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ES03 - Eternal Sunder (part 03): Queen of the Neeps
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 7 September 2003, 3:29 AM
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Note: This is part 3 to Wado's Eternal Sunder series.
Queen of the Neeps
Inside the starship Eternity's Sunder, there was a brief time of rest for warriors like John. The ship was silent except for the unheard sounds of its living systems.
John sat in the dark, thinking. The once mighty Spartan of many centuries had much on his mind, although he was granted his youth once more for this new mission, deep down he still felt like an old man. So many battles, he had lost count a long time ago. Too many faces of long lost friends appeared in his thoughts, the ones that died in battle he could forgive, but the one's that grew old with him and now are gone, those weighed heavily on his heart.
A flurry of status reports flooded the com channels. Not good news. John placed his helmet on, completing his adornment of full powered battle armor. He stirred restlessly. Although he was not raised to show emotions, deep inside he felt angry and sad; despite his rigorous Spartan training, he was mostly human, after all, and through the centuries he had spent much of his time with the empathic Archons who found it an intriguing responsibility to open up his duty bound mind to a prolific array of emotions. He silently cursed at the Archons for giving him feelings and pain. Now he was on his way to meet an old friend, Cortana; at least they were once friends. This thought brought all his suppressed memories to the surface. He did not utter much, just a few words. His words came slowly from inside, a knot in his stomach that crept up into his throat. He got on the com simply asking, "Sparky, how many, how many people?"
The blue orb of light that we all have learned to associate with 343 GS floated in another room, the ship's command center. The little AI construct had a lot on his mind too. The mission had been almost aborted due to the enemy's nano-virus that was in the process of infecting Eternity's Sunder; and now as the ship approached the Neep star system, things looked even grimmer. 343 GS could not find a single signal; not even the pulse of a Nav beacon was heard. Because the Neep system was hidden deep in the tail of the Sindar nebula, it was hoped that such a place could have remained unnoticed, but secrets were not kept easily from the enemy. 343 GS took the moment to reply to John, his words were far from reassuring. "Last census, prorated of course, listed over 1.7 million inhabitants in the Neep system," replied 343 GS. "95 percent of the population resided on Neep 2. Scanners aren't picking up any signs of life."
"They are dead John," interjected the Lady. Her glowing purple orbs for eyes extenuated her point in John's mind. "I'm picking up only echoes of thoughts. There is little or no cognitive life in this system. I'm sorry John, we are too late."
The Lady was a Nomdian and one of the most powerful of her telepathic race. John trusted much in the Lady's abilities, but still he wanted confirmation and options. "My Lady, what do you recommend we do?" asked John.
The Lady replied, in a kinder voice, saying, "John, I recommend we proceed with the mission to retrieve Cortana. It would be near impossible to hide 1.7 million minds from me, but a few could be shielded, especially the mind of an AI construct as resourceful as her. There is also something very odd about this system, can you confirm Sparky?"
"Scanners confirming," stated 343 GS. "The Neep system is virtually destroyed; there is only debris where there should be sixteen planets. Only one planet remains, Neep 2... hold on... recalculating, correction, not Neep 2, it is Neep 3. Neep 3 has been moved to Neep 2's orbit."
"Destroyed planets and Neep 3 changing its orbit, that sounds like Cortana's work." John replied, almost too soft for the others to hear.
"There are much more mysterious things than a planet changing orbit. John, when grasping the tail of a serpent, be weary of her bite and claws," interjected Princess Kira over the com. In her mystic Archon ways she had somehow, yet again, stated something seemingly irrelevant to the uninitiated.
"Yes indeed Princess Kira," the Lady's voice echoed through their minds as the ship shook despite its advanced inertial dampeners. "Power surge from Neep 3. Countering enemy fire -- One pulse from a phased stellar converter evaded, we suffered minimal damage from its thermal wake." The Lady paused for a moment before continuing. "Quite a bite that is, Princess, our null fields would negate 99.7% of its destructive force, but calculating the force levels reveals that the remainder far exceeds our threshold. It will destroy us, we cannot take a hit."
"Plotting erratic course to reach cover on the far side of that rather large asteroid," 343 GS chimed in while displaying the scanner readout of a nearby asteroid field. "We can't afford to evade like this forever, our increased engine output is causing the nano-virus to spread quicker along our outer hull. That asteroid should provide us with cover long enough to initiate a slip-space jump without compromising our trajectory to the enemy. Shall I continue?"
"Excellent idea Sparky," cheered Princess Kira, "but escape is not an option, the phased weapon will still track us through slip-stream, we much go claw-to-claw as soon as possible."
"No Kira, you know not what you are asking," the Lady's voice once again echoed through their minds. "Sparky proceed. We jump out of the system, we only need evade for three minutes in slip-stream to escape the enemy's weapon."
"Oh forget your silly logic, you can't out logic an AI," insisted Princess Kira.
New alerts sounded. "Amazing..." responded 343 GS. "The enemy has anticipated our move. Their phased stellar converter has destroyed the asteroid and many others in a pre-empted strike leaving trillions of small rocks moving at high velocities. Firing forward point-defense weapons to clear our path but it's not enough. The integrity of our hull is down to 83%... 77%... 50% hull integrity. I am at a loss for words."
Eternity's Sunder was being killed by the death of a trillion pebbles. It would not last much longer and with its destruction, its crew would perish most undeniably. There were no options; entering into slip-stream in this dense a field of rocks would surely be suicide. Only one possible route remained, the path in which the stellar converted last had fired was mostly clear, the explosions moved outward from there and the pulse itself had annihilated everything in its path.
The Lady ignored her logic for perhaps the first time in this lifetime, and in an act of pure, rampant faith, she initiated the command to bring the ship into slip-stream on a dead on impact trajectory directly at Neep 3. "Claw-to-claw," she whispered.
For the seven long seconds it took to reach Neep 3 through slip-stream, the enemy weapon did not fire. Perhaps the weapon needed to recharge or the enemy was still assessing the situation, maybe even gloating in her perceived victory. Before losing contact with John so many years ago, Cortana had been highly unpredictable, even crazy at times. The only thing that had kept her sane was her contact with the Archons, and when that was cut off, all bets were off. Without even a word about it, everyone had a gut feeling Cortana was the enemy that had fired upon them. The good news was that meant she was still alive and the bad news, well, the bad news was that she was still alive and she had a mighty big gun.
Eternity's Sunder came out of slip-stream so close to Neep 3 that everyone instinctively braced for impact. As if bracing would do any good when entering normal space at near the speed of light. The full capabilities of the ship's inertial dampeners were tested as it decelerated down from light speed to only a few thousand kilometers per second in less than the blink of an eye.
John flew forward and into a wall, the force buried his armored body a tenth of a meter through the solid surface. He was not instantly turned to paste however. He would most likely survive this ordeal.
Gravity waves bounced the cracking and contorting ship. The wall cracked around John and he fell through it and into the next room where he was caught in a strange web of solid light. Like a spider, Princess Kira had summoned tendrils of light in a web like pattern to cushion against impact. She lay in wait in the middle watching John struggle to get lose.
In the control room, 343 GS bounced around like a shiny blue pinball. The Lady had faired much better, thank goodness. She was buffered by powerful telekinetic shields of her own construction. Safely cushioned, she was able to focus her augmented mind, processing millions of tasks per second she guided the crumbling ship to the surface of Neep 3.
Darkness followed. It was night on this desolate cold world. John and Princess Kira made their way out to the surface where they met up with other members of the crew. Max, the mighty Imperial Elite, saluted John and bowed to Kira. Croaker, the sturdy Sauran, did likewise. Everyone was fully outfitted in their versions of battle armor.
The ship, Eternity's Sunder, was in great pain but its living systems would regenerate and if given enough time, it would fly again. However, the cracks in its hull presented gaping holes for the nano-virus to infect internal systems. The time table had been moved up; in less than two hours the ship would be lost to the virus. The Lady and 343 GS stayed inside the ship to quarantine systems in an attempt to slow down the nano-virus and if the worst came, to terminate the ship's life force before it could be completely infected -- A hopeless but necessary task.
The com channels were still functional and the Lady took the moment to brief the others. "Folks, your bio-scans come up good. Proceed with the mission to find Cortana. I've set Nav points to the target seven kilometers due East. Take a speeder there."
"Affirmative," replied John as he took command of the mission force.
"Better let me drive, John," interjected Princess Kira. John stepped aside to let her into the pilot seat of the land speeder. Despite John's augmented reflexes, Kira's Archonian reflexes were faster and better, for she had attuned instincts and mystical spirit. For her to react; the nerve signals need not travel to her brain and back but each part of her could react on its own and wholly her body, mind, and spirit would follow as one. "By the way John," Kira continued, "you may want to show more gratitude to the Lady, for while you were crashing through the ship's walls in a panic, she piloted the ship safely next to that structure."
Everyone stopped for the moment, first to thank the Lady whom promptly said, "No thanks necessary," and then to gaze upon the structure that Kira was referring to.
The structure was an enormous pyramid almost three kilometers high and four kilometers wide on each side. The surface was jet black with small lights resembling the stars. In the night sky, it was invisible except for the distortions it caused in the violent winds that blew a bit above the surface. The Lady's Nav point was positioned at the top of a flight of stairs that lead to what appeared to be a door into the structure.
Kira finished briefing the group on the way to the entrance. She was quite direct, for an Archon, saying, "The structure is covered by an energy dampener field, not as effective as a null field, but energy weapons as well as shields will be only 20% effective. We will equip with the chemical propelled, kinetic weapons with hardened bio-shells. I also sense a vast mana dead zone; that reeks of bio-mech technology. My powers will be limited there."
"Mana dead zone, does that mean the bio-mechs are here?" asked John.
"No, I don't sense that, but it does mean the enemy is well prepared for an Archonian incursion," replied Kira. "I have taken some precautions myself for such a welcoming."
Croaker, unusually silent until now, interjected saying, "Do not worry my Princess, I shall protect you with the might of the Saurans. If an enemy even looks at you strangely, they will find a hole the size of a melon through their head." Croaker brandished his trusty Sauran 77-millimeter slug-thrower.
"And I shall protect you from Croaker," added the noble Max, stepping out of his normally stoic character to comment on his friend's comment. Good cheers before battle have always been one of the group's strong points.
Reaching the structure, Kira parked the speeder at the top of the stairs. Two towering doors stood open on front of them. In the doorway stood one mechanical guardian, part flesh and mostly machine. Well armored and wielding blades of an ancient alloy. Blades sharp as mono-filament and nearly indestructible.
"I am the guardian of the city," announced the being. "Our Queen awaits you. Follow the lit path. Do not stray from the path."
The group proceeded on foot into the structure along a lit floor. Before long the path led to an vast open area. Here it was clear that all the structure they had seen was just the tip of a much larger pyramid that was buried mostly underground. The lit path snaked around and down into the depths, suspended effortlessly by some unseen force. Surrounding the path were many other unlit paths and structures with many mechanical people moving about. It was a grand and terrible city of cybernetic creatures.
Kira, the most weakened by the mana dead zone stayed in the middle, surrounded by the other three. Max, the most experienced of the warriors, took point and Croaker and John took the sides completing the asymmetrical triangle.
Max looked back at Croaker saying, "Croaker, in the fables there is always one that strays from the path. Try to not be the one, this time."
"Who me? Croaker be good," answered Croaker, "but you know, this path slithers around like a Gundarian fire snake, we could just jump from here to there where the path curves back near us. That would save us lots of time."
"I'm not amused," scolded Kira. In her weakened state she was quite the bitch to be with. "Know Sauran that all we see could be illusion, jump and you might not ever find the ground again."
John paid little attention to the others. His movement was slowed and his head hurt. His head hurt right in the place where Cortana used to interface into his old battle suit and into his neural implant. John knew she was here, nagging him on, calling him names from the shadows. He looked about thinking he saw things in the corner of his eye. He laughed silently, was he losing his mind? Jumping didn't seem like that bad an idea.
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