Chapter 20: The Ice Planet

Horti followed Sammy, Kareg, Aubrey, and Heather through the portal from Orma Chatzke’s atrium into a hanger of extravagant dimensions.

“This is the biggest dreadnaught I have seen. It is four times the mass of the biggest carrier we have,” said Kareg excitedly. “I read an article about it last week. It has a device the Emperor used to enhance his powers. He destroyed ten hostile Destroyer pirate asteroids in one day.”

“Mmm, that sounds like a record I wouldn’t mind trying to break. I haven’t had a chance to destroy any asteroids this week; I was too busy looking over your shoulders,” Horti giggled.

“Heather, you are lucky to have avoided our time in the bunker on the base,” said Aubrey. “You probably had a wonderful day enjoying the sun while lounging around the pool.”

“I went with the estate’s younger bugs to swim in an underground lake. It has algae that produce eery light. They are growing Earth fish down there. We caught the fish you had for dinner. I missed Horti doing a new trick.”

“There was nothing to see. We held hands, and then we were in Orma Chatzke’s atrium. It was scary in the bunker. It was worse knowing later we would have died if Horti hadn’t got us out,” said Sammy. “I had no useful function and sat around most of the time. Not much of it was useful, but I had time to think. I know how we can modify a pod to use magic, and I know how we can duplicate all the medical and surgical functions so it works faster and better. I worked out how we can condense rehabilitation time even more.”

“Patent the idea. Maybe you will make some money out of it. We need as much money as we can raise to buy our farms,” said Horti. “I wonder how long we will hang around here waiting for someone. I have done enough twiddling my fingers today to last me for a century.”

“That is the military for you,” said Kareg. “As I spoke, I saw our transport coming towards us.” What is that hoop they have on that truck thingie?” Heather asked.

“Great, it is a portable secure portal. I am relieved we won’t have to drive anywhere with the maniac coming our way. That will be a relief,” said Kareg.

Four armed soldiers jumped off a vehicle floating ten centimeters off the ground. They lifted the portal off the back and assembled it upright. One of them pushed several buttons. The portal first hummed, then whined. The surface shimmered.

The NCO turned and saluted Kareg, dressed in his formal uniform.

“General, will you and your party follow me? We expected you to arrive in the anteroom near your staterooms, not in our most distant hanger,” said the sergeant ushering them through.

“We are in the stateroom enclave. Your butler will show you your rooms later. Admiral Arsames wants to see you in his small conference room. There is a refresher next door if any of you need it.”

The group shook their heads.

“Then I will take you to meet the Admiral. The Admiral behaves informally. Please remember, even though he looks laid back, he is the most senior flag and general officer in the Empire.”

The sergeant led the way, striding along a short passageway.

“Here we are; please walk in ahead of me.”

“Admiral, I found your guests in hanger 26 B near the special forces assembly area after they triggered an intruder alert. This is Gen. four square Prof. Kareg Grikolok and his proteges, originally from Earth and the same city as our Emperor. We have Horti, Aubrey, Heather, and Sammy,” said the sergeant, silent for the first time since he introduced himself.

“Thank you, sergeant; you may return to your duties,” the Admiral turned to his guests as the sergeant strode out. “Call me Yoyo; I prefer informality. I was surprised when Orma Chatzke insisted you join me on this mission, and I was not to tell the Emperor anything about Horti and what she does to help me. The trip will take us eight hours. We have time to talk.”

“You can’t afford to go through the gates as you discovered the Naturalistas installed identifiers and trackers. It will compromise our stealth mission,” said Horti grinning.

“Horti, Orma Chatzke said you are like Jason, but she thinks I will benefit from your company. She told me all your friends are exceptional people and you are a black hole for trouble. I am to watch the extended version of your story, so I can understand who you are and get some idea of your potential,” said Yoyo. “We will break for refreshments in an hour.

“Did the sergeant major talk incessantly as you made your way here?”

They grinned.

“He is consistent, a motormouth, but an excellent soldier. Horti, the floor is yours. My assistants will join us in thirty seconds.”

Two men and two women joined them at the table. Yoyo introduced them before Horti fired up her hologram.

“Horti, you are so much like the Emperor. You surprised me, and that does not occur often. I can’t imagine how you managed to get around with that awful prosthetic leg. It is one tiny step up from a small column of metal. Your history was even more unexpected, and the predictions about you were gripping. Your unique genes, not of this multiverse, provide me with the key element that convinces me you are who you seem to be,” said Yoyo. “If you are like Jason, you may find a unique way to rescue Craig.”

Yoyo pointed to the food on the tables against the wall. “Help yourselves.”

“What do we know about the ice planet, Yoyo?” Horti asked.

“My assistants will present what we know of the ice planet and the prison below it. They will tell Kareg, you, and your friends what plans they have considered. Afterward, I would like to see if you can present alternative strategies.”

The first presenter started a giant hologram from the front desk. She showed the planet black from a distance but white when close, in the dim light of day, from a blood-red sun so distant it was barely visible.

The colonel informed the assemblage that the ice was one hundred and seventy-five kilometers thick above the prison, deeply embedded in the rock below.

“We hacked the Dinnion prison system. We can broadcast codes that will allow us to use the portals. We will send the codes; they do not know we have them, send down several gunships and take over the prison. It should be simple. My team did the hack. They don’t know we have it. We will surprise them.”

“Would anyone on your team like to comment, Horti?”

Horti nodded to Heather.

“If I led the Naturalistas, I would establish bases. A prison like this is ideal. Few people go there, and you can make it your base, run the prison, and use its facilities as needed. That way, no one will notice traffic to and from the planet. We know they are devious. I love being devious. If the enemy is onto me, they will hack my AI. If the enemy knows about us, they will find the codes I want them to have. I give you odds 99.99:1 that no gunship that entered those portals will get to the prison. Then they will wait for you to drill, and you will fall into their next explosive trap. They probably have a portal to the nearest planet. It is in the range of simple portals. We drill down, and we find explosives in the ice. They are long gone when we finally get through, and the place blows up when we get inside.”

Yoyo laughed. “Well done, Heather; I could not have done better myself. Next presentation, please.”

“I was going to drill.”

“Next.”

A petite young woman switched on her hologram.

“I thought about the problem, as did Heather. I want to find the nearby bolt-hole exit. I send scouts to nearby planets to find cloaked positions and escape routes. I can’t think of another way to get down there besides drilling. I would go down at an angle to avoid mines buried in the ice. I would enter the rock several kilometers away from them and follow the cavern to the prison. I am sure they have mined all the approaches from above. I would expect booby traps in the cavern.”

“How long would it take?” Yoyo asked.

“We could do it in two weeks, but I cannot find a way to save the prince.”

“Next.”

“We block portal traffic, scout the nearby planets, and take the secondary base. We transport troops inside the prison when we are in range. Then I would try the method of the Emperor to get down to the prison by using transdim missiles to create a shaft for our gunships,” said the final colonel.

Yoyo opened his palm and indicated toward Horti.

Horti indicated to Aubrey.

“It is a good plan. We may be able to help improve your plan. This is what we could do,” said Aubrey. “We must consider all the options carefully. None considered the makeup of the ice.”

Aubrey explained in detail what he proposed. Yoyo grinned. “You guys have a great future. Let’s try it your way. We will use our portal blocker as a backup. Why was Horti so sure you could solve the problem?” Yoyo asked.

“We faced such a problem previously in the game. Distant planets like this one usually has different ice from those closest to the sun. We haven’t applied our techniques in the real world, but everything we learned works here,” said Aubrey. “Yoyo, may we go to the adjacent solar system to theirs so we can test our methods? Any similar ice planet would be good. We will also need to use your engineering facilities,” said Aubrey.

Yoyo grinned, then nodded. “You guys do add value. Orma Chatzke told me she was impressed with you, but I was skeptical. I should have believed her; she has never misled me. Now off with you all. You guys follow them and see if you can find useful tips.”

The four colonels guided Horti, Kareg, and her friends to the portal to meet the chief engineer.

“Where will you guys need to set up your equipment?” Yoyo asked.

“We can put our stuff in a small conference room next door. Once we switch it on, it will continue independently,” said Aubrey. “We had time to build four times as much as we needed, so we have some backup in case of machine failure.”

“All four of you are versatile and capable strategically and practically,” said Yoyo. “What skills do you need to master.”

“We must learn to fight as well as our peers. We are behind our contemporaries but not far behind the average. We are aiming to be excellent fighters but lack practical experience. We know nothing yet of telepathic fighting. They started us on unarmed combat, then added throwing weapons, swords, and assault rifles. We start telepathic fighting in two weeks. We are well-practiced in the art of magical warfare in the game, but not practically. They are giving us plenty of training, but we will take time to close the gap,” said Sammy. “We get extra coaching in fighting as a bug thanks to Orma Chatzke, and Queen Basarab arranged extra coaching in sword fighting and unarmed combat.”

Yoyo nodded sagely.

“I will take you to the hanger. There is a massive hologram in the special forces assembly area where you arrived. It will help you orient yourselves.”

Horti nodded to Heather.

“Are you ready, people?” Heather asked.

They nodded.

The shield is up. They are not reacting. Good luck.

They ran through the biggest portal Horti had ever seen and were transported down to the asteroid below into the base.

The special forces group was already cloaked. They ran past several gunships, placing explosives on them as they raced up the tunnel.

Ten minutes later, they found themselves back on the ship.

“Yoyo, it went well,” said Heather. “They didn’t detect us. We don’t need a rest. Let’s get the other two done. We took troops through the rock into the bases on the escape planets.”

The other operations went just as smoothly.

“Are you ready to hit the prison?” Yoyo asked.

“Sammy, please switch on the machines,” said Aubrey, nodding.

Sammy turned the switch on the machine and pointed the device toward the ice.

“Yoyo, can you get the sensors to look at the composition of the ice and show the makeup in colors, blue for ice, red for hydrogen, and yellow for oxygen?” Heather asked. “That way, we can see how quickly it works. Can the AI also graph the ice volume on the path to the planet along the beam?”

“Done,” said Yoyo twenty seconds later.

The hologram went black for three seconds, then changed.

Half the ice was a mix of frozen hydrogen and oxygen.

“It is as I sensed and suspected,” said Aubrey.

“I cannot believe how fast this process is,” said one of the colonels watching the graph and the visible shaft forming as shown by the camera on a nearby probe.

“Magic is powerful and efficient. We could have used the psychic projectors to do the same, but it would take two days to achieve what we would do in a small fraction of the time. We built magic generators and a device that points the energy to the surface. We combine the hydrogen and oxygen using magic, creating enough energy to blast a five-kilometer diameter shaft to the surface. You are watching superheated steam blow its way out of the deepening shaft. We will see the rock below in five minutes,” said Sammy.

“What are the explosions we see in the steam?” Asked a colonel.

“It is the booby trap explosives the terrorists planted along the most likely tunnel direction,” Heather explained.

“Now they know they are in deep trouble,” said Horti.