by J. N. Chaney
“Shit!” Dash snapped. Then he dove into the swirling cloud of sediment. It was all instinct; there really was little danger to the Swift, but his brain registered Leira in danger and he reacted.
“I’m fine!” Leira called. “But I lost my grip on the damned probe.”
“I’ve got you on scan—clear left, coming through!” Dash shouted back and kept the Archetype plunging straight down, headfirst. He swept past the Swift, missing it by maybe three or four meters, and continued dropping, hands reaching, desperately clutching for the falling probe.
It flared into view, lit brightly by the mech’s lights amid the clouds of billowing mud. It fell a little more slowly than the sudden landslide itself, so it trailed the plunging rock; Dash lunged and managed to grab it maybe twenty meters short of where the crevasse simply became too narrow for the Archetype to have gone any further. The graviters whined as the Archetype stopped, holding the probe. Ahead of him, the last rocks plunged from view, vanishing into utter darkness—
No. Not quite utter darkness. The Archetype’s lights brushed over something resting on a ledge sticking out precariously from the wall of the canyon. With a curious grunt, Dash back off the graviters a little, letting the Archetype slowly fall a few meters, until his light resolved the ledge and what was upon it.
“Leira, Sentinel’s going to share some imagery with you that you really need to see.”
The wreckage sprawled across the ledge, clearly the remains of a ship resting on its side. The design, though, was old; the best match Sentinel could find was an entry in the data copied from the Slipwing of a Hercules-class shuttle—a type that hadn’t been used in over two hundred years. The accumulated muck suggested it had been resting here at least that long—probably longer, by about a century, according to Tybalt and based on the rate of sediment build-up in the lake. The exposed portions of the ship were badly damaged, the hull plating buckled to expose twisted structural members in a chaotic tangle.
“This lake is very cold, with an extremely low oxygen content, so there has been negligible corrosion. This also explains why there are still biological remains.”
Dash’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
The heads-up zoomed in on a patch of sediment visible among some torn hull plates. A skull leered back, its eye sockets black holes. The sudden appearance of a pale, eel-like creature slithering among the wreckage only enhanced the creepiness.
“Human,” Leira said. “Tybalt’s found a few other bones scattered around, too.”
“Is there any record of an expedition here, say, about three hundred years ago?” Dash asked.
“Not in the available stores of data,” Sentinel replied. “However, there is an insignia that may prove useful.”
The image switched to show a torso protruding from the mud, partly concealed beneath a loose hull plate. A grey uniform that included a mission patch of some sort hung across skeletal remains, which included a gleaming white stack of vertebrae; there was no skull. Moving the Golden probe so it was cradled in one arm, Dash reached down with the other, gently slid the hull plate aside, then used the fine manipulators on one of the mech’s fingertips to tug the remains free. Most of the bones simply spilled out of the uniform, which mostly disintegrated, but he was able to retrieve the mission patch. Spooling up the graviters, he reversed the Archetype and backed straight up and out of the crevasse.
“So who do you think they were?” Leira asked.
“Well, that patch seemed to be a corporate logo,” Dash replied. “I’m thinking this was some corporate-sponsored expedition, intended to look for—oh, I don’t know, resources, valuable minerals, maybe even just habitable land. In any case, whoever they were, they long predate our supposed water haulers, the ones who apparently named this planet Burrow.”
“Well, whatever it was they were looking for, they apparently never found it,” Leira said.
“Or they did but never got to do anything about it.”
“I wonder why they crashed,” Leira mused. “Tybalt didn’t see any sign of battle damage.”
“We may never know. I don’t really feel like taking the time and effort to go back down there and dig them out.”
“In any case, that would be counterproductive,” Tybalt put in. “Neither you nor Leira have any background in archeology, and the Archetype and Swift aren’t optimal platforms for such work, anyway.”
Dash wondered if Tybalt ever could say anything without coming across as somewhat condescending, even vaguely insulting. Not for the first time, he wondered just what it was in Leira’s personality that had prompted these AIs to decide that the snooty Tybalt was the best possible match for her.
Even so, Tybalt was right. They didn’t have the expertise, and Dash didn’t want to spend the time. “We’ll record this and, who knows, maybe someday we can send someone back here to study this.”
“When we’re not fighting a war,” Leira said.
Dash nodded. “Yeah. When we’re not fighting a war.”
As they headed back for the surface, it struck Dash that he could say it—when we’re not fighting a war—but really it just sounded like wishful thinking.
A near blizzard raged when they surfaced, cracking through new ice that had formed across the hole Dash had cut, already several centimeters thick. They took the two mechs up into clear air, an empty space among towering stacks of storm clouds. Dash took the opportunity to more closely examine the Golden probe.
“Is our substitute for the probe transmitting?” Dash asked.
“It is. I suppressed the genuine signal in an erratic manner, as though it resulted from interference. Then, I configured the missile to begin generating a spotty false signal, as though the issue had abated.”
“Clever.”
“The probe is continuing to transmit, but I am continuing to fully jam it.”
“So it seems to be a one-shot missile launcher,” Dash said.
“It does. Nearly half of its internal volume is the launch tube. It incorporates a small amount of Dark Metal in its construction—less than a kilogram in total.
Dash narrowed his eyes at it. Something about it being designed to launch a single missile plucked at him. It seemed like a very specific purpose for the probe, and it made him wonder exactly what sort of missile it had carried.
“I don’t think we’ll be harvesting the Dark Metal out of this,” he finally said. “At least, not right away. I’d really like to know what this thing was for—especially since we might end up running into versions of it that are loaded with whatever type of missile that was.” He scowled at it. “It’s a mystery, and mysteries make me nervous, especially when they’re mysteries about the Golden. Anyway, we did what we came here to do, plus some, so let’s head back to the Forge—”
“Dash,” Leira cut in. “We’re detecting another signal. This one’s from a conventional radio, a high frequency band.”
Dash looked at the heads-up, which was now portraying the incoming signal, and sighed. He really wanted to leave this planet and head back to the Forge, but it kept serving up new and intriguing things. “Do we know where it’s coming from?”
“No, we don’t know the radio signal’s precise origin. It’s bouncing off the planet’s ionosphere, which means it could originate anywhere on the surface.”
Dash powered up the Archetype’s drive and lifted it back toward orbit. “Okay, let’s gain some altitude, see if we can pin this down.”
The mechs shuddered and bucked as they passed through varying layers of wind, which occasionally howled at hurricane strength. Some of the resulting wind shear was strong enough it might have made him worry if he was piloting the Slipwing. For the Archetype and Swift, though, it was only just noticeable. They punched through one final layer of thick cloud, ice pellets rattling against the mech’s hull like machine gun fire, then burst into clear air.
“The source of the HF radio signal has now risen over the horizon,” Sentinel reported. “It originates on a large island
, part of an archipelago in the southern hemisphere. It is being modulated and is carrying information—what appears to be data about atmospheric conditions.”
“In other words, weather reports,” Dash said.
“Yes. There are other emissions from that island as well—weak radio broadcasts, thermal emissions, and radiation suggestive of an operating fission reactor.”
“There are also traces of industrial pollutants in the volume of atmosphere surrounding the island,” Tybalt put in.
“Huh. People down there,” Leira said.
“So it would seem,” Dash replied. “The question is, are they related to our old, crashed corporate spaceship in the lake, or to the water haulers, or are they something else entirely?”
“Only one way to find out,” Leira said. “Shall we go pay them a visit?”
Dash pondered that as the two mechs made stable orbit. “I don’t think so,” he finally said. “They’ve got advanced enough tech for nuclear power, so we want to talk to them, but I don’t think the Archetype and the Swift are the best ambassadors. Besides, I really want to get this missile probe, or whatever it is, back to the Forge.”
“We could send Harolyn back to meet with them,” Leira suggested. “She’s a miner, and if they are water haulers they might see her as a sort of kindred spirit.”
“I would suggest, Dash, that there is another compelling reason to meet with these people,” Sentinel said. “The winter this planet is experiencing is only partly the result of its orbital period around its star. The system is also passing through a region of dust and gas that has significantly diminished the amount of the star’s infrared emissions impinging on the planet. The effect will peak in approximately twelve years; the winter at that time will be so severe as to make the planet essentially uninhabitable.”
“Indeed,” Tybalt added. “Much of its atmosphere will freeze. What remains will be insufficient to support human life.”
“So, whoever they are, they’ve got about ten years left—and then, what, they all die?” Dash asked.
“Essentially correct,” Sentinel replied. “Unless they take extraordinary measures to prevent it.”
“Okay, then. Let’s head back and send Harolyn back here. Maybe she can convince these people to come to the Forge.”
“More allies?” Leira asked.
“Maybe. More to point, though, some people who won’t face either asphyxiating or freezing to death—whichever might come first.”
5
Dash watched, bemused, as Viktor, Conover, and Amy pored over the Golden probe they’d retrieved from Burrow. It squatted on a grav palette on the fabrication level, ready for detailed study by Custodian, but Viktor and the others had insisted on examining it first.
“They’re like kids with a new toy,” Dash said sidelong to Leira, and she nodded, smiling.
“A new toy that fires some mysterious sort of missile,” Leira replied. “I’d be thrilled if they can figure out what it does, so more power to them.”
“Whatever the missile did, we can’t tell,” Viktor said, apparently able to overhear them. “What we do know is that the targeting system for it”—he pointed at a bulge in the probe’s hull—“isn’t like any that we’ve seen before.”
“It goes way beyond simple spatial targeting,” Conover said. “It seems to have something to do with unSpace—all the Dark Metal present in this thing is right here, tied into the targeting system.”
“So it was meant to shoot things into unSpace?” Dash asked.
Conover gave an I don’t know shrug. “Possibly?”
“More to the point, it doesn’t have a translation drive of its own,” Amy said. “So it was apparently meant to be carried by another ship, launched, and then fire whatever came out of there.” She pointed at the gaping muzzle of the launch tube.
“So the bottom line is that we don’t know what, exactly, it launched,” Dash said.
Viktor put his hands on his hips. “Just based on this drone?” He shook his head. “No. But once Custodian has a chance to go over it in detail, we may be able to figure out more about it.”
“Well then let him get to it,” Dash said, a gently chiding tone to his voice. “I know you guys love your new and wonderful tech, but let the artificial man do his job.”
“Yes, dad,” Amy said, giving Dash a hurt look.
“Chin up, kid. We have giant death robots, after all,” Dash said.
Amy brightened. “Okay. I’ll take two. With extra lasers, please.”
Once the laughter subsided, Conover spoke up. “I do have good news. Turns out it wasn’t all that difficult to combine the scrambler mines with an EM pulse generator, like you asked. We call them surge mines, and we have—uh—Custodian, how many do we have now?”
“We have ten surge mines completed and loaded aboard the Horse Nebula.”
Dash stared. “The Horse Nebula?”
“It’s our new minelayer,” Conover said. “Benzel wanted to free up the Snow Leopard from minelaying tasks, so he asked Custodian to take one of our drone minelayers and scale it up, give it a basic crew hab, cockpit, that sort of thing. He’s picked the crew for it.”
“Apparently, the Gentle Friends did some minelaying of their own, back in their, uh, privateering days,” Viktor said. “He’s got some people experienced in doing it, so they’re the crew.”
Dash gave an impressed nod. “Okay, then. Sounds like great initiative to me.” He crossed his arms. “We’re just sure these surge mines aren’t going to permanently fry whatever they catch, right? Otherwise, it kind of defeats the purpose of doing it in the first place.”
“You were pretty clear about that, Dash,” Conover said. “Custodian and I ran a bunch of simulations, changing the strength of the EM pulse, the shape of the waveform, frequency—anyway, we fiddled around with it until we got something that seems to consistently overload circuits and systems aboard ships within range, but just enough to make them reboot.”
“We test fired one with some systems scavenged from some of the Verity wrecks we’ve recovered,” Viktor added. “Custodian stashed some, more or less intact, for the very purpose of testing things against them. In both simulations and field tests, we could force the systems to overload, then reboot and reset about ninety percent of the time.”
“Ninety-two-point-five,” Custodian said.
“Sorry, ninety-two-point-five. Anyway, the other seven-and-a-half percent of the time, we either weren’t able to surge the system enough, or we fried it completely, depending on how well it was shielded.”
“Huh. Ninety-odd percent isn’t bad at all,” Dash said. “And you guys did all of this in the time Leira and I were away?”
“We don’t screw around, Dash,” Conover said.
“Actually, we do, but we just don’t let it get in the way of real work,” Amy said.
“Okay then, that’s good news all around,” Dash said, nodding. “Good work, guys. Now we just need a target to use these mines on. Meet me in the Command Center in, say, an hour, and we’ll figure out what to do next. Show up in fifty minutes, and I’ll bring cake.”
“Cake? We have cake? Like real—” Conover said, but Dash put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.
“There is no cake. Sorry.”
“Why would you—” Conover said, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Is this one of those life lessons, but also toying with my love of food?”
“Afraid so. You see, a good commander never works harder. Just smarter,” Dash said.
“And meaner,” Conover mumbled.
“I prefer the term efficient,” Dash said, a winning smile on his face. He could get used to being a leader.
The Command Center really was overkill, Dash thought—especially with only seven of them there. He, along with Leira, Viktor, Conover, Amy, Benzel, and Wei-Ping vanished into the sprawling expanse of command and control systems, consoles and screens.
“Have to admit, I kind of miss the War Room. It was a lot cozier,” D
ash said.
“We can still use it if we want, you know,” Leira replied. “I doubt we’ll hurt Custodian’s feelings if we do, occasionally.”
“I will be devastated,” Custodian said.
After a moment of exchanged stares, Dash finally spoke. “Really?”
“No, of course not. I am incapable of such an emotional state. However, I have observed, and both Sentinel and Tybalt have noted, that engaging in such empty banter seems to put you at ease and facilitate subsequent, substantive discussion.”
Dash opened his mouth but paused. “Really?” he asked again.
“Am I incorrect?”
Dash grinned. “No, not at all. I love it, actually. Banter away, Custodian, whenever you want.”
Actually, it did seem to put them all at ease, and it wiped away Dash’s fussing over the looming expanse of the Command Center. “Anyway, we need to plan our way forward, so that’s why I’ve brought you guys here. But before we do that, there’s something else I want to talk about.”
“Uh oh, I think we’re in deep shit,” Amy said in a stage whisper.
“Not this time,” Dash replied. “I want to talk about our chain of command.”
“What about it?” Benzel asked.
“We don’t have one beyond me, and while I’ve got the archetype, my good looks, and completely reasonable confidence—”
“Um. Okay,” Viktor said, carefully looking away.
“But I’m going to initiate a more tangible structure for the realm, starting now.”
“Tangible is good,” Viktor said.
“So I think. With that in mind, I’ve been doing some reading on how military forces do this, and here’s what I propose. I’m the boss—somehow, and don’t get me started on how the hell that happened. In any case, I’ll be the High Commander. Leira is my second in command, my—uh, Deputy Commander. Benzel, I’d like you to be Commander of all of our offensive forces, and in charge of planning all of our offensive operations.”
