Burnt ice, p.32
Burnt Ice, page 32
part #1 of A Fury of Aces Series
‘It is a figure of speech, Glint. It means that you are in a state of dilemma.’
‘You humans are just too weird with your speech. Yes, we are in a dilemma. We don’t know how to get to the crew or the AI.’
‘Glint, I hope that one day when Marko decides to take a few journeys with me, you will come along!’ said Rick. ‘I have a solution. Stand off the wreck. I am going to cut it into pieces, to isolate the AI and cryo units.’
Jan moved the lifter until they were five hundred metres away. Stephine’s ship was opposite the lifter as four large cones of laser beams flashed onto the wreck. A fraction of a second later, as soon as the air inside the cones had become ionised, particle beams were fired from Rick3, who was still two hundred kilometres above them. As they watched, the beams slowly started at the outsides of the wreck’s hull, generating great plumes of superheated steam and vaporised material as they cut their way to the centre of the semi-submerged hull, finally intersecting. Within a few minutes the entire rear section of the wreck shuddered and slipped away over the side of the underwater cliff face, disappearing into the depths, creating a great boiling mass of dust and mud. The cut segment of the wreck settled a little further then stopped moving.
‘OK, that’s impressive. But what now, Rick? There are even more scavengers and hunters arriving to join the feast of bits, now that you’ve sliced and cooked a few hundred more.’
‘Yes. Now you shall see something I rather like. I am extending a lifting hawser down to the wreck. It will be with you in two hours. So relax and watch the fun. Fritz, you claim that the crew is already dead. Are you able to verify that yet?’
‘No,’ said Fritz. ‘But I think that their deaths have something to do with the AI being in a state of gibberish. Consider that they have been in this system for nine years standard. OK, the only way any of them could back up their Soul Savers would be to do normal uploads to the ship’s computers and AIs. Now, here is the kicker. Why did they construct another special AI to look out for anything in orbit? Any normal configuration AI could do that easily.’
“That is strange,’ said Veg.
‘Strange, all right,’ said Fritz. ‘Looking at how those bloody eels went after us, I think the ship was probably invaded early on after they crashed. They rigged up a series of freezing plates and surrounded themselves with ice — a smart idea as it would be forever replenishing itself. That would explain why so much of the hull is frozen, and that it’s centred on the cryo units. Problem is, there is no clear space around the cryo suite. All our gear shows it as solid. And I mean solid. There are no gas cavities in the cryo units, so they are frozen solid, right through. And there is no way I know of that ordinary ice temperatures can support a person in cryo., It’s too warm. It also means that each unit has been breached.’
‘Breached? Oh no.’ said Stephine.
‘I think.’ said Fritz, ‘they lost the computers and the ship’s AI. And I think that they knew they wouldn’t make it out, so they individually gave up a big Soul Save per person into the special AI. That, boys and girls, is a lot of data. Stephine told me that there were twelve other crew. They’d been away from their base two years before coming here. That AI’s gibberish is twelve souls and all their information trying to make contact to upload, all at once — and they’re caught in a loop because they can’t hear each other, and are all being fed the information that someone is here. Something that I would consider a really true hell.’
There was a long silence as everyone considered Fritz’s theory, then Rick spoke.
‘This is why you’re a genius, Fritz — even by today’s standards. OK, so how the hell do we separate twelve life streams, and the AIs as well? Fourteen life streams all welded together. That calls for a special AI to be built expressly for the task of separating and restoring each. I have started construction of it. I am going to sever out the housings of the ship’s computers and primary AI.’
Three cone lasers, working in a staggered line, stabbed again into the wreck, scribing a ten-metre-diameter circle with a five-hundred-millimetre gap all the way around it. As soon as the lasers shut off, the plug of material subsided a little into the wreck.
‘Veg, Jan, go grab that for me please. If I have done it right it should remain intact.’
Flying the lifter in the steadily increasing winds and obscuring spray required Jan’s full attention. In the others’ screens the weapon capability and loadouts came up with instructions from Rick of their individual arcs. Their weapons-control joysticks folded out of the consoles and presented themselves. They could feel the weapons cupolas being deployed from the carapace hull of the lifter. Seconds later the images from the cameras on their individual weapons came up on their screens. Marko could hear Fritz complaining of having to man a launcher. He also heard Glint chortling with delight over his assigned weapon. The three humans had rotary cannons, but Glint, who was obviously Rick’s favourite, had a 100mm snub-barrelled grenade launcher with a high rate of fire.
‘Jan, you fly. The rest of you fight, if necessary. Stephine, I am linking you in to control the lifting claws. Soon as the plug is clear, I want you to climb straight up, Jan. I’ve sent down a recovery unit to relieve you of the piece at altitude, because I’ll need you back down at the wreck when the hawser arrives,’ Rick said.
Behind and below the cockpit, the four jointed arms with claw units unfolded, then moved around, as Stephine took them through their extensions and capabilities, getting used to how they operated and felt.
Jan flew the lifter over the nose of the wreck, moving past the severed piece, and spun the machine hard, dropping quickly as Stephine reached down with the claws to grasp it. As soon as they touched the wreck the water boiled with activity. All the creatures lifted themselves up, seeking anything edible on the lifter.
A writhing mass of sea animals began climbing over each other in the rush to get at them. Marko instinctively started firing as soon as they got within twenty metres of the craft, slaughtering great numbers with the 30mm rotary cannon, raking it backwards and forwards through his assigned arcs, not concentrating on any one target. He could also feel thumps above them. Nightmarish creatures launched themselves onto the top casing of the lifter, most sliding off to crash back onto the wreck or into the sea, some with bullet holes torn through them.
Fritz and Veg were also firing continuously. Glint was cheerfully launching short-fused grenades to burst among the mass of advancing creatures. Jan kept feeding maximum power into the thrusters and AG units, struggling to keep the machine on position, as Stephine reached in and locked onto the plug of wreck.
‘Climb, Jan! I’ve got it.’
Looking down at the claws grasping the piece of wreck, Glint could see hundreds of sea denizens threading around it, trying to hold it down. Being hard-linked into the weapons board through one of his fingers, he instantly selected the fuse settings and fired dozens of grenades around and below the piece. Each detonated in a spiral, shredding the attacking creatures and releasing the piece. As they rose steadily higher, the fire from the guns and grenade launcher switched from mass killing to shooting individual creatures trying to batter their way into the lifter, swinging off the landing gear.
‘Hold steady, Jan. We have a few still trying to force entry into the top of the hull.’
Climbing to the designated altitude, Jan held station as they took stock, checking the machine for any serious damage, then in turn grabbing a quick visit to the toilet before a hot drink and a package of sandwiches each. Marko watched the larger moon appearing to rise up out of the sea, bathing the scene below in reddish light.
‘This is Longbow. We have a confirmation of what is about to wreck this system, people. The combined astronomicals and gravitational sensors have located a very fast-moving neutron star. It’s a wanderer, but its speed is nothing short of remarkable. The mass is four times that of the local star, so even if it flies right through without hitting anything, this system is going to be ripped to pieces. Rick has brought forward our departure time by another twelve hours. Within ten hours we have to be gone.’
‘So how are things going on the moon, Rick?’
‘Proceeding at pace, Michael. We should be able to retrieve the core without too many difficulties.’
*
Harry listened to the exchanges of his friends on the planet below, smiled to himself as he luxuriated in blissful suspension in the gel tank.
‘It must be an interesting feeling to be rejuvenated, Harry.’
‘Yeah, Flint. This is something I really look forward to whenever I get to see Rick. One of the benefits of having once been a crew member for this being. Now, when we get back, the crew will comment on how much smoother my skin looks. You just have to say that Rick gave me a course of the latest cosmetic skin treatment, but that it is only temporary, which, as far as my skin is concerned, is correct. Actually it is, but for the rest of me the treatment is engineered to be considerably more effective. Pity that it cannot be released to everyone, but the Haulers maintain their secrets, as do we who crew for them.’
Looking at the screens around the tank, Harry and Flint watched the action on the planet, and the two other segments of Rick, which were holding station and rotating around the fixed point that was the library cache. Lasers many times greater in size and power than the ones used on the Gjomvik wreck were vaporising a metre-wide hole hundreds of metres deep, cutting a cone of material straight out of the moon with the cache at its centre. The power of the lasers was such that the material explosively vaporised, generating two constantly moving plumes of dust, which slowly drifted away in the tenuous atmosphere of the moon. Harry looked to another screen, which showed one of the many smaller engineering ships that Rick had deployed to gather any discoveries located by Basalt’s intel drone.
‘There’s some intriguing tech here, Harry.’ Rick said. ‘I’m analysing everything of interest. There were three distinctive races in this system, apparently. From what I can see, they existed in harmony. Well, at least not in a state of war. Then everything was abandoned — a different type of harmony? I managed to recover the desiccated remains of some of them from a crashed shuttle-type ship, not far from one of their bases. Everywhere I go, Harry, I see stories frozen in time. Sentience is tenacious, is it not? But it doesn’t take the time to record everything it has done! Sadly, we just can’t hear how the story played out by finding bones and broken equipment. I very much wish I had more time. Do you think Marko and Glint will join me one day?’
‘Sure of it, Rick. You seriously rattled his cage, though! And in answer to your unspoken question, once I have sorted Fritz, which should only take a few more years, the family and I will rejoin you.’
‘Good! I shall look forward to it. That’s a nice little comms unit you have. My compliments to Fritz. He really is an experiment that worked out rather well. I suppose he still thinks he’s the only sane one of his kind?’
‘Yeah, he does. You were right about music being the key to his existence. Lives, eats and breathes the stuff. Now, old friend, what can you tell me about Stephine and Veg?’
‘Ah, yes. The remarkable couple. Utterly bonded to each other and bound so that they cannot exist apart for long. I think that the best thing that I can say to you about them is that they are very, very good friends to all of us. But whatever you do, don’t piss them off.’
‘Hey! So that’s all you’ll tell me about them?’
‘Yes, Harry. Sometimes the best things are old, secret truths. All the sweeter when such is finally revealed.’
‘Same old Rick!’
*
Four
A disc-shaped platform slid down beside, then underneath them, with a hatchway folding open like a large multi-petalled flower.
‘Jan, hold steady right where you are. Veg, I have indicated in your display where the computers and AI are — or, where their remains are, logically. It looks to me as if all those areas have been burrowed into. Just slice away the excess,’ Rick said.
Veg used the waldos to rotate the forty-metre-long cylindrical piece, powered up the engineering lasers and, after checking that his firing lines were clear, spent ten minutes slicing away anything surplus, carefully juggling the piece between the claws, until left with a seven-metre-diameter armoured ball. Rick was right. Something had managed to burrow into the ball, although Veg thought the invaders must have been smaller creatures because the holes were not that big.
‘Think I’m done.’
‘Good. Just hold it out; let it go when the recovery unit takes it.’
Veg extended the ball as far down as the arms would allow as the disc flew further beneath them, then rose until the ball was almost inside the hatch. The petals then grasped the ball as Veg let it go. As the craft slid out from under them and began climbing straight up on AG, the petals folded over the ball, pushing it down inside the craft.
‘The hawsers are here, Marko. Hey, look at the ends! Now that is amazing.’
‘Yeah, that’s nice tech, Fritz.’
They watched the carbon nanotube ropes slide down to the wreck, their ends splitting, then splitting again. As the dozens of long, finger-like pieces of rope touched the target piece of the wreck, they seemed to come alive. They twisted and groped down into the wreckage, looking for holding points. Marko ramped up the magnification on the visual feeds. Jan flew them closer to see how the ropes, once they had found a solid piece, were knotting themselves onto it then locking. Within twenty minutes the line went taut, as the whole piece of wreckage ascended skywards.
‘Boss. Is Rick winching it up, or what?’
‘No, Jan. He’s just climbing away, towing it.’
Rick spoke over the comms link. ‘OK, people. Now that we are ascending, I want you to cut away anything not cryo chamber, the AI, or the power sources for both. Oh, and please don’t cut through my ropes, OK? They’ll rotate out of the way as you cut the excess.’
‘Suggest that you come alongside, Stephine. Hold station and we’ll circle the wreckage,’ said Veg.
‘On my way. I’ve picked up Basalt’s original intel drone. Good unit, free of contamination and in good order, no doubt due to the fact that its three little maintenance drones are still with it. Should be able to upgrade its data systems and put it back to work.’
Jan flew the lifter slowly around the large cylinder — which consisted of decks, machine spaces, generators, spare AG units and empty fuel tanks — that was climbing into the emerging dawn. As Marko and Fritz identified the parts they did not want, Veg and Stephine carefully lasered them away, letting them fall back into the sea. They worked down through the layers of unwanted decks, walls, floors and equipment, eels and other fish-type creatures flopping out of holes and crevices. Marko dearly wanted to have a few drones to sample the bounty of life, but was too busy to gather any of it — much to his chagrin. By the time they had risen above the bulk of the planet’s atmosphere all that was left was a solid piece of ice encasing a 25-metre-wide ball of the cryo unit, the still gibbering AI and a large, portable fusion reactor power plant.
‘I think we now have confirmation that Fritz is right.’
Veg linked them all into an image of a human skull, with part of its spine still encased in the ice.
‘The external acoustic meatus appears to have been considerably enlarged. Looks like something has chewed its way inside the head of this person.’
‘That is just nasty, Jan.’
‘Not able to confirm until I get a close look, Veg.’
‘You could have just called it an ear hole, Jan,’ Fritz complained.
‘Yes, Fritz, but we are here to educate you every day!’
‘Time to dock people. Veg, you and Stephine are cleared to dock here and undergo surface decontamination. I’m beginning to gather everything to me.’
Marko hunted through the external visual feeds until he located Rick, and the small Basalt beside him. He could also see the three enormous water-processing ships slowly locking back into Rick’s hull. From every direction, smaller ships were converging, flying into the cavernous hangar decks of the giant ship, some towing objects, while others had grasped them, and the even bigger pieces of technology were being pushed by the tugs.
‘Hey, Rick. You didn’t encounter any problems with the urchins?’
‘No, they were the very least of my concerns. I simply shotgunned hundreds of packets of antimatter in all directions. Kept the little critters very busy, Marko. Jan, I have control of the lifter. Sit back and enjoy the ride.’
Jan visibly relaxed. She climbed out of her flight pod, stretched, walked back, gave Marko a quick kiss, then headed aft. Thirty minutes later she returned, looking totally refreshed, and carrying drinks and packages of Marko’s chocolate-chip biscuits. After passing round the drinks and cookies, she looked out at the looming bulk of Rick.
‘Pity you guys don’t have the time. Rick’s shower units are just the nicest I have used! Really, I’m serious. We should have those over on Basalt.’
‘They have plenty of time, Jan,’ Rick said. ‘All the time that they need, in fact. Once you are on board I shall establish an airlock between the lifter and Basalt. In fact, how about you take the Pincer with you to Basalt? Consider it a gift from a doting uncle! You can just attach it to your outer hull as I see that you would not be able to hangar it.’
‘That is an extraordinary gift, Rick! Not sure how we could repay you.’
‘It is a gift, Michael. No repayment of any sort required.’
‘Our thanks. We accept.’
Marko looked around the Pincer’s cockpit and smiled and nodded, thinking that he would enjoy the craft. He caught Jan’s eye. She winked at him.
‘Veg? You want to go check out the shower?’
‘Don’t mind if I do. Thanks, Marko.’
Marko was watching the recovered cryo unit. The ropes had let it go. A group of drones flew a large, opaque envelope over it, activated a seal, then inflated it. They pushed it up and over the edge of Rick. Try as he might, Marko could not find any visual feeds to show him what happened to it. Looking back at the ropes, he found they had formed back into themselves as the mass clumped together, disappearing into Rick’s outer hull. The lifter entered a featureless cavity, with the rear camera showing a rapidly closing door. High-pressure jets began spraying greenish fluid over the craft, covering every part of the exposed surface. A second, milky fluid was then sprayed over them, followed by what Marko assumed was water. The rear door irised open and the fluid vaporised and was released into space. The door closed again as Rick spoke.
