The Messenger

by J. N. Chaney

  Do you believe that?

  “Eh, no. I think I’ve picked the right side, or it picked me.”

  We are approaching the cordon of dark-matter mines.

  Dash looked around. Sure enough, the mines had formed a sphere completely enclosing the Archetype. They could retreat back into the cloud of rocks and ice, but nothing stopped the mines from closing in behind them. In any case, ripping matter into its component quarks meant some icy rubble wasn’t going be much of an obstacle.

  But going forward was going to be a serious problem, too. There was no way to penetrate the cordon of mines without having at least two, and as many as four detonating within lethal range of the Archetype. The now-regenerated shield could seemingly stop one blast, but no more than that. These mines also seemed smart, so he doubted that the distortion cannon trick would work again.

  I have intercepted a general, omnidirectional transmission through unSpace that seems to be relevant to you. It involves your ship, the Slipwing.

  “What? Let me hear it!”

  A crackling voice sounded, faint, but still clear enough to make out most of what was being said.

  “Slipwing…any ship…chased…need help…anyone nearby, we need help…”

  Dash clenched his fists. “That’s Leira. Shit. We need to help her.”

  First we must escape the mounting threat posed by the dark-matter mines.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Shit. Give me a sec.”

  The dark-lance didn’t seem to affect them. The missiles probably wouldn’t either. The distortion cannon worked once, but the mines were probably smart enough to work around a second try.

  “What next?” Dash hissed, looking around desperately for inspiration.

  As he did, his gaze fell on the tumbling swirl of rocks and ice just behind the Archetype.

  Okay, so maybe the distortion cannon wouldn’t likely affect the mines. But the mines weren’t the only thing out here.

  Dash slowed, turned, and fired the cannon at a point close to the nearest of the hunks of rock and dirty ice. They immediately “fell” in the resulting gravity well, which started them moving. He fired the cannon again, and they “fell” again, accelerating.

  He fired again.

  Again.

  The Archetype’s power level also fell with each shot, but now a cluster of the bodies were sailing directly toward the minefield. He zoomed in behind them, trailing them as they closed.

  That is a clever approach. It does presuppose that the mines cannot discriminate such inert bodies from the Archetype.

  “Yeah, well, I’m being optimistic.”

  Dash also hadn’t really thought of that. If it was true, then this would be a very short trip.

  The cluster of rocky debris reached the minefield and abruptly disappeared, ripped into subatomic oblivion as several mines detonated. The remaining mines immediately began moving to close the resulting gap, but Dash poured on the power and zoomed through the opening, into clear space.

  “Okay, let’s go find the Slipwing.”

  Power levels are greatly diminished by your admittedly effective action to escape the mines. A fast translation back to the location of your ship will diminish them further, probably to critical levels. The Archetype may be able to do little once it arrives.

  “Sure, whatever. So turn off everything that doesn’t involve moving or keeping me alive, conserve whatever you can.”

  Systems shut down throughout the Archetype. At the same time, it shifted into unSpace and began to race back into the galaxy, and the beleaguered Slipwing.

  18

  Dash knew when he’d reentered the Milky Way galaxy by the brightening glow ahead of him, illuminating unSpace with the radiance of tens of millions of stars, and yet, still just a soft, diffuse patch of light. It was another bit of strangeness of unSpace, something that would probably keep the scientific types fascinated for years.

  If only they could fly through space like this, Dash thought, simply enjoying the sensation of boundless travel, of effortless movement through a realm whose physical laws were very different.

  At least, until reality came crashing back in, as it just had. This was no pleasure trip. Except for its drive and whatever counted as life support for him, the big mech was dark and dormant. He desperately needed it to power up as much as possible before reaching the Slipwing, and actually thought a particularly nasty curse at the Unseen. Whatever their motives for hamstringing the Archetype, if the thing was fully powered-up now, he’d have ample ability to take on Clan Shirna. Even worse, the kugelblitz that served as its power source, the microscopic black hole, actually generated ample power for any demand the mech might place on it. The two power cores he’d retrieved and installed seemed to be more about extracting and distributing that power efficiently, which meant they could have just been built right into the thing, and not the subject of a galactic scavenger hunt.

  I do not presume to know the detailed motives of the Creators. However, they had a purpose for forcing you to search for the power cores.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know, so that being the Messenger took a deliberate act, and isn’t just something you kind of flop into.”

  I believe it is also a safety measure, to ensure that the Archetype was not fully powered when it was found. Whoever found it would need to invest time and effort into achieving its full-power state.

  “Wait, do you mean whoever first found this thing would automatically be the Messenger? Isn’t that pretty, um, let’s call it risky? What if it had been someone, well, irresponsible, maybe even reckless…” Dash stopped when he realized he was, at least arguably, describing himself. “I mean, dangerously irresponsible and reckless—evil, even. Like, what if Nathis had found it?”

  The Creators established criteria to define who and what an acceptable candidate for the Messenger would be.

  “And I met these criteria?”

  You are here, and we are having this conversation. If you had not—

  “Yeah, I get it. Wow, the Unseen had some pretty lax standards.” Dash breathed out a long sigh. “Okay, so what were these criteria?”

  I cannot say.

  “Well, you must know them.”

  No. I cannot say, because I am not permitted to do so.

  “How come?”

  The Creators instituted the prohibition, but did not provide an explanation. Presumably, I was not entitled to one.

  “So you literally can’t say what made me suitable to be this Messenger.”

  That is correct.

  “Huh. Probably to prevent anyone from gaming the system, I guess, to make themselves seem like Messenger material. Oh, that raises another point. Are there more of these Archetypes around? Like, could there be more than one Messenger?”

  And, if so, Dash thought, do I need to make friends with them? Be a team? A bunch of these huge mechs, all fighting together? An army of them? Because, if so, that would actually be pretty exciting.

  I am aware of no other constructs such as the Archetype.

  “So…maybe.”

  Since not knowing implies a lack of information, then I have no rational reason to say anything other than maybe.

  “One other thing. Are you reading my mind? Because I never asked you about what your Creator’s motives and such are, I was just thinking about it.”

  I have access to your thoughts, yes.

  “Well, shit.”

  If you have concerns about the appropriateness of your thoughts, or the lack thereof, rest assured that nothing not related to the Messenger’s mission is of relevance to me.

  “Still, kind of creepy knowing you know…well, everything I do, and have done, for that matter. I mean…yikes.” That caused a sudden flood of thoughts that were manifestly inappropriate to cascade through Dash’s mind, some of them pretty lurid. But the AI didn’t react. It didn’t say anything at all. Even so, Dash quickly changed the subject.

  “How far are we from the Slipwing now?”

  But Dash knew the answer
. Still far enough that Leira, Viktor, and Conover might be in serious trouble…trouble that Dash was still too far away to influence. Shit. If only the Archetype was faster.

  Or if he could buy the Slipwing some time.

  “Hey, can you…I…whatever, anyway, communicate with the Slipwing?”

  I can attempt communication, but cannot guarantee it will be effective without retuning to real space. Unlike the intergalactic region we recently left, there is far more matter around the Archetype, and its gravitational influence affects unSpace.

  “Okay, fine. We don’t have time for that, anyway. How about a simple communication, like, say, just a few words?”

  The simpler the message, the more likely it is to successfully propagate.

  “Good. So, I want you to establish a channel to the Slipwing, but on...I’m thinking of a particular, low-power channel. Can you read that, or whatever?”

  Yes.

  “Right. Open that channel, then send the code I’m thinking about.”

  You will cause the Slipwing to almost completely power-down.

  “Yeah. It’s a back-door I installed in case anyone ever tried to steal her. In this case, though, it will make her a lot harder to track and find.”

  At the risk of leaving the vessel entirely helpless and unable to defend itself, if it is located.

  “Desperate times and all that.”

  The code has been transmitted.

  Assuming it was successful, the Slipwing would now drop to minimal power use, meaning her emissions would almost completely cease. Most important, her fusion core would go cold, meaning she’d no longer be generating neutrinos, a byproduct of fusing hydrogen. Without even such neutrino “smoke” to give her away, it would be tough to find her without knowing exactly where to look.

  Of course, it would also unexpectedly plunge Leira and the others into darkness, every system aboard the Slipwing going dark, except for minimal life support. They’d no doubt assume something had failed and start looking for the problem. Given time, Viktor would probably be canny enough to find it and come up with a work-around—but hopefully not too soon. It would also probably scare the shit out of them, and Dash felt bad about that, but as he’d said, desperate times and all that.

  Clan Shirna has divided its forces, the AI suddenly said.

  It broke Dash’s concentration. He’d been frowning over one of the plasma pistols he’d liberated from the wrecked Clan Shirna ship, examining its inner workings, then making a few tweaks. The AI had expressed no interest, though—hadn’t actually expressed anything at all—until now.

  Dash considered the incoming data. “I see that.”

  It meant they were close enough, now, to start discriminating some details—not much, but far more than anything that wasn’t the Archetype would be able to discern from unSpace. It seemed that the Shirna had left part of their force to continue hunting the Slipwing near where they’d last detected her; the rest seemed to be searching along an extrapolation of her trajectory. They probably assumed she’d used something to drop off their scanners, but continued racing away at speed. That meant they had to search a volume of space that was an increasingly large cone extending away from her last known position, defined by how much she could maneuver away from the course they knew she was following. That was good—it meant half of the Clan Shirna flotilla was essentially wasting its time. The trouble was, the other half was still in her vicinity, meaning she could be detected…well, any second.

  Dash closed up the plasma pistol, put it aside again, and adjusted his course, aiming for the Shirna still close to the Slipwing. If he could defeat them, or at least drive them off, then he could save Leira and the others. And wouldn’t they be impressed all to shit when Dash showed up as the Archetype. He even imagined the look on Leira’s face—

  There is a problem.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, no shit. More than one problem, I’d say.”

  This is a specific problem, that must be addressed. The Clan Shirna vessels continuing to search along the Slipwing’s trajectory are also approaching the location of a power core.

  “Okay, so? As long as they don’t know it’s there…”

  We do not know what they know. Exacerbating the risk is the fact that they are in league with the Golden. Even if they could not themselves locate the power core—except by random chance, which is exceedingly improbable—it is possible that the Golden have given them that information.

  But they’re after the Slipwing, not a power core.

  Again, that is an assumption. It may be that they have become aware of the Archetype, your role as the Messenger, and the need to gather the cores to bring the former to full power. Again, the Golden may have imparted this information to them.

  “Sure, but seriously, it’s got to be a coincidence.”

  But Dash trailed off into uncertainty. It was a profoundly unlikely coincidence, given just how sheerly big space was. Maybe the Golden had somehow manipulated all of this, fiddling with things so the Slipwing, the Archetype, and the power core were all under threat from Clan Shirna, all at once. After all, whatever other purpose their strange, extra-galactic dark-matter minefield may have had, it had still effectively become a trap. And the Golden did prefer doing things in a stand-off way, indirectly, influencing computer systems…

  Systems like the Slipwing’s own nav.

  “Well, shit. Now you’ve got me getting paranoid about the Golden.”

  Which does not change the fact that Clan Shirna is getting closer to the power core. That must, at all costs, be prevented.

  “Yeah, but I can’t just leave the Slipwing hanging out there.”

  It is the welfare of your companions measured against that of potentially every sentient being in this galactic arm.

  “Sure, but I…I can’t.”

  Dash had no argument to make. He wanted to save Leira and the others, but he needed to stop Clan Shirna from getting that power core.

  Which might also have been the work of the Golden, forcing him to have to make this horrible choice.

  “Know what? I hate those Golden guys.”

  The AI said nothing and Dash just gave a frustrated sigh.

  “Alright. We’ll go take care of the power core.” He looked in the direction of the Slipwing and the armada of Clan Shirna ships hunting her. “Just hang on there, guys. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The Archetype dropped back into real space to find a quartet of Clan Shirna ships waiting for him. As soon as they appeared, they opened fire, loosing a volley of missiles and a barrage of particle beam fire.

  The Archetype still hadn’t fully regenerated her power levels after the escape from the dark-matter mines; Dash’s demand for speed had itself drawn a huge amount of energy. Still, he was able to fling up the shield, though not quickly enough to prevent a pair of particle beams from tearing across his torso, right arm, and left leg. He snapped out a string of curses and returned fire with the dark-lance, reducing one of the Clan Shirna frigates to glowing slag and debris. A few seconds later, her fusion core breached, creating a very small and temporary, but still fiercely bright star. The other three ships bore in behind their own missiles, particle beams stabbing out, flooding the Archetype’s shield with raw energy.

  Dash had no patience for this. He loosed a salvo of missiles—which somehow also regenerated, as though the Archetype could manufacture them on the fly, albeit very slowly—then dove toward the oncoming ships, determined to take them on head-on.

  Particle beams flared against the shield, but Dash flew on. He dodged some of the incoming missiles, while the point-defense system destroyed more; two detonated against the shield, bringing it down. He didn’t care. He drove onward, his own missiles finding one of the Clan Shirna ships despite its best efforts at countermeasures, blowing it apart. The other two closed, raking the Archetype with their particle cannons.

  Dash gritted his teeth against the damage and just pressed on.

  You should break off—

>   “Kind of busy, thanks!”

  Dash had no time for caution. He had no time for any of this. He needed to protect the power core, yes, but he actually needed to save the Slipwing. He’d had enough of Clan Shirna, and of the Golden, and of Nathis who pretended to be some righteous religious zealot, but was really just another greedy power-monger.

  As the two ships flashed past, Dash lunged at one, slamming a massive fist into it. It slewed sideways, trailing debris and sparks and atmosphere. He immediately somersaulted and raced after the other one, rapidly closing. It lit its fusion drive, trying to use the incandescent exhaust as a weapon against him, but he dodged aside, zoomed up beside it, growled his sudden anger and frustration, then smashed a fist into it, punching through the hull. Holding onto whatever structural components he’d grabbed, he drove his other fist into the hull, let out a ferocious, almost bestial snarl, strained, and then wrenched his arms apart, ripping the Clan Shirna frigate in two.

  A blast of frozen atmosphere momentarily surrounded him, lit white by the fusion exhaust still pouring from the dismembered aft section. He dodged back, letting the fragments of the ship just continue on their trajectory. The fusion drive quickly smashed the rear section of the ship into the forward portion, locking them together in a ruined embrace that spun away, off into deep space.

  Dash turned, looking for the ship he’d simply punched. It was trying to power away, but was mortally wounded, its fusion drive flaring, dying, then flaring and dying again. A severely damaged ship, unable to maneuver, whatever remained of its crew, was in for a lingering and unpleasant fate.

  Dash scowled. Good.

  You can now retrieve the power core.

  “How long will that take?”

  It will take approximately two hours of your subjective time to reach it. Then you must retrieve it.

  “Nope.”

  We are close to the core, and you need it.

  “I came here, out of my way, to stop Clan Shirna from getting their grubby hands on it. I’ve done that.”

  That is true. But your continued success is dependent on—

  “I said no. It took me a long-enough time to get my hands on that last one. I’m not keeping the Slipwing waiting any longer.”