Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga Page 9

  “Stu is keeping me up-to-date,” Echo answered. “By the way, we also have orders to stop her from destroying Earth.”

  ***

  “Barcus, do you remember the conversation we had about the status panel and all its green lights on the Sedna? How its status display was hacked with an old-school log loop and not real?” Wex asked, out of the blue.

  “Sure, you wanted to be able to help on the bridge so we could...give rest…” Barcus faded off. “We haven't had that conversation...yet?”

  “Breathe,” Wex said, as he clasped the sides of his head.

  “What is happening to me?”

  He doubled over, as if in pain. Po rushed to him.

  “No...”

  Barcus gasped when he looked into Po's eyes.

  “No...” He took her by the shoulders. “What did you do?”

  He glared at Wex.

  “Things will remind you. Or pre-mind you,” Wex said. “Just as you can focus on events of the past and remember them, if you will begin to focus on the future...” Wex said.

  “I'll pre-member?” Barcus asked. He looked at Wex and then to the circle of sofas.

  “Iosin will explain it, in detail. Here,” Wex said.

  He fell to his knees under the weight of it.

  “It will be alright.” Po reassured him. She put her arms around his neck and straddled him in a full body hug, like a child. “We will get through it, together.”

  He brushed her hair from her face. He saw far more than she knew.

  “We will.” Barcus choked out. He looked to Wex, who was already nodding her head. “They'll blame me, for all of it.”

  “And even that will save billions of lives in the horror of the aftermath,” Wex said.

  “I will have to lie to them all,” Barcus said.

  “But not to her. She will lie to you, though, and break promises,” Wex said, as if Po wasn’t there.

  She paused. “To save them all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Seed Ship

  “All that we knew regarding the truth of the seed ship, the Iosin, was destroyed on December 22, 2631. It was contained in the main computer AI on a secret research base. That base was on Rhea, a moon of Saturn. We did not even find records of that base. There was only the word of a single survivor that did not come forward for over twenty years.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.

  <<<>>>

  Barcus collapsed back onto one of the command sofas. Po helped him through an internal crisis in ways she didn't understand. He held her gaze as well as her face. Their noses were only a hand’s span apart. She saw his intense focus on her as he spoke to Wex.

  “Is it true? What I see?” he asked.

  “It is what will happen before you. It remains to be seen if it is the truth,” Wex said, as she casually circled to the command area.

  “I will not curse you through eternity,” he whispered to Po. “But you will pound my chest a time or two.”

  “The two of you must remember this most of all.”

  She stopped circling, for emphasis.

  “You cannot tell them. Not even a hint. Not for proof, or pride, or to save their lives, because nothing can do that.”

  That was when Barcus looked at Wex. He knew what she was going to do, all from a single glance. All her lies revealed.

  “I see now.” He pre-membered.

  Po spoke into his ear as he studied Wex more carefully. “What is the long white?”

  “Every now and then it’s like fog ahead on the road. Hiding what’s beyond. It’s like sleep. It’s sanity. It's a lie,” he said to Wex.

  Barcus turned back to Po. “Promise you will never speak of it again, even if it is mentioned in your presence.”

  “I promise,” she said, instantly.

  “Let's get moving. You have got to see this,” he said.

  Barcus lifted Po to her feet quickly. They all walked toward the lift with purpose.

  ***

  Worthington, Cook, Kuss, and Hume stood around a large hole in the dock’s flight deck, where a service plate had been removed.

  “It's a good damn thing you didn't try that crazy maneuver with the Memphis in this condition,” Hagan said, as he climbed out of the access hatch near the center of the engineering section.

  “Six of the central keel beams are broken. Not cracked, not bent, broken.”

  Hagan took a long pull of water from a bottle Kuss handed him.

  “I have never seen a ship this damaged still fly. The debris impact that tore through here must have cracked the beams, and it looks like stress on all the landing struts broke all but two of them.” Richard Cook shook his head, remembering the feel of the first emergency landing.

  The scan of the damaged infrastructure came up as a giant display in their HUDs.

  “If I had tried the lateral cartwheel to get through that hole in the sensor web, the entire ship would have just folded and then broken up.”

  Cook shook his head.

  “So, we fucked then. No Memphis. It now just power plant for base and shitty bunks,” Kuss said, growing mad.

  “I didn't say that.” Hagan got to his feet.

  “It depends on what else needs repairs. We have a fabricator. It would take time; but we could sister the breaks, and it would work. It's never going to fly FTL again, but it would be OK between the moon and Baytirus and even in the entire solar system.”

  “The Sedna is our best bet for getting back to Earth in one piece,” Hagan said, wiping his hands off on his too baggy overalls.

  Worthington added, “The Sedna might be better for other reasons as well.” Jim looked out the cargo ramp at the Sedna.

  “No one is looking for the Sedna. The Memphis, on the other hand, is expected.”

  He looked at them, until they understood.

  “Expected by the people that destroyed the Ventura.”

  This comment killed all conversation.

  “Any word from Barcus, Captain?” Kuss asked. She was unusually formal.

  “None.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Stu has been off-line the last twenty-four hours as well.”

  The group followed him down the ramp toward the Sedna.

  “He has two more days.”

  None of them noticed Cine or Jude in the shadows of the ramp, listening.

  ***

  The lift took them all back to the flight deck where the STU was parked. As they entered the command deck, the canopy was already 'open' and Stu's avatar stood, looking out over the giant hangar.

  “Lady Wex,” Stu asked in a very formal, polite way, “how did the Iosin come by all these ships?”

  Stu looked over his shoulder to her, as he continued.

  “I count 112, just in my field of view here. I only recognize a few makes and models. And, this is just one hangar of many.”

  Wex stood and looked, toward Stu, out over the hangar.

  “Some were collected as abandoned, some were purchased, some came here with violence and pillage intent. Most, actually. Only a few were rescues. Not many. The Iosin was not in that business.”

  “Barcus, what's wrong?” Po asked him.

  She felt him tense again, in realization of something.

  He looked at Wex again, as he spoke to Po. “It's the Iosin. The ship. It has an AI. It is an AI. But I am not sure artificial is the word I would use. It's an intelligence. More like a being than a computer, even an advanced one.”

  “It doesn't even know we are here. Rather, it doesn't care,” Wex said, casually.

  “Doesn't mind may be a better way to put it,” Stu said, “If it did mind, we'd discover those spiders do more than just maintenance around here.”

  Stu gestured with his chin. The floor of the hangar, far below, was covered with thousands of cat-sized, unmoving, identical spiders.

  “Close it up, Stu. We are taking a tour,” Barcus said.

 
He sat in the pilot’s seat but didn't buckle in. It was the first time Po had ever seen Barcus be so casual about it. The STU was aloft even before the ramp closed and moved toward the ceiling. The vast hangar had a giant door that slid aside. Blue sky and bright sunlight was seen beyond.

  The door was only about ten percent open when the STU flew through it into the sunlight.

  “How is this possible?” Po gasped. They flew over water. Behind them, the opening closed and became sky once again.

  “This is all inside the ship?”

  “Yes,” Stu replied, directly.

  They flew, in silence, toward the horizon. Po slowly settled into the co-pilot’s seat, as land was spotted in the distance.

  “Stu, give me a tactical,” Po said, slowly, incredulously.

  The display came up, and they were inside the great ring of the ship. Their vista was 101 km wide and 10,900 km in circumference.

  “The horizon seems much farther away than is possible. And down is toward that globe in the center of the ring.”

  Po was amazed.

  Barcus was silent and looked like he was visiting home.

  “Above, and all around, is just like the canopy in here,” Wex said, as they flew over the rocky cliffs of the shore.

  Mountains, with dense forest and rivers, filled the land below. Mountains became foothills and the river, planes. Wildlife was rich, and the plants all flourished.

  The climates changed as they flew hundreds of kilometers. In some places it rained, and in others it was arid. It was a perfect, closed ecosystem.

  “Stu, please find a space where we can set down for a meal,” Barcus said, and stood.

  He watched rivers and lakes roll beneath them in the green.

  Stu found a beautiful spot where small goats were trimming the lawn, like feral lawn mowers, next to a large, freshwater lake. They carried food and drink out to a stone outcropping that made a perfect bench, overlooking the lake.

  “This seed ship is how Baytirus was terraformed,” Barcus said. It was a statement. “The trees, the animals, even the bees.”

  “Yes,” Wex said, as she took a bite of a simple ham and cheese sandwich.

  “What was there, before? What if they can't live together? Foxes and chickens,” Po asked.

  “The planet is typically reset,” Wex said, absently.

  “Reset? How?” Po asked.

  “It's easier than one can imagine. Just draw down an asteroid with enough inertia and it is reset. Not enough to displace the atmosphere mind you, but enough to kill off all the dominant species. Then, you seed it with the right plants and animals. If you can, stand there and see the results, before your first action; it's very easy.”

  “You are gardeners. Scarecrows. Watching over them. Seeding them and watching them grow. Knowing how they turn out even as you begin?” Po asked, “Why?”

  Wex looked at Barcus and then over the lake, without answering for a full minute. “If you were immortal, what would you do?”

  ***

  “Jimbo, I have no idea how this ship, these reactors, this whole thing is still here,” Hagan said to Jimbo, in his private office on the Memphis. He tossed three devices onto his desk as if they were dead rats.

  “What are these? They look like control system relays,” Worthington said, while picking one up. “But isn't this a wireless module, in addition to the hard line interfaces?”

  “I never would have noticed them had I not been down there looking at the infrastructure damage,” Hagan said.

  He let the next natural question form in Worthington’s head. It would save explaining it.

  “What is this wireless interface keyed to?” Jimbo’s eyebrow went up.

  “It was set for dedicated encrypted comms with Mia, the Memphis’s AI.”

  Hagan leaned over and picked one up.

  “An instruction set was on the chip. Overload and suppress the ejection of the core.”

  “Dammit. This just gets better and better. Mia could have sent it a command sequence and not even know what would happen?”

  Jimbo stood and paced behind his deck, even though there was only three meters to do it.

  “Jimbo, if that first massive chunk of debris had not taken out Mia…”

  He left the statement hanging.

  “We may have been dead anyway.”

  “Have you discussed this with Ben?”

  Jimbo sat.

  “Yes. I had to. He discovered the hardware-based code instructions,” Hagan said.

  “Ben, tell him your theory.”

  Ben's avatar appeared in the second chair before he spoke.

  “If Mia had not been destroyed, we would have headed straight back for Earth. It is likely that we would have encountered another large survey ship or carrier on the way; and, as a good Captain, you would have requested assistance and brought the Memphis aboard.”

  Ben paused.

  “It's speculation, but if their goal was mayhem, they could have detonated the ship inside another, or even docked to Freedom Station, or on the tarmac of the Sri Lanka spaceport.”

  “And blame you,” Hagan added.

  “Wes, the Memphis was just swapped out six months ago. The drop ship and now this?”

  Worthington brought up the schematic of the Memphis.

  “I have the whole team going over it with a fine-tooth comb. I should get back.”

  Hagan stood just as Worthington’s comms unit chimed.

  “Jimbo, Barcus just checked in. He's on his way back,” Karen Beary said. “ETA is about four hours.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Memphis Repairs

  “When they began to look more closely at the Memphis, a bigger picture started to form. They were more than just lucky to have survived up to that point.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.

  <<<>>>

  The STU came into the main hangar. All work stopped, and the hangar pressure cycled so they could come in. The whole process took about thirty minutes. Without orders, everyone took advantage of the time to take a shower or get a quick meal.

  By the time it was re-pressurized, Hagan and Worthington were walking across the vast floor to the STU as the ramp slowly lowered. There were nine pallets of what looked like light gray bricks in Stu's cargo hold. Each pallet was about two meters on a side. Barcus picked up one of the bricks as he walked by.

  Descending the ramp, he tossed it to Hagan. He almost didn't catch the brick, fumbling it. He had expected it to be much heavier. Even in the low gravity, it felt unnaturally light but hard at the same time.

  “What is it?” He turned it over in his hands a few times, then tossed it to Jimbo.

  Worthington caught it in one hand, easily. Before he could say anything it deployed eight legs and a couple arms and started to look around from obvious eye stalk cameras.

  “This looks like one of the maintenance-bots. I've never seen one quite like this,” Worthington said. He then looked into the hold of the ship. There were thousands of them on the pallets.

  “Toss it here.”

  Barcus held out a hand, and Jimbo tossed it. Instead of catching it, Barcus sidestepped and let it fall to the floor. It didn't just fall. It decelerated and landed perfectly.

  “Don't units like this need an AI to drive them?” Hagan asked.

  “Not these kind. They work together with a kind of hive mentality,” Wex said. “They can be guided by an AI, or by people with verbal commands, or can just be left to their own volition, working together or independently. They fight entropy.”

  “Fight entropy?” Jimbo asked.

  “They fix things. It's what they do.” Po smiled.

  “Watch this. Pallet one, activate.”

  The perfectly stacked, two meter cube of bricks dissolved and expanded into a nightmarish swarm of gray spiders. They boiled out of the cargo bay, moving around Wex, Barcus, and
Po, out into the hangar. Their feet clicked quietly on the floor; and together it made a white noise, until they stopped in ranks, a formation, on the vast floor.

  “You better tell the crew, so they don't freak the hell out,” Hagan said, as he looked back into the cargo hold at the other eight pallets.

  “What can they do?” Jimbo asked, a bit uncertain still.

  “Everything, if they have the time,” Wex said.

  “Are you cool with this?” Worthington’s question was directed at Hagan.

  “I have a couple of maintenance droids on the drop ship that were obviously based on this design. They do require Echo to drive them. If these little guys can make coffee as well, I'm totally cool with them. Besides, what the hell?” He looked at Barcus for confirmation.

  “What the hell. Try them anyway,” Barcus answered. Then added, “Look, I need some soup and then to lie down, for about twelve hours.”

  “All hands report to the hangar deck,” Worthington said, over the HUD comms. “Ben, have you been monitoring this?”

  Ben's avatar walked from between the pallets.

  “Yes, sir. I already have a secure protocol handshake request from the first unit you activated. Shall I accept?”

  Jimbo looked at Barcus and Hagan. They were both nodding yes.

  “Why not? Do it. We are already so far beyond specs here, I don't even know.” Jimbo tossed his hands in the air.

  “Sir, this is interesting,” AI~Ben said. “They use the same communications method as the Briggs, Udvar, Green surveillance BUGs.” Ben was the Artificial Intelligence unit that was salvaged from the Emergency Module on the Memphis. He was installed to replace AI~Mia, the Memphis AI.

  “I'm starting to get a picture here,” Worthington said, as he looked at Ben.

  ***

  The team took the gray spiders in stride. Just another new tool. They decided to simply call them grays. By the time Barcus awoke, all nine pallets had been activated. A total of 3,600 grays in all. Barcus had no idea where they all went. He saw a few combing over the outsides of the Memphis, the Sedna, and even the STU.