Interstellar Starpilots

by F Stephan

  Mobile console in hand, Mathias tracked the terrorist. He had found a shadow of someone installing a box near the silo hours before the explosion. Then, he had scanned all video sets around to build a profile of the culprit. Not a face. A height, a silhouette, a few details.

  With the program and his research, he had called Puylian and traveled back to Wepol to meet with him. The main objective had to be to train his staff on the distribution program he had created. Now, it could run without him, enough that if a ship arrived before all were dead, the medicine would be distributed everywhere and would fight the deadly plague, nanite against nanite. He had presented his other results to the security staff afterward, who had grimly supported his conclusions, cross-checking his data. They had designated two policemen to accompany him in his pursuit.

  On a hunch, he had come back to the spaceport looking for those blocked by the quarantine. The burned-down cafeteria had attracted his attention and he had found a matching shadow in a video he had been able to recover. He had learned a bit more about the woman casting it from coworkers who had survived the blaze, but she had left days before he arrived. He hacked into all systems around the place and tracked her to the main swamps in the southern part of the continent. From then on, he moved single-mindedly from place to place after her. It was a wet and humid tropical paradise and the more he traveled, the more he loved this planet, and the more he hated the terrorist who had released the sickness.

  At last, he arrived at Laz, a coastal city, the end of a line. She was waiting for him on top of a cliff, looking to the ocean. A storm was coming in their direction, a black curtain of rain of the horizon. He had a pistol in his hand and stood facing her.

  “Don’t stand back. Come and sit. You won’t shoot. You aren’t like me.” Her voice was low, sad, and frank. With all his hate, he couldn’t murder her cold-bloodedly. He did as she had bidden, cautious of the drop below, a hundred yards to the sea. His two bodyguards watched over them, weapons drawn.

  “I’m infected, you know?” she said casually. “I won’t live a week now. I thought I’d escape it. But in the end, they killed me, those bloody scumbags. They shouldn’t have been able to! I’m a survivor!” She was proud of her words and rage boiled within Mathias.

  Her voice wasn’t normal, accelerating and slowing from one word to another. Mathias could barely understand her. The two policemen positioned themselves on either side of her, ready to grab her.

  “Why don’t you come downtown and tell me all of it?” Mathias didn’t know how to behave.

  “No. I like it here, watching the sea. When I was little, this was all I ever dreamed of. I’ll die here, now or later. Until then, if you record, I’ll tell you a nice and funny story. And you’ll have a revenge a thousand times better than shooting me. I promise. I’ll be a good girl.” She cackled madly, delighted at the prospect.

  Mathias nodded to the policemen. Two silent drones hovered on the side, transmitting all data to Wepol and the satellite network. Mathias had preprogrammed it to be integrated into the Core Data Sphere. This testimony would reach the stars, now, whatever happened to the planet.

  Then, Sister Shadow told them her story. It was hard to listen to her. She was incoherent at the best of times and mad otherwise. It took two hours on the cliff, with the storm looming, to get it out of her. She had proof and told them where to obtain it.

  “Now, you’ve got all you need to burn Lapren. Tell him it came from Sister Shadow. His suffering is all I want now.” She rose and before they could restrain her, she let herself fall backward into the sea, rolled by giant waves against the cliff.

  Emily

  An intermediate system, 2141 AD, First week of May

  The flight had now become routine, boring even. Sure of herself, Emily watched her crew work in perfect union. The nine ships were halfway to their destination. Illoma had managed to gain half a day in front of them, and Shanak was one day behind. That wouldn’t make enough of a difference for Dupner. Illoma was just half a light minute ahead.

  Emily worried. About this race against time, about the plague itself, and about Brian again taking off on his own. Bloody damn fool. Where have you gone? Why didn’t you tell me? Worst was the feeling of having been abandoned again, as her father had done so long ago.

  A dark console on the back of the bridge blinked awake. Emily had never used it, never even been trained on it. She looked at the strange console, dumbfounded.

  Shanak’s face appeared in a 3-D screen at the center of the bridge.

  “To all crews. We are being targeted by active tracking devices. If you’ve got a defense console, activate it now.”

  “What do you mean? Tracking devices?” Emily blurted in surprise.

  “Emily.” Shanak seemed to turn toward her. “We’re being attacked. The route is barred.” He focused on her. “Now, you’re at the right place. Focus on your console and activate it. We don’t have a manual, but you’ve got to find a way. Understood?”

  Emily reeled back grimly and activated her nanites.

  Focus, extend into the console. Tendrils grew out of her hands to move into the dark metal device.

  “Vocal command. Activate.” No effect. “Emergency defense protocol. Activate.” Various combinations. Doesn’t work. The beep increases, everyone is now cowering from it.

  “Stop this noise!” I shout. It stops. “Materialize information.” A new 3-D appears with strange markings. The route in blue toward the jump point. Red dots in Ancient writing.

  Shanak on the main 3-D. “Five drones are barring the way with a swarm of missiles. We’ll cross them in one minute at one percent of the speed of light. Launch all countermeasures you can find.”

  “Launch countermeasures.” Unable to comply. Shining letters in midair in front of her. No time to coordinate.

  “Activate confinement.” Our engineer is thinking faster than I am. Gel glues me in in thirty seconds. Can’t do more now. Deactivate nanites. Failure. “Take evasive action.” The console lit up entirely. The ship crossed the line of drones in a split second. Waves of energy exploded around it as the drones detonated, releasing a cloud of high-speed debris and radiation. The ship twisted and turned on itself, guided by the strange console to limit the damage. Its hull had been pierced several times, but not enough to breach it entirely. Nanites scurried to repair the holes. Once the rolling and turning stopped, her crew hurried for repairs.

  How does it work? Could I have done more?

  Emily checked on all the ships. Three were missing, blasted into shreds. Among them, Illoma would never reach Dupner. “Shanak, what happened? What does this mean?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Someone doesn’t want us to reach Dupner. Poulem, you and I have ships with defense consoles. Now that yours is activated, try to run a security scan in front of us. We’ve got to figure a way to look for trouble. Poulem is doing the same. And we’ve got to slow down unless we can find countermeasures . . .”

  “We can’t, Shanak. They’ll die.”

  “If we don’t reach them, this is certain,” was the grim reply from the warrior. Emily turned to the console she’d never used, swearing bitterly. The Federation didn’t understand the Ancients and half the time the pilots were blind while using their devices There had to be a better way. “We’ll continue in a tighter formation and focus our consoles to clear a path.”

  “I can fly in front.” A red-eyed Sonter had appeared on the screen.

  “Nope, Sonter. The ships with the console fly first to give you as much advance notice as possible when we encounter the next trap.”

  Poulem called to them. “Do you think there will be others? There haven’t been any for fifty years at least. Not that I’ve heard of.”

  “So, if someone decided to act and set this up, we can’t trust he hasn’t taken other precaution against us reaching Dupner.”

  It was a sadder group that broke communication after a small prayer for their comrades. Later that night, Emily found the right k
eywords: “Search system for objects on intersection course.” So simple. If only she had thought to ask before . . . She continued until her doctor shot her with a tranquilizer. We know nothing. I’ll find a better way, were her last thoughts before the forced respite.

  Brian

  An unknown system, 2141 AD, First week of May

  While Emily recovered from the ambush, Brian’s little scout was rushing toward a wall of fire. The cluster was in the final stages of its life, slowly collapsing upon itself. Tight formation showed future stars coalescing to the naked eye. Brian had called up a chart in front of him, adding gravity forces and hyperspace gradient.

  “What’s your analysis?” He carefully worded his questions. His new navigational assistant was very astute, far more than a usual computer was. Lexia had been entrusted to him by the attaché as special and he had begun to feel it was far more special than he had first thought. Since his encounter with the mad AI on Fizhert, Brian was careful with potential AIs. Yet, something about Lexia reassured him.

  “I’ve identified the jump point you seek.” The system sprang into life as a large 3-D in the middle of the bridge. A red dot appeared on the edges of the sun. “It’s within the photosphere, inside the convection zone. It’s also unstable and will disappear within a millennium.” The voice was cold, analytical and detached, but the facts were plain and unavoidable.

  Behind them, Liliana gasped. “So, it’s lost?”

  “Not yet,” Brian answered in a murmur. “What’s the farthest entry known to a jump point?”

  “Based on Federation records, Master Loupiac and Mistress Calouli have been known to jump from two hundred thousand klicks of a jump point. The convection zone if one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-klicks wide. They could, based on existing records, jump from outside the zone.”

  “But, if I can’t do like them, we’ll have to jump from within the stars?” Brian’s voice was flat.

  Liliana volunteered, “We could activate all confinement and radiation shielding to survive until the jump. We’ve done it once.”

  “We remained a lot farther from the fire last time.” Brian had the life of the whole crew to worry about. It had to be right inside the star! He still hadn’t undertaken his walk through the fire and now he’d have to face far more than the simple test.

  “What if you don’t engage the jump point? And if you faint with nanite abuse?” Chilin was the voice of reason. Sunray wouldn’t speak, sitting ashen in a corner, a silent reminder of their crazy attempt. He stayed only for Liliana, spending hours on end watching vids she wouldn’t share with them.

  “If he faints after the jump, I can get us out to a secondary jump point to let him recover.” Lexia plotted the course on the charts. “I can handle this.”

  “And if I faint before?”

  “There won’t be any ship left.” Silence followed the metallic statement.

  Liliana moved to the center of the chart, disturbing the projection, to face Brian. “Can you jump through fire for my planet? Will we save them?”

  The second question was simple. “If we jump, we’re one system away from Dupner. Two days at most. Two weeks before the other pilots.” The first was harder and Brian thought for a long moment before answering, slowly shaping every word. “I think I can do it. I can’t be sure I’ll succeed, but, yes, I think I can jump.”

  “We’ve got to try. Please. Engage the procedure. I’m in,” Liliana pleaded. Last, they waited for Sunray.

  The usually cheerful man got up slowly. “I don’t want to go. This is madness.” Then, he raised his chin, looking at Liliana. “But I’ve seen your vids of the plague. If we can act, let’s do it.”

  Hours later, the ship adjusted its course to fly straight toward the newborn star holding their jump point. Everyone was in his space suit, gelled for radiation protection. Every antenna had been brought inside and the ship was flying now nearly blind, using a few heavily shielded internal sensors.

  “Brian, we’re reaching the threshold for past jumps.” Lexia had gathered them in a virtual environment where they had spent days on a beach forgetting their doom. She had been running the countdown now for them. This was the signal and they all left the virtual reality, confronted with their harsh reality again.

  “Chilin, Sunray, status?”

  “All clear.” The answers came in seconds.

  “Liliana?”

  “Slightly better than expected. The radiation is still in the lower range. But we’re going to enter a full flare in about two minutes. We won’t survive in it for more than five seconds. We’ve got to jump soon.”

  Brian closed his eyes and activated his nanite.

  “Lexia, all inputs transferred to me as of now.” The massive influx of data is overwhelming. Liliana was right. A flare is building up below in the convection zone, far stronger than anything I expected. So hot and burning. “How long do I have?”

  “Still a minute.”

  Why can’t this star stay quiet? Why now? Okay, time to act.

  “Remove all information except energy gradients.” Lexia acknowledges. We’re too far away, there’s a gradient of energy in normal space forbidding us to engage it from here.

  “Ship, activate all emergency protocols.” I’ll need every edge I can find. A metallic voice speaks up, different from Lexia’s, older and heavily accented. “Emergency approved and confirmed. Ship fully activated.” A new link opens in my mind with the bridge and I can see hyperspace energies flooding around me. All functionalities within the shipboard computer are released.

  My body aches and trembles. So much energy required. I focus on the jump point. In hyperspace, there is no barrier to the jump point, just energies against me, forcing me away. I draw on the singularity, pushing us to the brink of space. It’s dangerously unstable, perturbed by the mad energies around us. There are millions of spikes in its energy levels and each one of them must be countered. But I can throw us from here into hyperspace directly. I can do it drawing energy through hyperspace.

  An opening appears, a rift in space. An extension of the jump point. The ship shakes under the beginning flare. I need more nanites. I burn, and I reach farther inside. I weaken, I feel it. I continue to push the ship through the unstable opening in the fabric of the universe.

  Stars. Stars are opposite the rift. I can see them. I just need to push the ship a little . . . more. Blackness around me. Everything is dark again.

  Liliana

  An unknown system, 2141 AD, First week of May

  Liliana awoke with a start, a siren in her ear. I’ve fainted somewhere. She cursed herself for her weakness. She couldn’t see around her.

  “Lexia, where are we?” Her voice was a croak.

  “We’ve jumped, we’re across as planned and moving on our projected path. I’m removing confinement.”

  Liliana breathed easier. “Okay. Crew and ship status?”

  “Brian faces a severe nanite instability. Emergency assistance required. Other crew unconscious with minor irradiation.” Is our computer concerned?

  Feelings slowly returned to her and she felt her body hurting all over. I’m bruised. Worse than that. I’m alone. Great.

  “Other immediate risks?”

  “None for now. Brian’s status continues to drop.”

  She opened her eyes and the bridge solidified around her. She had been projected against a wall, through the gel. She scanned the room and found Brian’s suit. Strapped to her back was her medical kit. As soon as her upper body was out of the confinement gel, she unclasped her suit and removed her helmets and gloves. Then, she rushed through the remaining gel to Brian, grabbing her emergency kit. She had prepared all she had thought of in advance and tightly attached it inside. In quick gestures, she removed Brian’s helmet, and without looking at his body shifting forms, injected a full syringe of nanite stabilizer and high energy proteins.

  “Lexia, status?”

  “Still unstable.” She dropped the syringe while grabbing for another and usi
ng it immediately.

  “Lexia, status?” His body stopped blurring uncontrollably but continued changing. He’ll be ill for weeks afterward with what I’ve injected. But he’ll live.

  Brian groaned, and the changes diminished again.

  “Improving. He’s regaining stability.”

  “Will he be able to jump later?”

  “I do not know. This cannot be computed at this stage.”

  She swore and hurried to the other crew members.

  Behind her, Sunray cursed loudly while awakening. “Damn singularity. She’s barely stable. What, on hell, did he do with it?”

  “Thank all the gods, you speak! I’ve hated seeing you these last days.”

  “Well, you’re going to hate seeing me a lot more now. I’ll never allow this again. Look at our external hull. It’s seared black and our electronics are mostly fried.” He continued mumbling to himself while cursing.

  She refrained from smile and bent over Chilin. He had hit the deck hard and his condition was serious. She carried him on a stretcher and called a robot to move him to the infirmary.

  “And what will we do now? Who will carry us for the next jump?” Sunray called to her while she left.

  “Next jump in five hours. You can do it on your own.” Lexia answered without being asked.

  Liliana turned. “So . . . Stop being grumpy. From what I remember, we have twenty hours before the following jump. This is the one where we need Brian. We’ll try to get him back into shape by that time.”

  Fifteen hours later, Liliana had to face the truth. Despair had never been so strong. Brian would never be able to jump by himself. He was barely awake and could not hold his own yet. She had installed him in the main lounge and was feeding him warm soup.