Dreaming of Atmosphere (9 page)

“That’s not what they are. But ok, I get the message. No NP. It’s your body, I just wanted to talk to you about it is all.” She appeared chastened, and made to walk off. I grabbed her arm before she took off.

“Thanks,” I caught her eye, “I mean that.”

She nodded and hurried off down a passageway towards her cabin.

Nano-proliferation is a relatively new technology, one that creeps the hell out of me. Supposedly you need extensive augmentation, including a nerve interface, and one of these new special implants that goes right into you skull. You usually only hear about NP users through the news, and they’re usually power crazed megalomaniacs who lose themselves in the power that stems from such a modification.

The implant, which is half-organic like our interface overlays, allows the user to manufacture microscopic robots that can self-replicate at the user’s command. These nanites can manipulate things at the molecular level and induce all manner of nifty effects and abilities. They tap into the user’s own natural body electricity, or something, and prolonged use can turn you into a vegetable. The effects that can be produce are nothing short of miraculous, though, and terrifying in their potential. By changing their electrical polarity and potential charge, they can electrify things, like people, and can infiltrate electronic devices and control them. They can even dissolve substances like acid. I’m sure there are many mild mannered NP users out there, who don’t make the news, but the only ones I’ve ever seen are raving murderers and crazy people.

Actually, I did know an NP user who wasn’t mad, a man named Captain De Lacy. He was the commanding officer of the Sardonis Mist, a Protectorate Fleet frigate that I served on briefly during The Push into Gossamer. He used his nanites to interface directly with many of the ship’s systems when we’d suffered a direct hit to the bridge. The blast had killed many of the crew staff through decompression, but not De Lacy. By the time I’d gotten there to help with the damage control, he had encased his head in some sort of energy field and had all these strange black wires going from his arms down into the command console he was affixed to. The strangest thing I’d ever seen. He was controlling the entire ship, and later when I asked him about it he said it was like he
was
the ship, he saw through its sensors and felt each hit that struck us. It took its toll though, he was bed ridden for as long as I knew him after that, which didn’t turn out to be long as it was. The Sardonis Mist was destroyed a week later, after we’d deployed for the ground assault.

Well, all that talk about ugly business and my brooding mind, not to mention my little chat with Cuts had wound me up tight. When this usually happens the best way to work it out is through exercise. I pinged Crege, to see if he was keen for some sparing. He was. I headed down through Deck 2 and further on towards Deck 3 and the forward cargo hold.

While I waited for Crege, I unlashed a few supply crates and moved them out of the way, forming a large enough area to spar. I opened the armoury and pulled out a few of the blades we keep there, checking them over for nicks and chips. When I was satisfied I had a decent blade, I made to exit the armoury when suddenly the lights in the hold went out.

I was instantly alert, falling into a defensive guard stance. I slowed my breathing and concentrated. I listened. When I was sure I wasn’t in immediate danger of being attacked, I activated my tactical app and initiated a secondary function of the program. A wireframe image filtered into my vision, overlaying the infrastructure that I knew was about me. It may be dark, but my brain has seen this compartment many times. The app tapped into the local network and built a three dimensional construct of the compartment from security footage moments before the black out. I couldn’t see my assailant, but I could at least navigate around the hold without tripping like an idiot.

I confidently stepped out into the hold, my blade before me and slightly high. I heard a faint scuff to me left, a rustle of cloth, then a swift woosh. I ducked and rolled, coming up a few metres away from where I was. I instantly fell into guard again and was rewarded by a bright flash from my blade as it connected with another. With a grunt and kicked out in front of me and was rewarded with a solid connection. My attacked rolled away, and I pressed my advantage swinging my blade in a circular sweep before me. A foot struck out and caught me behind my heel, I slipped by hadn’t put all my weight on that leg yet. Pulling my blade back into a low guard I caught the enemy’s blade on my own once more and in the flash that followed I was able to spot a swinging fist aimed at my face. I ducked and drove my shoulder into their midriff. I knocked the wing out of them and drove my head upwards, clipping a chin. We disengaged and rolled apart, both puffing with exertion.

A chortling chuff came from my opponent, and the lights came back on.

“You made me bite my tongue, human.” Said Crege, spitting blood out of his beak.

“Sorry, I’ll go easy on you if you like.”

He chuffed some more and trilled a little, “You would dishonour me, if you did.”

“I can get Zoe, in case you bleed out?”

He responded by launching himself at me with a swift upper swipe that followed with a back handed low to high sweep. The rapid strikes almost caught me off guard and I was hard pressed to knock them aside. I was on the back foot, as Crege continued with his barrage of blows by alternating high – low, left – right, up – down and I had to concentrate fully to block or evade them all. I backed up so far I fell into one of the crates and went tumbling over and fell on my head on the other side. Crege leaped onto the crate and made to continue his attack, only I kicked his feet out from under him and he fell backwards.

I leapt up, sword in hand, only to almost lose my head when he swept across me savagely. I faked to the left, but braced myself and pushed right, smashing my shoulder into him and while he was stunned I pressed my attack. My blows were not as fast or as accurate as Crege’s but they were heavier and made him recoil for longer than I had. I made a mistake, then, I repeated my attacks one too many times and Crege was ready for it. He dodged a stroke where last time he’d blocked it and smashed his blade down on my guard hilt. The blow stunned my wrist, and the swords scattered across the hold as he kicked it away. He had me, his sword tip resting on my chin.

“Sloppy, human.”

“Yeah, my bad.”

“Your mind is not here. A warrior without a brain is not a warrior, he is
fedang.
”

“Yeah I get it, a practice dummy.”

He lowered his blade and tossed it onto a supply crate.

“You want to talk?”

“When I catch my breath.”

You may think that swords are a bit old fashioned to be used around such advanced weaponry, but there is a reason for it. Most firearms use hard light projectiles, meaning they’re formed of solidified light particles. It’s an energy form that’s been around for centuries, and there are many ways to counter it. There’s ablative coating on armour, which dissipates the particles across a wider area, or there’s personal shielding. Good old fashioned solid armour can also stop an energy projectile, most of the time. Personal shields are similar in operation to the shields used on our ship. They project a bubble around the user that breaks apart the hardlight casing of the projectile and converts it into electricity. Shields tend to create lots of sparks and make it hard to stay out of sight. The fireworks also mess with your vision and for this reason I tend to steer away from shields in favour of ablative armour. It’s less expensive than shields and they don’t burn out in the middle of a fight. When you do fight someone with shields or decent ablative armour, they can be difficult to kill. That is, unless you bypass the shields altogether. Like with a metal sword.

With the introduction of personal shielding and ablative armour, melee combat became more popular, and even became an official sport. Famous swordfighters became folk heroes and the subject of many popular movies. Just like the old gun fighters of ancient Earth’s old west, a subculture grew out of the sport. Duellists who sought out one another to determine once and for all who the best swordfighter in the galaxy was.

I’d almost caught my breath when I noticed a movement to my right. Artemis walked into the cargo hold, her ever present grin on her pretty face. She was twirling her ballistic pistol in her hand.

“Sometimes the old ways are the best.” She teased, and returned her pistol to her hip.

“That’s cheating.” I said, trying to look tough. Why, I don’t know.

“No,
calak
is right.” Said Crege. I turned to face him in surprise.

“Superior warrior not the one with best moves,” he explained, “it is the warrior who walks away at end of fight, not dragged away.”

“What do you want Artemis?” I eyed her off. I looked at her, in her direction, I mean.

“Can’t a girl get some exercise?” she said as she picked up my fallen blade.

“You want to spar?”

“Sure. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

“I don’t know…”

“Do it, human. Perhaps she has accident. Very unfortunate.”

“Oh, come now. You really think you can hurt me?”

“If I do, it might set off the charges. That would be mighty foolish of me.”

“I tell you what, you cut me, I’ll tell you where one of the charges you haven’t found yet are.”

“And if you cut me?”

“You can quit whenever you like. If you can handle a few cuts you can keep trying.”

“Deal.”

Crege made a puffing sound, and tossed me his
lurzak.
I made sure it was deactivated and tested the grip. It was a little small for me, but was comfortable. Crege backed away and perched atop a supply crate, watching eagerly.

“Don’t go easy on me, big boy.” she teased again.

I lunged at her as fast as I could, trying to catch her off guard. She was ready, expecting it. She nimbly leapt back and with a flick of her wrist cut my chin slightly. She was grinning fiercely. I rubbed by chin and glared at her.

“Want me to call Zoe?” chided Crege. I burned a dose of stink eye at him, then turned back to Artemis, who was patiently waiting for me to ready myself again. I would have to fight smart, I could see now. I could see she was a seasoned swordfighter; I won’t be able to trick her with my usual feints and dirty fighting.

We circled each other, I watched her moving, studied her stance. She grinned at me like a shark. I moved slowly, putting each foot down with care. She mimicked me, moving at the same pace. I moved quickly, suddenly, changing direction and sidestepping. She pulled back and fell into stance. Her eyes flashed. I smiled back at her. We both leapt at the same time and out blades met in mid-air with a crash. I spun away and raised my guard, catching a sharp backhand chop on it. She sent out a foot to try to catch me on the chin, but I ducked and thrust my blade at her midriff. She turned aside and pushed my thrust wide, bringing her elbow down on my blade and rolling down the length towards me. I continued with my thrusting momentum and rolled under her flip, coming up just in time to meet her blade again.

I went on the attack again, thrust, swing, chop, swipe. Each time I was met with the clang of steel and I could see my blows her hurting her hand. Hopefully, her fingers would go numb and I could disarm her. She was having none of that, however, and dove out of the way of my last attack leaving me unbalanced. She stabbed forward with her blade and caught the side of my forearm. Red wetness welled up through my sleeve. I pulled back in pain and she pirouetted on her foot and smashed her foot into the side of my head. My vision swam, and I could swear I could hear something rattling around loose inside my head.

She continued her spin and swung her blade out to try to send me back again, but this time I simply grabbed her blade with my left hand and squeezed. Her eyes opened wide in surprise and in that instant, she knew I could have killed her. Instead, I swished my blade in front of her face, placing a neat little cut below her right eye. A single drop of blood trickled down her face.

My cybernetic hand dropped the bent and crushed blade with a clatter. A moment later her smile returned, this time there was a trace of something else in it besides amusement.

Crege was hooting and clapping.

“So, where is that charge?” I smiled at her in triumph.

10.

Engineering spaces have always been tight. The idea is to jam as much technology as possible into the smallest space, and squeeze as much power and push from it as you can. This results in access passages that are generously called
crawl spaces
, when in reality they should be called
worm across your belly
spaces. Add to the discomfort is the need to drag tools and devices along with you, and you can see why working in engineering and propulsion requires you have no fear of enclosed spaces. The steady thrum of power that ebbs through the rest of the ship is more of a dull roar here, and hearing protection must be worn at all times. The smell of lubricants and coolant are strong, mixing into a melange of heated oils and atomised fuel particles.

Eric, Mal and I were wriggling through one such crawl space into the starboard nacelle. Eric was towing a bag of tools behind him, and they kept snagging on pipe and gauges. As I was next in line I was constantly calling a halt to untangle them. Mal, as usual, kept complaining about all the stopping and starting.

Eventually we came out into an open space, a compartment three metres in diameter surrounded by several displays and controls. A veritable nexus of coolant lines, fuel lines and electrical conduits. Eric immediately started taking readings and downloading them into his overlay. Mal popped up out of the crawl space last and set about removing an access panel below the deck.

“We have a slight imbalance in the resonance chamber further aft, it’s causing a slight cavitation in our wake. We’ll have to check it out before we go.” reported Eric.

“Could it be damage from the attack?”

“No, it’s too embedded in our engines to take a hit without outlying components first taking damage. It’s probably just a loose coupling. Nothing to worry about, all part of standard maintenance.”

“You think it could be another charge? Maybe Jenner’s technicians knocked something loose.”

“Maybe, I’ll make sure to take along my vibration analyser when I go.”

“So where’s the one that Artemis gave up? What’s the cyclotron waveguide feed?”

“It’s part of the system that enables us to collect and process stray particles from space. It’s in the latter 3
rd
of the system, after the particles have been sorted and filtered. It takes the more exotic particles and converts them to energy, then feeds them directly into the fusion chamber for compiling.”

Starships use multiple sources of fuel. Since energy cannot be created from nothing and can only be converted from one form to another, even with today’s technology we still need something to feed the fire that is starship propulsion. The Dreaming uses a three-fold system, called a Trifurcated Ion Drive. The principle is fairly simple, a gas is given an electrical charge, the ionised gas is passed through an electric screen at the rear of the engines and the ions push out and provide thrust. It’s very efficient, and is a design that has been in use for centuries. Early engines didn’t have much acceleration, but more modern propulsion uses clever gizmos and processing technology to improve the thrust. A Trifurcated Drive obtains the gasses needed as fuel through three different methods.

The primary source of fuel is a readily available locally stored source of hydrogen rich water. The system breaks it down into particles and separates the oxygen from the hydrogen. The O
2
is used in life support, the hydrogen is ionised as fuel. The second source is by using magnetic
scoops
to pull particles in from space around us. They’re filtered and sorted by useability and fed into the engines, as Eric described. The last method is somewhat more exotic, and far beyond my understanding. It uses quantum effects to pull particles and energy from bordering dimensions, and the fuel just sort of materialises into our dimension, or brane, and powers the system.

This last type is the most unstable and unreliable, providing the least amount of thrust. The only positive thing about it, is that you seemingly gain the fuel from nowhere. It’s often used as a last resort by ships that run out of all other fuels. The thrust provided by the drive comes in stops and starts, shunting the ship in shuddering tugs that makes travel under this method uncomfortable. It’s lovingly referred to as travelling
under puff
. Captains who are known for their arrival into POIs while under puff get nicknames such as
Captain Puffer,
or
The Good Ship Puff-along
. Such a reputation is hard to shake.

“Okay,” called Mal, “hatch is open. Let’s go, Seth.”

I groaned inwardly, I’d just worked out the kink in my back from the last crawl. Mal went first, pushing a tool bag along in front of him. I climbed down headfirst and slid into the crawl space below. It was hot and stuffy, and sweat broke out almost immediately as I began to thread my way through the tubing.

“How did they manage to get through here with enough equipment to affix a bomb in here?” I mused.

“A good engineer knows his way around a space,” Mal said, referring to these worm tubes, “You’re not claustrophobic too, are you?”

“Screw you, Cuts. Hurry up and let’s get this done.”

You should be coming up on the first stage of the cyclotron waveguide now. Looks like a rectangular tube with a fine mesh braid around it.
Eric texted me.

I see it. Cuts is removing something up ahead.

That should be an inspection port covering, you’ll need to get the vid-drone ready.

Right.

The plan was to put a small remote camera into the waveguide, rather than remove the whole waveguide, which would take about an hour to do. The vid-drone was the size of a child’s fist, and could see in the infrared, the ultraviolet and in the x-ray band widths. Mal had the plate off in no time and was gesturing impatiently for the drone while I was pairing it up with our overlays. When it was done I handed it to him and he pushed in into the waveguide.

A small window had opened in my overlay, which I expanded and focused on as the feed from the drone started coming in. It moved along using a tiny gravity generator, useful for small in-door movement but little else. Most drones of this type used them. The drone soon came upon a small metal box that had several cables running out of it that looked welded onto the waveguide walls. It had a low profile, so as not to disrupt the flow of particles down the waveguide.

That looks like it.
Came Eric’s text.

Looks like a capacitive transducer.
Offered Mal.

What’s that?
I asked.

Eric explained that the probes that extended from the box measured the electrical state of the waveguide, probably detecting it’s nearness to other conductive surfaces. He guessed that it would register a change in capacitance if we tried to remove the waveguide, and probably detonate.

You know, I could probably program some nanites to reconstruct a cage around the bomb and probes, and just peel the probes off the waveguide.

We don’t know if the probes are measuring the whole section or just the nearby conductors.

True, we’d need more measurements before we could do that. I could use an analysis Nano-package to get a full break down of the signal-processing going on. Drone, switch to x-ray.

The drone’s vision switched to a different colour scheme, which turned most of the surfaces translucent. I could see several of the components that made up the bomb, and the drone began to read electrical impulses as they flowed through the device. I keyed Fel into the feed.

What do you make of this?
I asked. Eric repeated his earlier observations to him.

Doesn’t look too sophisticated, it’s just in a bad spot, really.

I think we’d need to use some guess work with this one, and as an engineer I hate using guess work.

I might be able to help you out with that analysis Nano-package. We’d have to leave the scoops offline for a while though, they’ll interfere with our readings.

Agreed. First Mate? What’s your call?

I think I’d better bump this up to Max. I know she wants these bombs taken care of, but taking a third of our options for propulsion off the table while underway is risky.

So is carrying around a bomb.
Said Mal, and for once I agreed with him.

Yeah ok, I’m calling it. Start the package, and I’ll talk it out with Max. If she says to cut it we can always recover the nanites.

Or burn them as fuel, ha-ha.

Thanks, Cuts,
retorted Fel,
and I can always recover their costs by taking a cut of your pay share.

You want to come down here again and collect them?

No, that would be your job.
I explained. Mal grumbled a little and started to grab the drone.

Stop! Don’t move!
Interjected Eric urgently. Mal froze, his arm halfway into the waveguide. I could see why, the drone’s image of the bomb showed increased energy levels in the bomb, as if multiple components powered up simultaneously.

It seems that Mr Cutler was a little hasty in his eagerness to get the job over with.
Said Fel,
You’ve triggered a proximity sensor.

Why didn’t the drone set it off?

Unsure.

We all reviewed the data we’d collected so far.

What sets the drone apart from Mal’s hand?
Mused Fel.

They both have gravity, they both have electrical potential.
I said.

The drone has wireless transmitters.
Said Eric

I have wireless, my overlay!

Not in your hand.
We all thought hard about the predicament.

We can’t risk you moving your hand out of the waveguide. What if it sets it off?

What if I CAN’T move my hand? I’m not staying down here!

My hand has wireless transmitters.
I offered. Mal looked at me in surprise, his face sweaty and grimy. Eric send me a single
?
and left it at that.

Maybe if I put my hand in there next to Mal’s, then he can pull out. Once it registers that it’s a drone nearby it might let me go as well.

That might work.
Came Fel’s reply.

Should we get Max in on this?
Asked Eric,
She might have qualms about putting you at risk.

If I can put myself at risk instead of a crewmate, that’s my job, Eric.

What if it doesn’t work at all?

I’m willing to take that risk. What’s the alternative? We leave Cuts down here, and the scoops offline indefinitely?

Everyone was silent for a few minutes, contemplating our options. They weren’t good. In the end, we decided to try it. I wriggled up next to Cuts while he moved as far down the space as he could while keeping his arm inside the waveguide. There was just enough room for me to reach in as well. It was tight, but I got my hand in and grabbed his wrist.

“When I let go of you, slowly pull your arm out and keep an eye on the energy readings from the bomb. If they spike, stop.” I said to him.

“Okay.” He was shaking nervously. I gently let his wrist go and he started to retract his arm from the waveguide. We all kept out eyes glued on the drone’s read out, but when he was nearly out of the waveguide the energy readings died down to their original levels. Mal pulled the rest of the arm out and lay back breathing heavily in relief. In a few seconds he started to wriggle away further down the shaft.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Away from you, incase it goes off.”

“You’re kidding me? Thanks for the support!” I couldn’t believe is audacity, but knew that deep down he was right. Why risk both of us?

I’m going to start moving out now.
I informed the others. Ever so slowly, I started to move my arm backwards. Fortunately, the energy readings didn’t spike, not even once, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I was out. I called out the drone and packed it up. I ignored Mal and took my things and crawled backwards out of the shaft. Eric helped me to my feet and gave me a look.

“Get going, I’ll deal with Cuts.” I nodded to him and headed back the way we’d come, towards the central engineering space. I got some satisfaction from knowing that Eric was about to chew Cuts out in a way that only engineers could. A process that Eric referred to as
contact counselling.