Misjump Page 23

  “Yes. I could really use some cell cultures here. The scanned model doesn’t seem to be helping as much as I would like. Are you sure that it is accurate?” asked Lori.

  “Nope,” said Fumi. “I know for a fact that is isn’t accurate, but we know what sort of errors it will have, and they are way below cellular level. The model should be good enough for all practical purposes.”

  Lori frowned. “Well, it isn’t. The scans show very little brain activity, and he is pretty much unresponsive. A lot of the endocrine system is messed up too.”

  “Yeah, well, that is not a scanning thing. He really wasn’t responsive when we scanned him and his endocrine system was probably out of whack then too,” said Fumi.

  “Well, maybe. I would like to do some scans on the real version if we can get him back. We haven’t been able to study a living greenie up close.”

  “Not sure that I would call that alive exactly, and yes, I understand the irony of who is saying that,” responded Fumi.

  Lori shook her head and turned back to her tablet.

  #

  The Iron Maid was designed for space but could handle thicker atmospheres as long as it moved slowly. The ocean water was dense enough that it couldn’t be compressed and so the ship moved gradually towards the shallows of the continental shelf. Deploying the drones was a problem. The main doors were on the underside of the hull. Fumi and Gregor had considered whether the drones could be released via the airlocks, but it was too slow and required weatherproofing the small robots. The decision had been made to risk a brief exposure.

  The Iron Maid lifted clear of the water for a few seconds, letting the water cascade from its hull, before opening the main cargo door. The drones were waiting and streamed out as soon as the opening was wide enough, the numbers growing as the airlock continued to open. The doors started closing while many of the drones were still inside, but they kept leaving until there were only two left inside, both modified for better communications. There were also a number of these in the swarm that headed for the land, spreading out and staying low. All of the drones had extra power packs mounted on their frames and unusually long and whippy aerials. Most headed for the occupied areas on the land, but the drones tasked with relaying communications sought out-of-the-way high places for better reception. The slight whine of the grav drives was masked by the breeze coming in from the sea and the light clusters on the drones were unlit. The Iron Maid sank below the waves, only a radio antenna breaking the surface. Losing drones wouldn’t matter much, but the ship needed to relay some of the gathered data and store the rest. That meant getting back to the small fleet or, at worst, surviving long enough to transmit the stored telemetry from the drones before doing what it could to draw any ships following it away from the crewed vessels. The AI had values imposed by its creators and the survival of the Iron Maid was secondary.

  The video feeds being sent back to the ship were low frame rate and compressed to keep the comms channels from being flooded. Only the comms drones spoke directly with the ship with the others reporting back via the comms drones. The AI assessed the images, made decisions, and re-routed drones. It didn’t make moral judgements. It was only concerned with completing the mission goals within parameters. When the manned ships were in line-of-sight, the most useful data would be sent back in a high-speed data burst. There would be more data to share if the Iron Maid could make rendezvous. The AI reviewed the data as best it could and prioritised the feeds based on content. It was not capable of being appalled. The two ships swung in orbit, all systems running at minimal power drain except for a laser link. It wasn’t possible to maintain it throughout the orbit due to occlusion by the planet but the Sarafina maintained good contact and could relay content via the Iron Maid most of the time. The video glitched on the screen despite the best efforts of the error correction software. That was one of the penalties of running at the lowest power, but it was the best way to stay unnoticed.

  One of the spider drones drifted closer to a typical-looking habitation block, a dark mass without windows. The air outlet was a bright plume in infrared and a vent would be a way into the ventilation system. Even if it were sealed against wildlife, the drones were equipped with cutters, small but powerful. The AI preferred not to use them if there was an option since they were tough on batteries and had a marked EMF signature. The drone entered the plume and started to work on the gas analysis. The results were fed back to the main AI on the Iron Maid, which noted the water vapour, carbon dioxide, and organics. With the estimate of the volume of the building, this was noteworthy and the feed, tagged with the analysis, was queued for transmission to the Sarafina. The drone was sent into the ducts. It would need to increase radio power to stay in contact, risking discovery, but the small robot was expendable.

  Lori looked at the feed as the probe entered the ductwork. The initial analysis of the AI scrolled along the bottom of the screen. She looked at the numbers and turned to another screen, trying to prove to herself that the estimate of the number of people in the building was possible. So many of the numbers were little more than guesses, and the margin of error was huge, but even the lowest population density was unreasonably high. She turned back to the monitor. The drone had switched from low light to infrared. From the temperature of the ducting, Lori began to wonder if this was an industrial unit rather than a residence. That wouldn’t explain the organics though,

  The probe moved down the duct until its visual sensors were against the opening that led into the room. The air flowed over the silver carapace, moving more quickly because the bulk of the drone partially blocked the inlet. The limited AI on the robot cycled through the filters available and decided that IR gave the best quality image as defined by the highest level of detail. It transmitted the images to the relay and waited for further instructions. The relay took them back to the Iron Maid and they streamed along the laser link.

  Lori squinted at the screen, trying to make out the shapes in the low-contrast monochrome image. There were layers of hotter objects, possibly stored in some sort of racking system. She reached for the keyboard and typed instructions for the probe to advance. After a perceptible delay, a message appeared telling her to wait.

  The probe extended long arms and pulled itself into the room, its gravitics taking over as it cleared the wall. It drifted forwards, the tiny drive making virtually no sound. Its radiation sensor noted the increased levels of alpha, beta and gamma radiation as it neared the objects. The levels were not immediately dangerous, and its programming put self-preservation at a lower priority to mission completion. It continued to advance. New orders came through, and the probe switched to the visual spectrum, turning on the point floodlights on its main body. The shapes on the racks started to move, stirring in the sudden brightness. The robot stayed motionless, adjusting the cameras in an attempt to compensate for the visual anomaly as the camera started to cloud as if it were surrounded by smoke. This was unsuccessful. Moments later, the probe began to get failure reports from the leg servo motors and lost positional information from sensors external to the main body. It updated the operational status record and transmitted the new information to the relay. A second later, new failures cascaded through the internal systems, the radiation alarms spiking unexpectedly before the gravitics failed, letting the fragile drone crash to the floor. The Iron Maid noted the loss of carrier and transmitted the last signal to the Sarafina before switching to another probe. The loss of some units was to be expected even if the mechanism of destruction was unclear.

  On the screen, Lori saw the image flare as the probe switched to visual light, clearer than she had expected. The white objects took on contrast and texture, resolving into pale humans, naked with mottled skin stretched over lean muscle and bone. The eyes of the nearest figure opened but there was no sign of intelligence there, no light of reason. The figure breathed in, the chest swelling and then out, a smoke-like cloud billowing in front of it. Lori recoiled from the screen as the darkness came toward
her, but it soon reached the edge of the screen, spoiling the illusion. She watched as the image faded but saw the figure on the shelf falling in on itself, revealing the body behind it starting to move. The image skewed to one side and broke into static for a moment, the words, “Probe telemetry lost. Select new probe,” replacing it on the screen.

  The next probe selected clung to a piece of pipework on the roof of a blocky building. It looked out over the settlement, the image grainy and pale despite the image intensification. There were light poles spread infrequently, but these hampered vision for the small robot since they provided too much contrast. It saw movement on the roads, carts drawn by humans and large animals mixed freely. The wagons were not well adapted to being pulled by anything in particular, but straps secured the mixture of animals while the humans hung to poles or straps as they were available. The probe got an order to get closer and lifted from the pipe, approaching the cart from the rear. The load was a jumble of organics, plants, and animals piled without apparent order. The probe revectored on new orders from the ship’s AI and tracked parallel to the crude roadway, prioritising the team pulling the vehicle.

  Lori looked through the probe’s cameras, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. The team was mostly cows and pigs with humans mixed in but not apparently controlling the progress of the cart or managing the animals. They seemed to be beasts of burden as much as any of the others. She tried to understand what the controlling intelligence was, but there was no sign of communication or any attempt to control the animals. The humans were lean and small, clad in jumpsuits, with an unhealthy look even in the poor lighting. The animals were equally thin and many had marks on their skin that could be sores. She noticed a pod under the front of the cart and realised that it looked familiar, similar to the unit found with the greenie that they had captured. That had been a radioactive mass. She ordered the drone to switch to IR mode and the pod was warmer than the environment. That supported the idea that the pods were providing power for whatever the controlling organism was, although the mechanism of absorption was still unknown. She watched the slow progress and gradually realised that there was a loose coordination in the actions of the team, a shared intelligence of a sort. She turned to another screen and started to search the records that she had got from Van Loo. She typed “Greenie animal|non-human|cattle” and scanned through the results. There was nothing matching. She called Gregor over.

  “It looks like the greenie parasite will use anything large enough to host them. There was nothing about that in the records that we got. Do you have any thoughts on that?” she asked.

  Gregor looked up from the text on the screen to Lori’s monitor. “Is not easy to get a cow on a spaceship and how to use controls with hooves? If they have only seen greenies in ship, would make sense that they had only seen human hosts.”

  Lori nodded. “They must have seen a captured planet before though, surely?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. Not all planets suitable for big animals on surface. Also, how good are the records that we have? Private mining colony not likely to get best information. Best we see what we have, make own decision. Perhaps … ” Gregor trailed off, looking at the video feed. The contents of the cart were being poured into a vat with turning paddles. Some of the contents were still recognisably human. Gregor’s expression turned from dour to grim. “Efficient, yes? Used up humans back into food chain?”

  Lori watched. “If they are anything like our guest in cold sleep, they will be too contaminated with radiation to be safe to eat.”

  Gregor nodded. “Not safe for the host. Extra tasty for parasite, maybe?”

  The probes built up a map of the local area until dawn made them dangerously visible. This coincided with the occupied ships being out of direct line communication and the AI had more data than it could quickly process. It put the probes into locations where they could monitor the area without being especially visible and put them into low-power mode. They could be woken in milliseconds if needed but would only send an image back each second, keeping power drain and required processing at both ends of the link to a minimum. Aboard the ships, the humans also slept.

  Chapter 26

  Gregor woke to the sound of an alarm, fumbling for the strap that held him to his bunk. He couldn’t find it and opened his eyes to look. The cabin was wrong for what he was hearing. That was the combat alarm, and this was his cabin on the Sarafina. Memories flooded back and he groaned, rolling out of bed and heading for the cockpit, still in boxers and T-shirt. He threw himself in the chair and looked at the displays, trying to understand what was happening. There was nothing on the proximity sensor, no damage reports. The sensor array was not ideal for combat operations, but it was showing nothing that would justify an alarm. The high-priority message indicator was flashing up at him, an urgent red banner across the comms screen. He touched the banner and details popped up, text only. The time stamp was eight hours ago, which would be about right for the jump point. It was tagged with emergency priority.

  “Something just went through the jump point to Neuholme, travelling damn fast. Near as we can figure, it was an engine and a jump drive, about the size of one of singles with damn all around it. I think that it might have been a skip drone. It is going to be a while, but I guess that we are going to have company. Please advise urgently!”

  Gregor rubbed his eyes and shut down the alarm before going to get coffee. It was important, not urgent. The soonest that a message could get back to the Blade over at the other jump point was eight hours. A few minutes to think about it wouldn’t make any real difference. No-one else seemed to have reacted to the alarm and that was a problem that he would need to handle. He would check that out later. Coffee came first.

  He had a reply ready to go after thirty minutes.

  “Confirm receipt and understand.

  “Assuming that a ‘single’ is one of the single-pilot rockhound ships. That would be the minimum size for a boost drive and jump drive and not much more. This is consistent with a single hop skip drone. Assuming that the jump was successful, the fastest possible turnaround is two weeks—a week there and a week for anything waiting in Neuholme to get here. It is unlikely that there are significant reserves in-system. There was nothing active in the system when we were last there but that was months ago.

  “At earliest time that there could be a response, we will have all our ships in-system ready to attack any force jumping in. We will seed the area with debris in case of rapid entry and use our mag launchers on anything slower together with the captured missile boat aka Foehammer if we can get it operational.

  “Attaching the intelligence that we got so far from planet. We should send an operational ship back to Klondike and get them to send what they can to support. This will give them the best chance if we don’t make it back and if they can send help, is good. What is not good is that any help that they send is going to be two weeks away at soonest so maybe a race. Only downside is that we have one less ship here if it gets noisy, but they can refuel and be back in the same time frame.

  “Good work on the alert. Choose who to send back to report and reply to me. Do not emergency code the reply.”

  Gregor attached the file and sent it off. The timing told him something. The skip drone must have been near the jump point and that meant an eight-hour speed of light delay. With the additional eight hours for the message from the Blade to get to the Sarafina, that was going to be a bit over sixteen hours, which was when they were entering the atmosphere. While there seemed to be no local defences beyond the greenie ships that had been waiting, the response had been quick and intelligent. Whoever or whatever sent it knew that something had got past the defences and whatever came in would know to be armed for bear. This was going to get interesting, but the miners had been defending a jump point for over a century. This was worth a shot.

  #

  Two weeks later, the small fleet of ships hung in space around the jump point to Neuholme. There were glitters from
rock and metal fragments that turned slowly, catching the light of the sun on a bright surface for a moment. Gregor had to hand it to the rockhounds. They had rounded up far more fragmentary material than he had expected, and the space around the jump point was extremely hazardous to navigate. You could pilot through it slowly and be subject to attack or run through it at speed and be impacted by lumps ranging from dust to house-sized chunks. A military ship wouldn’t be able to take that for long, and a converted civilian ship wouldn’t have the deflectors or armour to attempt it. Anything trying an exit at speed would be crippled at best.

  All of the ships that they had brought into the system were operational, the nanites having patched up the battle damage. Three additional ships bulked out the numbers, but they were mere shells housing missiles. They were positioned to provide attractive targets and would jettison their false hulls and fire the missiles at any attacker. The remaining missiles were still in the captured greenie torpedo boat, an engine bodged together to give operational power and a small amount of manoeuvre drive. They were down one real Rockhammer, which had jumped back to the stalk, but he was hopeful that it would be back in system within a handful of hours.

  All in all, he was pleased with their defensive position. They would lose to a well-formed battle fleet, but they had a chance to retreat in good order, and they would inflict more losses than they would experience. For a scratch force, it was impressive. All preparations that could be made in the time had been made. He would have liked to have done more but he couldn’t without taking elements of his force off station, and he didn’t want to do that while there was a chance of attack. It would be a waiting game for a while and that was a battle of a different kind. He had delayed a status meeting for that reason. They could hold that while still in a good state of readiness. There was at least an hour before any possible entry and possibly much longer. He went down to the mess room, the largest space on the ship. The rest of the crew were already there.