Exodus: Machine War 1 Supernova. (31 page)

“We wait until
the effects of the radiation are apparent,” ordered Rizzit to his siblings, who
all nodded as they sent back their acceptance of his leadership to the end.

“But not too
long,” said Mazzat, the general.  “I don’t want to go out puking and shitting
on myself.”

All agreed with
that as well, and they turned to watch as the sun rose once again in the east,
wondering if this would be the last they would ever see.

“Councilman,”
came a call over his portable com.  “Councilman.”

“What is it?” he
asked, pulling out the com and looking at the face revealed, that of another of
his aides.  “Why are you disturbing us at a time like this?  And shouldn’t you
be with your family?”

“Sir.  You have
to see this.”

“See what?”

“The artifacts,
sir.  They’re glowing.”

“They were
already glowing,” said the incredulous leader.  “What in the hells are you
talking about.”

“You have to see
for yourself, sir,” said the Aide.

“Come on,”
Rizzit told his brothers, heading for the doorway to the stairs.

He headed for
the top floor conference room, where he knew a wide screen TV was located.  It
was already on when he entered the room, his brothers on his heels.  And there
was a view of one of the artifacts.  Rizzit stopped in his tracks and stared,
unable to believe his eyes, and not sure what they were telling him.

*     *     *

Captain Mandy
Albright sat in her command chair on the bridge of the
William Clark
and
stared at the holo of the planet she had been placed to observe.  It wasn’t a
job she was going to enjoy, watching the death of that world.  She wasn’t
worried much about her own ship or her people.  They were hiding in the shadow
of the planet, and not much of the radiation wave would get through that mass
of rock, if any.  Their electromagnetic fields were up at half strength, just
as a precaution.  Otherwise, they were in their shipboard coveralls,
concentrating on recording the entire process with their ship’s sensors and the
satellite net that was orbiting the planet.

“Something’s
going on with the artifacts, ma’am,” called out Ensign da Conti from his sensor
station.

“Show me,” she
shouted in her nervousness, then forced herself to speak in a normal tone. 
“Show us, Ensign.”

Da Conti nodded
and a shot of the nearest artifact, curving above the atmosphere to the port
and one thousand kilometers in, appeared on the main holo.  “It’s glowing at
three times its former luminosity, and increasing.”

“Energy
readings?”

“Ten times
normal and rising.  I can’t tell where that energy is going, ma’am, but so far
it’s not directed at us.”

“What about the
other artifacts?”

The viewer
switched to another, showing the same effects, as was a third.  The view swept
back to a composite shot from the satellites, and Albright felt her breath
catch.  The entire planetary system of artifacts was glowing, and it was
increasing by the moment.

“Time to
radiation wave impact, twenty-eight minutes,” called out the Tactical Officer. 
“This can’t be coincidence, ma’am.”

“Make sure the
Admiral is getting this,” ordered the Captain, knowing that he wouldn’t receive
these images until he returned to normal space, though the grav pulse would
tell him much sooner as it was relayed through the probes he had left in normal
space, giving him a short synopsis of the phenomenon.

“Should we move
back a bit, ma’am?” asked the XO, Commander Sekumbe, from his station in CIC. 
“I would hate to see what happened to
Challenger
take us to the same
place.  Especially since we would go along with the
Clark.
”

“Back us out of
here, Helm,” ordered Albright, nodding at the suggestion of her Exec.  “Twenty
gravities.  All stop at ten thousand kilometers from current position.”

“Aye, aye,
ma’am,” called out the Helmsman, setting the ship in motion.

“Energy readings
twenty times normal ma’am.  They’re…they’re rising off the charts.  Still not
directed at us.”  The tone of the young Ensign’s voice let her know that he
didn’t feel secure just because it wasn’t currently directed at them.

Now the objects
were glowing bright enough to hurt the eyes, and there was a strange ripple
effect around the edge of the globe.  The viewer performed an automatic
step-down in brightness to protect the sight of the crew, and had to buffer
again a few moments later.  At that point the ripple effect had increased to
the level that the surface of the planet was hard to see.  And then, with a
flash, it was gone.

*     *     *

“What is
happening?” demanded Zzarr as he looked up at the sky.  The group had gathered
out in the open, awaiting the manifestation of Hrrattha that they knew was on
the brink.  His security had set up the portable communications gear they had
brought up from below so they could listen to the casts from all the other
nations as they discovered they were about to achieve paradise, or be pulled
down to hell.  The priests in the party had set up an altar and had been
celebrating continuously as they waited for the end, the others of the large
party moving in and out of the celebration as the mood struck them.  All were
looking forward to the coming dawn, when the hand of their God would strike, as
it was just about to strike at their enemies on the side of the planet facing
that God.

But now everyone
was looking to the sky, moonless this night, filled with the stars of the
Perseus Arm.  Except that those stars were starting to fade for no apparent
reason.  Already they had lost half their luminosity, and what was left was
fading with alarming speed.

“Look,” yelled
one of the soldiers, standing on the side of the mountain and pointing to the
north, where one of the artifacts rose into the sky.  There had already been
much discussion of that artifact when they had first reached the surface, most,
including the priests, believing that the temples were finally awakening to the
glory of their God.

Now the
structure was glowing brightly along its entire length, its bluish light
illuminating the mountains much like a full moon.  It grew brighter, the stars
faded completely, and the sky above started taking on a purplish tint.

“What is
happening?” asked Zzarr again.

“It must be the
coming of paradise,” shouted out one of the priests.

“What are you
hearing on the media?” yelled Zzarr, looking over at his monitoring crew.  “Are
they screaming in panic as Hrrottha reaches for them.”

One of the males
monitoring the news looked up, an expression of surprise on his face, and sent
his feed to one of the speakers.

“We are not sure
what is happening,” said the voice of a male speaking the language of the
Tsarzorians.  “But it appears that salvation is at hand.  The Gods have taken
pity on us.”

“No,” yelled
Zzarr, shaking his tentacles.  “This cannot be.  Their Gods are fiction.  They
cannot be saved.”

“Calm, Leader,”
said one of the priests, hurrying over to Zzarr.  “This is just the start, and
surely the Tsarzorians are mistaking their temporary deliverance for
salvation.  When Hrrottha appears in the flesh, they will realize their error,
before they are consumed with terror.”

The Leader
looked back to the now purple sky, devoid of stars.  The purplish light of that
sky now cast strange shadows across the landscape, making the familiar world
look as alien as anything on another planet.

“Of course,”
said Zzarr, trying to believe his own thoughts, his own words.  “Of course,
this is just the beginning.”

*     *     *

“Something is
happening,” called out the Sensor Officer, switching the viewer from the shadow
of the planet to the station.  Part of that station was now glowing, as bright
as a star in the day sky.  Not the entire construct, but only the one side,
pointing like a search light toward the shadow.  Where something else was
happening.

“They’re
bringing the whole damned planet into this dimension,” said Captain Gertrude
Hasslehoff in a quiet voice.

She stared at
the shadow, as the shapes of the artifacts rising above the world first began
to glow, brighter every second, and with that light they solidified into the
forms she had seen in the dimension of normal space.  Their light fell on the
world, quickly turning shadow into detail, like a sun rising over hills.  She
wasn’t sure how long it took, and really didn’t concern herself with that.  The
ship’s memory would tell them later to the micro-second.  However long it took,
it seemed like seconds before Klassek was there in front of them in all its
glory, lights of cities standing out like glorious gems on the night side,
while the sun like spotlight of the station illuminated the day side.

“We’re picking
up signals from the planet,” said the Com Officer, a look of disbelief on his
face.  “They’re all talking down there.  No one knows what happened, but
they’re vocally throwing around their opinions.  Or thanking whatever of their
gods they believed in.”

“They saved the
whole damn planet,” she said in a louder voice, looking around at all of the
incredulous faces of her crew.  “The sons of bitches saved the whole damn
world, and everyone on it.”

At first there
was silence, everyone staring at her.  A cheer came over the intercom, joined
by another, until a rising crescendo of yells and calls of joy echoed through
the ship.

Hasslehoff sat
in her chair as the bridge erupted around her, tears rolling down her cheeks. 
They
set this up thousands of years ago, put all this effort into this project, so
that a world would not die.

“What’s next?”
asked Commander Ungra from engineering.  “What happens now?”

“Now, we hug
this world for all its worth.  When they return to normal space, we go with
them.”  She looked at the planet for a few moments more before looking back at
her Com Officer.

“Get First
Councilman Rizzit on the com,” she ordered.  “We have a lot to talk about.”

*     *     *

Rizzit looked
out of the window of the conference room to the purplish cast sky.  The strange
object hanging there was not a sun.  He could tell that in a moment.  It was
too large, though he knew it was much closer than their star.  It was providing
the same function as their sun, sending life giving light onto the world.  He
could feel the warmth on his face.

“What happened?”
asked the Aide.

Rizzit looked at
the faces of his brothers, knowing through his link that they had come to the
same conclusion, reading his thoughts while he read theirs.  “They saved us,”
he said.  “All of us.”

“Who?” demanded
the frightened looking Aide.  “The humans?  The Gods?”

“It wasn’t the
humans,” he said, looking back at the viewer that still showed the artifact,
its bright glow now having backed off to its rest state, that which it had
manifested at the time the blue giant had blown.  Holding its power, waiting. 
To bring them back?  He had to believe that.  “It wasn’t the Gods,” he continued,
looking the Aide in the face.  He looked back out the window at the bright
object in the sky.  “They might seem like Gods to us, as advanced as they are. 
Even the humans might consider them Gods, though I doubt they would go that
far.”

“First Councilman,”
called out another Aide, running into the room.  “One of the human ships is on
the radio.  They wish to speak to you.”

“Who?” asked the
surprised leader, not sure how the humans would have followed them here.

“It’s their
missing ship.  The
Challenger.
”

The one that
disappeared,
thought Rizzit.

It wasn’t
destroyed
, thought Mazzat, the general. 
It was sent here, wherever here
is.

“Let’s go talk
with them,” he told the second Aide.  “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke.

“Raise the
electromagnetic field to maximum,” ordered Captain Albright, staring at the
spot that the planet had once existed at but now no longer did.  “I want cold
plasma injection, now.”  She looked around the bridge, noting that no one was
in armor, which would help to protect them from the coming radiation storm.

“As soon as you
get my ship’s protection squared away, everyone get into their armor.”  She
linked to the ship’s medical bay a moment later.  “I want our nanite stores
under maximum radiation protection protocol, set for maximum reproduction.”

Radiation was
one thing that could purge their systems of working nanites, the fast moving
particles not only damaging their cells but also battering the nanoscale
robots.  And the robots were really the only thing that could repair the damage
to their cells, so they would be in great need in the near future.

Orders given,
Albright jumped to her feet and ran to her armor cubby, which was opening at
her approach.  She backed into the cubby, letting her arms and legs seek their
hollows while her head rested against the back of the helmet.  The connections,
neural and sanitary, were made, and the suit closed up around her.  As soon as
closure was made the nanosystems sealed the seams to the point where they no
longer existed, and would not exist again until those systems opened them.

Albright looked
for some other cover, something that would help them to survive until they
could get out of the system and into hyperspace.  The planet’s moon was still
there, still moving in the same orbit for some reason.

“What’s the
gravitic environment?” she asked her Sensor Officer as he got back in his seat,
his own armor sealed.

The officer
looked to his board for a moment.  “We’re still sensing the presence of the
planet, even though it’s not there as far as we can tell through any other
means.”

“And the moon?”

“Still in its
path, just like the planet is still there.”

“Helm,” she
called out.  “Get us behind it as fast as possible.”

“ETA to
sheltering position, fifteen minutes, twelve seconds,” called back the
Helmsman, working his board.

“Radiation wave
in fifty-three seconds,” called out the Tactical Officer.

So we will be
exposed for over fourteen minutes
, she thought, looking at the moon, three
thousand kilometers of rock with a small metallic core, which would stop
everything but neutrinos, and neutrinos couldn’t hurt them.  Neutrons could,
and would go right through their electromagnetic field like it wasn’t there.

“Make sure the
Admiral gets all of our data on continuous update,” she ordered the Com
Officer.  “Both grav pulse and cast.” 
Even if they don’t get the cast while
they’re in hyper.

The main threat
was not the wave per se, which was a wave much in the way a tsunami crossing
deep water was.  It was expanding as the inverse square of the distance from
the point of origin, for each doubling of distance a quartering of the
particles.  Not all the particles thrown out of the supernova had not been
given equal force, though it was pretty close to equal.  It was spreading out
in depth as the slower particles were outpaced by those with greater
velocities.  It was now a light week in thickness.  By the time it reached the
nearer stars, light years away, it would be over a light month from wavefront
to end.  That did not make it any less deadly, since the radiation would strike
over a longer period of time, though of course it would have lost some of its
strength due to that same inverse square law.

The main threat
to the ship was the presence of violent beams of neutrons that were
intermingled with the general wave, with did not spread as much and carried
hundreds of times more energy per square meter of front than the rest of the
expanding tsunami of death.  The odds were remote that they would be hit, but
not out of the realm of possibility.  And in a Universe where anything could
happen, it would, eventually.

“Wavefront
impact, now,” called out the Sensory Officer.

The wall of
radiation washed over the ship, alpha, beta, gamma, more exotic particles. 
Charged particles were either repelled by the electromagnetic field, or grabbed
and pulled around the ship by its attraction.  This was true for about three
quarters of these particles, as the screens were overloaded by the sheer
volume.  The uncharged particles were not affected by the fields at all, though
many of them hit the hydrogen molecules in the cold plasma and were deflected
away.  But many in this mass meant a very small percentage of them, and the
great majority pushed through to hit the armored nose of the ship.  The armor
was a very good particle shield, and over ninety-five percent of the neutrons
that hit it were stopped, while that five percent made it through.  It hit more
barriers after it passed the hull, so that only one half of one percent of the
original neutron radiation made it through to hit the crew in their armored
suits, where about half of it was stopped as well.

Everyone aboard
the ship, save those working within the engineering section, where there was
shielding intended to keep the radiation of the matter/anti-matter reactors in
check, felt a wave of nausea pass through them with the radiation, minor, not
anything they would not recover from.  But the radiation continued, and each
second some of their internal nanites, the tiny robots that would fight
cellular damage, were taken out.

Albright checked
the readouts from the ships sensors, and the composite of the takes from each
and every crewperson, analyzed by the computers, and was sure they would make
it through to their hiding place.  From where the crew could be re-injected
with nanites.

As soon as she
had that thought, while still almost ten seconds from shelter behind the moon,
they were clipped by one of those high energy neutron beams.  It didn’t hit
head on, but through the stern third of the ship just to the rear of
engineering.  Not the full width of the beam, only about a third of it, and
only for a microsecond, it was still enough to shoot killing radiation through
sixty-one of the crew while causing severe radiation sickness among forty two
others.

Warning klaxons
sounded throughout the ship, and Albright looked at the schematic to see where
they had been hit, her face going white as the casualty figures came through
her link.

“Medical
emergency, sections forty through forty-six, decks nine through seventeen,”
came a call over the com.

Clark
slid behind the moon at maximum deceleration, putting the body between itself
and the radiation wave.  Commands were imputed into the computer that would
force the ship to hold position, fighting against the orbit its velocity and
the gravity of the moon wanted to force it into, through the constant pull of
its grabbers.

“We made it,”
called out Commander Nord Sekumbe from CIC, which had been too close for
comfort to the section that had intersected the neutron beam.

“Are you OK,
Exec?”

“Everyone
survived,” he said, stopping to cough.  “We’re all a little sick, and ten more
meters would have hurt a lot more.  But I think we’ll make it.”

And we’re all
lucky to have made it
, thought the Captain, looking at the place where the
planet had been, and still was there, according to its gravity, even if
materially it was gone.  Some hadn’t made it, but it could have been much
worse, and she was thankful that it hadn’t been.

*     *     *

“The grav pulse
signal has repeated for the third time, Admiral,” said Captain Susan Lee,
standing beside his command chair.  “We’ve cleaned up all the inconsistencies
caused by the static, and we’re sure of the content.”

“Which is?”
asked Nguyen, looking up at his Chief of Staff.  “Just the gist of it.”  He
knew it had taken over ten minutes for each iteration of the message to come
through.  It had been severely distorted by all of the radiation, and by some
new distortions they had never before encountered. 
Maybe from the planet
jumping dimensions.

They still had
not actually seen that the planet was missing, not stuck in hyperspace like
they were.  The ship’s commander had scheduled a probe launch to translate back
into normal space in time to catch the visual image of the planet when it was
said to have translated.  The probe would spend the minimum time it could to
gather the information, then jump back into hyper, bringing with it the take
from real space.

“From what
Clark
transmitted, the planet disappeared just before the radiation wave reached it. 
The alien artifacts glowed with almost painful brilliance, and the planet was
gone.  And with it the cover that the cruiser was depending on to provide protection
from the wave.”

“And the
condition of
Clark
?”

“They report
having made it to safety with some damage and heavy casualties.  The planet’s
moon is still there, and they sheltered behind it.”

The moon is
still there?  What the hell happened there?  Why didn’t it go flying off on its
own, or into a new orbit?  Of course, it might have, and we won’t know until
we’ve gotten firm com with the cruiser.
  “Did they say how heavy their
casualties were?”

“No, sir.  Only
that one word, heavy.”

“And they stayed
there on my orders, so they could observe a planet that doesn’t need further
observation.”  Nguyen rubbed his eyes, the guilt of however many men and women
had died or been injured falling squarely on his shoulders.

“You couldn’t
know that, sir,” said the Captain, laying a hand on his shoulder.  “As far as
any of us knew, that planet was going to continue being there, no matter what
else happened.”

“And those
objects on the planet?  What were they for?  And why did they take the planet
out of normal space?”

“To save the
planet and the people on it would be my guess,” said Lee.  “Some other
civilization saw this coming, thousands of years ago, if the histories of the
Klassekians are to be believed.  They set up the machinery to take the planet
out of the way of the radiation wave.”

“Is such
technology even possible?” asked Captain Jackson, the ship’s commander.  “It
boggles the mind.”

“It’s only a
matter of scale over what we already do,” said Lee, nodding.  “We move objects
of millions of tons between the dimensions of normal, sub and hyperspace.  And
with the
Donut
in operation, who can say where our own abilities will
end.”

“And will it be
coming back?” asked Jackson.  “The planet, I mean?”

“I would think
so,” said Lee, looking over at her Admiral.

“I guess a
better question would be,” murmured Nguyen, “is whether they went to the same
place as
Challenger
.  And if
Challenger
will come back through
when they do?”

*     *     *

“So, it seems as
if your aid was not needed in the first place,” said First Councilman Rizzit
Contena over the com.  “Not that we don’t appreciate the help, since it looked
to those of us with enough rationality to think that we were doomed as well.”

“We have no idea
who these creatures are who saved you,” said Captain Gertrude Hasslehoff in
return.  “They contacted us as soon as we made it back to this location, and
explained somewhat how this was going down.  Other than that, and some basic
information on what they look like, we know almost nothing about them.”

“Is this where
we stay from now on?” asked Rizzit, his eyes looking off screen for a moment. 
“Not that we’re not grateful to them as well, but I think we will miss the
sight of our own sun, and the stars in the sky.”

“They told us to
stay close to the planet if we want to return to our space,” said Hasslehoff,
recalling the words of the alien.  “I don’t think they would tell us that if
they didn’t intend for you to return as well.”

“When?”

“Surely not
until the radiation wave has passed,” said the Captain.  “Say, two to three weeks.”

“My people are
already celebrating their deliverance in the streets.  They even put an
artificial sun in the sky, so that the plants won’t die.”

“You will still
face some problems in the future,” said Hasslehoff.  “I’m not an expert on
supernovas, but that one had to have put a lot of material into space, and not
just what’s in the radiation wave.  It’s going to make a hell of a nebula, and,
though it may take centuries, or longer, your system will eventually be invaded
by that gas cloud, and I have no idea what effects it will have on your
planet.  But I can already think of some really bad consequences.”

“So, what are we
to do?” asked the leader, looking like a depression was about to overtake him,
if the Captain was reading it right.

“By the time the
nebula reaches you, you should be advanced enough to take one of any number of
technological solutions.  And that we can help you with.” 
Unless the
mysterious aliens have that covered as well.  But they told us they were about
to go on their last crusade, so it will probably be up to us to take care of
the Klassekians.

“So what should
I do?” asked the First Councilman.  “I mean about the current situation.”

“Talk to your
people.  Keep them calm, and reassure them that things will return to normal. 
Do you have contact with any of the other nations?”

“Our allies. 
The Honish refuse to return any of our com requests, other than to gloat how
they will be seeing us in hell in the near future, seeing as how judgment day
is here.”

“And who is
their leader?”

“Still Zzarr, if
you can believe that, Captain.”  He must have seen the confused expression on
the Captain’s face.  “It happened after you, disappeared.  Zzarr retreated to
an underground shelter to escape capture, and Admiral Nguyen, as soon as he
found the location, hit him with a heavy kinetic.  We thought he had gone on to
meet his God, but somehow he survived, and is now broadcasting to his people
that they are in paradise.”