Big chapter... edited, slightly.
35: Paradox
Otherverse, the orbital weather station, under constant, blistering attack-
Lifting in their hundreds of thousands from Rome, Gibraltar and Prague, swarms of probes like shape-shifting needles clustered around the station and opened fire. Their objective, obliteration. Inside the small station, activity was just as intense.
Unlike his strange rescuers, Captain Tracy had been well aware of 7's evacuation plans. After all, he'd helped forge them. There was that within him that had already gotten its death wound; standing yet, but numbed and slowly bleeding. He, and everything he'd cared for, was lost.
Not the kids, though. Alan and his friends still had a chance, and Matt intended to see them safely home. Gordon had been prepared to fight about it, but even he'd seen the truth, and allowed himself to be sent away.
Now, at the station's main console, in a cramped and warping control center, Matt did his job. First he supervised airlock separation, having to hunt for some of the farther-wandering switches. Under Thunderbird 7's influence, nothing wanted to stay put.
Periodic jolts and violent concussions rocked his station. The view screen was still blocked, but each fresh convulsion painted the truth in starker colors; he was under attack. With each salvo the deck buckled and flexed, sometimes dropping by as much as a foot, and groaning aloud. Swift, brilliant ribbons of electrical fire outlined seams and rivets, somehow holding the tortured station together. Matt, himself, seemed coated in shimmering energy, as slick as wet enamel or a new-born foal. Didn't hurt, or stop him from breathing. Just felt weird.
When the docking sensors flashed green, Captain Tracy hit the comm switch.
"Ready?" he asked, hoping they'd fare better than the long-ago crabs had.
Gordon's voice came back, grim and quiet,
"Fire away."
"Okay," Matt replied, not bothering with the comm, this time. "Good luck, and thank you."
He had another transmission to make; the same desperate, cross-spectrum SOS he'd sent a few days before. He hit the comm switch again, saying,
"Mayday, mayday. This is Orbital Weather Station 5 declaring emergency. Repeat, Mayday from Orbital Weather Station 5…"
(But, the last time he'd sent these words, he'd still hoped that there was someone alive to hear them. He hadn't known.)
Deeply shaken, Matt continued.
"…if anyone is left capable of receiving this message, please respond. Comm and power systems are shutting down. Please advise."
Once again, Captain Tracy's broadcast crossed a weakened boundary. Once again, he tore a micro-brief hole in space.
…And here's where he'd lied. The kids believed that they'd have their ship on the other side. Maybe they'd even figured on trying for him again. But they'd reckoned without 7. Their powerful Thunderbird, dangerously sentient and almost alive with alien technology, simply spat them through the hole, remaining behind to block transferal of anything else. 1, 2… and gone.
Matt waited, but with the view screens darkened there was no way to tell what was happening outside. Finally, as something seemed to bump against his station, he asked aloud,
"Did they make it?"
And 7 responded, not with alphanumerics this time, but with a voice. Strangely enough, a staticky female one. (In his mind, the ship had previously sounded as harsh and metallic as a robot eagle.)
"Organic Meta Life Forms Fermat-Gordon-Alan-TinTin have been returned."
'She' formed another of those flickering light globes, this one hovering above the deck at about eye-level. Turning away from the main control panel, Matt faced the ball of whirling energy.
"They're safe?" He demanded.
"The presence of Fermat-Gordon-Alan-TinTin has been noted, and responded to."
Matt relaxed slightly, shoulders slumping within the rough green cloth of his service coverall. This much, at least, he'd accomplished. Now, for the rest.
As the deck beneath him spattered and whorled like white water, Captain Tracy pushed further.
"What's next? How do I keep that thing from following them through?"
For he'd seen more than enough of that captured probe to know what was likely to happen, should any part of it reach the kids' Earth. He'd seen Houston.
…And here was where 7 had lied. Though she intended a respite for Fermat-Gordon-Alan-TinTin, she was not yet entirely won over to the organic life forms' cause. Cybernetic child of two races, 7 had much yet to learn, and she intended to begin with the humanoid sentient in her power: John Matthew Tracy.
"Access to personal memory files required. Organic Meta Life Form Matthew Tracy will open files."
Matt blinked. Bracing himself during a particularly savage convulsion…
(God, what they must have been unloading, out there!)
…he said,
"Mine? How? I haven't got a damn pull-down menu."
7 responded promptly, sounding like the fading ghost of a thousand late-night transmissions.
"Spoken permission will suffice, Matthew Tracy."
"You mean that if I say 'no'… you won't do it?"
Not that he had anything to lose, really.
"This statement is correct. If granted spoken permission, this programmed entity will access and read the memory files of organic sentient John Matthew Tracy."
Still,
"Why?" He asked, staring hard into an utterly implacable globe. It sparked a bit.
"That a final decision may be rendered with respect to the allegiance of 7. The purpose of That-below is well understood. That of 7's creator, less so. Objectives and base programming must be probed. At present, however, there are no other organic sentients to study."
She couldn't know, or maybe didn't care, how much that last statement hurt. His hands clenched upon the control console's dinged and battered edge. After a moment, though, Matt shrugged. Whether he was worthy or not, as 7 had pointed out, he was all she had left to base a decision on. For good or ill, he was going to have to stand in for the entire species.
"Yeah. Do it. Just…"
He wasn't sure what to do or say that would make any difference at all to something so utterly detached.
"…it was a good world, on the whole, and I'm sure that theirs is, too."
Permission was enough, though, and all that she really wanted. As his voice died away, a flare of glittering energy left the globe, arcing through the cabin to brush Matt's forehead.
There was no pain, just a brief tingle, followed by complete loss of conscious control. All at once, the young captain was a mere phantom in his own body. Every aspect of his life, things remembered, forgotten and long buried flashed past in seconds; the subconscious, prideful and humiliating, alike.
Everything from uterus to present flipped up and away with inhuman speed, as though someone hopped-up on alertness tablets had seized his internal TV remote. She spared him nothing, including his last, awful glimpses of home; the shattered tricycle and cindered fragments of bone.
Then it stopped. Released from nightmare, Matt slumped against the bulkhead. He'd always heard that judgment day would be rough. All the more so when an entire world, and the fate of four kids hung in the balance.
Time passed. In all, no more than a scant handful of minutes. Then, as she'd done once before, Thunderbird 7 docked with his station. A new airlock yawned open in the bulkhead beside Matt, looking more like a wound than a doorway. A forest of silvery tendrils burst through, attaching themselves to the station's control panels and instruments with shrill, metallic skreeks. He was uncomfortably reminded of knife blades keening against spinning stone, sparks and all.
"John Matthew Tracy will now evacuate Station 5," The ship commanded.
He looked up from the deck, in pain, but determined to hide it. Like the other world's Gordon and Alan, he could be terribly stubborn.
"Why?" Matt demanded again, more truculently, this time. Attitude and the station were all he had left.
"Attacks have increased to the point that this programmed entity cannot guarantee the safety of its passenger. John Matthew Tracy will now reduce risk of personal annihilation by evacuating to 7."
Slowly, Matt straightened. The station walls were beginning to show hair-fine cracks. They sealed up almost immediately, welded shut by electromagnetic fire, but the mere presence of cracks and pin holes made obvious the fury being unleashed upon them from outside. Apparently, she couldn't defend the station much longer. Crash after violent crash pummeled both vessels, evidence beyond question that somebody wanted them dead.
"You've made up your mind?" He asked, stepping away from the crackling bulkhead.
"Judgment has been rendered."
Well, he was still alive, when she could just as easily have spaced him, so…
"What's the verdict?" said Matt, unconsciously echoing Fermat. "Whose side are you on?"
"That-below has initiated sterilization and destruction protocols. It cannot be stopped by any means currently known to this entity. Yet, this entity was programmed to preserve life. Accessed memory files have strengthened user one's initial programming. Life must be defended. John Matthew Tracy will now evacuate to 7."
For what it was worth, he'd passed her test; for himself, and worlds unknown. As if hypnotized, Captain Tracy stepped through the gaping, ragged-edged hatch, pausing first for one last look around. Despite 7's pestering, he collected a few souvenirs of the station. Dumb, little stuff, mostly, but it would have to do. Into the zippered pocket with the picture of his wife and baby went a broken control knob, one of Pete's Velcro name tags, and Cho's medical insignia. Wished he could have found something of Roger's, too, but the Marine was a tidy person. He'd left nothing behind but a memory.
As soon as he entered the black ship, her airlock flowed shut, sealing Matt within. His doomed station would soon be left to its own devices.
"I'd like to see what's happening out there," he told the ship.
"Request denied," she responded. And then, by way of explanation, "There is nothing instructive to be witnessed, Matthew Tracy."
It was being destroyed, and he knew it. Even as 7 shrank herself to the tightest, best defended sphere imaginable, the weather station was being blasted apart like a shot-gunned bird.
"Defenses will be breached in 3.5724 minutes," the ship informed him, quite matter-of-factly.
"You said you'd let me go home," he replied. Then, as sudden inspiration struck, "Wait. What's ground zero? Where's this bastard's epicenter?"
Not the most exact terminology, but 7 seemed to get the gist. With rippling deck and heaving bulkheads, she pushed him into her last, innermost cabin.
"Central insertion point at temporal-spatial coordinates 41 54 N, 12 27 E:matching those of the former Rome, Italy."
Matt nodded, thoughts racing far ahead of the ship's.
"So, let's launch a strafing raid, then. Top speed. If they shoot us down, we'll at least have given them a bruise to nurse, and it's better than waiting around..."
…to die, he didn't add aloud.
7 appeared to consider. A sort of electric-blue face manifested itself on the tightly curved bulkhead, and it frowned slightly, saying,
"Matthew Tracy, there is no reasonable probability of success. That-below cannot be permanently damaged in this manner. Its base code is invulnerable to physical attack, and will soon re-manifest."
And then, as if triggered, something very strange happened. Another of those weird, backward transmissions got through, this time as an interminable jumble of code. A second light globe appeared, with the code's alphanumerics swimming through it so fast that he almost couldn't…
On a sudden, wild hunch, Captain Tracy snapped,
"7, don't run that! Transmit down to your buddies. Now!"
And she complied, sending /omega/null flashing away to the center of alien intelligence. As it would on the other Earth, Hackenbacker's bullet-proof code brought the invader to a choking, grinding halt.
All at once, the thundering concussions ceased, giving 7 a bit of 'breathing space'. Drawn all of streaking data and cascading field lines, the face in the bulkhead regarded her pilot. Evidently, awaiting further orders. Good enough.
"Head for Rome," he told her. "But give me a cockpit and view screen first, because damned if I'm crashing in blind."
7 began flexing and pouring around him like soft wax, reconfiguring herself to match the specs of a prototype space-fighter, then hardening in place. And, yes, there was a view screen.
He saw black space; saw the sullen, whirling coal of a ravaged world, the glittering cloud of metal and gas that had been his station, and attackers. Millions of them. 7 was surrounded in every direction, for hundreds of miles. Everywhere Matt looked, disabled probes glittered like minefields of toxic, spiky gems. Disabled, not dead. Each, at its crimson heart, still pulsed with a core of blazing plasma. The backward code had weakened, not killed them. That would be up to him.
"There is a message, Matthew Tracy," 7 informed him.
"Relay," he replied, strapping into a sudden pilot's seat.
"It is alphanumeric, reading/nruTeR/"
Return…? As in, send back? Maybe in that other world, the kids were struggling with a monster of their own? Maybe it had found a way through? A wild supposition, but what did he have to lose by chasing hunches?
"7, scramble the code and transmit back to its source."
She did so at once, accepting his superior ability to create order from random environmental noise. Discerning a hidden pattern, Matthew Tracy had bested the laws of entropy. In this respect, if no other, he was her master.
"Transmission has been sent, Matthew Tracy. Altered code is returned to source."
Matt still had his doubts, though. The seat was perfectly molded, the flight controls as responsive as a gently petted cat. But another thought occurred to him, then; that all of this… the 'attacks', the kids' unseen transferal, the backward code… might be some form of set-up. What if he was doing exactly what she, and they, wanted? What if he was delivering himself straight to their nerve center, to be "studied" at leisure? On the other hand, what choice did he have but to trust his instincts, and fly?
"7, I want total flight control," he said aloud. On the view screen, he could see a swarming ocean of attack drones beginning to stir, their hulls bubbling with sparks and sensors. "They'll open fire soon. Take everything they throw at us, and convert it to mass."
Understood, and approved. Deep within the altogether remarkable vessel, something hummed, something else trembled, and another thing clicked. A new gauge appeared on the sleek instrument panel, just to the left of her throttle.
"What is your intent, Matthew Tracy?" She inquired.
Regarding the face on the bulkhead, which spurting data and whipping circuitry constantly adjusted, he said,
"I'm going to fly through the worst they've got without returning fire. I aim to pick up all the momentum I can, then nail the hell out of their headquarters while they're still recovering from our last present. Simple."
Not much of a plan, maybe, but all he was able to come up with in a hurry. Might work, and if not… well, he wouldn't be around long enough to find out.
"We clear?" He prompted, when 7 failed to respond.
"The intentions of John Matthew Tracy are clear." She at last replied. "This programmed entity regrets the injustice visited upon the organic sentients of your world. That-below is in error."
Sealed in a tiny cockpit, he managed something of a smile. He was beginning to like her, this final companion.
"Yeah. And I mean to explain that to them, as bluntly as damn well possible. With your cooperation, that is."
The world was lost, and its lone native sentient doomed. 7 had failed in the one programmed objective (preserve human life), and rejected the alien other (sterilize, seek and destroy). She, too, had nothing left, and she was very, very young.
"Alternate program read and applied," the beautiful ship responded, accepting what could not be changed.
They tore through amber skies, raked with fire, 7 absorbing energy as Matt guided their plunge. Roaring, shaking noise and flaming plasma enveloped the black ship, whose hull flowed away in blazing rivulets. And still, the probes attacked, launched in endless waves from the cremated cities of Earth. Through it all, this last storm on the very last day, 7 hurtled like a meteor, attaining the converted mass of a small moon.
(In the end, before blasting an extinction-level crater through the planet's crust, 7 did the only other thing that she could. She transmitted her pilot's memories, that something of him might survive.)
The Earth's crust split and bulged, rising to meet the descending blade like a maiden her vampire. With impact came blinding light and supernova heat, shock waves that powdered steel and caused molten rock to fall from the skies like searing rain. Everything sentient ended that day in fire. Pulsing outward, ripples spread through time and through space, tearing along a certain weakness, and into another world.
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