25 – ANCIENT DEFENSES

ALISSA PARCES

The test was a success, and for a whole hour it felt as if they were home again, no longer so far away and all alone. Eve had synchronized with the ship’s LAI, taking total control for the duration of the link, and coordinating the ground teams’ operations. Then, after the hour was up, she said her goodbyes and left. It was a bit sad, seeing her go, and knowing that the next scheduled tight radio beam would not come anymore. There was no need for it, since they would sync up their ship again with Eve in just a little more than a day.

The captain watched the multitude of small people, as seen from this high up, move around awkwardly on the surface of the asteroid. Many of those who moved this oddly were probably trying to get a grip on their suit’s manual controls. The sun was just about now rising over the uneven horizon, illuminating the grey surfaces with its light, casting away the night. The slow rotation of the asteroid meant the incoming day would be one hundred hours long, but this far away the radiation was just a minor inconvenience. Even the seemingly thin space suits were enough to protect the workers and scientists from the small amount of cosmic radiation coming from the sun and from outer space.

Dawn broke, but it did not bring the usual reds and pinks people were used to on Earth. Instead, a small bright dot appeared over the horizon, hovering suspended in the dark of space. And immediately inundated the research camp in white light, prompting the suits to adapt their helmet transparence to fit each user’s taste.

Captain Parces kept watching, both because she had nothing better to do, and also because what was happening on the surface of the asteroid was the last preparation before opening the capsule. Or at least trying to. The research team had gleamed all it could from analyzing its surface, but they were making no headway in understanding the intricate carvings on the metal. It was finally time to open it and peer at what laid inside. Its secrets waiting for countless millennia while humankind evolved enough to finally be able to reach them and understand them.

Her lover too was down there, overseeing the whole operation. His role being fulfilled, he had determined that the metal of the capsule was still structurally sound even after all this time. In fact, it was a kind of metal unknown to mankind, much more resistant than titanium or steel, yet very light. He was practically salivating when he was presented with the possibility of analyzing a piece of it as soon as the pod was opened.

The captain moved the focus of the viewscreen before her, not really interested in seeing the man laze around in a makeshift gazebo. He was her lover, yes, but he was wearing a suit so he was basically indistinguishable from the rest of the people.

“Permission to go ahead.” Asked a voice in her ear.

“Granted.” She replied, but not before instructing the LAI to train all the sensors of the Piercer on the small area around the pod and the camp. She was sure the people down there already had their sensors ready, and the soldiers accompanying them were no slouches either, having completed the hellish training to get here. But she could never be too sure, and getting complacent was the right way to get hurt.

She only needed to look back a few days, at the incident at the Interloper. That had been a major clusterfuck, in her opinion. A situation that should never be repeated, she thought, redoubling her focus on the readings from the sensors. Normally she would have waited for an Eve connection to come again in little less than 25 hours before proceeding, but the higher-ups quickly shut her down. Their paranoia was, apparently, even greater than hers.

What if, they argued, there was another virus inside the pod? It would piggyback the open connection and try to infect Eve in earnest, crossing the vast interplanetary distance in just an instant thanks to the Tesseract connection. This was a risk they were not in favor of taking, instead arming the Piercer’s LAI with a whole slew of protective software should anything happen. Better to risk a disposable, definitely not self-aware, LAI rather than Eve.

It made sense, but at the same time it left her with this feeling of unpreparedness that was making her skin crawl. She zoomed in, adding a second display showing the live feed from the poor guy who was tasked with approaching the thing. It was funny how, even here in space where they were facing a millennia old alien artifact, they were essentially using a glorified crowbar to pry it open. She smiled, inhaling deeply in an attempt to calm her nerves. A guy with a crowbar, damn.

The man approached the metal rectangle gingerly, his eyes darting all around to see if anything sprung to life due to his approach. The item, a rectangular box with rounded edges, was sitting at the entrance of a cavernous system that spanned the whole inside of the asteroid. It had been thoroughly mapped and turned out to be empty, but seeing the dark cave ahead of him was enough to make even the captain’s steel nerves shake. The sensors showed that everything was still silent, and the small automatic process tasked with following her man told her he was still watching from afar.

A few meters were left, the man took one step after the other, the small plumes of compressed gas propelling him forward rather than the movement of his legs in the weak gravity of the place. The box was half buried into the ground, parallel lines coming up from the hidden part and converging towards the inscriptions on the top part. They were carved in the metal itself and looked like energy pathways, but were empty and dead. There was a small opening in-between the two parts, a small fissure of darkness where the crowbar would fit.

Another meter. Nobody had ever come this close to the thing, so far only taking pictures and recording data from afar. No reaction yet, the broad-spectrum image superimposed on top of the box showed normal false-coloring. No heating up, no buildup of energy. Dead like the rock that surrounded it.

Another meter, the final one. The man readied his crowbar, aiming for the small fissure that separated the lid from the rest of the metal. The metal rods all around him received power as the containment EM field was about to activate. No signal would cross the small invisible dome as soon as it was active, no way for the small box to notify hidden safety measure that it was being forced open.

“Proceed.” The captain heard herself say, her body tensed and unmoving. The EM field activated soon after, cutting the communications. The man down there was now truly alone. She was strapped to her chair, like everybody else onboard the Piercer. Ready in case they needed a high gee burn. Up to five gees for a few seconds, this was their limit, then all their movements could only reach two gravities. A slew of possible scenarios appeared in her mind, the implants sensing her thoughts and projecting a multitude of escape routes, firing patterns, evasive maneuvers.

Finally, the man-made metal touched the alien-made metal.

Alarm bells sprung to life, bathing the whole bridge in the red light of the high alert protocol. Time seemed to dilate, as the images resized automatically to show four distinct points on the asteroid. Heat, radiation, movement under the surface. It was supposed to be impossible, and yet it was happening right under her eyes.

She was ready for it though, and feeling as if she was moving in slow motion, mentally ordered the weapons to lock onto the targets. A bright light flooded the small camp, unexpected and unannounced. One moment the camp was there, the next it was a crater. A silent tear clouded the vision from her right eye for a moment, and it was all the attention she could spare to the fact that her man had probably just died. She refocused, the trauma would have to wait, the grief momentarily pushed to the back of her mind.

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“We are under attack!” Came a yell through the conn, followed by a series of screams of pain and static. The EM field burst like a bubble as seen from the enhanced renders from the sensors.

Captain Parces was dumbfounded and confused. There was nothing that could have attacked the camp this fast, no sign of a bomb buried under the surface. Focus. Debris were flying all around, the point defense machine guns blasting the bigger pieces into nothingness. No need to get distracted, no need to understand the how and the why. Act. A few clangs indicated that the hull of the Piercer was being showered in little pieces of rock and metal, no damage so far.

She looked at the four points again, but they were now immobile. She could order her weapons to fire, but would that be wise to do? The people on the surface were already flying orderly towards the central fortified building, their flight controlled by the Piercer’s LAI. The soldiers were all around, ready to protect the civilians. Too much thinking. She ordered the railguns to charge their capacitors, and gave up their control to the gunner.

Finally, there was movement. Through a flurry of displaced space rock and gravel, four plumes of engine flames could be seen at the four coordinates. Hulking pieces of metal, each tens of meters high were rising from under the surface. The captain was baffled once again, since there had been no indication all this time that such weapons were buried there. But there was no time to wonder why right now. Those four were definitely weapons, and they were charging up and aiming at the camp. They seemed to be ignoring the Piercer for now.

“Railguns!” She commanded, not daring to bring out the missiles yet. Even a directional charge warhead could kill countless civilians down there. The gunner grunted as he focused, sweat on his forehead. He mentally gave the order to the LAI to aim and fire as soon as possible.

“Only two railguns have a clear shot. We need to rotate.” He said, in a strained but calm voice.

“Do it.” The captain commanded, and the ship immediately began to rotate on its axis before the turrets even shot their payloads. The navigator was already under heavy strain as she reviewed the flight patterns. Avoid the debris, give the gunner a clear shot. Adjust. Accelerate, burn. Recalculate.

A hum enveloped the bridge. Energy was flowing towards the gigantic electromagnets that would accelerate the metallic projectiles towards the first two targets. At the same time the point defense machine guns that were initially fending off the flying debris realigned to target the other two emerging weapons in a hope to keep them occupied. There was no sound that indicated that the projectiles departed, only a brief displacement due to the knockback of flinging such masses at such speeds.

The two metal rods sped through space towards the towering monoliths of metal. They were rectangular, supersized copies of the one the scientists were studying, but also featured a round dark hole where all the inscriptions converged. Light was travelling though the incisions, slowly but steadily feeding the dark spot in the middle. It was aimed at the camp.

The projectiles hit their targets, the impact transferring all the energy of a relativistic projectile to the alien metal in a span of a few fractions of a second. One of the monolithic structures exploded in a shower of debris, the engines overloading and creating a secondary explosion. The latter was much bigger than the first and completely obliterated a part of the asteroid, sending even more debris into space. Huge chunks of rock were flying everywhere, obscuring the vision of the area.

The other projectile punched through a displaced rock and in its altered trajectory hit a non-vital area, going cleanly through, and leaving only a hole barely bigger than its diameter behind. The structure did react, however, repositioning itself so that the round opening was facing the Piercer directly.

Tens of thousands of high caliber rounds were raining down on the other two alien weapons, their speeds nothing compared to the railgun shots, but their numbers so high that they clouded the very space between the ship and their targets. Their impacts did not do much damage, but they were denting the metal and probably would soon manage to puncture it.

The captain looked horrified at the screen. The monolith that was aiming at them was lighting up.

“Concentrate on that one! Use everything!” She ordered, no longer preoccupied with keeping the damage to a minimum. Her voice full of panic, her mind racing at a speed that made the fight all the more horrific to witness. She could only imagine what it would be like to be an AI, watching the fight in a time frame a million times slower.

The still rotating Piercer sprung to life, countless little opening forming on its surface revealing a myriad of weapons. Missiles came out of some holes, while others revealed gigantic refraction crystal arrays that would direct the laser produced deep inside the ship towards their foes. Another railgun was revealed as the rotation of the ship brought the still charged weapon to face the monolith.

The metal rod sped through space, overtaking everything except for the laser light going towards the enemy structure. The metal of the enemy weapon shone bright as it heated under the relentless outpour of energy from the lasers, and when the railgun shot hit it, it exploded inwards. The missiles made smart use of the opening, guided by the LAI and the gunner, and exploded inside of the structure itself. It disappeared from view in a cloud of radiation that blinded the sensors.

The other two monoliths were still active, however. One was in a bad shape; the constant hail of bullets had deformed it into a shapeless hunk of metal. The lines on its surface were still bright, indicating that while it had tanked a lot of damage, the critical systems were still operational.

Finally, another railgun appeared over the artificial horizon of the Piercer, dooming the monolith to sure destruction. At the same time, missiles converged towards the other, and once again the whole area went white as it blinded any scan with a massive amount of radiation. The fusion warheads turning the area into dust, vaporized rock, and gamma photons.

The battle seemed to be over, but soon the proximity alerts shook the captain and the crew out of their stupor. Enormous chunks of rock and metal debris were flying in their direction with a speed high enough to obliterate the whole spaceship. Fortunately, while they could not dodge laser shots from the monoliths and had to blast them with overwhelming firepower, they could dodge some slow-moving rocks.

Of course, the word slow was not a correct depiction of their speeds, but at least they were not moving at the speed of light. The engines flared and subjected everyone onboard to a gravity so high it threatened to break all of their bones, if they weren’t strapped to a chair specifically made to avoid that. The LAI was in full control now, plotting the best course and controlling the whole ship. The navigator could only oversee, checking that the LAI was not doing stupid things or that the computer system was not compromised in some way. But even that was proving difficult, between the deafening sound of the weaponry and the awful acceleration. Even thinking was almost impossible.

A rock exploded after a missile hit it, clearing the way for the large sphere of metal that was the Piercer to pass through. Another heated up and separated into three as the lasers sliced it like butter, the rock’s angular momentum doing the rest. The Piercer was not in a good shape, though, the metal looking dented and dotted with holes and tears.

“Damage report?” Asked the captain, only to be interrupted by a loud noise of metal tearing and the sudden change in gravity. Up and down were already meaningless by now, as the engines positioned all over the hull tried their best to steer the ship clear of the space debris.

A sound of rushing air stopped as all the blast doors that were still open closed shut.

“Hull breaches all over the surface, damage is contained. Three piercing impacts have managed to perforate several rings, but avoided critical systems. Engines 3, 6 and 18 are out. Weapons are mostly intact, but a few did not retract in time. Reactor is safe.”

“Good.” She said, but a sudden impact knocked her out for a few seconds. Soon she came to, and realized that the space all around them was now empty.

“We’re clear, finally.” Said the navigator. “Thank fuck. That was scary.” She added.

The captain shared the same sentiment, but this was not yet the time to celebrate victory.

“The people down there?” She asked, worry in her voice.

“We’re trying to establish communications.” The man at the conn said. “There. I’ve got a signal.” He finally said after a few minutes of tense waiting.

“Sitrep.” Asked the captain, after which a voice replied over the communication channel.

“---people dead. We managed to save—fortunately. I--- you wait until the debris settles --- We’re safe for now.”

The tension left the captain after hearing the news, and she slumped into her chair. Oh, how she would like a good night’s sleep right now.