memories were stored by Nemo, and now you.”
“They were,” Dakkar said. “But I can’t read them. They are not my memor
ies. Can you watch a story stored on a datachip?”
“By putting it in a reader, yes.”
“You are the reader. Your memories are yours, and only you can decode them. Brains are unique in every species, which is why pinplants are complex. I can see your memories as you remember them, but not without your brain to interpret. The Mesh in your brain is even more complex. You cannot possibly use a tenth of its capacity.”
“Without an AI,” Sato said. Dakkar flashed a Wrogul nod. “What are you doing next?”
“I need to return to Azure and tell them about the Science Guild’s interest. Something disturbing is going on. Perhaps Todd or Dr. Wells can make sense out of this. I/We have been gone too long to know. And you? Have you decided?”
“Yes,” Sato said. He looked at quiet robot. “Peacekeeper, accept command!”
“Authorization?”
“Proctor—Alpha, Omicron, Zeta, two, two, four.”
“Basic Command Functions Only.”
“I can’t make it go away,” he said. “I know my personal code won’t work anymore, but I can do this. Peacekeeper, enter standby.”
“Standing By.”
“It won’t let me leave, but I can do whatever I want until I violate containment. You can go, Dakkar. If you got in here, you’ll be able to leave.” He pointed at the chamber door. “Take Vestoon and go. Maybe Rick survived; take him with you. Tell him thank you.”
“As you wish. Good luck, friend.”
Sato looked at him. “You definitely aren’t Nemo.”
“I have…learned more. Watching you relive your life has made me realize there is much to understand about Humans. I look forward to returning to Azure.”
“Safe journey,” Sato said.
“And you.” With a Phffft! of expelled air, Dakkar flew out the door. He was still a Wrogul. He had no thought or concern for Sato, likely realizing his friend had no intention of leaving. Which he didn’t. This was where it all ended. He floated off the table to his confiscated gear. Time to get to work.
* * * * *
Chapter Eleven
Terminal velocity of a Human falling through Earth’s lower atmosphere is around 90 meters per second, or 320 kph. A skydiver in a controlled fall maintained a velocity of around 54 meters per second, or 195 kph, by assuming a position with the most drag possible. Either speed was largely considered fatal on impact, hence the ‘terminal’ part.
The Æsir armor, for lack of a better term, was a beast. With a good deal of the Human component’s organs removed or modified, the true weak link was the brain. Rick didn’t know it, but that, too, had been modified. The brain could take impressive G forces without permanent damage. Injury most often resulted from sudden jolts causing the brain to smash against the side of the skull. In extreme cases, even when the skull wasn’t broken, these impacts could tear the brain tissue, which was never a good thing.
In order to further improve the Æsir’s survival, the cerebrospinal fluid had been modified. Both the ependymal cells and the arachnoid granulations were altered to facilitate this change. The result was cerebrospinal fluid with vastly improved shock absorbing capabilities, while only sacrificing some disease resistance, which was supplemented with onboard nanites.
Rick crashed into an old section of hull plating, partly deformed by micrometeor impacts and ancient weapons fire. It gave with the impact, yielding exactly 12 centimeters, and the armor automatically arced with the impact, giving some help. The result was 1,650 Gs of deceleration.
He blacked out from the impact. His brain was damaged; a massive bruise began to form. The Æsir damage nanites responded immediately. Within seconds, the hemorrhage causing the bruising was closed, blood vessels were repaired, and the swelling stopped. The nanites completed their job by breaking down the hemorrhagic blood and using it for fuel. The pain, however, would persist.
“Ouch,” Rick said as he came around. He examined the sizeable dent he’d made in the deck armor and assessed his armor’s condition. Some trimming of joint adjustments and repairs would be necessary. However, once all was said and done, he was in surprisingly good shape, although the headache was of supernova proportions.
He knew he wasn’t dying. His brain was hurt, and the damage had been mitigated. He really missed the pinplant control of such autonomic processes, mostly because he couldn’t figure out how to give himself some drugs. In the end, he popped open a diagnostic cover on his left forearm and did it manually. As the drug entered his bloodstream, he felt the function of it. Nodding, he knew he could do it without the switch next time.
He suddenly felt like he was drowning. His air reserve was gone. He’d been blacked out for almost a minute; time was up. Rick grabbed the air tank, which he’d spared, hooked it to an auxiliary line in his thigh, and cracked open the feed. Luscious oxygen flowed in, and he sighed, ‘breathing’ in the air while realizing his lungs weren’t doing anything—the oxygen was entering his system through the nano-filters installed in the same arteries that served his lungs.
Magnetizing his feet, he ‘stood’ on the wrecked battleship surface. “Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.” He looked at the tiny gauge on the air tank. It was two thirds empty. “Thanks, little buddy,” he said. “But now I need to find out if I wasted my time.”
He rerouted a precious amount of the air tank to his nearly depleted cold gas thrusters, which would allow him some maneuvering. He detached from the deck and floated up, using tiny, precise bursts of gas to control his flight. When he was 500 meters from the hull, he had a much better view. In the medium distance he spotted the rear section of their ship.
“Yes!” he cheered. A notice told him the oxygen bottle was depleted. He detached it and tossed the empty cylinder away. The battery he’d liberated from the opSha laser was depleted as well. It joined the cylinder. Finally, one of the two laser rifles had been crushed in the impact. It too joined the small constellation of flotsam he’d added to the battleship’s hulk.
Now he had a choice. Go to their ship, where he knew he could get aboard, though it was the one place he knew Sato wouldn’t be, or find another entry point and search from there. If he could find a dataport inside, he could use his hacking ability to break into whatever computers this base might have. He had about 10 minutes of oxygen remaining. He went for a compromise; look for another way in until his oxygen got low, then head for Vestoon.
He spent a second with his pinplants trying to identify the battleship remnant. It appeared to be a good portion of a ship’s superstructure. He had extensive files from the Winged Hussars, thanks to Sato. However, it had either been so severely damaged or was actually an amalgam of several ships. Whatever the reason, his records weren’t any help.
He used a combination of his cold gas thrusters and magnetic grapples to scoot along the length of the hull, searching. He never moved far enough from their ship to lose sight of it. After only a minute, he spotted the first of what they’d thought were people salvaging. They turned out to be nothing more than extremely simple bots that flew around, occasionally sending flashes of actinic light to simulate cutting or welding.
Who are these people? Who would waste the effort of continuing the masquerade even after the dance was done? Sato always seemed to have answers. He wished the man was there to help. He made a promise to himself. I’ll find you, Sato. I owe you that much.
He was approaching the five-minute mark, and he glanced at their ship. Rick decided to give it one more minute. Seconds later, he found a hatch. Burning more oxygen than was safe, he flew to it quickly and clunked into the scarred metal just to the side.
There was no power to the lock, and that gave him pause. He was down to three minutes of oxygen. If this was just an airlock on a piece of junk with no interior atmosphere… He examined the mechanism and found the manual hatch. As he’d learned as a new marine, all airlocks had manual mechanisms. They were a weakness on a starship, but a necessary one. It could be your crew stuck outside in a power failure, after a
ll.
He opened the hatch, grabbed the handle, and yanked. The airlock door retracted on springs. He moved inside and found an interior door, though there was no power on that panel, either. That forced him to turn back to the inside panel of the exterior door. The manual panel there had a pump handle. Spring assists were only for opening to aid entry. You were seldom in a desperate hurry to exit an airlock.
He pumped the door closed and felt it lock through the metal wall, then turned back to the interior door. This was the acid test. Opening the manual panel revealed a low-tech simple glass tube. It was filled with liquid and connected to the wall on the other side of the interior lock door. The use was simple. If you could see liquid, there was pressure. If it was clear, there was vacuum. He saw liquid.
Once again, he had under a minute as he turned the spill valve, dumping atmosphere into the closed lock. It only took five seconds to reach full pressure. The air tasted fine, and he instantly spun up his tiny turbine, beginning to repressurize his air storage. He wasn’t getting caught short of air again if he could help it. He also took his first breath with physical lungs in many minutes. It felt no different to him than ‘breathing’ stored air.
With the pressures equalized, he could pull the same release as the exterior one had. The door slid open on the same spring mechanism to reveal an unlit corridor. His multispectral vision made it as clear as a sunny day on a planet. Tiny bits of dust and other detritus slowly drifted around, likely disturbed by his working the lock mechanism.
Naturally, since it was in zero G, there were no handy footprints in the dust. He looked both ways and got some help. To the left, the corridor was crushed like a tin can. Rick was a little surprised the corridor had maintained atmospheric integrity. It must have taken a massive impact to do this to the armor and alloy structures. Either way, his choice was made for him. He headed to the right.
As he floated down the dark corridor, Rick pondered the process he’d discovered to administer drugs. It was like thinking about peeing, lifting a single eyebrow, or maybe flexing your little toe (which he didn’t have anymore). Only the medication system was a new muscle. Imagine waking up with an extra appendage. He let his mind wander, looking for more such phantom limbs. He found dozens.
