Shadow of the Chimera (Reckless Faith VII), Chapter 9

Spoiler alert: This is a new entry for the 7th book in the Reckless Faith series. The prologue may be found here: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2022/12/15/reckless-faith-vii-prologue/

The Anachronia VI shipyard was more than just a place for ships to be repaired and retrofitted; it was also the largest space station any of them had ever seen. Starting from the moment the Reckless Faith dropped out of FTL and through their approach to the station, its true size became apparent compared to their ships. Its center section was a massive torus, at least a full kilometer in diameter. It rotated around a wide central column, which was connected by pylons. Above and below the torus were fixed docking gantries, extending out like tree branches, and there were currently several ships being worked on at various positions. The gas giant behind it swirled with colors of muted brown and orange.

The Fox, Reckless Faith, and Percheron had been given permission to dock with the torus section, while the Vastus ships had been ordered by the locals to take up orbits around a large moon on the opposite side of the planet. Ari didn’t know exactly why, but it was easy to guess the reason. Once docked, they had met with a contingent of their hosts, and led through the expansive main concourse of the torus to a conference room. The Anachronians were typical humanoids, on the average thinner and taller than humans. While the men all had facial hair, both the men and women were completely bald. Their skin also had a silvery sheen to it, which Ari somehow found both beautiful and repulsive at the same time.

They had been asked to board the station unarmed. Normally rue to do that, Ari was too curious about everything to pass up the opportunity to participate in the meeting. They had been escorted to the conference room not only by several officers, but also by two guards armed with pistols, who seemed to be taking their duties very seriously. If things were about to go sideways, there was little any of them could do about it. She could only hope it wasn’t a setup.

Present from their alliance, other than Ari, were Vecky, Cane, John, Dietrich, and Brockway. Admiral Praxis had been given permission to monitor the impending conversation by radio, though if he had been a little more patient, the Supernova could have launched a shuttle to take him there. The table in the conference room had sufficient seating for everyone, and a beverage cart had been placed near the door. The Anachronians offered their guests something to drink, then bid them to take a seat.

They had already met Commander Shaula, an older man with a gray beard. He started off the meeting by introducing the other officers, then allowed John to give him a heavily redacted version of how they ended up in this part of the galaxy. Despite leaving out many details, he did reveal everything that they knew about the Chimeras. When John had finished, Shaula responded.

“It sounds like you’re all lucky to be alive. I can tell you that we don’t know anything about the Chimeras, and I’m fairly certain there’s no record of any such encounters by us or any other planet in our sector. I would have to review the archives to be sure.”

“That effort would be appreciated,” replied John. “Considering the daunting proposition of returning home with such adverse effects, we intend to stay in the area for at least a few weeks. Ultimately, pure exploration and discovery are part of our reason for being, though we would certainly be happy to learn more about the Chimeras.”

A beeping sound alerted Shaula to his PDA, and he pulled it out of his pocket and gave it some scrutiny. “Hmm. I hate to be rude to guests, but our security personnel have reported a violation. They have detected an unauthorized weapon aboard the Reckless Faith, and our laws require us to confiscate it.”

John raised his eyebrows in surprise, and shared concerned glances with his colleagues. “Okay. Care to elaborate?”

“It’s an object a meter and a half long, and three centimeters wide. You must turn it over to us.”

“You’re going to have to give us more info if you expect us to comply with that order,” said Ari.

“Syberarcaninae technology is forbidden in our system,” said Shaula, visibly tensing up. “There is no need for panic, my friends. I’m sure you have no idea how dangerous it is. I’m afraid our requirement is non-negotiable. For the sake of all of your vessels, I urge you to comply.”

“Our translators tripped over that word,” said John. “Syberarcaninae?”

“Systematic treatment magicians is the literal definition, I believe.”

Christie’s voice filled their ears. “Excuse me. A better translation would be Technomaji.”

“Understood,” said John. “Commander Shaula, we have no idea who the Syberarcaninae, or Technomaji, are. The object you describe is a simple hardwood staff, no more dangerous than any other blunt object.”

“It’s also not ours to give you,” said Vecky.

Shaula said, “Regardless of what you believe it to be, or who it belongs to, we cannot let you leave in peace without it in our possession.”

“Might I propose a compromise?” asked Dietrich. “If the staff is some arcane object like you claim it to be, help us study it and we can learn from each other.”

Shaula’s PDA was beeping at him again, but he continued the conversation.

“You don’t understand. We’d be doing you a favor. Items like this can be just as dangerous to the user as to anyone else. There is a story of an entire ship being destroyed because the crew tried to use a Technomaji artifact.”

John said, “That’s not your problem. Let us go, and I promise that the Faith, and the item on board, will never return here. Good enough?”

Shaula looked at his PDA. “No, Commander Scherer, it’s not good enough. If you don’t hand over the artifact, we’ll have no choice but to place you and Miss Ferro under arrest.”

“Let’s all just take a step back here for a minute,” said Dietrich. “The last thing we wanted was to cause trouble for you. However, the staff may be instrumental to our discovery of a defense against the Chimeras. Unless you would be willing to work with us on that matter, we cannot surrender it.”

Shaula considered this for a moment. “Hand it over, and we’ll look at your sensor data. Since you seemed genuinely unaware of its illegality here, I’m confident we can remain on friendly terms.”

“Can we have a few minutes to discuss it?”

“I suppose.”

Gesturing to his colleagues and the guards, Shaula led them out of the room.

“You can’t seriously be considering handing it over,” said Vecky.

“With all due respect,” began Cane, “I’m not sure you’re being rational. The staff may have potential, but an alliance with these folks is important. If we’re to spend any time in this part of the galaxy, we should comply with their request.”

Ari said, “True, but it’s still a bad trade. We don’t have any actual sensor data to give them, remember? If they’ve never encountered the Chimeras, then they’re not going to be able to tell us shit.”

“Damn it, you’re right,” muttered John.

Brockway said, “Also, if other planets in this area have the same kind of scanning technology as the Anachronians, and what Shaula said is true, then we’re going to get harassed about the staff wherever we go.”

“Unless we can develop a countermeasure. Captain Kitsune, we’re in a tough spot. I can’t order you to turn over the staff, but I’m also not willing to try to fight our way out of here. I say give it to them for now, to keep the peace. Maybe we can convince them to give it back later.”

Vecky sighed. “Fine. I just feel like we were so close to figuring something out about it.”

“Thank you. I’ll have it brought over.” John looked into the air. “Christie, are you still listening?”

“I’m here,” came the reply.

“Have somebody bring the staff aboard the station. We’ll meet them at the security checkpoint.”

“Wilco.”

The group went back out onto the concourse, and John approached Shaula.

“We’ve agreed to your terms. Someone from the Faith is bringing the staff aboard now.”

Shaula looked annoyed. “I wish you had told me first. There are special procedures for handling Technomaji artifacts. I’ll have to cordon off the security checkpoint and call in more guards.”

“Sorry.”

Shaula turned to the pair of armed guards already there. “You two, go with Commander Scherer and Miss Ferro back to their ship. The rest of you are free to explore the public areas of the concourse, visit a shop or restaurant, whatever you want.”

“Thanks, but we each have some minor repairs to complete, so we’ll all return to our ships. We appreciate the offer.”

“As you wish. Follow me, please.”

The other officers headed away in the opposite direction from the rest of the group, and they headed back to the section of the station where the three ships were docked. Vecky, Cane, Dietrich, and Brockway returned to their respective ships, leaving the rest of them standing just outside of the security checkpoint for the Faith. Through the doorway to the checkpoint, they could see Evangeline standing there with the staff in one hand. She waved half-heartedly at the others.

A couple of minutes later, five more security guards arrived, armed with rifles, and wearing bulky body armor. People walking up and down the concourse gawked at the scene, but didn’t stop to observe further. Shaula entered the checkpoint, and walked up to Eva.

“So, do I get a receipt or something?” she asked.

“This item will be locked in a vault,” began Shaula, “never to be seen by humanoid eyes again.”

“It’s a shame,” she said, offering him the staff. “You should study advanced technology, not fear it.”

Shaula reached for the staff. It glowed briefly, then a shockwave blasted out from it, knocking over Shaula, all seven security guards, and John and Ari. The latter two quickly picked themselves up off the deck, but all of the Anachronians were out cold.

“Christie,” John shouted, “tell the other ships to get the hell out of here, now!”

“Okay,” she replied.

John and Ari rushed forward, joined Eva, and scrambled onto the Faith. John mashed the airlock controls, and the doors slid shut.

“We’re aboard, go light! Pick a set of coordinates on the heliopause and transmit it to our fleet.”

“Got it.”

The Zero-G room shuddered slightly around them as the ship entered FTL. Eva looked at the staff as if it had just transformed into a live grenade.

“What the fuck did you do?” asked Ari.

Eva stammered. “I… I was just thinking how great it would be if the staff had some sort of incapacitating attack that could get us out of here. Then it happened.”

“I think you’ve cracked the code,” said John. “Come on, let’s get to the bridge.”

The trio traversed the top deck until they got to the bridge. The rest of the Faith’s crew was there, and Milly was piloting, as usual. John explained to them what had just happened.

“Holy shit,” said Ray.

“Good job,” began Christie, “but we’ve just made ourselves persona non grata in this system. Fortunately, Petty Officer Telinth was kind enough to share with us a chart of neighboring stars. There are several systems within striking distance for all of us that we can try next.”

“We’ve got some work to do first,” said John. “If we’re to have peaceful contact with others, we need to find out how the Anachronians spotted the staff in the first place, and if we can’t, then one of our ships is going to have to volunteer to take it and hold back while the rest of us approach them.”

“I think we may have a head start on that,” said Eva. “Christie detected an unusually high wave of directed neutrinos that passed through our ship, moments before we docked with the station. At the same time, I noticed that the staff glowed blue. She has a theory. Christie?”

Christie nodded. “Yes. First of all, we can assume that the neutrino wave was a scanner, that much is already known. But, the sheer number of neutrinos that hit us was of a volume far in excess of what our own NDSS can generate, more in line with what a young O3 main sequence star would emit. Now as most of you already know, neutrinos are tiny subatomic particles, bearing almost no mass. The odds of any single neutrino impacting an atom are a billion-to-one.

Our own NDSS has to stream millions per second at an object to get a reading we can use, but the longer we scan, the better the results. Usually, scanning anything for a few seconds gets us the data we need. The volume of neutrinos that the Anachronians used is the equivalent of running our NDSS for almost an hour and a half. Now, if something that wasn’t emitting light started doing so when bombarded with neutrinos, and the sensors were finely calibrated, they’d be able to notice the difference. If that’s true, then it also might give us a hint about the staff’s peculiar properties.”

“So, what’s causing a quantum leap in its electrons?” asked Eva.

“Exactly! Given a high enough volume of neutrinos…”

“Wait a minute,” interrupted Richter. “Quantum leap? Like the TV show?”

“In physics, that term refers not to something amazing, but a routine phenomenon that happens all around us, all the time. Properly referred to as a quantum jump, it’s simply the excitation of an atomic system from a lower energy state to a higher one. In this case, electrons. Normally, non-radioactive atoms maintain their own equilibrium, with electrons in a steady orbit, or shell. When subjected to EM radiation, or alpha particles, the electrons briefly gain energy, causing them to jump or leap to a higher shell. The mass of the atomic nucleus can’t maintain that, so the excess energy is released a nanosecond later, usually in the form of a photon. This is why phosphates glow under blacklight, or how your tritium night sights work. In the case of the latter, tritium emits alpha particles which excite the phosphorous atoms in the capsule.”

“Neat.”

“As I was saying, given a high enough volume of neutrinos, eventually one of them is going to interact with an atomic structure in such a way to cause a quantum jump. Even our own NDSS could cause this phenomenon; say someone on the Fox sat in a completely dark room while I scanned the ship. They would probably see a few random flashes of photons here and there. However, our scans did not cause the staff to emit light, at least not at any appreciable level.”

“But what’s the difference between the staff and any other object on board?” asked John.

“That’s the million-dollar question. My theory is that somehow, the electrons of its atoms are already in their highest possible energy state, sort of like a battery. The Technomaji figured out how to energize it, and stabilize it, with that energy being released on demand by the user. In such a state, the odds of neutrinos causing a quantum jump would be much, much higher. Add the more advanced scanner that the Anachronians used, and you get the obvious blue glow that Eva witnessed.”

“That’s sounds like a solid theory to me. From where does it draw energy to recharge itself?”

Christie chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe the same mysterious energy source that the meta state of our neptunium does. If I could answer that, I’d be the smartest person on Earth.”

Devonai said, “Do you think there’s any truth to the claim that we could accidentally destroy ourselves trying to use it?”

“I have a strong feeling,” began Eva, “that I could not take any action with it that would cause my own death.”

“That’s hardly reassuring.”

“And yet, just now it knocked out the Anachronian commander and all of the security guards, but John and Ari were unharmed. I’ve definitely got some sort of psychic connection with this thing; how else could it have known that they were my friends?”

John said, “Maybe they were more physiologically susceptible to that sort of injury. We can speculate about it all day long. Eva, I’ll need you to be extremely careful with any other experimentation you conduct on the staff while you’re aboard. For now, though, we need to focus on our next move. Christie, would an Anachronian-level NDSS compromise our invisibility shield?”

“Probably,” she replied.

“Then search the database they gave us for a system or planet with less or no government. Not only will it be less likely that anyone will have that type of scanner, or even care about the staff, it will doubtlessly be much easier to find the information we need if we can grease some palms for it.”

“We’ve arrived at the rally point,” said Milly. “The Fox and the Percheron are already here.”

“The Vastuvian ships will be here in about five minutes,” added Dana.

John nodded. “Good. Let’s hope our next encounter goes more smoothly.”

Continue reading: https://devonai.wordpress.com/2023/02/10/shadow-of-the-chimera-reckless-faith-vii-chapter-10/