by Bob Mayer
Two figures were to the right. At the top left was a schematic representing hydrogen, the most abundant element of the universe. Below it was a vertical line that made no sense initially. But the Swarm collective memory included many encounters with other species and the difficulties of cross-species communication. The line represented a binary digit. Which allowed one to understand a unit of length and time, used in the diagram below.
PIONEER PLACQUE
There was a dot with fifteen lines radiating from it. Fourteen of the lines had binary code from the definition above, integrated into them. The periods of pulsars. The lines were representative distances from the center dot. Except for the one without binary. The stars displayed were consulted and compared. That indicated this system’s relative position to the center of this galaxy. One of the pulsars didn’t quite fit, the number being too unspecific.
Calculating the present distances, the Swarm determined that this plaque indicated a specific time in the past. Whatever was significant about that date, it couldn’t determine.
The bottom of the plaque was of most immediate interest as it displayed the solar system, with the star at the left and nine objects arrayed to the right. It didn’t quite align with what the Core’s own were picking up as there didn’t seem to be any significant planet at the furthest range where the plaque indicated; rather a ring of plutoids. But the largest planet, the sixth from the star, with a symbol indicating rings around it was easily identified, although, strangely, the plaque didn’t indicate the rings the Core was picking up around the other three giants.
A symbol that was a two dimensional representation of the object in the hangar originated from the third planet.
It was very considerate of the race that had launched the probe to give the Swarm a map to their home world. In fact, it resembled an invitation.
A RESCUE
EARTH ORBIT
Kara was seated on top of the cockpit, having watched the talon get blasted by bursts of power from a weapon originating on the northeast coast of the United States.
She had no idea what that had been about and, frankly, didn’t care. Being outside allowed her to deal with constant motion of the Nimue.
10:00
She’d checked the Nimue’s oxygen tanks and they’d gone the way of her co-pilot. Breached by the hit from the talon. She had no communications and the engines were dead.
All in all, she summed this up as a sucky situation.
She was doubtful that Mrs. Parrish would order the crew of the Niviane to conduct a rescue mission. The large vehicle had been filled with barely enough fuel to make rendezvous with the mothership and some spare for emergency maneuvering, the focus being on cargo, not fuel. On top of that, from her few meetings with Mrs. Parrish, Kara doubted a stranded astronaut was high on the old woman’s list of priorities, especially since the Nimue’s mission was gone.
Most importantly, they had no idea she was alive.
Kara squinted at the Earth’s horizon as the Nimue yawed around, giving her a view of the planet. She held a gloved hand in front of her visor. As a trained pilot she knew one couldn’t trust the body’s reactions in flight. Instruments ruled.
Except she had no instruments left, other than her wristpad, which prominently displayed the oxygen remaining time.
But her gut suggested something as damning as the oxygen level. It seemed the orbit of the Nimue, to which she was attached, was decaying.
She could untether herself from the Nimue, but she would still move relative to the wreckage and burn in with it.
Death by suffocation? Death by orbital entry?
Which would come first?
Which would be worse?
*****
“That was a Tesla weapon,” Turcotte said. He’d let go of the controls, leaving the Fynbar floating in space, a mile from the closest talon debris.
“Indeed,” Yakov agreed.
“A big one.”
“So it appeared. Firing from somewhere in the northeast of the United States as best I could see.”
“So Mrs. Parrish controls a Tesla weapon,” Turcotte said, trying to process what had just occurred.
“She might be a good ally,” Yakov suggested. “Although this plan didn’t go as she would have preferred. She was obviously well-prepared for negative possibilities.”
“No plan ever goes exactly right.” Turcotte was staring at the mothership on the far side of the debris field. “I wonder what she wants with the mothership.”
“We could ask her,” Yakov suggested. “Ah!” Yakov exclaimed, as if he’d been punched.
Turcotte was focused on the mothership directly ahead. “What?”
“Earth,” Yakov said. “Look!”
The tone of Yakov’s voice caused Turcotte to halt the Fynbar. He glanced up, through the thick cockpit shield toward the planet.
Multiple mushroom clouds were merging over a spot in southwest Asia, south of the Caspian Sea. “Iran,” Turcotte said. “Tehran.”
As he spoke the word there was a bright flash southeast of the Iranian capital.
“Natanz,” Yakov said, referring to the site of the country’s nuclear enrichment facility. “Someone is wiping out any possibility of the Iranians having nuclear weapons. Or if they don’t, ever developing them.” As the mushroom cloud began to spread, there was another bright flash in the same spot. “Making very sure.”
“Probably the Israelis,” Turcotte said. “Taking advantage of the turmoil.”
“People are packed in there. Surrounded by mountains. Millions just died.”
“Nothing we can do about it,” Turcotte said, but he didn’t take the controls, staring at the spreading nuclear clouds. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Nothing.”
*****
Kara looked toward the mothership. She could barely make out the large object in the far distance. If this were a movie, she’d rig some way to ignite the fuel still in the tanks and the burst would send the wreckage of the Nimue toward the mothership, so perfectly, she’d slide right into the cargo bay and be rescued.
Except the mothership was eight hundred kilometers away, the journey would take longer than she had oxygen, and she was as likely to push herself into the atmosphere as go in any specific direction given the way the Nimue was tumbling. Most importantly, there would be no way to get a controlled burn.
She thought about it, her brain fuzzy. Working the problem, as she’d been taught in her training. She figured she could get a flash burn to get some movement. And while the mothership was out of the question, there was a good chance that she’d stop or slow the orbital decay if she timed it exactly right.
That wouldn’t change the numbers clicking down on her wristpad.
Still, going out in a blaze of glory held some attractions.
She found the emergency supplies locker, which did not hold the most precious commodity one would need in space: oxygen. It did have a fire extinguisher, because fire was a danger in an oxygen rich environment inside the ship, which she found ironic. It also had a medical kit, but Marcus was well past any assistance.
Kara retrieved the emergency flare. It was handheld, not a flare gun, designed to light up a small area rather than indicate position.
She walked along the deck of the Nimue toward the engines.
6:00
She came to an abrupt halt as she reached the end of the tether. She was three meters short of the port she needed to access. She studied the area around the port, unclipped, and gently pushed herself along the skin of the spaceship, flare in one had, other hand reaching out. She gripped a pitot tube 2 feet from the port, smiling grimly at the words stenciled below it:
DO NOT STEP ON
She tucked the flare inside one of the straps on her suit, then while maintaining hold, began unscrewing the access.
5:00
It occurred to her she was just going to die tired as she sucked in a globule of vomit.
DREAMLAND CONTROL CENTER
“Sati
sfactory job,” Mrs. Parrish told Leahy via flexpad.
“Turcotte will know it was a Tesla cannon,” Leahy responded. “He might take that a step further and connect me to you.”
“He might,” Parrish allowed. “But he believes you’re dead. And we had no option. We couldn’t allow the mothership to strike the planet. The talon was not essential.”
“Why did your men have to kill Kincaid and Quinn?” Leahy demanded.
“Confusion and misdirection,” Mrs. Parrish.
“They were good men.”
“Good is relative,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Their deaths is why Turcotte won’t make the connection to you since he believes you’re also dead.”
“Your trap did almost kill me too,” Leahy added.
Mrs. Parrish ignored that.
Leahy continued. “There’s at least one Airlia alive at Cydonia. Maybe more.”
“Unless it was a computer reaction,” Mrs. Parrish said.
“The master guardian was obliterated,” Leahy said. “I don’t see it being an automated response even if there is a self-sufficient guardian computer at Cydonia which wasn’t linked to the master. Someone live-programmed it to make the link. Someone made the decision for the talon to fire and to ram the mothership.”
“The Strategy agrees,” Mrs. Parrish said, always liking to get confirmation from her lead scientist despite her faith in the quantum computer projections.
“It didn’t occur to Turcotte to check Cydonia before returning us to Earth,” Leahy added.
“Did it occur to you?” Mrs. Parrish asked. “It was a possibility brought up in the Strategy.”
“It did,” Leahy said. “And I am familiar with the Strategy and the possibilities.”
“I’m sure you are,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Why didn’t you have Turcotte go to Cydonia if you knew it was a possibility?”
“As you are finding out, Major Turcotte is not a man who is easily controlled,” Leahy said. “He’s also very smart. And Yakov suspects everything and everyone. We were so grateful to be alive. Given the mothership was destroyed along with the Grail and master, I didn’t think it was a priority even though it was a possibility, especially weighed against possible suspicion it might bring in my direction. Also, given the Strategy, I knew it was something we could do at our leisure later.”
“Yes, with the Fynbar or the talon,” Mrs. Parrish said. “The first of which we do not yet have and the latter we will not have because of that oversight.” Mrs. Parrish let that mild rebuke sink in for a few seconds. “Since you’ve spent some time with the Major, do you have any suggestions as to how we might arrange getting the Fynbar?”
“We’d also planned a possibility of launching our own interplanetary craft from the mothership to get to Mars,” Leahy corrected. “The Fynbar and the talon were only two of three options.”
“The Fynbar was always a priority given its speed,” Mrs. Parrish said in a tone that indicated that part of the conversation was over. “I ask again: any suggestions on how to maneuver the Major?”
“Give him a sense of purpose,” Leahy said. “He’s a soldier. He reacts when threatened. Give him a threat the two of you can ally against.”
“The Airlia on Mars,” Mrs. Parrish said.
“It could work,” Leahy agreed.
“All right,” Mrs. Parrish said. “Out.” She turned off that link, then reconnected with Turcotte. “Major?”
“Yes?”
“As you could see, I dealt with the talon threat.”
“How do you have control of a Tesla weapon?”
“The Tesla cannon? That’s a long story,” Mrs. Parrish said. “I ask you once again. Have you reconsidered my offer?”
“I’d like to hear the long story,” Turcotte said.
“We have more pressing matters,” Mrs. Parrish said. “I suggest we join forces and use the Fynbar to return to Mars. We need to find out how many Airlia are alive and what their capabilities are.”
“We wiped out the array,” Turcotte said. “Any Airlia in Cydonia are isolated. They’ve got no space craft. No weapons that can reach Earth. I don’t see the need.”
“I think you’re under-estimating the possibilities,” Mrs. Parrish. “We’ve just received reports of nuclear weapons going off in the Middle East.”
“What does that have to do with Mars?” Turcotte asked.
“If the Cydonia Base is habitable, perhaps it could be a place of refuge if things spiral out of control on Earth. My projections are rather bleak.”
“Why don’t we deal with the problems on Earth?” Turcotte said. “If you’re the richest person on the planet, you wield power. Use it.”
CYDONIA, MARS
Nyx had to shift to msat coverage to get images of the destruction of the talon. It appeared to be the same as those plasma weapons that Turcotte had used against the Fynbar in order to capture it on the way to Mars. Nyx had no idea who’d been in the Fynbar or why Turcotte had fired on it. But now, a similar weapon had been used. Of note, it was from the same location, where one had been fired over 100 years ago and taken out a Swarm scout ship, which crashed over Russia. She’d sent a request for follow up investigation into the Tunguska event, but had never received authorization.
This was remarkable.
Disturbing.
Dooming. The last was a given now that Nyx had revealed her presence by controlling the talon. The humans had the mothership and they had the Fynbar. While it might take them a while to get the former working with STL or grav/mag drive, the Fynbar could be here in a day.
As Nyx was absorbing that, the msats recorded nuclear explosions in the Middle East.
Not the first time they’d been used recently. Nyx doubted it would be the last. The humans were consuming themselves. Perhaps they would self-destruct to the point where her presence on Mars would be of no consequence?
They deserved to destroy themselves. It was the one consistency they’d displayed for over ten thousand years.
Nyx walked away from the console, Labby quietly following.
She went to the regress drawer.
Just a taste.
Nyx took the thinnest piece and wrapped it around her neck. She assumed the position, then tightened the regress.
EARTH ORBIT
3:00
Kara was short of breath. Had she used too much oxygen with her exertions? But the wrist flexpad would factor that in. Wouldn’t it?
She couldn’t think clearly. Was that lack of oxygen? Or was it what she’d been accused of after the ejection? Not having the ‘right stuff’? Which men seemed to think was created somewhere in their testicles?
Kara laughed, the sound echoing inside her helmet.
She’s almost died being one of the first women to pilot a jet off a carrier, now she was going to die being one of the first women to fly a spacecraft. There’d been two women who’d piloted shuttles. Why did she think of that? Why did she care?
She realized she’d stopped moving.
2:00
She reached out and gave another twist. The portal to the refuel popped open from internal pressure. A tendril of fuel escaped into vacuum.
Kara pulled the flare out. To ignite it she’d have to let go of the Nimue.
What difference did that make?
She considered pushing forward, into the fuel, to make herself a human torch.
Why?
Kara shook her head. Why was she doing any of this? She couldn’t recall.
Her wrist vibrated. The screen of the wristpad was flashing red, illuminating black numbers:
1:00
:59
She twisted the top of the flare igniting it and quickly grabbing the pitot. She was mesmerized by the flame, but the insistent vibrating on her wrist broke that spell. She checked the rotation, waited a few seconds until the opening was facing Earth.
She tossed the flare into the fuel.
*****
“I am using my power and wealth for good here on Earth,” Mrs. Par
rish said. “Mars is a different matter.”
“I don’t feel like going back to Mars,” Turcotte said to Mrs. Parrish. “I’ve already been there. If there are any Airlia at Cydonia, they’re done. They blew their wad with the talon.”
Mrs. Parrish sounded offended. “A rather inelegant way of phrasing it.”
“I’m a rather inelegant person,” Turcotte said. “I know why you really want the Fynbar.”
“Major, I want us to—“ there was the sound of someone yelling in the background on Mrs. Parrish’s end. “Look the other way, Major. Back where the talon was.”
Turcotte tapped the controls and the Fynbar spun about.
A spike of fire was visible hundreds of miles away.
*****
The flame went out. Kara couldn’t tell if it had made any difference in the Nimue’s orbit. Did it matter?
At least there wasn’t that idiotic robotic voice counting down, Kara thought. She’d never understood that in those movies. As if one needed reminding of their impending doom. Might as well just intone: ‘you’re going to die, stupid!’
The wristpad hit:
0:00
Darkness fell.
*****
“A secondary explosion?” Yakov asked as Turcotte brought the Fynbar to a halt thirty feet from the Nimue. It had only taken them a few minutes to make it to the source of the flame, which had died out while they were en route.
“Possible,” Turcotte said. “But it was pretty small.”
They could see the damage to the craft. The interior was dark.
Yakov pointed. “There.”
A space-suited figure floated forty feet above the wreckage, arms akimbo.
“Not tethered,” Turcotte noted. “No movement.”
“Most likely dead,” Yakov said.
“Most likely,” Turcotte agreed. “It had a crew of two. See anyone else?”
“Negative,” Yakov said.
“I’m going to check.” Turcotte slid out of the pilot’s depression. “Something or someone made that flame.”
