Heat and Light Read online

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  Logistics and planning can be a bitch when your trip involves traveling to distant galaxies to scratch around in the dirt for hidden treasure. Your list of necessary equipment and supplies grows substantially the longer you plan.

  Just to keep things interesting, both of the target galaxies held some very advanced interstellar capable races. One of those galaxies had three.

  Those residents might just possibly give a bit of a damn when we invaded their neighborhoods and started digging in their backyards. While we held the edge by having the S-drive and other Surron technology, there were races out there that would make Mr. Frease's mercs look like toddlers with squirt guns.

  Originally, there had been over a thousand data-caches spread throughout the sections of the universe that the Surrons had charted and explored. They were designed as a hedge against potential unforeseen galactic disasters. Over the eons, each data library had pinged Martin and the other Surron Library AIs every century to verify that they were still intact and functioning. Over several billion years things happen. Only two were still pinging. Martin told us that if a data-cache stopped pinging, it would self-destruct to prevent other species from finding them. A big boom, or rather melt down, would also occur if you knocked on a crypt door with the wrong code. Martin had the correct code, I hoped.

  The Surrons chose some very stable real estate in terms of the star systems in which they located their caches. The star systems we would be visiting were all white dwarfs. As stars go, white dwarfs have extraordinarily long lives. Since the first white dwarf star had coalesced in the universe, none have yet to burn out past their main sequence phase. The universe hasn't been around long enough for even the first one to fade into a black dwarf.

  The planets we would be landing on were both geologically cold and stable. Just solid and uninteresting rocks of no value. The Surrons also avoided using systems with gas giants, water worlds, asteroid belts, and any more than three rocky, uninhabitable lifeless planets. In other words, no place that was interesting to visit.

  We flipped a coin the see where we would go first. The only difference between the two was the neighbors in the hood. While we all had our individual talents, we relied on Hornblower for leadership and overall direction. He was our General on the battlefield. I called him that once, just once.

  22 Goldilocks

  We were in our first extraterrestrial galaxy, staring down the alley at a highly advanced species. A good recon was in order. I was going to say we were loaded for bear. But that would be impolite to our unaware hosts. To me, the dominate species here looked a lot like bears, at least with their clothes on.

  Our recon revealed a furry faced, upright postured barreled-chested, two arms and two legs, very inter-cooperative civilization.

  This galaxy, like every galaxy, has trillions or more different life forms from bacteria, viruses, single-cell plants and animals, all the way up to the larger eat-or-be-eaten critters. I will try very hard to personally stay out of the latter category.

  This is the Bear's home, so I preempted any attempt at assigning it a clumsy alpha-numeric designation. To us, it will be the Bear Galaxy, I don't care what the Surrons called it. I don't speak Surron and there are none left around to argue with me.

  Universally, all life is in competition. Competition with members of their own species, other life forms, their environment, and time. In creating life capable of manipulating its environment for survival and species dominance, Mother Nature seems to have taken a hard lean toward the carbon-based variety. Warm-blooded, bilaterally symmetrical, omnivorous, arms and legs, with good visual and auditory acuity seemed to be the most successful body plan for a species to develop past rudimentary technological levels.

  Nature uses what’s very abundant in the universe. Mix hydrogen, carbon and oxygen together just right and you have amino acids and other building blocks to make proteins that make club wielding savages like us. Yeah, I skipped a few steps here and there, but you get the idea.

  From the Surron records we have, a right and left mirrored exterior form was nature’s norm. It had something to do with the carry-over efficiency of single cell mitosis to the development of larger, more complex organisms. Life favors symmetry.

  Life forms with exoskeletons can’t develop the larger bodies needed for large energy sucking brains. Their internal squishy organs wouldn't have the support that internal bone structures provide against gravity. For them to exist and survive, they would have to evolve in a very light gravity well. Planets like that have little to no atmosphere and are not exactly bubbling cauldrons of biological soups needed for evolving life that walks and talks.

  Aquatic species that develop higher cognitive and sentient intelligence don't have the environmental pressures that prompt the need for extreme artificial manipulation of their environment. Having limbs that can work materials is not a bonus when your entire evolutionary linage depended on being streamlined. Sure, animals like the octopus can open a jar, but they can't make the jar. You can’t build a fire under water and wheels don’t work well there either.

  The same goes for any floaty lighter-than-air species. I put intelligent flying species, who have arms and legs, in the land creature column since they would spend most of their time on the ground or in trees. Those I call the raptor-rat. They could learn to control fire, as well as, add and subtract their way to the stars. That's about the sum total of my knowledge of biology and evolution. Ask me about machines, that's my comfort zone.

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  Our jump-in was undetected. In our galaxy, interstellar jump ships popped into and out of systems at the outer fringes of a star system.

  Unless you’re an engineer or a well-read civilian, you probably don’t know even the basics about Q-drives or Q-Coms. The first question I always get is how do ships avoid jumping into solid matter.

  Because of the physics of how jump-drives interact with real space, it’s impossible for ships to bump into each other or even anything larger than widely disbursed grains of sand or molecules of gas. Every sliver of matter has a quantum signature. Jump-drives, when active, have a very strong aversion to even the smallest clumps of matter. That aversion results in ship emergence at a slightly different location than planned if there is anything bigger that what comes out of a salt shaker in the way. The location difference is determined by the mass and distribution density of the already present matter. That’s why we humans jump in and out very close to the edge or just past a system’s heliosphere. A lot less of nothing out there. You get more accurate pop-in points.

  Detection of an emergence event is not difficult since widely disbursed tiny grains of sand, particles driven by solar winds, and gas molecules, in a ship's emergence volume, are pushed aside at very high speeds. This creates a small shock wave and light show. Sort of like a space fart. The speed limit of light determines when an observer actually sees the show.

  It's only through Q-Coms and Q-detection platforms that ship arrivals and departures are instantaneously detected and announced. A jump engine is a huge Q-beacon, even when not jumping.

  Q-Coms work using the different laws of physics in a specific dimension of quantum foam. Long ago, quantum communication required paired particles that were in quantum lock to communicate over long distances, one of the pair being at each end of the line. Change one and the other changed to match … instantaneously. That took a lot of paired particles and a major trip to get one half of them to where they would be useful. It worked, but not as efficiently as manipulation of the quantum foam.

  Our current system was developed by a pair of physicists, Patterson-Henderson way back in 2020, old calendar, well before we left humanities home solar system. Their discovery, and its application led to the first jump-drives. All a Q-Com unit needs is another Q-Com address to communicate, no paired particles required.

  Our S-drives worked a bit differently than human designs. The Surrons had figured out how to, not only hide the jump-drive signatu
re, but also prevent the shock wave light show by sending any offending matter to elsewhere during emergence. No muss, no fuss. No detection.

  We certainly weren't going to Q-broadcast our arrivals and departures in other galaxies. When we used Traveler in our galaxy, we emitted a fake Q-drive signature in settled systems so as not to alarm the human and AI natives. Nobody likes ghost ships. All in all, we could pop-in anywhere in a star’s system. We weren’t limited to the outer reaches.

  Surron engineers and physicists had also figured out how to pop-into much smaller spaces. That's what allowed Sojourner to exit and enter Traveler without passing through the flight bay doors and to be able to pop inside hollow asteroids.

  We parked well above the galactic plane. Or is it below? Perspective, remember?

  Soon after our emergence, Sojourner jumped out of Traveler's Flight bay. Traveler lay as close to dead in the water as possible. Her hull had been turned into a light sucking black hole. No reflections, just absorption. No rattle, no shake, no emissions, just another volume of the cold and dark. We weren't ready to see if the Bears could detect our cloaked ships. When cloaked, we didn’t occlude light or any other radiation when we were between an observer and a radiation source.

  Since we would need time to safely, and without damage, remove the library, this was not going to be a quick snatch and grab operation. We didn't want anyone sneaking up on our six while we worked. So far, we had not detected any signs of galactic warfare. None of the telltale 'pew-pew, zap-zap' of ship to ship maser-grazer-laser fire that populated the current holo-immersive space operas kids like.

  Sojourner's mission was to test the Bear's level of scanning and detection tech as well as to get in closer to get better intel on their civilization. The Zees had never studied this galaxy or its inhabitants. The Bears had not been around when the Surrons had last cruised through here to make their deposit.

  I was monitoring the dump chute from the bridge as we deployed our stealth drones. The drones weren't jump capable so we had to drop them close in to the five populated star systems nearest our target planet. Traveler and Martin, were munching on the data as it came in.

  ✽✽✽

  Today was T-Day. We were going to test the Bears. Our plan was to spring a fox-and-hounds scenario. Our fox was a drone close to one of their orbital stations. We named our drone Red Tail. It slowly uncloaked and started sporadically transmitting gibberish sweeping through random frequencies. The Bears would see that the source was moving away from their station on a tangential path through their system. Coming from nowhere and heading to nowhere.

  It took the bears about thirty minutes to actively respond. That was good for us. It meant they weren't on hair-trigger alert. We didn't want to kick over a bee’s nest, just wanted to get some idea of their level of detection and response.

  During that thirty minutes of relative inactivity, we did pick up increased communication chatter on their station. None of our parked drones picked up any tight beam coms, but tight beams are hard to intercept unless you’re along the path of the beam. In space, there’s not much that can cause diffusion scattering.

  We saw a ship push out from the station. It resembled a system tug from back home. A more military looking vessel then moved out as escort.

  We were starting to get the data we wanted. When we increase Red Tail's speed to just above the Bear's pursuit speed, they doubled theirs and the military ship started a hard, active scan. We increased Red Tail's speed again. After another minute, the tug reversed course. Another military ship, Boogie Two, darted out to accompany the first one.

  That one took a high-speed, end-run course to get ahead of the drone. They wanted to trap whatever was generating the signal between their two ships. We had enough data for this run. Red Tail dissolved at our command. We returned to Traveler after listening to them scratch their heads and asses. They continued their scans of the area for another hour. After finding nothing. They went back to normal ops.

  For the next day, Traveler continued working on learning the Bear's written and spoken language. The first step was finding data that was science based. As long as the laws of physics are the same, the science is the same. Math is math no matter what kind if chalk you use or the shape of the hand using it

  Sojourner and Traveler had successfully infiltrated a few of their dumber computers. That led to not only their data blocks, but also to their static libraries containing information on their history, culture, and tech.

  We also gathered data from their entertainment and news broadcasts. Underneath, they weren't so different from us. They were a bit more sanguine and less excitable a species than we are. To me, except for the occasional bubbly airheads, humans seemed to lean more towards the pessimistic, suspicious side, and ready to jump when confronted by the unknown. The big data score gave us valuable information about their version of AIs. That information would keep us and them safe. We should be able to avoid or distract their AIs if necessary.

  Target system Alpha was not on the galactic fringes, nor was it in one of the most populated areas. But it was in the suburbs. Once in-system, we discovered that there was a science research outpost on the Surron library planet.

  They were doing some work that required a very stable planet, no artificial emissions in the system, low gravity, and no atmosphere. We knew that the Bears hadn't found the Surron vault. Martin had checked in with it. We were expected.

  Even small planets are big if you wanted to explore them on foot or by land vehicle. There was a 120-klick separation between the Bear's small science outpost and where we would be dropping in. Not that we expected anyone to be looking out the window.

  To keep an eye on them, and prevent them from raising a red flag it they did detect us, we landed several drones around them at high points. These drones were capable of jamming any outgoing communications.

  This system had never formed an asteroid field, the planet had a fairly level and unmarked surface. After its early molten birth, there was not much around to crash into it. The surface was just a few millimeters of powdery, gray ash laid over smooth solid rock. The rock went all the way down until you reached a cold inert iron core. The surface powder was the results of billions of years of cosmic particle bombardment of the surface rock.

  The reason we made contact with the Surron AI in the crypt before we landed was to allow Martin time to complete the complex and encrypted quantum hand-shake verification. That gave Martin the opportunity to have the AI extend its sensor camouflage over a wider area. We would hide under that umbrella during the few days it took to extract the library, which would become part of the oracle.

  Traveler stood off just past the outermost planet of the system. Sojourner landed close to the hidden access to the crypt. We hadn't deployed any of our AI controlled fighters. There was no need. We also wanted to avoid the remote possibility of them being detected.

  The closest warships in this area were so far away that it would take them four days to get here. We had accounted for every military ship in the five closest systems. Their jump-drives were not as fast as the basic run of the mill human built drives.

  The exhumation process was a back-breaker if you were a bot. Hornblower, Martin, and I just watched over the process from inside Sojourner. We did get out a few times to stretch our legs. Martin did all the mental heavy lifting of communicating through Sojourner with the buried AI.

  I had expected we would be loading something similar to Martin's AI block, but the crypt held much more than that. There were hundreds of crates full of ancient artifacts and tech equipment that had belonged to not only the Surrons, but also from other species they had discovered and interacted with. We just might make more billions of credits if we released some of the less harmful stuff on to the human stage. I laughed when I thought about us opening up an alien thrift store. After all it was all used stuff, not in its original packaging.

  It took Sojourner five trips to Traveler to get all the crates transferred. It was the
beginning of our last half day that Sojourner mentioned, what he called, a small problem at the Bear's outpost. The small ship they had parked alongside their habitat had experienced a sudden, catastrophic power loss.

  Their back-up power had also failed with the primary. Their ship had provided, not only power but also, environmental support for their hab-units. The two Bears were going to die from either the cold or thirst. The heat was out, and their water systems were frozen. They hadn’t had time to get off a distress signal.

  I knew what Hornblower would do. I would to, so would Mica. Spacers didn't turn their back on people dying in the cold dark if they could do anything to prevent it. What we had no immediate plan for was how we would be able to stabilize their situation without revealing we were aliens from the great beyond. If we couldn't supply long-term stabilizing tech support, then the mission would become a scoop-n-dump rescue. The scoop part would be the easiest, the dump part, not so much.

  Beyond the simple fix I could easily do, trying to repair their ship's power systems was a two-fold challenge. First, how to do it while not being seen by the local pair of Bears, and secondly, how to ensure that any changes we made could not be later found to be alien technology. Any half-decent forensic engineering team would spot anything we did as the 'not of this world' variety, no matter how we disguised them.

  A quick scoop and dump was also a forensic challenge. A team of Bears would eventually arrive here and conduct in depth scans of the area, which would show that a strange vehicle had been around. Alien abduction anyone? They probably wouldn't tie it to aliens, but it still might cause a stir that would create unnecessary ripples in their culture.