Xi

Xi

XiFiSy, Volume 1

Chris Landau

Published by Chris Landau, 2018

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places,

or events are entirely coincidental.

XI

First edition. January 14, 2018.

Copyright © 2018 Chris Landau.

Written by Chris Landau

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

1  Xi

2  The Firemags

3  Sol-R

4  Xi and the Firemags

5  QBH and Sol-R

6  Sol-R

7  Q-Plan, Sol-R, Xi and the Firemags

8  The Other Side

9  The Tri-Blacks arrive at QBH

10  Earth, China

11  Sol-Y, Don-blue, Plas-1 and ANeutro-24

12  Earth, South Africa

13  Sol-V3

14  Xi and the Firemags enter WH-1

15  The Silver Sylph muses back in time"

16  Evolving Quantum Universe 48

17  XiFi and Sylph

18  Okavango, Botswana, Earth

19  XiFiSy, QBH and the Tri-Blacks

20  Jiuquan Rocket Launch Centre, Dongfeng Aerospace City, China, Earth

About the Publisher

Dedication

For my mother Julia Landau, who died last year and never saw this book.

For my wife Susan Landau, a writer herself who has encouraged us all. For my three daughters, Candice, Ashleigh and Natalie, writing their own novels. You are all my muses.

1    Xi

The Firemags attacked Xi from both sides, unleashing magnetic flame arcs that fried her navigation equipment and cut her spacecraft in half. Xi ejected, firing her lasers at the Firemags. She rocketed down towards the jagged mountain peaks. Her space suit crackled in the ionized air. Her eyes blazed like volcanic geysers. Steam poured from them. Her suit sprayed water to keep her cool and alive. The suit's magnetic field consumed maximum power to prevent her from vapourizing in the fire-air.

Xi blasted a hole through one of the Firemag's wings. A scream in ultrasound, broke both her earmuffs.   

    The pain seemed to carve a hole through her head. She activated a rocket in her left leg. It exploded against the one Firemag. The Firemag only shone more brightly. Her metal alloy helmet spun away in a force field to stick to the Firemag, melt for energy and substance, and then mould into its body. Her force and air fields were still holding, but for how long? The huge laser hole, in the Firemag's wing, simply vanished; sealed shut.

    She shot three more rockets from her suit at the one Firemag. It absorbed the full explosions, becoming a green fireball, discharging positronic bolts to air and mountaintop. She fired the last two rockets at the second Firemag. It morphed into a flattened disc with both explosions. Her weapons just didn’t have enough energy, to disrupt their fields. The Firemag shaped the excess energy from the fusion fire into a magnetic tractor beam. It aimed its field at its companion, pulled the companion's shape back into a disc and then into the winged Firemag. They both regained their shape so fast her quantum mind knew it for truth and fiction all at once.

    Her suit rockets got her to ground, just as the fuel expired. Xi shot both lasers at the flying Firemags, while running backwards towards the cliff edge. The Firemags curved the beams between them and shaped the fusion ball into what appeared to be a parabolic dish. They increased the magnetic and positronic fields a thousand fold. The Firemags hurled these snarling vortices after her. She dived over the cliff, screaming, Omni, are you with me?

    Xi was free falling, shaping her body and suit to gain terminal velocity. Too slow, she knew.

The cliff face above Xi exploded. As the fusion forces tore mountains of rock lose to fall after her. She saw the positronic force fields running along the fault zones, crackling, spitting, shards of gneiss, like shrapnel. The rock melted to liquid, then fused and welded as the magma hardened. The geology changed from physical to a 3-D positromagnetic field of flux-flow faults and folds.

    She reached terminal velocity in free fall. The whole cliff face, bulged, changed colour from red to blue-green, exploded, and rushed to claim her.

    Omnicron laid a cool hand on her charred shoulders and back. Omnicron rebuilt tissue, bone and skin in crackling whorls until Xi was whole again.

    Xi, I have you. When were you going to ask me to teleport you out? Sometimes I think, you still see these scientific missions as training games. What were you trying to prove? You know you are flesh and bone. You can die. We love your courage. We can rebuild your body, but not your independent mind.

    Omni, Xi turned, and with a shimmering smile said, You worry too much. I knew you were there.

    Mmmm, I want to teleport in a living being, not a burned corpse, Xi. Don’t cut it so fine.

    We learned so much today. I love these Firemags. They flow, they soar, they give me a feeling of eternity. They are pure energy-intellectual power. In every battle we gain more insight. Maybe we can actually defeat them on one of these missions to 3-Moon.

    Omnicron was silent, listening, and then added, Xi you are good, but let's be serious. If we could destroy a Firemag, it would give you an eternity status in the fighter command.

    Omni, that’s crazy. Nobody cares about individual glory. Your memory banks go way too far back in history to long forgotten civilizations. Some might even call you a Romantic Sync.

    Xi, Omnicron hummed, why do you think you survived today? We don't have a positron of your craft to analyse. You’re almost unscathed. I think the Firemags really like you.

    Omni, I am glad you said it. I thought I was the one with a crush on them. When can we arrange my next date?

    Omni was all business today, Xi noticed, efficient and machinelike. It was probably Omni, just feigning nonchalance. Xi knew, as far as it was positronically possible, Omni really cared for her. Behind that cold exterior, was a warm heart of evolving programming, representing near natural sentient sync.

    Your new craft is ready, Xi. We upgraded the force fields and the weaponry ten times. Of course it won't help, except to buy you a little more time. In any case, I don't think the Firemags wish to harm you. They’re just testing your skills. You should sync with ‘Your Firemags’. You might learn a great deal from them. Maybe they would like a cool drink, instead of the same old hot stuff. Variety makes li…

    Xi looked at Omnicron intensely, with her luminescent eyes.

    Oh, Xi…, you’re good to go, synced Omnicron.

    Xi wondered who was smiling more broadly. They were all in love. Xi was delighted with her two plasma Firemags, always trying to kill her. It was good to be so alive. Xi would have teleported straight to her new spacecraft in space but wanted to first speak with the Design Tech engineers. Her spacecraft awaited her in the Spaceport dome.

    Xi smiled at all the space cadets who turned in awe to watch her pass. She was the last of the ‘Old Guard’. The definition of an Old Guard space cadet was one who survived more than ten encounters with the Firemags. Xi had survived more than twenty missions to 3-Moon. The next cadet had survived only four missions and refused to go back to do battle with the Firemags. She was the only one who went with joy and came back in joy, no matter the outcome.

As she entered the spaceport dome, her craft moved to meet her, and dropped its positromagnetic shield to let her climb aboard. The force field shields then wrapped around her.

    Welcome Xi, synced her craft.

    Take me to spaceport and bring me back, quickly, said Xi.

    Xi was back in two heartbeats.

    Love this craft, Omni, said Xi, with a huge smile.

    We knew you would, chorused her twin syncs, Omni and her spacecraft. So can we go to play with the Firemags now? they added.

    Yes, but first take us directly to Tech Design. Xi laughed. These syncs were just like her. The Tech designers really knew how to make her feel at home.

2    The Firemags

Fi and Fy flew down to 3-Moon to lie in a bubbling lava pool. The bursting orange bubbles were froth in liquid stone, caressing their plasma forms. Their battles with Xi in the freezing air always took a toll on them, but they loved their fiery encounters. Xi made coming to this icy heaven worthwhile. They always seemed to pull this turd duty, just because they were more adventurous and loved to play practical jokes on the other Firemags. This moon almost froze their syncing ability. It was icy cold with only a twentieth of the surface, bathed in warm, active lava flows. They craved these lava flows to keep their plasma and positromagnetic field syncing alive. Sometimes they thought that their colour was going to change to a sickly blue dead colour. This moon really was for the dead. The icy north and south poles had been chosen to preserve the Firemags that had died for unknown reasons. Their bodies were being preserved for later research. Firemags bodies were put into water in open insulated containers, wherever they died in the solar systems. The containers were then transported to the poles of 3-moon, to freeze naturally. Then the containers were sealed.

    When you really annoyed the Elites on 1-Moon and 2-Moon, you pulled frozen turd (third) moon duty. Duty involved, burning off the fallen snow, turned to ice off their dead ancestor’s containers and also mapping this turdy moon. It kept the frozen blue bodies of the dead Firemags visible, which depressed both of them. This moon was icy heaven. Xi, made it a living hell by bathing them in lovely fiery flows. She was their beautiful fiery sprite. She made this frozen wasteland bearable.

    That Xi from moon five is cute, synced Fi.

    Shiny and with such lovely eyes. synced Fy.

    You like her too? synced Fi.

    Without her, you might as well throw me in one of those tomb cubicles and place me with our ancestors, synced Fy.

    I think she is actually quite a flimsy creature, this Xi. We really need to be more careful. That last fireflow of yours, the one that took out her craft, almost killed her, Fy. By the way that really was a good plasma arc on your part. She was weaving all over the planet. What courage and skill for such a tiny thing.

    I think she is a lot tougher than those other nine craft creatures, we incinerated yesterday. They were so boring and so cliched in their battle tactics. We really did them a favour by ending their pointless little lives, Fi

    You know, I think she is the last one from 5-Moon, or the others are too frightened to come play with us. We better go easy on the next encounter, otherwise we might freeze to death in mental and physical boredom here, synced Fi.

    Why can we not draw a coronal duty tour to our sun or another star? Now that would be hot. Oh, how I would love the heat and the magnetic plasma flows of a real sun, synced Fy. Come closer, Fi. I need your heat.

    The Firemags flowed together, luxuriating in each other’s warmth, hoping that Xi would come back soon to warm them up. They had to make her craft last a lot longer. They promised one another to ratchet down their plasma flows and and magneto-positronic blasts by at least ten percent. They flowed back to the equator along a strong magnetic flow field. They really would try to keep their darling Xi alive for as long as possible, but the fire battles were such fun. They sparkled and crackled with anticipation. They unfortunately got carried away and the heat was so good. Blasting and playing with this fiery toy creature, made them feel so young again.

    They were both now almost as old as 2-Moon and felt that they should be placed on hot 1-Moon or on one of the magneto-plasma poles of the sun. Surely they had earned the right to a warm retirement? They dived into a huge magma pool, submerged and stayed there for a whole lunar rotation, just to recover and smooth out their chapped and cracked outer plasma-mag shells.

    As they lay under the, bubbling lava, sync came through from their main base on 1-Moon.

    Your toy girlfriend will soon be back to light up your asses. Do not get too comfortable in that lava flow. One more thing, you Firemags live to ten times the age of these moons, so you gals are sprightly and young. The only place for rest for your lazy asses is in one of those ice cubes. Right Fire-eyes is back. Up out of bed and let us sync some perfect formation flying, fighting and magneto-plasma flows. Remember you have a coveted research position on 3-Moon. Show some gratitude. The young cadets are watching and syncing your every move.

    Coveted position, my ass- muttered Fy to Fi.

    You were syncing Fy? synced the commander.

    Getting ready for action and loving it, Ma’am.

    Our heroines,- signing out.

On 1-Moon, the flight commander synced to her subordinate, Those two must be the worst cadets in the entire history of Firemag evolution. Please get me some replacements.

    Well Ma’am, as you know, the others all froze to death. Why these two are still alive is beyond the research capabilities of our best medical teams. In a way, they really are heroines.

    Yeah, yeah, so I have been told. I like my heroines in blue icy cubicles for all to admire, not flying around freezing my syncing.

    The alarms sounded as the first warnings of the approach of the icy three black holes reached the Firemag headquarters. There would be no more war games. The enemy had arrived. They would be lucky if any of them survived.

    Battle stations, all; full alert. Cancellation of all leave immediately and indefinitely from all moons and all outposts in the solar system, synced the commander.

    Black ice had come to freeze them all to death. 3-Moon, by comparison to the Black Holes synced to be a beautiful warm paradise.

    Send out a blue alert, for our two heroines. Apparently Sol-R and Q-Plan want them, synced their surprised commander.

3    Sol-R

Sol-R synced they were coming. There were three marauding black holes. They ate density-time, pulsing energy, hiding light. They were hungry and greedy and cold. They were not centrist black holes,