by R. E. Weber
Ruby stood up and glared angrily back at Tan Shah.
‘What? You’re suspending me?’
‘No, Ruby, I am suggesting…’
‘You can suggest all you like,’ yelled Ruby. ‘Because I tell you what, I quit.’
Tan Shah remained in her seat while Ruby stormed out of the room. Then she opened her companion to annotate the record of the conversation.
‘Recommend Rubina Chaudhry for promotion to paltoor level two, should she wish to return to her position.’
Then Tan Shah sat back in her seat and an expression not unlike that of a smile appeared across her face.
5 – An Interesting Day at the Office
Although Theo’s permanent quarters were on Polisium Prime, it had often been more convenient for him to sleep in the accommodation provided on the Polisium Moon, close to the Star Agency command centre. Although the three-quarters of a million kilometre hop from Polisium Prime to the moon took only a matter of minutes, having to squeeze himself into a cramped personal transport pod and then be flung head-first into space, with all the dizzying sensations that came along with it, had become tiresome.
Even though he now had a direct route to a private pod berth from his quarters, without having to walk down public corridors and take the risk of being seen by one of his friends, he was glad of the convenience afforded to him to be able to sleep just round the corner from the office as he liked to call it. Then if they did decide to call him in the middle of the night and send him on a reconnaissance mission at short notice – as they had sometimes done – he would be ready and prepared far quicker.
More and more, he found himself staying on the Polisian Moon, with only his various social engagements – which were becoming less frequent – calling him back to Polisium Prime. And in any case, it made more sense, at least as far as his friends were concerned, to be seen to be away, hard at work at the Teng Muah Technological Research Academy in the outer reaches of the Polisium Solar System – the place of work he had given them as his cover story. Furthermore, the Star Agency had told him that secure communication outside the command centre was to be limited to essential transmissions only, even though they were believed impossible to intercept. So for the most part, Theo was to be found in his quarters on the Polisian Moon when he was expected for duty the following day.
Attention all operatives: Alpha priority secure general announcement due in ten seh'nu. Proceed to command centre without delay.
Of course, the phrase convenient for work was sometimes a double-edged sword. There had been plenty of times when he’d been dragged into the command centre to be told something of supreme indifference to him or his role, when he could quite happily have slept in. Right now felt like it might be one of those occasions.
Sleepily, Theo threw off his bed covers and slipped into his pull on – a sort of all-purpose environment suit which he could slide into quickly. He took a swig of the revitaliser fluid, which he kept in a bottle by his bedside so he could jump-start his brain at short notice. Then he galloped out of his quarters towards the command centre, desperately finger combing his hair into some semblance of order as he walked.
When he reached the command centre, there were about thirty or so other beings already present, clearly awaiting the same announcement. He checked the time. It was thirty-three na (standard seconds) until it was due to commence. Relieved that he was actually early for a change, he headed over to a glowing rectangle on the floor, accessed the context point and called up chair out of the floor. Then he plonked himself down and waited, desperately hoping that his sleep had not been interrupted without good reason.
Exactly on schedule, the room lighting dimmed, and a large three-dimensional image of Commander Haarrnn Toh appeared in the centre of the room.
‘Attention all operatives,’ growled the commander. ‘This is an alpha priority announcement. This transmission is being relayed live to all operatives within range, with offline transmissions to be accepted as soon as practical. This secure general announcement will be followed by personal and team-related briefings, as appropriate.’
‘Same old, same old,’ groaned Theo to himself. He closed his eyes while the transmission continued.
‘The following recording, timed N.C.P.S.N 2997.4.12.11.9, was relayed to the command centre by Sub Commander Raltess Ham of the Zehur, Omega One, Titan class Affinity Navy cruiser. Image clarity severely disrupted due to vessel plasma discharge.’
His interest piqued, Theo opened his eyes to see a fuzzy video image forming in place of the commander’s. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust and his brain to understand what he was seeing, but suddenly he found himself staring at a huge asteroid, dimly lit around its outer edges by a distant red sun. In the centre of the image, he could see a tiny slit, moving slowly against the backdrop of the asteroid, occasionally spurting jets of glowing orange matter – clearly the plasma that the commander had been referring to. Then, without warning, a brilliant white pulse of light appeared where the slit had been before the image faded and the commander re-appeared.
‘Analysis of the vessel’s logs suggests a plasma leak from its prototype zero-point reactor, followed by an uncontrolled chain reaction, which completely destroyed the vessel. All crew accounted for, except for Commander Nalhas Mah, who is considered lost.’
Theo stared at the video image, a little surprised. While it was clearly tragic that the ship’s commander had been lost along with his vessel, it scarcely seemed important enough to warrant a secure general announcement by the Star Agency. Such an incident would normally be a matter solely for the Affinity Navy – a fact which in itself told Theo that there was something different about the vessel and/or its crew.
‘The plasma leak,’ continued the commander, ‘appears to have been caused by the earlier testing of the Null Conduit Accelerator. Unexpected quantum level effects appear to have caused micro ruptures to the vessel’s power cells.’
Null Conduit Accelerator. Theo sat bolt upright in his chair, his mind whirring into action. In all his time within the Star Agency, Theo had developed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Affinity technology without the need to refer to his companion. Yet whatever this technology was, he had never heard of it.
‘A recovery team remains in the vicinity of the incident, attempting to gather further data regarding the weapon’s malfunction. Any such data will be relayed, as learned, to those teams to who it is deemed appropriate.’
Theo stood up and stared at the image of the commander. So it was a weapon. A weapon test had inadvertently destroyed the cruiser.
‘This announcement and associated data has been transmitted to all operatives. Further information will now be made available via your team briefings.’
Turning around, Theo spotted a familiar figure striding towards him.
‘Operative Logan,’ replied Orientator.
‘Nice to see you too,’ said Theo, grinning.
‘I am required to further brief you regarding the incident you have just witnessed.’
‘Yeah, I kind of guessed,’ replied Theo.
*
Once the one-way privacy shield had dropped around them, Theo turned towards Orientator, who was watching him silently, awaiting his attention.
‘So, Orientator, tell me about this null conduit thingy.’
A sharp intake of breath told Theo that Orientator was already irritated with his casual use of the word thingy when something more scientific would have been deemed more appropriate. A tiny curl formed at the edge of Theo’s mouth as he tried to suppress a smirk of amusement at Orientator’s stiff formality.
‘The Null Conduit Accelerator,’ said Orientator, ‘is a device used to create a sustained null field line between two points in space, instantaneously.’
Theo mulled the description for a moment.
A null field line was literally a channel of nothingness. No matter, no energy, no quantum fields, nothing. So if the space in between two points could literally be zap
ped out of existence, such a field line passing through normal matter could destroy it. A hole could be torn through whatever the field line passed through. However, a null field line had never been created, except under laboratory conditions, on a microscopic scale, for a fraction of a second. Yet somehow, a weapon had been created that could generate such a field line between two points in space. To be useful as a weapon, it would clearly have to not be microscopic. And the fact that Orientator had used the word ‘sustained’ suggested that the field line could be held open for a substantial period of time rather than just a fraction of a second. Enough time to do some serious damage.
‘But I thought that wasn’t possible?’
‘Recent advances in interdimensional manipulation have allowed the technology to become effective as a weapon.’
‘How did they do it?’
‘The weapon can tunnel a null field line through a folded quantum dimension between the accelerator and a remote point in space up to ten thousand hotah distant. Once the field line is generated, it essentially unfolds into space-time, forming the null conduit and destroying everything it comes into contact with. Since it does not travel through space-time but instead unfolds into it, nothing can block its passage.’
Theo sat for a moment as his mind raced, trying to grasp the mind-boggling explanation that had been laid before him. Then the enormity hit him. They had made a weapon that could rip through anything between two points in space, instantly. And because the tear travelled through an alternate dimension, no shielding of any kind could block the null field from forming. They had created a weapon against which there was no known defence.
‘I trust,’ said Orientator, after a pause of several seconds, ‘that you understand the significance of the device and its power?’
‘Yeah, I think so. They’ve made the ultimate long-range weapon. Shields would be useless against it.’
‘Correct,’ replied Orientator. ‘Unless you are able to prevent the deployment of the weapon, there is no defence against it. It can strike whilst out of range of conventional weapons. It is a long-range, brute force weapon of devastating power. Its only disadvantage is its targeting. Since the accelerator runs almost the entire length of the vessel, changing its attitude is the only effective way to target it. Essentially, you have to point the entire vessel at the target, and with a large vessel, this can take some time.’
Theo remained silent while the possibilities raced through his mind.
‘OK, so what’s the big deal?’ he said finally.
Orientator cocked his head to one side.
‘It appears that you have failed to grasp, as you would say, the gravity of the situation, Theo.’
‘No... no, what I mean is, the weapon’s been destroyed, hasn’t it? It’s not like it’s been stolen by the Metah Dah. All you need to do is build a new one, don’t you? In fact, I wouldn’t mind betting there’s already another one somewhere.’
‘A second prototype is already under construction. However, we have yet to ascertain the status of the first prototype.’
‘Bu… but it was destroyed, wasn’t it? I saw it explode. Nothing could have survived that explosion.’
‘The recovery team have yet to verify this. As yet, no traces of the weapon or vessel have been found, only its engine core. Although the likelihood is that the weapon was totally destroyed, we need to be certain of this. Due to the plasma discharges from the vessel’s power core prior to the explosion, any sensor data gathered should be considered unreliable. As you will no doubt understand, the possibility of the weapon’s continued existence, however remote, needs to be ascertained with absolute certainty.’
‘So it could still be out there?’
‘Correct.’
‘But for the weapon to still exist, it would have to have been detached from the engine core before the explosion, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Theo pondered the scenario for a moment, in silence – a train of logic forming in his mind.
If the main body of the vessel had been detached before the explosion, the footage he had seen might have been of the engine core explosion. They could have ejected the core and moved the vessel to a safe distance. But without its engine core, the vessel wouldn’t have been able to move efficiently – it would just have low level manoeuvring thrusters. Chain reactions usually happened quickly, so how had the vessel moved to a safe distance in time to escape the explosion? But then it didn’t need to move very far, did it? Because it had a shield – a huge rocky shield. The asteroid. The vessel had been manoeuvred to a safe point behind the asteroid to protect it from the explosion. But even then, would it have had time? Manoeuvring thrusters were for guidance only. They couldn’t move a large vessel quickly. And the asteroid had been big – too big to fly around in such a short period of time. So how had it survived the explosion?
Then another possibility occurred to Theo, and a huge grin appeared across his face.
‘It went through the asteroid, didn’t it? They’d punched a hole through the asteroid during the weapons test earlier. A big hole. A hole big enough to fly the ship through. After the engine core overload started, the commander detached the vessel, flew it through the hole and waited on the other side of the asteroid, didn’t he?’
‘We believe that is a possible scenario,’ replied Orientator.
‘But hang on a sec, if the ship escaped the explosion, where is it now? Why didn’t the recovery crew find it, waiting on the other side of the…?’
Suddenly, Theo’s mouth dropped open. If the vessel was no longer present, it was missing. The vessel had gone missing with its commander. It had been stolen by its commander.
‘He planned it. The commander planned the whole thing. He set up the chain reaction, detached the vessel from the engine core, flew it through the asteroid and escaped under cover of the explosion.’
‘Well reasoned, Theo. This is the possibility under investigation. The explosion blinded the escape pods’ sensors, which could have allowed the vessel to vanish completely undetected.’
‘But what use is the weapon now? The engine core contains the power generator. Without that, it wouldn’t work, would it?’
‘Correct. However, the technology would remain intact. It might then be possible to reverse engineer the weapon and duplicate it.’
‘Or attach another power source to it and use it again.’
‘Yes, this might also be possible. However, both scenarios present difficulties. Large scale, zero-point power generators require highly advanced production facilities, which may not be available to an enemy with limited resources.’
Theo sat speechless for several seconds, trying to take in the situation and its possible repercussions.
‘So how does this affect me?’ he said finally.
‘We are currently in the process of dispatching Star Agency operatives to as many Affinity homeworlds and outposts as we can muster.’
‘And let me guess, you want to send me on a little trip,’ said Theo, a broad grin stretching across his face.
‘The exact details of your assignment have yet to be finalised, Theo.’
‘I suppose that’s agency talk meaning you don’t know what to do with me yet, is it?’
Orientator stared at Theo for a moment, his head cocked to one side, clearly indicating that he had no intention of explaining himself further.
‘We can however continue with your equipment briefing, thus reducing your mission lead time.’
Never put off ‘til tomorrow what you can do today, mumbled Theo.
A rectangular hole appeared in the floor, and then a flat topped pedestal rose up, on top of which was a familiar looking, folded garment. Theo walked over to the pedestal and began to examine the garment.
‘This,’ said Orientator gesturing towards the pedestal, ‘is your level two field suit. Although its appearance is designed to be indistinguishable from a standard-issue environment suit, it has a number of enhancements.’
; Theo picked up the suit and held it up in front of him. Was it perhaps slightly heavier than the standard suit? He then turned it around, before dropping it back onto the pedestal. Laying the suit out flat, he slid his hands across its smooth surface. Was the material a bit thicker than the standard-issue suit? Then he felt along the arms and over the hands. That part of the material was definitely thicker. Had some modifications been made there – perhaps enhanced grip?
‘The suit is equipped with hyper-skin bonding,’ continued Orientator. ‘Upon command, the suit material will bond to your own skin, essentially becoming a new outer layer of skin. The hyper-skin around your feet and hands will adhere to almost any surface and maintain grip until you attempt to remove it. Grip will only remain as long as the surface itself retains tensile strength.’
Theo stood back and then smiled.
‘Got it. Your basic Spiderman suit. I can climb vertical walls, hang from ceilings and all that stuff, as long as the surface is strong enough to hold me.’
‘Although I am unable to understand your own cultural analogy, your summary is correct.’
Theo stared for a moment at the suit. ‘OK, anything else?’
‘Reactive hardening,’ replied Orientator. ‘In conjunction with your threat bot, the skin of the suit can react within a micro na to form localised, rigid, defensive armour at the point of impact. Essentially, the suit will instantaneously react should a physical obstacle, projectile or energy discharge come into contact with it, forming an impenetrable shield.’
‘OK, bullet proof, stab proof vest, but all over. Understood. What next, Q?’
‘Anti-graviton pulse generator. The suit fabric can generate a short duration, anti-graviton pulse. This will enable the suit to negate gravitational pull on your body for a fraction of a na.’
Theo pondered the explanation for a moment. If he fell off the top of a tall building, he could stop himself falling for a fraction of a second. Then what? He would carry on falling, wouldn’t he?
‘What use is that?’ replied Theo.
