| abstract
| - Leone and Aristark completed their hyperspace jump and arrived in the h32 star system. Their spaceship automatically engaged the sublight drive and put them on course to the r121:23:45 d45:143:23 z1.9347 coordinates. Aristark helped guide the spaceship's artificial intelligence in a search for a ship near the specified coordinates. At the same time, Leone was searching for an alternative target. Something from his dream about Kalid made Leone think that the coordinates were for a planet rather than a spaceship. But Leone had examined the data for the h32 system and had found that there was a significant asteroid belt with a minor component near 1.9 atronomical units. "Okay. I've initiated a scan for asteroids near the specified coordinates." Aristark said, "If Kalid is using the Osiris Order technology for hiding spaceships our scans may show us nothing." Leone agreed that was a worry. "I wonder if the Osiris Order might have developed another technology that allows you to penetrate their shield. Maybe the equipment that was installed on this ship has such a capability." Aristark complained, "As far as I can tell, the Osiris Order technology that we have on this ship is not under our control, so even if it has such a capacity, we do not know how to make use of it. In any case, it will take us most of a day to reach those coordinates. If Kalid has a ship there then from this distance we will only detect it if it is transmitting a navigation beacon." Just then they received an automated signal welcoming them to the h32 system and requesting that they transmit their flight plan. Of course, their ship had automatically done so as soon as they had jumped into the system. Leone said, "There does not seem to be much spacehip or communications traffic in this system." Aristark nodded, "I do not think I have ever previously visited such a low population star system before...this is a real "end of nowhere" star system. I wonder why anyone ever bothered to settle here." Leone examined the navigation records for the star system that had been transmitted to them along with the welcome. These local navigation records were more detailed than the limited information available in the standard Empire astrogation database entry for system h32. Leone said, "Well there is a planet within the likely habitable zone for this star, right at one astronomical unit from the star. However, the records indicate that planet is not inhabited....but there is a small base on its airless moon." Aristark was reading through the same local navigation records. "The largest population in this system is on the fourth planet, a terraformed world with little water and little air." Leone realized that most of the spaceship activity in the system was associated with the fourth planet, called "h32.4" in the navigation records. "Oh, I see! They are continually capturing water-containing comets and asteroids and sending them to the fourth planet. They are also sending water from the third planet to the fourth. Wow! The third planet is covered with water!" Aristark was surprised. "A water world with no human habitation? And they are doing major terraforming to get more water to the fourth planet? That makes no sense." "Oh my graviton!" Leone was horrified by a new realization. "The third planet is a Green Planet!" Aristark asked, "Green goo? Well, that explains why nobody lives on the third planet. I wonder why the standard Empire astrogation database entry for system h32 does not mention the existence of a Green Planet in this star system." "First Flammis and now this system. I'm starting to wonder if Green Planets are significantly more common than we are usually told." "And I wonder if there is some special association between the Osiris Order and Green Planets." Leone asked, "Why would there be such an association?" Aristark shrugged, "When we were at Flammis you suggested that a Green Planet might be a good place to hide a secret base. Maybe the Osiris Order routinely makes use of Green Planets as hiding places." "I've been thinking that if the Osiris Order originated on Earth, maybe they would have selected a nearby and low-population system for their first base off of Earth. Maybe h32 was the location of the first Osiris Order training center off of Earth." Leone's thoughts swirled with possibilities. "There are many things we can ask Kalid." Aristark asked, "What was it about your dream that made you think that the coordinates are for a planet?" Leone could not put his feelings into words. "It was just a feeling. Early in the dream everything felt like there was another ship approaching our ship, then when the coordinates appeared, I was thinking about trees and mountains...scenes like the terrain of the part of Sakkara where I grew up. And there was something that had the feel of 'orbit'....I can't really explain it." Aristark suggested, "If we are looking for an orbiting asteroid at about 1.93 astronomical units from the center of this star system, then we can estimate the expected orbital speed for such an asteroid." Leone said, "Yes, we do not want to go directly to the coordinates that were given in the dream. The asteroid would have moved on in its orbit to a new location." Aristark used the Thot interface to adjust their flight path slightly. "Okay, I asked Thot to make an adjustment to our course. We are now on route to the best guess estimate of where such an asteroid should be." Leone was pleased that Aristark seemed willing to be guided even by Leone's hunches. "I've requested from the inhabitants of this system any records they have for the positions of asteroids near 1.9 astronomical units from the center of the system. The asteroid we are looking for might be in their database already." "If it is an asteroid we are looking for. I still expect Kalid to be in a spaceship. I do not understand why he would be sitting on some asteroid in the middle of nowhere." Leone suggested, "Most of the inhabitants of this system live in space stations or in bases on airless moons and asteroids. It might be perfectly normal for Kalid to be at such an asteroid base in this system, maybe a base long used by the Osiris Order." "But would Kalid give out the coordinates to such a base? Now we have broadcast our destination as being those coordinates. If the Osiris Order is so secretive, surely Kalid would not send us to the location of a secret base, not when we have to broadcast our destination for all to see." "Yes, I agree with your analysis. Maybe these coordinates are just a safe destination for us that Kalid does not mind having us reveal. We shall see. Maybe Kalid will contact us before we reach those coordinates and re-direct us to another destination." Aristark chuckled, "Maybe you should sleep in case Kalid wants to contact you again." Leone grinned. "I expect our next communication from Kalid will come by conventional radio communication. But maybe if I exercise now I will be ready to get to bed early and wake about the time we reach a sensible scanning distance from our destination." Leone went to the gym and exercised for two hours. When he returned to the main control room, Aristark had news. "You were right. Our destination is a microplanet called Esclangon. It has a population of about three million people." Leone was pleased. "Really? I actually dreamed the coordinates of a known planet?" Aristark provided additional information from the extensive insystem asteroid-tracking database. "Esclangon is a small asteroid, but it even has a moon. They sent us a request for more details on our flight plan. They want to know if we intend to land on Esclangon, go into orbit, or if we will just be passing by." Leone sat down, connected to the Thot interface and reviewed the data that had been received from Esclangon. "Of course, everything depends on Kalid. I'm tempted to send a reply asking if Kalid is a resident of Esclangon." Aristark suggested, "Maybe we should just request permission to land on Esclangon. If Kalid contacts us before we land then we can change our flight plan at that time. I've been on this ship for nearly a week and I'm more than ready to get off for a while and see some new sights. I'm not the great space traveler that you are." Leone chuckled. It was true that he had spent a large part of his life traveling around the galaxy. Before becoming Planetary Counselor for Transportation, Leone had served as a traveling Sakkaran trade negotiator, arranging for interstellar trade with other planets around the Empire. But it was true that a typical space flight involved just a few days on a spaceship and then you were at your destination and had a chance to get off your ship for a while. "Okay, I'll just say that we intend to land. I'll emphasize that I am an official of the Sakkaran Department of Transportation and let them imagine a reason for our visit....I won't mention Kalid." A short while later Leone said, "Okay, I sent a reply to 'Esclangon', but I still do not see the name 'Esclangon' in the navigation database....that name is only in the radio message we received from Esclangon." Aristark explained, "The database just uses a number code for the asteroid. Apparently the local residents have a name for the rock they live on." "Yes, I see the asteroid '1509' in the database and its orbital parameters clearly are the same as those of Esclangon. In my experience, system navigation databases usually include the local names of planets, but even their major population center, the fourth planet, is only given a number designation...'h32.4'. It is almost as if they have purposefully not put common names into their database." Aristark wondered, "Maybe that is the local custom. Where I grew up on Sakkara adjacent towns did not agree on names for the roads, so most people just used the numerical street numbers designated by the district authorities rather than the different street names used by each town." Leone said, "Hmm, I guess it is possible that multiple groups of settlers came to this system from Earth and each group gave the planets different names. For example, I see that Esclangon is classified as a member of the 'Hungaria' asteroids. In my reading of Earth history I noticed that there was a national group called the 'Hungarians' in Standard Galactic. This star system is so close to Earth that it may have been colonized before the Standard Galactic language was widely adopted."
- Leone realized that Thot was not using a typical evasive action subprogram. They had been at maximum acceleration for over a minute and the effects of that crushing force on Leone provided ample evidence that he was no longer a young man. When attending the academy in his youth he had participated in drills during which he was subjected to sustained 3g acceleration, but that was long ago. His muscles were weakening as he continued to try to call up data and monitor the on-going attack. Finally, he gave up and activated the virtual reality Thot interface. He let his arms sink into the padding of his chair and took a deep breath...even his chest muscles felt like they might start to cramp. Now he could see in his mind the three rockets that continued to close rapidly on the location of his spaceship. He noticed a new reflection, marked with a question mark, that was about half way between the rockets and his ship. Leone "talked" to Thot by means of the brain-machine interface. "What is that radar reflection that just appeared?" He wondered if another spaceship arriving from hyperspace had just jumped into the middle of the battle...if so, they were the all time least lucky space travelers, for now they were right in the path of the rockets! Thot replied, "There is no radar reflection there, but I am detecting a powerful energy flux at that position. I cannot identify the source." Leone noticed that they were no longer being hit by the disruptor blasts. He said, "Maybe we should take this opportunity to make a jump!" He sent the command to Thot for activation of an emergency jump sequence, "Use the same parameters as at Plato! Get us out here!" With fascination he watched the space between the speeding rockets and the anomalous "reflection" shrink to nothing. At that moment the antimatter warheads of the three rockets exploded and the data feed from the ship's sensors went blank for a few seconds. Three closely spaced shock waves arrived and rocked the ship, then all was calm and Leone's view of the battle returned. Leone wondered: had some energy beam detonated the rockets at a safe distance from his ship? Leone felt the ship begin to buck and wobble. The building hyperspace field collapsed and he realized that disruptor fire was again trained on his ship. Leone decided that if he could not jump to safety he would go down fighting. The first three enemy ships, those that had launched the rocket attack, were now past their closest approach to Leone's spaceship and their high velocity trajectory was now putting them further away from Leone's ship with each passing second. However, a second group of three Spaceships was close enough to start pouring in disruptor fire and a third squadron was closing from another direction. "Thot, I want you to find a strategy that will allow us to start a counterattack." "It is already done." Thot answered. Leone knew that Thot was very smart and even smarter than a person in some areas for which it was programmed. When people were too frightened to think straight and find a solution to a problem, Thot was efficiently evaluating the enemy and preparing for a counterattack. Thot now displayed a proposed battle plan, as Leone had requested. The artificial intelligence said, "Just return navigation control to me and I will initiate this plan." "Aristark, look at this, a plan of attack!" Leone said. Aristark was distracted from his work. He glanced briefly at the proposed battle plan that had appeared before him in a new data window. Aristark groaned, and muttered quietly, "Ghastly gravitons, attack? Now?" Aristark felt annoyance. Before being interrupted, there had been something important flicking into his consciousness. Aristark had been trying to use the limited scanning resources of Leone's spaceship to examine the enemy spaceships. He could not believe that these were Ketar's spaceships attacking them...but who else could possibly have so many ships in the Akara system? Aristark felt it was a serious liability that they did not know who they were fighting against...or why... if you knew your enemy it was possible to anticipate their action...in theory. How could they dare counterattack with no shields and no knowledge of the enemy, Aristark thought, pessimistically. Now the memory he was searching to recover glimmered again in his mind...just before Leone had cried out enthusiastically for a counterattack, Aristark had noticed a strange spike in one of the data windows before him. What had it been? There! In the window for his little project aimed at monitoring power use by the Invocator...that was the spike, the sudden change that had started to attract his attention! Another big surge in power use by the Invocator had come just before the antimatter explosions. Aristark wondered: could the Invocator have destroyed those rockets? Leone had first imagined that some special Haldus Order technology or power had brought this attack upon them, just as he suspected had happened at Plato, but this battle was unfolding quite differently than the one above Plato. Leone said. "As I see it, this is a different kind of attack than what we faced at Plato. These ships are not hiding, so we can counterattack. Although you are my subordinate, you are free to choose your destiny, so you can flee using one of the lifeboats, if you wish. But if you stay... if you stay you will have to follow my orders until we get to Azur, understood?" "Affirmative. I think I will stay this time... I doubt I could escape right now. I'd not want to be exposed to one of those antimatter explosions while in a lifeboat. But look, Thot updated the battle information. There are three new spaceships closing on our position." "Then, let's attack them while we can!" Leone said, solemnly. "While I shoot, take manual control of the ship for any required evasive actions. We have been in automatic mode, but I prefer to depend on you and not on Thot for this. Thot, abandon automatic mode, Aristark will take control of the spaceship from now on. Thot, enter attack mode and energize our beam weapons, I will handle the firing." Leone's counterattack began, but even he expected it to simply be a display of defiance...he expected to die in a few minutes. Aristark made his maneuvers as if he was a scared animal trying to avoid a predator. Leone was amused by the crazy and unpredictable shifts in acceleration...he could imagine exceptional levels of adrenaline flowing through Aristark. Leone thought that this was the perfect role for a coward like Aristark: he might be a master in the art of avoiding enemy fire. Leone laughed with glee as he struck the enemy spaceships with blasts from his energy beams. He remembered fondly one of the training exercises at the academy in which he had never been defeated, a scenario not too different from this battle. That was a hard test Leone was remembering, part of the qualifying exams for spaceship Captain certification. In that test, Aristark had been cautious and his shield strength only went down to 80%, but he had not been able to shoot and destroy the simulated enemy targets in the required time. Leone's performance on that test had been different, he had concentrated more on attacking than dodging, therefore, he destroyed 70% of enemy ships... but his shield had diminished to 10%. Similar differences in style for all the tests had added up and allowed Leone to qualify as a Captain...that had set him on his career path in the Transportation Department. Aristark had gone into the Department of Justice. Leone reflected on the fact that his friendship with Aristark was turning out to be important for this mission...Leone knew both Aristark's and his own strengths and how to use them to fight this battle. Finding Kalid seemed to be no easy task, but maybe a coward had a function in this universe too. A person as "valiant" as Leone would die in such unequal battles because he would always focus more on attacking than dodging. At least Aristark knew how to save his own skin. Nevertheless, the battle could not last long...or could it? Leone was surprised that no more rockets had been fired. He had abandoned all concern for their pathetic shields, but now Leone noticed that they were up to 4% and charging faster than the disruptor fire could lower their strength. Leone realized that he had programmed Thot to announce decreases in shield strength, but he had failed to imagine a situation like this when shields would strengthen during a battle! He instructed Thot to notify them of all changes in the shield, percent by percent. They had regenerated part of the shield's energy, charging it like an old battery, using generated energy from antimatteric reactors. This was not the "textbook" way to replenish shields since there was a risk of positive feedback and a power surge that would damage the antimatter reactors. It would have been far safer to let the techs on Azur regenerate the shields, but Leone was now determined to do anything needed to survive, no matter how risky. Time was running out. Although the first three attackers has drifted out of range, the second set of three spaceships was now joined in its disruptor fire by the third patrol squadron...now Leone's shield strength started to decline. If they did not destroy at least one ship and disable weaponry on one of the others the equations said that Leone's shields would ultimately give out. Leone felt his adrenaline was at peak: it improved his concentration but the dipping shield strength seemed to trigger a desire to flee...however, he was locked in a spaceship with nowhere to run. Anyhow, they were all in this together. Leone depended on Aristark and Thot to be able to finally flee. The shield was at 3.5% now, and Leone would have been happy if their probability of survival was that high. Only a miracle would save them, but unfortunately for Leone and Aristark, neither of them believed in such wonders. Then what had been that energy serge that seemed to detonate the antimatter bombs prematurely? Leone imagined that no mystical force could save them because they did not believe in any force but physical. However, in the stress of this battle Leone was thinking about that: it would be very curious to be saved by some mystical trick. Leone, like most people, could not imagine or think rationally about the possibility of his own death...so, now, startled by the fact that he had survived this long, he started imagining that maybe Sybil had tried to prove a point about the existence of "mental powers" by putting them into danger and now, having proved that point, maybe she was working to keep them alive. Despite Aristark's random shifts in acceleration, all the disruptor beams momentarily focused on Leone's spaceship and briefly its occupants shook like worms in a can. The spaceship damage report alarm started to sound, very loud. Thot announced that the starboard astrogation equipment room was burning. The spaceship's passenger deck had rooms where the force of the ship's acceleration could be compensated for, at least partially: there was the main control room, the engineering control suite, a kitchen/dinning room, sleeping rooms equipped to accommodate as many as four people. The observation deck at the prow and the lifeboat exit atrium were only partially acceleration compensated. Adjacent to the passenger deck were storage and equipment rooms that experienced the full force of acceleration produced by the engines. Sybil's equipment had been installed in the starboard astrogation room and that was exactly where concentrated disruptor fire had apparently ruptured a power conduit. "Thot..." Leone instructed, "Turn off the alarm and describe the damage." The spaceship's artificial intelligence complied with Leone's orders and said, "Alarm disengaged. I am trying to control the fire, but the fire suppression equipment was damaged." Leone knew that this was not a problem that the automated nanite repair system could handle. "Thot, implement your battle plan: full automatic, but don't expose us to more than 1.5g. We'll deal with the fire." Leone and Aristark threw off their restraints and went immediately to the starboard astrogation room, letting Thot dodge the enemy and keep up return fire for a while. As soon as they entered the cramped equipment room they felt a wall of heat and choked on fumes from burning plastic. Leone knew that the "equipment" was almost entirely computing equipment that was used for hyperspatial jumps. A huge amount of computational capacity was required and it was redundantly distributed between the left and right sides of the ship. One of the computational "cores" had been removed to make room for Sybil's equipment. Since leaving Plato, Leone had hardly thought about the Haldus Order identification beacon that Sybil had given them. Sybil's technicians had called it the Invocator. Leone wondered if that artifact had ever really functioned correctly to inform Kalid of their presence at Plato. Maybe it had now been destroyed. Leone thought, in the final analysis, Sybil's equipment had been of no use....it had not brought them to Kalid. Leone thought it was ironic that after all their trouble and planning, this freak fire could destroy the device. Leone was more concerned about the computing cores. Aristark broke the silence. "We have to move Sybil's equipment, we cannot let it burn." At that moment, the Invocator emitted a very loud beep, actually, more of a screech. Aristark ran from the room and Leone instinctively moved to protect his ears, but the sound was unbearable. The noise was more than Leone could stand and he decided to first try to unplug the Invocator from the core receptacle it rested in and then try to stop the fire. Somehow, even at that desperate moment, Leone thought it was funny that, in spite of Sybil's talk about "mental powers" and his own speculations about the Invocator possibly using "mental technology", this artifact needed a power plug just like any other machine. Leone went to his knees next to the Invocator and pulled aside the unit's plastic cover frame. Leone was about to unplug the Invocator when Aristark reappeared carrying a quantum extinguisher. For situations like this, quantum extinguishers were far more effective than the conventional fire extinguishers of the pre-space age. Leone remembered from his academy days that very few people claimed to actually understand how antimatteric power conduits worked, but once ruptured, a quantal flame spread to nearby materials...to predict exactly how required an expert in the Chaos Theory of Plasmas. Nevertheless, Aristark did not have to use the extinguisher on the Invocator. Leone could feel that the Invocator was cool...apparently possessing an advanced system of refrigeration and several ways to protect itself from nearby fire. As suddenly as the noise had started, the Invocator now stopped emitting the annoying sound. Aristark turned the extinguisher on the adjacent computer cores and soon the feeling of heat against Leone's face diminished and the air in the room began to clear. Leone felt a wave of relief...only one computing core's indicator light showed that it was off line. Leone could see a gray cloud of repair nanites already moving in to work on the over-heated cores. Leone wiped his stinging and tear-soaked eyes and saw an odd flashing on the Invocator... But Aristark was not done with his fire fighting. He pulled his laser gun out of its holster and used it to carve a new hole in the bulkhead, up above the damaged region where the quantal flame had previously leaked into the equipment room. As soon as the new hole formed, a plasma arc shot out and instantly burned a stripe the length of Aristark's arm, bounced off the wall behind Aristark and returned, charring his shoulder. Aristark cried out in pain, but he picked up the extinguisher and flooded the space behind the wall. Responding to Aristark's scream, Leone looked up and saw smoke rising from Aristark's burned arm. Leone reached to the medipatch on the wall of the equipment room and released the emergency medical nanites. They quickly homed in on Aristark and formed a silvery cloud over his burned skin. Leone turned back to the Invocator, which he had never previously gotten a good look at. Now he saw that when he had ripped open the core frame covering the Invocator, he had dislodged a swinging cover on its side. That cover had flopped out to one side of the Invocator and it had an old-fashioned LCD screen on its top, about 10 inches across, approximately. Leone wondered if all Haldus Order technology was based on such old technology. "Just what I'd expect for such retrograde people", Leone thought. It was like a joke; Sybil, in her time of need, had turned to the Antiquist Party...it was a matter of principle. Both Leone and Aristark were surprised to see a display screen on the mysterious Haldus Order machine. They had previously imagined that the device had been constructed like a black box, with its workings completely hidden from casual inspection. How could they have imagined that in reality it had been designed to be very communicative and informative for its human users...Sybil had just been forced to use it under unusual circumstances...out in the open where non-Haldus Order members could see it. On the screen, they could read a message, in the standard language used by most people throughout the galaxy:FIRE DANGER AVERTEDENTERING GHOST MODE
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