The World Game

by Allen Charles

  “I see a terrifying sight of silver coated missiles heading for me. Over.”

  “You got it Corcoran. We have mirrors coming at us, and mirrors reflect, so we can get past the obstacle of the Skyhook. We just have to hope that someone is watching at the other end. Over”

  “How do we turn mining lasers into communication lasers? Over.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m a History major. Back in the beginning of radio communications and line of sight light communications there were simple codes used. One of these was called Morse Code and became the default standard. My historical re-enactment group learned Morse code, so I can flash a coded laser message and reflect it off the anti-matter in the general direction of our other transports. Over.”

  “And then what? Over.”

  “Then we pray to God that someone sees our message and figures out it is Morse Code. Over.”

  “It’s a long shot Martin, but I’ll find that equipment. Over.”

  The two transports continued on parallel courses for a further twenty minutes until reaction mass on both was less than fifty percent. They had still not accelerated sufficiently to outrun the fragment swarm which was gradually drawing closer. They had less than one hour to complete the personnel and reaction mass transfer.

  The two pilots skillfully mated the transports lock to lock and opened the hatches.

  The passengers on X4, Martin’s craft, were to move over to X6. They began to drift over and congregate near the air lock and the first person began to climb through - to be met at the other side by a bear of a man wielding a piece of metal tubing as a club.

  “Get back where you came from or I’ll smash your skull in!” he growled in a voice that matched his coarse appearance. His face was red and unshaven and his arms bulged with muscle under the tattoos that he wore like skin tight sleeves. “And tell ya friends to stay right there. There ain’t enough room on this here ship to begin with. We don’t need you lot as well.”

  “What’s going on here?” Corcoran the pilot had come down to supervise the transfer before space walking with Martin to move the reaction mass. “Stand aside and allow them to come in!”

  “Not bloody likely. Who are you anyway you pussy uniformed prick?”

  Corcoran paused and looked around assessing the mood of the other passengers. He decided this was a stand alone troublemaker that had to be dealt with. “I am the Commander of this transport and what I say goes, without question. Now put down the bar and stand aside.”

  “Or what you big pussy. Wotcha gonna do to me if I don’t? Huh?” The brute lifted his face in a sneer and menacingly tapped the bar in his palm. The other passengers edged back as best they could in weightless conditions.

  “Unfortunately for you we are under full martial law and I will kill you without hesitation. Now stand aside or suffer the consequences.”

  “Come and get me mister pussy soldier.”

  “I don’t need to.” Corcoran raised his arm, hand clenched into a fist and turned down. Suddenly his youniform emitted two fine streaking missiles that took the troublemaker in the throat. Corcoran backed off a lethal solution at the last moment and had his buddy simply paralyze the target, whose eyes bulged as he gasped for breath. He released the bar which drifted away and his legs untangled from the wall harness. His already red face was now crimson as he choked for breath.

  “I can let you die right now or you can behave yourself. There are not enough of us left to waste the life of even a fool like you. Your choice, live or die.”

  The terrified man was gagging, holding on to consciousness and signalling he would give in. Corcoran not entirely convinced on the sincerity of the capitulation under duress, reeled back the buddy and watched as the offender slowly recovered.

  “Get that transfer happening now. We have no time to lose.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Far away in another galaxy.

  An expletive soiled the thought waves. “Putrid offspring of excreta! Damn and a supernova up your etherial arse! I could have sworn that he would kill him. I just lost a heap on that bet.”

  “You cheated again didn’t you!”

  “Rubbish. How can you accuse me of cheating? I lost the bet.”

  “Yes you lost, but you stimulated the brute to mutiny. Everyone else was cooperating so the probability of a single mutineer is so slight as to be zero. You did something, I just haven’t figured out what yet. When I do figure it out I am going to call for a penalty payment as well as the bet amount. You really suck with this cheating. First the snake, now this. Twice in one game.”

  “But I’m down over seventy thousand credits on this game. If I lose any more I won’t be able to pay my subscription for the next series. I’ll go nuts with nothing to do during penalty wait out. It happened to me once before and it ain’t no fun.”

  “Which series did it happen?”

  “I think it was Game Series Four. I always bet on the good guys, they all seem to be called the Allies in most series, winning the main war of the series. Problem was in Game Four....”

  “Yeah I know. The Fartzi Party won that one and them blew up the world almost straight away testing their nuclear bombs. Short Game that one.”

  “How’d you do on that?”

  “Oh, I watched where you were putting your credits and bet the other way...”

  “Why you...”

  “Language old son! Language!”

  Across the universe the network hummed with bet and counter bet.

  “Aw give me a break will ya? Have you got a form guide handy?”

  “You haven’t had hands for at least twenty five thousand years blob brain. Handy my hippo campus! Anyway, what do you expect to find in the form guide. It is updated every hour and is obsolete the moment it is published to the network.”

  “Just wanna know if that Carver Fuller team is a stayer or if they fade on the home straight.”

  “Don’t need the form guide for that. Carver fulla Fuller is a stayer. Hah! I’m just sooo funny I crack myself up! Yeah, those two are good for a win. Put something down on Shaw Hannaford. I’m hedging between those pairs for the winners. Gosh, Carver almost makes me wish I had a body again. She’s hot!”

  The network almost glowed with the overload of bets being made.

  “Talk to you later man! Having a brain massage in ten. Gotta go.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Aboard Carver’s Transport.

  “Look at that will you!” Fuller was looking at the rear view 3D platform where a now blackened and scorched earth fragment appeared to be falling towards them. He could see the visual aspect of the rock changing as it rotated about an axis perpendicular to the fuel bomb explosive force. The bomb had not hit evenly and the unbalanced explosive force had imparted a spin to the micro-planet of Iran.

  “Janine, is there any way we can check the vector of that big rock from before and after the blast?”

  “I was tracking it with doppler radar so we have its earlier path. Because of the spin on it the reading will not be as accurate now, but yes, I can run a new track.”

  “Please do it now.” Fuller was staring at the rock with intense concentration, as if he were looking right into it with X-ray vision.

  Janine ran the tracking and a 3D vector diagram hovered in front of her. “I made the older track red and the new track green. There’s not a lot of the new track yet, but I can see that the path has a divergence since the explosion.”

  “Can we do a multiple scan of all surrounding fragments to see if there will be a collision between this rock and other anti-matter coated pieces?”

  “That’s a hard one for our little on board nanobrain. I’ll give it a try but we are pushing the limits.”

  Fuller said nothing and just nodded, still furiously thinking and calculating. Shaw may have the IQ but Fuller had the experience. Janine had instructed the nanobrain and the display was showing a tiny 3D rendition of the Solar System as a please wait clock. Seconds went by. Then a minute. Another thir
ty seconds.

  “It’s not happening John.”

  “Give it some more time.”

  There was a sweet little tink noise and the solution began to appear as a 3D wire image. Once the image was complete the solid objects were colored in, brown for the rock and silver for the fragments. Red dots represented detectable micro particles of anti-matter that were as dangerous as any large mass, given time. The transport itself was represented in miniature. Once the scene had finished rendering, it moved into relative motion showing the objects relative to the transport, projected forward in accelerated time. Carver and Fuller watched the majestic lumbering of the infected earth fragments as they expanded ever outwards. Only the brown rock, slowed down and being overtaken by the surrounding fragments, did not follow the parallel path. Even as it was being left behind, its skewed trajectory looked like it would take it into collision with other fragments.

  They continued to watch this space ballet, tension heightening as the rock was fully passed by the rest of the fragment cloud - and missed collision. They both had been holding their breath and let out a whoosh of relief as even the micro particles flowed by.

  “You know what this means Janine?”

  “We can get behind the fragment cloud and use the rock as a shield if any particles are straying towards us.”

  “More than that. The rock is reaction mass. It was a chunk of Earth. It may contain elements, minerals and trapped gasses essential for our long term survival.” Fuller stopped to think again, tapping his finger and spacing out. “I wonder?” he said to no one in particular.

  “What?”

  “Huh?” Shaken out of his deep thought he said, “I think we could do something with this rock. What’s its mass? Can we calculate that?”

  “Approximately. We don’t know the overall density or composition so it will be a high end estimation.”

  “That’s fine. Anything less than our initial estimate is to our advantage. We are moving mass so the less we have to move the easier it is.”

  “Moving mass?” Janine looked at him expectantly.

  “Maybe. If my idea works and the equipment works.”

  Janine’s face lit up as the light bulbs in her brain turned on. “Hey Mr Fuller. Not a bad idea at all. I’ll call up the specs for the Dinkshif drives and get the mass estimator working.”

  “I’m going to bring Shaw and Hannaford in on this. I will need some competent help to pull it off.”

  “How about the President? Are you going to fill him in?”

  “I was thinking about that. Honestly, what is he the President of any more? He’s just another survivor without any skills to add to our survival chances. I respect the fact that he was the most powerful man in the world until a few hours ago, but now it is you and me. We command absolute authority on this vessel. I think we need to proceed and advise him of what we are doing, but not ask any permission to proceed.”

  Janine screwed up her face and squinted at Fuller. “Wow. I never considered it in that way. When you live your life accepting the power and prestige of the office of President you don’t consider that it may become a position of nothing overnight. I guess the issue is that this craft is still US property and subject to the authority of the Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces, and that is the President. But protocol and Marine Law is that the Captain of the vessel under way wields supreme power at all times.” She stopped to think for a moment and came to a decision. “You are right you know, but break it to him gently Captain Bligh.”

  Fuller grinned at her, took her chin gently and planted a kiss on her lips.

  “Hmm...” came a happy response. “You fink Mr Fuller,” came muffled by the kiss, “that there’s a two hour motel on dat dere rock?” as she pulled away and looked in his eyes.

  “Bloody well hope so!” His long departed Australian dad’s expletives bouncing into his mind for no apparent reason.

  They held on for another long twenty seconds and then reluctantly separated.

  “I’m going to have a chat with Shaw and Hannaford about the idea. Isn’t it crazy that these children are our greatest experts? Scary.” He made his way out of the cabin, only having to work against one G of acceleration.

  CHAPTER 39

  On the X6 Transport.

  “Everyone is on board now Corcoran. We do the reaction mass transfer now.”

  “We both have to go EVA for that Martin. That leaves no one in authority on board and I’m worried about that clown you had to zap.”

  “If we don’t move smartly we won’t be worrying about anything if the fragments hit us. Read them all the Riot Act Corcoran and let’s get moving.”

  “Better to say nothing. Maybe the idiots on board will not notice we are missing. After all, without us they are all dead.”

  “OK, let’s go. Checklist the tools. We only get one chance now.”

  “Auxiliary oxygen canisters, you and me. Welding and cutting laser, wrenches, de-icing spray.”

  “Check.” Martin opened the inner lock and they both moved in with their equipment. The buddies went into EVA mode and the youniforms transformed into vacuum suits. He hit the remote dock separation switch and they saw X4 gradually drift away from X6 through the view port. “Ready for EVA Corcoran?”

  “Go.”

  Martin opened the outer air lock and they could see X4 now about ten feet away, the separation drift slowed by automatic compensation jets. The two pushed off into space and headed for the reaction mass holding tank cover. Martin released and slid back the cover over a keypad and keyed in the unlock code. The cover popped up along one edge and then swung back and out, lying flush with the surface, revealing a brown, translucent bladder.

  “Looks like my grand-dad’s old water bed guts from the 1980s.” laughed Corcoran. “Hope it doesn’t puncture as easily.” He poked at it with a finger and it rippled away from the indent. “I’ll get the handles on this end.”

  They each took one end of the huge bladder and began gently lifting while keeping tension across it, simply by anchoring their feet under the locked down hatch cover. The half full bladder began to drift up at the two ends ever so slowly, the center gradually following.

  “Funny thing happened to my grand-dad once. I was just a little kid sleeping over with the grands. All of a sudden I hear this running and screaming in the night and its gramps racing around yelling that he is dying, he’s been stabbed and he’s bleeding to death. Scared the crapola out of me being a kid. Never forget that.”

  “So what happened?” Martin asked.

  “Oh, we got gramps calmed down, sat him down in a chair in his very wet, brand new red pajamas and looked for the stab wounds. There weren’t any. There was nothing. The water bed had sprung a leak and the dye in his new jammies had run everywhere and looked like blood. He hadn’t washed them before wearing as you had to do in those days.”

  Martin cracked up laughing, almost sending his end of the bladder off into space and grabbed hold again just in time. “OK. OK.” he said still giggling at the image conjured up, “No more comic relief like that until this is done.”

  “Wasn’t so funny at the time. he thought grams had stabbed him and she wasn’t too pleased about that. They got over it but things were a bit strained from then on until the day gramps passed on.”

  “Aw, that’s a shame. Why did it go that way?”

  “Gramps was a bit of a wild boy and like to chase the ladies. Guess he had a guilty conscience and thought grams had found out about one of his conquests.”

  “Did he really do that?”

  “Naw. I reckon it was wishful thinking. He was eighty-six when the red pajamas happened. Blimey. If I can still get it up at eighty-six I reckon my wife would tell me to go for it just so I would leave her alone!”

  Martin cracked up with laughter again but held the bladder tightly. The tension of the past hours was lightened and the two of them carefully drifted the bladder clear of the hull. Corcoran jetted to the umbilical feed hose and wound off
the connector above the automatic safety valve.

  “Should I shut the hatch?” he asked Martin.

  “It’s not as if we’re coming back to the transport. Don’t waste time we do not have.”

  They imparted a velocity to the bladder to take it to the X6 reaction mass hatch and with Martin herding, Corcoran jetted off to open the hatch.

  There was no provision to have both bladders connected so all they would do at this point is store the X4 bladder in the space available. Another EVA would be needed to move the feed line from the empty bladder to this one when the time came.

  “We have to move Corcoran!” Martin warned, “The nearest fragments are only twenty minutes away.”

  “OK. We’re done here. Didn’t need any of the tools. That’s a thought!”

  “What?”

  “Have we got stuff on board we could jettison in the path of the fragments? It will reduce our reaction mass consumption and maybe slow down the fragments a bit.”

  “Once we get under way we can physically check inventory. It won’t be as effective as throwing it back now, but we can’t wait. Good idea though.”

  The pair made their way to the entry port.

  “Damn! Will you look at that!” Corcoran exclaimed.

  The window of the port was filled by the ugly, red face of the big troublemaker. He held up a handwritten sign which said “f--- off and die pigs!”

  “What are we going to do about this Martin? We only have about eighteen minutes left. This idiot is going to kill us all.”

  “We have only one choice that may give everyone a slim chance. It depends on how many are with this fool and how fast we can gain entry.”

  “I see what you are thinking,” said Corcoran calmly as he watched Martin turn on the welder-cutter and head for the entry lock. Even with the inner lock open, if the atmosphere in the lock evacuated the inner lock would automatically slam shut. Martin was counting on only the bad guys being in the lock or in the way of the inner door. It was going to be very messy.