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 fabricating the hundreds of pods that they will need, or 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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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: August 29, 2542

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During the team’s interim year, the pocket dimension generator belts they left behind explored the galaxy on their own. They did so while holographically invisible, in case the next encounter was with someone less kind than Renata and Quidel. The belt stack was able to visit nearly one new spot a day, for a total of 360 slings. When the stack arrived somewhere new, it had to wait for the coherence gauges to return to the violet. In the meantime, it took that opportunity to scan the region, providing Ramses with the data that he needed to rule out Spiral Station. The majority of the dots on the map were crabitats, but not all. Obviously, they started with the most remote since those were most likely to be what they were looking for. Besides Extremus, there was Verdemus, which created its own outpost around nearby stars. Some people from the Sixth Key had established a presence in this reality, and it didn’t look like they were hurting anyone, so the team decided to leave them be.

Every day, the belts would chip away at the map, gathering enough information to check each dot off. Now that they were back in the timestream, they elected to give the belts a break since the chances of being present when they found their target were low, and they really didn’t feel like going on another adventure. Ramses built them such a nice multidimensional home to live in, they decided to simply relax. The search was probably going to take years, so what was the rush?

Romana slammed her palm on the couch. “Downbeat!”

Everyone giggled. They actually weren’t even playing Downbeat, but trying to contrive the rules to another fictional game called Hassle the Fishmonger.

“No? I didn’t just win?” Romana questioned.

“Not unless you’re holding Mateo’s hand,” Marie suggested.

“Oh, good idea. I’m writing that down as a new rule,” Mateo said before taking his daughter’s hand in his.

They looked at each other before saying, “downbeat!” simultaneously. And then, as if it had been the magic words, the proximity alarm went off. A security feed appeared in front of the doors that led to the simulated backyard. A giant object had appeared before them, the technicolor webbing still fading away.

“Spiral Station,” Leona said, standing up.

“They must have been looking for us while we were looking for them,” Olimpia figured.

Without doing or saying a single thing, the station wrapped itself in bulk energy, and slung away.

“What the hell was the point of that?” Mateo questioned.

“They left something behind.” Ramses was tapping on his tablet. “It could be a bomb. Executing emergency teleportation.”

For about thirty minutes, they waited thousands of kilometers away, but nothing happened. Ramses had dropped a sensor buoy near the gift. It needed time to assess the threat level, but he was quickly confident that it contained no explosive materials. His best guess was that it was some kind of communication device, so they pulled it inside. He set it on the table and pressed the blinking red button. A hologram of Franka appeared behind the table. The sphere itself turned invisible to declutter the image. “Greetings, Team Matic. Word around the membrane is that you’ve been looking for us.”

Mateo stepped forward. “We have.”

“To what end?” Franka asked.

“Our slingdrive system,” Ramses began. “Someone pointed out that it can’t take us absolutely anywhere. It can only travel to a technological establishment, however remote. We were hoping you could fix that.”

“So you used the limitation to build a map of the galaxy, which pinpointed our location, albeit in an unlabeled manner. That’s clever,” Franka acknowledged.

Ramses looked awkwardly at Romana. “I’m not the one who came up with that either.”

“We’re guessing that you don’t have the same restrictions,” Leona said.

“We do not,” Franka admitted.

Dutch suddenly appeared behind her. He waved at the camera. “Hi, guys!”

“Hi, Dutch,” a few of them replied.

“Hi,” Romana said too, but in a very different tone. Not again.

“Okay, I’m talking here,” Franka said to Dutch, shooing him away without too much anger. She looked back at the team. “I’m afraid that bulk tech was my brother’s responsibility. I don’t know if you heard, but he kind of died?”

“We could have mourned together,” Leona argued, “but you abandoned us in the middle of nowhere.”

“You threatened me!” Franka volleyed. “I don’t like to be threatened!”

“Well, I’m sorry, I regret it!” Leona explained. “Which I would have said earlier, but we couldn’t find you!”

“Well, I’m sorry too!” Franka shouted back. “When you have this much power, it’s hard to remember how much normal people matter!”

“Well, okay!” Leona caught her breath. “I’m done with this sphere. You need to come back so we can have a real conversation.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Franka argued. She then tried to continue.

“We’re busy,” Dutch interrupted again.

“Thanks, Dutch, I got this.” Franka rolled her eyes in a way that suggested she liked having him around to keep the mood light, but it could be a bit much at times. “I brought you this intergalactic communicator so we could stay in contact, but Dutch wasn’t lying. We really are busy. I promise, it’s nothing you wouldn’t approve of, but you have your own destinies to fulfill. You are more boots on the ground, hands-on, street level people. And you...ya know, don’t exist most of the time? We have to stay out of the Milky Way galaxy, because it might cause a severe shift in the balance of power. The people there need to develop as they are for the most part. Project Starseed can’t have—forgive me for using this word—gods saving them all the time. They need people like you...with your limitations, your restrictions...your rules. I bet you’ve been trying to decide where to go. My advice? Go anywhere. Someone there will need you.”

“What about the Oaksent?” Mateo asked her.

“We’ve been monitoring the situation,” Franka told him. “It seems that you were...” She trailed off, and mumbled inaudibly.

“What was that?” Leona pressed. “We can’t hear you. There must be dark matter interference.”

“You were right!” Franka admitted. “The situation was a lot more nuanced than just the hypothetical assassination of one man. They are evidently fixing their own problems. A faction has broken off, and is on its way to go to war with Castlebourne, but it will take them long to get there and find it, and by the time they do, the balance of power will make their efforts fruitless. But instead of it being unfair and easy, the Castlebourners will have done it themselves. Thanks to people like you who made little changes, instead of sweeping decisions. The truth is, mom and dad, I admire you. And we can get to know each other better, but we can’t spend time. Our paths diverged before any of us were even born. One day, we might be able to team up again. I can see the Vellani Ambassador reuniting with the Iman Vellani. I see them working with The Jameela Jamil and Spiral Station. And I see Team Matic at the center of it. But for now, please stay in your corner. They need you, even if they don’t know it.”

“Wait,” Ramses said, worried that Franka was about to log off. “Is there anything you can do about my slingdrives? I know you didn’t design it, but surely Séarlas left behind operator’s manuals.”

“Why would you wanna go where there isn’t anyone else around?” Franka posed.

“I would like the option,” Ramses contended.

Franka sighed, and seemingly considered it. “When you return to the timestream next year, open your little map, and take note of a ping that you didn’t see before. That will be a beacon that I left in a remote region of the galaxy. You can go there for respite. But I’m not granting you access to all of time and space. This is the best I can do.”

“Well...thank you then,” Ramses said, having been hoping for a lot more.

“I better be going,” Franka said.

“Bye!” Dutch jumped back in. “You should go to Be—”

The call was disconnected.

“Well, that was weird,” Mateo said.

“We should try not to think of her as our daughter...because she isn’t,” Leona said to her husband. “She had different parents, who looked like us, and would make a lot of the same decisions as us, but were not us. We didn’t experience that, and we don’t have the right to treat her as family.”

There was an awkward silence, which Olimpia decided to break. “I think I’m gonna take a nap.”

“Yeah, me too,” Angela agreed. “Let’s all take an hour to do whatever we need to do, be that a nap, a talk, or a nice bath.”

Half an hour later, Mateo and Leona were in the former’s room, exhausted from having been talking about their feelings, when the slingdrives powered up. They ran out of their unit, and back into Marie’s. Most of their teammates were doing the same. Angela was fully naked, dripping wet from her shoulders down, and trying to dry herself off with a hand towel. Ramses came out last from his lab. “Who did that?”

“I did.” Romana was walking up the steps from Marie’s basement.

“Where did you bring us?” Leona questioned.

“The only logical place,” Romana answered enigmatically.

“Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida,” Ramses announced, looking at his device.

“Is this because of what Dutch said at the end of the call?” Mateo asked.

“This is obviously what he meant. Trust me, I looked through the colony catalogs, looking for an alternative, and this was the only place he could have possibly been trying to say before he was so rudely cut off.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true,” Leona agreed, “but that doesn’t mean we had to come here, or that you could make that decision without our input.”

Romana brushed it off. “Ugh, I’m so bored. I can’t take another game of Cones of Dunshire. It’s too thinky thinky.”

“The people who live here...” Leona began, trailing off, not knowing how to word it. “They’re not—oh my God. I don’t know how to put it. From the outside, they basically look like hermits, but instead of crabitats, they live in small pockets on the land and sea. Some do live in rotating cylinders, coins, and hammers, but up in orbit, because they don’t see their relative proximity to be any less isolating on a daily basis. No, that’s not right. They participate in community, but they technically live separately. They utilize technology efficiently, to make it so they don’t have to work. They otherwise worship nature, which makes sense given that this world is a miracle. I’m being really general here, but that’s to give you an idea of how they live. They don’t reject technology, and they don’t hate outsiders, but we probably shouldn’t meddle in their affairs.”

“Hold up,” Marie said. “Romy, you’re the one who sent us to Proxima Doma too. Is this the same thing? Did someone tell you to bring us here?”

“Yeah, Dutch,” Romana reminded them.

“I mean someone other than that. Did you meet a seer, or...?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Romana defended. “No more secrets. This is just our next stop. You don’t have to read anything into it. It’s just...we’re just...Doctor Who.”

“Doctor Who?” Leona asked. “How’s that now?”

“The Doctor doesn’t have to do anything,” Romana reasoned. “Everytime he goes somewhere, he pretty much always knows all the stuff. He’s not seeking out new life and new civilizations. He’s just flying around, and whenever he shows up, he helps whoever happens to be there. The writers gave up on contriving reasons for him to do that. It’s just the premise, and that’s enough. Let’s make that our premise. Let’s check out Bida for a little bit, and when we’re done, we’ll pick somewhere else to go. You don’t have to wait for someone to hand you a mission, should you choose to accept it. That’s what my sister was trying to tell us. She’s not my favorite sister, but it makes sense to me now, and I think I agree with her.”

Leona nodded. “It’s not a bad idea. The problem is that Bida has become almost entirely decentralized. That’s the consequence of extreme advancement in a post-scarcity economy. It’s why people like Linwood Meyers exist. Most aren’t misanthropic, but they lost their reasons to work together. Basically, everything that needed to be done is done. Some people will continue to look for new adventures, and new knowledge, but for a lot, a cabin in the woods is enough. They stand upon Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs alone because there is not much room at the top of a pyramid. So the people here probably don’t need us, and even if someone does, the chances of you landing us exactly at that settlement, instead of any of the other twenty million plots, are incredibly low.”

Romana held out her hand, but not in friendship. “I’ll take that bet.”

Leona smiled. “What are we betting?”

“If I win—if we’re where we’re supposed to be, helping the right person or people—you make me your navigator. As Captain, you reserve the right to veto, as I trust your judgment and wisdom, but as navigator, I initially choose our mission, every time.”

“And if I win?” Leona asked.

“If you win...you get infinite favors.” Romana seemed confident that she wouldn’t have to worry about the gravity of that offer.

Leona smiled wider now. “Okay.” She shook her daughter’s hand.

By the end of the day, Romana was the team’s navigator. It wasn’t even that hard. She cheated.

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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.

Microstory 2616: You Awaken in the Wreckage With No Choice but to Go On

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August 23, 2526. Breanna wakes up, still feeling the slight sting on her neck where her suit revitalized her. The IMS isn’t a full-on medical pod, but it does have waysof repairing a damaged body, from some trauma that might be caused despitethe presence of the suit in the first place. She’s not in too much pain, butit’s all over. Her suit won’t administer a painkiller automatically, because it requires the user’s permission. She could theoretically ask for an opioid, though she won’t. She sits up. “Thistle, Administer one dose of a comprehensive pain silencer. No, two doses. I need twenty-four hours at least.”

“Would you like an endorphin stimulator as well?”

“No. It’s fine.” She lies back down so the suit can flash its laser beams all over her skin. She groans as it’s happening, but is able to stop once it’s complete. She then stands up in the wreckage, finding herself on the ceiling of the vehicle. Her friends and the other passengers are strewn about. “Thistle, why weren’t we strapped in?”

“The safety straps were causing unwanted and unhealthy pressure on the users’ suits. They were only released upon landing. Everyone is alive and recovering. As leader, you were revived prematurely to make further decisions.”

“Wake everyone else up as appropriate. Tell me what’s going on, inside and out.”

“Location, unknown. Status of vehicle, irreparably damaged. Situation, dire. Medical prognoses, manageable.”

Breanna manages to find the back hatch, and open it. The surface of the planet is relatively calm, but the tornadoes could be lying in wait. “Options.”

“Walking.”

She chuckles. “Thanks. That’s great.” She takes a beat as she’s watching the wind blow the dust around. “Do you detect a methane deposit below us, or near us?”

“The vehicle’s sensor array is inoperable, and would be insufficient either way.”

“So, you can’t find the caravan either?”

“Negative.”

“Lifesigns detector,” Breanna continues. “Look for anyone or anything.”

“None found.”

There are no more questions to ask, and she can’t make any decisions without the passengers, so she commands her IMS to focus the padding to the back, then lies down to wait. A few hours later, Cash wakes her up, thinking that she’s the last one.

“We’re lost,” Cash explains.

“I know.”

“The rover can’t be fixed.”

“I know,” Breanna repeats, but louder. “I was up before you. I just took a nap.”

“Oh. Well, what now? Do we go out and look for Tertius and Aeterna’s bodies?”

“Aeterna? We lost Aeterna?”

“She’s not here,” Cash replies. “I thought you said you knew everything already.”

“I did a headcount. I thought she was one of these people.”

“Did you remember to count the guy who we rescued from the other rover?”

“Oh, I forgot. Shit. I guess father and daughter are both dead.” Breanna looks at all the passengers, who are apparently gathering supplies. “Good instincts, everybody. We’re gonna have to head out on foot. Carry what you can. Nothing in here is useless, but use your best judgment, and prioritize. Food and water are most important, but if you find any vacuum tents, those are great too.” She yawns as she’s trying to continue. “Don’t worry about power. Your suits will recharge in all that flurry out there. I’m not gonna try to explain fusion or ramscoop nodes to you, but just trust me.”

Most of them go to work, but one sits down on the ceiling. They look depressed, but it’s hard to tell without being able to see a face. “Are you him...the one from the other rover?”

“The asshole who got your friend killed? Yeah,” he answers.

Breanna sits down next to him, and taps on both of their wrist interfaces so they can have a one-on-one conversation through comms. “Tell me what happened.”

“I can’t, I don’t remember it.” He sighs. “That’s not entirely true, but it was like a dream. I knew where I was, and I knew that I was as safe as I was gonna get. I just felt so trapped. I started panicking, reaching out for anything that could change my circumstances. My hands landed on the door handle, so I opened it, and ran out. I don’t know what I thought I would find out there. I don’t know that I entirely understood that I even was outside. I just needed to be able to move around. I’m so sorry. Someone suggested they lock me to one of the seats, but the others argued against it, because there could have been a situation where we all needed to escape. But they should have done it. They should have stopped me. I know, that makes it sound like I’m blaming them. I just wish they had. I wish they had been unforgiving about it.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Breanna begins. “I mean that truthfully. Earth, in its history, has seen its fair share of refugees, but absolutely nothing at this scale. An entire planet has never been in this much trouble. Our ancestors colonized it despite the instability of our host star because they thought they understood it. They thought they knew the risks. They were wrong. I’m far angrier at them than I am at you. You didn’t sign up for this. You reacted in a very human way, and I’m sure, if Tertius or his daughter were here, they would forgive you. They risked their lives to save people like you, even though it sounds like they didn’t know anyone personally. They seemingly did sign up for this.”

The guy is still clearly down on himself, but she’s not a therapist, so all they can do is hope to find their way back to civilization, and get him some real help. As they’re finishing packing up to take what they can, Aeterna casually opens the back hatch, and climbs back in. She is wearing a respirator mask over her mouth, but has removed the parts that go over her eyes. She’s presumably only using it for comms.

“Where did you go?” Breanna questions.

“Sorry, I was just looking for my dad. I didn’t go too far, I figured once you guys woke up, I would start hearing you talking to each other.”

“Comms are down. Radio waves are very minimal right now,” Breanna explains.

Aeterna nods. “Well, I’m back. Hopefully we’ll come across him eventually.

“I’m sorry about him,” Breanna says softly.

“Eh, it’ll be okay,” Aeterna says, not the least bit perturbed. “He knows we’re going north, so either we’ll pick up his trail, or he’ll pick up ours.”

“You think he’s alive?” Cash asks.

“He has to be,” Aeterna answers with a chuckle. “We’ve been trying to explain that. We can’t die.”

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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