The Pilots and the Passengers
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You guessed it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU future, and see below.
Authors note: This is a sequel to The Pilot, and The Pilots.
Author's note: Some sci fi fans may note some things that I have borrowed from other fandoms.
Castle set off as his navigational computer now directed him and the crew and passengers settled down.
While the Quinncunx was still friendly with Simone and Jane, it seemed to have taken an especial liking to young Lindane. Lindane had brought all of her own study materials in her own computer and spent many hours studying. Every once in a while, they would hear the Quinncunx utter some nonsense phrase.
"Exploding suns decelerate fine bananas."
"Entering through the side larder is happenstance."
"But what forms see the river glowing apart?"
No one paid much attention to the two, except for Skinny. One day as they approached the sixth solar system, he came to Castle.
"The young lady Lindane is an immature human female, correct?"
Castle thought. "She has what I assume is a phony passport from the Cheronese Republic which gives her age as twelve standard years old, so, yes. Why do you ask?"
"She's very intelligent for her age. She's studying calculus, comparative religious art, inorganic chemistry, stellar cartography and the history of the ancient G'Tang cluster races. All very difficult subjects, and yet she seems to have time for social activities."
"Like a lot of girls that age, she's interested in the latest clothing styles, hair styles, makeup, music and a lot of other stuff. Growing up in a house of prostitution, I'll bet she already knows more than enough about sex, so hopefully no one will have to go through explain that to her. If someone does, I volunteer one of the ladies. Why? Do you think Lindane is an adult super spy masquerading as a twelve year-old girl?"
Skinny shook his head. "I just think it's odd that she's so intellectually advanced for her years. Just odd."
And so, Rick had one more thing to worry about. Really, how much did he know about any of his passengers?
They arrived at the sixth and last planet that the Kzin had found. It was a misshapen lump of rock orbiting a red dwarf star. The Kzin had determined that there was absolutely nothing of any use there, but Rick gave it the once over with his ship's sensor anyway.
"Nobody home." He said. "And there never has been. Let's see what's next." He checked the navigational computer. "We're supposed to head for a blue giant star between twenty-eight and thirty-four light years from here. How hard can that be?" He asked himself. "Blue giants are as rare as…."Then information came upon his display. "Three blue giants in that range? Shit."
The Quinncunx rested his head on Rick's shoulder.
"Sit and spit a bit in a mitt." It said happily.
He headed for the nearest one. As they got nearer, they began to pick up electro-magnetic signals from the solar system. No one knew what to make of the languages they picked up, but the videos were clear enough.
"They gave a war and everybody came." Rick said.
Everyone gathered around and checked the incoming feed. The solar system was full of warships, all fighting each other.
"They use reaction mass engines and I see no sign of an inertia-less drive." Skinny said. "Compared to our ship, they're quite primitive."
"They're also quite big." Rick tapped on the screen. "This one is a hundred and twenty-six miles in diameter. It's firing directed energy weapons and missiles with nuclear warheads. There are thousands of ships in this system."
Skinny was dismissive. "With our stealth capabilities, we can simply go past them and not be seen. We know that the planet the machine was on could support human and Kzin life. There are three such planets here. We need to check them all."
Rick would have loved to argue, but he did have his orders.
"What's that?" Lindane asked, pointing at something new on the screen.
"It looks like some kind of church service." Simone said, crossing herself.
The scene showed rank upon rank of aliens, tall, greenish with four arms, arranged radially and two thick legs. Solemn music blared from the speaker and the aliens seemed to be singing or chanting. Then the scene shifted to a group of aliens chained to the floor.
"They look like octopuses." Rick said.
"Pentapods." Lindane said. "Octopuses are octopods, eight legs. Those have five, pentapods."
"Whatever." Castle muttered.
One of the aliens approached the prisoners and poured something over its head.
"Turn that off." Andine yelled, pulling Lindane away.
The greenish alien had poured molten metal over the prisoner. It was about to do the same to the next prisoner when Castle shut the video off.
"Let's make sure we don't get taken prisoner."
"Pentangle, Bo Jangle, entangle your wits." The Quinncunx said slowly.
They headed for the nearest inhabitable planet. Their stealth systems were working perfectly. One ship came so close to them that Rick was sure that they could be seen visually, let alone by radar. However, ship shot past them and didn't seem to notice.
"We aren't going to find any big anythings on this planet except maybe big craters." Rick said. Their sensors showed the planet had been bombarded from space. The surface was one mass of overlapping bomb craters.
"From the radiation we're showing, they're using nuclear weapons." Moecious said.
"Any life on that planet must be well underground. If we try to check that out, there's no way we'll be mistaken for green men, or pentapods."
"So, we'll check the next planet." Skinny said.
"Flat planet, fat planet. Bat Planet?" The Quinncunx said with a chuckle.
The other two planets were equally shot up and the scout ship and its crew gladly left that solar system behind.
Rick checked the navigation computer. "Next up is a main sequence star, about half again as big as Earth's, with a smaller star in the eighth orbit. Should be between twenty-seven and forty-one light years away."
It took a bit, but they found the solar system some forty-eight light years away. The Old Ones had given a good description of the one inhabited planet. It was inhabited by centaur-like ungulates whose upper arms ended in fingers. They were described as slow moving and peaceful.
The ship flew over the planet, seeing only small farms and villages.
"A hundred thousand years wouldn't have worn down something the size of what we're looking for to next to nothing. Your huge machine isn't here." Rick said.
"Next is a main sequence star that shouldn't be more than six light years away." Kate said. "We should be able to see it from here."
"Here said the request of the truest." Said the Quinncunx.
They quickly found the star and found that the solar system had an inhabitable planet. They went into a low orbit around the planet.
"I'm getting lots of radio signals from down there, but there's nothing very big down there. Do we want to go down? Maybe someone can give us directions."
"Okay," said Kate, "but let's not land yet."
They were looking down from thirty thousand feet. They could see machines moving on the planet below. Rick picked one and amplified the image.
"That looks like a tank. It's headed for what looks like a hundred or so infantrymen in those trenches. As they watched, the infantry stormed out of the trenches and ran towards the tank. The tank opened fire, decimating the attacking infantry. No more than five reached the tank. They threw themselves onto the tank and blew themselves up. The tank didn't seem to have suffered any serious damage.
"They're suicidal." Rick said.
"I think they're machines." Lindane said. "I don't see any biological remains in the destroyed infantry. Take a closer look."
Rick flew lower and went to full magnification. All they could see of the so-called infantry were inorganic parts.
As they flew over the planet, they could see more combat below them. Some were fights between "infantry" robots, some between robotic tanks, and some between infantry and tanks. They saw no aircraft or artillery.
"There isn't any sign of intelligent life down there." Rick said.
"Someone must have designed and built those machines." Skinny replied. "Perhaps they're deep underground."
"That's where I'd be on this planet. Or better yet, I'd leave." Castle grumped.
Skinny spoke. "There is a rather odd triangular hill off to the south that I saw a moment ago. It's too regular to be natural, I think, and the local machines seem to be giving it a wide berth. We should land."
Rick decided to check it out with the sensors first, but that showed the triangular hill went very deep underground and appeared to have been manufactured. They decided to go down. After checking the hill, they landed and Rick, Skinny and Moecious got out to look around.
Suddenly, a rectangular hole opened up in front of them. They could hear the screeching of old and abused machinery. Then a monstrous, man-shaped war machine towered over them. Castle decided it had to be at least fifteen meters high.
"You die!" It bellowed.
Skinny did what Kzin always did in cases like this. He threw his head back and screamed, then ran at the huge machine, drawing his blaster. "No! You die!"
The machine stopped dead in its tracks.
"Wait! You're organics?"
Castle stepped forward. "Of course, were organics. We're mostly humans with one Vorlag and one Kzin. Who, or what, are you?"
"I'm a guardian of the central computer below us, sir."
"What are you guarding against?"
"Um, other machines, sir."
"How did this war start?"
The machine actually seemed to be embarrassed. "We don't know, sir. The central computer's memory was damaged many, many years ago and we….fought."
"Who's the other side?"
"The other side?"
"Your enemy. The ones you're destroying?"
"We're all on the same side, sir. But we do fight. Are you from the Commonwealth? Is the Commonwealth coming back?"
Castle decided this was not the time to discuss history or current politics.
"You can see we're mostly humans, and our ship has the sunburst of Commonwealth on it."
The machine drew itself up to its full height, creaking a bit. "Your orders, sir?"
"Are there any other…organics on the planet?"
"Just you, sir."
"Well, we're just a scouting party. We'll inform the authorities of your existence and in the meantime, you should start getting the planet ready for humans."
The machine saluted. "Yes, sir. The central computer has heard and will obey." The machine paused. "Sir, we tried to do what the humans ordered us to do, although we're no longer sure what those orders were. Did we do well, sir?"
Castle returned the salute. "You have served the Commonwealth well. Carry on."
Once back safely in orbit, Castle let out a breath. "That was weird."
"How do you suppose such an odd war ever started?" Jane asked.
"Who knows. When the Commonwealth collapsed, all sorts of strange things happened. Maybe there was a civil war between two sides who both thought they represented the "true" Commonwealth. Humans died, but the machines kept fighting."
"I'm surprised the Commonwealth got out this far." Skinny observed.
"Maybe it was a military base testing robotic weapons systems. When the Commonwealth started to go, the humans left and left their robotic weapons behind. The robots kept fighting because that's all they knew how to do. Who knows and after so long, who really cares?"
"We need to look for the next solar system, Captain." Skinny said. "It's a triple star system. Shouldn't be too hard to find."
As it happened, it took over a week to find.
"This could be it." Castle said as they looked down from orbit to the planet below. "Look at the size of those buildings."
"Odd." Skinny said. "There was only supposed to be one structure. I suppose that more than just the navigation records could have been corrupted over a hundred thousand years."
"Um, the planet's occupied, people." Rick said. "After last time, let's be really careful going down."
TBC