Adventures of the Starship Satori 4: No Plan Survives Contact (4 page)

A
ndy led
the team down into the caves. They were some sort of smooth stone, and definitely constructed, not natural. There was no way that gently sloping path had been created by water flows, or the almost polished surface smoothed by dust and sand. Someone had made this place a long time ago.

He snapped on the flashlight clipped to his rifle as the descended into the gloom. The beam lit an area ahead of him, letting him sidestep chunks of rock which had fallen from the ceiling. It seemed like the passage was twisting back on itself, maybe even spiraling down. Like a staircase, but without stairs.

"You guys are seeing what I am, right?" Beth said.

"That this place used to belong to whoever built the city?" Andy replied. "Yeah."

"OK. Just checking."

John was still bringing up the rear, watching their backs. And still looking nervous as hell. Something had scared him out there. Andy hadn't seen signs of anything following them, but it was certainly possible. It wouldn't hurt to have them all on their toes in here anyway.

"Stay close," he said. He popped his radio on one more time. The signal would never be able to penetrate the rock if they went much deeper, so they'd have to come back up at least periodically to see if the Satori was trying to call them. At the same time, it was worth checking out what lay beneath them. No sense having potential surprises on both sides.

"No answer from Satori," Andy said, snapping the radio back off. "Let's check the place out, see what's down there."

"Is that wise?" John asked. He kicked a bit of rubble. "Looks like there's been some damage. The caves might not be stable."

"I think it's smart to at least know what lies below. We turn back at the first sign of danger, but we'll be safer if we can at least know there's no danger in one direction or another," Andy said.

"Plus it would be nice to know if there's another way out, in case the Naga come down here after us," Beth added.

"Point taken," John said. "Let's proceed with caution though."

Andy grunted a response and took a drink. His water was a lot lower than he'd like. That was going to be their biggest problem. None of them were carrying enough of the precious liquid for an extended stay on the surface. At least it was cooler underground. It ought to get better as they went deeper.

The passage spiraled around a few more times. Andy checked his watch. It had been only three minutes since the last radio check. He'd lost track of how many times the passage had circled around when the place suddenly opened up in front of him. His flashlight wasn't reflecting from a nearby wall anymore - it was flashing on bits of exposed rock tens of meters away.

A sound came from somewhere in the cave ahead - the splash of something falling into water.

"Shit," he said. "Big cavern. Hang on."

Andy fished in a pocket. At least they had plenty of gear this time. He'd made double sure the team was prepared for just about anything he thought they might run into. Exploring a dark building that had been fortunate enough to remain intact was certainly on the list. He grabbed a handful of glow-sticks from a pouch and snapped them. Then he tossed a few out into the open space ahead.

The sticks cast a dim green glow around the room. The ceilings arched high overhead. And there clearly was water damage in this place. Stalactites dipped from the roof and stalagmites rose in small columns from the floor here and there. A quiet dripping was audible, and the smell of water was everywhere.

"Water?" Beth asked. "I thought it was all buried under that crap on the ocean?"

"We're below sea level here," John said. "Maybe what we're seeing is the water seeping through the ground, slowly leaking into this place."

"But why wouldn't the ratzards come in here and infect the place?" Andy asked. "Why would this spot be clear?"

He took a few steps out into the room, tossing a few more glow sticks. One of them landed with a splash. It sank half a dozen inches into an actual pool of water before settling to the bottom.

Seeing water was a relief. If they did become trapped down here for a while, that might be lifesaving. He took a few more steps toward the pool. As he did a darting motion under the water caught his eye.

"Guys, I think there's something alive in the pool," Andy said.

"Be careful," John said.

Andy grunted an acknowledgement. He knew enough to be cautious down here, or anywhere that had to do with the Naga. Who knew what else might be living on this planet? But part of him was delighted at the idea this place wasn't quite as dead as it had seemed before. He kept his gun ready, but leaned out over the water, peering down to catch a glimpse of whatever it had been swimming around in there.

The pool was larger than he'd thought at first. It ran at least twenty feet across and got deeper as it went further away from where he stood. There was no way to see the bottom, out there in the middle, and it made him uncomfortable. Andy backed away from the pool a bit. Just a couple of feet, but it wouldn't do to be caught flat-footed out there.

"I think this is a train station," Beth said.

"Really? Why?" Andy asked, turning back toward her.

"The arches. the tubes leading from this main room - see them?" She aimed a finger at things he had thought were just shadows on the wall. Now that she had pointed them out, he could see that they were indeed tubes.

"And that area there would be a platform," Beth said, pointed at an elevated spot a few feet away. "The tube we came down was probably some sort of maintenance or ventilation shaft."

Andy shined his flashlight on the floor, looking around for any signs of tracks. There was nothing he could clearly identify as such, but there was no certainty a race capable of building starships with wormhole drives would need physical rails for their trains. What Beth was suggesting was plausible, but he could think of a few other things the room might have been used for.

"What matters most right now for us is whether this place is safe or not," Andy said. "So far so good, but let's keep our eyes open."

"Agreed," John said. "I'll watch the way back. You two finish scouting the room."

Andy set off toward the right, letting Beth take the left side. He kept tossing little lights out to mark his passage, The cave was a very large one, ominous blackness pressing in from every side. He kept thinking that he was missing something, but damned if he could figure out what it was.

D
an stared
out through the Satori's windshield, watching Charline's steady progress. The woman had guts, he had to hand it to her. She worked her way down the cable tethering their ship to the satellite, coming closer to the thing one handhold at a time.

He'd tried talking her out of the move - briefly and half-heartedly. He didn't have any better ideas, and it wasn't like he could go over there instead of her. She was the one with the computer skills to hack her way into that thing. He was the guy with the piloting skills to get them out of there - and save the rest of the crew. Any time now they might be getting a visit from another Naga battleship. The clock was ticking, and there was still no way to even tell John and the others they were alive up here.

"Majel, how can I get in contact with the team down on the surface? The radio is controlled by the computers, but is there any way to bypass that?" Dan asked.

"Yes. You could send a radio signal from this laptop, in fact."

"Oh?" he asked, sitting up at the news.

"But the antenna is not strong enough to reach the surface by itself. You would need to tie the computer system directly into a stronger antenna," Majel said.

He slumped a little. The antenna vanes were outside, on the top of the Satori. He'd have to do an EVA to tie anything in to them.

Even thinking about the idea unnerved him. He'd have to get into a space suit, somehow forcing his legs into the right places while rolling around to get the thing on. Then get it all sealed up properly. Then the actual trip - without being able to use mag boots to keep himself secure against the hull. Without control of his legs he could bang into anything, send himself spinning off into space.

Dan ran a hand across a damp forehead. No way. Wasn't worth it, not even a little bit. Sure, it would be nice to communicate with John and the others. To let Beth know they were still alive up here. But the last thing Charline needed now was to have him distract her by banging around out there.

His hand was shaking as he keyed the microphone to talk to her. Damn it all. He'd never been afraid of space before. This was new and unwelcome. With an effort he stilled his hand and then pressed the button.

"Charline, how's it going out there?" he asked.

She had almost finished crossing the gap between the ship and the satellite. It was only maybe a hundred meters, but that was a long distance to travel one tug of a cable at a time. All while hanging feet down over a planet so it looked like any moment you might go plunging down through the cloudless air to plant yourself in the desert soil.

Couldn't happen, of course. They were orbiting at a sustainable speed. There was no worry about re-entry right now. The satellite was making little course corrections now and again, carefully keeping them in a stable orbit. Even if Charline did let go she wouldn't fall. She'd just drift along at about the same speed she was already moving, pretty much relative to the Satori and the satellite.

"Almost there," she said. "Few more feet and I'll be at the thing. It's big."

It was large for a satellite. But then, he knew from experience that it was loaded with ordinance. No telling how many missiles were housed in there. Plus the AI computer system itself. No matter how high tech the Naga were, it stood to reason that a real AI would take up a fair amount of physical real estate. Charline would probably have at least a guess, and would likely chuckle at his image of some desk-sized monster computer.

"OK, I'm here," Charline said. "Working my way over the hull looking for an entrance."

"What makes you sure there is one?" Dan asked.

"It asked me to come over there earlier, remember? It wouldn't do that unless it had a way to accept visitors for verification."

"Makes sense. Can you ping it back, ask it to let you in?" Dan asked.

"Tried, but it isn't talking," she replied.

The plan wasn't that complicated, but there was still a lot of guesswork involved. Charline had several C4 charges in a pouch of her suit. To make them work she was going to need to get inside the satellite, though. The hull looked strong enough that if she placed the charges outside the hull they wouldn't be enough to disable the AI. She was going to need to be in there. Place the charges. Then get out before they blew.

As plans went, Dan thought it was likely to get her killed, which is why he'd objected so strongly. But he couldn't think of any better ideas so he'd reluctantly agreed. Now that she was finally over there though, it seemed even crazier than it had when she first suggested the idea.

"Found a hatch!" Charline said. "It's got the right port. Going to plug in and see if I can hack it open."

Charline had one of the laptops with her, but it was completely disconnected from Majel. She was hooking it up directly to the Naga systems. All the AI over there needed was a whiff of Majel and a back-door into the machine, and it would attack. Majel was their best chance at being able to quickly reboot the computers and get the heck out of here. They couldn't afford to let anything happen to her.

"It's opening up," Charline said. She sounded excited.

Dan's own mood continued to feel subdued. This didn't feel right. If the AI was so smart, then why was it letting her inside with explosives? Even a dumb computer could detect and identify threats.

"Be careful," he said. "I really don't like this."

"I'm inside," Charline said. "Going to see if I can find the main computer as soon as this airlock cycles."

"OK." Dan watched the screen carefully. He tapped the laptop sitting next to him, activating the microphone. Something was rotten about this whole scenario. It was time to speak with their own AI.

"Majel, what's your analysis of this situation?" he asked.

"Please clarify question," she replied.

"Why is the Naga AI letting Charline in there?"

"Unable to determine due to insufficient data."

Dan sighed. He'd rather hoped that Majel would be able to tell him something he didn't know. "Speculate."

"Processing," Majel replied. "Possible interpretations include: the Naga AI is damaged or faulty - low probability as it appeared to be fully functional while attacking this ship's computers. The Naga AI believes Charline is Naga - improbable as sensor readings would tell it otherwise. The Naga AI believes that Charline represents no threat - which would indicate it has the means to neutralize her explosives. Highest probability is the third solution, with a ninety-three point seven percent probability."

Which was pretty much the same thing he'd already been thinking, but it was nice to have a second opinion. He keyed the radio again.

"Charline, I think this is going too easy," he said. "Why don't you come back over here and we'll find another way?"

"Too easy?" she asked. "I just had to hack my way through some of the best computer locks I've ever seen. It took some serious dancing. This is not as easy as it looks!"

"Charline, you're attacking an AI system with enough power to wipe every computer we had in under a minute," Dan said. "And you're doing it with a laptop. I know you're good, but..."

"Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I'll try laying the charges here just inside the door," she said. "Set. Returning to Satori now."

There was a long pause. Dan waited for the satellite's outer hatch to open up and Charline's head to pop out. The tension was so strong he had to remind himself to breathe. A couple of minutes passed.

"You OK over there?" he asked.

"Still trying to hack the outer door," she said. Another pause. "The computer's locked this thing down good, Dan. I'm gonna keep trying, but I'm pretty stuck.”