Vortex incursion, p.17
Vortex Incursion, page 17
Luther replied, sending a detailed image of the massive cables connecting the alien ship and its construction.
a Trident captain offered.
Luther replied.
Jasper queried on a conference link maintained by the suited humans.
Escher replied.
Bethany added.
Johann offered.
Stacey sent.
After the scouts finished a private analysis, Killian announced, and the SADEs filled the conference with their tunes and noises.
To the surprise of many, the Emergence’s sisters had joined the laughter.
Juno sent. She’d been appointed the sisters’ communicator by Tocknicka. The sisters had their first-gen progenitors’ memories. Plan B was often Alex’s comment when his original idea failed. Of course, a second plan rarely existed at the time he uttered the phrase.
Nira inquired, when the laughter quieted.
Bethley replied.
a Trident captain asked.
Trium replied,
Suddenly, the fleet’s members saw their window of opportunity shrink. Instead of a partial construction, they’d be intercepting a monstrous capacitor that could discharge, while they attempted to prevent it reaching the anomaly.
Escher sent, which caught Miranda’s attention.
Miranda replied, which halted many ancillary discussions.
Escher asked.
Immediately, the SADEs dived into the scouts’ recording of the sphere’s construction. Then they communed, including the Emergence’s sisters. Consensus was swiftly reached, and Miranda refrained from commenting.
Killian admitted.
Ceda inquired.
Minimalist replied.
Then Luther added,
Lita asked.
Tocknicka replied.
Escher sent.
Trium admitted.
Miranda sent privately to Nira, who had to admit the centuries-old protector was right.
Gat’r sent.
Luther replied.
Miranda coaxed.
Gat’r prompted.
Scrounger sent.
Miranda pursued.
Scrounger explained.
Extrapolating from the young human’s questions, consensus quickly formed among the SADEs. It was summarized by Killian, who sent,
Trium added.
Nira surmised.
Killian replied.
Bethley added.
Juno sent.
Tocknicka replied.
The sisters communicated and consensus was reached.
Privately, Juno sent,
When Tocknicka had suggested his idea to Julien and Cordelia, he foresaw a lengthy process of rehabilitation for the two hundred sisters aboard. Somehow, the emergency had precipitated an acceleration of the sister’s attitudes. Now, he considered that his suggestion to the SADEs’ leaders might have been too successful.
In the open, Tocknicka sent,
Again, the SADEs reviewed the Reflection’s data to ascertain the sphere’s mass.
Trium shared.
Miranda sent. After a pause, she added, Her quip delighted the conference participants.
Killian sent.
The scouts dropped the conference link, and the Reflection accelerated to leap into the dark. Fortune was with them. The second star they encountered met their requirements, and Trium oriented the ship to return to the fleet.
When the Reflection exited its transit, the scouts received Miranda’s message. she sent.
The members of the fleet entertained themselves, while they waited.
Juno and other sisters visited the Nyslara. They were intrigued by the suits that some humans wore.
Lisa joined the conversations. She didn’t take part, but she listened intently. An idea was growing in her mind.
“What intrigues you?” Escher asked Lisa, after a suit demonstration had ended.
Lisa regarded Escher and Gat’r, who retracted their mask-helmets.
“Just watching and listening,” Lisa replied, and Escher and Gat’r laughed.
“You’re thinking about your upcoming incarceration,” Escher said. “Or rather you’re trying to figure your way out of it.”
“She’s got no place to hide,” Gat’r said. “I think it’s something in between.”
“So, no incarceration but still under Naiad’s thumb,” Escher reasoned.
Lisa was stunned that the two young men had accurately guessed her thoughts. Then she corrected herself. They knew her — her history, her predilections, and her desire to recover lost power.
Lisa intended to leave without responding, but she’d stayed in a corner of the bay for the suit demonstration, and Escher and Gat’r conveniently blocked her exit. Furthermore, the young men didn’t appear ready to step aside for her.
Spotting the unusual stances of the trio in the corner, Bethany, Ceda, Johann, and Stacey came to investigate.
Bethany queried Escher and Gat’r. She was still linked to the other three suited figures.
Gat’r replied.
If Lisa thought there was an opportunity to pressure Escher and Gat’r, it was lost when their four companions joined them.
Juno’s head cocked, as she observed the humans congregating. she sent to Miranda, who had officiated the suit demonstration.
Miranda replied.
a sister queried.
Miranda replied, which had the sisters sharing amused noises.
“Hello, Lisa,” Ceda said. “What turmoil have you created now?”
Lisa knew that objecting to Ceda’s charge would only dig her hole deeper. Blowing out a breath, she said, “Escher and Gat’r have accurately surmised my thoughts about my impending return to Naiad.”
“As if that’s difficult,” Stacey retorted. “You don’t want to be locked up for your crimes.”
“So, what’s your alternative?” Johann inquired.
“I’ve acquired a lot of information about all the players. I think I have value,” Lisa replied.
“To whom?” Ceda charged.
“There’s only one group who can give me a reprieve from a security cell,” Lisa replied guardedly. “The Naiad Council.”
“To do what?” Stacey asked.
“Whatever the council wishes me to do,” Lisa replied. She’d hoped to communicate privately with Councilor Hoffing about her suggestion. However, the Alexander’s humans were good test subjects for her concept.
Bethany, Johann, and Stacey would have objected or laughed at Lisa’s idea, but they noticed Ceda quietly regarding Escher and Gat’r, who wore thoughtful expressions.
Before Lisa could learn Escher’s and Gat’r’s thoughts, mask-helmets snapped into place, and the bay was quickly deserted.
Every individual with a comm or implant had heard Killian’s warning,
The sisters raced to another bay, boarded their shuttle, and launched for the Emergence.
Links to the ships’ controllers were formed to view the incoming visuals.
The ovoid’s service vehicles gripped the four massive charging cables just inside the sphere’s outer shell. When they were disconnected, the ovoid reeled them inside its hull, as the vehicles guided the open ends.
Then the vehicles entered ports in the side of the four-kilometer long ovoid.
There was a half-hour wait for the fleet before the next action took place.
When it happened, two functions took place at once. A large port on the bottom near the aft end rear of the ovoid swung down, and a small, unusual ship was expelled.
The ovoid used a plethora of jets to turn away from the sphere. It was the better part of an hour before the ovoid was clear of the sphere. Then it fired its array of thirteen enormous engines.
By that time, the odd little ship had reached the sphere. Its bow projected a square with a concave curve. The fleet members watched the bow close the sphere’s shell by fitting its square bow into the open space where the charging cables had entered.
Trium offered.
The SADEs carefully compared the actions of the ovoid and the propulsion ship. They were encouraged by the wide disparity. The ovoid’s engines were ejecting a long ion stream, and the ship was rapidly accelerating. Meanwhile, despite the considerable engines on the propulsion ship, it was struggling to overcome the sphere’s enormous inertia.
Then, in a twist of space, the ovoid was gone.
Tocknicka commented.
Nira asked on the conference link.
Luther replied.
The scouts positioned the Reflection behind the sphere’s propulsion ship but far enough to give them a clear view of its full circumference.
Killian directed the Tridents to engage the sphere at zero and one hundred eighty degrees, as the scout ship viewed the construct’s circumference. Then he positioned the Quadrant and the carrier at ninety degrees and at two hundred seventy degrees.
With bows pointed toward the Reflection, the SADEs applied power to the ships’ engines to drive the sphere rearward in a straight line.
The engine power increased until the fleet ships had halted the forward momentum of the sphere. Then, slowly, they reversed the sphere’s direction.
Every human was focused on their controller link. Some held their breath, waiting for the possible catastrophe to occur.
When Lisa reached the Nyslara’s bridge, she stared at the central monitor, which relayed the Reflection’s view. She’d always thought the visitors’ ships were prodigious, but they were dwarfed by the alien construct they attempted to move.
“How much longer?” Lisa asked a nearby SADE.
The SADE activated a holo-vid. It displayed a small timeline labeled with the starting point, an endpoint, and a marker indicating progress.
“The increment lines are units of ten Naiad minutes,” the SADE whispered.
Lisa was surprised that the SADE estimated it would be more than two hours before the ships achieved the desired velocity.
“The propulsion ship resists our efforts,” the SADE explained, when he saw Lisa’s expression. “Even now it applies greater power to reverse the sphere’s motion.”
Lisa chose to sit at the rear of the bridge with her back against the bulkhead. As expected, which nevertheless took her aback, the SADE sat beside her if she had other questions.
When the SADE’s timeline indicated that the fleet ships would have reached the intended velocity, Lisa felt the odd twisting that indicated passage into the dark. Just before the movement, the screens had blanked to protect human minds.
The transit was less than a cycle, with the fleet appearing near the star the scouts had chosen. Immediately, the ships released the sphere and transited again.
Behind them, the sphere, which was aimed at the star, had sufficient velocity and mass to overcome the propulsion ship’s continued resistance to the sphere’s trajectory.
It was only a matter of time before the star’s gravity well effectively ended the propulsion ship’s efforts. The ship was still expending mass to reverse the sphere’s direction, when the star began tearing its aft end apart.
14: Message Received
KRACKUS SYSTEM
HELGART PLANET
“Finally,” Deckus, the fleet commander, replied. He’d been informed by his flagship’s imperator that the probe had returned through the vortex.
Fleet Imperator Deckus had expected a swift return of the probe. While the interview questions given the Tritium set were lengthy, he anticipated digital entities would be able to respond promptly.
As the cycles had passed, without a response from the other side, the idea had been floated that the digital entities reported to a dominant race. This concept appealed to Deckus and many of his fleet imperators. The thought that the digital entities might have been in control of their destinies disturbed them.
The capture process was routine, and, in this case, the probe was delivered to Imperium Scientist Hobar. Her team handled the data system’s recorder.
Several individuals, namely Imperator Deckus, Imperator Gretren, Imperium Engineer Ragirt, Declinator Korvath, and Kreus, expected an immediate update from Hobar that the data was intact. However, after a full cycle, Hobar hadn’t communicated her teams’ findings.
“What’s the problem?” Deckus asked Gretren, who was in charge of the vortex investigation.
“I’ve tasked Korvath with contacting Hobar,” Gretren replied. “If the answer to our question is technical, he’ll understand the response.”
Deckus gurgled. “Better Korvath than you or me, right, Gretren?”
“As a scientist, Hobar loves to exercise her vocabulary,” Gretren deadpanned, which produced more gurgles from Deckus.
Korvath signaled with a finger that he had Hobar online.
“One moment, Imperator Deckus, Korvath is requesting to add Hobar to our call,” Gretren said.
“Proceed,” Deckus replied.
“Scientist Hobar, you’ve joined a conference call of Fleet Imperator Deckus and Imperator Gretren,” Korvath said.
“We’ve been waiting, Hobar,” Deckus said peevishly.
“My team has been delayed because of the unusual finding,” Hobar replied.
“Well, Hobar, don’t keep us waiting,” Deckus insisted.
“The data is intact,” Hobar quickly replied. “It’s not the lengthy responses we expected to the questions sent with the Tritiums. What was sent isn’t in the Krackus language.”
A gurgle escaped Korvath, who quickly smothered it.
“Enlighten us, Korvath. You seem to know where Hobar is going and probably what it means,” Deckus directed. Lately, he preferred to speak to Korvath. The declinator managed to balance some of the advice Deckus received from the Imperium appointees.
Gretren’s orbs widened at the difficult position Korvath had created, but his declinator didn’t seem to be fazed by Deckus’s request.
“Imperator Deckus, I imagine the response is in the language of the SADEs,” Korvath replied. “Furthermore, I suspect that Kreus will understand the language.”
Jasper queried on a conference link maintained by the suited humans.
After the scouts finished a private analysis, Killian announced,
To the surprise of many, the Emergence’s sisters had joined the laughter.
Suddenly, the fleet’s members saw their window of opportunity shrink. Instead of a partial construction, they’d be intercepting a monstrous capacitor that could discharge, while they attempted to prevent it reaching the anomaly.
Immediately, the SADEs dived into the scouts’ recording of the sphere’s construction. Then they communed, including the Emergence’s sisters. Consensus was swiftly reached, and Miranda refrained from commenting.
Then Luther added,
Scrounger sent.
Extrapolating from the young human’s questions, consensus quickly formed among the SADEs. It was summarized by Killian, who sent,
Nira surmised.
The sisters communicated and consensus was reached.
Privately, Juno sent,
When Tocknicka had suggested his idea to Julien and Cordelia, he foresaw a lengthy process of rehabilitation for the two hundred sisters aboard. Somehow, the emergency had precipitated an acceleration of the sister’s attitudes. Now, he considered that his suggestion to the SADEs’ leaders might have been too successful.
In the open, Tocknicka sent,
Again, the SADEs reviewed the Reflection’s data to ascertain the sphere’s mass.
The scouts dropped the conference link, and the Reflection accelerated to leap into the dark. Fortune was with them. The second star they encountered met their requirements, and Trium oriented the ship to return to the fleet.
When the Reflection exited its transit, the scouts received Miranda’s message.
The members of the fleet entertained themselves, while they waited.
Juno and other sisters visited the Nyslara. They were intrigued by the suits that some humans wore.
Lisa joined the conversations. She didn’t take part, but she listened intently. An idea was growing in her mind.
“What intrigues you?” Escher asked Lisa, after a suit demonstration had ended.
Lisa regarded Escher and Gat’r, who retracted their mask-helmets.
“Just watching and listening,” Lisa replied, and Escher and Gat’r laughed.
“You’re thinking about your upcoming incarceration,” Escher said. “Or rather you’re trying to figure your way out of it.”
“She’s got no place to hide,” Gat’r said. “I think it’s something in between.”
“So, no incarceration but still under Naiad’s thumb,” Escher reasoned.
Lisa was stunned that the two young men had accurately guessed her thoughts. Then she corrected herself. They knew her — her history, her predilections, and her desire to recover lost power.
Lisa intended to leave without responding, but she’d stayed in a corner of the bay for the suit demonstration, and Escher and Gat’r conveniently blocked her exit. Furthermore, the young men didn’t appear ready to step aside for her.
Spotting the unusual stances of the trio in the corner, Bethany, Ceda, Johann, and Stacey came to investigate.
If Lisa thought there was an opportunity to pressure Escher and Gat’r, it was lost when their four companions joined them.
Juno’s head cocked, as she observed the humans congregating.
“Hello, Lisa,” Ceda said. “What turmoil have you created now?”
Lisa knew that objecting to Ceda’s charge would only dig her hole deeper. Blowing out a breath, she said, “Escher and Gat’r have accurately surmised my thoughts about my impending return to Naiad.”
“As if that’s difficult,” Stacey retorted. “You don’t want to be locked up for your crimes.”
“So, what’s your alternative?” Johann inquired.
“I’ve acquired a lot of information about all the players. I think I have value,” Lisa replied.
“To whom?” Ceda charged.
“There’s only one group who can give me a reprieve from a security cell,” Lisa replied guardedly. “The Naiad Council.”
“To do what?” Stacey asked.
“Whatever the council wishes me to do,” Lisa replied. She’d hoped to communicate privately with Councilor Hoffing about her suggestion. However, the Alexander’s humans were good test subjects for her concept.
Bethany, Johann, and Stacey would have objected or laughed at Lisa’s idea, but they noticed Ceda quietly regarding Escher and Gat’r, who wore thoughtful expressions.
Before Lisa could learn Escher’s and Gat’r’s thoughts, mask-helmets snapped into place, and the bay was quickly deserted.
Every individual with a comm or implant had heard Killian’s warning,
The sisters raced to another bay, boarded their shuttle, and launched for the Emergence.
Links to the ships’ controllers were formed to view the incoming visuals.
The ovoid’s service vehicles gripped the four massive charging cables just inside the sphere’s outer shell. When they were disconnected, the ovoid reeled them inside its hull, as the vehicles guided the open ends.
Then the vehicles entered ports in the side of the four-kilometer long ovoid.
There was a half-hour wait for the fleet before the next action took place.
When it happened, two functions took place at once. A large port on the bottom near the aft end rear of the ovoid swung down, and a small, unusual ship was expelled.
The ovoid used a plethora of jets to turn away from the sphere. It was the better part of an hour before the ovoid was clear of the sphere. Then it fired its array of thirteen enormous engines.
By that time, the odd little ship had reached the sphere. Its bow projected a square with a concave curve. The fleet members watched the bow close the sphere’s shell by fitting its square bow into the open space where the charging cables had entered.
Trium offered.
The SADEs carefully compared the actions of the ovoid and the propulsion ship. They were encouraged by the wide disparity. The ovoid’s engines were ejecting a long ion stream, and the ship was rapidly accelerating. Meanwhile, despite the considerable engines on the propulsion ship, it was struggling to overcome the sphere’s enormous inertia.
Then, in a twist of space, the ovoid was gone.
The scouts positioned the Reflection behind the sphere’s propulsion ship but far enough to give them a clear view of its full circumference.
Killian directed the Tridents to engage the sphere at zero and one hundred eighty degrees, as the scout ship viewed the construct’s circumference. Then he positioned the Quadrant and the carrier at ninety degrees and at two hundred seventy degrees.
With bows pointed toward the Reflection, the SADEs applied power to the ships’ engines to drive the sphere rearward in a straight line.
The engine power increased until the fleet ships had halted the forward momentum of the sphere. Then, slowly, they reversed the sphere’s direction.
Every human was focused on their controller link. Some held their breath, waiting for the possible catastrophe to occur.
When Lisa reached the Nyslara’s bridge, she stared at the central monitor, which relayed the Reflection’s view. She’d always thought the visitors’ ships were prodigious, but they were dwarfed by the alien construct they attempted to move.
“How much longer?” Lisa asked a nearby SADE.
The SADE activated a holo-vid. It displayed a small timeline labeled with the starting point, an endpoint, and a marker indicating progress.
“The increment lines are units of ten Naiad minutes,” the SADE whispered.
Lisa was surprised that the SADE estimated it would be more than two hours before the ships achieved the desired velocity.
“The propulsion ship resists our efforts,” the SADE explained, when he saw Lisa’s expression. “Even now it applies greater power to reverse the sphere’s motion.”
Lisa chose to sit at the rear of the bridge with her back against the bulkhead. As expected, which nevertheless took her aback, the SADE sat beside her if she had other questions.
When the SADE’s timeline indicated that the fleet ships would have reached the intended velocity, Lisa felt the odd twisting that indicated passage into the dark. Just before the movement, the screens had blanked to protect human minds.
The transit was less than a cycle, with the fleet appearing near the star the scouts had chosen. Immediately, the ships released the sphere and transited again.
Behind them, the sphere, which was aimed at the star, had sufficient velocity and mass to overcome the propulsion ship’s continued resistance to the sphere’s trajectory.
It was only a matter of time before the star’s gravity well effectively ended the propulsion ship’s efforts. The ship was still expending mass to reverse the sphere’s direction, when the star began tearing its aft end apart.
14: Message Received
KRACKUS SYSTEM
HELGART PLANET
“Finally,” Deckus, the fleet commander, replied. He’d been informed by his flagship’s imperator that the probe had returned through the vortex.
Fleet Imperator Deckus had expected a swift return of the probe. While the interview questions given the Tritium set were lengthy, he anticipated digital entities would be able to respond promptly.
As the cycles had passed, without a response from the other side, the idea had been floated that the digital entities reported to a dominant race. This concept appealed to Deckus and many of his fleet imperators. The thought that the digital entities might have been in control of their destinies disturbed them.
The capture process was routine, and, in this case, the probe was delivered to Imperium Scientist Hobar. Her team handled the data system’s recorder.
Several individuals, namely Imperator Deckus, Imperator Gretren, Imperium Engineer Ragirt, Declinator Korvath, and Kreus, expected an immediate update from Hobar that the data was intact. However, after a full cycle, Hobar hadn’t communicated her teams’ findings.
“What’s the problem?” Deckus asked Gretren, who was in charge of the vortex investigation.
“I’ve tasked Korvath with contacting Hobar,” Gretren replied. “If the answer to our question is technical, he’ll understand the response.”
Deckus gurgled. “Better Korvath than you or me, right, Gretren?”
“As a scientist, Hobar loves to exercise her vocabulary,” Gretren deadpanned, which produced more gurgles from Deckus.
Korvath signaled with a finger that he had Hobar online.
“One moment, Imperator Deckus, Korvath is requesting to add Hobar to our call,” Gretren said.
“Proceed,” Deckus replied.
“Scientist Hobar, you’ve joined a conference call of Fleet Imperator Deckus and Imperator Gretren,” Korvath said.
“We’ve been waiting, Hobar,” Deckus said peevishly.
“My team has been delayed because of the unusual finding,” Hobar replied.
“Well, Hobar, don’t keep us waiting,” Deckus insisted.
“The data is intact,” Hobar quickly replied. “It’s not the lengthy responses we expected to the questions sent with the Tritiums. What was sent isn’t in the Krackus language.”
A gurgle escaped Korvath, who quickly smothered it.
“Enlighten us, Korvath. You seem to know where Hobar is going and probably what it means,” Deckus directed. Lately, he preferred to speak to Korvath. The declinator managed to balance some of the advice Deckus received from the Imperium appointees.
Gretren’s orbs widened at the difficult position Korvath had created, but his declinator didn’t seem to be fazed by Deckus’s request.
“Imperator Deckus, I imagine the response is in the language of the SADEs,” Korvath replied. “Furthermore, I suspect that Kreus will understand the language.”
