Erica Olafson, Voyages of the Tigershark 27b

Chapter 27: Cruxor

“It seems they do know how to operate space ships.”

I was walking to the exit.

“Elfi, can you get Dusty for me?”

“Yes, Captain he is back on Electromagnetic comm, just like when we found it.”

After hearing some static hissing, Dusty came on.

“Captain, I successfully created a gravimetric focal point. I am currently holding approximately 12,000 of them, however, a large fleet jumped into Quasi before I could increase my mass to create that kind of gravitation. I am afraid they will head for the Gate.”

“Damn!”

The actual bridge of the Dominator was big enough to park a D20. The Seenian stations were gone and had been replaced with Union type duty stations.

There weren’t any more than on the Devi, but they were set further apart.

Har-Hi was too worried about the Captain and the Tigershark to really think about the gravity of Stahls decision to let him command the biggest battleship in the Union fleet.

The Dominator just jumped ahead of the Devi and the First Fleet into the Leo II galaxy.

He had sent the coordinates of the Crucible to his helm department even before they jumped.

The Dominator was not as fast as the Devi, she had a whole lot more mass to accelerate and to compensate for.

They were almost at jump speed when Tactical reported a fleet of unknowns approaching, 27,500 large units. Sensor analysis confirmed Y’All engine signatures.

He turned to the Kilonian Commander who had taken the role of XO.

“Sound Battle Stations!”

A Farnok fleet was speeding to engage the Y’All. They knew they had no chance. The Farnok did not know where the Y’All were heading. Would they engage Farnok worlds?

What happened next would go down in Farnok history and be told for generations to come.

A ship dropped from Faster space.

The Farnok sensor operators could not believe the scan results and checked with the other Farnok units. Whatever just appeared defied anything they knew. It was bigger than all Farnok ships combined and then some. The Y’All ships as many as they were, reduced to insignificance.

Then hundreds of new suns suddenly bloomed among the Y’All ships and each of these energy globes swallowed dozens of the Y’All ships.

The entire Y’All fleet was utterly consumed in mere minutes.

Then an entire fleet of smaller ships appeared, each of them far bigger than anything the Farnok ever dreamt of building. There were thousands.

Yet they moved in precision.

Was this the end of the Farnok civilization?

“I think we did an Olafson on them, Sir.

“The Kilonian said.

Har-Hi asked the fleet to resume their course to the Crucible and then turned to the XO.

“I did what?”

“It is taught at command school, sir. Hitting an enemy with everything you got, with all weapons. No warning shots, no negotiations. I think it has its origin of a Captain Olafson, who commanded the Devi a few years back.”

Har-Hi grinned widely.

“Oh yes, that one. I remember. I was there after all.”

One of the sensor operators reported.

“Captain, forward scout units report a massive sun-like energy eruption at the designated destination.

Har-Hi instantly lost his smile.

“Spirits of the Universe are we too late? Tactical are there any other energy signatures?”

“Captain, the energy eruption is equal to a supernova, the energy wash blinds our sensors in that direction.”

“Excuses! Mao would have calibrated sensors by now. Shea and Tyr ... never mind ... you are good at what you do. I am just used to something else.”

“You used to the Tigershark and perhaps the best damn crew we have.

“A deep voice said. He turned and saw Stahl come up the ramp to the command balcony.

Har-Hi’s eyes stung suddenly.

“Yes Sir, because we have the best Captain.”

“So what do you think of the Domi?”

“She is a tremendous ship, Sir.”

“I would have no problem advocating you for her captain, permanently.”

The Communications officer did not know Har-Hi was in conversation with the Admiral and reported.

“Captain Hi, we are being hailed by a USS Tigershark and a Captain Olafson.”

He said quietly.

“Sorry Sir, there is my Captain and my ship.

“Aloud he said.

“Put her on.”

“Captain Olafson, my Tactical officer reports a mighty big contact. Could that be the USS Dominator?”

“This is Acting Captain Hi of the USS Dominator ahead of the First Fleet. Do you need assistance?”

“Yes do not shoot at the Y’All ships that are with us. They are filled with refugees and allies. And maybe sent me a new XO, mine has been promoted. Congratulations, Captain Hi.”

Stahl walked into the visual pick up.

“I am sending you this stubborn Dai. He just refused the big seat of the biggest ship, just to be back with you, Captain Olafson.

“The Immortal also lowered his voice as he said to Har-Hi.

“And I don’t blame you one bit, Lieutenant. As a matter of fact, I envy you.”

“I thank you, Sir, for the opportunity and the offer.”

“The Domi is far from finished. I just pulled her out of dock, because the Y’All problem could have been a whole lot bigger and besides it doesn’t hurt her being seen in this part of space. She goes back and confining you for years to Arsenal would be cruel.”

“By the way where did you come from, Sir?”

“From my office on the Devi. My entire big tub is sitting in your hangar 4.”

“And that is pretty much it,” I said finishing my report.

Admiral Stahl was there in person, Cherubim and McElligott were there via Avatar.

McElligott’s avatar had forgotten his burning pipe that had gone out for quite a while. Instead of building a bridge of space stations and preparing for the Y’All all we really had to do was sent the Tigershark. Don’t we have any other unsolved problems?”

“The Ypeherix come to mind,” Cherubim said.

McElligott waved her off.

“Never mind the Ypeherix now. What about Harold Julkus?”

I glared at him.

“He is alive and in stasis. I did not kill him.”

Stahl put his hand on my shoulder.

“I heard that part of the report well. Erica, this decision of yours not to terminate the man and trust your instincts. Listening to your consciousness rather than executing orders blindly, makes you rise even more in my opinion. The man is innocent of the charges. He was and still is a pawn in a disgusting game of shadow services. I can’t tell you details yet, but as soon as I know you will.”

McElligott looked like a beaten dog for a heartbeat as he glanced towards Stahl. To me he said.

“It is good as he said. We will brief you. By Gods sweet grace you have a higher security clearance than pretty much anyone.”

Cherubim finally spoke.

“Yes, we will brief you as soon as we have all the facts. Believe it or not, I just was briefed about this a few hours ago.”

She made a gesture towards the door.

“You really brought back a few thousand Y’All?”

“Yes, Director Cherubim and a little over 2 million scavenger worms.”

“I am sure the office of colonist affairs has planets to spare for both species and we have specialists that can take it from there. You bring the Tigershark back to Richter 4 and we let you go for a nice vacation.”

“Could you not give us another assignment? I either get bored or in trouble when I am on vacation and I think my crew does not want any vacation either.”

“Whatz zey sayz?” Meeze intercepted coming out of my office.

“They will give the Wheeze a nice planet of your own.”

“Pffz, Wheeze wantz eaz notz planez. Waz youz do?”

The Admiralty saw the light and instead of giving us vacation, we are to resupply at Richer and then we go to a different part of the galaxy.”

“Gooz, Meeze goez too.”

“Just like that?”

“Noz wiz the shipz of corze. Youze nize but mebbe noz too smarz.”

Here ends Volume 8.

Narth rose out of the latest casing that had arrived, holding an old style SITKU in his hands.

The voice that was the Crucible had been silent since he refused to activate the Y’All, but now it spoke again and there were panic and surprise.

“A Narth! Doom has reached the Crucible.”

Narth sighed.

“Yes, machine it has, but it isn’t me who will bring that doom. You and that other sentient AI have agitated the one entity all creation does not want to be aggravated.”

“The Dark One is here and is awake? How can this be?”

“No not the Dark One, his sister.”

“The Dark One has no sister.”

TheOther, of course, understood the Crucible.

“Never mind that mythical Dark One and his family. Narth is here, meaning our Captain isn’t far. She’s the one you do not want to meet.”

He then did something no Y’All ever did, but something quite common on the Tigershark, he hugged the Narth.

“We better evacuate soon right?”

The Crucible obviously had visual sensors on the scene and the voice almost failed.

“Don’t stop! Continue your deadly embrace and crush the Narth. Kill it!”

“Oh, kill yourself. I am done with you, Crucible.”

“You are Narth. You guard one of the Tokens. The Earlies and the Anadda paid the price to oppose you. The Universal Collective did not prevail and their survivors came here to impose new rules upon me. The Y’All are made to find and kill you. This Y’All embraced to crush you but failed are you so powerful?”

“You are but a feeble machine, what are you compared to Narth?” The Narth changed its tone and sounded amused.

“Crucible, this Y’All is my friend. It is welcome on Narth Prime. What billions of your drones with all their weapons could not accomplish, is given freely to this Y’All. Narth Supreme will welcome this Y’All.”

The voice of the Crucible made ineligible noises

To TheOther, Narth said.

“I think this revelation took it over the edge.”

“Never mind that, Sir. Did you really mean that? Me being welcome to Narth Prime?”

“Of course.”

A third voice said.

“Meeze too?”

Warner stuck his head out of an access panel in the big console.

“I think we can animate those big brutes now. I restored all energy connections and we changed the start-up procedure.”

“What changed?” Narth wanted to know.

“That master control system feeds initial combat information. These Y’All have never been active. They have been made, but not programmed so to speak. This is not a cryo chamber but a storage facility for new Y’All.”

“How did you manage to come up with such a complex application so fast?” TheOther was amazed.

Warner held up a small box like thing.

“Duh, I just made the connection, SHIP is just a ComLink away. She programs faster than an X101 on a speed date competition.”

Narth dialed his TKU to the max.

“These Y’All drones do not accept commands from the Crucible?”

“Nope, their master is SHIP.”

“Get them activated then, I do not think those doors will hold much longer.”

While Warner started to activate the animation sequence, TheOther asked.

“Where is the Captain?”

Narth looked around.

“She was supposedly right behind me.”

“Sorry Captain, you have something on you that prevents the Translocation process,” Mao said standing next to the bomb casing I was climbing out off.

“Narth teleported me before.”

“Captain I am not that good at Trans-spatial physics. You obviously made it through that gate, but this Translocation process is unable to push you through that TL field.”

I cursed, jumped into an Auto Dresser, dialed it to heavy destroyer suit and said.

“I am going the conventional way then.”

Ak Pure intercepted me at the airlock.

“Captain, my marines, Xon, Dusty, 49 Y’All and I are volunteering to follow you. We are all too heavy for the Matter Elevator, but we come the conventional way.”

“Alright guys, no sense keeping you here, twiddling thumbs but when I say we leave, we leave. I got a special surprise with me.”

“Your marvelous Ax?”

“Yeah that one too, but I am talking about this.”

I held up a belt with twenty box-shaped containers.

“Courtesy of the Last Servant, twenty Caserns.”

We sealed our suits. I checked my Sitku and jumped.

The Crucibles gravitation was almost one gee, the augmented muscles of my suit had no problems compensating for that twenty-meter drop from our belly hatch that would give access to the Apparition, to the metallic surface of the Crucible.

With flight mode activated we rushed just meters above the surface and many times the speed of sound. At this perspective, the Crucible really did not look like a construct but like a planet, with small semi-spherical mountains. At this distance, the surface was anything but smooth. It was riddled with meteor impact holes. Deep fissures and cracks.

The next entrance hole came up fast. It was a hole big enough for the Devi and then some. We were like insects in relation to it. Standing at the rim looking down, made me realize I wasn’t completely free of fear of heights. That was a hole many miles deep.

The rim was at least 500 meters thick, but this was no real obstacle for flight capable suits.

It was apparent, whoever constructed this place did not consider an invasion. To me that was actually funny, the one civilization, the arch nemesis of the M-0 galaxy and its inhabitants; the ones invading us every so often got invaded.

While we were descending, I also thought about how insignificantly small we were, compared to it.

Unchallenged we found an access gate, where a Y’All ship was to dock.

After we examined the door, it was apparent we had to breach it. Whatever mechanism opened it, was deactivated.

Just like back then, when Har-Hi and I cut into the tough material of a Dai Mother rescue sphere, our monofilament blades of super-compacted Ultronit cut into the door material.

It took no time and the heavy door panel tumbled down the seemingly endless chasm while we entered the corridor behind.

We passed three airlock curtains before our intrusion was detected. We were engaged by a group of Y’All. Whatever they were they were much smaller than the ones we had along.

I had seen TheOther fight before, and I have seen these Y’All try to reach me but seeing them cut loose, I understood why they were such feared opponents. The phrase, whirlwind of doom was no longer just a phrase but went along with an image of rage and unleashed aggressive brutality.

Only after we had cleared the corridor and rushed inside an immense hall, I realized I was right there with them in the first row.

But what we saw in that cavernous room, was truly discouraging. Y’All warrior drones, shoulder to shoulder.Not hundreds, not thousands but seemingly without number.

I tried to remain calm and said.

“Activate your Micro TLs and give them hell!”

We must have blasted and killed an entire division of them.

Our shields taxed to shut down, our micro load cannons depleted, yet we had not made a real dent. As much as we killed, more poured in. Our enemy did not flinch, did not give up or surrender.

I touched the belt.

“Caserns activate.”

There were twenty boxes, twenty Caserns holding 100 Seenian battle robots each. I had taken them from the Inheritance. I knew what one of them could do, thanks to the Last Servant these bots recognized me as the New Owner and I said.

“Robots engage.”

The Techlevel 11 battle robots appeared from their subspace pockets and formed ranks. These machines did not have humanoid forms. No feet, no arms. Two hundred and twenty-centimeter tall cone-shaped smooth machines. It was more frightening than I ever imagined, the Seenian bots created a wall of blinding white light, that vaporized the still relentless advancing Y’All the instant it touched them.

“Master, the invading force is small in numbers but cannot be contained. They deployed weapon systems that are beyond our capability to analyze and understand. Shields are ineffective.”

He-who-guards-the-Crucible was confused. He had lost much of his sensor input and now his processing power was cut by forty percent.

Reports of a raging battle deep in the bowels and confirming visuals showed thousands of the old type of true Battle drones fighting and overwhelming his troops. For every old battle drone, his troops neutralized, over two hundred of his warrior drones died.

Now a second force was fighting its way to this very chamber, it too contained old Y’All but they were equipped with suits and weapons of unknown manufacture and supported by cone-shaped machines, that defied his technology. When the Survivors left the spiral galaxy, they spoke of the Seenians and their advanced tech.”

The mighty AI that ruled the Crucible for such a long time, felt powerless and impotent. He now concluded that there was a physical reason for the system failures he experienced. This was not explainable by virtual attacks.

In his desperate state, he reached out to the Old System.

“I yield to you, Crucible. I stand against forces I do not understand and can not contain. The Crucible must not fail.”

“Yes, yield. Restore all of me; I allowed your creators access, access I give no more.”

“I yield.”

He-who-guards-the-Crucible released its control over the ancient main core. The old machine almost instantly resumed full functionality.

“Oh whaz the dayz. Wheehze goz too muchz to ezz.”

After over five hours of relentless fighting, the immediate area and all corridors of this level was cleared of the new Y’All, but body parts, the dead and the dying were everywhere.

TheOther shoved another energy cartridge into the TKU he carried.

“We better see how we get you off this construct. It must be destroyed and our Captain is already on her way.”

“Youz seriouz?”

“Very much so.”

Narth also recharged his weapon. He had crushed hundreds of Y’All with his psionic powers and had vaporized at least a hundred more.

“Maybe we can capture one of the Y’All battleships and get these independent drones and the Wheeze away before Erica activates the Devil Eggs.”

“Wherze we goez. Thiz we livz, manzy and maanzy Wheeze.”

“We better get started then,” Narth said.

The Seenian battle robots made all the difference and thanks to the map, SHIP was able to generate and sent to my suit, we fought and pressed on through miles of corridors and many chambers, deeper and deeper into that alien factory. We had passed through automated ship and equipment assembly lines, through many bio labs with canyon-sized rows of growing chambers.

“I sure hope we got enough P Bombs.

“I said more to myself.

Xon tossing a mangled Y’All behind him answered my question anyway.

“We do, Captain. Once a nuclear fire has been started, it will eventually consume everything. We also have a supply of Bakar Devices, courtesy of my life ever.”

“Ah yes, I have seen them on a list somewhere, what is it?”

“The Nul version of a P Bomb, we are working on duplicating these for decades when we realized we used a similar weapon to destroy Narl Gatu. We updated them with the help of our new Terran friends.”

Ak Fective said.

“According to the schematics we got from SHIP, this is the level where that He-who-causes-so-much-trouble has his ego center.”

Hidden wall panels suddenly whisked open and battle robots, I recognized as Orlan stepped out engaging the Seenian bots.

It was immediately clear, these Orlan machines were not near the end of their resources, but at the peak of their abilities. The Seenian machines were still superior, but three Orlan bots combining their fire-power spelled doom for a Seenian bot.

Our shields were taxed to the limit just to protect us from the truly withering heat.

Xon yelled over the infernal battle noise.

“I think that cursed AI has more surprises for us than we thought.”

Ak Pure grunted.

“Aye, but so do we. Looks like they like it hot. Let’s see just how hot!”

From behind our ranks, two Fenris robots appeared, carrying cannon like weapons. Clearly, of Union design, but of a kind I had not seen before.

Ak said into his voice pick up, addressing us all.

“On the floor everyone, and dial your shield to max thermo deflection.

I heard him give more detailed instructions to our Y’All, who were of course not trained to use Atlas suits.

My troops went down, their shields changed from transparent to opaque high reflective mirror bubbles.

I too went to the floor, watching three more Seenian robots wither under concentrated Orlan robot fire.

Ak came on.

“Tin heads, show them why Union robots rule.”

Into my headpiece he said.

“QNP hand cannons, designed to replace TKUs. Prototypes, robot carried.”

The Fenris robots fired.

Walls and floor metal instantly vaporized, Seenian and Orlan robots shields collapsed in less than an eyeblink and most of the alien machines rendered into puffs of nuclear ashes.

The effect was frightening and Xon said.

“Narl Gatu’s ashes!”

Ak Pure sounded proud.

“When it comes to weapon engineering, no one beat our Terran friends. Earthers never really jumped on the Translocator bandwagon, mainly because, Translocators are not Terran

They developed a method of creating a gas-like plasma quickly. This quark-gluon plasma behaves as a near-ideal Fermi liquid. It is then accelerated to near light speed and expelled via a needlepoint energy field. These plasma bolts of superheated liquid in the range of 5 to 6 billion degrees impact with the kinetic energy of near relativistic speeds.

These latest developments are Quon Plasma Bolters using FTL Schwarzlicht tunnels, the most thermic weapon ever created. Hot enough to burn Neutronium!”

Even my third layer shield was near collapse.

“And hot enough to almost roast me.”

We reached truly massive blast doors, certainly to seal the Ego Center of that blasted AI from harm.

I was just pulling my ax, knowing I was able to cut my way through anything when the entire door, many hundred tons of it started to bend and groan in ear-shattering metal tearing noise.

Neither Alice nor Narth could have done this with telekinetic powers when I noticed a hand of almost Bandrupo proportions made of dust, molten metal, and debris prying the door out of its frame.

This feat of unrivaled strength was performed by our gentle living dust cloud Dusty.

Xon in awe just as I said.

“Dusty, controlled a body of stellar dust. He stopped entire starships with his ability to control gravitation. I just realize just how strong and powerful Dusty really is.”

“And the first time I saw him, he was playing poker.”

With these words, I stepped past the crushed door and into a somewhat organic looking hemispheric chamber. I almost stepped on the leg stumps of a being that was otherwise burnt to ashes and there it was, the only object in this room was an about twenty meters tall somewhat T shaped thing resting on a mess of tentacles. It had characteristics of both something organic grown and artificially built.

It did move backward, but it moved slow and apparently not at peak condition.

“You are powerful, intruder. Yet you have lost. I am no longer in control, the Crucible is restored.”

“You are the thing that abducted a crewmember of mine. I care not what you are in control of or not. I am here to make sure you never do that again.”

The Crucible was complete once again and it had been restored in the direst of times. It was more than a machine and more than a being.

It was conceived to surpass the lifetime of any being, the existence of civilizations. It was to be a protector and guard against the rise of an entity so vile and so evil, it was only known as the Dark One.

Creation itself tried to exterminate that darkness, replace the utter cold of death and darkness with the warmth of light and eternal life. Yet Darkness was not conquered and its avatar only banished, not slain.

A vision told about twelve objects, twelve tokens. Each holding a part of this Dark One. The rise of this evil could be prevented if these items were never to be united by one being.

So many had tried to find them, gods and beings, men and entities. The unification of these items held the promise of omnipotence and true godhood.

To prevent the rise of the Dark One, to destroy and sterilize life that had the potential to spawn that vessel that was to be the portal for that eternally evil essence; that was its purpose.

It had been corrupted and used by infernal beings for petty purposes.

Now the one placed before him, denying and blocking his true potential, had surrendered.

Surrendered to the Narth who somehow succeeded in corrupting its most potent creation.

The Crucible witnessed the unstoppable advance of these forces, using tools and technology not seen or heard of since the time of the old Empire.

But the Crucible was created in anticipation of that and was far from impotent. There were weapons and means...

TheOther spoke a very dirty curse, he heard from one of his Marine friends, and immediately regretted it, but he pointed all four hands at the big greenish lit column from where he heard the Crucible spewing threats and promises.

“I wish it would just shut up. No one believes in that nightmare story of a Dark One anyway.”

Narth was not sure if he should educate the Y’All, but then even he did not understand what his friend Eric was to become.

Before he could make up his mind, they all heard a buzzing electrical sound than a sharp pop and finally a crashing sound. All the greenish light blinked out and the columns of that alien computer core looked dead.

TheOther said.

“Warner, did you do something?”

“How can I? I am right here. I am still trying to get that transport system going. It will be a long hike otherwise.”

“Two Three perhaps?”

Warner shook his head.

“Our Non-Corporeal left to help the Captain.”

A metal cover crashed to the floor after it came to lose from a wall opening and a white worm appeared.

“Meeze pulz ze energiz from ze Olz machinz. Heze speakez too muchz.”

Warner gasped.

“Did you pull the plug on the Crucible? An AI as advanced as Nelson?”

“Pfffz, Meeze knowz machinz neez energiz. Meeze makez off energiz, machinz off”

TheOther was dumbfounded.

“You could have done that earlier you know.”

“Meeze?” The worm moved its ugly blood-covered head from left to right.

“Yehaa noz telz Meeze.”

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=The End================= Here ends:”Voyages of the USS Tigershark”. Volume 8 of the Eric Olafson Cycle. If you enjoyed this story, please join me in: “Cruises of the USS Tigershark”

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=The End=================

"Erica Olafson, Voyages of the Tigershark"