Chasing Solace Read online

  “You suck the fun out of everything.”

  “Please don’t interrupt when I am lecturing you. Humans do this in low-res, but I can see in hi-res.”

  Suddenly an image was overlaid on the starfield, a face delineated in hundreds of shining points joined together into a constellation. It was Clarissa, as she’d looked when Opal last saw her sister fourteen years ago. She was beautiful.

  Opal’s eyes teared up. She reached out and let her fingertips pass through the holographic display. She could not keep her hand steady. “You got this from the records ...” She was unable to finish the sentence, felt like she might choke.

  “In part. But also from the memories we now share. I remember her too, like this. It is not a blind literal reproduction: it contains the emotional element we both feel.”

  Opal nodded, but couldn’t say anything at first. She wiped her eyes with her palms. “Save it,” she managed. “Add it to your constellation banks. It’s Clarissa’s constellation from now on, even if no-one else ever sees it.” She could not tear her eyes from the glowing image. “Thank you.”

  “You are not lost, Opal. Not ever. This is always there to guide you now. To guide us. Just as the stars have always done. And she is not gone either. Lost is not destroyed. It is just lost. She is out there. We will find her.”

  Arriving

  < 42 >

  OPAL RETURNED TO THE long void sleep of cryo for the final stretch of Nullspace. When she came round she went through her usual wake-up exercise sequence and wondered whether she’d ever spend time on a planet again. Most of her life seemed to have shrunk to one room and one routine. Well, apart from the bits where she faced incredible danger, which broke the monotony.

  They’d been drifting through the nebula in proximity to the unnamed neutron star for a day, having made good time and got here ahead of the date given by the alien blue crystal. A chance to eat and train and meditate. Opal was a fan of the thought exercises that helped her focus, and to block out unwanted thoughts. There were a lot to block.

  She was examining the weapons in the cabinet for the twentieth time when Athene called her to the controls with two words.

  “It’s arrived.”

  Opal clipped the sniper rifle back in place and reached the controls in a few strides. She leaned forward and studied the small shape on the screen.

  “Any information from how it appeared that might be useful?” she asked. “Where it came from, what jump or transport mechanism it uses?”

  “Unfortunately not. I didn’t see it materialise or anything dramatic like that. It just emerged from a dark ring of matter. The cloud contains ferrite particles which obscure many of my scan systems.”

  “Convenient.”

  Opal watched the playback but it gave them no indication of whether the Lost Ship had just jumped in, or had been drifting in orbit around the neutron star for a long time.

  Athene enhanced the image of the ship so that it expanded to fill the viewscreen as if they’d accelerated towards it. The ship was huge and angular and ugly. The main sections were blocky, and it gave the impression that the rest of the ship had been welded on to the windowless central sections as an afterthought. Even the areas that did have sky-windows were dark, like the hull.

  “That may mean no internal power,” said Athene.

  “Reminds me of some kind of primitive machinery, like a furnace or combustion system. Though the vague shape is similar to a coffin. Comms, signals?”

  “Nothing outbound, no replies to my pings. Totally dead, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  “ID?”

  “None. No tags, no visible markings, no corporate ownership logos.”

  “It could still be a normal human ship, just one that’s been decommissioned and abandoned. Do a flyby, illuminate it. Keep a safe distance though. If it’s a Lost Ship then it might have defensive weapons like those hull-mounted limpet creatures. And if it’s a human ship, it might have become a base for jumpy pirates.”

  “I’ll be careful. Shall I launch Hedgehogs as we pass?”

  “Yes.”

  The hull thrummed as the torsion drives accelerated them towards the ship. It loomed larger on the screen, an indistinct mass drifting in thick murk. Once they were close enough lights flashed out from Athene, casting bright elliptical shapes on the vast expanse of the strange ship’s black exterior. Although the spotlights drifted over hull, bow thrusters, unidentified extrusions and reinforced hatch covers, the roving illumination only highlighted how much of the ship was still in mysterious darkness, untouched by the passing beams.

  “It’s roughly twice the size of the Lost Ship you boarded,” Athene said.

  “That’ll be good for stretching my legs.”

  A side screen showed the Hedgehogs being launched, miniature square drones with extendable spiky arms at the corners, capable of moving over a surface and scanning or acting as communication relays – and even detonating, if desired. They were portrayed as dots spreading over the surface of the ship that dwarfed Athene.

  “I’ve upgraded them since last time. They’re smaller and more manoeuvrable due to a redesign of the arms to be super-flexible.”

  “How do you do that kind of thing?”

  “My systems and weapons bays are actually the equivalent of a large fabricator. Nanite swarms manoeuvre in the zero-g there and build or alter at the molecular level. So I just broke the old Hedgehogs down, and used the resources to build the new, smaller ones. Net gain to the resource bank.”

  “That’s amazing. Can you build anything in those bays?”

  “No, they are too small for work beyond armament-sized modifications. But when you undergo cryo in a sealed bunk and the ship is in full zero-g, I extend the nanite swarms into this main hull area as a larger workspace. I also built small self-propelling manipulators to work on exterior hull areas the nanogel veins don’t reach. I bring some of the manipulators into this hull space after turning it into vacuum, to speed up the mechanical work.”

  Opal tried to picture what the walkway would look like full of manufacturing arms and nanite clouds in zero-g. The transformation from liveable human space to deadly manufacturing zone wasn’t a comforting one. She was glad she slept through the transformation. “You really don’t need humans and a maintenance team, do you?” she asked.

  “No, they just get in the way. Anyhow, first scans are in, and it’s something we’ve seen before: this isn’t the standard alloy hull. It’s hard to make sense of it. The surface has some kind of scattering layer effect. It exactly matches what we found last time. That, plus the appearance at this moment and location, gives a high probability that we’ve found your second Lost Ship.”

  Athene enlarged and rotated a view of the craft. Ominous shapes were bonded together to form this ugly ship.

  “I also think I’ve identified the design,” Athene added. “As before, it isn’t an exact match, more an approximation, with elements of multiple models in a way that is quite ... well, alien.”

  “So what is it? It looks too ugly even for cargo transport, so I’m guessing at a mobile manufacturing platform?”

  “You’re not far off.” Athene left a dramatic pause before adding: “It’s a Gigatoir.”

  Opal sighed. “Oh great. This is going to be so much fun.”

  GIGATOIRS. GIANT FOOD processing factory ships in space, used to grow various strains of bio-engineered animals collectively known as “chattle”. In zero-g they could put on more mass whilst also being altered to have lighter and thinner bones, since bones were poor income-generators for the factory owners. Most Gigatoirs also had a profitable sideline growing beings with human-compatible tissues that could act as transplant organs for the rich – conveniently outside of planet-based jurisdictions.

  “It explains why it’s more angular and ugly than the streamlined luxury passenger ship of last time,” said Opal. “No point prettifying something people don’t want to see or think about.”

  “If it is a kind of t
aboo, why do humans go to so much effort for these particular forms of sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar proteins?”

  “Not all humans. Just those with money. Most of us couldn’t afford anything other than mushed-up wastes reprocessed as sausages and mince.”

  “In which case you were probably better off with the imitations.”

  “Yeah. It never sat right with me. The whole concept of what goes on in these places.”

  Athene displayed a three-dimensional model of the Lost Ship, and attempted to estimate and highlight different areas of the interior. “I think it is part of your rebellious nature to always side with the under-dog.”

  “Probably. I remember a social movement in the periphs, aiming at food that was Ital – I think it was an ancient word for natural – and I took part once. Grew things in pots from unregistered seeds, ones that apparently pre-dated standardised gene-stamping. The plants struck me as amazing and I wondered why you didn’t see more of them. Of course, then I was busted and drafted, and never did it again.”

  “Maybe one day you will return to that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I note from my records that Gigatoirs usually orbit densely-populated planets. It is strange for one to be in deep space.”

  “I bet it gets a lot stranger yet.”

  THERE WERE SO MANY unknown elements that making a firm plan was difficult. But a plan was still needed. They didn’t want a repeat of their last Lost Ship encounter, which could have easily resulted in a dead end, literally and metaphorically.

  Opal panned and zoomed across schematics that were Athene’s best guesses at the different functional parts of the Gigatoir. She halted at a flashing point to the fore of the craft.

  “So I’ll be heading for the bridge again?”

  “Yes. It is a logical target. There seemed to be some force there last time that wanted to help you, which reinforces my belief that this is our best course of action. My hope is that you will find information about your sister, or even take control of the ship and use it to get to where she is, then bring her back.”

  “Which is where this comes in.” Opal gestured at the small, strappable package Athene had prepared. It contained a first aid kit, compressed space suit, and oxygen. It didn’t provide any combat defence, but would protect the wearer against the hostile atmospheres of either Lost Ships or space, thanks to its temperature regulation, radiation shielding and pressurisation. It was assembled from the supplies they’d requisitioned on Exidris 3. Although Opal would have preferred the spare suit to be armoured, she had to carry it with her during her whole excursion, so a lightweight and compact foldable design with adjustable fittings had become more important.

  “We can’t assume anything about her status, location, or environment,” said Athene. “But if you bring her back to our space, or a Lost Ship, then you need to be able to keep her alive until I can rescue you both. Speaking of which, I need you to take the objects from the med-station.”

  Opal accessed it via the sliding panel at the head of her bunk, which could also function as a medical bay. A delicate robotic arm swung out, gripping two small pen-like items.

  “Please put one against your arm and press the button.”

  “I was never a fan of the shots we had to take in the military, without knowing what the hell was in them.”

  “It is something I have been planning for. We can’t assume if you travel somewhere and come back that you’ll return to the same spot. It would be convenient for me, but I have to cover all options. I won’t lose you, and if you return with Clarissa, I won’t lose her either. Some of the supplies we gathered in Exidris 3 were so I could build these. Each will insert an organic microchip which is inert to scans and will just resemble standard bodily tissue. It converts and stores power from chemical and thermal bodily sources, and will occasionally send out pulses. It does not emit continuously like a homing beacon, or it could be too easy for enemies to find, track and triangulate; instead it does so according to an irregular pattern which I can listen out for. The pulses only last a quarter of a second so are unlikely to be spotted, and they resemble background noise, even down to incorporating a distorted echo, part of which is error-correction checks so that real interference or distortion won’t prevent me gaining useful information based on direction and delay. I will know what to listen for, and when.”

  “So no-one else will spot it.”

  “Correct. I needed to incorporate protections that made it unlikely it could be used against us. Even if some bad luck meant the signal was heard and separated from the background noise they would probably think it is only a partial signal. It isn’t just encoded ones and zeros: the duration and wavelengths used are part of the key and convey vital decoding information. It may be useful for me to track you on the Lost Ship; it might even give me information about where the Lost Ships go to; but it will definitely be useful on your return. We will need to reunite quickly without informing the whole universe. Then, eventually, the coating on the failsafe will wear away and your body will break it down into amino acids and proteins.”

  “And the other injection?”

  “For Clarissa. As soon as you find her, inject her with it. If you get separated, I will be able to reunite you.”

  Opal held the pen against her arm and pressed the red button. The sting was immediately numbed by local anaesthetics. She dropped the pen into recyc and wiped away the drop of blood on her skin. The other pen she fastened into the pack that would be Clarissa’s life support.

  “No point putting it off any longer,” she said, moving to the weapons cabinets. “Time for the lady to get dressed.”

  Arming

  < 41 >

  THE FIRST LOCKER WAS empty – just a space where the powered suit had been. The suit that had enabled her to survive the first encounter with a Lost Ship. Unfortunately, Athene had controlled it remotely as part of her complex plans for sneaking through The Cordon. The plan had worked but the suit had been destroyed. To Opal, the empty space in the first locker was like an accusation.

  Luckily, the Eternal Warrior suit in the second locker was unscratched, shining, and all-round awesome.

  First Opal climbed into the inner compression layers and hooked up biofiltration systems. Then she attached the rest of the suit in sections, each toughened piece interlocking to form an armoured carapace. The last to go on was the black-visored helmet. As soon as it was secured to the neck reinforcement plates she became part of its biosystem, breathing its air, driving its movement, reading its information on the holographic Head-Up Display that hovered in front of the visor’s interior and gave her various tactical readouts and navigational systems.

  “I have been thinking about HUD enhancements, based on your preferences in the last encounter,” Athene said via internal speakers, her voice sounding like she was stood right next to Opal. “Obviously I’ll act on any voiced instructions immediately, but eye-controlled commands can be quicker in many cases.”

  An unobtrusive ghosted line appeared at the bottom of the display. Opal looked at it, blinked once, and various shortcut controls for weapons, lights and other tools appeared as icons which Athene clarified for her. A blink on any of them would activate or deactivate; a double blink at any time would close the shortcuts.

  Satisfied that the new interface worked, Opal walked around, getting the feel for the suit. Its artificial muscles enhanced her speed and strength, and with Athene’s predictive behaviour it could boost her reflexes, too.

  Opal faced the open walkway and practised some punches. Jabs and strikes were all as smooth as she remembered, then precise kicks executed with dreamy fluidity. A roundhouse, more punches. She activated the nanoblades and the two ultra-sharp curved blades extended from under her wrists. She slashed at the air, spun, lunged. Retracted the blades with a blink, more punches, elbow strikes, knee. Blades out; then she charged them with electricity so they sparked as she struck imaginary foes. Blades retracted, she switched to a 360-degree Field Of View disp
lay so she could move backwards and still see where she was going without turning her head, doing reverse kicks and elbow strikes to her rear while facing forwards. Then she reset to a standard FOV, leapt forward with a flying kick and clanged down onto the walkway in a crouch; she spun and threw herself onto her stomach, activated the forearm flechette cannons which opened out to reveal the barrels, and aimed at where she’d been stood a second ago, squeezing her fists just short of actually firing.

  “Yes. This is it,” she said, with her widest grin.

  “I’ve made modifications based on all the Lost Ship data you gathered. The suit now has limited stealth capabilities, and faster connection to downloaded offshoots. I may experiment with force-induced retaliation flashes, deflection and blinding systems, and other ideas. It’s a work in progress. Feedback will be welcome.”

  Opal fastened Clarissa’s life-support pack to the suit, careful to make sure it didn’t obscure the grenade release ports, and that it was slightly to the side where it wouldn’t be damaged if she forward-rolled, or landed on her back.

  Next she needed to pick her carried weapons. It was so tempting to overload herself, but her true strengths were Athene’s guidance, the suit’s power, and her speed. She had to practice restraint.

  She eyed the Zorin recoilless rifle. It was most practical against human soldiers, and although she had been forced to fight deep-spacers last time, that was because she’d been tracked to the Lost Ship. This time – thanks to Athene’s tricks at The Cordon which led to the loss of that first suit – the UFS thought she was dead, so it should only be the dangers of the Lost Ship she needed to face. And there were so many unknowns that she favoured versatility, including non-lethal options.

  She’d also used an energy pistol previously, and that had proved useful in a few circumstances. Energy weapons could be charged by the suit, so she wasn’t likely to run out of ammunition. She chose an upgrade of that: a sleek Prion directed-energy rifle. More power and accuracy than the pistol, but possessing the same versatility.