Beyond the Event Horizon (6 page)

Steve had
heard from engineering students that there was a common belief
among them that there was some correlation between a successful
design and an aesthetic external appearance. If a ship, a robot or
something else was a joy to behold, you could confidently assert
that its design was successful. And the uglier the machine, the
more design faults there would be in it.

This robot
looked more attractive than those Steve had seen at the base. And
since each model was an improvement on the previous one, the newer
it was, the more elegant it would look. It seemed the engineers
were right.

The robot in
the box was squatting with its head inclined forwards. In this
position it looked more like a cube than a humanoid, but it took up
much less space that way.

“Careful! Move
back a bit,” warned Toshi.

Steve
obediently took several paces back. Toshi took a key from his
chest, inserted it somewhere in the small of the metal back and
turned it. The robot slowly lifted its simulation of a head. Its
optics were hidden behind thick dark acrylic glass, and its head
was more like a futuristic motorcycle helmet.

Toshi made a
few well-practised movements to initialise the robot. After
checking its system, he ordered it to leave the container. The
robot obediently straightened up to its full height, and, with a
clanking noise, stepped out.

Only now could
they see how tall it was. Steve measured it with his eyes from head
to foot. It must have been about six and a half feet tall.

After
activating and checking the remaining machines and supplying them
with ammunition, Toshi wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Skip, we’re
all done here.”

“Roger. Put
the robots on duty. Steve, return here to the bridge.”

After passing
through the gravity lock on his way back to the bridge, Steve
sighed with relief. Whatever you say, gravity is a lot more
pleasant than weightlessness. There’s no nausea, and your face
doesn’t swell up like a balloon due to the rush of blood to your
head.

“Well, let’s
see if our pursuers will listen to the voice of reason,” said
Kimble with the hint of a smile, and switched on the radio.

Like any other
large cargo ship captain, deep down Kimble was longing to take
revenge on the pirates. Anyone with twenty or more years of
commercial flight experience to the limits of assimilated space
could always remember unpleasant stories about space robbers. If
you have experienced their cruelty first-hand, any pity for the
corsairs instantly evaporates.

“Attention
unidentified ships on approach course, this is the captain of
EMC1906. I consider your actions an attempt to seize my ship. I
order you to cease your pursuit. Change course,” said Kimble, and,
after switching off the microphone, added: “I bet they don’t bat an
eyelid.”

Silence was
the response. Kimble waited several minutes and repeated the
warning. The pirate ships continued to fly on the same course, as
if they had not heard the captain.

“Attention
unidentified ships. This is the captain of EMC1906. Change course.
This is the last warning. Keep at a distance of not less than one
million kilometres. We are authorised to use force without further
warning.”

Kimble
grimaced at his own words.

“I hate having
to warn the enemy.”

Steve just
shrugged his shoulders.

“Flight rules
are what they are. You can’t do otherwise.”

“Exactly.”

Kimble
patiently waited another few minutes. There was no response from
the ships, nor were they going to change course.

“They are not
reacting at all,” said Steve, somewhat surprised.

Kimble
laughed. “Of course they aren’t. They think we’re ordinary
civilians, just bluffing.” He looked at the clock again.

“All right,
they don’t want to listen to the voice of reason...” He switched
off and contacted Toshi.

“Let the birds
out of the nest,” he ordered him.

Toshi could be
seen on the image from the camera in the cargo compartment standing
next to the drones and saluting, then keying something in on his
tablet. Vapour issued from the tails of the drones, and Toshi
hurried towards the exit. The magnetic soles made movement
difficult, particularly running. Toshi was lifting his knees
unnaturally high, trying to run as fast as possible before the
cargo compartment became filled with mist.

Eventually,
the drones started their engines. The screen showed their tail ends
beginning to light up. The first one rose slowly and floated to the
exit. A few seconds later, the second one followed.

Kimble
switched on communication with their onboard computers. All systems
were working normally. Their coordinate system was linked directly
to the heart of EMC1906, its reactor. Now they were moving at two
and a half metres a second relative to the ship.

When the first
one went out into space, the ship’s computer divided the picture
into two parts. One part of the screen showed the view from the
external camera, the other showed the view from the cargo
compartment. A few moments later, the second one passed through the
lock. By that time, the first one had already turned and
accelerated away from the ship towards the pirates. Its speed
rapidly increased to 100 metres a second. The second one followed,
a few dozen seconds behind it in flight time.

The external
camera tracked them, keeping them in the centre of the picture and
gradually increasing the optical magnitude. Then the image suddenly
disappeared and reappeared. Now the picture was coming from a
telescope. Both drones were clearly visible against the background
of the black starry sky, although they were covered in
light-absorbing paint. The speed readings increased still further
to 500 metres a second. Now the two drones, which so far had been
flying in the same direction, accelerated in absolute
synchrony.

1000 metres a
second, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000...

After passing
the five thousand mark, the computer changed the units to
kilometres a second.

6.0... 6.5...
7.0... 7.5 kilometres a second...

“Why have they
separated?” asked Steve in surprise.

“They will
approach the target from different sides. It’s harder to neutralise
them that way,” replied Kimble calmly. He leaned back in his seat
and put one leg on the console in front of him.

“When will
they be in position?”

“In three or
four hours,” replied the Captain, not taking his eyes off the
screen in front of him.

“And then
what?”

Kimble raised
his eyes.

“Then there
will be two less pirate ships.”

“Just like
that, so unceremoniously?”

“Piracy is a
serious crime. They know the risks.”

“Couldn’t you
just scare them off?”

Kimble
grimaced as if from a nagging toothache.

“If we had not
had the drones, we would only have had a few hours to live, Steve.
In nine out of ten cases when a ship is seized, the crew does not
survive. If we just scare them off, in another couple of weeks
they’ll seize another ship.”

“I realise
that, but I’m still not happy about it. It seems kind of
underhand.”

“Have a chat
with Toshi, he’ll tell you a lot of interesting things. He and his
friend were the only survivors of an entire crew when they were
kidnapped during loading. They spent eight weeks in a shuttle
before a patrol chanced to pick them up. And another shuttle with
his fellow crew members in it could not be intercepted, because it
went too far into space and was lost.”

Steve nodded
to show that he understood the seriousness of the situation. After
the incident on Mars, he himself knew what sort of people they were
dealing with. For distraction, he immersed himself in reading the
dossier on the anomaly. Shelby and his group were continuing to
work on their research on Earth, and were keeping Steve and Clive
in the picture if they succeeded in finding out anything new.

“Drones will
be in position in three minutes,” reported the ship’s computer in a
matter-of-fact voice several long hours later. Kimble dimmed the
light in the bridge.

“Action
begins!”

Steve saw the
image of the pirate ships taken through the drones’ telescopes.
Over the past few hours, they had reached the pirates, turned, and
were approaching them from behind. Now they were flying directly
behind their targets, within the exhaust of their engines. The
picture was partly covered by grey vapour. The drones were
photographing from such a great distance that even the exhaust
dissipated in space clouded them over somewhat.

“How can they
transmit images without the pirates noticing? They are directly
between us!”

“The drones
sent out a communications satellite, which is flying a few thousand
kilometres to one side. The image is relayed through it by
laser.”

The live image
of the pirate ships was not very varied. Nothing could be seen
apart from the light from their rear turbines. They twinkled
slightly, and that was all the variety there was in the
picture.

“Drone 1 in
position, awaiting Drone 2,” came a message from the first drone.
Automatic devices provided information about the current combat
situation in text form.

“Drone 2 in
position,” reported the second machine a little later, indicating
its readiness. After that, the status reports from both drones
began to come in almost synchronously.

“Drone 1
locking on to target. Locked on to target.”

“Drone 2
locking on to target. Locked on to target.”

“The world
will be a cleaner place without you guys,” muttered Kimble.
Although the pirates deserved to be atomised, he was clearly
deriving no pleasure from the process of killing them.

“Drone 1
attacking.”

“Drone 2
attacking.”

Steve looked
intently at the screen. His heart began to beat faster. Although
the pictures from the monitors did not look any different from a
computer game, they still made a very strong impression on him. He
was so involved in the combat situation that he felt as if he were
there, on board one of the pirate ships.

He saw in his
imagination the dim light of its bridge, where its captain was
sitting with a bottle of whisky in his hand. The other members of
the crew, unshaven, half drunk, their breath reeking of alcohol,
were playing cards in the next compartment. They were discussing
how they would spend the money they would get from seizing another
ship, not realising that their plans were destined to fail. They
only had a few seconds to live.

Steve saw a
fine white thread heading towards the pirates. The anti-matter
charge fired from the drones’ weapons was annihilating the sparse
molecules of the exhaust from the pirates’ turbines along the path
of the shot. An instant later, quite silently and almost
simultaneously, both pirate ships were transformed into a bright
flare, shooting out orange fireworks in all directions.

The drones, as
if by command, decreased the magnification of the telescopes
through which they were conducting visual observation of the
targets. The spheres of the explosions were now fully in the
picture. They rapidly increased in size, and, as they increased,
they slowly became dimmer, changing from white to the colour of a
dark Bordeaux wine. A few seconds later the light from the
fragments went out and they were lost from view. Where the exhaust
flames of the plasma exhausts had just been twinkling, nothing
remained but the emptiness of space.

“Drone 1,
target destroyed. Returning to base.”

“Drone 2,
target destroyed. Returning to base.”

Steve turned
to look at the Captain, who was sitting there with a completely
calm face.

“Was that your
first live relay of combat?” he asked.

Steve nodded
without saying anything. He had to digest what he had seen. Kimble
got up from his seat, went over to Steve and clapped him on the
shoulder.

“Go and get
some rest. By tomorrow evening, we shall reach the object of our
expedition,” he said. His voice sounded unusually soft, and quieter
than normal.

Steve just
nodded again and went to his cabin.

After dealing
with the pirates and picking up the communication satellite, the
drones drew apart from each other to take up the standard formation
and set course to catch up with the expedition ship. By adopting
this formation, they minimised the possibility of both of them
being destroyed simultaneously in the event of a sudden attack.

A few hours
later, they were back in the cargo compartment of their base ship,
and the maintenance robots checked their serviceability. Like any
other weapon, the drones needed servicing after every use in
combat. Once the serviceability of all their systems had been
checked, they were again ready to defend their space base against
uninvited guests, as the ship’s computer told the captain without
delay.

“I never
thought it would be such child’s play for the drones to deal with
two ships,” said Steve after hearing the report that the drones
were ready again. During the time since the attack, he had managed
to get some rest and get his thoughts together.

“Well, if the
pirates had known that pilotless spacecraft like those were hunting
them, it wouldn’t have been so easy,” replied Kimble.

“How could
they have known? I thought it was impossible to spot them.”

“Not
everything is as simple as it seems from the outside. Our drones
belong to the latest generation the army has. Older models would
have been hard put to cope with two ships without loss.”

“And here’s
something I’ve never understood. If pirates are doing such damage
to the economy, why doesn’t every ship have such things?” asked
Steve, pointing to the display showing the two drones.