Judas Unchained

MORTY, DO NOT INFORM THE NAVY YOU HAVE THE MOTILE CONTAINING BOSE’S MEMORIES. ANY INFORMATION ON MORNINGLIGHTMOUNTAIN IS TOO IMPORTANT TO RISK TO POSSIBLE CORRUPTION.

I HAVE THE RE-LIFED BOSE WITH ME. HE SHOULD RECEIVE THE MEMORIES. THAT WAY HE WILL BE ABLE TO INTERPRET THEM IN THEIR CORRECT SEQUENCE. AFTER THAT WE CAN DECIDE HOW TO PROCEED.

I WILL MAKE ARRANGEMENTS TO EXTRACT YOU FROM ELAN. UNTIL THEN, KEEP THE BOSE MOTILE AND THE REFUGEES SAFE.

MELLANIE.

“I have been re-lifed?” the Bose motile asked.

“She will make arrangements to extract us?” Rob said disbelievingly.

“Mellanie had a wormhole opened to us once before,” Simon said. “She can probably do it again.”

“Probably ain’t good enough, friend.” Rob pointed at the Bose motile.

“This is our ticket out of here.”

“To what?” Morton asked. “If she’s right about the navy, we’re not going to help the Commonwealth by giving them this information.”

“Oh, listen to yourself. The Commonwealth navy is the Bad Guy? Get real. They’re the only hope we’ve got. Your girl is trying to build her career by chasing phantoms. She’s a goddamn reporter, one of the biggest turds in the galaxy. Tell the navy we’ve got Bose at the next wormhole opening. Get us out of here.”

“She works for the SI. She can do this. Trust her.”

“Bullshit.”

“Question,” the Cat said. She was sitting in Full Diamond position on the floor of the fissure, clad in a simple leotard, seemingly immune to the cold.

“Morton, when you sent your encrypted message, did you mention MorningLightMountain by name?”

“No.”

The Cat changed to King Cobra position with simple lithe movements. As she did she gave Rob a sly smile. “How did a conspiracy theorist nut find out its name all by herself?”

Rob’s defiant expression crumpled. “Oh, Jesus H. Christ; fuck-it-up Rob strikes again. I always get the shit assignments. Always. We’re really going to do this, aren’t we?”

“Yep.”

“I have been re-lifed?” the Bose motile repeated.

“Yes,” Morton said.

“And I am dating a beautiful young media reporter?”

“Apparently so, yes.”

“Tell him the rest of it, Morty, my dear,” the Cat said with a smirk. “Mellanie is a complete sex maniac.”

“I would very much like to meet me.”

***

The star system was on the border between phase one and two space, eight light-years from the Big15 world of Granada. CST had examined it once, and immediately moved on. The M-class star presided over a meager realm of two planets: one small solid world no larger than Earth’s moon, and a Saturn-size gas giant orbited by a dozen moons. As far as habitability was concerned it rated an easy zero. Nobody had ever returned.

The starship Moscow slipped out of hyperspace four hundred thousand kilometers above the gas giant. Its wormhole closed behind it with a short-lived glow of indigo radiance.

Strapped into his couch in the cabin’s cramped operations segment, Captain McClain Gilbert reviewed the data that the starship’s sensors were picking up. The gas giant’s third moon was twenty thousand kilometers away, a heavily cratered ball of rock, three thousand kilometers in diameter. There was no atmosphere. As the visual sensors scanned it, a profile of its surface built up. A recognizable topography of mare plains and hills was revealed, dating back to the moon’s origin. Lusterless peat-brown regolith was scattered thinly over rock strata of dark gray and black. Thousands of craters had mangled the smooth hills, ripping out vast slabs of jagged rock to form vertical cliff ramparts.

There had been no change in the two hundred years since CST’s exploratory division had performed its quick scan.

“Our survey records check out, such as they are,” Mac said; he turned to look at Natasha Kersley in the couch next to him. “There’s nothing alive around here. Is that what you wanted, Doc?”

“Looks good,” she said.

“Can I begin the satellite launch?”

“Yes, please.”

Mac sent a flurry of commands into the ship’s RI. Modified missile launch tubes in the Moscow’s forward section opened and spat out eighteen sensor satellites. Their ion rockets pushed them into a bracelet formation orbiting the nameless moon, allowing them to cover the entire surface simultaneously. Once their coverage was established they’d be able to determine the exact power of the quantumbuster they were here to test.

“So far so good,” he muttered.

“Absolutely. Here’s hoping we don’t have a Fermi moment.”

“A what?” Mac really didn’t like the uncertainty in her voice.

“During the Trinity test of the very first atom bomb, Fermi wondered if the detonation would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere. They just didn’t know, you see. We think the quantum disruption won’t propagate. If it does, then the whole universe gets converted into energy.”

“Oh, great, thanks for sharing.” He gave the doomed moon a deeply troubled glance.

“It’s really not very likely,” Natasha said.

It took two hours until Mac was satisfied the satellites were correctly placed, and their communications relay systems were locked together. “Okay, Doc, you’re on.”