The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  Rolling away from the bodies, M147 made a connection. “This is Doctor 147 requesting conference with Constable Larissa.”

  “M147, This is an unscheduled report. Have you located the fugitives?” Constable Larissa asked thorough the multiceiver. She was sipping from a steaming mug.

  “We have not located the fugitives, but have followed their trail to a camp of Free Rangers. I have reason to believe the fugitives have departed in a shuttle. Therefore, I will not be able to continue to track them. Neither Dermo-deprehension Anisotensic lighting nor DNA pneumatic-exhalation residue methods will allow pursuit with the fugitives fleeing in a shuttle. Request instructions,” M147 replied.

  “How certain are that they used a shuttle?” Larissa asked in a cold, methodical manner.

  “Before his demise, a prisoner revealed that information. My analysis strongly suggested he was truthful. However, I have no real proof of those claims.” M147 spun around and opened the viewing display to show the three bodies piled in the hallway.

  “Investigate all possible routes of escape. If you find no other traces of the fugitives, return to my position,” Larissa reported. “What is the mission’s operational status?”

  “E11 is only 13% operational and not mobile. S101 is 87% operational and S76 is 92% operational,” M147 reported.

  “Eliminate all the Free Rangers in those living quarters while you search. Disable the hanger bays as well. If the fugitives did escape, we will need to lure them to come back to us. I am relaying this to the security automacubes. Extinguish E11 prior to departing. That is all.” Larissa broke the connection.

  E11 received the message and remotely assessed the hangers. It locked and sealed the bays and then decompressed them. There were a few people inside the largest bay when the decompression happened. They died suddenly and unexpectedly. E11 also activated all the doors of the safe zone so they immediately sprang open. This superseded the established programming for fire and pressurization safety, but with no working artificial intelligence system in place overseeing the living quarters, E11 was able to circumvent all the safety protocols. Thus the doors opened. The only exception was the manual airlocks near the hanger bays.

  S101 turned to the right and S76 to the left after they received and obeyed Constable Larissa’s command. They immediately began terminating the humans they encountered. Most of them were waking from sleep as their apartment doors opened without warning. There was much confusion, calling, and screaming.

  S101 rolled slower than S76, but they individually covered the safe zone hallway by hallway. With no intercom system and limited illumination, the Free Rangers were startled and frightened by sounds of gun fire, or the screams of their neighbors and friends. A few had time to gather weapons and mount a haphazard, sporadic defense, but their hand weapons were no match for the firepower of the red automacubes. In all the confusion a few Free Rangers were accidentally shot by their companions. Many rushed away heading for the hanger bays in a futile attempt to escape. They looked for answers in their leader, but no answers would come from him.

  The red automacubes were relentless and merciless as they methodically went room by room, hall by hall, and deck by deck killing the people of the safe zone.

  Whenever a person looked out from a doorway whose door refused to shut, or sprinted along a hallway, or were detected in any way, they were executed on sight, usually by a three round burst from the automacubes’ projectile weapons.

  A mother and her three children tried keeping inside her apartment and hiding. But there was no hiding from the red automacubes. Heat, motion, and visual detectors on the machines stripped away the few places people tried to find concealment. None of the Free Rangers had ever expected anyone or anything to penetrate the bulkhead perimeter security system, so they fled in panic. Any person that moved was considered a target and was fired upon. A few people tried to hide in the hydroponic garden, but the red automacubes murdered them as the crouched in fear.

  It was not long before the area known as JE300, their safe zone, was anything but safe. It was a charnel house with more bodies being added by the moment.

  Markari had panicked after the intercom system failed. He still thought it must be some mistake or at most a Roe that had gotten inside the perimeter. For a few moments he babbled incoherently, but when the door opened and failed to shut he then decided to try to escape and save himself. Heedless of the needs of those around him, he ran toward the nearest hanger bay. He did not warn others. He did not try to organize a resistance. He did not seek to open the weapon’s locker and retrieve higher powered weapons. He fled in mind-numbed fear.

  Reaching the hanger bay doors, Markari discovered a crowd of people who also were seeking to escape. Regaining some measure of control, he said, “I will open the doors!” His fumbling fingers touched the color pad control panel. It buzzed a negative response.

  “Markari what is happening?” the people in the crowd asked. “I hear many are dead. What is going on?”

  “Shut up!” Markari snapped back. “How would I know what is happening?”

  He kept trying to open the sealed doors of Hanger Bay E310, and was surrounded by the remnant of surviving Free Rangers. He kept entering the proper sequence into the color pad, but it refused access. “Come on! Open up!” He wailed.

  Two women next to him spotted S101 as it rounded the last corner and headed for the hanger bay. They stepped forward and placed themselves in front of the small crowd. The women fired their handguns at the approaching red automacube, but the weapons were ineffective.

  Suddenly, from out of a side entrance to the hall, three young people rushed at S101. They were armed with steel pry bars and large wrenches. Two of them slipped the pry bars under the side of the automacube and flipped it up onto its wheels. By pushing it hard against the opposite side wall of the hallway, they were able to jam it on its side. Had they had proper leadership, from the beginning of the crisis, their tactics and mechanical skills may well have defeated all the automacubes, but they had only their own instincts, and were very late to apply their skills. Yet, their youth and discernment were put to good use.

  They pressed hard against the automacube as it spun its wheels and rapidly rotated its appendage. S101 was unable to free itself from being pinned against the wall. It fired a sustained blast from its weapons and bullets tore down the hallway and into the crowd gathered at the hanger doors. The two women trying to defend the crowd fell to the blast. Many others also went down in bloody carnage, but Markari had been shielded by much of the crowd and he continued his futile efforts to unlock the doors.

  With glove protected hands, the youth with the wrench quickly set about disassembling the drive wheels of the pinned machine. The three wheels that were now at the top were removed in short order, despite the rotation and wrestling of the machine. The appendage was then attacked by the youth while his friends, one male, one female, continued to hold the machine jammed against the wall. The youth had the first knuckle apart and the appendage dropped to the floor. The disconnected and truncated stump now whirled uselessly about.

  “This one is almost finished!” the wrench wielding youth cried in premature triumph. His two companions had determined smiles on their faces as they continued to pin the automacube. As he looked down the hallway, he saw Markari still entering the rejected code, surrounded by the dead and wounded. Beyond him the hallway extended to a cross corridor.

  The youth’s big brown eyes filled with tears as he looked past the whimpering Markari and the moaning and groaning people lying amidst the dead. He saw S76 turn the corner at that distance juncture.

  The two other youths with the pry bars, also saw the other red automacube and they shook their heads as they knew defeat was upon them. No time to run, no place to go, nothing to do.

  S76 fired a different weapon this time. Liquefied incendiary gel spouted from its weapon’s muffle. Just after being ejected, the gel ignited and the entire hallway in front of Hanger Bay E310 was fil
led with flames. The living, the wounded, the dead, all were set ablaze in the tremendous heat. Even the crippled S101 could not withstand the immense heat as its internal mechanisms were fried and its drive wheels melted away. The fire burned so quickly and intensely that the oxygen in the hall was depleted, and the fire then cracked itself away.

  S76 backed slowly away and continued to look for more humans to exterminate. However, the Free Rangers were now all eliminated and the red automacube returned to the entry hallway.

  After the heat tapered off, M147 and S76 made a survey of the now quiet place that had been a safe zone for the Free Rangers. The three hanger bays: J-90, E310, and E308 were all sealed and depressurized. Every room was empty of living beings. There were no traces of the fugitives anywhere which confirmed they had left via a shuttle.

  As M147 passed the airlocks, it did not open them up or scan them. Had it done that, it would have had to execute Tennard who had been imprisoned in one of the airlocks near J-90. Technically, the airlocks were considered part of the exterior hull, and not part of the living quarters. So M147 justified ignoring those parts, as Constable Larissa had ordered “Eliminate all the Free Rangers in the living quarters.”

  Also, as M147 and S76 passed by Sigmond, M147 made sure that the red automacube did not get close enough to detect the remaining life that was in him. His suspended animation would last only another fourteen hours. M147 justified that action because Sigmond had already been ‘eliminated’ from the action prior to the execution order. Therefore, M147 made sure S76 did not detect Sigmond.

  Just before departing from the necropolis that now existed where Brinley had grown up, M147 connected with E11. Final commands were issued and E11 obeyed. Doors remained open all around the once safe zone, but manual function was again allowed. The illumination came back to its standard levels. The hanger bays were cycled again. Then their interior doors remained sealed, the exterior doors opened and the bays were again decompressed. This ejected many of the shuttles, parts, bodies, supplies, and commodities which had been assembled in the hanger bays. The exterior hanger bay doors were then sealed open and depowered. The airlock doors were no longer locked. The perimeter bulkhead doors opened and the once safe zone was abandoned. M147 then deactivated E11 by removal of its lufi-amalgum battery packs.

  6 Fuel, machines, and other things

  “No one should do that to fine shuttles!” Brinley exclaimed in annoyance. She looked out the front port of the small shuttle she was piloting and at the newly opened hanger bay.

  To Paul and Gretchen what they saw out the ports looked like a mismatch of scraps, debris, and assorted other unidentified things.

  The hanger bay doors had slid open and revealed several large shuttles, but they were in massive disrepair. One had only a fuselage with no wings or tail. Another had the entire nose section missing. The third seemed complete at first, but on closer look the ports, doors, and docking apparatus were all missing. They were also all floating in the zero gravity of the hanger bay and none of them were secured in any way. The one without wings was high up in the hanger, roughly forty meters off the deck. The others were about midway in the hanger.

  “I take it they are not supposed to look that way?” Paul said rather snidely.

  “Of course not,” Brinley snapped back. “Those are class 9 shuttles, the mainstay of Free Rangers. I did not expect this place to be a junkyard of scrap parts.”

  “Not only are the shuttles in pieces, but there are bodies floating there as well,” Gretchen observed. The shuttles, bodies, and other things were just stationary and hanging there in the bay. It had an eerie feeling to it all.

  “Their suits all look intact,” Brinley remarked. “No signs of weapons fire.”

  The artificial intelligence system Tiffany then said, “May I add something?”

  “Sure,” Paul replied.

  “Scans of this hanger bay show the bodies have been dead for approximately sixty-two years. The shuttles appear to have been in the process of disassembly and combination, as evidenced by the tool marks and pattern seen in the pieces. Consider the shuttles from left to right: the one on our left is nearly functional with the exception of the ports and doors and some other minor items. The one of the far right is the least functional.”

  “Doors on a shuttle are not minor items,” Brinley teased. There was a gleam in her eyes as she looked out over hanger bay. Her mechanic’s mind was already placing which parts would go where and how.

  “I stand corrected,” Tiffany replied. “Relatively speaking, the shuttle on the left is the most complete and closest to functional. It appears that the people who were working here were using the parts from the other two shuttles to complete the third. It looks like that process was interrupted before it was completed.”

  “Obviously. Otherwise they would not be here,” Paul said.

  “So could that shuttle be finished?” Gretchen asked.

  “Great idea!” Brinley said. “And as tiny as this shuttle is, I can fly it around those others and still land on a docking pad. I even see a couple of runabouts back there as well.”

  “The tiny twin seated vehicles?” Paul asked. “You call those runabouts? They are not much bigger than a fusion truck, and they are space faring?”

  “Right. The runabouts can fly from place to place, but have very little room for any cargo. Free Rangers almost never use them. Those back there look like they are still in long-term storage. Notice how they are all locked into place on the decks, unlike the shuttles?” Brinley manipulated the controls and the small shuttle’s thrusters fired and it nimbly moved around the hanger bay avoiding the larger shuttles and pieces of shuttle. “I will set this bird down over by them, after we secure down the shuttles.”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked.

  “When we reactivate this hanger bay, the gravity manipulation will come back on. We do not want our new acquisition crashing to the deck before I can fix it, right?” Brinley gave a wide smile.

  “You think you can fix the large shuttle?” Gretchen asked. “I am willing to help however I can.”

  “Give me the right tools and enough time, I can fix just about anything,” Brinley stated with sincere confidence. “Look down on that deck. There are work benches, and tool lockers, and machinery for any kind of repairs. This place may not be so bad after all.”

  “Then why did these people fail?” Paul asked as he looked at the body of someone who was just floating there still and lifeless.

  “Great question Paulie,” Brinley remarked. “We will need to find that out to ensure I can repair that shuttle. I have taken large shuttles out from long term storage before and readied them for flight. That only takes a few hours usually. It must be fitted for manual controls and the old AI interfaces shut down. Then thruster fuel loaded, and systems tested and refined. This repair might take a bit longer than that, but we will see. You have anything better to do right now, Paulie?”

  “My name is Paul. I will help as much as I can,” he replied. “You are right; there is nothing else to do anyway.”

  Brinley ignored the jibe. “Oh, there are lots to do. First, we must settle those shuttles down. That job will take lots of finesse to get the parts in the right places. We will also need to gather the other flotsam and place it in a safe location. And the bodies will need to be collected. I can do all that from this shuttle with the manipulation arm, but it will take some time. Then we must land this little shuttle. Then shut the outer doors. Then we need to reactivate the gravity manipulation, re-pressurize the bay, and confirm the air is safe. After that we can get out of this little shuttle, kiss it goodbye and start the real fun of repairing that big one there.”

  “Brinley?” Tiffany asked. “I may be able to interface with the controls of this hanger bay. If I could establish a link or coupling, I could gradually initiate the gravity manipulation. Would that accomplish the same goal as your working to settle the shuttles?”

  Brinley was thoughtful for a moment. �
��I have wondered if variable control was possible on gravity manipulation, but have never seen a working model of that. In my experience you either have gravity in place, or you do not. There is no middle ground. On or off. Heavy or weightless. But I am willing to let you try. After all, you cured me of being a Roe and I thought that was impossible. So Paulie, should we let your AI Tiffany have a go at it?” Brinley winked at Gretchen as she said Paulie.

  “Go for it.”

  “You heard the man, Tiffany, what do you need?” Brinley asked.

  “I have been scanning for access ports, and ways to interface. I conjecture there is a possibility that if you connect this small shuttle into an access port, I may be able to use the shuttle’s systems as an inroad for connection. I will not know if it is possible until we try,” Tiffany said.