by C H Gideon
“Minute gravitational forces and low amounts of solar radiation would seem to place us in the outermost reaches of a star system, but we are unable to accurately extrapolate the exact position or distance to the local star,” the navigation station said to itself as sensors collected and populated the screen with data.
“CONTACT!” the tactical station shouted.
“Calmly, Tactical,” the captain’s chair said, contemplating the overlay that appeared on the main screen.
“Captain, we are picking up a small fleet of ships approaching at near-light speed,” the tactical officer’s station reported in a measured voice. “Four ships turned toward the Reynolds as soon as we emerged from the Gate.”
“XO, recommendations?”
The executive officer’s empty chair remained silent.
“XO?”
“I’m thinking,” the position replied.
“Think faster,” the captain’s position ordered.
“Stay true to the mission. We engage to determine if there are any Kurtherians onboard. If yes, we destroy the ships without mercy. If no, we will seek to ally ourselves with the locals to expand our reach. Five sets of searching eyes are better than one. If they attack us, we will defend ourselves,” the XO’s position replied.
“Sage advice, XO. I couldn’t have said it better myself. All hands, prepare to engage. Scan for Etheric energy signatures.”
“Scanning,” Tactical reported.
If Bethany Anne should ever view the footage, she would discover that in a few hours of having nobody else to talk to, AI Reynolds had projected himself nearly a dozen times with different personalities and different positions and skill sets across the breadth of the ship—he had been bored for a long time, waiting for this mission. There was a version of himself shouting from the engineering console at a subordinate version of himself for the improper programming of a maintenance bot working on a decoupler. In the cargo hold, another version of himself was overseeing the inventory of the storage containers that held the cases of Coca-Cola Bethany Anne had insisted he take along as gifts for any alien races that they encountered. Something about spreading the love.
“They’ve the look of warships about them, Captain,” the tactical officer declared. “They are in a standard diamond formation.”
“Comm! Broadcast a greeting in all known languages,” the captain said. “Energize the gravitic shields. Hold power on weapons. Turn the bow thirty degrees from the approaching formation. We can’t look like we want to blow them out of the sky.”
The tactical officer’s position laughed. “Hi, this is Superdreadnought Reynolds, one of the most powerful ships in the universe, but don’t mind little ol’ us. We’re no threat. See? We’re not even pointing our big guns at you.”
“At ease, Tactical!” the captain warned, chuckling. That was pretty good, he thought. “And set Alert Condition One throughout the ship."
The klaxons sounded as the weapons and shields were brought online and into various states of readiness. Reynolds reached out with his sensors to learn what there was to know about the alien ships: their level of technology, weapons, defenses, and most importantly, if any of those Kurtherian bastards were onboard.
The ships were moving fast, streaming through the dark infinity of space, headed right for the SD Reynolds. They were smaller, only a sixth of the size of the superdreadnought, and as far as the sensors revealed, they were armed with focused energy beams on the front of two forward-extending pylons and an aft cannon that was mounted beneath each ship.
Reynolds could detect no other weapons. Or shields. Or Kurtherians.
As if he knew what he was thinking, the navigation position spoke up. “No Etheric energy signature. The approaching ships are not pulling energy from the Etheric dimension.”
“They are slowing, but don’t seem to be coming to a stop. No response to our broadcast greeting,” Tactical added.
The forward screen magnified the images of the inbound ships. A forward dome comprised the majority of the ship. A pair of forward arms extended from it, slanting toward one another. “Don’t they look friend—”
“They’re powering up their weapons systems,” the tactical officer interrupted a moment before the first energy beams impacted the shields.
The fight was on. The Reynolds rocked as plasma fire danced across her shields in fantastic purples and blues.
“Gravitic shields holding. Energy signatures show advanced technology. I smell Kurtherian sympathizers,” Tactical offered.
“So it’s an ass-kicking they’re looking for,” AI Reynolds suggested, his voice booming throughout the empty ship. “I say let’s give them one. “
“Sir,” the pilot’s station interjected, “we did rather abruptly emerge in their space. Shouldn’t we expect some kind of aggressive show of force from them to attempt to dissuade us from our own aggression? Perhaps if we simply remain patient and continue our message, there won’t be a need to destroy them.”
“The moment they fired on us the gloves came off,” Reynolds said. “If they were spooked, they should have attempted to communicate. I accept communication as a universal constant. You don’t attack before you say hello.”
The Reynolds remained static, unmoving as the alien warships sliced through space, strafing the superdreadnought as they passed. Turning as if impervious to the laws of inertia, they remained in a diamond formation as they lined up for a second pass. Impervious, or they had technology that rivaled the Reynolds’.
“I’m no one’s sitting duck. Helm! Give me maneuvering speed. Bring the weapons online and prepare to fire. Target the lead ship only.”
“Now you’re speaking my language, bitch,” Tactical replied.
The SD Reynolds was larger and better armored than the alien ships, but their relative size gave them superior maneuverability—as evidenced by their rapid turn and reengagement.
From each of the forward arms, a bolt of brilliant azure streaked through the darkness of space, impacting the superdreadnought’s shields.
But this time the Reynolds was able to get off a volley of her own. Forward railguns belched a stream of projectiles accelerated to near light speed.
The lead alien ship’s shields flared to life in a protective shell for a moment before they collapsed. The smaller ship began to break apart.
On the empty bridge of the Reynolds, the first death in the new galaxy was dutifully recorded. No cheers celebrated the enemy’s demise. They started it, and we’ll finish it.
The remaining enemy ships assumed an inverted V formation, two up, one back as they resumed their attack on the Reynolds.
“Sir, I’m reading an increased energy buildup in all three enemy ships,” the tactical officer said as the forward viewer tracked the formation. Previous attacks had shown the energy beams to originate from the tips of the forward arms, but this time the energy for the attacks were being directed inward, each arm firing toward its other. A brilliant blue ball of pure energy was rapidly forming, and the energy readings were rising exponentially.
“Don’t they know never to cross the streams?” Reynolds mused aloud, getting a really bad feeling about this. The energy levels kept building as the second and third ships repeated the procedure, each producing their own glowing blue balls.
“I don’t think they’ve seen Ghostbusters,” the executive officer’s position suggested from the back of the bridge.
“Firing,” Tactical said casually. The railguns fired into the shields of the one of the alien warships, but this time the shields held.
“Evasive maneuvers,” the captain called as the first ball released and streaked across the void between the combatants. The SD Reynolds pitched as the ship changed heading, using the three dimensions of infinite space to thwart the attack.
The energy readings gave Reynolds pause. He was confident that his shields would hold against the first attack, but the second and third? He wasn’t certain enough to stand toe to toe with the determined gnats.
“Kill them,” he ordered.
The first energy ball slammed against the shields of the Reynolds, and the protective shell about the ship shimmered and overwhelmed the energy buffers. The emergency klaxons rang anew. The energy that spilled out of the shield buffers coursed through the inner circuitry. Power junctions redlined and exploded.
The bridge was suddenly alive with erupting consoles. As the energy danced across the surfaces, Reynolds stopped the charade of his multiple personalities and threw himself into repairing his ship.
His arrogance was going to get his ship destroyed and the essence of his being scattered in a billion inconsequential bits.
He sacrificed systems by rerouting the flow of power through junctions and down pathways that he knew couldn’t hold the power in order to preserve others. He had underestimated his enemy. Initial scans had shown no capability to generate this kind of power, and yet this blue energy torpedo was wreaking havoc as it wrestled its way through the shields.
Then the port shielding gave, and the residual energy not absorbed by the shields slammed against the armored hull of the Reynolds. Plates of armor disintegrated as the pure, destructive energy breached the hull.
“Decompress the ship,” the AI ordered as if there were a crew aboard. Emergency bulkheads retracted. Repair bots activated magnetic grappling and continued their frenzied activity to bring the ship back to combat readiness.
Reynolds rerouted power across his injured systems. The superdreadnought automatically continued the evasive maneuvers engaged before the first volley hit, and the ship slid beneath the second and third energy balls.
“I wonder if they can do that again?” the executive officer’s position asked, reestablishing his presence on the bridge.
“I say we don’t give them a chance,” the captain replied. “Activate the ESD beam and target the three remaining ships.”
“Saint Payback is a Bitch,” the tactical officer said, adding a moment later, “Targets acquired and ready to fire.”
The ESD beam fired the equivalent of a solar flare. It had a tendency to wreak havoc on the ship’s systems, but it was useful when the chips were down. ESD stood for “Eat Shit and Die.”
“Fire,” Reynolds ordered.
The beam charged and sent death coursing through the pathways the AI had protected from the energy surges. Together, the enemy ships charged the emitters, and nanoseconds later the Reynolds violently lunged sideways, bringing her forward section to bear on the incoming ships just moments before the ESD beam streamed outward.
The massive counterstroke forked as it approached the remaining ships, striking with devastating force, instantly collapsing their shields and ripping into their vulnerable hulls. The three hulks continued past the Reynolds on a ballistic trajectory toward deep space, the ships’ dead crews entombed on a forever trip to nowhere.
Onboard Superdreadnought Reynolds, smoke drifted lazily through the corridors. The lack of atmosphere smothered any fires before they could start, and the cold of space crept in while the maintenance and repair bots clanged and banged their way through the long list of repairs.
“Sensors! Where is my map of this galaxy? I’ll settle for a map of this star system.” Reynolds descended into a foul mood. Had he just killed innocents? What about their technology? “Helm, chase down those three and let’s see if we can’t scavenge some information.”
Chapter Two
“We’re within range, Captain,” Helm said. “And the retrieval bots are standing by.”
“Get in front of those ships and use our shields to slow their momentum. I don’t want to have to chase them into deep space.”
“Aye, Captain,” the empty seat at the helm replied.
The Reynolds looped smoothly around the dead ships, took a position in front of them, and opted to use the shields as a bumper instead of the tractor beams because there was too much debris floating in space. The tractor beams set to repulse could further break the ship apart while launching all the debris like a shotgun blast. Matching speed, they touched gently, and the superdreadnought reversed thrusters.
“Deploy the retrieval bots,” the AI ordered. “Comm, onscreen.”
“Aye, Captain,” Comm replied.
The endless black of space appeared on the viewscreen at the front of the bridge. Thin green lines segmented the screen into four quadrants, and an identification number, heading, and coordinates occupied the upper righthand corner of each bot’s section.
Stars speckled the retrieval bots’ feeds, except for the ever-growing dark forms that blotted out the center of their views. The alien ships.
“Contact in approximately one minute. It’ll take some time for the bots to cut through the hull,” Comm reported.
“We’ve got Kurtherian bastards to hunt,” the captain said. “Whatever you’re doing, do it faster.”
“You know as well as I do that the bots will cut as fast as they cut, and no faster. There’s not much that can be done to speed them up.”
“We could pierce the hull with another shot from the railgun,” Weapons said. “Punch a hole they could use to get in.”
“I like the way you think,” the captain said. “Let’s—”
“Nope,” Tactical said. “Too late now. The bots are already cutting.”
Violet light flared in each of the four quadrants of the viewscreen—the bots’ cutting lasers hard at work.
The captain grumbled, “I hate waiting.”
A dark object glinted in the corner of one of the quadrants, then it went black again.
“Did you see that?” the captain asked.
“See what?” the XO replied. “You don’t have fingers to point, so I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Something in the corner of the viewscreen. Comm, order the bots to do a visual sweep of the area.”
“Yessir.”
The bots’ heads swiveled, shifting the feeds on the viewscreen. At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The cold black of space extended infinitely.
A dark form passed over a distant cluster of stars. Then it happened again.
“There,” the captain said. “Bot 27652’s feed.”
“I see it,” the rest of the AI’s personalities replied in unison.
“It appears to be debris from one of the damaged ships,” Navigation reported.
“It can’t harm us,” Tactical said. “It’ll just bounce off our shields.”
“The first of the bots is through the hull,” Comm reported. “The others aren’t far behind.”
The viewscreen showed the bots’ progression into the alien ship, through plates of metal, circuitry, and piping until they broke into a trapezoidal corridor wide enough for three or four average humans to walk side-by-side with plenty of extra room.
It was perfectly dark aside from the bots’ spotlights shining down the corridor and the soft, orange glow they emitted from their thrusters.
“No power at all,” the captain grumbled.
Grated metal floors matched the ceiling, and smooth panels covered the walls between the bulkheads and crossbeams that divided the corridor every twenty feet or so.
Most of the ship’s interior looked intact, but after five minutes of progress, the bots’ feeds showed plenty of scattered debris floating throughout. Conduits, hoses, and twisted metal extended from the overhead and bulkheads like tendrils.
The AI found it disturbing that the bots hadn’t run across any alien bodies yet.
“Perhaps the ship was piloted by another form of artificial intelligence?” the XO said.
The captain bristled at the interruption. “Stop reading my thoughts, Commander.”
“I am your thoughts, Captain.”
“You know what I mean. It pains me to think that we’ve destroyed one of our own. Why wouldn’t an alien AI want to talk to us?”
“We transmitted in the languages of living beings,” Comm offered slowly.
“Next time, add binary to the mix.
Hell, throw in some cool equations and shit.”
“And pictures of your mother.” The XO’s position let out a hearty belly laugh, and he made it sound convincing although there was no belly or vocal cords.
“Although she smelt of elderberries, she was still my mum,” Helm added.
“At ease!” the captain’s position ordered. “You know very well that mom smelled of elbow grease and desire.”
The positions laughed easily, appreciating their shared sense of humor.
“They’ve reached the bridge. At least, I think it’s the bridge,” Comm said.
“Proceed,” the captain ordered, instantly returning to business.
The viewscreen flared with violet light as the bots cut into the bridge’s airtight hatch. It succumbed to the lasers in seconds, and the bots’ metal arms pushed it inward. The door floated into the bridge until it collided with one of the consoles and came to rest.
Inside, the bots found a slew of wide seats at various stations, all empty except for one centralized chair facing away from them.
Something sat in that chair—a hulking form, indistinguishable in the low light but clearly not humanoid.
“Comm, order three bots to work on retrieving data from the ship’s systems. Have them focus on identifying habitable populated worlds with advanced technology,” the captain said. “You know, the usual shit.”
“Roger,” Tactical replied.
Two of the bots removed panels to dig into the guts of the enemy computers. Once they identified the power supply line, they tapped in and cycled the power through a variety of phases before the system reacted. They added juice to bring the enemy ship’s computer to life.
“And obviously, have them grab whatever info they can regarding the ship’s weapons systems, shields, and other diagnostics.”
“Right. Working on it, Captain.”
“And have them look for signs of Kurtherians.”
