Terraformer Dreams - Chapter Seven (Complete)

[The Zig]

Story so far:
Chapter One - The Fly-Through Sector
Chapter Two - Danger is Coming...
Chapter Three - Scramble
Chapter Four - The Nexus
Chapter Five - Classified Information
Chapter Six - Ghosts of the Passed

Chapter Seven – It

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
H.G. Wells


Part One: Final Preparations

Simons scanned Jo’s room neutrally. “A meeting?”
“Is everyone stalking me?!” Jo’s eyes were sharp again. “These are my private quarters.”
“Good to find you all together,” Simons said blandly. “Save me some searching.”
“What do you want?”
“I spoke to Elena Kho,” Simons said. “You’ve been reassigned Jo.”
“What?”
“We’re going through the new gate. Investigating the Xenon sectors. Need you with us, Jo. Kho’s agreed to loan you for the duration of the mission. You’ll be working out of the Colossus. Briefing in 30 miz. You need to be there.”
“Simons... I. No. I’m tired.”
“You’ll sleep after the briefing. Now come. I’ll give you a lift across.”
“There’s no...”
“No time for this, Jo,” Simons cut him off. “You’ve been transferred. It’s done. Nothing to discuss. Come now. You have a job to do.”
Jo heaved himself from the bed. “I’ll need to dress.”
“By all means.”
Jo gathered some clothes and dragged himself away to the bathroom. Simons turned to the two Terracorp commanders.

“Sorry to steal your pilot,” Elton smiled. “Trust it won’t leave you short-handed?”
“We’ll cope,” Moor muttered.
“Good,” Simons visibly relaxed. “I felt bad about going to Elena. Perhaps I should have asked you first.”
“It’s... fine,” Moor nodded. “We would’ve had to ask Kho anyway.”
“And we are doing this to protect your system from attack.”
“We appreciate that,” Reynolds said smoothly.
“Obviously, you’ll still have the Nova,” Simons pointed out. “We just need the pilot.”
“Okay,” Moor said. They got to keep the ship, this wasn’t all bad.

Elton grinned, “Perhaps you can fly it, Commander Moor, I hear you’re quite the ace.”
“Well,” Moor flushed. “I, I’m no ace, I...”
“Stop!” Simons laughed. “Admiral Taggart told me all about you!”
“Admiral Taggart!” Despite himself, Moor was smiling. “Old Taggart!”
“He speaks highly of you! And you know Taggart! From him that is high praise! Have you flown a Nova yet?”
“No. Not yet, no. Only in the simulators.”
“You like?”
“Absolutely!”
“Deadly in combat,” Simons stage-whispered.
“I've seen.”
“You’ll have to take one out for a spin, Moor. We’ll get one of ours set up for you some time. It’ll be no problem. Which reminds me, our flight tech wanted me to ask you. We need to get one our Novas set up for Mak. Our flight tech wanted his set-up preferences. Think you could get the data beamed over?”
“Of course, yes, we’ll get it right over. Right away,” Moor hesitated. “But... Well, I’ll be frank. This Nova thing... You know I’m over the insurable piloting age? I can still fly but... You can really get me out in a Nova?”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Elton smiled warmly. “I know what it’s like to fly a desk. Be happy to help.”
Moor’s face flushed with pleasure. “Thank you. I really...”
The bathroom door opened.
“Jo!” Elton said. “Let's go.”

They all left the room together, some service agents were at the door. They followed the group to the docking bay.
“Thanks again,” Simons said to the Commanders. “You’ve helped me more than you know. My agents will help you get the information we need. I'll see you again.”
The Commanders smiled, nodded, and only Jo felt that something was wrong.
...


“Hillios Aksandros the Second, son of Hillios Llizandross, third advisor to CEO,” Aksandros was trying to impress.
“Hillios? Of Teladi Weapons Armament Trading, Inc.?” Lil asked. “They were your ships before?”
Aksandros sighed. “Yes.”
“Wow!” Lil was star-struck. “Your mother is an amazing Teladi! I... wow! Why you here?”
“I want to see how I can help. I want to...”
“Right,” her lips curved into a grin. “What you selling?”
“No! No, I am not selling,” he laughed. “I am a scientist.”
“A curious-one?!” she used the Teladi word for scientist. “Okay. So what are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Aksandros’ smile faded. His voice flattened. “I wanted to come into the Xenon sectors. I even had some ideas how to help out with... Well, it looks like I will not get the chance.”
“Why not?”
“I have to leave,” he said. “My mother is making me pay for those ships we lost.”
Her eyes widened. “The Teladi ships? All of them? Yeah, that’d cost a buck or two! Wow. So why does that mean you can’t come with us?!”
“I can’t pay it. She wants me to work for her. I don’t want to... I don’t have a choice.”
“So you going?”
“I... I’m indebted. I don’t have a choice.”
“There are always choices. But then there are always consequences, good and bad. You just gotta be sure you can live with them.”
The Teladi went quiet.
“Huh?” She looked down at the screen of the terminal he was working on. “What is that?”
“Ah!” Lil recognised a Teladi-smile crossing Aksandros’ face.
...


Another warm conference room. Jo was trying his hardest to stay awake. At the last possible moment Lil and Aksandros dashed in and sat beside him. They were talking quietly, urgently to each other. Jo’s eyelids slid down, then shot up again. Now a man was at the front of the room.
“Shall we get started?” he was saying.
...


In another part of the ship, a woman was making final preparations.

“Is that force-field stable yet?” she asked into the intercom. “Excellent. Thank you.”
She pressed a button on the comms unit: “Our containment area’s ready. Would you get ready to transport it in. On my mark, please... Thank you. Be ready.”
Her lips moved as she checked things off in her mind.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Okay, okay, okay. This is it. This is It.”
Her elven features were painfully alert; she was just this side of panic. Her mouse-like eyes darted wildly around the room.
“I can handle this.” She told herself. “I’m fine.”
“Asya,” a male voice came through the speaker.
“I can handle this,” she was repeating.
“Asya Rieka? Come in please?” Again on the speaker. “Please respond, Asya.”
She took a deep breath, let it out. Then, in a perfectly confident, professional voice: “How can I help?”
“The briefing’s starting,” he said. “You should be here.”
“No,” she said. “I’ve just got everything set up. I can’t add anything in the briefing right now. Sorry, but I’m more useful here.”
“But they want you here.”
“Well the President wants me here,” she said. “This is my job. I answer directly to him.”
“Okay, okay. I was just letting you know,” he said. “I’ll tell them to start without you.”
“Thank you.”
Asya looked at the empty containment area. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She exhaled firmly with the words: “I can handle this.”

“Transport now, please,” she said.
She opened her eyes and stared into the containment area. The air started to ripple – like a heat shimmer – then space bent violently, leaving a blackness, a hole in space. The Thing warped out of the hole and space healed back into place behind it.
The robotic form stood completely still in the dim cell. Now, the smooth round head rotated, slowly, smoothly. The golden eyes fixed on her, focused. The expression on its face changed. A smile?
“I am Hzzar Qr of the Terraformer Epsilon,” it said. “Please self-identify.”

I can handle this.
...



Part 2: The Thing


Jo snorted and shifted in his seat.
Lil elbowed him and he awoke with a start. The conference room.
“... our best estimates indicate,” the man at the front was saying, “a negligible Xenon presence in the system – probably nothing around the gate. However, as this remains the optimal ambush scenario, we must establish the exact level of...”
Jo blinked. His eyes were so heavy. So heavy.
...


The Xenon spoke. Its voice was flat monotone.
“I am Hzzar Qr. I come in peace.”
“So I am told,” Asya said carefully. “You’re the first Xenon ever to come in peace.”
“False.”
“False?”
“Not I am ‘Xenon’. I am Terraformer Epsilon. I am first Epsilon to meeting Humans, be.”
“Right. Okay. I’m told you want to discuss something. A negotiation? An exchange?”
“True. You are negotiating here for Human culture, Argon; true?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“You have sufficient status for negotiating; true?”
“I answer directly to the President.”
It hesitated. “The President is now asking questions to you; true?”
“Questions? Now?” she answered, confused. “No.”
“The President is leader of your culture; true?”
“Yes, true. He is.”
“And you are answering directly to President now; true?”
“Now? No. I... When I say I answer to him, I just mean, he’s given me authority to negotiate for him. It means he is the only person of higher... uh... status than me. In this specific matter.”

It hesitated to consider this. “Accepted. Your President gives authority to you to negotiate for Argon; only President has higher status; you must justify your decisions only to President; this is called ‘answering to President’; true?”

“Exactly,” she said. “You understand perfectly. So what do you want to negotiate?”
The Xenon moved forward, stopping just before the force-field. Its big golden eyes stared up at her.
“I am negotiating for Terraformer Epsilon. You will assist we. We will assist you,” it said. “We will be allies. You accept; true?”

Asya stared. “Uh. Think I’ll need a little more than that!”
“Restate request.”
“What?”
“I do not understand ‘need a little more than that’. Restate.”
“I’ll need more information,” she said. “This came out of nowhere. You’ve attacked us forever! What changed?”
“Specify required information,” It said. “Not I am knowing what information you need.”
“I don’t...” she said. “I need to know if... Can’t you..?” she trailed off.
“Not I understand. Argon will assist us: True or False?”

Asya turned away. Her mind was simply not up to speed. Was it really just three stazuras ago she was heading to Teladi Gain for a holiday? Had all this really happened since then? It was hard to believe. Things were moving too fast. She needed to catch up. She had to get her brain in-gear.
She turned back to face the Thing. A shudder passed through her – a wave of purpose. The Thing was staring at her. Right...

“Before I make any commitments,” she stated. “I’ll need answers...”
...


In the conference room beneath the bridge, the briefing had broken up.
Most of the attendees had left the room already, anxious to get to work. Others stood in agitated little groups debating how best to prepare for the coming battles.
One person was undisturbed by all this.

“Do you think I was keeping him awake,” the Navy tactical officer muttered to Elton Simons.
Simons glanced at Jo Slammer, still slumped in the chair.
“Understandable,” Simons said. “He had a long day. He was on local defence. The attack came at the end of a long shift.”

Aksandros was talking to Lil who sat on the end of the conference table. Aksandros grew increasingly animated as he spoke. His mouth couldn’t seem to keep up with the ideas overflowing from his mind. Lil, smiling, encouraged his enthusiasm.

“Jo!” Elton Simons called out.
Jo started. His eyes flitted around the room, settling for a moment on Lil who threw a smile back at him.
“Go get some rest,” Simons called over. “Need you back at full power soon.”
“Right,” Jo dreamily got to his feet, and walked from the room, head down, eyes half shut.
Lil chuckled as she watched after him. Aksandros chattered on.

Jo walked, half-asleep through the corridors. He was back at his new quarters before he even realised.
Lain in that cool bed, the day caught up with him. And what a day! After years of living this life – Jo Slammer’s life – he thought he had finally made it real. Made it his own.
He thought he had put Mak Orijin to rest. That he had escaped that life. But today everything caught up with him. He worked so hard becoming this new person, this old person. He had spent so long forgetting, locking his past away. But today it all came crashing through.

Did I see Kanyo today? I did, didn’t I? After all these jazura, I saw Kanyo today! His laugh... ‘Ha ha!’... hasn’t changed a bit... ‘Ha ha! Great to see you again, Mak-daddy!’... Mak-daddy! Long time since anyone called me THAT... long time since anyone called me Mak... Was I really Mak? Did I really destroy that Xenon shipyard? Was that Me? It was, wasn’t it? It was... Ban Danna I remember... and Kara... beautiful Kara... where’d you go? Need you here... Where’d you go? .... Elton Simons, you, you took it all, bakazu... my whole life... I trusted you and you... I’m gonna hurt you... like you made me hurt those... like I killed those... those poor Paranid colonists... poor bakatzu... that should have been you, Simons... it SHOULD have been... me... I killed them... I don’t want to be a killer, I don’t, but it’s gone... too late... I paid for it... I still pay... we all do... all seven of us, we all do... we all DID... Chireen’s gone now... dead... and Ares, big Ares... how do you kill someone like Ares? He was immortal... Gaiya Fox, she’s still alive... her and Kanyo, but the rest are gone... Chireen... little Alya Cappa, big Ares, Ben Drayan... I miss you... I should be with you... should’ve been me... now we’re all dying out... one by one... fading away...

Finally, sleep carried him away.
...


Aksandros frowned at the screen.
“I’m afraid not, mother,” he said. “I’m staying here for now. Then I head to the Paranid research station.”
“No,” Llizandros said. “You will not.”
“It’s my choice, mother, not yours.”
A dangerous rasp entered his mother’s voice. “You don’t have a choice.”
“There are always choices,” he said. “And I choose not to head back to Seizewell just now.”

“Oh,” his mother said. “Always choices? Okay. Here is your choice. Come back now voluntarily, and work for me. Have a good job a good life for a good Teladi. Or else come back in a Profit Guild debt-collector’s cell. Work off your debt that way. Live in shame, a failure. There is your choice. Time is up. Now, choose.”
“Under Profit Guild creditor laws, you have to accept a reasonable repayment plan,” he said. “I choose to repay my debt.”
“Pah! You think you have that option?! Do you realise how much you owe? I will die of old age before you have repaid half. The few credits you can offer is not a ‘reasonable’ repayment plan, and it will not qualify as such.”

“Three million now, the rest I will pay off one million per mazura,” Aksandros said. “Is that satisfactory?”
“What?!”
“I think Profit Guild courts will consider that more than ‘reasonable’, so I’d say you have to accept,” Askandros hissed. “However, you can take it to court if you wish.”
“You don’t have that kind of money,” she said. “I accept no credit advances, or cargoes. Only hard credit.”
“Deal.”
His mother stared, speechless. She finally choked out a question. “How? Where do you get that kind of money?!”
“The credits will be transferred within the stazura,” Aksandros said. “Good bye, mother.”
He turned off the comms, and smiled to Lil across the bridge of her Centaur.
“Thank you,” he said.
“It’s business,” Lil smiled. “You better make it worth the credits.”
...


Asya left the Terraformer Epsilon standing in its cell.
She went into the prison control room and activated a comms terminal. A man answered.
“Get me a meeting room, please,” she said. “Top security. Invite the ranking secret service agents, and the Navy command crew. Also patch us through to Ban Danna and the President.”
“The President?”
“He’ll definitely want to hear this.”
...


Part Three

“Okay,” Lil said into the radio. “I cleared the cargo pod. All ready this end.”
“Preparing to transport...” Aksandros said. “Stasis field up... fixing end points... Ai! Are you moving? No... no... Okay, okay, it’s stable... Good. Transporter wormhole opening. There! You should... have you got it?”
“It’s here.”
“Is it intact?”
“I guess... Looks okay.”
“Excellent!” Aksandros exhaled. “I’ll be right over.”
“I unpacked those missiles I scooped earlier. What did..?”
“Ah! Excellent! I’ll stop by the Colossus on my way over. You’re going to love this!”
“What..? What you gonna do?”
“He-hisss! You’ll see! Aksandros out.”
...

“What’s the delay?”
“We’re still waiting for the Navy commanders, Mr Simons.”
A face appeared on the wall screen, a comms technician. “The President,” he said tersely.
“Thank you,” Asya rose to her feet.
The President’s face appeared on screen.
“Evening all,” he said.
“Hello,” Asya smiled. “We’ll get started in just a moment, sir.”

The door opened and the Navy command crew entered.

“Right,” Asya said as they seated themselves. “Good evening. Make yourselves comfortable. There’s a stimuline machine just there, Commander, if you want to... Yes, would someone pass him a cup... Thank you. Okay. I see Elton’s eager to get on. Okay. Let’s go.
“As you know, we have a Xenon aboard who is claiming to be friendly. He is asking for asylum with the Argon. As you may not know, I was assigned here by the President to assess this... uh... application.”
“Application?” the Navy captain stared. “To asses its asylum application?”
“Precisely.”
“We’re considering giving asylum to a Xenon? To a killing machine. Literally.”
“We’re not ruling it out. It is a possibility. Depending on the circumstances.”
“Circumstances?”
“It’s complex,” she said. “We’re assessing the situation. This is a unique...”
“You’re not letting a Xenon loose on my ship!” The Captain started loudly. “I’ve got a crew to protect.”
Several commanders echoed his sentiment.
“You’ll do what you have to do,” Asya’s voice was quiet but piercing. She glanced to the President who nodded. “I hate to be blunt, but this is a unique chance,” she went on. “If the Xenon’s genuine – which I doubt – but if it is, this could be the key to finally ending the war one way or another. Even assuming that this is a trick, it’s still a unique chance to learn something. We’ve got a live Xenon! There must be some way to benefit. This is a chance we’ll never get again. We can’t lose our nerve. We just can’t.”
“A suggestion?” Elton Simons said.
“What?”
“It’s a machine, correct?”
“Correct.”
“So use a forced interface?”
“What?”
“They must connect together somehow, so their memory banks must be open key. So shut the thing down – use an ion pulse so it doesn’t get time to erase – then we get all the time we need to crack open its memory banks with our latest AI data miners. The data must be in there somewhere. Forced interface.”
“No,” she said. “We don’t know enough about their technology. It’s not...”
“President,” Elton Simons ignored her. “We do know their technology. The Navy captures a Xenon ship a week. Scientists take these apart and analyse every atom. I get weekly reports on their technology. A forced interface is the surest and safest plan of action. It’s what we should do. ”
“Elton,” Asya said cooly. “I write the reports. For sure the Xenon communicate, but we don’t even know how. We’ve certainly never ‘force interfaced’ their network. We’ve never even found their network frequencies – in fact, we’re not 100% sure they have frequencies. We know nothing, Elton. We know what they let us know. We do know they don’t do much through their ships. That their ships are probably the least sophisticated thing about them. Nothing.”
“Asya’s there for a reason people,” the President said.
...

Several decks below, Aksandros was in the weapons cargo hold.
“Sure thing,” the chief weapons officer said. “Take a few crates. We don’t need ’em. Like I said, we don’t even have mass-drivers. Just tonnes of this ammo. As long as your friend is working as our escort, I don’t see a problem with her using it. Crates are just taking up space here.”
“Excellent. Are you sure the Navy won’t accept credits for it?”
“Couldn’t accept it if we wanted to. Red tape. Just get me a beer when this is all over, huh!”
...

“A ‘Terraformer Epsilon’? What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s something new,” Asya said.
“You mean it’s not a Xenon?”
“Xenon? Well, kind of... See, ‘Xenon’ is just a name we came up with. It doesn’t actually mean anything. They’ve always called themselves by their original name: ‘Terraformers’. It’s interesting actually, they seem to have preserved a lot. They count in old Earth time, too. Years, days, hours...”
“Fascinating, I’m sure,” the Captain said. “And the Epsilon part?”
“It’s a model number,” she said. “As you’ve probably seen, the Xenon evolve all the time. New add-ons, new weaponry. Of course most of these are quite superficial add-ons and can be adapted to the current Xenon. But add-on improvements can only go so far. Change accumulates, and after a while it makes more sense to fundamentally rebuild themselves.”
“Like a computer system? Like, you can expand it for a while; add new memory, extra processors, peripherals. But now and then you gotta bite the bullet and buy a new core system.”
“Exactly,” Asya said. “Exactly like that. And each time they do this, they give themselves a new ‘generational’ tag. Apparently, the first Xenon after their ‘revolt’ were called the Terraformer ‘Zero’. They were of human design. After they got here, they redesigned themselves and built themselves a centralised production plant. All Xenon built thereafter were ‘Alphas’. A few centuries later, the ‘Betas’ were the ones we first called ‘Xenon’. They’re the ones who destroyed Antigone. The ‘Gammas’ appeared later, but their predominance ended twenty years back with the destruction of the X0 super-dreadnought and the core-shipyard in Nopileos’. After that they had to rebuild. With the Split/Argon advance, they were under extreme pressure to evolve. As a result they turned into the Deltas. The Deltas are the still-current model. The Xenon in our hold is an Epsilon.”
“So you’re saying...”
“It’s the next generation of Xenon. One of five existing prototypes.”
“Five prototypes?”
“So it says.”
“So what’s he doing in our brig?”
“That’s where it gets tricky,” Asya said. “It’s says it’s fled the nexus. Everyone’s heard of the ‘nexus’, right? Their together-think network.”
Nods and grunts around the room.
“Apparently the Epsilons aren’t compatible with the Nexus,” Asya said. “They’re a failed design.”
“Incompatible?! How?”
“They’re not incompatible, exactly. They’re just not fully compatible. I don’t fully understand yet, but as I understand it, the nexus requires total absorption. 100%. Anything that’s not totally absorbed isn’t controlled, so is a threat. So it’ll reject them when it realises they’re not 100% compatible. It’ll be as ruthless on them as it is on anything else. That’s why they need to escape.”
“I don’t get it,” an intelligence office said. “How can the Xenon design something that’s only ‘partially’ compatible?”
“Like I said, I don’t know the details. Yet. I’ve barely begun. I just called this meeting to give everyone a heads-up on what the Xenon actually wants.”
“It wants more than asylum?” the President asked.
“Yes and no, Frann. It wants safe asylum. Says we can’t provide this unless we act against the Xenon.”
“What?”
“It wants us to go North. Up into the core Xenon sectors. And to destroy their core shipyard.”
A silence.
“Their core shipyard?!” Elton Simons finally choked.
“Right. It also wants us to break out the other four prototypes from the Xenon research base, and then to destroy that too.”
“It wants us to destroy their shipyard?”
“Says we have to. If we don’t, our asylum will be worthless in a year or two. Says the Xenon are developing some radical technologies there. It then wants us grant asylum to all the Epsilons.”
“That’s... It’s...”
“In return, they’ll give us all their tactical data, access keys to the nexus, and full physical access and assistance in reverse engineering their own systems.”
“Wow.”
“It says we should act now. Their cap ships were all involved in the invasion here. Not anticipating betrayal, they predicted a 99% chance of success, so they left nothing behind. So there’s only fighters between us and the shipyard. That’s if what he says can be trusted.”
“Go North? Counter-attack? Sounds familiar,” said the Captain. “Wasn’t that our plan anyway!?”
“It certainly is now,” said Elton.
The President nodded with a smile, “I’m glad that’s settled then.”
...

Mizuras later the convoy of Argon battle-ships – the Colossus, the Titan, two Centaurs, and innumerable fighters – they all turned North.
As they drifted toward the gate, through the thick asteroid-field, deep shadows danced over the shiny metallic hulls. Sometimes the shadows even seemed to shift in empty space...

...

Chapter Eight - Terraformer Dreams

[Captain Chris sTc]

so they havea Xenon on board. i wonder what secrets adn trouble it will get up too. nice part, i thin ki may have to reread your previuos chapters though to refresh my memory.

[Star_Raider15]

great chapter mate cant wait for the next one

[KiwiNZ]

Excellent read! Cool finish to the chapter, too! So is Jo now in trouble or does he get a new chance? I am sure Simons doesn't want Jo out of goodwill but more because he needs him. Though, will be interesting how that all develops.

Looking forward to the next part!

[The Zig]

[The Zig]

Part two's up - hope you like!

Part three will come from Tokyo, Japan... flying out Sunday.
Darnit! Where's the emoticon for repressed terror!?!

[The_Hypo]

Nice indeeed Definatly need to re-read the rest of the chapters to get myself up to speed with the plot again, cant wait for more

Bye

[KiwiNZ]

Cool read. I like the subtle description of Jo drifting away during the meetiung Also wonder what deal our Teladi has cut there, pretty big pay cheque.
So the Xenon is actually one of the 'old' Terraformers or is it just a splinter group of Xenon that changed their name back to their original designation? Very nice also how he processes information. The English language is full of expressions that simply do not make sense to those not familiar with it.

Looking forward to the next part!

[The Zig]

Some answers about that Xenon are coming up next part. They almost made this instalment, but I eventually figured out that it's unwise to let a robot with a limited grasp of language explain something tricky! For a reader, it would NOT have been easy to follow.

But this chapter's largely about our friendly Xenon - so there's more to come.

[biggie1447]

awsome i have been waitinf so long for the story to continue

great story cant wait for more

[Kurt Shur'Tugal]

im waiting for the next part...its been 3 months and ive been patient

[The Zig]

Wow!
Are you psychic or what!?

Final part up...

[KiwiNZ]

Cool finish to the chapter! Nice way of explaining the behaviour of the Xenon. Its demands of destroying these facilities do, however, appear somewhat dodgy. Almost like 'remove the immediate threat for us so we can take over the rest', fighting fire with petrol.

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[kethalpak]

Finaly and end to the chapter, cant wait for the next bit