Redemption Protocol (Contact) (72 page)

Weaver knew the purpose of the Talmas. From what she could gather, the Talmas had ravaged a large part of the Aulusthran crew of Plash itself. She had no idea what it would try and do next. Would it try and reengineer itself so it could replicate again? Or infiltrate one of their ships back to Hspace? Or try to free the Diss from the gravitational anomaly?

All she knew was that it had to be stopped. Every second counted. How could she pass the news on to the others? How should she convey the danger that Abbott represented?

She looked at the image of the tendrils flaring out of Abbott’s face toward a terrified ORC soldier.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, she thought.

 187. 

Stone lay slumped in a comfortable chair in the cabin a kilometer inside the slot. His head and torso were in the medstation. The autosurgeon was busily stitching together his jaw while Havoc replaced the oxygen bladders on his suit. He didn’t mind the operation – he was loaded with Havoc’s hytelline.

> This is the stuff.

“You haven’t got any hytelline?”

> I’ve got Salix.

Havoc frowned as he worked.

“Salix? I’ve never heard of it.”

> It’s a natural remedy. It’s the distilled essence of white willow tree bark.

Havoc blinked. He opened his mouth to speak then snorted with laughter. Stone’s eyebrows lowered. He felt wounded by Havoc’s reaction. Truth be told, he felt like an idiot. Actually, he corrected himself, he
was
an idiot.

> It was very popular in ancient times.

“You mean before they had medicine?”

> It’s natural medicine.

Havoc looked at him accusingly.

“Did a pretty girl sell you that shit?”

> She was gorgeous.

Havoc stood.

“Alright, this is done and repressurized. Put it back on once the medstation has finished its first round.”

> Ok.

Havoc walked to the drinks dispenser.

“I can’t believe you only have a bladder of air.”

> Tyburn said something similar.

Havoc shook his head as he selected a drink.

“Didn’t they offer you anything during your pre-expedition checks?”

> Yeah, they offered me an Amun.

“But?”

> But the operation sounded awful.

“You say that with that thing in your head?”

Stone reached toward the dome protruding from his head then dropped his hand as the medstation beeped dramatically.

> It’s deactivated. They told me suits wouldn’t fail anyway.

Havoc walked toward him carrying a cup.

“You weren’t first choice for this, were you?”

Stone looked glum.

> I’ve never been first choice for anything in my life.

“You were the backup?”

> Believe it or not, I was the fifth choice from a list of four. Complete logistics disaster. No one else was around. I was in system so I was added at the last minute.

“Shit.”

Stone sighed again, feeling like a total loser.

> I know.

“How did they find you?”

> I turned up at the IRO.

Havoc looked astonished.

“You were trying to sign up?”

> The navy.

Havoc burst out laughing.

“For the girls, right?”

“I suppose. I just wanted to fly a ship. You know, feel some power for a change.”

Havoc placed a cup of tea in front of Stone. Stone eyed the steaming cup longingly.

> Is this some kind of torture?

Havoc smiled.

“Oh ye of little faith.”

Havoc took a long strand of medical tubing and put one end in the tea. He stretched the other end out and reached in next to Stone. There was an irritated beeping from the medstation. Havoc taped the tube to the top of Stone’s shoulder then pressed the end against the corner of Stone’s mouth. Havoc raised a questioning eyebrow.

Stone nodded. Havoc gently fed the tube in over the protests of the medstation. Stone nodded as he felt the tube reach the back corner of his mouth. Havoc gently taped it into place.

Stone eyed the medstation as it beeped.

> I don't think she approves.

“Trust me, you can do a lot of things you shouldn't while you're in a medstation and live.”

> Ok.

Stone went for it, sucking very gently. He eyed the tea working its way along the tube. He pulled a tiny sliver of the liquid into the side of his mouth.

> Nectar of the Gods. Oh my God. I'm alive. And drinking tea.

Havoc patted him on the shoulder.

“Good job.”

Havoc retrieved some crates from the kit racks and sorted through them.

“I'll let the
Intrepid
know you're here, Stone, in case I don't make it back.”

Havoc said it casually as if it was a fact like any other. To Havoc, it probably was. Stone savored his tea.

> You live like this all the time?

Havoc smiled as he plugged various attachments into his suit.

“No, sometimes I'm frozen.”

> I can't believe I survived a nuke.

“I got you some great footage as we went over.”

Stone nearly laughed and his face stiffened in pain. The medstation fussed and beeped.

> Your crate is over there.

“Thanks.”

Havoc retrieved the crate that Stone had stowed for him, amongst others.

“It’s a shame we didn't get you talking to the
Intrepid to
let them know what happened.”

> Don't they know?

Havoc removed magazines of micromissiles and kinetics.

“Yeah, they know a mad psycho did a deal with the ORC and took out their base.”

> Tyburn?

“Me.”

> I can't believe I came here just to get away from my wife.

Havoc slotted kinetic magazines into his suit then retracted them, empty.

“Any regrets?”

> I've had a few.

“You did great.”

Stone watched the surgical arms bustle fastidiously around his face.

> I liked Saskia. A lot.

Havoc turned to him.

“Then it's great you had a chance to meet her, Stone. Don't dwell on it, trust me. We're in battle. You're fighting for your life. Give yourself time to grieve properly afterward.”

Stone was silent for a minute.

> You still think Tyburn is Forge?

Havoc fed micromissiles into his launchers.

“Yes. And it was a clever move. It was a guaranteed way to pull me away from the pyramid. I never saw it as an exploitable vulnerability before. I missed it.”

> I can’t believe they used me as bait.

Havoc raised his visor.

“Right, I need to go.”

Stone felt alarm.

> Now? Where?

“The scientists. Forge is trying to take them.”

> It's dawn soon. Any minute in fact.

“Eleven minutes to go. But the library is further west, remember.”

> You can't get there in time. They'll already be there.

“Not yet. Six thousand kilometers should be a two hour journey for them.”

> Starting an hour ago. How will you get there?

“Aerial frame.”

> There isn't time.

“I dropped it before we entered the slot.”

> You've already dropped it?

“The ORC won't fuck around, Stone. I've seen what they do to scientists up close. I don't want to see it again.”

> Don't go. You'll get caught in the open. You'll melt.

“Don't worry.”

Stone made a deep breathing sound and cast in a low voice.

> But, Havoc, I am your father.

Havoc chuckled as he turned to leave.

“Stay here. Suit up when you can. Get some rest.”

Stone felt incredulous. Havoc really was going out there again.

> My God, you are the real Dutch McDaniels. Hey! You know what Dutch's partner was called?

Havoc glanced back.

“I'm almost too scared to ask.”

Stone beamed triumphantly as he lifted his arm against the protests of the medstation. He pointed toward his damaged face.

> Big Jaw McGraw!

 188. 

Weaver continued her research in the library.

She thought she should learn as much as she safely could about the Talmas and the self-replicating dissembler weapon, or 'Diss', that was apparently trapped within the gravitational anomaly.

She didn’t find anything specific at first, but she did find an overview of the gravatic beam’s control architecture. Presumably if the Talmas wanted to use the Diss weapon, and Weaver had no idea if it would, it would have to disable the gravatic beam to free it. She transmitted the information up to the
Intrepid
as she studied it.

She didn't understand how the gravatic beam worked yet, but she learned where the key locations were for controlling the beam.

As she worked, she came across more information about the Diss. Images of planetary system destruction flitted across her mind's eye. She had no idea if the images were real or simulated, but the Diss appeared staggering in their capacity to destroy. She felt increasingly disturbed as she explored Aulusthran records documenting missions to neutralize ancient honey traps. She found records detailing the devastation wreaked on worlds, civilizations and species. Species that had journeyed out into the stars, traveling to seemingly benevolent worlds that glowed like signal beacons across the galactic oceans. Species drawn to reach out to others as the culmination of billions of years of evolution and paying a terrible price for it. The annihilation wrought by the Diss was sickening to behold. Barren worlds and burned out orbital hulks marked the passing of civilizations that had once thrived.

The Talmas, the engineered nanoweapon, looked in its unneutered form as though it had the capability to destroy humanity. The Diss, unchecked, looked as though they could eradicate life from the universe altogether. They were a kind of engineered entropy. After they left, all that remained was cosmic dust.

Weaver worked to understand a coordinate system that was based on relative reference and offset. The Diss somehow translated this local reference to a universal coordinate. Of course, like any good technology, Weaver didn't know how they could possibly do that. But she hoped she could understand how to use it. It was a fascinating and absorbing problem.

Images of a crystalline Scepter appeared in front of her. It was an example of the weapon control system used to target the Diss. The targeting system was organized in a control hierarchy like many human weapon systems. Seven dark blue Scepters appeared at the base level that could control the Diss cloud or part of it. Above the base level was an eighth red Scepter that could override and control the blue Scepters and a ninth black Scepter above that. The weapon control hierarchy appeared incomplete – it wasn't clear if it was only a leaf of a larger branch structure.

Weaver felt a sense of foreboding. There was location information present for the targeting systems. She hesitated. Did she really want to know this? If what she’d learned was real, humanity could do terrible things with the Diss. But then so could the Talmas. She accessed the location information.

One of the base level blue Scepters was located in the building that controlled the currently active gravatic beam. The other six blue Scepters and the red Scepter were distributed in the huge Arena, two hundred kilometers in diameter, that was far to the south. Weaver recognized the colossal Javelin spearing up from the Arena and piercing the atmosphere. The Arena was close to the south pole and exposed to the heat of Jötunn while Plash was in this sector of its orbit, hence why they hadn’t visited it yet.

She tried the black Scepter. No location was listed. Or rather, the symbols to access the location appeared different. For the first time, Weaver perceived that access to the location of the black Scepter required additional information above and beyond solving the sequence. It required a password of some kind or a quality on her part that she didn’t possess.

This answered a question for Weaver. Everything that they’d found so far had been 'open', in the sense that it was protected only by the difficulty of the sequence needed to access it. Here, finally, was evidence that proved there was some information that the Aulusthrans, or whoever put these systems here, wanted to be 'closed'.