Ion Trail 7: Impossible

In the engine room, they’d pulled up the advanced diagnostics display, which showed a 3D projection of the ship. I peered at it for a second before looking to Clinton and Kyle for context.

“Okay, so we ran all of the normal diagnostics, right?” said Kyle, almost seeming excited. “And they all came back with the same thing. There was a second signal located somewhere near the bow. It’s really strange that it couldn’t get more specific than that. A hyperspace drive or even a transponder,” he paused and nodded to Clinton, “gives off a pretty strong resonance; that’s why they’re generally so easy to locate on radar.”

“So we pulled this up, and mapped the relative points of origin for all hyperspace resonance waves,” Clinton took over the explanation. “You see here, that’s the drive.” He pointed to the display where a flickering ball of light was overlaid on the projection of the ship. I glanced toward the bow, and frowned; he saw my expression, and nodded vigorously. “Right? The signature is there, but it’s not a single point; it appears to somehow be spread over the front of the ship.” I looked back at him, and then at Kyle and confirmed my suspicion; they were both excited, and looked very pleased with themselves.

“You’re not saying that this is somehow good news?” I asked.

“Oh no,” said Kyle, shaking his head with a manic grin, “No, we’re probably fucked.” Clinton shot his friend an exasperated look, but he too had a slight smile on his face.

“Look,” he continued, pulling up a different display. The hull integrity diagnostic? “I jiggered with the parameters a bit, trying to determine the source. Normally this diagnostic looks for debris, damaged plates, and micro-perforations. I added in a radiation scan, and tweaked the numbers until finally…” He gestured grandly at the screen. I scowled at his enthusiasm, and peered closely.

“What am I looking at?” I mostly knew how to read the results from these kinds of diagnostics. It was part of the training Grey Dwarf gave their pilots, since so many of us would be on solo-hauls like this was supposed to be. But I couldn’t make sense out of what the display showed; thousands of tiny motes, all over the hull but primarily toward the front, all of them sources of- I glanced at the parameters- subspace radiation.

“We think they’re nanites,” said Kyle. “All of them working in sync to act as a single hyperspace transponder.”

“That’s impossible,” I blurted out. “Nanites can’t do anything that complicated without a centralized controller, and we would have detected that far more easily than this!”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Clinton said. “But once we knew where to look, we found that there were also very, very tiny microwave transmissions that seem to propagate through the nanites in waves. They’re communicating with each other.” As he spoke, he tapped a few keys and I saw the image change to show waves of tiny microwave pulses sweeping across the hull, like drops in a pool of water, sweeping back and forth, overlapping and rippling constantly. Signals that small would be hard to detect against general background radiation if you weren’t specifically looking for them.

“Can you pick up what’s being transmitted?” I asked. He shook his head.

“No, it’s pretty heavily encrypted. Honestly, I don’t know that we’d be able to read it, even if it wasn’t.” He was probably right; what we were seeing was essentially impossible, by what I knew of nanotechnology. Nanites were capable of a lot of very fine, precise work but they had to be controlled by a central computing device, giving them their instructions and coordinating their efforts. These seemed to be actually communicating with each other, independently. This information created a lot more questions than it answered.

“Any ideas, guys?” I asked after staring at the screen for another minute. “I’d like to know how the hell they got there, but more importantly, we need to figure out how to get rid of them.” Neither of them said anything, so the three of us just sat there for a bit, each lost in their own thoughts. I still found it hard to believe that nanites were causing this problem, nanites far more advanced than anything I’d ever heard of. It had to be the black ship, I reasoned. All of the previous logic was still in place, as to why anyone would even want to track my ship, and this new wrinkle of impossible technology just pointed toward the black ship not being just a rogue element or a pirate of some sort.

It hit me then, and it made sense. Not the solution, but the delivery method. The black ship, while it was doing whatever it did to take down the datasphere, had seeded these nanites into space around the station, and we’d flown right through them.

“Hey, uh, do you think you could configure our sensors to pick these things up, now that we know they exist?” I asked.

“Maybe?” said Clinton. “They’d have to be transmitting at least the microwave pulses or else they’re so much space dust, but I think I could. Why?”

“Beginnings of an idea,” I replied. “Not to remove them, not yet, but how to avoid running afoul of them again, assuming we get out of this.”

“Well, as for removing them,” said Kyle, hesitantly. “Why not just try the easiest solution first?” I looked at him and waited for him to continue. “We could, you know, just… scrub them off. They’re on the hull, not inside of it, so we could potentially just physically remove them.” I tilted my head, considering. It’d be tedious work, with a lot of checking and rechecking, but it was possible. Except for one thing.

“We can’t do that in hyperspace,” I said. “To go out there, even with a suit, would expose you to so much radiation that you’d fry in minutes.”

“I know,” he said. “We’d have to drop out to do it, but it’d work, right?”

“Probably,” I admitted. “But we’d have a very short margin once we dropped out before we’d have to be away. If they’re actively tracking us, and we have no reason to believe they’re not, they’ll be able to tell where the transponder dropped out within… hours, tops. We could have as little as a day to clean them off, and get gone.”

“Well, let’s think a bit longer then, but it’s a plan if we can’t come up with something better,” he said. I agreed. It wasn’t ideal, but neither was anything else about this whole situation. So long as we didn’t go where they expected us to, we’d have that margin, and it might be enough, if we were quick. I glanced at the time and was surprised to see how late it was.

“You guys should get some sleep,” I said. “We’ll talk again in the morning, see if we can come up with anything better.” They agreed and I stood up to go. A thought occurred to me, so I paused in the door way. “And you guys are both geeks.”

I headed back to my room. I’d thought about stopping into the cockpit just to check on things but when I remembered that urge to flip the switch, I decided it was better to stay away for now. As I opened the door to my cabin, I heard a soft sound, and turned to see Diaz poking his head out of his room, blinking at me sleepily.

“What’re you doing up?” he asked through a yawn so vigorous that it made me want to yawn too.

“Clinton and Kyle found something out,” I said. “Not enough to move forward with a solid plan yet, but it’s a start. We’ll talk more about it in the morning.” As I spoke, he stepped out into the hallway. He was wearing his pants and an undershirt, but no shoes, with mussed hair and sleepy eyes. I smiled at the picture.

“You’re cute when you’re all sleepy,” I teased him. Having some sort of plan had taken a lot of the tension off; not all of it, but a lot, and I was feeling good. He looked at me as though he wanted to say something, and I just lifted an eyebrow, still smiling.

Suddenly he stepped forward, grabbed my shoulders and leaned down to kiss me. I froze for a second, surprised, before I shoved him back with a hand on his chest. He was much stronger than I, but he didn’t resist for more than a second, stepping back and looking confused.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snarled at him, furious. He stepped back further, flinching from my tone, his hands held wide.

“I thought…” he said, and gestured vaguely between us.

“You thought?” I said, still angry, but since he was already as far back as he could be, I managed to wrestle my temper back into check. “You thought what, Diaz?”

“I thought that you, you know, liked me,” he said, and the sadness in his voice was just enough to defuse most of my remaining anger. “You’re always joking that I’m pretty, so I just…”

“Damnit Diaz,” I began, then stopped, took a deep controlling breath and tried a gentler approach. “Julio, listen. I do like you, but not like that.” I sighed, and leaned against the wall by my door. “You’re a good guy, but I’m not looking for anything right now. Especially not right now.”

“I understand,” he said, disappointment plain in his tone. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Look, there has to be a boundary, alright? I’m the captain of this ship, and you’re my first mate. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you, but this? This isn’t going to happen, okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and gave me a sheepish smile.

“Go to bed,” I said, turning to my door to do the same. I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye, and reach to open his door. “Oh, and Diaz?” He paused, and I hardened my voice again. “This never happened. Got me?” With that, I entered my room and closed the door.

I spun around and just flopped back down onto my bed, eyes unfocused. What the hell? I thought. I didn’t even think of the guy that way. I mean, he was cute, and under other circumstances, for instance where could just jump in my ship and fly away, I might have been interested in a fling with a handsome station guy, but Diaz was… Diaz. It was like kissing my little brother. I shook my head and hoped that this would be the end of it.

Instead, I thought about the nanites. The word ‘impossible’ crossed my mind several more times as I considered the how and the why, and I thought about the challenges of removing all of those microscopic machines from my hull. I wondered if they were heat-sensitive? It wasn’t like we could take a blow-torch to my hull, not in space, but maybe we could figure something out. Maybe cold? We did have nitrogen on board, part of the cooling system; maybe we could freeze them off and dispose of them before they recovered? I wouldn’t mind getting a sample if we could do it safely. But no, it was too risky. Just remove them and go. Who could I have do it? I only had two space suits. Clinton was an obvious choice; his career in salvage had given him experience with this sort of thing, but who else? It couldn’t be me, as I would have to triangulate our location and plot a new course before we were discovered. If we couldn’t come up with something better between us, I’d call another meeting to see what skills my other passengers might have between them. Though my mind continued to wander from scenario to scenario, I was satisfied that we had the start to a way forward and I finally managed to fall back to sleep.

=+=

“I imagine most of you are wondering why I gathered you here,” I said. That line felt like it had been used up centuries ago, but the words were already out of my mouth and I noticed a few smirks from the gathered passengers. “Well, things have changed, and not really for the better.” No more smirks, now. I glanced around, meeting the eyes of my co-conspirators standing in the group. Clinton had his arms crossed, and Kyle fretted with his sleeve unconsciously. Harper kept the same level expression that she always did and Diaz’s expression was openly worried, though he knew what was coming. “We’re not going to make it to Proxima Tau.”

I expected an immediate uproar, but aside from a few muttered epithets, the group stayed silent. Braced for questions and accusations, I didn’t know what to do for a moment until I saw Sister Estrada smile encouragingly at me. I coughed unnecessarily and spoke again. “The black ship is tracking us.” This got more of a reaction, but they quieted down surprisingly quickly. None of this was going according to expectations, and it was frankly freaking me out a bit. “We have a- a plan, to stop it from tracking us, but we have to stop. We can’t go on to Proxima Tau.” I didn’t mention that we’d possibly consigned that station to the same fate as Kestrel Station; I would bear that burden quietly with the few people who already knew.

“So what does that mean?” Craig asked, with a nervous quaver in his deep voice. No one else spoke.

“It means we’re going to drop out of hyperspace, probably tomorrow morning,” I answered. “You all know that I don’t want to do this, but I think it’s our only option.” I glanced at June and Sister Estrada. They’d only been told this morning, during breakfast. They controlled their expressions well, but I could tell that they were nervous too. “Once we stop, we’ll have to remove the transponder, uh, and I’ll plot a new jump once I know where we are.” Assuming we didn’t die right away, of course.

“Are we going to run out of food?” Caroline, the concierge, asked, and I glanced at June before quickly answering.

“I don’t know, but I do know that June and Melva are doing an outstanding job; we’d have been out of food days ago without their hard work.” There were murmurs of agreement. You could see the hunger in people’s faces, but no one complained, and no one had anything less than compliments for the meals provided by the rancher and the priestess. “We’ll just have to… to keep going. I’ll get us to the nearest station or inhabited planet, and we’ll be able to get all the food we can eat then.”

As before, there were more questions that followed, but the tone was entirely different. The questions were less frantic, less accusatory, and sometimes someone else jumped in to provide a suggestion before I even had a chance to speak. Several times I was complimented on how good a job I was doing and by the time it was over, I was even more overwhelmed than I had been the first time. I took my leave and went straight back to my room. When I arrived, I found that the priestess had followed me quietly. I could see that she wanted to speak privately; I owed her that much, and more, so I gestured her into the room ahead of me.

“May I sit?” she asked. When I indicated she could, she sat in the single chair, facing toward the bed. I took a seat on the bed itself and waited for her to say what she needed to say.

“You look…” she paused, looking at me thoughtfully for a moment. “Startled. Perhaps a bit confused.”

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed faintly. “I guess I am. That meeting didn’t go anything like I thought it would.”

“What is it you expected?” She had a small smile playing at the corner of her lips, as though she knew exactly what I expected. Still, I answered anyway.

“I expected shouting,” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Panic, accusations. Not… that.” I waved a hand back toward the cargo bay that I’d just left.

“Do you know why you got… that?” she said, speaking and waving her hand in deliberate mimicry. I shook my head mutely. I wanted to cry but didn’t understand that, either.

“They trust you,” she said. “You’ve gotten us all this far. We all owe our lives to you.” Each sentence felt like a fist to the stomach. I reached up and squeezed my temples between my fingers and thumb, hiding my eyes from her.

“But I screwed up,” I said, unable to keep my voice level. “I didn’t even detect the transponder, Clinton and Kyle did that. I didn’t ration the food, that was you and June. Organizing the cargo bay was all Diaz, and Harper, she, she-“ my voice broke in a sob, and I stopped talking, trying to rein it back in.

“Susan,” she said gently, reaching forward to put a hand on my knee. I flinched, but was glad when she didn’t withdraw her touch. “You can’t do it all. You’re just one woman, a remarkable one, but just one.” I couldn’t help it. All the stress and fear and confusion just poured out, and I cried. She just made quiet soothing sounds and gently patted my knee until I’d cried it all out.

“This is what leadership is, child,” she said, once I was through. “You see what needs to be done, but you don’t have to do it all yourself. You’ve delegated marvelously, and that’s a large part of why we all trust you. You will get us through this. I have faith; in Jesus, yes, but also in you.”