Chaos Cipher (72 page)

‘
Alright
killer ease up D.W before you fry your circuits. Don’t want to get
too excited now.’ Said Ace Ripley. ‘Mortel, Bennett, where are you
guys?’

‘
Got you in
visual range, commander,’ said Dwight Mortel.

‘
Estelle?’

‘
Almost with
you.’

‘
You both got
a lock on our targets?’

‘
Confirmed.’

‘
Affirmative
sir.’ Estelle joined.

‘
Follow my
lead, back me up for an approach formation.’

‘
On your
tail, Commander.’ Said Dwight.

‘
Copy that,
sir.’

The two
Stymphalions caught up at the rear, keeping back by three hundred
meters as
The Deathwind
took the lead. They chased the three alien
targets heading into the starlight of a shrunken sun. Its powerful
white glare bleached the spatial uniformity of darkness, a presence
that was represented in the neurosphere as a bright resplendent
sphere from which loop prominances blasted out explosive tendrils
far and wide. Scanners began detailing the three targets now. Ace
Ripley analysed the geometrical designs of the Xenotech objects.
They were identical in shape, with one slightly bigger than the
other two, measuring in at just over a hundred meters. The other
two were about two thirds that size and they chased the large
leader in a spiralling orbit, wheeling around the machine like they
were in a cosmic dance, engines synchronised. Ripley was already
relaying this back to the Shield of Spheres for intelligence
analysis.

We ready to
intercept?
D.W impatiently
asked.

‘
Alright,
begin procedure.’

Copy that,
target is cleared to engage. Interception procedure is initiated,
launching primary probe.

From the
belly of
The Deathwind
a slender missile detached and hovered for a moment, cruising
steadily beneath. In the next instant, the missile’s engines
released a stab of light and its chemical boosters carried it out
through the silence to meet with the alien entity. They waited
anxiously, the probe missile’s scanners feeding back preliminary
reconnaissance to the others. Ripley adjusted his actuators
manually, reaching up to corkscrew
The
Deathwind
into a half roll. If something
went wrong, he was positioned to quickly pull up for a fast
get-away.

The shell’s
armour is composed of a dense alloy,
D.W
reported.
A lot of dirt and grime there,
these things have been doing this for a very long time. Micro labs
on the probe are carbon dating the dust particles.

‘
Anything on
the propulsion system?’

Not yet,
looks to be some sort of plasma drive,
said the AI.

Ripley
analysed the cone shapes. The large symmetrical radial heads were
almost spherical, below which a complicated network of cables
enclosed into a cage of four powerful looking beams that were
symmetrically ordered into a diamond shape, tapering out to the
end. The engines seemed to vent ionised gas from gills in the
armour just below the head, and he watched them adjust to orient
their vectors.

The
micro-labs are done Ace,
said the
AI,
carbon dating puts origin at over
thirty thousand years old.

‘
Thirty
thousand?’ Ace said.

‘
Did he say
thirty thousand years old?’ Estelle Bennett repeated.

Confirmed,
said D.W,
that’s a close estimate.

‘
Well, that
can’t be,’ said Ripley, ‘they must have been trapped in near a
black hole or something.’

That wouldn’t
explain it,
the ship argued.
Relativity does exactly what it says on the tin.
The dust doesn’t lie. Even if they’ve been orbiting black holes,
these things would have to have been doing so for thirty thousand
years relative to them, not us.

‘
You’re
talking about their relative time?’ Dwight Mortel asked.

Sure
am,
said D.W.
Those things are old.

‘
Are they
alien?’

I don’t think
so,
said the ship.
Even stranger is these things are of a design that suggests
human manufacture was involved. There are mechanical patterns
suggestive of classical anthropic engineering. If these puppies
were made by anyone they were made by human beings. I’m already
scanning a potential manufacturer that matches
specifics.

‘
Wait, but
how can that be?’ Ripley said. ‘You’re not making any sense here
D.W. Nobody was around thirty thousand years ago to build these
things…w-we were barely building pyramids.’

I don’t have
the answers Ace,
said the ship.
I just do the maths. You’re going to have to come
to your own conclusions I’m afraid because the rest just doesn’t
add up.

Suddenly, the
two wheeling Xenotech broke synchronicity, evening off on the
leader’s flanks to fly in a lined formation.

‘
Ace…what are
they doing?’ Dwight asked.

A bright
light issued from the central Xenotech as the four lineal frames
spread open into an X shape behind the head, and a long tail of
coiling wires lashed like strings of hot plastic twisting far
behind the frame. The light shone from between them, glinting out
any clear visual and they only had neurospheres to go
on.

Detecting
massive power readings from the core,
the
AI reported.
Super-cold temperatures
inside, minus three thousand kelvin. We lost the probe, launching
secondary.

The
Deathwind
released the next probe, chasing
off toward the three Xenotech but it never made it to the assembly.
The confluence of metallic tentacles reached out and swallowed up
the probe like a helpless silverfish netted in a cnidarian tangle
of medusa tendrils, as though belonging to some huge, abhorrent
scyphozoa.

Secondary
probe lost.

‘
What the
hell is that?’ Ace Ripley almost whispered as they saw trinkets
sporing into the vacuum. They watched the tentacles unfold,
releasing bits of metal and what looked like people.

That’s
Adamoss
,
said
D.W,
avatar models picked up from the
Hephaestus One.

The
mechanical men fell out towards them, dropping through space to
litter over the three pilots and one of the androids suddenly
reached out and grabbed
The
Deathwind
, the velocity tearing off one of
its limbs. Another smashed into silent pieces as it spilled across
the canopy, the upper body clawing for stability before falling
into space, and another, this time gaining some traction on the
armour.

I can’t shake
em!

‘
Evasive
manoeuvres.’

They’re on
the hull.

The androids
clambered across the wing, an array of modified tools working to
expose weaknesses in the armour. They dug and tore into
The Deathwind
, hammering
relentlessly, twisting and sawing into the shell of the strike-ship
with tentacle arms and hammer shaped appendages.

They’re
breaking through.

‘
Mortel, I
need you.’

‘
Already on
it, Ace.’

‘
Blast those
things off the side,’ he ordered, ‘check my shield calibrations,
keep the maser frequencies below the armour’s fluctuation
tolerance, I need my MLI intact.’

‘
Roger.’

Ripley
held
The Deathwind
still as parts of the armour heated exponentially from the
touch of maser fire from Dwight’s Stymphalion. The armour blushed
and a rash of red-hot blotches dotted the wings and fuselage as the
invisible rays stabbed silently upon him. The androids reacted
differently, some slowed down as though freezing up, others burst
into boiling oil and polymers depending on the model.

‘
Put us in a
spin.’

Initiating
verniers.

And
The Deathwind
began a
death roll. Ace Ripley gritted his teeth and watched the sun strobe
as it curved around and around his canopy clockwise, flashing in
and falling beneath again. Ripley grunted as he felt the
Gee-forces, holding on tight, trying to keep himself conscious as
the death roll continued, and the AI hugged John Ripley tight into
his seat to prevent him flying up into the space above. The
androids spun away from the centrifuge, smashed in the propeller
twist of the wing span. They lost hold and flew out into the
blackness.

‘
ACE!’ He
heard Mortel shout.’ Get out of there NOW!’

Incoming!
Deathwind
reported.

Deadly long
medusa coils reached out of the Xenotech machine to obtain the
ship, and a brilliant explosion suddenly burst from outside as
Estelle launched her Javelin-missiles.

‘
Move it,
Commander, we got your back!’ She shouted.

Mortel
stabbed at the cables with his maser weapons and gave Ripley time
to recover. But he suddenly realised the wires and cables were
knotted at the front of his ship, attaching him to the Xenorb, and
it was pulling him in, closer to the core of light.

Engines
aren’t responding,
the ship reported,
sounding emergency alarms.
Not looking
Commander, you better eject.

‘
No way in
hell I’m leaving you out here, D.W.’ Ripley said. ‘What about
weapons?’

Not
responsive, this isn’t good, sir.

The two
Stymphalions raced to attack the large Xenotech. Radioactive
flashes and blasts pulsed like lightning outside, as a blitzkrieg
of missiles and masers assaulted the machine’s armour.

‘
We still got
the antimatter, right?’

Five grams of
it.
Said
The
Deathwind
.

‘
Pump it into
the reactor, we’re gonna make another jump,’ he said. ‘Let’s rip
big daddy’s legs off.’

Copy, loading
the reactor.

‘
Commander,
this thing is tough,’ said Estelle, ‘whatever it’s made of, there
is no damage on the armour.’

‘
Give it
space, Bennett,’ Ace Ripley ordered. ‘I’m loading the reactor
again. Making another hop-scorch.’

Reactor
loaded,
said
The
Deathwind
.

‘
Analyse
where that light is coming from, I wanna see into that thing’s guts
before we do this.’

Roger.

‘
Got anything
yet?’

Maybe…but I
can’t hang around here much longer. Those tendrils are cutting into
my armour.

‘
Alright go
for it.’

Preparing to
release the isolation field. Main engines on in
three…two…one…mark.

The long
resplendent tail of light beamed from
The
Deathwind’s
engines far out towards
Saturn’s distant globe, pushing the Solitaire strike-ship into high
Gee forces. Ace Ripley felt the back of his head press hard into
the cushioning of his seat and watched the worming metallic
tentacles tear away from the body of the Xenotech. He arrowed into
space far ahead of the extraterrestrial machines, his eye balls
squashed into his skull, his face wrinkling under the stress of the
acceleration.

‘
Let me know when
we’re clear, Mortel
.’ He
neuromitted.

‘
Looking good
Commander
’ he cheered,
‘
damn well pulled this thing
apart.
’

‘
I’m caught
up,’ he heard Estelle’s voice on the network. ‘I’m caught up in
it…shit!’

‘
I got you,
Bennett,’ Mortel’s voice joined.

Object is
clear,
The Deathwind
neurophased.
We got another
problem.

Ripley
realised the mechanical tentacles they pulled away were still
latched to the hull and working into the ship’s armour.

Those things
are compromising the integral fuselage.

‘
Weapons
online,’ Ace Ripley breathed as the acceleration forces
diminished.

They’re
fusing my quantics, commander,
said the AI
in a worried tone.
There’s some sort of
hacking going on here, I’m detecting code…code I’ve never seen
before, it doesn’t translate and it’s mutating to meld with my
computational language.

‘
Show
me!’

Ace witnessed
in the neurosphere a whole range of code infesting the space
outside his spherical information membrane. He watched it take away
spatial visuals and swallow the ship’s system functionality, slowly
cutting off responsive mechanisms from the pilot. The code was not
binary, nor did it represent any known quantic calibration, rather
it represented itself in X’s and zero’s and ampersands and phi
symbols.