Chapter 13

Meanwhile the evil Cubes are up to new evil

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine times that of Earth. It only has one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive than Earth. Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture, its astronomical symbol represents the god’s harvest sickle.

The planet’s most famous feature is its prominent ring system, which is composed mostly of frozen ice particles, with a small amount of rocky debris and dust thrown in for good measure. At least 82 moons are known to orbit Saturn, of which 53 are officially named, this doesn’t include the hundreds of moonlets in its rings.

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and the second-largest in the Solar System, is larger than the planet Mercury, although less massive, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere. Rhea is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth-largest moon in the Solar System. It is the second smallest body in the Solar System for which precise measurements have confirmed a shape consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium, after the dwarf planet Ceres.

SSSB’s are small Solar System Bodies. Objects in the Solar System that are neither a planet, a dwarf planet, nor a natural satellite are listed as a SSSB. The term was first defined in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union, “All other objects, except manmade satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as ‘Small Solar System Bodies’.”

“Ok Sigrun what’s so important that you broke up a perfect dinner with Chizuko and Nina.” An irritated Max demanded.

“You remember that signal the saucer got off before we could ... we killed that Cube thing ... well both of them Max. We weren’t too worried because we thought it was for the Cree Empire and it was only travailing at the speed of light. It would be years before it arrived.” Sigrun started off her explanation.

“Yes I remember. So?” Max answered.

“Well we just picked up another one in this solar system.” Sigrun told Max.

“What you think another saucer got through?” Max questioned.

“No as you know we have our outer defenses and it was fast and easy to triangulate where the signal originated from.” Sigrun explained.

“And where did it originate from?” Max wanted to know.

“2007OR10, a large dwarf planet on the fringe of the solar system.” Sigrun laughed.

“You think the saucer is hiding on this 2007OR10 sending out an SOS to his buddies the other Cubes Sigrun?” Max had to laugh too.

“We don’t know Max. That’s why we called you. Oh, and one other thing Max. We recorded both signals and they are different, but that’s all we can tell you because we still haven’t been able to break their encryption, if there is encryption at all.” She finished.

“Don’t you think a flyby is in order Sigrun?” Max pointed out.

“Herfjötra’s crow Huginn is on it as we speak Max.” Sigrun answered.

“How do you and your familiars get used to those damn soap bubbles the Knight’s run around in. I mean your sitting on a TEC, well an overstuffed lounge chair containing a TEC to be exact, depending on a force-field to keep you alive out there in the cold vacuum of space. And I mean no weapons to defend yourself with.” Max all but moaned.

“That’s untrue Max. First we are the eyes and ears of the Ogomma, our mothership. Once the enemy is found we go forward to challenge the enemy. Our force-field can be configured to either shield us or make us into a sharp pointed lance to rip and tear at the enemy’s soft parts. Because we are unarmed the enemy usually underestimates what we are capable of. We depend on our speed, our cunning, and surprise as we yell out to our comrades, ‘It’s a glorious day to die, do you want to live forever!’, and charge forward in the face of Death itself.” Sigrun finished dramatically.

“Plus what she isn’t telling you is the damn things are nearly indestructible Max.” Kara inserted into our discussion.

“You don’t have to ruin a good tale Kara.” Sigrun laughed.

“When these things were first built they had projectile weapons and energy weapons all over the place. They all had to be attached to the pilot’s thrown Max, inside the force field. The problem the engineers found was synchronizing the force-field with the release of the projectiles or energy beams. The force-field stops anything from getting in or out when it is on. If something messed up that timing though your own projectiles bouncing around in the bubble would likely kill you. It also played hell with your air supply and the pilot himself. In fact the engineers found that the only time the bubble is really vulnerable is when the force-field is cut off momentarily. So in the end the ship itself becomes the weapon.” Göndul finished up the explanation.

“What do we know about this 2007OR10 Fred?” Max asked out loud for everyone to hear.

<Quite a lot really. 225088 Gonggong. The object is named after Gonggong, a Chinese water god responsible for chaos, floods and the tilt of the Earth. The name was chosen by its discoverers in 2019, when they hosted an online poll for the general public to help choose a name for the object, and the name Gonggong won.>

<At about 760 miles in diameter, Gonggong is approximately the size of Pluto’s moon Charon. It’s a minor planet and is likely a dwarf planet of the Solar System, and a member of the scattered disc beyond Neptune. It has a highly eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 34–101 astronomical units, or 3.2–9.4 billion miles from the Sun. As of 2019, its distance from the Sun is 88 AU, or 8.2×109 miles, and it is the sixth-farthest known Solar System object. Gonggong is in a 3:10 orbital resonance with Neptune, in which it completes three orbits around the Sun for every ten orbits completed by Neptune.>

<Gonggong is red, likely due to the presence of organic compounds called tholins on its surface. Water ice is also present on its surface, which hints at a brief period of cryovolcanic activity in the distant past. With a rotation period around 22 hours, Gonggong rotates slowly compared to other trans-Neptunian objects, which typically have periods less than 12 hours. The slow rotation of Gonggong may have been caused by tidal forces from its natural satellite, named Xiangliu.> Fred recited what he had learned off the Gonggong web site.

“It’s own moon?” Nina questioned.

<That’s what it says.>

“Could the signal have come from the moon.” Max questioned.

<Hard to say, just wait for the flyby.> Fred recommended.

Twelve hours latter

“Huginn is within 10,000 miles of Gonggong now Max.” Herfjötra announced.

“How’s he going to handle it Herfjötra?” Morgan decided to ask.

“He’s going to use Gonggong as an anchor point for his gravity-drive and slingshot around Gonggong and it’s moon. He’ll be going very fast but we’ll get real close to the surface. Maybe a mile or two from the surface. If there is an atmosphere we’ll probably skim it. He’s starting his run now.” Herfjötra announced and a picture came up on the projection TV screen in front of us. The screen jumped again and again as the magnification and focus changed as Huginn’s little ship got closer and closer to his target. He was within three miles of the surface when a massive visible ray of some sort lanced up from the surface of Gonggong and rocked Huginn’s little ship as the force-field polarized and turned black.

“Huginn has aborted his run and is heading home. I guess we learned something about Gonggong from that. I’ll have you an analyst of that beam in an hour or so.” Herfjötra told us all before disappearing.

“Is Huginn OK Herfjötra?” Max asked, concerned about the little crow and his ship.

“Nothing to worry about Max. It would take something much stronger than that to hurt one of our little soap bubbles as you call them. We float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, ha, ha.” Herfjötra boasted to everyone ear shot.

“Well that answers our question. Something is home and it doesn’t like visitors. How are we going to handle this?” Max asked the assembled group.

“I think we can safely assume it’s the damn Cubes, and I for one vote to just kill them. Can’t you just take an asteroid and let it do the dirty work.” Chizuko wanted to know.

“Chizuko my love I would normally agree with you, but we still have a heavily armed group of our Cubes out there still and we know little or nothing about them. This may be a time we can learn something. Besides it gives the girls something to do. Right Sigrun.” Max laughed.

“Right Max. First we test it’s defenses then we rip it’s head off.” Sigrun summed up the Valkyrie response to everything.

“Now, now Sigrun we need these Cube in one piece, and every now and then we need to question these people ... officers that are around them. Please, for this once keep them alive if possible.” Max pleaded.

“Then we will just probe it’s defenses and see what we come up with.” Sigrun chuckled evilly.

“What do they have Sigrun.” Max asked a week latter.

“Besides the giant culminated lazier they shot Huginn with the other day very little. We have managed to get several of our own remote probes on the rock and explore. What we found is disturbing to us Valkyrie Max. We need to put this before Chizuko and Morgan too.” Sigrun started.

“Ok but what did you find?” Max needed to know now.

“We think we found the Cube’s makers and they ain’t pretty Max, and they have a operational matter transporter. It’s just sitting there wide open with these Cubes and these ... these ... these other things coming and going through it. That’s why we all need to meet to discuss this.” Sigrun was subdued for once Max noted.

<Do you think they have anymore operational transporters Sigrun?> Fred asked.

“That’s just it! We don’t know a damn thing.” Sigrun complained.

<We need that transporter intact Max.> Fred told Max.

Days latter

<Look we know they have one operational matter transporter and possibly more. There’s no way to trap them on Gonggong as long as they have that back door out of there. We have to block their access to it, or at least figure a way to turn it off. If we can turn it off we hopefully can figure a way to turn it back on.> Fred started off the discussion.

“What am I looking at?” Chizuko asked, Max and Sigrun, holding up a handful of glossy 6”x8” color photos of what looked like Cyberdyne Systems T-800 Terminator endoskeletons like the one played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the old Terminator movies.

“That’s what we figure made the Cubes and runs them right now Chizuko.” Max told her.

“Those are just metal robots. We have robots like these at home they never get over a Class 3 robotics brain, and are only good for labor. That’s the law Max. Anything over a Class 3 cybernetic brain eventually suffers too much stress and runs amuck we found out years ago in the Empire.” Chizuko told us all.

“I think you’ll find that these are well above Class 3, what ever a Class 3 is Chizuko. For all I know they upgraded themselves. We have also found out that we were extremely lucky when we sent the Valkyrie in to handle them on the saucer. It appears that the Cubes are pure mind control power. It also appears that the Asgard Techno Wizards know a little something about mind control too because that fancy head piece of the Valkyrie’s is also protection from the mind control powers of these Cubes it seems.” Max explained what we now knew.

<I’ve gone over the records here on the Ogomma. You might not have been aware of it, but the Ship contains a duplicate backup of every record of the Cree Empire for the last thousand years or so. What I found in the records was a report that a cache of computer parts was discovered on the planet Abadose and brought to a college for them to study and experiment on. Soon that college fell silent. Shortly after that the Cubes began to show up all over the planet Abadose. I figure the college put one of the Cubes together and managed to activate it somehow. That Cube took them over, and soon the Cubes were controlling Abadose and all it’s people. Evidently these metal robot things are the masters, probably the inventors of the Cubes. In some way these masters lost touch with that cache of parts in your Empire Chizuko.> Fred told Chizuko.

“I think you are making a big mistake when your assuming these Terminator things of yours, our robots, are over a Class 3. I don’t think they invented anything. They are just labor robots.” Chizuko argued.

“Then that’s another reason to take them alive for questioning.” Morgan put in.

“Where best to set up your secert base than on a planet in a Empire Interdicted Solar System. How were they to know some of their creations would turn up there too.” Empress Chizuko laughed.

“We still need intelligence on the matter transporter before we can do anything.” Morgan put in.

“Maybe it would be better if we actually knew where that transporter went to?” Nina put in.

<Better yet we need to find the Asgard Techno Wizards and ask them a few questions before we do any of these other things.> Fred managed to laugh.

“But as you already know the Wizards moved their planet years ago and nobody knows where they are now Fred.” Chizuko reminded Fred.

<Maybe, but I figure it’s a lot easier to make it invisible than move it. In fact I figure now that they just used the mind control to make anybody visiting there think the planet is gone.> Fred laughed.

“What you think the Wizards have something to do with all of this?” Max questioned.

<Well think about it. Nobody really knows what a Asgard Techno Wizard looks like, and Chizuko just used the term cybernetic brain. Chizuko where did these Class 3 Cybernetic Brains to run these robots of yours come from?> Fred asked Chizuko.

“The Asgard Techno Wizards of course.” Chizuko answered.

<And the robots themselves?> Fred questioned.

“Oh they came from many places, but the best brains all came from the Wizards.”

<I checked the records and the Asgard Techno Wizards and their planet disappeared shortly after the planet Abadose managed to activate one of those damn Cubes and became infected with ‘the virus’. I figure we find the Wizards and we find out what this is all about.> Fred informed us.

“I guess a visit to the planet Asgard Techno Wizards home system is in order then.” Chizuko announced.

There was a lot of debate whether to use the Ogomma or something smaller. In the end a bubble fighter was sent to the Cree Empire with an update on what we had discovered, and the Ogomma was prepared to leave for Asgard’s home system.

By this time Earth scientists and Jet had taken the Valkyrie’s winged helmets apart and managed to duplicate what the girls were now calling the ‘Shield’. Jet and the other scientists didn’t really know what it did, or how it did it, but ours was doing the same thing as the Wizard’s were. We all agreed that the real test would be when we got to Asgard. If Fred’s hunch was right, and our ‘Shields” were working we would be seeing the planet Asgard in orbit around it’s sun.

So a week latter we were just outside the planet Asgard’s home system and approaching the planet Asgard on our gravity drive broadcasting on all frequencies that we wanted to talk to the Asgard Techno Wizards. Sure enough the planet was on our radar screen and we were getting closer.

While still a 100 AU, astronomical units or billions of miles from Asgard we were contacted by the Wizards. They used a tight beamed lazier to deliver their message.

“Cease your loud broadcasts on all bands. We have heard you and will communicate with you when you arrive.” The message simply said.

Arriving at the planet we took up orbit and waited for them to get back in touch.

“What does the Cree Empire want from the Asgard Techno Wizards. Our records show that we have honored every commitment to the Empire, Empress Chizuko.” The Wizards spokesperson beamed up to us.

“I am no longer Empress of Cree Empire. I am however Empress of Earth and as such I hold you the Wizards accountable for what happened on Abadose and Earth. We have reason to believe that the things we call ‘Cubes’ were invented by you and are why you are hiding now. We demand an explanation.” Chizuko spoke up.

“Standby an Envoy to explain our side of things will be arriving shortly.” The planet answered, and soon we picked up a object approaching.

When we were sure it wasn’t a bomb we allowed it to dock. What emerged was a Cyberdyne Systems Model T-800 Terminator with no real effort made to make it look human, but it was human sized. By this time nobody was shocked and we all had confidence that the Valkyrie were more than capable of handling these things.

“This is what a Techno Wizard actually looks like Empress. This is why most of our transactions are, well were, done over a video conferencing program Empress. Many ages ago our original human makers fought a war on our planet. The end result was that in that final act of war neutron bombs were used by both sides. In effect the whole planet was sterilized right down to the micro, microorganism, or microbe, which is a microscopic organismorganic level.”

“The few humans that survived were dying and knew they could not have any more children, so they all joined in an effort to create bodies and brains to transfer themselves to. They took up the study of cybernetics. “The scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine.” In other words, it is the scientific study of how humans, animals and machines control and communicate with each other.”

“After years of intense study they, we, were able to transfer their ... our ... personality ... what made them them into a cybernetic brain. Once that was accomplished it was simple to construct multipurpose robotic bodies for ourselves. Eventually all humans on this planet died and there was very little evidence that a war had ever been fought here. The neutron bombs killed all life, but left the infrastructure intact.”

“We went on with our studies of the mind and body and eventually created robots that we sold to many worlds including the Cree Empire. We warned the buyers not to try to increase our standard robot’s intelligence beyond the Class 3 unit, but from time to time we would have an outbreak and one would run amuck. Many of us still had high hopes that we could one day transfer ourselves back into a new compleatly human bodies. We even became noted for our body enhancements and our living creations like the Valkyrie I see here.” The robot went on.

“Meanwhile one group of us were trying to augment our minds and bodies to be smarter, faster, just plane better. While another smaller group was secretly working on mind control devices. When the Valkyrie were created there was a war going on between these two groups. Their winged helms are a prototype device to neutralize the mind control ability created by that second group. I also see that you have discovered it and managed to duplicate it. Bravo.” The robot clapped which sounded like rattling tin cans.

“Anyway the smaller group did perfect the Cubes as you call them, and as you’ve probably figured out by now the Cubes took over the small group. When we discovered this we quickly activated the mind control shields and tried to destroy the Cubes but they escaped.”

“Let me guess they had a matter transporter.” Max put in.

“Yes, they did. We discovered that the small group had plans to take over the universe with these Cubes. One Cube can literally enslave hundreds of people. Ten Cubes placed strategically could effectively control whole large cities. We are still hiding and searching for this rouge group of our people Empress. Is there anything you want to share?” The robot asked.

“Yes, we have found your renegade members in Earth’s solar system. Our problem is they have that damn matter transporter up and running and if we attack they will just run. What do you know of this transporter?” Chizuko asked.

“We can build one and we know the principle they operate on, but you really want to know where it goes. The only way to do that is to go through it, take a high resolution photo of the night sky, and come back and tell us. Since nobody has figured out a faster-than-light communicator your pretty limited, ha, ha.” The robot laughed.

“We can’t very well impersonate a robot or a Cube but you could Mister Robot.” Max told the robot.

“What you say is true, but what is in it for me ... for us Max. My cybernetics mind can last forever and I can change bodies like you would a suit of cloths. I’m immortal as long as I don’t get killed. Before you discovered us most beings had forgotten about us. I repeat what is in it for me ... for us Max.” The robot demanded.

“What do you want?” Max offered.

“While working on the mind control shield we discovered that we can create a link between our cybernetic mind and a human mind. We can control it or just ride along feeling everything it does, and no before you ask, we have not been able to transfer our personality, us, back into an organic host. We can duplicate ourselves into another cybernetic mind and become twins, but not an organic mind for some reason.” The robot explained their problem.

“You tried it.” Max asked.

“Of course we tried it. Over and over we tried it and failed. After we got off our sterile planet and found other human beings out there we tried. Who wants to be a sexless metal robot the rest of their life? We tried cloning, but no luck there either. As near as we can figure it, an uploaded mind is somehow bigger that a mere human brain. It grows somehow in the transfer. Who Knew?” The robot told us.

“You mean you don’t have sex?” Nina put in.

“I didn’t say that, but do you see any sex organs on this metal body! That’s one of the problems. The mind ... the brain knows all about sex, pleasure, and pain. It remembers it all. Feed it the right electric impulse, in the right place, at the right time, and walla instant sex, instant pleasure, but it’s not the same. I can remember in vivid detail every time I made love, but it’s not the same as making love to a real woman.”

“So what? You want to as you say, ‘ride along’ in my mind as I have sex. What’s to prevent you from taking over my body after I give you permission to ‘ride along’? After all the only thing keeping you from it right now is my activated Shield.” Max wanted to know.

“Well first the agreement we have, and second mine and your people’s making sure everybody gets a turn and doesn’t screw this up for everyone.”

“You will agree to help us eliminate this threat if we agree to let you ‘ride along’ Mister Robot. You have to have a better name than I Robot.” Nina asked.

“In a different life I was David Nina.”

“Ok David I’m good with the arrangement since Max here has to live with it, ha, ha.”

“Nina the surviving group was 90% women, I’m the minority in the group.”

“I can still live with it. I can communicate with her if I want to right?” Nina asked.

“Of course, but your not forced to. I’m told you will hardly even notice that we’re along for the ride, ha, ha.”

A month later

After a month of watching 2007OR10, 225088 Gonggong a small, 760 mile in diameter dwarf planet, with our small drones we knew just about everything that went on there. David was right these robots were being controlled by the Cubes, but no we didn’t know if they were some of David’s people or just Class 3 labor robots.

As far as we could tell every hour or so a robot came out of the 18 foot in diameter round portal standing upright in the middle of the large deserted warehouse like building. At the right angle you could see through the portal into another warehouse, only this warehouse’s floor was yellow not white. Sometimes the robot was carrying something, sometimes it was a Cube. We also knew that there were people in the other warehouse because we could see them being dragged around against their will. For some reason these humans were resisting. Were being allowed to resist? It was also plain that there was air on the other side of the portal for humans to breath. There was no air on our Gonggong side of the portal.

“Betty has volunteered to go through the portal and set up a line of sight communicator and then try to get pictures of the cancellations at night. She will set up the camera she has somewhere outside and then try to find out what she can before coming back here. If she is successful she wishes to be bonded to you Nina.” David told the gathered group.

“Can I meet her first David?” Nina asked.

“Certainly Nina, but you have to turn off your Shield.” David directed Nina.

“Ok I can do that.” Nina laughed.

<Hi, I’m Betty.> greeted Nina in her brain much like Fred’s communication but subtly different in her own way.

“Betty I think we’re going to be good friends.” Nina told Betty.

<You don’t have to talk just think and I hear Nina.>

“Your not the only one that speaks to us mind to mind Betty, Fred does that too. It’s better than talking to myself. Feel free to ride along any time you want Betty.” Nina laughed.

<Thank you Nina you don’t know how good it feels to actually be breathing air, to actually have taste buds again, the feel of air across your skin. How I envy you.> Betty described what she was feeling through the link.

“After we take care of this problem we can work on your problem and I’m sure we will eventually find a solution Betty.”

<We can always hope Nina, I have to go now.> Days latter Betty’s small stealthed pod safely landed and Betty infiltrated the warehouse. We all observed a robot carrying a box pass through the portal.

“Hey, I actually felt the link cut off when she entered the portal everyone. That’s really cool.” Nina told us.

“Ok, she’s just established the line-of-sight communicator and tied herself into it. Are you getting anything Nina?” Max asked.

“Only a general feeling Max. Like I know she’s nervous but Ok.” Nina answered.

“She should be through with her mission in four more hours Nina. That’s the time we budgeted her to get everything done and back through the portal.” Max told Nina. Sure enough four hours latter Betty was back.

“She’s back guys.” Nina shouted out as a robot stepped through the portal. Days latter she would be home, but hours after she stepped through the portal we had the high resolution pictures of the night sky’s constellations and the quantum computers were grinding away to find out where the other end of the portal was.

“Believe it or not the bastards are back in the Empire on one of the inner planets of the star Bentos. The third planet Ping has a climate and atmosphere just barely suitable for humans and that’s where they’re at.” Morgan gave us the good news the Ogomma’s computer had come up with.

Assault on Planet Ping

“Do we inform the Empire or handle this ourselves Chizuko” Max asked days latter.

“We handle it ourselves because we can Max.” Chizuko answered.

“We also do it because we don’t know how good the Empires security is?” Morgan put in.

“With one of those Cubes they could be controlling the whole Senate.” Nina added.

Weeks latter we knew what we were dealing with. Ping was mainly a rural agricultural world. Small cities surrounded by plowed fields for the different crops they grew. Other areas devoted to the growing of different animal stock for food.

The Cubes were in complete control of the five cities that surrounded their large yellow warehouse our spies soon found out by tapping into the eyes-in-the-sky satellites and communication system. Once again our creepy crawly drones managed to infiltrate the warehouse. From them we managed to learn the layout of the warehouse and establish a link back to our main base on Gonggong.

With David and Betty’s help we had discovered that the mind control signal had a major flaw. Well not to the robots, but to their human minions anyway. The signal could be amplified in a burst to knock out the humans for six hours. Six hours that we could use to assault the warehouse and shut the operation down once and for all. We could even coordinate the two raids on both sides of the portal now.

The Valkyrie had been conferring with their male recruits and upgraded their weapons and our personal armor. A EMP pistol had been added to knock out just humans and a helmet to block the EMP beam from our own brains first of all. The armament we now carried had vastly improved too. The girls were all mostly carrying MPS AA-12 CQB model 12 gauge automatic shotguns now. The weapon they were carrying was lightened to 10.5 lbs and shortened to 38.0 inches overall, but still retained the same 13-inch barrel length of Atchisson’s original. It is half a pound lighter than the regular model though and made of stainless steel and high strength polymer plastic now.