Aurona, page 20
“Ah, how deep do these flakes go, sir? I-I mean just how thick is the shield?”
“Excellent question!” he replied. “You know, believe it or not, there is a way to find out! Gimme a second….” His voice trailed off. Backing the view away several stops, a more solid-looking metallic band suddenly ran across the center of the screen, remarkably straight and uniform. He walked up to the screen, pointing at the scale markers around the edges. “There you go, guys. Human estimates are out of the question here. Whatever this stuff is that we’re looking at is exactly ninety-five feet, three inches thick! My guess? I think we’ll find the same, uniform answer around the entire planet!” He silently pondered a few moments, then turned and walked back to the podium, pivoting it to face the crew.
“Okay, this is it. In view of all these facts, I’m going to take action. I’ve just made a few tactical decisions. Kron, I want you to take a group with you down to Launch Bay A-5. When you get there, prepare both a metallic and a ceramic-hulled probe. That’s right, we’re gonna use one of each.”
He nodded. “Signal when you’re ready, pal!”
His second in command sprang to his feet and wheeled into action, tapping several shoulders as he sprinted toward the bronze doors.
“Now as for the rest of you, please repair to your flight stations at once and strap in! For purposes of safety, we’ll need to conduct this experiment from a much higher orbit. You’re dismissed!”
He nodded to them curtly, and then to Elena graciously. Her warm, returning smile sent his heart soaring. As the crew dashed out of the room in excitement, she saluted him with an overly exaggerated snap, a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “C’mon, you,” he grinned, teasing. “Double time!” Clapping his hands, he shooed her out of the room. Taking a quick breath, he pivoted on his heel to grab the holograms and beat a hasty retreat down the elevator.
A small chime sounded. Adam glanced up momentarily and went back to his programming. Good. Kron and his men were ready. Locking in a steep climb, he piloted the starship into a higher orbit, then flattened out and circled the planet to the other side.
As they crossed the sharply contrasting day/night boundary in a brilliant flash of light, everyone did a double take. What just happened? Did the shield disappear? It took a few moments to figure it out: the surface was so polished that it was now reflecting the black, starry cosmos in a curving mirror image!
Adam slowed the craft, got a fix on his position, and recorded the time precisely. As they stopped, he whispered into the intercom. “Okay. I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on. We’ve diverted their attention to this side of the planet, but I’ve got a trick up my sleeve: I’m gonna use the old ‘shell game.’ You know, the one magicians use? We’ll disappear with the shields and cloaking device, I’ll zip back to the other side of the planet to do some quick experiments, and then come back here. I wanna poke at the shield with some tests. Ready, everyone?”
The crew glanced at each other, questioning. Why was he whispering?
As he punched the buttons, the huge starship was blotted from the sky. His urgent answer immediately filtered into their ear inserts. “Yes, I’m whispering. I’m deliberately keeping my voice low because I’m sure we’re being watched. Now, these are the facts: One, we just disappeared. Two, they know we’re up to something. Three, and most likely, they may retaliate! We’re cloaked and shielded, so we have full advantage at the moment. We’ll just have to sit here and watch out monitors to see what happens….”
Even as he spoke, the smooth reflection below them started to break up.
Wow,” he whispered, “that didn’t take long; my hunch was right! Take a look at your screens!”
Below them, the tranquil surface was crackling to life! Luminous red veins of electricity bulged upward like huge solar flares, then great arcs of light began to snap toward them! Sure enough, they had been watched!
“Ready to roll?” Their instantaneous answer came back cloaked in heavy static, barely audible. “Untold gigawatts of electricity, remember?” he hissed. “Hold on!”
The day/night boundary flashed beneath them once more and in moments they approached their original spot, this time cloaked and totally undetected. As the starship slowed to a stop, he was ready with his preplanned orders, not missing a beat.
“Okay, Kron! First probe! Cloak the metallic one! Ready, launch!” he hissed.
The probe shot out of a tube in a long trajectory to the east, invisible to the eye but showing up as a plotted course on everyone’s screens. Finally, coming straight down, it hit two thousand miles away.
A bright flash of electrical luminescence erupted from the spot! The angry red surface bulged upward in a towering circular wall, converging on the hapless probe. It disintegrated immediately.
He bent low to the microphone, whispering intently. “Just as I thought. Okay! Second probe! Cloak the ceramic one! This time rotate 180 degrees! Ready, launch!”
The dotted line of its plotted trajectory traveled in the opposite direction in a long arc, nosed over, and then hit the shield straight down.
Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Not a wrinkle or a bulge, just a neatly punched hole. Completely undetected, the probe continued to streak toward the planet’s surface. The edges of the hole started to waver and fill in behind it.
What was happening? They were still getting transmission from the probe through the shrinking opening! The crew leaned toward their monitors to watch the tiny vehicle’s drogue chute open, slowing it down into a darkened, nearly featureless atmosphere. Suddenly, they all saw movement! Neon lights? A flash of wings? Puzzled, they squinted intently through the amber mists at a vague, bright fluttering. Suddenly, the steep side of a mountain was directly below them! Gripping the arms of their chairs, they watched the craggy rocks come up. As the last vestiges of the hole in the shield closed, their screens went blank in a buzzing gray static.
Adam’s crude, two-step shell game was nearly complete. Swiftly accelerating, he slipped the cloaked, invisible craft back to the dark side of the planet and slowed, triangulating his position and speed carefully.
“Everyone, listen! This is important! We’re going to reappear, but we’re gonna be a little further ahead of where we were a few minutes ago,” he whispered. “It’s got to be the exact spot and look good on their screens. I hope it works. They’ve gotta think their equipment glitched or something!” He scanned the instruments nervously, fine-tuning his timing. “Okay, steady. We’re on track … cloaking device and shields … off!” The ship popped back into view, assuming orbit exactly where it should have been. They all held their breaths, their eyes glued to their monitors.
Beneath them the rough, fiery looking surface flickered, smoothed slightly, and then slowly regained its glassy appearance. In moments, it was serene once again.
Cheers resounded all over the ship, sending Adam quickly to his throat mike. “Guys, guys! Cool it!” He grinned. “Ah, nothing happened here, right? At least they’ve got to think so. We’re gonna park right here in orbit awhile and figure out this new development. One thing’s for certain. There’s no way that this ship, with its metal-alloy hull, can penetrate that death trap under us. We gotta find some other way to get in. We need to think as a team and put our heads together. We gotta do whatever we need to do to come up with answers or this mission’s a bust!”
Like a nervous swarm of army ants, they disbanded from their stations and spread throughout the ship. Some formed loud, fiery brainstorming groups, others ran up to the Dream Library to research, but they all dug deeply for hours. Gradually, group after group, they gravitated back toward the Observatory Room to settle in front of the big screen. The noise level began to rise sharply as they swapped ideas and debated the mysteries of the enigmatic shell beneath them.
Adam walked into the room and stopped short in surprise. “Well!” he exclaimed, his finger poised over his wrist programmer. “I guess I don’t have to sound the tone for general assembly, do I?”
They glanced over their shoulders at him, grinning uneasily. The absentees arrived in a run, and in minutes the room was packed.
He raised his voice to speak. “Okay. Thoughts ready? Practical ideas now!”
About twenty hands shot up.
“Yes?” he pointed.
Elke stood up nervously. “Ah, how about punching a whole slew of holes in the shield to make a big opening!” He held his arms wide. “Then we could dive into the hole at warp speed … or something?”
The crew wouldn’t let him finish: a chorus of hoots and jeers brought him down.
“Warp speed?” Adam tried his best to keep a straight face. “What kind of reruns have you been watching in the Dream Library? Okay, thanks, Elke. Hey, don’t feel intimidated, guys. We’re all in this together and need any kind of input we can get.” They sat there chagrined and thoughtful. A hand rose.
“Peter? Yes, you. Stand up, please.”
He stood slowly. “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe a negative static charge around our ship, or something? We know our shields have a positive charge.”
Adam nodded. “Hmm, that’s better. It sounds good, but we’re up against a tremendous amount of electricity here. An unknown factor. We only get one chance.”
Peter smiled, shrugged, and sat down. Another hand rose tentatively.
“Yes, Elena? I-I noticed your hand was up the first time. Go ahead.”
She looked at him in surprise and stood. “Well, I’m just thinking of a way we might be able to, ah, ‘see’ through the shield. It’s not exactly the same as going through it with our bodies or the starship yet; we can figure that out later. It’s a way for all of us to virtually go through without exactly … being there…?”
As her voice trailed off, a perplexed silence fell over the assembly.
“Please explain?” Adam probed gently. “Wait, wait, here’s a throat mike.”
Her hands trembling, she put it on and turned to face the crew. “Okay, here goes.” Putting her hands together, she formed a small O with her fingers. “Suppose, just suppose, we could actually open up a little hole in the shield, a small hole, poking through it with something like a tube over a hundred feet long. If I remember right, the shield’s uniformly a bit over 95 feet thick, so anything longer than that should be able to go completely through, right?” She paused to look around. Most were nodding hesitantly.
“Now, this is my idea,” she continued, a bit more confidently. “I-I found a huge coil of clear, flexible plastic pipe about five inches in diameter down in the cargo hold. I remembered reading in the manual that the pipe is supposed to be used for siphoning drinking water from lakes into our storage tanks. So this is it.” She paused, flattening out her palms and bringing them closer together. “We go down real close to the shield, almost touching it, and poke the plastic pipe through. It is nonmetallic, so nothing should happen, right?” She glanced at Adam.
He shrugged and raised his brows expectantly.
Encouraged, she continued. “The next part’s a lot more interesting. We get a big funnel, also in the cargo hold, stick it into the end of the pipe and pour a few thousand of our Spyders through it, right into Aurona’s atmosphere. I found out that you can program them to go into ‘transport’ mode, where they tuck in all their legs to protect them. They’ll look like marbles. When they hit the air, they’ll sense they’re flying, open up, and float down to the surface, beaming back what they see through the hole that’s been opened.” Her hands were very expressive, making funnel shapes, Spyder motions and beams. They understood. Adam understood.
“Finally, we clamp a small, ceramic antigrav ring….”
“Also in the cargo hold?” he interrupted respectfully.
“Yes, I’ve located all these parts on board,” she smiled. “We clamp the ring around the neck of the pipe that’s sticking out of the shield, holding it in place and making it float. Finally, we cut the pipe and snake an antenna wire down through it to pick up all the Spyder transmissions. A relay transmitter mounted on the rim of the antigrav ring should amplify the signals and send them back to the ship. Of course, we’d be parked in a wider orbit for … safety….” She trailed off, realizing there was dead silence in the big, round room.
Everyone, including Adam, was staring at her open-mouthed.
He broke the spell. “Yes!” His fist shot into the air. “That’s it! We’ll do it!”
The crew leaped to their feet, breaking into spontaneous, noisy applause. He picked his way to her side, beaming proudly. “So tell me, girl, how do you do it?”
She was overwhelmed and a bit frightened, but her blue eyes rose to meet his confidently. “I guess I think in pictures,” she shrugged. “Then I combine all of my images into an idea.”
Bending down, he whispered in her ear. She whispered back her answer, shaking her head. Laughing, he looked up and motioned for silence. “Listen to this, guys: she just informed me she didn’t write our manual, she merely memorized it cover to cover. Hmmm! In any case, Elena, I’m appointing you the project leader of Operation Spyder!” As the crew cheered, he held up his hands for silence. “Think about it! It’s only logical to use these robotoids in the very function they were designed for! They are photo-yielding devices for extraterrestrial reconnaissance, right? In any case, I think Elena might consent to run through the manual page by page, summing it all up for you.”
Laughing along with the crew, Elena seemed more at ease and nodded graciously. “Thanks, guys. Well, I guess it’s ‘down to business’! As project leader, here are my thoughts: first and foremost, you control your own Spyder’s movements. The controls are inside each of your e-helmets. Although your chin pads have joystick capability and can control a few of the simpler movements, your biofeedback gloves are the real stars of the show: they’re the vital link, the integral part, real nano-engineering wonders. Once you put them on, they’re locked onto you, and only you. Their Bluetooth receptors see and respond to your entire body’s movements, then transmit them to your Spyders.”
Adam quickly slipped away to sit down on the floor in the front row, deep in thought. When did she have time to read all the manuals, much less memorize them? She was absolutely amazing and a knockout, too! He listened, enraptured. Her expressive hands were busy again, making everything crystal clear.
“This will be an intuitive, easy function to learn. First, your chin pads get things going: you pull down the ‘Explore’ menu and scan through the images streaming in from many Spyder frequencies. Lock onto a maximum of three that interest you. They’ll be displayed in triple split-screen inside your face shields, in living color and real time. Remember, out of the three, you can only control one at a time. That image automatically centers itself, larger than the other two. Then begin your mission. Act out what you want your Spyder do with your arms and body: flee, climb, go closer, grab and pull with its manipulator arms, fly or whatever.”
Adam tilted his head, questioning. “Huh? You, um … act it out?”
She chuckled. “Yes, when you spread your arms, your biofeedback gloves spread your Spyder’s arms. Paddle with your wrists to steer your Spyder in the air. Spread your fingers and your suction pads flare. Kick with your legs in many different ways and your Spyder jumps, runs, or turns, and so on. In theory, we should be able to carry out an entire mini mission from the safety and comfort of our ship!”
As a murmur of amazement shot through the crowd, a hand rose in the back.
“Ah, yes, Dexor?”
The man jumped to his feet. “Can you pick things up with the manipulator arms?”
“Of course! Think about VR: this is all old, but new technology, refined and in miniature scale. Get this! With your biofeedback gloves, you can actually feel textures of surfaces and test weights! Whatever you can do with your thumb and four fingers in a mitten position, the Spyder’s claws can do. Their manipulator arms are extremely strong and can lift many times their own weight!”
Dexor sat down smugly, satisfied with his answer.
She pressed on. “So there you go. It’ll be exactly like learning how to ride a bike. It’ll take a lot of practice to learn how to maneuver these little guys. I think it would be a good idea for everyone to get used to their own e-helmets, chin pads, and biofeedback gloves and learn to put them through their paces.” She spoke with authority, seeming to offer no alternative with the exquisite logic of her reasoning.
Adam stood up, totally mesmerized, edging toward her as she drew to a close. Suddenly her bright smile flashed, dazzling him. Embarrassed, he spun away, pretending to adjust the volume on his throat mike. “Well,” he coughed, “y-you’ve got your orders, guys. Ah, like she says, practice makes perfect. I think the ones who learn the fastest should tutor the slower ones, right?”
A few sharp eyes had caught the subtle exchange. As Kron and Tola raised their brows and elbowed each other, Sahir and Joelle nodded knowingly at each other.
“So it all boils down to this, guys,” Adam shrugged. “Everyone’s ultimately responsible for his or her own mini mission!”
A wave of laughter and spontaneous applause swept the room. Everyone was genuinely excited about the possibilities of these extraordinary robot-creatures.
He concluded. “The more info we gather, the sooner we crack the mystery of the shield! So let’s go! We gotta open the Elenosphere and get this big baby down!”
He turned to playfully salute Elena. As she slyly stole a wink, a lot of sharp eyes in the audience caught the exchange. Adam’s ears grew hot, the flames spreading like a crowning forest fire, raising in intensity in direct proportion to the redness of his face. She’d felt it too; the deep, mutual admiration was real, like a meteor falling: the rush, impending, inevitable. Her hand shot up to her mouth. They paused, smiled uncertainly, and parted.
