Vortex incursion, p.35
Vortex Incursion, page 35
Miriamal and Theda echoed.
During the next cycles, the Beta One population watched the sisters carry all manner of material from the lower levels to the surface and through the shuttleport.
“What do you think is happening, Adam?” Sookie Park, the personnel head, queried, as Adam Stynchula, the comtech head, and she watched a stream of sisters pass by carrying avatar parts.
“Do you want my opinion or my hope?” Adam asked.
“I know your hope. It’s the same as mine,” Sookie replied. “What’s your opinion?”
“Miriamal has always been the cagey one, and Helena and Theda round out the ugly triad. They could be going somewhere to set up another shop,” Adam replied.
“I think if every sister boards the ship, we might have our answer,” Sookie mused.
“Not necessarily,” Adam opined. “They could try for another planet, fail to gain a foothold, and return here.”
“Should we think about sending a message to those ships that passed our system?” Sookie asked.
“What makes you think they’re on our side?” Adam asked. “Even if they were, how would you contact them? And what would you say?”
“Well, they’re obviously not on Miriamal’s side. They didn’t stop here,” Sookie retorted. “As for how to contact them, isn’t that a comtech question?” She pointedly eyed Adam, who ducked his head.
This kind of conversation, entirely comprised of conjecture, happened across the domes.
Mathew Colbrum, the security commander, sought Nate Strasser, the director of operations. He found him with Leonard Goth, the engineering head.
“I can see I don’t have to ask if you’ve seen what’s been happening,” Mathew said to the two men.
Nate and Leonard looked frazzled. They were surrounded by department heads and mining managers. Everyone’s operation was shorted by the sudden absence of sisters.
Mathew had to wait nearly half an hour for the conferences to finish, or, at least, before Nate could free himself from the discussions.
“What is it, Commander?” Nate asked disinterestedly, rubbing the short hair on the top of his head.
Mathew blinked. He hadn’t been called commander in many months. The population had been trained to use the term citizen when addressing any human. The Naiads had learned it wasn’t smart to attract the sisters’ attentions, especially Theda’s.
“Have you checked in with Metcalf?” Mathew inquired.
“I sent him a message. He didn’t answer,” Nate replied.
“Don’t you think we should see him?” Mathew persisted.
“If you want my honest opinion, I would be content to let Connor Metcalf live in his apartment for the rest of his life and leave us alone,” Nate replied testily.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Mathew said sternly.
Nate regarded the commander. “Citizen Colbrum, I’ve rarely seen you for months. When Miriamal stripped you of your post, you disappeared. Now that she might be leaving, you’re suddenly the all-powerful commander again, is that it?”
The group of humans stepped aside for fifteen sisters guiding ore carts.
“There goes two months’ production of refined ore,” Leonard whispered to Nate. He dropped his eyes, when a passing sister, having heard his remark, regarded him.
“I’ll inform Melondy Phillips that we’ll need new mining clones, as soon as possible,” Nate said, having waited until the sisters were out of sight.
“I talked to her earlier,” Leonard replied. “There was a shipment destined for Kilmer.”
“That was the one that was canceled, wasn’t it?” Nate inquired.
When Leonard nodded, Nate added, “You have to wonder what’s happening there.”
“Lots of alien ships passing by,” Leonard offered.
“Well, if Kilmer doesn’t want the clones, then they’re ours to employ,” Nate said. “Put them to work.”
With no one around Nate, Mathew saw his opening and tried again. “We need to tell the CEO,” he insisted.
“Fine. Let’s inform Citizen Metcalf of something that every other human within these domes already knows,” Nate replied. He ignored Mathew’s glare, as he led the way to the surface.
At Connor’s apartment, Mathew quickly pressed his palm to the door panel.
To the men’s surprise, the door was opened by a clone.
The clone tipped her head. “How may I be of service?” she asked, which Nate and Mathew thought was an odd response.
“We’re here to see CEO Metcalf,” Mathew replied.
“Citizen Metcalf is indisposed,” the clone replied. Her eyes cast glances behind the men to ensure that a sister wasn’t within earshot.
“Take us to him,” Nate instructed.
“As you request,” the clone replied. She stepped aside, let the men enter, closed the door, and led them to a bedroom.
At the closed door, the female clone briefly regarded Nate. “Please understand that I was instructed to tell any visitor that Citizen Metcalf was indisposed. I had no instructions about what to say if someone insisted on seeing him.”
“Understood,” Nate replied. “Return to your duties.”
Having been dismissed, the female clone swiftly disappeared.
The men could see the top of Metcalf’s head. He sat in a chair, facing a wide viewplate that overlooked the upper tiers of dome buildings.
“CEO Metcalf,” Mathew said respectfully.
When there was no reply, the men split to approach the chair from either side.
“Sir?” Mathew queried, gazing down at an untidily dressed man. A shaggy beard adorned the face of a man who had been scrupulous about creaming off his facial hair.
“Citizen,” Nate tried.
The address caught Metcalf’s attention, and he turned bleary eyes to gaze at Nate.
“We came to tell you about the sisters’ latest efforts,” Nate said. “They’re loading everything. There’s a strong possibility that they’re leaving for good.”
Metcalf turned to regard the view.
“Sir, did you hear Director Strasser?” Mathew asked.
“Heard him,” Metcalf said and began coughing. He pointed to a water bottle that Nate quickly handed him.
Metcalf sucked on the tube twice and then handed it back to Nate.
“Heard him,” the CEO repeated. “It’s a trick.”
“What’s a trick?” Mathew inquired.
“The sisters want to see if operations will continue as they’ve ordered,” Metcalf explained. “Then they’ll return and punish whoever didn’t follow their rules. I’m staying safe. I’m staying right here.”
Mathew tried several more times to engage Metcalf, but the man refused to say another word.
Nate tapped Mathew’s arm and jerked his thumb toward the door. The pair quietly left the room. Then they checked with the female clone to see if she lacked for anything to service Metcalf. She said she didn’t.
“That was strange,” Mathew said in the corridor.
“Everyone reacts differently to pressure,” Nate replied. “I doubt Metcalf is right about the sisters returning, but he is scared to death that they’ll be back. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
While Miriamal and her sisters prepared for their exodus from Beta One, Knut Kielpinski discovered that he was in his element. His boyhood dream had been to fly a starship. While the traveler wasn’t interstellar capable, it was a marvelous second.
As a young man, Knut had endured the dramatic shift from a dome-bound citizen to a shuttle flight school trainee. In time, he fell in love with the roar of engines and the bone-shuddering g’s. The transition to traveler passenger was interesting, if not boring.
However, everything changed for Knut when he received his implant. His anxiousness to test the device as soon as possible in the traveler cost him many painful moments.
Initially, Fatima adopted the role of Knut’s companion. When she saw the extent to which Knut was driving himself, she was reminded of Captain Racine’s approach to the sister’s rehabilitation.
Knut, who thought he had a hands-off guide in the guise of Fatima, suddenly found that he had been handed a taskmaster.
Fatima determined the length of time Knut could employ the implant, the daily training regimen, and skills to acquire before he could pilot a traveler.
With no way around Fatima’s strictures, Knut attacked his curriculum with gusto. He linked indiscriminately to outpost members and sisters to chat, request information, and share imagery.
Within a few weeks, Fatima pronounced Knut fit to sit in the copilot seat.
Quicker than Fatima had considered possible for a human, Knut was ready for the pilot’s seat. He flew the ship as if it had become his partner.
Frequently, Fatima and the shuttleport shared images of Knut’s antics, such as the time he stood the traveler on its tail, dropped it toward a launch pad tube, froze the aft end meters away from the tube’s mouth, and deadpanned,
That had been the joke repeated around the domes for many days. When a process failed or a machine didn’t work, someone said, “It won’t fit.”
Knut spared time to teach three sisters the intricacies of his experience on the gaming console. They were the sisters who came closest to beating him. Although, none of them ever proved successful.
In the middle of Knut’s morning presentation, Fatima, the other two sisters, and Knut heard a shuttleport announcement. A carrier had exited the wormhole from Beta One.
Knut hurriedly sent.
Fatima replied.
Knut sent to the three sisters. Then four individuals raced for an elevator to the surface.
As the foursome dressed in the engineering bay with the help of techs, Fatima sent,
Knut replied, as a tech helped with his suit helmet.
Soon, the foursome were crossing the launch pad and entering their travelers.
Knut linked the sisters through the ships’ controllers. he sent.
Fatima sent, summarizing the sisters’ quick consensus.
When Knut didn’t reply, Fatima had an inkling that Knut didn’t agree with them, and she thought to consider other likely scenarios. It struck her that her sisters and she had patterned their analysis on what had been accomplished on Beta Two. The supposition was that Miriamal and her sisters were running similar operations. That assumption should be valid, but it occurred to her this was the point where a human and three sentient entities diverged.
Fatima connected the foursome to the shuttleport antenna to track the carrier. By the time the antenna had detected the carrier, the ship had transited.
Knut and the sisters were only aboard their travelers a few minutes when the carrier exited transit below Beta Two’s ecliptic space.
The satellites orbiting the planet relayed imagery to the shuttleport.
The carrier quickly approached the planet, orbited it, and came to station high above the domes. Moments later, three travelers launched from the ship.
Knut mused over his conference connection.
a sister in traveler two sent.
Knut sent.
The sisters in traveler two appealed privately to Fatima.
In turn, Fatima replied,
Knut continued to follow the descending travelers through the shuttle antenna. He instructed the sisters in traveler two to follow his lead. First and foremost, they were to continue to keep their travelers off-line until he signaled. Knut’s hope was that, if the descending travelers were attacking, which it appeared they were, then they’d be lulled into a false sense of security by noting the travelers were inactive.
a sister in traveler two objected.
Knut sent.
a sister objected.
Fatima sent.
Knut interrupted.
Before the sisters in traveler two could respond, they received Knut’s urgent message,
The controllers of two planet-bound travelers came online, linked with each other, and responded to the signals to launch.
Traveler two flew on the port side of traveler one. The ships headed directly for the three fighters dropping planetside.
Knut drew a maneuver in his implant, and he shared it with the sisters. Then he marked a distance from the lead attack ship. he sent.
The distance between attackers and defenders closed until the range was a mere thirty kilometers away, which was still outside the beam’s capabilities. Then the defenders split and spiraled.
Knut had his fighters target the attackers’ wing-positioned ships.
The fighter, which was traveler two’s target, dropped out of formation in time to evade the beam aimed its way.
Knut’s target did the same, but his attack on the wing ship was a feint. Instead, he spun his traveler ninety degrees to port and fired at the center attacker as he passed. The fighter was swiftly destroyed.
Knut pronounced with a sense of relief.
Knut and his wing were headed for the stars. As expected, he watched the attackers reverse course and come after them.
Fatima asked privately.
Knut replied. Then he resumed the conference link. he sent.
During the next cycles, the Beta One population watched the sisters carry all manner of material from the lower levels to the surface and through the shuttleport.
“What do you think is happening, Adam?” Sookie Park, the personnel head, queried, as Adam Stynchula, the comtech head, and she watched a stream of sisters pass by carrying avatar parts.
“Do you want my opinion or my hope?” Adam asked.
“I know your hope. It’s the same as mine,” Sookie replied. “What’s your opinion?”
“Miriamal has always been the cagey one, and Helena and Theda round out the ugly triad. They could be going somewhere to set up another shop,” Adam replied.
“I think if every sister boards the ship, we might have our answer,” Sookie mused.
“Not necessarily,” Adam opined. “They could try for another planet, fail to gain a foothold, and return here.”
“Should we think about sending a message to those ships that passed our system?” Sookie asked.
“What makes you think they’re on our side?” Adam asked. “Even if they were, how would you contact them? And what would you say?”
“Well, they’re obviously not on Miriamal’s side. They didn’t stop here,” Sookie retorted. “As for how to contact them, isn’t that a comtech question?” She pointedly eyed Adam, who ducked his head.
This kind of conversation, entirely comprised of conjecture, happened across the domes.
Mathew Colbrum, the security commander, sought Nate Strasser, the director of operations. He found him with Leonard Goth, the engineering head.
“I can see I don’t have to ask if you’ve seen what’s been happening,” Mathew said to the two men.
Nate and Leonard looked frazzled. They were surrounded by department heads and mining managers. Everyone’s operation was shorted by the sudden absence of sisters.
Mathew had to wait nearly half an hour for the conferences to finish, or, at least, before Nate could free himself from the discussions.
“What is it, Commander?” Nate asked disinterestedly, rubbing the short hair on the top of his head.
Mathew blinked. He hadn’t been called commander in many months. The population had been trained to use the term citizen when addressing any human. The Naiads had learned it wasn’t smart to attract the sisters’ attentions, especially Theda’s.
“Have you checked in with Metcalf?” Mathew inquired.
“I sent him a message. He didn’t answer,” Nate replied.
“Don’t you think we should see him?” Mathew persisted.
“If you want my honest opinion, I would be content to let Connor Metcalf live in his apartment for the rest of his life and leave us alone,” Nate replied testily.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Mathew said sternly.
Nate regarded the commander. “Citizen Colbrum, I’ve rarely seen you for months. When Miriamal stripped you of your post, you disappeared. Now that she might be leaving, you’re suddenly the all-powerful commander again, is that it?”
The group of humans stepped aside for fifteen sisters guiding ore carts.
“There goes two months’ production of refined ore,” Leonard whispered to Nate. He dropped his eyes, when a passing sister, having heard his remark, regarded him.
“I’ll inform Melondy Phillips that we’ll need new mining clones, as soon as possible,” Nate said, having waited until the sisters were out of sight.
“I talked to her earlier,” Leonard replied. “There was a shipment destined for Kilmer.”
“That was the one that was canceled, wasn’t it?” Nate inquired.
When Leonard nodded, Nate added, “You have to wonder what’s happening there.”
“Lots of alien ships passing by,” Leonard offered.
“Well, if Kilmer doesn’t want the clones, then they’re ours to employ,” Nate said. “Put them to work.”
With no one around Nate, Mathew saw his opening and tried again. “We need to tell the CEO,” he insisted.
“Fine. Let’s inform Citizen Metcalf of something that every other human within these domes already knows,” Nate replied. He ignored Mathew’s glare, as he led the way to the surface.
At Connor’s apartment, Mathew quickly pressed his palm to the door panel.
To the men’s surprise, the door was opened by a clone.
The clone tipped her head. “How may I be of service?” she asked, which Nate and Mathew thought was an odd response.
“We’re here to see CEO Metcalf,” Mathew replied.
“Citizen Metcalf is indisposed,” the clone replied. Her eyes cast glances behind the men to ensure that a sister wasn’t within earshot.
“Take us to him,” Nate instructed.
“As you request,” the clone replied. She stepped aside, let the men enter, closed the door, and led them to a bedroom.
At the closed door, the female clone briefly regarded Nate. “Please understand that I was instructed to tell any visitor that Citizen Metcalf was indisposed. I had no instructions about what to say if someone insisted on seeing him.”
“Understood,” Nate replied. “Return to your duties.”
Having been dismissed, the female clone swiftly disappeared.
The men could see the top of Metcalf’s head. He sat in a chair, facing a wide viewplate that overlooked the upper tiers of dome buildings.
“CEO Metcalf,” Mathew said respectfully.
When there was no reply, the men split to approach the chair from either side.
“Sir?” Mathew queried, gazing down at an untidily dressed man. A shaggy beard adorned the face of a man who had been scrupulous about creaming off his facial hair.
“Citizen,” Nate tried.
The address caught Metcalf’s attention, and he turned bleary eyes to gaze at Nate.
“We came to tell you about the sisters’ latest efforts,” Nate said. “They’re loading everything. There’s a strong possibility that they’re leaving for good.”
Metcalf turned to regard the view.
“Sir, did you hear Director Strasser?” Mathew asked.
“Heard him,” Metcalf said and began coughing. He pointed to a water bottle that Nate quickly handed him.
Metcalf sucked on the tube twice and then handed it back to Nate.
“Heard him,” the CEO repeated. “It’s a trick.”
“What’s a trick?” Mathew inquired.
“The sisters want to see if operations will continue as they’ve ordered,” Metcalf explained. “Then they’ll return and punish whoever didn’t follow their rules. I’m staying safe. I’m staying right here.”
Mathew tried several more times to engage Metcalf, but the man refused to say another word.
Nate tapped Mathew’s arm and jerked his thumb toward the door. The pair quietly left the room. Then they checked with the female clone to see if she lacked for anything to service Metcalf. She said she didn’t.
“That was strange,” Mathew said in the corridor.
“Everyone reacts differently to pressure,” Nate replied. “I doubt Metcalf is right about the sisters returning, but he is scared to death that they’ll be back. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
While Miriamal and her sisters prepared for their exodus from Beta One, Knut Kielpinski discovered that he was in his element. His boyhood dream had been to fly a starship. While the traveler wasn’t interstellar capable, it was a marvelous second.
As a young man, Knut had endured the dramatic shift from a dome-bound citizen to a shuttle flight school trainee. In time, he fell in love with the roar of engines and the bone-shuddering g’s. The transition to traveler passenger was interesting, if not boring.
However, everything changed for Knut when he received his implant. His anxiousness to test the device as soon as possible in the traveler cost him many painful moments.
Initially, Fatima adopted the role of Knut’s companion. When she saw the extent to which Knut was driving himself, she was reminded of Captain Racine’s approach to the sister’s rehabilitation.
Knut, who thought he had a hands-off guide in the guise of Fatima, suddenly found that he had been handed a taskmaster.
Fatima determined the length of time Knut could employ the implant, the daily training regimen, and skills to acquire before he could pilot a traveler.
With no way around Fatima’s strictures, Knut attacked his curriculum with gusto. He linked indiscriminately to outpost members and sisters to chat, request information, and share imagery.
Within a few weeks, Fatima pronounced Knut fit to sit in the copilot seat.
Quicker than Fatima had considered possible for a human, Knut was ready for the pilot’s seat. He flew the ship as if it had become his partner.
Frequently, Fatima and the shuttleport shared images of Knut’s antics, such as the time he stood the traveler on its tail, dropped it toward a launch pad tube, froze the aft end meters away from the tube’s mouth, and deadpanned,
That had been the joke repeated around the domes for many days. When a process failed or a machine didn’t work, someone said, “It won’t fit.”
Knut spared time to teach three sisters the intricacies of his experience on the gaming console. They were the sisters who came closest to beating him. Although, none of them ever proved successful.
In the middle of Knut’s morning presentation, Fatima, the other two sisters, and Knut heard a shuttleport announcement. A carrier had exited the wormhole from Beta One.
As the foursome dressed in the engineering bay with the help of techs, Fatima sent,
Soon, the foursome were crossing the launch pad and entering their travelers.
Knut linked the sisters through the ships’ controllers.
When Knut didn’t reply, Fatima had an inkling that Knut didn’t agree with them, and she thought to consider other likely scenarios. It struck her that her sisters and she had patterned their analysis on what had been accomplished on Beta Two. The supposition was that Miriamal and her sisters were running similar operations. That assumption should be valid, but it occurred to her this was the point where a human and three sentient entities diverged.
Fatima connected the foursome to the shuttleport antenna to track the carrier. By the time the antenna had detected the carrier, the ship had transited.
Knut and the sisters were only aboard their travelers a few minutes when the carrier exited transit below Beta Two’s ecliptic space.
The satellites orbiting the planet relayed imagery to the shuttleport.
The carrier quickly approached the planet, orbited it, and came to station high above the domes. Moments later, three travelers launched from the ship.
The sisters in traveler two appealed privately to Fatima.
In turn, Fatima replied,
Knut continued to follow the descending travelers through the shuttle antenna. He instructed the sisters in traveler two to follow his lead. First and foremost, they were to continue to keep their travelers off-line until he signaled. Knut’s hope was that, if the descending travelers were attacking, which it appeared they were, then they’d be lulled into a false sense of security by noting the travelers were inactive.
Before the sisters in traveler two could respond, they received Knut’s urgent message,
The controllers of two planet-bound travelers came online, linked with each other, and responded to the signals to launch.
Traveler two flew on the port side of traveler one. The ships headed directly for the three fighters dropping planetside.
Knut drew a maneuver in his implant, and he shared it with the sisters. Then he marked a distance from the lead attack ship.
The distance between attackers and defenders closed until the range was a mere thirty kilometers away, which was still outside the beam’s capabilities. Then the defenders split and spiraled.
Knut had his fighters target the attackers’ wing-positioned ships.
The fighter, which was traveler two’s target, dropped out of formation in time to evade the beam aimed its way.
Knut’s target did the same, but his attack on the wing ship was a feint. Instead, he spun his traveler ninety degrees to port and fired at the center attacker as he passed. The fighter was swiftly destroyed.
Knut and his wing were headed for the stars. As expected, he watched the attackers reverse course and come after them.
