by Andrew Beery
Everywhere he looked the level of advancement was astounding. The medical facilities, the engineering deck, the science labs, even the gym was far superior on this ship to what he and his people had on the planet’s surface. In his mind the only things that the crew of the Fitz had that the crew of the Yorktown lacked was the grandeur of a Venusian sunset; The sounds of a still pristine ocean lapping on the shores of an unspoiled beach; The scent of air that had never been the victim of an industrial revolution; The sound of wildlife that had never learned to live in fear of humanity. And yet, if what the Admiral was telling them was true… all this and so much more was at risk.
He turned to face the others. Admiral Kimbridge, or ‘Cat’ as she insisted he call her, was leaning against the sapphire glass looking out at the world below. Somehow it pleased him to know that despite all the advancements humanity had made, there was still time in the world to enjoy pure, raw, unadulterated beauty.
“All this could end soon,” he said dryly.
Cat turned to look at the governor. She smiled wanly. “Not if I have any say in the matter.” She waved towards the table. “Shall we begin?”
Edward nodded and took his seat. The other members of his team, including a reinvigorated Commander Riker, sat as well. The commander had been fitted with a mobility-assist exoskeleton as they had passed through the sickbay for a quick health-and-wellness exam. That and an injection of medical nanites that each had received to protect them from ship-borne germs had seemed to melt twenty years off the Commander. Next to him sat Professor Tracy Gipson, their resident xenobiologist. On the other side of the table was Dan Carson - his chief engineer, Doctor McGregor from medical and finally Elian Stevens, his wife and logistics coordinator.
The Admiral was seated with Captain Kirkland, Commander Ben and the Yorktown’s chief engineer – a female commander named Thais Figarero.
Cat began the conversation with a question. She looked directly at Edward as she asked it. The tenor of her question had him wondering if she was attempting to see directly into his soul.
“Why are you here?”
He had a feeling that she was not asking for a discussion about how the Agur had rescued a fatally crippled and doomed starship several decades ago. She was not asking why they decided to save the lives of the entire crew so long as they agreed to allow themselves to be removed from current time stream. She was not asking why it seemed necessary, according to the Agur, that the fate of the Edmund Fitzgerald should be shrouded in mystery. She was asking why here… why now?
“Why are you here?” Cat repeated.
Edward cleared his throat before responding. “I suspect the Agur wanted us here so you and I would meet.”
“I agree,” Cat said. “But the question remains why?”
“It would seem,” Thais began, “that they are to do or have done something we need them to do.”
“Or…,” Ben continued, “we are to do something because of them that we need to do.”
“Or…,” Ken added, “they are just here because the Agur needed someplace to dump them outside of the active timeline.”
Cat continued to look at Edward waiting for him to continue with his answer. He cleared his throat a second time.
“There is a message locked in our computer system. It was put there by the Agur. It’s heavily encrypted. My father told me the key to decrypting the message would become clear when it was needed.” He paused to look at Cat. “I suspect that time is now, unfortunately I still have no clue how to decrypt it.”
“Will you allow us access to the message?” Cat asked.
Edward smiled and nodded to Commander Riker. “Tom?”
The older man nodded back and pulled a chain from around his neck. Nestled in with his service tags was a small metallic thumb drive. He handed the drive to Ken who in turn handed it to Cat.
“I imagine the interface might be outdated,” Tom said as he replaced his dog tags. “Will you be able to access it?”
Ben nodded and tapped the side of his head. “I’ve already asked Yorky, our ship’s AI, to start fabricating an interface.”
The six members of the Venusian delegation shared a confused look.
Cat came to their rescue. “Ben is a cybernetic being. He’s part human AI and part organic with a brain from a partner race called the D’lralu. The AI is based on memory engrams from my father and now serves as the basis for the AI’s on each of our ships. Most of us have subvocal communicators that allow us to interact with the Yorktown’s AI which calls itself Yorky. Ben, however, is a special case. He is essentially in continuous communication with Yorky.”
Tracy Gipson stared at Ben. “You’re not human?”
“Aw… now you’re just hurting my feelings,” Ben replied with an injured frown.
“I…” Tracy began somewhat alarmed she might have given offense.
“I’ll let ya make it up to me later with a cup of hot chocolate,” he grinned back at her.
“The Commander is quite human… in all the wrong ways,” Captain Kirkland added for everyone’s benefit.
Cat turned the thumb drive over in her hands. She wished she still had access to her previously enhanced Heshe senses. “The D’rlalu typically look like six-legged canines but their brains and psychological profiles are the closest match we have found to humans yet. Add the fact that Ben is a fusion intellect and I think you will find him quite human,” Cat said absently.
The door to the observation deck chimed and a young lieutenant from engineering stepped into the room carrying a small device that he quickly plugged into the library computer interface.
“Thank you Mister Carson,” Cat said as the young man saluted and left the room.
“That was fast,” Edward observed in awe.
Thais made a huffing noise. “Three weeks ago it would have taken seconds not minutes.”
Edward raised an eyebrow.
Cat sighed. “We were required to downgrade certain aspects of our technological base before we were allowed to embark on our current mission. Fabrication nanites were one of the systems we were forced to downgrade.”
“Along with our computer and medical systems,” Ken added. “Basically anything that the Heshe developed is gone.”
Commander Riker looked at each of the Yorktown’s officers. Suspicion in his eyes. “And the Heshe are?”
“A story worth telling but for another time,” Cat said. “For the moment we should see if the Agur have left us any clues as to what we are to be doing.
***
Ricky Valen was not a man given to fits of anger and yet the current situation was testing his patience. He and Honey had been successful in jumping the Honey-Dipper to the Sol system from the current D’rlalu home world. Their exit point, however, was easily a thousand AU further out than he had intended. At best sublight speeds it would take him a couple of weeks to make Earth orbit. He asked Honey to recalculate a microjump but the hyperfield emitters refused to create a stable jump bubble.
He supposed he should be happy he was able to jump to where he was. The word was three quarters of the GCP Fleet was stranded… unable to jump at all.
“Honey, calculate a jump back to D’rlalu space. Attempt to jump if you can form the bubble.”
Honey, who was currently sporting red hair and an outfit modeled after a classic Earth heroine named Barbarella, worked the Honey-Dipper’s controls for a second before announcing the successful establishment of a suitable hyperfield conduit.
“Jumping in three, two, one… Jump complete!” The slightly blue tinge of the D’rlalu sun filled the forward view screen. “We are just outside their Hyperfield exclusion limit.”
“In other words, exactly where we expected to arrive.” Ricky was perplexed. Why were some jumps possible and others not? He sat down next to Honey in the co-pilot’s seat. “Let’s try this one more time. Calculate a jump to just outside Pluto’s orbit. Open the hyperfield but don’t jump.”
Honey sent power into the hyperfiel
d emitters. She noted that they required 163% of the anticipated drain in order to establish a stable hyperfield bubble.
“We have a viable corridor but it’s taking a bit more than normal to hold it open.”
Ricky nodded. He was beginning to suspect a part of what was going on. If he was right the destination would not be spot on. He further guessed that the closer towards Earth they attempted to jump the higher the energy drain. “Go ahead and jump,” he said softly praying he was wrong.
Honey nodded and punched the jump button. Instantly the Honey-Dipper transitioned to just outside the Sol system.
“Position?” He asked although he already knew the answer.
Honey looked up at him, her eyes wide. “We are so close to our last position as to hardly bother mentioning the difference.”
“Open a fleet-wide channel”
***
Admiral Faragon leaned back in his command chair. The GCP Carl Vincent was never supposed to be his but Captain Michaels was trapped on a world a mere sixteen light-years away. Such an incredibly close distance and yet so far away.
The transmission from Captain Ricky Valen had been encouraging. They now knew there were specific routes through which FTL travel was still possible. It was now a matter to mapping entry and exit points. D’rlalu space was linked to the Sol system which was also linked to the Huperstanii system. Interestingly enough, the Hoppers could not jump directly to the D’rlalu system but they could jump via a two-step path through the Sol system. Several other destinations where linked to space near Earth’s sun but as far as anyone could tell they led to uninteresting dead-ends.
Further, it seemed the hyperfield entry and exit points were very localized. Captain Valen had been able to determine that jumps between Earth and the D’rlalu needed to occur within a fraction of an AU on either side or a stable Hyperfield bubble could not be formed. In the end, it seemed there was hope for the Galactic Coalition but much would depend on developing a reliable mapping mechanism for these apparent jump nexus points. The only good news was that no one had heard or seen the Modos Syndicate since the Agur message had been received.
Chapter Ten – Secrets
Head Archivist Sna’st watched the advancement of ships on his antiquated 2D display. The Modos now knew where the Earth forces were. They would launch their first attack shortly. That attack, while it would ultimately fail, would define the balance of the conflict.
Even now, Sna’st knew Admiral Kimbridge would be examining the message they had left for the GCP representatives. It had taken years of careful searching through the archives to find a suitable carrier for that message. The Earth ship known as the Edmund Fitzgerald had been the perfect host. History recorded their loss with all hands. None of them would contribute to Earth’s future and so none of them would be seen disrupting space-time should the Agur spirit them away.
Sna’st knew the rules of the Agur’s involvement prohibited direct interaction in the conflict but that didn’t mean they couldn’t ensure bread crumbs were left in the right places to encourage the correct decisions were made. The Agur’s unique view of time clearly demonstrated the multiverse was a better place if the Heshe’s proxies were victorious in this conflict.
***
Cat sat back and stared at the small thumb drive in her hand. She was in her cabin on the Yorktown. The delegation from the Edmund Fitzgerald had elected to stay onboard for the night. Captain Kirkland had assigned them quarters just down the hall. They had tried for hours to decode the thumb drive she was holding… hours that had, as yet, yielded no fruit.
For that, she was quite sure, would not be the last time; she wished they still had access to the immensely powerful Heshe AIs. Five minutes with a WhimPy platform and she was sure the encryption surrounding this device would have been cracked. As it was, they had tried every reasonable… and in some cases completely unreasonable attempts, at gaining access to the information stored on this drive.
It seemed the Agur were a people of never ending mysteries. First there had been the odd request for her and her father to visit. Then there was the meeting on the planet…
Cat paused in her thought process. First there had been the odd request for her and her ‘father’…
Cat’s fist slammed down so hard on the intercom she was afraid she might have broken it. “Commander Ben and Captain Kirkland – report to my stateroom immediately!”
***
The MS Tsunami and its associated taskforce exited the hyperfield corridor just inside the Sol system’s Oort belt. This placed it roughly 50,000 AU from the target worlds. Light from the human’s sun took nearly a year to travel this far. It was close enough to allow the various combat stations to catalog every planetary body and its associated orbit. This information would be essential when the Tsunami’s taskforce launched their newest weapon and sterilized the entire star system.
Working with schematics obtained from various operatives embedded within the GCP, Modos engineers had managed to fabricate hyperjump capable missiles that could direct the force of a quasar directly into a star system. Their opponents called such weapons Suicide Jumpers because they opened up hyperfield conduits into maelstroms thus ensuring their destruction. Nicked-Tail called them Planet Busters because that is what he intended to use them for.
***
Ben entered the Admiral’s office two seconds behind Captain Kirkland. Cat looked excited. She was holding the thumb drive from the Fitzgerald. Her face split into a wide grin as the two men entered the room.
Ken was the first to speak. “I take it Admiral, you have had one of your famous epiphanies?”
“That I have Ken,” she responded. “Ben, how do we decode this thumb drive?”
“I have no idea,” Ben responded in a puzzled voice.
“That’s because you’ve never actually held it,” Cat said while casually tossing the small device to Ben.
Ben’s hand shot up and grabbed the stick from the air. At the same time a compartmentalized block of memory opened up in the part of his mind that housed his human AI.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered softly.
Cat’s grin broadened. “I take it you know how to unlock our little friend here,” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
Ben looked at her quizzically. “How did you know?”
“The Agur knew that humanity had developed artificial intelligences prior to our encountering the Heshe. They also knew that the only one still likely in operation on a starship would be the one hosting my father’s memory engrams…”
“In other words… me,” Ben finished for her.
“That is why they insisted ‘your father’ accompany you to Agur Prime,” Ken said.
“Correct,” Cat answered. “If they wanted to leave us an embedded message that we could retrieve later they couldn’t exactly use a Heshe AI that would be taken offline as a result of the rules of the contest.”
“But how in the world could they have accessed my systems to plant a message… and why not simply leave the final message… why all the cloak and dagger?” Ben asked.
Cat pointed to the device in Bens’ hand. “Whatever the answer is… it’s on that thumb drive. Maybe it’s time we looked at it?”
Ben walked up to the Admiral’s computer console and went to insert the memory stick into the specially designed port that had been added for exactly this purpose. “With your permission?”
“Please,” Cat said while nodding.
The port in question activated the moment the small device was inserted. A soft beeping sound acknowledged this action and a prompt appeared on the screen. Ben reached forward and typed the key which the Agur had managed to secret in his mind.
His fingers typed j-o-h-n-3-:-1-6
The screen flickered and the image of the wizened Head Archivist Sna’st appeared.
“Greetings Admiral Kimbridge,” the image on the screen turned towards the others in the room, “and Captain Kirkland and Commander Ben.”
“
Wow… it’s almost like he can see us,” Ben muttered.
The face on the screen smiled. “In a sense, I can. My apologies Commander. It was necessary to… ‘What’s the term you use?’—Hack your systems – in order to embed myself in your memories. I am a short-lived AI piggy-backed on your systems for a few more minutes. What you see… I see. The program you unlocked from the Edmund Fitzgerald simply provides a convenient interface to share with all of you some words that may be helpful.”
Cat leaned forward. “You seem to have gone to a great deal of trouble to get us this message… Saving the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew; arranging to meet Ben and myself; constructing the very AI we are now talking to... What is it that you want to share with us?”
“Unfortunately Admiral, ‘what I want to share’ and ‘what I can share’ are worlds apart. Suffice it to say… the key to this message is the key to your ultimate success.”
“So we WILL be successful?” Ken said.
“I’m afraid Captain… that is yet to be determined.”
“What can you tell us?” Cat asked.
“Very little Admiral. If you are to succeed it will involve doing the unthinkable. In fact you must fail in order to succeed.”
“That’s not especially helpful,” Ben muttered. Muttering was a habit Cat had noticed Ben was doing more and more often.
“What do you mean,” Cat said by way of follow-up, “by ‘Unthinkable’?”
“The answer exceeds my programming Admiral. Simply understand this. The universe you knew cannot be allowed to survive. At the same time the universe will be a far kinder and gentler place should the GCP win these coming encounters.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Ken interjected. “It sounds like we can only win by losing?”
“Not so Captain. You MUST win… and in doing so you MUST lose.” The image of Sna’st turned towards Cat. “Admiral, I said the universe will be a far gentler and kinder place should the GCP win. This is because for the vast majority of its potential existence the Galactic Coalition will be a force for good and reconciliation within the universe. The ‘vast majority’ however is not the same as ‘always’.”
