by Frank Carey
"No. Just use the scanner, fool!" she testily replied while watching the door.
"Worried?" he replied. He removed a small instrument from his vest and ran it over the top of the body. "Dammit! Nova, can you get this thing to work?"
She walked over and took the device from him, then examined it. "First, you turn it on," she admonished, "then you run it over the..."
"Who the hell are you? What the plark are you doing to that body?"
Nova and Glean turned to find a large blaster pointed at them. It was held by a young woman. Glean said nothing, instead he just stared, so Nova answered. "Hi. I'm Nova and he's Glean. We're private investigators."
"Are you an AI?"
"How can you tell?"
"Your suit is good, but the epsilon field is off." She looked at Glean. "And he's not League..."
"What are you?" Glean whispered while he stared at the glowing crystal peeking out from the center of her shirt."
"I'm a Logash. Haven't you ever met a Logash?"
He slowly shook his head. He stopped when Nova stunned her with a shot from the blaster she had hidden up her sleeve.
"What the hell have you done?" he yelled.
"She's fine. What the hell's gotten into you?" she finished the scan before resealing the tube. She then reached down and held her hand over the sleeping girl. "She'll wake up in a few minutes..." Alarms sounded around them. "Dammit, Glean, we need to go!" She grabbed her partner and dragged him out into the hallway. Bulkheads began to close around them. Glean shook his head, then looked around.
"We're on the outside layer of the station, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Is that an airlock?" he said while nodding toward a nearby door.
"Damn, skippy..." she closed her eyes, then opened them. "Our ride is on its way."
Moments later, security forces showed up only to find an angry Logash technician standing in an otherwise empty corridor.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kalana looked up and saw an angry sky filled with dark clouds and the occasional lightning bolt. "Looks like a storm is moving in," she said as her team cleared rubble from a buried doorway. "How are we doing?"
"Almost finished, mistress," Murph replied while using his horn laser to cut through a steel beam while the twins pulled away chunks of rubble and threw them off to the side.
Kalana looked over at Mersa and Trent who were scanning the perimeter for signs of selka patrols. "How are we doing, Mersa?"
"So far, so good," the Basili sergeant replied. "The perimeter is quiet."
Murph stood up and stepped back from an opening onto a darkened stairway leading down into the ground. Kalana ordered her nanobots to fabricate several glow sticks. When they finished, she snapped them, shook them, then threw them down the hole while scanning it. "Clear!" she said when she found the stairway empty.
With Nana taking point and Marcus bringing up the rear, they headed downward. At the bottom of the stairway, they found a large metal door. Mersa scanned it and the area beyond. "Jackpot. There's a large complex of rooms on the other side along with numerous energy signatures. I'm also picking up a complex computer network..." She stopped and made adjustments to the scanner. "That's not good."
"Report," Kalana ordered.
"Super clones just like the ones we found on Degreb, only these are populated with selka."
"How many?"
Mersa tilted her head while making an adjustment. "Around 3,000 bodies within scanner range. The majority of them are asleep at the moment, possibly in suspended animation."
"Dammit, Peter, what the hell were you thinking," Kalana muttered. "What about weaponry?"
Mersa switched scanner modes, then whistled. "Nukes, tri-cobalt warheads, blasters from pistols to ship emplacements, explosives, and things I can't identify. Captain, they could take out several planets with what they have stored here."
Kalana formed a palm scanner and aimed it upwards. "There's a layer of high-tensile strength alloy between us and the surface that a limited orbital bombardment wouldn't scratch." She looked at Trent. "Can you get in there?"
Trent smiled as he disappeared in a flash of light, only to return an instant later. "The wall is shielded. I need to get inside it before I can move into the network."
"Murph?"
The Minotaur looked at the wall. "Confirmed. The field is a standard-issue non-corporeal shield designed specifically to keep Alue and AIs out of a system. This one is strong enough to block even an Olympian immortal."
"Damn it. OK. Team, prepare to breach."
Once they were set, Kalana signaled Mersa to open the door. She pressed a button causing the door to slide aside revealing an empty corridor beyond. Once past the shield, Trent disappeared into the network.
"Murph, keep an eye on him. Mersa, is there a computer core?"
The dragonoid sergeant panned her scanner around. "This way," she said before heading down the corridor.
Kalana glanced at the twins. “Marcus, Nana, go stryker and continuously scan the area. We need to know the moment the selka detect us.
"Aye, aye, Captain," they replied as they transformed into their stryker alter egos which resembled large, winged, biped robots.
They followed the sergeant to a heavy door. She knelt and examined the lock. "This'll take a minute."
"Do it," Kalana ordered. Mersa got to work as the others kept watch.
Trent appeared with a flash of light. "Report," Kalana ordered.
"Yes, ma'am. The network is an amalgam of League and other technologies. It connects hundreds of nodes with a 500-gigahertz bandwidth. There's a lot of traffic directed to one location."
"And that location is?"
He hooked his thumb in the direction of the door Mersa was working on. "That room. My best guess is there's a mega-scale, FTL-enhanced, quantum computer in there connected to one helluva data storage system."
"Mersa, how are we doing?"
"I need a few more minutes, ma'am. The encryption level is way too high for a damn lock pad."
Their earcomms started to beep. Nana looked at her wrist computer. "Ma'am, the Annihilator II reports a ship just blew past the blockade. It was heading down to the surface when it was hit by surface to air missiles. Their computers predict it will land about a click from here."
"Any ID on the ship?"
"Only that it's flying Confederation colors."
"Dammit! We're in negotiations with the Confederation. Orders?"
"We are to render assistance."
"Mersa! Button up, we're moving out."
"But, ma'am, I'm almost there!"
"We'll come back, but an EPIRB from a Confederation ship trumps a supercomputer."
"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant replied as she removed her tools from the pad and stored them in her pack. "Back to the surface, people! Scanners up! Eyes open! Move out!"
CHAPTER SIX
The Confederation Scout Ship Eurus flew through other-space on course to Norash while Nova and Glean made plans for planet fall.
"Let me get this straight. Norash is off-limits to all League ships?" Glean said.
"Correct. The reason why is labeled Top Secret, and I can't get past the security locks," Nova replied.
"Why is this a problem? We're not a part of the League..." He stopped when she cuffed him.
"Don't be an idiot. You don't quarantine an entire planet on a whim. You quarantine a planet if it is a danger to ships, crews, and other planets."
Glean brought up an image of the planet they had borrowed from the League database. "Looks safe to me. Look, all we need to do is go in, steal-back the cargo ship, and high-tail it back to the Confederation with no one the wiser. Easy-peasy."
"When has any job been easy-peasy? I'm surprised that either one of us are still alive after some of the contracts we've taken..."
"You worry too much. Norash looks like a dead planet with our client's ship just waiting for us to pick it up."
"Have you forgotten about the peop
le who stole it?"
"Peter Ventana stole it, and he's dead."
"What about the people he stole it for? Where are they?"
"I don't know, and I don't care. We just need to steal the ship back. We'll be up to our necks in reward money once we deliver it and the scan of Peter's body to the client. We'll finally be able to quit this job and open that beach shop on the home world."
"Assuming we survive..."
"Don't be a ninny. We'll be fine."
The arrival warning chime sounded. They headed to the cockpit to prepare the ship for transition to real-space. When they were set, Glean reached down and threw a lever which shut down the other-space engines, dropping the ship into real-space while activating the conventional engines.
All hell broke loose as collision alarms sounded. Dead ahead, and getting uncomfortably close, was a behemoth. "What in the name of all that's holy?" Glean yelled as he pulled back on the control yoke to put the ship into a steep climb. The comms lit up like a holiday tree. "Unknown ship! This is the Olympian Battle Cruiser Annihilator II. You will heave-to and prepare to be boarded. This planet is under quarantine by order of the League of Planetary systems."
Glean flipped a switch, killing the connection. "I never liked that channel anyways." He flipped another switch, raising the ship's stealth field. Once it was established, he banked to port, pointing the little craft on a course parallel to the length of the battle cruiser. "What the hell is this thing?" he said with a nervous edge to his voice.
"I would say ginormous, but that's just me. Are you sure this job is going to be easy-peasy?"
He glared at her. "Funny. Are we close enough to activate the target's beacon?"
"You sure you want to?" She saw his look, so she tapped a control on the center console. A dot appeared on the nav display along with a series of coordinates. "Aye, there be clandasks here!"
Sighing, he tapped the dot, sending the coordinates to the NAVComp. The ship pulled away from the behemoth and headed to the planet's surface.
"Two minutes to target. Scope is clear. No pursuit..." Nova stopped. "Why isn't there any pursuit...?"
The edge of the dashboard flashed red. "Shit, we're being targeted!" Glean said as he initiated evasive maneuvers.
"Not by the Annihilator," Nova replied as she fired up electronic countermeasures.
"From whom, then?"
"A ground installation. Get us out of here!" she yelled as two bogeys appeared on the scope. It was too late. The missiles hit moments later, sending the Eurus into a steep dive. "Main engines are down. Shields are down. Comms are down. We still have thrusters!"
Glean fought the controls as he tried to land the ship both safely and near the target. At the last possible moment, he pulled out of the dive and belly flopped onto the debris-laden ground. They came to a stop against the remains of a stone wall.
Being a disembodied AI in a robotic body had its advantages. Unfazed by the impact, Nova got out of her seat and ran over to an unconscious Glean. She knew she had to get them the hell out of the wreck, but first, she needed to make sure she could safely move her friend. She held her hand over him--it had a built-in scanner--and checked him for injuries. Seeing none, she gently shook him. "Hey, buddy. Time to wake up."
He opened his eyes. "What? Where?"
"Crashed. Norash. Must leave!"
He came fully awake and saw the remains of the wall leaning against the Eurus. He slapped the release in the middle his chest. Once free of the restraints, the two of them headed to the back of the ship where they grabbed survival packs and weapons. Before they could cycle the airlock, something pounded against the door. This was followed by the muffled sounds of blaster fire. "Shit," Glean whispered. "Can this get worse?"
The airlock cycled open to reveal a mythological beast with ruby-tipped horns and tail and a build that any bodybuilder would envy. Behind it stood three robots, a dragon, and something with huge, black eyes. Glean just stared.
"Nova?" the Minotaur said.
"Murphy?" Nova replied. She ran up and jumped into the creature’s arms and kissed him.
"What are you doing here?' they said in unison.
The robot sans wings walked past the two AIs and extended its hand while transforming into a woman with yellow eyes, slit pupils, long pointed ears, and a whip-like tail. "Captain Kalana Grenor, League Space Marine Corps. We're here to rescue you." She handed him two devices. "Put these on, right now."
"Why?" he said as he handed one to Nova, then put the other around his wrist.
"Without these, you could be possessed by a ghost," she replied.
Before he could say anything, the dragon announced. "Captain! We've got visitors!"
"Excuse me," she said as she returned to stryker form and ran out the air lock. She stopped. Surrounding the wreckage of the Eurus were several dozen bipedal robotic forms, each constructed of various mismatched parts.
"Stryker Team!" Mersa yelled, "Defensive ring..."
"Belay that order," Kalana said while going organic. "Everyone stand down. They don't have glyphs." She walked up to the nearest robot. "Space Marine Captain Kalana Grenor. Can I help you?"
"You may call me Memphis. Perhaps you can, but we need to leave. A red search team is approaching from the west."
She turned and looked at Glean and Nova. "You can come with us, or wait for pickup."
"The name's Glean, and you've met Nova. What do you think, buddy?"
Nova looked over at Murphy. "Yeah, we should go with them."
"Memphis, please lead the way."
"Marcus, Nana, flanking positions. Murphy, bring up the rear. You heard the Captain! Move out!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
Memphis led the team to a nearby multistory pile of rubble. He pointed to a dark doorway at the pile's base. "Welcome to my humble home," he said as he walked through the opening. Inside, they found a vast open space filled with hundreds of robots. "This is what remains of the selka civilization." He gestured toward the robots walking about. "Like your kind, we were scientists, craftspeople, artists, engineers, doctors, and members of countless other professions. We had spouses and families. We were happy, then the disaster occurred."
"What happened, exactly?" Kalana asked.
We created a device which was to allow us to move on--ascend if you like--to another reality. Instead, it malfunctioned and sent us all into limbo. Any selka who dies on this planet is immediately resurrected and returned to the surface in non-corporeal form. We languish there, caught, as your kind says, betwixt and between, until we find a body to possess. We cannot live, we cannot die, we can only exist.”
Kalana looked around, then activated her sensors. What she saw frightened and sickened her to her core. "How can you take so much pain?"
"We have no choice. They pain has driven the reds and greens mad. They think that they will be released from this existence by killing every single being on this planet and all the others in the galaxy. They are truly insane."
"What about you and your people. What's your plan?"
Memphis walked up to her and looked deeply into her eyes. "You will free us. You and your team will free all of us including the reds and greens. You will allow us to continue on our journey to enlightenment."
"How?" Kalana whispered, though in her heart, she already knew the answer.
"Repair the machine, then activate it. All selka life will come to an end, and in the process, we will be sent on our way to the next continuum."
"You want us to kill all of you?"
"We're already dead. We're just asking you to finish the job.”
Before Kalana could react, sirens sounded throughout the cavernous room. Kalana and the twins went full stryker while Mersa, Trent, and Murph activated their weapons and went into defensive stances. "What's happening?" Kalana yelled over the din.
"We're under attack by Red faction. They've breached our outer defenses. You must go."
"Go? Go where?"
Memphis grabbed a notebook
and handed it to Kalana. "Follow me," he said. He took them to an elevator shaft. "Take this down to the 30th sub-level. From there, take the stairs down to the 35th sub-level where the device's central core is. The notebook contains a map and directions on how to set things right," he said as Kalana and her people entered the lift.
"Come with us..." the captain started to stay.
"No. I must stay here and help fight them off. Good luck to you all," he said as the lift doors closed. As the lift started its journey down. A series of dents formed from the center of the door and traveled upwards. The occupants hugged the walls, but the projectiles didn't penetrate the tough inner doors.
"Mersa! You and Nana on the roof. Shoot anything that sticks its head through the doors above us!"
"Aye, ma'am!" They said as Nana jumped up, knocked the top hatch open, then flew through it with Mersa close behind.
"They can fly?" Glean asked.
"Yes, we can," Marcus said as he gave his wings a small flap. "I can juggle and balance a spoon on my tail."
"Knock it off, Private," Kalana said. "Run scans below us. I want to know if we have anything waiting for us."
"Aye, ma'am,"
"Sergeant Trent!"
"Ma'am?"
"Can you see any networks?"
Trent's eyes went large as he looked around the lift. "Yes, ma'am. I'm seeing two distinct networks."
"He can see networks?" Glean whispered to Nova.
"I was born in a network, sir," Trent responded while continuing to look around him.
"Oh."
"Ma'am, there is a star network in place which is carrying a massive amount of traffic. The room we were trying to break into is part of it. The other network is a standard data network consisting of backbones and branches. I can see similar networks in the buildings above us. The star network is definitely separate and unique."
Kalana opened the notebook and found a folded map inside. She handed the map to Trent and the notebook to Murph. While the two Space Marines examined their documents, Kalana talked to Glean and Nova. "Sorry about dragging you into this. Why did you two break quarantine?"
