“Hopefully? That hardly inspires confidence,” Ivona said. “What are you even talking about? Shields?”
“You’ll see,” Aileena said, entering a course into her console. “Hopefully,” she added in a whisper.
The bots were clambering about, hanging onto the walls and floor with their tentacles as the Sword blasted through the atmosphere of Eden. They needed to make sure everything was ready and in place. They had protested at first, their programming refusing to acknowledge the technology brought aboard. It wasn’t Merydian and therefore they weren’t to work on it. It had taken some gentle adjustments from Clive before they had gotten to work. Whilst he was capable of controlling them directly, it was taxing, and his attention was better spent elsewhere.
The work was still ongoing, technically, the final pieces being welded into place. It had been Skorra’s idea, a stroke of inspiration that had caused her to come running into town waving a burnt-out relay above her head. Kestok had been forced to calm her down before he could make sense of her babbling. Once Skorra was able to explain her idea clearly, Kestok had run with it, heading straight to the Custodian.
The result was the object being welded to the floor of the engineering bay of the Sword. It was one of four, two in the bay with two more tucked away in spare rooms. Each was a massive dull grey rectangle, thick cables protruding from each end that vanished into the tangle of wires beneath the deck, the floor panels pulled up to expose them. Long scuff marks flowed across the floor, the parts had been too heavy for the bots to carry effectively, forcing them to drag them into the Sword.
It was a simple idea. The power relays from the Sword were just more advanced versions of the ones Skorra was used to, but the logic and function were the same. A quick discussion with the Custodian revealed what she had expected, that the ones that formed part of Eden were just massive more advanced versions. Another technological step up, but the principle was identical. Eden had a vast quantity of spares it had never used. The populace it expected had never arrived, so it had effectively been in stasis, its parts unworn.
With a little help from the Custodian, the Sword had undergone an upgrade. The massive power relays, designed to support an entire world, had been wired into its system. Provided everything worked as intended, it would make the shield vastly more efficient. Or at least, that was the theory, it was still perilously untested.
The Sword had broken free from the pull of Eden’s gravity, accelerating towards the oncoming ships with impressive force. Clive was running the sensors, whilst Kestok controlled the navigation and Meggok manned the weapons. Clive still had restrictions that frustrated him greatly, working the shield was still strictly manual. The energy field had sprung to life quickly enough, the new components not impeding its activation. It was invisible, for the moment, though if a fight broke out it would shimmer when hit.
The Unmind ships had begun to turn, twisting around so their turrets could get an angle on the unidentified ship. They turned their heads, locking their baleful eyes upon the Sword. They hadn’t fired upon the Seeker, not yet, but they had no such qualms about the new arrival. There was a moment where they didn’t move, a single second of perfect motionless, then they opened fire.
Pulses of red light tore across space, crossing vast distances in mere moments. Even at this short-range, hitting an evading ship was difficult and the two Unmind vessels worked in tandem, spraying the area around the Sword with shots, rather than firing at it directly. The Sword didn’t bother trying to evade. It had no reason to, either the shield worked, or it didn’t, there was no point delaying finding out.
The first of the shots landed. They didn’t impact armour, or punch through decks, instead, vanishing into a blue ripple, a small section of an invisible bubble briefly visible against the dark of space. Then another hit home, then a third. Dozens followed, then hundreds, a constant barrage of fire landing as the Unmind realised the Sword wasn’t evading. It simply ploughed onwards, accelerating as hard as its engines could towards them. The Seeker trailed behind it, screening itself behind its bigger cousin.
It was getting closer, crossing the interstellar gap with surprising speed. The Unmind ships didn’t move, didn’t falter, simply pouring the ferocious might of their guns at the oncoming ship. It was at point-blank range now, though in space that was still a few hundred miles. It was close enough that there was no gap between the shots being fired and them crashing against their attacker’s strange energy field. Their eyes shined a brilliant red as they scanned the Sword over and over, trying to work out what was happening.
They wouldn’t survive long enough to work it out. Its systems filled with energy absorbed from the bombardment, the Sword finally made its move. The shield coalesced for a moment, a section becoming visible as a great geyser of blue light erupted forth. It sliced through one of the Unmind ships lengthways, annihilating it. A second shot punched through the other, followed by a blaze of smaller bursts shattering the remnants. The Sword had become a startling display of light, a deluge of sparks escaping from it like an exploding firework. It was clearing its path of debris, using the last of the stored energy to erase the Unmind ships from the stars.
Michael didn’t like being poked and prodded. He never had, even as a child. He remembered committing what he was sure was a detailed protest to getting his injections, though his mother had described it as a tantrum. Alien examinations seemed to consist of having cold metal scanners touched to his skin as often as possible. His mind danced back to memories of watching the History Channel at two A.M, to shows about people being abducted by aliens. The way he was being examined felt eerily familiar.
“So… any opinions, doc?” Michael said. He was laying down on a flat metal table beneath a large bright light. He was aboard the Sword, in a chamber that was either the medical bay or the morgue. It was hard to tell, the ancient Merydians were pretty lax about labelling and signage. Maybe they simply had never gotten around to it, the Sword had been the last ship constructed after all.
The Purnaxian stood next to him was examining a tablet, the swarm of nanobots that composed Clive peering over her shoulder. He didn’t need to; his eyes were literally everywhere.
“Your friend’s initial exams were right,” she said. The Purnaxian was a doctor. She wasn’t familiar with humans, but it was a step up from no doctor at all. “You’ve got a fractured rib. Some rest and it should heal, assuming your species has a reasonable healing rate.”
“I think I can speed it up, with the nanobots already in your blood,” Clive said. “Help hold things together.”
“Sounds good to me,” Michael said sitting up. He looked around for his shirt.
“That’s not the only thing. There is… something else in your blood. Something mechanical,” the doctor said.
“Yeah, the nanobots.”
“No,” Clive said. “These aren’t mine. They are nano machines, but they don’t belong to me.”
“Oh.”
“I would think that these were introduced to you when the collector took you. Perhaps some kind of tracking devices or the first steps of digestion? It’s difficult to say.”
“Whatever they are, they’re nasty little things. I’ve tried to remove them with my own nanobots, and they put up a fight. Self-replicating as well, so we’re at a little bit of a stalemate,” Clive said. His face was solemn, he didn’t like giving bad news.
“So, what does that mean, doctor…”