NanoSymbionts

by Joseph Philbrook

  Dinner turned out to be delicious. Though aside from things like asking them what they would like to drink, their host didn't seem inclined to start or prolong any casual dinner conversation topics. Though he responded politely to various trivial topics. He had pointedly ignored any attempt to discuss serious issues such as, ‘What about their future?’ and any inquiries as to his name. Eventually however, nobody wanted anything else to eat or drink. Then the nameless man sat back and touched one of his wristbands. Then the dinnerware and serving bowls, along with any other trace of the meal they had just eaten was all invisibly lifted from the table. It all quickly disappeared through an opening that briefly appeared in the ceiling.

  “Now we can discuss your future,” the strange hairless man said. “But before you ask, let me tell you what the possibilities are. Along with why it's any of my concern. You need to understand that I've invested considerable time on this planet's biosphere and some of the lifeforms within it. I took great care to select a world that wasn't likely to be interfered with by any of the known spacefaring peoples. It's too remote to be of much interest to most potential colonists. And it hasn't any rare minerals that couldn't be synthesized cheaper than the cost of shipping anything to market from here.

  If you had been rescued before discovering my presence, my computer would simply have quietly infected all the computer systems of the rescue craft. With a specialized piece of viral software that would have made it difficult for anyone to find their way back here. But you see, once certain organizations learn that anyone even remotely like me was ever here. Sufficient resources would be deployed as to ensure that it would be eventually found. There are in fact only two ways for me to protect any of the lifeforms I've nurtured here. I can either visibly leave this place in such a way that those organizations would have no doubt that I've left nothing worth the time to find the place. Or I can prevent you from telling anyone I'm here. Frankly, that would have been the easiest solution if it wasn't for the fact that sooner or later someone is bound to trace your distress beacon...”

  “Distress beacon?” the captain protested. “Had the cargo pod with most of our equipment not been lost in the sea, we might have modified a beacon to transmit a tight beam signal to one of the strongholds of civilization. But since it was lost we didn't get to set up such a signal.”

  “Really?” the stranger inquired. “Then how do you account for the encoded gravitic pulse that's emitting twice a subcyclet from a device on the seabed just off shore from my island?”

  “I can't,” the captain replied. “Unless...” Suddenly the captain turned to face Mathieu. “What might you know of this Mr Naville?”

  The intense look on the captain's face made Mathieu nervous.

  “Why ask me?” he replied.

  “Because,” the captain explained. “None of my crew would have been stupid enough to initialize an unshielded omnidirectional transmitter here. This planet is far too remote to expect that any civilized transport might respond before one of the marauding pirate vessels tracked such a signal. So that leaves just Yolonda or you. And aside from her obvious intelligence, your the only one among us who's clung to the belief that someone would find us.”

  “I'm afraid I don't see the problem captain Rivermon,” the strange man interrupted. “Surely any such pirates would notice the planet's lack of technology and move on. Why would they waste the time to extract you?”

  “Because the only gravitic pulse transmitter that was on board the other cargo pod,” Wilber replied. “Was part of the salvageable remains of the system core of an old lifepod. It's signal would automatically identify our ship.”

  “And that's a problem because?” the stranger prompted.

  “In the process of escaping their clutches,” the captain explained. “I managed to engage a damaged warp field generator at point blank range to a couple of their ships.”

  “Elevate passive scan rate to active threat assessment levels,” the stranger began barking orders in a crisp commanding tone to some unseen presence.

  Whatever else the strange man might have been about to say was suddenly lost in the wake of a sudden piercing alarm accompanied by a holographic image of a ‘tactical threat’ view of the planet.

  “Initiate active sensor patterns,” the stranger continued instructing the unseen presence.

  The ‘threat’ display expanded to a larger, view with more detail. It showed a fleet of 9 dreadnought class battleships, along with one superdreadnought. All ten ships appeared to be launching a steady stream of projectiles towards them at near relativistic speeds. Meanwhile the stranger had continued to issue orders.

  “Primary reactors, emergency start, he commanded. “Engage planetary defense screen.”

  As he issued these orders, the stranger was staring intently at the holographic display. He appeared oblivious to their continued presence. Then after changing the scope of the holographic display a few times, his shoulders sagged slightly and his voice changed from that of a commanding officer to that of a tired old man.

  “Project best remaining option,” he said.

  It was evident from the stranger's demeanor that he already knew the answer before his computer responded and that he wasn't happy with it. Not happy at all.

  “Transvengeance procedure ‘double prime’ recommended,” A slightly mechanical reproduction of the stranger's voice said.

  “So be it!” the stranger said as he slowly squared his shoulders.

  His voice and his face filling with anger. For the first time since the alarm sounded, the stranger appeared to notice his ‘guests’. He surveyed them with a sweeping glance that hesitated briefly on Mathieu. As he did so the anger visible in his eyes appeared to double.

  “It is fortunate for you,” he said with a voice that left no doubt as to the fury he was holding in check. “That I do not believe stupidity is in itself sufficient grounds for execution Mr Naville.”

  Then with obvious effort he shifted his attention to all five of his ‘guests’ as a whole.

  “As you may have noticed, this world is being attacked by a massive barrage of projectiles approaching at relativistic velocities. What you might not understand is that the leading edge of these projectiles is already so close. That the heat generated as my planetary defense systems stop them from impacting on the surface, will undoubtedly raise the atmospheric temperature enough to incinerate all land bound life and then bring the sea itself to a full boil.

  Tactical battle plans and escape route options are being downloaded into my personal star shuttle,” he informed them. “Which is even now being prepped for an emergency launch. If any of you would like any chance of surviving this day, I suggest you follow me.”

  Then without further explanation the stranger started to walk towards the far end of the room. After taking three steps he turned his head to look back over his shoulder at his confused ‘guests’. Then he spoke just one more word, “Now!”

  Somehow none of them had the slightest doubt that their very lives depended on following the nameless stranger. The captain alone had the strength of will to question the stranger's authority. Even so, he had no doubt that he had better not let his doubts slow down his feet.

  “What battle? Which escape?” He demanded as soon as his people had matched pace with the stranger.

  “The battle with those planet killing marauders you stirred up,” the stranger said with an exaggerated air of impatience. “And that ‘that idiot’ lead here. It's already too late to save the biosphere that I've been nurturing for so long. There's only one possible escape from it before the effects of their mass drivers destroy everything in it. There will be no time for your questions, until after the battle. Assuming we survive it. So for now do shut up.”

  As he said this the wall they were approaching dissolved. Before them was a large spherical chamber, with a grid like suspended floor. It contained what looked like a fairly large space shuttle, with an antiquated hull design. It was held in place, just one su
barm above the floor grid, by a huge manipulator arm/cradle assembly. As they followed the strange man into the spherical room the wall reformed behind them. There was a large cargo sized airlock in what appeared to be the back end of the vessel. The stranger stepped inside and gestured for them to follow.

  “Dragonfly launch minus four subcyclets,” the mechanical voice echoed around them. “Depressurization of launch bay will commence at launch minus one subcyclet.”

  It didn't take long for them all to get the idea and step inside the airlock. When the inner door opened, the stranger led them through a storage area. He pointed at an empty storage bin.

  “You can toss all that crap your still carrying around with you in there,” the stranger said gruffly as he continued walking. “It will be safely preserved by a stasis field. Then, once you've unloaded all those hazardous loose objects, you'll find acceleration couches in here.” As he said that he stepped through the hatchway into the next chamber. He turned to briefly face them through the open hatchway. “I'd appreciate it if everyone could take a seat in one of these inertia dampened couches sometime in the next two subcyclets. I'd prefer not having to clean what will otherwise be left of you off the walls.” Then he turned and was gone.

  Captain Rivermon decided to believe the stranger was serious when he implied what would happen if they weren't sitting on the ‘couches’ he'd mentioned by the time they launched. So he tossed his bundle in the bin and barked, “You heard the man, toss your packs in there and go find a seat.”

  Mathieu didn't appear responsive, so Wilber pulled his pack out of his limp hands. Then after tossing Mathieu's pack after his own, he guided him through the hatch and gently pushed him into one of the nine identical couches that were in three rows of three. There were two narrow pathways in between the three rows of seats. He turned to tell the others to hurry, but found they didn't need to be told as they were all busy finding a seat. This left captain Rivermon the last one to sit down. Which he did with only a heartbeat to spare before some kind of restraint forcefield pulled everyone's arms and legs into position on the leg and arm rests. For another heartbeat the captain noticed that the seat was more comfortable than it looked. Then the shuttle was launched and all he was aware of was that it felt as if a massive weight was crushing him to pulp. Except that somehow it didn't actually hurt and his body wasn't damaged by the force that he was nonetheless quite certain was absolutely real. A single heartbeat later a large hologram at the front of the passenger cabin suddenly displayed something similar to the ‘tactical threat’ view they had seen on the planet that was now far below them.

  “Stand by for evasive maneuvers.” the stranger's voice, which was coming from some unseen intercom system, warned them. “My inertial compensator systems should prevent any actual injuries that the maneuvers might otherwise cause you. However abruptly intense maneuvering can still be very disconcerting.

  As they heard this, the holographic display showed that some of the dreadnoughts were firing particle stream weapons at them. There was an abrupt lurch to one side which would have been lethal if the inertial dampers of the acceleration couches hadn't compensated for it. The first volley of particle streams missed.

  “Lock-all on target 3. Maximum overload plus 10 percent. Fire!” the strangers voice sounded from the open intercom.

  The interior lights dimmed. The holographic display flickered and the distinct smell of something burning filled the air. A moment later the holographic display showed a massive explosion on the nearest dreadnought.

  “Target 3 incapacitated,” a mechanical voice reported. “Weapon systems offline. Warning, target 4 approaching interception point.”

  There was another lurch and the position of the dreadnought labeled ‘4’ was suddenly directly behind them. Meanwhile the strangers voice could still be heard.

  “Rig primary transduction thrusters for raw pseudo-particle injection,” their ‘pilot's’ voice commanded. “Maximum overload plus 20%. Engage thrusters.”

  This time the acceleration did hurt, in spite of the inertial compensators in the acceleration couches. The holographic display showed 12 red lines representing a volley of particle streams emanating towards them from the dreadnought behind them and a pair of bright white lines from the rear of the shuttle which was suddenly moving much faster. Most of the red lines missed, though one did hit them. At the same moment, their twin streams of raw pseudo-particles punched a hole in the dreadnought. A heartbeat later, one of it's primary reactors exploded.

  “Target 4 eliminated,” the mechanical voice said. “Aft defense shield offline. Aft hull compromised. Storage area decompressed. Seedpod and related genetic material storage systems are intact.” Then the massive thrust suddenly faded. “Transduction thruster systems offline. Prime target approaching. Warning planetary detonation eminent.”

  “Launch message pod now!” their pilot's voice commanded. “Engage stasis pulse defense shield now!”

  There was a momentary sensation of discontinuity. Then Wilber's eyes focused on the tactical display which now showed that they were rapidly hurtling on a new trajectory. Which now passed closely by the planet. It also showed that the superdreadnought was in pursuit. It was rapidly gaining on them.

  “What the void just happened?” Wilber muttered to nobody in particular.

  “You might all be pleased to note,” their pilot's voice informed them. “That according to my bioscanners, your brief exposure to a ship wide stasis field has not nudged any of you into stasis saturation. What happened Wilber is that I baited the superdreadnought with a message pod filled with nearly five spheres of synthuel. Which I launched directly at it just before using a pulse powered stasis envelope to shield us from the blast that resulted from the superdreadnought's defense system's automatic targeting of all incoming projectiles.

  The message pod never got close enough to the superdreadnought to do more than superficial damage, of course. However the tactic seems to have successfully goaded their commander into giving chase. This will place it too close to the planet to escape the blast. When all the nanomorphic material that my base was constructed from expends itself focusing the energy that will be released when it detonates the 900 spheres of synthuel in it's containment system.

  The subspatial ‘void’ won't come into it unless I've achieved sufficient escape velocity and distance to open a rift before the shockwaves of that same blast reaches our position. Which is why I'm spending so much of our remaining power to accelerate our escape vector.” Their pilot's voice began instructing the ship's computer. “Energize the rift generator now! Rig for manual insertion.”

  “Planetary detonation in process,” the computer's mechanical voice warned. “Shockwave will intersect our position in 2 subcyclets. Estimated rift penetration in 1.5 subcyclets.”

  “It's going to be a close thing,” their pilot needlessly advised them.

  Suddenly the universe appeared to turn inside out. As they were enveloped by the subspatial void. It had been a long time since captain Rivermon had been exposed to it. He still found the artificial reality envelope the ship had to generate to exist there slightly disturbing. Though not as disturbing as he found the rate at which the tactical display was reporting that the subspatial shield system was draining the remaining ships power.

  It was however a much shorter subspatial jump than he was expecting. So they made it back to real space with their minds intact. A fact that captain Rivermon realized when he noticed that the acceleration couch had released his arms. He also noticed that there was suddenly neither artificial gravity nor active thrust. He knew this because he was in a state of freefall.

  Unfortunately, so was Mr Naville. The assorted contents of who's stomach were soon floating around the cabin in the form several disgusting looking bubbles, as Mathieu periodically added a little more to it.

  “We have achieved a charging orbit around a nearby star,” their pilot said as he returned to the main cabin area. “The passive particle collector ci
rcuits on the hull are currently yielding sufficient solar energy to begin level 2 particle collection within two cycles. Five subcyclets after that and we should have enough power to run the pseudo-gravs at 10% GSG, while we spend another 6 cycles collecting sufficient power to run the shield generator to protect us from the high solar radiation levels we will be exposed to. As our elliptical orbit swings us close enough to the star to harvest enough energy to start condensing the synthuel. Which we will need to get us out of here.”

  “I don't pretend to know what the zap your talking about,” captain Rivermon called out. “Nor can I figure out how a vessel the size of this shuttle had enough power to fight it's way through those dreadnoughts. But I can tell you this. If any of those dreadnoughts survived, they will have known that we didn't have the power for that jump of yours to get us very far. I was watching your tactical display, by the way. It looked to me like two of them survived. Which means that we can expect an attack long before your time table says we'll even have pseudo-grav.”

  “Thank you for voicing your concern Wilber,” the strange man said. “But while they ‘may’ even have enough knowledge of subspatial jump technology and possibly even detected that we didn't have the power reserves to go far, I doubt very much that they were able to detect the sidereal vector of our jump.

  As to how I had enough power to take out a few dreadnoughts, what do you know of synthuel based power systems?”

  Captain Rivermon shook his head vigorously.

  “Do you mean to tell me that bit about condensing synthuel wasn't just a figure of speech?” he inquired. “And that this shuttle actually runs on synthuel?”

  “You sound so incredulous,” the stranger replied. “It makes me wonder if your ready to accept that my answer to both questions is ‘yes’. So if you must know, I spent nearly two full spheres of it to put the first dreadnought out of commission. I used another three spheres of the stuff in the particle streams that punched a hole in the second one. And I've already told you how much my former base used, to take out that superdreadnought.”