The dead station was strange, but what hung behind it was weirder. It was a moon, or at least it was half of one. The object was the right shade of rocky grey but was half of a sphere. The flat-top was covered in incomplete layers, as if the moon was being laid out by a massive 3D printer that had stopped mid-print.
“That’s weird, right? The moon?” Michael said.
“Yeah,” Aileena said climbing out of her pilots’ seat. “That’s weird.”
“It gets weirder,” Clive said. The cloud of nanobots moved its arm in a jerky motion and the holographic display changed, focusing on what looked like buildings. It struck Michael that the physical motion was unnecessary, no doubt part of Clive’s pathological need to think he was human.
“It looks like a city,” Mellok said. “That’s not strange, the records said people lived on the planet.”
“There are still people living there,” Clive said. “I’m picking up life signs.”
“Again, that isn’t particularly strange,” Mellok said.
“Oh right,” Clive tapped the side of his head, the cloud releasing a cartoon slapping noise. The viewscreen pulled out. The city was huge, but it was built in a long strip, a series of distinct rectangles, each identical in length, twelve in total. The land around them was barren, a dull lifeless wasteland. Further out, spires of jagged metal burst from the ground, the half-rotted remains of massive starships, beached onto the sand like whale bones. The strangest thing was what stretched from the narrow ends of the city. Long metal ladders slammed tight to the ground, gargantuan tracks trailing off into the wasteland.
“Is that?” Michael said. “Is that city a train?”
Chapter Thirty
Kestok examined the image on the monitor before him. He had hardly left the engineering bay, the secrets of Merydian technology proving difficult to crack. A lot of it was purely theoretical, or at least had been, until Kestok had watched it working. He knew it was a long shot, that the planet on the screen would still be an active shipyard or spaceport after all this time. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, the chance to have the only ship he knew of with two jump drives working in tandem. The second drive port was open, a long cylinder pulled out from the wall. Laying on the bottom was a burnt-out jump matrix. It looked like a simple silver cube, scorch marks covering its flat sides. The working matrix was still sealed within its drive housing. If Kestok had pulled it out, he would have seen the sides fluctuating, changing, smaller cubes sliding out of the sides of the matrix before shifting around and vanishing into another, the whole thing constantly twisting and changing.
“Are all worlds like this?” Skorra said. She was standing waist-deep in an open panel on the floor, grease clogging her fur. Kestok had set her the simple task of tightening the connections on coolant lines. Exactly how she had gotten so mucky working on clean rubber hosing was a mystery. “It looks so… dead. I don’t know what’s worse, the ice, or just metal and dirt?”
“No, most worlds aren’t like this. This is a graveyard.” Kestok reached inside the open drive, removing the matrix. It had been laying on the metal, though when working it would be suspended by the forces at play. It felt oddly heavy.
“Is that what we’re after? What lets the ship fly?”
“It’s what lets it fly through jump space, yes. This item generates an energy that can be channelled to both create a tunnel and screen the ship against the strange effects of jump space. We’re lucky we still have a working one; this one seems to have gotten fried from some energy back swell.” Kestok tucked it into the large pocket stitched to the front of the apron he was wearing.
Skorra leapt from the hatch with a quick hop. The young Merydian’s agility was proving extremely useful, reaching bolts or wires out of Kestok’s reach with embarrassing ease. “What would do something like that?”
“I’m guessing the ship tried to jump away, as the power was failing. It’s already dangerous to do it in the atmosphere.”
“So, when they were abandoning my people?”
“Guess so.” Kestok turned back to the screen, his mind drawn to the image. “This is crazy though. A whole city mounted on tracks. Why the hell would they need something like that?” Kestok rubbed at his chin, smearing soot across his blue skin. “Clive, can we get a picture a little ahead on the tracks?”
“Sure,” Clive said. He didn’t bother manifesting his form. “Hang on, I have to get Aileena to make some course adjustments to do that.”
“Can’t you just move the ship on your own?”
“Oh sure, but I think it is important that everyone feels useful.”
Kestok watched the screen as the image began to move, the massive ships acceleration unnoticed as its gravity systems absorbed the forces. The camera that was tracking the surface, a powerful hull-mounted telescope, drifted along the tracks. The metal rails carried on straight for what must have been miles, before coming to an abrupt stop. At the end of the tracks was a strange sight. Three huge robots, humanoid things with stooped hunched postures, were placing long sections of rail into place with one hand. The metal bars were held in huge containers strapped to their backs. Their free arm ended in a long, pointed apparatus, punching thick spikes through the rail they had placed into the ground. They walked backwards, two placing the outside track, whilst the third place the sleepers ready for the rails to lie on top.
“Why are they building the track? Making a city that big takes a long time. Why in the Rhythm’s name would you need robots to build the track now, wouldn’t it be done by now?”
“Robots…” Clive said, his voice trailing off.
“What’s a robot?” Skorra said. She strolled towards Kestok, slipping her wrench into her pocket. “One of those walking machines?”
“Yeah. They don’t just come looking like people though, you get all sorts.” There was a strange clank from across the room, just barely audible.
“So, the city moves along that metal?”
“Yes. It’s called a train. The rails let it move at high speed along a fixed path. It’s old technology, but reliable. They aren’t normally cities though, more of a kind of series of carriages connected together.”
“Like an automobile pulling a trailer?” Skorra said. There was another clank, louder this time.
“Exactly!” Kestok smiled. He found Skorra’s constant questioning endearing and the act of teaching rewarding. It was something he had never considered and had taken to it quickly. It was nice to talk to someone about engineering who didn’t roll their eyes every time. “But a lot of them at a time. You can put a lot of engine power into a train, so they can carry a heavy load quickly.” Kestok looked at his companion. He wasn’t sure exactly how old she was, often a problem for differing races, but his best guess would have been between sixteen or seventeen cycles.
“What are these?” Skorra pointed to the screen. There was a cluster of black dots, crawling across the wasteland.
“I don’t know. Clive, can we get closer?” Kestok said.
“Of course,” Clive said, placing a tendril onto Kestok’s shoulder. The veteran gladiator spun around, gripping the long metal tentacle that had landed on him in one hand.
The machine before him was strange, an orb covered in the same shimmering metal of the ship. Dozens of metal tentacles of various length stretched out from it, several holding it up from the floor whilst others waved like arms.
“What the hell is this?” Kestok shouted. He kicked out, slamming his boot into the machine. It toppled backwards, landing onto a set of its tentacles, flipping over. It continued its somersaults, getting some distance between them.