Impulse

by Dave Bara

  “We’ll be on the ground in ten minutes, Mr. Marker. Tell your men I want them deployed on the surface with a full perimeter no less than one minute after we land,” I said.

  “That I can do, sir,” he said over the com, then switched channels and started sending preparation orders to his men.

  Layton brought us down a good kilometer away from the nearest structures, low-lying buildings set into the surrounding land. I unbuckled and stepped down into the personnel bay. “Secure the dock and unload the cargo, Sergeant. Get your men out there!” I ordered. Marker may have been in charge of the marines, but I was in charge of Marker.

  Marker started barking orders, then the back hatch flopped open and the marines bounded out as I holstered a coil pistol. I waited my turn at the back of the line. When Marker signaled me the all clear, I stepped down the ramp and out onto the surface of L-4b again.

  “Reporting all clear, sir. Landing site is secure,” he informed me. I nodded and put my gloved hands to my hips.

  “Deploy your men. Keep a guard here at the shuttle and the rest of us will proceed as planned. I’ll stay in the back.”

  “I think that’s wise, sir,” said Marker, then he cut his end of the com line. With that, we started a stealth approach to the complex buildings, marines waving me forward when things were deemed safe. After several minutes of reconnoitering we arrived at the entrance building Marker and I had encountered in our previous visit.

  “All set for entrance here,” I reported back to Dobrina.

  “Proceed,” she replied. “Layton and I will be right behind you with the analysis equipment.”

  “Acknowledged,” I replied, then gave orders to Marker for his troops to begin the search of the inner building. A minute later Colonel Babayan and her troops were at the door as well. I gave them their marching orders as Dobrina and Layton came up with two escort marines hauling their equipment.

  “Marine teams engaged in reconnoiter of the unexplored levels, Commander,” I said. “We’re ready to head down to the freight lifter and proceed to the control room.”

  “Then let’s do it,” she said.

  The control room in the cavern was just as we had left it, all lights and humming power and the warm glow of the cannon. Layton directed the marines in the setup of the testing equipment, though I doubted much of anything could be gleaned from what he’d brought with him. I looked down at the control board. It was still a mystery. I racked my brain to try and access the knowledge of the Sri I had been given in my instruction, both publicly in the Academy and privately by Serosian. I looked down at the symbols on the illuminated plates, all of them either closed equilateral triangles or pieces of triangles in primary colors. In the center was a color display that looked like the historical Star of David, with sections of yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and orange on the outside and a perfectly formed triangle in the center in white, overlaid by a hexagon. It made no sense to me apart from its obvious familiarity of form.

  Colonel Babayan called in to report that her troops had encountered a gangway on the sixth level that led down to the cavern floor where the cannon resided. Dobrina ordered them to explore and report. Layton finished his equipment setup and began working behind his odd-shaped tools, which were attached to what was essentially a steel rack with a portable plasma display.

  “What do you hope to discover with all that?” I asked.

  “We should be able to read electromagnetic pulses and fields, see if there is anything we should be aware of before we start poking around on that thing,” Layton said. He took some readings with his instruments, then frowned.

  “There’s nothing that I can detect with this equipment,” he said. “No stealth fields, no EM fields, no pulses, nothing. But the console is powered and ready to be activated, from what I can determine.”

  “So it’s not booby-trapped?” asked Dobrina.

  “Not as far as I can tell.”

  “So once again, we need Serosian,” I stated. Dobrina called up to the nearest marine and asked about the status of our setup of a daisy-chain communications wire so that we could talk to the Historian on Starbound. They reported we were ready five minutes later, but when we called up to Starbound Serosian still “wasn’t available.” So we waited.

  After half an hour of frustration I got up and went to the board, taxing my memory again on what I knew of the Sri and of encryption codes.

  “Are you planning on trying that board yourself?” asked Dobrina.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of waiting,” I said. “And Layton says it’s not booby-trapped.”

  “As far as I can tell,” interjected Layton. Dobrina thought about this for a moment.

  “It could simply be that the code is the security. You don’t get it right, we all get fried,” she said.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I replied. She looked down at the innocuous looking control board and then nodded for me to proceed while Layton monitored from his display.

  I touched the display board with no apparent effect. No displays lit up, no combination of keys seemed to give any reaction. Still the board continued to hum with power. After a couple of minutes I gave up. Seconds later Colonel Babayan called in from the cavern floor, her voice frantic.

  “Are you doing something up there, Commander?” she demanded.

  “Mr. Cochrane is attempting to hack the control board, why?” Dobrina replied.

  “Well he’s got to stop! I couldn’t report in before due to a dampening field down here!”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Commander, is that there’s a massive atomic power plant down here, and it just became active,” Babayan said. “And if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was building toward some kind of self-destruct.” We all looked at each other.

  “Call up to Starbound,” said Dobrina to me. “Tell them we have to talk with Serosian. Now.”

  Starbound’s Historian was on our com channel two minutes later.

  “You shouldn’t have tried to access the console. I have the best minds back on Earth looking at this,” he said. I could tell he was angry.

  “We were tired of waiting,” I said right back.

  “No matter now,” he said. “From what we’re reading up here you seem to have activated the main power system, only in the wrong sequence. It’s quite like the Founders really to allow full access to their secrets, just as long as you know the proper methods.”

  “And if we don’t?” asked Dobrina. Serosian didn’t answer her.

  “Captain Maclintock has ordered the marines to be evacuated, on my recommendation,” he said. “Fixing this will require a volunteer to remain behind.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said instantly.

  “You will not,” cut in Dobrina. “At least not alone.”

  “You’ll both be at risk. Both shuttles will need to be withdrawn to a safe distance. Return and rescue, should we succeed in shutting the destruct sequence off, will be problematic under any circumstance,” said Serosian.

  “Understood,” replied Dobrina for us both. Colonel Babayan came in and left us an extra set of oxygen canisters and power packs for our EVA suits. It wasn’t much, perhaps two extra hours, but it would have to do. We made Layton go with her, and then Maclintock came on the line and ordered Dobrina out as well.

  “I can’t lose two of my senior officers on this, and Serosian has informed me that Mr. Cochrane is the best option to solve this crisis,” Maclintock said. Dobrina was angry and argued with him, but to no avail. Colonel Babayan had to practically drag Dobrina out, but eventually she went, steaming mad, and I was alone in the control room. I got back on the line with Serosian.

  “Why didn’t we detect this power plant before?” I asked.

  “Some kind of advanced stealth shielding, powerful enough to warp our longwave scans and mask
the power plant,” said Serosian. “And that plant, if I’m reading this right, is almost half the size of B herself. It’s like they hollowed her out and built the plant right inside.”

  “Founder technology,” I said.

  “Certainly not First Empire,” said Serosian. “And as such it is likely to have multiple access methods. You’re going to have to try and interface with the console.”

  “Interface? You mean touch it?”

  “With your hands, yes, that’s the most likely way in.”

  Reluctantly I reached up with my right hand and unlocked the seal on the glove at my left wrist. I felt the glove depressurize and a damp cold crept up my fingers. My EVA suit repressurized and made a seal just below my wrist, as it was designed to do in an emergency. I pulled the glove off. The room was well below freezing and my hand began to numb almost immediately. I repeated the process, removing my right glove as well.

  “Beginning interface,” I said. I looked down at the glossy black panel, then slowly touched the controls with my fingertips.

  Images burst into my mind: flashes of color and shape, indiscriminate sensations of light and sound, then a burning pain crawling up my arm. I withdrew my hand and went to one knee. The images were overwhelming, and my head pounded from the interface. I couldn’t see in front of my visor more than a few inches, my eyes tinged with a blinding yellow blaze and shadows of the unseen images in my head.

  A wave of nausea overcame me and I fell to all fours. Hunched over and gasping for breath, I unlocked my helmet in a fit of anxiety, popping it off my head, then retched twice and vomited. After a few moments of deep breathing I regained my equilibrium, both physically and emotionally. The air inside the control room was stale but breathable. I pulled myself up to the console once again.

  “Peter, are you still with me?” crackled Serosian’s voice in my ear.

  “I am,” I replied. “I think the console just tried to kill me.”

  “I’ve interfaced with Founder technology before,” Serosian said. “It’s not pleasant.”

  “Thanks for the timely insight.” There would be pain, I knew that now, but if I was to complete my mission, it couldn’t be avoided. I drew a deep breath, taking in the cold and bitter air of the control room once more, then looked down at the projector. It still hummed with its blue and amber glow, and nothing about it gave me any comfort that I could shut it off. This, I decided, was an alien device.

  I reattached the helmet to my EVA suit and locked it. I wouldn’t allow myself any more moments of panic. It was now or never.

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  “If the console is open to your control, it will be disorienting at first. You will likely have to solve some sort of test. If you fail—”

  “I don’t want to know,” I said. I looked down at the board once more.

  “So be it,” I said aloud, and pushed both my hands into the console, all the way up to my wrists. Colors and images, symbols and numbers, mathematical equations beyond my understanding, and strange structures of sight and sound filled my senses. The impression of pain ran up my arm, inexorably moving toward my head. Upon reaching my brain the pain abruptly stopped and was replaced by a sensation of warmth. I wondered if there were nanites, micro-machines, pouring through my bloodstream and into my brain. It felt like I was being drained of me, of my consciousness, as if the machine was reading my every memory, all my thoughts and intents. Just as I felt I was about to lose myself to the machine I suddenly flashed to full awareness of the system I had now merged with.

  It was as if I instinctively knew what the systems were for, what the symbols meant, how all the interfaces worked, like being one with the Gods.

  I was in control.

  I freed my right hand and it flashed over the control board, activating systems, checking others for preparation, dispensing codes for boot sequences. I was in an altered state of consciousness, but it was like I was merely a linked part, an automaton with a mission to complete.

  I could understand and react to the language of the machine, but I couldn’t retain it. Like I was speaking in tongues without knowledge of what I was saying.

  Suddenly, with a loud crack inside my mind and a flash of white light I found myself free of the console and sitting on my backside, hands behind me. I had no idea how long the process had taken, but my intuition told me it was measured in seconds, or fractions of seconds.

  The nausea returned abruptly and I peeled away the helmet just in time to vomit again. As a chalky white fluid passed out of me I realized what was happening: the nanites were eliminating themselves from my body. Apparently I didn’t rank high enough on the divine scale to retain the knowledge of the Gods, or at least of the Founders, and I was in many ways thankful for that.

  I reattached my helmet and gloves, resealing my suit against the elements of the station. I looked to the cavern. The projector was glowing with an intense orange light.

  As I watched, the deck beneath me began to vibrate and I held on to the console for support. The power in this unknown device was building beyond anything I had ever seen. I watched as the gun rotated and raised itself, pointed toward the deep black membrane in the cavern’s ceiling. An amber beam lanced out of the cone of the projector and into the membrane, where it seemed to vanish. I could only assume it was projecting its energy somewhere into space.

  “What’s happening down there?” came Serosian’s voice over my com.

  I took a deep breath before answering. “Apparently I’ve shut down the self-destruct sequence and activated the jump gate. Can you confirm?” I said. It took a few seconds before Serosian answered.

  “Confirmed Peter. The jump gate is active. Sending down the recovery shuttle. Good job. You did it.”

  “Thank you. I just wish I knew how I did it.”

  “The important thing is that the gate is open. The Impulse rescue mission is on.”

  I looked down at the console, an alien device that had for some reason chosen to help me and not destroy me.

  “On my way,” I said, heading out of the control room, on my way back to Starbound.

  Departing Levant

  Maclintock had us locked down and ready to go in less than two hours. We said our goodbyes to the First Contact team on Levant, and I even managed to get a goodbye note to Janaan loaded in the packet. By the time we returned here, if we returned, the Union Navy would have half a dozen support ships in the system, and word was the Lightship Valiant and its captain, Wynn Scott of Earth, were on their way as well.

  We still had no way of knowing where we were going, what star system or what part of the galaxy we would end up at, or if it would even be the same location as the one Impulse had jumped to. It was a massive risk to the Union Navy to send Starbound through the jump gate and risk losing her, but it would be an even bigger loss if we let Impulse disappear without a rescue mission.

  I took my station on the bridge at 1300. Starbound was set up slightly differently than Impulse had been, but in most respects the bridge was identical. I checked out my longscope and ran her through a series of initial display checks under the watchful eye of Commander Kierkopf. She hadn’t said much since my return from L-4b, but she didn’t have to. I knew she was pissed about being excluded from the crisis, but we both knew Maclintock had made the right call. She paced the bridge like an impatient panther waiting for her prey to arrive on the scene.

  Colonel Babayan rang in from the hangar deck as I was preparing for my second systems check.

  “Have you decided what you’re going to tell Maclintock about last night?” she asked. I held the com receiver to my ear silently for a few seconds, then:

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Colonel,” I said.

  “I think that’s a wise course,” she said.

  “Mmm. And how are things down in the monkey pit today?”

  “We’re
all packed and ready for jump stations. Just waiting for the call,” she said. I paused again before responding.

  “Let’s hope there is no need for a call, Colonel,” I said.

  “Amen to that,” she replied, then hung up the line.

  Maclintock took the deck promptly at 1400.

  “Anything to report, Mr. Cochrane?” he asked as he took the center seat.

  “I report all is go for jump. All systems nominal, all personnel at stations.”

  “Anything to report from overnight?” he said casually, looking down at his afternoon log. Lt. Cox had no doubt mentioned the incident on the hangar deck in his report.

  “Absolutely nothing, sir,” I said, keeping my eyes riveted to the streaming systems reports on the tactical screen.

  “Are you sure, Commander?” Maclintock asked, pressing me. I turned and looked him in the eye.

  “Dead sure, sir,” I said. He flipped through the pages of the report, scanning them one more time, then handed it to an ensign who took it away. Then he turned his attention to the tactical stream.

  “Carry on then, Mr. Cochrane,” he said.

  “Aye, sir!” I snapped, then stepped forward and yelled down at Layton when his nav stream dipped below minimums. Maclintock called me back to join him and Dobrina.

  “Incidentally, good job down on B today Mr. Cochrane,” he said as we huddled around the captain’s chair.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied. Dobrina stiffened at the praise sent my way. Maclintock didn’t fail to notice.

  “Commander Kierkopf, even though I placed you in charge of the mission to activate the cannon and the jump gate, I want you to know that my decision to withdraw you was strictly by the book. You’re the higher-ranking officer and thus less expendable. It was a simple decision.”