Archaea 3: Red (38 page)

“You’re referring to signal degradation, maintaining the protocol for the lowest level of network communications?”

“That’s correct, Janis. If we send malformed packets, the network’s nature is to reject them.”

“But if the packet is rejected, what would that do to help us gain access?”

I smiled, and leaned back in my seat. “It will help, because we will rip through the time-stamped data in that server. If the handshake isn’t successful, the packet is rejected—“

“But
Steven, if the handshake works, the malformed packet would still result in rejection…” she interjected.

“That’s correct, Janis – however,
by evaluating the response time, we should be able to tell whether or not there is a corresponding data store to be accessed. In other words, if there is corresponding data, then there should be a slight delay in response as opposed to a response for which there is no data. If there is a delay, then we send properly formed, encrypted packet traffic with the correct token, and we’re in, like the proverbial Flynn.”

Janis laughed brightly. “That is brilliant,
Steven.”

I blushed slightly. “Thanks my dear. That’s the easy part – you’re going to be doing the heavy lifting.”

“It wasn’t heavy at all, Steven – it was quite easy, once I understood the proper approach. I am pleased to announce that I have just completed the query, and have located the data we need.”

*****

Flanked by Shorty and Yak, my esprit de corpses projecting control and authority, I followed the Talus representative deeper into the habitat.

The design motif of the habitat was all business, no flash or panache. Everything appeared utilitarian, functionally designed, and simplistic. If something was polished, it was so a leak could be spotted easier; if something was painted, it was painted without regard to color scheme or
fashionable palette. Everything was functional, with no frills or pretentions, nothing unnecessary. Compared to what you’d normally see working with a glom, Talus Federation was a breath of fresh air, a sanctuary of real life, a place where men and women worked, and worked free.

Not to
say that it was drab or dreary – the habitat had an appealing aesthetic, but only in that it was designed for function and appeared to be well utilized. Talus Federation was all business, and from the looks of it, business was pretty good.

“Right this way Captain Smith”, the man said, leading us through a hatch into a cylindrical chamber with a well-worn plasteel slab conference table. I took a seat, and Yak and Shorty stood at ease on my flanks. “Our director will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you sir”, I replied, and cooled my heels while he stepped out. The hum of air scavengers and a slight tick of a relay counted down the moments while we waited. The room was about the polar opposite of what I’ve ever seen in any conference room – nothing about the room was impressive, it could have been used for storage, and maybe that’s what it was.

“Good afternoon Captain Smith”, a man said briskly, as he stepped in through the door. “My name is Jim York, and I am the head honcho around here, I guess.” He reached out for my hand and I shook it firmly, noting solid eye contact and a firm, dry grip.

“Nice to meet you Mr. York”, I replied.

“Oh, please call me Jim, Captain. We’re not much on formality way out here, you know.”

“Very well, Jim it is.” I smiled, “I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I understand you’re a busy man, so I will get right to the point.”

“Well, I
admit that I am pretty curious to find out what brings you so far out into rim space, Captain.”

“Well, this isn’t very far, for where we are headed, Jim – the Archaea is an independent vessel, and we’re equipping her for a deep-space survey mission.”

“I was briefed already on your involvement and support in making sure the Little Sister made it back safely and I think we owe you a little more than our gratitude, Captain. Silas Mack told me that anything we can do to help wouldn’t be enough to repay our debt for saving his life and our ship.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s necessary, we just did what anyone else would do.”

“Nonsense, you and I both know most people would look the other way on a three-to-one fight, and maybe call it in at best, ignore it completely at worse. You didn’t do either; you saved the lives of everyone on board. You put your own ship’s safety and the safety of your crew aside, to help total strangers. That is a quality that is rare to see in the galaxy we live in.”

I cleared my throat. As much as I like to think of myself as an epic hero, it was nonetheless a little embarrassing to be one. “Well, I’d sure appreciate it if someone el
se would do the same for me, if I was ever in a similar position”, I replied with a smile.

“
Well, you’re definitely among friends in Talus Federation, Captain, I was pretty glad to learn you had purchased docking facilities on Talus, you’re certainly welcome around here. What can we do to help?”

“Jim,
I’ll get right to the point here. We’re hoping to get our hands on new pseudograv emitters.”

He looked at me for a moment. “Captain,
there are many places to purchase emitters, why would you come all the way out here?”

I smiled good-naturedly. “Jim, I was in the Terran Service for a long time, made a lot of friends along the way, and stay pretty well connected. The word around the proverbial campfire is that you might have a
program in development that shows promise; that you are pretty close, and may have recently had a breakthrough...?”

“That’s the word, is it?” he fixed me with a level look.

“Well, some of that is my inference, Jim. The actual word is simply that Talus Federation is the current leader for armament research and development.”

“We like to think so”, he nodded.

I took a deep breath. “The thing is, it occurred to me that one of the next big things in the field is the weaponization of pseudogravity, the fabled ‘gravity hammer’. I figured if someone was working on this, you might be... and if that was the case, it meant that you would have refined the tech considerably beyond what is available on the open market.”

I paused briefly as a black look crossed his face.

“Now, don’t get me wrong – these are assumptions on my part, and as Talus Federation was on my way to the endless, I thought I might as well stop in and ask.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “No harm in asking, Captain. Certainly, if something like this were available, either as the result of a research program, or something we made available for specific uses by specific individuals, it wouldn’t be something we would want to advertise…” he paused for effect, and steepled his fingers. “
You realize that word around the fire is something we wouldn’t want to have… if in fact there is such a program, of course.”

“Naturally…” I smiled “…and I understand completely. The thing is, we’re primed to light off for some very far horizons, and I am prepared to invest any amount necessary to support our mission
and succeed.”

He fixed me with another thoughtful look. “Well,
we all like money… but money isn’t really as important to us as respect and friendship. You’ve definitely earned our respect, and my friendship.” He paused for another moment, and then shrugged. “To be honest, Captain, I would be inclined to help you on your merit as an independent… the fact that you’re an honorable, decent person makes the decision easy for me.”

“Well, I appreciate that Jim
. You won’t regret this decision.”

“I can’t imagine how I would.
What are your general specifications and emission requirements? I can get my people working on a solution for you.”

“Well, as far as requirements… my engineer
has some size restrictions, but they’re pretty generous. We’re replacing a unit that is probably 50 years old, so it’s a safe bet the newer emitters will fit.”

“They should, though I am not privy to every detail, my understanding is that the new improvements result in a smaller form factor. Your output will be limited by the available power, naturally.”

I flashed him my best smile. “We don’t have any… ah… limitations… in available power. You could say we’re significantly over-engineered to meet any power requirement.”

He raised an eyebrow, and I had to fight the urge to reply in kind.
It was a close call, but somehow I made it.

He replied after a thoughtful moment.
“Silas had included in his report that a nova-class beam weapon had been discharged. Though I thought it unlikely that a vessel as small as yours could have that capability… who am I to say. With that in mind, I guess it makes sense you might have a pretty robust power plant aboard.”

I laughed. “That’s a little bit of an understatement, Jim… suffice to say that we’re blessed with an abundance of capability. We’re headed deep, however, and my
crew has been working pretty hard to make our ship ready for whatever we may find out there. A lot of that preparation has involved calling in every favor, and working every possible deal. Tell you what, you let me pay you a decent margin, and I’ll toss in some huckleberry preserves straight from the Montana Flathead Valley.”

He leaned forward in his chair, setting both hands on the table. “Real huckleberries?”
he asked quietly.

“Yes indeed… picked fresh
on the slopes of the Whitefish Range. I only have a liter, but it’s the least I can do.”

“You have made a friend for life, Captain.
Let me counter offer that. You part with a half-liter, and in return, you let me charge you only cost plus labor… deal?”

I laughed, and held out my hand. “You have a deal Jim, and thanks.”

“Sure thing, it’s my pleasure, Captain. Send me your details and I’ll see what I can do to get you set up with what you need.”

He tapped the table and stood up
, adding, “I need to get back to the grind, but it’s been an honor meeting you, Captain. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help get you settled in out here.”

*****

As I hauled myself out of the forward compartment, the first thing I noticed was the look on Pauli’s face. He looked like he had just swallowed a bug – the kind of look that means something bad is either happening, or is about to happen.

“How’re we doing, Pauli?” I asked, as he noticed me through his screens.

“Hey Gene”, he replied softly with a voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used in a while.

“What’s wrong, Pauli?”

He looked at me again, focusing through his screens. “Well… we just got details on the capital ship.”

“Is it bad news?”

He nodded.

“Did you tell the Captain about it yet?”

“Not yet… I just found out.”

“Well, don’t waste time jawing at me son.
Get on the horn, and let him know!”

“Yeah…” he trailed off, clearly reluctant to open comms.

“Make the call, son”, I prodded gently and started hauling my toolbox up out of the forward compartment.

He sighed behind me, and clicked on comms. “Captain, how copy, over?”

“Solid, Pauli – what’s up?”

“Sir, I’ve recovered information about the capital ship Solis is using.”

“Excellent work, Pauli, do you know where it’s headed?”

“
Based on their last track, it looks like they were on course for an unnamed system designated H3342 about two weeks out.

“
Is there a colony in that system?”

“Yes sir, H3342-7 is on the books as
owned by Morse-Webber. I am afraid I don’t have any additional information about the colony, sir.”

“Two weeks isn’t far at all, for us… Gene, are you tooled up and ready for our refit?”

I keyed comms. “Aye skipper”

“Good. I need you to send the dimensions and specifics of what you need to Jim York, over at Talus Federation.”

I opened my wrist holo and sent the message I had been working on. “Message sent, Dak.”

“
That was quick… we’re about 20 minutes away, is there anything else?”

“
Captain”, Pauli started, “There is something else. The ship we’re chasing is named the Revenge, and is under the command of Red Martigan...”

I could almost hear time stand still.

“Very well, Pauli. I’ll be on station in 10.”

Chapter 10

“Yak, take up that slack son… Shorty, how does it look?” I asked, looking down from the topside deck of the bridge towards the hole Gene had carved into the bow section.

“Almost there Captain”, she
called up, holding her hands about a half meter apart.

I waved towards the epic scowl glaring down at me from the gantry window. “Gene, you’re almost there, drop it another
half-meter!”

He hated
letting someone do work that he thought he could do better. On a job like this, where he had to choose between driving the crane and running the installation – this was especially frustrating for him.

The crane lowered
again, the drop steadied by Yak and Pauli.

“Hold it there a moment!” Shorty called out, and disappeared briefly into the hole
along the forward edge of the emitters.

I looked up at Gene and smiled… his grimace was among the best I had ever seen. He was definitely in his element, drowning in a deep pool of stress. Not that I wasn’t stressed as well, because I was
. My stress was alleviated by my trust in the old guy. If there’s one thing he can do well, it is putting things back together.

All the same, I avoided
looking at the gaping hole in the bow of my beautiful ship… it was the last thing I really ever wanted to see. The thought of how thoroughly neutered she was at the moment, how utterly marooned we’d be without the gear Gene had pulled... it was terrifying stuff.

“Okay Gene, it’s clear below. Janis has an assembler down here to help set it into the mounts”, Shorty called on comms.

“Alright Shorty, here it comes”, he replied as the emitters dropped another foot and into the hole. Yak and Pauli walked forward down the forward slope of the bow section, following their lines into the hole.

“That’s it, Gene, come on down and take a look. We can probably wedge it around if needed.”

Yak and Pauli started following their lines back up to me, as one of Janis’ assemblers started shifting the deck plates stacked aft of the topside hatch. I had a lot of faith in Gene, but knowing he was being supported by Janis made it even easier to relax.

I took a look at the semirigid shell of the dry dock high above me and shuddered involuntarily. “Folks, let’s get inside and buttoned down, we don’t need to be out here more than necessary. I want everyone to stay suited up and keep your helmets on.”

I had wanted Gene to do this work in vacuum, but he reminded me of the technical challenges of welding, when there wasn’t an atmosphere. To me it seemed like a convenient excuse to work in short-sleeves, but to his credit, we were all suited up just in case.

The bridge deck was sealed, and we were at condition
zebra, with all interior compartments dogged and movement restricted. The assemblers would work topside, Gene could work on the bridge in his suit, and the rest of us would take a break in the galley.

Hopefully
it wouldn’t be a long break.

I had almost put the kibosh on the refit, but
Gene reminded me how mission critical it was to improve compensation to match our shiny new engines. I still might have deferred on the basis that I was the Captain, and it was my duty… but it made sense. We had a lot of space to cover, and not a lot of time to do it.

As we made our way through the topside lock, the second assembler passed us heading up. I definitely appreciated Janis prioritizing the hull work.
I hated having only a few millimeters of plastene protecting us from a universe full of hurtling rocks.

As I entered the galley, Yak and Shorty were working on some sandwiches, and Pauli was savagely pillaging the remnants of my precious supply of coffee.

“Easy on those beans, son”, I admonished, noting the heaping pile in the measure. “You know we’re almost out, right?”

He looked at me quizzically. “Captain, we have
more than twenty kilos of beans…”

I dropped the full weight of my most authoritative eyebrows onto his back, nearly sending him to his knees. “Yes, and that’s why I need you to be mindful. Do you have any idea how far away from getting more?”

“What about getting some here, sir?” he asked, working the grinder. “There’s a few billion tons of cargo moving through this port every day – certainly among all of that, there’s coffee to be had.”

I shuddered, watching him work the steam press.
“Pauli, you want to drink vacuum-burned, hard frozen beans all sour and rotten? Those ships take years to offload, Pauli… years.”

Yak laughed, handing over a sandwich. “Maybe it would do you all some good to run out?”

I took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully for a few moments before answering, noting with pleasure the horrified looks both Shorty and Pauli had at his suggestion.

“That’s an interesting thought, Yak. Reminds me of our plan to build a brewery—“

“Distillery…”

I sighed and took anoth
er bite, shaking my head sadly.

“Pauli, can you please come forward to the bridge?” Gene called back on comms.

“On my way, Gene”, he replied, passing me a refill on his way past.

This was a good sign, as it meant he was ready to connect the emitters to the wetnet. This meant that we were getting closer to being done, and we were that much closer to being gone.

It also meant that I now had a fresh cup of coffee, another good sign.

“Yak, I am not entirely averse to having a distillery on board, you know. Personally, I’d rather have a nice amber hefeweisen, or a nice stout dark on tap… but I definitely see the appeal a distillery would have… but only if we do it right. I don’t want rotgut, vodak, or protoquila. It would be nice to have a nice bit of rum around here.”

He broke into the kind of smile that gets world leaders elected. “Well, we should do both then, sir.”

Shorty laughed around a mouthful, choking and reaching for her cup.

“Well… maybe”, I replied noncommittally with a concerned eye on Shorty. “If we did it right, it would be a handy commodity to have
on hand for horse-trading out here in the toolies.”

“We’ll do it right, sir”, Yak said
confidently, standing at attention.

“See that you do… later, though. First, let’s focus on getting the Archaea spaceworthy.” I took a slow sip of a pretty decent cup of coffee, despite the slipshod work Pauli was doing on the press. Maybe I was just getting more desperate as our stocks ran dry.

“Captain, what’s our plan?” Shorty asked, after we had munched a bit more.

“Ultimately, our plan is to stop Red Martigan. I’d like to stop Americo Ventures, but they’re a little too big for us to take on. It’d be nice to send the message that Solis is too expensive to continue, but that’s really just wishful thinking. If we could capture Red, and deliver him up for trial, the Service might be able to put a squeeze on AV, but even that is a bit iffy.”

I paused to chew thoughtfully on another bite.

“In the immediate
term, our plan is to launch on the trail of the Revenge, to see if we can catch up. They have a pretty sizable lead on us, and we still don’t know where they’re going. Maybe we’ll learn more once we get to the colony on H3342-7.”

*****

Pauli and I were working as hard as we could. The hull space forward of the bow compartment was pretty tight, but the microgravity of Talus helped – it was great to be able to set a tool down, and find it later.

He was nestled in to the port side of the emitters
connecting the wetnet, and I was routing cabling on the starboard side. The emitter itself was an amazing piece of tech. There were two hemispheres on a rotating assembly, each one containing a ring-phase accelerator array, superconductive and frictionless from the liquid helium I had just attached.

For the most part, the refit was going well. The new emitters were considerably better
– even without firing them up, I knew these were going to be winners.

The Archaea used to have a barrel type array
with a central pivot, but the rings were much thicker, and due to the layout, much wider. In comparison, each half of the new unit contained a series of nested rings that rotated independently from each other. This arrangement allowed for a significant improvement in the focusing of pseudomass, and allowed the effect to be magnified. I had read about this new technique only in the past few years, and it looked like Talus Federation had gone to great lengths to make it work.

With
two independently aimed emitters in a single unit, we finally had the same multi-homing capabilities as the bigger ships that had the room to hang multiple units like our old ones in opposition. 

As always, Janis was proving her worth as a hand aboard the ship –
this was really an exciting upgrade, and I was really looking forward to letting her control these, rather than just running the stupid unit software. Our old emitters were sealed, and had their own robotic functions that could be called, but not much else.

Because Janis
had been limited (as much as she could be) with only building an interface to a system, it should be pretty interesting to see what she could do now that she was more totally in control.

Shorty had reported that
letting her directly control the focal rings on our main gun had resulted in almost incomprehensible improvements in capacity, so I had high hopes for her implementation of these emitters.

It sounded like we really needed it, too.

When Pauli called out that it was Red Martigan that we were chasing, for me it almost became… more than real. At that moment stopping AV became a mission, rather than an opportunity.

The interior assembler was working a little closer to my side of this section, and I took a moment to watch it zip up a section of the
ridgeback. Those ridges are incredibly hard to weld, and the assembler was flashing through it with a concise precision that damn near took my breath away. It would pass through a section of ridgeback, then on the way back through tie in the bracing again.

Throughout the area we were working, t
he hull plates were mostly hidden by interior bracing and ridgeback, leaving us with the odd space to work in. It wasn’t too tight, and the new access I had made from the forward compartment should serve us well if we needed to get back in here again.

From where I was at the moment, shoulder deep in a cableway,
I had a great view of the deck assembly. One assembler worked outwards, and the other worked from the interior out. Between them, they were zipping up each component layer of the hull assembly, from either side. Back and forth, flowing like water.

I wasn’t worried at all.

I knew Janis was probably welding at the atomic level, the chance of a crack was probably somewhere between none, and unlikely.

It was fun to watch though, while we worked to get the old bird ready to fly
again.

*****

I hauled Pauli out of the forward hatch and the captain leaned in to help Gene. Surprisingly, they were pretty clean, considering they had been crawling around in the deepest bilge sections of the bow.

“Well?” the captain asked, heading for the helm as
Gene walked aft to engineering with Jane.

“It’s looking good, Dak”, Gene replied reassuringly. “Our install went great, and the assemblers proved their worth and then some. Our hull is dialed up… Janis is probably done with the Duron by now.”

“She is close, Gene. It’s cooking right now in UV, but should be done by the time we go through preflight. Let’s get her started, mister.”

“Aye skipper”, he replied and headed aft.
Jane flashed me a smile and lit out behind him.

I took the cue, and took my station as well. We weren’t going to stand around and talk, we were going operational. One of the things I liked the most about this ship, we were
almost always on the go.

I worked through my tests, mostly on automatic though I was paying attention. I was fired up for the opportunity to get my hands on that bastard, to lay my hands on him and look him in the eye, and see that he knows what a world of hurt he’s headed towards.

The thought that he was taking people as slaves, essentially, dooming them to a short existence on a hellishly cold rock like Solis... the memory of those kids, the thought of finding more like them… that’s more than anyone would want.

I was proud to be where I was, on this ship, facing a mission like this. When I signed on, I had no idea what sort of man our captain was, though my instincts told me otherwise. He was truly an exceptional person, perfectly suited to do this sort of thing.

“So Yak… anything going on I need to know about?” the captain drawled behind me.

I cringed, and flashed greens to his board.

“Sorry sir, I missed that step.”

“These are green, right?”

“Absolutely, sir, targeting is good to go.”