I thought for a moment. “We’ll have to advise the colonies. We can also get an inventory from them of anything they have in the way of automation. They may have explosives, maybe even some small printers. Someone needs to go over Mack’s blog with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anything at all that might be useful. Let’s get started on all of that, then we’ll regroup and see what we’ve come up with.”
There were nods, and Bobs started popping out to work on their assigned tasks.
I sat back and rubbed my forehead. Like the Others weren’t enough of a headache.
Outstanding.
Derelict
Herschel
March 2227
Kuiper belt, Delta Pavonis
Neil and I moved slowly between the drifting hulks, SURGE drives on lowest power. The two Others’ cargo vessels loomed huge around us. Ten kilometers in length and a kilometer in diameter, they felt more like planetoids than something constructed by intelligent beings.
They even came with their own debris field. The derelicts had taken some pretty severe hits from the looks of it. Pieces of cargo vessel drifted lazily in complicated orbits around the two ships. The effect was eerie, like floating through an underwater graveyard.
I messaged Neil. “I’m not picking up anything. You?”
“Nope. Temps are down around thermal equilibrium. These things haven’t done anything but drift in a long time.”
“Oh?”
“We were targeting essential systems. I think the attacks will have taken out power cores, and you know how that always ends up…”
“Yeah. Kablooie.”
We separated and completed individual circumnavigations of the wrecks. No surprises. By unspoken agreement, we deployed drones carrying squads of roamers. The drones had orders to do close-up scans, while the roamers would offload and poke around anything interesting.
Finding a way in wasn’t really a problem. One of the hulks had been almost cut in two. The two halves were more disconnected than connected—only in free fall could such a small ribbon of metal hold together such massive segments.
The second hulk was in much better shape. A hole literally big enough to drive a battleship into, on a ship this size, barely qualified as a ding. But it’s not the size of the damage, it’s the quality. We must have taken out something critical.
The ships had been drifting for ten years now. We didn’t really expect any kind of activity. But we’d learned caution from previous encounters with the Others, and from a generation of B-movies.
The opportunity to examine the interior of an Others’ cargo vessel was too tempting to pass up, of course. We spent several hours, real-time, planning for every contingency we could think of. Then, leaving a couple of drones on look-out, we cautiously entered the cargo vessel through the rent in its side.
Right away, things got complicated. The ship wasn’t, it turned out, just a big cavern. We found ourselves in a large bay or hold or something, forming a pie-shaped section of the interior. That might have been the end of the exploration, except that whatever had taken out the cargo vessel had apparently continued right through the ship, taking out a lot of equipment in the process.
At the other end of the cavernous space, we exited into what appeared to be a central corridor. About a hundred meters in diameter, it extended from one end of the ship to the other. This certainly explained the large armored doors at either end of the cargo vessels.
“This thing is mostly intact,” Neil said in a near-whisper. “You don’t think it could still activate, do you?”
“You saw the equipment back there, Neil.” I noticed I was whispering as well, but I couldn’t help it. This had the feel of exploring a haunted castle. “Not sure what we took out exactly, but it must have been critical.”
“Can I have that in writing?”
“Sure, no problem. Bend over, and I’ll get my felt pen.”
“Oh, hah hah. If we get eaten by ants, you’ll look pretty stupid.”
“Well, that’s why we agreed not to do any SUDDAR sweeps. You were listening, right?”
Neil snorted but didn’t respond directly. “I’ll head that way, toward the end with the reinforced ring.”
“No prob. Be careful.”
We drifted off in opposite directions, doing a visual-only inspection.
It took less than a day to reach the ends of the ship. I received a call from Neil. “Hey, uh, Herschel…”
“Umm?”
“I’m looking at this huge thingamajig, and I think it’s the power core.”
“Wait, you mean in one piece? And what are you doing in one of the bays?”
“It was open. I went in. Sue me.”
I sighed. I’d have done the same. “So, what did the attack take out, if that’s the power core?”
“Maybe a fluke shot through the A.l. or something. But this is definitely the power core. The size of the conduits kind of gives it away.”
“Fusion reaction shut down gracefully?”
There was a moment of silence. “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t think this is a fusion reactor.”
Suddenly, this was more than just a scavenging mission. “Have you found any indications of ants?”
Neil responded in the negative. I took a moment to double-check my train of thought, then said, “Okay, we can’t put that off any more. We have to know if we’re going to have a problem, so let’s move all our equipment out of the hulks. We’ll do a low-power SUDDAR sweep to see if we activate any ants. Once we’re sure it’s clean, let’s take a couple of high-resolution scans of this mystery equipment, and see if we can figure it out.”
“Affirmative.” Telltales showed Neil’s devices vacating the hulks. I ordered mine out as well.
Within an hour, we had our scans. But no answers. Not really.
Neil popped over so we could review the results. I gestured at a hologram that slowly rotated in the air.
“Well, you’re right. It’s not fusion-based. But it’s definitely the power-generation facility.” I looked at Neil and grinned. “We may have just found some new tech!”
“Cool,” Neil replied. “We should call Bill, I guess.”
“Are you kidding me? Just hand it over, and let someone else get all the glory? No friggin’ way.”
“Aw, jeez, Hersch, I’m getting that bad-idea feeling again.”
“Again? You’re usually the source.”
“Me? Since when?”
I grinned, but didn’t bother to reply. The traditional exchange, as always, made us both feel better. But Neil wasn’t necessarily wrong. I hoped I hadn’t just taken the first steps toward kissing my ass goodbye.
Death
Howard
May 2220
Omicron2 Eridani
It was the call I’d been dreading for decades. Dr. Onagi looked out the video window at me. I could see from the background that he was calling from the hospital.
“There was no warning, Howard. She simply collapsed. We got her admitted, but our efforts were insufficient.”
I felt my eyes begin to sting, and choked it back ruthlessly. “I appreciate the call, Dr. Onagi, but I’m a little perplexed that it’s you calling me. Shouldn’t her children be doing this?” Well, Howie, maybe. I doubted Rosie would be dialing me up.