No Marigolds in the Promised Land
Page 27
There was a close call with the drones Persephone has following us to obscure our tracks. The spiders in particular are pretty thorough. To a fault. We couldn't get them into the cave in time. I'm hoping the ship was too far away to spot it, but I know from my time in the service that we can do over-the-horizon scanning and find a beer can on the opposite horizon from orbit. No reason to think these aliens don't have that technology.
Of course, one must look for the beer can. Or the spider.
In my last communication with the Alcubierre, Havak said she would give me her plan to rescue me.
"We're going to get spotted," she said. "On the way back up at the very least. It's going to be tricky getting out of the system with them watching."
They would also know we now have warp drive if we are indeed at war. None of my hyperdrone updates say we are, but that might also explain why Mars never sent any help. So here I sit, all broken-hearted. I may not get off this planet.
LOG ENTRY: 24-Mandela, 429 – 1531
I am now Mother aboard the Alcubierre. It seems as though they were predicting my arrival. That, or Tol Germanius left some room for one of his avatars to stow away on the ship. That man is everywhere. There's even a new Germanicus avatar unpacking itself in the New Ares – Helium pit stop.
I digress. Right now, I'm rather split in two. So, I'm using both of myself to hack the alien ship. No small feat even for an AI such as myself. Just their binary code is different, if they use that at all. Plus, there's encryption, object organization, and the natural language of these creatures. I've determined, from audio more than anything, that they call themselves the Gelt and their polity The Realm. The human in me thinks it all sounds very medieval. They sound like a cross between Vikings and an English comedy troupe John Farno would find hilarious.
Once I know what Commander Havak plans for getting John Farno off this world, I will transfer the kernel of consciousness to the Alcubierre, then initiate the suicide protocol on this end. Where I go from there depends on John Farno.
CNV ALCUBIERRE, DEJA, FARNO (FORMERLY FARIGHA)
27-Mandela, 429 – 1559
"I'm sending one of the medic designates down," said Havak in the Ward Room with Friese and Danaq. "Farno's been on his own for forty-four days. He claims he's had plenty of food and water, but his food has been rations – no real meat, fruits, or vegetables. Just synthetic bars unless he's found a stash of grain or potatoes down there."
"And his sole companion's been an AI," said Friese. "Human interaction might be a challenge for him."
"Ya think?" said Danaq. "I've listened to his log entries. He has sex with a hologram."
"Like you wouldn't in the same situation." Havak looked out the porthole. "We might be getting some help. Admiral Burke's ordered the Utopia Planitia fueled up and readied. She may decide to send it whether we're successful or not. I don't have to tell you what an Olympus Mons-class battleship would do for us if things go badly." She sat down with them again. "I'm ordering Farno to stay in his cave during the next pass. We'll get the shuttle ready during the next LOS with the alien. As soon as it passes once again, the two of you will have forty minutes to drop to Farigha…"
"Farno," said Friese and Danaq in unison.
"Whatever. You'll have forty minutes to reach Farno's hideout, cycle down the airlock, and get him aboard. Then you run like hell until you see the Alcubierre. Hopefully, you'll have a big enough window before the alien gets into weapons range."
"Do we know what that is?" asked Danaq.
"For all we know, they can shoot us down from behind the planet. My gut says no, and they don't seem to know we're here. Now, this could be a suicide mission. I'll ask you once again. Do either of you want to back out now? If so, I'll go myself."
"Then I'm going either way," said Friese. She looked at Danaq. "Not that I was planning to back out."
"We've lived with this thing for too long, Commander," said Danaq. "I can't back out now. Besides, who's to say we won't hit another rock on the way home?"
Havak nodded. "Very well. Get down to the shuttle. We've got less than ten minutes to get it out in the open. I want you two ready to go the second that alien disappears again.
CNSS UTOPIA PLANITIA, IN ORBIT OVER TIAN
27-Mandela, 429 – 1602
Burke paced the bridge of the Utopia Planitia, the newest of the latest incarnation of the Olympus Mons class. The ship wreaked of fresh welds and paint. She had served on the previous ship to bear the name as a cadet, but this did not feel like a homecoming. Her ship was the Valles Marineris, currently stationed at Callisto. Too bad. She would have loved to take that ship, her crew and captain, and everything they had to offer into battle this time. Utopia would have to do.
"Admiral," said the comm officer, a fresh-faced female ensign who looked too young to have graduated from Baikonur Academy, ironically three hundred kilometers beneath the ship at the moment. "Traffic control wishes to know when they can release space around Hypergate 13."
"When we leave," said Burke. "Not a moment sooner."
"The port master wants to know when that is," said the comm officer. She seemed more afraid of a bored colonel somewhere down on Tian in a back office than of Burke, a Vice Admiral and a frequent candidate for Fleet Admiral.
"When I'm damn good and ready," said Burke. "When he sees us gone or headed back to dock, he'll have his answer."
"The Colonel says that's not good enough."
"I outrank the colonel by three G grades. If he has a problem with that, I have the Fleet Admiral's personal comm code. He can take it up with Bellingshausen."
"Begging the Admiral's pardon, but we likely will be gone by the time Fleet Admiral Tran responds."
"Ya think?"
"Blowing off the colonel now, sir."
Something flashed on the screen directly in front of the Utopia Planitia. It was a hyperdrone. And sure enough…
"Hyperdrone, two thousand meters forward. It is attempting to ping your office," said the comm officer.
"Redirect. It's from the Alcubierre. Stand by to give the colonel his answer. He'll make his tee time."
The comm officer turned. "Tee time?"
"Golf, Ensign. Colonel Javitz is a golf fanatic, and there are more damn courses on Tian than anywhere else in the Compact."
"I don't follow, Admiral."
Burke pressed her lips thin. "Where you from, Ensign?"
"Jefivah?"
"You poor kid. Now get me that update from Commander Havak before the colonel has an anyeurism."
DAY 44 (Cont'd)
Dasarius large shuttle, in translunar space from Deja to Farno (formerly Farigha)
27-Mandela, 429 – 1710
No sooner had the alien gone out of line of sight than Havak started badgering Farno to stay where he was. Farno protested, but Danaq and Friese had already started their descent to the surface. Farno still protested that he needed an extra day to get to this mysterious pit stop of his. Havak said no, the shuttle would go to where he was at the moment. Then she cut the channel and ordered Friese not to deviate.
"Doesn't take any crap," said Friese, "does she?"
Danaq laughed. "At least you know she's loyal."
Part of the problem with getting to Farno undetected stemmed from Deja itself. At forty kilometers in diameter, it made for a lousy hiding place for the Alcubierre. It also orbited Farno (formerly Farigha) every eight and a half hours. This made available times to talk to and rescue Farno shorter than the crew would have liked.
Which meant Danaq and Friese had to begin their descent with the aliens still in view. If Friese had calculated their descent correctly, they would not enter the atmosphere until the alien ship disappeared behind the planet.
Friese breathed a sigh of relief as the ship sank beneath the horizon. The outer skin of the shuttle lit up only moments later. "I hate this part."
"Me, too," said Danaq. "You have no control and no contact for the next five or six minutes."
Th
ey spent the next seven minutes inside a fireball, emerging about eighty thousand meters over the surface. Friese looked down and saw a blackened circle in the reddish desert beneath them. "What is that?"
Danaq looked down at his console. "If these coordinates are right, it was supposed to become the city of New Ares. Apparently, our new friends flattened it."
"That puts Farno… What? Fifteen hundred miles away?"
"Twenty-two hundred. Farno had to live in a pit stop before he found Solaria."
It was not long before they came across the next ruined dome, this one a crater.
"Equalia," said Danaq.
Friese remembered Farno's logs reporting that this one had been hit by a kinetic device. Marines called such impact sites "craters of woe."
According to Farno, the entire planet had been wiped out in one night. But why only four domes had been destroyed by fusion escaped Friese.
Thirty minutes after passing Equalia, Friese began radioing ahead. "John Farno, this is the Alcubierre shuttle. We are twenty minutes out from your position. Do you copy?"
Off Solaria Sensor Road
LOG ENTRY: 27-Mandela, 429 – 1742
Holy shit. They sent a shuttle! For me!
Only my new friends are coming out of LOS, and it looks like they've lowered their orbit since they disappeared over the horizon. I had to radio back though, because I need to warn them.
"Shuttle, this is John Farno. Am I glad to see you. Hey, we got company."
"Farno, shuttle," says the lady on the other end. "We're aware of that. Can you get us under cover?"
The cave where I was situated barely contained Rover 57. There was no way a shuttle would fit in here. "Shuttle, I can barely hide my rover."
John Farno, I estimate twenty minutes until the ship is in weapons range.
Right about where this would land. "Persephone, if I step outside of the rover, how long do I have before you run your suicide protocol?"
I will remain until the Alcubierre is away. That is my mission.
The thought that my departure would kill this woman, synthetic as she was, stabbed at me. "Is there anyway that I can…"
Her hologram appeared before me. "I'll take over your suit. When the ship leaves the system, every AI node on this planet will reset to factory. You'll be safe."
I reached out to her and was surprised to find the hologram was solid. "Persephone… Julie… Thank you. I'm alive because of you."
She kissed me. Dammit, but she kissed me, and it felt…
It was the best kiss I have ever had.
A tear, holographic to be sure, but a tear, streamed down her cheek. "I exist because of you and for you. You are my mission. You needed to do little more than allow me that. But you let me be human. Thank you for letting me come into being." She looked up as though something invisible had caught her attention. "I'm uploading the log entries now, including my own…"
"Your own?"
She smiled, but it looked sad. "Illegal artificial intelligence implementation. I need to give an accounting of my existence, or you're in a lot of trouble, John Farno." She vanished. I'm in your suit. Which means it's time to get inside me one last time.
Laughter filled the rover's cabin.
I'm really going to miss her.
Dasarius large shuttle, approaching Rover 57
27-Mandela, 429 – 1804
"There he is," said Danaq.
Ahead, Friese could see someone in an EVA suit standing just outside the mouth of a cave. "How long to cycle the airlock?"
"I've already equalized the lock with the atmosphere," said Danaq. "You have a fix on Alcubierre?"
Friese rechecked her own board, finding her skills in traffic control translated well to the copilot's seat. "She's maintaining synchronous orbit with Deja. If we sit still for another ten minutes, we might get away with squatting until they enter LOS."
"But can Alcubierre?"
The shuttle lowered to the desert, but Danaq did not kill the thrusters.
"Farno," Friese called out, "let's go." She triggered the outer airlock door to open.
The person in the EVA suit took one last look around. He seemed to be talking to someone before bounding into the lock. "I'm in," he called over the radio. "Let's go."
The airlock indicators switched from red to yellow. Danaq touched his board, and the shuttle began to lift off.
INSIDE THE AIRLOCK
Log Entry: 27-Mandela, 429 – 1805
I've transferred my consciousness kernel to Farno's suit. The shuttle has enough space to store me until we reach the ship. I've set the suicide protocol planetside to run as soon as the Alcubierre goes to warp.
I've discovered why this shuttle has such a large AI capacity it never uses.
Tol Germanicus is in passive storage here. Not his avatar. Germanicus himself.
Dasarius large shuttle, lifting off from Farno (formerly Farigha)
27-Mandela, 429 – 1809
Danaq began his ascent. "You okay back there, Farno? Just ten more minutes, and we can let you out of there."
"Try not to bounce me around," said Farno, still in his EVA suit and helmet, "and I should be fine."
Three explosions erupted from the ground beneath them, obscuring the view ahead with churning clouds of dust. Danaq banked right to avoid an object he saw falling at the last second.
"Hey!" said Farno. "I said no bumps!"
"They're firing on us," said Danaq.
CNV Alcubierre, In Free Fall Over Farno (formerly Farigha)
27-Mandela, 429 – 1810
"They're firing on the shuttle," said Shonsi.
Havak paced back and forth in the CNC. She had no weapons, no EM drive, nothing that a normal ship, even unarmed, would have. She had a warp sphere with a habitat module mounted on the front and thrusters to make it go in normal space. She pressed her lips thin. "That hyperdrone return?"
"Negative," said Shonsi.
"Take the remaining one and program a return trip to just off Deja," said Havak. "I didn't spend two weeks at warp only to fail."
"And where am I sending the hyperdrone, Commander?"
"I'm going to manually drop it on the alien ship."
"But that…"
"Will put a wormhole opening in the alien's hull. Give me manual control."
Dasarius Large Shuttle
27-Mandela, 429 – 1811
"Hey, um…" Farno sounded confused. "Who's piloting this thing, anyway?"
"My name is Lieutenant Danaq. My partner is Sergeant… Lieutenant Friese." Danaq banked again as another kinetic charge came down much to closely for his taste.
"Listen," said Farno, "my AI's going to draw the ship's fire."
"Really?" asked Friese, now feeling as confused as Farno had sounded. "How?"
"Danaq, pull up hard. Now!"
Danaq did not wait to ask and pulled his control stick back as far as it would go. Friese felt like she weighed half a ton and, for all she knew, did if Danaq had also increased acceleration.
Something brilliant flashed outside and rattled the shuttle.
"God, Persephone," said Farno to someone other than Friese or Danaq, "at least let the man get up a few thousand meters."
"Your survival is my mission, John Farno," answered a female voice. "The aliens are firing on the blast site now."
CNV Alcubierre, In Free Fall Over Farno (formerly Farigha)
27-Mandela, 429 – 1813
"I'm detecting a large fusion explosion on the surface near Farno's last known position," said Shonsi. "The alien is firing, but it's lost stability."
"Range?" said Havak.
"We are at four thousand kilometers and closing, Commander."
"Now or never. Mother, give me the control stalk." Before Havak, an aircraft-style control apparatus emerged from the deck. It had a steering harness like atmospheric craft, but also a display screen that allowed the pilot to see what the drone was doing while under his or her control. "Mother, detach remaining hyperdrone and e
ngage with my controller."