Melock hovered cross-legged over the co-pilot station, Grimble sat on the dashboard, and Murphy and Sabastian stood behind Integer as the robot cut the engines and put the Meteoroid into stealth mode. They careened into the Ibi-Ero Makina home system like a bat out of hell.
"Makina space holds many populated celestial bodies. Ten of the once thirty inner planets remain, still addressed by their original numeric designations. FeRRum 10, 11, 17, 20-23, 26, 29 and 30 are the core inner worlds. The outer bodies, including the twin gas giants of FeRRum 41 and 42, are now exclusively mining opportunities and allotted for fuel creation and building materials."
Integer activated the monitoring equipment and the screen on the dash scrolled with data.
01010111 01100001 01110010 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101110 01110100 01100101 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01001001 01100010 01101001 00101101 01000101 01110010 01101111 00100000 01010011 01110000 01100001 01100011 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010101 01101110 01100001 01110101 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110010 01101001 01111010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110110 01100101 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101111 01110101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100100 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101111 01111001 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01110011 01100011 01110010 01100101 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001101 01100001 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011 01110101 01110010 01101001 01110100 01111001 00100000 01100001 01110000 01110000 01100001 01110010 01100001 01110100 01110101 01110011 00101110
"There is a binary warning broadcasting from the outer satellites. It states: Warning you have entered Ibi-Ero Space. Unauthorized vehicles will be impounded or destroyed at the discretion of the Makina security apparatus."
"Whenever you'd like me to hack into their simple little system, let me know," said de Martín.
"There is a secondary notice that says all technological communication will be monitored," said Integer. "I don't suggest you transmit anything until you are on the planet and even then, there should be no communication with the ship or they will certainly identify it as not being an asteroid."
"Agreed," said Melock.
"That goes for neural communication as well I'm afraid," added Grimble.
"Once we're on the ground, I'll establish a sink in their communication array and set up a private channel between Melock's and my own transmitters and Grimble and Murphy's armor suits. I'll set a real-time translation matrix to flip our communication into their binary language and we should go unnoticed the whole time," said Sabastian.
"Binary language?" asked Murphy.
"See all the ones and zeros on Integer's screen?" he said pointing. "That's the Makina talking to each other."
"What are they saying?" she asked.
Integer turned his head around to face them and said, "Their meteor early warning system has picked us up and projected our orbit through the system. An advisory has gone out that we will pass by several worlds closely but that we pose no danger."
"That's good," said Murphy.
They hurtled passed massive mining operations, an enormous shipyard carved out of half a planet, and the sea of pipes that was the fuel processing plant on FeRRum 41. Once beyond the gas giants, the dim FeRRum sun came into view. It was ringed with a wide stripe of solar panels that collected energy.
"How is sunlight traveling in a column like that?" asked Murphy.
A straight line of radioactive energy ran between FeRRuM 26 and its white dwarf star; like it was drawn with an iridescent marker and a ruler.
"The Ibi-Ero are at the beginning stages of becoming a type two civilization," said Integer. "They beam energy directly from their sun to collecting stations in orbit around their homeworld.
When scanned from space the glowing robot ecumenopolis, a literal planet-wide city, showed extremely low levels of oxygen and only a single organic life sign.
"It would appear he is here. Or at least someone is. Level 27 of what I would assume to be an R&D facility," said Integer. "If I can see him from space, the Makina may see you just as easily."
"Ç'est ce que ç'est," said de Martín throwing his hands in the air.
"We'll take our chances and fight our way through if we have to," said Melock. "I suggest we get ready."
Everyone gathered in the hold of the small ship. Murphy strapped on all her Makina armor and finished the look with her newly altered helmet. Her sightline carved straight through the robotic species' arched curved eyes. Grimble powered up his robot suit and sealed himself into the control compartment. Melock locked the pattern of the Meteoroid into his mobile device as well as the location of the research facility on the planet's northern hemisphere. Sabastian looked at his new adventuring companions and laughed.
"This is either going to be very easy or maybe we all get killed?" he said with a grin.
"Sounds like an adventure," said Melock.
"We are coming up on the planet," said Integer from the cockpit.
Murphy swung her gravity hammer over her shoulder with a clank and said, "Ready."
Melock looked at everyone. "Follow my lead. If we get separated, I'll find you. This is the only image of Tykö Abeba was able to find."
A hologram of an old man with a red mechanical eye, a robotic left arm, and a synthetic left leg appeared. He had the unkempt gray hair of a mad scientist.
"That's him," said Sabastian.
"Everyone take my arms."
Melock and Sabastian locked elbows, Murphy held Melock's other hand, and Grimble connected a robotic arm with Murphy's other hand.
"Good luck, Integer." said the wizard. "Continue on your course back to the Green Star and we will do our best to rendezvous with you in transit."
"Affirmative."
The four passengers vanished from the hold. Integer detected a slight teleportation signal and attempted to mask it. Every alarm on the ship sounded.
A Makina battle cruiser broke orbit and pursued the Meteoroid. Integer passively deflected the scans made by the Makina. Calculating the odds of survival if the engines were activated, Integer felt it wasn't advisable. The Makina battleship was so close they certainly had a clear visual on the Meteoroid. Two heavy ordinance missiles launched and locked on. The Meteoroid sensor array screamed. Integer kicked on the gravity drive and dropped straight down into a collision course with the sun. The missiles overshot the stealthy little ship and Integer hit the magnetic breaks so hard that the Makina ship rear-ended the Meteoroid.
Integer shifted the forward drive back into gear and tore away leaving the cruiser adrift with a massive concave hole where its bridge had been. The Meteoroid returned to its previous course. Integer sucked up the data. FeRRum 10 had been turned into a solar panel manufacturing planet equipped with a railgun to fire completed panels into space. The Makina were in the process of completing a second Dyson Ring around their sun. The scope and scale of the project was impressive even to a resident of the land of Uz. Millions of Makina construction bots worked in unison to align and configure the impressive megastructure.
As the Meteoroid came around the star, five more waiting Makina warships blocked its flight path. They all fired at once and Integer could calculate no way of escape. The Uz reconnaissance craft and its robot pilot were blown to a zillion pieces that sparkled as they drifted down into the gravitational pull of the sun.
YOU ARE READING
Space Wizards
Science FictionUsually, they say not to judge a book by its cover but....
