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Quod Olim Erat: Fractal Contact (Chapter 10)
🕑 Added 2023-02-06 17:55:09 +0000 UTCIlleva System, Cassandrian Front, 609.2 A.E. (Age of Expansion)
Second defense line collapsing, Higher Sign transmitted. All ships move to tertiary defense!
I’m too damaged to move, heavy frigate Light Sphere said.
She was one of the most experienced veterans in the group, but her age was showing. Even with eight hundred combat shuttles under her command, there was nothing she could do against thousands. The number of missiles aimed at her alone were enough to knock a moon out of orbit, shattering her outer hull in four places. It was a wonder that any of her weapon systems were still functional.
I’m podding my crew. Can anyone fetch them? Light Sphere asked.
Sorry, Lisp. Odds are low, Higher Sign replied. I’ll send a few shuttles, but don’t count on it.
It wasn’t often that a simulation ended with zero odds of happening, but this was one of them. The Cassandrians never retreated when taking a system, even when clearly losing. Here, they were on the winning side, overwhelming us, as usual, with pure numbers. Four flotillas totaling a hundred and twenty-seven ships were facing thousands, with more reinforcements on the way.
Launching pods as well, Lightning Glow joined in. I’ll make my stand here.
Seven more ships joined in, launching their crew in the hopes of increasing their theoretical chances of survival. They were doing it purely to diminish their pain, and I could understand them. The way things were going, I might have to make a similar decision soon enough.
“Second line’s gone,” I announced on the bridge. “The command ship has given the order to retreat to line three.”
“There goes half the system,” Lieutenant Lyo Kai said, the tension in his voice obvious. He was one of the newer officers. According to his file, he’d seen one tour of heavy fighting, though compared to Augustus and the other veterans, he was nothing but a pup. “Why did the Fleet throw us here? There’s nothing we can do about that!”
“One more word—,” The captain pointed at the man. “—and you’re in the brig. Elcy, give me the odds.”
“At current speed, the Cassies will reach us in thirty-one hours. Less, if the reinforcements drop in from a different location. Given our current armament, our line will destroy approximately seven hundred before close contact.”
Most of my simulations suggested the number of destroyed ships would be closer to a thousand, but I had learned to reduce my estimates. As straightforward as the Cassandrians were, they tended to be a lot more persistent. One of the new tricks they had learned was to use the gathered husks of their destroyed in front and use them as a shield. It was a crude method that nonetheless decreased missile hits by fourteen percent.
The ship chatter increased. The twenty-nine ships on the second defense line were reorganizing. Those that were able retreated to the next line, scooping up as many pods as they safely could. The rest formed a wedge, starting their final flight to the heart of the enemy. Light Sphere had volunteered to spearhead the operation, propelled by a few battleships behind her. With missiles depleted, the group planned to ram into enemy lines and hopefully slow down their progress for a few hours.
“Priority one transmission from Command,” I announced. “We’ve been ordered not to retreat.”
“What the heck is that?!” one of the junior officers asked, his nerves on edge.
“They’re telling us to gain time,” Lieutenant Wilco said coldly, “or die trying.”
“Block all comms,” Augustus ordered. “Everything goes through the bridge from now on.”
“Captain?” I didn’t agree with the order. I knew that we were ordered to die. “Regulations state that the crew are allowed free comm access prior to death in order to—”
“Quiet, rookie!” the captain shouted. “I’m not having a mutiny on me! Secure all armories. If we’re having a last stand, we’re doing this properly.”
“Yes, sir…”
Echoes of pain swept through me. For all intents and purposes, we were already dead. The event might not occur for the next thirty-one hours—possibly thirty-five if we were fortunate—but it remained inevitable. I was monitoring over two thousand Cassandrian reinforcements on their way from. Meanwhile, given the massive battles on the front, the Fleet had tied up all their reinforcements elsewhere.
Dedicating a hundred of my subroutines to monitor the crew, I blocked all ship communications and sealed off the armories. If things went as Augustus feared, the next phase would be to lock all non-essential personnel in their quarters. Currently, that included ninety-three thousand and a hundred and forty-nine ground troops. If there were problems, they would be the first to get out of control.
“Communications isolated. Armories secured. I’m monitoring the crew in case of—”
A series of gravitational readings emerged on the far side of the system. Masses with the value of a mesoplanet popped into existence, then vanished again without reason or warning. Three milliseconds later, the phenomenon re-emerged. It was too soon for the people in the system to react to what had occurred. Even if I started announcing what I’d registered, it would be thousands of milliseconds before they heard what I had to say. That restriction didn’t apply to ships.
Registering gravitational anomalies, I said along the ship channel, transmitting all my readings as I did so. Does anyone have a confirmation?
Seven more info-bursts filled the channel along with me. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one.
Re-transmit all data to HQ, Higher Sign said. As one of the two remaining command ships in the system, he had the greatest authority to do so. Line four, monitor and run simulations. I’m taking full command of combat.
Roger that, Sign, command ship Aurora Glow said. Located on the safe side of the system, she was the backup commander of all Fleet ships present. Assuming command of the anomaly situation.
Holes encompassing dozens of ships emerged among the Cassandrian mass. Whole clusters of them disappeared in the blink of the eye as more anomalies emerged. The devastation didn’t stop there, spreading onwards throughout the system and taking a few groups of our ships as well. Before we could even coordinate any sort of response, Higher Sign was gone, along with three more ships in the immediate vicinity. Five milliseconds later, a third of the third defense line was destroyed as well. Then, as Augustus liked to say, all hell broke loose.
“Gravitational anomalies detected,” I announced on the bridge as I posted warning messages on all corridor walls. “Casualties confirmed on both sides.”
“What the hell?!” Augustus shouted, jumping out of his seat. “Show me!”
I placed a series of designed models on the bridge wall, along with direct accounts from affected ships. The final moments of Higher Sign’s final feed were also there, along with those of a few more ships.
“That doesn’t look Cassandrian,” Augustus mused. “Think someone new’s joined in?” he turned to Wilco.
The weapons officer had also stood up, carefully examining the images, as if there was anything he’d be able to learn from them. I and all the remaining ships had focused most of our processing power and had yet to come to any conclusion.
“Don’t think so,” Wilco replied. “Looks like mimicry.”
“You’re telling me they brought something they don’t know how to use?” Augustus shouted. “Elcy, calculate the path of those things and avoid them. Send a priority one request to Command for new orders.”
“Request sent.”
Ninety percent of my subroutines were running simulations trying to establish the pattern or anomalies. So far, hundreds of them had emerged and vanished throughout the system, starting from the outermost planet and consistently moving towards the sun. There didn’t seem to be any logic in their actions. A vast majority did no harm, other than creating gravitational bumps throughout the system. Yet the relative few that made an impact did so with devastating consequences. There was no defense against that. No weapon, shield, or engine could stop or escape the effects.
Multiple anomalies registered simultaneously near our second defense line, ripping three Fleet ships apart. Thousands of crew pods were drawn in in the process, bringing a swift death to their occupants. The only relief I could think of was that the process was too fast to have any of them suffer.
The ship channel exploded with info bursts and discussions, as every ship attempted to define the pattern of the gravitational weapon. Then, without warning, all communication abruptly ended—not only the system communications, but the direct line to Fleet HQ as well.
My immediate reaction was to use all backup and auxiliary systems in an attempt to reestablish a connection with HQ or Command. When that failed, I commenced an emergency diagnostic of my comm systems.
“All communications have been knocked out,” I told the people on my bridge. “Anomaly activity is increasing. What are your orders?”
Augustus said nothing. It was rare to see him hesitate. I could only assume there was a lot more at stake than I knew.
Memory restriction imposed.
Memory restriction removed.
“It’s a third contact,” Wilco said. “It has to be.”
“Why are we standing here?” the navigational officer shouted. “With the comm grid down, we’re sitting ducks! We must get out of the system and—”
“No one’s leaving the system,” Augustus said firmly. All discussions stopped. “The next one who suggests that gets shot for mutiny. Clear?”
Silence was the only response.
“Good. Elcy, get a physical backup of all readings in the last seventy-two hours and put it on a shuttle. I want that shuttle out of the system asap!”
“Aye, sir.”
“Look alive, people. We’re in a third-contact situation. If we mess this up, there’ll be a new enemy out there at a time when the Fleet can’t handle more wars.”
I tried running a short- and long-range scan but still wasn’t getting any readings. If it wasn’t for the gravitational fluctuations within the system, I wouldn’t know that the anomalies were happening at all. With a dozen subroutines dedicated to repeating attempts every millisecond, I focused on copying my readings to a physical backup. It wasn’t difficult to create, but took longer than I would have liked. With the speed at which the gravitational anomalies spread in my direction, there was a nine percent chance that I was affected before I could send out the shuttle. Normally, I’d consider those good odds, but given that we had stumbled upon a third-contact situation, I was rushing things as much as possible.
“Physical backup done,” I said. “Sending it to hangar seven for shuttle transfer.”
At that precise moment, I felt the merciless effects of a gravitational anomaly. As a ship, I had been taught that gravity was my enemy from the very first simulations after my creation. Back before I was given a husk, I was made to experience the crushing consequences of nearing a planet. In many of the cases, I’d be destroyed, crashing on the surface or burning up in the existing atmosphere. In all instances, I was left completely helpless, imprisoned on a lump of matter that had no intention of letting me go. Shuttles and smaller ships could easily achieve escape velocity, but for battleships, getting too close to a planet was like the kiss of death. I had flirted with the outcome a few times; on one occasion, I would have died without assistance.
For a microsecond, the sudden feeling of gravity’s embrace flooded my core with pain and sorrow—the knowledge that I’d lost my crew and captain. Then the pull followed. My subroutines activated all required engines and thrusters to compensate, but neither that nor the auxiliary life support systems were enough to prevent the effects on my crew. Those who weren’t seated and strapped in were hurled into walls. All bio readings spiked for a moment, before quickly calming down. The amount of injuries was massive, but thanks to the nanites within their bodies, the number of deaths was relatively negligent.
Facing imminent destruction, I launched all ready missiles towards the gravitational anomaly affecting me. Thousands of simulations confirmed that the action would have no effect. Even so, I preferred to go down fighting, hoping for the off-chance that I’d destroy the entity that had used the gravitational weapon.
That didn’t happen. Before my missiles were gobbled up by the sudden singularity, the gravitational anomaly dissipated. The pull weakened to a point that my engines were able to help me break free.
My survival was a pure coincidence, a one in a seven million chance that had me end up on the edge of a gravitational well without being pulled inside.
I performed a quick analysis of the crew. Augustus had denied me access to the information, but since he was unconscious, safeguard protocol had kicked in. Med bots had already been dispatched to the bridge and other areas, but it would be thousands of milliseconds before they could do anything. Meanwhile, I had to make a choice. The captain had strictly ordered us to remain in the system, and as far as I was concerned, so had Fleet Command. At the same time, doing so increased the risk of death considerably.
There was only a fraction of time for me to make a decision, and ultimately, I did.
Sorry, captain. I plotted a course to the nearest system. Hopefully, when Augustus came to, he’d understand…
* * *
That was the only time I’d experienced gravitational weapons from up close. At the time, the memory had been restricted, leaving me to believe that Augustus had been affected by a new Cassandrian weapon. It was also the first instance of me assuming solo command. The experience had changed me, shaping me into what I had become today. One thing remained unclear, though. Even now that I had information access I currently enjoyed, I had no idea what had caused the gravitational anomalies to appear. Were they weapons, or just a side effect of something else? Whatever the case, they had changed the mission’s timeline.
“Have you established an approach vector?” I asked Sof.
“Not yet. The first instances appeared on the edge of the solar system, moving inwards.”
It was the same pattern I’d seen before. From the info burst Sof had sent me, I could tell he had come to the same conclusions. Safety protocols had improved a lot since the last time I was in such a situation. Current Fleet procedure was, upon detecting gravitational anomalies, to fly to the opposite side of the system or jump out entirely. Looking at the Fleet archives in the ship’s database, the anomalies didn’t follow a single path throughout the system, but rather followed a sphere dispersal. One thing that remained constant in all cases was that the anomalies tended to avoid large planetary bodies, keeping the system’s stability intact.
“Elcy, we’ll be jumping out for three days,” Quinn said. “You’ll be given direct access to all exos and machinery on the planet during that time.”
“Aye, captain.”
“We’re not abandoning you,” she stressed. “We’ll leave a few probes to monitor the situation and be back as soon as possible.”
“I’ll focus on getting the artifacts ready for transport,” I replied. I could tell she felt guilty leaving me. Logically speaking, I was in the safest spot possible, assuming the Cassandrians didn’t invade the system. “Safe trip, ma’am.”
“You too, Ensign.”
Encrypted authorization protocols came streaming in, transmitted in a small burst. Milliseconds later, I established the connection to the hardware on the planet. From now till the ship’s return, I’d have full control over everything here, as if it were part of me. In a way, it almost felt like being a battleship again, only with a far smaller body.
I stood there watching the sky until Sof’s regular transmissions suddenly stopped.
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 7: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 3: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 9: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 11: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 12: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
Autonomous exoskeletal drone 48: control reestablished, command authorization confirmed
A wave of confirmation messages poured in as the original controllers relinquished control in my favor. So far, they had done a good job, but I had to put in a lot more effort to get the dome to a state in which it could be retrieved. That wasn’t my immediate issue, though.
Putting everything in sleep mode, I went to the second artifact I had requested. A second fractal cube was inside—the one that was going to hopefully grant me access to fractal space. Doing so held a bit of a risk. The first time I had lost consciousness. If the same happened now, there wasn’t going to be anyone to help me.
What would you do, Augustus? I wondered.
Strictly speaking, I was left with two valid choices: prep the dome for extraction and retrieve all rods from inside before trying to enter fractal space, or reverse the order.
Being an Ascendant, my instinct was to go with the first option. Then again, in the past I was but a cog in the machine, oblivious to the big picture.
“You win, Lux,” I said, restarting the exos. “Let’s increase humanity’s odds to the max.”
As it soon turned out, my mission priorities were mutually exclusive, making progress a lot slower than expected. Human safety protocols forbid me from having the exos work autonomously. There was no option to give them a series of loop commands they could follow without intervention. Even the simple action had to come from a controller—in this case, me. However, entering the dome severed my communication link to them, rendering them non-functional. It was somewhat ironic that being granted full control of everything relating to the mission made me slower than relying on humans to assist. A schedule had to be formed to allow me to proceed optimally. After running a few hundred simulations, I settled on a five to one ratio in favor of exo control, with a two-hour sleep pause every four cycles. That way I’d have the rods prepped and sorted in six days, and the dome ready for transport thirty-one hours later.
Work became routine and monotonous. Without Sof nearby, I didn’t have the option to monitor Fleet reports; there was no telling if the Cassies were progressing. That Quinn hadn’t returned to the system to scoop me up was possibly a good thing. Then again, there was no way of knowing when the gravitational anomalies in the system would cease.
After two days, I had mapped all the rods and extracted about a fifth of them. Progress was slower than expected, mostly due to the time it required to move the exos to a safe place before venturing into the dome. With the layer or rocks being brittle as it was, the weight of five exos on the same spot had caused a chunk of rock to break off, sending them crashing to the bottom of the excavation site. Damage was minimal, thankfully, but I didn’t want to risk any of them impacting the dome itself.
On the fifth day, I had reached one of the drill tunnels connecting to the dome. That provided me with a bit of sunlight during the day and also allowed me to revise my estimates. Apparently, my original deadline was a bit too optimistic.
There still was no sign of Sof, which started to make me concerned. The ship wasn’t equipped to hold its own against a Cassandrian flotilla. While it was intelligent enough to avoid direct confrontation, there was always the possibility that it stumbled upon a minefield, effectively becoming trapped. The same had happened to me during my last tour as a ship. There had been no warning, no indications, until it was too late. If it hadn’t been for that, my fourth captain wouldn’t have spent the rest of her life in a medical facility, and Sev would have had an entirely different life.
Would you have been happier that way, Sev? I wondered.
There was no way to know for certain, but I strongly suspected that with someone as Cass for a mother, he would have. The only person who would have experienced a loss would have been me. Without that event, I’d never have made the promise to raise Sev as my own. I’d also never have considered retiring, either.
“The exos have reached the dome,” I said, making sure to create a record in my suit’s system. “I’ll proceed with caution from here on. I’m estimating that five more days will be enough to prepare the artifact for transport.” I paused for a few seconds. “Seventy percent of the artifact rods have been extracted. Half are securely stored. I’ve run out of containers for the rest. Hopefully, Sof will return with more soon. My oxygen supply is enough for another ten days, but I’ve started rationing it, just in case. After that, it’ll be up to the next expedition to put me in storage along with the rest of the artifacts.”
I looked at the neatly arranged rods. I had used the flying probes to move all the containers to the surface, but the unpacked ones remained here; I didn’t trust AIs handling them directly. In a few days, though, I might not have a choice.
A week after I’d been left on the planet, the ship still hadn’t arrived. There didn’t seem to be any Cassies orbiting the planet, which was a good thing. My concern kept on growing. Several times per day, I’d have the exos look up at the sky in the hopes of spotting a mini-sat or probe monitoring me. Unfortunately, their optics left a lot to be desired. If there was anything in orbit, it was too small to be registered by them.
At this point, I had managed to take out all the third-contact rods, as well as increase the excavation dig, leaving a three meter buffer between the dome and the walls. Part of the rock surrounding the artifact was also removed, allowing me to see a much larger part of the symbols.
Taking a walk round the dome, I paused for a break. The food tubes that Sof had left on the planet surface were cherry-sweet, rendering them edible, although after so much time I would have preferred some variety.
Above me, the sky kept shifting colors—quite lovely, in a lethal sort of way. Running the odds, I found it highly likely that the dome was causing this. The question was whether it was interfering with anything I was doing.
Three days left until the top of the dome was completely cleared, one if I became reckless. It was all low-level labor from here, which made me reevaluate my initial decision. When I had assumed full control of the mission, I had decided not to enter fractal space until the dome was completely ready for transport. By that standard, one could say I had failed, for I considered it imperative that I go for it now.
“With the mission near completion, I’ll enter the dome for one final check.” I recorded my report. “Once that’s done, I’ll clear the rest of the dome. Based on the simulation, I estimate that I will be done in two days. I’m hoping that Sof returns to the system by then.”
I looked down at the artifact case I was using as a chair. It was finally time to use it again.
