“That bitch can stuff an apology up her ass. I’ll rig a sling. We need to get away from the crack so we can communicate with the team.”
I’d been right. Whatever was inside the crack had cut off transmissions. That might explain why no one had come looking into the crack until now.
“Jolene,” I said pulling away from Tuffs. “Did emissions from the damaged ship in the crack prevent mayday transmissions from getting through?”
“Affirmative.”
“And you didn’t think that was an important bit of intel for me to know?”
“Well, I never,” Jolene said, insulted Southern ire in her tone. “You told me how to answer. Your exact words were”—my own voice came over the deck speakers—“Stop. Request minimal information in response to questions.”
I cursed at myself and the snippy AI and when I stopped cussing, Jolene was silent. Was I supposed to apologize to an AI? She was Southern, so I figured yes. I snapped the armor sleeve on over the plaz-skin and Inviso-Dermis. I felt no pain at all, which was probably a bad thing. I flexed my fingers. No pain. I figured that wouldn’t last long, so I better apologize and then fight while I could.
“I’m sorry, Jolene. Please tell me about the ship transmissions. And tell me how many people were aboard theSunStarwhen it went down. And was one of them named Evelyn?”
“USSSSunStarand the USSSMorningStarwere in a near-earth orbit battle with the PRC and the Russians. It was two nations against us at the time, thanks to a temporary alliance between the Ruskies and the Perkers. I took a helluva lotta damage and ended up with a dozen crawlers inside me,” she said, proving again that AIs didn’t hold grudges. “The crew fought ’em but things wasn’t going real well. Then the Bugs showed up.”
Jolene hesitated, oddly for an AI, and her voice lost some of its Southern twang as she began speaking again.
“The WIMP massive-particle propulsion accelerator had been hit, so we dropped into the upper atmosphere to get away and to give the crew time to launch evac pods. We were incapable of providing future assistance to theMorningStar. The crew got away. The CO stayed behind and, together, we were able to use the forward WIMP engines to maneuver us away from populated areas.
“My hull began to break apart during reentry, at a damaged section halfway between the forward and stern WIMP engines. The rear half hit the existing mine crack and caved in the mine, creating a much larger crack and damaging the WIMP engine. Massive particles have been leaking ever since.”
I dredged though what I knew of WIMPs, which wasn’t much, so I tapped my Berger-chip and let it give me the information. My chip dumped a version ofHistory of Physics 101into my brain.
WIMPs are weakly interactive massive dark energy particles, discovered in 2027 by physicists Ladasha Carter and Alexei Romanov. Initially the particles interacted weakly, meaning that they passed through the container walls. In the course of two months, Carter and Romanov discovered that WIMPs were far less weakly interacting in the presence of ionized neodymium, a rare earth element. A matrix of neodymium atoms in a crystal were able to contain WIMP particles, which then could pass through a quantum vacuum and back, instantaneously, carrying anti-WIMP particles and energy with them. The WIMP, the neodymium, and the vacuum, created truly unlimited energy in a system that was easy to create and totally stable. The physicists and their engineers vanished into the US military complex and, by mid-2028, a top-secret particle-based energy propulsion system that could be used in or out of atmospheric conditions was in production.
Simultaneously, researchers in China discovered a second WIMP particle and entered the race to create an engine system using the WIMP2. In an unprecedented race for the planets, both nations had WIMP engine prototypes capable of intra-sol-system space and atmospheric flight by the end of 2028, though there were hardware problems in flight that resulted in multiple deaths among flight crews on both sides.
Within four years, in early 2032, China sent an automated vehicle to Mars, using instantaneous Entangled Neutrino communication to control the ship. The flight took forty-two days. China followed it up with a manned flight in 2035, and claimed the entire Martian planet for the People’s Republic. The European Union, the U.S., and Russia all took offense, and in 2037, all three sent manned vehicles to repudiate the claim. It is believed that tech from the alien “Bug” spaceship retrieved by the European Union in 2036 assisted in the allied WIMP engine development. Ultimately, the Mars debacle and the alien tech led to war.
I shut off the chip’s info flow. Everything had led to war. Every single thing.
Aloud, I said, “So the WIMP engines are leaking, and the EntNu can’t communicate.”
“Except with me,” Jolene said, sounding apologetic, “and that’s only been for the last six-hundred twenty-five days. It took me that long to convince the CO to run a hard line down into the crack.”
“But the MS Angels know about theSunStar. Maybe from the line you ran down?”
“Possible, Darlin’, but not likely,” she said, her Southern accent back strong. “As to your other question, that might present a theory. The second in command of theSunStarwas Captain Evelyn Raymond. While my records don’t indicate that anyone except the CO was aboard theSunStarwhen I went down, they also don’t indicate that Captain Raymond ever placed herself in her escape pod.”
“She was on board the ship when it went down,” I said.
“Speculation. But possible.”
“She’s the Evelyn they were talking about. And she somehow ended up riding with the Angels.”
“Or she’s their prisoner. My records indicate that Captain Raymond would never violate her oath of service, which would include disclosing the presence or location of theSunStar. Never.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But prolonged drugs and torture might have changed that. You’ve been here for years. So, now, we have to rescue Mateo, question some of the MS Angels, kill them all, maybe kill Jagger, and figure out how to rescue Captain Raymond, who is MIA.”
A second jolt of artificial energy shot through me from theSunStar’s med-bay.
“Piece of cake,” I finished.
“Your suit’s reading hunger, Darlin’. My stores can provide sustenance, though the crew made it clear that the cake was not up to human standards.”
Piece of cake. Right. I chuckled. “Okay.”
