Tangent Point: Pulling it Together (Part IV)

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Ajax immediately ran over to the second shuttle. Reed wasn’t sure if Vasily hadn’t noticed that there was another one in this bay, or didn’t think that they would have time to catch up. But as the true, legitimate captain of this vessel, Ajax had the authority to skip all pre-flight procedures, and just go. Reed tried to follow him and Shasta up the ramp. Ajax turned around, and held up a hand. “No. You don’t have a local back-up body. This could be a suicide mission.” He turned back around and started powering up systems.

“Why would you be concerned with that?”

Ajax just kept working. “Because I secretly agree with you. Don’t tell anyone. Just take this thing, and go save our neighbors. I’ll be on the ground. The Tangent is so new that I only had one local back-up.”

“Shasta,” Reed said simply as he was backing away on the ramp.

“I’ll be here to help the Captain if he needs it,” she replied. “Now go so we can close the hatch.”

Reed stepped all the way out, and let them launch without him. It was frustrating, sending people on missions, placing them in danger. But that was the burden of leadership, and it was a lot better in real life than in the space operas, where death was usually permanent. He watched the shuttle for as long as possible until it disappeared around the bend. Then he just kept staring through the transparent plasma barrier. Bungula was beginning to shrink as they were breaking orbit. He breathed a sigh of relief, and then opened his comms. “Ellis calling the bridge. Seal the bulkheads in this shuttle bay and shut off the plasma. We need to save power.”

“Belay that order,” Shasta’s voice came on. “I’ll be coming in with the elevator pod shortly.”

Reed switched to a private channel. “You survived? How did you stop Vasily?”

“I’ll explain when I get back, but Ajax is gone. It’s just me, so have a security team on standby to secure the VIP hostages.”

Reed went back to the main channel. “Send a security squad to Shuttle Bay Four. We got the pod.” He could hear them all cheering on the radio, but he couldn’t celebrate with them. There was still one more loose end to tie up. Vasily was about to be resurrected in the crazy new chrysalis thing, and had to be dealt with too. If he told his people what happened between them, it would cause some internal conflict. Some here would be okay with murdering a human, and might end up siding with Vasily on this matter. Reed could stick him in hock, but there was no guarantee that he would stay there for long. One ally would be all it took to set him free. This was a very delicate situation. He had a number of options, and each came with advantages and disadvantages. He could even just pardon the guy, or straight up keep it all a secret in order to maintain peace. Even if he found a way to transport him off-ship far enough to shift his consciousness stream from the Tangent to Bungula, he might become a martyr. Vasily was a permanent problem no matter what. “Also, send one team to the chrysalis room to escort someone who is about to respawn.”

“Aye, captain,” his Head of Security acknowledged. “Alpha-Gamma squad, go to the shuttle bay. Beta team to the chrysalis room.”

“Hey, Thistle. Report,” Reed asked his AI as he was starting the long trip back up to the bridge alone. The summary ran for as long as it took him to reach his destination. Everything was going all right. Auxiliary engineering was holding the platform together, the security sweep of the tether complex didn’t turn up any other traitors or spies, and the bridge crew was establishing themselves, and settling into their new roles. The biggest job was the cleanup. There were a lot of dead bodies scattered all over the place, which needed to be disposed of respectfully, according to the user’s own personal wishes. Some of these could be found in the database, while others might have to be contacted later. The mutineers responsible for this work knew who they were, and were doing it without being asked. That went for everyone. Nothing was being neglected. Nothing was falling apart. They might actually pull this off.

“Captain,” his pilot began, “we’ve started acceleration. We’ll be on our way in six minutes.”

“Thanks, that’s good to know.”

“Sir,” his comms officer said, taking her turn. “Mediator Fenwick is on hold for peaceful negotiations.” She used airquotes.

“You didn’t alert me right away?” Reed asked.

“We figured you would want to make him sweat,” she replied.

Reed smiled. “Good call.” He took a deep breath, then did a 180. “On screen.” The image appeared. “Kemper, how the hell are ya? Long time, no blackout hock.”

Mediator Fenwick was already frowning, but deepened it now. “You have the audacity to criticize our judgment after what you’ve just pulled? What I did when I ordered your consciousness frozen was an executive decision that I take responsibility for, but it only affected you. You killed dozens of people—”

“Wait, we didn’t kill anyone. We destroyed some people’s substrates. You’re the only one here who has conspired to murder anyone.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Fenwick contended. “Did someone die in the drone strike? That was only meant to disable propulsion.”

“Now, Kemper, we’ve known each other for decades. There’s no need to play coy with me. I know about your spy.”

“We do not have a spy. I will not stand for this projection. It is you who infected our ranks insidiously, and instituted a mutiny. Now, we all have empathy for the Proxima Domanians, and we recognize where you’re coming from, but making us out to be the villains is reckless, and the history books will not remember it that way.”

“Well, I don’t agree with your prediction, but I’m not talking about the kinetic drone, and I’m not talking about you fighting back against the mutiny. I don’t even blame you for that, your people had every right to defend their post. They will be treated with the utmost respect while they’re on board my new platform. No, I’m talking about Vasily.” Everyone within Reed’s field of vision winced at the accusation, and probably everyone he couldn’t see too. “Now, I don’t know how you got to him, but he placed the VIPs in the elevator pod in grave—”

“Executor Ellis,” Fenwick interrupted. “I do not appreciate being accused of something that I had nothing to do with. If you suffered a betrayal, then I would call that an internal matter. I’ve never even heard the name before, so unless you are not done fabricating tall tales, I would like to move on to the matter of the hostage crisis. For the safe return of all hostages, we are prepared to offer the Tangent passage to Proxima Doma without any interference from the Bungulan military, or the government. It is all you need, let those innocent people go.”

Reed chuckled. “Nice try, Kempy, but I caught your sneaky little semantic trick. The Bungulan military is symbolic at best, which is why you were woefully unprepared for our takeover. Teagarden, on the other hand, operates under an entirely different jurisdiction, and would be under absolutely no obligation to uphold any promise of amnesty that the Bungulan authority might offer. I doubt you’ve even mobilized your own forces. I’m sure your first call was to that Teaguardian I see matching our speed on the port side. Are we quite finished joking?”

Fenwick knew that he had been made. “Reed, you don’t wanna do this. Even if you make it out of Bungulan space—even if you make it all the way to Doma—how do you think you’re gonna pull this off? What, you’re gonna hover over one of the poles for years at the shortest, and then you’re gonna fly to the other pole and do it again? And throughout all of that, the Teaguardian isn’t gonna figure out a way to rescue the undigitized humans, and then blow everyone else out of the sky? You won’t survive that. You’ll be too far from any back-ups. You’ll just be dead. We’ll rebuild the Tangent, and the galaxy will move forward.”

“You still think you’re the good guy here?” Reed questioned. “The people next door are dying. You really wanna do the right thing? Tell that Teaguardian to give us whatever magical engine they use to travel faster than light, so we can get this done, and get out! We will bring the Tangent back. Every single one of my people fully recognizes the consequences of our actions. No one is thinking they’re just gonna go back to their lives as if nothing happened. We’re doing it because no one else is. We’re doing it because you’re a bunch of self-obsessed, elitist nutsacks!”

Mediator Fenwick shook his head. “This is the last chance you will get to talk to me, Ellis. If you finish breaking orbit, it will be out of my hands. The Teaguardians will take over the case, and they won’t be as nice. They may not care about the VIPs. Their ancestors pioneered neural digitalization, and it’s been centuries. A lot of people think we should stop worrying about humans who willfully reject virtual immortality. I’m not one of those people, but you’re about a minute away from it being out of my hands. Abort the burn, come back down. I’m not asking for any hostages yet, or for you to surrender. Let’s just talk about this some more.”

“No more talking,” Reed decided. “I tried talking to you for a week. You offered airdrops—airdrops! A coward’s hollow gesture. I’m sick of looking at your face. Tell your Teagarden contact to bring it on!”

Without his order, his comms officer cut the call.

Reed took a breath, and looked over at his weapons officer, Aletha. “I already know the answer to this, but maybe there was some faulty intel. Does the Tangent have a weapons system?”

“No,” Aletha said. “It’s not a battleship. The only things keeping us from the next salvo of kinetic drones are in that elevator pod that we hooked.”

Reed nodded, then looked back over at comms. “Shipwide message.” He waited half a second. “New crew of the Tangent, Phase One is complete. Aletha will be coming around to collect your weapons from you, and check them back into the system. Only designated security personnel will be keeping their sidearms. Thank you for everything you’ve done. I hope you’re ready to keep going, because there’s no going back now.” He double checked the screen. “We are officially on our way to Proxima Doma.” He could hear more cheers over the radio, and out in the corridor.

“Congratulations, Captain,” Transdimensional Regulator Van Horn said.

“Thanks, Amulet,” he replied, “but I didn’t do it alone. In fact, I took a nap earlier today while everyone else was getting in place.”

Everyone giggled at that.

Reed breathed deeply, and sat down in the captain’s chair for the first time. That was when Shasta walked in, so he jumped back up. “Ajax?”

“He didn’t make it,” she replied.

“In here,” Reed decided, gesturing towards the captain’s bridge office. They went inside for a private conversation.

“It happened quite quickly,” Shasta began. “Vasily was able to send the shuttle forwards, but not particularly fast, so we were able to catch up before it could collide with the pod. I programmed our shuttle to match vector with the target, flying above it, while Ajax sealed the airlock. He wasn’t even wearing a suit. He tethered himself to the wall, and then swung down. I don’t know exactly what happened then, but he immediately broke the synchrony and altered course. He eventually burned up in the atmosphere. I think he killed himself so there would be no question who was in charge here. He did it to protect your authority.”

“No one can know,” Reed determined. “The official story is Vasily, delirious and dying, fought back, and the shuttle was lost. On the record, Ajax must be our enemy. Maybe we’ll be able to thank him one day.”

“I’ll fill out the report. And Vasily himself?” she asked

“He’ll be in hock alone. We need to minimize the amount he interacts with others so he doesn’t influence and infect my crew.”

“Understood.”

The doorbell. “Enter,” Reed offered.

The door opened. A security officer was standing next to—not only a VIP—but the most valuable hostage asset they had on board right now. “Sorry, sir. She insisted. She threatened to kill herself.”

“It’s all right, officer. Delegator Jodene Chariot, it’s an honor,” Reed said without a hint of sarcasm.

She sighed exasperatedly. “Report.”

“Six months. With only two operational fusion torches, it will take us six months to get to the Proxima Centauri system. Once we’re there, we’ll hover over the poles one at a time, and transport as many as we can off of the surface. Once the job is done, I will hand the reins over to you, and you can do whatever you want with me. We’ll negotiate specifics...in six months.”

“When I was in the elevator pod, we only saw one torch get hit by a drone,” Jodene said. “If you absolutely must do this, and no one can stop you, I would like it to get done faster.”

“You can thank the military for the delay. Without that fourth torch, propulsion is out of balance. We can only actually use the two opposing each other. The third one will just be sitting there, doing nothing.”

“Can the fourth one be fixed en route?” she pressed.

“Yeah,” Reed answered. “It’ll take about six months.”

“Why bother?” Jodene questioned.

“We’ll need it,” Shasta interjected. “When we get there to hover over the poles, we will need as much power as we can muster. The repairs will not be a waste of time.”

“Your crew is not equipped to handle such an undertaking.”

Reed smiled. “I’m not allowing anyone else on board. We will be releasing some hostages as a sign of good faith, but my people know what they’re doing. They can handle it. That’s why they’re here.”

“Still, you could use some extra manpower,” Jodene reasoned. “I just so happen to know of a bunch of people who were literally enrolled to work on the Tangent, and could expedite the work, as well as make sure it lives up to code.”

Reed nodded. “You’re just talking about the other hostages. You want some kind of work-release program? You just got on board, and you’re already negotiating?”

“No time like the present,” Jodene said. “Immediately acknowledging the value of the regular crew will go a long way to earning their trust.”

“It will be hard to trust them,” Reed admitted. “It would only take one person to sabotage a vital system function, and take us all down.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Jodene volunteered.

He gave her a funny face. “That doesn’t help. I would have to trust you too.”

“I can’t tell you what to think, but you should know that I have a neural suicide inducer. I can simply deliberately transfer my consciousness in full to a back-up without having to shoot myself in the head, or whatever. I don’t have to stay here.” Jodene pointed to the viewscreen on the wall that was showing the port side live feed. “That Teaguardian over there is fully ready to receive the digitized mind of anyone who dies. They don’t have to have a substrate waiting for them. They’ll just hang out in a virtual environment until a new body can be built.”

“All right, no need to make threats,” Reed contended. “We can make this work. Let’s head to hock right now, and address the crew together, so it’s clear that we’re on the same page.”

They did manage to make it work. It wasn’t easy, and there was plenty of friction, but the two separate crews fell into a routine, and eventually became one. It was difficult to remember which of them was part of the mutiny, and who belonged there legitimately. With the extra hands, they were able to rebuild the fourth fusion torch, negotiating for rare materials by releasing some non-essential crew to the Teaguardian escort, including a couple of VIPs who had almost nothing to offer. While some crewmembers were working on that, others were braiding tethers together. When you’re over the equator at geostationary orbit, the tethers can be fairly thin, but must be ultra-long. Over a pole, it’s the opposite. The strain causes a demand for extra strength, but they can hover closer, so the tethers don’t need to be as long.

They arrived in the Proxima system within five months. By then, the Domanians had been suffering their own socio-political issues. Low resources and high waste heat led to raised tensions, and muted morale. Reed now faced the first actual dilemma to come out of this whole thing. Should they rescue the refugees from the southern pole first, or the northern pole? The people on the ground sure had their opinions about it.

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Microstory 2623: Move it to the Exits, I Hope You Have Found a Friend

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August 28, 2526. It’s been another day, but the survivors have made it to the top of the hill, which was harder than they believed, but it will give them their best chance of getting out of this alive, so no one is complaining. During the walk, Breanna and Cash taught everyone how to use their parachutes. The Levins were in awe of how the chutes were able to expand and retract with the push of a button. Base jumping was a not unpopular sport under their dome, but they never developed anything this sophisticated. The Breckenridgers were just in awe of the concept in general as they had not even dreamed of such technology. Everyone has done well, so Breanna thinks they’re ready to make the jump. She and Cash will not be able to help them if something goes wrong, but they’ll have the beetloid, which is evidently inclined to help people.

One by one, they help the other survivors launch. They get a running start, deploy their chute, jump off the cliff, and activate hang gliding mode. An electrical current is sent through the canopy to stiffen it up. This is the only way they’ll be able to cross over four kilometers without plunging into the depths. In fact, they might be able to go a lot farther, depending on the temperature and pressure on the other side. The gases would actually kind of be the holy grail for this sort of thing if the price for failure wasn’t death. If they remember Breanna and Cash’s instructions, they’ll stay aloft for long enough to reach the other side. From there, they will be able to continue northwards. They have beacons and comms, so if they end up separated—which they probably will, because it’s safer to let that happen than to try to stick together, and risk losing altitude—they will be able to reunite somewhere. They were all good students. They’re gonna be okay. Breanna couldn’t have asked for a better group, and while she won’t be around to get them all the way there, she got to see them through most of the journey.

“You’re not coming, are you?” The guy who Tertius saved from the cyclone is the last one, and the only one to see the writing on the wall.

“You should go. We’ll be right behind you, I promise,” Breanna lies.

He’s not buying it. “Why can’t you come with us?”

Breanna sighs. “We don’t have our parachutes. Well, we do, but not the kind that can be switched to hang glider mode.”

“I was born in Leviss. They had this thing called tandem diving. I never got a chance to do it myself before my family left, but...” He trails off, having said enough to get his point across.

Breanna nods. “We’re not equipped for that. Your suits are a different model, and don’t have the straps that we would need. We have some straps, but they’re worn out and too short.”

“We could rig something up,” he reasons. “Calypso is still in comms range. Let’s call her back, and figure this out.”

“It wouldn’t be safe. We didn’t want to lower your chances of making it across. If we were just base jumping together, I would go for it, but you need all the luck you can get to go as far horizontally as possible. It’s not worth the risk. We’ll be fine, we have education and experience in this sort of thing, so we’ll figure it out.”

“No, you won’t. You’re just getting ready to die. I was wondering what those looks of calm on your faces were about. Now I know. Now I understand.” He crosses his arms like a petulant child.

“That is not your concern,” Cash argues. “Tertius saved your life, and then it looks like he lost his. Don’t waste that gift. Get over there with the others, tell them we’re proud of them, and then keep moving until you find safety.”

Now he sighs. “Okay. Thank you...for everything.” He steps back, leans forward, but stops again. “Wait, the beetle.”

“Cash already suggested that,” Breanna says. “It can only hold one person, and before you ask, it can’t make two trips. It’s not designed to fly around. It’s just meant to hop from one part of a dome to another one nearby. It barely got Calypso back to us.”

“I took a look at its diagnostics,” Cash continues. “It’s running low on fuel, and the toxins are damaging its components almost as much as it would our bodies. Honestly, it might not make it across itself, and I certainly don’t want it trying to make it back up to higher ground. We can’t rely on it for another trip.”

“Over here, she and I stand a chance of finding another way,” Breanna finishes. “Now go on, git!”

“Very well,” he gets back into his stance, then runs off and flies away from them.

By the time he makes his jump, the first survivor has landed on the other side. They can’t see her from this distance through all the fumes, but the augmented reality is showing everyone as little dots on their huds.

The two of them stand on the cliff’s edge, watching those dots get farther and farther away. In under five minutes, everyone else has landed, including Notus. Breanna tries to make contact with them, but there’s too much interference. They’re on their own now, but she’s confident that they will do what needs to be done. The worst is behind them already. If they encounter any dangers up ahead like the ones they’ve already faced, then it means the whole planet is unsafe, and nothing would matter anyway. They continue to watch as the dots reconvene back on the ground. They’re surely close enough to communicate with each other by now, so everyone knows the deal. Even though it’s getting quite hot up here, Breanna and Cash don’t want to leave in case they see someone try to glide back to them. It might be possible, but more likely for an expert, which none of them is. There is just too much verticality to cover.

“We best be heading back down, eh?” Cash offers, feeling it safe to let them go.

“We best,” Breanna agrees. “Where exactly are we gonna go, though?”

“I suggest we head back for the nearest dome. There might be something there we can use. Hell, they might have left a rocket behind for all we know. This close to the safety zone, it would have been impractical for them to take it, but for us, it could be our only shot.”

“That would be cool, but I would settle for a couple new IMS units with working hang gliders.”

The two of them climb back down the hill, and walk back eastward along the edge of the chasm. They become tired, so they initiate the vacuum tent, which was too heavy to risk sending with the others. They climb inside and remove their suits to a great deal of relief. Then they look at each other. They’re alone together for the first time in a long time. Something has been brewing, but they have not had any opportunity to explore exactly what that might be until now. So they clamber to remove the rest of their clothing, frantically trying to help each other. And then, at last, at the very end of the only world they have ever known, they consummate their love.

Microstory 2622: Sometimes You’re the Windshield, Sometimes You’re the Bug

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August 27, 2526. The ragtag group of survivors have almost made it. They can see the Chappa’ai Mountains up ahead. They will still want to get as far north as they possibly can, but according to the science, crossing that threshold will allow them to breathe a sigh of relief. The ground is more stable and solid. After all this, salvation is within their grasp. So of course something else has to get in the way. And it’s huge.

“Brake!” Breanna orders. “Brake, brake, brake!” she repeats.

“I see it!” Cash responds, matching her energy. She can’t brake any harder than this, though. It’s just a button, and it does what it does as fast as physics allows.

“Hold on!” Breanna shouts. Even though she’s magnetized to the floor, she reaches up and takes hold of the overhead oscilight for balance. They certainly don’t need it to see, and if anyone is on the tracks, the oncoming railcart is the least of their concerns. Before them, the ground is opening up. The mountains are sliding apart from each other. They can see the red glimmer of the vengeful lava below, even as the day side begins to overtake the shrinking breadth of the Terminator Line. “Be prepared to jump if I say so! It may be our only hope! Once we do, you’ll wanna start running in the opposite direction! But not yet! We’re still moving too fast!”

“Can we just parachute off!” someone asks.

“Too much turbulence!” Breanna cries back. “Just wait for my instructions!” 

They all scream into the comms. Even Tertius and Aeterna look worried, though that may be more from empathy than fear. The chasm is pulling the tracks ahead of them down now, along with the spine that led others up to the safety of the pole. Hopefully, no one is in them right now. The train stations have all become non-operational, but that doesn’t mean no one is trying to walk it. Breanna isn’t so sure about her instructions anymore. There may be nothing they can do. Even if they manage to stop, the ground is falling away, and they don’t know when that’s gonna stop. The fact is, they started this evacuation late, and got held up too many times. Survival was never guaranteed. They did their best.

“Okay, bad news!” Cash says seconds later. “The brake broke! I’ve lost control!”

Suddenly, as if in response to Cash’s problem, a large object flies in from the side, and slams into the front of the railcart. There is no time to figure out what it is. Two people are catapulted forward, one of them being Aeterna, and the other unknown with their IMS fully on. They arch over the object, and down into the bowels of the planet. Having finished saving the cart, the beetloid drone reopens its elytra, and reengages its rotowings. It dives down into the abyss. They hold their breaths and wait, too afraid to move on this precarious cart. It could tip over too at any second, and they want the beetloid free to rescue them again, so they’re gonna let it finish its latest mission. After a minute or two, it darts back into view, and lands safely on the tracks behind them.

Only one person is sitting on its head. They slide off, and appear to be hyperventilating, but otherwise alive. Tertius looks over at Breanna. “I missed out on 200 years with my daughter. I just got her back. I can’t abandon her again.” He leans back and lets himself fall into the chasm. Okay, he may have survived the pyrotornado somehow, but they’re not surviving that!

“We need to go,” Cash says.

Breanna doesn’t move. She’s looking out at the impassable new obstacle, thinking about the Valerians, and in general how deep of shit they’re in.

“Bre! We have to go!” Cash urges.

Breanna nods, then follows the group off the cart. They all stop and look back when they hear the sound of metal scraping against metal. The cart has finally slipped over the edge itself. “Go into a light jog, but slow down if the tracks start to feel unstable. We wanna get as far from that thing as possible, but not if that means falling over the edge anyway. Even away from that chasm, we’re pretty high up.

They go a little under a kilometer back southwards before finding a ladder to climb down to the surface, where they start walking westwards, trying to see where the new chasm ends. A young woman named Calypso rushes up to Breanna. She’s the one who fell over with Aeterna. “Why did it save me? Why did it save me and not her?”

Breanna looks over at the beetloid, which is walking alongside them like a loyal dog. It’s a specialized service drone. She’s not exactly an expert on them, but she wouldn’t have thought they programmed it with any sense of duty to rescue humans. But maybe they did, or maybe someone modified it aftermarket, or maybe it’s learning. “I can’t say for sure, but my guess is it calculated the likelihood of survival. Had it not caught you, and brought you back up, you would have fried in the toxic gases before your body could have hit the bottom. Aeterna was practically naked. It probably figured that she was already dead. There was no point in trying to rescue both of you, and losing the one person who might still stand a chance.”

“Is she? Is she dead?”

“If she’s not, I don’t know how she would get out of that. You don’t really sink in lava, but that’s because your body would be incinerated on the surface. But if she’s a god, and can survive that, she might not be able to get out anyway. I can’t imagine we’ll be seeing either of those two ever again.” That’s what they assumed last time, however.

“There,” Cash says, pointing. “That hill takes us high enough.”

“High enough for what?” Breanna asks.

“To parachute. We’ll glide across the ravine, and land on the other side. The plumes of gas actually help us. It won’t be easy, but it’ll get us there.”

“Well, you remember that the two of us don’t—” Breanna tries to begin.

“It will get us there,” Cash interrupts.

Brenna shakes her head, and looks at her wrist interface. “It’s already quite hot. The day side is drawing closer. We shouldn’t go that far west.”

“We won’t be there long,” Cash justifies. “We’re just gonna jump off and go, and then we’ll scramble back to the Terminator Line, and continue northwards.”

“Fine. Let’s take a vote,” Breanna says. “Fair warning, your parachutes might not make it. Those fumes are dangerous. We’ll have to teach you how to control them, you might need to change directions midflight, and you still might come up short. I will say,  there’s nothing for you on this side. The northern pole is the only option.”

And so the group heads for the hill in the middle distance. Breanna and Cash choose not to tell the others that there’s a problem.

“Wait, what about that thing?” Cash suggests.

“That?” Breanna looks at the Beetloid again. “That can only hold one person.”

“We could play Rock, Paper, Scissors for it?”

Microstory 2620: They May Call it an Unknown Unknown, But Many Will Say They Should Have Known

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August 25, 2526. In the year 2155, Earthan scientists dispatched a series of procession probes towards Proxima Centauri. These were not the first probes to visit the star system, but they were far superior. It took the procession over 28 years to arrive, most of them sacrificing themselves to the fury of the red dwarf. There was nothing there to slow them down, except local gravity. The first one used solar pressure to decelerate as much as physics allowed, and transformed the energy it was receiving into a laser beam, which pushed against the next probe, decelerating it even faster. One by one they came, each one pushing back against the next in line before falling into the sun, until the last one was moving slow enough to survive. It performed a gravity braking maneuver around Centauri, and then remained there to perform its duties.

The first thing the final probe did was prepare what they called a catcher’s mitt. This was an electromagnetic tube built into an asteroid, designed to slow down any other vessel set to arrive by creating drag, so there would have to be no more sacrifices. The probe’s primary function, however, was to survey Proxima Centauri b, which colonists would later deem Proxima Doma. It looked up and down the land, building a map, and charting its past. It captured the mass, density, and surface gravity. It labeled the canyons, lava tubes, craters, and mountains. It sent high resolution images back to Earth, and the rest of Sol. It prepared for the nanofactories in 2194, which were made to build everything else that the colonists would need to live and thrive on the surface.

The probe noticed two very interesting geological features, later to be named the Chappa’ai and the Annulus mountain ranges. The former was in the north, and the latter in the south. They circled the poles quite fantastically perfectly. They weren’t artificial, but they were surprisingly smooth, in geological terms, anyway. They separated the poles from the rest of the planet, along the Terminator Line, and on both planetary faces. The researchers who studied these fascinating walls interpreted them as evidence of severe crater impacts. The fact that they could be found at both poles was mysterious and noteworthy, but not wholly implausible. Space is a dangerous and chaotic place. Things are flying every which way all the time. Why, Earth only supports life because a smaller planet once crashed into it, and ultimately made the moon. That was implausible too but it obviously happened. They certainly didn’t think there was anything else going on here. They had no alternative explanation.

As it turns out, the rings were not created by two perfectly positioned bolide impacts. They are the result of a multi-millennia long cycle, precipitated by the instability of the host star. Proxima Centauri was already volatile prior to this, sending out solar flares, and even coronal mass ejections, constantly. The polarity reverses every several years. It’s commonplace. It’s predictable. It’s accounted for. Very occasionally—but reasonably predictably, given enough data—the poles flip so spectacularly that it spells catastrophe for the orbiting terrestrial planet. That is what is happening in the here and now. The poles snapped, and sent a massive CME towards the colony. The atmosphere swelled, the surface turned into soup, and the ants were sent running for the hills. But it is not over. The cataclysm is only beginning. Because those polar rings? They’re suture zones, and they’re beginning to rip apart at the seams. And not everyone will be on the correct side when that happens.

Tangent Point: Trial by Fire (Part II)

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The chaos on the bridge was hard to track for most, but not for Reed. He knew who his people were, which meant, by process of elimination, he could find all of his targets, which they were choosing to call tangentials. He was grateful to Aletha’s special weaponry, which allowed him to fire nearly indiscriminately, knowing that anyone who died would simply wake up in a new body, and anyone stunned would be unconscious for a few hours. The advantage in this surprise attack was that they were all meant to be friends here. No one was wearing special clothing or markers to identify which side they were on. So the tangentials were actually targeting each other, in addition to Reed and his people. They were clocking everyone as a threat, because it could have been anyone. All they saw were guns raised, and that was more than enough reason to shoot now and ask questions later. In the past, that was only a joke, but the tangentials actually would be able to do that here...assuming they won, which they weren’t going to.

As Reed was taking control here, an AI voice was summarizing the progress in other sectors of The Tangent. The plans in those other sectors were developing more smoothly. The tangentials were caught by surprise, and largely unarmed. Members of the security team were scattered about, and they were firing back, but for the most part, Reed’s commandeerers were winning. According to live reports, their biggest hurdle was engineering. Almost all of Reed’s people had been disarmed. The one who called to warn him about it was able to hold her own, but she was pinned down, and alone. Reed ducked behind a console and tried to whisper, “get me more people to engineering. All available units, help secure engineering.”

Annoyingly, someone hiding behind a nearby console heard him. It was the one who recognized Reed despite his advanced age in this body. Reed recognized him right back, though he couldn’t remember his name. “Security!” the guy yelled into his own communicator. “Get to engineering! Don’t let them take engineering!”

“Argh,” Reed complained, shooting the guy in the head, a bit disappointed in himself for feeling satisfaction at that. Now he had to get to engineering himself so he could assume direct responsibility for it. He assumed that the bridge would be the hardest to hold, but that was looking fine for now.

“Seal the bulkheads!” he heard one of his people demand.

Reed got up to survey the scene. It was theirs. The bridge was theirs. Two of the commandeerers were shooting at anyone trying to make it through the entrance while one of them had a gun trained on the Head Architect’s head as he was sitting in the captain’s chair, cowering.

“Seal them now!” Vasily repeated. “Do it!”

“I—I, I, I don’t have authorization,” the architect claimed.

Reed walked over there with authority and presence. “We know that you do. There’s no way you built this thing without being able to control it. It would have been impossible. Just close the doors, and grant me command access.”

“You’ll have to kill me,” the architect spat.

“That can be arranged.” Reed lifted his own weapon, and pointed it at the architect too. The autophaser switched to stun mode. “You’re undigitized.”

“Is there any other way to truly live?” the architect questioned.

Reed lowered his gun and sighed as he looked over at the other gun threatening the architect’s life. “Vasily. Why is your weapon on manual?”

“Because this is serious,” Vasily replied.

“Take it off manual...right now.”

“He needs to know that we’re not playing around. The doors will close, whether he wants them to or not.” Vasily looked back at his target. “Do you want them to?”

“No,” the architect answered, growing bolder.

They heard a stirring on the floor. It was Ajax, who was not only a captain, but the captain of the Tangent.

“Well, he can close them too, can’t he?” Vasily decided.

“Vasily,” Reed warned.

“You’re next if you don’t help us,” Vasily explained, looking down at Ajax, who was starting to stand back up. Then he shot the architect point blank. He was dead now; not backed-up, not set to heal from his wounds, but completely, totally, and permanently dead.

“Vasily!” Reed cried. “What the hell did you just do!”

“What I had to!” Vasily volleyed.

Frustrated, but more afraid of losing control of the situation, Reed lifted his gun again, this time at his own compatriot. He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened.

Vasily smirked. “Did Aletha not tell you that it also comes with an anti-friendly fire function? We programmed everyone into the system.”

“That was reckless,” Reed argued. “You created an entire manifest of dissidents. If that had leaked, they could have stopped this all before it began.”

“Well, that didn’t happen, and they obviously know who we are now anyway.”

“But only some of us will be trapped on Bungula after the Tangent launches.”

“Who?” Vasily questioned.

Reed pulled out his knife, and unfortunately jammed it into Vasily’s head.

“Why hast thou forsaken me?” Vasily’s dying brain asked as the blood was running down his cheek.

“We’re rebelling against the cowardly government...not me,” Reed answered.

Vasily’s former substrate fell to the floor.

Captain Ajax stepped over the body. “You want the doors sealed, I’ll seal them. Just don’t kill anyone. Enhanced people still feel pain, ya know.” He tapped his code into the chair interface, and closed the doors. “That code will do most of what you need until it expires, but you won’t have full, permanent authorization, and I’m not going to help you get it.” He contorted his jaw, and crunched down. The cyanide foamed in his mouth, and then he fell down on top of Vasily’s previous body.

Already tired, Reed reached down and input the same code that Ajax had, so his personal keylogger could capture it. After the doors reopened, Reed began to step out. He flung the code to one of the door guards so they could control the systems in his absence. “Hold your post, soldier.”

“Aye, captain.”

“And about Vasily...”

“We’re with you, sir,” the other guard insisted. “You did what you had to. Now go take engineering so we can save our friends.”

“For Proxima Doma,” the first guard said.

“For Proxima Doma!” they chanted in unison. “For Proxima Doma! For Proxima Doma!” Their voices trailed off as Reed was jogging away.

He could hear the firefight as he was coming up on the engineering section. He saw movement in the corner of his eye, so he raised his gun once more, but found it to be a couple of friendlies. It apparently didn’t matter whether he had fired, though. Why did Aletha not tell him about that feature? He held his finger to his lips, and gestured for them to step into that hallway closet, and keep a lookout for tangentials. Reed, meanwhile, went on to enter the fray. “Everyone stop firing!” he cried.

To his surprise, they did all stop.

“If I know statistics—and I know statistics—a great number of you don’t agree with the government’s plan to abandon our neighbors on Proxima Doma! You have two choices, whether you agree or not! You can lay down your arms, and help us execute the rescue mission, or you can lay down your arms, and stay behind! But you’re not winning this! We have the bridge, we have elevator control, and we have everything else! We even have the main cafeteria! This platform is not staying in orbit over Bungula!”

“We will not be party to a mutiny!” someone said. She stepped out from behind a power relay block. “I know who you are, Executor Ellis! Stolen valor is a serious offense, and I do not recognize your authority! Hell, I don’t even see you as an executor anymore. The way I see it, you’re just a criminal!”

“We’re sorry to hear that!” Shasta’s voice said behind Reed. He turned to see her walking into the room very slowly and carefully. She was holding some kind of scary glowing device. It was pulsing with energy, and hurting Reed’s ears a little. He had to move away from it. Everyone else seemed to be feeling the same thing. “Back up! Back up!” She ordered as some tried to inch closer, likely hoping to shut whatever this thing was off. “This is called a blueshift bomb! You walk towards it, it starts rupturing your eardrums! You touch it, it goes off! Trust me, you don’t want it to go off!”

Reed wanted to ask her what the hell she was doing, but he couldn’t get close enough to whisper, and they needed to maintain a united front.

Shasta didn’t walk too far into the room before stopping and setting it down on the floor. “I’m obviously protected against its effects, but no one else is! You should know that it’s highly sensitive to microwave radiation! You don’t even have to fire in its direction to set it off, so unless you wanna die, you’ll put your guns on the floor! It doesn’t care if you’re consciousness is streaming, or if it isn’t! It’s not that smart! It is simply reactive! I probably shouldn’t even be raising my voice! Everyone is going to slowly walk around it, careful not to walk towards it, and come out of the room with your hands up!”

The tangentials reluctantly complied, leaving their guns behind, and agreeing to be cuffed and patted down in the corridor. The commandeerers were allowed to keep their guns, of course, but they had to be holstered for safety. The air was tense, and the process was slow, but things were moving forward. They would clear out engineering, and then Shasta would deactivate the bomb so they could place their own people at the workstations, and finally get moving along.

“Screw this!” one of the tangentials suddenly said just before he could make it over the threshold. “I’m streaming.” He took a few sideways leaps towards the bomb before taking one final jump, and diving on top of it.

Someone thought quickly and slammed their hand against the emergency bulkhead button. Shasta thought just as quickly when she pushed Reed through those doors just in time for him to make it through before the doors shut, allowing herself to be trapped inside. The bomb went off with a painful screeching sound, and pounded dents into the inside of the bulkhead. It was even more powerful than he had guessed. In a few seconds, it was over. Shasta was right, you would not want to be in there when that happened. He was angry that she was in there, and that the man who did it to her was just as far away as she was now, tucked away safely in his little respawn chamber.

“Felaine?” Reed asked, looking over at one of his people.

Felaine wasn’t the one who brought the bomb in here, but she was a demolitions expert, so she definitely knew how a blueshift bomb worked. “All of those substrates are dead. Most of the machinery has been destroyed or disabled. The room was flooded with a ton of deadly radiation. We’re not getting back in there anytime soon.”

“Options?”

“There’s an auxiliary engineering section on the port side,” one of the tangential hostages said. “It’s not as robust, but it will get you moving.”

“Don’t help them!” one of the other tangentials urged.

“This is what helping gets you,” Reed countered. He took his knife back out, and cut the engineer’s cuffs. He looked at the freeman. “Take my people to it, and spool up the fusion torches to prepare to escape orbit. I want to leave as soon as the VIPs are out of the atmosphere. We don’t have time for them to get all the way on board.”

“These people?” one of his commandeerers asked.

“Take ‘em to hock,” Reed ordered. He went off to return to the bridge.

He didn’t get very far before someone called for him on comms. “Captain, there’s a problem with the elevator.”

“What problem is that?” he asked.

“News has traveled, one of the VIPs activated the emergency brakes. I physically cannot restart it from here.”

“Can they go back down?” Reed asked.

“If they reengage the motor, I’ll be able to resume control. All they can do is hold and wait, which I think they’re doing so someone can rescue them.”

“We need those VIPs,” Reed reminded everyone. He took a moment to think as he continued walking. “What is the pod’s current altitude, and can we blow the bolts below it and still make it out of the atmosphere?”

“It’s 83 kilometers over the surface,” the elevator tech explained. “Our Plan B set it at 121 so we could blow the 120 bolts. I’m not happy about it, but it’s technically possible right now. I would be happier at 108 kay-em, so I suppose we’re on Plan D at this point.”

“Sir, I’m seeing a shuttle heading for the elevator,” one of his new bridge crewmembers reported once he had returned. “They’ll reach it in under thirty minutes.”

“Blow it,” Reed ordered. “We’ll blow the 80 bolts. We’ll have to figure out how to drag them out from where they are. Just wait for my cue.” He massaged his temples, noticing that his people were all watching. “We always knew that it wasn’t gonna be easy, right? I didn’t know my best friend would sacrifice herself to save me from a blueshift bomb, and get stuck off-site, but we play the cards we’re dealt, and move on.”

“Sir,” the Tangent’s newest communications officer began. “I assume you would like to speak with the VIPs? Ready on your orders.”

“I need you to block all signals from anyone but me.”

“Already done.”

“Open the channel.” Reed paused for a moment. “Passengers on the maiden lift of the Tangent space elevator, my name is Captain Jean Tiberius Adama. We have retaken control of most of the platform, but there are still some systems in enemy hands. Please secure your persons in your seats, and strap all the way in. Your vertical transportation specialist will assist you if needed. You have thirty seconds. This is for your safety. Thank you.” He motioned for her to cut the link.

There was an awkward silence while they waited for the tethers to pop. “Was that a reference, sir?” a new crewmember asked.

“A few references,” he answered. “I needed them to feel safe, but not so safe that they dismissed my orders, and I didn’t want to impersonate a real officer.”

“Tethers are blown sir,” the elevator tech updated.

“Thank you, Sartore. Now that they’re free, start reeling them in. Who cares about the pod brakes?” He took one beat. “Aux engineering, status of the fusion drives.”

“Magnetic containment fields are at 72%.”

“All right, keep going,” Reed began. “I’ll need updates on the other sections. Let’s start with—”

Alarms started to blare. “Sir!” the sensor officer screamed. “I’m detecting a kinetic drone headed right for our starboard fusion torch!”

“How long?” Reed asked.

“Three seconds!”

Before anyone could do anything, there was a massive explosion, and the whole platform lurched. Artificial gravity was disabled, sending everyone on the bridge careening into the portside hull. “We have three more torches!” Reed cried. “They’re gonna blow them too! Burn ‘em! Burn the other three!”

“I can’t get back to propulsion!”

“I got it!” Reed looked over to see Shasta—alive and well—floating towards the propulsion station. She tapped on the console.

This would save their lives. The torches themselves would vaporize the drones, or at the very least, alter their orbital pattern enough so that any other drones would face navigational issues. In the immediate term, however, they were worse off than they were before. Since the magnetic containment field wasn’t fully operational, this was a dirty burn. That was actually beneficial to them. Since the plasma was unfocused, the chances that it would meet the drone went up. But with only three of the four torches burning, the platform was out of balance, and out of control. Even though the burn only lasted a fraction of a second, that was enough to throw them off. They were now relentlessly spinning in a decaying orbit, well on their way to crashing down on the surface of the planet.

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Microstory 2615: If You Stay, There Will Be Trouble, But if You Go, It Will Be Double

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August 22, 2526. The caravan has been continuing on its way. They have started noticing tracks in the regolith which suggest that others have had to drive to escape. Their own trains might have also been damaged, or they just didn’t want to use them. There’s no way to communicate with people that far away, though. Radio signals can only reach a short distance with all this electromagnetic interference in the air now. Breanna has had to keep the vehicles closer together so they don’t lose track of one another. They obviously lost contact with the two dissenters right quick, so they don’t know what’s become of them, but it’s been more than a day. In all probability, they’re already dead. The truth is, it would be nice if they could confirm that just to be ultra confident that no one else will get the idea to do the same thing.

By and large, despite their horrific circumstances, everything has been going relatively smoothly. Breanna is still the de facto leader since she is the most knowledgeable one here, and everyone seems to be respecting that. While she still says that she’s operating the lead car, it isn’t always the one in front. One or more of the others will periodically come across a nice, road-like surface, and gain some speed. This is fine, it’s not like they’re in a single-file line, so there is no way to serve as vanguard for all of them. Unfortunately, that may be precisely what they should have done.

“So.” Cash spins her seat around to face the rest of the passengers. “Does anyone know any driving ga—?”

The vehicle suddenly veers to the left. They can’t quite tell why at first, but they certainly feel the lurch, and a bright orange light overwhelms their eyes. Breanna reaches up instinctively to take manual control, but that is not the right thing to do in this situation, so she holds back. The autopilot changed directions for a reason, and while it may not be smarter, it does have greater awareness, and can react faster.

“Oh my God!” someone on the radio screams. “It just threw them into the air. Oh my God what is that? What is that!” They continue to hear voices, but it’s just an unintelligible cacophony.

“Zero-three-one is down!” Cash declares, looking at her terminal.

“Down how?” Breanna demands to know. “What happened?”

“This.” Cash flings the image on her screen to Breanna’s. A giant spinning vortex of fire is spiraling up into the air and widening. “I don’t know what any of this means. Weather and natural disasters science isn’t my bag.”

“It’s a pyrotornado. The methane levels just spiked off the charts. There’s probably a reservoir underneath us, which the CME destabilized, and it just went critical, possibly due to our presence.”

“Hello?” someone manages to radio clearly after a brief lull. “What do we do?”

Breanna grabs the mic. “Go radio silent and wait for my instructions. Don’t touch the controls.” She faces Cash. “The rovers haven’t stopped, so I assume it’s better to keep going. If we’re over the pocket, we need to try to get off of it.”

“Impossible to say,” Cash explains quickly. “We don’t have time to survey the land. The one behind us could be a baby. We could be driving towards the motherlode.”

“What’s that right there?” Aetrena asks, leaning forward over Cash’s shoulder, and pointing at her screen.

“The computer is calculating a 56% chance that it’s safer to hunker down than to bug out, but that’s too close to call, so it’s deferring to the operator. It maintains the status quo until you give it a new plan. So we should do that,” Cash urges.

Breanna glances back at the data and tries to make a snap decision. This really isn’t her forte. She likes computers. And that’s why she should trust it. Those are terrible odds, but 56 is higher than 44, so without any further information, the only logical response is to give yourself the best chance. “Do you think that zero-three-one triggered it by running over some kind of entrance? It literally lit a spark?”

“That would be my guess,” Cash concurs.

“Then I’m activating hunker mode for all vehicles.” She starts tapping her interface. “It looks like that thing is moving away or running out of gas. I don’t want what happened to three-one to happen to someone else.” Their rover comes to a complete stop, as do all of the others, spread out a little for safety. “We wait it out while we use our caravan sensor array to run that survey. We need to know where to go, and how to move safely.” She gets back on the radio to do her best to explain all that to everyone else. They have some questions, but Cash is going to have to field them...one at a time, in an orderly fashion. For now, they just aren’t going to move. The computer begins to lower their suspensions, and inject their anchor spikes.

“Boss? This is one-two-one,” someone radios in a panic shortly thereafter.

“Go ahead, one-twenty-one.”

“We lost someone,” Rover 121 says quickly. “He ran out, out of his mind. He doesn’t know anyone here, and has been a little crazy this whole time, but now he said he’s afraid of the small space, and just had to break free.”

“Is he wearing a suit?” Breanna asks.

“Not even a mask. He was scared of that too.”

“I see them, they’re not far,” Cash reports.

“Shit,” Breanna says, going back to the controls. “It will take some time to reverse hunker mode, but faster for us than anyone else, and we all have IMS units.”

Tertius is looking at the screens now. “No time. He’ll die out there. I’ll hoof it.”

“And then what?” Breanna questions.

Tertius grabs the door handle. “Then I’ll give him my suit. Lower your visors.”

They all seal up their suits, except for Aeterna. As soon as her father runs out, also without a vacuum seal, she casually closes the door. Who are these people?

“Come on, come on!” Breanna urges. She keeps one eye on the release progress, and the other on Tertius’ beacon. He’s moving fast, but they’ll be able to catch up if this blasted thing ever gets going. “Goddammit, let’s go!” She impatiently waits a little more, and a little more. “Finally!” She activates manual mode this time, peeling out, and spinning a doughnut.

Visibility is low, but they draw close enough to see Tertius open his suit in the back, grab the panicking guy by the wrists, and shove him into it in his place. Without even waiting for the vehicle to stop, Aeterna opens the door again just as a new explosion right underneath flings them all into the air. She grabs the man just in time, and pulls him in to safety. Her father, though...Breanna doesn’t care how enhanced he is, he’s not surviving a thermal cyclone out in the open like that wearing little more than shorts and a t-shirt. He’s just not. They might not even survive.