by J. N. Chaney
They looked around for keypads or other data inputs but found none.
Eventually, Dash gave a resigned shrug. “I guess this is as far down as we go”
Kai nodded. “Whatever the Unseen have placed behind this door, it obviously isn’t intended for our eyes.”
“Which, of course, just makes me just want to know what it is all the more,” Dash said, shooting the door a final glare before starting back up the stairs.
Dash took a long swig from the water bottle but let the cool liquid just linger in his parched mouth a bit before swallowing it. The climb back down—which, despite Viktor’s fussing over the comm, they’d managed to finish just as darkness fell—had seemed even more gritty and laborious than the climb up. Now, they all rested on the floating platform, bathed in illumination from banks of work lights glaring from the nearby swamp buggy, as well those mounted on the platform itself.
Harolyn knelt beside Dash, who’d sat down in one corner of the platform, giving his aching arms and legs a break. She waved a hand in front of her face. “Whew! Not that you smell great, but some of that sap you got on you really stinks!”
Dash gave a tired smile. “Believe it or not, it’s worse when it first hits the air and is still fresh. This has actually faded quite a bit.”
She chuckled. “We’ll get you a shower as soon as we get back.” Her face quickly went serious. “So I gather you found what you were looking for?”
Dash shrugged. “We found something. Some data modules that look like they’ll plug into the systems back on the Forge.”
“And now we’ve got a genuine alien outpost or library, or whatever it is, right on our doorstep, huh? And one with a closed door inside it that you couldn’t get open.” Her eyes narrowed. “Have to admit, Dash, that makes me a little nervous.”
“Just a little nervous? If I were you, I’d probably be pretty freaked out about all this right now.”
“You’re not making me feel any better.”
“I’m not trying to.” Harolyn opened her mouth, but Dash raised a hand and sat up. “I’m not just trying to be an asshole for the sake of it, either. I’ve just decided that we’ve danced around the reality of what’s going on for long enough.”
“Your war.”
“Our war. It’s our war, Harolyn. Like it or not, the Golden aren’t giving anyone a choice about it. If we can’t stop them, then their plan is to exterminate everyone, everywhere.”
She ran a hand through her brush-cut hair. “Holy crap. Not sure what else to say about that.”
“How about, we’d like to help?”
Harolyn shot Dash a surprised frown. “Us? You mean our crew here? Why? What good could we possibly do, a bunch of geologists and engineers?”
“Hey, I’m a courier, basically a freelance delivery guy—or at least I was. So was Leira, back on the Forge. Viktor and Amy are both spaceship engineers, but more from just doing the job than any formal training. Conover’s a kid.”
“You said you weren’t going to call me that anymore,” Conover cut in, glaring up from applying first aid gel to a nasty scrape on his arm from the climb.
“As in, you’re young,” Dash said, before looking back to Harolyn. “Super bright, and he’s got augmented eyes that can see tech and how it works, but he’s still a teenager. Kai’s a monk. We’ve got an ex-soldier, Ragsdale, back on the Forge, along with the only actual scientist type of the bunch of us—Freya, and she’s a botanist.” Dash shrugged again. “So we’re a pretty motley crew. If you were going to assemble a group of people to save the universe from an ancient alien threat, would we be your first picks?”
Harolyn smiled and shook her head. “No, probably not.”
“You’d be bringing us a lot of expertise, actually. Geology, geophysics, mining—”
“Sure, but do you need those sorts of skills, really?”
“Who knows? I can think of a few times it would have been handy to have had a geologist around. Like when we were trying to figure out how to get into, and then back out of, a crashed and buried Golden ship. Besides, you guys are tough and resourceful and used to living in shitty places like this one.”
“And we end up in a lot of shitty places,” Conover added.
“Well, new mineral finds don’t happen much where all the people are,” Harolyn replied. “You kind of have to focus your attention out on the fringes, where everyone isn’t.”
She rocked back on her haunches then ran a hand through her hair again. “I don’t know, Dash. I mean, I hear what you’re saying, but maybe we’d be more use just doing what we do. A war takes materials, right? And materials have to be made or found. A thorium deposit could be pretty valuable right about now.”
Dash frowned, about to hit her with the unpleasant truth, that only things like the Archetype, the tech of the Unseen, were going to be able to stand against the Golden…that another hundred thorium deposits wouldn’t be of anywhere near as much use as another few hundred kilograms of Dark Metal.
Before he could speak, though, Preston knelt beside her, a mini data-pad in his hand. “Yeah, before you get too excited about new thorium deposits, you’d better look at this.” He handed the data-pad to Harolyn, who scanned it then swept a thumb across the screen, scrolling through whatever information it held. As she did, her face creased in a deeper and deeper frown. Finally, she said, “Shit.”
“What is it?” Dash asked.
“Collated results from the latest round of drilling,” she replied, handing the data-pad back to Preston with a glum nod. “Turns out those promising thorium results we got are cut off by a fault in the rock just a hundred meters below the top of the deposit. The rest of it is gone, carried off to who-knows-where by movement along the fault over the past billion years or so.”
“So that’s a problem, I guess.”
“A fatal one for this project, yeah. The value of the thorium that’s left, and that we can still get at, won’t even come close to covering the cost of mining it.” She gave Dash a narrow-eyed look. “Timing’s pretty convenient. You ask us to join your cause right before our project completely tanks. If it wouldn’t have been accompanied by a massive earthquake, part of me would wonder if your alien friends had anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, no, the Unseen are pretty powerful, but—”
But they could harness the power of black holes and blow up stars with a device you could stick in your pocket. Now it was Dash’s eyes that narrowed. “Sentinel, you didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
“Are you asking if I was somehow able to alter the geology of this planet to suit your agenda of recruiting others to assist in the war against the Golden?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“I am flattered that you would assign such capabilities to me. As Harolyn observed, moving such a volume of rock even a short distance would have resulted in a catastrophic earthquake. You presumably would have felt that.”
“That wasn’t exactly a no.”
“No, I did no such thing,” Sentinel said with finality.
Yeah, sure, Dash thought, but again, your “Creators” could blow up stars. But he just let it go. He doubted that Sentinel really cared much whether Harolyn and her people joined the cause or not, as long as they retrieved the Unseen data from the archive here.
Dash, though, did care. The more smart people he could get helping him, the better. He looked back at Harolyn and said, “Well, then? Sounds like you’re done here, right?”
“But fight a war against aliens, Dash?”
“You’d be asking our people to basically just give up their livelihoods,” Preston said. “Some of them have families who count on them earning a living.”
Kai, who’d been sitting nearby and tending to a deep scratch on his neck, bristled. “If the Enemy of All Life prevails, then livelihoods will mean nothing,” he said, an indignant edge in his voice.
Dash raised his hand again. “Kai, you’re right. But Preston is, too. We can’t expect them
to drop every obligation and help us.” He gave Harolyn and Preston an earnest look. “We can ensure your people are taken care of.”
A bit of Harolyn’s discouraged air faded. “How?”
“Well, most of this alien tech we’ve had revealed to us should probably never get into the hands of anyone, ever. But there are a few things we could get into—let’s say enterprising hands.”
“Dash, are you sure you want to do that?” Viktor asked, his tone one of wary concern.
Dash nodded. “I am. Ideally, we’ll fight and win this war, and the vast majority of the galactic arm will never even know it happened. If that happens, everyone on our side—me and you included—will still have lives to live, families to raise and bills to pay. If that means selling off a bit of Unseen tech to raise some credits, then yeah, I’m okay with that.”
Harolyn nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll call a team meeting tomorrow morning and we’ll work this out.” She glanced at Preston. “No reason to hang around this miserable swamp if it’s not going to pay off, right?”
Preston glanced back at the looming shape of the Pillar, now just a sprawling pile of deeper shadow beyond the glare of the work lights. “Agreed. Especially with that thing sitting there. When I thought it was just a column of strange rock, that was one thing. But an alien library?” He gave a thin smile. “Not sure I’d be able to sleep with both eyes closed after this, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I do indeed,” Dash said, leaning his head back against the railing around the platform. “I haven’t done that in a long time.”
6
“This is quite the little armada we’ve got coming together, here,” Dash said, scanning the Archetype’s heads-up.
Now, besides the mech and the Slipwing, they also had the Rockhound, a light but sturdy freighter owned by Harolyn. Having the Rockhound available would be good; the fact that Harolyn’s entire crew had decided to throw their lot in with Dash in the struggle against the Golden, was better. It had only taken them a day to strip down their operation on Orsino, load all of their equipment into the Rockhound—with room to spare—and lift into orbit, where they prepared to depart for the Forge in company of the Archetype and the Slipwing.
“Okay, is everybody ready to break orbit?” Dash said.
“Ready here,” Amy answered.
“You know, I still have trouble believing everything you’ve told us about the Unseen and these Golden.” Harolyn paused then gave a huh sound of amazement. “Anyway, seeing that Archetype up here in space, I guess it’s really all true, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, it’s all very true,” Dash replied.
“Okay, then. We’re ready to depart, Dash. Just give the word.”
“Okay, let’s get this party started.”
“Messenger,” Sentinel said. “Before you begin your return to the Forge, I would alert you to new readings regarding the second, indeterminate Dark Metal signature we detected upon arriving in this system.”
Dash frowned at the heads-up. He’d almost forgotten about that. Sure enough, the second signal glowed on the display. It had shrunk, though, to a more constrained and distinct return from—
“From Brahe?” Dash said. “The big planet Orsino orbits? It’s that close?”
“It is not coming from Brahe itself,” Sentinel said. “Rather, it is coming from something apparently orbiting on the far side of it, relative to Orsino. Brahe is an ice giant, a large planet with substantial gravitation. It would appear that the Dark Metal signature is being refracted around it by some form of gravitational lensing.”
“So there’s something containing Dark Metal on the far side of it, and we’re seeing”—Dash hunted for a word— “Echoes. We’re seeing echoes of it on this side of the planet, because they’re being bent around it.”
“Surprisingly, that’s essentially correct.”
“What do you mean, surprisingly?”
“You have not previously demonstrated a particularly keen grasp of astrophysical phenomena.”
“I am a spaceship pilot, you know. And a pretty damned good one, if I do say so myself.”
“Now that is more typical of your character,” Sentinel said.
“What is?”
“Boundless self-confidence. You are actually quite accomplished at it.”
“Sentinel, dear. Before you really hurt my feelings, how about we figure out what’s causing this gravity lens-Dark Metal thing?”
“Dash,” Conover said over the comm. “I’ve cranked up the gain and narrowed the focus on our new detector as much as I can. Whatever is on the other side of Brahe contains a lot of Dark Metal. Like, thousands of kilograms of it. Maybe tens of thousands, or even more.”
“Crap.”
“What? With that much Dark Metal, we could restock the Forge.”
“And end up facing something terrifying,” Dash retorted. “That crashed Golden ship on Gulch had at least that much Dark Metal built into it. Imagine running into that thing intact and fully operational in space.”
After a moment of silence, Conover said, “Crap.”
“Okay, new plan,” Dash said. “Harolyn, you’ve got the data for a course back to the Forge loaded into your nav, right?”
“We do.”
“Okay, you break orbit and head there now. Translate into unSpace as soon as you can. The sooner you’re out of this system, the better.”
“This sounds serious. And bad.”
“It might be. But that’s the problem. We don’t know. I’m going to find out. Amy, you bring the Slipwing up behind me, but at my word, or even just the first sign of trouble, you rocket yourself out of here and get back to the Forge, too. I’ll cover your retreat, if it comes to that.”
“Dash,” Harolyn said. “Are you saying there might be something lethal in this system, where we’ve been working away in blissful ignorance for weeks now?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. That Unseen archive in the Pillar, that was threatening to cost Preston some sleepless nights? Well, it might barely rate being called an interesting tidbit, compared to what might be lurking on the other side of that planet.”
The Rockhound’s fusion drive immediately lit, and she lifted out of orbit. “Don’t need to tell us twice,” Harolyn said. “You take care of yourself, Dash. I’m expecting you to give me a personal tour of this Forge thing.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dash replied, launching the Archetype toward Brahe, the Slipwing falling in behind.
“So just what the hell is that thing?” Viktor asked.
The only answer was the faint carrier hiss of the tight-beam comm laser connecting the Slipwing and the Archetype as they settled into a synchronous orbit over Brahe. Sentinel had designed the orbit to allow them to just see over the limb of the big, bluish planet, at whatever lurked on its far side.
Whatever turned out to be something cylindrical and ominously dark, at least a kilometer long, with a massive umbrella-like structure protruding from one end. A number of much smaller objects clustered around the other end. Whatever it was, it wasn’t of conventional manufacture, which meant it had to be alien.
“Don’t suppose it’s some sort of Unseen tech, is it?” Dash asked Sentinel.
“There is nothing matching this in the archives. At least nothing in the archives to which I currently have access.”
“Dash, we’re using the Slipwing’s telescope to take a closer look at this thing,” Conover said. “Since we don’t want to use any active scans. Those objects clustered around the end of that big cylinder look like much bigger versions of the Golden drones that attacked the Forge.”
“You sure?”
“Oh, yes. Believe me, Amy and I spent enough time up close and personal to one of them that I’ll never forget what they look like.”
“Have to agree, Dash,” Amy said. “That’s exactly what they look like. Which kind of takes away any doubts.”
“Hold on,” Viktor said. “Something’s happening. Take a look
.”
Dash zoomed in on the Archetype’s visual imagery. Sure enough, one of the objects—which, now that Dash gave them a close look, did resemble the Golden drones that had assaulted the Forge ahead of the attack by the Harbinger—had detached from the cylindrical station. At least, Dash had come to think of it as a station, although he really had no idea what its purpose might be. Likewise, he’d named the smaller objects mega-drones, but they might actually be full-fledged ships in their own right, perhaps even with crews.
Dash inhaled sharply. These might be actual Golden.
The mega-drone that had detached abruptly accelerated away. Dash braced himself, ready to react if it came after them, but it sailed off in a completely different direction, obviously on some inscrutable mission of its own.
“I wonder where it’s going,” he said. He was just musing out loud, but Sentinel answered.
“There is a strong signal being generated by the large antenna. It’s directional.” Through the Meld, Dash knew she meant the big, umbrella-shaped construct on the end of the cylinder. “It is a conventional radio transmission, but it is being injected into an unSpace portal being generated several kilometers ahead of the antenna.”
Dash studied the heads-up. Sure enough, a gravitational distortion registered where Sentinel described it. “So they’re producing a signal and transmitting it through unSpace to somewhere. Can you tell where?”
“Other than a very general direction for the transmission, no. Neither can I decipher it, as it is encrypted.”
“That smaller ship it just launched seems to be heading in that direction, too,” Conover said.
“Yeah, I see that,” Dash replied. “So this is all very interesting, but what’s the point of it? What is this facility for?”
“And why are they using relatively primitive radio transmissions and injecting them into unSpace?” Viktor added. “All Golden comms we’ve seen so far have used some sort of unSpace carrier directly, at least as far as I can remember.”
