Carl asked, “Can anyone suggest natural causes by which III appears as it does?”
No one did.
Timoq said, “Invincible will divert to a distant orbit while a scouting mission investigates.”
“I will see at once to the planning,” Jomar said.
“A tactical mission,” Timoq clarified. He looked straight at Carl. “And I ask you, as tactical officer, to lead it.”
“It will be my honor, Foremost.”
Inwardly, Corinne smiled. Her evening netcast would offer real news after all.
CHAPTER 50
Excalibur’s bridge displays showed … the incomprehensible.
The planet become known as Xool World loomed larger, but was no less improbable, than when studied from afar. It projected virtually no magnetic field; its surface, thus unprotected, endured a vicious bombardment of cosmic rays and solar wind. It offered about as much topographical interest as a cue ball—and was more perfectly spherical than one. Its dayside gleamed, an all but ideal mirror, like Epsilon Indi’s little brother—except for in ultraviolet wavelengths which, inexplicably, it drank up. Its nightside, glinting starlight, was as featureless.
Xool World did have an atmosphere, it turned out, but those wispy hints of gas proved as baffling as everything else about the planet. The occasional molecule would travel for kilometers before encountering another. A satellite circling this world would have geologic time before its orbit decayed.
As for satellites, Xool World had three. Two close-in moons were identical: about fifteen klicks across, as perfectly spherical and reflective as the planet. They shared an orbit, at just the right altitude, hanging just above the terminator line, that both moons experienced perpetual sunlight. Around any normal planet—the tug of its gravity subtly varying over land and ocean, over mountains and plains—such perfect orbital synchronicity could never persist. And each mirrored moon had, for an object its size, an inexplicably low mass.
The final satellite was about one-fourth Moon-sized. A gray, stony, cratered body orbiting much further out, at a distance averaging about sixty thousand kilometers, it was utterly and refreshingly normal. This world being the exception (and to the puzzlement of the literal-minded Hunters), Carl dubbed it Blue Moon. And although he would have distrusted any inference drawn only from those two anomalous inner satellites, Blue Moon confirmed something familiar: Xool World possessed a mass comparable to Earth’s. These moons would not have had these orbits otherwise.
Unless Xool artificial gravity was at work here, too.
Nor did the planet, as aberrant as it appeared, reveal any hint of intelligent occupants. No radio waves, apart from reflected solar noise, came from its surface. No energy emissions of any kind could be detected. Aside from scattered reflections of starlight and Blue Moon light, no glimmer of illumination interrupted the nightside gloom.
And so, Excalibur and its three escorts coasted in for a closer look. They flew stealthed and, making their final approach from the daylight side, hidden in the sun’s glare. Stealthy drones following that course had sped past Xool World unmolested. And if something should entice him to brake for a more lingering look? Until he was right on top of them, the white-hot exhaust of fusion drives should then likewise be washed out by the sun behind them.
He was following Glithwah’s playbook from the capture of the starship.
The bridge crew calmly went about their duties as Carl observed, waiting for some cosmic shoe to drop. Yet again he found his fingers clutching the padded arms of his acceleration couch; yet again, he willed his hands to relax. No matter how much he wanted to fly, as commander of Task Force Mashkith he had higher priorities.
No matter who flew Excalibur, she was his ship, and she was a beauty. Thirty years parked and sealed on a hangar deck had left his flagship pristine. Before setting out, telling himself the modification was mere prudence, he had had the copilot’s station retrofit to human needs.
Joshua, somehow, dozed in the bridge’s remaining human couch; Tacitus, who never slept, remained on call. If anything new were detected, Tacitus would rouse Joshua. At fifty thousand klicks from the planet, with or without novelty, Carl would wake his friend.
With six million klicks to go, it seemed Joshua would enjoy a nice nap.
Carl spent the approach second-, third-, and fourth-guessing himself. How should one drop in, uninvited, on a wise and secretive—and manipulative—elder race? Announcing oneself openly might be safest, just as showing up at all might prove disastrous. A stealthy period of study might arm him with vital knowledge, but getting caught lurking might unleash Xool wrath.
Five million klicks.
There was no way to know, and there would be no second chances. The clan—if not the entirety of the InterstellarNet community—required a master strategist. When they needed Glithwah, all they had was her antiquated protégé.
Three million klicks.
And yet maybe all this worrying was for nothing. The planet gave no sign it had ever known life.
One million klicks, and Carl’s doubts, like the world ahead, remained featureless and foreboding.
Five hundred thousand klicks. The most precise measurements yet, and still he saw no chink in Xool World’s baffling uniformity.
And still, Tacitus pondered. Joshua softly snored.
But as the distance closed to one hundred thousand klicks—
“Infrared contact,” Rashk Motar announced from the primary sensor console. Like many of the officers Carl had handpicked for this foray, Motar regularly ranked high on the b’tok ladder. Twice, he had almost beat Carl. “Designation Bogey One.”
Joshua straightened in his chair, instantly awake.
In the main tactical display, an unidentified-ship icon now blinked between Xool World and its largest satellite.
“Visual?” Carl asked.
“On screen,” Motar said.
The holo showed a flattened ball, with pointy protuberances around its bulging waist. Just like the ship two Xool had flown from the Moon.
“Open all channels,” Carl ordered. “Tacitus, translate to Basque. This is the exploration vessel Excalibur. Unidentified vessel on approach to the nearby planet, please respond. Repeat, please respond.”
In the long-range image, the Xool ship’s drive exhaust grew longer and hotter.
“Bogey One stepped up its acceleration to almost two gees,” Motar said.
Carl tried again. “Unidentified vessel, we wish only to talk. Request you assume orbit around the planet. Please respond.”
“No response,” Motar said.
Could it be that the Xool didn’t use radio? “Try our comm laser, dialed way down.”
“Still nothing,” Motar reported.
“I can intercept,” radioed Gral Tofot. He was young; cocky, too, if that wasn’t redundant in describing a fighter pilot. Tofot’s experience, aside from the few training jaunts in the cometary belt, had all come in simulation. As was unfortunately true of all Carl’s pilots ….
On the encrypted command channel, Carl responded, “Negative, Sting. All ships, maintain course and speed.”
Instead, out the main bridge view port, Carl saw the one-person fighter dart away. “Lieutenant, return to formation. That’s an order.”
Sting peeled off, accelerating at three gees.
Crap. “Unidentified Xool vessel, we have sent an escort. We will join you in orbit for consultations.”
“No response,” Motar said again. “Sting is overtaking.”
Weapons release was no way to open discussions, not even firing on one of his own. Carl hadn’t identified Excalibur as an exploration vessel on a whim! Bottling his anger, Carl radioed, “Lieutenant, maintain a separation of at least hundred klicks.”
“Copy that,” Tofot radioed.
For long minutes, Carl could only watch. As Sting closed the gap, the Xool ship killed its drive.
“Bogey One maneuvering,” Motar reported. “Flipping over. Drive is back on, decelerating
.”
But the Xool ship was not going for orbit insertion. Unless Bogey One had capabilities yet to be demonstrated, it was on a grazing collision course with the planet.
Sting adjusted its course, too, tapped its brakes, still closing on the Xool ship.
“Break off, Sting,” Carl radioed. “Leave Bogey One some space.”
Sting kept closing.
At just over six klicks per second, Bogey One met the enigmatic mirrored surface—and disappeared.
“A mirage!” Tofot radioed. “I knew it!”
“I don’t,” Tacitus said.
“Sting, break off at once,” Carl said. “A drone will check things out.”
“Can’t … hear Excali … Breaking up.”
“Cut the crap, Lieutenant,” Carl snapped. “Pull up, now. Full emergency power.”
“Five seconds to entry,” Motar said.
Five seconds later, on the edge of the otherwise flawless orb that was Xool World, a fireball erupted.
CHAPTER 51
In an instant, Sting’s remains vanished. Almost before Carl noticed its disappearance, the glow reemerged on the planet’s opposite side—racing across the visible face, blurring with motion almost into a stripe—and vanished again. Xool World spun at an unimaginable pace! An eye-blink or so later, the glow reappeared. Fainter with each return, all visible trace of the crash soon vanished. The drones he dispatched detected nothing instructive.
As for whoever or whatever held dominion over Xool World, they regarded the pursuit, the crash, and Carl’s subsequent broadcasts with equal indifference.
A drone accelerated to match the inexplicable planetary spin and sent down to the crash site sensed what might be Sting’s diffuse, atomized remains—if the observations were to be believed. Telemetry of the drone’s internal state became inconsistent, then nonsensical, until, approaching the mirrored surface, unknown forces tore the drone apart.
Carl recorded an account and sent it onward. Allowing for Invincible’s hopefully anonymous remoteness deep within the cometary belt, the ping-ponging of his message through a cascade of stealthed relay buoys lest hostiles backtrack his transmission, and light-speed delay, he could not expect a response for almost a day. Any comment the Foremost might have to offer was apt to be overcome by events before its arrival.
By another circuitous route, Carl sent a detailed tactical report to Firh Koban, whom he given acting command of the stealthy (hopefully) main force, Task Force Glithwah, coasting at the discreet (hopefully) distance from the planet of about five million klicks. Koban’s only reply was a curt acknowledgment. Corinne, aboard Koban’s flagship, determined to cover the biggest story of the eon, netted back a slew of questions that Carl could not have begun to answer even if he had had the time.
“Find out where that ship came from,” Carl ordered the bridge crew. “Start by surveying Blue Moon.” Recalling the Xool vessel’s white-hot exhaust, he added, “Check the surface for hotspots.”
But drones inserted into close orbits around Blue Moon found neither electromagnetic emissions nor hotspots.
He had seen fusion-drive flame with his own eyes, not that a ship on that little world need take off at full throttle. Had launch heat already dispersed across the sun-baked surface? Perhaps. Had the ship been loitering in space, between planet and moon, hidden from his view? Also possible. Or, just maybe, the ship had launched from somewhere out of sight: a hidden Xool base on the forever planet-facing side of this moon, too.
“Search for lava tubes open to the surface,” Carl directed.
“Yes, sir,” Motar said.
“Way ahead of you,” Joshua said, popping up a holo globe sprinkled with red circles. “The cross section of that Xool ship left only a few possibilities, two of them snug fits.”
Dispatch landing parties to all five locations? Doable. On the other hand …. “The Xool lunar base had a fusion reactor,” Carl said. “Let’s scan for neutrino fluxes.”
Two hours later, low-orbiting drones had triangulated the position of an intense neutrino source. In a close-up holo, Carl studied the nearby terrain. Walking distance from both gaping entrances to one of the candidate lava tubes. A scattering of craters. A shallow, zigzagging crevasse. An arc of space-weathered low hills.
Joshua jabbed a finger into the holo. “This crater is about a klick across, too small to have formed a central peak.”
Except that, as in the anomalous crater near the hidden lunar facility, this crater had a central peak.
Almost certainly, a Xool base lurked close by.
• • • •
Hails to Blue Moon also went unanswered.
At the target site, the sun had just set. Daylight would have been nice, but Carl refused to wait twenty hours until dawn. After a drone landing had established this surface was as harmless as it appeared, Excalibur set down near a mouth of the lava tube.
“Motar, you have the conn and command of the task force,” Carl said, suiting up. “Also your ROE”—rules of engagement—“if anything should happen.”
“Yes, sir. No firing unless fired upon.”
“And no aggressive pursuits,” Carl reminded. “Disable rather than destroy, when practical.” Because war was not the goal here. Dialogue was.
“Sir.” His officer hesitated. “We don’t know what’s out there. Better I go and you remain aboard in command.”
Carl shook his head. “I’ve seen a Xool base. I’ve met their agents.”
“Unaware they were agents,” Joshua netted. “And almost getting yourself killed.”
“Not helpful,” Carl netted back. Aloud he said, “But I acknowledge the uncertainties. That’s why I’m going alone.”
“Yes, sir,” Motar said. Long, disapproving pause. “I have the conn.”
With four robot escorts (armed, although not blatantly so), Carl left Excalibur. Any embodiment of Boater robotech was scary. Overlay Hunter tactical algorithms and you got highly efficient killing machines. None of which kept his heart from pounding in his chest.
A surface-skimming drone flyover had seen a queue of ships down a lava-tube opening. So many vessels: call that one more data point to suggest, if not yet prove, that this solar system was important to the Xool. He dispatched two of his robots to that tube opening, tasking them to keep watch. Two stayed by his side.
Approaching the second entrance, virtual gauges twitched in his mind’s eye. “I’m picking up faint RF noise.”
“You no longer have meters of rock between you and whatever is down that tunnel,” Joshua said.
And that was true enough.
“Wait here,” Carl netted to his remaining escort bots. Alone and unarmed seemed the way to make contact. To those waiting anxiously on the bridge of Excalibur he added, “So far I have the place to myself. I’m going in.”
“Copy that,” Joshua said.
Two strides into the passageway overhead lighting switched on, whether automatically or through Xool intervention Carl could not tell. He clicked off his helmet’s work lamps. Four strides into the tube, he felt heavier than on the surface. With each step his weight grew.
Every several paces he feigned a stumble, catching himself with an arm outthrust to a tunnel wall. Anyone watching might blame his clumsiness on the shifting gravity, and not notice the trail of tiny RF repeaters he left stuck to the wall.
Nothing on the barren surface or in the tunnel appeared threatening. Of course not long ago a whole planet had turned out to be lethal, and he hadn’t foreseen that. Instinct insisted this hidden base, too, had unseen defenses, that it guarded itself and the planet.
Why might an untouchable planet need further defenses? Even speculation eluded him.
The air lock that gave access to the Xool lunar base had been of human manufacture; the control panel of this air lock subtly differed. It hardly mattered. Air locks were critical safety equipment, intended to be obvious in their use. The outer hatch stood open, suggesting he was expected. Carl stepped inside the lock. Befor
e he had touched anything but the metal floor, the hatch closed behind him.
When the inner hatch cycled open, four aliens, arrayed in a shallow arc, stood facing him.
• • • •
Carl extended his arms, palms turned upward. Empty hands: the supposed universal gesture of peaceful intentions. Ideally the symbolism would prove more universal than had hands.
Ideally no one here felt like exploding its brains.
He stood at an end of a tunnel-like construction, its walls arcing over to form the high ceiling. Horseshoe archways set about every five meters suggested division into rooms. The nearest room, scattered with ottomans of varying heights, struck him as a foyer or social space; the chamber beyond the first archway, crowded with consoles and large displays, seemed more of a control center. What he could see of the room beyond that was row upon row of open, on-end coffins. Walls, floor, and ceiling: wherever he had an unobstructed view, surfaces showed a richly textured copper patina, like the hideaway at the rear of the Xool lunar base.
And, as at the lunar base, the copper sheathing was much patched, its seams rife with spot welds and caulk strips. If anything, this facility evidenced more repairs. Was this place older than the lunar base? More heavily used? Or was the wear from simple metal fatigue, as Tacitus had predicted? Blue Moon, orbiting so close to Xool World, endured ferocious tidal flexing.
Whatever had damaged the copper lining, at millimeter wavelengths every caulked seam and patched hole became an impromptu slot antenna. Despite the metal enclosure all around, a helmet-sensor readout netted to his mind’s eye showed passable connectivity, daisy-chaining from neural implant to helmet radio to the series of repeaters deployed outside the air lock and on to the robots standing guard at the lava-tube mouth.
Chalk up one for our side.
“You getting this?” he netted to Excalibur.
“Ir am,” Joshua netted back. “Your greeters look familiar.”
True enough: the waiting Xool might have stepped from the lunar-base vids. The aliens were bipedal yet medusoid—and headless, their eyes and ears on telescoping stalks that protruded from the shoulders. Chest-high, many-pocketed utility belts, the only clothing they wore, carried patches that might mean anything, but that made Carl muse about insignia of rank. Tools or instruments (or weapons?) dangled from belt loops.
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