Dumbfounded, she looked toward Osuto, then back to Mencari. “It’s pretty simple. If we get a few parts, I can hook this into the station’s sensor grid. Sure it’ll have a limited perimeter, but we’ll be able to scan for any Nukari activity from here. Um . . . or at least, any drives that use a similar technology.”
Mencari was intrigued. “That could be useful. I developed something that could detect them when they were phased. But I left that behind with the Coalition. Even so—once the Nukari knew we could detect their phased ships, they found other tactics to get around us, like using mercenaries or other races as transports and scouts. How far will we be able to scan with that thing?”
“Um. Well . . .” Her eyes skittered back and forth as she thought. “I could put together a few relay nodes . . . to widen the scanning fields. But I’ll need more parts.”
“Patching through relay nodes? Ingenious,” Osuto said.
Toriko looked at him with serious eyes. “Thanks, but . . . it’ll take time. And I couldn’t be one-hundred-percent certain until I tested at least one node with the base scanner.”
“So what do you need?” Mencari asked.
“Osuto said there’s an old ship graveyard not far from here. Thought I could start there. But there are a few things I’m sure I won’t find there.” She began making selections on a new piece of hardware strapped to her arm and projected a list of components.
Mencari glanced over the list and chuckled. “Technology’s moved on while I was cooped up at the Coalition research facility. But I think I recognize most of these things. I’ll have to go back to the trading post and see what I can find. Hopefully we can afford all of it.”
While I’m there, maybe I can find out how much Eyani’s creature detector helped our treasury, Mencari thought.
A memory stick popped out near Toriko’s display. She pulled it from the slot and handed it to him. “This has the list.” Then she returned to tweaking the new scanner.
“Keep me posted every step of your trip,” Osuto said to him. “Especially after what happened on your last journey. In the meantime, I have more training to do with Toriko and Seigie. But according to our young genius here,” he gave Toriko a warm smile, “we already have enhanced our distance scanning capabilities. If the Nukari show up, I’ll contact you.”
“Seigie still doing okay?” Mencari inquired.
“In her own way, she’s as single-minded as Toriko is,” Osuto said, grinning. “I’ve never seen anyone so interested in making crystals grow. Considering her . . . difficulty, you’d think that would be the last thing she’d want to do. Nonetheless, I’ve pretty much given her the okay to follow her own lead.”
Osuto followed Mencari to the door, saying quietly, “And Rhysus . . . remember what we talked about.” Rhysus had mentioned Toriko’s tale of seeing energy no one else could, among her other unique traits of commutating with robots, and other things he had observed while on Tericn. Osuto glanced over to Toriko, then back to Mencari. “You were right—active D’mok abilities. I’ll try to get her to understand her gifts as rapidly as I can.”
Mencari nodded, pleased to feel the presence of another D’mok-skilled individual. “I’ll be back as fast as I can,” he said. “Then, we’ll talk about what’s next.”
* * * * *
“I’m just docking now.” Mencari let go of the controls, allowing the piloting system to take over while he looked at the holographic projection of Osuto’s for details. The quick trip to the Trading Post had gone well. “Why?”
Osuto continued, “We picked up a distress signal from a ship not far from here. It’s being attacked by mercenaries.”
As the ship approached the asteroid’s moorings, the forward display showed Toriko fumble into the bay, headed his way. Her arms were overflowing with parts and tools. Mencari couldn’t believe how fast she was moving, especially without dropping something. He tensed as Spark bounded playfully around her feet, expecting her to crash at any moment.
The instant the ship stopped moving, Toriko opened the rear airlock and jumped in. Mencari stared at her and the armload of tools she carried, amused. “I could use your help to unload the ship, Toriko, not pack more in.”
But she’d already popped open a service panel and dove inside. She called out as she worked, “We’re gonna go help!”
Mencari said, “Help? Who?”
Osuto replied, “Ujaku. He’s the one being attacked.”
“Who’s being attacked?” Mencari said. “And how are we supposed to help? This ship doesn’t even have any weapons.”
Her voice came out of the open panel. “We do now. I’m just about done.”
Osuto voice interjected, “Toriko, tell Mencari about Ujaku.”
She pulled her body from the panel, along with a handful of wires and thumb-sized circuit boards. Her face was flushed and her mouth twisted in an embarrassed smile. “Well . . . I know him pretty well. My father used to trade with him.”
Spark yipped happily. Toriko stared down at her lively creation.
“Back to your recharging bed… Go on!” she said, as Spark pawed at the air, then obediently ran out of the ship.
Using her foot, she hit the button to close the hatch. “Guess that would help. Sorry, we should go!”
She momentarily dove back into the console.
Mencari said, “What are you doing?”
“Installing an enhancement modeled after one of Spark’s devices. An EM pulse generator. Hope the power source is strong enough. I looked up the schematics for this ship. Should just minimally drain the system. I think. But I’ll watch the gauges. If it does too much, I’ll adjust it.”
“Sending the coordinates to the nav system, Toriko,” Osuto said. “There’s no time to waste.”
“Just about ready with the new weapons, Osuto,” Toriko replied.
Mencari shook his head. “So, what are we getting ourselves into here?” he said. “If you two don’t mind filling me in.” With a sigh, he activated the undocking sequence.
Osuto remotely activated a side display. “You can see Ujaku’s ship has been damaged and is being pursued by two mercenary ships.”
Mencari’s ship began its familiar jostling as it moved from the dock into free space. Its frame groaned slightly.
A loud hammering panged through the ship. Alarmed, Mencari spun around to see Toriko emerge from the panel with a grin. “That last pin just needed a little encouragement,” she said, tool proudly in hand. “It’s in now.” She saw concern shadow his face and laughed. “It’s gonna work. Well, it should, anyway!”
He turned back to the controls as she strapped herself in. The engines roared to life.
Osuto said, “Good luck!” and his holographic image faded.
“There has to be more to this story,” Mencari said. “Why is this Ujaku fellow worth a tussle with mercenaries?”
She tinkered with a small panel next to her. “I’ve locked on to his signal. He’s still transmitting. Should we send him a message?”
Mencari sighed. “Let’s get farther from the base.”
“Okay.”
He heard the hesitation and saw her worried face. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Let’s just get there.”
He was tempted to challenge her again. Thankfully, she elaborated on her own.
“He’s not much older than me, but he and my father were really close. I saw him a lot growing up. My dad invented all kinds of things. Dad used to get materials and sometimes custom parts from Ujaku. And… Me too…”
“Like father like daughter, huh,” he said.
“A lot of tools in my workroom back home were built by Ujaku.” She nibbled on her lip as she played with console controls. “I didn’t have much time to pull together a decent tactical system, so we’ll just be able to target one ship at a time with the EM pulse. Most of them have a radial area-of-effect. This one’s a little more . . . directed. Only thing is we’ll have to manually target the enemy.”
Mencari winced. “Ma
nually?” He leaned his head against the headrest. “I seem to remember you saying something about all of your equipment being top-notch.”
“It is! I mean, sure, I had to cobble this new combat system together from spare parts… And I coded the entire system minutes before you docked. And I guess that didn’t leave any time for testing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to work!” She flashed him a dimpled smile. “Even if it works half as well as it’s supposed to, it will get the job done.”
“For your friend’s sake, I certainly hope so.” Mencari closed his eyes. “So, how does our new super-weapon work?”
“A button press.” She said face scrunching.
“Now that you mention it,” she pressed a button on her armguard, saying, “NEW WORKSPACE.” As she spoke, a holographic screen with scrolling readouts appeared before her. “While I have a little time, maybe I can put together a tracking and auto-fire system too. Sure, I know what you’re going to say. It’s another new system that builds on an another untested system, but we don’t have the time for a lot of testing—”
She began working with her virtual workspace, ignoring his wince.
A tone rang from the dashboard.
“We’re far enough away from the base,” he said. “Toriko . . . you can contact your friend now.”
She hopped to the communication station. Her hands blurred across the consoles as she hailed Ujaku. A few minutes passed with no response.
“Maybe his comm’s damaged?” Mencari said.
“But I’m still picking up the distress signal.” In spite of her bubbly tone, worry was still on her face when she returned to her seat.
Suddenly, a projection of a haggard young man with a scraggly red beard appeared before her.
“Ujaku!” she squealed.
“Toriko Purg, should’ve figured it was you! Who else could do a reverse lookup on my com-ID!”
“Are you okay? We got your distress signal.”
“Had better days. These characters’ve been after me for a while. Just got lucky this time.”
Toriko saw smoke begin to surround his holographic image. “Are you on fire?”
“Few fried wires. It’s nothing.”
“We’re near you now. Hang in there!”
Alarm showed on his face. “Near? These are mercenaries, Tori. Stay away!”
“We have a plan.”
“We?”
“We’ll be there soon. Hold on!”
“Toriko, this isn’t just a simula—”
The projection filled with static as a blast rocked his ship. Mencari could see the young fellow thrown violently forward. Toriko screamed, “Ujaku!”
Eyes blazing with fear or exhilaration, Ujaku pulled away from the screen. “Love to keep talking, but I have to play with ’em first. See ya later. Ujaku out.”
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” Mencari called to Toriko. “Can you see him on our scanners?”
She pulled up the display. “Yeah. And two other ships close behind him.”
Mencari called up visual projections of the targets. “Can your EM pulse handle two vessels? That class of ship could have shielding—”
“Just watch it!” Toriko said pulling up her virtual workspace franticly working on her targeting system. Her eyes jittered back and forth while lines of code burst onto the display. Virtual objects began to appear and connect. “This would be so much easier with my full development shell. Gosh darn it!”
“Nav says thirty seconds to interception.”
“Done!”
“Done? Done with—?”
The voice of the ship’s computer spoke up. “Targeting system activated. Ship X12A-12A omitted from combat targets.”
Toriko selected “EM Pulse” and the ship’s computer intoned, “Switching to visual feedback.” A holographic three-dimensional grid appeared. Small crosshairs moved across the display as the computer tracked Toriko’s eye movement.
“Not fully automatic, but it’ll help!” she said.
The mercenary ships immediately began evasive maneuvers while still pursuing Ujaku.
Mencari shook his head, amazed. “They must be able to detect your system.”
“Didn’t have time to add buffers to obfuscate the targeting beams.”
She nibbled her lower lip while the crosshairs changed color and the display scrambled into a swarm of colored dots. Her eyes grew wide. “Ahhh!”
Mencari held his focus on the mercenary ships. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. It just . . . scrambled.”
Panicking, she drilled into the ship’s systems. A plain console window appeared in a new projection.
“Oh my gosh!” she squealed. “A prompt! I have a command prompt!”
“What’s a prompt?”
“Exactly! I’ll have to change this later.”
“What is it?”
“Gotta debug… Oh my gosh, core dump too!”
Her fingers flew over a holographic keyboard as information scrolled across the prompt screen. “Found it! In the lock subroutine!”
Then, she let out a disgusted snort. “Stupid race condition. Of all the times . . .”
She began tapping again. “Reinitializing the defense matrix.”
“Hurry,” Mencari said. “They’re on him again.”
As she locked on the ship, the new system fired an EM pulse. The invisible wave crashed into her target, causing plumes of sparks and debris to shower from its aft side.
“Got him! Sort of.”
“What does sort of—?”
A glance answered his question. She’d missed a direct hit; only half the ship appeared dead. Its port engines continued to fire, causing it to spin far off course. The second ship broke off its pursuit and circled back to aid the failing vessel.
Ujaku hailed them. Toriko opened the channel, and an amused Ujaku appeared. “Let me guess, one of your toys—right?”
She blushed.
“Added ‘military guru’ to your resume, did you?”
“Maybe. . . ” she said slyly.
“Hate to break this up,” Mencari said, “but while the mercenaries are at a dead stop, I think we should clear out.”
Ujaku nodded. “I agree. I think my baby’ll hold up a little longer. Let’s head to a spaceway safety port. Check how badly she’s banged up there.”
“Spaceway?” Mencari asked. “What’s that?”
“Never used the spaceway?” Ujaku sounded incredulous.
“No.”
“Follow me. I’ll pay our way in.”
Mencari looked over at Toriko, who shrugged. Then, to the screen, he said, “We’ll be right behind you.”
Ujaku nodded, and his image dissolved. Mencari configured the navigation system for friendly pursuit, then sat back. The ships swiftly headed off together.
“You never heard of a spaceway?” Toriko said.
“No.”
“Me either.”
He swiveled his head to her in surprise, but turned his eyes right back. A large object had appeared on the navigation console.
By the time he said, “Woo, what’s that thing?” she’d already pulled up her own view at her station and was squinting at it. She enhanced the image with a computer approximation of the structure ahead. “Still too distant for a good rendering, but it looks like . . . a great big funnel!”
They were hailed again. At first, nothing was there. Then an embarrassed Ujaku moved into the projection. “Sorry. Went to open the channel and something blew. Guess my baby’s in bad shape after all.”
“Still think you can make it?” Mencari asked.
“Yeah. No guarantees how much farther though.”
“Toriko saw a big funnel up ahead. We head toward it?”
“Yes. That’s the gate aperture onto the spaceway.”
“What is the spaceway exactly?”
“It’s very clever, that’s what it is.”
Mencari waited for a better explanation. Finally, Ujaku cleared his t
hroat and said, “Long story short—some spatial engineers found the gravity from planets, stars and other stuff created these bands of compressed space. They did some studies, found they could put a ship inside, get it to move at amazing speeds while barely needing to touch the fuel cells. . . Anyway, they turned it into kind of a highway in space.”
Mencari said, “So why the big gateway?”
“To protect little guys like us. The gravity on the edges of these bands could crush us. Matching the internal speed of the spaceway can also tear ships up. So they designed these apertures to allow ordinary ships to get past the gravity thing and ramp them fast enough into the speeds within the spaceway.”
Toriko leaned forward, fascinated. “And the safety port you were talking about?”
“A modern rest stop. With a few added features to help ships in trouble. As we approach, the aperture will scan you for a license. It’s not a free ride. But my license allows me to let others on. Under my care, of course.”
As they approached, he and Toriko began seeing strange appendages resembling long arms of a squid. “Looks hungry,” he muttered.
The console next to Toriko bleeped. The tentacle-like appendages began to close, shrinking the aperture’s gaping mouth. What was once a massive opening was now only twice the size of their ship. As they approached the aperture, the ship felt as if it was picking up speed. The communication chime rang out again. Ujaku appeared.
“Passing through the gravity rings,” he said. “All normal. They’ll help align your ship as you go in.”
Mencari said, “Does the gate always adjust to the ship that passes through it?”
“Yeah— Oops, I’ll be back.”
His image blinked out. The craft began to shake, accelerating further towards the main aperture.
The communication tone rang again with Ujaku’s image. “Don’t worry, that’s just the pull of the aperture. Ah, aperture virgins. Gotta love ’em!” He laughed.
“Can your ship take the stress?” Mencari said, swaying.
“Yes, my baby can take a lot more—”
From behind him, the sounds of circuit panels exploding contradicted his claims. “We’ll be fine! See you on the other side!”
His image broke into tiny balls of light as they entered the tentacle tunnel. Toriko cried out as the ship lurched with an unexpected surge of speed. Her cheeks ablaze, she covered her mouth.
D'Mok Revival 1: Awakening Page 13
