Chapter 17: Forward, march!

One of our probes had spotted the enemy!

“Let’s hear it,” I instructed Naomi.

“The Sarissa installation has been rendezvousing with the passive sensors previously deployed along the Assemblage Approach Vector approximately every two days,” the animated sunflower began.

“Within the past three hours, it visited platforms twelve through sixteen. The data downloaded from platforms thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen included high-priority tags and their full records have just been analyzed and verified. We have directly detected the Assemblage Ark and now have its course and speed precisely calculated,” Naomi reported,

“Let’s see it!” I exclaimed at the same time Riho spoke to ask if the sensors had been detected.

Naomi replied to Riho first, “Ambassador, no directed emissions towards any of our probes have been detected thus far. Therefore, it remains improbable that their presence has been noted.”

The sunflower then turned to me, “John, the passive sensor data does not allow for a detailed rendering of the actual Ark at this time. Uxe Esperanza is currently entering deep interface with the Phobos installation to assist with the deployment of a rapid response, close surveillance stealth probe. Wormhole activation should occur in approximately forty-three seconds.”

Ohmu appeared in the virtual just then. Her beautiful sultry-looking representation was wearing work coveralls. “Sorry I am late. My processing capacity was fully engaged doing telepresence duty on Vesta. I also have news.”

For the past few weeks, Ohmu had been busy doing double duty. Using the communications wormhole link to Vesta, she had been using her presence to remotely assist Rosie, Jonathon’s android ‘companion’ to tele-operate over a thousand mobile construction units.

The two minimal AIs were partnered with three humans: Jonathon, Sova, and Eydís ‘Zee’ Zabel, who were supervising the installation of the sensitive hardware for Acid Rain. Uxe was also aiding the group from Phobos when she had the time.

“What is it, Ohmu?” I asked.

“Jonathon reports that we are nearly fully operational on Vesta and will soon be ready for your arrival,” the beautiful raven-haired avatar said.

I needed to go there and physically create the activation keys which would trigger the device when needed. Jonathon and Uxe would have copies of the keys as well. Of the three, two would be needed to activate the facility.

I looked to Riho. “Are you ready for a trip back to where we received you into our system?”

“I exist to attend, John,” the alien replied.

I caught Riho admiring Ohmu’s virtual form. I almost snorted when the Hemru stood up just a bit straighter, projecting her virtual breasts slightly more than they had been.

“Naomi, when will you have the energy to transfer us to Vesta?” I asked.

“One moment ... Twelve seconds to Assemblage fly-by wormhole activation. John, intersystem transport for your party to Vesta will be available at various times beginning in twenty-six hours, twelve minutes.”

“Thank you Naomi.” I then turned to Riho. “We will transfer soon but I’d imagine the trip to Vesta could be delayed depending upon what we discover about the Ark.” Riho simply nodded.

Half the white virtual meeting room bubble blanked out and was replaced by an ultra-high definition view of the Phobos wormhole machinery. The purplish shimmer of spatial distortion was just beginning to form into a ring shape.

Around the main torrid ring, the gigantic surrounding momentum compensator coils were glowing brightly as they took in enormous energies and spun up their exotic matter to near light speed. The terminus for this wormhole was going to have a high spatial velocity.

I imagined a hole in space opening up in space over eight light-years away in the direction of Procyon. The hole was not stationary and was moving along at nearly seven and a half percent light speed, or slightly higher than the velocity of the Assemblage Ark.

The ring formed and there was a shimmer as a high-power telescope sensor was poked through the speeding distant terminus. The image shifted and now showed a slightly-redshifted star field.

“John? Are you there?” a voice said. I recognized the voice as Uxe’s. A new avatar appeared with us but as it was simply a dull and static image of my wife’s normal virtual appearance. I understood that Uxe was not actually animating the avatar and that we were only hearing her relayed thoughts audibly.

“Yes, Honey. Riho and Ohmu are also here with me.”

“Good, I have formed this wormhole approximately 90,000 kilometers beyond the calculated position of the enemy vessel. The wormhole has been accelerated to have a spatial velocity of about a quarter of a percent faster than the enemy’s 7.496% of light speed.

“That speed will give us a rate of closure of about 760 kilometers per second as the wormhole traverses past the enemy. The trajectory of the wormhole will skim by the Assemblage Ark at a distance of around 60,000 kilometers at its nearest point of passage.”

The star field jogged and slewed around quickly until it focused on a fixed point looking forward along the path of the wormhole. The view enlarged and stabilized, presenting us with our first direct, sensor view of the enemy Ark. I found myself involuntarily stepping closer to study the image.

Instead of a spherical object or something resembling most common asteroids, the Ark was very long and appeared wasp-waisted. Columns of data appeared alongside the slowly shifting image with indicators pointing to its length, width, and other dimensions. Uxe’s voice spoke up, saving me from having to scrutinize the data.

“The enemy Ark is roughly cylindrical with a length of fourteen point eight four kilometers and a maximum diameter of one point seven three two kilometers. The central shaft of the cylinder is smaller tapering inward from each end and measuring approximately one point two kilometers in diameter at its narrowest. The entire object is aligned with its current vector of travel and is rotating at ... four point six two revolutions per minute.”

I began to process the scale of what I was seeing and hearing. The Assemblage Ark was massive! It looked almost like a long dog bone ... or maybe two narrow ice cream cones blended together at their bases except that the tapering sides were gracefully curving rather than straight-sided.

The current view mostly showed the aft end of the Ark quickly growing larger as our point of view became closer. It was apparent from first glance that the large bulbous aft end of the Ark was scared and pockmarked with damage and impact craters. Data showed that some of the fissures were close to a hundred meters deep, illustrating that this end mass was solid.

“Targeting the surface of the object with a pinpoint laser scan ... standby,” Uxe said.

Despite needing to keep a low profile, we needed to risk exposing our sensor by projecting a few short bursts of energy required to do a spectral study of the makeup of the Ark. It was hoped that a shielded laser aimed at a bare-looking section of the Ark would not be detected.

If our wormhole was detected, it was hoped that our overtaking course would fool the enemy into thinking that we were something coming from the Hemru system behind it and not from our solar system ahead.

“No sign of noticing our laser.”

I caught new lines of data appearing next to the images. It was the preliminary analysis of the brief spectral scan.

“Iron with heavy traces of nickel,” I muttered to myself, after reading what were the most prevalent elements detected. The theory that the enemy Ark was originally constructed from an asteroid appeared sound. But what was up with this strange shape?

As our probing wormhole continued on its trajectory, overtaking the object, its aspect changed until we were looking at the long vessel from nearly side on. Our closer vantage now allowed new details of the narrow central link portion to become apparent. Most notable of these was that there were massive rings encircling the otherwise smooth curving inner segments of the long structure.

Unlike the uncluttered smooth tapering exterior of the Ark’s sides, or the rough asteroid-looking cratered bulbous aft end, these rings were studded with artificial-looking complexity. Perhaps they were antenna bands or weapon mounts? The rings were currently fixed in place but I could easily imagine that the bands could rotate independently of the main object.

“It looks like those bands can rotate?” I said to the others.

Ohmu responded, “If so, the bands would be an ideal place to mount sensors, energy projectors, or other equipment requiring positional accuracy. The overall object is clearly too massive to adjust its rotational speed quickly and efficiently. Spinning the smaller bands opposite the main object would counteract all rotation and thus offer a stable platform.”

“Or the bands could bring weaponry to one quarter independent of the main object’s rotation,” Riho added. “Also, note the locations of the bands are near the minimum diameter portions of the object’s central spine. This places them in the ‘shadow’ of protection formed by the leading end debris shield and therefore, they will be effectively protected from impact damage caused by collision with interstellar particles.”

We continued watching the flyby of the Assemblage vessel in silence until Uxe’s voice spoke. “I am detecting various energy emissions with some being periodic and uniform. None appear to be focused on the wormhole.”

“Likely radars or sensors of some sort,” Ohmu stated.

A new thermal image overlay appeared next to the high-resolution video. It showed that the curved inner segments of the Ark had numerous thermal hotspots. The ring bands were the most active but there were also various other patches on the curving main hull that were radiating heat. In addition to the hot spots, I was also able to see that the entire inner twelve-kilometer-long curving shaft was gridded with a fine hexagonal mesh of higher-than-background temperature.

“What is that web pattern covering most of the center section?” I asked.

Naomi answered instead of Uxe. My wife must be too busy to acknowledge our exterior input. “The AI advisory council deduces that the majority of the surface area of the object is covered with a superconducting mesh.

“A primary function of the mesh may be for the general radiation of excessive heat as this would be an effective and robust solution as compared to deploying vulnerable thermal radiators, although the dissipation rates are likely lower.”

Our fast flyby tour was now moving towards the front of the Assemblage Ark. It appeared that the ‘bow’ end of the enemy object matched the aft end with a similar asteroid-like shape and cratered texture. It was interesting that the number of scars, fissures, and craters was almost identical between the ends.

“Why are both ends damaged? Did the Hemru attack also target the bow?” I asked. I’d assumed that the Hemru would have attacked the stern as that was the direction from which their weaponry would have arrived from. As I made the statement, however, I realized that this was a complete guess on my part.

“There is insufficient information to answer with certainty at this time, John,” Naomi answered again, “However, early deduction would indicate that the visible damage is mostly due to interstellar debris impacting the object. Regarding evidence of the Hemru attack, residual radiation on the object’s trailing end appears to be the result of antimatter annihilation events.”

I processed that and was confused. Debris impact on both ends? Was it damaged when it left its home system? Did it flee an explosion? I asked Naomi to explain.

“It is logical to assume that at some point during the Ark’s long migration, it reoriented itself, bow to stern. This was likely due to accumulated impact damage.”

Ah ... that made sense. The Ark must have been designed for the long haul and had launched with two ‘front’ ends. At some point during its seven millennia journey, it had rotated to point its undamaged ‘reserve’ end towards the oncoming debris.

If that was true, the damage we were seeing on the Ark’s current ‘bow’ indicated that the flip had occurred millennia ago. Both ends appearing worn out with similar amounts of damage confirmed Picket’s statement that the Ark was near the end of its original mission. A new Ark would have had to have been created soon, or this one extensively repaired as the agent had directed us upon its arrival.

As a new window opened. It was a closer view of the curving inner shaft. As the view zoomed in we were able to see many small openings just rotating into view of the passing wormhole. Data appeared with the overlay showing an estimate of the depths of these openings.

“Is the center stalk hollow?” I asked.

“It appears to be at least partially so,” Ohmu replied. “I would speculate that the smoothness of the curving central portions of the object, as opposed to the asteroid-like shield ends, is evidence that the Assemblage ark was constructed by joining two similar-sized spherical metallic asteroids by a manufactured central structure.”

“That central structure is over twelve kilometers long and over a kilometer across! That’s a big construction project. Also, it has to be strong enough to hold the two metallic asteroids in place,” I exclaimed before adding, “Do we know the Ark’s mass?”

Naomi answered, “Volumetric estimates range from ten cubic kilometers to upwards of twenty-two cubic kilometers. If the object was composed mostly of iron, as indicated by the early spectral analysis, the mass of the object would range between 70 to 161 billion metric tons.”

Uxe’s voice broke in again, “I have detected additional microwave emissions which appear to originate from some distance away from the Assemblage ark. I am attempting to verify the sources of these emissions.”

On the display, our vantage point of the ark was now well ahead of the ‘bow’ hemisphere. The thermal scan overlay showed that there were three pinpoint hotspots on the bow. A window zoomed in on one of these.

“Machinery!” I blurted. “There is a structure mounted on the nose!”

It looked like a small metallic sphere stuck to the asteroid-like surface. The image zoomed in further until we could see manipulator arms attaching the new object to the surface of the Ark. I could see small flashes of light from the end of one of the arms.

“Is it a repair mobile unit?” Riho said.

Naomi answered. “That is highly probable, Ambassador. The unit measures just over sixty meters in diameter. Spectral analysis of the energy release indicates some form of electron beam welding is occurring on the metal surface of the Ark. The AI advisory council concludes that what you are witnessing is an ongoing repair or modification on the Ark itself.”

“Localized high energy microwave detections!” Uxe reported.

The images we were seeing lurched as the sensor stalk was withdrawn back into the wormhole. We were able to see one last quick flash as the wormhole was abruptly shut down before the main camera images went blank.

“Wormhole terminated. The high-energy microwaves were formed in such a way as to indicate active searching. It looks like the Ark noticed something after all,” Uxe’s voice spoke.

I looked at Riho and Ohmu. The alien’s virtual expression looked worried.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Hello, John!” Uxe answered instead of Naomi. Her previous static virtual representation was now fully animated meaning her consciousness was now free to fully join us in virtual.

She went on, “I’m not sure if the microwave radar beams were some random event or if they had indeed noticed our wormhole. What this means though is that next time we will use a deployed passive scanner probe for any close passes of the enemy ark. We won’t have live images but our spying will be much safer.”

A new display appeared. It showed a small object shaped like the enemy ark. Ahead of the object were three flashing icons. Trailing the ark were seven flashing indications. Indicators appeared next to each flashing mark. I studied the closest and saw that it was reporting a distance of just over two million kilometers. The next was about double that distance and this trend continued all the way to the seventh.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“We’ve determined that the ark has friends,” Uxe explained, walking towards the projection and gesturing to the closest.

“While our sensors were active, we detected periodic signals being emitted from the main ark. After each transmission, a reply signal was noted from the locations indicated on the screen. The delay time before detecting the reply pings was used to determine the distances to each source producing then,” Uxe added.

“Are they other Assemblage vessels? Other arks!?” I exclaimed.

Naomi responded. “They are some type of object flying in formation with the Ark, John. The AI advisory council has compared these new detections with the previously recorded data extracted from our deployed probes. No large objects were detected at the locations currently projected.”

“Sentries or pickets?” Riho said in a questioning way.

“That is the AI council’s conclusion, Ambassador,” Naomi responded. “There is a high probability that the objects are deployed sentries set to watch ahead and behind the enemy Ark. Note the increased numbers of objects located trailing the Assemblage vessel. This would be consistent with an increased defensive posture after having recently suffered an attack from that quarter.”

That’s right! The Hemru had attacked the ark almost a decade ago. Even if we were unsure what portions of the enemy ark that attack damaged, it was undoubtedly launched from Hemru space and would have intercepted the Ark from behind. The Assemblage would have taken steps against future such attacks.

“How will that affect our attack plans?” I asked.

Uxe answered instead of Naomi, “The initial attack plan should remain unchanged. We should deploy a spread of contraterrene warheads from an initial point well aft of the ark, likely over twenty million kilometers based on this new data. The spread will have a spatial velocity slightly higher than the ark. We will then observe how the newly detected sentries respond to our attack using a large number of stealth probes sent along after the warheads.”

Ah ... attack as planned but send along more observers. Then, if the enemy were able to detect and somehow intercept our weapons, we’d have a ringside seat of the action and be able to plan alternative attacks as required.

That would occur down the road though as over the next few weeks, we would be sending more stealth probes to perform close flybys of the enemy object. These plans were discussed for a few minutes before it was agreed to terminate the virtuality. Another meeting was set in the near future to review what we had just witnessed and after smart humans and AIs had more time to go over the recorded data.

We said goodbye to Uxe who reminded me would see her soon in the real when we rendezvoused on Vesta. With that, the virtuality winked out and I found myself back in my berth on Querencia. I was still awake and feeling the excitement of what I’d just witnessed in the virtual meetup.

Riho stirred next to me. There was just enough illumination in the sub’s berthing compartment to make out that she was watching me. Apparently, she had been returned to her shell awake or had been too excited to remain deeply asleep. Or possibly, Naomi had understood that we’d want to consider what we’d just witnessed while it was still fresh.

“Well, we have seen our enemy. What do you think?” I quietly said to her.

“It was remarkable! The overall size and shape of the Ark closely match the few vague memory fragments which I retain. The new observance has not allowed me to recall any new memories though. I am sorry, John.”

The AIs had scanned Riho’s mind data thoroughly after its retrieval from the Hemru interloper probe. They concluded that many of her memories had been erased from Riho’s mind after she had been recorded. Data about what the Hemru knew of the Assemblage and their ark had been frustratingly scant.

While the Hemru had undoubtedly recorded much data about the enemy ark when it had passed through their solar system millennia ago, they had chosen to not include that information with their recent probe, likely so as to not reveal their data gathering capabilities in case the probe had been intercepted by the enemy. But that caution meant we would have to learn about our enemy on our own.

“That’s alright. Our wormholes should allow us to gather the information we need,” I replied.

We were silent after that, each lost in our own thoughts about our recent exposure to our enemy. Finally, Riho rolled towards me and draped one leg over my thigh. She began running her hand lightly across my muscular chest.

“What are your impressions after witnessing the Assemblage Ark, John?” She asked.

“It was big! And it was also not like I expected ... although, I have to admit I’m not sure what I expected,” I replied.

“I was also surprised at the lack of major visible damage,” I added after almost half a minute. “I guess I was hoping to find the vessel half wrecked from the Hemru attack. Do you think they missed?”

“Much about the recent attack remains unclear,” she replied. “It might be that the anti-matter explosions which were detected were near misses. Or possibly the damage was repaired? Picket did indicate that the second ark to be built on your world was to bring additional energies to the first ark in order to make repairs and to alter the courses of both arks.”

That was true. The explosions we had detected would have alerted the enemy that it had a powerful threat behind it. Altering the ark’s course would likely result in any follow-on attacks not being able to locate their target.

“I’m just worried that the lack of damage means that there is some sort of defense mechanism in place that will limit the effectiveness of our warheads,” I said quietly.

“That would be highly unlikely, John. The differences in using wormholes to deploy weapons relatively nearby the enemy arc versus any attack arriving from hundreds of light years behind are telling. I would estimate that there can be no perfect defense against your pending attack.”

“Riho, it’s ‘our’ pending attack. You are in this just as deeply as we Earthborns,” I said.

Her hand had been working lower down my body as we talked. It now brushed my genitals causing a reaction. I slowly lost interest in discussing the enemy ark.

“Our rest was interrupted by the flyby,” she whispered and she continued stroking me. “Our bodies and minds are now too excited to sleep. Come, let us burn off some energy and remove excessive hormones. Also, it will leave you with more-pleasant last memories before tomorrow’s scheduled mind-data recording session.”