Empire of Stars

by D. W. Patterson

  Sigmund hesitated, “I guess you are right Dag. Looks like I'll never get rich.”

  The governments weren't pleased with Sigmund's answer. But since the three were committed to stopping the attacks it was decided to let them proceed. The governments and there Em agents could keep tabs.

  Dag and Walker were discussing the needed defenses aboard the Perseus, Sigmund was purchasing equipment from Earth to replace the government's.

  “Okay Dag I would state the problem in the following manner. We need to develop a way to stop the attacks delivered through nonlocal links of massive gravity waves or other destructive means such as a high-temperature plasma. This means that we would need to have a warning system when a nonlocal link opened from, shall we say suspect coordinates, and respond with our defense system before the link could be used. Does that state the problem?”

  “Yes Walker. And by stating the problem it becomes apparent how difficult it will be to attain our goal. I will break it further down into the following necessary steps. One, we have to define suspect coordinates. We have yet to actually locate these so-called Dhalkans.

  “Two, we have to move quickly once a link opens and project our defenses to this side of that link. And quick enough to make a difference.

  “Three, we have to develop a defense to massive gravitational waves possibly multiple sources.

  “Four, the defense should also block any other means the Dhalkans may use to project harm.”

  “That sums it up Dag. Again I wish I had Sigmund's job.”

  Shortly after as the two were buried in thought Sigmund signaled to come aboard.

  “And leave the link open will you Dag, we have visitors.”

  Dag looked at Walker who shrugged.

  The link open, Sigmund soon showed up. Stepping out of the bubble-like end of the link he was soon followed by others. All the Trilon that had been deposited on Earth.

  “Dag, Walker, I have all the equipment purchased and it should be ready to link sometime this week. As you can see I also brought some old friends with me.”

  Dag could see and he also noticed each Trilon had brought a package with him that was almost as big as the Trilon.

  “Welcome Laeoin and all Trilon.”

  “Thanks to you Dr. Mach. We are happy much to be back on Perseus.”

  “It turns out Dag,” said Sigmund, “that the Trilon weren't entirely happy on Earth. Probably it was the military's refusal to allow them any self-determination.”

  “We found Earth too strict for Trilon. We have much less rules.”

  “So they petitioned the government, loaded up on food and drink and here they are.”

  “They petitioned and the government agreed?”

  Just then the comm came alive.

  “Perseus this is Northern Alliance Central Command, Captain Jansen, over.”

  Before Dag responded he motioned for the Trilon to move to the side of the wallscreen where they would not be seen. Dag responded and the wallscreen activated and there was the Captain looking none too happy.

  “Yes Captain this is Dagmar Mach what may I do for you?”

  “Mach I want to talk to your partner in crime Sigmund.”

  “I'm here Captain.”

  “I see that you are. What I want to know is where are the Trilon that went with you?”

  “The Trilon? Why, is there a problem?”

  “Stop stalling robot. Where are they?”

  “Sir,” said Dag. “The Trilon are safe and you should not worry about them.”

  “You damn robot! I'm not worried I'm incensed. How dare you kidnap wards of the government.”

  “Guests that had petitioned to leave the government's care I understand.”

  “I don't care what you understand Mach. Are you returning the Trilon or not?”

  “The Trilon are sentient beings and I am not telling them what to do one way or the other. However if they ask me for help, if they ask for asylum aboard this vessel, I can assure you it will be given.”

  “I see robot. I hope you don't live to regret those words.”

  The screen went dark.

  “A bit pushy don't you think?” said Sigmund.

  “Sigmund I just hope you haven't got me in over your head.”

  “I think they have to be near the gravity wave machine,” said Walker. “At least during its construction they would want to be able to link in and out of system with some precision.”

  “And,” said Dag. “A behemoth such as that isn't going through a link. It would take too much energy to force something that big through. So they had to deliver it in pieces and it makes sense to deliver those pieces as accurately as possible so the construction crews could minimize the time of build. So I would say to get the accuracy I suspect they needed we are looking at a sphere no more than ten light-years in radius.”

  “Ten light-years. That's still a huge volume of space to monitor.”

  “I know Walker. I think we will need an Em family's help.”

  “We can pay them out of Link-Choice's profit.”

  “Sigmund isn't going to like that.”

  And he didn't but after offering the Trilon sanctuary without consulting Dag he knew he couldn't object.

  Dag and Walker were meeting with an Em family representative by radio to discuss how they would find the home planet of the Dhalkans.

  “We thank you for meeting with us Bud 49-0011.”

  “You are welcome Dr. Mach. I represent the New Bern family of Ems. (An Em family, made up of the original emulated brain and its buds, many times took the name of the old Earth tower complex they had originally managed). Now what is it that my family might do for you?”

  “You are aware of this group called the Dhalkans?”

  “Yes Dr. Mach I believe so.”

  “We are trying to discover their location. We have a plan to use Casimir confetti*. Are you familiar with that term?”

  “Yes, Casimir confetti refers to a swarm of minuscule detectors and capable of radio transmissions.”

  “That is right Bud 49-0011. We intend to flood several areas of interest and monitor the results through a nonlocal link. And that is where we can use Em help. The links will require continuous monitoring which we cannot supply without more help.”

  “Sounds like a simple job. I believe we have enough of the family in stasis to assist you. It shouldn't require any more Buds which will allow us to offer you a discount. May I ask who will be responsible for hosting resources?”

  “We would like to host your family aboard our spaceship the Perseus which is in Earth orbit.”

  “That would be acceptable. I will transmit a contract shortly. If you accept we will be ready to start as soon as you need us.”

  “Thank you Bud 49-0011 we will shortly be ready to monitor.”

  19

  “We should know their planet's location soon Sigmund. The Trilon we trained to operate the spin-two drives have deposited the Casimir confetti in the designated locations and established the links for the Ems to monitor. The power the Dhalkans are using will break some of the quantum entanglements locally. This will be the give-away signal.”

  “These are the particle entanglements of spacetime Dag?”

  “Yes Sigmund spacetime as we know it is an emergent property of quantum entanglement, it knits together spacetime through particles sharing a common quantum state.”

  “And that is what the Casimir confetti is detecting?”

  “Right Sigmund. If enough of these entanglements are 'broken' then spacetime starts to breakdown and 'unravel'. And the unraveling spreads at the speed of light. Fortunately the effects of this unraveling dissipate over distance. And larger masses and longer wavelength EM waves are affected first.

  “One common way to cause this breakdown is to concentrate too much energy in too small a space as with a wormhole drive or . . .”

  “Or a huge power plant like the one we found driving the Dhalkan's gravity wave machine.”

  “Exa
ctly Sigmund. And I expect if we find another such power plant it will be in the Dhalkan's star system and they will be on one of that system's planets or in space habitats around its star.”

  Bud 49-1107 was monitoring his link. Atlas C was a star in the constellation Taurus as seen from Earth. It was part of a ternary system with Atlas A as the more famous component. Its spectra indicated it was very Sun-like. Atlas C had no known planets.

  So far there had been no alarms.

  Then it started. Like a cascade, one after another of the confetti started reporting broken entanglements. Each report lasted milliseconds as the Casimir devices seemed to be seeing waves of broken entanglements washing across the formation. Then it stopped, lasting only a few minutes. Bud 49-1107 called Dag.

  “Dr. Mach this is Bud 49-1107.”

  “Yes Bud?”

  “I have picked up a signal. It's the power signature of ten to the sixteenth Sols that you've been looking for, the direction seems to indicate Atlas C.”

  “Very good Bud 49-1107, I believe you've found it.”

  Then before Dag could close the comm link Bud 49-1107 began again.

  “Dr. Mach, something's wrong with the link. It appears to be vibrating at high frequency. Power buildup is huge. What should I do?”

  Before Dag could answer there was a tremendous explosion. The entire asteroid shook and began a complex rotation.

  “Dag this is Walker. One of the chambers housing a spin-two has exploded. It breached the surface and opened the chamber to space. The containment doors held.”

  “What about casualties?”

  “The two Trilons operating the spin-two were lost.”

  Slowly the pilot Ems stabilized the Perseus. Laeoin was notified.

  “Well I guess it confirms that we have found their star system and they don't like it. I'm sorry Laeoin for your losses.”

  “We are committed Dr. Mach. We will carry forward.”

  Dag was more and more impressed with the Trilons and their determination in the face of adversity.

  “Okay we've also learned that any links we open to study the Dhalkans have to be brief. Based on what has just happened I believe we should set a link's duration at no more than a minute. If the situation warrants it the link can be reopened every five minutes with slightly different coordinates.”

  “Dag?”

  “Yes Sigmund.”

  “The Perseus hasn't any evacuation plans or facilities has it?”

  “No I don't believe it does Sigmund.”

  “Perhaps we should implement some?”

  “Good idea Sigmund I'll leave that up to you.”

  Sigmund didn't look pleased with the assignment.

  The monitoring of the Dhalkan System had continued for over a week. The power plant, very similar to the one found near the Trilon planet had been pinpointed. And a planet looking very much like Earth had been located. The Dhalkans were obviously operating from its surface.

  Meanwhile, Dag had investigated the explosion and from the effects and residual traces found on the walls of the breached chamber, he determined that a hot plasma had flooded into the room and caused the destruction. It was very similar to the destruction of the original lab building which had started Dag on this adventure. Except.

  Except that the amount of plasma had just enough destructive powers to destroy a single chamber, not the entire asteroid.

  “The Dhalkans could have destroyed us if they had wanted Walker.”

  “They may still Dag.”

  “Yes I know, that is why we've got to start testing countermeasures now.”

  “Maybe we should have had those in place first,” said Sigmund.

  “Maybe Sigmund but obviously the Dhalkans want to stop us but not destroy us. I wonder why?”

  “I got the idea from Bud 49-1107's description of what was happening to the link he was monitoring Walker. A high-frequency vibration was noticed in the link just before the explosion. I think that even without the explosion that vibration would have shut the link.”

  “So that's how we can shut a Dhalkan link from our side?”

  “That's what you and I are going to test.”

  The Perseus had been outfitted with six extra spin-two drives including the one that had been destroyed. Each drive had been installed in its own room or chamber bored from the rock of the asteroid by the miner bots. They were arranged around the asteroid just beneath its surface with a blast door connecting them to the main ring. In the case of the destroyed chamber, the door had held and prevented the decompression of the main ring.

  Dag was in one of the spin-two rooms while Walker was on the other side of the asteroid in another. Walker would open a link into Dag's chamber and Dag would try to shut it from his side.

  Walker started his drive which was mostly based on the old wormhole drive. The core of the drive, the rotating three-layer sphere reached its effective operational range as Walker ramped up the driving voltage. The white pinpoint of light coming from the setup told Walker that the negative energy was ready to cast.

  Once he had chosen a link local to his room and Dag's he opened it slightly with a negative energy bubble that detached from the drive when it found the link's end. The bubble seemed very clear almost like a water drop from Walker's perspective. The other end once opened would look very similar to Dag.

  In Dag's spin-two chamber he had his drive at the same point where the bright pinpoint of light indicated that negative energy was available. Except that instead of a single bubble Dag was hoping to cast several such bubbles around his end of Walker's link. If he did it right the link's end finding itself between the many bubbles of negative energy would be repelled by them and oscillate around its lattice point which was firmly held in place by local links.

  It was only a moment after Walker had opened the link that Dag noticed the bubble high up near the ceiling of the lofty chamber.

  Dag projected and released several bubbles of negative energy on around the link's end. First one way then the other the end of the link darted. Soon it was too quick to follow. Dag heard a sound increasing in frequency right through the ultrasonic. Another second and the link collapsed expelling the negative energy that had been holding it open.

  The ball of energy as if expelled from a cannon caught Dag in the chest and engulfed him. He was slammed by the momentum of the rapidly dissipating bubble against the cavern wall. A system reset caused him to stay there a moment. When he looked again for the link it was gone.

  Walker confirmed that his side of the link closed in a similar manner but without incident as the speeding ball of negative energy dissipated against a rock wall.

  20

  “We've got a way to close a link Dag.”

  “Yes, a rather explosive way but it should suffice Walker.”

  “If we can close these links before they do any damage we've solved our problems.”

  “We may have only a few seconds to detect the opening link and project the negative energy bubbles to close it.”

  “We'll use a method similar to the one we used in the valley? An antenna array will alert us when a link opens?”

  “I think that will be sufficient Walker. The key will be to determine the origin quickly. I think we will need a whole family of Ems to make it viable.”

  “That could cost more than we can afford.”

  “The governments are going to have to pay for it. Each planet that wants a defensive system is going to have to contract an Em family to give them the early warning capability they are going to need. All we can do is provide them with the tools.”

  The governments were interested but wanted proof that the system developed by Dag and Walker would really work. They obliged by setting up some tests that could be viewed by military or government personnel.

  The day of the tests the Perseus was still in orbit around the Earth. Walker had linked to a facility on the surface of the Moon where he would operate the spin-two machine. He was to open links to random location
s in Earth space. The Ems aboard the Perseus would react by detecting the links with the antenna array and then closing them.

  The demonstration started. Walker was opening links at random in the space above Earth. The Ems on the Perseus had detected every link so far and closed it before Walker could transmit a message. The government and military observers on the Earth's surface where Dag was stationed relaying the results onto a wallscreen were impressed.

  Suddenly the number of links being opened doubled and then tripled. Something was wrong, Dag knew that Walker couldn't possibly be opening that many links with a single spin-two. The Ems on the Perseus were keeping up but there were not enough of them to maintain the defenses if the link volume increased much.

  The number of links doubled. The Ems couldn't detect and close them all fast enough. Out of some of the open links came what looked like a ball of plasma. The balls were headed to Earth, there wasn't anything that Dag could do to stop them.

  Cassie Russell was out playing when the plasma hit her house. The structure seemed to groan as it filled with the fireball. Then an explosion, probably from the gas line, shook the house to pieces and knocked Cassie backward. She wasn't hurt but stunned as the neighbor's house exploded and burned followed by the one on the other side and so on down the street. Cassie was too young to understand the cost of the massive destruction but would remember the images for the rest of her life.

  Joe Long had lived in the tower complex his whole life. He hadn't thought about living anywhere else. He was on his small ninety-eight floor balcony when he heard the ball of plasma high overhead. He looked up quick enough to see it slam into a complex adjacent to his. From where he was he could barely make out the top floor of that complex since it was nearly a hundred floors above him. All he could see was a bright light and smoke billowing apparently from broken windows.

  Joe watched the disaster unfold until nearly thirty minutes later he heard what he thought was thunder. But a blue sky wasn't harboring a storm cloud. Joe looked at the burning complex and was shocked to see the top floors beginning to cascade down. Floor by floor collapsing in on the one below. Soon the sound of the failing building was deafening and as he looked in that direction he began to see the dark cloud of dust and debris heading his way. It was closing fast as Joe jumped from his balcony into his apartment slamming the balcony door shut as the dark cloud passing swirled and crackled with lightning just outside.