Ludofex

Prologue

New Thuringen, bio-forming research station Alpha

The massive snow truck raced over the half-frozen proto-marsh so fast it was almost flying, the heavy treads crushing the ice underneath, thawing the peat and giving a brief sense of spring to the plant-analogues growing there.
“Yellow Team to Alpha Station, Yellow Team to Alpha Station! Contamination alert! Brokaw has been seriously infected. We need full level five decontamination the second we hit the bay. I repeat - Contamination alert! Full level five decon!” Mariko Jönsson shouted into the radio, hoping like hell she would make it to the main research facilities before Brokaw died. And before the protozoa broke through the bio-seals of the auto-doc.

The snow truck was hardly inside the cramped vehicle bay before it was blasted with sterilizer foam and sonic canons. As Mariko popped the cockpit hatch decon personnel lead by Dr. Gabhala, were already rushing in with more chemical sterilizers and a gurney for Ivan Brokaw.
“What happened out there?” Gabhala – anxious as always – couldn’t even wait with the interrogation till Mariko had hit the showers.
“Look, will you just let me get out of this suit, I’ll be ‘happy’ to be debriefed. Not that I can say much more than what is on the logs from Installation Romeo.” Mariko imagined she could almost feel the chemicals through the EVA-suit – and the headache she was getting from the sonics certainly wasn’t her imagination.
“It’s been a pretty bad day already, so cut me a little slack will you.” It was all she could do not to sneer.

Fifteen minutes later, after a proper water shower had worked its magic, Mariko - now in her indoor suit - was in a somewhat better mood. Still not a good mood, but that would also be a bit much to ask, given the nausea she had from the broad spectrum antibiotics that was part of the decon regime, but at least she felt up to getting the dreadful morning sorted out. In his office Gabhala also seemed to have gotten his nerves under control (probably with chemical help; he always had been a believer in better living through psychopharmica ).
“I’ve been reviewing the logs you retrieved from Romeo. The growth rates seem to have been off the charts.” Gabhala gestured at the screen, trying (and somehow succeeding) to illustrate rapidly replicating cells with his hands.
“Yes. Still not sure why, but those samples from Midgard seem to mesh perfectly with the biosphere here on NT. But you know that already, since that is why we are here. Anyway best as I can tell some of the pods had developed cracks – presumably during meteor shower last week. And that must have sent the nutrition controls completely out of whack. So anyway Brokaw figured he might as …”
At the mention of Brokaw’s name Mariko stuttered to a halt. It wasn’t like there was any great love lost between Ivan Brokaw and Mariko Jönsson – they didn’t work together much, and they had been spending most of the morning patrol bickering about … the breakfast menu or something stupid like that. But even without the specter of shared disaster, he was still a colleague and it was a pretty small community at the research station.

“How is Brokaw doing by the way?” Mariko started up again. She deliberately avoided asking if he was going to make it, not wanting to jinx the whole situation even further.
“Well, the suit is totally ruined,” began Gabhala a bit distracted by the sudden change of track. “The hybrid cells had completely infected – or perhaps one should say colonized – Ivan’s left arm, so Dr. Ngo has already had to set that off, but otherwise the infection seems to be mostly under control. It think they will keep him under sedation until tomorrow, and once the regen therapy has repaired the worst damage, he will be transferred back to Valhalla – or further if they can’t provide proper prosthetics there. Not sure what Ivan will do after that, but knowing him he will be hard to keep in bed even with sedation, so loosing an arm probably won’t do much to slow him down.”
“So he will be alright? And nothing has gotten loose? From Brokaw or from the truck?”
“No, everything seems to be under control at that end. Although Dr. Ngo suggests removing and quarantining the truck’s autodoc unit, until we have a better understanding about just what we are dealing with here.”
“Getting back to that,” Mariko picked up, “Where were we. Yes, we downloaded the logs from the Romeo pods, and some of the growth discrepancies were immediately evident. I must admit I was tired from the patrol and the blasted storm, so I just wanted to head home look at the data and come out with a proper repair crew. But as you just pointed out Ivan is pretty headstrong and apparently the cracks were a personal insult to his engineering degree or something.”
“Long story short Ivan figured it wouldn’t take long to seal up the cracks, and if he didn’t the structural integrity of the pods might be completely compromised by the storm and thaw, before we got a new crew out there. So while I took another look at the data, he got out the repair kit and got to work with some carbon resin.”
Mariko poured herself a glass of water, before she continued.
“Seems like that was the worst choice he could have made, not that there was any way he could have know that. Carbon resin may set like granite, but unbonded it seems to have been some sort of super fertilizer for the fast fungus variant we had out at Romeo. Or whatever we should call it now, cause it sure isn’t what we brought from Midgard. Anyway, the next thing I know Ivan is shouting some very nasty, but strangely understandable, Russian over the radio and by the time I’ve scrambled out of the cockpit I see him standing there staring at his resin gun, which is crawling with florescent orange fungus. The process is producing enough heat to make steam come off the thawing ground.”
“’Will you look at that’ he said – or something like that – and as he pointed to the glowing gun, I noticed a similar orange sheen coming from the rubber seal on his left glove. That is when he starts screaming and wildly shaking his hand.” She paused for a sip more.
“After that things are a bit of a blur. First I just got him into the back to the autodoc while he was yelling about fire and more Russian. Just in the two minutes it took to get him in there he already reported that the pain was subsiding, but when we got his hand under the scanner, we saw that was just because the fungus had already compromised the outer nerves and skin. The bloody stuff seemed to be integrating directly into his cells, but I’m sure Dr. Ngo can elaborate on that. That is when I just put him full of antiviral and immune boosters, set him under full medical seal in the autodoc, and raced back here as fast as I could. Don’t think I’ve driven that fast on an interstate.”
“And good thing you did,” Gabhala replied, as he had called up the preliminary report from Dr. Ngo, “While the antivirals seem to have helped, Brokaw would have been in serious trouble if the infection had reached his lungs”
“The biosphere here on New Thuringen may be an unexplained marvel of adaptability, a paradise for bioforming research and possibly just what is needed to solve the fast fungus problem on Midgard, but right now I would be plenty happy with a sterile rock and good old growth labs. Damn – now I feel I need another bath before I can take a look at the data,” Mariko commented as got up and headed out of the office, “but I guess I’d better head straight to the lab.”

Chapter 1

Valhalla system, the Incobal transfer facility Bifrost

The automatic glare protection filters faded from the external view screens, and the blackness of space replaced the blue-green shimmer of hyperspace, and on the bridge of the UNPS Bow Street the lighting returned to normal levels.
“Transition completed successfully, Captain – though it always feels like a waste of my training, when we use a hyperbridge,” smiled navigator Horace, as his hands flew across the instruments.
“Yes, but I’m sure Bifrost station appreciates that we don’t jumble up their traffic control. So let’s continue the courtesies and hand over the docking procedure to their autopilot. See it as early R&R,” replied captain Farrell with his usual dryness, but even he couldn’t hide a smile. After a month on ’submerged’ operations between Sol and Junction it would do the crew (and himself to be honest) a lot of good to be on attached patrol, even if it was in a frontier system like Valhalla. Nobody joined the Patrol Service if they didn’t like the feel of the frontier – at least not if they had any idea what they were getting into.
“Bifrost station extends their welcome, and will patch us in for priority docking as soon as the Incobal 514 miner has cleared transit out. They don’t get much traffic, but they don’t have that many berths either,” reported Salient from the com station. “Newsfeed uplink has been established, but they seem to be pretty up to date here, due to the mineral transports.”
“Well good to know we won’t be completely out of touch here. Inform the ship we will be commencing docking at any moment, and start matching spin rate with Bifrost. Apart from Horace R&R does not start until we are safely in berth,” replied Farrell, as he called up the updated reports on the Valhalla system. At least nothing dramatic seemed to have happened, since Patrol Services had decided to send them out here.

The glare protection kicked in again as the flash from the outgoing hyperbridge signaled that the huge mining ship had made transit, and seconds later the Bow Street autopilot went from station keeping to docking. Having cleared light-years of space the last few kilometers always seemed like such a crawl, but at least Incobal Mining where not accustomed to dawdling, and half an hour later the Bow Street docked and hooked up at one of the long spindly maintenance arms of Bifrost. It wasn’t a huge ship, but the logistics of a long range patrol carrier does require a certain size, so it was almost as big as the small space station.

After all duty officers had reported all-clear and Simay had got the ship hooked up to the station life-support and refueling system, Alan Farrell unbuckled his seat harness and keyed the intercom.
“And we have docked at Bifrost. We will probably – make that hopefully – be heading down to Midgard soon enough, but while I get fully updated by the station commander and meet our local liaison, you are welcome to go over there and stretch your legs. Just remember, that as always we are here to keep the peace, not to start anything, so don’t make me demonstrate frontier justice, OK.” The ending was one of his usual speeches, but there were a few of the officers that where new to system patrolling, and besides it bore repeating. He pushed himself out of the chair and made use of the zero gravity environment to briefly stretch his cramping back, before grabbing the handhold and began pulling himself down the corridor. Despite the good Patrol Service health plan and Dr. Agresti’s excellent care age was beginning to make its mark on Farrell, but at least he could still work through the stiffness.

At the airlock there was practically a traffic jam of people in a hurry to get off the ship. Mostly patroller pilots, since they had few tasks to perform while in dock. Still Farrell was always a bit amused at these situations – he enjoyed R&R and being planet-side as much as the next man, but in this case they were just trading one air filtration system for another, and it wasn’t like Bifrost station was any kind of holiday resort.
“The airlock only takes five people guys.” Lieutenant Michaels or Iceman as he preferred to be known, one of the group leaders was trying to use his authority to bring a bit of order to the chaos.
“Oh, hi Captain.” One of the patrollers suddenly spotted their commander, and some people scrambled to come to attention, but took more zero g training, than most had been willing to put into it, so the rest just settled for salutes.
“Yes, let’s let the Captain through shall we. He actually has business on the station.”
“Thank you Lieutenant Michaels. Speaking of business, don’t you have ships to attend to or something?” Farrell nodded at the patrollers as they made way for him.
“Truth be told, I think Simay and Larsson are more than happy to have us out their hair for a while – somehow the deck crew never seem to appreciate the oversight we pilots like to provide,” smiled Michaels.
“Perhaps if you didn’t bust up your patroller so much, they might like you better,” quipped one of the other patrollers – Harmond or something like that, thought Farrell, but it was one of the new pilots they had picked up enroute, so he didn’t know him too well.
“Well, maybe my ride gets busted up a bit, because I’m actually out there stopping pirates,” Michaels shot back.
“I seem to recall I asked – make that ordered – you not to start anything on the station. That goes double here on my ship. I’m about to bring back our liaison, who also happens to be your new Wing Commander. I would really like if I could actually impress him with the conduct and quality of the Patrol Service. It might also help if it looked like you had enough spatial sense to navigate a corridor without getting all jammed up.” Before giving the patrollers time to come up with a retort he would have to make an example off, Farrell shut the hatch and started cycling the airlock.

Once in the spin gravity section of the space station Alan Farrell was greeted by a tall Asian looking administrator.
“Captain, once again welcome to the Valhalla star system. I’m afraid that after the original survey team had decided on the whole Norse mythology theme, Incobal felt it was only appropriate to name the bridging station Bifrost,” explained the administrator as he shook Farrell’s hand.
“Technically I guess on the bridge array should be named Bifrost, and then the station would be Himirsbjorg, but I doubt many would care about that level of detail. Sorry, I’m going off a tangent here. I’m Henrik Min San, and as you’ve already guessed, the administrator of the station.”
“Thank you Mr. Min – It is Min right, must admit I’m never quite sure with Chinese names – the patrol services are happy to be here.” Farrell wasn’t one to judge people based on handshakes, but the administrator seemed like he wouldn’t be too hard to work with. Now he just hoped the same would be the case with the liaison officer and the UN colonial commissioner. But that might be optimistic.
“Yes, it’s Mr. Min. Hong Kong naming tradition according to my mother. I had to learn it too. But before I start another tangent let’s get down to business. I assume that you have already read the files on our little system – I’ve certainly read all the UN would send me on you – but it is a lot of dry text, and sometimes the salient point gets lots in the mass of details.”
“So true. But I do have some experience reading reports, after 30 years in the service. And I assume I’ll be getting a liaison officer?”
“Yes, naturally. We’ll meet officer Dabiri in a moment. Anyway the highlights is that after the initial surveys Valhalla looked like promising system, but not nearly as inviting as Prometheus or Ecuador and as you experienced on your way here, well the way isn’t exactly easy. So Incobal won the mining right relatively cheaply, and were naturally very pleased when the asteroid belt turned out to be rich in fuel-grade yttrium. However as mining operations expanded more personnel were needed, and for them more facilities which required more work and so on. The usual story. Coupled with a more rugged attitude coming into fashion amongst potential colonists, and Valhalla, more specifically Midgard, suddenly became a choice destination. Or at least popular enough to fall under the UN colonist act.”
“And now you’ve decided to reap some of the benefits,” commented Farrell.
“Well, I’m not sure everybody here will see your presence in a strictly positive light, since quite a few of our colonists came here to the edge of civilization to get a bit away from Earth and UN authority. And between us Incobal was probably also quite pleased to have their own little domain while it lasted. But hyperspace fuel is by nature both valuable and portable, so it is hardly surprising we attracted a fair bit of pirates. I guess they like out of the way places as well.” Mr. Min smiled at his own joke.
“Yes. So with official colony status you decided to call in the Patrol to lift some of the burden on your security budget, and to have someone to pass the ball to, when the colonists come complaining. Except of course when they come to complain about us, in which case you can just shrug and point to the UN regulations, but promise them that you are totally on their side,” concluded Captain Farrell.
As Henrik started to rebut, he continued with a wry smile: “Oh, don’t worry. That is how we get called in, in most cases, and at least you are being very up front and honest about it. It is certainly a lot better than being called in for enforced peacekeeping I can tell you that. The Bow Street has been on long term hyper deployment, intercepting gun runners going to Centauri, so we will basically be glad to go anywhere where there might actually be some happy people among the customers.”
“Glad to hear you are so understanding, Captain Farrell. I’m sure we will get on splendidly. But I expected as much after reading your dossier. One of the longest serving active patrollers if I’m not mistaken. And here is my office,” said Mr. Min as he lead Farrell into a small room, where a young man in an Incobal security uniform was waiting in one of the visitors chairs.
“Well, some might say I’m still on a ship, because I haven’t got the skills or the ambition to advance to the commissioner level,” Farrell replied wryly, as he extended his hand to the young man.
“And I assume you are our liaison?”
“Yes, Captain Farrell meet Commander Gabriel Dabiri. Commander Dabiri meet Captain Farrell. And do sit down. Can I get you anything? As you can see from the office, administrative rank isn’t always all it is cracked up to be, but I try to make myself comfortable.” While Min San was being the gracious host, the young man seemed a bit split between shaking the hand and coming to attention, so Alan decided to make it easy for him by sitting down first.
“Glad to meet you, Dabiri. Mr. Min here was just giving me the space station view, so to speak, of the situation here in Valhalla, but I’ll be relying on you to make sure we don’t step on any toes. Unless they need to be stepped on.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do my best. Apart from the Manfield group, I’m sure most of us here will happy to see you. Well, I guess the pirates won’t be too pleased either.” Dabiri smiled, but still looked a bit unsure if jokes were OK.
“The Manfield group?” queried Farrell, as he picked up the drink Mr. Min had provided.
“Our local survivalists, Captain. We all like to believe we are pretty rugged folk here on Midgard, mostly methodist pioneers, but we don’t mind making use of the local amenities provided by Incobal. Like the transition gates, and the planet side Erlenmeyer field for ground to orbit travel, to mention the most obvious benefits living side by side with an yttrium refinery. Not that the Manfields are Luddites or Amish or anything like that, but they certainly like to be self reliant. I believe they even have their own deep-transition capable space ship. An old Gateway-class explorer or something like that.” Dabiri’s confidence was mounting fast, now that he got to be the expert and could forget his nerves for a moment.
“Not that they cause much trouble since they mostly keep to themselves, but they are not the types to welcome outside interference. Least of all from the ‘dreaded’ UN. As long that means they aren’t helping the pirates either, I guess you can respect their privacy,” Min San finished.
“Yes, I hope we can,” answered Farrell, “but since I seem to have missed the section on them in the report, I might want to look into these Manfields a bit first.”
“Well, other than the Manfields, I hope the reports cover our situation here pretty well,” interrupted Mr. Min. “Incobal mining efforts are spread all over the system, with processing facilities in both the main asteroid belt and the outer cloud, and we also have a hydrogen siphon station at the gas giant Odin. So even though the colonial efforts are mostly centered on Midgard, it is a pretty busy system all round.”
“Yes, I was a bit surprised at your traffic numbers, for such a new colony. But I assume that you at least have a pretty good handle on the Incobal corporate traffic, so if Commander Dabiri and I can work together properly – and I see no reason we shouldn’t – and we get patched in to your traffic control, I think we should be able to manage the situation.” Captain Farrell finished his drink and got up.
“And now that I’ve had a chance to take a quick glance at your station here, I assume the Commander would like to take a look at the Bow Street. I know I would be eager to.”
“Oh, yes sir.”

While Alan Farrell had taken the scenic route (if that term could be applied to a station as starkly utilitarian as Bifrost) when he got aboard, the eager Gabriel Dabiri made sure that the two took all the small short cuts, as they headed back to the arm where Bow Street was docked.
“And finally we are back to a place I can recognize,” grinned Farrell as they emerged from an anonymous access tube. “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask Lieutenant Simay, our chief engineer, if you want the same kind of ‘air duct and repair space’-tour of the ship, but I can at least give you the overview of your new home.”
“As you know the Bow Street is what Patrol Services refer to as a long range, independent deployment patrol carrier, which is the long way of saying ‘we are on our own’. Maybe not quite as alone as a Scout Service explorer, but on the other hand we are expected to stick around even if the going gets tough – instead of braving the unknown, we get sent where we know there is trouble. But enough interservice trash talk – at least we’ve got a ship that can handle the job.”
“You won’t hear me deriding the Patrol, sir. But I had expected something like a Diamond Star or a Quebec class, not an old Kinshasa class carrier, sir,” said Dabiri, hoping he didn’t sound too disappointed.
“Heh – Yes, I guess that is a bit of a letdown at first glance. But you’ll come around. First thing to remember is that this is the Patrol, not any of the militaries. We may go where there is trouble, and we may keep the peace, but we don’t stop wars, so we don’t need the punch of a Diamond Star. And age is not such a bad thing – if I do say so myself. Experience may not mean much to the computer, but where you are on deep hyper deployment for months on end, it is nice to know that you are in a ship and design, where all the worst kinks have been worked out, and the whole crew knows all the ones that are left. It becomes the amenities and the armaments that matter to morale. And you shouldn’t sell the Kinshasa short either. Since they were originally commissioned by the EUSA as a forward operating baseship, it has excellent command and control facilities, which is good for patrolling large areas of space, and the model also has some of the most hardened transit nodes you’ll see outside the Scout Service. Not only is it nice to be able to trust your engines to get you home, even in rough space like here at Valhalla, but it also means we could potentially hyperbridge something as big as one of those 514’s that Incobal uses. Or as is more often the case, on anti-pirate duty, we can jam and interdict transition in up to 25 kilometers of hyperspace.”
“And besides, as carrier is all about what she is carrying right? So should I brace myself for a disappointment there as well, sir?” grinned Dabiri.
“I was wondering how long you would let me go on about the ship, and get to the birds,” answered Captain Farrell.
“Well, I assume I am going to be your Wing Commander, so it would practically be dereliction of duty, if I didn’t ask, sir.”
“Right you are. I’m quite looking forward to having the WC as my liaison. Usually liaisons are com officers, or otherwise involved in the dispatch, but in veritable hyperspace maze you have out here it seemed sensible to get someone who would be used to navigating it. Getting back to your question, I don’t think you will be disappointed. But since you seem so eager, why don’t we pull ourselves down to the hangar decks, so you can see for yourself.”

Moments later the two had navigated down (not that down up or down meant a lot, since only crew quarters were in the spin gravity section of the ship, and all critical areas were attached to the zero-g spine) to the ventral launch bays. Even with the carrier in dock there was a fair amount of activity down there, with the deck crew making good use of the break to do some repairs and take full use of the refuel linkup from Bifrost.
“And what luck – Chief Simay is here. I think I’ll leave you in her capable hands and let her introduce you to our load out. Chief Simay.” Captain Farrell called over a young Persian looking woman, who was deeply engaged at the main engineering station.
“Excuse me Captain; I’m right in the middle of doing status. I’d like everything to be ready for the new Wing Commander.” She didn’t even look up as she acknowledged the captain with a brief nod.
“Then I’m afraid you’re just a bit late. I tried getting him to see his quarters, but he seemed more eager to get here. Allow me to introduce Commander Dabiri.”
“Oh sh-.” Yasmina Simay disengaged herself from the terminal and swung herself over to the two officers at the doorway, obviously well-accustomed to the zero g environment of the hangar deck.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant,” said Dabiri with a smile.
The young woman came to a rapt attention. “Welcome to the UNPS Bow Street, Commander. Oh – I guess the Captain already said that. Well, welcome to the hangar deck then. I’m sorry if things are a bit of a mess. I had hoped to have the restocking wrapped up before you got here, but if you can forgive the state you can have a brief tour.”
Gabriel looked around the hangar deck once more, and while he could see it was busy, mess was not the first word that came to his mind.
“Don’t apologize on my account, Lieutenant. This looks a lot more orderly than the hangars of Incobal security.”
“Which I’m sure Lieutenant Simay already knew - but you do like the compliments don’t you,” smiled Farrell, earning a pointed stare and a blush from the engineer.
“But as I already said, I’ll leave you in her capable hands, and let her impress you even more. I need to go and contact the colonial commissioner.”
“Thank you, sir. And if Mr. Min didn’t already mention it, allow me to warn you that Commissioner Pickford is, well, something of a dragon lady, sir.”
“I like to think that I’m fairly flame resistant by now, but I will keep that in mind Commander. When you are done here, remember to stop by Dr. Agresti. And once you’ve settled in, you also need to meet all the pilots. It is the first time our liaison has been the WC, and I think you will earn a lot of instant goodwill if you can recommend some good places for R&R.”
Captain Farrell nodded and left and Gabriel started heading towards the fighter cradles. “So – show me the wonders. Tell me you have something that beats the Kurushew H2s we fly at Incobal.”
“Oh yes we do,” replied Yasmina with a smile, and started her lecture.

Chapter 2

New Thuringen, bio-forming research station Alpha

“I don’t believe this.”
The ground based monitoring equipment in Romeo sector had gone off-line the day after Brokaw’s accident, and now two days later Mariko Jönsson and Daiga Gabhala were in the planetary observation laboratory, studying feeds from the satellites.
“Yes, it does look rather … unprecedented,” tried Gabhala.
“Unprecedented!?! Yeah, I guess that is one way to put it. Four days ago that fungus was safely locked inside a growth pod, to protect it from the harsh conditions of the alien tundra outside. Now it is covering a square kilometer. And that is just the area where is it so thick we can see it – from space!” Mariko was trying to keep her voice down, but felt that something was needed to kick the good doctor into gear. He was supposedly a brilliant biologist, when he wasn’t bogged down in paperwork - or drugged into apathy.
“How can it possibly grow so fast? No, scratch that – how can it even grow in this environment? Fast fungus is as hardy as it comes, but all the data I’ve been looking at says it survives by going dormant.”
“Actually, while you have been studying the data from Romeo, I’ve been examining Brokaw’s arm. Or what is left of it anyway. And if this stuff is anything like what got into him, then what we are seeing is not the fungus spreading. It is the New Thuringen protozoa assimilating fast fungus traits and spreading them. Indeed if the absorption spectra are anything to go by, we are not looking at just one species of fungus now, but several slight variations,” said Gabhala almost reverently.
“But nothing like that happened with any of the samples we examined when we got here. Nor was there anything in the original survey reports from the Scout Service. Not that I give much for their bio-scans, but the way those guys can litter, we should have full grown apple orchards and jersey cattle here by now, if this biosphere evolves at this rate. I mean, sure, the protozoa showed some potential to metabolize a wide range of hydrocarbons, and great environmental adaptability, but this. This is the H-bomb equivalent of the Cambrian explosion.” Having been there when it ‘exploded’ Mariko still found it a bit hard to share Gabhala’s reverence. But at least he seemed to be thinking now – and she had to agree that it was interesting.
“Yes, it is certainly puzzling. There must obviously be some part of the puzzle that we are missing.”
Elyot Jensen – the research station’s tele-operator and ‘king’ of the satellites – looked up from his terminal: “Well, it is not like it is only happening at Romeo. Maybe the fungus thing is local, but the thermal reads have changed on several of the sats.” He tapped a few keys, and brought up a couple of live feeds with the accompanying data. “Not as fancy as your fungus, since it just looks like the same boring tundra as it has always been, but something must be going on in the soil, because the weather shouldn’t have caused that temperature change.”
“What’s that dark edge in the top of sat 3?” asked Mariko Jönsson.
“What – oh that. Let me just zoom out.”
Elyot tapped a few more keys and: “Oh.”
“Yeah – oh. That is a meteorite crater, isn’t it?” Mariko wasn’t so much asking as answering, as she leaned over to the image control. “Let’s just check the rest of the satellites that are showing thermal variations.”
“Seems we have found our missing ingredient, doesn’t it,” said Gabhala with a smile.

Suddenly one of the other terminals started blaring an alarm, drawing a sigh from Elyot as he pushed away from the satellite station to see what it was.
A few keystrokes later the color drained from his face as he said: “You are never going to believe this, but the incident at pod Romeo may just have become the least of our problems.” He was too excited for his usual stammer. “That meteor shower was apparently only the warm up. But at least it got us looking up. Three more objects are headed this way, and though they seem to be ice balls, they also seem to be cohesive and they are going to pack a really nasty punch.”
“What!?!” came the simultaneous incredulous reply from Mariko and Dr. Gabhala.
“How could we possibly have missed three meteors on impact trajectories?” continued Gabhala, trying to sound like the executive he was supposed to be.
“Well, it is not like we are an astronomical installation you know. I’m more or less the only one here who doesn’t have his - or her, no offense - nose stuck in the frozen muck and with an eye for something larger that single celled biology.” Even with the still blaring alarm reminding him of the impending catastrophe Elyot was getting wound up to go on one of his professional tirades.
“And all the space presence we have is for the com-sats and your observational instruments, so it is a bloody miracle I spotted anything at all!”
“Yes, yes – you’re a wizard. Now that you’ve spotted them, what can we do?” cut off Mariko.
“Shit if I know. I guess the odds of them hitting us directly are pretty low, and it is not like we are on beach front property, so we should be safe from waves I guess. But just looking at the size of these things, I can tell you we are going to feel the wallop. Quakes, atmospheric dust, storms, you name it. Damn near anything but a rain of frogs. And with the way the biosphere took the first hit, who knows about that.”
“Well,” cut in Gabhala, making use of his artificial calm, “we were going to recall all teams anyway, until we had a good understanding of the fungus issue, and this just makes that more pressing. Now that we know the objects are coming, I presume we should have a pretty good chance of predicting when and where they will impact?”
Elyot nodded and began calling up plots at once.
“Good. I can’t see that we can do anything about the rocks, but assuming they don’t come too close, we should be able to hunker down here at the station, possibly given some extra reinforcement. And then naturally we will have to send the shuttle back to Valhalla with word of our predicament – we are practically due for our regular check-in anyway. Of course if it turns out that we are in for a direct hit, things look worse, and we will have to figure that out, but it should be possible to relocate or maybe squeeze everybody into the shuttle. But until we know one way or the other, I’d say we have had quite enough panic here already, so will you please shut down that stupid alarm.”
And with that, Gabhala picked up his data pad and left.

Over the next few hours Elyot scrambled furiously to make some sort astronomy lab out of the planetary observatory, and a very, very long night - and a fair bit of the research station’s coffee supply – later he finally had some results for Dr. Gabhala.
“You’ll have to excuse the cliché doctor, but I have good news and bad news, so what do you want first?” The lack of sleep had made Jensen just a bit sarcastic, but the Gabhala didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t make a big deal of it.
“I assume you’ll tell me both, but I certainly won’t object to hearing just a bit of good news.”
“Well, first of all it turns out that you have a wizard on your team and not just a lowly tele-operator, but hopefully that isn’t news. Anyway, I’m ninety nine percent sure we won’t be hit directly – and that is even if the ice balls break up.”
“That is certainly a relief. But going by your tone, it also sounds like you are ninety nine percent sure we will be hit.”
“Oh no – that one of the rare one hundred percent certainties I’m willing to put my name on. In about ten days we are really going to get hammered. And the really freaky thing – We are going to get pelted for about two days. Call me paranoid, but the timing of those incoming asteroids spreads the four impacts almost perfectly around the planet. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was like an attack.”
“Ok – you are paranoid. Not that I’m any kind of military mastermind, but there are several much easier ways of attacking a research station this small. Such as calling us up on the radio and say: ‘Give up, or else..’ - it is not like we have any way to defend ourselves. And while our present predicament may indicate that we have paid too little attention to space, I’m pretty sure we would have picked up the transfer flashes of an incoming fleet. That is assuming anyone had a motive to be here at the edge of nowhere – let alone invade.”
“Yeah – I know. And of course with the trajectories I’ve been able to plot it looks like the asteroids have been in a decaying orbit for something like a thousand years. But four at the same time and with that timing. It is just … uncanny I guess.”
“I’m sure it is, but here we are. At least now we have a better time frame and a certain confidence that we won’t get squashed completely. With Green and Blue team back tomorrow, I guess it would be time to make the situation public, and get Jackson and the rest of the geologist to figure out what kind of damage we can expect from the quakes.”

The next morning meeting became a just bit more heated than usual, as even (or perhaps especially) great scientific minds don’t take too kindly to administrators with a ‘we know better’ attitude to impending doom.
“Yes, I realize you had – have – a right to know,” sighed the exasperated Gabhala.
“A right to know!?! That is all you can say?”
“The sky is literally falling – I’m pretty sure the traditional reaction is not an apathetic ‘that can wait until tomorrow’.” Even through the clamor Dr. Ngo managed to draw a few laughs.
“No – I think the traditional response is either disbelief or panic if I remember my Chicken Little correctly, so don’t get sarcastic with me,” answered Gabhala acidly. The general mood was wearing through his stabilizers.
“I have the greatest respect for your intellectual capacity, but it was not like you could have done a lot before we had just a bit more than a random computer alert to go on. Now we do, and now we – make that I, since I was the one who asked Dr. Jönsson and Mr. Jensen keep tight – inform you. And if we could perhaps focus those brilliant minds a bit more on the problems and solutions, and a bit less on verbal barbs aimed at the messenger, we would be a lot more productive. I’ll be happy to share my parophanol with any who need a little help staying calm.”
Eventually everybody finished venting venom and fear – a few even took Gabhala up on his offer, though it was Dr. Ngo that distributed the drugs – and the station managed to get down to the business of surviving. With help from Elyot and his data the geologists started on the main damage assessment, while the rest got busy moving equipment around, securing supplies, checking and shoring up the structural integrity of the base. It wasn’t exactly built with disaster in mind, but at least hefty storms had been expected so there were hatches to batten down, and a lot could be done by stripping the experiment pods for construction materials.

And finally there was the shuttle. Obviously everybody had wanted to leave, but the old courier boat only had life support three – four at best – so while nobody really wanted to admit it Elyot’s proof that the base wasn’t going to get squashed managed to avert any panicked dashes for the seats. When everybody couldn’t go, there was no reason to squeeze the boat to the limit, so when lots were drawn for the spots they came up Elyot and Mariko and Brokaw, since he was due to be sent back because of his injury anyway.

“Ok – we are at Lagrange point 2 and go for transition. Or at least as ‘go’ as can be expected from this rust bucket.” As he said it Elyot ran a third check of the instruments just to be sure.
“You are clear from this end as well. Godspeed.”
“I’m not sure we can quite manage that, but we’ll try to be back with help as soon as we can. We might even make it before the rocks hit the fan, but otherwise just make sure you’re still alive when we arrive.”
The shuttle vibrated ominously for a few minutes, as the old engines strained to establish the transition field, but finally the cockpit was drowned in the light from a bursting hyperspace bubble.
“Transfer successful,” reported Elyot as the cockpit was bathed in the familiar blue-green of hyperspace. But as their eyes adjust all three in the shuttle saw that all was not as expected. Outside – almost right on top of them – was a huge shadowy object.
“What is that?” was all Mariko could say.
“No idea, but it has to be almost ten kilometers long. An asteroid that somehow got bridged into hyper maybe? Or the remnant of a pretty harsh buckling of hyperspace? Maybe some condensed mist – It has been heard of, even if the size would be impressive,” tried Brokaw.
“I don’t think so – according to the instruments that thing is making transfer…” Elyot didn’t even have time to panic, before the cockpit was once again bathed in the flash of a massive transfer bubble, drowning out the blinking red lamp of the proximity alert. Then the shock wave hit, and the cockpit was plunged into darkness and the smell of fried electronics.

Chapter 3

Valhalla system, local hyperspace.

“So much for ‘the vastness of space’. Whoever said that obviously hadn’t spent a lot of time on deep hyperspace ops.” The crackle of the radio broke the almost meditative silence of the cockpit.
“Radio silence is standard operating procedure on a stalk like this, Rodriguez,” came the curt reply from Dabiri. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to bring his by-the-book reputation with him as wing commander of the Bow Street, but nor was he going to be anything less than excellent on his first patrol. Besides Rodriguez had broken his almost meditative reverie, and it was the first bit of quiet he had had, since he came aboard.
“Yes sir. Guess you are used to this outback, but it seems awfully cramped to me.” The reprimand hadn’t taken the cheer out of Lieutenant Rodriguez’ voice.
Commander Dabiri took his eyes of the proximity sensors and toned down the augmented reality HUD, so he could look out of the window. Outside there was mainly the blue mist – or ether, as it properly called – of hyperspace twisting lazily, but he could see why the Lieutenant felt cramped. The stress walls of the conduit they were in was probably only a few hundred meters apart, and the flare-off coming from the ragged edges made them feel even closer.
“I guess if you are used to the huge caverns around Junction then this will feel a bit claustrophobic. But since we are going to be here for a while, you’d better get used to it. At least flare storms are very rare, and the walls hardly ever buckle.”
“Meaning no disrespect to your home space, sir, but that would be because there is hardly room for a fart let alone a storm – and the tubes are already so twisted they wouldn’t know which way to bend,” Rodriguez came back with a chuckle.
”Well, it seems that all your talking has warned away any pirates for now. But since Captain Farrell probably won’t let me leave you out here as a scarecrow, I guess we might as well head back to the bubble where we left Bow Street.

Dabiri popped the canopy and the peace of hyperspace was replaced with buzzing, jet-fuel smelling activity of the hangar deck.
“Welcome back, Commander. The Captain would like to see you,” greeted Simay, “and can I just add thanks for using the autopilot coming in. Most liaisons always seem to need to prove how much of a man they are, by doing their first landing manually. Even if they are com officers,” she added with a wry smile.
“I’m still getting used to the patrol fighter, so I didn’t see a reason to put my name to any more scratches. Besides – I prefer other ways of proving how much of a man I am,” he winked and left the chief engineer with an uncharacteristic blush as he left the hangar.
On the bridge there was a similar buzz of activity, as reports were coming in from all the different patrols, and dispatches going back the other way. Sometimes Dabiri figured that com officers like Salient were the ones really running the show, and Captains and Wing Commanders like himself were just there to add a bit of glamour.
“Reporting back in, Captain Farrell. The disturbance turned out to be nothing – or a least not anything that stuck around till we got there. But you already have that on the plot.” Dabiri strapped himself into one of the seats by the main display, which was currently showing a map of the ongoing patrol activity.
“Yes, so far everything has been relatively quiet. But then, that is not unusual when setting up in a new system. First of all we need to find our way around, and second, any pirates and smugglers will no doubt have the wits to lay low, at least until they know what we are up to here. So all we’ve had so far was a mayday from the Gallathea, a colonist ship which got caught in a flare.”
“I caught that on the chatter coming back in. I understood that two Lionesses have already been dispatched,” replied Dabiri, eager to illustrate that he could be on top of things even from a patrol cockpit.
“Indeed. They probably won’t even be needed, but now that we are here, there is no reason to let the poor colonists rough it more than they have to. And then there is this,” the captain enlarged another sector of the map, “a rather large, hmm, I believe Salient called it a rumble, was detected here. Presumably from a severe buckling of hyperspace, possibly even a collapse, but is is hard to tell without direct observation.”
“That is right on top of the main conduit to New Germany, sir.”
“That was my understanding as well, though I must admit it is nice to have confirmation from someone who knows this maze of yours just a bit better. And incidentally Bifrost called to tell us that the courier from New Thuringen is overdue. Just by a day mind you, but I’d like to hear your thoughts.”
“My thoughts? Well, I’m a ‘better safe than sorry’ kind of person Captain, and until now the UNESCO scientists at NT have been pretty good about keeping their appointments. So I’d be inclined to check out what is going on – especially since I have a personal interest in the research, being from the Calderra continent and all. The only thing is the distance, sir. A Lioness or a patrol fighter could check out the source of the hyper-quake, but even in good conditions it is about four days all the way to New Germany, and I’d hate to do that strapped in. Though I guess it could be done.”
“But it would go against your ‘better safe than sorry’ thinking. And I agree, at least in this instance. The whole reason for going would be the assumption that the hyper conduit has changed, if not severely disrupted, and that is not the kind of trip you send a patrol boat on,” agreed Captain Farrell.

After a good eleven hours stuck in a Lioness rescue shuttle Commander Dabiri and Lieutenant Salient had crossed most of Valhalla local hyperspace to get to the epicenter of the quake the Bow Street had registered. The trip had been relatively uneventful, though the quake had obviously unsettled the region, and there had been a few close calls with flares. A couple of hours earlier Gabriel had started regretting that he had decided to set a ‘good example’ by going himself, instead of delegating it to one of the junior pilot, but by now his mind was just numb from staring at the controls, and his body numb from the seat restraints. Salient didn’t seem particularly bothered – he had even remarked that is was nice getting a break from the constant chatter of the dispatch. Lucky for him he hadn’t been stuck with Rodriguez as the pilot, thought Gabriel with a smile.
“So, finally we are here. I’m afraid I can’t recommend going out to stretch your legs, but I guess we can unbuckle for a bit,” said Dabiri, already undoing his harness. As far as he could tell the tunnel they were in was relatively stable – an eye of the storm so to speak – so turbulence shouldn’t be too bad.
“I think I’d be just as happy to get on with the readings actually. I’ve been sleeping most of the way here.”
“What - Sleeping? Through those flares? Heck, we were talking an hour ago.”
“Heh – sorry about that. I guess dozing off while appearing to pay attention is something of a talent I have. Comes in very handy at the bridge, but don’t tell Captain Farrell.”
“I would be very surprised if he doesn’t already know. As far as I can tell, nothing much escapes the old man.”
“You’re probably right, but I still think he would object to actually being told about it. Anyway, I guess it could be your turn to doze off. It will take an hour or so, just deploying the drones, and who know how long to get proper readings.” Salient was already tapping control, redirecting powers to sensors and plotting courses for recon drones.
“Ok then, you don’t have to say that twice. Just don’t expect me to be nearly as good at talking in my sleep. And be sure to wake me if something – anything – happens.”
“Will do, sir,” Salient replied, already more engrossed in directing the drones than talking to Dabiri.

“Sir, wake up.” No reaction. Salient started shaking Dabiri frantically, while trying to plot evasion patterns into the auto pilot with the other hand.
“For the love of god, wake the f*** up.”
Salient knew he was no pilot, and despite his best efforts his game of hide and seek didn’t seem like it would fool the pirates much longer. Missile locks had already been too close, and they probably wouldn’t get saved by a flare up the next time.
“Huh – what!?!” Gabriel was more than a little groggy, but backbone reflexes still made him start to strap himself in.
“Pirates, sir. Either they followed us here, or the drones made them aware of us or something. I figured they would stay away from a quake like that. And if you’ll excuse me saying so – I won’t let you doze off next time, if you are this hard to wake.”
The mention of pirates woke Dabiri up as if a switch had been thrown, and quickly he reestablished manual control and started to assess the situation. Salient had brought them into a narrow tunnel, where the thick ether mist was probably concealing them right now, but unfortunately the rangefinder also indicated that is was a dead end.
“Status,” was Dabiri’s curt reply. He was as annoyed – or maybe scared was a better word – at not waking as the young lieutenant, but now was hardly the time to bicker.
“Well, as I said I don’t know where they came from, but as far as I’ve been able to tell they have three birds out there. And presumably a mother hen somewhere. They’ve got a single shot off, and they’ve picked up two of the drones.”
“Hmm – the drones? They must think that we are a survey vessel, and a cheap target full of high grade electronics. Do you still have contact with the drones?”
“Well, apart from the ones they’ve picked up, then yes. Why?”
“Because those drones may be our best bet for getting out of this mess. They can be our bait, and I assume they can be our eyes as well?”
“Sure – they are configured for stress band detection right now, but I should be able detect drive signatures in no time. I’ve just had my hands a bit full.”
“We are still here, so you’ll hear no complaints from me Lieutenant. Have you had time to call the Bow Street?”
“First thing I did – I’m not a com officer for nothing. But with the static we have out here it was nothing but a mayday. Not to mention that we are hours away from any patrols.”
“A mayday sounds great, if we are going to convince these bastards we were just a harmless little survey ship. All the more surprising when they learn how many teeth a Lioness has.”
Trying to earn just a few more seconds for Salient to reconfigure the drones, and give him a clear view of the battlefield, Dabiri brought the shuttle right up within meters of the hyperspace wall, and powered down the engines. At this distance you could practically see the fractal structure of the surface with the naked eye. For a few tense moments they hung there, unable to move from either missiles or a sudden after quake in the walls. The only sound in the cockpit was Emmanuel’s fingers tapping lightly on the controls - they were even holding their breath, though they knew it didn’t matter - and then finally the screens lit up tracking data on the prowling pirates. Turned out there were fours small fighters, and one right outside the entrance to their tunnel, pinging everything with his active sensors.
“Light up that drone there, and let us hope he goes for it.”
Salient did as he was told and for a few seconds nothing happened, but then the pirate fighter turned his homing sensors on the small drone, and headed off.
“Good thing those guys are not too bright, sir,” smiled Salient as Dabiri powered up engines and weapons and headed after the pirate. Moments later the first missile sent the pirate fighter spinning with a direct hit to the port stabilizer. And even if he had been a good enough pilot to recover from that, he never got the chance to prove it, as the second missile reduced the fighter to so much expanding debris.
“Nice one, sir. I think even Iceman and Rapier would be impressed with that kill.”
“Thanks. It is rare that you can get a target to practically feed a targeting solution to you, even if it is via a drone. Now I just hope he had time to say something confused and scared to his buddies, so they think twice about coming after us. We may have teeth, but I’d prefer not to fight more than I have to. We probably won’t surprise them that way again, and I doubt we can really outmaneuver them.” Dabiri gave the screen another glance, and at least it didn’t look like the other fighters were heading their way.
“Well, I think we have all the survey data we came here to get, sir. Especially if we are going to sacrifice the drones as bait anyway.”
“Good. In that case call back any we have a chance of picking up and destroy the rest. And by the way – did we find anything?” said Dabiri as he turned on the navigator and began plotting a course back to the Bow Street.
“I’m afraid the drones don’t have a self destruct, but I could light them up as distractions, and then just set them on a course to ram into the walls. That might buy us a bit more confusion. As for the survey, I’d definitely say we found something.” Salient’s eyes were practically glowing as he called up the survey data.
“See here – something twisted the hell out of the main conduit to New Germany. Seems like it began with this bubble here – which by the way didn’t even use to be there. Or actually twisted is the wrong word. More like stretched. Obviously I couldn’t follow the damage all the way to NG, and it is not like this the most well mapped part of space. But the conduit has gone from being a twisted back alley like everything else here at Valhalla to something like the major conduits out of Junction. I’ve never seen anything like it. Of course it also seems to be breaking down again.” Salient seemed a bit disappointed at his fantastic discovery disintegrating before anybody but him, Dabiri and a few pirates had even had a chance to take a proper look at it.

Fortunately the pirates had been hurt enough not to give chase, but it was still a long flight back to the Bow Street, and Gabriel seriously hoped it wouldn’t take too long to go over the data from the probes. But if nothing else there was always the chance that no-one would want to spend too much time with him and Emmanuel before they had had a shower, considering how ripe he was starting to feel in his flight suit.
As it turned out there was the opportunity for a very quick shower, while all the probe data was uploaded in to the main computers for processing. But no more than that, and when he headed for the bridge Dabiri was sure all that hot water had been such a good idea, because now he just wanted to sleep.
On the bridge the maps of the quake where displayed on the main projector, and Lieutenant Salient was going through the data along with Captain Farrell and Navigator Horace.
“OK, the original survey maps of this area of this area were never very good. Incobal has done some fairly detailed work on the inner Valhalla system, as they extended mining operations and such, but for the New Germany conduit we practically only have the original Scout Service maps. There is some sporadic data from the establishment of New Thuringen base, but there was no concentrated mapping effort,” explained Horace as he was bringing up maps they could compare their survey data to.
“I’m sure local hyperspace here at Valhalla would be fascinating to a dimensional physicist, but since New Thuringen is a bio research facility, I guess the people who planned it had other things on their mind. Calderra has been ravaged by a weird strand of fast fungus for two years now, and when the surveys showed that New Thuringen was perfect for a bio-forming project, we were all very happy when Commissioner Pickford pushed it through,” answered Dabiri, “and besides the New Germany system is just four days away. That almost makes Valhalla and New Germany twin systems.”
“Whatever the reason all we really have is a map of the main conduit to new Germany, but I think that is enough as a baseline,” interrupted Salient, eager to get to ‘his’ discovery.
“As you can see it was originally a fairly narrow tunnel, but unusually straight and direct.”
“Yeah – not just compared to the rest of Valhalla space mind you. Even the Junction conduits are not this straight, they are just bigger,” commented Horace.
“Now, however things have started acting up. What Commander Daribi and I surveyed wasn’t actually the epicenter of the quake. Or at least I don’t think so. It looks like something forced the conduit bigger somewhere down the line, and then it quaked here at the end. Best I can describe it like, is that someone hammered in a spike, and we are looking at what happens at the tip, but the center would technically be the head of the spike.”
“Which again all sounds like something that would be very fascinating to a dimensional physicist, but since we don’t have one here, the immediate question is if this phenomenon is just a curiosity, or a cause for concern, and if so what we should do about it,” said Farrell, in an effort to stop Salient going off on a tangent.
“Yes, sir. Well, curiosity or not it might actually be a good idea to send a dispatch back to get someone to take a closer and more qualified look at it. The Scout Service, or some of the Arecibo scientists or something. But in the mean time the tunnel does seem to be buckling quite a bit, and who knows what is happening at the other end. It is possible we are even looking at a complete collapse,” finished Salient.
“That would cut off New Thuringen,” said Dabiri with some concern, “probably not completely, since Valhalla-New Germany space is so riddled with tunnels, but as far as I know the research station was never meant to be self sufficient.”
“Because they were considered to be in a twin system with Valhalla,” concluded Farrell. “So what you are saying is that the colony would not deal well with being cut off until the Scout Service can track them down again. Not sure I would like to have to wait for that either. Any idea how imminent such a collapse would be?”
“As it has been pointed out repeatedly, none of us are hyperspace specialists, and this is rather unprecedented, but I might guess it could happen within weeks. I certainly wouldn’t want to navigate that tunnel,” answered Salient.
“Then it is a good thing that Horace is our navigator, cause I don’t see that we can just abandon those scientists to their fate. Hopefully things will look better not worse at the other end, but if worst comes to worst, the Bow Street is at least equipped for long term hyperspace duty, so we should be able to find a way back.”
“So we are going to New Germany?” asked Gabriel hopefully.
“Well – not all of us. We were sent to patrol Valhalla, so I guess we had better detach the dorsal hangar deck, as a base of operations for Group Delta and Sigma. I’m pretty confident that Commander Griffith should be able to hold down the fort until we return, and it will free up bunks in case we do need to evacuate the research facility. Well, that wraps this up. I’ll inform Mr. Min and Commissioner Pickford of our plans. Navigator Horace start plotting a course, and try to pay attention to any alternative routes we might need on the way back. Commander Dabiri please inform the pilots, and have Chief Simay prepare for hangar deck separation. And Lieutenant Salient, if you will please follow up on your own suggestion, and send dispatch to the Scout Service. It never hurts to have someone looking for if we get lost.”
As he unbuckled to head down to the hangar bays Gabriel remembered how tired he was. But Captain Farrell didn’t seem inclined to accept any delays, so he just hoped there would at least be a chance to sleep on their way to New Germany.

Chapter 4

New Thuringen, bio-forming research station Alpha

Dr. Ngo watched his breath condense in the almost freezing air of the store room. Ironically it was probably warmer here in cold storage than it was strictly supposed to be, but the frost was still a constant reminder of the damage the base had taken. Especially when the last quake had caused the main power plant to act up. A catastrophic failure had been narrowly avoided, by Lance and the other engineers, but it still meant all non-critical parts of the base were without power – and thus without heating.
Running his flashlight over the mostly empty shelves, the doctor located the pills the was looking for, pocketed them with a sigh, and headed back to the common room. Private quarters was yet another thing that had been eliminated in the effort to preserve power and resources.

Back in the common room breakfast was being prepared, and Ngo quietly slipped the bottle of paraphenol in among the dietary supplements. He hated it. Nobody – least of all the good doctor – had been keen on making mood stabilizers a part of every meal, but there wasn’t really an alternative. Nerves where seriously frayed and there had been stress disorders, night terror and good know what. Not to mention the incident with Holland – it had taken the better part of a day to clean up his room after he blew his head off. So however twisted it was, he was now more worried that supplies of sedatives where running low, than he was of people taking them like vitamins. The doctor picked up his own ’share’ of pills (vitamins as well as sedatives), his emergency ration breakfast, and shuffled over to a table.

“Can I join you doctor?” Without waiting for a reply Lance dropped into the seat across from Ngo, who looked up and couldn’t help but smile. Somehow the engineer always managed to make the emergency rations look like a feast – maybe not so much the food itself, but the way he arranged it all.
“So – what do we think is going to hit us today?” started Lance, as he undid wrappers, and poured instant coffee.
“Hit us – isn’t that a bit gloomy?” tried Ngo, as he looked at the coffee. It was decaf, but it still struck the doctor as a bit of an odd combination with the sedatives. But obviously a crisis was no time to give up old habits – they were about the only comfort they had.
“I don’t know. First there was the freak outbreak at Romeo – and you still don’t really know what that was, right?”
“True,” conceded the doctor.
“Then we had these incoming asteroids, and we started hunkering down in preparation for that. Pretty big deal – especially with the way Daiga Gabhala decided to play ‘national security’ or whatever the heck his excuse was,”
“Well, in his defense, it probably was the right thing to do. Not much we could have done even with one more day. And even with the damage control he has tried to do we have still had more than enough panic.”
“And can you blame us? I mean the rocks we could probably have handled, just hunkering down, but then not ten minutes after Brokaw and the rest leave to fetch help, that thing appears. That shook me the fuck up, pills or no pills. First I thought it was going to drop on us, just to make sure we didn’t have a chance to prepare anything. But then it just hung there, like it was waiting, which was even scarier.”
“Yes, the Colossus is rather strange.” For a moment there Ngo felt thought it was Gabhala speaking, considering how calmly he talked about the alien object. Damn, he hated paraphenol – you couldn’t argue with the effect, but it was hell on bedside manners.

“Yeah – strange is one way to put it. Fucking ominous would be another. It is probably also the reason we haven’t heard from Brokaw and the others. I mean help should have been here by now.”
“I guess so,” agreed Ngo. Considering the number of pirates in Valhalla, and just the length of the trip, it was conceivable that the rescue expedition was just delayed. But Lance didn’t seem in the mood for contradictions, and Ngo had to admit he didn’t really believe it either.
“So that was my point. We’ve had about a disaster every other day now, so I just figured what was going to happen today.”
“As I said – gloomy.” Ngo had finished his food while Lance had ranted, and though he didn’t really fell like it, he still smiled as he got up, “we made it through it all so far, and as long as rations last we can wait a bit longer. Even if Jönsson and Brokaw have had an accident, they are bound to miss hearing from us back at Midgard. Probably it is just Incobal being stingy about sending someone out here to help.”
“So now you are trying to cheer my up, by adding corporate bureaucracy to our troubles.” Lance returned the smile halfheartedly, but a least he seemed a bit better for having vented. “But honestly, the Colossus scares me.”
“So far it has just been hanging there – lets deal with the disasters at hand. You could start by tackling that poor excuse for a breakfast.” It was a bad joke, but it was still the first genuine smile they had that morning.

After breakfast Dr. Ngo started making his rounds. Or thats how he thought of them - it wasn’t like the base had turned into one big hospital or anything, but now that almost everybody were on medication, he did feel that his colleagues had all suddenly become his patients. And that carried some sort of responsibility to take care of them. Eventually he got to the satellite lab, where Gabhala was sitting at the computers. Before all the disasters had hit, Dr. Ngo had been very concerned about Gabhala’s rather liberal self medication, but in the current situation he was almost happy that the administrator had been so proactive about it. It had certainly made it easier to convince the rest of the scientist that there was no shame in steadying their nerves, and it was better than if they started doing that with alcohol.
“Morning doctor,” said Gabhala and leaned back from whatever he had been working on.
“Good morning administrator. Just checking in to see if you are alright.”
“I’m as fine as can be expected. Just like all the other mornings, but thank you Dr. Ngo.”
“Anything new?” It was more or less the end of the round, so Ngo figured he might as well hang around.
“Well, actually there might be. The Colossus – for lack of better name – still isn’t responding to radio or any other signals we’ve tried to send, but Jackson came up with the idea that we might be able to get one of the geological satellites close enough to get some readings or something. After all if it hadn’t been for the way it arrived – and of course that weird transition blast it did a few days later – we would hardly be able to tell that is wasn’t a rock.”
“Not a bad idea, I guess. Not really sure I think the Colossus is our most pressing concern.”
“That may be true, but it is not like there is a whole lot of other things we can do. We’ve shored up the damage, and now we can just hope help gets here while supplies last. It is not as simple as it looks controlling these satellites though. Guess Mr. Jensen had some basis for his complaints.”
“Maybe you should get Lance to help out. Not a satellite specialist, but he is an engineer, so I guess he has some flair for computers as well. More than me anyway. And at breakfast he was expressing some concern about the Colossus, so I would think he would be very happy to have a closer look at the thing.”
“Well, I’m certainly not getting much further on my own, and now that you’ve mentioned breakfast my stomach is also registering some complaints. Better go see if I can find a solution to both those problems.”
Hours later – after both breakfast, lunch and dinner, all equally uninteresting – Gabhala and Lance had finally got found a suitable satellite and got into a high elliptical orbit.
“We should be coming up on the first pass now, Lance. Are we ready for telemetry?” asked Gabhala. He might even have been excited if it hadn’t been for the drugs.
“Yes all the links seem to be steady, though it is a bit of jury rigged job. Now lets just hope we don’t tick if off or something.”
“Apart from the transition flash it has just been hovering there, and the satellites have been there all the time. It is not like they can come as a surprise to whoever is up there. I doubt anything will happen.”
As they waited in silence the last few minutes before the satellite was in range, other researchers on the base began gathering in the small computer lab. And finally telemetry began coming in.
“It looks almost like a pine cone with all those layers.”
“Yes. According the the spectral bands it seems to be some sort of silicate shell. Similar to ablative blast armor, though it is not a configuration I’ve ever seen.”
“Could be the satellite. Not exactly made for this kind of thing.”
“Doubt it - This whole ship is like nothing any of us have ever seen.”
“But what is it – some sort of Chinese super ship. Like those seeders they had plans for. Back before hyperspace technology and all that.”
“Nope – I say this thing is alien.”
“Alien – as in extra terrestrial, we come in peace, little green men?”
“I don’t know about the whole ‘we come in peace’ thing, given what has happened but yeah.”
“Hey – what is that. Can you magnify that. Is that … impact craters? Like from meteorites?”
“Sure looks like it. Looks like some of the plating has fallen off in places as well. Pretty banged up.”
“Wow – did it just drop something. Do we have any other satellites that can pick that up. I think it just dropped something.”
Lance scrambled with the computers, got the satellite’s camera turned, and they could all see small clusters of – well, something – shoot out from somewhere deep under the outer layers of the space ship towards the planet.
“I told you we shouldn’t have disturbed it. Now they are bombing us, or something.”
“Too late to be sorry about that. Right now we are on the other side of the planet, so lets just wait and see what happens.”
As if we could do anything else, even if we wanted too.”
Silently they watched the clusters fall, Lance continually readjusting the satellite, which was moving away from the alien vessel anyway. They lost track as the clusters dropped through the atmosphere, but there were no flashes of light or ripples in the clouds to indicate explosions. Nothing more came from the Colossus, which once again was just hanging there silently.
“Didn’t seem to be bombs. As far as I can tell the impacts didn’t register on the seismographs either.”
“All the clusters dropped down in the asteroid impact craters. I don’t think that is a coincidence.”
“Whatever it is, I suggest we send someone out there to look at it. I’m not going to force anyone to go, but I’d like to know what is out there. Before it comes knocking on our door, or something,” concluded Gabhala.
A short time later one of the snowtrucks was braving the dust storms for the first time in a week, racing towards the nearest of the impact craters.

Chapter 5

Midgard, Tafferty City

Lee Manfield looked around the Low Orbit. It was a dive. Not just rural and unsophisticated, which were actually qualities Lee enjoyed, but a real seedy place. It was actually something of a cliché having to come to a place like this to deal with pirates, but it was better – more discreet – than having them anywhere near the complex. The colonial commissioner was looking hard enough at them already, and besides the rest of the Combine would not look too kindly on pirates either. Especially not Richard. They all liked to think they were honest men, and well, so did Lee, but he was willing to admit that certain rules had to be bent to stay free of UN oppression. Bending the rules was sort of the whole point. And as long as the others were willing to turn a blind eye and just be amazed at his abilities as quartermaster he wasn’t about to disturb them with uncomfortable realities.
“So – what to you have for me today?” Lee wanted to get right to the point.
“Well, Mr. Manfield, the munitions you asked for will probably take longer than we originally figured. Now that the Patrol Service has arrived and all,” replied the pirate. Flash, if his tattoo was any indication of his name - It wasn’t someone Lee knew, but J-Bones had vouched for him, and beyond that Lee didn’t really care to know him.
“I assume that wasn’t all you wanted to say. Meeting up is a risk, and I could spend a lot of time if I had to go around and hear from all of you what you don’t have.”
“Don’t worry – I don’t want security or the patrol down on me any more than you. Probably less, since I would stand a really good chance of just getting shot,” laughed the Flash, “I think we have something you Manfields would be interested in.” The pirate pulled out a piece of electronics. Looked a bit like a small data capsule.
“And what is that supposed to be?”
“That is the heart of a Patrol hyperspace probe. You’re a connected man Mr. Manfield, so you have probably already heard of the hyperquake we had recently.”
“Yes, of course,” Lee was getting just a bit tired of the mystery, “what is it to me, I’m just a regular colonialist.”
“Heh – you Manfields are anything but regular. You like to know what The Man is up to, and this time it is something big. The quake happened out by the conduit to New Germany. You know, were the UN set up that secret research facility.
“It isn’t that secret. It is just a bio research center,” answered Lee, though he had wondered exactly what kind of bio research required a whole other planet – make that star system – to be conducted. It wasn’t like Valhalla was anywhere near being cramped yet.
“You might be a bit more interested if you knew that this probe was picked out by that quake. And it wasn’t no ordinary survey going on. They killed off one of our birds, and then they destroyed all the probes we hadn’t gotten hold off. And now it looks a bit like they are pulling most of the patrol out there. Something twisted up the local hyperspace out there something bad, and it ain’t like any ordinary quake I’ve ever observed. And believe me, as a pirate I get around. They may actually have shut down the conduit. Might not have been intentional but they could shut down whole systems like that. Makes interdiction look like just waving a stop sign. Might be just a bit worrying for free spirits like you.”
Lee didn’t like it when people played on the supposed paranoia of the Combine, but he had to admit his interest was piqued. Besides military grade electronics were always good to have, even if the data turned out to be a sham.

Chapter 6

New Germany system, local hyperspace

“Bleeeep.”
Eloyt looked at the squealing computer mostly expecting it to be just another warning system wanting to tell him that the ship was falling apart around them. As if he didn’t know that already, after him and Brokaw had spent most of a day saving the shuttle after they had been fried by the transfer bubble of the unknown vessel. It was a bloody miracle they hadn’t been completely fried, and Elyot had to admit that if it hadn’t been for Brokaw’s bloody Russian stubbornness Mariko and him would just have given up. But somehow the one-armed engineer – who was still supposed to rest, and be on meds, but there was no chance of that – had whipped them and the ship back into shape after the initial shock. And since then they had been limping towards Valhalla. If they had been able to, they would have transferred back into New Thuringen space, but all their nodes were fried, so they had to just hope they could make it to the Bifrost bridge. Elyot almost figured it would be faster to ge t out and swim, but he wasn’t sure if you could actually do that or if it was only in the vids.
“Bleeep.”
Oh, for crying out loud. Then Elyot saw that the radio had picked up a transponder signal.
“Mariko. Ivan. Wake up. There is somebody out there.” While he was shouting Elyot desperately fiddling with the radio, and finally got power routed back into the transmitter.
“Mayday, mayday. This is the Shuttlecraft … shit, I don’t know what the bloody craft is called, but we are in the shit. This it Elyot Jensen from New Thuringen. Mayday, mayday.”
No thing. Then another bleep from the radio.
“What’s going on,” asked Mariko, voice still slurred from waking.
“The radio picked up a signal, but I can’t seem to get through.”
“No shit. The lingua softs are completely fried, that was one of the reasons we shut down the transmitter in the first place. And to save power of course. Just wire it over the transponder or something, and hope whoever is in the other ends understands English – or Swedish or Russian.” Mariko yawned, and while Elyot started fiddling more with the broken radio she tried to buckle herself into the other pilot seat.
“There we go. Mayday, mayday. This is Elyot Jensen from New Thuringen. Mayday. Most of our electronics have been fried. Mayday.”
Still silence. Ivan came into the cockpit looking just as worn as Mariko, and together all three stared at the radio, daring it to answer.
“We read you Mr. Jensen. This is Captain Alan Farrell of the UNPS Bow Street. Please keep transmitting on the frequency, and we will dispatch rescue shuttles to pick you up. We should be there in fifteen to twenty minutes, so just hang in there.”
“YES. Yes, sir. We’ll keep right on transmitting. Damn are we glad to see you. You cannot imagine.” While Elyot was blabbering into the radio, Mariko hugged the rather surprised Ivan, who still didn’t seem quite awake enough, to understand what was going on. Except that his ice queen partner seemed to want to give him a kiss.

An hour later all three were being examined by Dr. Agresti, after their shuttle had been towed aboard the Bow Street.
“Apart from stress – which shouldn’t neglected, but is still a rather minor problem all things considered – you all check out fine. Fortunately emergency rations are very nutritious, so there should be no problem there, though I suspect you are all rather looking forward to a decent meal. I’m afraid that will have to wait a while, but even the food here on Bow Street will probably be a treat.” The doctor smiled as his jest, as he checked off the medical logs.
“If you do have any problems, don’t hesitate to come back here. If you need something to help you sleep I can provide that as well. If you just need a bed, quarters have already been provided. But first I suspect the captain would like to have a word. It is just possible that I got the suspicion because he has been hovering outside the infirmary ever since I insisted on looking to your needs, before he looked to his. So this is your last chance, to claim asylum.”
This time he even managed to get a smile from Mariko, and Brokaw replied: “Thanks a lot doctor, but I’m afraid we are just so happy to be rescued, that we’ve forgotten any real complaints. I’m certainly not up to coming up with fake ones.”
“Says the man who is missing an arm. I do have some temporary implants, but I’m afraid they might cause complications for later permanent implants. Well, I’ll let in the lions now,” said Dr. Agresti and went to the infirmary door, where on cue Captain Farrell burst in and greeted the rescuees.
“We’ve already met via radio, but allow me to introduce myself again. I’m Captain Alan Farrell, and the crew of the Bow Street are very happy we were able to come to your assistance in time. Being marooned in hyperspace is very nasty, and I’m afraid the rescue rate isn’t nearly as good as we would like it to be at the Patrol Service. Actually my Chief Engineer told that you had done a remarkable job of patching up your shuttle, but with the conditions of local hyperspace being what they are I still wouldn’t be too sure your would have made it all the way to Valhalla.”
“You certainly won’t here any complaints from us,” replied Mariko.
“Good to hear. Now of course, the question I’ve been pestering the good doctor to be allowed to ask you, is what brought you out in such bad conditions in the first place, and what happened to your craft. I’m afraid your flight recorder was badly damaged – but I guess you already knew that, and I can certainly see why it wouldn’t be the top priority for repairs. But it does mean I have to get statements from you, and not just to satisfy my own curiosity.”
“Oh, well that is a rather long story,” began Elyot.
“But since we just told the doctor we were fit for fight, we are obviously more than happy to tell it,” interrupted Brokaw.
“Well first of all, lets not forget our manners. I’m Ivan Brokaw, this is Elyot Jensen and the nice young woman,” this drew some eye-rolling from Mariko ,”is Mariko Jönsson. As you’ve probably already guessed, since there is no other reason to be out here on the back of nowhere, we are all from the Alpha Station at New Thuringen, though only Ms. Jönsson is a biologist. I’m a structural engineer and Mr. Jensen is a computer specialist. So, where to begin.”
“Well, the asteroids would seem like a good start,” suggested Elyot, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.
“Yeah, sure, but some things did happen leading up to that you know,” replied Brokaw, indicating his missing arm.
“Anyway about nine days ago - Is that right, nine? Kinda lost track while we were in hyper,” the other two nodded, and Brokaw continued,” so nine days ago Mr. Jensen here discovered that a number of asteroids were on a collision course with New Thuringen. Not the ‘may hit on its next pass in two hundred and thirteen years’ kinda collision course, but within something like ten days. I guess that might mean they have already hit, or at least will have when we get there.”
“My calculations were pretty accurate, and yes they will have hit by now,” said Elyot looking at his watch, “fortunately nothing should hit the main base directly.”
“You say ‘a number of asteroids’. Do you mean a larger object that has broken up? One collision sounds unlucky enough,” asked Captain Farrell.
“Well, we never went out to actually looked, but judging from the telemetry it seemed like three distinct objects, hitting with a separation of a bit more than half a day, spreading the impact around the planet. But that is really getting into details,” continued Elyot, having taken over from Brokaw,” even one collision could have been bad enough. It is not like Alpha station was built to be a completely self sustaining facility. So we had to prepare for disaster, and unfortunately the shuttle you found us in was the only transfer capable vessel we had, so immediate evacuation was out of the question. Instead we were sent to fetch help, hoping we could make it to Valhalla and back with an evacuation operation in time. Should have been just barely possible with an eight day round trip and sufficient panic to take no bureaucratic bullshit about assembling the rescue ships. It not like it is that big a base, so there isn’t that much personnel.”
“But then you got caught in the hyperquake, and your shuttle got damaged,” concluded Farrell.
“Well, the shuttle got damaged alright, but is wasn’t because of any hyperquake,” said Brokaw, and Mariko continued, “no, we got caught in the transition bubble of another ship just after we had made transit ourselves. And it was the biggest ship I’ve ever seen, seemingly just waiting there at the Lagrange point when we came over.”
“Another ship?” Captain Farrell was slightly skeptical, “as far as we know no one has been bound for New Thuringen in weeks. And I doubt pirates would bother to go out that far.”
“Well, the flight recorder might be broken, but if you have any doubts, I’m sure your engineers can confirm that the damage to the shuttle is from a transition bubble overload. And a massive one at that,” answered Brokaw.
“But I think you can be pretty sure it wasn’t pirates. Or anything else you’ve seen before for that matter. It was huge – bigger even than one of those pre-hyper Chinese seed-ships. Like ten kilometers or so,” Elyot added.
“Indeed.” That didn’t exactly make Farrell less skeptical, but the three didn’t seem to have any reason to lie, so he didn’t want to press the matter further.
“Anyway, our transition nodes were blown to bits, so we couldn’t transfer back to New Thuringen space on our own. Instead we made repairs as best as possible, and started limping towards Valhalla, though obviously the going has been pretty slow. With all the damage we had already taken we couldn’t risk running into any flares, and as you said yourself this is a rough bit of space, with all the quakes. I actually remembered it as being pretty smooth going out, but then I wasn’t the pilot back then,” concluded Brokaw.
“Usually I understand that it would be pretty smooth, but as I mentioned there was a rather severe hyperquake some days ago, and we were actually on our way to New Thuringen to make sure no one got caught up in it. Which I guess was a bit of luck for you, in the middle of all your misfortune. Now it sounds like your fellow researchers are in even more trouble than we had feared – and probably wondering what is taking you three so long – so the Bow Street will continue there. I’m afraid that means you won’t be going to Valhalla right away, since we have no long range craft that I’m willing to risk in these conditions. We will try sending a signal back to Bifrost station, just to let them know what has happened at the research station, but I’m afraid the relay buoys we’ve dropped going here, haven’t fared to well in the flares, so I’m not counting on anything. But we do have spare bunks, so it should be possible to make you comfortable, and if all goes according to plan it should only take us about two more days to get to New Thuringen. From there it will be hard to tell, but we are probably as good an evacuation teams as you could have hoped to find, so lets just hope your colleagues are still there to be evacuated. ”
“It wasn’t like we were going to Valhalla for a holiday anyway, Captain. If there is anything we can do to help here, or when we get back to New Thuringen, just say so and we’ll do anything we can,” answered Brokaw.
“And I wouldn’t mind seeing that huge ship again. If it is still there,” he continued, mostly to himself.

The last two days going to New Thuringen were relatively uneventful. The afterquakes had mostly died down and the Bow Street had no problem weathering the flares they did run into.
“Coming up on New Thuring local space, Captain. We should be ready to make transition on your mark, sir,” said Horace from the navigation station.
“Everything looks pretty much as it should according to the original survey maps, and conditions are calm.”
“Thank you navigator. Let’s make this as easy as we can for ourselves, and make it a regular Lagrange transfer. Did Brokaw and the others mention where they had jumped out?” inquired Captain Farrell.
“Lagrange point two, sir, according to the statements,” answered Lieutenant Salient.
“Good – then let us go for Lagrange point one. Only a guess of course, but there is no reason to invite another hyper disaster, if we can avoid it, and we should be able to get out of the planetary shadow for a clear view fast enough. If whatever it was our rescuees ran into is even still there.”
“All hands, prepare for transfer at ready stations. Beta and Delta Wing ready to launch as soon as we are clear, all repair crews and deck, and the rotation section should be evacuated. I hope there will be no problems, but we don’t know what we are getting into. Captain Farrell out.” The next fifteen minutes the Bow Street was a veritable beehive of activity as everybody rushed to their duty stations, and then there was the flash. Transition into a potentially hostile situation was always a tense moment, since there was no way not to go in blind, and practically no way not to announce your presence.
Just in case, fighters were scrambled the moment transition was complete, before the sensors had recovered and Horace was well into evasive maneuvers. But when the flash finally cleared the Bow Street was greeted by nothing but the view of New Thuringen against a clear field of stars. It looked peaceful – but somewhat gray and dull to tell the truth.
“New Thuringen Research Station this is Captain Alan Farrell of the UNPS Bow Street. We understand that you have suffered asteroid impacts, and we are here to render assistance. Come in New Thuringen.”
“UNPS Bow Street, this is Edward Lance at Alpha Station. Damn are we glad to see you. Or we would be, if people were up – it is the middle of the night down here. Let me get get Administrator Gabhala on the line for you. Damn are we glad to see you.”
“Well, we just glad there is still someone there to assist, New Thuringen,” replied Farrell, and it drew smiles all around the bridge, when the only answer was some faint “wooos”.
“I think hes already run off to wake up the rest of the base,” commented Salient.
“It does sound that way. Well, while he gets everybody up, we might as well start preparations. Horace take us into a geostationary orbit as close as possible to the research station, and Salient please patch me through to Wing Commander Dabiri,” said Captain Farrell, quickly getting back to business.
“Yes, sir. Patched through now,” replied Lieutenant Salient.
“Commander Dabiri stand down Delta Wing, we want those pilots back and ready to fly evacuation runs as soon as they are ready down at New Thuringen. But I would like you to take Beta Wing swing around the planet to check out Lagrange point two and see if anything is waiting there. And remember we are still at ready stations, even if we didn’t get a fiery welcome.” The Captain’s orders cut through the adrenaline of a combat alert transit and the joy shared with the New Thuringen researchers, and the bridge was back to full efficiency.

“You all heard the Captain. Delta Wing you can return home – Iceman and Blues will go in the first shuttles. Beta Wing prepare for a low counter rotational orbit of New Thuringen. Preferably we just want to sweep around for a quick reconnaissance and rendezvous with the Bow Street when they are are geosynchronous.” Operating in normal space was very different from the dogfighting of hyperspace, and Dabiri always felt a bit trapped by the harsh realities of orbital mechanics. But at least he was living in the age of the reactionless thruster – before that it must have been a nightmare.
“And Lieutenant Salient, please hook us into whatever satellite coverage New Thuringen has, so we can remain in radio contact as we orbit.”
“Will do, Commander. See you on the other side.”

A few hours later Beta Wing swept around to the dark side of New Thuringen and there as a black shadow against the field of stars was the Colossus. Actually, to the untrained eye even something as enormous as the Colossus would drown in the darkness, but to Beta Wing it was awe inspiring.
“That thing is huge,” was all Rodriguez could say.
“Ten point two kilometers according to the range finder. That is bigger than the Vulcan shipyards. And it looks solid. Who could have built that thing?” replied Ellenberg.
Commander Dabiri switched to the satellite network.
“Bow Street, this is Beta Wing. Come in Bow Street. Is the link working?”
“Beta Wing, this is Bow Street. You are coming in clear. The satellite link is working fine.”
“We have just passed around New Thuringen and have line of sight to an unknown vessel. Presumably the one reported by Brokaw, Jönsson and Jensen. Let me tell you, they were not kidding about the size.”
“We read you Beta Wing. The researchers at New Thuringen have confirmed that the object has been holding at the Lagrange point since it transferred in ten days ago.”
“Do they have any telemetry on it? Anything we should know?” asked Dabiri.
“Not much I’m afraid. We are still getting into orbit and making preparations for the evacuations, but as far as I’ve understood they have tried radio transmissions with no success, and other than that they have only had one pass with a jury rigged geo-survey sat. They say the object has been mostly quiet, but that is did produce something like a transition flash earlier - but without going anywhere,” replied Lieutenant Salient.
“Well, if it has stayed at an unstable Lagrange point for ten days, then something over there must be active. Station keeping systems if nothing else,” commented Ellensberg.
“So – now what, Commander,” interrupted Rodriguez, “are we just going to drift by?” The young pilot obviously didn’t approve of that idea, though he tried to hide it.
“I don’t know. Captain, I’m afraid I don’t know what the book says about a situation like this. But now that we are out here…” Dabiri let the implication hang in the air.
“I don’t know what the book says either. I think we might be writing it, and I’m sure the Scout Service – well, the whole UN council – will have a lot of suggestions and amendments when we get back. But right now we are ‘out here’ as you say. You are go for a closer pass, but I expect that ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude of yours to keep you from doing anything too foolish,” replied Captain Farrell, “and set up a telemetry link via the satellites. They should be able to handle it.”
“Will do, Captain. Beta Wing prepare to burn for a slow interception orbit on my mark. Full active sensors. I don’t want to miss anything if I can help it.”

As the patrol fighters closed in on the dark shape they finally got a feel for how big it actually was. Not only over ten kilometers long, but also almost two kilometers in diameter at the widest spot. And not a spindly delicate structure like the solar power satellites or the orbital construction yards they might compare it to. It was closer to a hollowed out asteroid, though as far as they could tell it was completely artificial. The comparison to a pine cone was actually pretty accurate. A long spindle with a fat and a pointed end, and an outer skin composed of huge overlapping plates.
“Is it just me or does this thing look old,” said Rodriguez, as when they got within visual range. “All those meteorite pockmarks and stuff. Chief Simay would throw a fit if we came home like that.”
“I don’t think you would have to worry about coming home. Some of those marks are bigger than your patroller. Even the Bow Street – or a Diamond Star for that matter, wouldn’t take kindly to a dent like that,” replied Ellensberg.
“You know what I meant, Teacher,” Rodriguez shot back.
“Yeah, I do. And your right. It does look old. And sort of dead too,” agreed Ellensberg.
“It’s because there are no lights. No signs of activity. As you said it must be doing station keeping maneuvers, but there is no sign of how it does it. No thruster output, or an Erlenmeyer field or anything. Just hanging there,” commented Dabiri.
“Look at those bands around the body. Are those transition coils?”
“Well spotted. They look a bit like it, but I’ve never seen transition coils integrated into the body like that. I guess they really could be anything.”
“Bow Street this is Beta Wing. I assume you are following our chatter and readings. The object still looks dormant, but damn is it impressive when you get this close. Like a sleeping dragon. We will pull in for a closer look. Try to get a three hundred and sixty degree look at the thing.”
“We read you Beta Wing. You are still go for close inspection.”

Meanwhile the Bow Street had reached parking orbit at the equator close to Alpha Station.
“Alpha Station this is Captain Farrell. The Bow Street is now in position. I realize this is the middle of the night – or at least very early morning – for you people, but as I understand it you are all more or less up down there?”
“Yes Captain, I don’t think any of us will be going back to sleep,” replied Daiga Gabhala over the radio.
“In that case, we might as well start evacuation procedures immediately. We’ve patched into your satellite network, and the weather seems pretty fair right now, but there is a storm cell not too far south, and since you have bona fide meteorologists down there, and you’ve been living there I while, I’d like your assessment of the situation as well.”
“OK, let me get Hussein on the line for you. Just a moment.” There was some shuffling and noises in the background, and then: “Achim Hussein here Bow Street. Chief meteorologist at your service, but since I’m the only one that may not be saying much, he-he. You’ve actually come a pretty good time. New Thuringen isn’t the most friendly of planets weatherwise, and the asteroid impacts literally kicked up a storm, so seven or five day predictions have gone completely down the drain. But all in all it looks like we have a good bit of calm here locally. Wouldn’t worry too much about that storm cell, at least not for the next fourteen hours.”
“Thanks Mr. Hussein, that sounds good. Since we don’t have a clear view of the situation yet, I can’t quiet promise if fourteen hours is going to cover it, so it would be very helpful if you could keep monitoring the weather for any developments. Lieutenant Salient will set up a comlink for your,” replied the captain.
“Sure thing. Anything to help. I’ll let you get back to Dr. Gabhala.” More shuffling at the microphone and then Gabhala was back.
“Speaking of the weather though, the storms have left quite a bit of debris on the landing site,” said Gabhala.
“A Lioness can handle pretty rough conditions, but it would certainly be preferable if you can clear it as much as possible. If not for any other reason the to avoid any accidents caused by debris getting blown away when we land. It would be pretty sad if we came all this way to help you out, only get some of you killed in the process,” replied Captain Farrell, “Anything else we should know before starting the round trips?”
“I think we are all pretty ready here at the base. Or at least we will be when you arrive. How good are your quarantine facilities? It is not absolutely crucial, but I’m sure the colonists of Calderra would appreciate if we bring as much of our research with us as we can, and anything we leave here will probably be destroyed by the elements before there is any chance of getting back,” continued Gabhala.
“A scientist to the end, I can hear. Well I guess you wouldn’t be out here, if you weren’t willing to go to some lengths for your field. I’ll put you in contact with Lt. Commander Daniels, our quartermaster, and Dr. Agresti, and let them make the determination. But we are not really set up for that kind of cargo, and we are going to be pretty cramped when we’ve got all of you aboard, so I don’t want to take any risks.” Captain Farrell had not been expecting to evacuate the whole lab along with the personnel.
“I can understand that Captain, certainly. If nothing else, I guess we will always have the data, because quite frankly I would have to admit that we have been dealing with some nasty stuff. Indeed you probably want to setup decontamination procedures for your shuttles when they get back, as the biosphere here has proved quite virulent. And adaptable. I’ll provide you with the details of our normal procedures,” finished Gabhala, then added: “Oh – one last thing. We are not currently all here at the base.”
“That is quite an oversight,” answered Captain Farrell, trying not to sound too annoyed with the administrator.
“True, and I apologize. I guess we had gotten used to them not being around. Before you arrived in system the Colossus – excuse me, that would be the alien object in orbit – deployed a number of, well, other objects. Hmmh – it’s interesting how handicapped one feels without a proper vocabulary, and I’m afraid both aliens and space craft in general are outside my field. Anyway a number of object were dropped into the atmosphere and apparently survived reentry, hitting the ground approximately where the asteroids had impacted. At the time we had no expectations of when an evacuation fleet might arrive, so the logical cause of action was to send an expedition out to take a look, to get an idea about what we might be dealing with. I don’t believe they have reached the target area yet, but they are some way out. We are in contact with them, so it should be relatively simple to get a fix on their position, and it would be faster to pick them up there, than to wait for their return ” explained Gabhala.
“If a decent landing site can be located, I don’t believe that should be a problem, though it will obviously require an extra trip,” replied Farrell.
“Indeed, might I even suggest that with a Lioness it would be little trouble to finish the trip, if find out what it was that ‘fell to earth’, so to speak?”
“Let’s not get carried away here Administrator,” replied Captain Farrell, but even across the bridge he could see Lieutenant Salients eyes light up at the potential discovery. And he even had to admit he wasn’t completely impervious to the sense of adventure himself.

Back at the Colossus Beta Wing was practically ‘in orbit’ around the alien object, trying to get as close a look as the possibly could.
“Man, this will be a story to tell you grandchildren, eh,” said Ellensberg.
“Provided we get to tell anybody anything,” replied Rodriguez, but his voice implied that he was more than willing to break any gag orders. In his case it was probably more to impress women, but then again that is a reasonable first step towards having grandchildren to impress.
“Wow. It looks like even this juggernaut couldn’t shake of all the punches,” Dabiri burst out, as they came around to the other side, were there was a gaping crater in the ’side’ of the vessel. The pilots had noted several places where the armor like scales of the pine cone had been tilted, and in some places even missing. But where those holes had looked ‘natural’, like openings for sensors, thrusters or whatever the object had, the crater was like a gaping wound.
“It must be almost three hundred meters deep. The Bow Street could almost land in there.” There seemed to be no end to Rodriguez’ awe at the alien vessel.
“Be sure to get some good picture of this. You can see the layers in the construction. Still no signs of activity though,” instructed Dabiri.
“Well, if we were looking for a weak spot I guess we found it,” added Rodriguez.
“Maybe so. On the other hand I’m not sure I would call anything that could take a dent like that and still fly ‘weak’. And I certainly wouldn’t like to run into whatever made the dent,” replied Ellensberg.
The pilots made one more spiral pass off the alien vessel, which just hung there silently, ignoring them. Not even swatting at the circling flies.
“I guess we had better head back to the Bow Street. Short of landing on the thing, I doubt we will learn more here. Perhaps the ship load of scientists we are picking up will have something interesting to say,” concluded Dabiri.
“Land on it…”
“Don’t even think about it Lieutenant Rodriguez. We are plotting an orbit back,” interrupted Dabiri, before the lieutenant did something they might regret.
“Yes, sir,” replied Rodriguez. But they both knew he was thinking about it.

Chapter 7

New Thuringen, asteroid crash site.

Even at reentry velocity the storm was tugging strongly at the Lioness shuttle as it dropped through the atmosphere. And once in a while a few bright flashes indicated that it had teeth as well.
“Damn, this can be one unfriendly planet,” commented Lieutenant Michaels though he did look too troubled by the weather.
“Yeah. But hey – you’re the Iceman. You can’t let a bit of frost shake you,” Holland, his co-pilot, jibed.
“Pretty hard not to get physically shaken in this weather, but maybe if I didn’t have to compensate for your heavy ass upsetting the balance of the ship,” Michaels laughed back.
“I blame the galley and their depleted uranium brownies. Besides my heavy ass is just providing a bit of ballast. I think I have the snowtruck on sensors now. You want to get us about five clicks further north, bearing two fourteen.”
“North – yeah obviously the silly squints had to stop further into the bloody storm. Well, at least this should be the last run, assuming Blues can do two while we are picking up these stragglers.”
“Can’t see he should have too much trouble doing that. The weather back at the base is still balmy and calm. Assuming you consider minus seventeen Celsius balmy.”
“Nothing that a fusion scramjet can’t warm up.”
The Lioness banked further into the storm with dogged determination.

“There they are. At least according to the sensors. Everything is white on whi – oh – think I see a flare over there.”
“Let’s be nice and park as close as we can. I doubt they’d like to walk too far in this weather,” commented Michaels.
“You are probably right about that. Lets see if the radio is cooperative.” Holland fiddled with the dials ad finally got something that wasn’t quite static.
“Green Team, this is Retrieval Two, here to pick you up and save you the drive back to base. Come in Green Team.”
“Retrieval Two, this is Green Team. Nice to see you. Come on down – we have hot chocolate and snowballs.”
“Hah – they don’t sound too bad those squints. Tell them to watch out. I don’t want to melt those snow balls,” laughed Michaels.
“Sounds cozy Green Team. Be advised we are coming in for a landing, and you don’t want to get caught in the blast,” Holland replied over the radio.
“Roger that Retrieval Two. We are redeploying flares for your landing zone, but the snow keeps covering them up. We also set up a transponder if you can get a clear signal from that. What about the truck?”
“I’m afraid the you’ll have to ditch the truck. We can carry it, but it wouldn’t survive going into orbit. We’re just here for you guys.”

A few minutes later the shuttle was on the ground and was quickly assaulted by what could only be described as three abominable snowmen. Throwing snowballs.
“Oh god. Tells them to stop fooling around and cycle them through the airlock. I don’t want us to get iced down,” Michaels complained
“I’m on it, but the airlock is complaining a bit. Still adjusting to the pressure differentials. You will just have to hope the armor holds up the snowball barrage a little longer.”
Fortunately it didn’t take too long for the airlock to readjust, and minutes later the three snowmen where inside and slowly transforming into humans as they took off the outer layers of their environment suit. Inside were two men and a woman.
“Nice to see you Retrieval Two. I’m Sarah and this is Steen and Yussuf. Thanks again for coming all this way to pick us up,” said the woman with a smile, then fumbled a bit with her suit and presented a thermos, “we weren’t kidding about the hot chocolate.”
“Good to have you on board. Now please strap yourself in, so we can get out of here,” answered Michaels, already heating up the engines.
“Actually … don’t think I caught your names,” began Sarah, while the two men began strapping in.
“Oh – sorry. I’m Patroller Holland and this is Lieutenant Michaels, though he prefers Iceman.”
“Well then Iceman, I was actually hoping you could take us to the asteroid crater, instead of taking us straight up to the Bow Street.”
“What!?! Look lady, we are a retrieval team, not a taxi service. I got my orders from the captain, and he just asked us to pick you up. The only reason we are out here is because he didn’t want to wait for you to get back to base. Now please strap in,” replied Michaels, without taking his eyes off the controls.
Sarah sat down and began strapping in, but still continued: “You may have your orders, bit if you want to get sticky about that sort of thing then technically we have our orders from Administrator Gabhala.” The other two scientists looked at each other a bit skeptical about using the word ‘order’.
“And, again if you want to get technical, he would be the Colonial Commissioner of New Thuringen. Which, if I know my charters, means he outranks your Captain.”
“What are you on about, woman?” replied Michaels. He wasn’t exactly used to getting bossed around by civilians, and not quite sure he liked it.
“Just that if you want to make this about whose boss can kick whose boss ass, then my boss just might win. I was really hoping you two could just see this as doing us a favor. Who knows? It might also help me thaw up a bit faster,” Sarah finished in her most suggestive voice – drawing yet another amused stare from Steen and Yussuf.
“And you really do want her to thaw. She could freeze us all if goes all ice queen on us,” Steen said with a laugh.
Despite himself Michaels began wondering just what might be inside the bulky environment suit, and said: “Holland?”
“Well, this is the last run, and I’m sure the Bow Street will wait for us before transferring out. And it sound like we can always say we were ordered to do it. But don’t believe for a moment Captain Farrell won’t have our ass for it.”
“The Captain has had my ass before. He might even be disappointed if I didn’t hand it to him given such an obvious chance. OK squints, you’ve got your ride, assuming we can get there safely. But it better be worth it.”
“I’m pretty sure it will be. And I promise you’ll get honorable mentions in our articles. And hot chocolate,” Sarah replied with a wink.
“Whop-di-doo. Well, as I already said strap in. This is going to be bumpy.”
“Do you have any coordinates for that crater,” asked Holland, getting back to business.

Half an hour later the Lioness shot over ridge of the impact crater, heading towards what seemed to be the eye of the storm. As the air began to clear the crew aboard Rescue Two could see a large spike rising out of the crater and as they drew nearer they could see strange flashes of light coming of it.
“That’s where we are going. Now tell me it wasn’t worth a little detour,” with a smile.
“I don’t know. What the heck is that thing,” replied Michaels although he had to admit, that smile was worth something.
“How should we know? That is what we were going here to find out,” Sarah answered, and Yussuf added: “But to answer your question as best we can, that thing was dropped from the Colossus.”
“Wow – those guys don’t do anything small do they,” replied Holland. He had been listening in on the reports from Beta Wing earlier during the rescue, but the spike still looked impressive at over two hundred meters.
“How close do you want to get,” asked Michaels as he started to circle the spike.
“As close as possible. We want to go out and touch it is possible. Just set us down as near as you want to get.” Sarah was already putting her environment suit back on.
“Get out? Well, I guess if we’ve gone along this far, we might as well let you keep on being silly. Bringing her down.” Michaels hadn’t earned the name Iceman because he lost his cool, but he still had to admit he was a bit unnerved by the alien artifact. He sure wasn’t going to touch it.

Outside it was not only calm as it supposed to be in the eye of the storm, but it was also a fair bit warmer than it normally was. Could just be a random fluctuation, but all three scientists were pretty sure it was related to the spike. The crater was ragged, and everywhere there were boulders and puddles of icy slush – all remnants of the asteroid.
“Could you guys check your chem scanners?” asked Steen a bit puzzled.
“Sure – what are we looking for?” answered Yussuf.
“Well – are you guys getting a high increase in oxygen content?”
“Yeah. And quite an increase in chlorine as well, though there is obviously less of it,” replied Yussuf.
“It seems the spike is releasing reactive gases. Or at least catalyzing it,” Steen theorized.
“Maybe. But maybe not quite as directly as that. Look at the ground near the spike,” said Sarah pointing as some dark patches spreading out from the base of the huge tower.
“Doesn’t that look like plants?” she continued.
“Perhaps not quite plants, but something like it. The biosphere here sure is determined,” Yussuf added.
“Maybe we should just keep our distance. I assume you haven’t forgotten what happened to Brokaw, when he got too close to ‘the biosphere’ at Romeo,” Steen said, pausing as he switched from the chem scanner to his pocket weather station.
“As long as we don’t tear the enviro suits, I’m sure we are going to be fine. I want to get some samples,” Sarah said as she began climbing over rocks and boulders making her way closer to the spike.
“Well, hurry up then. I wanted to get here as much as you, but know I’d also like to get out while we still can,” replied Steen, “this thing is wreaking havoc with the atmosphere, and I can’t figure out how it is doing it.”
“It is an alien artifact. Maybe it is OK if we don’t figure it out in half an hour,” Yussuf replied, and they both stood and stared at Sarah, who had gotten close enough to the spike to touch it.
“What is she doing?” asked Steen.
“That girl is one crazy motherfucker, when she gets an idea in her head,” replied Yussuf, shaking his head.
A few minutes Sarah came bounding back, cradling something in her hands.
“No worries, I didn’t get infected or attacked, but there are little green men. Well, things anyway. Look at this,” she said as she held out her hand. In it a small green grub-like creature was wiggling, and Yussuf couldn’t help but think of his five year old daughter and her obvious joy when she presented him with a caterpillar or grasshopper. Sarah looked just the same – even the environment added to the toddler image.
“That’s nice. Stuff it in a sample tube and let’s get out before the pilots decide that bringing us here was a bad idea in the first place,” Steen said, in a voice that indicated he wasn’t too sure the grub was safe.
“Okay, okay. I guess we have some good readings now anyway. But man I would love to take a longer look at this thing. It is like this whole planet is on the evolutionary fast track. Oh one last thing.” Sarah stuffed the grub in a sealed sample container and detached her helmet camera.
“Stand together, like that, back to the spike. We should at least one good picture of us at this historic occasion,” she said as she arranged the camera on a rock.
“Say cheese.”

Chapter 8

New Thuringen, on the Bow Street

“But Captain, this is the greatest scientific discovery of our time. Possibly of all human history,” Gabhala tried for the third time. He was actually pretty sure the captain had got that point, because he seemed quite intelligent, but Gabhala could understand why it didn’t seem to make any impression.
“As I’ve already said Dr. Gabhala, I do understand that,” replied Farrell, almost as exasperated. But at least he had some professional experience dealing with troublesome cases, and compared to pirate hijackers the administrator was not such a bad verbal sparring partner. His suggestions might be as crazy, but at least he wasn’t threatening to blow up the ship.
“And still you are willing to just pack up and go? What exactly am I missing here?” tried Gabhala.
“We came to evacuate you and your colleagues from the New Thuringen base. Now that we have you all aboard it is time to go back to Valhalla. I just don’t see the reason to take any unnecessary risk. Unlike your people who seem extraordinarily eager to do just that. Like that stunt they pulled at the asteroid crater,” explained Farrell.
“Which caused nothing more than a few hours delay in the evacuation procedure.”
“But they didn’t know that at the time. Your scientists put not only themselves but also two of my crew at unnecessary risk just to satisfy their curiosity.” Farrell didn’t really like sounding like that, but he also didn’t like it when people didn’t do what they were told. And while strictly speaking it was only Michaels and Holland that had disobeyed orders, he was going to have a word with that Sarah O’Toole woman as soon as he could. Like when they got under way.
“Their curiosity? I’d say they satisfied a bit more than that. The grub Dr. O’Toole picked up will revolutionize xenobiology all by itself, not to mention all the other readings they took.”
“Yes, that all sounds very fascinating Administrator. But I have a responsibility to my crew, and by coming here and evacuating your base, I also have a responsibility for the safety of your personnel. To protect and to serve, as we say in the Patrol Service. Now please let me get to the bridge.” Briefly Alan Farrell considered just showing the administrator out of the way, but he had to admit he was a bit old for that sort of thing.
“Then how about focusing a bit more on the service part, rather than the protection. Now that you bring up Dr. O’Toole, she did remind me that as a Colonial Commissioner I actually outrank you,” tried Gabhala, while he discreetly popped one of his paraphenol tablets.
“Don’t go there Dr. Gabhala. I promise you it won’t end well. I may not like it but you can’t be in the Service as long as me, especially as a captain, without doing a fair bit of politicking. It may have worked for a young woman providing a young man with the excuse he already wanted, but, well, you’re no young woman, thats for sure. New Thuringen is not an officially chartered colony, so you are just a lab administrator not a Commissioner. Even if you could make it stick, I’d be more than happy to let you file a complaint and then duke it out with Commissioner Pickford in Valhalla. Which I may remind you is where the Bow Street’s is officially stationed,” Farrell answered with a glare.
A glare that had silenced quite a few pirates and would probably had worked wonders on most lab administrators, but now that he had been chemically reinforced Gabhala was not so easily deterred.
“Yes, sorry about that. I didn’t mean to offend you, Captain. But really, wouldn’t you like to have an … excuse … as you call it? So let’s see if I can provide you with a better one,” smiled Gabhala, his mind already speeding.
“And what makes you say that?” If nothing else Farrell was curious how the administrator had reached that conclusion.
“Well. You admit that you understand the significance of the discovery we’ve made – and especially could make here in New Thuringen. And you’ve given into that curiosity twice already. First by sending patrollers out to examine the alien vessel. And secondly – and perhaps more interestingly – by not having Dr. O’Toole arrested for ‘ignoring a Patrol Officer during an evacuation’ or some such thing,” argued Gabhala.
“Both of those have reasonable logical explanations. We had to have some idea what we were dealing with, and I didn’t want to antagonize and further stress your colleagues, having just rescued them,” replied Farrell, though he had to admit that he probably would have arrested the woman, if she hadn’t had success with her mad plan. He didn’t like to discourage initiative.
“Indeed. All solid reasons. But it would be just as possible to reason the other way,” Gabhala replied and continued: “You say you came here to evacuate us. But while we were certainly in need of help and greatly appreciate your timely assistance, that can’t be quite true. After all the shuttle we sent to request help from Valhalla was disabled as you well know, since you were kind enough to pick them up.”
“Yeees?” Farrell had to admire Gabhala’s persistence. And he was getting curious to see where the administrator might be going.
“Well, logically that must mean you came here for some other purpose than to evacuate the New Thuringen base.”
“True, we set out to New Thuringen because of the hyperspace quake we detected. We already discussed this. Based on the amount of disruption, we were afraid if the main conduit here to New Germany might break down or at least become hard to navigate,” answered Farrell.
“So, you came to New Thuringen to help. To render whatever assistance might be necessary? And now I am asking for your help to study this alien ship.”
“I guess you could argue it that way, but staying here to investigate aliens can hardly be called necessary. Our presence in Valhalla was not simply for show, or to live up to some UN colony regulations. They have a serious problem with pirates that the Bow Street should be dealing with.”
“I’m sure the pirates of Valhalla are a very serious problem. I’m not trying to deny that. But until very recently Incobal Corporation and their security services must have dealt with it. And they must at least have been doing that well enough to keep their own business profitable. I’m not even trying to tell you how to do you job.” That drew another of Farrell’s glares, though more incredulous than stern this time. “No – honestly. But you yourself must obviously have judged that you could safely abandon your responsibilities in Valhalla for an undetermined period to come here. I’m just asking you to trust that judgment a bit longer.”
“When I made that judgment call, I was weighing the Bow Streets absence versus the potential loss of life here in New Thuringen should a hyperspace quake cut you off. Now that you have been evacuated, I would only place you and the Bow Street in more danger by staying.”
“Ooohhhh,” the frustration was wearing on Gabhala, “would you please just try to play along Captain. I understand the safety argument, but we – humanity - would never get anywhere if we just played it safe all the time. Forget that you came here as a rescuer. Stop seeing us scientists as poor damsels you’ve saved from distress. We may look like delicate lab specimens to you, but we wouldn’t be out here on the … no make that beyond the frontier if we didn’t have some guts. So yes – forget the rescue part. Instead remember that you came here to … to … investigate! That’s it. Investigate.”
“Investigate?” asked Farrell.
“Yes, investigate. You came out here because some strange – the space quake – had happened, at you felt you had to investigate. And now you’ve found an even bigger mystery. Isn’t that also what you do in the Patrol Service? You’re the space police. And sure that means a lot of watching traffic and busting up criminals and I don’t know what. But surely it also means investigation. Surely there is some detective in you,” almost pleaded Gabhala.
“The Patrol Service does do some investigative work, yes. Smuggling operations and the like, sure,” answered Farrell, and silently he also had to agree that detective work could be a lot more satisfying than chasing pirates simply by deploying fighters.
“But this is a lot different from a smuggling operation,” he continued, “and we are not equipped to deal with anything like this.”
“Who is? This is the first alien encounter with anything more advanced than
lichen. Okay, that is a bit of an overstatement, but we are not talking about a really nifty proto-tree or fancy new xenoinsect. We are talking about someone who can build hypercapable spacecraft. Heck, they might be more advanced than us. But the Patrol Service is equipped to operate independently beyond the frontiers. To trust your own judgment and handle whatever is thrown at you. I shouldn’t have to read your own recruitment speeches back to you. Who else would you send out here? The Scout Service? Those guys are glorified surveyors. Sure they go beyond the frontiers, but do they deal with danger? Besides this isn’t a new astronomical phenomenon or some sort of hyperspace anomaly. It is a spaceship. Living beings. Much closer to your field than the astronomers of the Scout Service. Who else? Hopefully you weren’t thinking of one of the militaries? The Union? China? Junction colony? Who knows what any of them might do. Blow it up. Heck, they could start a war over this thin g without ever getting out here.” Gabhala was getting fired up, thinking of all the potential screw ups.
“I was thinking, perhaps, present it to the UN council,” tried Farrell but as he said it he knew he really hadn’t been thinking any longer than evacuating the scientists back to Valhalla. And now that he started thinking he could see why Gabhala might be so worried.
“The UN council? Very idealistic, especially since only a few moments ago you pointed out how much politicking you had done. I don’t even want to think about how long it might take them to decide what to do with a discovery like this. Who know what might happen in the mean time.”
“And you know what to do? Who says anything would happen. The Colossus has pretty much just been hanging there for over a week, right?” asked Farrell.
“No, I don’t know what to do – I wasn’t trying to sound all knowing or anything. I just know that we can’t just let this discovery slip us by. We can’t just delay. We can’t not investigate. Maybe you are right that the Colossus would just stay here waiting for all of humanity to make up their mind, but I don’t think we can take that chance. I’m not saying we don’t tell the Council. Just that we don’t wait for their go ahead before we take a closer look. If nothing else we would have more to tell them.”
“But even if I accept your argument that this is a Patrol Service job – or at least ours as much as anybody else’s – we are still not equipped for it. The Bow Street is just a patrol carrier, we are mostly just pilots,” Farrell argued, though by now he knew that he just wanted Gabhala to convince him some more.
“Well, as I just pointed out your pilots are not just fighter jocks, they are investigators. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in the Patrol Service would they? And I hate to point this out, but you also just picked up a whole station worth of scientists. Some of the best xenobiologists I’ve had the pleasure to meet. As for equipment – well, you’re patrol fighters are equipped to scan ships for contraband, illegal modifications and other secrets. The Colossus is the same; the secrets are just more interesting.”
“Okay. You might have me convinced. The Bow Street can at least stay until we have had a chance to take a look at the data we’ve already collected.”
“You won’t regret this Captain Farrell. Your name will be in the history books,” Gabhala replied with a smile.
“And yours will be right alongside I’m sure. Now let’s just hope it won’t be as history’s biggest fools, or traitors to humanity. At lot of things could go wrong here Dr. Gabhala,” replied Farrell. But he couldn’t help but return the smile.

The next twenty four hours on the Bow Street were hectic. Just like Gabhala, O’Toole and several others had not been too thrilled about the prospect of leaving, not everybody were keen on staying. But having been convinced to change his plans once Captain Farrell had been very clear he wasn’t changing them again. At least not before the earlier data – or ‘evidence’ as it was now being called, since they were treating it as a Patrol investigation – had been examined. So rather than waste time arguing about it, everybody had just gotten down to the task at hand, both with the scans from Beta Wing and the scans from the spike in the crater. Not to mention the grub. The biologists practically had a fight over that, but obviously O’Toole did the honors.

“This little bugger is amazing. Sure it is dead now, but it is very hardy. Even yanked out of it’s habitat, stuffed into a sample tube and then frozen it survived for several hours,” O’Toole explained to the audience in the makeshift biology lab that had been erected next to the medical bay.
“That might not sound so surprising given for something living in the cold climate of New Thuringen. But it curiously enough it also seems to have a tolerance for heat, not to mention radiation and reactive chemicals like chlorine,” added Jönsson, the other part of the ‘autopsy’ team. “Or at least that is how it looks from the cellular chemistry. Obviously the poor thing could only die once, so we had to base a lot of our findings on cultures.”
“As I said, hardy. Also note that I said ‘habitat’ not ‘natural habitat’. Best we can tell the grub is not native to New Thuringen,” O’Toole continued.
“That isn’t so surprising, given where it was found. The logical assumption is that was part of the same package as the spike, and therefore that it comes from the Colossus,” interrupted Gabhala?
“True. What is interesting, is that our main basis for this conclusion, is that it is simply so much more advanced than anything we have previously encountered on New Thuringen. In addition to it’s survivability, it also seems like the grub form may just be one of several life stages, though that may be drawing too wide reaching conclusion based on what looks like vestigial limbs. However apart from the advancement, the grub is almost as a native. Or at least very well assimilated,” Jönsson replied.
“I’m sure everybody here is aware of the extreme virulence of New Thuringen protozoans,” explained O’Toole, and even the Bow Street crew nodded, having heard Brokaw tell about his missing arm. “Well, like everything else the grub was also invaded. But looking at the cellular chemistry, it seems to have borne this invasion very well. Dare I say, like it was made for it,” she finished.
“Made for it? Are you implying that the grub was genetically engineered to survive on New Thuringen,” asked Captain Farrell, trying to get past the details to the conclusions.
“Well, it is hard to say for sure, especially since we only had one sample. But if we dispense with the usual necessary disclaimers for a moment, then the simplicity of the cellular chemistry compared to how advance the grub is as a whole, does suggest that it is artificial. Closer to some sort of organic robot than a natural life form. Whether it made specifically for New Thuringen, that is another question entirely. On one hand, the way it seems to so easily have formed a symbiotic relationship with the New Thuringen biosphere would suggest that it has,” answered O’Toole.
“On the other hand the broad spectrum of survival traits indicates that it is more of a general purpose construction. All this assuming that it is engineered,” continued Jönsson.
“Of course we could say much more, if we went back for more samples. The photos we took at the spike show a lot of similar creatures, and a lot of these studies could do with some corroboration. We are drawing some very far reaching conclusions based on just one sample. The main thing we can really say, is that the grub is not native to New Thuringen, though it does certainly try to fit in,” O’Toole concluded. “That should cover the headlines. There are more details in the report, and we still have some chemical sequencing work we are waiting for.”
“Okay. So the Colossus is sending an invasion force of three centimeter grubs to New Thuringen. The next logical question would be why,” Farrell asked.
“Well, I think we can answer that as well. Or at least provide a good guess. Based on the readings Steen Gregers and Yussuf LeBlanc took at the spike site, as well data from the meteorological satellites there seems to be significant changes going on in the atmosphere. Everything from chemical composition to temperature and weather patterns have been changing, and changing quite rapidly. Long story short, the Colossus seems to be terraforming New Thuringen. Or maybe not terra, but some sort of environmental forming. The introduction of new life forms seems to be part of this process,” Gabhala explained, waiving yet another report and indicating several of the other scientist in the office.
“But,” objected Hussein, “A lot of those changes had started before the Colossus arrived. The asteroid impacts obviously caused a significant disturbance of the atmosphere, changing established wind patterns, and whirling up a lot of dust and particulates. But even before that the spread of fungus due from the Romeo incident had begun to cause slight disturbances. Are we attributing all that to the Colossus as well?” It seemed pretty clear from his tone that Dr. Hussein considered that somewhat farfetched.
“Well – we don’t really know, since we don’t really know anything about the Colossus. It seems pretty unlikely that they could have known about Brokaw’s accident at the sample pods, but it is not certainly not impossible that an earlier survey could have detected the asteroids, and that they would have been able to predict the time of impact. The main reason we didn’t detect them earlier was that we weren’t looking. During the initial survey mapping each and every asteroid was probably not a very high priority, and when Alpha Station was established, well we only really had eyes for the biosphere, since that was what we we there for,” replied Gabhala.
“Still,” continued Hussein, “terraforming? Doesn’t it strike anyone else as far fetched. It is such an enormous and long term project. Humanity has yet to finish what we started on Mars. What are we up to there? Sufficient air pressure, an atmosphere you might just survive in with a rebreather? Every little step forward causing massive changes to the weather, the established proto-ecosystem. As far as I know the only reason the whole project hasn’t been abandoned is because it is such a prestige project. And true we do learn a lot about climatology and meteorology by continuing, but I honestly don’t think the project would have gotten off the ground, if it hadn’t been started before hyperspace technology was invented.”
“True, but,” tried Gregers, but Hussein wasn’t going to be interrupted.
“And whoever is on board the Colossus, they obviously have hyperspace technology – that is one of the few things we do know. If they wanted to settle a planet there should be a reasonable number of candidates out there. There certainly has been for us. Sure we’ve had to do a lot of bioforming to create some cross compatibility, and I’m not trying to belittle the effort that goes into that. I mean that is why we were on New Thuringen in the first place. But it is still a lot faster to start with an established ecosystem and find a way to wring out the nutrients, than it is to start from scratch.”
“As I was trying to say,” Gregers started again, “New Thuringen does have a biosphere. A simple one yes, but obviously a very adaptable one. In many ways it is an early version of Midgard, and we were happy to settle there, and start bioforming. And since we don’t know where the Colossals – or whatever we might call them – are from, we really can’t say if New Thuringen might not be close to their specifications already. Maybe this is a kind of bioforming. Not to mention, that whatever they are doing to the atmosphere they seem to be doing it quickly. Maybe they are just good enough at this, that terraforming is a sensible option.”
“Still – asteroid bombardment. That is not exactly a surgical precision instrument. How could they possibly control where that might go?”
“This is a very fascination discussion,” said Captain Farrell as he got up, “but since I’m not particularly qualified to participate, I think I have other duties to attend to. But it has been very enlightening and I look forward to reading the full reports.”
“Thank you, and thank you for your time, Captain,” replied O’Toole and Jönsson almost in unison.
“Now are there any specific recommendations you would like to make?” asked Farrell, “other than ‘give us time to study it some more’?”
The last bit sort of took the wind out of scientists, who just smiled a bit sheepishly.
“I’ll take that under advisement then,” said Farrell, returned the smiles and left.

In the hallway Farrell was intercepted by Chief Engineer Simay.
“Excuse me Captain, do you have a second. Didn’t want to intrude while you were in a meeting?” she asked.
“Well, I’m on my way to here the report on the data we collected from the flyby of the Colossus, but if you follow me there, then certainly,” Farrell replied.
“Okay. I was actually hoping I could join in there as well. But that is not what I wanted to ask. Have you authorized repairs of the Lamarck?”
“The Lamarck?” asked Farrell.
“Oh, sorry. The shuttle craft from Alpha Station. The one we picked up in hyperspace.”
“No, I don’t believe that I have. Why?”
“Well, because Brokaw, uhmn, that would be the one-armed engineer we picked up,”
“Yes, thank you Lieutenant, I know. I do remember people, even if I don’t remember their ships,” replied Farrell.
“Sorry Captain. Anyway, Ivan Brokaw has started to repair it. Well, I guess technically he started that back when they were marooned, but now he has started to really fix it, undo the jury rigging and such. This is fine I guess, but it is taking up some space.”
Farrell head a bit of venom come out with that last word as he knew how much Simay liked her workspace in order.
“But now he started asking for some spare parts, and, well, Larsson has started helping out as well, since it sometimes got awkward for Brokaw, since he only has one arm and all. I know the Bow Street is just holding here, and it is not like they get in the way, but it has gotten to the point where I just wanted to know if this was something you had authorized. If it was a priority in any way?”
“Well, as I said, it isn’t something I’ve authorized. Or even knew about actually. And if you don’t like it, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t just stop them yourself. You usually don’t need my permission to treat the hangar decks as you own personal domain.”
“True.” Yasmina managed not to blush at the comment about her assertiveness.
“I guess I could just have told them to pack it up. But it is not like it is one of my own birds and Brokaw isn’t one of the crew either, so I wasn’t too sure about bossing them around.”
“Well, it is certainly nice to know that you have limits, even if they don’t always extend to respecting rank,” Farrell replied with a smile.
“You certainly have my permission to shut it down, but if you say they aren’t interfering with ship operations you may want to postpone a while and join me at the briefing.”

The briefing about the Colossus took place back at the bridge since that was only place on the Bow Street where they would be able to do real time scans of the alien vessel, in case it was needed. It meant normal operations had to be put on hold, but since the Bow Street wasn’t really doing any operations that hadn’t caused much of a problem, and most of the bridge crew was there for the briefing anyway.
“Captain on the bridge,” Salient announced out of habit when Farrell and Simay came in, but as he said it he suddenly became unsure if the bridge actually was the bridge under these circumstances. But better safe than sorry, as he was beginning to learn from Commander Dabiri.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. If everybody is here, I believe we might as well begin.”
“I think we are still missing Administrator Gabhala. Seems he isn’t so used to navigating in zero-g,” replied Salient, drawing a few smiles from the Bow Street crew and some groans from the similarly affected scientists from New Thuringen.
But it wasn’t long before Daiga Gabhala sailed through the door as well, and the meeting could get started.

“This is a basic projection of the Colossus, a shape we should all be familiar with by now,” began Dabiri, who was in charge of the presentation.
“I’m afraid this briefing will be a bit haphazard since, well, scanning alien vessels is a rather new field, and we therefore don’t even know what to look for and where to start looking. But I guess a good place to start would be the alieness. The ship does not correspond to any ship in the Bow Street databases, neither configuration officially registered with the UNPS or with any designs known to be on the drawing board. Not much surprise there I guess, but we felt we might as well mention it. In addition spectral scans of the vessel’s surface indicate that the outer layers are composed of a silicate composite we haven’t been able to find in the databases either,” he continued.
“Having said all that, it should be noted that technically the vessel is not beyond anything we could, potentially, build,” interrupted Lance, the New Thuringen scientist that had been most involved in the study of the Colossus.
“While the hull plating is unusual, some of the geologists have been looking into it, and we believe that given time it shouldn’t be too hard to reproduce. The rest seems mostly a matter of scale and determination.”
“That is true,” continued Dabiri, “and perhaps most notable with the hyperspace transition systems. Or at least that is what we believe these rings must be,” he said as he indicated a number of rings along the hull.
“When we did the flyby we couldn’t be sure, because the field was so weak, but long term observations have revealed that all these rings are producing an Erlenmeyer field, only a very weak one. But all in all the ring configuration is very similar to what we would use in a hyperbridge only scaled up. The number of rings may seem excessive considering that even a Diamond Star or similar large vessel only use two rings to generate a transition bubble, but it may simply be a matter of redundancy. The crater here,” Dabiri pointed again, “has severed two of the the rings, completely disabling them. But obviously the vessel was still able to make transit.”
“Could that damage also be the reason for the strange transition flashes we observed when the Colossus first arrived,” Elyot Jensen asked.
“Possibly. A similar degree of damage to our transition system would probably have disabled them completely, so it is not unreasonable to suspect that it has caused severe problems for the Colossus as well,” Dabiri answered.
“Excuse me for asking what may be an obvious question, but how does the Colossus even navigate in hyperspace. I just mean the simple size of the thing would mean it gets stuck right?” asked Horace.
“Well, I’m afraid that is just one of those things we can’t answer until we’ve seen it happen. Maybe it is like a bumblebee and just doesn’t know it can’t fly. There is obviously room for it at most Lagrangian transition points, but from there who knows,” replied Dabiri.
“One thing we can say though, is that it has been in hyperspace,” added Salient.
“Not just because we know that Brokaw, Jönsson and Jensen encountered it there, but also from reading of the surface. There is an massive amount of ether scarring. Since we aren’t familiar with the exact material the surface is made of it is hard to say any exact figures, but we are talking more than decades. I would say a lot more, but frankly no ship I know of has even been in hyper long enough to even compare. From some of the readings it seemed like ether had started to bond with the hull material, forming a sort of rust, though a closer look would be needed to verify that.”
“And of course the age – or at least apparent age – is another argument that this ship is not of human origin. We simply haven’t been out here that at Valhalla that long, and if Salient is really correct about his projections, we haven’t even been building spacecraft that long. So we’ve covered alien and old. I guess that was sort of the main points,” concluded Dabiri.
“How about function and capabilities? A tactical review, something like that?” asked Captain Farrell.
“Yes, of course. Well, based on what is happening to New Thuringen it seems like the main purpose is terraforming, but there really isn’t much we can do to substantiate that. It is possible that the reason for the massive size is that it is some sort of colonization ship. We typically build a fleet of smaller – at least smaller compared to the Colossus – vessels, but maybe whoever is over there just thinks differently,” Dabiri said.
“As you already know we tried communicating with the vessel on a broad range radio frequencies, as well as tried blinking lights at them, but there has been no response so far. We considered modulating our Erlenmeyer field, since that is the only active system we’ve been able to detect, but that would draw pretty heavily on our power reserves so we didn’t want to do that without permission. There hasn’t been any significant response to our scans either. And curiously they don’t seem to be doing any scans of the planet. With a project as ambitious as terraforming I would have thought they would want to monitor what was going on. Of course it is possible that they are relying entirely on passive sensors, or a communication technology we don’t know or don’t recognize, but we haven’t detected any communication with the systems they deployed on New Thuringen or any deployment of satellites or anything like that,” added Lance.
“Other than that it is hard to say anything. It looks like all those outer silicate scales can be retracted completely sealing the outer surface. Or at least would have sealed it before that crater was made. If that means a lot of them can open as well, then anything could be hiding under there. However it is worth noting that there are no spin sections. At least not that are visible from outside. That could either mean they don’t have those, which I personally would find unbearable for long term space deployment, or that keep them hidden underneath the armor. Which I guess would make sense for a colony ship, where you can’t just call everybody to their duty stations in case of danger. But that is just speculation,” Dabiri concluded.
“How about that crater?” asked Farrell.
“Yes, the crater. Well, we have at least determined that it is not a design feature. If it was, then the transition rings would presumably have been intact across it, and it would probably also have been fitted with armor plating like the rest of the vessel. It seems like a lot of material has been torn away rather than squashed, which may suggest something more like an explosion than an impact. But whether it was from the inside or the outside, well who knows.”
“Could it have been battle damage?”
“I guess it could, but it might also have been a failed power plant, a really nasty hyperspace flare or a lot of other things. From the photos it does look the damage has been repaired in a way. All holes had been sealed and so on, but it looks almost scarlike, as if they are makeshift repairs. This could be considered consistent with long term deployment suggested by the time spent in hyperspace. On the other hand I would think a colonist vessel sustaining that kind of damage would head home right away,” explained Lance.
“If I might add, that the ether scarring seems pretty heavy in the crater as well, suggesting that the damage has happened long ago, but this time I think we might be talking years not decades,” added Salient.
“One thing we did get from the crater, is a sort of cross sectional view of the ship, and at based on that is seems quite dense. Not a lot of hallways or rooms, as far as the surface penetrating radars could see. But it was a quick sweep, and that might also just be because everything has been sealed off and armored as part of the repairs. One other unique feature can be found here,” said Dabiri indicating a section the tip of the ship.
“One of the armor plates here is open. We know from the recordings New Thuringen managed to capture when the Colossus launched its terraforming equipment that other parts of the armor plating can open, but this one seems to be the only one that is permanently open. There also seems to be some charring and scaring on the nearby plates, that doesn’t look like meteorite impacts. In any case it could be worth a closer look.”
“And you I assume you would like to take that look Commander. Anything else?” asked Captain Farrell.
“No, I think that finally covers everything. Of course there is a report with spectral analysis results, pictures, models, list of communications and everything we could think to throw in there. But I think we have been over all the main discoveries. And yes, sir, I would like to go over and have a closer look,” replied Dabiri.
“Well, there seems to be a general consensus that people want to stay. At least all of you that have worked at this mystery. And I guess there has been some progress, so my early fear that we might not be qualified for this has obviously been brought too shame,” started Farrell.
“However if – as we assume – the Colossus is here to reform New Thuringen, then I think it would be fair to suppose that it will stick around for a while. This means we don’t have to worry about the vessel leaving while we head back to Valhalla to report back what we have found,” he finished.
“Actually, Captain, I have another suggestion,” Gabhala interrupted.
Farrell didn’t particularly like being questioned on his own bridge, but perhaps he would just have to get used to the Administrator doing things he didn’t like.
“Yes?”
“I suggest we stay, and send a shuttle back to Valhalla. That way we get the best of both worlds.”
“But we don’t have any – ahh – you are the one behind the repairs on the Lamarck, aren’t you?” asked Farrell, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“Not behind it as such. Brokaw was looking for something to do, and I may have suggested looking at the shuttle. It only seemed sensible to use the downtime – and the excellent hangar – to get the thing repaired. And extra long range vessel can always come in handy. As indeed it has,” Gabhala replied with a smile.
“How fortuitous indeed,” replied Farrell, “but would you kindly remember that this is my ship, not your station. I really would like to be consulted about issues like this. The only reason I even knew about it, was because Chief Simay here was kind enough to inform me.”
“Well, Captain,” intervened Simay, “you know that I’ve always argued that a long range ship like the Bow Street should carry a courier boat. I’m just annoyed I wasn’t told that was the plan – then I might have helped myself, instead of letting Larsson hog the glory.”
“Is this a full blown mutiny?” Farrell said exasperatedly.
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended Captain,” tried Gabhala, “it is bad habit of mine to set my plans in motion before talking about them. The old ‘it is easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission’, I’m afraid. I promise no-one has gone behind your back.”
“Well, okay. I guess I could make a scene, and insist on going with my first orders of heading home, but that would seem rather petulant wouldn’t it. Instead I’ll take you up on your suggestion Chief Simay. Administrator Gabhala, I hereby accept your kind donation of the shuttle Lamarck as a dispatch vessel for the Patrol Service. Very kind of you, though the UNESCO accountants might think your being a little cavalier with their property, but I’m sure that will hardly even be noticed with the Colossus and your research facility being destroyed and everything,” said Captain Farrell with one of his steel looks.
“I’m not sure that is quite what I meant,” replied Gabhala, suddenly a bit flustered and unsure if he might have overstepped himself.
“Don’t worry too much, Administrator. We already so deep in this that we will probably get crucified next to each other if we report back home with anything less than perfection. Examples will have to be made of somebody after this, simply because it is such a monumental thing that has happened. We just have to make sure that it will be positive examples,” answered Farrell, now with a smile.
“Now, I assume the Lamarck is flight ready?” he continued.
“Not quite, Captain,” replied Simay, “but I think it is mainly a matter of replacing the main transition circuits. At least that was what Brokaw asked about, when I informed you about the repairs. Then the shuttle needs to be restocked, but I that shouldn’t be a problem. If there is a crew for it I guess we could have it flying at the end of the day.”
“Good. I’m sure there are enough sensible people on this ship that it should be possible to find three that actually want get away from the mysterious ancient alien vessel. If not, I’m still the captain, whatever you do to undermine my authority,” concluded Captain Farrell.
“So a dispatch will be sent back to Valhalla. Since the giant alien spaceship has been pretty obvious to everybody here at New Thuringen, we haven’t been too concerned about security and classifications, but that stops here. Colonial Commissioner Pickford has to be informed, if for no other reason that so she knows what is keeping us here. And she is formally the highest ranked UN official here, so any preliminary decisions are hers to make. However I only had very little chance to interact with her, and I don’t know how she’ll take this, so we will need to get the information on the relay back to Earth. From there is is anybodies guess what the decision might be, but with a four day trip to Valhalla and no relay, that still means that we won’t hear anything here at New Thuringen for about ten days. And it would take reinforcements about a week to get from Junction to Valhalla, so that would mean about two weeks before we see anybody out here. So what will we do in all that t ime.”
“Go pay a visit to the Colossus obviously,” replied Dabiri enthusiastically.
“Look at the terraforming installations,” answered Gabhala.
“I going to go with my Wing Commander here. The Colossus seems like the most pressing thing to investigate. And before you say we should do both, I do not intend to split up our group too much, in case we suddenly have to get out of here,” decided Captain Farrell.
The Lamarck was fit for flight at the end of the day, just like Yasmina Simay had promised. The crew ended up consisting of Brokaw, Michaels and Ellensberg – the first, officially because of his arm, but really because he was not the kind of person to leave anything he started unfinished. And he had started on the trip back to Valhalla, so he was damn well going to finish it. The two pilots hadn’t exactly volunteered, but Captain Farrell had decided the even though hyperspace seemed to have stabilized since the quake, it didn’t hurt to have some qualified pilots along for ride. And by having two, they could take shifts and possibly shave some time off trip.

Meanwhile preparations where made for boarding the Colossus. They made flybys and satellites were being deployed to monitor the alien vessel. The actual approach probably wouldn’t be all that difficult, since the ship was staying nice a stable at the Lagrangian with no perceptible spin of any kind. But the constant Erlenmeyer field the Colossus was maintaining did mean they had to use ordinary reaction thrusters to land, since they didn’t want to risk disrupting the field.
More importantly they needed to find a good place to land. It wasn’t like they could expect the Colossus to have a compatible docking hatch – in many ways it would probably be even more mysterious and scary if it had – so to get inside they would have to perform some sort of boarding action. And despite the resurgence of pirates, boarding a hostile vessel was still about as common as keelhauling. An opposing vessel would usually heave to and surrender, allowing the boarding to happen more or less like a regular docking operation, except possibly with a little less cooperation between the ships. To get aboard the Colossus they would either have to land near some sort or airlock, and then try to get in via EVA. Or more drastically they would have to land and simply drill their way into the hull. Since that could very well be seen as an attack – more so than simply landing – the general consensus was to go for the first option. But that required them to find something that looke d even vaguely like an airlock, and that turned out to be a lot more difficult than first imagined.

Chapter 9

Valhalla system, Midgard

Thanks to Michaels’ and Ellensberg’s piloting skills and Brokaw’s untiring insistence the Lamarck made the trip back to Valhalla in a little over three days, and as soon as they where within reach of the Valhalla com relays they called up their colleagues in Delta Wing.
“This the Lamarck to Valhalla Patrol. Is anybody up? Come in Valhalla Patrol,” started Lieutenant Michaels. He considered waking up the other two, but figured there was no need since they were still about seven hours Bifrost Station, and some decent food.

“Lamarck this is Valhalla Patrol. This is a reserved Patrol service frequency, but how can we be of assistance?” came the reply. Michaels wasn’t quite sure, but he thought it was Patroller Daniels, and from the sound of his voice it seemed Michaels had been right in guessing it was the graveyard shift. Michaels had never really understood the need to keep to that night and day cycle in space. Sure, it might make sense not to loose all sense of time, but it also just seemed like a way to generate annoying shifts for the lower ranks.
“Well, you might start by waking up Commander Griffith, and get him to authorize a replacement pilot and possibly an escort from us,” replied Michaels.
“Excuse med Lamarck, but who is this,” came the uncertain reply.
“Sorry – forgot I was flying with a civilian transponder. This is Lieutenant Michaels and Patroller Ellensberg reporting from the Bow Street. And we’ve been riding this shuttle pretty hard, so we could use the rest.”
“Michaels and Ellensberg? Why are you coming back in a shuttle? Were is the Bow Street,” asked Daniels.
“That is a pretty long story, and I’m not really sure I can discuss it with you,” Michaels answered, realizing he might have to repeat that answer quite a few times in the near future.
“Okay, sir. I’ll wake Commander Griffith up for you.”
For a while there was nothing but silence on the radio, and Michaels started scanning through the secondary channels to see if there were any exciting news broadcast or something. But before he managed to find anything, the radio barked again.
“Lieutenant Michaels, Commander Griffith here. Good to have you back. Daniels said you’d like an escort. Have you become the King of New Germany or something since you’d like that kind of treatment?” came the drawl of the Commander.
“Nothing so spectacular, sir. Ellensberg and I have just been flying our asses off, and I wouldn’t want to crash into something in this maze you call local hyperspace here. Would be bad for my reputation as a hotshot pilot. I’m actually a bit disappointed Griffith – I figured you would be just the man to have that all straightened out by the time we came back,” Michaels replied dryly.
“No, I’m still trying to straighten out all the crooked hotshot pilots I get stuck with. Well, you are in luck, it seems we have a patrol out nearby. They should be able to get there in about half an hour.”
“Thanks Commander. Looking forward to seeing them,” replied Michaels, and found he actually meant it. Wasn’t too often he really appreciated anything Commander Griffith did.
“Now maybe you could return the favor and tell me why you are coming back in a civilian shuttle, and what you’ve done with the Bow Street?” asked Griffith.
“Well, as I told Patroller Daniels, it is kind of a long story,” Michaels replied.
“Then it is good that you have, what, six hours till you are back here at Bifrost. That should be plenty of time, and since you got me up, then I sure as hell don’t feel too bad about keeping you up,” laughed Griffith and continued, “it can’t be the hyperspace quake that is keeping you. Everything on this end was quiet about three days after you cleared out, and if you are coming back in a Vestas shuttle things can’t be too bad at the New Germany end either.”
“True, it is not the quake, although that is how we originally picked up the shuttle. I’m afraid I really just can’t say that much. And I’m not even trying to yank your chain here. Not that I wouldn’t do that, you know that, but in this case it is Captain Farrell yanking it. What is happening New Thuringen is now classified, I’m afraid,” replied Michaels.
“Classified? What the hell does that mean. I’m certainly cleared above you, Lieutenant,” was Griffith’s gruff reply.
“Yes you are, Commander. And I’m not really cleared either, I just happened to be there, when things started happening so to speak. In any case it isn’t something we can discuss on an open comlink, even on Patrol frequencies. So now that we are on the subject, it would be really nice if you could set up a secure comlink to Colonial Commissioner Pickford, so we can deliver our reports. Heck, maybe she will choose to include you in the secret.”
“Maybe she will, considering how well Delta Wing has been representing the Patrol here in Valhalla, while the Bow Street has been out and about. Or maybe I’ll take a look at that datapacket myself,” replied Griffith, not without a certain smugness.
“Secure data transfer link has been established,” interrupted Daniels, as quietly as he could, trying not to get involved in the jibes between the two officers.
“Thanks Daniels. And good luck trying to get into the packet, if you are not authorized. I’m pretty sure Salient did his very best to secure it. Anyway here it is,” replied Michaels, and tapped a few keys.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll doze off a bit waiting for that escort. I’m sure you’ll want to debrief me fully when we are back at the Bifrost, and I certainly want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for that,” Michaels finished.

Commander Griffith’s mood didn’t improve when it turned out that he really wasn’t cleared to open the datapacket from the Bow Street. He respected Captain Farrell enough to assume there was a good reason for the secrecy, but he must admit that it annoyed him to be left out of the loop. When he had been put in command of Delta Wing he really hoped some of the privileges of command would be attached, but so far it hadn’t been all that great a posting. At least it wasn’t several hours before he got to satisfy some of his curiosity. About half an hour after they had received the packet Griffith was contacted by the Colonial Commissioner’s office on his private channel. But even that link was deemed insecure but what sounded like an unusually paranoid Commissioner Pickford, so the Commander was genuinely intrigued when he took the shuttle down to Seabreeze Starport and the Commissioner’s office.
“Welcome Commander. I glad you could come so fast. Did I understand you correctly on the link, when you said you hadn’t had a chance to look that the dispatch Captain Farrell has sent?” asked Macy Pickford when Griffith was finally shuffled into her office.
“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t cleared to access the original dispatch. I was simply instructed to send it to you on a secure channel, and to send a ship to put it on the relay back to Earth. Since you also seem reluctant to discuss it over normal channels, I can only assume it must be something very important, though I can’t imagine what. The Captain does have a certain talent for stirring up trouble, but this is unusual,” replied Griffith in a tone that he hoped didn’t make him sound too offended at being left out.
“Does he? Can’t remember the briefs saying anything about that, and Captain Farrell certainly left before we got to know him didn’t he. Well, when you seen this, I’m sure you’ll understand the precautions, because your Captain has certainly stirred up something this time.”
Macy Pickford turned on the main projector, which showed a nice 3D projection of an oblong object which Commander Griffith didn’t immediately recognize. Might be a spaceship, but not a design he recognized.
“I assume I’m supposed to be surprised or astounded, but I must admit I don’t have a clue what that is,” he replied phlegmatically.
“Oh – no I guess not. Maybe these will help,” added the Commissioner as she brought up some more images on the computer, “but in any case there really isn’t much reason for me to be all dramatic about this. Captain Farrell has already arranged more than enough of that. According to him it is an alien object.”
“A what? Alien object? As in a spaceship?” Griffith was sure he had heard that right, especially given the calm delivery.
“Yes, a spacecraft of non-human origin. At least that is what Captain Farrell reports, and I presume that he isn’t the type to do all this as some sort of practical joke. Or the type to be duped by a hoax,” Pickford answered.
“No, he isn’t ma’am. He is not much of a joker, nor much of a fool.”
“I which case we had better take this report at face value,” continued the Commissioner, though to Griffith she didn’t really sound as if she knew what that meant. Maybe she just didn’t have the imagination to fathom a discovery of this kind. It certainly seemed like she was mainly just annoyed at having this problem dumped on her.
“Yes, I guess we must,” was all Griffith could think to say.
“I assume you’ve already dispatched the data back to the Union?”
“Yes, as I already mentioned there were instructions to send the information straight back. I didn’t see any reasons to delay, so we rushed the first mailboat out of here as soon as we had the data packet. It may not have reached the relay stations yet.”
“Well, I guess that is just as well. Valhalla certainly isn’t equipped to deal with something like this, but it might have been nice to be a bit more or prepared before calling in the cavalry. Makes us look a bit desperate and that is rarely a good look.”

“It could also be said that it makes us look fast and efficient. And we – or at least I – was just following instructions.
“You’re right of course. Now lets just make sure we look just as efficient when any Union forces arrives,” concluded Pickford. Griffith could already hear she was more in her element now that she was back to thinking in terms of politics.
“Prepared? I’m not sure I follow exactly – but then I haven’t had a chance to read the report. But you sound like we are at war or something. Is that why the Bow Street hasn’t returned? Are they fighting with that thing? Lieutenant Michaels didn’t sound like that when he entered the system, but they had been making best speed to get here,” asked Griffith. He really hated being caught of guard like this – if it had just been Ellensberg flying when the damn shuttle arrived he would probably already have known more.
“War? No – not yet, although there has apparently been some sort of bombardment of New Thuringen. I’m sure you’ll understand the details of that better, when you do get time to read the report. No, the Bow Street is staying out there to study the thing. I don’t exactly see how Captain Farrell and his policemen – sorry, but that is what you are – consider themselves fit for such a momentous task, but I guess they figured that there was no need to waste any time, in case the … thing … leaves again. He wouldn’t be captain if he couldn’t see an opportunity I assume. But I have a colony to look after at that needs to be protected – especially if the good Captain has bit off a bit more than he can chew and bungles things up out there,” replied Pickford. Griffith was sure he liked the way the Commissioner was talking about Captain Farrell, but he figured it would be best not to comment.
“However even that protection was not really what I was thinking about when I was talking about preparation. No, the invasion I’m worried about is the one from the Union systems, when this breaks. This is probably the biggest discovery since hyperspace, and you can bet that the Union will want to capitalize on it. That can be a remarkable opportunity, but Midgard is a very young colony so it could also just get gobbled up in all the research administration UNESCO and friends will be setting up out here. It would have looked better if we had ‘invited them to join’ rather than ‘asked them for help’ or even ‘begged’. But I guess we will just have to make it look right. In fact the Bow Street might be helpful there starting the research as a local effort and all. In any case preparations must be made. And since you are both the law and order here, and a liaison to the Bow Street research team you are just the man I will need. I assume no one else has heard of this?”
“Of course not. It was too classified even for me to read,” replied Griffith.
“Good. I’m not sure we should share this with Incobal, if we can get their cooperation without it. How about the people from the Bow Street. The ones that brought the data packet?” Pickford continued.
“They still have some hours in transit. They are coming in under escort by their own request. Should be fairly easy to keep the lid on them, if that is what you want,” answered Griffith. Despite their differences he figure he could trust Michaels not to say anything.
“Good – while we obviously want to announce this glorious discovery before someone else comes to claim all the credit, something like this would create a panic if leaked at the wrong time. But is sound like we have it all well in hand. I’ll let you get back to your command to study the report. You might want to brush up on your riot control, and make sure we can shut down the hyperbridge just in case. You can rely on the support of the Commissioners Office if Incobal gives you any trouble,” finished the Commissioner, and having been dismissed Griffith picked up the data pad and left. He was unusually absorbed in his reading on the way back up to Bifrost.

Robert Manfield had formed the Combine because he wanted to be his own boss, independent of UN rules and regulations. Everybody in Valhalla knew that. And they had moved to Midgard, because it was as far away from UN control as they had been able to get. Of course nowhere was really far enough away to escape the grasping claws of government, but most of the time Valhalla had been far enough away not to be bothered. Incobal had liked the unregulated business as well, and while Robert weren’t too keen on corporations either, it had suited him fine that the mining corp had kept the UN too occupied to pry into honest colony business. But now it seemed that something was definitely brewing. When Lee had been on about the space quake Robert had decided to file it under ‘they don’t bother us, we don’t bother them’. It sounded pretty far-fetched that the UN should have invented some kind of space disrupting super weapon – and in any case the Combine had better ships than most civilians, probably better then Incobal security, so he wasn’t too worried about being shut down by some quakes. But now there was all this business with mailboats being send back and forth under escort, and the Commander of the Patrol Service being summoned to midnight meetings with the Commissioner. Something was up, and when it involved the UN and especially the Patrol Service it was almost by definition bad – at least if you were using Manfield definitions.

Chapter 10

New Germany system, the Colossus

The landing preparations had ended up taking almost two days. There had been several flybys to attempt to get do some subsurface scans, but the thickness of the armor had made that futile for most parts of the ship, and even in the few places where it had worked the sheer size of the Colossus meant that anything could still be hiding in the depths. The only thing they really knew was that there still hadn’t been any reaction from the alien vessel.
Nonetheless it had still been decided that the boarding expedition would start as cautiously and inoffensively as possible, so now Dabiri, Jönsson, Salient and Lance were sitting in the Lioness – which had been renamed The Ambassador in honor of the occasion - waiting for the predetermined waiting period to pass. It was possibly some of the longest eight hours the four had ever experienced.
“Just explain this bit once more,” said Salient, even though he knew he was sounding a bit like a four year old asking if they where there yet.
“We are trying to give whomever is inside a chance to respond to the fact that we’ve landed on their ship,” responded Jönsson almost mechanically.
“They haven’t done anything so far. Do we really believe they will send out the welcome wagon now?”
“They might also send out the weapon wagon so to speak. In that case it might be nice to be able to take off in a hurry,” responded Lance.
“Sure. But eight hours?” Salient continued.
“Well, as you say yourself they haven’t exactly been all that communicative. And they obviously have the patience for terraforming, even if it is an improved version, so they just might take a long time to make decisions,” replied Jönsson again quoting the protocols that had been established before they landed.
“It is only one more hour people. Think of it as Christmas eve or something,” Dabiri said, though silently he had to admit he was as eager to get started as Lieutenant Salient. In some ways he felt a bit out of place, since he had none of the scientific or technical expertise of the other three, but fortunately there had been a need for a pilot and a commander. And besides the were no real experts for a mission like this.
Slowly the minutes trickled by, and while they waited all the landing party could do was look out at the landing site. Since none of the flybys had revealed an anything that looked like an official docking bay or airlock, it had been concluded they where probably safely hidden under the armor plates. Following that idea it had been decided to land near the armor plate that was already open. It was either that or hope to find en entrance somewhere in the crater, and the general consensus was that everything down there had probably been sealed up tight.

“Ambassador, the time is up,” came Captain Farrell’s voice over the radio.
“I assume there is still no sign of the Colossals?”
“No, sir, everything is still quiet down here,” replied Dabiri, and behind him he heard Lance add: “Quiet as a grave.”
“Well, I think we’ve been patient enough then. Congratulations Ambassador Team, you are go for EVA. Make us proud,” Captain Farrell signed off. They would be running continuous transmissions as long as conditions allowed, but it was understood that they were pretty much on their own over there, so any decisions were also their own to make.
When Dabiri finally stepped outside he felt very small. The Colossus had been impressive enough during flybys, but it was still a bit like flying over a big city Los Angeles or a geographical feature like Valles Marineris. Now that he was was standing on it, held to the massive hull by the gecko-surface of his boots, he felt very much like fly crawling on a giant. Now he just hoped they wouldn’t get swatted.
“Are you going to say something?” asked Jönsson, very sotto voce. She obviously didn’t want to wake the giant either.
“Wouldn’t know what to say. Besides everything we do from now on in could – will – be a moment in history. Let us let the future decide which ones to commemorate,” replied Dabiri.
Nearby the open armor plate looked like a big hangar casting the kind of hard shadows you only find in deep space. The team checked their comlinks, scanners and computers one final time before they turned on their flashlights and headed towards the darkness.
The team stopped at the edge trying get as god an overview as their flashlights would give them. The armor plate was about a hundred meters across, and looked to be about five meters thick – and a corresponding five meter drop from the armor plate they were standing on down to the inner hull. The plate was held up by what looked like huge hydraulic beams. On the ground outside were the dark marks they had been able to spot on the early photos. Up close it seemed to be scorch marks, some stretching all the way up to the opening in the armor. Inside in the shadows the main feature were two big tubes stretching the length of the opening, and apparently disappearing further into the ship.
“What do we think this is? Weapons?” Lance asked, pointing at the tubes.
“Possibly. Could also be exhaust pipes, thrusters, garbage disposal or docking ports,” replied Dabiri, not wanting to encourage a feeling of alien menace.
“It could be launch systems for their terraforming probes,” suggested Jönsson.
“Well, we know those are hidden underneath these plates, so it sounds like the best guess yet,” agreed Salient.
“In any case, it doesn’t look too much like an airlock, which is what we are after, so lets get down,” said Dabiri and started crawling over the edge. Convex corners like that were always annoying with gecko-soles, but most of them had spend enough time in zero g to make the maneuvers relatively painless, even if it did always feel a bit like an Escher picture, with people walking from ‘floors’ to ‘walls’ and back.
The inner hull was made from some sort of metallic composite, covered in a large masked mesh of some sort and with a lot small regular holes. Some of the scorching was also visible inside, and a big patch of the mesh had seemingly been burned away. Along the two tubes were long coils of what looked like wires and bundles of electronics. While everything looked as if it fitted together smoothly, there still were a very patched look to it, from the color changes in the hull plating to the curious little knots in parts of the meshwork. Ether scarring was also visible on almost every surface, though some plates were obviously newer than others.
The party made their way down between the two tubes and eventually found something that looked like a hatch in the floor.
“Well, looks like we found what we were looking for,” said Lance.
“Indeed. Bow Street I assume you are still receiving?” asked Dabiri over the long range comlink.
“Bow Street here, Commander, we are still monitoring. But we assume that you will now disappear down the rabbit hole. Good luck,” came the reply from Captain Farrell.
“Yes, Captain, if we can get this thing open, we will be heading in. We will check back in ten minutes just to let you know that we are fine, but after that we will use the full two hours we agreed on,” replied Dabiri.
Closer examination of the hatch revealed signs of what looked like burn damage. There didn’t seem to be any kind of official manual release, but some of the surrounding hull plates were missing, giving direct access to the hydraulic systems. After some acrobatics to properly brace for leverage, the four managed to force the door open.
There was no puff of air as the hatch opened, though some dust did sail out lazily. Inside a narrow tunnel about a meter in diameter led straight into the depths as far as their lights could reach.
“It doubt this is the official entrance,” remarked Salient.
“You are probably right. No airlock for one thing. And no matter how alien these things are I doubt they grew up in a vacuum,” Jönsson added.
“Some sort of service access perhaps,” ventured Lance.
“Good guess. But whatever it is, it seems like our best bet for getting inside,” said Dabiri. “I’ll go inside and check out the first few meters.”

Inside there was a bit more dust, though less than Dabiri had somehow been expecting. After all, the quiet of the whole place had underscored Lance’s early comments about the place being a grave. The walls were made of the same metallic composite as the outer hull, and Dabiri quickly discovered that the all the panels were detachable. Underneath were tubes, wires and pipes of all sorts again with the patchwork look they had seen out side. Some meters in tunnels branched parallel to the outer hull, and Dabiri decided to turn back and inform the others.
“Looks like we can get to quite a bit of the ship through these tunnels, but we definitely want to bring the radar and the automapper, because I think it would be easy to get lost in there,” Dabiri reported as he resurfaced.
“Guess this is it then,” replied Salient obviously looking forward to going spelunking in the alien vessel, and shortly after all four were heading into the tunnels.
The first few meters were slow as they stopped to photograph and analyze every component they could find under the service panels. Not that they had any hopes that they would get close to deciphering these components then and there, but they might as well collect data while they were still able to transmit directly back to the Bow Street. They had also hoped to find something they might recognize as symbols or writing. Not that they would be able to read it, but the plan was to feed it into the linguasoft computers, to see if any patterns might be detected. A long shot, but everybody at the Bow Street agreed it was better than now shot at all. The steady stream of photos and readings made the crew back at the Bow Street happy, but sadly – and expectedly – no revolutionary discoveries where made, and eventually the team decided to head further in, and let their colleagues do the heavy data processing.

“So which way?” asked Dabiri, as they reached the first junction. “This is were I stopped earlier, so I can’t say much from here on in.”
“I suggest we want to get as close to the core as we can. That would seem to be the most ‘unique’ direction so to speak,” replied Jönsson.
“Yeah, I agree,” said Lance, and shone his flashlight down all five tunnels “although they all look much the same to me.”
“Hey. What was that. Over there,” almost shouted Salient, and waved his flashlight at the tunnel going further in. It took some maneuvering in the cramped tunnel for them all to see what he was on about, but there on the wall was an oblong red symbol – more or less half an oval.
“Doesn’t really look like it belongs here does it?” asked Salient.
“No,” answered Lance, and as he was the closest he leaned in for a closer look.
“Looks like it is painted on or something.”
“So it seems like we might not be the first to come here,” mused Jönsson quietly.
“Indeed not. That might explain why the armor plate was open,” replied Lances.
“And the scorch marks we saw could have been from landing thruster. That symbol could be an arrow or something like that,” added Salient.
“Could be a lot of things. But maybe we will find out, since we intended to go down that way anyway. Let’s be on the lookout for more signs. I guess we might as well follow them, at least until we get our own bearings,” concluded Dabiri.
Even in zero g it was hard work crawling and dragging their way though the narrow tunnels, but now they had a guide to follow. They found the little half ovals and sometimes even a few other symbols at most junctions along the way, and in the few places were they didn’t they decided to risk splitting up for some meters until one of them picked up the trail again. In the beginning the trail went straight in, but after a while it went sideways, and after what might have been a kilometer of crawling they came to a hatch on which were scribbled a number of symbols. The whole tunnel they were in looked slightly different from the other tunnels they had been through, and it took them a short while to realize that it was because the wall were not covered in service panels. Nevertheless a piece of the wall near the decorated hatch had been removed exposing the circuitry and hydraulics underneath.
“Looks like we are going to have to force this door again,” remarked Lance.
“Yes, it does. But at least it looks like the previous explorer managed to get it closed again, so hopefully we won’t have to do any permanent damage,” said Salient optimistically.
“We don’t really know how it got closed, or what happened to whomever we’ve been following. But I guess there is no reason to worry too much about that,” replied Dabiri.
“So do we just go in, or do we crawl back and report to the Bow Street first?” inquired Jönsson.
“Well, I guess we had better head back if we want to make our two hour check in. Now that we know the route we should be able to make decent time, though we might also want to advice them that two hours could be a bit tight if we want to get any real exploring done,” replied Dabiri.

The team started heading back, and even though the space was still cramped and the crawling difficult they did make better pace now that they knew where they were going and didn’t stop all the time to scan and record everything they passed.
Turning the last corner Lance, who was taking point, stopped abruptly, causing Dabiri to practically crash into him.
“Wow,” said Lance whispered.
“Why are we stopping,” inquired Salient, bringing up the rear.
First Lance just waved his flashlight at something the other three couldn’t see, but then got a grip on himself.
“Wow, just as I’d gotten used to this thing being a ghost ship. Something is there,” he said, still keeping his voice low even though they were talking over the com-link. It still felt safer.
He moved over, and the rest of the team spread out so they could get a look as well. Up – their frame of reference had gotten pretty jumbled during all the crawling, but they still referred to the outside as up - where the conduit should have ended in the hatchway were they got in, was some sort of dark shape. It was squarish, and in the beams from their flashlights it looked metallic. It had short articulated legs – or at least appendages – that where holding on to the small holes in the tube walls. Occasionally some bright bluish flashes came from the other side of it.
“What is that,” said Salient.
“Your guess is as good as any,” replied Lance.
“Our first Colossal,” added Jönsson. “Or at least Colossus resident. Perhaps it is a bit small to be called a Colossal,” she added.
“Do we really think so. It could be a robot. Looks metallic – artificial,” remarked Dabiri.
“True, Commander. But it could also just be an EVA suit, or some sort of small vehicle. It is not like we look terribly human in these suits, and we have no idea what to expect over here,” replied Jönsson.
“In any case it is between us and the exit, so what do we do?” Lance asked.
“And what do we think it is doing,” added Salient.
“What ever it is doing, it must have shut the hatch, cause I can’t seem to reach the com relay. So right now we are effectively cut off,” replied Dabiri.
“I would say that potential first contact takes precedence over reporting in on time. Don’t you agree,” said Mariko, and it was clear that the last bit was a rhetorical question.
“I guess you are right, Jönsson. So how do we proceed. It doesn’t seem to respond to the flashlight, and we have no idea about radio frequencies,” mused Dabiri.
“I guess you could go up and touch it, Commander” suggested Salient.
“I guess I could. Well, here goes nothing then,” said Dabiri, and after a few deep breaths he started pulling himself towards the alien – or robot, or whatever it was. The other three held their breath quietly as he moved closer.
Finally Dabiri was close enough to touch the object. Up close he could just barely see past the cube, and he could see that a new plate was covering the hatch and that the bright blue light was coming from one of the appendages.
“It has blocked the hatch. Sort of boarded it up. Looks like it is welding the entrance shut,” described Dabiri, suddenly realizing that they might be shut in.
“Well stop it, Commander,” exclaimed Lance, “I don’t want to get trapped here.”
“But how?” replied Dabiri, unsure what to do. He tried tapping the alien worker, but that didn’t have seem to have any effect. Then suddenly Edward Lance was by his side, yanking hard at one of the legs, which caused it to wobble.
“What are you doing,” shouted Jönsson.
“Getting its attention. Stopping … skreeetchh, whiiinne,” Lance shouted back, when suddenly the alien worker turned on a light, and all the teams radios overloaded at the same time. A split second nothing happened, then they all heard a rhythmic tapping in their headphones.
“Well tap-tap you sure tap-tap got it’s tap-tap attention,” remarked Dabiri. He noticed that he had instinctively drawn his sidearm, but he was pleased his reflexes had not taken him as long as firing it. He didn’t want to start a war.
“I think tap-tap it is tap-tap pulsing us tap-tap like radar tap-tap,” said Salient, who hid himself in one of the side tunnels.
The alien worker reached out with an arm and tried to grab Dabiri, but he narrowly avoided by kicking of the wall, which sent him tumbling into Lance.
“Get away tap-tap from that tap-tap thing,” shouted Jönsson.
“Don’t have tap-tap to say tap-tap that twice,” replied Lance, as he tried to disentangle himself from Dabiri. Fortunately Gabriel was more adept at zero g maneuvers, and having gotten over the first shock he executed a beautiful somersault, kicked of the alien worker and sent him and Lance sailing down the tunnel. The alien failed its arms a bit more, then grabbed the walls firmly again and started in pursuit. Gabriel’s blood pounded in his ears drowning out everything else, as he pulled the still disoriented Lance further down tunnel, by the many-limbed alien was easily gaining. Gabriel twisted to be ready to make another dodge, but then the alien just rammed into them and shoved them down to the intersection. There it released a small burst of particles at Lance and Dabiri, then turned down one of the side tunnels, apparently having lost all interest.
“What the fuck just happened there,” said Lance, as he stared after the rapidly disappearing shape.
“That was actually just what I wanted to ask you, Edward Lance,” replied Dabiri. “What was that stunt you just pulled?”
“It wasn’t like you seemed to have a lot of success making contact, Commander Gabriel Dabiri,” the engineer shot back.
“Perhaps because I was concerned about not starting an interstellar incident, if I could avoid it.”
“Calm down. Lets just be glad that no one got hurt – neither us nor them, as far as we could tell. That must count as some kind of success for first contact, considering human history,” tried Jönsson.
“Well, yeah, I guess so,” Dabiri replied.
“Didn’t seem like they were too interested in contact though,” commented Lance.
“No – didn’t seem like it was too smart. My guess would be that is was just some sort of maintenance drone. What was that spray?” asked Salient, curious again now that the immediate danger had passed.
Both Lance and Dabiri examined their suits, and on both of them a fine ocher dust covered their suit where the spray had hit.
“Some kind of marker, it would seem. Doesn’t look like it has damaged the suit. Pretty sticky though,” replied Dabiri as he tried to rub some if it off his boot, only succeeding in getting it on his gloves.
Lance ran a scanner over the patch on hi chest and said: “Seems to be some sort
of micro electronics. No idea what they do though.”
“Maybe you’ve been tagged and released into the wild for study,” quipped Mariko, trying to lighten the mood.
“Not exactly my natural habitat,” replied Lance, though being tagged made it seem a bit less funny to him.
“Or maybe you’ve been tagged for later pickup or something,” tried Salient.
“I guess we’ll find out if they come for us. But first lets see if we still have a way out of here,” replied Dabiri and made his way up to the hatch again. When he got there he was very relieved to see that it wasn’t the actual hatch that had been welded shut, but just the wall panel covering up the hydraulics.
“Looks like we still have a way out of here, people. Now we just need to figure out how to get to the controls again.”
“Good to hear. It is exciting enough to be here, but I’m not quite sure I was ready to settle down,” replied Lance, obviously relieved as well.
“Well, that is just because you haven’t seen the good neighborhoods yet,” laughed Salient.
Fortunately it turned out that getting to the controls wasn’t even as hard as they could have feared. Though the main panel had been welded shut the conduit walls were composed mostly of other panels, and underneath all the rooms seemed to be connected. After a bit of searching they managed to find a panel that allowed Salient to shove his arm through a bunch of cables and activate the hydraulics. They made sure to clean up afterwards and reattach all panels – no need to attract undue attention from more repair robots in they could avoid it.

“Sounds like you are having quite an adventure over there, Commander,” replied Administrator Gabhala, when the team reported back in.
“Yes, it has been exciting so far. Perhaps a bit too exciting, but then I guess we really shouldn’t complain too much. As Jönsson remarked no one has gotten killed, and we don’t believe we’ve broken anything yet. And since we don’t seem to be the first visitors, we hope we might be able to avoid a few stumbling blocks,” replied Dabiri.
“Seems like quite a stroke of good luck, that we’ve found signs of not just one but two alien cultures,” added Captain Farrell.
“True. But as old as this thing seems to be, it might not be so strange that others got the idea to go and visit it. And we don’t really know that it is signs of another alien race. It might also just be graffiti from some alien dockworker, or something we can’t even imagine,” remarked Jönsson.
“So, are you coming back, Commander?” asked Farrell.
“I think we want to check out what is behind the second hatch we found first. It’ll take an hour just going there and back, and then we want to look around. But it seems like it might get us into the ship proper, and we would all really like to get that far before we head back, Captain. Might take us a bit over the two hour limit though.”
“Well, all of us back here are certainly eager to get all the data you can supply. Just remember that you don’t have to check out everything on your first trip. The main thing was finding a way in,” replied Gabhala.
“But you are go for another trip, before we expect to see you back, Commander,” added Captain Farrell.

Before going in again the team checked that everything was still alright with the Lioness, restocked their supplies and – as an extra precaution – cleaned off the tagging spray with some cleaning gel. It might not do any harm, but if they could avoid it they would prefer not to attract attention, even if it was just from a sanitation robot. It might decide to throw them in an incinerator or vent them into space or something. Even a trash compactor could be pretty nasty according to some of the old space flicks.
Going in, they also made sure to lock up nicely after themselves. There was no reason to risk that the next repair bot would decide that the hatch had developed some permanent malfunction, and just weld it shut. Undoubtedly there would be several other hatchways just like it all over the Colossus but finding one was not on the schedule, if they wanted to get back in time.
Whether it was due to their precautions or just plain luck, the trip back to the marked door was quite uneventful, even if the zero g crawling was beginning to take a toll on all of them.

Chapter 12

New Thuringen orbit, Bow Street

The New Thuringen scientists as well as most of the engineering and computer crew of the Bow Street were deeply absorbed in processing everything the landing party had sent back. Every photo was scanned and rescanned again for symbols, and the size of components, tunnels and panels were being used to extrapolate their function, who might have designed them and what they might have had for dinner. It was pure guess work most of it, but even a guess seemed to be better than no idea at all, so the discussions were lively and loud.
In contrast the bridge of the Bow Street was unusually quiet. All the patroller wings had been recalled from flybys. They were still on standby, but Captain Farrell didn’t want to have to worry about having birds in the air, in case something happened. So all they really had to do, was to check that all systems were operating normally – which they were – and then wait for com traffic from the landing party.
“We’ve passed the two hour mark, sir,” reported Patroller Chibli, who was standing in for Lieutenant Salient and the com station.
“Well, Commander Dabiri did say that they expected to go over time. I don’t think we need to worry until we pass the three hour mark. But make sure that Rodriguez is ready for medevac, and that Dr. Agresti and Dr. Ngo are ready to receive patients. We might as well be as prepared as we can,” ordered Captain Farrell.
“Yes, sir,” replied the patrolwoman, and patched through the necessary orders. Once again the only sound on the bridge was the chirps of the computer consoles.
Then suddenly a massive flash overwhelmed both the glare protection and all eyes on the bridge and immediately alarms sounded from all over the bridge.
“What was that,” asked Farrell, though he already knew, when he got the answer.
“A transition flash, sir. And a big one,” reported Horace from the navigation station.
“Damage?” continued Farrell.
“Doesn’t seem like anything serious has happened. Could have blown out our coils even here in normal space, but luckily Chief Simay had us well above specs. I think the computer is mostly just throwing a fit from the shock, sir,” continued Horace.
“Sir. The Colossus is gone!” interrupted Chibli, as sensors finally came on line.
“Not really much surprise there, though it did certainly leave in style. And we are going after it. Lieutenant Horace prepare for an immediate transition. Patroller Chibli sound the all hands alert,” commanded Captain Farrell.

It took just five minutes for Horace to engage the hyperdrive, but it did mean leaving so many safety procedures in the dust that he was pretty sure he would have to avoid Simay and the engineering section for the next month or so.
The Bow Street had still been in geostationary orbit when he made transit and the whole ship was reeling with the stress. However a little gravitational sheer was nothing to the inferno of the local hyperspace they emerged into. The local pocket around New Thuringen was filled with flares, and despite the size of it they could only barely make out the Colossus.
“What is it doing,” exclaimed Lieutenant Horace, barely managing the control.
“What ever it is I believe we are finally going to learn how the Colossus maneuvers, and if it had anything to do with those quakes that brought us here we will have to be on our toes,” replied Captain Farrell.
The Colossus seemed unmoved by the harsh conditions and moved slowly but steadily towards one of the outgoing conduits.
“Is that the Valhalla conduit, Lieutenant?” asked Farrell.
“I think so. That general direction. But it will never fit in there, that tunnel is hardly even a kilometer across,” replied Horace.
All sensors had been turned toward the huge spacecraft, and as if on cue everybody on the bridge could see the transition coils all along the body of the ship begin to pulse. Even if they had just looked out the window at the blue green glare of hyperspace they would have seen how it began to twist and buckle. And eventually expand. It was the first time anyone on the Bow Street had seen anything like it. Theoretically it had been proposed that hyperspace geometry must be malleable, but seeing it done was astounding. It wasn’t fast at first, but as the Bow Street closed with the Colossus it began to go faster and faster and suddenly the ship practically shot into the dilated conduit and as hyperspace collapsed behind it the giant vessel seemed to be pushed forward as if it was riding on a wave. And being so close the Bow Street was sucked into the torrent and it was all they could do to keep up and not get crushed in the wake.

“I’m not sure this was such a good idea, sir,” commented Horace as his hands raced over the navigation controls. Hyperspace was being warped in ways the autopilot had no response to, and the pilot was spending half his time overriding alerts from the the confused computer, as he pushed the engines of the Bow Street to keep up.
“I’m sure you are right, and judging from her warnings Chief Simay and the whole engineering department certainly agrees,” replied Captain Farrell.
“But we had to see where it was going, and we would have been crushed if we had stayed in local hyperspace. There weren’t really any good options. Besides we have men aboard that thing, and their supplies wont last forever,” he continued, then as he saw everybody on the bridge staring at him he added, “I have full confidence in the crew of the Bow Street to see us through. This is one tough little ship we have and we have survived nasty situations before.”
“Nothing like this though. Sir,” added Horace.
“Just focus on your flying Lieutenant. And perhaps next time we take a hyperbridge or patrol near Earth you won’t complain about your skills going to waste,” was Farrell’s reply.
The chase went on and on, and it seemed clear that it wouldn’t stop till the Colossus emerged into another hyperspace cavern big enough to hold it without folding space, and they could only hope that happened soon.

“At least we are making great speed,” remarked Horace. He had finally been replaced by Patroller Kleinsman at the helm, and was enjoying a well earned break in the mess hall. They actually managed to achieve more or less smooth flying. All their old astrogation maps could be thrown out the windows, as the Colossus was just drilling a tunnel only vaguely following the existing conduit, but near the enormous vessel the geometry stayed more or less the same, and by keeping close enough to the Colossus they had managed to stay inside that ’safe’ bubble.
“At this rate we will be in Valhalla in two days. Perhaps one and a half.”
“That is assuming we stop there,” replied Simay sitting across from him on a equally well earned break from the engine room, “and that the ship will hold out that far. We are being ripped apart from the strain.”
“Don’t I know it. We are doing our best to keep the ship steady, but against that pulsing superdrive that thing has there is only so much you can do. If I could I would land us the damn thing, and then just let it carry us in,” replied Horace with a sigh.

“Land on it? Could you do that?” asked Simay, the faint glimmer of an idea stirring in the back of her mind.
“No way. It may be big to but it is not like it is big enough to hold us on by gravity, and I doubt it has a docking cradle for a Kinshasa class,” the pilot replied with a smile.
“But if we became one with it,” her voice trailed a bit, “how about the crater?”
“It is big, but I don’t think we would fit. Besides we you have to cut through their transfer field, no way the coils would survive that. That ship might, but then we would be completely at the mercy of where ever the big whale is going. What are you on about here? It is not like you to risk the ship like this – you usually throw a fit if one of us pilots scratch the paint during docking.” Despite being tired Horace was starting to be curious.
“Well, a hotshot like you should be able to dock without scratching anything shouldn’t you. And in any case this is hardly normal circumstances – the ship is being torn up anyway. How close do you reckon you could get us?”
“Depends how long you want to stay, and how much you are willing to risk your precious engines, but I figure ‘a hotshot like me’ could have us up with the nose kissing the end of it, if I thought it would matter. But that close the pulsing drives would just pound us even more.”
“I think I may have a solution for that. Get up on the bridge and start maneuvering, I’ll meet you up there, I just need to grab some stuff in engineering,” she said an go up.
“But I just got off. I need to sleep.”
“So do I – grab some stims from Dr. Agresti. We can sleep when we’ve saved the ship. Or do you think your replacement can do the nose kissing just as well?”
“No, ma’am,” Horace replied but the Chief Engineer was already on her way out of the mess hall.

A few minutes later Horace had reported back on the bridge, much to the surprise of Captain Farrell and Patroller Kleinsman. All he could do was shrug and say that he assumed Chief Simay would explain everything, and shortly after he had begun the ‘docking operation’ the young engineer burst into the bridge with her arms full of tech manuals, heading straight for the navigational control.
“What exactly do you think you are doing, Chief Simay?” was all Captain Farrell could say, “both you and Lieutenant Horace are supposed to be in your beds now, not on stims.”
“You are still on duty, aren’t you sir. And I’m here to save the ship – as always, sir,” came the curt reply from underneath one of the computer consoles.
“Of course you are. Anything we can do to help?” came Farrell’s reply a tad more sarcastic than he actually intended.
“If somebody could bring up the schematics of the Colossus, and then you might help by authorizing use of the weapon stations, sir,” Simay replied from somewhere inside the machinery.
“Weapons? It might help if you said what you had in mind, cause I’m not starting a shooting match with the Colossus.”
“Oh – I guess I haven’t really explained that,” Simay said as she emerged from the console.
“When Lieutenant Horace has us within thirty meters of the Colossus, we should fire the emergency docking tethers into the Colossus, and then I’ll engage our brand new pulse drive. Effectively making us a small extension of the Colossus,” she finished with a smile.
“Pulse drive? I wasn’t aware we had one,” relied Farrell.
“We didn’t until I ripped out all the field stabilizers,” said the Chief Engineer waving one of the circuit boards she was holding, “the techs back at Vulcan hadn’t thought of that configuration. But then I guess they didn’t have the benefit of seeing the system in action.”
“And you believe we can do this?”
“Well, it is not like I had a chance to test it, sir, but I’m pretty sure the if we hit the same pulse pattern as the Colossus then sympathetic induction will keep the field steady. It is all pretty much intuition right now Captain, but there is no way I could even have simulated this. I just figure it is the only chance we have to hang on till the end of the ride.”
“Sometimes I guess command is mainly getting out of the way of the experts. Patrolman Leroy, be ready to fire all tethers as soon as we are in range. And Chief Simay if this works, I expect you to clean up the mess you’ve made of this bridge,” replied Captain Farrell, indicating the computer guts slowly drifting around the bridge.
“Yes, sir.”
Half an hour later the Bow Street was suspended after the Colossus like a kite after a truck. But they were hanging on and the strain was off the engines.

Chapter 13

New Germany hyperspace, the Colossus

Deep inside the Colossus the landing party knew nothing about the drama unfolding outside. Even the transition to hyperspace had drowned in all the new impressions the alien spaceship had presented.
Getting through the marked door had been a bit of a puzzle. The team had begun to have a fair understanding of the mechanical system of the alien ship, since those could be understood more or less through direct inspection, but the electronics – or whatever it might be – were still beyond them. It turned out that the door and the tunnel section they were in was part of some sort of airlock system, and getting all the parts to cycle correctly – or at least well enough to allow the blocked door to open had taken about an hour, and without the help from the symbols left by the previous visitor, it would probably have taken even longer. It hadn’t helped that the four of them could only barely fit in the airlock, but they had not been willing to risk splitting up the group.
Finally they emerged into a small room. Or actually at something like ten by ten by four meters it wasn’t that small, but somehow the size of the Colossus had made them expect a wast hall. Having come through an airlock they had also expected some kind of atmosphere, but no such luck. Instead the room was filled with machinery, and as they ran their flashlights over everything it looked most of all like some sort robotic assembly hall. Lots of long appendages like those they had seen on what they were now pretty sure was a repair robot. Like the tunnels they had been crawling through the room was zero g, but from the arrangement of the machines they still got the impression that they had emerged from the floor.
“So what do we think this is?” asked Salient.
“Apart from another treasure trove of technology it will take years to catalogue let alone understand? This ship will be the beginning several new sciences?” replied Jönsson.
“Well, yes I was thinking about something a little more off the cuff than that. It can’t hurt to guess,” replied the lieutenant with a smile.
“In that case I will say something like a repair or maintenance facility. We’ve just some out from a network of tubes, that for all we know runs all through the outer layers of the ship. And we know those tubes contain repair robots. This would seem to be some sort of end station, where the robots can be taken out to be inspected. The airlock would indicate that we are now in a more habitable part of the ship, even if there isn’t actually any atmosphere here now,” answered Lance. While he still didn’t trust the alien ship further than he would have been able to throw it, his engineering side was getting more and more caught up in the mystery.
“Maybe we would have a better look from up there,” said Dabiri, indicating a platform of some sort held by a robotic arm about two meters ‘above, them. There was no direct access, but in zero g it was a simple matter of just pushing off and glide up there.
The platform was circular, about two meters in diameter and ringed with a railing and a number of devices that looked like they where control stations, each about a meter in hight. But the new and equally indecipherable machines was not what caught the attention of the four explorers. Instead they looked at the strange looking object in the middle of the platform. It was a oblong blob of some kind of a translucent yellowish material, like crystal or amber. The organic form made it look distinctly out of place in the alien machine hall. It was wrapped in a number of thin threads connecting it to the railings, and as the team ran their flashlights over the strange scene, they discovered a number of smaller blobs of the same translucent material placed all over the platform, and indeed as they started following the threads all over the machine room.
“Another mystery,” said Dabiri, almost with a sigh. He knew it was too much to expect, but he would like to start finding some answers as well.
“No idea what this is,” said Lance as he glided onto the platform, “but it definitely doesn’t look like it belongs here.”
“It seems to be some sort of organic resin,” said Mariko as she tested one of the smaller blobs with her chemical scanner, “and the threads seems to be made from the same basic material.”
“Looks like there is something inside them,” remarked Dabiri, as he inspected the large blob, “and it looks like there are symbols etched into the surface,” he added running his fingers over the weird object.
“Maybe it is a time capsule,” tried Salient, not willing to let a mystery remain a mystery for long.
“Could be. Whatever it is it seems to have been left here by the previous visitor. At least these symbols look a lot like those we followed in here,” added Dabiri.
“Wonder why it hasn’t been cleaned out,” remarked Lance.
“Well, even with the repair bot we encountered the whole ship has seemed very dead. Just the fact that there is no atmosphere here, suggests a kind of abandonment. Could just be forgotten,” suggested Mariko.
“But the whole ship can’t be dead. We’ve seen it come out of hyperspace. It is performing terraforming operations,” objected Lance.
“Maybe all that is just automation as well. Or perhaps this is just a part of the attic that no one has cared about for a long time, so no one has discovered that us ‘vermin’ have invaded,” countered Jönsson.
“The crater alone suggests that the Colossus is highly redundant, since it has kept flying for such a long time after sustaining that kind of damage,” added Gabriel.
“So, do we think this is as far as the previous visitors got?” asked Salient.
“Well, they certainly did a lot more than just draw graffiti here – even if I have no clue exactly what they did, but I guess your time capsule idea is as good as any right not – so it would be natural to expect this is what they came here to do. But I guess the only real way to answer your question would be to go further in and see if we find more traces of them. At least it is a question we can answer,” replied Dabiri, happy at the prospect on being able to check off one small thing of the growing list of questions.
“So further in, Commander?” asked Jönsson.
“We did say that we would go over the two hour limit, and it has only been about one so far. If we keep turning back for each little step we make, we will never get anywhere. And while a room like this could obviously be studied for days if not years, we are not here to do those kinds of in-depth studies, but rather as explorer or possibly a survey team. We have supplies for twenty four hours if it comes to that, so yes, lets see if we can’t find a way further in,” replied Dabiri.
“Well, if we are correct that this machine room is part of the habitable section, then I don’t care how weird these aliens are, there must have been an access route that doesn’t involve crawling through the maintenance ducts,” added Lance, and started looking around. Even though the room was crammed with weird machines finding the exit proved to be a simple matter of following the robotic arm supporting the platform. The controls did not respond and this time there were no indications that the previous visitors had tampered with the door – no symbols and no missing wall plating – so getting it open looked like it might be a challenge. But fortunately their experiences with the earlier mechanisms paid off, and it didn’t take too long for Lance and Salient to get find something that looked like a manual override and get the door open. Beyond it was a hallway about two meters wide and one and a half meters high, if you used the same orientation as the machine room they came from. So walking would have been stooped for the four humans, but drifting in zero g was quite comfortable, and now there was space enough that they could even be side by side.
They spent a while exploring the corridors, and found that rooms were few and far between. Most of them were machine rooms like the one they had come in through. Undoubtedly they could serve many different purposes, but for the most part it looked like this was a remote part of the ship, that was only ever visited for maintenance purposes. And like the room they had entered most of it looked dead and abandoned. None of the doors worked, none of the control panels responded to their efforts to use them and what looked like power conduits rarely held any power. They took scans and photos as everywhere else, but all they really found was the the Colossals must be smaller than one point four meters to be comfortable in these rooms a corridors.
They had more or less gotten used to the whole ship being abandoned, when they came to something that looked like a pressure door. They had actually encountered a couple of those earlier, but they hadn’t been able to open them. They assumed the mechanisms underneath were as simple as the other doors, but since they were security doors they were much sturdier this anything else they had met previously. This door however looked like it still had power – at least if the purple glow coming from the control panel was anything to go by.
“So – what now, Commander?” asked Salient, slightly intimidated by the ship suddenly being alive again.
“I guess we press the button and see what happens. I can’t imagine that the doors control will be all that complicated,” replied Dabiri.
“Well, considering that it looks like the same sort of emergency door that we’ve seen earlier, we certainly have to hope so, if we want to get through,” added Lance.
“We could also heard back to the shuttle and report in. We are almost three hours out now, and even going straight back, it is going to be close to four hours when we get there,” suggested Jönsson as she checked her watch.
“Sound like a good plan, Mariko. No need to stress the Captain unduly, by staying here. We’ve covered a good deal of ground today, and the door will probably be here tomorrow as well, and it will give us a good starting point for the next operation,” said Dabiri.
It took them a few more minutes to shake of the spell of the glowing purple control panel, but then they headed back. When they got back to the machine room Salient suggested that they should bring back one of the smaller globules the the visitors had brought with them. After spending a few minutes to make sure it was sterile and reasonably inert, the other three agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to bring back something other than data, so for good measure they also took a few components from the dead machinery. Then they cycled through the airlock, and started making their way through the repair ducts. And once again they were in for a surprise as the got close to the hatchway. This time it wasn’t a robot but something much more insidious.
“Ether,” exclaimed Dabiri as he suddenly noticed the telltale blue-green wisps in the darkness. Directly in the beam of the flashlight you couldn’t seen anything, but out of the corner of his eye he had suddenly noticed the well known glow.
“What? That must mean we are in hyperspace,” said Jönsson coming up behind him.
“Yes, there is no denying that. The question is – what do we do about it,” replied Dabiri.
Ether was far from instantly fatal, and their suits were designed to afford some level of protection against the radiation like damage it caused to exposed tissue. But generally it was advisable to keep a good couple of centimeters of refraction shielding between yourself and the harsh climate of hyperspace, so the prospect of crawling through conduits that were apparently soaked in the stuff was not too appealing.
“Well, there isn’t really much choice is there. We can’t stay here forever, and we have no idea when this thing will drop out of hyper again. We have to at least find out if the Bow Street is out there somewhere of if we are completely on our own,” replied Lance.
“You want us all to crawl through that?” said Jönsson staring at the green haze. Most of her experience – or rather images - of hyperspace came from blockbuster holovids, and there it had never looked anything like safe. Although she could always hope she was the heroine.
“Well, I guess we could just send one person back to the Ambassador to see if we can reach the Bow Street. If we can’t reach them, then we are going to have to do some serious planning anyway, and for now it seems the inner sections of the Colossus are as safe as anywhere else. I’m surprised the field is even in this far, but I guess that is because the armor plate is still open. At least I hope it is, because otherwise we are trapped,” suggested Salient.
“No, we shouldn’t split up. At least ether is a danger we know how to deal with, and as Salient said we are reasonably safe right here. Let’s double check our suits, pick up some of these wall plates for whatever shielding they might provide and the find a route that will allow us to coast as quickly as possible to the hatch. Then we just have to hope it doesn’t give us too much trouble while we are sitting there frying,” decided Dabiri.
They spent a few minutes on the suggested preparations, then hustled through the remaining stretch of repair ducts as fast as their zero g training allowed. Fortunately the hatchway didn’t give them too many problems, and shortly after they where outside. Hyperspace was boiling with flares, and even Lance and Jönsson could see that something unusual was going on. Waves of sheer-stress rolled over them, but at least they seemed to be a in a bit over cover under the half-open armor plate.
“What the hell is happening here?” shouted Salient, in a effort to cut through the com link static.
“No idea – lets just see if we can make it to the Ambassador. But I suggest we fasten our security lines down here just in case. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I don’t want to take any chances,” replied Dabiri.
The started to make their way across the hull, and even with the gecko-padding they had to grab hold of the small holes in the hull, just to make headway. Then as Lance popped his head over the edge of the hole they were struck by a terrifying sight.
“The Ambassador is gone!” shouted the engineer.
“Gone?”
The the other three made it to the edge as well, and could confirm that where the Lioness was supposed to be there was only an empty spot. Didn’t look all that dramatic – no wreckage, no scorching, just empty space. Panicking they looked around, just in case the shuttle should some how just have moved, or they had forgotten exactly where they left it, but there was no sign of it.
“It must have gotten ripped of by the sheer,” said Salient still not really believing that it was gone.
“What do we do now? We are stranded.” Mariko was starting to feel a bit nauseous, and though she tried to tell herself it was just nerves, the back of her mind was already shouting ether poisoning.
“Ok, let just all calm down,” said Dabiri and started to crawl back down into the recess of the open armor plate.
“Calm down?” Lance wasn’t quite sure he could do that.
“Yes. The com relay was still back there at the hatch. It may not be as powerful as the radio in the shuttle, but if the Bow Street is here we have to hope they are close. If the Bow Street is not in here, we would have been just as stranded with the Lioness. So lets go back – I’ll try to get in touch with the Bow Street, and I suggest you three crawl back inside the Colossus and out of the this storm. No reason we all get sick, if we can avoid it.”
The way back was at least a bit faster, since they could more or less pull themselves along their security lines. Salient insisted on helping with the com relay, since he really was more of an expert than Dabiri, but the other two went to to safety below decks.

“Yes! I think we have them. Bow Street, come in Bow Street. This is Lieutenant Salient. Do you read me.”
“Lieutenant, this is the Bow Street. We are all very happy to hear from you. I’ll put the Captain on,” replied Patroller Chibli.
“Captain Farrell here. Is everybody alright over there?”
“Yes, sir,” said Commander Dabiri trying to stay calm, “we are alright, but the Ambassador isn’t. It is gone sir. Ripped off by the hyperspace sheer.”
“Shit! Well, it might not have been safe to fly in these conditions anyway. The Colossus is warping hyperspace in ways we’ve never seen before. The Bow Street is only just hanging on due to brazen ingenuity on behalf of Chief Simay. I’m afraid we won’t be able to launch an evacuation right away. That would just be risking more men. Is there anywhere over there where you are safe.”
“Yes. The outer layer of the hull is compromised, but in the habitable sections there were no signs of ether. The parts of the ship we have explored seem to have been shut down somehow. Like it has been mothballed or something, but it is safe enough. We didn’t even notice we had gone into hyper until we came out.”
“Good. In that case I suggest you go back inside, and huddle up. We will try to send over some drones with supplies. Hopefully we will be able to get one of them through this mess in about an hour or so. Leave the relay on, and we will use that as a guideline. Hopefully we can come up with a plan to rescue you as well. Now just get out of the ether, Commander,” finished Captain Farrell.
“Yes, sir. Any idea where we are going?”
“Back to Valhalla best as we can tell. And at express speed.”
“Okay. Well, with supplies we could probably camp that long.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
The two switched the relay into standby mode, and fastened it with a few security lines just in case, then made their way back inside the Colossus to the others. The team went back to the machine room - for the added safety of the airlock but mostly just because operating the alien systems gave them something to occupy themselves with as they waited. They decided to wait for two hours before sending anybody back outside, because it didn’t make sense to have to wait out in the ether in case of any delays in the supply operation. Better to have the Bow Street wait for them – at least until there was a firm plan. In the mean time they looked a bit more at strange alien artifacts, but with their lives hanging in a thin thread the excitement had sort of worn off. When the time finally rolled around it was Lance and Jönsson that went, since it seemed most sensible to spread the ether exposure around a bit.
Spirits picked up quite a bit when the two returned with bundles of supplies. The drone the Bow Street had sent, had gotten stuck under one of the launch tubes outside, so it had taken a while to get to it and free the stuff, but on the positive side whoever packed it had paid attention to all the footage the team had sent back, and made sure that everything was in packed in bundles that would fit inside the repair conduits, airlocks and everything else it had to be transported through. And they hadn’t skimped on anything. There were atmospheric tents, ether exposure meds (as well as a care-package courtesy of Dr. Gabhala), food, water, everything. Enough to last the group four days.
“Hmm – I don’t know if I’m really all that happy that they’ve been so generous,” commented Lance, as he looked at the hoard. A recorded message from Captain Farrell had apologized for the delay and explained that this was the third drone they had tried to guide through the mess, and that they still had no firm rescue plans. He had requested that they check in every twenty four hours, and said that they hoped to be at Valhalla in two days. Hopefully the Colossus would exit hyperspace or at least stop warping it by then, and they would be able to evacuate the team.
“No, it seems we had better just settle down for the duration,” agreed Dabiri.
“Why? Why should we just make camp?” asked Salient.
“Didn’t you follow Captain Farrell’s message. They are not going to pick us up any time soon,” replied Lance exasperatedly.
“Yes, I realize that. But that doesn’t mean we have to make camp. If we are going to be stuck here, we might as well continue exploring, right?” replied the Lieutenant. Apparently nothing was able to dent his optimism for long.
“But,” began Dabiri, but stopped as he realized he didn’t really have any good counter arguments.
“So far the Colossus has been a relatively safe place to explore, and all things being equal we will be safer the more we know about what else might be out there. We might also figure out where we are going, or someway of stopping the ship or lots of other things that might help us get rescued. It beats just sitting around waiting and hoping, doesn’t it?” Salient continued.
“I guess that makes sense,” replied Mariko.
“It does?” said Lance a bit more sceptical.
“I guess it does. We’ll start by making a proper camp here in the machine room, distribute the ether meds and get the rest we thought we were going back for, but after that I don’t see any reason we can’t continue our mission. If there is anything alive here, I would prefer to meet it as far from our camp as possible. That way we have a place to retreat to, rather than just fleeing into the bowels of an unknown ship,” concluded Dabiri.
Their rest lasted for about seven hours, and during that time the machine rooms was a dead and quiet as it had always been. Salient spend some more time looking at the Visitor – it had started becoming a name, more than a description - artifacts, but he didn’t learn much new. He figured he could probably have cut one open to see what was inside, but it felt wrong. If nothing else he had a vague feeling that being so crude would make his name live in infamy in the new science of xeno-archeology that they were founding. Not exactly how he wanted to be remembered.
Reasonably well rested the team packed up their new tools, and made their way to the pressure door. Apart from Salient the team members were still on edge, but eventually the young lieutenant’s mood rubbed off on the others, and by the time they reached the door, they could all feel the excitement at seeing the glowing purple light.
“Who wants to do the honors?” asked Dabiri.
“I say we let Emanuel do it,” said Lance.
“Sacrificing the most expendable crew member, are we?” quipped the Lieutenant.
“No – but if it hadn’t been for you, we would still be sitting back at the camp,” said the engineer matter-of-factly, “you deserve the honor – and the risk,” he added with a smile.
“Heh – sure thing. What’s the worst that can happen.”
Salient stepped up to the door, and since it didn’t look like there was much else he could do he gave the the glowing button a push. It took more force than he had expected, then it gave in. First it just blinked and popped out again, so with reflexed drilled in by waiting on many an elevator Salient pushed it again. This time it began pulsing more rapidly and a glowing blue band turned on all around the door.
“You may want to stand back, Lieutenant. Just in case,” remarked Dabiri, but hovering in zero g none of them managed to do much before they were all knocked back by the air rushing in from the other compartment. On the other side they saw a corridor much like the one they were in, only this one was illuminated with blue light, and through the rushing air they could also hear a deep bass drone. With the practice of many decompression drills Commander Dabiri and Lieutenant Salient were on their feet first, and pulled the other two up.
“Well – I guess we had better get through before it shuts again,” said Dabiri resolutely and dragged Mariko after him through the door. Lance and Salient followed quickly, and a split second after they were inside the corridor the huge pressure door slammed shut, and the droning sound stopped.
“Status?” asked Dabiri, as he rubbed his ankle – wrong reflexes had made him slam his feet into the wall, and while the gecko-soles had held, being anchored by you foot was always painful.
“Apart from a bruised tail-bone I think I’m fine,” reported Lance and they other two had gotten gotten away without bruises.
“Well – what have we here then,” continued the commander as he looked around. Out of habit he still pointed around with his flashlight, though he didn’t really need to. The blue light made everything look a bit sterile and cold, but other than that the hallway was quite well lit. Apart from the door, the main features of the corridor was a number of running lights leading away from the pressure door, and a number of dark panels on the wall.
“The pressure is about one point nine atmospheres, but the partial oxygen pressure is quite low. Either these Colossals have a very different biology, or this is an inert atmosphere. Considering that everything we’ve seen so far has been shut down, it is possible that the life-support system has been turned down to a minimum,” reported Jönsson as she checked her chemical scanner.
“So we won’t be taking off our helmets just yet,” replied Lance.
“Wouldn’t recommend it. Though a rebreather might be able to siphon a bit of oxygen out of this. Other than that though, the air seems pretty harmless. And sterile,” she finished.
“Well, first we had better check that the door will open from this side as well. Brace yourselves,” said Dabiri and gave the door control a firm shove. Like for Salient the door control didn’t do anything after the first push, except blink. Apparently it wanted confirmation that you really did want to open the door to the depressurized section. A fair precaution though Dabiri, and gave the control another push and this time the door started to open. Knowing what to expect they all braced firmly against the wall, and a few seconds later the door slammed shut as firmly as the first time.
“Looks like we can get back. That is something at least. Now lets see where these lights want to lead us,” said Dabiri pointing at the running lights.
“How about looking at these screens first, Gabriel,” suggested Salient, indicating the dark panels on the wall.
“Sure – if you think we can get them to work,” replied Dabiri.
“There are no controls, but I had pretty much figured I would just try tapping one. It doesn’t look like the sort of thing that should be rocket science to activate,” remarked the lieutenant and floated over to one of the dark screens. With the thick atmosphere moving felt a bit like swimming.
First nothing happened as he tapped the screen, then he tried holding his palm firmly against the screen, but still nothing.
“So – shall we move on,” suggested Dabiri.
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Lance, “it might be heat activated. And these suits isolate us pretty well,” and before they others could stop him Salient had stripped off a glove and touched the panel. And lo-and-behold it turned on.
The young lieutenant turned around in triumph and as strange symbols began running over the screen he got the thumbs up from Lance. However Dabiri didn’t pay much attention to the screen because suddenly his inner ear was trying to tell him something.
Before Dabiri had really realized what was happening, he shouted: “Get down on the floor. The gravity is turning on!”
They had all begun dropping slowly, but they managed to get their feet under them before the field had reached full strength.
“Wow – did we just start spinning?” said Salient after being sure of his balance.
“Nope. Then you would have slammed into the wall, not the floor, if I have my bearing right,” replied Lance, “and there doesn’t seem to be any Coriolis effect. Either the ship just randomly decided to accelerate in that direction,” he continued as he pointed upward, “or this thing is actually generating an artificial gravity field.”
“I assume that is incredible,” commented Dabiri.
“Yes! It implies they know how gravity works for one thing. But maybe it isn’t more surprising than the rest of this ship,” replied Lance.
“Well, it means no more zero g, which my stomach likes. By my back is going to hate walking stooped in these corridors. Not to mention my knees. It feels like one and half gs.”
“One point three seven, actually,” reported Salient after checking his instruments.
“It seems like the air composition is changing as well. The oxygen content is climbing. I’d still recommend keeping out gear on though. I don’t want to vouch for the trace gases,” added Jönsson.
“Seems like we have activated the full life support system. So if anybody is home, I guess they definitely know they have visitors now,” said Dabiri.
“Well, if anybody is home they have managed to ignore us this long. I don’t see why they would stop now. So what do we make of this,” remarked Lance as he turned towards the active screen.
Salient turned back as well and started to study the display.
“I wouldn’t know where to start deciphering their script,” he said as he stared at the network of symbols.
“Looks a bit like a spiderweb. Or maybe a mind map. But without understanding the core glyphs, it doesn’t get us anywhere even if it is the correct idea,” he continued.
“Maybe we should just look at the picture,” remarked Jönsson, and added, “Okay – screw this. This is killing my back,” sat down – carefully, not wanting to risk anything in the higher gravity.
The other three joined her on the floor and began looking at the images.
“This is a bit like staring at clouds, isn’t it,” said Dabiri, “and I must admit it is giving me a headache. Is it just me or is the images strangely blurry?”
“If it is an emergency display, then I hope it is a bit easier to read that clouds. But you are right, it is like there are several images layered on top of each other,” said Salient leaning in close.
“Let me check,” replied Lance as crawled in closer, started tilting his head back and forth, then added with a puzzled look, “could that really be it?”
“What are you seeing?” asked Salient eagerly.
“The image changes with the polarization. Only slightly and I guess the only reason we even see it due to the filters in our helmets. I’ll need to run it through the computer to resolve it, but I think it is a kind of stereogram. Just seems so primitive, for someone that can make artificial gravity,” the engineer replied.
“If it works for them. And I guess an emergency guidance display – if that really is what is – will often be made from as simple and reliable tech as you can get away with,” suggested Dabiri.
“True. Lets just see if we can isolate the different components,” added Lance distractedly, as Salient and him were already absorbed in fiddling with their computers and images scanner.
“Presto – maybe they are not so indecipherable after all these aliens,” remarked Salient twenty minutes later.
“Looks like it might be a map over the corridors,” added Lance after fiddling a bit more with the images, “the shape of this bit corresponds to our automapping data. This would be the machine room were we came in.”
“And the colors?” asked Jönsson.
“Well, the stereo effect was encoded in the polarization, so I guess the colors should be okay. Hard to say for sure,” answered Salient.
“So the whole bit we’ve been through is marked purple. And it as shut down and depressurized. Combined with the purple lights on the on the pressure door, that might indicate danger, off-limits or similar. Could be useful to keep in mind as we go further in.”
However apart from the map, there wasn’t much they could learn from the display, since even with the stereogram decoding the accompanying glyphs were still as undecipherable as they had been before.
The team spent the next several hours exploring the habitable parts of the Colossus. First it was tough going in the low corridors, with the thick atmosphere and the high gravity, but then suddenly the life support systems powered down again, and a bit of experimentation showed that it was because they weren’t radiating enough heat to keep it active. They figured that was actually an advantage, but even when they could float it was slow going so they didn’t cover as much ground as they had hoped. Still it was enough to get the impression that the habitable ares wasn’t nearly as big as they had expected. Most of what they found were inspection and maintenance rooms like the robot facility they had boarded, and it seemed that most of the Colossus was inaccessible machinery. Still scanning maps from some more information screens, they did discover a few areas that looked promising. Or at least different. One was a huge installation at the core – almost a kilometer in diameter if they had the scale of the maps right. The other a smaller one near one of the ends, which they arbitrarily decided to call the front, even though they didn’t actually know which way they were going. Both areas had been marked in a distinct greenish color – which could mean anything but at least wasn’t the purple – the idea that purple probably meant danger had been confirmed when they had found an overview map that showed the whole crater area in bright purple. But further exploration would have to wait for another day. It looked like a long trek to the core and they were all beat. But the core was definitely the first thing on the agenda for the morning.

Chapter 14

Valhalla system, Midgard

UN response had been unusually quick, with about half the ships in Junction system, be they Scout Service, Patrol or emergency relief vessel being sent on priority order to Valhalla within an hour of the data dispatch coming over the wire. Most of them were not even told what the emergency was, just that they were to assist Scout Commissioner Asoke on an emergency relief effort in Valhalla.
However as the news spread through the channels and offices of the UN on its way back to Earth, bureaucratic inertia set in. Some of the orders got countermanded, others leaked and before they knew it the haphazard force was in a race with half the Junction Expeditionary Force to find whatever pot of gold was located beyond the Bifrost hyperbridge.
At the headquarters of the United Nations and Colonies emergency meetings were called and a lot of clerks were sent running for all sorts of old emergency protocols. Somehow the search for extra terrestrial intelligence had fallen by the wayside as mankind had rushed out to grab all the stars for themselves, so no one really knew what to do, and it probably didn’t help that no one was really prepared to reveal the discovery to anyone. The critics of the sprawling and inefficient organization would have been amazed at the speed the giant could suddenly muster, and the paranoids would have been vindicated by its desperation to keep the lid on the discovery. Who could really blame them for wanting just a bit of time to find their balance in this new world they had just woken up to. But for better or worse their grasp on the secret was not strong enough for what happened next.

In the Valhalla system Asoke barely managed to beat the Junction forces to the finish line, mostly because his Scout Service ships were better able to cope with what seemed like the worst hyperspace quake the experienced Commissioner had ever seen. It never became quite clear but that storm might just be all that averted the first major invasion since the Polewars.
As it went the only fighting that broke out was the political wrestling match between Asoke, the local Colonial Commissioner, the Junction Marshal and even some upstart Patrol Commander.
“Again I assure you that Junction forces are only here to help Midgard in the current emergency. As the nearest major economy we obviously feel a responsibility for the fledgling colonies around us. After all your prosperity is ours, and Incobal has always been a great friend of the Junction board,” explained Marshal Kimbale, as he tried to cover up that he really had very little idea why he was here.
“The only emergency here is the ones caused by you own bloody ships,” Commander Griffith shouted back over the intercom. He knew his patrollers were nothing against the expeditionary force, but since the immediate threat of invasion seemed to have passed, he damn well wanted to vent.
“If you can’t navigate a bit of a storm, perhaps you shouldn’t fly in one. My Lioness’ are running ragged trying to save your ‘relief force’. And that is saying nothing about the fright you’ve put into the colonialists,” Griffith continued.
“And as I’ve tried to explain”, interrupted Pickford a bit more diplomatically – no need to upset the Marshal after all, “we really don’t need your help, though the offer is of course appreciated. All we really wanted was to invite UNESCO to join a small research project we’ve started, and that we figured would be of interest to the entire Union.”
“A small research project has half the Scout Service rushing to get here,” quipped the Marshal with what he hoped was a knowing smile.
“Let us not beat around the bush here. We all know that this Colossus is more than just ‘a small research project’, and if I read the report correctly you really haven’t been all that involved in the whole discovery have you Commissioner Pickford,” Asoke cut in. He was not exactly surprised that the woman was trying to milk the whole thing for political gain, but the small researcher inside him was still appalled by it.
“Now where is Captain Farrell. I believe it was really him that ’sent the invitation’ if you want to keep using that euphemism,” Asoke continued with a sigh.
“Captain Farrell is still at New Thuringen, sir,” came the curt reply from Griffith.
“And what on earth is he doing there?”
“Continuing the research, I believe,” replied Pickford.
“Continuing the research? They are a long range Patrol ship. What exactly are their qualifications for crawling all over the biggest discovery in human history,” was all Asoke could think to say.
“Well, I’d like to see your qualifications for examining an alien vessel. They were there for one thing. And as you can see from the report they and the research team from New Thuringen have done an admirable job,” Griffith replied, pleased to snub the smug Scout Commissioner. Meanwhile Kimbale tried to hide his surprise at the word ‘alien’.
“I’m sure Captain Farrell is eagerly awaiting the help of the Scout Service and the UNESCO experts,” added Commissioner Pickford to smooth thing over. She almost added that she was very surprised that the UN had been able to put together a group of experts so quickly, but figured she would be better served by letting Griffith do the needling.
This went on and as the hours passed protests and demonstrations began among the startled colonists. Then the sky exploded with yet another transfer flash. Aboard the assembled fleets commanders and crew scrambled to save their hyperdrives and prepare for what the assumed was reinforcement – and possibly the opponents. But when their sensors cleared they all got their first glimpse of the Colossus.

“Bifrost Station this is Captain Farrell of the Bow Street. We’ve brought you a little present. Or to be honest, it brought us.”
When the com link remained silent, he continued, “my sensors show me that it is quite a reception you’ve arranged here. You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” hoping that a bad joke might break the quiet.
“Captain Farrell, this is Scout Commissioner Asoke. Let me be the first to welcome back the Bow Street. We certainly had not expected to get our first glimpse of the Colossus this way,” came the reply from the Scout Service fleet, and suddenly the com channels overflowed with activity as everybody contacted everybody else. Even most of the UN fleet did not know why they were there, and none of them had been prepared for the answer.
“We didn’t really expect to arrive this way either, Commissioner. As it happens we are tethered to the Colossus right now, but I will be happy to come over as soon as I’m sure my ship has made it here safely,” replied Farrell, deciding that he would just deal with the Scout Service for now, while Chibli fended off all the other calls.
“Thank you Captain, but if you will just send over your latest data, we will be more than happy to take over from here. I’m sure you and your crew could do with some rest after all you must have been through,” was the curt reply.

On Midgard concern over the arriving fleets, had moved over anger at the silent colonial commissioners office to outright panic at the arrival of the Colossus. No one really knew what the thing was, but enough amateur astronomers had been able to see more than just the transition flash, and the fact that even the other fleets did not seem to know what was really happening seemed like reason enough to be scared. However one group almost thrived on the chaos.
“So this is what they have been hiding out there all along,” said Robert Manfield as he read through the snippets his agent was grabbing of the Midgard news net.
“A bona fide alien space craft. Hiding it all this time,” replied one of the other council members.
“According to some of the feed I’ve been able to grab, it is some sort of world transformation vessel. It destroyed New Thuringen or something and now they’ve brought it here,” added another.
“And not only that. Now they want to cover this up as well. I just heard that they are preparing a system wide hyper interdiction. And the Commissioners are not saying anything. Well, except for the usual government ‘everybody should just keep calm’ crap,” said Lee, as he came in with the latest feeds.
“Well, that is not going to happen on my watch. That thing can throw meteors,” said Robert pointing at was supposed to be some video of the attack on New Thuringen. Robert hadn’t cared much for the UN researchers out there, but they had been trying to help, and in any case no human deserved to go the way of the dinosaurs.
“You want to blow the thing up?” said one of the councilors, and got the slightest twinkle in his eye from thinking of the Combine stockpiles.
“No – The UN and the Junction capitalists would undoubtedly defend the thing even though it would cost human lives. Species protection or some such nonsense if nothing else. Even if we could get Lee’s pirate contacts in on this, it would be a loosing battle. There is going to be fighting enough when this breaks, but we got to pick our battles. What we damn well can to is prevent them from covering this up. No way they can make an interdiction work with the way hyperspace has been acting up – and the Gateway should be able to handle it.”
“You want to run the blockade?” asked the other councilors.
“Damn right. I consider it our duty to do so.”
Getting through the interdiction turned out to be easier than Robert had expected. It almost disappointed him, but if the universe wanted to help him strike a blow against the UN oppression he was not one to argue. The truth would be free, and the chaos it would cause might be just the thing the Combine would need to thrive.

Ignorant of, or simply unconcerned with, the upheaval it was causing the Colossus slowly maneuvered into orbit around Midgard. Part of the Junction fleet moved into combat positions, but as the Manfields had predicted no one was actually prepared to attack the alien vessel and the maneuver was probably as much to defend the Colossus as to contain it.
Meanwhile the alien vessel started deploying satellites and even on the Bow Street the crew and scientists stared in wonder as many of the armor plates opened and what looked a bit like solar sails unfurled like the petals of a flower. What ever the Colossus was doing it wasn’t the same thing as at New Thuringen, but who could say what that meant.

“With all due respect Commissioner Asoke you can’t be serious,” said Farrell doing his best to keep his voice calm.
“Why not? It is why we are here, and the instructions I got from the UN branch in Junction were very clear. Keep this contained until we the UN council has formulated a plan to inform the public about this discovery in a way that will keep panic to a minimum. I believe you suggested something like that yourself in the dispatch you sent,” replied Asoke, more that a little tired of the Captain. Of all people he had hope he might at least cooperate a bit.
“But you don’t know what you are dealing with,” replied Farrell, and he could feel his temper build.
“And you do, Captain?”
“Well, more than you, thats for sure. Sir. And I still have a team over there I need to hear from. They might also have some valuable information to add.”
“And we’ll be happy to rescue them when we dispatch our own team. Of course we had hoped the Colossus would have stayed at New Thuringen, but now that it is here an interdiction is the only way to go if we want to contain the situation,” Asoke replied. But somewhere inside he had to admit that he – and the whole Scout Service for that matter – was better at handling space quakes than riots.
“If it starts terraforming operations you will want to evacuate all those colonists, not keep them on the planet,” tried Farrell.
“An evacuation? The colonists are rioting in the streets. Wont that just panic them even more,” replied Asoke.
“It can hardly get much worse. At least it might show them that the UN is here to help. Look – I’m sorry if we got of on the wrong foot. I’m certainly happy to have someone to share the responsibility with. But let’s share it then. Bury the hatchet between the services at least for a while. That way we might also get this Junction fleet to help. They are as shocked by this as the colonists, and if we can get them occupied with an evacuation then hopefully they wont do something stupid like plan an invasion,” said Farrell, as he realized that anger really wasn’t getting him anywhere.
“Well, yes I guess I must admit it makes more sense for the Patrol to handle the situation with the colonists,” conceded Asoke.
“And I’m sure my team on the Colossus will be very happy if you can send a shuttle over there. I doubt they even know we are out of hyperspace yet, and they’ve been stuck there for a while. Of course when they know they can get back, they will probably just want to show your people the wonders they’ve found. But honestly I think you can use a couple of ‘native guides’ over there,” Farrell continued.
“We are certainly eager to get over to the Colossus.

It was with some trepidation that Dr. Correll had stepped out of the shuttle to the surface of the Colossus. The first steps on entirely alien ground. Well, maybe not ground, but still a grand moment. Of course the historic feeling was somewhat ruined when the team from the Bow Street had come out and waved at them from shadow of the open armor plate. Briefly Correll wondered if great explorers like Cook and Columbus had felt similarly when the natives cam out and put leis on them, but the feeling quickly passed. It was the discoveries inside the huge hull that made a difference not a bit of theatrical grandstanding. And while the Bow Street team had undoubtedly made great discoveries, just by being the first human to set eyes on all the wonders, there would be plenty of mystery to go around.
“Welcome to the Colossus. Heh – listen to me, sounding like I live here. I guess we have for the last few days, but believe me that is hardly enough to scratch the surface,” said Dabiri once the com lines had been figured out.
The two groups spent a few minutes on introductions and shaking hands, but it was quite obvious than no one was really too interested in the others. They were just humans after all – plenty of those to go around.
“There is obviously a part of us that would really like to go back and, well, get a bath for one thing,” continued Dabiri, drawing nods from the other three, “but now that we are no longer marooned here, it will take a bit more than hot water to lure us away.”
“I’ve been adrift a few times myself, but I can understand why you don’t want to go home right away. All of us are definitely looking forward to the guided tour,” replied Correll with a smile.
“And my do we have a tour for you. Very broad strokes, since we’ve spent a lot of time just mapping this place, but I think we’ve made a few insightful guesses as well. Don’t want to spoil any of the surprises though. This place deserves to provoke a bit of wonder. But enough talking – this way to the entrance,” replied Salient taking over as tour guide.
Already in the repair conduits some of the new researchers began trailing off from the group, as they wanted to study circuitry and installations, but Lance warned them to at least keep up until the machine room.
“We had an unfortunate encounter with a repair robot out here, and while we were isolated we spotted a few more. This whole area of the ship seems to have been registered as damaged or shut down, so the robots are not as active here as they might be in other parts of the ship, but they do get attracted to tampering. In some ways I guess they are a bit like the immune system of this thing,” Lance explained.
“So has anything actually happened?” asked one of the other engineers.
Lance briefly considered embellishing, but figured there would be time enough for storytelling later.
“No – and if we have the chance, I’d say the robots themselves would be worth studying, but I just don’t think it is something you want to run into on your first trip. And we don’t want them to weld up the hatch or similar repairs. There will be plenty of stuff to look at ‘inside’, don’t worry.”
Even for the practiced team it took a while to manually cycle the whole group through the airlock to the machine room.
“Well – as you see this is where we’ve been living the past few days. Pardon the mess. In here we shouldn’t need to worry about the repair robots. At least not from what we’ve experienced. There may be many other dangers, but in this section everything is shutdown, and as we haven’t tampered too much, we’ve managed to avoid getting killed.” said Dabiri when everybody was inside.
“So what is this,” asked one of the newcomers.
“Honestly for this part your guess is probably as good as ours. The machinery and access to the repair ducts has lead us to assume that it is some sort of robot repair or inspection facility. The outer tubes seems to be mostly for automatic maintenance systems, and this would then be a place where live aliens could actually check up on what the automatic systems were doing. But it is also possible that the lack of life support systems in the outer area is just because the are has been shut down or failed for some reason,” explained Dabiri.
“Apart from our crap – excuse me camp – most of you have probably also noted these orbs,” continued Jönsson, “Best as we can tell they do not actually belong here. Instead we believe that they have been brought here by a second race of aliens, whom we have dubbed the ‘Visitors’ for lack of a better term. All we’ve seen of these Visitors are these objects, and then some symbols out in the repair ducts, so it is pretty thin evidence, but the symbols, materials, shapes etc. don’t fit with anything else we’ve found during our exploration. So it when it rains it pours, as far as alien races go.”
“Yes – the galaxy is teeming with life,” said Salient with a laugh, and got a smile from his other team members.
“Sorry – I didn’t get that joke,” said Dr. Correll.
“It is an internal thing. But you’ll get it at the end of the tour, don’t worry. But it was those surprises we didn’t want to spoil,” replied Dabiri. The Scout Service scientists were not too sure they appreciated the secrecy, but they had all tried presenting pet projects so they decided not to complain.
“So anyway, as for the Visitors we have very little idea who they are, why they came here or anything. We do think it was a relatively recent event. These orbs are fairly portable, we had actually planned to bring some back to the Bow Street to scan them. But then we got caught here, and decided to focus on getting to know the Colossus better, so I guess that is just one of the many discoveries waiting for you guys,” finished Jönsson, and as expected she saw a few of the newcomers eye each other.
“Actually now that you brought it up – how do we know that the Colossus won’t jump again?” asked Dr. Correll.
“I’m not sure we really do. It certainly took us by surprise when it jumped the first time, and over here we didn’t detect anything till we tried to go outside again. But if you want me to guess, then considering what has happened since the Colossus got here I’m sure it has a mission here, and I can tell you it has all the time in the world for that. Your not going to believe us till you see the evidence we have, but we think this ship may be millions even billions of years old. Or at least part of a program that is that old,” replied Dabiri.
As expected that drew some skeptical stares, but the Commander only shrugged.
“Wait till you see the map room is all I can say,” Salient added.
“Anyway – at New Thuringen it flashed its transition drives a few times without actually transferring into hyperspace. That might simply be because the system is old and damaged, but it still might serve as a kind of warning to get off the ship. But mainly I hope that you’ve brought supplies like we suggested, because if this thing wants to move, I doubt there is much that can be done to stop it,” Dabiri finished.
Some of the newcomers didn’t exactly look reassured at that message. They had brought camping gear, but it was only now that it was said so matter-of-factly that they really realized they might get stuck here. But it really was no worse than the risk of getting marooned by a hyperspace flare on a survey mission, and the prospects were so much greater. Two decided that they would go back to the Galathea with some of the Visitor artifacts, and some decided that they would get straight on looking at the installations in the machine room, but after storing their gear most wanted to get deeper inside.
“So from the machine room and further in we are in what we have dubbed the habitable section. We’ve called it that for a number of reasons. The first was that it was habitable to us, while in hyperspace, since it is deep enough inside the hull to be shielded from the effects of ether. However that would probably be true for the outer repair ducts as well, if the armor plate could actually close properly,” explained Salient as they went to the pressure door.
“Another reason to call the part habitable, is that it has airlocks and a life support system. Like everything else, then it is shut down or disabled in the section we are in right now, but beyond this door there is an atmosphere, and even artificial gravity of some kind. We’ll try not to activate that system too early though, because as you’ve already noticed the ceiling is real low, so moving around is easier when we can float. Won’t be able to do that all the way though since there is a some sort of automatic monitoring system at work in the active part of the ship, and it will detect that we open some of the doors along the way,” Lance interjected, and as they continued he drifted down to discuss the gravity system with the new engineers.
“But,” added Dabiri as they made their way through the active part of the ship, “you may already have noticed one peculiar thing about this ‘habitable’ part. It took us the best part of a days exploration, before Jönsson suddenly realized it. There is no actual habitation. Apart from the ’surprises’ most of it is just these maintenance rooms, like the ones we’ve passed. No crew quarters, dining areas or recreation rooms that we have been able to identify.”
“Yes, I had been a bit puzzled by that, but then we haven’t seen that much of the ship,” interjected Dr. Correll.
“True, of course there is a lot of the ship even we haven’t seen yet, but from the maps we’ve been able to scan it seems that most of the ship looks like the parts we’ve already explored. Also we’ve seen no sign of the aliens that have built this thing. Given the age we’ve already suggested it it might not be so strange that all biological traces are gone, but there are also nothing that looks like personal artifacts or even portable objects. We are dealing with a completely alien culture – an alien mind even – but it still leads us to believe that the Colossus is intended to be fully automated. This section is just for inspection purposes or something.”
“That sounds rather strange. I thought it was a terraforming ship. I had figured something like a colony ship, or maybe an arc of some kind, given the size,” replied Dr. Correll.
“Yes, that was what we had figured before we came over here,” answered Mariko, “but now we think it is all about this. Prepare to be dazzled. And we promise to stoop the secrecy after this,” she finished as they had all been lead to yet another pressure door.
“Now is when we will activate the life support systems, so I suggest getting your feet on the ground. The will be room to stand up inside,” remarked Dabiri as the door opened.
Beyond it was the kind of huge chamber they had all somehow expected to see from the first time they had entered the Colossus. The room was basically a huge hollow in the core of the Colossus, probably as much as a kilometer in diameter and what looked like several kilometers long, and the platform the group was standing on was about two hundred meters off the ground. The artificial gravity field helped a bit to combat the feeling of vertigo, since it helped to give a sense of direction, but it also meant that some things looked Escheresque the way it was constructed.
A big part of the room was taken up by long thin spindles. They looked almost small in the big room, but when their sense of perspective adjusted the Bow Street team had recognized them as the spikes the Colossus had used in the terraforming of New Thuringen.
“If you use binoculars you can even see some robots down in the back that seem to be constructing more of these thing. We haven’t been able to get down there, but that is our guess. In any case this is the heart of the Colossus terraforming facility. But what is interesting is not so much the spikes themselves, as what they are loaded with. If you look at those massive tanks down there, they actually contain biomass. Or more specifically some sort of proto-life,” explained Jönsson when the group had stopped gawking. And she had to admit she was not entirely unaffected herself, feeling all giddy at showing off their findings.
“Protolife? I’m not sure I completely follow, but then I’m an astrophysicist not at biologist,” asked Dr. Correll.
“Truth be told, I’m not sure I completely understand either. It is certainly bioforming technology far ahead of what we have, but then so is much of the technology here on the Colossus. In short it seems like a mix of some sort of highly adaptable micro – and not so micro – organisms. The most surprising part is their biochemistry. There seems to be a great variety, more than I would expect from just one world, just from the samples we were able to crawl around and take. And among the samples I’ve found there was stuff that looked incredibly like the life found on New Thuringen. Not to mention here on Midgard and even some that looked like the hyperphilics on Gondar.”
“Ok, maybe I’m a little dense, but let me get this straight. Are you saying that it is some sort of genetic harvester. That it has visited all these planets.”
“Well – this is just a theory. But we actually think it is the other way around,” answered Salient excitedly.
“Other way around?”
“Yes. We think it has visited these planets. In fact if we understand the images and maps in the map room correctly we are pretty sure of it. But it didn’t harvest the lifeforms there. It planted them. This isn’t a colonization ship. Even terraforming seems more like a means to an end. It is a spreader of life. A sort of evolutionary jump-starter,” Jönsson explained.
“What?” was all the other team could say.
“Well, in the map room – and we’ll take you there as well, so you can see for yourselves – we found maps of the galaxy from way back. Millions of years back. Billions even, but we weren’t sure we could project our own maps that long. Now – that could be projections obviously. Simple back tracing of orbits, though there really isn’t anything simple about it with that many bodies, but still. But there were also corresponding maps of hyperspace, and we all know that hyperspace geometry is even more inherently chaotic. No way to do projections on that. And there was also images of worlds, taken what seemed to be many millions of years apart. On these maps were what looked like routes, and endless logs we’ve had no chance to decipher. Of course it could be some sort of grand history project, but the most straight forward conclusion seem to be that the Colossus – or at least the project it is a part of – has been going on for billions of years. That they have been seeding planets with life. There is no sign that they return when life is firmly established. The operations at New Thuringen was probably the last treatment to get to something multicellular and here at Midgard it would seem most likely that it is just checking up,” explained Dabiri.
“Billions of years. How is that even possible. The audacity of it. And the patience I guess,” said Dr. Correll as he tried to take it all in.
“You have to wonder why, if not for colonization purposes,” one of the other chimed in.
“Why did humans build cathedral back in the middle ages. Not that it compares directly, but it was still a grand project that those who started it would not see finished. Work for a greater cause. Spreading life throughout the galaxy does definitely have the air of a greater cause. Perhaps they had reached a level of technology where this was their Apollo project, or perhaps the galaxy was simply an empty and lonely place back then,” mused Dr. Correll and sat down to really absorb the grandeur of it all.
“So what now,” asked one of the others.
“Now we study the Colossus and learn from it. But perhaps as importantly we back trace its route. The people who built it probably don’t exist any longer, but somebody should go back never the less. We may not have the technology – or indeed the patience – for a project of this scale, but it has been a while since humanity as a whole has had a grand project, and we can at least perform a pilgrimage in honor of those who did. Who knows who – and what – we might find along the way,” said Dr. Correll.

Epilogue

As the expedition departed after the Colossus a new era was dawning for mankind. At home the Union was wracked with chaos as the news of aliens inspired fear and hope and shifted the perspectives of religions and sciences. But for better or worse humanity was now part of the galactic culture – one of the legacies of the Colossus project.

Lexicon:

New Thuringen: Small planet in the (New) Germany system, on the edge of explored space. UNEP (united nations environmental project) is doing bioforming research there, to help with a fungal plague on Midgard.

Jönsson, Mariko: Field researcher for UNEP, stationed at New Thuringen. (Japanese/Scandinavian)

Gabhala, Daiga: Researcher and executive administrator of the bioforming research on New Thuringen. (Indian)

Brokaw, Ivan: UN construction engineer stationed at New Thuringen. (Crimian)

Jensen, Elyot: IT operator stationed at New Thuringen. (Scandinavian-American)

Lance, Edward: Electrical engineer stationed at New Thuringen. (American)

Hussein, Achim: Meteorologist stationed at New Thuringen. (Arabian)

Gregers, Steen: Climatologist stationed at New Thuringen. (Danish)

LeBlanc, Yussuf: Biologist stationed at New Thuringen. (Algerian)

O’Toole, Sarah: Biologist stationed at New Thuringen. (Irish-American)

Valhalla: A frontier star system, where the UNPS Bow Street is sent to patrol.

Midgard: Main habitable planet in the Valhalla star system.

Odin: Largest gas giant in the Valhalla star system.

Bifrost station: Main star port of the Valhalla system. Controls the only transition bridge in the system. More or less owned by Incobal Mining, but also the default hub for colonial traffic.

Incobal Mining: Astroid mining company with major operations in Valhalla. Main financier of much of the pioneering in Valhalla.

Min Tan, Henrik: Incobal executive in charge of Bifrost station. (Chinese)

Pickford, Macy: UN colonial commissioner in Valhalla star system. (American)

Manfield, Richard: Patriarch of the Manfield Combine, a survivalist militia group on Midgard.

Manfield, Lee: Cousin of Richard Manfield, and quartermaster for the Combine.

Junction: A well settled star system close to Valhalla.

Asoke, Tsumi: UN scout commissioner, chief of operations on the Junction frontier. (Japanese)

Correll, Thomas: Scout Service astrophysicist, stationed at Junction. (American)

UNOSSA: United Nations Outer Space Survey Administration, the successor to the OOSA (Office for Outer Space Affairs), formally responsible for maintaining maps of explored space and regulate claims. Most famous for the administering the joint effort between the national space agencies to explore the borders of known space. This joint program is commonly know as the Scout Service.

UNPS (organization): United Nations Patrol Services, is a spin off of regular peacekeeping and interventionary forces created primarily to curb piracy, but has since grown to be a permanent enforcement branch for the UNODC (UN Office of Drugs and Crime). Extended into space along with the piracy it was created to counter. Commonly referred to simply as the Patrol Service.

UNPS (designation): United Nations Patrol Ship.

UNPS-372, Bow Street: A long range carrier deployed in Valhalla on anti-piracy operations, and as general peacekeeping and policing support.

Gateway-class: Old type of transition capable long range space exploration vessel. Named for the first transition capable space ship, the ESAS Gateway.

Farrell, Alan : Captain of the Bow Street. (British)

Dabiri, Gabriel: Valhallan colonialist, pilot in Incobal security and liaison officer to the Bow Street. Commander. (Methodist colonist)

Griffith, Thomas: Second in command of the Bow Street. Commander. (Junction colonist)

Simay, Yasmina: Chief engineer of the Bow Street. Lieutenant. (Persian)

Larsson, Jonas: Senior engineer on the Bow Street. Petty officer. (Norwegian)

Agresti, Daniel: Chief medical officer of the Bow Street. Commander. (Italian)

Salient, Emmanuel: Communication and sensor specialist aboard the Bow Street. Lieutenant. (French Canadian)

Rodriguez, Oscar: Young pilot on the Bow Street. Dabiri’s wing man. (Venezuelan)

Michaels, Jeff: Senior pilot on the Bow Street. Callsign Iceman. (American)

Ellensberg, Simon: Pilot on the Bow Street. (Junction colonist)