by Lee Bond
As every time –and as far as he knew, everyone else- he saw a black hole ship decelerating into normal space, Ute imagined he could see a bit of space being forced into a strange, curved shape, behind which, a brilliant light could be briefly seen. No one he knew had made mention of it, but it was pretty hard to dismiss or write off as a hallucination.
Ute’s implants absorbed the data flowing from the avatars quickly. He thumbed a comm button that broadcast over open frequencies. “I hope to hell that’s you in there, Vasseler.”
The Fivesie felt more than saw the other five combat ships operated by his children swivel into attack position. When the silence emanating from the Type II stretched from one second to nearly half a minute, the quintet began spreading outwards to put space between themselves in the event of a firefight or the appearance of more ships; if Vasseler and his team had failed in their efforts to reclaim their specifically required prize and they’d been captured, well, Ute knew of maybe six non-God soldiers in existence who’d be able to withstand rigorous Latelian questioning, and none of them worked for what was laughably called Landmark Reclamations now.
“I say again.” Ute spoke patiently, his words crisp and precise. “Vasseler Prefontaine, is that you. You have fifteen seconds to respond. Fifteen … fourteen … Thir…”
“Hey! Hi! Uhhhh, do not shoot, I repeat, do not shoot. Uhm. Transmitting authority codes now.”
Ute watched the codes scrawl across his HUD and grunted. Rather than waste time talking, he signaled to his children through Harmony –while scrupulously remaining behind the ‘glass wall’ inside that mental space- that everything was on the level.
“What took you people so long? You’re half an hour late.”
“Uhhh, Vass … Vass got shot. It’s bad. He’s … he’s stabilized now. Here … here he is.”
“Ute.” The word came through the comm system as barely a whisper. “I got your fucking ‘prize’. I might lose my fucking leg because of it, but I got what you wanted.”
“Excellent.” Ute looked over his shoulder at Tomas, who was –according to the man himself- putting the finishing touches on the code that would hopefully fool an AI smart enough to fold space like a piece of paper. "As you well know, Latelian cybernetics are some of the best and least expensive in the Galaxy. You’ll be up and running in no time."
“The deal … deal’s still the same? You didn’t say nothing about five more of your kind bein’ out here, or in attack formation.”
“Vass, you’re an hour and thirty-five minutes late when you already asked for an extension.” Ute said this matter-of-factly. “Our people are very good at interrogation techniques, and what we’re planning isn’t something that anyone would just ignore. We were … preparing for the worst. It’s what soldiers do.”
“What is it you’re doing?” Vass demanded, interest in Ute’s secretive plans putting a little color into his voice.
“None of your business.” Salax snapped tightly. “Deliver the package.”
“Deal’s the same? We … we keep the ship?”
Frankly, the thought of less-than-savory people like Vass Prefontaine possessing a black hole ship filled Ute with worry, but nothing could be done. The pressure inside him to leave the system, to undertake some mysterious … quest … it refused to be ignored. He knew Tomas suffered similarly, though at least the old man had a specific goal in mind.
And besides which, with the colossal way Landmark seemed intent on burying itself these days, Ute doubted that they’d be in possession of the Type II for much longer, and when they were interrogated, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be long gone from the system, and his children still insisted they’d be up for whatever trouble came.
Tomas looked over at Ute to give a shrug. They definitely had enough manpower and skill in the area to simply take what they wanted, and his contacts in the military suggested the same as Ute; Landmark was on their way to either bottoming out and becoming pirates –the most common fate for that sort of profession- or burning out altogether. A surgical attack now would most likely save them a painful death down the road.
“We’re good. You keep the ship, as promised. Now. Deliver the payload. Everyone, back to position.” Through Harmony, Ute encouraged his children to ensure that they behaved well at the moment because a shot almost-pirate could become a shot stool pigeon in less time than it took to blink. The massive soldier heaved a sigh of relief when everyone signaled they understood.
On-screen, the Type II was maneuvering itself –badly, implying one of the newer members of Landmark was operating the vessel, which further meant that their reclamation effort had gone infinitely more poorly than just Vass being shot- to show them her backside. It took a few fits and starts to get the ship properly aligned with their own Type IV ‘Blast and Board’ mid-size troop carrier, but by the time it was over, whichever fresh-faced pilot was flying the damn thing finally started displaying some sort of skill.
Ute spoke over his shoulder, “You about done, old man?”
Tomas grinned wolfishly at the slight. “I was done before you were even born, sonny. And yes, I just now finished the avatars. It isn’t pretty, but these things never are. Going to have to leverage some of the ‘LINKsystems running the black hole engines into giving them more power, might burn out a few of the processing cores, which’ll limit our pinpoint accuracy considerably.”
The Type II’s rear end was opening up and Ute heaved a sigh of relief he hadn’t known he’d been holding. It dawned on him as he eyed their prize just how reluctant he'd been to call on Landmark without Candall at the helm, and how deeply he actually distrusted Vass and the others.
What they were doing wasn't just illegal, it was a fundamental violation of what it meant to be Latelian. Anyone catching wind of a plot like this one would be able to get damn near everything they could ever want out of life, and the moment the Horsemen caught wind of their only Fivesie being the mastermind.
Anyone, anywhere, in the entire solar system, looking to make headway and in roads with the most powerful people in Latelyspace –be they criminal, murderer, rapist, mad assassin cannibal and quite possibly Doans herself- would be elevated to the highest levels of influence and authority, merely by dropping that dime.
“Hey, Dad,” You could hear Agrimal’s grin over the comm, “if you’re done filling local Harmony with all your worries and concerns about these idiots and the Big Bad Five…”
“They like to call themselves the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, actually.” Salax interrupted.
Trista broke in, “Does anyone actually know where that came from? It sounds very foreboding. I mean, I understand that we are in fact planning to usher about something incredibly similar to an actual apocalypse, but … it’s bad press to run around identifying yourself as ‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, isn’t it?”
“They’re just like you.” Tomas laughed. “Sarcastic and with that dry wit, only less …”
“Uptight.” Ute watched the Heavy Escape Pod roll out the back end of the Type II and smiled. “Okay, Landmark, package is delivered. I encourage you to make your way anywhere in the solar system that isn’t on this side. Please leave the area using standard engines, then deploy your BH-engines when you're ten thousand miles out. We’re working on … sensitive equipment here."
“Roger that.” The Type II’s rear end closed up and the ship took off on a random vector, the massive round sphere that they’d been waiting all this time for bobbling gently in space.
Once Landmark was officially far enough away so making an end run without getting blasted to smithereens wasn't an option, Ute moved their ship closer to their prize. With deft maneuvering, he brought their ship as close to the pod as possible, then extended the old-school grappling hands that'd once upon a time been the primary method of engaging an enemy vessel up close and personal.
“You’re certain this thing will … go through. And please, don't shrug. It does my blood pressure no good when you shrug so casually about thi
s kind of thing.” Ute pulled the Heavy Pod nice and close to the ship, then set about using some of the auto-repair waldoes for additional gripping power. It wasn’t perfect and if they were forced to undertake anything remotely resembling escape maneuvers, the grapplers and waldoes would be torn right off their damn ship, making shielding downright impossible, flight, even less likely.
“Absolutely. Ish.” Tomas showed his palms at Ute’s dissatisfied demeanor. “We are in the land of theoretical everything now, sa. It is mathematically certain that the power of the Q-Tunnel, fired directly at the skin of the shield at no less than five miles away, will generate a very localized, very intense perturbation in the energy flow. Not enough to for us to fly through, which is … which is why we'll be using the emissions from our black hole engines as a … pry bar. Of sorts. Locked onto the Tunnel with the EverLok tech, we’ll become an immovable object. We put our engines into critical, blasting the gravnetic waves right at the center of the primary destabilization zone, widening it as much as possible. The math at this point says that this should create an unstable rift approximately twenty meters in diameter. Just big enough for the Heavy Escape Pod. We climb in, one of your kids drops the pod into the gravity wave, we’re launched through the hole like …”
“Like a bullet through the deadliest gun ever manufactured.” Ute knew one thing about science, and that was that he didn’t really understand it.
Every single word coming out of Tomas’ mouth made it seem as though escaping an impenetrable shield being powered by the sun and designed by an artificial intelligence that was supposedly supposed to be the God of the New Reality was as easy as swinging on down to Charbo’s and ordering an Extra Large 14 to go with a side of hot sauce.
“Hey!” Trista’s voice rang through the cabin. “Are we all ready to go here? Just because we got free time whenever we really want it doesn’t mean we’re all okay with squandering it in the middle of space hanging out with a bunch of old dudes. We could literally be anywhere else. I could be working on my tan or something."
Tomas spread his hands as if to say ‘last chance to back out’. When Ute gave him a brisk nod in return, the old man hit a button. “I am sending you the timing sequences for your black hole engines. Be certain to sync with each other, as the timing is absolutely critical. If one of you accelerates even a nanosecond before the other, you could send us right into the shield instead of near it. The avatars in the packet will handle almost everything, but you will need to keep your eyes peeled for the unexpected. Are we clear?”
“This reminds of this time out past The Cordon…”
“Oh! Right? What was it, Gra-Tez-Loki Alpha Boron? The thing with the stuff? The guy … with the hand. Yeah, that was pretty tricky. All kinds of precarious timing going on there.”
“Who was it that sneezed?”
“Mmmm … I want to say Gurant, but that’s only because he was a huge asshole. Or no, it was his kid, Tarlek. Yeah. Him.”
Tomas raised an eyebrow at the chatter.
Ute returned a toothy grin. It was nice to get some payback. “They were trying to defuse a matter bomb set into the heart of the sun around Alpha Boron. The ‘guy with the hand’ was a crazy scientist who wanted to, well, destroy the solar system. We wanted to save the solar system for Trinity. Tarlek was the bomb disposal guy. And … he sneezed at the wrong moment.”
“What happened then?” Tomas asked woodenly as he began his viral attacks against the Tunnel’s AI defensive systems.
“You ever hear of Gra-Tez-Loki Alpha Boron? Or Tarlek, before now? Trinity was unhappy, but I'll tell you what, I hear the view was spectacular. For about a minute." Ute laughed outright at Tomas’ look of sheer exasperation.
“If we can all just sit in total silence now for my hack to be successful? Then you can all get back to doing whatever it was you were doing before you decided to add a thousand years of worry to my already aching back?”
***
Every fifteen days –or sooner, depending on whether or not the Tunnel detected unwarranted activity in its local space- whoever drew the small stick amongst Smash All Infidels’ eternally rotating staff ‘got’ to climb into their rickety old spaceship and zoom on out to the massive ring in space just to see if anyone was doing –or had done- anything stupid.
It wasn’t a fun job, because it was boring as hell. Granted, it did get you away from the clamor and hectic nature that was life aboard a ship staffed almost entirely by God soldiers, but life now really wasn’t all that bad now they’d all stopped being gigantic lumbering morons.
The real worry was that the small ship, lately rechristened the ‘Fucking Hell, How Is This Thing Still Working?’ by a Foursie who’d stumbled across it one day while amusing himself by literally cleaning everything in the massive ship, from end to end. He’d been about to toss the thing in the trash when avatars had politely asked him to put it down.
Private First Class Moro Tanner suspected someone aboard Infidel hated him because he’d mysteriously been pulling the short stick for the last six months. Scratch that, they wanted to kill him because he’d been pulling this bullshit duty for the last six months, only they wanted it to look like anything ranging from death by explosive decompression or –because his own brain was a traitor- massive engine failure. It was the perfect murder. Whoever wanted him dead didn’t even have to fiddle with the netLINK or code some homicidal avatars or anything like that.
They just had to keep ensuring he got the detail. Because sooner or later, the piece of crap was just going to …
“Hey, what?” Moro checked his systems.
He was definitely in the right spot.
Moro wiggled this way and that in his seat. Had it moved? Was that a thing a Tunnel did? Moro didn’t think he’d ever heard of the Tunnel moving, but since it had a bunch of AI on it, and AI did whatever it wanted …
No. That wasn’t possible. That didn’t sound like something that should happen. Risking his very life, Moro Tanner gunned the ship and took a quick zoom in a circle. Maybe it was just out of sight. The view from his cockpit wasn’t the best, after all, what with all the sealant glue keeping the viewports intact.
Moro banged a fist against his head. Avatars. He had avatars and sensors and things. Those would work better than attempting to get a visual, so he ran the usual gamut of … sensor tests.
“Fuck my life.” Moro groaned. He took a deep breath and placed a call to Smash All Infidels.
“What is it, Moro?”
“Uhm.”
“You better not be wasting my time here. I’ve been awake for eighty-six hours now and that asshole Foursie is on the outside of my station now. Scrubbing the plates. He’s right outside my window. Right now. Without a helmet. And he’s singing at me, Moro, so please, don’t be wasting my time.”
“Uhm, did … did we … decide to move the Quantum Tunnel somewhere else, only you guys didn’t tell me?”
“The fuck you just say? It’s always there. It’s always been right there.”
“Welllll.” Moro flashed the data across the ‘LINK. “It’s gone.”
“Fuck my life. Hey! Has anyone seen our Quantum Tunnel? Moro lost it!”
Private First Class Moro Tanner put his head down on the control console. It was going to be a long day.
The Bloke in the Crystal Prison
“Fuckin’ ‘ell, this lot is persistent, hey, lads?” Chad took another half-hearted pot-shot at one of the fellas as was chasin’ them over hill and dale –not to mention up more than one mountain range and across a particularly lovely lake with some very nice whatever they were called … flowers- and were disappointed when this lad didn’t blow up like the last one.
Either they were rebuilding themselves on the fly, adjusting to his attacks every step of the way or his weapons were getting weaker. The first one made more sense, but was loads more disappointing as they still hadn’t figured out why his weapons were taking so much longer to come ‘round for a visit inside this … place.
A soldier all but materialized right beside them, so Chad did the gentlemanly thing and whacked him in the ball-sac with the butt of their Brilliant Eschlinger Rat-tat Superifle –or Bert, as one of him insisted on calling it- as hard as they could. Chad winced in sympathy at the wiffling noise as squeaked out of the pillock’s mouth before he went down for the count with a crushed twig and some popped berries.
They thoughtfully sank a few bullets into the squeeing fella's brain pan, splashing the ground wi’ red jam and jibbly bits.
“Honestly.” Chad griped as he bolted through a strand of trees that promptly erupted into a sea of slivers and burning leaves. The whole scene turned very post-apocalyptic. All that were missing were some slo-mo action, quite possibly wiv added old school choral music tootling off in the background to make it picture perfect, hey?
“I mean, we is doin’ our best to convince these lads to stay away from us, right? I mean, we did set fire to the northern continent, right? Weren’t that enough?”
More than one of them assiduously reminded him that since they were definitely going up against the common footsoldiers of the entity known as Kith Antal and that since Garth’s dear old da actually had quite a lot in common with their old, thankfully dead, sire, it were more likely that they’d be chased by ever-increasing numbers of bastard soldiers until or unless he, Chad Sikkmund, could arrange summink spectacularly permanent vis a vis their self-generated weapons and wot not.
