by C H Gideon
“Any communications going back to the planet?”
“Nothing,” Comm answered. “They’re radio-silent.”
Reynolds nodded and went back to watching the small mining ships at work. They spent several minutes on an asteroid before flitting off and landing on another, the process beginning afresh.
They looked like bees gathering pollen.
“There can’t be much of whatever they’re recovering out there,” Jiya remarked, “or they’d stick around on a rock for more than minute or two, I’m thinking.”
Takal agreed. “Trace amounts, it would appear. The holes they’re leaving behind are shallow, not even a meter deep.”
“Can we get a reading from here?” Reynolds leaned over Maddox’s station, staring at the screen.
Maddox’s fingers played across the console, and he shook his head a moment later. “There’s too much interference from the asteroid field,” he said. “Even locking onto the nearest of them was difficult, and the readings jump around too much to give me anything definitive.”
“It’s possible the mined material is throwing off the instrumentation,” Takal explained. “I’d like to get a sample of it if possible.”
Reynolds nodded his agreement. “I would too,” he replied. “Ready a couple of bots to go out there and collect some once—”
“If I may?” Takal interrupted, raising a finger to get Reynolds’ attention. “While the bots are the safest option available to us, I don’t believe they are the best choice.”
Reynolds stared at the inventor, one eyebrow raised, waiting for him to continue.
“The bots are limited in their storage capability,” Takal went on. “If these people are willing to risk their lives,” he gestured to the mining ships winding through the asteroid field, “to collect the substance, it stands to reason that it would behoove us to collect a substantial amount of it rather than just a small sample.”
“We don’t even know what the stuff is,” Tactical complained. “It could be rock farts for all we know. We’d be putting our people at risk.”
“All the more reason to obtain as much of it as we can in one go in order to fully examine it,” Takal argued. “While the bots can collect enough for us to sample, if the substance has any use to us, we’ll have to go back in person and collect more of it.”
“It sounds like you expect the substance to be something that matters, and you’ll want as much of it as you can get so you can play with it,” Reynolds reasoned.
Takal shrugged. “Well, there is that. And the substance is matter, so we have that, too.”
Reynolds chuckled. “Fine, ready a Pod and some bots and go get your mystery mineral. But,” he pointed a finger at Takal for emphasis, “make sure it’s not explosive or corrosive or any of the other ‘-ives’ that would make me regret you bringing it aboard the ship.”
“I’ll be careful, I promise,” the inventor assured the android, then spun on his heel and marched off to prepare the bots. “I’ll be ready to go as soon as the alien ships have vacated the area.”
Reynolds turned to Jiya. “Go with him and make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, hopping up and chasing after Geroux’s uncle. “Wait for me.”
She didn’t think this was the right time to be doing this considering that Phraim-‘Eh’s cultists and the Loranian ship, the Pillar, could appear at any time, but she had to admit Takal’s instincts were great when it came to sussing out materials that would benefit the crew and ship. They needed more pucks, and they needed to replace their missiles at a faster rate. They needed more and better raw materials.
As such, she decided to trust the nose of the old bloodhound when it came to finding what they were looking for. Besides, he needed someone to look after him.
Jiya and Takal waited until the mining ships had started back toward Muultar. No one knew how long they would be gone or if a second set of ships would take their place, so they knew they had to hurry.
Jiya piloted the Pod through the field of asteroids, her hands tightly clenched on the controls. She was glad the debris was fairly large, most of it bigger than the Pod. That made it easier to avoid than the radical smaller bits.
However, it meant screwing up had greater consequences.
One mistake, and an asteroid the size of a destroyer would get up close and personal to a most uncomfortable degree.
Rather than focus on that, she triggered her comm and reached out to Takal, who was a blur of motion in the back of the Pod while he prepared the bots.
“Everything okay back there?” she asked as she steered toward the asteroid that they’d determined was best suited for a safe Pod landing.
“The bots are ready to go,” he replied, a tinge of excitement in his voice.
Jiya grinned. Although Takal wasn’t the most adventurous of the crew, preferring to remain aboard the SD Reynolds and work on his inventions, there was nothing that thrilled him more than discovering something new he could tinker with.
“I have a containment device prepared, and I’ve added several additional scanners to the bots in order to determine if the substance is hazardous to us before we bring it aboard.”
“Always a good thing,” she fired back, chuckling.
Proximity warnings sounded as they neared their target, and Jiya silenced the alarm as she feathered her approach.
“We’re coming up on the asteroid now,” she transmitted to Reynolds. “Maybe it’s a good idea to have Helm on standby in case I run into trouble landing this thing and securing our footing.”
“You’ve got this,” Reynolds encouraged her.
“How hard can it be, right?” She laughed. “Rhetorical question, Tactical!” she called right after. “I’m not looking for an answer.”
Tactical sighed over the comm, but for once he kept his digital mouth shut.
Jiya eased the Pod toward the large asteroid, holding her breath. She hunkered down in her seat, one hundred percent of her focus on the space between.
The image of the gritty gray surface of the rock resolved as she closed and her scanner readings jumped wildly, giving her inconsistent and inaccurate information. Fortunately, she didn’t need the scanner information to land, and none of the strange system’s radiation affected the pilot’s controls.
“Hold on tight, Takal,” she called. “This could be bumpy.”
The inventor muttered an affirmative and Jiya brought the Pod about, angling it to meet the momentum of the asteroid rather than attempting to chase the big rock down.
It came at them fast.
Jiya gulped and pulled back on the stick, bringing the nose up at the last second and firing the thrusters to keep the asteroid from slamming into them.
The Pod reared back and matched the asteroid’s speed an instant before the two collided, and Jiya looked stunned as she realized she’d timed the maneuver perfectly. She reduced the thrusters again as the ship continued to move, riding on the asteroid. She hadn’t felt the landing.
The ship slid about a meter across the icy surface before the grapples deployed and speared the asteroid, bringing the Pod to a jarring halt.
Jiya exhaled hard as the stabilizers took hold and leveled the Pod.
“Well done,” Takal murmured as he came from the back to stand alongside Jiya.
“I’m assuming you didn’t die since I didn’t see a flash,” Tactical said over the comm.
“Nope,” Jiya shot back. “Looks like we made it.”
“No time to celebrate,” Reynolds told her. “The mining ships have already reached Muultar. Get in and get out before they come back.”
“Roger that,” Jiya answered, turning to Takal. “Take your seat and get the bots moving. We’re on the clock.”
Takal nodded and went to work, manually operating the bots. He prepared to launch them from the Pod to excavate the surface of the asteroid. The goal was to find the substance the alien ships had been mining.
The bot
s exited the Pod and immediately began punching holes in the surface of the asteroid.
She felt a slush of jealousy for an instant as they drifted; she imagined they were the first beings to have ever landed on this particular asteroid.
It made her wish she’d brought along a flag to plant.
“I could be Queen of Rockville,” she muttered under her breath.
“What’s that?” Takal asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just talking to myself.”
Chapter Two
“Bring us around so we can cover the Pod better,” Reynolds ordered. “I don’t want those Muultarian ships sneaking up on them while they’re stranded on that rock.”
Ria brought up the thrusters, added power to the gravitic shields, and angled the Reynolds into the asteroid field.
He’d had his doubts about letting Takal and Jiya gather the mystery substance on their own, given the hostile environment and all the unknowns it presented, but he had to presume that Takal thought there was good reason for the jaunt or he wouldn’t have suggested it.
He trusted the old man’s judgment—most times—when it came to matters of science and invention.
The body he’d created for Reynolds was a marvel. Although it had yet to be tested in combat, it felt amazing.
It flowed with his thoughts like none of the previous incarnations had. It had become so much a part of him in the short time he’d been inside it that he had already begun to forget that it was there.
It felt natural, and seeing as how he was an AI and not a living being, that was saying something.
He wondered if this was how it felt to be human.
He clenched and unclenched his hands, grinning at the smoothness of the movement. The articulation was so seamless that he could only wonder what his new body was capable of.
Reynolds was anxious to find out, yet a nagging worry pecked at the back of his mind. What if he separated himself from the ship? Was it even possible?
Maybe he could give the maintenance functions away but keep his higher thought processes, passing those operational details to his alter egos. They had the brainpower and bandwidth to operate the ship.
Could he? If he could, should he?
For the first time since he’d been integrated into an android form, he found himself concerned for it.
The last thing he wanted to do was wreck the body.
He looked down at himself admiringly and sighed. With his decision to try it out, he had compartmentalized from the other aspects of his personality, as well as the ship, and began to think of himself as an individual.
It was strange.
Exciting and frightening at the same time, he had to admit.
He’d never be human, he knew that, but with the new body, he’d become so much more than an AI trapped in a mobile cage.
“How’s it going out there?” Asya asked, interrupting Reynolds’ introspection.
“So far so good,” Jiya answered. “The bots have already dug in, and they stumbled across something Takal can’t identify. The scanners are still being affected, but nothing is coming back as dangerous so far.”
“Good news,” Asya replied. “Skies are clear. No alien ships inbound, at the moment anyway.”
“I think I’ve determined why the Muultu are mining the substance,” Takal cut in. “It appears to have inherent reflective capabilities.”
“Going to need you to be more specific, Takal,” Maddox told the inventor. “Right now, I’m picturing you using this stuff to keep people from bumping into shit in the dark.”
Takal chuckled. “No, nothing like that. The ore seems to reflect small amounts of the system’s radiation rather than absorb it. I’ll need to examine it more closely to be certain, but it appears as if it can be used as radiation shielding to some degree.”
“Which explains why the locals are willing to risk their lives to get it,” Asya commented. “If all Muultu look like that melted-face guy, they can use all the shielding they can get.”
“Imagine what they’d look like without it,” Tactical pointed out, chuckling. “Eat your heart out, Pizza-the-Hutt.”
Asya glanced over her shoulder at Tactical’s position, despite knowing he wasn’t actually there. “Were you dropped on your processor when you were little?” she asked. “I don’t understand half the things you say.”
“And you should ignore the other half.” Maddox laughed.
“I think we need to add Earth Culture 101 to those lessons Jiya ordered for the crew,” Tactical said.
“Why?” Asya countered. “So we know what you’re talking about? No, thanks.”
“How much longer until you have what you need, Takal?” Reynolds asked, cutting off the crew’s chatter.
“Another fifteen minutes or so,” the inventor answered. “The bots are finding it easy to collect the samples, given how close they are to the surface, but the density is low. They’re having to range farther and farther from the Pod to collect enough to make it worth our efforts.”
“Don’t let them get too far away,” Reynolds warned.
“It seems I can’t even if I wanted to,” Takal told the AI. “The radiation is distorting the command signals. I’ve had to suit up and step outside the Pod to keep the bots working. They’re freezing up without a direct signal.”
“You have an eye on him, Jiya?” Reynolds asked.
“I do,” Jiya answered. “He’s right outside, not more than two meters from the Pod’s hatch. The bots are moving along smoothly now.”
Reynolds nodded although he knew she couldn’t see it. He glanced at Maddox. “Any sign of the mining ships?”
“Negative,” the general answered. “I haven’t picked up any activity near the planet since the others returned.”
“Still no communications,” Comm reported.
“Any clue what that ore is, Takal?” Reynolds asked.
“Not so far. It has a strange composition, oddly soft and pliable considering we’re finding it under the frozen surface. It reminds me of gold in some ways, only more malleable. When we get back, I c…n tr…ir…”
Reynolds tapped the side of his head. “Comm, what’s wrong with the comm?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Comm replied. “Diagnostics show—”
“A big fucking rock!” Tactical shouted, bringing it up on the screen.
Reynolds stiffened. Out of nowhere, a massive asteroid cut between the superdreadnought and the smaller asteroid the Pod had landed on. The rock blocked both the comm signal between the two and the visuals.
“Get them out of there!” Reynolds ordered, knowing damn well there was nothing that could be done.
That didn’t stop the crew from trying.
“Amplifying the signal, and I’ve launched a communications buoy to bounce our signal around that planetoid and reestablish the connection,” Comm announced.
Reynolds growled. “Get a Pod out there in case…” He let the rest of his statement hang, knowing it wouldn’t help morale to finish it.
He had to trust that Jiya and Takal would see what was going on and adjust accordingly.
“Pod launched,” Maddox said. “Helm’s at the controls.”
“Can we blast this thing?” Reynolds questioned.
“Only if you want to squish the meatbags by sending hundreds of rocks streaking toward them instead of just one,” Tactical answered.
“The asteroid is on a collision course with Jiya’s Pod,” Asya said.
“How the fuck did that thing sneak up on us? Tactical, get your head out of your ass,” Reynolds snapped, baring his teeth.
“Working on it,” Tactical fired back.
“Get us in front of that asteroid before it hits,” Reynolds ordered.
“No time,” Ria called back, even though the SD Reynolds had already begun to follow an intercept course.
“Damn it!” Reynolds growled.
Jiya and Takal were on their own.
Jiya had taken to watching Takal from the ba
ck of the Pod near the hatch.
The inventor had inched farther from the ship as he struggled to maintain the connection between the bots and the control box. He’d brushed off Jiya’s warnings a number of times once he’d figured out how useful the ore he’d found might be.
Jiya chuckled at his dogged determination. He was so much like Geroux in that respect. Once either of them found something that interested them, they would go to the ends of the universe to satisfy their curiosity.
And as she’d often done with Geroux, Jiya gave the inventor some slack and let him wander, knowing she could use the bots to collect him quickly enough should anything happen.
She stood just inside the hatch as one of the bots dropped off its load of material into the containment box. A shadow fell over her as it did, and she shooed the bot off as it was blocking her vision.
It took her a moment to realize that the shadow didn’t disappear after the bot’s departure. In fact, it grew deeper.
She leaned out of the hatch and glanced up at the space between the asteroids. Her heart sputtered when she realized there wasn’t any.
All she could see was the gray stone of another asteroid streaking toward them.
“Takal!” she screamed, but it was too late.
The asteroid slammed into the one they were on with a resounding rumble that Jiya felt rather than heard.
She was thrown back into the Pod and crashed into the wall.
Stars swam before her eyes, and the breath was knocked from her lungs. The world spun around her, and her hands grasped futilely for something to stop her head-over-heels tumble.
She hit the roof before she found purchase, then the wall again, the floor, and the wall once more.
Every impact was as if she had been shot. Sharp pains tore through her and whited-out her vision. She heard a scream echoing in her ears and only realized a moment later that it was her own.
Then she fell into a corner and stayed there.
Everything around her spun for a moment longer as she was battered by the tools and equipment that had been lying loose in the back of the Pod. They clattered down around her, a metallic rain, and pieces of the ore the bot had been storing peppered her armor with tiny plinks.
