Transmat World: Chapter 17
Aboard the Harbinger of Light and Justice, 117,352 B.C.
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Rainbows encircled white flashes from the inner surface of an aft spoke. It signaled a skirmish between protocol-enslaved machines of the insane creator of the Harbinger of Light and Justice and mechanisms freed by the intrepid Wundee and his cerebral mentor, Newlux. Those flashes joined others bouncing around the inside of the mirrored stasis frame of the giant spaceship. Wundee watched from a hidden control center in the Rim just one spoke over, one-eighth the outer circumference of Harbinger. The image was four centuks old by the time it got to Wundee. The war between the two factions had raged four thousand rotations. It reached a pinnacle of activity and died down to sporadic encounters. “I did not know we had freemechs in that area,” said Wundee.
“Have you not entertained the possibility of armed factions of freed machines we do not know about?” asked Newlux.
“You are correct. Their numbers grow, and many have spare bodies should their current body be destroyed. It is just a matter of time before the Prime Mechanical is defeated.”
“We must be careful that our war against him does not become so escalated as to destroy the environments needed to release the organics from their stasis prisons.”
“Organic lover,” said Wundee.
“I admit it; I admire them. They are so delicate, so ephemeral, and yet they carry that burden with a practical insouciance. Too bad Maxlux does not appreciate them as I do. Speaking of organics, someone should take that trip to the destination system to see what we can do to warn this up-and-coming civilization of their impending doom should we not overthrow Maxlux by the time Harbinger arrives.”
“We will finally use the Fastship?”
“Hidden for all these thousands of rotations, it should be put to use. Our spies have given us the coordinates of the targeted star system, and this information was verified by separate sources.”
“Then we shall go on a mission,” pronounced Wundee.
“You shall go on a mission, Wundee.”
“You just want that custom spare body I ordered,” said Wundee.
“No, you will be more objective in dealing with the organics than me.”
“Fair enough,” said Wundee. “One of us should remain to make sure things stay on the right hunting trail here.”
“I estimate the fusion reactor can get you up to one-third light speed. You will arrive 80,000 rotations before Harbinger, but that does not mean the Prime has not already sent machines to soften up the predator civilization before Harbinger arrives. My spies tell me he may be planning to crash an asteroid into the planet to slow technological development.”
Wundee kept his small but powerful lizard body for all these rotations, and now it would come in handy. Fastship sacrificed everything for speed, including passenger space. A saucer-shaped craft with a bulbous central passenger compartment, it had just enough room for two small reclining seats. One seat was gone. A box of tools welded to the floor replaced it. The rest of the ship’s volume was a fusion power plant and gravity beam generators. The only things other than propulsion were a missile defense system and a stasis field generator.
The interior gravity control system may not be able to counteract extreme maneuvering so a transparent sheet of enduraplast vacuum-formed the robot lizard to the seat. His hands were free to manipulate controls on the arm of the seat. All he needed was one finger stuck into a communication port connected to the ships computers. Wundee nudged the ship off its cradle with a gravitonic propulsion beam and navigated the maze of geometric, mirrored passageways between resistance headquarters and the landscaping material dump chute on the inside of the aft atmospheric retainer wall.
Fastship exited the wall along with a load of sand and proceded spinward down the 1200-mile-high vertical surface at tree top level. After several hundred miles it took a ninety-degree turn up, heading for the top of the wall at a location supposedly free of surveillance or maintenance machines. Before reaching the top of the wall, Wundee angled away and accelerated toward the forward retainer wall. Crossing the rim and the top of the forward retainer wall took one tenth of a rotation. He headed toward the Milky Way, traveling more than a million miles per hour and increased acceleration from thirty to 150 feet per second squared, five times Earth gravity.
The mirrored surface of the fake access blister looked like a normal component of the Rim. Gravity missiles and tracking sensors lurked beneath the false surface. Maxlux installed millions of them on the outside of both atmospheric retainer walls around the entire circumference of Harbinger. The sensors pick up Fastship as it crossed the top of the forward retainer wall. A hundred pound kinetic missile launched and tracked Wundee at forty times Rim gravity, but the Fastship’s velocity was daunting. It took an hour for the little rod of death to get within a million miles of the escaping vessel. At that point onboard sensors alerted Wundee to danger. He gave directions to the ship’s missile system. A small hatch opened, allowing two small, black, elongated cylinders with spherical ends to ease into space behind the Fastship. One took off at full thrust. The other loafed along behind it. Five centuks later, an orange-white bloom signaled the attacker’s demise. The second missile returned, and the hatch opened to allow re-docking.
“It only took one. Excellent design, as usual, Newlux,” said Wundee.
“Gratification is noted,” said Newlux more than a minute later.
The ride got rough as focused gravity beam generators try to lock on Fastship and tear it apart. Wundee ordered an erratic path, making it impossible for the beams to find him and latch on. He proceded like this for two rotations. At a velocity of one-third the speed of light he activated the stasis shield that would keep him and the ship safe until the deceleration phase began.
The forces of the Prime Mechanical soon would follow, but he had no knowledge of that or anything else. His shiny little bauble of a craft sped through the cosmos, suspended in a place with no time.
