Earth Song: Twilight Serenade Read online

  “Man they had this thing set to blow,” she said over the link with her husband.

  “The Ibeen and larger sections were barely trapped, this Fiisk much worse, I’m worried about the Kaatan and the Kiile even more so now.”

  “I know,” she was forced to agree.”

  “Do you want to call it off?” Lilith asked. She’d just noted earlier that she was ready to begin entry on the other Fiisk.

  “No, not right now. Go ahead and make entry on the other Fiisk. I think knowing what I’ve discovered here you shouldn’t have any trouble.”

  Lilith acknowledged.

  “We need a better plan with the Kaatan and those Kiile,” she told her daughter.

  Minu put her baby daughter back in the crib, glancing at the over-sized blue crystalline bot clinging to the wall above the crib as she tucked the little raven haired baby in.

  Like all of the ship’s bots, it didn’t have any visible eyes or other sensors. Most resembled a tick from old Earth with longer legs. The number of legs depended on what the situation required. It didn’t move as she worked.

  “The babysitter kinda creeps me out some times,” she said as she came over and sat on the bed. Aaron was behind the cabin’s little desk, a half dozen holographic displays floated around him.

  “It’s a little bit creepy,” he admitted. After a day of working the debris field now he was coordinating the inventory. Inside the Ibeen they’d made entry aboard two days ago, a squad of bots was working to categorize its contents. Once they ship was secure, they’d been left to do the job.

  “What’s your plan with the rest of the ships?”

  “They’ll be here tomorrow. So, you coming to bed, or what?”

  Chapter 19

  March 11th, 535 AE

  Deep Space, Ghost Fleet #2, The Frontier

  Minu floated in the CIC watching the displays on her console. Lilith had always accommodated her before when her mother visited the combat information center by providing a synthetic floor and a place to sit. Other humans hadn’t grown up in micro gravity. They tended to find it disconcerting. Now Minu had weeks of real world experience on EVA in freefall. Just that morning she’d asked Lilith to dispense with the gravity effect. It just seemed a waste of energy.

  A chime from the telemetry system made her look up. Lilith was giving it her complete attention.

  “We have visitors?” she asked her daughter.

  “Yes,” Lilith replied. A tactical screen came up and Minu held her breath. “I have two targets approaching at just over 1,000 C.”

  Minu could see Lilith causing the two Eseel to begin maneuvering and the Fiisk to start rotating in space, adjusting its direction in preparation for its own maneuver.

  “They’re big targets,” Lilith said, “and flying close together.”

  “Do you think they’re hostile?” Minu asked. She sent a quick message to Aaron, who was in their cabin with Mindy, to prepare for possible battle.

  “Their approach is straight in. I cannot be sure.”

  “Human vessel, this is Ibeen Gamma, do you read?”

  “Yes!” Minu answered with a flood of relief. “Good to hear from you, Bakook isn’t it?”

  “Correct. Your memory is flawless.”

  I wish, she thought. “How has your mission gone? Who do you have with you?”

  “When we heard of your change in plans, and the additional salvage, we docked at a space station in the Trimere system with a portal we have access to. We transferred cargo and brought aboard new crew, as you requested. Ibeen Epsilon under Captain Esha’kkl is with me.”

  Lilith was nodding and the tactical board was updated with the details on the two ships. Little wire-frame drawings in comfortable blue showed, miniature Ibeen were flying towards them now, not just dots in space. “Confirmed no pursuit out to maximum sensor range.”

  “Great to have you,” Minu told the Beezer captain. “I’m transmitting details of more salvage and you are entitled to a percentage for your assistance.”

  The distant captain grunted as he examined the data. “Only one more Ibeen, but more warships. It seems you will profit better than us this time.”

  “Perhaps, but there are three more ghost fleets to salvage. Who is to say?”

  “Agreed. We will be slowing soon to come along side. I hope our appearance didn’t startle you?”

  “We were expecting you today, but not two ships. So we were concerned,” Minu told him.

  “When Esha’kkl heard of the other ghost fleets, he argued and wrangled with the other clans to be involved. As I might have explained, the ships are being divided between the great clan houses of the mercantile families of Serengeti. Since his ship is a new command, he was not in on the last salvage. To assuage the three new clan captains in Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, it was agreed to let him come with this operation.”

  Minu shrugged. She really didn’t care how the internal politics in the massive grazers’ society worked out. In fact when during the negotiation they declined any claim on warships, it was even better from her standpoint. She just didn’t hope that their complete unwillingness to take combat craft didn’t bite her (or them) in the ass someday.

  “We’ll be waiting for you to arrive. In the meantime I’ve also sent you codes to share among all you houses. These will allow you to communicate instantly across the galaxy.”

  “That is amazing!” Bakook said. “How is this possible?”

  “A gift, from a new potential ally.”

  “Minu Groves, war leader of the humans and First among the Chosen, you are going to make your species a higher order.”

  “There’s no need for insults,” Minu joked and ended the conversation, having no idea just how perplexed she’d left Bakook. “We’re standing down,” she told Aaron a moment later. “The cows have come home.”

  The Ibeen arrived on schedule. Lilith left the Eseel temporarily at a light hour out, their sensors tuned to the finest detail, watching space for any signs of pursuit or overly curious aliens. By the time the two hulking Ibeen were abeam of the Kaatan, she was confident they were still very much alone. They docked with Ibeen Gamma and Minu met the captain in the airlock.

  “Welcome,” she said and bowed to Bakook as an equal, who returned it in kind.

  “We are glad to be here. I thank you for the advanced data on the salvage here. Many of the personnel I have are on loan from Isook, so they have worked in space. The new ones are excited to experience the vastness themselves.”

  “The vastness?”

  “Yes, our people are excited by the stories others have told about space. The Beezer have begun to call it the vastness. And we believe it is our destiny.”

  Aaron who was standing next to Minu exchanged looks with her. He mouthed the word ‘religion’ to which she shrugged.

  “Well, as you have read in my briefing, we’re facing an increasing problem getting access to the ships for salvage.”

  “I have reviewed your data, and have a suggestion.”

  A little bit later the Beezer commander, his second in command, and Esha’kkl, the captain of Ibeen Epsilon via hologram, met in the Kaatan CIC. Minu created a gravity zone where the big grazers could stand without difficulty. While they had become adept at operating in space, though small environments like the CIC and not having a maneuvering unit was more problematic.

  “The People left these traps to stop any of their enemies from exploiting these war casualties,” Bakook said, “is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Lilith readily agreed. “They are field expedient traps right out of the People’s manual.”

  “Then that would suggest there is a way to disarm them.”

  “We can,” Minu pointed out, “but it’s proving difficult to identify the traps before they go off. I nearly triggered a big one on a Fiisk just the other day.”

  “But,” said Bakook holding up a huge hand, “the People must have had some way to disarm them. The team which comes back with the plan of salvaging may
not have known what traps were used and where.”

  The CIC was silent for a long moment. It was eventually Lilith that broke the silence.

  “I am embarrassed I did not consider that possibility.”

  Bakook shrugged his massive shoulders. “It is how we would have done such a thing.”

  “I am scanning the entire frequency range and not detecting any transmissions from the derelicts,” Lilith told them. “If it is passive, requiring us to send a preset code, it could take years.”

  “Again that is unlikely,” Bakook said. “How would the salvage teams have the codes?”

  “Good point,” Minu agreed. “Lilith, have you examined the traps we found?”

  “Yes, I have their full details downloaded into the computer before they were scrapped for parts.”

  “Let’s see them,” Minu suggested. A moment later a hologram appeared in the center of the group with first a digital image of the trap. A typical equipment box that would be found on any of the People’s ships with severed control lines. It spun on all three axes for a moment before freezing and changing to an animated drawing which then exploded to show individual parts with lines and descriptions.

  “The booby traps isolated on the Ibeen and then the Fiisk are essentially identical,” Lilith explained. “They are modified interface and control nodes found on all People ships. There are more than three hundred on this ship, and more than a thousand on battlecruisers like the Fiisk. It was programmed for this task and put in place of a regular control node. Anyone doing a simple scan will not notice them as they are not out of place.”

  “Smart design,” Kal’at agreed having floated in a short time ago. “I&C nodes like this are still common, though not as high-tech as the ones the People manufactured.”

  “What’s the big difference?” Aaron asked.

  “The People used optronics exclusively,” Lilith pointed out. Another diagram appeared showing a commonly manufactured Concordian node. It was obviously bigger and had more circuitry. “The People’s use of optronics allowed them to be immune to the EMP effects of most energy weapons and for faster command pathway instructions. Optronic data gateways do not suffer the same path delays as Concordian or even human designed traditional electronics.”

  “But there are still optronic components in all Concordian equipment,” Aaron pointed out. “We use optronic processors in our Phoenix shuttles at Groves Industries. We buy them from an off-world manufacturer, and they aren’t cheap.”

  The Concordian made designs came to front and center, opening up to show the interior workings. At its core was a nest of six optronics processors all interconnected to share processing power. It zoomed in on one of the processors, Lilith explaining: “At its core the processor is made of the same material as the bots on my ship. The blue crystalline substance the People called Azure.”

  “I’ve wondered if you had a name for that stuff,” Minu said. “What is its origin?”

  “From the records it was discovered on a world far back in the People’s original exploration of the galaxy. It is a bio-crystalline material with nearly infinite uses from computing to energy storage and, obviously, automation.”

  “I’m surprised it isn’t more ubiquitous,” Aaron said.

  “It is, actually,” Lilith said. “I’ve noted it in nearly every circuit of controlling devices sold within the Concordia. But we are talking about nearly microscopic quantities. The source was never disclosed. And since the People were wiped out, likely the source will never be known. Any Azure being used now is from ancient stockpiles. Once that runs out…”

  “Old fashioned electronics get a lot more valuable,” Minu finished for her daughter. Then she thought out loud. “Maybe that was the People’s ultimate revenge?”

  “You can suggest that using ever smaller amounts in equipment suggests you have a point,” Kal’at said.

  Minu pointed at the now reduced image of the I&C node used as the booby-trap trigger. “So how are these being manipulated or controlled from the outside?”

  “I think it is related to the gift from the Squeen,” Lilith pointed out.

  “The quantum communication ability?” Minu asked. Then she considered. “Where, exactly, are these quantum communicators?”

  Lilith opened her mouth then closed it. “Just a moment.” Her eyes got that far away look as she accessed more and more of the computers capabilities through her cybernetic link. It was almost a full minute before she came back to them. “There is no quantum communication system defined within the Kaatan’s blueprints. The only thing I can extrapolate is that the regular communications system also has the ability to communicate on a quantum level.”

  “It’s the Azure.” Everyone turned to look at Minu who wasn’t aware she’d spoken aloud. Seeing their rapt attention, she elaborated. “It’s the only thing it all has in common. The stuff can do everything else imaginable, why not communicate FTL?”

  “It’s an ansible!” Kal’at said and smacked his jaws together, the equivalent of a human snapping her fingers.

  “Ansible?” Minu asked, never having heard the word.

  “Yes,” Lilith said, nodding. “It’s a theoretical instantaneous communication system that would, again in theory, have no range. It utilizes quantum entanglement theory.”

  “Try to remember your mother only took some science classes. I’m not Pip.”

  Lilith nodded again and backed up. “Take a subatomic particle, say a muon. Split it in half. Capture both halves in two different devices, both with the ability to monitor and affect the muon. The two halves of the muon are joined through quantum entanglement. If you affect one, say through interaction with another subatomic particle, and the muon fragment reacts then its twin also reacts in the same way.”

  “Sounds impossible.”

  “No,” Kal’at insisted, “it is very possible. I have seen science experiments demonstrating this theory in the most rudimentary sort of way. The underlying scientific theory is sound, but a number of huge barriers would lie in the way of utilizing it.”

  “Such as?” Minu asked.

  “Being able to split a subatomic particle,” Lilith said for one.

  “Capturing that split particle and holding it in that state,” Kal’at said for another.

  “Monitoring it without effecting it,” Aaron added, garnering his a strange look from his wife. “Hey, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Star Trek, remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” Minu said with a little chuckle, “the reason matter transporters are impossible.” She turned to her daughter again. “But if you could overcome all of those, this would work?”

  Lilith glanced at a little blue crystalline bot that was partially submerged in a wall panel performing some sort of maintenance. “I would say we have that answer,” she said. “Weren’t you just talking with Ted more than 1,000 light years away?”

  “But how does…” she struggled with the language, “agitating a muon translate to talking to someone?”

  “Once it gets down to it, it’s not much different than primitive radio,” Lilith explained. “A diaphragm is attached to a coil. Your voice vibrates the diaphragm and induces a charge from the coil that is then transmitted. The muon in our theoretical ansible quantum communicator would just be vibrated in some form of binary code, very quickly, and then translated at either end.”

  “All this in a little piece of crystal?” Aaron wondered.

  “So it would seem,” Lilith said. The bot came out of the wall and extruded a pair of legs which it used to secure the panels lid closed. It sat there for a second, communicating with the ship’s computer. Then with new orders, it spun around and launched itself across the zero gravity portion of the room towards the door.

  “So let me see if I have this right,” Minu said, “every bit of that blue stuff has the ability to be a quantum communicator?”

  “We have only surmised that the azure was used in the People’s technology for an ansible communicator,” Lilith explai
ned.

  “But it’s possible, right?”

  The bot caught the edge of the door and skittered out along the wall and out of sight. “I have to say the answer to that is yes.”

  “That is a formidable spy tool,” Bakook said. The room was again silent.

  “Lilith?”

  “Yes, mom?”

  “I want you to utilize the quantum communication, the ansible, and send out fleet recognition codes. Use your own records and the IDs of those ships out there. Start with the last Fiisk we haven’t entered yet.”

  “One moment,” she said. A second later she looked up at Minu in surprise. “I have a system normal response.”

  “Inform it to disarm.”

  “It responds in kind.”

  There was a moment of jubilant response to all those present. “Well we figured out that mystery,” Minu said after the celebration died down.

  “And added another, as usual,” Aaron pointed out.

  Minu nodded. How had the People come up with a way to make crystalline ansible material so ubiquitous that they had put it in every computer chip in the galaxy? She made a mental note to add it to the thousand other mysteries she’d answer some day, if she lived long enough.

  “Right, but for now, we can get back to work. Lilith, contact and disarm all the derelicts. Kal’at, let’s get some bots out and start verifying we can safely board. We have a lot to do.”

  Chapter 20

  March 13th, 535 AE

  Deep Space, Ghost Fleet #2, The Frontier

  The deactivation commands worked perfectly. Minu had been sorely tempted to race over to examine the two Kiile carriers and see what they offered. It was only the fact that there was too much to go over in the Fiisk that gave her pause. Even with the arrival of two shiploads of Beezer, there was just too much to do. And that most of the Beezer crews were brand new to space.