The ship was immediately engulfed in a frenzy of activity as the crew scrambled for their stations. Grasmik was, once again, reminded that the crew of Lenin was top-notch. In less than two minutes, the ship was prepared for battle.
"All hands on station and ready for action!" said Grasmik.
The political officer nodded in acknowledgement but said nothing.
With the crew of the ship poised for battle, the remainder of the journey to the contact seemed to take quite a bit longer than the thirty minutes required. Finally, the contact was close enough that it was possible for Lenin's instruments to get a clear visual on it. Grasmik wasn't surprised when the contact turned out to be a ship of the same strange design as their last target. In fact, the damage to the end of one of the strange craft's spokes made him all but positive it was the very same ship.
"Prepare to open fire on that target as soon as we get within range," said Pavlovich.
"Aye aye, sir," replied Grasmik.
"Captain?" ventured sensor officer Nuriyev.
"What is it, Sensors?"
"Something odd. In addition to the large unknown ship, I'm...I'm reading a Federation signature."
"Are you certain?"
"Yes, sir, the signature is quite strong. There appears to be a ship of some sort attached to the larger ship... It is not military..." she made some adjustments on her console. "It looks like a freighter or something similar."
"I order you to destroy both targets," said Pavlovich. "That is undoubtedly a pirate craft of some kind and whatever it is they are doing, it cannot be anything legal."
Whatever "legal" meant this far from any occupied planets, thought Grasmik. Grudgingly, he gave the order to attack. "Prepare to open fire on the targets," he said.
And, whoever they are, may their God have mercy on their souls, he thought, before adding: and on ours!
Lenin continued to voraciously devour the distance to their targets. Just as they were coming into extreme range of their pulse weapons, science officer Nuriyev made an announcement.
"The Federation contact has separated from the larger construct and is now accelerating away."
"We can handle them afterwards," said Pavlovich. "Target the large ship and open fire as soon as we are in range!"
Grasmik decided now was not the time to tell Pavlovich that given Lenin's velocity, vector and lack of reaction mass, there was absolutely no way they would be able to effectively pursue the Federation ship.
Chapter 16. Evasive Action.
Capri, Deep Space, Star system X97610, October 7, 2676.
Back on board Capri, the three Humans arrived on the bridge in less than twenty seconds. Ariane and Gertrude dashed immediately to the pilot and copilot stations and began to check the readouts. Zack took position at the sensor console.
The Hordea glided onto the bridge a moment later. There they took up positions right behind the two command stations from where they could observe the proceedings without interfering.
"What is it?" asked Zack, as he waited a few seconds for his old console to boot from standby to full function.
"A ship just came through the hyperlink zone," replied Gertrude. She adjusted the viewscreen settings on her copilot's console. "Near as I can tell it's of human manufacture...What have you got Zack?"
Zack fiddled with the sensor controls. "I can confirm it's Human, but...it's not a Federation drive signature."
"Soviet?" asked Ariane.
"Very likely," replied Zack, still staring intently at his instruments. "Could be another courier."
"What in the halls of Helheim are they doing way out here?" said Gertrude. "This was supposed to be a secret meeting."
"That appears very much like the ship that attacked us," said Salix.
"Not good," said Ariane. "They must have somehow learned about our rendezvous with the Hordea. After all our problems with the Soviet ship back in Human space, I can't imagine they're here to do anything but interfere with our first contact. We have to treat it as a hostile ship until we know better."
"I agree," replied Gertrude. She called down to engineering. "Cliff? We're being approached by a spacecraft of unknown origin,, probably another Soviet courier. We have no idea what their intentions are, but we can't afford to take any chances. We need to get ready to run. Bring all systems to ready status."
"How far out are they?" asked Cliff, over the intercom.
"They just came out of hyper a few minutes ago," replied Gertrude. She consulted her readouts again. "Looks like they planned this whole thing. They scorched through the link with an insane intrinsic, and they'll be on us in no time at all. I estimate they'll be within weapons range in less than an hour."
"Can we run?" asked Zack.
"I think we have a pretty good chance," replied Ariane. "You remember from our last meeting that the Soviet ship was a little faster than us, but this time it won't matter. The vector he's on is at right angles to where we'll be going. With the speed they're carrying, they'll have to burn their reaction mass down to nothing if they try to alter course to follow. We just need to time our escape so they can't possibly react in time."
"What about Helianthus?" asked Zack. "If that's a Soviet courier like the one we faced back in the Sol system, that ship doesn't have a chance against it."
"I know," said Ariane. She turned to the two Hordea. "We're going to disconnect from your ship so you can make a run for it. With your superior acceleration, you shouldn't have any problem getting out of danger."
"Unfortunately, we are not be able to do so at this time," said Salix. "The damage to our ship has severely impaired its capabilities. In addition to the exterior damage, our drive systems were severely overstressed during the escape from the earlier attack. Matching the vector of your ship before we made contact was the limit of what we could do. Even then, we were only able to sustain the effort for a short time. We are attempting temporary repairs, but will need to deploy our stellar collection arrays to harvest the energy required. I fear we do not have sufficient time. They will be able to overrun us with little difficulty."
"How much time do you need?" asked Ariane.
"We will not be able to operate at adequate capacity for at least two of your days. Even restoring partial function will require perhaps twenty-four hours."
Gertrude looked at Zack and back to the Hordean, "Maybe you could come with us? How many of your people are on board your ship?"
"There are another forty mobiles like us and a hundred sessiles that are actually part of the ship," replied Salix. She consulted with Quercia in their own language, which consisted of a series of rapid and incomprehensible gestures with their manipulator tentacles. After a short discussion, she said, "We can bring the other mobiles over to your ship, but the individuals integral with the ship cannot be evacuated."
The two Hordea again consulted with one another for a few moments.
"It grieves us to do so," said Quercia, "but if the only option is to run, we may have to abandon them."
"You would do that?" asked Zack.
"It appears we must. But have no fear, they shall not perish totally. After we were attacked earlier, they each produced a Chlamydoscion. The scions have been detached from the parental entities and can be brought onboard Capri by the others."
"Klameedo what?" asked Zack.
"Chlamydoscion. You could call it a 'survival shoot.' It is not exactly a seed, more like a clone, but even that description is not adequate."
"How so?" asked Zack.
"These structures contain all of the memories and experiences the individual unit has accumulated over a lifetime. Unlike us mobiles, sessiles are quite long lived. They give up their mobility for an extended lifespan."
"Are you sure this is okay?" asked Gertrude.
"It is not the most desirable choice," said Salix. "It has taken years for each of the sessiles to achieve their current level of physical capability. Though each of them represents a large investment in time and resources, we can aband
on our ship if necessary. They do not have to experience death as you know it."
The three humans looked at one another. This revelation was yet another reminder their alien friends were not like them at all.
"How soon can you get everyone and the...klameedo shoots transferred to our ship?" asked Ariane.
"It should take no more than ten of your minutes."
"Is that all?" asked Zack.
"As I stated earlier, chlamydoscions were formed as a response to the previous attack. They are currently being stored in an impervious protective envelope which we call a 'Cleistothecium.' This structure can be readily transported."
"Do your people need anything?" asked Ariane.
Salix replied, "Our requirements are simple. If you have water, we will only require a quantity of pedolith for each of us."
"Pedolith?" asked Gertrude.
"A growth and nutrient matrix. I believe that your people call it 'soil.' If it can be placed in a shallow containment vessel, it will adequately serve us for the time required."
"We have plenty of water," said Zack. He thought quickly about the layout of Capri. "There is an empty cargo hold about ten meters square down on deck one. You could cover the entire floor with this pedolith if you wanted. Will that do?"
"That would be more than adequate," replied Salix. "I will assign four mobiles to transport a quantity of pedolith sufficient for our needs immediately."
"Make it so," said Ariane. "You must evacuate as quickly as you can. My estimates are only approximate and the sooner we can get moving, the better off we'll be."
"Where are we going?" asked Salix.
Gertrude stopped for a moment. All they'd been thinking about had been running. A destination had not yet been factored in.
"Do you know where the Beta hyperlink leads to?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Quercia. "There are additional gates in the next system that can be used to confuse any pursuit."
"Where do they go?"
"One of them leads to the star system of our outermost colony after several more jumps. We had hoped to transport you there after this meeting to provide you with an introduction to our culture. It appears as though we may be going there sooner than expected."
"My apologies," said Gertrude, "but the safety of all of us is the most important priority right now.
"Acknowledged," replied Quercia. The two Hordea headed for the exit hatch on the aft wall of the bridge. "We shall see to the evacuation."
"Do you need me to man the weapon?" asked Zack.
"Not right this minute, but you'd better be ready to," said Ariane.
Chapter 17. Dangerous Visions, Again.
Deimos, Sol system, October 7, 2676.
Back within Deimos, the four symbologists were still poring over the inscriptions on facet two of the Sentinel pyramid. So they didn't have to remain standing while they worked, the Deimos AI had created a table to work at and benches to sit on, within a couple meters of the pyramid.
"These three symbols appear only on facets two and three," said MacPherson, using his tablet to create a floating, 3-D image of the pyramid in the air in front of the group.
MacPherson's personal tablet was a standard design, similar to the ones most people carried and used on a daily basis. When the device was not being used as a tablet, it was usually configured into a convenient, compact, flat rectangular block that also functioned as a communication device in its own right. In the folded state, it measured five centimeters wide by ten centimeters tall and was a little under a centimeter thick.
At the operator's request, the unit fanned out into a slate-like tablet that remained ten centimeters wide but now extended four times its former width to a full twenty centimeters in height. Since the extended tablet was made up of four equally sized panels stacked together when the device was in its compact, block form, the final configuration of the extended tablet was a mere two-and-a-half millimeters thick. Through some miracle of technology, the hard, impervious touch screen showed no visible seams after the device was expanded.
He highlighted the symbols in question on the image, "If we can figure out what they mean, we may have the key to decipher much of what is written on those facets."
Olga pointed to one of the glyphs from the original facet they hadn't been able to decipher. "This symbol appears on all three facets. Rest of phrase following seems to read: 'relic of the gods' or something like that. What kind of relic? What kind of Gods?"
"Symantia said the Sentinel network is very old," said Arnold. "Could 'Gods' be a reference to the civilization that built the network?"
"Hmmm..." said MacPherson. "Perhaps. If we plug that interpretation into what we've figured out so far, it does begin to make more sense. 'Relic of the Ancients?' Or maybe it's 'relic from the Ancients?' Do you suppose this is referring to the putative new artifact in your vision?"
"New artifact?" said Olga. She scrunched up her face in thought as she took a step backwards and tipped her head. "We may be up on something," she said. "Remember we had to activate symbols on first facet in proper order. I assume we need to do same thing with other facets." She turned her attention to her personal tablet and with a few commands, modified the image on the floating display.
"Activation symbols on first facet are these," she said, highlighting them on the display. "So far, we have found two of same symbols on facet two. Assuming we need to activate different set of symbols on other facets and there were five activation symbols on first facet, we need to figure out what other three activation symbols for facet two are. Are there any symbols looking completely out of place?"
"You mean besides most of them?" said Kathryn, with a wry expression.
Arnold smiled briefly at her well-meaning attempt to break the tension but otherwise let the question pass. "The activation symbols on the first facet appeared at the beginning of a set of instructions we needed to activate," he said, "almost like bullet points."
"Da, I can see that," said Olga. "Problem is, what are other activation symbols and in what order do we activate them?"
"And what responsibilities will we have agreed to take on after we've activated them?" said MacPherson.
"That may not matter," said Arnold. "We set these wheels in motion when we activated the first facet. I don't think we have any choice but to follow through."
"I'll concede that," said MacPherson, "but the consequences of activating the symbols on the first facet came as quite a shock."
"A risk we are committed to take," said Arnold, "in spite of the consequences."
Kathryn had been listening in on the discussion with one ear, her brow furrowed in thought, as she studied the second facet of the pyramid intently. "Maybe we're going about this all wrong," she said.
"What do you mean?" asked MacPherson.
"Well...we've been approaching this puzzle as though getting to a solution will be exactly like last time. If solving this is another part of our 'Galactic Citizenship' test, then there's no reason to believe they couldn't have changed the rules on us. They wouldn't have designed the test to be easy."
"Point taken," said the Professor. "So, what have you been thinking?"
"That maybe we shouldn't be confining ourselves to the symbols on just one side at a time."
"Explain?"
"I've been looking at the pyramid from over here, where I can see the third side as well as the second." MacPherson went over to stand beside her, "Show me what you mean, Kate."
"Look at the fifth column from the top on side two," said Kathryn.
"Okay, what about it?"
"Now look at the corresponding column on side three. The last symbol in the row on side two and the first one on side three, almost make it look like the column wraps around and the phrase continues on the third side. Part of the reason we're having so much difficulty translating this is because we've been trying to decipher 'incomplete sentences,' if you will."
Arnold and Olga came over to observe the pyramid from the same angle
as Kathryn and the Professor.
"You may be up on something," said Olga. "Symbol in seventh column looks like it could also be wrap-around from side two."
With Kathryn's revelation, the group proceeded to make some concrete progress. Finally, after another four hours had passed, Professor MacPherson straightened up from the table where he had been stooped over his tablet, and arched his back. "I can't tell you how much it pleases me we finally made a breakthrough of sorts," he said. "But I need to get some sleep. If you'll excuse me, I'll be back in a few hours." As if to punctuate the point, he yawned extravagantly.
"I could do with a little sleep, myself," said Kathryn. "How about you Olga?"
"Da," she replied, with a yawn of her own.
"Are you coming, Arnold?" asked MacPherson.
"You go ahead without me," replied the Representative. "I haven't needed much sleep lately. Besides, when I sleep, I dream, and I don’t particularly like the dreams I've been having."
"I understand," said MacPherson. "See you in a few hours."
"Good night, Harold," said Arnold, not taking his eyes off the pyramid."
The three older scientists departed for their quarters to get some much-needed rest.
When MacPherson returned a few hours later, he found Arnold asleep at the worktable in the Sentinel chamber. The younger man, toiling away on his personal tablet, had fallen asleep with his head on the crook of his left arm and his right hand still resting on the tablet.
Reasoning Arnold needed all the rest he could get, in spite of his earlier statements about not requiring any sleep, the Professor went back to work without disturbing his colleague. MacPherson had only been working for a few minutes when he heard a low moan. He looked over at Arnold to discover him still asleep, only now his right hand was twitching on his tablet, and his eyes were darting around wildly under still-closed lids.
Rapid eye movements; Arnold was having another dream!
MacPherson had no idea if it was wise to interrupt the dream or not and elected to observe rather than take any action. Finally, Arnold cried out sharply just before his entire body began to shudder. The episode lasted for about five seconds and was more than enough to wake him. He jerked up from the table and, with his eyes blinking rapidly, swung his head deliberately back and forth. Finally, he stopped blinking, saw the Professor, and realized he was not alone.
The Archeon Codex: Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel Book 2 Page 10
