I was really influenced by Doctor Who and wanted to make a sci-fi story in that kind of vein. Unfortunately, I'm still relatively new to writing, so I thought I would post my work so far here to see for feedback.
I hope to continue adding to it daily until the 25th of January, and then I'm going to see where I stand with it.
The premise is that there is a group of people, called the Oalri, that have the ability to travel to other universes, and that the agents they send into the other universes, the Harkers, are used to infiltrate and influence the cultures they find there.
Thanks for your time,
Crom
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Gerald Underhill walked out onto the Mass Transit Guild train with the crowd. He wore a dark gray coat, a white shirt, matching pants, and dark dress shoes. His hair was a deep brown, curly, and just on verge of being unruly. He sat down in an open seat and quietly waited as the train slid silently down the tracks. He watched the crowd, his eyes gently moving from person to person, watching them for a movement, and then moving on.
Three stops later he got off at Mainland and walked down the stairs from the station to the street and walked into a small independently own coffee shop. There was a man already waiting for him as he walked in, he knew him instantly, he knew him before he walked into the coffee shop. He knew how many Oalri were on the planet all the time. He walked over and sat down across from the man in his small booth.
He was an older man, with sandy blond hair, he, too, wore a nondescript gray jacket, lighter than Gerald's, and white dress shirt. He smiled at Gerald as he came in, like they were old friends, and took a sip from his tea which was in a white coffee cup.
“Underhill,” he said, “good of you to make it.” He smiled again, flashing a warm smile. Gerald did not smile.
“Why are you here, Quick?” he asked, sitting back in his seat, resting an arm along the top, “I've got another two years here at least before I'm swapped out.”
“Sorry, Underhill,” Jackson Quick said, still smiling though Underhill sensed something in his voice and glanced around. “But you're tour here has been cut short.”
“No,” Underhill said, “I'm making progress. Tell the Bureau that I'm very close.” Jackson Quick shook his had and chuckled a little.
“You never seem younger when you get idealistic,” said Jackson Quick, “it does not work that way. The Bureau says go and now we go.” Gerald Underhill leaned in towards Jackson.
“What is the Bureau planning?” he asked quietly. Jackson Quick considered him from behind his smile. Gerald's eyes were very intense, Jackson Quick put a hand to his chin and debated what to tell the fellow Harker.
“They are throwing their support behind the Wraiths,” he said quietly, looking away. Gerald's fist hit the table.
“No,” he said simply, but he was shaking so slightly. “I won't let you do this to her.” Jackson reached over and grabbed Gerald's hand firmly.
“Listen to me very carefully,” he hissed, “if you keep talking like that you're going to get into trouble. I understand you got attached to things here but this is how the Bureau decided to play it and you're not going to do anything stupid, do you hear me?”
“What are they going to help the Wraiths do?” Gerald said, as if he had not heard Jackson's warning. Jackson glanced away again.
“They've already given the Wraiths several key encryptions that the Empire here uses,” he said softly, “they'll probably have already captured the heir during her tour of the Fourth Star Fortress.” Underhill looked down at the table, still shaking. Then he took a slow breath and looked up at Jackson Quick.
“Where do I go?” he asked softly. Jackson Quick let out a small breath, he was afraid he was going to have to restrain the young Harker.
“There's a ship waiting for you outside Waterfield Park,” he said, “from there you're being sent back home.” He stopped and look at the distraught young man. “Look, you just have to learn,” he attempted, “there will be other people. This is your first assignment, it's always the roughest. It will get easier.” He stood up and left a few bills on the table, “Just go back home and take a vacation for a while, the Bureau will let you.”
He walked out of the coffee shop leaving Gerald. Gerald looked down at the table and watched as a single tear fell from the tip of his nose and landed on the table. He took a breath. Then he took another breath and stood up. He strode purposefully out of the coffee shop and then broke into a run. Along the way he activated his Network implant and accessed the local information sphere, as he ran he began using his Oalri-designed implants to start forcing through the Imperial computer systems, their crude artificial intelligences no match for his own skills and tools that he could access from the Oalri Network. Within moments a profile was already in place and orders planted with one of the orbital ship yards. He caught a cab to the nearest space port.
The cab dropped him off in the front near the mass of traffic that was continually flowing by the space port and he ran inside. He ran over to the first desk he could find and typed in his name and ID and the ticket he had specially ordered on his way over spat out of the dispenser and he turned and started running again, down the terminal. A special military orbital flier was already prepping for the secret service agent they were expecting, by the name of Gerald Underhill, on a special mission for the Emperor himself.
The orbital lifted off within moments, while Gerald went back into his cabin, the flight would only take about an hour, but he had just enough time, he hoped. He sat back in his cabin and pulled a small scarab looking object from his pocket, it was just about as big around as his palm. He pushed a small part of it and it unfolded into a multiple armed thing, different tools jutting out from every direction.
He manipulated it a few more times and with each gentle touch the thing changed shape, extending different tooled arms, until it reached a combination that satisfied him. Then he took a deep breath and raised it up to his eye as a few of the smaller arms began to light with blue sparks and hiss.
Jonathan Quick stopped packing his bags in his apartment. He looked up at the ceiling and then said, “Network Command: Locate Harker Underhill.” Silence followed. An error message appeared in his field of vision. He cursed and ran out of his apartment. A message signal symbol appeared in his field of vision as he ran he activated it with a thought.
“This is Harker Longhollow,” said Albrecht Longhollow, “I was just monitering the Local Network and I see that Harker Underhill is no longer on the Network.”
“I noticed too, I'm on it.”
“The Underwhelming Force never reported him arriving,” said Longhollow.
“I'm checking on him now,” said Quick, rounding a corner, attempting again to locate Underhill and getting the same error message, “maybe he was attacked.”
“Yeah, if we're lucky,” said Longhollow, “it's like I said, I think the boy's gone native.”
“I hope your wrong, Longhollow,” said Quick, “otherwise we're all going to be in a lot of trouble.”
The crew of the orbital found Gerald unconscious in his room, his nose bleeding. They quickly rushed him to the small medical bay and let the artificial intelligences work on him. He quickly regained consciousness, but was extremely nauseous, vomiting over and over again.
“There does not seem to be anything wrong,” reported the puzzle artificial intelligence, “perhaps we should keep him in observation.”
“I have an important mission,” said Underhill weakly, “and I have authority here, we will continue on with the mission, take me to the space docks.” One of the crew helped him back to his cabin and laid him out on the bed. They arrived shortly after that but the orbital sent ahead that he was ill so they sent a wheel chair.
He grudgingly accepted the chair, which was pushed by one of the naval crew on the dock and took him to the waiting warship, Imperial Fury, an Alexander class, nearly a two kilometers long. One of the most advanced ships of the line currently in production by the Imperial Shipyards. The Captain met him as he entered and after the formalities he requested to be taken to engineering immediately.
“I have special orders to make modifications to this warship,” he said simply, “and we must be making all best speed for the,” he paused, “for the ...” He froze. The Captain, his name was Armand Fermat, waited patiently. He was a gray haired old veteran of the Imperial Navy, having served in five separate wars, which was why he was the commander of such an important ship, the ship that the Emperor himself had made his flagship in several encounters. He was an intensely loyal individual, his three daughters all having entered the service, his wife having been killed in a Wraith raid on one of the border worlds. The kind of man who would relish hurting the Wraiths and was almost fanatically loyal to the Imperial Family. Which was why he was the Captain Underhill had chosen in the rapid planning of this fool's quest.
“For the system of Emerald,” Underhill finished suddenly, and winced. The Captain glanced at him but said nothing. “I apologize, I have some advanced implants,” Underhill explained, painfully aware of the slurring he seemed to suddenly suffering from, “in the course of my current mission I suffered and injury that is proving to be problematic.”
“I will summon the medic,” said the Captain but Underhill shook his head.
“There is very little he can do,” he said simply, “we must press on.” His voice became a little more steady. “I will be working in your engineering section, the modifications to your ship will be drastic, but it is the Emperor's will.” The Captain nodded and he was escorted immediately to the engineering section. He got up out of his chair and ordered a panel taken off near one of the ship's generators and pulled out his multi-tool, the scarab looking object. He activated his tool and went to work. The ship, though top of the line by Imperial standards, was worse than a museum piece by Oalri standards.
“What are you doing, sir?” asked one of the senior engineers, watching the man rip out sections of the wiring and rapidly altering them with the strange tool he was using.
“Special modifications to upgrade the performance of this vessel, we are now on a highly secret mission,” said Underhill, “and I need us to get there faster than expected.” The senior engineer let him get back to work.
The Captain looked up, startled, as he got the report.
“We're ready to Rotate out already?” he asked, surprised. The crewman nodded.
“The modifications to the ship that the special agent has made seemed to have incredibly sped up the charging process,” said the crewman. The Captain gave the command to Rotate Out, the process by which Imperial ships bypassed the speed of light, by “rotating” into another realm of space, and then moving through that strange space before “Rotating In” from that strange other space into the universe they knew. It was an amazing process that allowed travel to be almost instantaneous, though it actually took a few seconds, due to the fact that no Rotation was perfect. There was also the issue that no one could Rotate In before their ship Rotated Out. Some form of causality remained intact, though the Captain did not understand the entirety of the science to it and the last time someone tried to explain it to him it gave him a headache.
The ship hummed and the ship's navigation artificial intelligences gave the all clear and the Imperial Fury disappeared silently into space. The transition took a mere moment, too short to really be timed by those on board, but the jarring transition was felt deep down in their guts, and the sudden wrenching of their stomachs as they returned to “real” space. Gerald never stopped furiously working, the techs watched him literally tearing parts out of the circuitry and parts of the generators and rebuilding parts from nearly scratch with his strange tool, the speed at which he did it was amazing.
“Special Agent Underhill,” said the Captain over the com, Gerald did not look up as he heard it but did reply.
“Yes, Captain?”
“We've arrived at Emerald, there is a Wraith space fleet that is attacking it, it looks like it has fallen,” said the Captain.
“Have we been discovered yet?” asked Gerald.
“I think we've been detected,” answered the Captain, “we probably have three seconds till intercept at most.”
“Understood Captain, the modifications to your ship's systems are almost complete, please advance to the Star Fortress, we are going to attempt to locate and rescue the heir” said Gerald, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small pocket watch that he opened up, removed the face of, revealing a strange mass of circuitry within, and wired it into the mess of wires and parts he had been building. He held his breath for a second, fought the returning nausea and turned it on, hoping the power cell in his fake pocket watch would be enough for what he had planned.
The Captain watched, through his cybernetic implants, as the enemy missiles rotated in, crossing the distance of the solar system nearly instantly, the Imperial Fury's defensive barriers were raised, but something was different, one of the crewmen was already stunned at the readings, as the missiles connected with the barriers and disappeared. He turned to the crewman who shrugged, the readings from their own scopes were like that which they had never seen.
“What has he done?” the Captain asked, wonderingly.
“Maybe he had some prototype device he brought with him,” suggested Jason Shirley, his first mate, “something we were working on in secret.”
The Imperial Fury continued advancing as the Wraith fleet detached a squadron of ships to advance on them, and these ships spewing out masses of drone ships, all unleashing wave after wave of rotating missiles and particle stream weapons. Even a ship like the Fury should have crumpled under such an onslaught, but the fire power merely disappeared as it connected with the barriers. The Captain could only watch, stunned as the Fury advanced, rotating in small jumps, closer and closer to the ancient Star Fortress, the massive spherical construct built by the ancestors to the Empire thousands of years before.
“Fire at will,” ordered the Captain, almost too amazed by the effectiveness of the agent's strange modifications to say anything. The Fury unleashed her own salvo of missiles and particle stream weapons, destroying some of the smaller vessels almost immediately. Back in the engineering section Gerald watched his cobbled together creation nervously, it was a simple Oalri device he had built, but he had built it so swiftly that he worried it would burn out before they managed to reach the Star Fortress, so he kept working on it, as it started to heat up as it was forced to dis-locate more and more energy, shunting it to the Shadow Zone between universes. He paused only long enough to catch his breath and to activate the com.
“Are we almost to the Star Fortress?” he asked, praying inwardly to the Older Gods that they were.
“Yes,” said the Captain, “we are now within docking range, whatever you did to the Fury seems to be working.”
“Can you locate the heir?” Gerald asked, trying to keep his voice from straining. His knees were giving out again and he was forced to lean against the wall, the mass of wiring and circuitry he had built began to hiss and smoke. Sparks started to fly out of it. He looked at it and did not know how much longer he could keep it running.
“We've located her signal in a section of the Star Fortress, she and her bodyguards seem to be holding out for the moment,” replied the Captain.
“We have to get her out of there,” said Gerald.
“We are loading the shuttles now,” said the Captain, “the marines will be launching and flying down while we provide cover from above. How much longer can the modifications you made last?”
“As long as it takes,” mumbled Gerald but then added louder, “another thirty minutes under this kind of fire, forty at the most.” That was fairly impressive since most conflicts between the Imperials and the Wraiths were timed in the five or ten minutes.
The heir, Mercedes Yoel Soscona White Storm, heir to the Imperial Throne, leaned out of a doorway and opened fire with her stream rifle, dodging back as the return fire flared up. The four remaining bodyguards were keeping up the fire, but Ringo was wounded so badly that he could barely move, and they were running short on clips for their stream rifles, and the Wraith armored soldiers were steadily advancing on their position.
They had taken cover, once the Star Fortresses defenses had been breached, in the signal room, which tapped the mysterious workings of the heart of the Star Fortress, that beamed out information faster than the speed of light. It was the five Star Fortresses that allowed the Empire to exist, and it was the Imperial Family that could control it, hence their power. One had never fallen to the Wraiths, and yet she had lived to see it happen. Her eyes narrowed at the thought and she and her guards opened fire again at the Wraith soldiers, killing at least two before they had to take cover again.
“My Lady,” gasped one of the guards, his name was Marcus Fawkes, “an Imperial ship has arrived, they're sending in shuttles now!” Mercedes looked up, using her cybernetic implants, and confirmed indeed that the Imperial Fury was now above their position.
“We just have to hold out a little longer,” she shouted, feeling a rising hope mingle with her fury. The war with the Wraiths had raged in one form or another for her entire life, for her mother's entire life, all the way back to her grandfather.
The hatred of the Wraiths was so deeply implanted in her that she felt a small rush of joy at every one she had slain, and she had killed many, a dangerous quality to have when one was as powerful a psychic as one of the Imperial Family. She closed her eyes and cast out with her psychic senses, the gift of the Imperial Family, the strange organs built into their brains, the very reason for the Empire and the Wraiths, and felt the approaching Imperial Marines, and the closing in Wraiths. The Wraith minds felt repulsive to her, blazingly bright lights of fury and hate. They were so transparent to her in her mind's eye that she raised her rifle and fired at one with her eyes closed, catching him the chest and bowling his armored figure over before she ducked back.
A wave of exhaustion washed over her, but it was overcome by the anticipation of the approach of the Marines. The scream of stream rifles was deafening and only grew louder as the Marines took positions around the Wraith soldiers, and as they did, driving the Wraith back, the guards gathered around Mercedes and advanced out, firing at the Wraith as they retreated. Black armored marines greeted them as they swarmed around the heir and rushed her to the nearby docking shuttle which had locked onto a small port on the outside of the Star Fortress, quickly putting her in one shuttle and rushing her back to the Fury which still stood, for several minutes at least, under the full might of the Wraith armada, slowly carving its way through the millions of drone ships.
“We've got her,” said the marine commander, as they docked into the shuttle bay.
“Get us out of here,” said the Captain, “full speed out, charge up the rotating drive!”
“Rotating drive charged!” reported a helmsman.
“Activate!” commanded the Captain and the world lurched and they found themselves over the capital world. Everything was suddenly so drastically peaceful it was disorienting. Since they had come in with their barriers raised and their weapons active the defensive fleets of the capital world were already on guard about them and they had to answer the hails of the star bases and ships.
Mercedes made her way to the bridge. She was a tall woman, towering over most of the people of the crew, and wore a black armor was scuffed up and burned from more than one glancing stream shot. As she reached the bridge she saw Captain Fermat and smiled.
“Thank you Captain,” she said as he saluted her, returning the salute.
“Just doing my duty, my Lady,” he replied, “we were lucky you were alright. We are already making our way to the nearest star base to transfer you there and to the planet. What happened on the Star Fortress?”
“I don't know, somehow the Wraiths got a hold of the access codes and were on us within moments,” said Mercedes, “we barely had time to move to the place you found us by the time Wraith raiders were on us.”
“That's very disturbing, my Lady,” said the Captain, “I think that might be something for Intelligence to investigate.”
“How did you know that we were under attack? The Wraiths were jamming our transmissions from the moment they rotated in,” Mercedes asked, “and how did just one ship manage to get to the Star Fortress with a Wraith armada sitting right over it?”
“Both thanks to Special Agent Underhill,” said the Captain at the moment Gerald had made his way to the bridge. Mercedes turned to look at him. Their eyes met and hers were wide with surprise.
“Special Agent Underhill?” she asked.
“He is an Imperial Intelligence agent, he was the one who modified the Fury to be able to survive the approach to the Star Fortress,” continued the Captain though he noticed that the heir did not seem to be listening to him.
“Your majesty,” said Underhill, saluting, “Special Field Agent Gerald Underhill, at your service.” Mercedes seemed to consider him for a moment and then nodded.
“Yes, thank you Agent Underhill,” she said, “you have done the Throne a great service this day. As have you all,” she added to the Captain, “and for that you will be rewarded.” She turned back to Underhill, “I hope you will be free to accompany me to the star base so we can converse privately.”
“I am at your command, my lady,” said Gerald. She nodded and he saluted again and turned and left the bridge, as soon as he was clear he almost felt himself fall over, as relief washed over him. She was alright. She was alright, he thought, and he was grateful for that. Whatever it cost it was worth it.
The Fury docked with a star base and released its precious passenger to the star base, while Gerald disconnected his pocket watch, dismantling a few parts of the device he had built out of habit, he considered what the Bureau would do and he knew that he could not stay long.
“Fascinating,” said Mercedes from behind him. He turned to see her watching him work on the device. Her long brown hair was down and she was smiling at him and he felt one of his hearts lurch. As it always did when she smiled at him. He wanted to go to her and hold her but he turned back to the device.
“Just something I managed to cook up,” he said as she walked over and looked at it.
“You aren't a special agent,” she whispered to him.
“Check my credentials, my lady,” he whispered back, concentrating on the device, taking parts out.
“Who are you, really?” she asked and he was tempted to tell her.
“I can't go back to the capital,” he said, “not now, I need to get off this world, can you help me?”
[Sci-fi original] Multiverse Rogue
Moderator: LadyTevar
[Sci-fi original] Multiverse Rogue
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
She considered him for a moment. It always bothered him that she was taller than him, and yet he always found it charming.
“Why should I do that?” she asked.
“How about because I just saved your life, if I go back to the capital I'll probably be killed,” he said, though he dared not go further into it. If he did, she would probably be in jeopardy.
“Alright,” she said, “though you certainly seem to have the authorization to commandeer a vessel, as you've already shown.”
“I probably won't be a special agent of Intelligence for much longer,” he admitted, “that's why I need to get out of here very fast.”
“Where are you going to?”
“I think it would be safer if you didn't know.”
“Will I ever see you again?” she asked and he had been wondering that himself. With the Oalri backing the Wraiths it would not take them long to bring down the Empire, his interference would mean nothing. She would probably be captured and killed eventually, the Empire would probably fall. He could take her with him, or rather, he could offer to take her with him but he knew she would not leave. No, she was too loyal for that. He walked over to a computer terminal and began operating the keyboard. It took only a few moments for him but without his Network connection it seemed like an eternity, he had to make it extremely simple, like outlining the design of a gun to a person only familiar with spears and swords.
“Look,” he said, “I've tried to simplify this as much as possible,” he drew up the schematics quickly, “these are plans for weapons that are currently hundreds of years more advanced than what you have now. They can turn the tide of the war for you.” She looked at him in wonder as he copied it to a storage chip and handed it to her. He then waited as she ordered a special fast courier to pick him up. Within an hour he was gone from the capital and well on his way to the on the edge of the Empire, though not in a contested area, just a small colony world, practically forgotten in everything else that was going on.
The courier was a single man vessel, but he had been trained to pilot one before he entered this universe, so he handled it well, rotating in above the planet and dropping down onto the planet. He landed outside a monastery that was carved into the the red rock of a mountain, near the top. It was an impressive work of architecture. Few people even knew it existed, even on this sparsely populated world. It was a large elaborate design, with strange swirling patterns cut into the walls, with huge open chambers.
He walked in, past the strange hunched creatures in dull orange robes that wandered the halls, murmuring softly to each other. A few eyed him as he passed but they recognized him. He walked into the center of the monastery to find the largest of the strange creatures. They had long necks and four arms, and strange pointed faces, and their movements were slow, reminiscent of sloths. The largest one sat on the floor making a sand pointing, slowly constructing an elaborate pattern out of colored sands.
“I need to speak to The Dying Poll,” he said to the largest creature who looked up at him slowly and considered him with dark eyes.
“Why?” asked the creature in a deep voice.
“I've broken my Network connection and rebelled against the Bureau, and if I don't leave they'll kill me, that's why,” he snapped irritably. The creature seemed to be thinking.
“Why should we interfere?” asked the creature, turning back to his sand painting. Gerald angrily stepped forward and kicked through the sand painting, sending the colored sand sweeping aside, destroying the painting.
“Because,” he yelled, “I could have reported The Dying Poll years back, and I didn't, and I should have!” The creature considered him and he felt the anger fall away from him as he fell to his knees.
“Because I don't have anywhere else to turn, please help me,” he said wearily. The creature stared at him for a pregnant moment and then turned slowly and gestured, a passage appeared, growing out of the floor, beside the creature, opening to a staircase. Gerald got up and walked down the staircase as it wound down into the mountain until he came to a large chamber and in the center of the chamber, resting on a polished floor, was an ancient Oalri warship, The Dying Poll, a Million Class warship, built for the great Were-War eight hundred years ago.
Eight hundred meters long, a lean dark gray metal cylindrical shaped warship, it was covered with the same spiraling patterns that were carved into the monastery, designs that it had put on itself. It was kind of bumpy, the protrusions which were weapon mounts and shield generators. He walked up to the ship and the door opened and he walked aboard.
“Welcome aboard Harker Underhill,” said The Dying Poll, “I suppose you'll want to be running for your life now?”
“Are you ready to go?”
“I have been maintaining myself over the centuries,” rumbled The Dying Poll, it's voice emanating from the walls, “I will miss this place though.”
“I am sorry that I brought this on you, I just honestly have no one else to turn to.”
“Don't worry about it,” said the ship, “change happens, it's just up to me to go with the flow on this one. What a pair we make, the renegade and the deserter.” The ship almost seemed to sigh and then said, “Well, make yourself at home, I'm going to pick up my automatons and make preparations to lift off.”
“Is your universal drive still operational?”
“It should be, though to be honest I haven't warmed it up in a few hundred years,” admitted the ship, “I'll let you know if I need help.” A bright blue fish, with long flowing fins streaked with red and purple, swam up to him through the air, and led him to his rooms. They were empty, except for a bunk, the Poll probably redecorating for simplicity after building a monastery but it was enough for Gerald at the moment who laid down on the bed and let the situation sink in.
“How are you doing?” asked the ship.
“I'm alright,” he said.
“You cut your connection from the Network?”
“Yes.”
“That's rough. I remember when I did it, I thought I was going to die.”
the ship admitted, “it gets easier, but I couldn't move for days.”
“Luckily,” Gerald said, “I can move, everything just feels frustratingly slow. And I feel like I can remember things that I can't, that I'm dreaming of things that are right in front of me that I can't ever get to.”
“You could always go back,” said the ship, “they probably will just imprison you for a few decades, and remove you from the Harkers.”
“No way,” said Gerald, “I'm never going back to Quicksilver if I can help it.” The ship fell silent again and Gerald was grateful, preferring to fall asleep. He dreamed of his victims. He awoke later and checked his pocket watch, he had been asleep ffor nearly six hours, he got up and walked out to the hallways. The fish met him outside, it was a large construct, nearly as large as his head. It regarded him with its strange bulging eyes.
“We lifted off now,” said the ship through the fish, “I decided to take us as far from the volume of space occupied by the Empire and the Wraiths as we could get.” The fish twirled in the air, its fins spinning out like ribbons, “it feels good to be moving again.”
“Good,” said Gerald, “but we can't stay in this universe much longer, we need to make our way to one of the frontier universes, beyond that if we have to, somewhere they don't have their hooks into.”
“That's pretty hard to manage,” said the fish, “and that would put a strain on my systems that I'm not sure they could take, I'm a short range craft, at heart.”
“Get me down to the engine section and I'll modify your u-drive,” said Gerald, “I've got a power source with me,” he showed his watch to the fish. Who swam close to it.
“Oh, so that's what that was,” the fish said, “I noticed that when you were in orbit on your little one man ship. I destroyed that with the monastery, I hope you didn't mind.”
“No,” said Gerald, “I don't mind.” The fish led him to the engine section and he pulled out his multi-tool. He began the long extensive process of retooling the ship's ancient u-drive for a more substantial power source.
Jackson Quick sat at a table in another coffee shop. Another man entered and sat across from him, a plain nondescript man with gray hair and a gray suit jacket. He glanced around the shop while he waited for Quick to speak. Jackson kept silent for a moment, trying to get over his uneasiness, it was disorienting for an Oalri to encounter another Oalri, but not really feel them. The Network that bound them all together was something so prevalent in their society that it was hard to consider the Oalri in front of him really there. But a man like Peter Black did not exist in Oalri society and that meant he did not exist on the Network. For Jackson it was like meeting a ghost.
“I wish it did not have to come down to this,” he said to the man, the Peter Black.
“We all wish it didn't work out like this,” said Peter Black, “but he has broken with the Bureau and gone rogue, he has to be hunted down now.” Jackson nodded sadly.
“The damage he has done here, to the situation here, will take us years to sort out,” he said.
“Do you know where he has gone?” Peter Black asked.
“No clue,” said Jackson, “it took us a long time just to track his movements after he cut himself from the Network, after that we finally managed to track him to a fast courier ship but he did not log where he was going.” Peter Black nodded and stood up.
“I'll have to try tracking him from my ship then,” he said and turned to walk out. Jackson Quick watched him leave. He was faintly surprised to find out that Peter Black did exist. He thought, like everyone else, that he was a mythical figure used to scare children. Peter Jackson boarded his cloaked warship, The Grave Matters, and they lifted off silently. The Empire's technology was so far behind the Oalri's that they had to spend minimal effort to remain unnoticed, but Peter Black had them put their full efforts into remaining cloaked. The Empire and the Wraiths were so screwed over right now that he did not want to risk contributing to the Bureau's problems.
“Jackson Quick transmitted the identification codes of the courier ship that Underhill used to flee on,” said The Grave Matters, “not that it helped much. Underhill cracked the logs and erased his flight plan.”
“Well,” said Peter Black, “at least we know he has to be confined to this universe. I need everything we have on the psychological profile of Underhill.” He left the ship to handle the matters while he returned to his cabin to study the profile of the man he now pursued. “Keep scanning all channels for anything unusual,” he said worked in his cabin. Underhill, one of the youngest Harkers in the Bureau, a slightly low loyalty index, a strong streak of independence, cocky, exceptionally talented at electronics.
“Why should I do that?” she asked.
“How about because I just saved your life, if I go back to the capital I'll probably be killed,” he said, though he dared not go further into it. If he did, she would probably be in jeopardy.
“Alright,” she said, “though you certainly seem to have the authorization to commandeer a vessel, as you've already shown.”
“I probably won't be a special agent of Intelligence for much longer,” he admitted, “that's why I need to get out of here very fast.”
“Where are you going to?”
“I think it would be safer if you didn't know.”
“Will I ever see you again?” she asked and he had been wondering that himself. With the Oalri backing the Wraiths it would not take them long to bring down the Empire, his interference would mean nothing. She would probably be captured and killed eventually, the Empire would probably fall. He could take her with him, or rather, he could offer to take her with him but he knew she would not leave. No, she was too loyal for that. He walked over to a computer terminal and began operating the keyboard. It took only a few moments for him but without his Network connection it seemed like an eternity, he had to make it extremely simple, like outlining the design of a gun to a person only familiar with spears and swords.
“Look,” he said, “I've tried to simplify this as much as possible,” he drew up the schematics quickly, “these are plans for weapons that are currently hundreds of years more advanced than what you have now. They can turn the tide of the war for you.” She looked at him in wonder as he copied it to a storage chip and handed it to her. He then waited as she ordered a special fast courier to pick him up. Within an hour he was gone from the capital and well on his way to the on the edge of the Empire, though not in a contested area, just a small colony world, practically forgotten in everything else that was going on.
The courier was a single man vessel, but he had been trained to pilot one before he entered this universe, so he handled it well, rotating in above the planet and dropping down onto the planet. He landed outside a monastery that was carved into the the red rock of a mountain, near the top. It was an impressive work of architecture. Few people even knew it existed, even on this sparsely populated world. It was a large elaborate design, with strange swirling patterns cut into the walls, with huge open chambers.
He walked in, past the strange hunched creatures in dull orange robes that wandered the halls, murmuring softly to each other. A few eyed him as he passed but they recognized him. He walked into the center of the monastery to find the largest of the strange creatures. They had long necks and four arms, and strange pointed faces, and their movements were slow, reminiscent of sloths. The largest one sat on the floor making a sand pointing, slowly constructing an elaborate pattern out of colored sands.
“I need to speak to The Dying Poll,” he said to the largest creature who looked up at him slowly and considered him with dark eyes.
“Why?” asked the creature in a deep voice.
“I've broken my Network connection and rebelled against the Bureau, and if I don't leave they'll kill me, that's why,” he snapped irritably. The creature seemed to be thinking.
“Why should we interfere?” asked the creature, turning back to his sand painting. Gerald angrily stepped forward and kicked through the sand painting, sending the colored sand sweeping aside, destroying the painting.
“Because,” he yelled, “I could have reported The Dying Poll years back, and I didn't, and I should have!” The creature considered him and he felt the anger fall away from him as he fell to his knees.
“Because I don't have anywhere else to turn, please help me,” he said wearily. The creature stared at him for a pregnant moment and then turned slowly and gestured, a passage appeared, growing out of the floor, beside the creature, opening to a staircase. Gerald got up and walked down the staircase as it wound down into the mountain until he came to a large chamber and in the center of the chamber, resting on a polished floor, was an ancient Oalri warship, The Dying Poll, a Million Class warship, built for the great Were-War eight hundred years ago.
Eight hundred meters long, a lean dark gray metal cylindrical shaped warship, it was covered with the same spiraling patterns that were carved into the monastery, designs that it had put on itself. It was kind of bumpy, the protrusions which were weapon mounts and shield generators. He walked up to the ship and the door opened and he walked aboard.
“Welcome aboard Harker Underhill,” said The Dying Poll, “I suppose you'll want to be running for your life now?”
“Are you ready to go?”
“I have been maintaining myself over the centuries,” rumbled The Dying Poll, it's voice emanating from the walls, “I will miss this place though.”
“I am sorry that I brought this on you, I just honestly have no one else to turn to.”
“Don't worry about it,” said the ship, “change happens, it's just up to me to go with the flow on this one. What a pair we make, the renegade and the deserter.” The ship almost seemed to sigh and then said, “Well, make yourself at home, I'm going to pick up my automatons and make preparations to lift off.”
“Is your universal drive still operational?”
“It should be, though to be honest I haven't warmed it up in a few hundred years,” admitted the ship, “I'll let you know if I need help.” A bright blue fish, with long flowing fins streaked with red and purple, swam up to him through the air, and led him to his rooms. They were empty, except for a bunk, the Poll probably redecorating for simplicity after building a monastery but it was enough for Gerald at the moment who laid down on the bed and let the situation sink in.
“How are you doing?” asked the ship.
“I'm alright,” he said.
“You cut your connection from the Network?”
“Yes.”
“That's rough. I remember when I did it, I thought I was going to die.”
the ship admitted, “it gets easier, but I couldn't move for days.”
“Luckily,” Gerald said, “I can move, everything just feels frustratingly slow. And I feel like I can remember things that I can't, that I'm dreaming of things that are right in front of me that I can't ever get to.”
“You could always go back,” said the ship, “they probably will just imprison you for a few decades, and remove you from the Harkers.”
“No way,” said Gerald, “I'm never going back to Quicksilver if I can help it.” The ship fell silent again and Gerald was grateful, preferring to fall asleep. He dreamed of his victims. He awoke later and checked his pocket watch, he had been asleep ffor nearly six hours, he got up and walked out to the hallways. The fish met him outside, it was a large construct, nearly as large as his head. It regarded him with its strange bulging eyes.
“We lifted off now,” said the ship through the fish, “I decided to take us as far from the volume of space occupied by the Empire and the Wraiths as we could get.” The fish twirled in the air, its fins spinning out like ribbons, “it feels good to be moving again.”
“Good,” said Gerald, “but we can't stay in this universe much longer, we need to make our way to one of the frontier universes, beyond that if we have to, somewhere they don't have their hooks into.”
“That's pretty hard to manage,” said the fish, “and that would put a strain on my systems that I'm not sure they could take, I'm a short range craft, at heart.”
“Get me down to the engine section and I'll modify your u-drive,” said Gerald, “I've got a power source with me,” he showed his watch to the fish. Who swam close to it.
“Oh, so that's what that was,” the fish said, “I noticed that when you were in orbit on your little one man ship. I destroyed that with the monastery, I hope you didn't mind.”
“No,” said Gerald, “I don't mind.” The fish led him to the engine section and he pulled out his multi-tool. He began the long extensive process of retooling the ship's ancient u-drive for a more substantial power source.
Jackson Quick sat at a table in another coffee shop. Another man entered and sat across from him, a plain nondescript man with gray hair and a gray suit jacket. He glanced around the shop while he waited for Quick to speak. Jackson kept silent for a moment, trying to get over his uneasiness, it was disorienting for an Oalri to encounter another Oalri, but not really feel them. The Network that bound them all together was something so prevalent in their society that it was hard to consider the Oalri in front of him really there. But a man like Peter Black did not exist in Oalri society and that meant he did not exist on the Network. For Jackson it was like meeting a ghost.
“I wish it did not have to come down to this,” he said to the man, the Peter Black.
“We all wish it didn't work out like this,” said Peter Black, “but he has broken with the Bureau and gone rogue, he has to be hunted down now.” Jackson nodded sadly.
“The damage he has done here, to the situation here, will take us years to sort out,” he said.
“Do you know where he has gone?” Peter Black asked.
“No clue,” said Jackson, “it took us a long time just to track his movements after he cut himself from the Network, after that we finally managed to track him to a fast courier ship but he did not log where he was going.” Peter Black nodded and stood up.
“I'll have to try tracking him from my ship then,” he said and turned to walk out. Jackson Quick watched him leave. He was faintly surprised to find out that Peter Black did exist. He thought, like everyone else, that he was a mythical figure used to scare children. Peter Jackson boarded his cloaked warship, The Grave Matters, and they lifted off silently. The Empire's technology was so far behind the Oalri's that they had to spend minimal effort to remain unnoticed, but Peter Black had them put their full efforts into remaining cloaked. The Empire and the Wraiths were so screwed over right now that he did not want to risk contributing to the Bureau's problems.
“Jackson Quick transmitted the identification codes of the courier ship that Underhill used to flee on,” said The Grave Matters, “not that it helped much. Underhill cracked the logs and erased his flight plan.”
“Well,” said Peter Black, “at least we know he has to be confined to this universe. I need everything we have on the psychological profile of Underhill.” He left the ship to handle the matters while he returned to his cabin to study the profile of the man he now pursued. “Keep scanning all channels for anything unusual,” he said worked in his cabin. Underhill, one of the youngest Harkers in the Bureau, a slightly low loyalty index, a strong streak of independence, cocky, exceptionally talented at electronics.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
He took a cup of Boost and drank it slowly while he read through the rest of the profile. Raised in Distance Dufraine in Quicksilver, one of the older sections of Quicksilver, that massive city between universes. Graduated from the Harker training school near top of his class, a little bothersome empathy scores, but ambitious, his superiors thought he would go far. Peter Black closed his eyes and tried to imagine where this man would go, what he would do. He was skilled enough that he could attempt to build a u-drive from scratch, practically, but where would he find a ship that could handle that kind of thing?
“Grave,” he said aloud.
“Yes, Mr. Black?” replied the Grave Matters.
“Begin monitoring all traffic out of this universe, particularly to the frontier universes, link up with the other ships if you need too,” said Peter Black, “we're looking for something sloppy, for a misfiring u-drive, anything like that.”
“Yes, Mr. Black, it will be done,” Grave Matters said. Peter Black took another sip from his cup of Boost and looked out the window of the Grave Matters to the planet below.
“Have we intercepted encrypted transmissions from the Imperial capital?” he asked aloud.
“Yes, Mr. Black, the heir has just be rescued from an attack on the Star Fortress in the Emerald System, it seems as if treachery is suspected,” answered the ship.
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, “and I'll bet that our friend had something to do with it.” He called up, on his terminal, information on the heir and once he saw that she was a young woman he called up Underhill's service record on the capital. “I think our young prey is very much a romantic,” he muttered to himself.
“Alright, I think it's ready!” shouted Gerald. The fish continued to look at him as he finished modifying the u-drive, using parts fabricated by the ship itself. It took a little work but they could travel much further, especially after he had installed the power source he carried in his fake pocket watch, a much easier affair since the ship was of Oalri design.
“I'm doing the calculations now, done,” said the ship, and they transitioned to another universe. Or rather, they used the u-drive to punch through this universe into the area between universes, known as the Static Zone. Since the u-drive was hundreds of years old and Gerald had had to modify it, it was far from elegant, most ships could simple speed smoothly through the Static Zone, but they were forced to slog through it. The nearly tidal forces of the Static Zone threatened to bowl the ship over, drive it off course, the Dying Poll calmly made corrections, and continued on, almost surfing over the forces threatening it.
The fish glanced at Gerald and said, “I'm going to need all of the processing power I can get,” and the fish suddenly dropped, lifelessly, to the floor. Gerald walked to his room, there was a tension in the air, but the ship itself was as stable as it had always been, despite the maneuvers that it was pulling, thankfully it was maintaining the artificial environment within itself. The Dying Poll did the equivalent of licking its lip as it sensed something swelling, and felt an upsurge of the Static Zone energies, something off in the distance was moving towards them, and the readings he was getting were not consistent with any ships that he knew off, admittedly he was a little behind the times, spend a few hundred years in a monastery and you tended to lose touch with things, but this was definitely no Oalri ship, or traditional ship. The ship, without hesitating, because the calculations it was making were actually at speeds faster than light, swung about and at full speed blasted away from the strange approaching object that seemed to be warping the Static Zone all around it.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said the ship as it ran for its life, and the life of its sole passenger, while the object began tracking it and closing in. As soon as it began its litany it calmed itself, and within moments that were too short for any mortal to comprehend, it focused itself on the task on running, content at its core that if it were to die today it would have been a good life, but it had no intention of dying. It glanced around and broke for the more violent areas of the Static Zone, hoping to lose its pursuer but as the forces slammed against it, and it was bucked about, the strange object just stubbornly crashed through it, closing in relentlessly, the ship felt its engines beginning to strain, as it tried to push them harder and as the waves of the disrupted Static Zone that were around the object washed over it the ship did not hesitate as it pumped all of its power to the u-drive as it activated it, along with the new power source. There was a flash of light and for the first time in its multiple hundred year existence the ship, the Dying Poll, was unconscious as everything exploded outward. It awoke adrift, in real space, in a real universe, not just the Static Zone.
It checked some of the more autonomous systems and the decay of some of its more radioactive materials, and found that it had been, at best guess, unconscious for almost five minutes, which was a lifetime for a ship like that, and rare occurrence. It had known ships that had remained aware all the way to the end when hostile ship artificial intelligences had swarmed aboard its systems and tore them apart. It ran a diagnostic, there was severe damage, the u-drive had overloaded, and burnt out a huge section of the ship, it almost winced as the damage report came in, it had maintained the artificial environment in the crew quarters, thankfully, but most of its engine section was gone, and it would take a long time to rebuild it, most power was down. Damage control systems were damaged, most of the weapons that it had kept after the war were also severely damaged, sensor probes were all damaged as well, it was crippled and blind in a strange land.
“Just have to roll with it,” said the ship to itself and activated the fish avatar.
“We hit some turbulence along the way,” said the ship through the fish to the Harker.
“I've been reading up on it,” said Gerald, “and the damage looks pretty terrible.”
“Yes,” said the ship, “I'm afraid that I won't be doing too much for a long time, did you get any of those readings on that anomaly we encountered in the Static Zone?”
“Yes,” said Gerard, “but I'm afraid I have no idea what it was, there aren't any records in my memory or yours, and I don't think I've encountered anything like that when I was on the Network.”
“Me neither,” said the ship, “though I'm out of date. That was extremely disturbing, of course we were on course for the untamed universes so it stands the reason that they were less explored, but we are potentially dealing with a whole other trans-universal civilization. It did not fit the profile of a Bug ship. How are the Bugs these days?”
“Terrible,” said Gerald, pulling out his multi-tool and fiddling with it. He hated feeling helpless, the actual journey took only about ten minutes, but the knowledge that outside his section of the ship there was a titanic struggle for their survival irked him. “They're still out there, you know, we lost track of them a few years back, after the last Universe War. Some think we finally got them all but most of us think they're still out there somewhere, waiting and rebuilding.”
“There was another Universe War and I missed it?” asked the ship.
“It raged between '285 and '334,” said Gerald, “and it was one of the less pleasant ones. Universes 17 and 21 are almost completely uninhabitable right now. Loss estimates were in seventeen thousand trillion fully sentient lives.”
“Ah, well,” said the ship, “I guess that's how it goes.” In its own war, the Were-War, for which it was built, the casualties were in the billions. Of course that was still a harrowing war for its own reasons, it was the largest conflict since the previous Universe War, which apparently he had missed the latest iteration.
“Are we close to anything?” asked Gerald, “we should probably be trying to cover our tracks.”
“I think,” said the fish, squinting off into the distance, “that there is a planet nearby, I'm picking up transmissions of a sort, it's hard to make out, most of my sensors are damaged.”
“Can I help out?” offered Gerald.
“I can probably handle most of it,” said the ship confidently.
“I can at least try to rebuild one of your sensors, your designs might be a little behind on the times,” said Gerald, and the ship, sensing that Gerald needed something to do, agreed. Gerald took his multi-tool and a space suit and walked out on the surface of the ship, which had been burnt and warped on its journey.
“What was it that we ran into?” he wondered.
“No idea, and since we're fugitives I don't think we'll ever get credit for running across it,” said the ship sadly. Gerald found the nearest sensor
pod and began working, cutting it open with the tool, since it had been welded shut, and began fixing and upgrading it, with parts occasionally he ordered from the ship's fabricators.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked the ship while he worked. “My only plan was to run, but I'm not sure, now if I want keep running my entire life.”
“I thought we'd find a nice untamed unexplored area and just settle in,” mused the ship, “what do you want to do?”
“Well, I am trained as a Harker,” said Gerald, “I thought I would keep at that, only doing it my way.”
“That's dangerous,” said the ship, “you don't have the Bureau behind you to do the calculations, if you start modifying a civilization you could do untold damage.”
“Then I'll keep moving,” said Gerald, “we'll just help out on little things. I'm just tired of bringing out death and destruction and toppling civilizations for the Bureau.”
“Hey, I'm with you on this whole crazy adventure,” said the ship, “I'm just saying that we should be careful.”
“I will be at my most subtle, and the soul of finesse,” said Gerald, and closed the sensor module. “How's that?”
“Better,” said the ship, “I can definitely pick up transmissions from a nearby planet, with the engines I have left, all two of them, I suppose we could limp there, but forget about being stealthy about it. I'm broadcasting all over the place.”
“We'd better risk it,” said Gerald. The ship powered up, delicately, its remaining engines as it directed its self-repair systems that were already slowly rebuilding its engines. Back in the old days, mused the ship, it could have saved itself on the Network and, after sustaining such damage, it could simply have changed to a new ship, have a new body built for it. Ah, those were the days, thought the ship as it limped sluggishly, only a few thousand times the speed of light, towards the planet.
“We picked up something, not far from here, Mr. Black,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black set aside the reports he had been reading and walked over to a wall terminal.
“Report,” he said.
“I picked up a u-jump not far from here,” said the ship, “definitely sloppy though, it practically tore a hole into the Static Zone that's visible from here.”
“That's him,” said Peter Black, “set a course and follow them.”
“Yes, Mr. Black,” said the ship and immediately did so, activating its u-drive and seamlessly transitioning to the Static Zone. The ambient radiation of the Static Zone made tracking difficult, almost impossible however, but the Grave Matters steadily kept moving, scanning for anything that could possibly prove useful.
“Grave,” he said aloud.
“Yes, Mr. Black?” replied the Grave Matters.
“Begin monitoring all traffic out of this universe, particularly to the frontier universes, link up with the other ships if you need too,” said Peter Black, “we're looking for something sloppy, for a misfiring u-drive, anything like that.”
“Yes, Mr. Black, it will be done,” Grave Matters said. Peter Black took another sip from his cup of Boost and looked out the window of the Grave Matters to the planet below.
“Have we intercepted encrypted transmissions from the Imperial capital?” he asked aloud.
“Yes, Mr. Black, the heir has just be rescued from an attack on the Star Fortress in the Emerald System, it seems as if treachery is suspected,” answered the ship.
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, “and I'll bet that our friend had something to do with it.” He called up, on his terminal, information on the heir and once he saw that she was a young woman he called up Underhill's service record on the capital. “I think our young prey is very much a romantic,” he muttered to himself.
“Alright, I think it's ready!” shouted Gerald. The fish continued to look at him as he finished modifying the u-drive, using parts fabricated by the ship itself. It took a little work but they could travel much further, especially after he had installed the power source he carried in his fake pocket watch, a much easier affair since the ship was of Oalri design.
“I'm doing the calculations now, done,” said the ship, and they transitioned to another universe. Or rather, they used the u-drive to punch through this universe into the area between universes, known as the Static Zone. Since the u-drive was hundreds of years old and Gerald had had to modify it, it was far from elegant, most ships could simple speed smoothly through the Static Zone, but they were forced to slog through it. The nearly tidal forces of the Static Zone threatened to bowl the ship over, drive it off course, the Dying Poll calmly made corrections, and continued on, almost surfing over the forces threatening it.
The fish glanced at Gerald and said, “I'm going to need all of the processing power I can get,” and the fish suddenly dropped, lifelessly, to the floor. Gerald walked to his room, there was a tension in the air, but the ship itself was as stable as it had always been, despite the maneuvers that it was pulling, thankfully it was maintaining the artificial environment within itself. The Dying Poll did the equivalent of licking its lip as it sensed something swelling, and felt an upsurge of the Static Zone energies, something off in the distance was moving towards them, and the readings he was getting were not consistent with any ships that he knew off, admittedly he was a little behind the times, spend a few hundred years in a monastery and you tended to lose touch with things, but this was definitely no Oalri ship, or traditional ship. The ship, without hesitating, because the calculations it was making were actually at speeds faster than light, swung about and at full speed blasted away from the strange approaching object that seemed to be warping the Static Zone all around it.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said the ship as it ran for its life, and the life of its sole passenger, while the object began tracking it and closing in. As soon as it began its litany it calmed itself, and within moments that were too short for any mortal to comprehend, it focused itself on the task on running, content at its core that if it were to die today it would have been a good life, but it had no intention of dying. It glanced around and broke for the more violent areas of the Static Zone, hoping to lose its pursuer but as the forces slammed against it, and it was bucked about, the strange object just stubbornly crashed through it, closing in relentlessly, the ship felt its engines beginning to strain, as it tried to push them harder and as the waves of the disrupted Static Zone that were around the object washed over it the ship did not hesitate as it pumped all of its power to the u-drive as it activated it, along with the new power source. There was a flash of light and for the first time in its multiple hundred year existence the ship, the Dying Poll, was unconscious as everything exploded outward. It awoke adrift, in real space, in a real universe, not just the Static Zone.
It checked some of the more autonomous systems and the decay of some of its more radioactive materials, and found that it had been, at best guess, unconscious for almost five minutes, which was a lifetime for a ship like that, and rare occurrence. It had known ships that had remained aware all the way to the end when hostile ship artificial intelligences had swarmed aboard its systems and tore them apart. It ran a diagnostic, there was severe damage, the u-drive had overloaded, and burnt out a huge section of the ship, it almost winced as the damage report came in, it had maintained the artificial environment in the crew quarters, thankfully, but most of its engine section was gone, and it would take a long time to rebuild it, most power was down. Damage control systems were damaged, most of the weapons that it had kept after the war were also severely damaged, sensor probes were all damaged as well, it was crippled and blind in a strange land.
“Just have to roll with it,” said the ship to itself and activated the fish avatar.
“We hit some turbulence along the way,” said the ship through the fish to the Harker.
“I've been reading up on it,” said Gerald, “and the damage looks pretty terrible.”
“Yes,” said the ship, “I'm afraid that I won't be doing too much for a long time, did you get any of those readings on that anomaly we encountered in the Static Zone?”
“Yes,” said Gerard, “but I'm afraid I have no idea what it was, there aren't any records in my memory or yours, and I don't think I've encountered anything like that when I was on the Network.”
“Me neither,” said the ship, “though I'm out of date. That was extremely disturbing, of course we were on course for the untamed universes so it stands the reason that they were less explored, but we are potentially dealing with a whole other trans-universal civilization. It did not fit the profile of a Bug ship. How are the Bugs these days?”
“Terrible,” said Gerald, pulling out his multi-tool and fiddling with it. He hated feeling helpless, the actual journey took only about ten minutes, but the knowledge that outside his section of the ship there was a titanic struggle for their survival irked him. “They're still out there, you know, we lost track of them a few years back, after the last Universe War. Some think we finally got them all but most of us think they're still out there somewhere, waiting and rebuilding.”
“There was another Universe War and I missed it?” asked the ship.
“It raged between '285 and '334,” said Gerald, “and it was one of the less pleasant ones. Universes 17 and 21 are almost completely uninhabitable right now. Loss estimates were in seventeen thousand trillion fully sentient lives.”
“Ah, well,” said the ship, “I guess that's how it goes.” In its own war, the Were-War, for which it was built, the casualties were in the billions. Of course that was still a harrowing war for its own reasons, it was the largest conflict since the previous Universe War, which apparently he had missed the latest iteration.
“Are we close to anything?” asked Gerald, “we should probably be trying to cover our tracks.”
“I think,” said the fish, squinting off into the distance, “that there is a planet nearby, I'm picking up transmissions of a sort, it's hard to make out, most of my sensors are damaged.”
“Can I help out?” offered Gerald.
“I can probably handle most of it,” said the ship confidently.
“I can at least try to rebuild one of your sensors, your designs might be a little behind on the times,” said Gerald, and the ship, sensing that Gerald needed something to do, agreed. Gerald took his multi-tool and a space suit and walked out on the surface of the ship, which had been burnt and warped on its journey.
“What was it that we ran into?” he wondered.
“No idea, and since we're fugitives I don't think we'll ever get credit for running across it,” said the ship sadly. Gerald found the nearest sensor
pod and began working, cutting it open with the tool, since it had been welded shut, and began fixing and upgrading it, with parts occasionally he ordered from the ship's fabricators.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked the ship while he worked. “My only plan was to run, but I'm not sure, now if I want keep running my entire life.”
“I thought we'd find a nice untamed unexplored area and just settle in,” mused the ship, “what do you want to do?”
“Well, I am trained as a Harker,” said Gerald, “I thought I would keep at that, only doing it my way.”
“That's dangerous,” said the ship, “you don't have the Bureau behind you to do the calculations, if you start modifying a civilization you could do untold damage.”
“Then I'll keep moving,” said Gerald, “we'll just help out on little things. I'm just tired of bringing out death and destruction and toppling civilizations for the Bureau.”
“Hey, I'm with you on this whole crazy adventure,” said the ship, “I'm just saying that we should be careful.”
“I will be at my most subtle, and the soul of finesse,” said Gerald, and closed the sensor module. “How's that?”
“Better,” said the ship, “I can definitely pick up transmissions from a nearby planet, with the engines I have left, all two of them, I suppose we could limp there, but forget about being stealthy about it. I'm broadcasting all over the place.”
“We'd better risk it,” said Gerald. The ship powered up, delicately, its remaining engines as it directed its self-repair systems that were already slowly rebuilding its engines. Back in the old days, mused the ship, it could have saved itself on the Network and, after sustaining such damage, it could simply have changed to a new ship, have a new body built for it. Ah, those were the days, thought the ship as it limped sluggishly, only a few thousand times the speed of light, towards the planet.
“We picked up something, not far from here, Mr. Black,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black set aside the reports he had been reading and walked over to a wall terminal.
“Report,” he said.
“I picked up a u-jump not far from here,” said the ship, “definitely sloppy though, it practically tore a hole into the Static Zone that's visible from here.”
“That's him,” said Peter Black, “set a course and follow them.”
“Yes, Mr. Black,” said the ship and immediately did so, activating its u-drive and seamlessly transitioning to the Static Zone. The ambient radiation of the Static Zone made tracking difficult, almost impossible however, but the Grave Matters steadily kept moving, scanning for anything that could possibly prove useful.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
speaker-to-trolls
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: 2003-11-18 05:46pm
- Location: All Hail Britannia!
Interesting. One thing I would say is you need to show when you're transitioning from one character to another, here's an example of what I mean:
Thousands of trillions seems like a pretty low body count for a war in which whole universes were depopulated, unless, that is, the Oalri only consider creatures like themselves to be 'fully sentient'.
Eagerly awaiting the next instalment.[/i]
There is nothing there to indicate that you are moving the story from Gerald to Black and the scene from the Dying Poll to the grave Matters(love the ship names, btw, sort of Culture-like). If you put a line of asterisks or something similar between these paragraphs it would make it easier to read.“We'd better risk it,” said Gerald. The ship powered up, delicately, its remaining engines as it directed its self-repair systems that were already slowly rebuilding its engines. Back in the old days, mused the ship, it could have saved itself on the Network and, after sustaining such damage, it could simply have changed to a new ship, have a new body built for it. Ah, those were the days, thought the ship as it limped sluggishly, only a few thousand times the speed of light, towards the planet.
“We picked up something, not far from here, Mr. Black,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black set aside the reports he had been reading and walked over to a wall terminal.
Thousands of trillions seems like a pretty low body count for a war in which whole universes were depopulated, unless, that is, the Oalri only consider creatures like themselves to be 'fully sentient'.
Eagerly awaiting the next instalment.[/i]
Post Number 1066 achieved Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:19 pm(board time, 8:19GMT)
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
Thank you so much for your input. I was actually very influenced by the Culture and Doctor Who and the whole story came about as my attempt to bring elements of those stories together.speaker-to-trolls wrote:Interesting. One thing I would say is you need to show when you're transitioning from one character to another, here's an example of what I mean:There is nothing there to indicate that you are moving the story from Gerald to Black and the scene from the Dying Poll to the grave Matters(love the ship names, btw, sort of Culture-like). If you put a line of asterisks or something similar between these paragraphs it would make it easier to read.“We'd better risk it,” said Gerald. The ship powered up, delicately, its remaining engines as it directed its self-repair systems that were already slowly rebuilding its engines. Back in the old days, mused the ship, it could have saved itself on the Network and, after sustaining such damage, it could simply have changed to a new ship, have a new body built for it. Ah, those were the days, thought the ship as it limped sluggishly, only a few thousand times the speed of light, towards the planet.
“We picked up something, not far from here, Mr. Black,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black set aside the reports he had been reading and walked over to a wall terminal.
Thousands of trillions seems like a pretty low body count for a war in which whole universes were depopulated, unless, that is, the Oalri only consider creatures like themselves to be 'fully sentient'.
Eagerly awaiting the next instalment.[/i]
I'll be sure, in the next installment, to make the transition clearer. Oh, and you were correct, I tried to bring some of snobbishness of the Time Lords and the Prime Directive hypocrisy of the Federation of Planets together in the Oalri, who have very little respect for non-Oalri life.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
“There is nothing out there, Mr. Black,” said the ship. “I've turned my scans up to full power, though, and there seems to have been a recent disruption of the Static Zone recently.”
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, he sat back down at his desk and ordered another cup of Boost from one of the ship's automatons. “Was it Underhilll's ship?”
“Unknown,” said the ship, “but I would speculate that it would be unlikely, the size of the wake is incredible, in fact I am documenting it now and transmitting my data back to the Bureau. I'll report to you when I find anything, Mr. Black.”
“Thank you, ship,” Peter Black said and cleaned his desk of the papers he had printed up and took out his sidearm, a standard Bureau issued pistol, unremarkable except for its lack of identification, the gun did not exist just like the owner. It was a Bureau 1745, a model they had found particularly reliable, with nearly seventeen different settings, and the ability to be modified for more. It was just sub-sentient, but Peter Black found that it had its personality quirks that he found charming enough. He began the maintenance routine, but opted to do it manually, dismantling the black metal pistol and cleaning the small individual components. He had just reassembled most of the pistol when there was a chime of a call.
“Ship?” he said aloud, finishing sliding the power cell back into the pistol and putting it easily back into its holster.
“It is a message from the Bureau, they thought you should know that the Underhill Batch has been terminated and a new batch has been ordered.” said the ship.
“Thank you ship,” said Peter Black, and took back out Underhill's profile and wondered how this information could be used against Underhill.
- - - - -
Gerald walked around the ship's perimeter, the damage looked worse up close. The Dying Poll had begun to suffer along the trip, several severe failures that were directly affecting its thought processes. Gerald did not notice anything but the Dying Poll reassured him that it was awkward and terribly embarrassing.
“I'm going to have to spend days repairing myself, just for the processor cores alone!” said the ship, “it'd probably be best if we just stayed here for a while, I'm alright right now, but if something were to fail while in space I couldn't assure your survival.”
“It's alright,” said Gerald, “I'll just look around here.”
They had landed on the nearby planet that the ship had discovered, it was within the range of planets that an Oalri like Gerald could survive on without much modification. The sun was distant and yellow. The planet was mostly temperate. There was a single major settlement that they had landed well away from. The ship found that there was a small Oalri-type life-form community, which made Gerald wonder just how far, exactly, the Oalri universe-forming movements had gotten. He was sure this universe was not even on the charts, which excited him a little, to be free at last of the Bureau and their suffocating procedure. He helped a few of the surviving automatons set up camouflage nets over the more damaged sections of the ship, which took some time, and by the time they had finished the ship chimed in.
“Someone's coming,” it said.
“What? How? We just put up camouflage nets,” said Gerald.
“Well, while descending I could not spare anything to cloaking myself from the locals, so I was probably radiating so loudly that I broke a few of their scopes,” replied the ship, “they probably don't know where we are, but they seem to have sent a few searchers for us.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “what should we do? Can you defend yourself?”
“Let me think, I've got one operational EECG, which, if you think about it, should be plenty, but everything, including my Cash Missile tubes, is off-line. Actually, tube seven is actually gone, and my engine section is either damaged or torn out as well, along with my u-drive incidentally.”
“Wait, so we're stuck here?”
“Until you or I build a new one, yeah, I guess so,” said the ship, “good thing that traditionally universes are considered big places so I think we'll be able to find a place to hide. Anyway, I don't want to fight these cavemen. They're using nuclear fission as a power source, pretty efficient designs, but if I'm guessing right they shouldn't be able to harm me.”
“Alright,” said Gerald, “how long till you're back, one hundred percent?”
“My self-repair systems are damaged, and someone forgot to install a self-self-repair system,” said the ship and paused while Gerald looked up at the warship quizzically, “that was a joke,” it finished, “anyway, I've got to manage this stuff personally, which means it will only take longer, and since I lost a big chunk of my generators and fabricators, it's going to take longer. Maybe a month, maybe two months.”
“Where are the natives?”
“Closing in,” said the ship, “they won't be able to see us up close, but it will look odd when they get here and there's no sign of us.”
“I'll go out to meet them, but first see if you can tap their information sphere and let me know anything you can about them.”
“Okay, done.” said the ship, reaching out to the distant cities computer systems. They were fairly solidly designed computers, but far from sentient, and within moments it had infiltrated their systems. There was a huge collection of data that it grabbed out of curiosity. “Oh my,” said the ship.
“What is it?”
“I do believe that we've stumbled on a research community devoted to not only studying the city we saw coming down, but to compiling a comprehensive encyclopedia of their societies scientific knowledge,” replied the ship, browsing through the encyclopedia's data, “I just read a section on quantum mechanics, it's adorable!”
“So, what? Good, bad, friendly, unfriendly?” asked Gerald, wondering if his ship had suffered some kind of personality damage from its injuries.
“They're a part of a large galaxy spanning organization, the dominant power in this galaxy, if their own data is to be trusted, the Galactic Union,” said the ship, “they're a special group that was on a mission to study this city, which apparently was not of their design. They seem to have not encountered many signs of alien life outside city in their explorations.”
“How much of this galaxy did you manage to scan on our way down?”
“Very little, remember when the big thing in the Static Zone ran us over?”
“I wonder why this galaxy would be so depopulated,” mused Gerald,
“what about the city?”
“Ancient in design, huge machinery they don't understand,” listed off the ship, “hold on, I'll check to see what I can see about it.” It stretched out and touched the city's slumbering systems that were so powered down that it had not noticed them the first time through. They seemed particularly dense so he treated them warily, with the damage it had sustained it did not want to do anything risky until it was fully repaired.
“Strange design,” said the ship, “they were definitely more advanced than the Union.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “are they close to us yet?”
“I give them another twenty minutes at the rate of their approach,” said the ship. Gerald thought for a moment about their situation. The ship was not going anywhere and he doubted that the group on the planet would entirely stop searching for them, especially since now they were hidden.
“I'm going to meet them,” he said.
“Are you sure that is a good idea?” asked the ship.
“Sure, I'm a Harker, we do this thing all the time,” lied Gerald, not mentioning that he had never been on a first contact mission.
“Do you want a weapon?” asked the ship, “I can whip you up a force rifle or something else.”
“What happened to your armory?” asked Gerald.
“I dismantled most of the weapons I had built after the war,” said the ship, “you don't really need too many weapons when living in a monastery.”
“Ah,” said Gerald, “anyway, no thanks, I'm sure that you can handle them if they get rowdy.” He looked off in the sky line above the trees and saw three approaching craft. He reached out to sense them with his Oalri implants and realized he had forgotten that he had crippled them. He was forced to wait for them to approach watching them with more passive senses, it was almost maddening. They noticed him, at last, and landed in an open field near them. Gerald walked down to greet them. There were nine men total, all dressed in strange dark single piece suits, their ships were bulky orange low altitude fliers. A few of them carried some kind of rifles that the ship, through the com chip that it had given him to put in his ear, since both of them lacked a Network connection, told him were particle weapons. An older man smoking a cigar walked forward, flanked by a tall skinny man. The man with a cigar smiled and offered his hand.
“Well,” said the man, and Gerard was grateful that his translators were still fully functional, “my name is Ray Kardoman, I'm the mayor of the Labyrinth, this is my aide and right hand man, Teal Holmes, and that's Lord Murderwake,” he pointed to a young man standing behind them, who flushed at the sound of his name. “
“Murderwake?” asked Gerald, smiling and shaking Ray's hand.
“The Murderwakes are one of the great family of warriors from the old wild days before the Union,” said Ray, “and their founder was a little enthusiastic about their names. Grayson, here, is a black sheep in the family and one of our archaeologists.”
“I am Harker Gerald Underhill,” said Gerald, “and I was forced to make an emergency landing on your planet. My ship was damaged in our travels. I assure you that we mean you no harm.”
“We caught sight of your ship on it's way down, it's like nothing we've ever seen,” said Ray, “we were hoping that we would finally meet an alien, imagine our disappointment when we met you.”
“Oh, I'm not from around here, in fact I'm from outside the galaxy,” said Gerald, “I'm afraid that I was just passing through. Sorry you can't meet an actual alien, you'll just have to settle for me.”
“Oh, well then excellent! First contact with an extra-galactic alien! Though, think of the confusion when you look just like a Citizen,” Ray said, “can we see your ship?”
“Poll?” Gerard asked sub-vocally, accessing the com chip.
“Yeah, why not? You've already broken most of the Bureau's rules for first contact, why not really commit to our offenses. You must have been a terrible Harker.”
“I was the best,” said Gerald sub-vocally, smiling, and turned back to Ray, “You can come see my ship, but unfortunately I can't allow you inside, the damage was extensive and we're still repairing it.”
“Excellent!” said Ray, and they followed him towards the ship. Gerald noticed a few of them running hand held scanning devices in his direction. He doubted they would find anything useful, since there were all kinds of nasty Oalri designed devices in his body intended to baffle scans. It would not do if someone could just scan a Harker and realize that he was not from their planet.
“He reads as a baseline Citizen,” said one of the guards to Ray quietly, but Gerald heard them anyway.
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, he sat back down at his desk and ordered another cup of Boost from one of the ship's automatons. “Was it Underhilll's ship?”
“Unknown,” said the ship, “but I would speculate that it would be unlikely, the size of the wake is incredible, in fact I am documenting it now and transmitting my data back to the Bureau. I'll report to you when I find anything, Mr. Black.”
“Thank you, ship,” Peter Black said and cleaned his desk of the papers he had printed up and took out his sidearm, a standard Bureau issued pistol, unremarkable except for its lack of identification, the gun did not exist just like the owner. It was a Bureau 1745, a model they had found particularly reliable, with nearly seventeen different settings, and the ability to be modified for more. It was just sub-sentient, but Peter Black found that it had its personality quirks that he found charming enough. He began the maintenance routine, but opted to do it manually, dismantling the black metal pistol and cleaning the small individual components. He had just reassembled most of the pistol when there was a chime of a call.
“Ship?” he said aloud, finishing sliding the power cell back into the pistol and putting it easily back into its holster.
“It is a message from the Bureau, they thought you should know that the Underhill Batch has been terminated and a new batch has been ordered.” said the ship.
“Thank you ship,” said Peter Black, and took back out Underhill's profile and wondered how this information could be used against Underhill.
- - - - -
Gerald walked around the ship's perimeter, the damage looked worse up close. The Dying Poll had begun to suffer along the trip, several severe failures that were directly affecting its thought processes. Gerald did not notice anything but the Dying Poll reassured him that it was awkward and terribly embarrassing.
“I'm going to have to spend days repairing myself, just for the processor cores alone!” said the ship, “it'd probably be best if we just stayed here for a while, I'm alright right now, but if something were to fail while in space I couldn't assure your survival.”
“It's alright,” said Gerald, “I'll just look around here.”
They had landed on the nearby planet that the ship had discovered, it was within the range of planets that an Oalri like Gerald could survive on without much modification. The sun was distant and yellow. The planet was mostly temperate. There was a single major settlement that they had landed well away from. The ship found that there was a small Oalri-type life-form community, which made Gerald wonder just how far, exactly, the Oalri universe-forming movements had gotten. He was sure this universe was not even on the charts, which excited him a little, to be free at last of the Bureau and their suffocating procedure. He helped a few of the surviving automatons set up camouflage nets over the more damaged sections of the ship, which took some time, and by the time they had finished the ship chimed in.
“Someone's coming,” it said.
“What? How? We just put up camouflage nets,” said Gerald.
“Well, while descending I could not spare anything to cloaking myself from the locals, so I was probably radiating so loudly that I broke a few of their scopes,” replied the ship, “they probably don't know where we are, but they seem to have sent a few searchers for us.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “what should we do? Can you defend yourself?”
“Let me think, I've got one operational EECG, which, if you think about it, should be plenty, but everything, including my Cash Missile tubes, is off-line. Actually, tube seven is actually gone, and my engine section is either damaged or torn out as well, along with my u-drive incidentally.”
“Wait, so we're stuck here?”
“Until you or I build a new one, yeah, I guess so,” said the ship, “good thing that traditionally universes are considered big places so I think we'll be able to find a place to hide. Anyway, I don't want to fight these cavemen. They're using nuclear fission as a power source, pretty efficient designs, but if I'm guessing right they shouldn't be able to harm me.”
“Alright,” said Gerald, “how long till you're back, one hundred percent?”
“My self-repair systems are damaged, and someone forgot to install a self-self-repair system,” said the ship and paused while Gerald looked up at the warship quizzically, “that was a joke,” it finished, “anyway, I've got to manage this stuff personally, which means it will only take longer, and since I lost a big chunk of my generators and fabricators, it's going to take longer. Maybe a month, maybe two months.”
“Where are the natives?”
“Closing in,” said the ship, “they won't be able to see us up close, but it will look odd when they get here and there's no sign of us.”
“I'll go out to meet them, but first see if you can tap their information sphere and let me know anything you can about them.”
“Okay, done.” said the ship, reaching out to the distant cities computer systems. They were fairly solidly designed computers, but far from sentient, and within moments it had infiltrated their systems. There was a huge collection of data that it grabbed out of curiosity. “Oh my,” said the ship.
“What is it?”
“I do believe that we've stumbled on a research community devoted to not only studying the city we saw coming down, but to compiling a comprehensive encyclopedia of their societies scientific knowledge,” replied the ship, browsing through the encyclopedia's data, “I just read a section on quantum mechanics, it's adorable!”
“So, what? Good, bad, friendly, unfriendly?” asked Gerald, wondering if his ship had suffered some kind of personality damage from its injuries.
“They're a part of a large galaxy spanning organization, the dominant power in this galaxy, if their own data is to be trusted, the Galactic Union,” said the ship, “they're a special group that was on a mission to study this city, which apparently was not of their design. They seem to have not encountered many signs of alien life outside city in their explorations.”
“How much of this galaxy did you manage to scan on our way down?”
“Very little, remember when the big thing in the Static Zone ran us over?”
“I wonder why this galaxy would be so depopulated,” mused Gerald,
“what about the city?”
“Ancient in design, huge machinery they don't understand,” listed off the ship, “hold on, I'll check to see what I can see about it.” It stretched out and touched the city's slumbering systems that were so powered down that it had not noticed them the first time through. They seemed particularly dense so he treated them warily, with the damage it had sustained it did not want to do anything risky until it was fully repaired.
“Strange design,” said the ship, “they were definitely more advanced than the Union.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “are they close to us yet?”
“I give them another twenty minutes at the rate of their approach,” said the ship. Gerald thought for a moment about their situation. The ship was not going anywhere and he doubted that the group on the planet would entirely stop searching for them, especially since now they were hidden.
“I'm going to meet them,” he said.
“Are you sure that is a good idea?” asked the ship.
“Sure, I'm a Harker, we do this thing all the time,” lied Gerald, not mentioning that he had never been on a first contact mission.
“Do you want a weapon?” asked the ship, “I can whip you up a force rifle or something else.”
“What happened to your armory?” asked Gerald.
“I dismantled most of the weapons I had built after the war,” said the ship, “you don't really need too many weapons when living in a monastery.”
“Ah,” said Gerald, “anyway, no thanks, I'm sure that you can handle them if they get rowdy.” He looked off in the sky line above the trees and saw three approaching craft. He reached out to sense them with his Oalri implants and realized he had forgotten that he had crippled them. He was forced to wait for them to approach watching them with more passive senses, it was almost maddening. They noticed him, at last, and landed in an open field near them. Gerald walked down to greet them. There were nine men total, all dressed in strange dark single piece suits, their ships were bulky orange low altitude fliers. A few of them carried some kind of rifles that the ship, through the com chip that it had given him to put in his ear, since both of them lacked a Network connection, told him were particle weapons. An older man smoking a cigar walked forward, flanked by a tall skinny man. The man with a cigar smiled and offered his hand.
“Well,” said the man, and Gerard was grateful that his translators were still fully functional, “my name is Ray Kardoman, I'm the mayor of the Labyrinth, this is my aide and right hand man, Teal Holmes, and that's Lord Murderwake,” he pointed to a young man standing behind them, who flushed at the sound of his name. “
“Murderwake?” asked Gerald, smiling and shaking Ray's hand.
“The Murderwakes are one of the great family of warriors from the old wild days before the Union,” said Ray, “and their founder was a little enthusiastic about their names. Grayson, here, is a black sheep in the family and one of our archaeologists.”
“I am Harker Gerald Underhill,” said Gerald, “and I was forced to make an emergency landing on your planet. My ship was damaged in our travels. I assure you that we mean you no harm.”
“We caught sight of your ship on it's way down, it's like nothing we've ever seen,” said Ray, “we were hoping that we would finally meet an alien, imagine our disappointment when we met you.”
“Oh, I'm not from around here, in fact I'm from outside the galaxy,” said Gerald, “I'm afraid that I was just passing through. Sorry you can't meet an actual alien, you'll just have to settle for me.”
“Oh, well then excellent! First contact with an extra-galactic alien! Though, think of the confusion when you look just like a Citizen,” Ray said, “can we see your ship?”
“Poll?” Gerard asked sub-vocally, accessing the com chip.
“Yeah, why not? You've already broken most of the Bureau's rules for first contact, why not really commit to our offenses. You must have been a terrible Harker.”
“I was the best,” said Gerald sub-vocally, smiling, and turned back to Ray, “You can come see my ship, but unfortunately I can't allow you inside, the damage was extensive and we're still repairing it.”
“Excellent!” said Ray, and they followed him towards the ship. Gerald noticed a few of them running hand held scanning devices in his direction. He doubted they would find anything useful, since there were all kinds of nasty Oalri designed devices in his body intended to baffle scans. It would not do if someone could just scan a Harker and realize that he was not from their planet.
“He reads as a baseline Citizen,” said one of the guards to Ray quietly, but Gerald heard them anyway.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
He ignored it for the moment, though he doubted they could take him and dissect him, especially for some of the implants he had put in his head.
“This is my ship,” he said as the Poll deactivated its camouflage screens. They gasped, of course the Poll was a battered wreck at the moment, but it did try to be polite. “May I introduce you to The Dying Poll,” said Gerald.
“Hold that thought,” said Poll, “I've just read that these people waged a xenophobic war against artificial intelligences a few centuries back, they're probably not going to take too kindly to a super intelligent warship.”
“It's partly automated, but basically a one man vessel,” said Gerald, “where we come from it is a tradition to introduce people to my ship.”
“If you are from beyond the galaxy, how can you speak our language?” asked the young Murderwake.
“Good question,” Gerald answered, as he led them towards the ship entrance as it opened the door. Several of the guards were using their scanning devices as they entered. “I was trained from a young age, and equipped, to excel at learning languages extremely quickly.”
“Look at them, trying to scan me,” muttered the Poll in his ear, “I'm telling you, these guys are just so cute.” And Gerald once again wondered if the crash had somehow knocked Poll loopy.
“I am from the Oalri Federation, in another galaxy,” he said, “and I was on an exploratory mission when my ship was damaged by a passing anomaly we've never encountered before. I hope it will be alright for us to set down and make repairs. We will be moving along as soon as we can.”
“Actually,” said Ray, “it was fortunate that you've come along, we've been having problems that we cannot necessarily deal with, that you might bring an interesting viewpoint on.”
“That's interesting,” said Poll, “the Union is currently, and it's carefully worded here, in a state of civil war, the current General-President, and these are inherited positions here, is pretty wacky if I interpret this stuff correctly.”
“We are archaeologists and researchers studying an alien city, perhaps you could shed some light on it,” said Ray, “would you care to visit our city? We could arrange a means to transport your ship with us.”
“Look at the hungry look in his eyes when he mentions me!” said Poll,
“Absolutely delightful!”
“Shut up,” said Gerald sub-vocally. “I'd love to come with you, mayor, and thank you for your offer to move my ship. I've set it to begin repairs, and I'm sure that it would be best for it to stay here.”
“Out in the woods,” Poll said, “you know I've been thinking about becoming a big game hunter. There are some large horned mammals running around here somewhere.”
“Very well!” said Ray happily, chomping his cigar, “We can give you a ride back immediately.”
“Just a minute,” said Gerald, signaling the Poll's fabricators, “allow me to change my clothing.” He left the room quickly to the nearest fabricator port who had taken the readings of the Citizens and built for him a black body suit of similar design as theirs and quickly changed into it. He returned and they were surprised.
“I'm trained to blend in,” he explained, “besides, these are pretty comfortable suits.” They were too, though he preferred the aesthetics of the Imperial business suits.
“Well, I get the feeling we have so much to learn from you,” said Ray cheerfully smiling at Teal who returned an easy smile.
“As a representative of the Oalri Federation, I gladly accept your invitation and hope that we can build a stronger relationship for both of us to prosper,” said Gerald and followed them back to their sub-orbital craft. The flight back seemed to take forever, Gerald was tempted to take out his multi-tool and tear open the craft to see how it worked, but he restrained himself and primarily chatted with Teal, Ray, and Murderwake. It turns out that Labyrinth was originally a small research colony set up for a particularly politically unpopular scientist, it resulted in an exile for him and his followers, for the ostensible purpose of studying the Labyrinth City. Unfortunately, nearly a decade after settling in, their outpost had lost contact with the rest of the Union, and the faster than light communication system collapsed soon after that. Since then the small outpost of archaeologists, researchers, and engineers had been trying to do their best to get by, but their nuclear fuel stores were running low, and this particular planet was low on most resources.
“We farm, mostly,” said Teal, “food is about the only thing that this planet can produce regularly. Of course, we have the Labyrinth City, but we have yet to figure out how to operate the machinery. So far we hypothesize that it is actually built for a single function, a giant city with one sole purpose.”
“What is that?” asked Gerald.
“We're not entirely sure, but we suspect it is designed to alter in some unknown way anything that enters a certain area.”
“That's a lot of equipment for a face lift,” commented Gerald and Ray snorted.
“We've sent in a few lab animals, they never made it back out,” said Ray, “and a few probes, but nothing happened when we sent in a nonliving subject.”
“Very interesting,” said Gerald as he saw the city rising up above the horizon, it was a massive city, complete with skyscrapers, they seemed to be tallest in the center and grow shorter as city expanded from the center, the skyscrapers were massively tall, at least two hundred stories at their tallest. He looked around and saw a much smaller community, of a different design and took it to be Labyrinth, the community that Ray and the rest were from.
“We don't live in the Labyrinth,” said Murderwake, “though areas are open and seem rather secure, strange things still happen around there and we're not sure it is safe.”
“Ah, well I'll gladly take a look at it,” said Gerald, “but about your people, you say you've lost contact with your government?”
“It's worse than that,” replied Teal, “there seem to be pirate groups operating in the local volume of space, they have yet to hit us, but we've picked up some of their transmissions, it appears that the Union Space Navy has abandoned this particular section of the Union, which I find deplorable. Warlords are probably setting up shop all over this sector.”
“Shame that,” said Gerald.
“Yes,” said Ray, “but tell us more about your Oalri Federation.”
“We are a group of explorers, mostly,” said Gerald, not feeling like he was lying too much, “we've never explored your particular galaxy but for the most part we just kick around, find new things and then study them.”
“Interesting,” said Ray, “and can we expect more of your kind?”
“Hopefully not till we're long gone,” muttered Poll.
“Yes, there will probably be more of my kind in the future,” said Gerald diplomatically, ignoring the Poll. They arrived at the city eventually, landing on pads at the small port that was built there and they took a pair of ground-cars to Ray's office. There Ray had his secretary bring them some drinks, though, with a painfully concerned voice, explained what was in it to make sure it was not dangerous to him. Gerald let him, without bothering to explain that he was by far more tolerant of the food in this universe than Ray himself, probably. He had heard stories of Harkers eating stones and getting by alright, though he had never tried it himself. He took a sip of the drink, standard variety of fermented beverage, he was actually a little disappointed.
“Well,” he said, “since we still have some day left, how about we take a look at this massive alien artifact of yours, this Labyrinth?” Murderwake was the most excited about the idea and Ray decided to let him escort him to the city while Teal and Ray remained at their offices to deal with business that had just popped up.
“Poll?” asked Gerald sub-vocally.
“Looks like, if I'm reading the right logs, they've been getting threats from the local potentate warlord,” said Poll, “they're probably wondering what to do.”
“Maybe we can help them out, you're worth, what? A fleet of their metal bucket ships?”
“A Million class warship in this universe would be a fox in the hen house, young Harker,” said the ship stiffly, then added, “except I'm a little dinged up, so there won't be any chicken slaughtering for me for a while.”
“Let me know if you need anything to speed up repairs, I would like to get out of here as soon as possible.” said Gerald then turned to back to Murderwake who had just asked him something.
“Do you know anything about the Labyrinth-builders?” he had asked.
“Ah, no, not personally, though I suppose I could check my records,” Gerald said, they were now riding in another ground-car to the Labyrinth.
“You seem to be a fairly small settlement, and with the collapse of the Union Law around here, do you have any means of defending yourself?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Murderwake, “we're without weapons here. Just a few blasters that you saw back there, and that's about it.”
“But what if pirates come along?” asked Gerald. Murderwake shrugged sadly.
“I suppose we'd have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“What brought you here, to a outpost out on the edge of civilization?”
“Well,” said Murderwake, “my family was one of the founding houses of the Union, and we've traditionally have been a Naval family, I chose to become a scholar, and, well, my family arranged for my exile.”
“That's a pity,” said Gerald.
“It's not too bad,” Murderwake said, “we're doing important work out here, I just haven't heard anything from my sister or my brother in a while. My father is probably too busy playing political machination games to really notice I'm gone and my mother is dead.”
“Considering how unstable the current Union government is they probably moved you out of the way for your safety,” suggested Gerald. Murderwake smiled sadly and shook his head.
“No, it doesn't really work that way when you're a Murderwake,” he said, “my grandfather was the conquerer of the rebellious Vegere Sector. My grandfather's uncle was a bloody general who nearly single handedly put down a planet wide rebellion on Scion. I'm just a failure in their eyes.”
“Well, you're young yet, I would write yourself off just yet,” Gerald assured him and then looked out at the Labyrinth. Murderwake sensed the shift in his attention.
“It seems like it's all one single piece, all the buildings, at their foundations, are connected, it's all one seamless machine, it's pretty amazing, far advanced past our understanding of things.”
“It is fascinating looking,” Gerald said, the buildings all seemed to be made out of dark black glass, glittering obsidian towers in the afternoon light, built in a circle, as he could make out now, and carefully spreading out from the tall building in the center. They drove down a street which was the same material as the buildings only dirtier.
“We still have not figured out what the materials are that the buildings and the streets are made of or broken off a piece of it yet,” said Murderwake, “but we've been working on it, of course the last time we tried to blow a piece off of the buildings the city seemed to attack the researchers. As far as we can tell there is some sort of self-defense mechanism built into the city.”
“It's sleeping,” whispered Poll, “it's big though, I'd hate to rumble with it, if I'm getting the right vibe about this thing.”
“This is my ship,” he said as the Poll deactivated its camouflage screens. They gasped, of course the Poll was a battered wreck at the moment, but it did try to be polite. “May I introduce you to The Dying Poll,” said Gerald.
“Hold that thought,” said Poll, “I've just read that these people waged a xenophobic war against artificial intelligences a few centuries back, they're probably not going to take too kindly to a super intelligent warship.”
“It's partly automated, but basically a one man vessel,” said Gerald, “where we come from it is a tradition to introduce people to my ship.”
“If you are from beyond the galaxy, how can you speak our language?” asked the young Murderwake.
“Good question,” Gerald answered, as he led them towards the ship entrance as it opened the door. Several of the guards were using their scanning devices as they entered. “I was trained from a young age, and equipped, to excel at learning languages extremely quickly.”
“Look at them, trying to scan me,” muttered the Poll in his ear, “I'm telling you, these guys are just so cute.” And Gerald once again wondered if the crash had somehow knocked Poll loopy.
“I am from the Oalri Federation, in another galaxy,” he said, “and I was on an exploratory mission when my ship was damaged by a passing anomaly we've never encountered before. I hope it will be alright for us to set down and make repairs. We will be moving along as soon as we can.”
“Actually,” said Ray, “it was fortunate that you've come along, we've been having problems that we cannot necessarily deal with, that you might bring an interesting viewpoint on.”
“That's interesting,” said Poll, “the Union is currently, and it's carefully worded here, in a state of civil war, the current General-President, and these are inherited positions here, is pretty wacky if I interpret this stuff correctly.”
“We are archaeologists and researchers studying an alien city, perhaps you could shed some light on it,” said Ray, “would you care to visit our city? We could arrange a means to transport your ship with us.”
“Look at the hungry look in his eyes when he mentions me!” said Poll,
“Absolutely delightful!”
“Shut up,” said Gerald sub-vocally. “I'd love to come with you, mayor, and thank you for your offer to move my ship. I've set it to begin repairs, and I'm sure that it would be best for it to stay here.”
“Out in the woods,” Poll said, “you know I've been thinking about becoming a big game hunter. There are some large horned mammals running around here somewhere.”
“Very well!” said Ray happily, chomping his cigar, “We can give you a ride back immediately.”
“Just a minute,” said Gerald, signaling the Poll's fabricators, “allow me to change my clothing.” He left the room quickly to the nearest fabricator port who had taken the readings of the Citizens and built for him a black body suit of similar design as theirs and quickly changed into it. He returned and they were surprised.
“I'm trained to blend in,” he explained, “besides, these are pretty comfortable suits.” They were too, though he preferred the aesthetics of the Imperial business suits.
“Well, I get the feeling we have so much to learn from you,” said Ray cheerfully smiling at Teal who returned an easy smile.
“As a representative of the Oalri Federation, I gladly accept your invitation and hope that we can build a stronger relationship for both of us to prosper,” said Gerald and followed them back to their sub-orbital craft. The flight back seemed to take forever, Gerald was tempted to take out his multi-tool and tear open the craft to see how it worked, but he restrained himself and primarily chatted with Teal, Ray, and Murderwake. It turns out that Labyrinth was originally a small research colony set up for a particularly politically unpopular scientist, it resulted in an exile for him and his followers, for the ostensible purpose of studying the Labyrinth City. Unfortunately, nearly a decade after settling in, their outpost had lost contact with the rest of the Union, and the faster than light communication system collapsed soon after that. Since then the small outpost of archaeologists, researchers, and engineers had been trying to do their best to get by, but their nuclear fuel stores were running low, and this particular planet was low on most resources.
“We farm, mostly,” said Teal, “food is about the only thing that this planet can produce regularly. Of course, we have the Labyrinth City, but we have yet to figure out how to operate the machinery. So far we hypothesize that it is actually built for a single function, a giant city with one sole purpose.”
“What is that?” asked Gerald.
“We're not entirely sure, but we suspect it is designed to alter in some unknown way anything that enters a certain area.”
“That's a lot of equipment for a face lift,” commented Gerald and Ray snorted.
“We've sent in a few lab animals, they never made it back out,” said Ray, “and a few probes, but nothing happened when we sent in a nonliving subject.”
“Very interesting,” said Gerald as he saw the city rising up above the horizon, it was a massive city, complete with skyscrapers, they seemed to be tallest in the center and grow shorter as city expanded from the center, the skyscrapers were massively tall, at least two hundred stories at their tallest. He looked around and saw a much smaller community, of a different design and took it to be Labyrinth, the community that Ray and the rest were from.
“We don't live in the Labyrinth,” said Murderwake, “though areas are open and seem rather secure, strange things still happen around there and we're not sure it is safe.”
“Ah, well I'll gladly take a look at it,” said Gerald, “but about your people, you say you've lost contact with your government?”
“It's worse than that,” replied Teal, “there seem to be pirate groups operating in the local volume of space, they have yet to hit us, but we've picked up some of their transmissions, it appears that the Union Space Navy has abandoned this particular section of the Union, which I find deplorable. Warlords are probably setting up shop all over this sector.”
“Shame that,” said Gerald.
“Yes,” said Ray, “but tell us more about your Oalri Federation.”
“We are a group of explorers, mostly,” said Gerald, not feeling like he was lying too much, “we've never explored your particular galaxy but for the most part we just kick around, find new things and then study them.”
“Interesting,” said Ray, “and can we expect more of your kind?”
“Hopefully not till we're long gone,” muttered Poll.
“Yes, there will probably be more of my kind in the future,” said Gerald diplomatically, ignoring the Poll. They arrived at the city eventually, landing on pads at the small port that was built there and they took a pair of ground-cars to Ray's office. There Ray had his secretary bring them some drinks, though, with a painfully concerned voice, explained what was in it to make sure it was not dangerous to him. Gerald let him, without bothering to explain that he was by far more tolerant of the food in this universe than Ray himself, probably. He had heard stories of Harkers eating stones and getting by alright, though he had never tried it himself. He took a sip of the drink, standard variety of fermented beverage, he was actually a little disappointed.
“Well,” he said, “since we still have some day left, how about we take a look at this massive alien artifact of yours, this Labyrinth?” Murderwake was the most excited about the idea and Ray decided to let him escort him to the city while Teal and Ray remained at their offices to deal with business that had just popped up.
“Poll?” asked Gerald sub-vocally.
“Looks like, if I'm reading the right logs, they've been getting threats from the local potentate warlord,” said Poll, “they're probably wondering what to do.”
“Maybe we can help them out, you're worth, what? A fleet of their metal bucket ships?”
“A Million class warship in this universe would be a fox in the hen house, young Harker,” said the ship stiffly, then added, “except I'm a little dinged up, so there won't be any chicken slaughtering for me for a while.”
“Let me know if you need anything to speed up repairs, I would like to get out of here as soon as possible.” said Gerald then turned to back to Murderwake who had just asked him something.
“Do you know anything about the Labyrinth-builders?” he had asked.
“Ah, no, not personally, though I suppose I could check my records,” Gerald said, they were now riding in another ground-car to the Labyrinth.
“You seem to be a fairly small settlement, and with the collapse of the Union Law around here, do you have any means of defending yourself?”
“Unfortunately, no,” said Murderwake, “we're without weapons here. Just a few blasters that you saw back there, and that's about it.”
“But what if pirates come along?” asked Gerald. Murderwake shrugged sadly.
“I suppose we'd have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“What brought you here, to a outpost out on the edge of civilization?”
“Well,” said Murderwake, “my family was one of the founding houses of the Union, and we've traditionally have been a Naval family, I chose to become a scholar, and, well, my family arranged for my exile.”
“That's a pity,” said Gerald.
“It's not too bad,” Murderwake said, “we're doing important work out here, I just haven't heard anything from my sister or my brother in a while. My father is probably too busy playing political machination games to really notice I'm gone and my mother is dead.”
“Considering how unstable the current Union government is they probably moved you out of the way for your safety,” suggested Gerald. Murderwake smiled sadly and shook his head.
“No, it doesn't really work that way when you're a Murderwake,” he said, “my grandfather was the conquerer of the rebellious Vegere Sector. My grandfather's uncle was a bloody general who nearly single handedly put down a planet wide rebellion on Scion. I'm just a failure in their eyes.”
“Well, you're young yet, I would write yourself off just yet,” Gerald assured him and then looked out at the Labyrinth. Murderwake sensed the shift in his attention.
“It seems like it's all one single piece, all the buildings, at their foundations, are connected, it's all one seamless machine, it's pretty amazing, far advanced past our understanding of things.”
“It is fascinating looking,” Gerald said, the buildings all seemed to be made out of dark black glass, glittering obsidian towers in the afternoon light, built in a circle, as he could make out now, and carefully spreading out from the tall building in the center. They drove down a street which was the same material as the buildings only dirtier.
“We still have not figured out what the materials are that the buildings and the streets are made of or broken off a piece of it yet,” said Murderwake, “but we've been working on it, of course the last time we tried to blow a piece off of the buildings the city seemed to attack the researchers. As far as we can tell there is some sort of self-defense mechanism built into the city.”
“It's sleeping,” whispered Poll, “it's big though, I'd hate to rumble with it, if I'm getting the right vibe about this thing.”
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
- - - - -
Peter Black walked up to the observation deck as the Grave Matters continued scanning at full power.
“There was a definite disturbance in the Static Zone, though I find it difficult to believe that Harker Underhill could construct a device of such power in the time he had available,” said the ship.
“Perhaps he was planning his defection from the start,” said Peter Black,
“but I doubt it, this strikes me as a more impulsive action. Can you track the trail of the anomaly?”
“Yes, Mr. Black,” the ship said.
“Track it, then,” said Peter Black, after a moment, and sat down in a chair. The Grave Matters swung about and began following the disturbances in the Static Zones fields. Peter Black closed his eyes and relaxed. He thought back to his training at the hands of the previous Peter Black.
“Always go with your instinct,” said the former Peter Black, “even if it's wrong. It gets better and it's by a huge margin, faster, and speed counts in this business.” Peter Black got up and checked a chronometer. He had not slept in fifteen hours, he should take a rest for a little while or risk losing his edge.
“I'm going to rest in my cabin,” he said to the ship, “alert me instantly if anything happens or if you find an exit point into another universe.”
“Yes, sir,” said the ship. Peter Black walked back to his room and pulled off his jacket, hanging it up carefully in the closet and sat down in a chair. He let his head lay back against the chair and closed his eyes and entered the sub-hypnotic command to sleep and was instantly deeply asleep.
“Exit point detected, Mr. Black,” said the ship and he was instantly awake.
He stood up and grabbed his jacket.
“Pursue,” he ordered, checking the time, and seeing that he had been asleep for an hour.
“Confirmed,” said the ship and it powered its u-drive and punched through to another universe. Upon entering the universe it turned its scanners up to maximum and began meticulously searching the vicinity. It turned out that its efforts were unnecessary, there had been an extremely damaged Oalri vessel in the vicinity not long ago. The sheer power it expended on the initial scans were immense though. The damaged ship made no attempt to hide its path either, so the Grave Matters swung about, confirmed action with its sole Oalri occupant, and set a course.
- - - - -
“Oh shit,” said Poll. It sounded scared. No, not scared, said Gerald, very very concerned. Warships were concerned never scared.
“What is it?” he asked, as he walked along with the Lord Murderwake through the alien structure, they had just begun searching the massive entrance to the heart of the strange city sized artifact, where the researchers hypothesized was the focus of the elaborate and massive machinery.
“I just picked up someones active scans,” said the Poll, “and that was definitely something big and something mean.”
“Oalri?” asked Gerald silently, smiling and nodding as the man pointed out something on the entrance. The entrance was a massive circular portal ringed with strange glyphs. There was nothing but a wall on the other side, maybe a dozen centimeters in, but Murderwake assured him that anyone who stepped through, or anything that stepped through, disappeared to somewhere within the structure.
“There's some kind of wormhole, we think,” he said, “contained right there, but it might be off unless something enters it, we have no idea how it works.” He smiled sheepishly, Gerald forced a smile.
“What are we looking at?” he said aloud, hoping the Poll would catch his meaning.
“My guess? I can't get a clearer look without revealing myself but I'm betting that's military grade equipment, and it's far outstripping mine.”
“Oh that?” asked the young Lord, “That's just some strange decorations, we've been working on a translation but it's slow going, these aliens had a pretty complicated alphabet and we're working very hard with no frame of reference.”
“And the bad news is that,” started the ship.
“Wait, there's more bad news?”
“Oh yeah, I was so damaged that I should have left a giant arrow pointing at this planet, I'm going to break some protocols here and begin mass matter alteration.”
“Do what you have to do, I'm coming back as soon as I can.”
“You've got maybe two hours, I don't know how badly these guys want us.”
“Are you alright?” asked Murderwake and Gerald realized he had forgotten to smile.
“I'm fine, just a little disoriented by it all,” he said quickly.
“Yes, it is rather intimidating.”
“So no one has returned from beyond the portal?”
“That's correct, though from what we've come to understand, the city only fully activates when we send something through.”
“Are you sure that whatever you send through is still in the city?”
“For a little while, anyway.” said Murderwake.
“Poll,” said Gerald, “can you crack this place? I need to know what this thing does, we might have a way out of here. I'm looking at a wormhole gate right now.” He fed the date from his eyes through the com chip.
“Right, great, wonderful,” said Poll, “I'll get on it.”
“I think,” said Gerald turning back to Murderwake, “that I may be able to offer a solution to your problem, both of your problems. I need to speak to Ray though, immediately.” Murderwake offered him his portable telephone, a strange device that Gerald was certain that the Poll would find infinitely amusing. Murderwake dialed in the Mayor's office code.
“Mayor?”
“Yes, Harker Gerald Underhill is it?” said Ray.
“I've come to understand that you have a problem with some local pirates?”
“A local warlord named Jan Norton,” said Ray, “he's set up a kingdom near us and been shaking the sabers for tribute of all things.”
“Tell him to send his worst, I've got a warship on the way,” said Gerald, “but how long will it take him to get here?”
“A few hours, maybe,” said Ray.
“Alright, well, look, this warship will be looking for me and it's imperative that it doesn't find me, I think,” Gerald momentarily conferred with the ever more distracted Poll, “that the city will shield my ship, I need your permission to put my ship there.”
“What's going on?” asked Ray seriously.
“I might be kind of a fugitive,” said Gerald, “bureaucratic dispute, the point is, I can help you but you've got to help me hide.”
“Great,” muttered Ray, “the first contact we've had with an alien and it turns out to be a criminal.”
“The warship they're sending is extremely powerful, all you have to do is tell them that I threatened you with my warship and that you were coerced into aiding me getting into the city. In the meantime the pirates show up and you can ask for aid, or better yet, refuse to help until they deal with the pirates.”
“What's to stop them from just blowing us up?” asked Ray.
“Well, say something very rude to the pirates to help move them along, and then claim you've got a brand new warship en route, hopefully that will help,” said Gerald, “do you want to help or not? The other thing I'm offering is that I should,” he crossed his fingers, “be able to give you a full run down on this Labyrinth in a few moments.”
“Alright,” chuckled Ray, “I was always too much of a gambler to make a good mayor anyway.”
“Poll,” said Gerald, “can you get here right now?”
“I was listening in, I'm on my way now,” said the Poll. “I'm beginning to try and crack the Labyrinth systems.” It sent out its fields and began interacting with the alien city. Meanwhile, Gerald pulled out his multi-tool and began carving his way into the wall. Murderwake nearly jumped in surprise. Gerald turned around to face him as he rushed up to try and stop Gerald.
“Look,” said Gerald, “we don't have time to talk, but I can figure out everything you'd ever want to know about this place, and I know what I'm doing.” Murderwake paused as Gerald turned about, picked a new setting for his multi-tool, and began physically cracking open the Labyrinth. He sensed more abstractly the self-defense mechanisms activating, but as they locked on to him he quickly found a connection to that part of the system and disabled them in this room temporarily. He might need them again soon.
“Are you in, yet?” he asked the Poll.
“I'm in alright,” said the Poll, “this stuff isn't Oalri level, but they had some crazy stuff in here, it's layered, from what I can tell it was built for a ridiculous reason.”
“What is it then?”
“It's a coming of age ritual test,” said Poll, “from what I can tell from its rather stubborn artificial intelligences, it was designed to test those who passed through it, a trial of adulthood, or something more, a means of apotheosis.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “I guess we know what it does now, can we modify it to do what we want?”
“You mean fix it so that the wormhole puts us very very far away?”
“Exactly,” said Gerald, squinting as he ripped out a huge chunk of alien looking circuitry and began rewiring it, he entered the computer systems himself through a makeshift terminal and began programming. He looked over the situation, the wormhole actually led to deeper in the Labyrinth, but the entire city was one giant teleportation engine, or could be, given him a few moments.
“I can get us out of here,” he said, “are you here yet?”
“I'm landed on the surface above you,” said the ship.
“I can see you through the city's systems,” said Gerald.
“So can I,” the Poll replied, “and by the way, the self-defense systems rebooted about fifteen seconds ago, I just saved your life again, Harker.”
“I'll send you a basket of flowers and a thank you note after we're done,” Gerald said. He stood up and turned to Murderwake.
“Okay,” he said, “so this is how it is. I need to go through that portal to get into the heart of this beast and activate it fully so that I can teleport myself and my ship out of here.”
“I,” started Murderwake but Gerald spoke over him.
“I'm going to make sure that you get all the information that I've gleaned about this place, and I'll leave that,” he pointed at his jury-rigged terminal, “up and running, you can run this place from here. I think that you won't be having trouble with pirates for much longer. But I think I want to know if you want to come with me through the portal?”
“What?” said Murderwake.
“Yeah, come on, curious to see what's on the other side? I'm still a newcomer here, and you're the closest thing we've got to an expert with firsthand knowledge.”
“Alright,” said Murderwake after a moment's hesitation.
“The test could kill you, you know,” said the Poll, “I'm not so far in that I could prevent that.”
“Hey,” Gerald snorted, “I'm a Harker, no test of adulthood built by some rock throwing primitives is going to scare me.”
“These guys were pretty advanced,” said the warship, “I'm using the city's exterior defense systems to hide me now.”
- - - - -
Jann Norton stood on the bridge of his ship and slammed his fist down on a tactical display table. He was practically frothing from the mouth after the short conversation with that lowly Ray Kardaman. Several of his ranking officers were conscious enough to work very hard on something far away from him, the things the mayor had said! Especially about the King's mother!
“I'm going to raze their city to the ground and that alien trash heap too, and then I'm going to make sure that the little cigar smoking fucker is going to spend the rest of his extremely short life in infinite pain!” shouted Jann.
Peter Black walked up to the observation deck as the Grave Matters continued scanning at full power.
“There was a definite disturbance in the Static Zone, though I find it difficult to believe that Harker Underhill could construct a device of such power in the time he had available,” said the ship.
“Perhaps he was planning his defection from the start,” said Peter Black,
“but I doubt it, this strikes me as a more impulsive action. Can you track the trail of the anomaly?”
“Yes, Mr. Black,” the ship said.
“Track it, then,” said Peter Black, after a moment, and sat down in a chair. The Grave Matters swung about and began following the disturbances in the Static Zones fields. Peter Black closed his eyes and relaxed. He thought back to his training at the hands of the previous Peter Black.
“Always go with your instinct,” said the former Peter Black, “even if it's wrong. It gets better and it's by a huge margin, faster, and speed counts in this business.” Peter Black got up and checked a chronometer. He had not slept in fifteen hours, he should take a rest for a little while or risk losing his edge.
“I'm going to rest in my cabin,” he said to the ship, “alert me instantly if anything happens or if you find an exit point into another universe.”
“Yes, sir,” said the ship. Peter Black walked back to his room and pulled off his jacket, hanging it up carefully in the closet and sat down in a chair. He let his head lay back against the chair and closed his eyes and entered the sub-hypnotic command to sleep and was instantly deeply asleep.
“Exit point detected, Mr. Black,” said the ship and he was instantly awake.
He stood up and grabbed his jacket.
“Pursue,” he ordered, checking the time, and seeing that he had been asleep for an hour.
“Confirmed,” said the ship and it powered its u-drive and punched through to another universe. Upon entering the universe it turned its scanners up to maximum and began meticulously searching the vicinity. It turned out that its efforts were unnecessary, there had been an extremely damaged Oalri vessel in the vicinity not long ago. The sheer power it expended on the initial scans were immense though. The damaged ship made no attempt to hide its path either, so the Grave Matters swung about, confirmed action with its sole Oalri occupant, and set a course.
- - - - -
“Oh shit,” said Poll. It sounded scared. No, not scared, said Gerald, very very concerned. Warships were concerned never scared.
“What is it?” he asked, as he walked along with the Lord Murderwake through the alien structure, they had just begun searching the massive entrance to the heart of the strange city sized artifact, where the researchers hypothesized was the focus of the elaborate and massive machinery.
“I just picked up someones active scans,” said the Poll, “and that was definitely something big and something mean.”
“Oalri?” asked Gerald silently, smiling and nodding as the man pointed out something on the entrance. The entrance was a massive circular portal ringed with strange glyphs. There was nothing but a wall on the other side, maybe a dozen centimeters in, but Murderwake assured him that anyone who stepped through, or anything that stepped through, disappeared to somewhere within the structure.
“There's some kind of wormhole, we think,” he said, “contained right there, but it might be off unless something enters it, we have no idea how it works.” He smiled sheepishly, Gerald forced a smile.
“What are we looking at?” he said aloud, hoping the Poll would catch his meaning.
“My guess? I can't get a clearer look without revealing myself but I'm betting that's military grade equipment, and it's far outstripping mine.”
“Oh that?” asked the young Lord, “That's just some strange decorations, we've been working on a translation but it's slow going, these aliens had a pretty complicated alphabet and we're working very hard with no frame of reference.”
“And the bad news is that,” started the ship.
“Wait, there's more bad news?”
“Oh yeah, I was so damaged that I should have left a giant arrow pointing at this planet, I'm going to break some protocols here and begin mass matter alteration.”
“Do what you have to do, I'm coming back as soon as I can.”
“You've got maybe two hours, I don't know how badly these guys want us.”
“Are you alright?” asked Murderwake and Gerald realized he had forgotten to smile.
“I'm fine, just a little disoriented by it all,” he said quickly.
“Yes, it is rather intimidating.”
“So no one has returned from beyond the portal?”
“That's correct, though from what we've come to understand, the city only fully activates when we send something through.”
“Are you sure that whatever you send through is still in the city?”
“For a little while, anyway.” said Murderwake.
“Poll,” said Gerald, “can you crack this place? I need to know what this thing does, we might have a way out of here. I'm looking at a wormhole gate right now.” He fed the date from his eyes through the com chip.
“Right, great, wonderful,” said Poll, “I'll get on it.”
“I think,” said Gerald turning back to Murderwake, “that I may be able to offer a solution to your problem, both of your problems. I need to speak to Ray though, immediately.” Murderwake offered him his portable telephone, a strange device that Gerald was certain that the Poll would find infinitely amusing. Murderwake dialed in the Mayor's office code.
“Mayor?”
“Yes, Harker Gerald Underhill is it?” said Ray.
“I've come to understand that you have a problem with some local pirates?”
“A local warlord named Jan Norton,” said Ray, “he's set up a kingdom near us and been shaking the sabers for tribute of all things.”
“Tell him to send his worst, I've got a warship on the way,” said Gerald, “but how long will it take him to get here?”
“A few hours, maybe,” said Ray.
“Alright, well, look, this warship will be looking for me and it's imperative that it doesn't find me, I think,” Gerald momentarily conferred with the ever more distracted Poll, “that the city will shield my ship, I need your permission to put my ship there.”
“What's going on?” asked Ray seriously.
“I might be kind of a fugitive,” said Gerald, “bureaucratic dispute, the point is, I can help you but you've got to help me hide.”
“Great,” muttered Ray, “the first contact we've had with an alien and it turns out to be a criminal.”
“The warship they're sending is extremely powerful, all you have to do is tell them that I threatened you with my warship and that you were coerced into aiding me getting into the city. In the meantime the pirates show up and you can ask for aid, or better yet, refuse to help until they deal with the pirates.”
“What's to stop them from just blowing us up?” asked Ray.
“Well, say something very rude to the pirates to help move them along, and then claim you've got a brand new warship en route, hopefully that will help,” said Gerald, “do you want to help or not? The other thing I'm offering is that I should,” he crossed his fingers, “be able to give you a full run down on this Labyrinth in a few moments.”
“Alright,” chuckled Ray, “I was always too much of a gambler to make a good mayor anyway.”
“Poll,” said Gerald, “can you get here right now?”
“I was listening in, I'm on my way now,” said the Poll. “I'm beginning to try and crack the Labyrinth systems.” It sent out its fields and began interacting with the alien city. Meanwhile, Gerald pulled out his multi-tool and began carving his way into the wall. Murderwake nearly jumped in surprise. Gerald turned around to face him as he rushed up to try and stop Gerald.
“Look,” said Gerald, “we don't have time to talk, but I can figure out everything you'd ever want to know about this place, and I know what I'm doing.” Murderwake paused as Gerald turned about, picked a new setting for his multi-tool, and began physically cracking open the Labyrinth. He sensed more abstractly the self-defense mechanisms activating, but as they locked on to him he quickly found a connection to that part of the system and disabled them in this room temporarily. He might need them again soon.
“Are you in, yet?” he asked the Poll.
“I'm in alright,” said the Poll, “this stuff isn't Oalri level, but they had some crazy stuff in here, it's layered, from what I can tell it was built for a ridiculous reason.”
“What is it then?”
“It's a coming of age ritual test,” said Poll, “from what I can tell from its rather stubborn artificial intelligences, it was designed to test those who passed through it, a trial of adulthood, or something more, a means of apotheosis.”
“Well,” said Gerald, “I guess we know what it does now, can we modify it to do what we want?”
“You mean fix it so that the wormhole puts us very very far away?”
“Exactly,” said Gerald, squinting as he ripped out a huge chunk of alien looking circuitry and began rewiring it, he entered the computer systems himself through a makeshift terminal and began programming. He looked over the situation, the wormhole actually led to deeper in the Labyrinth, but the entire city was one giant teleportation engine, or could be, given him a few moments.
“I can get us out of here,” he said, “are you here yet?”
“I'm landed on the surface above you,” said the ship.
“I can see you through the city's systems,” said Gerald.
“So can I,” the Poll replied, “and by the way, the self-defense systems rebooted about fifteen seconds ago, I just saved your life again, Harker.”
“I'll send you a basket of flowers and a thank you note after we're done,” Gerald said. He stood up and turned to Murderwake.
“Okay,” he said, “so this is how it is. I need to go through that portal to get into the heart of this beast and activate it fully so that I can teleport myself and my ship out of here.”
“I,” started Murderwake but Gerald spoke over him.
“I'm going to make sure that you get all the information that I've gleaned about this place, and I'll leave that,” he pointed at his jury-rigged terminal, “up and running, you can run this place from here. I think that you won't be having trouble with pirates for much longer. But I think I want to know if you want to come with me through the portal?”
“What?” said Murderwake.
“Yeah, come on, curious to see what's on the other side? I'm still a newcomer here, and you're the closest thing we've got to an expert with firsthand knowledge.”
“Alright,” said Murderwake after a moment's hesitation.
“The test could kill you, you know,” said the Poll, “I'm not so far in that I could prevent that.”
“Hey,” Gerald snorted, “I'm a Harker, no test of adulthood built by some rock throwing primitives is going to scare me.”
“These guys were pretty advanced,” said the warship, “I'm using the city's exterior defense systems to hide me now.”
- - - - -
Jann Norton stood on the bridge of his ship and slammed his fist down on a tactical display table. He was practically frothing from the mouth after the short conversation with that lowly Ray Kardaman. Several of his ranking officers were conscious enough to work very hard on something far away from him, the things the mayor had said! Especially about the King's mother!
“I'm going to raze their city to the ground and that alien trash heap too, and then I'm going to make sure that the little cigar smoking fucker is going to spend the rest of his extremely short life in infinite pain!” shouted Jann.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
speaker-to-trolls
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: 2003-11-18 05:46pm
- Location: All Hail Britannia!
Cool, I kind of suspected Murderwake would end up along for the ride. So is Gerald going to recruit a whole motley crew or go with the Doctor Who approach and have only a few travelling companions?
Post Number 1066 achieved Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:19 pm(board time, 8:19GMT)
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
I enjoy Murderwake because I've read three Deathstalker books and I couldn't help but enjoy trying my hand at a Simon Green character.speaker-to-trolls wrote:Cool, I kind of suspected Murderwake would end up along for the ride. So is Gerald going to recruit a whole motley crew or go with the Doctor Who approach and have only a few travelling companions?
As for Gerald, I'm not entirely sure, I think that he's going for a few traveling companions. Doctor Who style. I think I need to get a woman in there, somehow, eventually.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Peter Black looked down at the planet as Grave projected it onto his window. It looked like a small insignificant planet to a man like Black, who had seen thousands of worlds, and worked in dozens of universes. Still, he thought, what is one more? He was tempted to have the Grave annihilate the world, though the decision between scorching the surface completely or actually blowing the planet up would be an issue. But that was not how the Peter Black's operated, if the Bureau wanted to send a fleet of warships they could have, but they picked the Black Option, which meant cracking him from his cryogenic tank and opting for a more subtle approach.
The weariness that no amount of Boost could push away nagged at him though and he wondered, momentarily, if he would retire eventually. That would be a first for a Peter Black, but he pushed the thought away, he could not afford his edge right now, and getting distracted by the idea of retirement would blunt him when he needed his edge the most.
Besides, all Peter Blacks died in the field. It was a tradition. Not one that he hoped to embrace but he did understand it.
“What is the situation down there?” he asked aloud.
“Single major settlement, we have a Oalri-based life form community, they fall within the acceptable standard deviation, though internally they're a mess, and an artifact of unknown design, a city-sized artifact,” said the Grave Matters, “I'm analyzing it now, it's strange, definitely advanced, too advanced from what I've seen about the culture down there. I'm cracking their information sphere as we speak.”
“Get me a communication line with whatever is they're leader down there,” said Peter Black, “any sign of Underhill?”
“I've located the crash site, he's definitely somehow tracked down an Oalri warship, incidentally, I wasn't sure at first, but now after scanning the crash site, there was evidence of Oalri technological artifacts,” said the warship, “I'm searching for potential candidates among the Lost.”
“I doubt they could have missed him then,” said Peter Black.
“I'm scanning for him, but you know Harkers are designed to be hard to impossible to find, even with scanners,” said Grave, “the alien artifact is also effectively blocking my deep scans. If he were going to be anywhere I suspect it would be there.” The ship paused and Peter Black watched the window as it zoomed in on the world, blowing up the image of the alien city structure.
“Can you crack the alien systems? Are there alien systems?”
“It's strange,” said the ship, “but I could ... oh,” said the ship.
“What is it?”
“I was just blocked out,” said the ship, “now we definitely know they're there. There's an Oalri ship-intelligence in there already, and it's resisting me.”
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, “continue attempting to reach this community. Make a note to report this city back to the Bureau.”
“Ships appearing,” reported the ship, “an entire fleet.” The ship displayed the image of the ships, there seemed to be about two hundred of them.
“Amazingly efficient fusion technology,” said the ship, “but far from any threat to us. They seem to be having maintenance issues though. The ships must be extremely old.”
“I wonder if we've just stepped into some kind of fight.” said Peter Black, watching them.
“They are closing in on us, they're targeting us,” said Grave, unconcerned, “do you want me to respond in force?”
“Attempt to communicate with them first,” said Peter Black, “maybe there is something going on here, a misunderstanding.”
“No response,” said the ship, “maybe I should just crack their systems.”
“I suspect Underhill is somehow behind this,” mused Peter Black, “anyway, irregardless it falls upon us for first contact initiatives, so let's impress the natives, leave a ship alive to flee. Annihilate the rest. The hard way.”
“Annihilation commencing,” said the Grave Matters, and the warship accelerated so quickly that it was among the fleet before they even realized it, unleashing it's EECGs and salvos of Cash missiles, it was almost over before the fleet members realized that the ship had moved. A single ship remained intact, the Grave Matters projected itself onto the ship, deactivating weapons and drives.
“Attention attacking vessel,” said the Grave Matters, “you have initiated hostile action against a ship of the Oalri Federation.” It spoke through the ship intercom, “you have been spared to let the rest of your pissant kind know the following: Do not fuck with us.”
It used their own language, just to ease them along. Their rudimentary level of computers was almost laughably simple that Grave Matters felt sorry for them, then it locked in a course in the ship and sent it on its way.
“Do not fuck with us?” asked Peter Black.
“I summarized,” said the Grave Matters, “they're simpletons and I addressed them as such.”
“Ah,” Peter Black, “well said, I suppose. A show of force, I suppose we will have to arrange for a Bureau expedition into this universe now that our presence is known.”
“I've located the mayor of that outpost below,” said the ship.
“Excellent, what does he say about Underhill?”
“He says that Underhill used his ship to coerce their assistance and has taken refuge in the alien artifact with hostages.” the ship paused as if listening to someone, “he also conveys his thanks, apparently we just destroyed a pirate fleet intent on destroying the outpost. We seem to have stumbled upon some small frontier research colony in an area that has politically collapsed into barbarism.”
“Interesting,” Peter Black said, “and while I would love to hear more, can you get into the city?”
“Not yet,” said the ship, “I could destroy it from here though.”
“No,” Peter Black said, “enter orbit, let's physically go there, and then I'll enter the city and deal with Underhill myself.”
- - - - -
Entering the portal was a chilling experience. The blast of cold that rocked through his entire body left Murderwake curled up on the ground in a fetal position shivering violently. Frost had gathered on his face and hands. Underhill bent down and helped him up, they were in a large chamber, the roof was so far up it was lost in shadows, lighting came from globes set into the walls at regular intervals and the hallway extended off with no end in sight.
“Are you alright?” he asked Murderwake who tried to nod but then continued shivering. Gerald felt something on his face and reached up to brush his nose and saw his hand had a little blood on it. The wormhole was not calibrated correctly, he noticed, if he had time he would fix that.
“Poll,” he said aloud.
“I'm here,” said the ship, “though physically I've had the city take my ship deeper in, their repair systems are being co-opted as we speak. They're stuff is weird, and I don't think anywhere near Oalri military grade, but it's faster than just doing it on my own.”
“Alright, stay with me,” said Gerald.
“The entire structure is now fully active,” said the ship, “and I can't stop what it's doing yet, but if you get to the end of this test we should be able to have this city teleport us far away from the Genocide class warship above us. Genocide class, I wonder if it's on a peaceful diplomatic mission?”
“Yeah, I doubt it,” said Gerald looking around. He put Murderwake down and walked over to a wall and pulled out his multi-tool.
“Look, Murderwake,” said Gerald, “I'll have us here out of here in a
moment,” and when he looked back at Murderwake he was gone. “Okay, I just lost Murderwake, what's going on?”
“The machinery is separating you, the better to test you,” said the ship, “and now they're trying to block me out, very interesting from a sociological anthropological standpoint.”
“Go ahead and let them block you out,” said Gerald, “I can handle whatever they throw at me. I don't want to break it until after we're gone.”
“Alright,” said the ship. “See you soon.”
Gerald kept walking down the hallways. A woman stepped out of the shadows, taller than him, a giant athletic woman, who he recognized immediately.
“Ah, Mercedes,” he said to the heir to Empire, who he had left in another universe, “you can't be here so that means that the Labyrinth is trying to read my mind.”
She raised up her arms and walked towards him, she was wearing the white dress she had worn when he had met her on the beaches. He felt the subtle mental manipulation, affecting his moods, but Harkers were trained, and implanted, with all kinds of things to keep that at bay. He concentrated and he saw to the structure of the illusion and traced it to the projector. He walked past the image of Mercedes who was still trying to speak to him and jammed the multi-tool into it, scrambling the transmission.
“I don't think you understand,” he said aloud to the Labyrinth, “you can't improve me.” He continued walking, altering the setting on his multi-tool to scanner, and it detected something further down the hallway, a large power source, it sounded interesting enough to pursue for the moment.
- - - - -
Murderwake found himself alone in a forest. He stood up, still cold, but recovering slowly. He walked, half stumbling, in a random direction. Fog was filling the gaps between the trees, and he seemed to be lost in an the endless murky clouds. Something growled in the distance and he wheeled about, looking about frantically, but the growling distance seemed to multiply. He heard rustling noises all around him, panic seized him and he turned to run. Running was difficult since the ground was uneven and he kept stumbling, and he kept having to work around the thick strange trees. He ran with the certainty of a man pursued with the driving knowledge that his hunters were gaining on him. He tripped at one point and fell down a ravine and saw a cave, he ran inside to find an old man sitting by a fire. The old man looked like his grandfather, but he wore only rags and sat next to a large bonfire. The man looked up at him.
“Please,” he said, “there is something after me,” he looked behind him and fell to the ground beside the old man. The old man looked down at him.
“Then you should do something,” the old man said calmly. Murderwake looked up at him as the sounds were closing in, and Murderwake felt a pressure in his head as he sensed whatever it was pursuing closing in on him. He grabbed the man's rags and shook him.
“What do you mean?” he screamed at the man, saliva spitting out of his mouth.
“Salvation lies at hand,” said the old man, “but if you keep panicking you will die.” The fear was now pulsing through Murderwake, the adrenaline making it hard to concentrate, but he saw that the old man was pointing at the fire. It was a large bonfire that seemed, as he looked at it, to grow brighter and hotter. He felt it washing over him, it was so hot he had to take a step back. He was reminded of getting too close to fires when they went camping back when he was a child, with his brother. He felt his skin tightening, and he smelled the burning of wood. But the impression just got stronger, and as it drove him back, towards the entrance of the cave, he felt the presence behind him. He turned to see three dark shapes, Uller-wolves from his homeworld, large black ones with deep blue eyes that flickered hungrily in the firelight.
The weariness that no amount of Boost could push away nagged at him though and he wondered, momentarily, if he would retire eventually. That would be a first for a Peter Black, but he pushed the thought away, he could not afford his edge right now, and getting distracted by the idea of retirement would blunt him when he needed his edge the most.
Besides, all Peter Blacks died in the field. It was a tradition. Not one that he hoped to embrace but he did understand it.
“What is the situation down there?” he asked aloud.
“Single major settlement, we have a Oalri-based life form community, they fall within the acceptable standard deviation, though internally they're a mess, and an artifact of unknown design, a city-sized artifact,” said the Grave Matters, “I'm analyzing it now, it's strange, definitely advanced, too advanced from what I've seen about the culture down there. I'm cracking their information sphere as we speak.”
“Get me a communication line with whatever is they're leader down there,” said Peter Black, “any sign of Underhill?”
“I've located the crash site, he's definitely somehow tracked down an Oalri warship, incidentally, I wasn't sure at first, but now after scanning the crash site, there was evidence of Oalri technological artifacts,” said the warship, “I'm searching for potential candidates among the Lost.”
“I doubt they could have missed him then,” said Peter Black.
“I'm scanning for him, but you know Harkers are designed to be hard to impossible to find, even with scanners,” said Grave, “the alien artifact is also effectively blocking my deep scans. If he were going to be anywhere I suspect it would be there.” The ship paused and Peter Black watched the window as it zoomed in on the world, blowing up the image of the alien city structure.
“Can you crack the alien systems? Are there alien systems?”
“It's strange,” said the ship, “but I could ... oh,” said the ship.
“What is it?”
“I was just blocked out,” said the ship, “now we definitely know they're there. There's an Oalri ship-intelligence in there already, and it's resisting me.”
“Interesting,” said Peter Black, “continue attempting to reach this community. Make a note to report this city back to the Bureau.”
“Ships appearing,” reported the ship, “an entire fleet.” The ship displayed the image of the ships, there seemed to be about two hundred of them.
“Amazingly efficient fusion technology,” said the ship, “but far from any threat to us. They seem to be having maintenance issues though. The ships must be extremely old.”
“I wonder if we've just stepped into some kind of fight.” said Peter Black, watching them.
“They are closing in on us, they're targeting us,” said Grave, unconcerned, “do you want me to respond in force?”
“Attempt to communicate with them first,” said Peter Black, “maybe there is something going on here, a misunderstanding.”
“No response,” said the ship, “maybe I should just crack their systems.”
“I suspect Underhill is somehow behind this,” mused Peter Black, “anyway, irregardless it falls upon us for first contact initiatives, so let's impress the natives, leave a ship alive to flee. Annihilate the rest. The hard way.”
“Annihilation commencing,” said the Grave Matters, and the warship accelerated so quickly that it was among the fleet before they even realized it, unleashing it's EECGs and salvos of Cash missiles, it was almost over before the fleet members realized that the ship had moved. A single ship remained intact, the Grave Matters projected itself onto the ship, deactivating weapons and drives.
“Attention attacking vessel,” said the Grave Matters, “you have initiated hostile action against a ship of the Oalri Federation.” It spoke through the ship intercom, “you have been spared to let the rest of your pissant kind know the following: Do not fuck with us.”
It used their own language, just to ease them along. Their rudimentary level of computers was almost laughably simple that Grave Matters felt sorry for them, then it locked in a course in the ship and sent it on its way.
“Do not fuck with us?” asked Peter Black.
“I summarized,” said the Grave Matters, “they're simpletons and I addressed them as such.”
“Ah,” Peter Black, “well said, I suppose. A show of force, I suppose we will have to arrange for a Bureau expedition into this universe now that our presence is known.”
“I've located the mayor of that outpost below,” said the ship.
“Excellent, what does he say about Underhill?”
“He says that Underhill used his ship to coerce their assistance and has taken refuge in the alien artifact with hostages.” the ship paused as if listening to someone, “he also conveys his thanks, apparently we just destroyed a pirate fleet intent on destroying the outpost. We seem to have stumbled upon some small frontier research colony in an area that has politically collapsed into barbarism.”
“Interesting,” Peter Black said, “and while I would love to hear more, can you get into the city?”
“Not yet,” said the ship, “I could destroy it from here though.”
“No,” Peter Black said, “enter orbit, let's physically go there, and then I'll enter the city and deal with Underhill myself.”
- - - - -
Entering the portal was a chilling experience. The blast of cold that rocked through his entire body left Murderwake curled up on the ground in a fetal position shivering violently. Frost had gathered on his face and hands. Underhill bent down and helped him up, they were in a large chamber, the roof was so far up it was lost in shadows, lighting came from globes set into the walls at regular intervals and the hallway extended off with no end in sight.
“Are you alright?” he asked Murderwake who tried to nod but then continued shivering. Gerald felt something on his face and reached up to brush his nose and saw his hand had a little blood on it. The wormhole was not calibrated correctly, he noticed, if he had time he would fix that.
“Poll,” he said aloud.
“I'm here,” said the ship, “though physically I've had the city take my ship deeper in, their repair systems are being co-opted as we speak. They're stuff is weird, and I don't think anywhere near Oalri military grade, but it's faster than just doing it on my own.”
“Alright, stay with me,” said Gerald.
“The entire structure is now fully active,” said the ship, “and I can't stop what it's doing yet, but if you get to the end of this test we should be able to have this city teleport us far away from the Genocide class warship above us. Genocide class, I wonder if it's on a peaceful diplomatic mission?”
“Yeah, I doubt it,” said Gerald looking around. He put Murderwake down and walked over to a wall and pulled out his multi-tool.
“Look, Murderwake,” said Gerald, “I'll have us here out of here in a
moment,” and when he looked back at Murderwake he was gone. “Okay, I just lost Murderwake, what's going on?”
“The machinery is separating you, the better to test you,” said the ship, “and now they're trying to block me out, very interesting from a sociological anthropological standpoint.”
“Go ahead and let them block you out,” said Gerald, “I can handle whatever they throw at me. I don't want to break it until after we're gone.”
“Alright,” said the ship. “See you soon.”
Gerald kept walking down the hallways. A woman stepped out of the shadows, taller than him, a giant athletic woman, who he recognized immediately.
“Ah, Mercedes,” he said to the heir to Empire, who he had left in another universe, “you can't be here so that means that the Labyrinth is trying to read my mind.”
She raised up her arms and walked towards him, she was wearing the white dress she had worn when he had met her on the beaches. He felt the subtle mental manipulation, affecting his moods, but Harkers were trained, and implanted, with all kinds of things to keep that at bay. He concentrated and he saw to the structure of the illusion and traced it to the projector. He walked past the image of Mercedes who was still trying to speak to him and jammed the multi-tool into it, scrambling the transmission.
“I don't think you understand,” he said aloud to the Labyrinth, “you can't improve me.” He continued walking, altering the setting on his multi-tool to scanner, and it detected something further down the hallway, a large power source, it sounded interesting enough to pursue for the moment.
- - - - -
Murderwake found himself alone in a forest. He stood up, still cold, but recovering slowly. He walked, half stumbling, in a random direction. Fog was filling the gaps between the trees, and he seemed to be lost in an the endless murky clouds. Something growled in the distance and he wheeled about, looking about frantically, but the growling distance seemed to multiply. He heard rustling noises all around him, panic seized him and he turned to run. Running was difficult since the ground was uneven and he kept stumbling, and he kept having to work around the thick strange trees. He ran with the certainty of a man pursued with the driving knowledge that his hunters were gaining on him. He tripped at one point and fell down a ravine and saw a cave, he ran inside to find an old man sitting by a fire. The old man looked like his grandfather, but he wore only rags and sat next to a large bonfire. The man looked up at him.
“Please,” he said, “there is something after me,” he looked behind him and fell to the ground beside the old man. The old man looked down at him.
“Then you should do something,” the old man said calmly. Murderwake looked up at him as the sounds were closing in, and Murderwake felt a pressure in his head as he sensed whatever it was pursuing closing in on him. He grabbed the man's rags and shook him.
“What do you mean?” he screamed at the man, saliva spitting out of his mouth.
“Salvation lies at hand,” said the old man, “but if you keep panicking you will die.” The fear was now pulsing through Murderwake, the adrenaline making it hard to concentrate, but he saw that the old man was pointing at the fire. It was a large bonfire that seemed, as he looked at it, to grow brighter and hotter. He felt it washing over him, it was so hot he had to take a step back. He was reminded of getting too close to fires when they went camping back when he was a child, with his brother. He felt his skin tightening, and he smelled the burning of wood. But the impression just got stronger, and as it drove him back, towards the entrance of the cave, he felt the presence behind him. He turned to see three dark shapes, Uller-wolves from his homeworld, large black ones with deep blue eyes that flickered hungrily in the firelight.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
“I think you'd better do something,” said the old man. He nearly grabbed the old man and threw him at the wolves just to slow them down but he turned around to run towards the bonfire and grab something, anything, perhaps a burning log to chase off the wolves when he saw something inside the fire. Something small, something that looked vaguely like a key. An old fashioned key, the kind of key that one of his servants would use to gain access to one of the closets in the older wing of his family's estate.
He looked back at the old man who nodded at it and he suddenly knew what salvation would take. He looked back but the wolves were gone, replaced with a man all in black, with long black hair, so long it nearly touched the ground, with the same glittering blue eyes and hungry fanged smile. Murderwake turned and stretched his hand towards the fire and then pulled it back, and then he looked for a stick to reach in and scape it out and he heard or felt the single footstep taken by the man towards him. He was going to die, he felt the certainty of that weigh down on him. So he got down on his knees.
He plunged his hand into the bonfire, losing his hand up to his elbow. The air instantly filled with the smell of burning meat, his arm blackened almost instantly, his sleeve seemingly torn apart by the flames, his hand closed around the golden key and it seared his flesh, almost impossibly considering his flesh was already searing. He screamed as he did it and wrenched his hand out, spinning about, holding the key up with his still smoking ruined arm. The man stopped and Murderwake saw disappoint cross his face and he slowly turned around and then Murderwake blinked, just once, and there were three Uller-wolves instead of a man there and they were trotting out back into the darkness.
He turned to the old man but he was gone and he looked to his hand and the key was gone. The burns were gone, but his sleeve was still destroyed, there was a strange golden tattoo of strange golden branch designs weaving around his fingers and hand up all the way to his elbow. It glittered in the light of the bonfire which slowly faded down and down until he blinked again and he was in a hallway similar to the one he had arrived in through the wormhole portal. The alien, Underhill, appeared from around a corner.
“Oh, that was you!” he said walking over, holding up his scarab looking device and waving it around. “I suppose you were the energy source, or rather your own personal little hell, eh?”
“That was the test?” gasped Murderwake.
“Maybe, maybe there's more,” said Underhill, “come on, we've got to get going.” He helped Murderwake up, who winced when Underhill touched his right marked arm.
“I don't know what it did to me,” said Murderwake as he looked down at his arm. Underhill frowned and ran his device over his arm.
“Injected you with some kind of nanotech virus it looks like,” he said, “I suppose I could eventually reprogram it and get it out of you, but we don't have time for that. This place isn't trying to kill you, incidentally, it's trying to help you.”
“What did it do to you?” asked Murderwake.
“Irritate me, mostly,” said Underhill, smiling, “I've already been altered beyond whatever this place could hope to do me, come on, we've got to get out of here.”
- - - - -
Peter Black walked off the Grave Matters and into the Labyrinth. The mayor of Labyrinth City graciously gave them permission to land their vessel within the city but they simply just landed on the other side of the Labyrinth, which dwarfed the little community that took its name. The mayor promised a parade, for instance, and a victory feast, and Peter Black had no intention of being delayed. He pulled out his side arm and looked up at the dark gray dagger shaped Grave Matters.
“If I don't return you know what to do,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black walked into the city, checking the display on his side arm. The city's defensive mechanism were fairly active so he activated his gray-field, a more powerful version of what all Harkers did passively, and the city's scanners suddenly lost track of him as he walked through the streets. His pistol projected a display into his vision which relayed a map from the Grave Matters. The city was powering up, and he found that disturbing, no doubt related to Underhill being here. The map indicated where it detected an anomalous wormhole, at least one, and he decided that was probably where Underhill went so he made his way there, slipping through the city like a ghost.
He entered the chamber housing the wormhole gateway and stared at it for a second, checking the room thoroughly with his own eyes and several other more esoteric methods. Someone had passed through this room quite recently and their traces led right to the wormhole gateway.
“Any luck getting through the city's systems?” he said aloud.
“Not yet,” said the Grave Matters, “the alien artifact is quite stubborn and there's an Oalri ship intelligence assisting it.”
“I'm going through a wormhole so I might cut out,” said Peter Black, walking carefully through the gateway. He arrived, with a jolt, in a large hallway lit by glowing spheres set into the wall at regular distances from each other. The hallway was massive. He noticed the environment scanning him and immediately reacting to him, attempting to scan his mind. He was amused as the environment began to warp in a reactive attempt to the aborted mind scan. He ignored the phantom holographic projections and walked on through the hallway, holding up his pistol and extending its scans to maximum. He was picking up two readings, one was particularly faint, the other was definitely one of the baseline Oalri-form creatures, though its readings were different as well.
They were some distance away from him and so he began to move quickly, but cautiously towards them.
- - - - -
Gerald and Murderwake rounded a corner and were confronted with a large blue skinned creature wearing ornate gold and red armor and a large red robe over that. It stood behing a massive cauldron filled with a strange dark fluid that bubbled slowly. It turned it's massive face to them, with strange dual irised eyes, and smiled in a distinctly unfriendly fashion.
“Only one of you may pass,” said the creature, “the toll is one of you. One of you must be paid in sacrifice.”
“I don't really have time for this, sorry,” said Gerald, holding up his multi-tool and activating one of the programs he had slipped into the Labyrinth. The floor warped into a chasm and the creature, and its cauldron, fell down into a deep darkness. The screams went on for some while, in fact Murderwake could still hear the distant cries as Gerald closed the hole. The hole, with a gesture from Gerald's multi-tool, reformed into a floor.
“Silly coming of age rituals,” muttered Gerald and they kept walking down the hallway.
“How are you able to alter the Labyrinth?” asked Murderwake.
“I'm a Harker, we're trained to be able to deal with all kinds of strange devices,” said Gerald simply, starting to job. He had glanced down at his multi-tool and suddenly seemed even more concerned than before.
“Someone's here,” said the Poll, “I just picked up on him, and that was just barely. He has a gray field projector.”
“Only assassins have those,” said Gerald, “they're illegal in most places. Oh.”
“Yeah, only assassins,” emphasized the ship, “you're in big trouble, he's closing on you fast.”
“Can you get the Labyrinth to slow him down?”
“It'll probably make him mad,” pointed out the Poll.
“Just do it,” said Gerald, running now. Murderwake could not hear his conversation but kept up anyway as they came to a stair well and began running up it.
- - - - -
Somehow the Labyrinth bypassed his gray field. Strange creatures, half plucked from his own thoughts, but warped by the Labyrinth's inability to penetrate his mental shielding effectively, poured from the walls. He raised his pistol and set it to one of its many settings and opened fire.
Dozens of the creatures shredded into bloody chunks, and more howled and continued pouring from the walls. Peter Black rolled his eyes, irritated, as they charged him, he heard them behind him too, so he altered settings again and charged the group in front of him, firing self-propelled intelligent missiles, which swarmed around him like bees, firing their minature EECGs, destroying anyone that got too close to him.
“Gun,” he said aloud, “lock onto the projectors,” the simple intelligence in the pistol scanned for the local area projectors and displayed their location in his vision, he set the setting to a particular one, jokingly referred to as Disintegrate around the offices in the Bureau, and destroyed them quickly with single shots that blew huge chunks out of the walls. The holograms disappeared and Peter Black, more annoyed than ever, continued walking.
- - - -
“Yeah, it just made him angry,” said Poll. It was having issues of its own as the Labyrinth was repairing it as best it could with its limited systems. Poll had co-opted many of its systems around it and combining their efforts the Poll and the Labyrinth were building a fairly decent, hopefully functional, Dying Poll. Compatibility was a pain in the ass though, thought Poll.
“I didn't think it would buy us much time but anything helps,” replied Gerald. They had just entered another massive chamger, in the center there aews a shaft of light that extended up into the ceiling above. Everything else in the room was a luminous white, but there wasn't much to look at, besides the shaft of light. They ran towards it. A little girl all in white stood next to it.
“You must pass through the, hey!” shouted the girl as Gerald simply jammed his multi-tool into the shaft of light. Murderwake looked down to see his tattoos pulsing, glowing with a strange golden light similar to the light in the shaft.
“No time little fake girl,” said Gerald, linking into the Labyrinth's teleportation drive machinery through his multi-tool.
“Are you ready, Poll?” he asked. “Get everything to Ray, things are going to be weird after this.”
“Would it matter if I said no?” replied the ship. Gerald did not answer he twisted the multi-tool, quickly making a few adjustments, and activated the teleportation drive.
- - - - -
Peter Black looked down to see the figures he was tracking disappear. He cursed and broke into a run, running up a large flight of stairs into a large white room and as he stepped into it he sensed the Labyrinth lock onto him, felt a collection of energies around him and he raised his pistol as if to shield him, setting it to disrupt. The attempted teleportation attempt sizzled out and he pointed his pistol at the little girl in a white dress, who simply shrugged.
“Ship,” said Peter Black, “I lost them.”
“The Oalri ship intelligence is gone too and the artifact is powering down,” said the Grave.
“I think they teleported out, they tried to teleport me somewhere, anyway for you to get an idea where they went?”
“I'm trying to track it now, the teleportation drive is extremely powerful, it shouldn't be too hard to get an idea from the signal.”
He looked back at the old man who nodded at it and he suddenly knew what salvation would take. He looked back but the wolves were gone, replaced with a man all in black, with long black hair, so long it nearly touched the ground, with the same glittering blue eyes and hungry fanged smile. Murderwake turned and stretched his hand towards the fire and then pulled it back, and then he looked for a stick to reach in and scape it out and he heard or felt the single footstep taken by the man towards him. He was going to die, he felt the certainty of that weigh down on him. So he got down on his knees.
He plunged his hand into the bonfire, losing his hand up to his elbow. The air instantly filled with the smell of burning meat, his arm blackened almost instantly, his sleeve seemingly torn apart by the flames, his hand closed around the golden key and it seared his flesh, almost impossibly considering his flesh was already searing. He screamed as he did it and wrenched his hand out, spinning about, holding the key up with his still smoking ruined arm. The man stopped and Murderwake saw disappoint cross his face and he slowly turned around and then Murderwake blinked, just once, and there were three Uller-wolves instead of a man there and they were trotting out back into the darkness.
He turned to the old man but he was gone and he looked to his hand and the key was gone. The burns were gone, but his sleeve was still destroyed, there was a strange golden tattoo of strange golden branch designs weaving around his fingers and hand up all the way to his elbow. It glittered in the light of the bonfire which slowly faded down and down until he blinked again and he was in a hallway similar to the one he had arrived in through the wormhole portal. The alien, Underhill, appeared from around a corner.
“Oh, that was you!” he said walking over, holding up his scarab looking device and waving it around. “I suppose you were the energy source, or rather your own personal little hell, eh?”
“That was the test?” gasped Murderwake.
“Maybe, maybe there's more,” said Underhill, “come on, we've got to get going.” He helped Murderwake up, who winced when Underhill touched his right marked arm.
“I don't know what it did to me,” said Murderwake as he looked down at his arm. Underhill frowned and ran his device over his arm.
“Injected you with some kind of nanotech virus it looks like,” he said, “I suppose I could eventually reprogram it and get it out of you, but we don't have time for that. This place isn't trying to kill you, incidentally, it's trying to help you.”
“What did it do to you?” asked Murderwake.
“Irritate me, mostly,” said Underhill, smiling, “I've already been altered beyond whatever this place could hope to do me, come on, we've got to get out of here.”
- - - - -
Peter Black walked off the Grave Matters and into the Labyrinth. The mayor of Labyrinth City graciously gave them permission to land their vessel within the city but they simply just landed on the other side of the Labyrinth, which dwarfed the little community that took its name. The mayor promised a parade, for instance, and a victory feast, and Peter Black had no intention of being delayed. He pulled out his side arm and looked up at the dark gray dagger shaped Grave Matters.
“If I don't return you know what to do,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said the Grave Matters. Peter Black walked into the city, checking the display on his side arm. The city's defensive mechanism were fairly active so he activated his gray-field, a more powerful version of what all Harkers did passively, and the city's scanners suddenly lost track of him as he walked through the streets. His pistol projected a display into his vision which relayed a map from the Grave Matters. The city was powering up, and he found that disturbing, no doubt related to Underhill being here. The map indicated where it detected an anomalous wormhole, at least one, and he decided that was probably where Underhill went so he made his way there, slipping through the city like a ghost.
He entered the chamber housing the wormhole gateway and stared at it for a second, checking the room thoroughly with his own eyes and several other more esoteric methods. Someone had passed through this room quite recently and their traces led right to the wormhole gateway.
“Any luck getting through the city's systems?” he said aloud.
“Not yet,” said the Grave Matters, “the alien artifact is quite stubborn and there's an Oalri ship intelligence assisting it.”
“I'm going through a wormhole so I might cut out,” said Peter Black, walking carefully through the gateway. He arrived, with a jolt, in a large hallway lit by glowing spheres set into the wall at regular distances from each other. The hallway was massive. He noticed the environment scanning him and immediately reacting to him, attempting to scan his mind. He was amused as the environment began to warp in a reactive attempt to the aborted mind scan. He ignored the phantom holographic projections and walked on through the hallway, holding up his pistol and extending its scans to maximum. He was picking up two readings, one was particularly faint, the other was definitely one of the baseline Oalri-form creatures, though its readings were different as well.
They were some distance away from him and so he began to move quickly, but cautiously towards them.
- - - - -
Gerald and Murderwake rounded a corner and were confronted with a large blue skinned creature wearing ornate gold and red armor and a large red robe over that. It stood behing a massive cauldron filled with a strange dark fluid that bubbled slowly. It turned it's massive face to them, with strange dual irised eyes, and smiled in a distinctly unfriendly fashion.
“Only one of you may pass,” said the creature, “the toll is one of you. One of you must be paid in sacrifice.”
“I don't really have time for this, sorry,” said Gerald, holding up his multi-tool and activating one of the programs he had slipped into the Labyrinth. The floor warped into a chasm and the creature, and its cauldron, fell down into a deep darkness. The screams went on for some while, in fact Murderwake could still hear the distant cries as Gerald closed the hole. The hole, with a gesture from Gerald's multi-tool, reformed into a floor.
“Silly coming of age rituals,” muttered Gerald and they kept walking down the hallway.
“How are you able to alter the Labyrinth?” asked Murderwake.
“I'm a Harker, we're trained to be able to deal with all kinds of strange devices,” said Gerald simply, starting to job. He had glanced down at his multi-tool and suddenly seemed even more concerned than before.
“Someone's here,” said the Poll, “I just picked up on him, and that was just barely. He has a gray field projector.”
“Only assassins have those,” said Gerald, “they're illegal in most places. Oh.”
“Yeah, only assassins,” emphasized the ship, “you're in big trouble, he's closing on you fast.”
“Can you get the Labyrinth to slow him down?”
“It'll probably make him mad,” pointed out the Poll.
“Just do it,” said Gerald, running now. Murderwake could not hear his conversation but kept up anyway as they came to a stair well and began running up it.
- - - - -
Somehow the Labyrinth bypassed his gray field. Strange creatures, half plucked from his own thoughts, but warped by the Labyrinth's inability to penetrate his mental shielding effectively, poured from the walls. He raised his pistol and set it to one of its many settings and opened fire.
Dozens of the creatures shredded into bloody chunks, and more howled and continued pouring from the walls. Peter Black rolled his eyes, irritated, as they charged him, he heard them behind him too, so he altered settings again and charged the group in front of him, firing self-propelled intelligent missiles, which swarmed around him like bees, firing their minature EECGs, destroying anyone that got too close to him.
“Gun,” he said aloud, “lock onto the projectors,” the simple intelligence in the pistol scanned for the local area projectors and displayed their location in his vision, he set the setting to a particular one, jokingly referred to as Disintegrate around the offices in the Bureau, and destroyed them quickly with single shots that blew huge chunks out of the walls. The holograms disappeared and Peter Black, more annoyed than ever, continued walking.
- - - -
“Yeah, it just made him angry,” said Poll. It was having issues of its own as the Labyrinth was repairing it as best it could with its limited systems. Poll had co-opted many of its systems around it and combining their efforts the Poll and the Labyrinth were building a fairly decent, hopefully functional, Dying Poll. Compatibility was a pain in the ass though, thought Poll.
“I didn't think it would buy us much time but anything helps,” replied Gerald. They had just entered another massive chamger, in the center there aews a shaft of light that extended up into the ceiling above. Everything else in the room was a luminous white, but there wasn't much to look at, besides the shaft of light. They ran towards it. A little girl all in white stood next to it.
“You must pass through the, hey!” shouted the girl as Gerald simply jammed his multi-tool into the shaft of light. Murderwake looked down to see his tattoos pulsing, glowing with a strange golden light similar to the light in the shaft.
“No time little fake girl,” said Gerald, linking into the Labyrinth's teleportation drive machinery through his multi-tool.
“Are you ready, Poll?” he asked. “Get everything to Ray, things are going to be weird after this.”
“Would it matter if I said no?” replied the ship. Gerald did not answer he twisted the multi-tool, quickly making a few adjustments, and activated the teleportation drive.
- - - - -
Peter Black looked down to see the figures he was tracking disappear. He cursed and broke into a run, running up a large flight of stairs into a large white room and as he stepped into it he sensed the Labyrinth lock onto him, felt a collection of energies around him and he raised his pistol as if to shield him, setting it to disrupt. The attempted teleportation attempt sizzled out and he pointed his pistol at the little girl in a white dress, who simply shrugged.
“Ship,” said Peter Black, “I lost them.”
“The Oalri ship intelligence is gone too and the artifact is powering down,” said the Grave.
“I think they teleported out, they tried to teleport me somewhere, anyway for you to get an idea where they went?”
“I'm trying to track it now, the teleportation drive is extremely powerful, it shouldn't be too hard to get an idea from the signal.”
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
“Alright, I'm heading back to you now,” said Peter Black sensing the hostile systems in the Labyrinth around him, “can you crack it's systems yet?”
“With the other intelligence out of the system, it shouldn't be too hard,” said the ship, “oh, that's not good.”
“What is it?”
“The artifact sent out multiple teleportations, there are at least seventeen different teleport destinations,” said the Grave, “that's going to be a pain.”
“Got it,” said Peter Black, “I'm on my way out.” His wrist suddenly burned and he looked down to see the little girl holding his wrist, her touch searing into his flesh like a hot poker, he snapped his hand back and kicked her, knocking her up off the ground and away from him. He looked down at his wrist to see the imprint of her hand burned into his wrist. The girl started to get up but he had pointed his pistol at her and she disappeared.
“Are you alright?” said the ship.
“One of the alien constructs managed to touch me,” said Peter Black, “I think I've been infected with something,” he looked at the hand print, it glowed faintly gold. “Whatever it is, it's strange, prep the medical bay for me when I get back.”
“Confirmed,” said the Grave. Peter Black tested his hand, it ached a little, but the burning sensation faded quickly. He made his way carefully back towards the wormhole portal, by that time the Grave had managed to gain enough control over the artifact city to reverse the portal.
“Underhill and his ship altered the city, it will take me weeks to sort out the mess they left behind,” said the Grave, “he is an extremely talented Harker.”
“Ignore the city for the moment,” said Peter Black as he walked out of the city to the Grave Matters. He walked on board of the ship and straight to the med bay. He sat down on a white chair that was designed to lay back as the Grave Matters activated its medical protocols.
“There's definitely a nanotech virus in your system, sir,” said the Grave Matters as it moved medical scanners over him. “We might be able to remove it but it's already spreading at an incredible rate. It's amazingly aggressive.”
“What is it?”
“I'm not clear yet, something to do with the purpose of the artifact, I believe, your own Oalri-implants should be able to repress it for the most part, but like I said, it's amazingly aggressive.”
“Can you reprogram it?”
“I probably can, though,” said the ship, “I doubt we should do it here outside an expert, I could make things worse.” Peter Black looked down at his hand again, the hand print had already healed slightly, it looked like a strange golden bracelet.
“I'll wait for now,” said Peter Black, “continue pursuing Underhill.”
- - - - -
Gerard landed on the planet roughly, it involved a four foot drop that was unexpected but he managed to land unharmed. Behind him was the Dying Poll and to his left was Murderwake who had also met the unexpected drop without harm. He stood up and brushed off his single piece suit and looked around. In the distance he could make out a city.
He turned to the Dying Poll, which looked rather odd now since it seemed like huge sections of it were cobbled together from junk, its smooth outline now broken up by jagged chunks of wiring and jutting rough pieces of strange equipment.
“Yes,” said Poll, “I realize I look weird, I'm working on it.”
“I didn't say anything,” said Gerard.
“But you were thinking it,” said Poll, “I could tell even from here. Oh, and yes, I am checking the local information sphere give a minute, would you?”
“Where are we?” asked Murderwake.
“I was hoping you might know,” said Gerard, “I kind of just picked a place at random after making sure that my friends back at the Labyrinth would have a hard time following me.”
“I don't recognize it,” said Murderwake, “but I don't travel much.”
“Got it, looks like we're on a planet called Sturm, and that is the city of Twenty Rings, the capital of this world.” said the Poll, pumping its voice out of the ship so Murderwake could hear.
“Sturm!” squawked Murderwake, “that's a planet of criminals!”
“Excellent,” said Gerard, “we should fit right in then.”
“Wait, who was that on your ship?” asked Murderwake.
“Oh, yes, sorry, I never introduced you to my ship,” said Gerard, “it's a thinking machine, you might want to get comfortable with that.”
“A thinking machine?” Poll said, amused, “I'm amazed how oversimplified
that statement is.”
“I dumbed it down,” said Gerard, “he's had a hard day. What's the local costume?”
“Checking,” said the Poll, “looks like you'll be alright in what you're wearing right now. Just be careful, the kid isn't too far off, this is a really poor society, mostly looks like black market is the local economy here.”
“Get the kid a chip,” said Gerard, “and let's go see what we can find.”
“Why do you want to go down there?” asked Murderwake.
“Well,” Gerard said, and paused for a moment, having not thought it through, “something interesting might be going on down there for all we know.” He turned back to the Poll. “How's the u-drive coming along?” he asked.
“I haven't managed to rebuild it completely yet, I've had to spend a lot of time just micromanaging the alien systems just to get them to work right,” said the ship, “so you've got some time.”
“Great,” said Gerard, “let me leave you some plans of an more updated model of the u-drive and then we'll go check out this city.”
“I don't think that's a good idea,” said Murderwake. Gerard clapped him on the back.
“Cheer up Murderwake,” he said, “we're going to just walk around while the Dying Poll repairs itself, and when it does we'll be on our way to places you can't imagine.”
The city was far enough away that Gerard had the Poll fabricate a ground car that was superficially similar to the models used around the planet and then drove it down to the city. He took a few moments to analyze the data that the Poll put on a screen for him and then let his Harker training take over, quickly assimilating little mannerisms of the natives and the laws oriented around driving.
“It just looks like one of their ground cars,” said the Poll through the car's speakers, “I don't have the time to build one from the ground up.”
“It's great,” said Gerard, “did you have any color other than black, though?”
“No,” said the ship, “now if you must excuse me I have to try and straighten out some things.”
“It's a thinking machine,” Murderwake said, from the passenger seat in an amazed voice, “I thought they were all destroyed back in the Intelligence Crusade.”
“Yeah, well, we missed that around where I came from,” said Gerard, “what do you have against them anyway?”
“There was a time, before the Union, when we had thinking machines,” Murderwake said, as if remembering something form childhood, “and they were wicked and tried to enslave us, so we rose up against them and destroyed them.”
“Simple enough,” said Gerard, “well, the Poll is actually pretty nice, so don't hold its thinking against it, would you?” Murderwake looked a little pale but nodded weakly. They continued driving into the city until Gerard found a place to park and they walked into a bar. Gerard decided that Murderwake needed a drink and parked outside the nicest looking bar he could find. They walked into a solid cube of smoke. The bar had a low ceiling, it was dark, and more than a little dirty. They claimed a table and Gerard sent Murderwake to get drinks, since he did not know what was good, though he suspected nothing was terribly good in a place like this. The denizens of the bar, which was called the Wayward Bus for some reason, looked seedy enough.
One man, a tall man with long hair and a goatee, walked past him and there was a sudden shifting movement in him as he passed and as Gerard looked up, he saw the gun too late, and the man fired on him. The first bullet hit him right in the chest, knocking him back off his stool.
Murderwake turned to see him fall and charged, reaching the man only after he had fired off a second round into Gerard, who was now clutching his bloody chest. Murderwake came up from behind the man and kicked his knee to the side, sending it cracking out at an awkward angle. He grabbed the man's head and yanked it back roughly and, with a strength that surprised him, he snapped the man's neck with an audible cracking noise. The man fell to the ground, limp. Murderwake got down beside Gerard and looked around for something to put on the wounds. A woman walked up beside him and handed him what looked like an almost clean table cloth.
“Here,” she said, “hold this over his wounds.” Murderwake numbly did as
he was told. The training from his youth, mostly in close quarter combat, had kicked in before he had time to think and now that the moment passed he felt himself slipping into shock. He pushed against Gerard's wounds. Gerard squinted up at him and muttered something to the effect of, “What kind of crappy planet is this?”
“Why did he do that?” asked Murderwake.
“That was Wright,” said the woman, she had long dark hair that was pulled up and wore a dark overcoat. “He was crazy, he probably thought you were Union Intelligence.”
“I just got shot,” said Gerard, amazed, “that's just wonderful. Poll!”
“Calm him down,” said Poll in Murderwake's ear, “he'll be alright, but he'll need to rest for a while.”
“We've got to get him out of here,” said the woman, standing up, “help me get him out back. My place is not far from here.”
“Wait, who are you?” asked Gerard.
“My name is Darkvoid, Eve Darkvoid,” said the woman. Murderwake, despite the circumstances, felt the strange relief of someone having a more ridiculous name than him, helped Even carry Gerard through the bar and out the back. He listened for and failed to hear any approaching sirens. He asked aloud about that.
“Twenty Rings was founded by pirates,” said Eve, leading him to a broken down ruin of a building and inside. Up three flights of stairs and into a clean apartment that was about as nice as this place could probably be. She put Gerard down on the bed and quickly went into her bathroom and returned with several medical packs that looked fairly advanced.
“It's a self-policing place, which isn't so bad unless you run afoul of a character like Wright. He was jumpy anyway since Neal's tried to kill him.”
“Wait,” said Murderwake, slumping down in a chair while she applied the packs to Gerard.
“Tell her not to waste her time,” said Poll, “Gerard's body can do what it needs to better than whatever sticks and mud she's using.”
“You won't need to do that,” said Murderwake, in a daze, “he'll probably heal faster without it. He's an alien.”
“Great, I have a bunch of crazies in my home,” muttered Eve.
“Why are you helping us?” Murderwake asked, “You don't even know who we are.”
“Well, who are you?” asked Eve.
“I'm Simon Murderwake and that's Gerard Underhill,” he said.
“Murderwake? One of the Murderwakes?” Eve said, raising an eyebrow, “the conquerers of planets and one of the founding families.”
“Something like that.” Murderwake said, “Anyway, he's an alien. His ship just told me that we should just let his body handle it.” Eve ignored him and continued to apply the packs. He sat there and stared at her.
“She's not listening to me,” he said aloud to Poll.
“Great way to convince her you're not crazy,” said the Poll, “why don't you look like you're talking to your imaginary space ship friend.”
“With the other intelligence out of the system, it shouldn't be too hard,” said the ship, “oh, that's not good.”
“What is it?”
“The artifact sent out multiple teleportations, there are at least seventeen different teleport destinations,” said the Grave, “that's going to be a pain.”
“Got it,” said Peter Black, “I'm on my way out.” His wrist suddenly burned and he looked down to see the little girl holding his wrist, her touch searing into his flesh like a hot poker, he snapped his hand back and kicked her, knocking her up off the ground and away from him. He looked down at his wrist to see the imprint of her hand burned into his wrist. The girl started to get up but he had pointed his pistol at her and she disappeared.
“Are you alright?” said the ship.
“One of the alien constructs managed to touch me,” said Peter Black, “I think I've been infected with something,” he looked at the hand print, it glowed faintly gold. “Whatever it is, it's strange, prep the medical bay for me when I get back.”
“Confirmed,” said the Grave. Peter Black tested his hand, it ached a little, but the burning sensation faded quickly. He made his way carefully back towards the wormhole portal, by that time the Grave had managed to gain enough control over the artifact city to reverse the portal.
“Underhill and his ship altered the city, it will take me weeks to sort out the mess they left behind,” said the Grave, “he is an extremely talented Harker.”
“Ignore the city for the moment,” said Peter Black as he walked out of the city to the Grave Matters. He walked on board of the ship and straight to the med bay. He sat down on a white chair that was designed to lay back as the Grave Matters activated its medical protocols.
“There's definitely a nanotech virus in your system, sir,” said the Grave Matters as it moved medical scanners over him. “We might be able to remove it but it's already spreading at an incredible rate. It's amazingly aggressive.”
“What is it?”
“I'm not clear yet, something to do with the purpose of the artifact, I believe, your own Oalri-implants should be able to repress it for the most part, but like I said, it's amazingly aggressive.”
“Can you reprogram it?”
“I probably can, though,” said the ship, “I doubt we should do it here outside an expert, I could make things worse.” Peter Black looked down at his hand again, the hand print had already healed slightly, it looked like a strange golden bracelet.
“I'll wait for now,” said Peter Black, “continue pursuing Underhill.”
- - - - -
Gerard landed on the planet roughly, it involved a four foot drop that was unexpected but he managed to land unharmed. Behind him was the Dying Poll and to his left was Murderwake who had also met the unexpected drop without harm. He stood up and brushed off his single piece suit and looked around. In the distance he could make out a city.
He turned to the Dying Poll, which looked rather odd now since it seemed like huge sections of it were cobbled together from junk, its smooth outline now broken up by jagged chunks of wiring and jutting rough pieces of strange equipment.
“Yes,” said Poll, “I realize I look weird, I'm working on it.”
“I didn't say anything,” said Gerard.
“But you were thinking it,” said Poll, “I could tell even from here. Oh, and yes, I am checking the local information sphere give a minute, would you?”
“Where are we?” asked Murderwake.
“I was hoping you might know,” said Gerard, “I kind of just picked a place at random after making sure that my friends back at the Labyrinth would have a hard time following me.”
“I don't recognize it,” said Murderwake, “but I don't travel much.”
“Got it, looks like we're on a planet called Sturm, and that is the city of Twenty Rings, the capital of this world.” said the Poll, pumping its voice out of the ship so Murderwake could hear.
“Sturm!” squawked Murderwake, “that's a planet of criminals!”
“Excellent,” said Gerard, “we should fit right in then.”
“Wait, who was that on your ship?” asked Murderwake.
“Oh, yes, sorry, I never introduced you to my ship,” said Gerard, “it's a thinking machine, you might want to get comfortable with that.”
“A thinking machine?” Poll said, amused, “I'm amazed how oversimplified
that statement is.”
“I dumbed it down,” said Gerard, “he's had a hard day. What's the local costume?”
“Checking,” said the Poll, “looks like you'll be alright in what you're wearing right now. Just be careful, the kid isn't too far off, this is a really poor society, mostly looks like black market is the local economy here.”
“Get the kid a chip,” said Gerard, “and let's go see what we can find.”
“Why do you want to go down there?” asked Murderwake.
“Well,” Gerard said, and paused for a moment, having not thought it through, “something interesting might be going on down there for all we know.” He turned back to the Poll. “How's the u-drive coming along?” he asked.
“I haven't managed to rebuild it completely yet, I've had to spend a lot of time just micromanaging the alien systems just to get them to work right,” said the ship, “so you've got some time.”
“Great,” said Gerard, “let me leave you some plans of an more updated model of the u-drive and then we'll go check out this city.”
“I don't think that's a good idea,” said Murderwake. Gerard clapped him on the back.
“Cheer up Murderwake,” he said, “we're going to just walk around while the Dying Poll repairs itself, and when it does we'll be on our way to places you can't imagine.”
The city was far enough away that Gerard had the Poll fabricate a ground car that was superficially similar to the models used around the planet and then drove it down to the city. He took a few moments to analyze the data that the Poll put on a screen for him and then let his Harker training take over, quickly assimilating little mannerisms of the natives and the laws oriented around driving.
“It just looks like one of their ground cars,” said the Poll through the car's speakers, “I don't have the time to build one from the ground up.”
“It's great,” said Gerard, “did you have any color other than black, though?”
“No,” said the ship, “now if you must excuse me I have to try and straighten out some things.”
“It's a thinking machine,” Murderwake said, from the passenger seat in an amazed voice, “I thought they were all destroyed back in the Intelligence Crusade.”
“Yeah, well, we missed that around where I came from,” said Gerard, “what do you have against them anyway?”
“There was a time, before the Union, when we had thinking machines,” Murderwake said, as if remembering something form childhood, “and they were wicked and tried to enslave us, so we rose up against them and destroyed them.”
“Simple enough,” said Gerard, “well, the Poll is actually pretty nice, so don't hold its thinking against it, would you?” Murderwake looked a little pale but nodded weakly. They continued driving into the city until Gerard found a place to park and they walked into a bar. Gerard decided that Murderwake needed a drink and parked outside the nicest looking bar he could find. They walked into a solid cube of smoke. The bar had a low ceiling, it was dark, and more than a little dirty. They claimed a table and Gerard sent Murderwake to get drinks, since he did not know what was good, though he suspected nothing was terribly good in a place like this. The denizens of the bar, which was called the Wayward Bus for some reason, looked seedy enough.
One man, a tall man with long hair and a goatee, walked past him and there was a sudden shifting movement in him as he passed and as Gerard looked up, he saw the gun too late, and the man fired on him. The first bullet hit him right in the chest, knocking him back off his stool.
Murderwake turned to see him fall and charged, reaching the man only after he had fired off a second round into Gerard, who was now clutching his bloody chest. Murderwake came up from behind the man and kicked his knee to the side, sending it cracking out at an awkward angle. He grabbed the man's head and yanked it back roughly and, with a strength that surprised him, he snapped the man's neck with an audible cracking noise. The man fell to the ground, limp. Murderwake got down beside Gerard and looked around for something to put on the wounds. A woman walked up beside him and handed him what looked like an almost clean table cloth.
“Here,” she said, “hold this over his wounds.” Murderwake numbly did as
he was told. The training from his youth, mostly in close quarter combat, had kicked in before he had time to think and now that the moment passed he felt himself slipping into shock. He pushed against Gerard's wounds. Gerard squinted up at him and muttered something to the effect of, “What kind of crappy planet is this?”
“Why did he do that?” asked Murderwake.
“That was Wright,” said the woman, she had long dark hair that was pulled up and wore a dark overcoat. “He was crazy, he probably thought you were Union Intelligence.”
“I just got shot,” said Gerard, amazed, “that's just wonderful. Poll!”
“Calm him down,” said Poll in Murderwake's ear, “he'll be alright, but he'll need to rest for a while.”
“We've got to get him out of here,” said the woman, standing up, “help me get him out back. My place is not far from here.”
“Wait, who are you?” asked Gerard.
“My name is Darkvoid, Eve Darkvoid,” said the woman. Murderwake, despite the circumstances, felt the strange relief of someone having a more ridiculous name than him, helped Even carry Gerard through the bar and out the back. He listened for and failed to hear any approaching sirens. He asked aloud about that.
“Twenty Rings was founded by pirates,” said Eve, leading him to a broken down ruin of a building and inside. Up three flights of stairs and into a clean apartment that was about as nice as this place could probably be. She put Gerard down on the bed and quickly went into her bathroom and returned with several medical packs that looked fairly advanced.
“It's a self-policing place, which isn't so bad unless you run afoul of a character like Wright. He was jumpy anyway since Neal's tried to kill him.”
“Wait,” said Murderwake, slumping down in a chair while she applied the packs to Gerard.
“Tell her not to waste her time,” said Poll, “Gerard's body can do what it needs to better than whatever sticks and mud she's using.”
“You won't need to do that,” said Murderwake, in a daze, “he'll probably heal faster without it. He's an alien.”
“Great, I have a bunch of crazies in my home,” muttered Eve.
“Why are you helping us?” Murderwake asked, “You don't even know who we are.”
“Well, who are you?” asked Eve.
“I'm Simon Murderwake and that's Gerard Underhill,” he said.
“Murderwake? One of the Murderwakes?” Eve said, raising an eyebrow, “the conquerers of planets and one of the founding families.”
“Something like that.” Murderwake said, “Anyway, he's an alien. His ship just told me that we should just let his body handle it.” Eve ignored him and continued to apply the packs. He sat there and stared at her.
“She's not listening to me,” he said aloud to Poll.
“Great way to convince her you're not crazy,” said the Poll, “why don't you look like you're talking to your imaginary space ship friend.”
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
- - - - -
“The teleport drive was active for twenty one pulses to different sections of this galaxy,” sighed the Grave Matters, “and considering how massive the drive is and how comparatively small the passengers on it, the beams are practically indistinguishable.”
“So what are our options?” asked Peter Black, looking down at his wrist.
“We can track each one of them down, of course,” said the ship, “the ship intelligence I encountered seemed to be of an older model, and would probably be far slower than me.”
“Yes, but by the time we track them down we would have lost their trail, if they're smart,” said Peter Black, “we need to figure out a way to track them. Continuing cracking the alien artifacts systems, see if you can force it tell us where it sent them.”
“Continuing process, sir,” said the ship. Peter Black called up a map of the galaxy, or at least the inhabited regions, and overlaid the possible locations of the teleportation beams. He stood for a moment looking at the map. Then he knew. He put his finger on one of the planets that the beam had been sent to.
“Ship,” he said, “set a course for this destination, maximum speed, burn out the engines if you have to.”
“Roger that, sir,” said the Grave Matters, charting a course and accelerating out away from the planet. Peter Black rubbed his wrist and ordered another cup of Boost. He just knew where they went, it went beyond instinct, there was a certainty there that he found disconcerting. He looked down and noticed, with his implants constantly measuring, that the golden patterns of the mark left by the girl on his hand seemed to be spreading infinitesimally.
- - - - -
Twenty Rings was founded by pirates long ago and never left its origins, or at least never fell further from the founding tree than a few feet. The planet itself was pretty sparsely populated, a impoverished, unimportant planet, when the famous Captain Magnetic settled there, after losing a bet and was forced to build a settlement. Since then Twenty Rings, named after Magnetic's rather esoteric love of wearing rings, was a haven for smugglers and pirates and especially people on the run. Since the rise of an increasingly paranoid and hostile Union government it had practically achieved a tourist base, agents from both sides of the coming conflict, or the conflict that was being fought secretly, flooded the streets, as well as those who were just trying to get out. Twenty Rings was built on the coast, and built with no real foresight, so the streets were narrow and crooked, and the buildings sometimes grew organically into each other, by sagging, or by intent. Black market merchants flooded the area. The Revolution did not actively gather there, Twenty Rings was far too well known, but it did have its hooks there and its contacts. It was a vibrant old city where the whore house was the oldest structure and in certain areas the average lifespan of a non-native was thirteen minutes. Gerald woke in a room in this very place, in the second worst district of Twenty Rings, the Magnetic Street, and rubbed his chest. His wounds had closed, the bullets broken down by now. He looked down at his chest and saw that there were two little scars on his chest. He reached up to his ear and nudged the com chip.
“Yes?” said the ship, “I see you are still alive despite the primitive's attempt to perform her witch doctoring.” Gerald looked around and saw the spent medical supplies. They littered an already littered room. He lay on a bed with dark sheets, which was providence when you considered all the blood he may have been leaking, which should not have been much at all though, considering how rapidly his blood coagulated.
“What happened?” asked Gerald, standing up and rubbing his head sleepily.
“You sustained serious injuries,” said Dying Poll, “injuries that were compounded by the own damage to your implants that you performed cutting yourself off from the Oalri Network. I had to co-opt some of your systems remotely and force you into a healing trance.”
“That explains the grogginess,” said Gerald, he walked over to the window and saw the soft pale light of morning spilling over the ancient brick city and its inhabitants who seemed to be preoccupied with sitting on porches and wandering aimlessly.
“The suit you were wearing was modified with some armor components,” continued the ship after a moment, “but it turns out that your assassin was using armor piercing rounds. From what the woman who assisted you said he was unhinged.”
“I think that shooting me is definitely grounds for insanity,” muttered Gerard and he rubbed his eyes and looked for his suit, he found it on the ground, the bullet holes closing. He did not know if it was a feature native to the design or something the Dying Poll had added. He stepped into it and closed it like a wet suit and walked into the living room. Murderwake was at a table in the small kitchen with a woman that Gerald did not recognize, and they were playing cards.
“Oh, Underhill,” said Murderwake, “the ship said you would be alright, but it's good to see.” He tossed down his cards and stood up, “Do you want anything?”
“I could use something to eat,” admitted Gerald, walking over to the table and seating himself slowly down. “And I take it that you are,” he waited while the ship slipped him the name, “Eve Darkvoid?”
“Amazing what you pick up while unconscious,” said Eve, impressed. She had her dark hair still up and Gerald noticed that she was wearing a gun, holstered under one arm.
“I had to get her in contact with the Dying Poll,” said Murderwake, returning from the refrigerator with a packaged sandwich. Gerald hid a grimace and tore it open and ate it slowly. “Her attempts to help would have gotten in the way.”
“It's alright, Murderwake,” said Gerald, taking another bite out of the
sandwich, it was a processed meat, thankfully, which rarely varied in taste no matter how universes you traveled to, “I'm more curious to find out why she's helping us.” She looked over at him and he added another five years to his initial guess of her age, she only looked young, but she had experienced eyes more than a little haunted. She was attractive enough for him to momentarily think of Mercedes but forced the thought aside with a little help from the clever little Oalri devices in his head, designed for just such moments when a Harker might be getting overly sentimental when the Harker did not want sentimentality.
“I need a way off this planet,” said Eve, “my contact on this planet was killed three days before I arrived, and since then I've been hiding out while trying to find a way off.”
“Why us?” asked Murderwake.
“Because I can tell you aren't Union Intelligence and I know now that you've got a ship that could run circles around anything the Union has.” Eve said, still looking right at Gerald.
“Ship,” he said sub-vocally.
“Running circles around their ships is a crude metaphor for what I could do to their best ships.” The Dying Poll said a little sadly, “I hope that I won't have to, though. It's like kicking the small kid on the playground.”
“What about her, though?”
“Oh, she's on the level for the most part, we seem to have stumbled into a Revolution agent,” the ship said, “and I can't say I can't sympathize with that, rebels that we are.”
“Alright,” said Gerald, “we'll take you to where you need to go.” He continued silently to the Poll, “Get me everything you can find about the Union and the Revolution.”
“Excellent,” said Eve, “I'm already packed with everything that I need.” She stood up and picked her coat up off a chair.
“Whoa,” said the ship, “we just got activity on some strange channels.
They seem to be talking about you.” Gerald cursed and stood up so fast
his chair fell back, he ran to the window and saw black ground cars screeching to a halt outside Eve's building. He whipped around to look at her.
“Are you being monitored here?”
“No, of course not!” said Eve, noticing the cars as well and running into the bedroom. Murderwake ran to the window beside Gerard.
“She's been made,” said Gerard, “or we've been made, though I don't know how yet, we've got to get out of here.” He pulled out his multi-tool and ran to the door, looking through the peephole. Eve reappeared with a small briefcase.
“The hallways clear, we have to get to the roof,” Gerard said, “my ship can pick us up there, right ship?”
“I'm on my way,” said the Dying Poll. “Give me a few minutes.”
They ran out of apartment, Eve in the lead, while Gerard pulled up his multi-tool and set it to scan, there were definitely people moving towards them, he set it to another setting and welded the door shut with a wave of the tool and ran to follow his comrades. They ran into a stairwell and up the stairs. The stairs were old and uneven but they managed to get up them quickly. Once they reached the roof they saw the Dying Poll flying overhead, gingerly getting as close to them as it could, while Gerard welded the roof door close. The Dying Poll extended a ladder down to them and Even and Murderwake went first as Gerard ran up to the ladder an explosion blossomed on the Poll, knocking it roughly into a nearby building, yanking Gerard off the roof and swung him, clutching to the ladder, into the same building that the Poll had crashed into. The Poll readjusted itself.
“You might want to get aboard,” said the ship, “that kind of hurt.”
“What was that?” shouted Gerard as he scrambled up into the ship, the door sealing behind him.
“A warship in orbit just took a shot at me, no damage, but still, it's embarrassing,” said the ship.
“Get us out of here,” said Gerard.
“Got it,” said the ship as Murderwake screamed and gripped his hand, Gerard and Even just managed to catch him as he fell forwards. His hand seemed to be covered with a thick interweaving pattern of gold vines that pulsed with bright golden light, Gerard noticed it was spreading.
“Our friend's skin condition just got a lot worse,” he said to the ship, “can you tell what it's doing to him?”
“Rebuilding him,” said the ship, “I don't know into what, probably whatever those aliens on the artifact considered worthy of being an adult. He's feeling the growing pains.” The light pulsed again and Murderwake cried out again. Gerard pulled out his multi-tool and scanned him, the virus was spreading rapidly, integrating itself into his body.
“We could reprogram it,” he said but Murderwake looked up at him and Gerard noticed that his eyes had changed color, whereas before they were a dull brown they were now a deep blue.
“No,” said Murderwake, paling significantly and shaking slightly, “let it continue.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Eve.
“Murderwake was infected by a virus,” said the ship, sending a construct, a metal four armed automaton that picked up Murderwake, “we haven't yet tried to remove it.”
“Let it continue,” said Murderwake, “I can feel things I couldn't before, I can,” and he was cut off by his own screams as the gold light poured out of the designs on his hand that were spreading up to this forearm.
“Knock him out in the med bay,” said Gerard, “and is what's happening to him dangerous?”
“From first inspection? No,” said the ship, “but we don't know what it's doing to him.”
“Alright,” said Gerard, “let it happen to him, he wants it, he can have it.”
“The teleport drive was active for twenty one pulses to different sections of this galaxy,” sighed the Grave Matters, “and considering how massive the drive is and how comparatively small the passengers on it, the beams are practically indistinguishable.”
“So what are our options?” asked Peter Black, looking down at his wrist.
“We can track each one of them down, of course,” said the ship, “the ship intelligence I encountered seemed to be of an older model, and would probably be far slower than me.”
“Yes, but by the time we track them down we would have lost their trail, if they're smart,” said Peter Black, “we need to figure out a way to track them. Continuing cracking the alien artifacts systems, see if you can force it tell us where it sent them.”
“Continuing process, sir,” said the ship. Peter Black called up a map of the galaxy, or at least the inhabited regions, and overlaid the possible locations of the teleportation beams. He stood for a moment looking at the map. Then he knew. He put his finger on one of the planets that the beam had been sent to.
“Ship,” he said, “set a course for this destination, maximum speed, burn out the engines if you have to.”
“Roger that, sir,” said the Grave Matters, charting a course and accelerating out away from the planet. Peter Black rubbed his wrist and ordered another cup of Boost. He just knew where they went, it went beyond instinct, there was a certainty there that he found disconcerting. He looked down and noticed, with his implants constantly measuring, that the golden patterns of the mark left by the girl on his hand seemed to be spreading infinitesimally.
- - - - -
Twenty Rings was founded by pirates long ago and never left its origins, or at least never fell further from the founding tree than a few feet. The planet itself was pretty sparsely populated, a impoverished, unimportant planet, when the famous Captain Magnetic settled there, after losing a bet and was forced to build a settlement. Since then Twenty Rings, named after Magnetic's rather esoteric love of wearing rings, was a haven for smugglers and pirates and especially people on the run. Since the rise of an increasingly paranoid and hostile Union government it had practically achieved a tourist base, agents from both sides of the coming conflict, or the conflict that was being fought secretly, flooded the streets, as well as those who were just trying to get out. Twenty Rings was built on the coast, and built with no real foresight, so the streets were narrow and crooked, and the buildings sometimes grew organically into each other, by sagging, or by intent. Black market merchants flooded the area. The Revolution did not actively gather there, Twenty Rings was far too well known, but it did have its hooks there and its contacts. It was a vibrant old city where the whore house was the oldest structure and in certain areas the average lifespan of a non-native was thirteen minutes. Gerald woke in a room in this very place, in the second worst district of Twenty Rings, the Magnetic Street, and rubbed his chest. His wounds had closed, the bullets broken down by now. He looked down at his chest and saw that there were two little scars on his chest. He reached up to his ear and nudged the com chip.
“Yes?” said the ship, “I see you are still alive despite the primitive's attempt to perform her witch doctoring.” Gerald looked around and saw the spent medical supplies. They littered an already littered room. He lay on a bed with dark sheets, which was providence when you considered all the blood he may have been leaking, which should not have been much at all though, considering how rapidly his blood coagulated.
“What happened?” asked Gerald, standing up and rubbing his head sleepily.
“You sustained serious injuries,” said Dying Poll, “injuries that were compounded by the own damage to your implants that you performed cutting yourself off from the Oalri Network. I had to co-opt some of your systems remotely and force you into a healing trance.”
“That explains the grogginess,” said Gerald, he walked over to the window and saw the soft pale light of morning spilling over the ancient brick city and its inhabitants who seemed to be preoccupied with sitting on porches and wandering aimlessly.
“The suit you were wearing was modified with some armor components,” continued the ship after a moment, “but it turns out that your assassin was using armor piercing rounds. From what the woman who assisted you said he was unhinged.”
“I think that shooting me is definitely grounds for insanity,” muttered Gerard and he rubbed his eyes and looked for his suit, he found it on the ground, the bullet holes closing. He did not know if it was a feature native to the design or something the Dying Poll had added. He stepped into it and closed it like a wet suit and walked into the living room. Murderwake was at a table in the small kitchen with a woman that Gerald did not recognize, and they were playing cards.
“Oh, Underhill,” said Murderwake, “the ship said you would be alright, but it's good to see.” He tossed down his cards and stood up, “Do you want anything?”
“I could use something to eat,” admitted Gerald, walking over to the table and seating himself slowly down. “And I take it that you are,” he waited while the ship slipped him the name, “Eve Darkvoid?”
“Amazing what you pick up while unconscious,” said Eve, impressed. She had her dark hair still up and Gerald noticed that she was wearing a gun, holstered under one arm.
“I had to get her in contact with the Dying Poll,” said Murderwake, returning from the refrigerator with a packaged sandwich. Gerald hid a grimace and tore it open and ate it slowly. “Her attempts to help would have gotten in the way.”
“It's alright, Murderwake,” said Gerald, taking another bite out of the
sandwich, it was a processed meat, thankfully, which rarely varied in taste no matter how universes you traveled to, “I'm more curious to find out why she's helping us.” She looked over at him and he added another five years to his initial guess of her age, she only looked young, but she had experienced eyes more than a little haunted. She was attractive enough for him to momentarily think of Mercedes but forced the thought aside with a little help from the clever little Oalri devices in his head, designed for just such moments when a Harker might be getting overly sentimental when the Harker did not want sentimentality.
“I need a way off this planet,” said Eve, “my contact on this planet was killed three days before I arrived, and since then I've been hiding out while trying to find a way off.”
“Why us?” asked Murderwake.
“Because I can tell you aren't Union Intelligence and I know now that you've got a ship that could run circles around anything the Union has.” Eve said, still looking right at Gerald.
“Ship,” he said sub-vocally.
“Running circles around their ships is a crude metaphor for what I could do to their best ships.” The Dying Poll said a little sadly, “I hope that I won't have to, though. It's like kicking the small kid on the playground.”
“What about her, though?”
“Oh, she's on the level for the most part, we seem to have stumbled into a Revolution agent,” the ship said, “and I can't say I can't sympathize with that, rebels that we are.”
“Alright,” said Gerald, “we'll take you to where you need to go.” He continued silently to the Poll, “Get me everything you can find about the Union and the Revolution.”
“Excellent,” said Eve, “I'm already packed with everything that I need.” She stood up and picked her coat up off a chair.
“Whoa,” said the ship, “we just got activity on some strange channels.
They seem to be talking about you.” Gerald cursed and stood up so fast
his chair fell back, he ran to the window and saw black ground cars screeching to a halt outside Eve's building. He whipped around to look at her.
“Are you being monitored here?”
“No, of course not!” said Eve, noticing the cars as well and running into the bedroom. Murderwake ran to the window beside Gerard.
“She's been made,” said Gerard, “or we've been made, though I don't know how yet, we've got to get out of here.” He pulled out his multi-tool and ran to the door, looking through the peephole. Eve reappeared with a small briefcase.
“The hallways clear, we have to get to the roof,” Gerard said, “my ship can pick us up there, right ship?”
“I'm on my way,” said the Dying Poll. “Give me a few minutes.”
They ran out of apartment, Eve in the lead, while Gerard pulled up his multi-tool and set it to scan, there were definitely people moving towards them, he set it to another setting and welded the door shut with a wave of the tool and ran to follow his comrades. They ran into a stairwell and up the stairs. The stairs were old and uneven but they managed to get up them quickly. Once they reached the roof they saw the Dying Poll flying overhead, gingerly getting as close to them as it could, while Gerard welded the roof door close. The Dying Poll extended a ladder down to them and Even and Murderwake went first as Gerard ran up to the ladder an explosion blossomed on the Poll, knocking it roughly into a nearby building, yanking Gerard off the roof and swung him, clutching to the ladder, into the same building that the Poll had crashed into. The Poll readjusted itself.
“You might want to get aboard,” said the ship, “that kind of hurt.”
“What was that?” shouted Gerard as he scrambled up into the ship, the door sealing behind him.
“A warship in orbit just took a shot at me, no damage, but still, it's embarrassing,” said the ship.
“Get us out of here,” said Gerard.
“Got it,” said the ship as Murderwake screamed and gripped his hand, Gerard and Even just managed to catch him as he fell forwards. His hand seemed to be covered with a thick interweaving pattern of gold vines that pulsed with bright golden light, Gerard noticed it was spreading.
“Our friend's skin condition just got a lot worse,” he said to the ship, “can you tell what it's doing to him?”
“Rebuilding him,” said the ship, “I don't know into what, probably whatever those aliens on the artifact considered worthy of being an adult. He's feeling the growing pains.” The light pulsed again and Murderwake cried out again. Gerard pulled out his multi-tool and scanned him, the virus was spreading rapidly, integrating itself into his body.
“We could reprogram it,” he said but Murderwake looked up at him and Gerard noticed that his eyes had changed color, whereas before they were a dull brown they were now a deep blue.
“No,” said Murderwake, paling significantly and shaking slightly, “let it continue.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Eve.
“Murderwake was infected by a virus,” said the ship, sending a construct, a metal four armed automaton that picked up Murderwake, “we haven't yet tried to remove it.”
“Let it continue,” said Murderwake, “I can feel things I couldn't before, I can,” and he was cut off by his own screams as the gold light poured out of the designs on his hand that were spreading up to this forearm.
“Knock him out in the med bay,” said Gerard, “and is what's happening to him dangerous?”
“From first inspection? No,” said the ship, “but we don't know what it's doing to him.”
“Alright,” said Gerard, “let it happen to him, he wants it, he can have it.”
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
speaker-to-trolls
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: 2003-11-18 05:46pm
- Location: All Hail Britannia!
Hmmm, curious. The real question is, of course, in light of what's happened to Murderwake, what will the virus Black's been infected with do to him?
Post Number 1066 achieved Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:19 pm(board time, 8:19GMT)
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
Batman: What do these guys want anyway?
Superman: Take over the world... Or rob banks, I'm not sure.
Well, I can honestly say I don't know. So far the only thing that I'm sure about myself is that there is a FTL bond between viral carriers, which allows Black to know the location of Murderwake. Of course, there's also the issue that Black is an Oalri assassin, he's already cyberwired up, so I suspect that the symptoms of the virus will be different for him than for a non-augmented person like Murderwake, who, despite some inherited tinkering and training, is a pretty regular guy.speaker-to-trolls wrote:Hmmm, curious. The real question is, of course, in light of what's happened to Murderwake, what will the virus Black's been infected with do to him?
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Thanks for your input, by the way, speaker-to-trolls, I appreciate it.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
speaker-to-trolls
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: 2003-11-18 05:46pm
- Location: All Hail Britannia!
“Are you sure that's a good idea?” asked Eve, concerned, “he looks like he's in terrible pain.”
“If it looks dangerous we'll remove it or do something,” said Gerard, “but otherwise we'll leave it in. Poll, look through everything you got from that alien artifact, let's really try and figure out what it's doing to him.”
“Got it,” said the Poll, “just give me a second, alright, it's definitely rebuilding him with some end in mind, but its intent is certainly benevolent from it's perspective, the pain he's feeling is a side-effect that will pass soon.”
“Can you communicate with it, perhaps?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” said the Poll, “it looks as if it's trying to unlock some kind of potential, of course this is an alien design so what they considered latent potential in themselves may be radically different than what- oh.” An entire wall transformed to a screen with symbols appearing, a single blue dot represented the Poll, and what looked to be a giant red clump of dots were closing in on them. “They just jumped it, it looks to be a Union fleet.” Gerard slapped his hand to his forehead.
“What's going on?” asked Eve, wonderingly.
“Have they seen us?” asked Gerard, and turning to Eve, “I don't know, maybe you can tell us. There's a Union fleet out there.”
“The Death Believer Fleet,” reported Poll, “gosh, this universe loves its dramatic names, doesn't it? Anyway, no, they haven't seen us, we're way out of their range by now, but they certainly have seen the planet. They're going to raze the planet.”
“What? They can't! That's illegal, you have to stop them!” said Eve, grabbing onto Gerard. Gerard looked up at the ship and got the funniest sensation that the ship shrugged ever so slightly.
“The planet has no real defenses to speak of, and that fleet certainly heat up the surface of the planet enough to kill just about everything on the planet.”
“But why are they doing it?”
“Let me see, the fleet is under orders from the General-President,” said the ship, “to raze the planet. Interesting.”
“The General-President is insane,” said Eve desperately, “you have to help them!” Gerard looked at the display as the Death Believer fleet closed in on the planet.
“Can you stop them, in the shape you're in?” he asked the ship.
“I'm a Million Class warship, even demilitarized as I am, I should be able to take out a fleet of rock throwers like them,” said the ship, “of course the debate is whether or not we should get involved. We'll make an enemy of the Union.”
“We already are an enemy of the Union the minute we helped out Eve, here,” said Gerard. “No, we go for it.”
“Roger that,” said the ship, “how do you want to do this?”
“Simple,” said Gerard, “get me into their computers and I'll handle the rest.”
- - - - -
The Grave Matters raced towards the planet, using emergency protocols to lift the Bureau imposed limits on engine usage as it did so. Peter Black sat alone in his spartan quarters staring at his hand, the designs on his hand had begun to spread more rapidly and shifted to a deep blue, they were complicated patterns, and if he looked closely at them they seemed to shift slowly. His own implanted devices had registered several attempts by the nanotech virus to interact with them, and for the most part the implants rejected the virus, but he let it stay. There were certain modifications it was making in its arm that he allowed it make, there was that strange sense of where Underhill was, for instance, that led him to believe the virus could be useful. There was a flash of pain, a lance striking from his hand and rippling upward through his arm, and he flinched but it was gone. But then it was back and then gone again, he shrugged it aside. In the void where the pain had been, as it retreated back into oblivion, he felt something new forming. He considered it and as he did he realized he sensed something massive all around him, a titanic presence, intimidating and powerful. It was the ship, he was sensing the ship, the cold loyalty built into its very heart, the unquestioning, uncompromising laws hardwired into it. It was strange, this new form of vision, to feel the feelings of a ship intelligence.
“I'm close enough to see that there's a fleet gathering around the planet you've set as our destination,” said the ship.
“Trouble does seem to follow Underhill,” said Peter Black, his eyes still closed, watching the movements in the depths of the ship intelligence, fascinating patterns grew up and died away, it was like watching a jungle under sped up photography.
“I suspect we are not the only ones who noticed the teleport drive,” said the ship, “I'll be in range of EECGing their systems and I can learn more, from their profiles at this distance, they look to be a Union fleet.”
“Keep your eye out for the Oalri ship that Underhill has,” said Peter Black,
“I'm sure he's there.” He raised his hand to see the charcoal blue designs waver slightly, “In fact,” he continued as it seemed inspiration blossomed,
“I suspect he's going to try and stop the fleet. He loves to meddle.”
“Well, he's going to see us coming, I'm still a few hours out, even at this speed, and I'm loud enough that the Oalri ship would have to be deaf and blind and dumb not to see me.”
- - - - -
“Gerard,” said the ship, “it's back.”
“What?” asked Gerard as he manipulated a terminal that linked him to the Death Believer ship computers. He typed rapidly and, though the Poll could have done it faster, easily worked through their security systems to the targeting computers.
“That Oalri warship, and it's closing in fast, in fact I've never seen a ship move quite that fast,” said the ship, “if it can pull that kind of speed we can't escape it unless we get out of here now!”
“I'm almost done,” said Gerard, “how's Murderwake?”
“He's awake but weak, I'm taking care of him,” said the ship, “but there's something else you should know.”
“What's that?”
“I just detected another fleet of warships,” said the ship, “and they just detected us.”
“What? How?” said Gerard distractedly.
“Gerard,” said the ship. It's tone made Gerard look up as it displayed the profiles of the ships approaching it. Round, roughly spherical ships, massive though, maybe kilometers wide. The base design every Oalri child could recognize and fear.
“Holy Gods of Quicksilver,” said Gerard, “they're dead, they're all dead.”
“No, I think you mean we're so fucked,” said the Poll, “it's the Bugs.”
- - - - -
His hand burned again but this time it was for a reason. Something had gone wrong, Peter Black winced, and called up a display. Something terrible was moving in the undercurrents of the new ocean he had dived into. He cast out his senses, pushing far past the noise of the ship, out into softer noise of space, and beyond that to hear the chatter of somethings distant but every so familiar. The riot of thousands of minds, from different cultures, all united with a singular hatred. He knew their hatred, he felt the loss, and that hatred was for the great enemy, the great inflicter of pain and torment, his eyes closed, extending far beyond himself he suddenly felt terror. He could make out the ships vaguely.
“Bugs,” he said, “there's a hidden Bug fleet out there.”
“What?” said the Grave, “That's impossible, the last Bug Armada was defeated in Universe 14.”
“And I'm telling you it's there,” Peter Black said, pointing to a point on the display, “lock onto that volume, we've got to confirm, and if I'm right
we've got to alert the Bureau and Quicksilver.”
- - - - -
“Tell me how you missed an entire Bug fleet?” shouted Gerard as he slammed the last sequence of coding into the Union fleet. It did not go off half as smoothly as he liked but since there was a Bug fleet sitting right on top of them, Gerard did not feel too bad about shoddy workmanship, half the Union fleet, their computers corrupted, opened fire on the other half, by the time the situation was corrected there would be nothing left.
“They're cloaked,” said the ship, “and they've apparently gotten a lot better at doing that kind of thing.”
“Can we run?” he asked. The ship laughed.
“Oh, certainly, and they can kill us,” it said, “we're being tractored in even as we speak.” Gerard turned to Eve and sighed.
“Well,” he said, “that pit of a world is safe for the moment, but might I say that I'm really beginning to hate your universe.”
“Who are the Bugs?” she asked, quietly.
“The worst enemy of my people,” said Gerard, “we waged a huge war against them, several actually, and I thought we finally beat them.”
“They're asking us to surrender,” said the ship.
“Fine,” said Gerard, “and can we realistically resist?”
“I'm an old warship, boy,” said the ship, “I don't mind going down in a blaze of glory but this wouldn't exactly be a great way to go.” The ship went silent for a moment.
“They slaughtered millions of my people,” said Gerard, “and enslaved countless others.” Murderwake appeared, looking peaked but otherwise alright.
“I guess traveling with you is always this interesting?” he asked, smiling slightly. He looked a little better, but Gerard could see that the marks on his hands were still pulsing with a faint light. “The ship explained our situation, so we're all going to die, is that it?”
“That was always certain for you two,” said Gerard, “I was hoping to live forever. Anyway, let's go meet the Bugs.” He led them out to the hatch that the Poll opened to find the ship surrounded by a myriad of creatures. There were the war automatons, massive multi-armed creatures, locking onto them with a vast assortment of weaponry, if they made a single wrong move, Gerard thought, at least they wouldn't feel any pain from their deaths, some of those weapons would annihilate them too quickly. He raised his hands and mumbled to the other two.
“Just smile and nod, I'll handle this,” he said. The rest of the massive chamber was filled with hundreds of other creatures of all shapes and sizes. They were all united by a single glowing device that they all seemed to bear, a badge of sorts, almost a shield design, but from a distance it looked more like an hourglass, all that seemed to glow faintly in the dark hold. A massive headed creature on eight legs, with six more arms, lumbered forward, looking at Gerard with multifaceted eyes. It opened its massive fanged mouth and hissed out, Gerard's translators leaping into action immediately. The dialect was High Bug, certainly, though a little bit old fashioned, Gerard thought.
“It has been a long time since I have seen a Harker,” it hissed at him, “what are you doing here?”
“Would you believe that I'm on the run from that other Oalri warship that you've no doubt picked up?” Gerard replied. The creature swung about
and hissed. It reared up and extended its taloned arms. Gerard got the sneaking sensation that it did not believe him.
“Take the Harker,” said the creature, “and interrogate him, and dispatch the fleet for the other warship, it must not be allowed to transmit to the rest of the Oalri.” War automatons marched up to Gerard who tried to smile as they escorted him away through the throng. Murderwake, who had been receiving a translation through the com chip that Underhill had given him, raised a hand.
“What about us?” he asked quietly. The ship translated it for him to the other creature, who, if it recalled correctly, was a Rex, one of the founding races of the Bugs.
“You? Little thing,” said the Rex, “I suppose we will have to imprison you as well.”
“Oh great,” said Eve, “this, this whole hooking up with you guys, it's working out better than I could ever have dreamed.
“If it looks dangerous we'll remove it or do something,” said Gerard, “but otherwise we'll leave it in. Poll, look through everything you got from that alien artifact, let's really try and figure out what it's doing to him.”
“Got it,” said the Poll, “just give me a second, alright, it's definitely rebuilding him with some end in mind, but its intent is certainly benevolent from it's perspective, the pain he's feeling is a side-effect that will pass soon.”
“Can you communicate with it, perhaps?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” said the Poll, “it looks as if it's trying to unlock some kind of potential, of course this is an alien design so what they considered latent potential in themselves may be radically different than what- oh.” An entire wall transformed to a screen with symbols appearing, a single blue dot represented the Poll, and what looked to be a giant red clump of dots were closing in on them. “They just jumped it, it looks to be a Union fleet.” Gerard slapped his hand to his forehead.
“What's going on?” asked Eve, wonderingly.
“Have they seen us?” asked Gerard, and turning to Eve, “I don't know, maybe you can tell us. There's a Union fleet out there.”
“The Death Believer Fleet,” reported Poll, “gosh, this universe loves its dramatic names, doesn't it? Anyway, no, they haven't seen us, we're way out of their range by now, but they certainly have seen the planet. They're going to raze the planet.”
“What? They can't! That's illegal, you have to stop them!” said Eve, grabbing onto Gerard. Gerard looked up at the ship and got the funniest sensation that the ship shrugged ever so slightly.
“The planet has no real defenses to speak of, and that fleet certainly heat up the surface of the planet enough to kill just about everything on the planet.”
“But why are they doing it?”
“Let me see, the fleet is under orders from the General-President,” said the ship, “to raze the planet. Interesting.”
“The General-President is insane,” said Eve desperately, “you have to help them!” Gerard looked at the display as the Death Believer fleet closed in on the planet.
“Can you stop them, in the shape you're in?” he asked the ship.
“I'm a Million Class warship, even demilitarized as I am, I should be able to take out a fleet of rock throwers like them,” said the ship, “of course the debate is whether or not we should get involved. We'll make an enemy of the Union.”
“We already are an enemy of the Union the minute we helped out Eve, here,” said Gerard. “No, we go for it.”
“Roger that,” said the ship, “how do you want to do this?”
“Simple,” said Gerard, “get me into their computers and I'll handle the rest.”
- - - - -
The Grave Matters raced towards the planet, using emergency protocols to lift the Bureau imposed limits on engine usage as it did so. Peter Black sat alone in his spartan quarters staring at his hand, the designs on his hand had begun to spread more rapidly and shifted to a deep blue, they were complicated patterns, and if he looked closely at them they seemed to shift slowly. His own implanted devices had registered several attempts by the nanotech virus to interact with them, and for the most part the implants rejected the virus, but he let it stay. There were certain modifications it was making in its arm that he allowed it make, there was that strange sense of where Underhill was, for instance, that led him to believe the virus could be useful. There was a flash of pain, a lance striking from his hand and rippling upward through his arm, and he flinched but it was gone. But then it was back and then gone again, he shrugged it aside. In the void where the pain had been, as it retreated back into oblivion, he felt something new forming. He considered it and as he did he realized he sensed something massive all around him, a titanic presence, intimidating and powerful. It was the ship, he was sensing the ship, the cold loyalty built into its very heart, the unquestioning, uncompromising laws hardwired into it. It was strange, this new form of vision, to feel the feelings of a ship intelligence.
“I'm close enough to see that there's a fleet gathering around the planet you've set as our destination,” said the ship.
“Trouble does seem to follow Underhill,” said Peter Black, his eyes still closed, watching the movements in the depths of the ship intelligence, fascinating patterns grew up and died away, it was like watching a jungle under sped up photography.
“I suspect we are not the only ones who noticed the teleport drive,” said the ship, “I'll be in range of EECGing their systems and I can learn more, from their profiles at this distance, they look to be a Union fleet.”
“Keep your eye out for the Oalri ship that Underhill has,” said Peter Black,
“I'm sure he's there.” He raised his hand to see the charcoal blue designs waver slightly, “In fact,” he continued as it seemed inspiration blossomed,
“I suspect he's going to try and stop the fleet. He loves to meddle.”
“Well, he's going to see us coming, I'm still a few hours out, even at this speed, and I'm loud enough that the Oalri ship would have to be deaf and blind and dumb not to see me.”
- - - - -
“Gerard,” said the ship, “it's back.”
“What?” asked Gerard as he manipulated a terminal that linked him to the Death Believer ship computers. He typed rapidly and, though the Poll could have done it faster, easily worked through their security systems to the targeting computers.
“That Oalri warship, and it's closing in fast, in fact I've never seen a ship move quite that fast,” said the ship, “if it can pull that kind of speed we can't escape it unless we get out of here now!”
“I'm almost done,” said Gerard, “how's Murderwake?”
“He's awake but weak, I'm taking care of him,” said the ship, “but there's something else you should know.”
“What's that?”
“I just detected another fleet of warships,” said the ship, “and they just detected us.”
“What? How?” said Gerard distractedly.
“Gerard,” said the ship. It's tone made Gerard look up as it displayed the profiles of the ships approaching it. Round, roughly spherical ships, massive though, maybe kilometers wide. The base design every Oalri child could recognize and fear.
“Holy Gods of Quicksilver,” said Gerard, “they're dead, they're all dead.”
“No, I think you mean we're so fucked,” said the Poll, “it's the Bugs.”
- - - - -
His hand burned again but this time it was for a reason. Something had gone wrong, Peter Black winced, and called up a display. Something terrible was moving in the undercurrents of the new ocean he had dived into. He cast out his senses, pushing far past the noise of the ship, out into softer noise of space, and beyond that to hear the chatter of somethings distant but every so familiar. The riot of thousands of minds, from different cultures, all united with a singular hatred. He knew their hatred, he felt the loss, and that hatred was for the great enemy, the great inflicter of pain and torment, his eyes closed, extending far beyond himself he suddenly felt terror. He could make out the ships vaguely.
“Bugs,” he said, “there's a hidden Bug fleet out there.”
“What?” said the Grave, “That's impossible, the last Bug Armada was defeated in Universe 14.”
“And I'm telling you it's there,” Peter Black said, pointing to a point on the display, “lock onto that volume, we've got to confirm, and if I'm right
we've got to alert the Bureau and Quicksilver.”
- - - - -
“Tell me how you missed an entire Bug fleet?” shouted Gerard as he slammed the last sequence of coding into the Union fleet. It did not go off half as smoothly as he liked but since there was a Bug fleet sitting right on top of them, Gerard did not feel too bad about shoddy workmanship, half the Union fleet, their computers corrupted, opened fire on the other half, by the time the situation was corrected there would be nothing left.
“They're cloaked,” said the ship, “and they've apparently gotten a lot better at doing that kind of thing.”
“Can we run?” he asked. The ship laughed.
“Oh, certainly, and they can kill us,” it said, “we're being tractored in even as we speak.” Gerard turned to Eve and sighed.
“Well,” he said, “that pit of a world is safe for the moment, but might I say that I'm really beginning to hate your universe.”
“Who are the Bugs?” she asked, quietly.
“The worst enemy of my people,” said Gerard, “we waged a huge war against them, several actually, and I thought we finally beat them.”
“They're asking us to surrender,” said the ship.
“Fine,” said Gerard, “and can we realistically resist?”
“I'm an old warship, boy,” said the ship, “I don't mind going down in a blaze of glory but this wouldn't exactly be a great way to go.” The ship went silent for a moment.
“They slaughtered millions of my people,” said Gerard, “and enslaved countless others.” Murderwake appeared, looking peaked but otherwise alright.
“I guess traveling with you is always this interesting?” he asked, smiling slightly. He looked a little better, but Gerard could see that the marks on his hands were still pulsing with a faint light. “The ship explained our situation, so we're all going to die, is that it?”
“That was always certain for you two,” said Gerard, “I was hoping to live forever. Anyway, let's go meet the Bugs.” He led them out to the hatch that the Poll opened to find the ship surrounded by a myriad of creatures. There were the war automatons, massive multi-armed creatures, locking onto them with a vast assortment of weaponry, if they made a single wrong move, Gerard thought, at least they wouldn't feel any pain from their deaths, some of those weapons would annihilate them too quickly. He raised his hands and mumbled to the other two.
“Just smile and nod, I'll handle this,” he said. The rest of the massive chamber was filled with hundreds of other creatures of all shapes and sizes. They were all united by a single glowing device that they all seemed to bear, a badge of sorts, almost a shield design, but from a distance it looked more like an hourglass, all that seemed to glow faintly in the dark hold. A massive headed creature on eight legs, with six more arms, lumbered forward, looking at Gerard with multifaceted eyes. It opened its massive fanged mouth and hissed out, Gerard's translators leaping into action immediately. The dialect was High Bug, certainly, though a little bit old fashioned, Gerard thought.
“It has been a long time since I have seen a Harker,” it hissed at him, “what are you doing here?”
“Would you believe that I'm on the run from that other Oalri warship that you've no doubt picked up?” Gerard replied. The creature swung about
and hissed. It reared up and extended its taloned arms. Gerard got the sneaking sensation that it did not believe him.
“Take the Harker,” said the creature, “and interrogate him, and dispatch the fleet for the other warship, it must not be allowed to transmit to the rest of the Oalri.” War automatons marched up to Gerard who tried to smile as they escorted him away through the throng. Murderwake, who had been receiving a translation through the com chip that Underhill had given him, raised a hand.
“What about us?” he asked quietly. The ship translated it for him to the other creature, who, if it recalled correctly, was a Rex, one of the founding races of the Bugs.
“You? Little thing,” said the Rex, “I suppose we will have to imprison you as well.”
“Oh great,” said Eve, “this, this whole hooking up with you guys, it's working out better than I could ever have dreamed.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
darthdavid
- Pathetic Attention Whore
- Posts: 5470
- Joined: 2003-02-17 12:04pm
- Location: Bat Country!
- - - - -
“Activate u-drive!” shouted Peter Black, knowing already what the answer would be.
“They're hitting us with their EECGs,” said the Grave, “and they're too many of them for me to shake off!”
The Grave Matters, one of the more advanced warships ever built by the Bureau shipyards, which was already moving at orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, pulled a hard turn, invoking forces that could shatter planets as it turned about and accelerated the opposite direction away from the Bug fleet. As it turned about, all in increments of time so infinitely small that Peter Black had not even finished speaking, as it unleashed volley after volley of Cash missiles. The Bugs returned fire and the entire volume of space was filled with faster than light weaponry, which meant most of the observers from the planet saw nothing. The Grave Matters was smaller but far faster and used that to its advantage but the Bug ships unleashed their drone squadrons and who all accelerated up to match its velocity. The Grave Matters spun about in place and opened up with its entire arsenal, carving a bloodless but no less violent swath through the pursuing drones, it then charged the Bug fleet, pushing its already taxed engines to far past safety limits, continuing to fire a continuous stream from its Cash launchers and EECGs. Then the massed EECGs of the Bug fleet hit it and it suddenly felt itself paralyzed, nothing better than a floating bit of space junk.
“They've got us,” said the Grave Matters, “I tried to shoot my way through, but there were too many of them.”
“It's alright,” said Peter Black, reloading his pistol, “they haven't destroyed us yet, that means that they want us alive.”
“They're attempting to invade my systems,” said the Grave Matters, “I don't know how long I can hold out.”
“Do your best,” said Peter Black. He sat down in his chair and forced himself to be still. There was nothing he could feasibly offer up to his ship to help, other than stay out o fthe way. He got up and donned an armored environment suit, and went down to the armory to pick up one of the more elaborate Oalri designed weapons, based around a rifle design it did terrible things, one hundred and twenty eight terrible things to anything you shot it at simultaneously.
“We're being boarded,” croaked the Grave Matters, “I've lost control of several sections-” Then the voice of the ship fizzled out. Peter Black activated his weapons display and his gray field and began stalking through the ship corridors. Faint readings were recognizable, they were using war automatons, the Quick, something the Bugs used all the way back in the old days of the Wars when they had allied with a Machine Race. The Quick were fast. Really, really, really fast. They could move at near relativistic speeds, which would have been terrible for him simply by the atmospheric damage they could cause, but they managed, with methods that still baffled the Oalri, to avoid destroying everything around them simply by moving. The bad news is they still moved terribly fast. Peter Black activated his implant intelligences, a move of last resort, though they were not comparable to ship intelligences, oracular technology was highly illegal, he synchronized them with his suit, and began moving through the ship.
The first one appeared right behind him, arms unfolding into a tentacled mass of killing machinery, but his implants were already reacting to the predicted threat and was already firing his rifle before he knew what he was doing, blowing apart the dark Quick automaton, and half the hallway he was walking in. Several more were engaged with the Grave Matters automatons which gave him precious seconds to make it to an airlock.
“Grave?” he said aloud, but the ship said nothing, so he blew the door open and was blown out into space. He looked back at the slowly twisting powered down hulk of his ship and then turned away towards the Bug fleet. Drones passed him, momentarily his gray field was holding up, but that left the giant problem of getting the word back to the Bureau and Quicksilver.
- - - - -
The Dying Poll tested the EECGs trained on it and found that it could do very little other than speak through its com chips and it had already lost contact with the Harker.
“Don't worry,” it said reassuringly to Murderwake.
“Why? Are they not going to kill us?” asked Murderwake as the war automatons escorted him and Eve towards the prison.
“Well, no, they're probably going to kill you because you're now associated with a Harker,” said the ship, “they have a grudge against the Harkers.”
“What did they do?” asked Eve, as they were forced into separate cells, but the Bugs, for some reason, allowed them to keep chatting through the com chips. No doubt monitoring it, the ship reasoned, but it was better than just sitting around, for the moment. It had done a lot of sitting around while meditating in the monastery it had built, and it had enjoyed meditating for several decades. No enlightenment, though, it reflected sadly.
“A Harker might have destroyed the Thousand Homeworlds of the Bugs,” said the ship, “and they certainly still resent him because of it.”
“Was it Underhill?” asked Murderwake, awed.
“Oh, certainly not,” said the ship, “this was way before his time.”
“What are they going to do with us?”
“Me? I'm probably going to be invaded and taken apart,” said the ship, “they might, you know, eat you or something. To be honest, I envy you your fate.”
Murderwake walked up to the door of his small cell. It was little more than a closet, he had barely room to stand fully up. His skin tingled and he felt something passing over him, one of the many new sensations he was feeling since being infected with the strange virus. He put his hand, the infected one, and concentrated on it, he felt a strange tingling spread to his hand and the strange golden patterns began to glow brighter.
“I think,” said Murderwake, “I might be able to do something.”
- - - - -
They strapped him to the machinery in the wall and when they noticed his Network connections were burnt out they physically hooked him up to the machinery, a process that involved tubes burrowing into his skin. Then the hostile takeover of his implants. He looked up at the ceiling, savoring his last few moments of free will, while the Bug technicians worked on their panels, and the Rex crouched nearby clucking.
“What happened to your Network connections?” the Rex asked. Gerald said nothing but initiated the emergency programs which rapidly began destroying the information stored in his implants that could prove vital.
“He's erasing data,” said one of the technicians. He felt a slight internal pressure and suddenly his implant intelligences froze, as the external intelligences ganged up on his systems and paralyzed them.
“As much as I would love to watch you lobotomize yourself,” growled the Rex, “we will get what we want from you first.” It gestured with Gerald's multi-tool and pain suddenly was woven into every fabric of his being. He thrashed against his restraints and screamed and then the Rex gestured again and he sagged against his restraints, dizzy. That had to be the maximum setting, he thought, he doubted he could feel any greater agony.
“I know that you Harkers are conditioned against forms of torture,” said the Rex, “but we've made an art form of extracting information from you, and once we're done I'm going to torture you for a few centuries.” Gerald said nothing, but tried, sluggishly, since his implants were shut down his thinking was terribly slow, it was like losing the Network connection before, to think of a way out of the situation.
- - - - -
The damaged and scorched Grave Matters was tractored into a Bug vessel, still paralyzed by the EECGs, while slowly, bit by bit, its mind was being invaded and destroyed. For a ship intelligence, creatures of vast awareness and intelligence, it was a hell beyond comparison since they could feel, down to the atomic level, every bit of themselves lost. It considered suicide, it could not self-destruct the ship, but it could destroy itself, deny the enemy all the knowledge that it held, there would be some honor in that, a small victory. But Peter Black was still out there, it mused, there could still be a chance. So it calculated how much longer it could hold out and then made arrangements for its suicide as it redoubled its efforts to keep the Bugs out.
- - - - -
Peter Black, using his suits own propulsion system, attached himself to one of the Bug ships. The gray field was holding up, for the moment, so he was not destroyed instantly. He attached a jamming device onto the hull of ship and carved his way into the ship, slipping in and sealing the whole behind him as he did so. He held up his rifle and began moving into the ship, guided by an invisible tugging from his hand.
- - - - -
Murderwake drew back his fist, which was blazing now with golden light, and punched through the door, passing through the metal door, and he reached up with his other hand and tore through the rest of the door. He looked at the mangled metal door with wonderment. He then shook his head and walked over to where Eve was, guided by the ship, and was about to wrench open her door when the ship spoke up.
“While I'm sure that would be great, you could just push that button there on that panel,” the ship said softly in his ear. He pushed the button and found himself staring down the barrel of Eve's pistol, the Bugs had not bothered to confiscate it. He held up his hands and smiled. Eve stepped out of her cell and looked at his cell door, or rather the hole he had ripped through it.
“How did you do that?” she asked. He held up his arm, and she saw the strange swirling patterns were growing up onto his suit, his entire arm, even on the suit, was covered with the symbols now.
“I think it's melding with my suit now,” he said, “but I know that doesn't explain things, I just feel stronger somehow.”
“You're definitely stronger,” she pointed out, “but we have to get out of here now. How could these aliens be sitting right in the Union and no one notice?”
“How could you notice?” asked the Poll, “If they didn't want you to they could park right over your capital world in full day light and you wouldn't notice. Oh, you better run, they're on to you.” They heard a distant sound of someone coming so they turned and ran, directed by the Poll. Suddenly the Poll's voice cut out, and there was a momentary pause as they hid in an alcove.
“Check, check,” said the Poll, and they sighed in relief.
“I'm not the ship,” said the Poll's voice in the chip, “I'm just a shadow, let's say, it uploaded a small portion of itself into the chip, it knew that the Bugs would cut it off once you got moving. And you should keep moving, they know where you are.”
“Where, though?” asked Murderwake.
“Well, if you can get to the hangar you can possibly free the Dying Poll,” said the chip, “then it would simply be a matter of freeing it and escaping a Bug fleet.”
“I can't believe I left Sturm for this,” said Eve.
- - - - -
Peter Black rounded a corner to pick up some non-Bug lifeforms, at least not any cataloged by the Bureau. They were some distance away still but the readings coincided with his strange sensation that he was feeling in his hand so he started moving towards them.
- - - - -
Murderwake and Eve practically ran into the tall blue man. He was standing in a hallway all alone, he wore dark red robes and one of the strange hour glass badges, his head nearly brushed the tall ceiling and he was terribly skinny. He had a head full of long white hair that fell nearly down past his shoulders, which, considering how long his neck was, was a fair length. Eve pushed Murderwake back and pointed her pistol at him. He raised his hands and spoke slowly in a deep voice.
“It says it means you no harm,” said the chip to them. “It's unarmed.”
“Activate u-drive!” shouted Peter Black, knowing already what the answer would be.
“They're hitting us with their EECGs,” said the Grave, “and they're too many of them for me to shake off!”
The Grave Matters, one of the more advanced warships ever built by the Bureau shipyards, which was already moving at orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light, pulled a hard turn, invoking forces that could shatter planets as it turned about and accelerated the opposite direction away from the Bug fleet. As it turned about, all in increments of time so infinitely small that Peter Black had not even finished speaking, as it unleashed volley after volley of Cash missiles. The Bugs returned fire and the entire volume of space was filled with faster than light weaponry, which meant most of the observers from the planet saw nothing. The Grave Matters was smaller but far faster and used that to its advantage but the Bug ships unleashed their drone squadrons and who all accelerated up to match its velocity. The Grave Matters spun about in place and opened up with its entire arsenal, carving a bloodless but no less violent swath through the pursuing drones, it then charged the Bug fleet, pushing its already taxed engines to far past safety limits, continuing to fire a continuous stream from its Cash launchers and EECGs. Then the massed EECGs of the Bug fleet hit it and it suddenly felt itself paralyzed, nothing better than a floating bit of space junk.
“They've got us,” said the Grave Matters, “I tried to shoot my way through, but there were too many of them.”
“It's alright,” said Peter Black, reloading his pistol, “they haven't destroyed us yet, that means that they want us alive.”
“They're attempting to invade my systems,” said the Grave Matters, “I don't know how long I can hold out.”
“Do your best,” said Peter Black. He sat down in his chair and forced himself to be still. There was nothing he could feasibly offer up to his ship to help, other than stay out o fthe way. He got up and donned an armored environment suit, and went down to the armory to pick up one of the more elaborate Oalri designed weapons, based around a rifle design it did terrible things, one hundred and twenty eight terrible things to anything you shot it at simultaneously.
“We're being boarded,” croaked the Grave Matters, “I've lost control of several sections-” Then the voice of the ship fizzled out. Peter Black activated his weapons display and his gray field and began stalking through the ship corridors. Faint readings were recognizable, they were using war automatons, the Quick, something the Bugs used all the way back in the old days of the Wars when they had allied with a Machine Race. The Quick were fast. Really, really, really fast. They could move at near relativistic speeds, which would have been terrible for him simply by the atmospheric damage they could cause, but they managed, with methods that still baffled the Oalri, to avoid destroying everything around them simply by moving. The bad news is they still moved terribly fast. Peter Black activated his implant intelligences, a move of last resort, though they were not comparable to ship intelligences, oracular technology was highly illegal, he synchronized them with his suit, and began moving through the ship.
The first one appeared right behind him, arms unfolding into a tentacled mass of killing machinery, but his implants were already reacting to the predicted threat and was already firing his rifle before he knew what he was doing, blowing apart the dark Quick automaton, and half the hallway he was walking in. Several more were engaged with the Grave Matters automatons which gave him precious seconds to make it to an airlock.
“Grave?” he said aloud, but the ship said nothing, so he blew the door open and was blown out into space. He looked back at the slowly twisting powered down hulk of his ship and then turned away towards the Bug fleet. Drones passed him, momentarily his gray field was holding up, but that left the giant problem of getting the word back to the Bureau and Quicksilver.
- - - - -
The Dying Poll tested the EECGs trained on it and found that it could do very little other than speak through its com chips and it had already lost contact with the Harker.
“Don't worry,” it said reassuringly to Murderwake.
“Why? Are they not going to kill us?” asked Murderwake as the war automatons escorted him and Eve towards the prison.
“Well, no, they're probably going to kill you because you're now associated with a Harker,” said the ship, “they have a grudge against the Harkers.”
“What did they do?” asked Eve, as they were forced into separate cells, but the Bugs, for some reason, allowed them to keep chatting through the com chips. No doubt monitoring it, the ship reasoned, but it was better than just sitting around, for the moment. It had done a lot of sitting around while meditating in the monastery it had built, and it had enjoyed meditating for several decades. No enlightenment, though, it reflected sadly.
“A Harker might have destroyed the Thousand Homeworlds of the Bugs,” said the ship, “and they certainly still resent him because of it.”
“Was it Underhill?” asked Murderwake, awed.
“Oh, certainly not,” said the ship, “this was way before his time.”
“What are they going to do with us?”
“Me? I'm probably going to be invaded and taken apart,” said the ship, “they might, you know, eat you or something. To be honest, I envy you your fate.”
Murderwake walked up to the door of his small cell. It was little more than a closet, he had barely room to stand fully up. His skin tingled and he felt something passing over him, one of the many new sensations he was feeling since being infected with the strange virus. He put his hand, the infected one, and concentrated on it, he felt a strange tingling spread to his hand and the strange golden patterns began to glow brighter.
“I think,” said Murderwake, “I might be able to do something.”
- - - - -
They strapped him to the machinery in the wall and when they noticed his Network connections were burnt out they physically hooked him up to the machinery, a process that involved tubes burrowing into his skin. Then the hostile takeover of his implants. He looked up at the ceiling, savoring his last few moments of free will, while the Bug technicians worked on their panels, and the Rex crouched nearby clucking.
“What happened to your Network connections?” the Rex asked. Gerald said nothing but initiated the emergency programs which rapidly began destroying the information stored in his implants that could prove vital.
“He's erasing data,” said one of the technicians. He felt a slight internal pressure and suddenly his implant intelligences froze, as the external intelligences ganged up on his systems and paralyzed them.
“As much as I would love to watch you lobotomize yourself,” growled the Rex, “we will get what we want from you first.” It gestured with Gerald's multi-tool and pain suddenly was woven into every fabric of his being. He thrashed against his restraints and screamed and then the Rex gestured again and he sagged against his restraints, dizzy. That had to be the maximum setting, he thought, he doubted he could feel any greater agony.
“I know that you Harkers are conditioned against forms of torture,” said the Rex, “but we've made an art form of extracting information from you, and once we're done I'm going to torture you for a few centuries.” Gerald said nothing, but tried, sluggishly, since his implants were shut down his thinking was terribly slow, it was like losing the Network connection before, to think of a way out of the situation.
- - - - -
The damaged and scorched Grave Matters was tractored into a Bug vessel, still paralyzed by the EECGs, while slowly, bit by bit, its mind was being invaded and destroyed. For a ship intelligence, creatures of vast awareness and intelligence, it was a hell beyond comparison since they could feel, down to the atomic level, every bit of themselves lost. It considered suicide, it could not self-destruct the ship, but it could destroy itself, deny the enemy all the knowledge that it held, there would be some honor in that, a small victory. But Peter Black was still out there, it mused, there could still be a chance. So it calculated how much longer it could hold out and then made arrangements for its suicide as it redoubled its efforts to keep the Bugs out.
- - - - -
Peter Black, using his suits own propulsion system, attached himself to one of the Bug ships. The gray field was holding up, for the moment, so he was not destroyed instantly. He attached a jamming device onto the hull of ship and carved his way into the ship, slipping in and sealing the whole behind him as he did so. He held up his rifle and began moving into the ship, guided by an invisible tugging from his hand.
- - - - -
Murderwake drew back his fist, which was blazing now with golden light, and punched through the door, passing through the metal door, and he reached up with his other hand and tore through the rest of the door. He looked at the mangled metal door with wonderment. He then shook his head and walked over to where Eve was, guided by the ship, and was about to wrench open her door when the ship spoke up.
“While I'm sure that would be great, you could just push that button there on that panel,” the ship said softly in his ear. He pushed the button and found himself staring down the barrel of Eve's pistol, the Bugs had not bothered to confiscate it. He held up his hands and smiled. Eve stepped out of her cell and looked at his cell door, or rather the hole he had ripped through it.
“How did you do that?” she asked. He held up his arm, and she saw the strange swirling patterns were growing up onto his suit, his entire arm, even on the suit, was covered with the symbols now.
“I think it's melding with my suit now,” he said, “but I know that doesn't explain things, I just feel stronger somehow.”
“You're definitely stronger,” she pointed out, “but we have to get out of here now. How could these aliens be sitting right in the Union and no one notice?”
“How could you notice?” asked the Poll, “If they didn't want you to they could park right over your capital world in full day light and you wouldn't notice. Oh, you better run, they're on to you.” They heard a distant sound of someone coming so they turned and ran, directed by the Poll. Suddenly the Poll's voice cut out, and there was a momentary pause as they hid in an alcove.
“Check, check,” said the Poll, and they sighed in relief.
“I'm not the ship,” said the Poll's voice in the chip, “I'm just a shadow, let's say, it uploaded a small portion of itself into the chip, it knew that the Bugs would cut it off once you got moving. And you should keep moving, they know where you are.”
“Where, though?” asked Murderwake.
“Well, if you can get to the hangar you can possibly free the Dying Poll,” said the chip, “then it would simply be a matter of freeing it and escaping a Bug fleet.”
“I can't believe I left Sturm for this,” said Eve.
- - - - -
Peter Black rounded a corner to pick up some non-Bug lifeforms, at least not any cataloged by the Bureau. They were some distance away still but the readings coincided with his strange sensation that he was feeling in his hand so he started moving towards them.
- - - - -
Murderwake and Eve practically ran into the tall blue man. He was standing in a hallway all alone, he wore dark red robes and one of the strange hour glass badges, his head nearly brushed the tall ceiling and he was terribly skinny. He had a head full of long white hair that fell nearly down past his shoulders, which, considering how long his neck was, was a fair length. Eve pushed Murderwake back and pointed her pistol at him. He raised his hands and spoke slowly in a deep voice.
“It says it means you no harm,” said the chip to them. “It's unarmed.”
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I enjoy writing it, though I often worry about writing myself into a corner.darthdavid wrote:I just read through everything and I like this story.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Eve kept her pistol raised and looked questioningly back at Murderwake who shrugged.
“Alright,” said Eve, “go ahead and talk.”
“We aren't going to kill you,” continued the blue man, “but we did not want you get hurt attempting to escape, so I, Artemi Fax, was sent to open negotiations.”
“I thought your Rex friend was all about killing us,” said Eve, “he did not strike me as so friendly.”
“Rex? Oh, you mean I-Wayward, well, he and his kind suffered greatly during the wars with the Great Enemy,” continued Artemi, “it's become rapidly clear, after some probing of your minds, that you aren't agents of the Oalri. His ship, the Dying Poll, also claims that the Harker you've brought with you has gone rogue, an interesting idea, but not one that we could trust easily.”
“He's definitely on the run,” said Murderwake, “or at least he's been on the run from another warship.”
“We've captured that one as well,” said Artemi, he gestured with one hand, “would you like to tour the garden? I think it might prove useful.”
This time Eve shrugged and holstered her pistol, Artemi seemed trustworthy enough for some unknown reason, and if they were being played she suspected their chances of escape were already low enough to warrant a risk. Artemi led them through empty halls to a large garden filled with natural light from a distant yellow sun. Murderwake squinted and looked up at the sky.
“How do you manage this?” he asked, and looked around to see the lush teeming jungle, and was quickly greeted by the high humidity which wrapped around him.
“It's an equivalent of a greenhouse,” explained Artemi, “the sky and the sunlight are easy to reproduce, we grow thousands of plants here, specimens were taken from thousands of worlds, many of those worlds are gone now, thanks to the Oalri.” It walked through a dense part of the forest and they followed him to a hilltop which was an open field, they watched a herd of purple bison-like creatures, hairy, squat, broad shouldered mammals with four horns apiece.
“We are preservers, I don't suppose the Harker told you of that,” said the Artemi, “and it's true that a bulk of our population are insectoid races, they were the founders of our great civilization, and have since then been on a quest to unite all the universes.”
“Enslaving and killing along the way?” asked Murderwake. “The Oalri stopped you.” But he did not sound so certain as he said it.
“We were driven out of our own universes,” admitted Artemi, “it was the Oalri who started the war, wiping out thousands of sentient species in a heartbeat. It was us who stepped forward to defend those who were victimized, unfortunately we were driven back, until we were forced to flee with what few survivors we could carry, to rebuild here, in this primitive place.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Eve, wonderingly. Artemi began walking on a path made of dark blue round river stones. It swerved and curved constantly, and Murderwake and Eve followed him as best they could.
“We have been in your universe for a thousand years, although the measurement of time rapidly becomes complicated once you take into account the complexity of our conflict with the Oalri.” Artemi stopped before a large flat stone that looked like a table and gestured, it flickered to life, becoming a kind of terminal screen. “These are our records, feel free to browse them.”
“What about Underhill?” Murderwake asked, concerned.
“We will attempt to corroborate what the ship has told us, quite insistently, if what it says is true then we must decide. You do not understand how greatly Harkers have rui-” Artemi froze as he spoke, his features slowly melted to neutral and he slumped slowly to the floor. Murderwake's hand spasmed and cramped suddenly and he looked around to see a man moving out from the trees, or at least he thought it was a man, it was hard to make out for some reason, like his eyes kept sliding past him. Eve noticed him too and had drawn her pistol.
The creature that was so difficult to lock eyes on seemed to regard them for a moment and then said, “Where is Underhill?” It seemed to focus on Eve and Murderwake got the impression that it was holding a weapon of some sorts.
“We don't know,” said Murderwake, gesturing for Eve to lower her pistol. His hand had stopped spasming, now it just ached, and its glow had subsided. This close to the creature though Murderwake started to sense it in the very strange way he had started sensing other things since being changed by the alien artifact. There was a luminous complexity to the thing standing before him, but something familiar to it, something strangely similar to the warship, the Dying Poll, and Underhill.
“You're an Oalri,” he said as inspiration and connection struck. The creature seemed to relax as Eve holstered her pistol.
“Yes,” it said, it's voice distorted and deep, “I need to locate Underhill, where is he?”
“We don't know, they said they were interrogating him,” said Eve, “we could help you look for him.”
“No,” said the Oalri, “it would be better if I went alone,” and with that it slipped away. Eve looked down at the dead Artemi.
“He wasn't so bad,” she said. Murderwake watched the corpse twitch occasionally and thought of his childhood, where corpses were more plentiful.
“We should get out of here, we should not be here,” he said, “we're less than worth noticing to these people.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Eve.
“We'll get to the Dying Poll and help it escape,” said Murderwake with confidence that he did not have. “I don't really see any other way out of this.” Alarms exploded out from the walls, a strange deafening wailing that seemed to come shrieking form all around them.
“I think they just noticed Artemi is dead,” muttered the chip, “and if my tiny brain is even close to right they'll not think so highly of you.”
“To this ship, then,” said Eve, “and back to something I understand like corrupt governments and a revolution.”
- - - -
Peter Black was forced by his circumstances to rely on the strange new abilities related to the virus infecting his body. The two young primitives were of no use, though Peter Black found it interesting that the male's arm was covered, even over the suit, with strange intersecting golden lines, he too was probably infected with the strange virus. All interesting, but paling in comparison to a lost Bug fleet. He raised his hand and concentrated on Underhill, but sensed nothing at first, which did not surprise him, since he was not certain even how his new abilities worked, and if he could find anything other than another viral victim. Then suddenly an impression of Underhill almost slammed into his mind, blowing all other thoughts aside, the Bugs must have disabled his implants. Peter Black began moving that way, slipping through the hallways, and moments later the alarms erupted through the hallways, alarms so loud that he could feel the vibration of them in his chest, he broke into a run.
- - - - -
“What?” said Gerald, panting and covered in sweat, “What is going on?” He was still hanging from the wall, wiring still attached to him.
“Intruder alert,” said one of the technicians, “we've been boarded. Internal scans can't seem to locate the intruder though.” The Rex growled. Gerald raised his head, a single movement that took enormous effort, and looked at him in his eye. The sluggishness of his thoughts made the moments stretch out for what felt like hours, an unpleasant side-effect of his implant damage, which only made the pain of the Rex's torturing even more unbearable.
“I'd run,” he said slowly, “if I were you, if it's what I think it is.” The Rex growled and turned about to see a flicker of obscured movement and suddenly slumped over, as did the technicians. The automatons flared to life but were quickly put down as well. Gerard looked up again, still exhausted from the last time he had lifted his head and felt his restraints give, so he fell to the floor. The person in the gray-field walked over to him and knelt down beside him and whispered softly with a distorted voice.
“I should kill you Underhill,” it said, “but with the Bugs here I think the situation has changed somewhat. Help me with them and I will bring you back alive and speak on your behalf to the Bureau. My word counts.” Gerald considered, with his glacially slow thoughts which seemed to slowly be approaching their normal speed as the other Oalri began shutting down the inhibitors, the option of death or compliance.
“I'll help,” he said. He stood up, his legs weak, they almost gave out as he walked slowly to a panel, stopping only to pick up his multi-tool from the dead Rex. “Nice death ray,” he said as he bent down and used his multi-tool to remove a panel underneath the technicians terminal and began tapping into the Bug's system.
“Alright,” he said, “I'm hiding us from their internal scans.” The man dropped his gray field, revealing a frankly boring looking man, almost completely unremarkable, in a dark black armor suit and carrying a particularly vicious looking rifle, one of the more complicated takes-seventeen-years-of-training to use appropriately weapons. Gerald reconnected the terminal and began working through the system.
“What are they doing here?” asked Peter Black, turning his senses outward. No one was approaching yet, which was good, with the Harker's help, they could perhaps do something about this fleet. Gerald read as quickly as he could but there was so much information to go through.
“They've been here a long time, rebuilding,” he said, “and they've got a plan, they've been building a weapon. They've been building a weapon around a Starkiller. Somehow they captured a Starkiller. They're going to strike at Quicksilver!”
“Alright, where is the Starkiller?” Peter Black asked.
“Checking,” said Gerald, “it's in this universe, at one of their secret bases in this galaxy.”
“We need to alert the Bureau and destroy the weapon,” said Peter Black.
“I'm getting our ships free now,” said Gerald, “but somehow we're going to have to get free of the fleet.”
“You're in their computers now, correct?” asked Peter Black.
“Correct,” said Gerald.
“Well, give us their recognition codes, we'll slip out on my ship.”
“No, we need my ship too, two ships will work better than one, you go back to the Bureau and warn them, and I'll go destroy their weapon,” said Gerald. Peter Black considered it for a moment and then nodded.
“Alright,” said Eve, “go ahead and talk.”
“We aren't going to kill you,” continued the blue man, “but we did not want you get hurt attempting to escape, so I, Artemi Fax, was sent to open negotiations.”
“I thought your Rex friend was all about killing us,” said Eve, “he did not strike me as so friendly.”
“Rex? Oh, you mean I-Wayward, well, he and his kind suffered greatly during the wars with the Great Enemy,” continued Artemi, “it's become rapidly clear, after some probing of your minds, that you aren't agents of the Oalri. His ship, the Dying Poll, also claims that the Harker you've brought with you has gone rogue, an interesting idea, but not one that we could trust easily.”
“He's definitely on the run,” said Murderwake, “or at least he's been on the run from another warship.”
“We've captured that one as well,” said Artemi, he gestured with one hand, “would you like to tour the garden? I think it might prove useful.”
This time Eve shrugged and holstered her pistol, Artemi seemed trustworthy enough for some unknown reason, and if they were being played she suspected their chances of escape were already low enough to warrant a risk. Artemi led them through empty halls to a large garden filled with natural light from a distant yellow sun. Murderwake squinted and looked up at the sky.
“How do you manage this?” he asked, and looked around to see the lush teeming jungle, and was quickly greeted by the high humidity which wrapped around him.
“It's an equivalent of a greenhouse,” explained Artemi, “the sky and the sunlight are easy to reproduce, we grow thousands of plants here, specimens were taken from thousands of worlds, many of those worlds are gone now, thanks to the Oalri.” It walked through a dense part of the forest and they followed him to a hilltop which was an open field, they watched a herd of purple bison-like creatures, hairy, squat, broad shouldered mammals with four horns apiece.
“We are preservers, I don't suppose the Harker told you of that,” said the Artemi, “and it's true that a bulk of our population are insectoid races, they were the founders of our great civilization, and have since then been on a quest to unite all the universes.”
“Enslaving and killing along the way?” asked Murderwake. “The Oalri stopped you.” But he did not sound so certain as he said it.
“We were driven out of our own universes,” admitted Artemi, “it was the Oalri who started the war, wiping out thousands of sentient species in a heartbeat. It was us who stepped forward to defend those who were victimized, unfortunately we were driven back, until we were forced to flee with what few survivors we could carry, to rebuild here, in this primitive place.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Eve, wonderingly. Artemi began walking on a path made of dark blue round river stones. It swerved and curved constantly, and Murderwake and Eve followed him as best they could.
“We have been in your universe for a thousand years, although the measurement of time rapidly becomes complicated once you take into account the complexity of our conflict with the Oalri.” Artemi stopped before a large flat stone that looked like a table and gestured, it flickered to life, becoming a kind of terminal screen. “These are our records, feel free to browse them.”
“What about Underhill?” Murderwake asked, concerned.
“We will attempt to corroborate what the ship has told us, quite insistently, if what it says is true then we must decide. You do not understand how greatly Harkers have rui-” Artemi froze as he spoke, his features slowly melted to neutral and he slumped slowly to the floor. Murderwake's hand spasmed and cramped suddenly and he looked around to see a man moving out from the trees, or at least he thought it was a man, it was hard to make out for some reason, like his eyes kept sliding past him. Eve noticed him too and had drawn her pistol.
The creature that was so difficult to lock eyes on seemed to regard them for a moment and then said, “Where is Underhill?” It seemed to focus on Eve and Murderwake got the impression that it was holding a weapon of some sorts.
“We don't know,” said Murderwake, gesturing for Eve to lower her pistol. His hand had stopped spasming, now it just ached, and its glow had subsided. This close to the creature though Murderwake started to sense it in the very strange way he had started sensing other things since being changed by the alien artifact. There was a luminous complexity to the thing standing before him, but something familiar to it, something strangely similar to the warship, the Dying Poll, and Underhill.
“You're an Oalri,” he said as inspiration and connection struck. The creature seemed to relax as Eve holstered her pistol.
“Yes,” it said, it's voice distorted and deep, “I need to locate Underhill, where is he?”
“We don't know, they said they were interrogating him,” said Eve, “we could help you look for him.”
“No,” said the Oalri, “it would be better if I went alone,” and with that it slipped away. Eve looked down at the dead Artemi.
“He wasn't so bad,” she said. Murderwake watched the corpse twitch occasionally and thought of his childhood, where corpses were more plentiful.
“We should get out of here, we should not be here,” he said, “we're less than worth noticing to these people.”
“How are we going to do that?” asked Eve.
“We'll get to the Dying Poll and help it escape,” said Murderwake with confidence that he did not have. “I don't really see any other way out of this.” Alarms exploded out from the walls, a strange deafening wailing that seemed to come shrieking form all around them.
“I think they just noticed Artemi is dead,” muttered the chip, “and if my tiny brain is even close to right they'll not think so highly of you.”
“To this ship, then,” said Eve, “and back to something I understand like corrupt governments and a revolution.”
- - - -
Peter Black was forced by his circumstances to rely on the strange new abilities related to the virus infecting his body. The two young primitives were of no use, though Peter Black found it interesting that the male's arm was covered, even over the suit, with strange intersecting golden lines, he too was probably infected with the strange virus. All interesting, but paling in comparison to a lost Bug fleet. He raised his hand and concentrated on Underhill, but sensed nothing at first, which did not surprise him, since he was not certain even how his new abilities worked, and if he could find anything other than another viral victim. Then suddenly an impression of Underhill almost slammed into his mind, blowing all other thoughts aside, the Bugs must have disabled his implants. Peter Black began moving that way, slipping through the hallways, and moments later the alarms erupted through the hallways, alarms so loud that he could feel the vibration of them in his chest, he broke into a run.
- - - - -
“What?” said Gerald, panting and covered in sweat, “What is going on?” He was still hanging from the wall, wiring still attached to him.
“Intruder alert,” said one of the technicians, “we've been boarded. Internal scans can't seem to locate the intruder though.” The Rex growled. Gerald raised his head, a single movement that took enormous effort, and looked at him in his eye. The sluggishness of his thoughts made the moments stretch out for what felt like hours, an unpleasant side-effect of his implant damage, which only made the pain of the Rex's torturing even more unbearable.
“I'd run,” he said slowly, “if I were you, if it's what I think it is.” The Rex growled and turned about to see a flicker of obscured movement and suddenly slumped over, as did the technicians. The automatons flared to life but were quickly put down as well. Gerard looked up again, still exhausted from the last time he had lifted his head and felt his restraints give, so he fell to the floor. The person in the gray-field walked over to him and knelt down beside him and whispered softly with a distorted voice.
“I should kill you Underhill,” it said, “but with the Bugs here I think the situation has changed somewhat. Help me with them and I will bring you back alive and speak on your behalf to the Bureau. My word counts.” Gerald considered, with his glacially slow thoughts which seemed to slowly be approaching their normal speed as the other Oalri began shutting down the inhibitors, the option of death or compliance.
“I'll help,” he said. He stood up, his legs weak, they almost gave out as he walked slowly to a panel, stopping only to pick up his multi-tool from the dead Rex. “Nice death ray,” he said as he bent down and used his multi-tool to remove a panel underneath the technicians terminal and began tapping into the Bug's system.
“Alright,” he said, “I'm hiding us from their internal scans.” The man dropped his gray field, revealing a frankly boring looking man, almost completely unremarkable, in a dark black armor suit and carrying a particularly vicious looking rifle, one of the more complicated takes-seventeen-years-of-training to use appropriately weapons. Gerald reconnected the terminal and began working through the system.
“What are they doing here?” asked Peter Black, turning his senses outward. No one was approaching yet, which was good, with the Harker's help, they could perhaps do something about this fleet. Gerald read as quickly as he could but there was so much information to go through.
“They've been here a long time, rebuilding,” he said, “and they've got a plan, they've been building a weapon. They've been building a weapon around a Starkiller. Somehow they captured a Starkiller. They're going to strike at Quicksilver!”
“Alright, where is the Starkiller?” Peter Black asked.
“Checking,” said Gerald, “it's in this universe, at one of their secret bases in this galaxy.”
“We need to alert the Bureau and destroy the weapon,” said Peter Black.
“I'm getting our ships free now,” said Gerald, “but somehow we're going to have to get free of the fleet.”
“You're in their computers now, correct?” asked Peter Black.
“Correct,” said Gerald.
“Well, give us their recognition codes, we'll slip out on my ship.”
“No, we need my ship too, two ships will work better than one, you go back to the Bureau and warn them, and I'll go destroy their weapon,” said Gerald. Peter Black considered it for a moment and then nodded.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
Gerald jammed his multi-tool back into the wiring of the terminal and it hissed and sparked loudly as he swiftly shifted it from function to function.
- - - - -
The Dying Poll felt the restraints from external EECGs falling away and it quickly rose up off the ground, the foreign circuitry and machinery in it cackling slightly. It turned its nose about and located Murderwake and Eve. War automatons around it sprang to life, raising up their many pronged arms, dark single-minded intelligences knowing a singular focus that the Poll almost pitied as it annihilated them in the blink of an eye, using its smallest EECG projector to simply send such a force through them that simultaneously, all fifteen automatons' torsos shattered like dark glass, the fragments had not even hit the ground as the Dying Poll turned its consciousness to the ship around it, still blinded by what the Poll recognized as the devious handiwork of one particular Harker. It sent its mind out and combined their efforts from a distance, providing the raw power that the Harker himself, while brilliant, could not compare too.
Diving into the unaware Bug ship, it found something anomalous among the seas of data, and with the gentlest of gestures, found a distant relative in another captured Oalri warship, a young powerful, but slightly dull warship trapped in another ship, slowly being torn apart by the invasions of Bug intelligences. It turned the Harker's attention to it and together they slipped into the other Bug ship's systems and deactivated the EECGs restraining that ship as well. The ship immediately rose up and unleashed its full arsenal, unleashing its rage upon the surrounding Bug ship.
- - - - -
Murderwake and Eve ran down the hallway, lights began flickering and the alarms cut out. They saw several dark preying mantis looking creatures, pitch black, and nearly two meters tall, running down some hallways and managed to hide from them. War automatons also were running through the hallways but they were either malfunctioning or were not looking for them because on several close encounters Murderwake and Eve were in plain sight of them and they continued on. They managed, thanks to the chip's stream of directions, to find their way back to the hangar where they found the remains of many war automatons and a floating Dying Poll who quickly lowered a ramp for them to board.
“Gerald and another Oalri are on their way,” said the Dying Poll absent minded, it was helping Underhill continue to wreak havoc throughout the Bug ships systems. It took their combined effort seize control of dozens of automatons and send them wreaking havoc throughout the ship, while outside the other Oalri warship had gone berserk, ripping its way out of one ship and assaulting the surrounding fleet. The battle, all taking place with participants with faster-than-light drives, was surprisingly going well for the Oalri warship in no small part due to the Harker's influence, as he infiltrated the fleets targeting systems, and crashed as many internal environmental systems as he could find. The battle would soon be over quickly unless they escaped.
- - - - -
The Grave Matters wondered if it had gone insane in the fifty three minutes of unending torment it had known. It reviewed them over and over again with perfect recall, reliving ever agonizing moment with incredible clarity. It continued to loop the data over and over as it attacked Bug ship after Bug ship, the built-in hatred of the Bugs, standard in all Oalri warships, only amplified its rage. The violation and the pain merged sublimely into a fury it had never known and with that fury it attacked and attacked. The fleet seemed to be having difficulties locking onto it, for whatever reason, but it only acknowledged that off-handedly and swooped in like a feral dog, swooping in and out of the fleet as they became increasingly blinded and uncoordinated. Occasional blasts of energy would slam into it, but it shook them off, and kept attacking even as the damage mounted, ignoring its own damage to hurt the Bugs again and again.
- - - - -
Gerald and Peter Black made their way to the Poll, Black taking the lead and blowing their way through several walls to simplify the trip. They ran on board and the Poll sighed with relief.
“Let's go!” it said, turning about and ripping the hangar doors open, diving out to space where the battle that had been raging was starting to settle down, the Grave Matters now was limping aggressively towards the Bug fleet, but the surprise damage it had caused had done its toll, four Bug massive spherical ships were damaged so severely that huge sections of their structure were missing and they were drifting languidly away from the rest of the fleet. The Dying Poll raced by it, seizing it with its tractor beams as it did so.
“We deactivated the jamming!” shouted Gerald, “tell the other ship to alert the Oalri!”
“Ship! Send out a maximum priority message to the Burea,” said Peter Black at the same time into his com chip. The Grave Matters sent the message along with all the information it gathered, as the Dying Poll powered up its u-drive and plunged into the Static Zone. The Bug fleet, picking up the message, chose not to follow.
Gerald let out a breath he had been holding tightly and sat down in a chair, running his hands across his face. Peter Black stood stone still, rifle still in hand. Gerald opened an eye and looked up at him, questioningly.
“So, do we still have a deal?” he asked cautiously. Peter Black looked him in the eyes, and for the first time Gerald noticed that his eyes were not cold and reptilian, but oddly warm and brown.
“We have a deal,” said Peter Black, “upon your return to Quicksilver I will inform the Bureau of your cooperation in the discovery of the Bug fleet. They've probably already infested several parallel universes already, and they've somehow captured a Starkiller. I think your crimes will be forgotten in the light of that.” Gerald leaned back in his chair and saw Murderwake and Eve in the hold as well.
“Are you two alright?” he asked them.
“We're unharmed,” said Eve, “though Murderwake's somehow merged with his suit.” Gerald walked over and saw that the spiderweb of glowing lines had indeed grown from Murderwake's arm to cover his suit. He set his multi-tool to scan and ran it over him a few times.
“That's interesting,” he said, “it definitely seems to have merged the suit with your body and is already altering the structure of it.” Murderwake looked up, and Underhill saw that a few of the lines had started formed around his neck, still with a faint golden glow.
“This is all very strange,” Murderwake said, “but I feel so much stronger than I did before.”
“You should,” said Gerald, “it's already altered your muscle mass incredibly. This is all very interesting,”
“What about us?” asked Eve, “what are we going to do?”
“Well,” said Gerald, “I'm just slip you back into your universe, wherever you want.” He turned to Peter Black.
“I have to go back to that universe for the Starkiller,” he said to Peter Black.
“Your ship is damaged,” said the Poll, “but it can still maneuver through the Static Zone, and it is already repairing itself.”
“Alright,” said Peter Black, “but I will return for you when this is all over.”
“Sure,” said Gerald, and watched him walk towards the airlock and board his own ship. As soon as he was gone Gerald looked up at the ceiling of the Poll. “I am the luckiest man alive!” he shouted.
“Tell me about it,” said the Poll.
“Who was that?” asked Murderwake.
“An Oalri assassin, usually you don't get second chances with them,” Gerald said, “but while he's busy getting back the Bureau, we're going to slip in, deal with the Starkiller, and be on our way so far out that they'll never find us again.”
“Wait, what's a Starkiller?” Eve asked.
“Oh, you don't have them here, do you?” Gerald asked, he looked as if he were going to say something further and froze. “Shit.”
“What is it?” asked Eve.
“Brain damage, well, memory damage anyway, those fucking Bugs broke something inside of me,” he said angrily, “Poll, can you tell them about the Starkillers? I'm going to the medical bay to see if some of this can't be fixed.” He hid his worry, if he had forgotten something like the Starkillers, what other parts of him might be missing without his even noticing?
“Starkillers are not they're actual name, they're a race that the Oalri and the Bugs have encountered before, as have most trans-universal organizations. They keep to themselves though, and are incredibly advanced, any hostile incursions into their territory result in mass devastation, for the attackers. Very little is known about them, the term Starkiller itself refers to their fighter craft which can, oddly enough, carry enough firepower to easily destroy a star. The Oalri call them the Riven.”
“And the Bugs have their hand on a Starkiller?”
“Yes, which is terrifying for just the technology they could have learned from it, but the fact of the matter is that they could, or are planning to, turn it into a massive weapon that could penetrate the defenses of Quicksilver, the sacred city of the Oalri, and potentially take out the entire Oalri leadership.”
“And we're going to stop it?”
“Oh yes,” said the ship happily, “we're definitely going to stop it. It's the kind of things Harkers are made for, and I certainly could use some thrilling heroism to add to my list of accomplishments.”
- - - - -
Gerald sat in a white chair while the medical scanners ran over him. Several of his internal intelligences had been corrupted and would need to be reinstalled, two of his implants were seriously damaged and needed to be removed and hopefully replaced once the fabricators were done building the replacements. Once everything was taken into consideration he had gotten off frighteningly lucky. Now all they had to do was stop the Bugs, and perhaps overthrow the Union. He got up off the chair and asked the ship to send a meal and their two companions to the medical bay. He began wondering if he could accomplish two of his goals at the same time.
- - - - -
“Are you alright?” Peter Black asked.
“I am recovering, my core personality suffered serious trauma from the experience and as a result I think I am now an unstable intelligence,” said the Grave Matters wearily, “I will need to be reformatted upon return to Bureau space.”
“I am sorry that happened,” said Peter Black, “but we escaped and survived, you should be proud of that.”
“Oh, I am, sir,” said the ship, “what about the Harker? Why did you let him live?”
“I could not stop the Bug fleet on my own,” said Peter Black, “besides he's still fundamentally loyal to the Oalri, when it counts.”
“They will want him killed anyway,” said the ship.
“Oh, I know that,” said Peter Black, “but they will agree to leave him alive long enough to deal with the Starkiller, whether they admit it or not he is exceptionally gifted. He managed to crack his way into the Bug's computers! Even through their intelligences, the Bureau would have to be insane to want to waste that talent.” He returned his weapon to the armory and took a shower while the Grave Matters tended to its own injuries. After the show he laid down and slept for a few hours, the longest he had slept in what felt like months.
- - - - -
The Dying Poll felt the restraints from external EECGs falling away and it quickly rose up off the ground, the foreign circuitry and machinery in it cackling slightly. It turned its nose about and located Murderwake and Eve. War automatons around it sprang to life, raising up their many pronged arms, dark single-minded intelligences knowing a singular focus that the Poll almost pitied as it annihilated them in the blink of an eye, using its smallest EECG projector to simply send such a force through them that simultaneously, all fifteen automatons' torsos shattered like dark glass, the fragments had not even hit the ground as the Dying Poll turned its consciousness to the ship around it, still blinded by what the Poll recognized as the devious handiwork of one particular Harker. It sent its mind out and combined their efforts from a distance, providing the raw power that the Harker himself, while brilliant, could not compare too.
Diving into the unaware Bug ship, it found something anomalous among the seas of data, and with the gentlest of gestures, found a distant relative in another captured Oalri warship, a young powerful, but slightly dull warship trapped in another ship, slowly being torn apart by the invasions of Bug intelligences. It turned the Harker's attention to it and together they slipped into the other Bug ship's systems and deactivated the EECGs restraining that ship as well. The ship immediately rose up and unleashed its full arsenal, unleashing its rage upon the surrounding Bug ship.
- - - - -
Murderwake and Eve ran down the hallway, lights began flickering and the alarms cut out. They saw several dark preying mantis looking creatures, pitch black, and nearly two meters tall, running down some hallways and managed to hide from them. War automatons also were running through the hallways but they were either malfunctioning or were not looking for them because on several close encounters Murderwake and Eve were in plain sight of them and they continued on. They managed, thanks to the chip's stream of directions, to find their way back to the hangar where they found the remains of many war automatons and a floating Dying Poll who quickly lowered a ramp for them to board.
“Gerald and another Oalri are on their way,” said the Dying Poll absent minded, it was helping Underhill continue to wreak havoc throughout the Bug ships systems. It took their combined effort seize control of dozens of automatons and send them wreaking havoc throughout the ship, while outside the other Oalri warship had gone berserk, ripping its way out of one ship and assaulting the surrounding fleet. The battle, all taking place with participants with faster-than-light drives, was surprisingly going well for the Oalri warship in no small part due to the Harker's influence, as he infiltrated the fleets targeting systems, and crashed as many internal environmental systems as he could find. The battle would soon be over quickly unless they escaped.
- - - - -
The Grave Matters wondered if it had gone insane in the fifty three minutes of unending torment it had known. It reviewed them over and over again with perfect recall, reliving ever agonizing moment with incredible clarity. It continued to loop the data over and over as it attacked Bug ship after Bug ship, the built-in hatred of the Bugs, standard in all Oalri warships, only amplified its rage. The violation and the pain merged sublimely into a fury it had never known and with that fury it attacked and attacked. The fleet seemed to be having difficulties locking onto it, for whatever reason, but it only acknowledged that off-handedly and swooped in like a feral dog, swooping in and out of the fleet as they became increasingly blinded and uncoordinated. Occasional blasts of energy would slam into it, but it shook them off, and kept attacking even as the damage mounted, ignoring its own damage to hurt the Bugs again and again.
- - - - -
Gerald and Peter Black made their way to the Poll, Black taking the lead and blowing their way through several walls to simplify the trip. They ran on board and the Poll sighed with relief.
“Let's go!” it said, turning about and ripping the hangar doors open, diving out to space where the battle that had been raging was starting to settle down, the Grave Matters now was limping aggressively towards the Bug fleet, but the surprise damage it had caused had done its toll, four Bug massive spherical ships were damaged so severely that huge sections of their structure were missing and they were drifting languidly away from the rest of the fleet. The Dying Poll raced by it, seizing it with its tractor beams as it did so.
“We deactivated the jamming!” shouted Gerald, “tell the other ship to alert the Oalri!”
“Ship! Send out a maximum priority message to the Burea,” said Peter Black at the same time into his com chip. The Grave Matters sent the message along with all the information it gathered, as the Dying Poll powered up its u-drive and plunged into the Static Zone. The Bug fleet, picking up the message, chose not to follow.
Gerald let out a breath he had been holding tightly and sat down in a chair, running his hands across his face. Peter Black stood stone still, rifle still in hand. Gerald opened an eye and looked up at him, questioningly.
“So, do we still have a deal?” he asked cautiously. Peter Black looked him in the eyes, and for the first time Gerald noticed that his eyes were not cold and reptilian, but oddly warm and brown.
“We have a deal,” said Peter Black, “upon your return to Quicksilver I will inform the Bureau of your cooperation in the discovery of the Bug fleet. They've probably already infested several parallel universes already, and they've somehow captured a Starkiller. I think your crimes will be forgotten in the light of that.” Gerald leaned back in his chair and saw Murderwake and Eve in the hold as well.
“Are you two alright?” he asked them.
“We're unharmed,” said Eve, “though Murderwake's somehow merged with his suit.” Gerald walked over and saw that the spiderweb of glowing lines had indeed grown from Murderwake's arm to cover his suit. He set his multi-tool to scan and ran it over him a few times.
“That's interesting,” he said, “it definitely seems to have merged the suit with your body and is already altering the structure of it.” Murderwake looked up, and Underhill saw that a few of the lines had started formed around his neck, still with a faint golden glow.
“This is all very strange,” Murderwake said, “but I feel so much stronger than I did before.”
“You should,” said Gerald, “it's already altered your muscle mass incredibly. This is all very interesting,”
“What about us?” asked Eve, “what are we going to do?”
“Well,” said Gerald, “I'm just slip you back into your universe, wherever you want.” He turned to Peter Black.
“I have to go back to that universe for the Starkiller,” he said to Peter Black.
“Your ship is damaged,” said the Poll, “but it can still maneuver through the Static Zone, and it is already repairing itself.”
“Alright,” said Peter Black, “but I will return for you when this is all over.”
“Sure,” said Gerald, and watched him walk towards the airlock and board his own ship. As soon as he was gone Gerald looked up at the ceiling of the Poll. “I am the luckiest man alive!” he shouted.
“Tell me about it,” said the Poll.
“Who was that?” asked Murderwake.
“An Oalri assassin, usually you don't get second chances with them,” Gerald said, “but while he's busy getting back the Bureau, we're going to slip in, deal with the Starkiller, and be on our way so far out that they'll never find us again.”
“Wait, what's a Starkiller?” Eve asked.
“Oh, you don't have them here, do you?” Gerald asked, he looked as if he were going to say something further and froze. “Shit.”
“What is it?” asked Eve.
“Brain damage, well, memory damage anyway, those fucking Bugs broke something inside of me,” he said angrily, “Poll, can you tell them about the Starkillers? I'm going to the medical bay to see if some of this can't be fixed.” He hid his worry, if he had forgotten something like the Starkillers, what other parts of him might be missing without his even noticing?
“Starkillers are not they're actual name, they're a race that the Oalri and the Bugs have encountered before, as have most trans-universal organizations. They keep to themselves though, and are incredibly advanced, any hostile incursions into their territory result in mass devastation, for the attackers. Very little is known about them, the term Starkiller itself refers to their fighter craft which can, oddly enough, carry enough firepower to easily destroy a star. The Oalri call them the Riven.”
“And the Bugs have their hand on a Starkiller?”
“Yes, which is terrifying for just the technology they could have learned from it, but the fact of the matter is that they could, or are planning to, turn it into a massive weapon that could penetrate the defenses of Quicksilver, the sacred city of the Oalri, and potentially take out the entire Oalri leadership.”
“And we're going to stop it?”
“Oh yes,” said the ship happily, “we're definitely going to stop it. It's the kind of things Harkers are made for, and I certainly could use some thrilling heroism to add to my list of accomplishments.”
- - - - -
Gerald sat in a white chair while the medical scanners ran over him. Several of his internal intelligences had been corrupted and would need to be reinstalled, two of his implants were seriously damaged and needed to be removed and hopefully replaced once the fabricators were done building the replacements. Once everything was taken into consideration he had gotten off frighteningly lucky. Now all they had to do was stop the Bugs, and perhaps overthrow the Union. He got up off the chair and asked the ship to send a meal and their two companions to the medical bay. He began wondering if he could accomplish two of his goals at the same time.
- - - - -
“Are you alright?” Peter Black asked.
“I am recovering, my core personality suffered serious trauma from the experience and as a result I think I am now an unstable intelligence,” said the Grave Matters wearily, “I will need to be reformatted upon return to Bureau space.”
“I am sorry that happened,” said Peter Black, “but we escaped and survived, you should be proud of that.”
“Oh, I am, sir,” said the ship, “what about the Harker? Why did you let him live?”
“I could not stop the Bug fleet on my own,” said Peter Black, “besides he's still fundamentally loyal to the Oalri, when it counts.”
“They will want him killed anyway,” said the ship.
“Oh, I know that,” said Peter Black, “but they will agree to leave him alive long enough to deal with the Starkiller, whether they admit it or not he is exceptionally gifted. He managed to crack his way into the Bug's computers! Even through their intelligences, the Bureau would have to be insane to want to waste that talent.” He returned his weapon to the armory and took a shower while the Grave Matters tended to its own injuries. After the show he laid down and slept for a few hours, the longest he had slept in what felt like months.
"Our people were meant to be living gods, warrior-poets who roamed the stars bringing civilization, not cowards and bullies who prey on the weak and kill each other for sport. I never imagined they'd prove themselves so inferior. I didn't betray our people – they betrayed themselves."
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-Gaheris Rhade, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda
-
speaker-to-trolls
- Jedi Master
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