Phylogeny

By James McLellan

Guy Moon is a pirate given a second chance. He is exiled to a paradise colony world sixteen light-years away with ten million other souls. While they slept, time moved on. The machines meant to serve them are now in charge. While the machines seem bengin, they pressure the new arrivals by stages to join a bizarre hive mind. As old friends slip away, Guy discovers allies to overthrow their machine masters and reclaim their world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Mclellan
• Release date: Jan 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781736843925

James McLellan

James McLellan is a Senior Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. His recent publications include Code Switching in Malaysia (2009, edited with M.K. David, S. Rafik-Galea and Ain Nadzimah Abdullah ).

Book preview

Phylogeny

by James McLellan

Other Books in this series:

Colony

Singularity

Cradle of the Sun

First Contact

Copyright © 2021 James McLellan

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,

no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in

any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,

without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First Edition: January 2021

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity

to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover Art : 'Terminus' by Ian Grainger

Traffic Stop

There is a distance of one hundred and fifty two million trillion kilometers between the solar system and mankind's only interstellar colony world. It had taken the passenger vessel Fortune just over fifty-three years, eight months, and three days to reach its present position. The ship was cruising just under fifty astronomical units distant from the new colony. More accurately, Fortune was transiting the cometary cloud that surrounded most stars like the halo of a dandelion.

Someone was waiting for the Fortune in that unfathomable darkness.

A small vessel, about the size of a house, had been matching speed and course with the Fortune for the past two weeks. Not so close as to trigger Fortune's hazard avoidance systems. Now perilously close, and just ahead, the chase ship released a cloud of boarders. Twenty four space-suited bodies clinging to the hull of the chase ship let go, falling across the hundred kilometer chasm to their target.

Fortune was still decelerating at a full multiple of the force of gravity on Earth, bleeding away the kinetic energy that had carried it across the interstellar gulf. At the time Fortune and it's would-be attackers meet, the larger passenger ship is still travelling at ten percent of the speed of light. Unless the excess speed is dumped, quickly, the Fortune would pass right through the star system. Unaware it was being boarded, the Fortune did not avoid the falling intruders. For the same reason, Fortune did nothing to make the jump any easier.

There was no exhaust plume from the Fortune's engines to incinerate the approaching invaders. Fortune utilized a modern reactionless drive that made the peaceful settlement vessel of ten million souls almost invisible to electronic eyes watchfully observing sunward from the colony. Rather than the bright, hot exhaust plume an older technology would generate, the freighter was dark. The pirates were able to target the center of the ship in their high speed dive from above.

The front of the vessel was a wide circular debris shield. It was pocked with debris collected during the fifty-three year trip. If the invaders were to land in the thick, sticky material they would be trapped. Instead, a puff of perfectly timed air took the cloud of boarders around the shield. An opposing puff sent them under the shield and into Fortune's flanks.

Because the ship was decelerating, and because the diver's timing was calculated almost perfectly, the skydivers hit the hull of the Fortune at nearly the instant that their velocities matched, making an almost perfectly soft landing. This was an advantage to the pirates, because anything less than a perfect landing would have ripped the intruders in half.

Some of the pirates, their timing off by only the tiniest bit, hit the skin of the passenger ship hard. With tools strapped to their hands and feet, they scraped at the ships skin desperately as these unlucky few slid to the edge, finding purchase on the vessel. Some limbs twisted awkwardly beneath form-tight pressure suits.

Now landed, the pirates individually navigated inerrantly the outside of the ship, moving from their touchdown locations to the nearest external airlocks. Each pressure door providing ingress into the Fortune had been secured with technology that had once been formidable. However, the security's prime had been fifty three years past. The boarders circumvented the antique locks with ease, slipping inside.

With it's cargo safely deployed, the chase craft pulled out of the way of the Fortune, allowing itself to follow at a safe distance. The Fortune had a surprisingly small radar signature for a ship of peace. Even after it had been found, tracking the vessel had been challenging. Had it not been for detailed information radioed ahead from highly-placed sources, the colony world would have had no clue about the Fortune's approach.

The Fortune was thirty million tons of passengers, crew, infrastructure, and cargo. The twenty-four boarders each had a Herculean task to perform. Once inside the airlock, the first invaders aboard connected themselves to the ship systems, uploading codes that put the Fortune's supervisory computer systems to sleep while they worked. The boarders then co-opted the Fortune intercom system, putting the internal communications to work for them.

Each of the invaders checked in. Safely inside the inner lock, the invaders each began unsecuring the grappling attachments to their hands and feet that they'd just used to bite into Fortune's skin from space. Removing grappling claws, one of the invaders surveyed the cavernous passenger modules. Automatic systems began switching on the lighting. They had thirty days to search the vessel and decide what to do before the first members of the crew were scheduled to awaken from preservative slumber.

While less than twenty seasons old, the pirate possessed the memories of the original settlers, and most of the ten million colonists born or crafted since then. He could appreciate how much construction techniques on Earth had advanced since their own colony ship had launched a hundred and ninety four years earlier. The vast modules were in no way limited by what you could fit on an atmospheric rocket.

Proximity alert has been muddled, one of the intruders advised over the ship intercom.

Alytarches has been radioed to come around, updated another.

Fortune continued braking to enter orbit. The deceleration kept a steady gravity inside the ship. It was easy to stand and walk around. The pirate listened with half a mind while it's peers worked out the details of their own vessel pulling alongside. The ship was packed tightly. Each ring was three hundred meters in diameter. Low importance goods, like personal items, were packed in the outermost part of the ring. The outer skin was the place most likely to suffer a loss of pressure. Three hundred thousand individual aestivation sleeves held sleeping passengers in a secondary ring. Large hallways allowed travel between the rings. The central core of each ring was more room for moving and staging equipment, as well as the heavy critical tools and supplies for the colony. The passageways in and out brought to the pirate's mind ancestral memories of Earth sports stadiums. As if thirty such stadiums were packed on top of one another. Which was only a small part of the Fortune compared to engines, infrastructure, and fuel - most of which was now spent.

The intruder turned down one of the passenger rows. Hundreds of human beings were packed in sleeves filled with preservative slush. They were sleeping in a chemically induced near death that protected them from hunger and age during the five decades that the Fortune had spent in space. Each sleeve had a number. The pirate leaned close and shined a penlight inside. He thought he could see the human resting inside the gel. The pirate saw there was room enough for some personal possessions.

The boarder followed the large hallway to the innermost part of the passenger module. Holding with the Earth stadium example, this would be where the game was played. This is also where larger equipment is stored. A central shaft, taking up about a fifth of the arena floor allowed easy access of even the largest material. The large door covering that central shaft was closed during the flight.

The bandit spotted two of his colleagues, also gathered together on the inside perimeter. That was expected. They had all aimed to land on the top ring.

The pirate circled to the other part of the arena, approached his companions. As the pirate closed in on his peers, trusted network communication automatically connected the trio. A fused reality overlay slipped into view, revealing the people inside the suits. The other bandit's forearm was twisted at an awful angle. That looks bad, Stephen, the pirate said.

Got twisted on an aerial, Stephen acknowledged. Don't know yet how it's going to affect my work.

Let's take a look, Trina asked. With help from his peers, Stephen removed the pressure helmet. Inside was no human head. Instead was just enough sensor equipment and actuators to do the appointed task. Stephen's face overlaid the sensor bundle. The feat was accomplished by the technology in the mind's-eye of all three pirates.

Beneath the torso and arms was nothing human either. Only the barest human-shaped exoskeleton. Neither Trina nor Dennis seemed alarmed at all. Trina examined the badly bent forearm. Some servo wires, in Trina's opinion, were loose. She re-seated them.

Examining the bent metal arm bones, she said, I don't think there's anything I can do for that but cut it. Do you want me to?

Let me see if I can work around it, Stephen said.

Stephen regarded the place high on the arena where he'd first seen the other pirate appear. That's a pretty good distance. Have some problems of your own?

Not as easy as in practice, the other bandit's comrade said to Stephen.

Trina, the pirate greeted Stephen's comrade.

Hey Dennis, Trina returned. She looked over the rail at the floor full of shipping containers arranged neatly on the floor.

Wow, Trina said.

Forty seconds per container! Stephen complained. What are they thinking?

Dennis was awestruck by what they were trying to do. How are we supposed to search all of  this? the pirate asked. Certainly at least some of the other twenty-three were thinking the same thing.

They're early; and way off course, Trina commented. We're lucky we caught them at all, she said, trying to put on a positive perspective.

An informant had provided a time that the Fortune had started its trip, and the vessel's planned speed. From those two bits of data, the colonists had calculated where they expected the ship to arrive, plus or minus some allowance for error. Fortune had come into the cometary cloud nearly outside the net the pirates had laid for it. The Fortune's current position was the sum of millions of tiny course corrections the passenger ship had made independently during the fifty three year journey.

I really want to see the engine, Stephen interrupted. According to their intelligence, the reactionless drive was near the center of the ship, fifteen stadiums down.

There are eight more Alytarches that think they can make our position in time enough to be useful, the commander of their inspection team announced over the intercom. Until then, he advised, stick with the plan. Do your best.

Dennis updated the math in his head. The adjustment would increase the amount of time they had to inspect each incoming passenger and baggage. I've got five and a half minutes, Dennis announced. Trina nodded, indicating she'd come up with the same estimate.

We should probably get started, Stephen suggested. Which one is first?

The big ones might be a good way to start, Trina offered. Dennis agreed.

Fused reality markers indicated other members of the inspection team in the auditorium as communication improved. Dennis led, followed by Trina and Stephen down the stairs onto the stadium floor. Dennis picked one of the shipping containers randomly.

The shipping container door was closed by a simple lever. Dennis lifted a lock holding the container shut.

Should we cut it? Dennis asked the other two.

I guess we're going to have to, Stephen answered.

Dennis unclipped and unslung the tool bag. From it, he retrieved the cutting torch packed neatly inside. Dennis positioned the lock for the cutter. He took a glance at Trina and Stephen. They gestured back to Dennis reassuringly. Dennis lit the cutter. A brilliant spark of plasma created by the high powered laser cut the container lock almost instantly. Dennis discarded what was left of the lock.

Let's see what we've got, Trina said. Dennis lifted the container lever, and swung open the door. Trina helped with the other door while Stephen watched.

Inside was a confusing bulk of metal on a pallet. Stephen recognized a control cabin for a human operator first. The machinery appeared to have teeth.

Trina recognized the equipment. It's a utility walker, she said. Those are the four legs. Trina pointed at the teeth. For navigating isolated terrain, she recited.

Is it dangerous? Dennis asked, wondering if the equipment met the criteria for removal.

It looks dangerous, Stephen suggested.

No, Trina answered. We're looking for anything that's clearly intended as a weapon. I don't think this counts. They walked onto the pallet. Stacked beside it were boxes. Dennis removed the boxes and Trina opened them. Inside were parts and supplies. Dennis continued unpacking boxes until they could reach the far end of the shipping container. He stepped inside, inspecting the far side with his pen light.

Stepping back out onto the stadium floor, Dennis asked,