Impulse, page 15
part #12 of First Colony Series
Diaz looked at Connor. “Do you hear this?”
Connor nodded. “I don’t approve of what Kasmon did, but that’s not why we’re here.”
“Connor,” Diaz said.
“Juan.”
Diaz stared at him for a few moments and then looked away.
“I’d like to make a suggestion,” Sepal said and waited for them to listen. “We’ve had success with tracking the Bhatdin at industrial centers, but the government buildings will have more information. I think we should conduct our search in those places.”
The Mekaal historian gestured toward a grouping of buildings near the center of the city.
“Do you think the Bhatdin’s address is just waiting for us?” Diaz asked.
“Yes,” Connor said. “It’s a good suggestion. The Bhatdin were hiding their presence in plain sight so that only someone with knowledge of the star system would be able to extrapolate that data. What if there’s more data related to finding them?”
Lenora smiled. “A beacon.”
“I’ll tell the pilot where to take us,” Connor said.
The Ovarrow city had once had parks throughout, but they were overgrown. At this point, only analysis by colonial computer systems could make a high-probability guess where those parks had been located. Connor wanted to avoid landing the Hercules on the outskirts of the city and having to drive the rovers in. They could do that if they had to, but clearing a landing field while minimizing the risk to the remaining structures was preferable. It would save them time.
They found a relatively open area where they only needed to clear a few trees to land the Hercules. The trees weren’t far beyond saplings, and much of the shrubbery looked less than a year old.
“They must have had a dry season here,” Lenora said. “It wouldn’t take much for a fire to start. We can confirm this with soil analysis.”
“Sounds like a job for a couple of students we brought with us,” Connor said.
“It does, doesn’t it? I’ll go tell them,” Lenora said.
The pilot landed the Hercules and they started gathering their field kits. They wouldn’t need to take the rovers for this since they were close to the area Sepal had pointed out to them.
Diaz sighed and looked at Connor.
Connor checked his backpack and then put it on. “This is the fun part.”
“I can’t wait. I wonder if there will be a few ryklar packs waiting for us.”
Sergeant Tui waved to them from the loading ramp. “Recon drones deployed. Ryklar deterrent signal activated. We’ll know soon enough whether there are any in the area.”
Diaz nodded and looked at Shuno and the other Konus. “Another parting gift that we appreciate.”
“The ryklar populations have been in decline,” Shuno said.
Connor kept his face impassive. The ryklar relocation program had been carefully guarded to avoid notice, but perhaps the Konus had learned of it somehow.
“Yeah,” Diaz said. “That’s a good thing.”
“Only to some,” Shuno replied and didn’t comment further.
They left the ship and headed toward a complex of Ovarrow buildings that Sepal believed contained data repositories. Paved ramps connected the buildings in an elaborate network of walkways. There were remnants of columns, and Lenora told them that the walkways had once been covered so the Ovarrow who had frequented this area would be protected from the elements.
Connor watched Urret and his squad of Mekaal soldiers, as well as the Konus soldiers, survey the area. They kept careful watch on each other but were also in awe of their surroundings. Connor could appreciate it. He’d traveled to other Ovarrow worlds and had seen cities this size teeming with life. The Mekaal had come out of stasis from a world ravaged by war. Perhaps they could remember a city like this before it had been destroyed, but not the Konus. Shuno and the rest of his squad were young enough to have been born after. Their parents were the ones who had survived stasis. They’d been raised with an extremely disciplined mentality to put the highest importance of the Konus as a group above the individual.
Connor had witnessed various attitudes toward the Ovarrow’s past. His own opinion of them had changed over time, but the divisiveness even occurred among the Ovarrow. Some resented the world that was, while others were envious of the life that came before. Then there were Ovarrow who chose to focus their efforts on building the future. They were survivors, much like the colonists, and they all had their differences.
They were walking next to a stone wall that was mostly covered with thick vines, the ends of which stretched out into the street. They made their way toward the Capitol complex, occasionally pausing to secure the area. Each group took turns exploring buildings along the street they walked down. Eventually, there was a break in the wall that was wide enough for them to walk through, and they made it onto the grounds.
With such a large group, Connor would have preferred that they split into smaller units to quickly explore the area, but he didn’t think that was a good idea. With so much mistrust among the groups, it made the most sense for them to stick together.
“Where do we search first?” Noah asked.
“We’re looking for data storage, which is likely located underground,” Connor replied. He looked at Lenora. “What do you think?”
“We just need a control room. Something that would be connected to their computer systems,” Lenora said.
Noah looked at the buildings. The domed-shaped rooftops had collapsed. “If we go crawling around in the wrong area, we could trigger further collapse. What about looking for power sources?”
“Let’s hold up a second,” Connor said.
The group came to a halt and the leaders came to them.
“A place as old as this isn’t going to have any power,” Connor said.
“Sepal,” Lenora said, “what do you think our best chance is for finding what we need?”
“It’s dangerous to go below. I would recommend trying to find the interior offices and see if we can use one of the consoles there,” Sepal said.
Connor looked around. There were more buildings farther away from them. He frowned and then climbed to the top of the wall. “What about the guard towers? Secure check-in locations. They’d have consoles with direct access. Maybe we don’t have to go inside any of these buildings at all.”
“Do you see one?” Lenora asked.
“Yup, that way. Not far,” Connor said and climbed down.
There were several guardhouses at the old entrances to the government complex, all in a state of severe disrepair.
“A place this big has to have a security operations center,” Diaz said. He looked at Sepal. “Where would it be? Part of the main building?”
“I’m not sure,” Sepal replied.
Connor engaged his personal holoscreen and brought up one of the drone video feeds. The drone flew over the complex and showed more areas where the rooftops had collapsed, along with several floors underneath. “Even if it was there, we can’t get to it. This might be a bust. We don’t have the equipment with us to start tearing things apart.” He frowned and looked at Shuno, but The Konus just looked back at him. “What about a secondary security center off the main building? Ever come across one of those?”
Shuno looked at Connor’s holoscreen. “Can your machine fly here?” he asked, gesturing toward an area.
“Yes,” Connor replied.
Specialist Weps had the drone fly to where Shuno indicated. There was a smaller guardhouse between buildings that looked to be more intact than the surrounding area. The way the other buildings had collapsed around it had given it shelter.
“Let’s go see what we can find there,” Connor said.
They made their way through the campus by sticking to the walkways while the recon drone hovered outside the building they were searching for. Connor looked inside and the entrance was blocked. He stepped through the threshold and tried to peer through the wreckage.
“We can’t get through that,” Noah said.
Connor shook his head. “Specialist Weps, think you can get the drone through? I saw some open pockets in there.”
“I’ll try, sir,” Weps replied.
She brought up the drone control interface, and the recon drone flew inside. She used its small cutting laser to slice through some of the debris blocking the path. It took her about twenty minutes, but the drone made it into the interior. The wreckage served as a barrier, but they saw a few consoles inside. Weps guided the drone toward the one that looked mostly intact. She opened the access panel and connected a power tap to the console. Then, using a power regulator program, she began to siphon some of the drone’s energy into the console. Standard protocols called for them to use the least amount of power first and then gradually increase it until they could begin retrieving data.
“Clever,” Noah said. “Good job, Weps.”
“Thank you, sir,” she replied.
Noah looked at Connor. “I like the new power regulator program.”
“It beats burning out consoles. It’s Lenora’s design,” Connor replied.
Noah looked at Lenora and gave her an approving nod. “Very impressive.”
Lenora smiled and shook her head. “It’s almost like I know what I’m doing.”
“I didn’t mean to say—”
Lenora grinned. “Gotcha. Some things don’t change.”
Noah gave her a slight bow.
“I’m getting a data connection. Beginning the extraction protocol,” Specialist Weps said.
Lenora brought up her personal holoscreen and opened a data comlink to the drone. “Loading the search parameters we came up with,” she said.
On their way here, Lenora had worked with Sepal and Noah to develop several search protocols designed for Ovarrow computer systems. The result didn’t rely on the translator, and they were able to conduct searches much quicker. Search results began to populate a data window. Lenora made the holoscreen bigger so everyone could see.
“How does the search work?” Diaz asked.
“It looks for references to things we associate with the Bhatdin, like the planetary logo and a few other things. It then looks for other references associated with those things,” Lenora said.
Shuno peered at the data. “Those are location references.”
After a few moments, another entry appeared next to the list of location references. “And these are coordinates,” Lenora said.
“Put them on a map,” Connor said.
Lenora opened another holoscreen, and a map of the continent appeared. Bhatdin locations began to populate, and Connor watched as more locations appeared. They were all associated with the planetary logo. Most were from large Ovarrow cities, but then a waypoint appeared far to the north.
“I think we’ve found them,” Connor said.
Lenora zoomed in on the northern waypoint. “There aren’t any cities there as far as I know,” she said and looked at Sepal.
“That is accurate,” Sepal said.
“Why would they build something so far away?” Diaz asked.
“Because they didn’t want it found,” Connor replied.
“That’s it? We just head up north? It’s thousands of kilometers away. Do you even have cold-weather equipment?” Diaz asked.
“We come prepared. All these other locations are Ovarrow population centers. We could travel to one of those locations to correlate the results, but that location right there just became ground zero for finding out more about the Bhatdin,” Connor said.
“He’s right,” Lenora said and smiled.
“I’m glad you’re excited, but how can you be so sure?” Diaz asked.
Connor snorted. “Because, like you, the Ovarrow don’t like the cold.”
Diaz glanced at Sepal and the other Mekaal. Several of them nodded—a human gesture they’d adopted. The Konus exchanged glances but didn’t offer any comments.
“Sir,” Specialist Weps said, “data extraction complete.”
“Excellent, thank you,” Connor replied.
They made their way back to camp. Now that they had a location for the Bhatdin, they had some planning to do. There were different kinds of dangers to be faced in the extreme north, and they needed to pull the most recent satellite imagery for the area. They’d camp here for the night and then head out first thing in the morning.
15
People loved their sleep. Connor looked over at Diaz’s sleeping form and sighed. Connor had always been a creature of habit. He could easily adapt to snatching a few winks when required and push himself to his utter limits when he had to. He even had implants to assist with negating the requirement for sleeping for hours at a time, but those days were gone. Connor required a normal sleep cycle like most other colonists. A good day meant getting six hours’ sleep. He just couldn’t stay in bed for eight, so four to six hours were normal for him. CDF medical doctors believed he’d used his specialized military grade implants for so long that they had changed his circadian rhythms and his body had adapted to require less sleep.
The sun had not yet risen. They’d camped just outside the Hercules.
He made himself some coffee. Noah walked over to him and yawned, so Connor gestured toward the pot of coffee he’d brewed.
Noah nodded slowly and sighed. “We’ve been traveling so much my body doesn’t know which time zone it’s in. Part of me was thinking we were back on Terra Research Station.”
Connor sipped his coffee. “Could be all the fresh air.”
Noah added cream and sugar to the coffee and stirred. He sat down next to Connor. “Maybe,” he said and sipped. “Being up this early makes me think you’re going to take me on one of those morning runs.” He grinned a little. “Remember those?”
Connor chuckled. “You loved SAR training.”
“It was more about the company. Me, you, Sean, Diaz. We had no idea what this planet had in store for us.”
“Is that why you keep working on solving FTL?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. This short history we’ve had here.” New Earth had held no shortage of surprises for the colonists. The planet was as dangerous as it was beautiful, but the colonists had been up to the challenge.
Noah shrugged. “I’d just like to have the option. We were always meant to leave Earth. That was one of the primary drivers for the Ark Program. Colonize the stars, which didn’t mean we stopped at the first habitable star system and never left.”
“I understand that, but we haven’t been here that long in the grand scheme of things.”
“Kara worries I’m obsessed with it, but I’m not.”
“Would you admit it if you were?”
Noah grunted and gave him a sidelong glance. “It takes one to know one.”
“Ouch. Touché.”
“We’ve learned so much since leaving Earth. We’re able to generate power at levels above and beyond what they could. Traveling between universes is no mean feat either.”
Connor refilled his cup. “We know how to use some Krake technology, but it doesn’t mean we understand all of it.”
“You’re right. It’ll take time. This is what I want to focus on for now.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually.” He sipped his coffee. “Seriously, if I had to bet on anyone figuring it out, it would be you by a long shot.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. A lot of scientists and engineers have worked on this—theories that require us to generate the power of the main-sequence star—and there are even some that say we need to generate the power of a whole galaxy. There’s no shortage of theories out there, even for the multiverse, which the Krake didn’t even understand completely. So, yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me. But what if I figure it out? Would you go back to Earth? See if anyone survived?”
“That’s easy. No,” Connor replied. “Even if you figure it out, taking a journey like that requires a lot of planning and preparation. But, no, I’m not returning to Earth. My life is here, Noah.”
“What if Lenora wanted to go?”
Connor chuckled. “She doesn’t.”
“How do you know? Have you ever talked to her about it?”
“Yes, we’ve talked about it. This is our home. Lauren and Ethan are here,” Connor replied and regarded his friend for a moment. “Would you go?”
“Yeah, maybe... I don’t know. I think visiting the second colony is more within our reach before we go back to Earth.”
They finished the rest of their coffee in silence. That was something he’d always liked about Noah. Sometimes they’d talk and other times they could both just sit there quietly. It made some people uncomfortable to do that.
Eventually, there was stirring among the Mekaal and Konus. Then the rest of the camp began to wake up. They spent part of the morning unpacking their cold-weather gear.
Diaz looked at Connor. He’d crossed his arms over his chest. “Minus thirty degrees is the average for that area.”
Connor nodded. “I bet you wish you’d kept that beard you had.”
Diaz grinned. “It might have helped.”
Connor walked over to Shuno and the other Konus. “We only have enough cold-weather gear to accommodate four of you. The other four will need to stay aboard the ship until we can set up camp, but even then, they won’t be able to go far.”
“I understand, General Gates.”
“Do you know anything about the region we’re traveling to?”
“No, most Ovarrow stay in more temperate climates.”
“Not even to explore?”
“I don’t claim to know all our history, but if these Bhatdin have been difficult to find, then perhaps our destination makes the most sense.”
Connor left them to finish packing up their equipment and load it back onto the Hercules.
Lenora walked over to him. “What was that about?”
“I was just asking if he knew anything about the northern regions.”
“Did he?”
Connor shook his head. “No, but he made it sound like the Ovarrow didn’t explore the colder regions.”
