| abstract
| - Leone was bored and frustrated. He sat in the main control room, attached to the virtual reality generator that constituted the control system of the spaceship. The spaceship was deep into automated self-repair routines and Leone casually, if impatiently, monitored the progress of those repairs. The sooner the spaceship was repaired the sooner he could return to his mission and the search for ways to deal with Set. For now, the spaceship just drifted in interstellar space and Leone had nothing to do. Leone was shocked out of his boredom by an activity signal reported by the long-range scanning system. Another spaceship? Had they been followed through hyperspace from the Akara star system? Leone examined the available data: the scanners had detected a transient signal at extreme range and just above the threshold of detectability. Leone had previously seen such scanner transients while waiting in deep space between hyperspace jumps. Almost certainly the cause was some chunk of stellar debris blown out of an exploding star billions of years ago. Leone sank back into the dull routine of waiting for the ship to repair itself. Leone could not prevent his mind from echoing the day's discussions with Aristark. Should they now return to Sakkara? Should they keep trying to reach Azur? Had Sybil sent them into a deadly trap? No, that made no sense. It was clear that the equipment installed in the spaceship by Sybil had protected the spaceship from destruction. Nobody would send a spaceship into danger and at the same time protect the spaceship from danger. Or would they? Was Sybil trying to prove her point? Leone recalled that he had mocked her for her clams about "mental powers". Leone had known Sybil for years and they had a long history of close friendship. Many years previously, Leone had tried to move their relationship past simple friendship, but Sybil had always deflected any drift in their relationship towards sexual intimacy. Not long ago, Leone had been deeply shocked to learn that Sybil was a member of the Osiris Order. But now, upon reflection, her membership in the Osiris Order might explain much that had long seemed mysterious. Leone had gone on to read about the Osiris Order and had learned that Priestesses of that Order were celibate. If Sybil was fanatically devoted to the Osiris Order, maybe she had taken offense when Leone had expressed doubt about the existence of mental powers and the ability of the Osiris Order to hide from scanners. Would Sybil send Leone into danger just to demonstrate to that Osiris Order technology really could hide a spaceship? No, that was not it. Leone felt confident that Sybil fully expected Leone to make contact with Kalid at Flammis and to bring Kalid to Azur for a meeting with Ketar. So, had Kalid misjudged what was going on and mistakenly attacked the spaceship at Flammis? Was Kalid simply taking no chances and ordering attacks on any unknown ships approaching Flammis? No, that made no sense either. Leone now had evidence of the power of the equipment Sybil had installed on the spaceship. Since that equipment could hide the spaceship, there was no reason to suspect that it could not also perform the much simpler task of signaling to Kalid that the spaceship was friendly. The further mystery was why they had been attacked upon entering the Akara star system. Clearly that attack had nothing to do with Kalid and his possible paranoia. Briefly Leone considered the possibility that civil war had broken out. Leone knew that the population of Azur had been decimated when the Empire crushed the last pockets of resistance on that world. Had residents of the Akara star system started a revolt against the Empire? Leone's ship was property of the government of Sakkara, a member planet of the Empire...maybe rebel forces in the Akara star system were now attacking all Empire spaceships on sight. There were many worlds in the Empire that still resented their domination by the Empire. Leone quickly reviewed the deep scanner records from the time in the Akara star system. From the scan data, it was clear that there had been many spaceships moving through the system on routine business....some broadcasting the standard navigation beacon used by Empire spaceships. But only Leone's ship had been targeted for destruction. The only thing unique about Leone's spaceship was the equipment that had been installed by Sybil. The only thing Leone knew for sure about that equipment was that when the spaceship was on the brink of destruction, that equipment had made the spaceship invisible. But how had it done that? Sybil had spoken of "spiritual means", but what did that mean? Leone noticed Aristark disconnect from the Thot user interface in the engineering room. Aristark had been using nanite probes to study the equipment that had been installed by Sybil. The door to the main control room opened and Aristark entered. Leone disconnected from the Thot interface and asked, "What did you learn?" Aristark sank down wearily into the seat next to Leone and replied, "Not much. There is a strange pattern of energy use by Sybil's equipment that corresponds to the time when our spaceship became invisible to the spaceships that were attacking us. There is no doubt that this equipment saved us from destruction." Leone grunted. "The question is, how can you hide a spaceship?" "Indeed. I probed far enough into Sybil's equipment to see that it is protected by an auto-destruct mechanism. I cannot learn how it works without first triggering its destruction." Leone suggested, "Maybe we could remove the energy feed to Sybil's equipment. Would that disable the auto-destruct mechanism?" Aristark shook his head. "Sybil's equipment is protected by self-powered nanite defenses. I'm sure that if those nanites are ever in danger of running out of power, they will use their last energies to trigger the auto-destruct mechanism. It is clear that the Osiris Order has secret technology that they do not wish to share with the rest of mankind." Leone could not suppress a sense of outrage over the idea that important new technology would be kept secret. Leone was part of a scientific culture which valued openness and sharing of scientific and technical advances. "Who are these 'masters' of the Osiris Order that they keep such technology secret?" Aristark shrugged. "I suppose they feel that this kind of "invisibility technology" could be misused. Think of space prates who might use it to shield their spaceships during attacks on cargo ships." Leone was willing to admit that many technologies can be misused. In general, society bands together to put limits on the use of dangerous technologies. "What bothers me is that I know nothing about the goals and activities of the Osiris Order. How do we know that they do not misuse this technology?" Aristark was willing to live according to available evidence. "I am not aware of any attacks by space prates using invisibility shields for their spaceships. Is there any evidence that the Osiris Order has misused this technology?" Leone replied, "We do not know what their technology can do. Many unexplained events might be due to the use of powerful and hidden technologies. How can we even know what evidence of misuse to look for when we do not know what technologies they have?" "Such doubts and fears can be applied to anyone. I'm tired." Aristark rose from his seat and headed for the door. "Any guess for when the spaceship will complete its repairs?" "The hyperspace communications system is being rebuilt, those repairs alone should take about another ten hours. By tomorrow we might also be in good enough shape to make another hyperspace jump." "Okay. We still must decide on our destination. Let's call Ketar tomorrow and ask for his advice. Good night." Leone realized that he was also very tired. There was nothing to be done until their spaceship was repaired enough to jump again. Almost certainly the best course of action was to return to Sakkara where the spaceship could be fully repaired, but it was worth trying to contact Ketar again. Leone really wanted to ask Sybil what was going on and how the Osiris Order had developed technology that can hide spaceships. And what their plans were for that technology.
- Leone had only just started reading about the current politics of Azur, but something distracted him. He thought the spaceship was trembling. Leone stood up; he was surprised and scared. Another attack? It could not be, they could not have been followed. Could they? Conventional opinion held that hyperspatial jumps could not be traced by another ship, but there were always rumors about a new technology that had achieved that....at least, it was a perennial topic in fictional accounts of space travel. "Aristark! We are attacked again!" Leone shouted. Aristark was now in the main engineering room, trying to analyze the record of power usage by the equipment Sybil had installed in the spaceship, what the Haldus order technicians had referred to as an "Invocator". There had been a dramatic surge in how much power it drew in that last fateful minute before they had jumped through hyperspace away from Plato. "Yes. So it seems, although this bombardment is not doing much damage." Aristark replied, in a tired voice. "The problem is, we never recharged the spaceship shield. If they attack us with any kind of heavy weapon then we are lost. Rather than wait for that, I suggest we make another jump..." "No way!" Leone said. Aristark felt the spaceship make a sudden shift in acceleration. "Yes, of course, Mr. Leone wants to fight like a lion, a mad lion, I would add. Oh, my Graviton, I think I will have to flee at once, if my life is worth anything. I do not want to be a hero...a dead hero." Leone was slapped down in his chair under full restraint as the spaceship altered its acceleration. He was surprised at the forces being exerted...had he selected the wrong evasive maneuvering subroutine? Well, there was no time to worry about that now. He could only imagine that this new attack against his spaceship was some kind of error; maybe he had jumped into the middle of some kind of war games for Akara's Defense Fleet. "We will NOT die. We just have to send some kind of signal to Azur and let them know who we are." Aristark looked at the navigation radar display and saw the three spaceships that were rapidly moving towards them. Those three ships were broadcasting navigation beacons and identifying as a patrol of the Akara Defense Fleet. "I do not know if that will make any difference. After we got into this system we automatically communicated our destination with a standard navigation signal and then you also sent a personal message to Ketar. How can anyone be confused about our identity?" Leone replied, "I do not know." Leone had encoded his message to Ketar, so that could not really be counted as an identification signal. Still, Leone decided that Aristark was correct, yet another communications signal besides their navigation beacon was unlikely to be useful...besides, standard communications channels were now being jammed. This pattern was familiar to Leone from his academy training. "They are treating us like we are pirates!" He knew that throughout all of civilized space the standard response to a pirate attack often involved blasting first and asking questions later. Leone commented, "Then our only option is to try to flee, but this bombardment is disrupting the hyperspatial engines. However, we have no other option..." The odd vibration of the spaceship stopped. Leone noticed that he now had a chance to save the ship... Leone began to activate his emergency hyperspace jump protocol. "This time, just this time, I agree with you, Aristark... besides, I do not want you to be hurt again due to my behavior." "Thanks. I expected to hear something like that from you, I am glad to know that the Leone I always knew is back and ready to kick..." "It is not to br..." At that moment, they could clearly feel that the attack was being resumed; the spaceship trembled again and they could hear an annoying beep. Another one of the subsystems was damaged and that was its cry of death. Further, the partially initiated hyperspatial jump aborted. Leone shouted, "We are being hit by particle weapon blasts that collapse the hyperspatial initiation field. We cannot escape!" It was something inconceivable, the fact that they were being attacked... there were many non-aggression and fair trade treaties that applied to Azur. The Akara system was one of the great trading and passenger destinations in the galaxy. Leone had jumped into the Akara system and immediately transmitted the standard navigational beacon, so how could he now be treated like a pirate? The attack was completely illegal and as crazy as a nightmare. Leone started to lose his self-control once again and could not think clearly. Maybe these attackers were pirates, falsely identifying themselves as spaceships of Akara...but no, pirates never dared operate like this in the heart of the settled worlds. "We have to do something." Leone said. "I am surprised that we are still alive while the shield is just 1%." Leone wondered if he should just shut down all systems of his spaceship...if they looked dead and passive, maybe the attack would stop. But rather than try that cowardly approach Leone decided that late was better than never and he channeled all excess energy from the antimatter reactors into the shield. At that moment Aristark switched back to again view the radar display. Now there seemed to be positions of four other ships being shown on the battle display. But, no, the closest was moving too fast... "Thot, analyze that closest radar reflection!" The spaceship's AI showed Aristark a close-up view that resolved that rapidly accelerating reflection into three points. "Three rockets, EMF signatures indicate that they are standard Harpoon Class projectiles...typically armed with antimatter warheads." Aristark spoke to Leone, "It looks like they launched antimatter bombs at us. With our shields at 1% they will not even have to get close to us. If they detonate at a distance of 10,000 kilometers we will still lose all of our defense systems and they may damage the propulsion system too. That is the "best case" analysis, if they intend to destroy us with those rockets, there is nothing we can do." It would be difficult to put into words the depth of anguish and and the heights of fear the two Counselors were feeling at that very moment, being there, locked inside that metal and energy tomb. They were going to die soon and there was no place to run or hide. Leone tried once more to initiate an emergency hyperspatial jump, but the field collapsed immediately. Those three spaceships continued to pour in disruptor blasts that made it impossible to enter hyperspace again. Leone quickly examined the closeup image of radar reflections from the rockets then zoomed the image back out to get a feel for the scale and how close those engines of destruction were. Now at the periphery of the battle Leone could see six more spaceships closing in. Leone wondered: how had it come to this? In that desperate moment it was not as if his entire life passed before his eyes for review, evaluation and summation, but a trail of connections lay clearly before his mind's eye leading back to the Green planet "Plato" and then to Sakkara and then to Sybil's house and all the way back to the day he had first set eyes on Sybil when they were young and in school and their entire lives stretched before them as a mystery yet to be revealed. Now, was this the end of that mysterious trail? He had always felt a strange connection to Sybil...had that been a premonition that she would lead him to his death? With a kind of fatalistic fascination, he allowed himself to wonder why it was that when he had heard others call Sybil a witch he had always ignored them. For a horrifying moment, Leone imagined that Sybil had telepathic abilities that allowed her follow Leone's spaceship through space and that also gave her the power to trick others into attacking his spaceship as an enemy.
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