135 Skulls on the Throne (1/2)

[the] [is] [only] [death]

Falmo'o stared at the gravitational pattern and looked at Taynee. ”Did you ever try to figure out anything about this gravitational anomaly in the neutron star?” he asked.

Taynee shook her head. ”I didn't, but I know other scientists did.”

”What did they determine?” Falmo'o asked, staring at the display. It was weird. The tech was so bare on the surface. Mechanical keyboards, crystal laser storage matrix (they used odd spinning platters for it), liquid crystal displays in some places, cathode ray displays in others. Wiring wasn't always super-conductor, in some places it was gold or even copper. But the programming was advanced, data arrays with borderline virtual intelligences, search capacity that returned results in less time then the most advanced computers he had worked for back in civilized space.

She sighed. ”We determined that the gravity focus shifts,” she looked at Falmo'o and exhaled smoke. ”The neutron star changes direction but we're not sure on what basis, it's also used the gravitational lensing to speed up and slow down,” she said. ”And no, we never figured out where its going.”

Falmo'o gritted his teeth together in annoyance then stopped.

Where did I get that habit? I'm Lanaktallan, when we're annoyed we curl our tendrils, he wondered briefly.

”It's hard to figure out when you start going back and forth,” Taynee said. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. ”It's even hard to remember what I did any more.”

”What did you do?” Falmo'o asked. ”Can you remember?”

She shook her head. ”Some days. Some days I can remember. Others days I can't. I'm a technician, but I wasn't always. I was something else, something full of rage, but my rage cooled.”

”What kind of technician?” Falmo'o asked. His old instincts were coming back, his old training.

”Mat-Trans science and technology. Advanced sub-atomic particle neo-physics,” she looked up. ”Quark, boojums, higgs-bosun, all the little particles,” she gave a wry chuckle. ”We don't fully understand the mat-trans system. How it works even, we just knew that it worked.”

She suddenly laughed. ”The tech is miniaturized even smaller than originally. Better transmitters, better receptors, but we don't understand why it works, just that does. It shouldn't. I mean, honestly, the math for it is... outrageous.”

Falmo'o still couldn't believe that humans had achieved matter transmission before even space-flight. It was one of the major research fields that had never gone anywhere.

Of course the humans figured it out. They probably weaponized it within minutes, he thought to himself.

”Only, it turned out that mat-trans slowly drives you crazy. The further the distance, the faster it makes you crazy,” she said. ”We use it for orbital insertions against the Mantids.”

Could it be the interaction between the mat-trans system and the gravity? Falmo'o wondered. Could that have caused it all?

”What were you working on when everything changed?” Falmo'o asked.

”I... I'm not sure,” Tanyee said. ”We... we were using the hyperpulse com to talk to New Terra.” She lit a cigarette and exhaled. ”Um... we were using real-time sub-space coms to interface with Imperium networks, we had transferred down some things to Dark Side One, I don't remember what, but the Combine ship showed up, like twenty years late, and used mat-trans to 'beam' over to the shuttle bay.”

Falmo'o nodded. ”Then what?”

”Um, everything went down. Half the Combine guys got turned inside out, coms went down and we've never gotten them back up, and...” she paused for a second. ”You came around the corner, from behind one of the main computer banks, it got destroyed when you got killed. Then we started seeing you guys everywhere. One of you in Imperium power armor, one of you in Combine armor but he didn't come back after we airlocked him. The one in Imperium armor, he keeps coming back.”

Falmo'o made a noise of assent. He kind of remembered that. Remembered trying to talk to the humans and getting gunned down.

Scrabbling slightly, Falmo'o got up, moving across to get a drink of water.

He was thinking about what she had said. All of those happening at once, with the addition of mat-trans technology and whatever arcane mathematics were involved in such a technology.

”Could you build a mat-trans?” he asked.

”Yeah,” Tanyee said. ”I'm the one that got the one to the surface working again.”

”Mm-hmm,” Falmo'o said. He poured himself some water, turning around and sipping it, staring at the back of the naked human's head. ”How many Terrans here could build one?”

”Just me. The rest of them were on the surface at Dark-Side One,” Taynee said. She exhaled smoke. ”Shit, I remember this.” Her shoulders and neck muscles tightened slightly.

Whispers started in Falmo'o's head but he tightened his neck ruffs and relaxed his tendrils.

Falmo'o stopped from drawing the neural pistol. He took a deep drink and sighed to cover the slight sound of the neural pistol going back into the holster. ”How much do you understand about Hellspace mechanics?”

”Hellspace? Quite a bit. Why?” Taynee asked.

”How much overlap is there between mat-trans mechanics and Hellspace?” Falmo'o asked, moving back around in front of her.

”Quite a bit, actually. It's somewhat surprising just how much. The original mat-trans with humans must have invoked legendary nightmares and turned people inside out,” Taynee said. She relaxed as Falmo'o moved back in front of her then gave him a weird look.

”What?” Falmo'o asked.

”You should have shot me at the base of the skull. I remember you doing it,” she said.

”Well, I'm...” Falmo'o started to say.

Falmo'o himself came around a stack of nutripaste boxes, leveled the neural pistol, and leveled the neural pistol at the back of Taynee's neck.

The double jerked upright, going stiff, when Falmo'o's shot hit it in the forehead, then collapsed. Taynee had leaned to the side to avoid Falmo'o's shot and finished coming to her feet.

Falmo'o moved forward as Taynee turned and looked.

”Crap,” she said.

The replacement version of Falmo'o was completely covered in worms and insect larvae. As Falmo'o watched the entire body decayed away, even the bones and cartilage rotting away, leaving nothing behind but a stain.

”Falmo'o, that isn't what I remember,” Taynee said slowly.

”Hellspace,” Falmo'o said slowly. ”How did the Combine ship arrive?”

Taynee nodded. ”Hellspace Rift, even though nobody uses it. We didn't get a chance to ask them why they used that.”

”How did you know they were Combine?” Falmo'o asked, tapping the pistol against his leg.

”Combine Era ship, old style Combine Marine body mods, Combine armor,” Taynee said slowly. ”Combine codes.”

”Who built this place?” Falmo'o said.

”Keel plate is down here in engineering. I assumed it was Imperium,” Taynee said. She turned away, motioning him to follow. ”It should be down here.”

They moved back past the environmental systems, through hallways. The lights flickered several times but the station stayed in good condition. The air began to smell better, although it took Falmo'o a few minutes to realize it. After a little bit they reached a room, marked ”ENGINEERING MAINTENANCE CORE - NO ADMITTANCE” above the door.

Falmo'o deliberately ”looked away” as she punched in the door code, knowing that Taynee wouldn't realize that he was watching through one of his rear eyes. It was a simple code, only eight digits.

Easy number to remember, he thought to himself.

The door slid open, revealing some of the core systems. The graviton generator, which kept the facility on station as well as monitored grav waves, the main environmental system, the three power plants, and a couple of ones that Falmo'o didn't recognize.

”It'll be back here,” Taynee said. She moved between several large pieces of machinery and Falmo'o followed, remembering what the labels were. There were two computer core towers that disappeared above the ceiling and were twelve meters across. They were mostly dark, which made Falmo'o wonder just how much computing power the station had at its disposal if all the computational power needed to keep everything running that had to run at all times barely touched the computer systems.

”Here,” she said. She reached out and touched it. ”My God.” She tapped two places. ”DARPA and Overproject Whisper.”

”What?” Falmo'o asked. It was a simple looking logo. A simple blue oval marked with longitude and latitude lines with DARPA printed on it. Underneath was was written ”OVERPROJECT WHISPER” not that he could read either text.

”That's impossible,” Taynee said. She shook her head. ”There's no way that logo should even be here.”

”What does it mean?” Falmo'o said. To him, one logo from a primitive species was like another, but whatever it was, it had shaken Taynee up.

But Taynee hadn't figured out, in all the time she had been here, what was going on.

Falmo'o had an idea.

”It's a pre-diasporia government agency. This plaque shouldn't be here,” Taynee said. ”There's no way...”

She moved over to the computer terminal and began typing. It beeped within seconds and she shook her head.

”No. It's impossible,” she said. She turned and looked at Falmo'o. ”Do you have any governments or government agencies that people don't even speak about in whispers any more?”

Falmo'o shook his head. ”No.”

The Executor Covert Action Agency is one, he thought to himself.