68. The Star Gate

Carceri-Sigma. A super red giant star circled by a space station. This was the Star Gate, literally the gravity of a dying star holding the Malignant A.I. and its collected shards imprisoned. Fureva-Yung had projected an image of the system onto the ceiling for everyone to see. In the corner of the screen, figures denoted a countdown until life support was online. As soon as the countdown started, Nox bamfed away excitedly to the teleportation level. Marius was soon after her, having to take the slower trip in the elevator.
“At least wait until I can make some environmental suits!” Jaden yelled after them, but if either of them heard her, they didn't reply.
Fureva-Yung looked up at the solar system image from her chair and remembered the last time she had set foot on the station. The Ferrian and Sacristan forces brokered peace and pooled their resources to fight the Malignant A.I. The station had been new then, their greatest and last hope to deal with the A.I. once and for all.
“Typical! Do you have any idea what we’re to expect?” Jaden asked Fureva-Yung as she rose to join her friends below, “What do you think we should take?”
“I think,” The Admiral of the last fleet to capture the A.I. deliberated, “You should take your Tu’karg. They’re perfect in space.”
 
 
 
Teleporting across the universe was as simple as bamfing as far as Nox was concerned. At one moment, you were in one place, the next, you were somewhere else. In this case, it was a large open room, split level with sets of control panels and seats on each. Behind it all, two large seats, obviously for the commanders.
 
Nox looked around, sure this wasn’t the same place she’d been accidentally sent to months ago. That had been smaller, not split-leveled like this one was, and had only one command chair. Also, the gravity worked here, and the air was better, she could feel the life support system fans blowing dusty-smelling air into the room.
 
“Stellaclave,” Fureva-Yung announced, taking a seat in the larger of the two command chairs, “From here, the gates into Carceri are controlled.”
“So, where is this legendary prison?” Marius asked, and Fureva-Yung pointed ahead through large windows facing the giant super-red star. Marius stared at the star and realised this wasn’t an image of the star from some viewing screen, but the real thing, seen through very thick and heavily tinted glass.
 
“So the Malignant A.I. is in the sun?” Nox asked, flitting from one control panel to another as systems slowly came online.
“It is,” Fureva-Yung nodded with serious authority.
“To think, we’ve only ever fought bits of it until now.”
 
Fureva-Yung swung back and forth on the commander's chair. It was nicer than the one on her ship. Why was that, she wondered. She also wondered if anyone would miss it. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. Pushing and quickly lifting her feet, she swung in a circle, letting the room spin around her.
“Brace yourself - full thrusters ahead!” She commanded, pressing a black button on her armrest. The backrest reclined, and she lay back, looking at the ceiling.
Shh! Nox scolded Fureva-Yung through their network. You’re the admiral now.
Fureva-Yung responded by flicking on her recorder bracelet, “Admiral's log, Stardate…I don’t know…we’re arrived at the Star gate…”
 
“Can I have four io?” Marius asked Jaden, who easily supplied him from the innards of Bellyache.
“What for?” She asked as he manipulated the four pieces of powered technology.
“Something you’d like. An environmental suit. It will only last an hour, but you never know when it will be useful.”
“My sentiment, exactly,” She said, gratefully receiving the equipment.
 
Nox plopped down in front of one of the consoles and watched as system reports scrolled by on the screen before her.
“You’re at the Blam-Blam Console. It also does, Pew-Pew-Kapow!” Fureva-Yung told Nox. She scanned through the Sacristan on the screen but could make very little out of it. In one corner, a small square was labelled ‘Ferrian’. She pressed it.
 
Nothing exploded or shot out, blowing up asteroids in the field around the station. The screen language just changed from Sacristan to Ferrian, and now Nox could read the incoming messages.
 
“This one says, Overview,” She said, pressing that one too.
The scrolling text cleared, and an image of the whole station was displayed on her console.
 
“Hmm, how are their systems? There was some mention of damage?” Jaden asked and also found a console. She, too, turned the interface to Ferrian and was soon reading out status reports on the station’s health.
 
South Side - All Systems are operational.
North Side - Damage to energy storage, reducing capacity. Shields offline. The shield generator damaged and unresponsive.
 
“Do we have enough energy to keep the star closed?” Marius asked.
“It seems we do, for now. Both the north and south sides need to open the gate, so for now, we’re safe.”
 
A bleep at Nox’s console drew her attention, “Admiral, the anti-asteroid system has been activated. It seems it's been activated a few times in the last month.”
Nox brought up the records of the last asteroid hits or near misses. All had been effectively taken out by the station's guns, but pieces of fast-moving rock had been responsible for the damage to the North side of the station.
 
As they watched, the station's systems tracked the incoming asteroid and shot it, breaking it into smaller pieces. The pieces flew unerringly towards the north side of the station.
“Request manual override on Pew-Pews admiral,” Nox sat in the weapons seat.
“Granted,” Replied Furveva-Yung. An instant later, the whole station was rocked as the asteroid fragments hit it. Nox swore.
“Asteroid fragments have taken out the station gun. We have to get out of range of these asteroids.”
 
Scanning the logs, Nox noted the timing on the asteroids.
“Admiral. There have been asteroid attacks every couple of days. This can’t be an accident.”
“I’m on it,” Jaden pushed out the scanners at the sensors station and started looking for anything moving asteroids out of the circling asteroid belt. She could see the trajectory of the last asteroid meant it had to have come around the sun before hitting the station, but she could see nothing that had caused the sudden shift of asteroids towards the station.
“Give me a go!” Marius pushed Jaden out of the way and ran his own scans. Not far away, clockwise around the sun from their position, he made out a faint engine signature in the asteroid belt.
“There’s something pushing asteroids out and around the sun to hit the station. And there are more coming. The next should be a couple of days away.”
“Can we move the station out of trajectory?” Fureva-Yung asked, which had all the others scrambling at the console to find out.
“The station has small maneuvering thrusters that could move it into a new orbit, but it would take days.” Marius discovered.
“What about the shields? You said the north shield generator was down. Can we fix it in time?”
 
Jaden searched for details about the shields, and Nox made another discovery.
“Admiral. There’s a ship docked with the station. It’s called the VWF Illustria, and systems say she’s in mothball mode.”
Fureva-Yung started from her seat, “That’s my ship! Start-up systems! ”
“We have a ship?” Jaden’s ears seemed to perk up at that information, and she scrambled through the station’s files, looking for a log book, “I think I’m in love.”
“The Illustria has repair drones. Could we use those to aid our repairs of the station?”
“Possibly, “ Jaden said as she scanned through the results on the shield generator situation. It seemed, though mostly unstaffed that the Station did get maintained from time to time. On a regular basis, someone turned up, ran scans and repaired what needed fixing before leaving again. The station logs mention a routine space walk to “get an eye’s view on the Shield Generator situation.” There was a video. Jaden winced as she watched the tiny repair staff walk out to the shield generators, a beam of bright light from left of screen whited out the view for a moment. When the returned, the tiny staff member and the huge shield generator assemby were gone .
 
Nox tracked the energy beam into the asteroid belt and spotted a lifeless, derelict ship, counterclockwise from their position.
“Good news, it looks like the ship out in the asteroid field used the last of its energy in the blast against the Shield generator.” Nox shrugged. Knowing that a murdering shard ship was that close was disturbing.
“Even better news,” Jaden crowed, “I have the schematics for building the shield generator.”
“And the bad news?” Marius knew there had to be a bad news.
“We’re a bit short of parts. We need to go salvaging and fast if you want that shield up before another asteroid heads this way.”
 
“We still haven’t been to that broken down ship that Nox has marked for us to explore,” Marius suggested, “We could bamf over, pick it clean and bamf back no problem.”
“No problem, he says,” Nox grumbled into her console screen, ‘What about this derelict, here? Its one cannon is burned out. It won’t be causing any trouble. We could take Fureva-Yung’s ship out…oh…or does that give the shard on board a chance to escape?”
 
Nox quickly started checking all systems for signs of the malignant shard. After all this time, she knew what to look for and was happy to report that the Station and the Illustria were clear.
“The drones and fighter ships are shielded with Sacristan shielding!”
 
There seemed to be a dozen things to do and no plan to achieve anything.
“If we unlock the Illustria from the station, the drop in mass will make moving the station easier, “Marius suggested, “We can tell the station where to move to and leave on the Illustria to check out that engine signature or salvage the derelict.”
“The Illustria will also have stores. They should be checked for useful parts,” Fureva-Yung suggested. As comfortable as her current chair was, she was itching to get back to her ship.
“You say those fighters are shielded? Why don’t we take the fight to whatever Marius spotted in the asteroid field?” Jaden added, her fingers twitching at the thought of getting to fly a fighter!
 
So, the station's orbit was reprogrammed into the station computers and the thrusters started the long process of moving the station's position. Meanwhile, the group left the station and entered the Illustria. As soon as the doors to the bridge opened Fureva-Yung and Nox knew where they were.
“This is where I was sent! See, your bracelet was right here?” Nox pointed to the much smaller, not as comfortable handrest.
“This is my ship!” Fureva-yung took her seat as Captain and wondered if she could pull out that commander's chair from the station.
 
As soon as the systems were online, Jaden checked the Inventory for spares required for the repair job. Though there were some very tasty parts, basics were still missing. They would have to go salvaging.
“Computer, this is Nox. Give her full access.”
“Nox. Acknowledged, replied a computerised voice in Ferrian.”
 
With her new access, Nox checked the ship’s systems:
All weapons operations, including four energy weapons and an array of photon torpedos. Four fighters and four maintenance vessels were also fully operational in the dock. Regardless, there was no way of training weapons on the asteroids while the ship was still attached. Nox flicked through the information to the ship’s propulsion systems:
Sublight engines - offline
Impulse engines - ½ power available.
 
“Computer, this is Jaden. Give her full access.”
“Jaden. Acknowledged.”
Jaden pulled up a maintenance handbook on the impulse engines as Nox and Fureva-Yung undocked the station and allowed it to float free. As the Illustria broke free of the station's shadow using maneuvering thrusters alone, Nox could finally track a distant asteroid a few days away.
“Fire torpedoes, weapons officer,” Fureva-Yung commanded, and Nox pressed the button. Something rumbled deep in the bowels of the Illustria, and a moment later, a streak of light was seen heading out toward the far edge of the sun. Minutes later, a bright explosion showed the torpedo had hit its mark, and Nox somersaulted in the air.
“Now, Engineering officer, please check on the state of our impulse engines.”
“Come on, Marius, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need your help.” Said Jaden leading the way off the bridge and to engineering.
 
The space was small, functionally equipped and tidy for a vessel abandoned for thousands of years. But it was not unoccupied. A worktable stood in a small space in the centre of the room. Jaden and Marius stopped when the figure in the red robe turned to face them, their cowl full of stars.
“Just what…” Jaden said before the figure faded away. On the table where they’d been standing were two books.”
“Who the hell is that?” Jaden said as Marius walked across and picked up the two books. He recalled them from the datasphere library of the Spire. The red-robed figure had been there, too, browsing the shelves. Had they known then that they’d need those books way back then?
“At least he’s friendly?”
“Really? What’s his agenda? What does he get out of helping us? What’s wrong with telling us his name?”
 
Despite her fears and doubts, Jaden was soon absorbed in the books. They were training manuals for engine maintenance. To Jaden, it was like speaking her own language after years of living abroad. This was where she belonged, and the Impulse engines responded in kind.
Thank you, Chief Engineer, They heard Fureva-Yung’s voice through the telepathic network, Impulse engines are online and at full power. How go the Sublight engines?
Fixable, but they need parts we just don’t have. We’re stuck with Impulse engines for the time being.
Acknowledged, Fureva-Yung confirmed, Please return to the bridge, we’re about to go after those asteroid-sending robots.
 
By the time Marius and Jaden returned to the bridge, the viewscreen’s image had changed from one dominated by the star to a view of the asteroid field, clockwise from the space station. In the centre of the screen, one speck the shape of an egg was pushing an lumpy-shaped asteroid out of the belt and into its own orbit around the star. Nox gave a start after checking the ship's scanners for more machines of the same type.
“Here! Oh, more. Admiral, three more of those servitors are deep in the asteroid belt. They don’t seem to have seen us yet.”
“Computer. This is Marius. Give him full access.”
“Marius. Acknowledged,” And Marius settled himself down at a console.
 
“Small craft like those aren’t likely to have shards in them, “ Jaden mused, “Do you think they’re being controlled from the derelict?”
“Ladies, I believe we have a fight with our hands,” Marius said, rubbing his hands in anticipation, “So, all to the fighters?”
He and Jaden were up on their feet. Fureva-Yung, too, rose to leave. Only Nox stayed in her seat.
“What? Someone has to stay here, right? This is the Blam-Blam and Pew-Pew-Kapow Console, if we’re going into battle, we'll need it. Besides, if you get in trouble out there, who’s going to bamf you back again?”
She didn’t look pleased about being alone, but Nox did not leave her station.
“It is true, we do not need to all go,” Fureva-Yung said, looking at their options. Of the four of them, only she and Jaden had any piloting knowledge. Fortunately, before she could say anything, Marius volunteered.
“Yeah, I’ll stay too,” He said, and Nox’s mood brightened.
“So it is settled. Jaden and I will pilot fighters to attack the servitors. Nox and Marius will stay behind and use the light cannon and photon torpedos from behind.
 
Before the fighters left, Nox climbed through each of the two ships that were heading out.
“I can’t bamf to where I haven’t been!” She said happily, getting comfortable in the trainer seat behind Fureva-Yung before flitting across to Jaden’s fighter.
 
The fighters were soon flying out ahead of the Illustria. Jaden swung wide to port, coming up behind the servitor and pushing the asteroid towards the star. Her guns fired, rocking her small fighter, and hit true, blasting the servitor to sparking pieces.
 
At the communication and sensors console, Marius scanned the area and saw four more blips deep in the asteroid belt.
Keep an eye open; there are four more on your six.
 
From the weapons console, Nox locked on another torpedo and let it fly towards the knot of fighter drones heading towards her friends. The torpedo, as before, streaked away, filling the viewscreen with light before hitting one fighter directly, shrapnel from the blast damaging the others. Fureva-Yung’s fighter turns to face the enemy, guns blazing, but not one hit. As the fighting servitors moved into return fire, the drone servitor seemed to scatter, heading deeper into the asteroid belt away from harm.
Just you make sure to aim those torpedoes away from us two, Jaden complained as she swept over a fighter servitor and out of range of torpedo shrapnel.
“Weapons! Fire torpedoes!” Marius commanded as Nox sent another torpedo out into the black. The line of light once more exploded into bright fireworks as it hit another fighter and damaged the others.
 
Out in the blackness of space, Fureva-Yung and Jaden's tiny fighters were rocked by impacts as the servitor's attacks hit. Fureva-Yung’s head rang from the impact, but she was soon maneuvering back into attack position. Jaden wasn’t as lucky. Alarms, flashing lights and warnings filled Jaden’s controls.
That hit crippled my engines. My ships are dead in the water!
Fureva-Yung flippedher fighter over performing a yo-yo maneuver right at the servitor that had attacked Jaden. Fureva-Yung’s ship's guns rattled and struck the fighter, blasting it into pieces.
I’m coming, Jaden. Nox called and gave Marius a nod, before bamfing out to the stricken ship. The air in the cabin was now thick with acrid electrical smoke. Jaden was fighting to keep her boat alive. Out of her starboard side, another fighter drone lined up.
Marius moved from the scanner console to weapons and sent twin streams of cannon fire into the fray. He missed the fighter on Jaden and swore. The servitor fired.
“Lean right!” Jaden yelled at Nox as they used their weight inside the craft to nudge it sideways. The movement was enough. The servitor’s attack skimmed by, missing by millimetres, “Now, get us the hell out of here!”
Fureva-Yung was now alone in the attack on the servitors. She swung her fighter around hard, yawing to face the enemy again. Her attacks missed, but she streaked between the enemy and Jaden’s vessel. On the Illustria, Marius tracked the enemy, holding the photon torpedo until Nox and Jaden bamfed back to the bridge and safety. The torpedo flew as the fighter attacked Jaden’s ship once more. The fighter was blasted to pieces, but only a moment before the servitor was hit by the torpedo and obliterated from the sky.
 
Jaden took the empty seat at the scanners and locked on the four drones before moving the Illustria closer. Nox reclaimed her weapons console and found her next target. Marius quietly stepped back and took his place in the Captain’s chair. The lone fighter, now free , hunted drones. Figuring these would be good salvage, she tried to hit only their engines. Instead, she hit the fuel cells, which exploded, sending drone parts into her fighter. Her engine shot and life support failing, it was all Fureva-Yung could do to limp back to the oncoming Illustria.
 
Light cannon volleys from the Illustria took out the remaining drones, and space was theirs. The station was safe, for now, from an asteroid attack. Now it was time to see if those drones were controlled by the derelict ship and to see what other salvageable it may contain.