---
Adamarus steered the craft through the gorge, which opened up into a large canyon that cut deeply into the asteroid.
He scanned the stars above the horizon before turning the craft downward.
He glanced at the instruments, checking the locations and status of all the drops they had made. He noted the readings from the SCAU unit Harman was currently securing.
There was a minor warning, the drill had hit an empty space within the asteroid but it had already passed through and was drilling into rock again.
Adamarus looked back up as the canyon floor came up. He leveled off and started following it.
---
Harman was halfway out on the second leg. He again scanned the spinning stars for anything unusual but was distracted by the same warning on his helmet’s heads up display. It was a common one and he ignored it. Not wanting to be distracted again, using his HUD, he turned off the helmet’s SCAU monitoring.
He could not see the strange crystalline formations that had started growing around the center of the SCAU behind him. They emanated from the area below the drill housing. Wistful lattice-like shapes of frozen gas formed, much of it breaking apart and flying off, but enough of it sticking together so that the size of the formation grew rapidly.
---
Inside the craft, Adamarus was distracted by another indicator, this time accompanied by an alarm. He quickly located the source – it was coming from the SCAU monitoring panel. The drill had hit a pocket of gas, not unusual, but it was a big one from the looks of it. A vague uneasiness formed in his gut. “Harman, what’s your status?”
The static filled reply came immediately, “Just checking the second leg. So far so…”
Adamarus cut him off in a calm voice, “The SCAU has hit a gas pocket… looks big…”
---
Harman turned around and saw the formation, “Damn, look at that!” Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move among the stars. His eyes glanced over to it. The word that came unbidden to his mind was impossible!
However, before he could really focus on what he was seeing, a blur of motion streaked across his vision. This time what jumped into his mind automatically from years of space duty was 'micro meteorite'. His eyes followed the barely visible streak to the center housing of the SCAU, watched in awe as it passed through the three steel containers holding the powerful explosive materials, watched them bursting apart, and before he could register alarm, he was literally vaporized into his component atoms and molecules.
---
In the cockpit of the Explorer craft, Adamarus had thumbed the transmit switch to repeat his message, but a sudden flash of light up on the canyon’s rim caught his eye. As he started to turn towards it… he blinked.
---
The ship’s sensors, computers and AI function, operated millions of times faster than the human brain. By the time Adamarus’ eyelids had dropped a quarter of the way down, the ship’s sensors had taken a full spectral scan of the growing plume of light beyond the ridge, measured the shock waves passing through the asteroid, and detected dust and small rocks coming over the ridge.
At the same time, the AI noticed that the status packets from Harman’s suit as well as the SCAU had stopped. The intelligent receiver had already resent queries which had gone unanswered and initiated Level One alerts.
All this information fed into the computer system and the AI analyzed it, determined what was most likely unfolding, and had calculated the best course of action.
As Adamarus’ blink continued and his eyelids dropped towards the halfway mark, the AI sent out a Priority One Mayday and started the release of all 100 sphere-bots to help with damage control. These round softball size robots usually performed all of the ship’s standard maintenance and repairs, but they were also programmed for first aid, damage control and other emergency functions.
At this point, the ground beneath the ship shot upward and automatic systems kicked in: a text message on a status screen above Adamarus’ head changed from “Tracking” in green letters to “Proximity Alert” in red, thrusters kicked in to lift the craft away, and magnetic and pulse shielding came online to protect the craft.
As Adamarus’ eyelids dropped below the halfway point, the raising surface broke apart and suddenly thousands of rocks were exploding upwards. Elsewhere the surface of the asteroid changed, becoming lined with thousands of cracks. The message on the status screen changed to “Explosion Level Four” in bold red flashing letters followed immediately by “Emergency Egress.”
The AI fired the craft’s afterburners, fired the explosive bolts that slammed the viewport blast armor in place, and engaged internal dampening. Adamarus’ seat went into crash mode and folded around him.
As his eyelids closed, the ship had started turning away from the asteroid, however, it just wasn’t fast enough. The edge of the blast wave, thick with pulverized rocks, slammed into the ship, catching and tearing off a section of the front blast armor and ripping away all the sensor studs and utility arms.
That blast wave was from a single SCAU. As Adamarus’ eyes rested closed for a beat, the other five SCAUs implanted in the asteroid blew and the entire mountain of rock blew apart.
From a distance it looked like a firecracker popping—there one instant, gone the next. This blast wave hit the ship so hard that in an instant, the craft was thrown outward almost a mile and continued racing away at high speed.
Adamarus should have been killed instantly but unknown to him or anyone else, an alien force field had folded around his craft. Even so, as his eyelids came half open, sparks flew and fires broke out in the spinning cockpit.
A heavy instrument panel broke away and hit the pilot seat, knocking it loose as 100 sphere-bots and smaller pieces of steel flew around the cockpit, many hitting and becoming embedded in Adamarus’ chest, neck and arms.
Blessedly, the pilot seat separated completely and it, as well as Adamarus, were slammed and wedged into a small corner where the front viewport met the lower control panels. This protected Adamarus to a degree, but he was knocked senseless, organs had ruptured and bones had broken. His legs were caught between the seat and the control panel, crushing both and all but ripping them away. Both arms were broken, and the upper control cluster had caught his head tearing part of his skull away. His face was pressed up against the armored glass right where the outside blast armor had been torn away.
Everything had happened in point seven seconds and none of it had registered within Adamarus’ brain. Literally in the blink of an eye, Adamarus had turned toward a light on the ridge outside, then found himself amid smoke and fire, and a growing plume of blood that floated above him. It was a miracle that he somehow clung to life.
Still strapped into the pilot’s seat, his eyes stared blankly out the front viewport. He could not remember anything. He was no longer self-aware and jumbled thoughts and images came and went randomly.
All the lights on the control panels were out and the emergency lights were on, but the red lighting covers had broken off. It was a harsh white light that allowed all the destruction of the cockpit and his body to be reflected in the glass for his shocked and dying eyes. He noticed the blood floating around him. He coughed and more blood sputtered from his mouth, spraying the viewport.
In a senseless state of shock, he looked at the reflection of himself. He noticed that one arm was bent at a ninety degree angle at the elbow but in the wrong direction. His other arm was lying flat across his back.
Waves of chills vibrated through him and he realized that he was having a lot of trouble breathing.
He tried to say something but an unrecognizable guttural sound was all that emerged.
There was a loud hissing sound as the blackness closed in.
Seemingly an eternity later, Adamarus regained consciousness. The emergency lights had gone out and he could see stars spinning through the viewport.
With a start, the realization came that his face
was pressed into the corner of the lower control console and the front viewport. One part of his fractured thoughts tried to imagine how that could be possible.
He was very cold and just wanted to sleep.
All around him, scattered about the floating wreckage, 81 of the 100 sphere-bots were still functional and rebooting in local mode. The local base AI net was established between them, and with their limited local intelligence (about that of a well-trained dog), they attempted to assess the situation.
One took over as the master. Determining that 43 percent of its fellow bots had malfunctioning radios, it went into their most basic mode of communication. Its sides, bottoms, tops and other moving parts began rapidly extending out and snapping back with metallic clicks and clanks as it began directing the other bots.
It divided them into three groups. Some began the hopeless task of sealing all the hissing leaks allowing the atmosphere to escape, while another group attempted the equally hopeless task of rebooting the main computer. The third group located Adamarus and began assessing his condition.
The master bot circled Adamarus, clicking and whistling as 20 other bots checked his vitals and injuries. As the critical nature of his injuries became apparent, the bots began opening and closing their multi-sectioned spheres faster and faster, clicking and clanking almost as if they were in a panic. The master flew through the group instructing several to get the medical kit while others were tasked with attempting to slow the loss of blood by pressing themselves against the wound or linking together to form a tourniquet.
The bots sent to locate the medical kit found it was wedged between the side of the seat and the bulkhead and could not be detached or opened. The master bot instructed the remaining group to follow him to the medical kit. After trying and failing to open it, they began slamming themselves against it, destroying themselves while others pried the side of it to gain entry.
Meanwhile the second group, deciding the main computer was not going to reboot, reported back to the master. Clicking and whistling, it sent half to help plug the hull leaks and half to help with the medical kit.
While all this was happening, the mortally wounded Adamarus stared blankly at the spinning stars while taking labored gurgling breaths. Every few minutes the sun would come into view forcing him to close his eyes. As he watched, a dark shape moved across his view blocking the stars out one by one.
Disjointed memories and thoughts came and went. The memory of a burst of laughter echoed in his head along with a voice saying, Keep an eye out for the boogeyman.
As his view rotated, the thing blocking the stars became silhouetted against the sun. The shape was moving towards him, but shifting rays of sunlight flickering around and through it hid its form.
Rescue ship came to his disorientated mind but something looked very wrong. Lines and shapes emerged and the brief hope changed into curiosity, and then into fear.
The sphere-bots finally forced open the medical kit. One went for the bandages but the Master bot knocked it out of the way and went right for the Emerfreeze.
The Emergency Freezing Unit, or Emerfreeze, was used only for mortal injuries where death was eminent. It enveloped the injured person with a nano-driven chemical which froze the body, placing it in stasis for up to two hours and, hopefully, until proper medical care could arrive.
Small mechanical claws extended from the bot's open panels and grabbing the EmerFreeze, the bot headed back to Adamarus.
Adamarus continued to watch the object. It had slowed and stopped its approach and a smaller shape was emerging. Again the sun was right behind it and when it rotated into view, all he could see was an outline. Rays of sunlight broke through its shape crisscrossing and intertwining.
The form of a giant claw emerged and began to open as it came right at Adamarus. Adamarus could only watch and make hoarse croaking sounds as fear turned to terror.
At that moment, the sphere-bot plunged the Emerfreeze into Adamarus’ shoulder and immediately it began freezing his body. A whitish translucent coat of ice spread rapidly down his mangled arm and across his chest. It spread up his neck and began enveloping his head. The blackness closed in. The last thing he saw was the giant hand reaching for him. His last jumbled thought was, The boogeyman is here!
Captain Adamarus Maximus was now clinically dead though potentially revivable.
---
What was left of Adamarus' craft looked much like the few tumbling rocks around it.
The huge alien ship dwarfed it and the alien claw making its way between the ships looked to be half machine and half plant. The claw had three multi-joint appendages extending from a cube whose surface was seemingly lined by vines and pipes.
Extending from the top of the cube was another smaller cube. Its sides were transparent. Inside were large control consoles and flat screens. Behind these were two large mounds. Half a dozen long tentacles extended upwards from both mounds and moved about the controls. Frequently the mounds rapidly increased and decreased in height.
The alien claw began rotating around the ruined craft. After a few minutes, it matched its wobbling spin and the claw slowly closed on it. As soon as the claw firmly held the ship, it began slowing its spin and moving back toward the large ship it had come from. Once there, it made its way down the ship’s central column.
After a few minutes, it came to a section of the column where row after row of squares formed a rounded wall. It traveled along the wall until it came to a hole where a square was missing, then it smoothly rotated itself until the claw and Adamarus’ ship faced the opening. Claw first, it lowered itself into the hole until it was flush with the wall, the only difference was its smaller transparent cube holding the two alien beings. Then, that too, retracted until it was flush and there was just an unbroken wall of squares.
Chapter Three - Rescue
“Today a mining accident took the lives of 47 men and women and injured 158. Among those killed was Captain Adamarus Maximus, head of the Asteroid Harvesting Project and captain of the Carrier Class Mining Ship “The Bet’ti”, the flagship of the Harvest Fleet. Captain Maximus is survived by his wife and one child. The disastrous accident took place the day after Captain Maximus oversaw the successful harvesting of the first asteroid, the crowning moment of a ten-year project. Most of the victims…”
Network*News Headline News Bulletin rn377327.9971
The Amular Network*News! All the news that’s NEWS!
Source: The Archive
Four days later…
Like the vast majority of intelligent life in the universe, the individual nations of Amular had merged into a single entity and armed conflicts had all but disappeared.
Then they had moved out into the star system. Due to early technology, the initial degree of isolation resulted in the young space settlements breaking away.
Divided once again, conflict and wars broke out. The largest of these ended 50 years ago, but it finally unified Amular with the settlements throughout the star system.
And so the time of monitoring the skies diligently for defensive purposes had passed—now it was done for science and orbital projects like the asteroid collection effort. This meant that the skies were watched only in limited areas, which was why the approach of the seven–mile-long spaceship went undetected.
Once in orbit, the ship was visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Some who saw it just ignored it, while many pointed it out to others with a shrug. These reactions came from the fact that no one dreamed that it was something that should not be there. After all, the news stations or their government would certainly be aware of it, and if it were anything unusual, would have said something by now.
Finally, after almost an hour, someone in the space program saw it and asked a local observatory to identify it. The astronomer on duty was just heading home after a long night and the call annoyed him, but he looked out the window and his brow creased in puzzlement. Mumbling something about wasting his time, he booted the computers and trained t
he large scope up.
As he gazed upon the object with tired bloodshot eyes, ever so slowly, the inescapable reality settled in and annoyance was replaced by shock. He knew immediately what it wasn’t. It wasn’t anything from his planet.
His tiredness now forgotten, he started making calls. At first, no one believed him, but finally, after getting confirmation from two other observatories, and two hours after the seven-mile umbrella shaped spaceship went into geostationary orbit, the news reverberated around the planet, and basically, all hell broke loose.
---
When Adamarus awoke it was like coming back from some distant place. It seemed like eons had passed.
His eyes opened revealing a circular glass wall ascending into an indistinct fog. He closed his eyes and tried again but saw the same thing. After several minutes, he tried lifting his head and looking around. The scene that greeted him was incomprehensible.
He managed to rise up using his elbows for support. Mild pain rolled over him like an old friend. He was definitely alive. He tried to make sense of where he was. He was in a circular glass enclosure, perhaps 15 feet across, which had a rounded bottom and whose sides rose upward, disappearing into a vague dark mist high above him. The glass structure seemed vaguely familiar, and at the same time, somewhat disturbing.
Beyond the glass, he could see things that made no sense. Around him was a very large cavernous space which contained dozens of strange looking hills. Beyond the hills, he could see large black arches that stretched upward, disappearing into the dark mists above.
He had not yet had the presence of mind to think about how he had come to be here. He remembered nothing, not even his name. He was just getting around to thinking about these things when movement caught his attention.
One of the hills tilted back and forth, then it moved towards him. It seemed to simply glide across the floor. Adamarus noticed that where the large mound met the floor, a shiny black area about three feet high rippled as it moved.
Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1) Page 3
