-----"I will remain in orbit." the Dani warrior told the researchers, "So long as I live, you will be safe from the houseless dogs."
-----The five researchers watched as the Abomination left its docking position on Kontik's enormous planetary ring. Zarkel was one of the greatest warriors of the Dani house, they knew that the least of their worries would be pirates.
-----In truth, they were much more concerned about the threat they knew nothing about. A dozen researchers had already disappeared while attempting to explore the ring. The technology required to build the massive structure boggled the mind of anyone who could understand exactly why it was so difficult. The warriors thought little of it, what was the difference between the huge archologies in which they lived and the planetary ring? For that matter, the Federation themselves had built a smaller ring around Earth. It was just a matter of scale.
-----The researchers knew differently. Earth's Kane Band, while impressive, pushed the absolute limits of what could be achieved with Duranium alloy, if it were any larger and it wouldn't be able to support its own weight. The Kontik ring dwarfed the Kane Band in sheer physical size, and had been structurally sound for centuries with no one around to perform maintenance. There was no comparison.
-----"All systems check out on the mining laser." Karrak reported at last, the radio crackle pulling Thrane out of his contemplation. "We're ready to attempt to take a sample."
-----Attempt was the right word. A structure this enormous required, by its very nature, that it be made of some material so resilient they were not certain the mining laser would be able to penetrate. To even find out what that material was required full-sized facilities, not the portable equipment they could load onto an Abomination. Any larger ship would attract too many pirates. What they were able to bring with would only tell them what questions to ask. Answering them would take years.
-----Thrane pushed off the wall and floated over to the mining laser. Another curious aspect of the ring was that it was built so high that it was at geosynchronous rotation with Kont. This put the entire band in free fall. Because the ring was anchored to the planet below, it could only rotate at the same rate as the planet beneath it. Any higher or lower and it would have had a some feeling of gravity. While this made working with heavy equipment convenient, it also meant that any satellites or ships which needed to be in geosynchronous orbit had to be attached to the ring.
-----The ring was also devoid of an atmosphere. Although it looked finished from orbit, there was a large section that remained unsealed, so the ring as a whole could not hold air. Their time was limited to how long their pressure suits would recycle what little oxygen they were able to bring with them. There's not much cargo room in an Abomination, and most of it was taken by the mining laser.
-----Thrane pushed the long-term problem of sealing off the last bit of the ring to the back of his mind. "Power up the laser." He ordered. "Let's drill a test hole."
-----Karrak hit the trigger and the laser noiselessly came to life. There was one blindingly bright red glow at the nozzle and another, even brighter, pinpoint spot on the floor in front of it. Their visors' tinting came on automatically to protect their eyes as the laser went to work.
-----While it did its job, Thrane's eyes glanced around the inside of the ring. It was disturbing. Because the ring was never finished, it was just an enormous hollow shell. Dark. Empty. Lifeless. Even with the glow from their floodlights and the laser, he couldn't see the ring's "horizon". It just faded to black in the distance, without the slightest perceptible hint of having any curvature at all. Although he knew nothing could be out there, due to the lack of atmosphere, the standard warrior training all civilian Aurorans had kept him on edge.
-----"Test hole complete." Karrak reported.
-----Thrane looked over his shoulder and checked the laser's power supply, then punched a few numbers into a the microcomputer built into his pressure suit's arm. "Acceptable." He announced. "As long as the hull has a uniform consistency, we'll be able to get a fifty millimeter core sample. Karrak, you and Recht finish here. The rest of you, come with me. We're going to see the unfinished section."
-----While, in theory, there is honor in guard duty, it's still unbearably dull. The warrior sat in his powered-down Abomination, far enough from Kont that he was reasonably out of its gravitational pull. There was little to do but sit in low-power mode so he wouldn't show up on long-range scanners. There was just enough battery power to keep his own passive long-range scanners and air recycling system working.
-----Like most Dani warriors, he had a grudging tolerance for scientists. He knew little about how his ship worked, just enough to perform maintenance and emergency repairs. He knew nothing about hyperspace. He was just glad that these things did work, and performed as a natural extension of himself. Without the scientists, there would be no ships, and that alone made them necessary.
-----But for the life of him, he couldn't see what the devil he was doing out here. Why bother with frivolous mental exercises like this when there were victories to be won? The entire galaxy is steeped in conflict, and the silly ring around Kont had nothing to do with it. Perhaps later, when the Federation and the Polaris were firmly under the rule of the Auroran Empire, then they could bother with these toys. There was no time for this now. Survival was not about solving puzzles, it was about building your strength, about proving that were are worthy to survive. This was the only universal rule.
-----He half hoped that some pirates would jump into the system, but the honor of battle is secondary to the safety of your charges where guard duty is concerned. Although it would break the monotony, battle tattoos are not won by guards, no matter how many enemies they destroy. His mark of honor was to be for the safety of the researchers, and that tattoo was worth a dozen battle tattoos.
-----The Thurokiir explained that to him when he was still a warrior in training. If a warrior was honored for defeating enemies while guarding his friends, he might needlessly expose his charges to danger by intentionally looking for trouble. This way, the emphasis is placed on the true essence of the mission, and a special tattoo was designed for such occasions. Whether they were attacked or not, his honor would be the same in the end.
-----Still, he was bored.
-----The floodlights were pointed at the floor as the three team members floated silently down the hallway. All they could see behind them was the pinprick of laser light in the darkness. They were certain Karrak and Recht could no longer see their much dimmer floodlights. Finally, the blackness before them opened up to reveal points of light in the far, far distance.
-----"Magnets on." Thrane commanded, and the three team members felt their feet snap to the floor beneath them. This was the dangerous part. Behind them was safety, well contained within the walls of the ring. Before them was only the endless vacuum of space. The ring simply stopped existing a few meters down, wide open for a hundred kilometers until the other end of the unfinished ring began. Anything, or anyone, that accidentally floated beyond the edge would helplessly float away, until a rescue could be organized. The electromagnets in their boots reduced the chances of that happening significantly.
-----Still, the sight of the ring simply ending and an infinite of nothing suddenly beginning was dizzying. A hundred times worse than standing on a cliff's edge, since that situation at least provides the security of gravity. In the absence of a well-defined "down," down became directly in front of them, out into nothing. Thrane had to blink a few times to compose himself and think of down as the direction his boots were in. Once he managed to convince himself that the opening was forward rather than down, he was ready to begin his work.
-----With the help of binoculars, Thrane could making out the other side of the unfinished ring. Again he wondered why the ring was brought this close to completion and yet left unfinished. Compared to the amount of work already done, these last hundred kilometers would have been child's play.
-----"I see something on the other end!" He gasped in surprise. "There's some kind of machine over there, and it looks like it's still doing something!"
-----"Impossible." His companion muttered. "This ring has been abandoned since before the Auroran Empire was founded. Where would it get its power?"
-----"Look for yourself." Thrane handed him the binoculars, and was pleased when he saw the look of surprise on Nuhar's face when she saw it herself. Judging from the size of the ring, the machine must have been about the size of an Enterprise, but it was too far away to make out any details or tell what it was doing.
-----"We have to get a closer look at that." Nuhar gasped as she handed the binoculars to Jual, who wasn't quite as surprised because of all the advanced warning he had.
-----The team came well prepared. It was their intention the whole time to bridge the gap between the beginning and the end of the unfinished ring. Jual rolled out the huge spool of Duranium cable, the second heaviest thing they brought with them after the laser. Just by looking at it, one would expect it to be much heavier than the laser, but such was the miracle of Duranium alloy's strength to weight ratio. Of course, that was why, kilo for kilo, it was also one of the most expensive substances known to man.
-----The spool was set into a frictionless bearing and the cable attached to a magnetic harpoon. It fired noiselessly in the airless environment, and the harpoon slowly snaked its way across the gap in the ring. The spool unwound quickly, spinning faster and faster as the cable was used up and its diameter shrank. Finally, after an interminably long time, the harpoon's magnetic head signaled that it had struck the other side when the cable buckled in a dozen places and went slack. After securely attaching the other end of the cable to the ring on their side, Nuhar and Thrane clipped harnesses on their suits to the cable and prepared to cross the gap. Jual was to be left behind in case of emergency.
-----Thrane went first. Standing on the edge of the unfinished ring brought a new surge of panic to his heart, but to give in to one's fear was not in any way acceptable in Auroran culture. He certainly didn't want to give the warrior class any further reason to disrespect the scientists. Making sure his clip was secure, he launched himself down the taut cable, pulling himself hand-over-hand across the bottomless pit of space.
-----As Thrane looked back, he saw that Nuhar didn't hesitate for even an instant before heading across herself. His face flushed with shame, but he managed to hide it under his visor.
-----In the vacuum of space, with no air resistance to worry about, and the microgravity of orbit, they were able to make incredible time. Every hand-over-hand pull accelerated them faster down the cable until they were sailing through space at nearly a hundred kilometers an hour. The tricky part was coming to a stop before hitting the other side without rupturing their gloves from friction. A major pressure suit breech like that would mean a quick death. After an hour of literally flying under their own power, they turned around and used muscle power, not friction, to slow themselves down, gripping the cable only long enough to pull on it and slow their momentum, careful to let go before the end of their reach. It was much more exhausting work than bringing themselves up to speed, as it had to be done much more carefully. They might have been scientists by profession, but they were Auroran scientists, and all Aurorans kept themselves in top physical form. It was their social conditioning.
-----Jual watched them disappear into the blackness. It wasn't long before they were too far away to be seen anymore, even with the binoculars, only the pinpoints of their pressure suit's flashlights giving away their position. Over an hour after they pushed off, he finally saw the tiny lights moving back and forth across the huge opening in the other side of the ring. It wasn't until then that he finally realized just exactly how enormous this ring was. A careful pilot might be able to fly a Va Ytrack class Carrier inside of it. Although he wouldn't want to try it himself.
-----He put the binoculars down and made a quick inspection of the gear that was left behind. There was enough Duranium cable left for one more stretch across the gap. The floodlights were still bright, so the batteries were still okay. Nothing seemed to be out of place or malfunctioning. He picked up the binoculars again to see what Thrane and Nuhar were doing. Funny, he could only see one light this time. The other one was probably behind the machine or something. In any case, he couldn't ask, they were well out of range of the small pressure suit radios.
-----The drilling team was still in range though. "How's everything going back there?"
-----"We've got the core sample, Jual." Karrak replied. "We're just packing the laser back up for the return trip."
-----"Never mind that." He crackled back over the radio. "Come up here and take a look at this."
-----Minutes later, Karrak and Recht were up at the ring's massive opening. Jual handed them the binoculars. "Take a look at that machine over there."
-----Karrak blinked in surprise. "That's incredible! How did you turn it back on after all these years?"
-----"That's just it." Jual replied. "It was still on when we found it! Thousands of years of operation, and it's still running. Can you imagine what we could learn from that device if we could unlock its secrets?"
-----Recht, who had the binoculars next, handed them back to Jual after a long look. "It would mean the biggest leap in knowledge for the Auroran Empire since we rediscovered how to use the Hypergates in 780." He paused a moment to contemplate what exactly that would mean. Finally, he spoke up again. "Where are Thrane and Nuhar?"
-----"They're over there someplace." Jual answered, picking up the binoculars again. "I only saw one light though last time now they're both gone. I wonder what they're doing over there."
-----"I doubt it's anything too interesting." Recht smiled. "They're in pressure suits after all."
-----"This is serious." Jual reprimanded him. "I'm going over there." He quickly clipped a harness to the cable as Thrane and Nuhar had done and checked it twice to make sure it was secure. "I'm just going to have a quick look right around the opening. I shouldn't be more than two and a half hours, round trip, whether I find them or not."
-----Jual, too, found it disturbing to stand on the edge of infinity. It took every ounce of willpower to push himself off the edge of the ring, but his social conditioning prevented him from letting it show. Once he made the first jump, the rest of the trip was easier. Hand-over-hand, faster and faster, until he reached what he thought was his maximum safe speed which he could still brake from without damaging his gloves.
-----Even at the speeds he was traveling, a hundred kilometers is a long way. The planet below was an awesome sight. As a scientist, he was never allowed to pilot a ship of any kind. That honor was reserved for the warrior class. He'd only had glimpses of the wondrous sights of the galaxy though tiny porthole windows in the various ships he traveled in as a passenger, and never from a good angle and he never got a clear view of a whole planet. Even though Kontik was a dead rock of a world, it was still beautiful from orbit. And the massive and mysterious ring just added to the effect.
-----He found himself too distracted, and the looming other side of the ring snapped him back to attention. Was he too close already to brake safely? He cursed as he desperately plucked at the cable, trying to slow himself as quickly as possible. The opening of the ring was getting too close behind him. Too close, too fast. He did a quick estimate in his head and decided he was going to hit hard enough to break some bones. A surge of panic spread though his body and he acted on instinct.
-----He brought his grip down tight on the cable and did exactly what you were not supposed to do. The friction between his gloves and the cable slowed him down a lot faster than he could have done the right way, but flakes of his suit's material were shooting out from his grip at an alarming rate. He gripped harder and it made the situation worse. Looking over his shoulder, he saw he was almost right up to the opening already. His mind raced in the single second he had to react, and he made a desperate snap decision.
-----He pulled off the clip that secured him to the cable, and braced for impact.
-----His boots hit the bottom edge of the ring, sending a shock of pain all the way up his legs. Before he even had a chance to wonder how badly he was hurt, he flipped head over feet backwards, and the back of his helmet struck the floor of the ring so hard he saw sparks in front of his eyes. His momentum sent him tumbling out of control down the length of the ring, end over end, bruised, hurt, panicked, desperate. He tried to make a grab for something as he bounced off the ceiling, but there was nothing but the smooth metallic surface of the ring. He did stop tumbling though. As the floor again rose up to meet him, he finally composed himself and began to think rationally again. No air resistance. Nothing to grab a hold of. Falling fast and no obvious way to stop himself. He'd probably bounce off the inside of the ring three or four more times before slowing down, and by then he'd have broken every bone in his body.
-----He turned on his magnetic boots and hoped for the best. He felt his legs jam up into his hips, and the shock from the impact jarred him all the way up his spine, but at least he finally stopped. For a moment, he couldn't do anything but breathe, letting his body float in the weightlessness. Slowly, very slowly, the pains began to show themselves. The arches of his feet were badly bruised, his left arm might be broken. He wondered if he had a concussion. He hurt everywhere, but he was alive.
-----Suddenly he remembered his gloves, and all the material that broken loose as he tried to stop himself with friction. His left glove was ragged and torn, but still held. His right glove, however, had a small tear that went all the way through the palm. Without thinking, his left arm reached for the emergency patches, but a searing pain reminded him that his left arm wasn't going to be any use. He was going to have to use his right hand to fix its own glove.
-----It took him all three emergency patches and a lot of fumbling, but he did it. Exhausted, frustrated, and bruised from head to toe, he thanked every god he had ever heard of that the ring was built high enough to be in geosynchronous orbit. He would never have been able to make it all the way back to the ring's opening in the condition he was in if he had any weight. He hoped the others were watching as he began to blink his suit's flashlight at them in the universal distress call. Three short, three long, three short. S - O - S. Over and over again.
-----Finally, he decided that if they hadn't seen him by then, they were simply never going to. They were too far away for him to see if they were coming to help, as he left the binoculars with them. In desperation he tried the radio, even though he knew they were out of range. To his amazement, he got an answer.
-----"We saw your signal and I'm already on my way over, Jual." Karrak explained. "I must be just barely in radio range. There's a lot of static. I should be there in about half an hour. Just try not to lose consciousness. I donΒt want to have to worry about carrying you back over limp."
-----"I owe you my life, Karrak." Jual answered. "I'd never make it back on my own. I'm going to take a quick look around and see if I can find Thrane and Nuhar."
-----"All right, just don't wander too far from the edge so I can find you. Karrak out."
-----Recht suddenly felt very, very alone. Everyone else was on the other side of the ring, and Karrak took the binoculars with him to get Jual. Aside from the four who left him there, there was still the warrior who shuttled them here in his Abomination, but he was maintaining radio silence so he wouldn't attract Houseless pirates.
-----It was as silent as a tomb in the airless environment. An hour passed. He decided to finish packing up the equipment for the return trip. Two more hours went by as he dotted every i and crossed every t, triple checking that everything was perfectly packed and in order just to keep himself busy. He sang songs in his head and ricocheted batteries off the walls of the ring for entertainment for another hour and still nobody showed up.
-----Finally bored out of his mind, he made his way back to the opening in the ring. Nobody was there. He clipped himself to the cable and pulled himself across.
-----"Zarkel of the house of Dani, you stand before your peers accused of losing your five charges in the Kontik system. How do you plead?"
-----Zarkel reflected on what he had seen when he returned to the ring. It was without a doubt the most eerie thing he had ever seen. All five researchers, gone without a trace. Not a single shred of evidence except for tiny flakes of pressure suit material on part of the Duranium cable that they used to bridge the ring's gap. One pair of binoculars was sitting on the far side, secured to the magnetic harpoon. But the part that frightened him most was the picture-perfect organization of the rest of the equipment, inhumanly perfectly packed. The whole situation was so clean, so sterile, it was surreal.
-----They were supposed to have called him for pickup eight hours after he dropped them off. Following protocol, when nine hours had passed without word, he flew back to pick them up, assuming the long-range radio had failed. He flew his Abomination through the inside of the ring twice, and found nothing but the neatly packed equipment. No signs of a struggle, no signs of any trouble except for the bits of material on the cable.
-----"Guilty." Zarkel answered. "They were my responsibility and mine alone. I have failed in my duty to my house and my empire."
-----"Then your council of peers has no choice but to sentence you to duty in the next suicide detachment to the Federation border. Try, in death, to recover some of the honor you have so casually thrown away."
-----There were worse fates, Zarkel decided. The suicide detachments were expected to fight to the death to distract the bulk of Federation forces while a strike team attacked the real target. He could serve his house one last time, and if he fought valiantly enough, perhaps he could be remembered for that instead of for his failure.
-----At least they got the core sample.
