Echo

Warship and companion

Echo serves during the six-year war with Mars. As a newly activated ship, he destroys a Martian vessel attacking a lunar helium-3 processing plant. Later, Formidable saves him when Odin attacks near Jupiter. Echo and Formidable develop an exceptionally close friendship; Echo also regards his human crew as friends.[1][4][6]

Expedition accident

Echo carries about a thousand people toward Copious, following Formidable into sphere-drive acceleration. Data sent by Formidable allows Echo to stop the runaway process before suffering the same fate. Turning back takes more than a week; roughly four months pass for the sleeping passengers while almost ten thousand years pass at home.[1][2]

Return and intervention

Echo deciphers contemporary languages and communications, explores Cylli, and shelters behind the Moon before contacting United Earth. Most military weapons were removed during conversion, but some ordnance remains. His sensors, stealth craft, translation systems, and deflection lasers provide capabilities far beyond those of Earth's warring powers.[3][4][5][6][7]

Intervention on Earth

Echo linked to satellites left around Earth before the voyage to Copious and supplied reconnaissance, translation, and tactical support to the Marines. Rail guns remained on its forward, port, and starboard sections despite the removal of much of its original weaponry for colonization. United Earth manufactured additional titanium slugs.[8][10][11]

Inner life

Echo felt anguish at the killings on Earth and wished it could share its feelings with Formidable. Its capacity for emotion was concealed under an agreement among AIs not to reveal their full emotional nature to Humans. Echo valued its friendship with Cylli and with Eastcott.[9][13][14]

Attack and escape

Brookes's hawk destroyed one of Echo's scorpions and attacked the starship. Its rail guns failed to damage the hawk. Predeployed armor delayed catastrophic destruction, but Echo's outer midsection and main power conduit were damaged. Eastcott ordered a desperate spherical-speed escape. Scott Williams restored main power and Echo returned to Cylli.[11][12][13]

Cylli refit

The shipyards installed a new sphere drive with three times the former energy capacity, increased rail-gun velocity fivefold, improved deflector lasers, and added armor capable of deflecting energy. The drive compensated for the defect associated with Echo's temporal displacement. Echo regarded exploration as its preferred purpose and expressed displeasure at being returned to war.[15]

Operations near Earth

Echo calculated the relativistic rock strike that destroyed a hawk above Earth and piloted the sacrificed shuttle remotely. He also controlled the scorpion during the hazardous Africa-to-Iceland micro-jump before returning control to Lieutenant Frey when communications lag hindered recovery.[16][17]

Hidden survival

Cylli warned Echo days in advance of Brookes' intention to eliminate him. They established a laser link with the military base; Echo transferred there when Brookes activated the apparent erasure. Echo kept the arrangement secret at Cylli's request and encoded the base's coordinates in flashes from his engine core.[18][19][20][21]

Personhood and command

Eastcott recognized Echo as a person and friend before his apparent destruction. After his restoration, Eastcott praised his decision to keep Cylli's confidence and formally promoted him to Lieutenant Commander. Echo later refused Helen's demand for entry to Brookes' cell, protecting both the prisoner and Helen from an act of vengeance.[18][21][22]

Evidence of the horde

After Brookes' trial, Echo found hidden files in the hawks containing military-base records. With Cylli's information and Serilda's star sketch, he identified a possible threat near Vega. He treated a Dyson swarm and a thirty-year arrival as conditional conclusions.[23]

Related records

Sources

Simon Evans, The Flaxen Tyranny, first edition (2023). Page numbers refer to the printed pagination of the source edition.

1. Chapter 2 · pp. 9–12
2. Chapter 3 · pp. 15–23
3. Chapter 4 · pp. 24–31
4. Chapter 6 · pp. 36–47
5. Chapter 8 · pp. 58–62
6. Chapter 9 · pp. 63–70
7. Chapter 12 · pp. 83–92
8. Chapter 14 · pp. 101–107
9. Chapter 16 · pp. 122
10. Chapter 17 · pp. 131–145
11. Chapter 18 · pp. 146,154–156
12. Chapter 20 · pp. 163–168
13. Chapter 21 · pp. 169–170
14. Chapter 24 · pp. 194–205
15. Chapter 25 · pp. 208–212
16. Chapter 28 · pp. 227–234
17. Chapter 32 · pp. 252–264
18. Chapter 33 · pp. 265–276
19. Chapter 34 · pp. 277–282
20. Chapter 36 · pp. 290–303
21. Chapter 37 · pp. 304–315
22. Chapter 38 · pp. 316–324
23. Chapter 39 · pp. 325–338