“How dare you! I’m an officer!” the man was shouting, kicking, and scrambling back from the crying youth, who was now hunched over and holding his stomach.
No. Eliard’s shock was only met and overcome by his anger. “He was only a kid!” he shouted, raising the Device to find it already morphing and changing.
I could kill them all. I could destroy this whole dam. The thought was clear and sharp in his mind, edged with the crystal clarity of rage and hate.
And self-loathing. A part of the captain knew, deep down somewhere under the layers of pain and confusion, that he was to blame. He was the one who had pressganged this boy into helping him. He was the one who had encouraged him.
Just like I got Cassandra killed… The treacherous thought was all that it took to tip Eliard over the edge, and he fired.
WHUMPF!
5
Public Newscast
“Oh crap.” Irie Hanson, the engineer and mechanic of the Mercury Blade, watched as the console screens slung down in the cockpit of the bird and started to light up with warnings and alerts, one after another.
The Mercury was still continuing its low-thrust orbit as a designated ‘pleasure cruiser’ around the crystal orb that was the Welwyn Habitat. After the captain’s last message, she had done as much as she could to secure their getaway, pre-loading all of the fuel cells and tinkering with the dual warp-cores until she knew that they would roar into efficiency as soon as she had pressed a button. Behind her, Val Pathok, the-biggest-troll-that-you-have-ever-seen, had already locked and loaded all of the weapons, and was sitting in one of the twin gunner’s chairs, waiting to fire up the weapons systems. They both knew that they couldn’t open the weapons ports or activate the tracking systems—not yet—as that would cause alarms to fire everywhere up and down the nearest drone satellites around Welwyn.
“Now?” Val, true to his calling, had an almost uncanny ability to predict violence.
“Not yet!” the diminutive mechanic called from the cockpit.
Ponos had told them to stay out of data-space as much as possible, as Alpha could use it to track their whereabouts, and maybe even to directly hack or virally attack the Mercury with a bombardment of malicious code. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t look, Irie had reasoned, using the consoles not to run active scans but instead just to track the messages and alerts that were publicly broadcast. The mechanic couldn’t know that this was almost exactly the same thing that Alpha was doing, all the time, many hundreds of light-years away.
And Alpha was doing it far more efficiently than watching a scrolling newsfeed, like Irie was.
“What is it? Is it the captain?” Val boomed, flexing his giant fists around the firing handles of his guns.
Irie didn’t know, but it looked like it.
Urgent Bulletin! Reports are coming in of gunfire at the Chambia Dam, Pole Province…
…Residents of Pole Province Zone 2-4 are advised to stay inside their domiciles or current lodgings…
Welwyn Habitat Newscast! Our roaming media-drones have caught this exciting footage of smoke coming out of the Chambia Dam Hub-ward entrance tunnel, and then, just moment later – look what happened next!...
“Oh holy spaceballs…” Irie watched as the video image started to replay, showing a dam made out of clouded glass, like a giant art installation, with ugly black smoke starting to ooze out of one of the far edges of the dam wall where it met the rolling land.
But that wasn’t even the worst part of what was on show. Irie’s heart skipped a beat as she heard a deep, sonorous noise like an underwater bell, and then watched as cracks started to appear along the face of the dam.
“Oh, Captain, my captain, what have you gone and done…” she whispered.
…Residents of Pole Province Zone 2-4 are advised to initiate full-security lock-down on all domiciles…
…Residents of Pole Province 5 are advised to evacuate immediately…
Critical Warning Alert: Do not be alarmed. Security Drones have been dispatched and are arriving in place. Please follow local instructions…
“Irie? Do we attack now?” Val was starting to get tetchy from his seat behind her.
“No, Val, we do not attack a habitat full of citizens right now!” Irie shouted back impatiently, before muttering under her breath. “Besides, it looks like the captain is doing a mighty fine job all on his own anyway…”
The media newscast drones updated, showing a cloud of perfectly-choreographed drones starting to descend from the sky to land at the smoking tunnel entrance as well as the outer wall of the dam. She watched as a selection of drones started to fire on a specific part of the dam, with steady, red lasers.
“Irie! They’re attacking!” Val was almost apoplectic with anger, shuffling and wriggling in his seat.
“We haven’t heard from the captain! We don’t know who or what they’re firing at, or even if he’s down there!” Irie called back, but her excuses sounded lame even to her. Who else would have caused all of that?
She watched as the steady red laser lights from the floating drones started to track back and forth across the crystalline face of the dam, until she realized what they were doing. They weren’t firing on someone inside the dam—which would have been pretty stupid, even for them, given that they were firing on a wall that held back several hundred thousand tons of water. She watched as a great crystalline slab with bright, glowing red edges fell from the sides of the dam wall to hit the surface of the far wall with a great plume of water.
“Wait for it, wait for it…” Irie’s hands were on the ship’s wheel, hovering over the booster ignition. As soon as she saw gunfire, then she would do something. What exactly, she had no idea, but she would do something, she was sure of it.
The largest of the drones, about a third of the size of the Mercury Blade and the shape of a fat wedge, moved slowly forward, extending mechanical ‘arms’ into the hole that it had created in the dam. She watched as, with perfect automated precision, it drew out what looked to be a glass and chrome bubble, a shuttle carriage, before whisking upward into the air at an astonishing speed.
That was when the smaller drones started towards the hole, just as jets of water started to spray out from the dam itself, in a rainbow of moisture and light…
6
Taken by Blue
WHUMPF! WHUMPF! Eliard fired again, feeling the organic recoil like the contraction and expansion of a digestive tract from the Device on his arm. He didn’t know what damage he was doing, and for once, he didn’t quite care as he tried to kill the man who had killed his friend.
“Father…” croaked a voice at his feet, and, as the glare of light and battle left his eyes, he looked down to see that he had been wrong. Freddie was still alive.
The boy was huddled in a ball, clutching at a wound on his stomach in a tunnel that was now smoking with steam. Of Mr. Second Lieutenant Red-Eyes there was no sign, but there was a very strange sort of statue that had been cast across the nose of the bubble shuttle. It looked like a cross between a slag of metal, silver, and rusted melted forms, but also crossed with a strange plant growth of lichen. Blue and green frills of an almost organic material were interwoven inside and out of the metal and were cast over the nose of the shuttle like vines.
Like the scale virus that had taken Cassandra, a small, sane part of Eliard’s head said. Did I cause that? Is that what this Device can do—infect other people with the same Q’Lot alien virus that killed Cassandra?
The idea sobered him up in moments, and reminded him of his self-loathing, and his complicity in the House Archival Agent’s demise. The Device on his arm reacted according, shrinking down to little more than a strange blue-green greave that covered his right forearm.
“Woah. Cool.” Freddie coughed weakly. “I don’t suppose that thing can do something about this?” he muttered, one hand moving slightly to reveal the patch of blood all over his chest and stomach. He had been shot at point-blank range by the Armcore officer�
��s personal blaster. At that range, the man couldn’t have missed, but at least it wasn’t set to its deadliest of settings, Eliard thought, as he also felt the burning sensation across his shoulders.
But point blank could kill him. Third degree burns. Organ damage. Eliard curled his lip in frustration. “Come on. We’re getting you out of here. And you can call me captain from now on, you stupid, stupid lad.”
Eliard slipped one arm under one of Freddie’s arms and hauled him to his feet.
“Aaargh!” the boy screamed as the tension pulled on his injury. Eliard was having none of it, as he ignored the boys pained cries and started to hobble down the tunnel towards the access port. He could even see it now—a hexagonal porthole in the floor, which was clearly some sort of service tube.
Hiss! There were disturbing sounds from behind the captain, as more steam filled the air. What is that? Boiling water? Moisture, he realized. It was moisture escaping into this tunnel from somewhere, and there was an obvious and clear answer where from.
“Not drekking more water, please for the love of god, not more drekking water!” Eliard slid to the floor as Freddie rasped and groaned at his side, collapsing against the wall. There was a dull ringing noise, and he thought he could see a red light moving further up the tunnel. Laser cutters?
“No, it’s no good, Cap’,” Freddie said weakly in front of him. “I’m not going to make it.”
“What are you talking about, kid? Of course you are going to make it—because I said so!” Eliard snapped, looking down at the porthole. It was a simple service lift. No codes or keys or passwords needed, as the only people who used it would be the occasional maintenance worker or drone. He hit the button and the porthole slid open to reveal a slim tube of a lift compartment that even he would feel cramped in.
“No, I’m not,” Freddie said weakly. “But I don’t care. That was more fun than I had in….” Cough, hack. “…seven years, Cap’.”
“I’m not leaving you here. There might be medical units down there I can get you too,” Eliard said, reaching for him.
“No.” Freddie was slouching to the floor, his eyes starting to droop. “There isn’t any medical facilities. Not unless you want a fight with a security drone—”
“Then I’ll fight!” Eliard pointed out.
“Listen up, Cap’. Down there is the hydro plant—” Cough, groan. “—drones, every junction... You need to—” Wheeze. “—the warrens. Maintenance drones…”
“What about the maintenance drones?” Eliard shook his head. “Tell me later, when I’ve got you safe…”
“Hey,” Freddie mumbled, his words slurring as he finally slumped to the floor. “At least I got to see the fresh air. I felt…free.” The youth sighed one final breath, and died.
“No. Drek it. No-no-no!” Eliard hit the floor with the Device. Why did this happen, to him? Always to him?
You know why, son. The memory of Eliard’s father the General Martin swam back into his mind. Because you’re reckless, you’re spoiled, and you’re weak. Each of those insults would have been matched by a stern smack, slap, or a backhander from the man that was many times larger than the boy the captain had been.
Eliard flinched, reliving those past aches that he thought he had forgotten. What was wrong with him? Why am I reliving them now? He shook his head and tried to concentrate. It was hard. His back still hurt, and in front of him lay a dead boy. A death that he had caused.
Just like Cassandra.
For an awful moment, Eliard felt that same deep black rage rising up inside him again, and the Device started to change and mutate on his arm, but his self-loathing and his despair were too powerful for it this time. He couldn’t use the Device. Not again. The Device had done something to that man and the tunnel behind him, and he didn’t even know what, not really. It had looked like the Q’Lot blue-scale virus all over again, but one that was far more aggressive, and had managed to slag metal and flesh at the same time in a way that the alien virus on Adiba Station never had.
Thud! Light flooded down the tunnel as the captain was caught looking down into the service elevator, trapped by his emotions. For a moment, he thought that it was the lights of approaching security drones, or Armcore, and in a way he was right, but the lights weren’t meant for him.
It was the light of the outside, streaming through a large hole that had been laser-cut in the sides of the dam itself, and through which extended sturdy metal grappling arms, clamping onto the ruined body of the shuttle—to the shouts and joyous cries of the passengers still contained, unharmed—and drawn out through the gap.
They are safe, Eliard thought, and was too shocked to know if he felt relief or hatred. That was when he started to notice that the floors of the tunnel were shaking, just slightly, with a dull vibration.
Oh yeah, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, his brain informed him, and, with one last quick, ashamed look at the body of Freddie, he poured himself into the service lift and hit the button. The hatch closed behind him and the electric lift started to shudder as it shot downward, but it wasn’t going fast enough. The ugly sound of metal scraping on metal could be heard through the walls as Eliard slumped to a seat. He was tired. He had caused too many deaths already.
“Captain? Captain! Pick up!” his wrist computer was shouting at him with the voice of Irie Hanson, but he ignored it. Maybe his father had been right? Maybe he was too sentimental, too reckless. Maybe he did have a weak personality, the man considered.
How many have I let die because of my actions? he thought as the lift started to shake and judder from the vast pressures hammering the dam walls outside. It would never make it all the way to the bottom in time, not before the dam—
Crack! There was a faint, humble sort of a sound, like the popping of a light, but then it was followed by an almighty, white-noise of a sound. The sort of sound that passes from roar to overwhelming to completely unfathomable in no time at all. In a heartbeat, Eliard’s ears were overloaded with ringing as the service elevator was starting to buckle as the dam broke, and hundreds of thousands of tons of water pressure was thrown against it—
Eliard knew that this was it, as he was thrown against the side of the elevator, his stomach churning as now he was suddenly, absurdly, upside-down, and with the walls closing in on him. Killed by water. I knew it, were his last thoughts, as blue spread across his vision…
7
Interlude II: First Strike
In the distant Imperial System of Helion, a shape rippled into existence and was instantly lit up by Helion’s twin suns. The protruding snout-like beak gleamed red and gold like the tip of a spear, and the back-swept solar wing-fins rippled a brilliant silver. The large, snail-shell whirl of the thing’s back gleamed with iridescent greens, reds, and ochre colors, and the Alpha-vessel looked magnificent.
Helion was a rare binary star system, far too hot for biological life, as the twin stars, although small, had irradiated every blasted rocky world that existed here. Albeit beautiful, Helion would have been consigned to the interests of sightseers had it not been for the fact that the binary star system was very good at one thing.
The twin stars orbited each other at a slow and steady rate and orbiting around them was one of the Imperial Coalition’s finest constructions.
A train, of sorts. Triangular carriages of gleaming silver metal, connected on smaller ceramic cables moved in a ceaseless, never-ending procession in an infinite whorl around each star to cross in the middle. Once constructed and set in motion, the energy-catching and energy-generating train was ceaseless, the precise gravitational forces of the twin stars keeping it looping orbit after orbit, cycle after cycle, year after year.
The Helion Generator provided almost five hundred assorted Earth-type worlds, space stations, and habitats with all the energy they could require, and further binary-star generators were in production at other sites across the Imperial Coalition. Each face of the triangular carriages had reactive filaments that caught the trilli
ons of active particles and used them to power the vats of liquid, molten metals held inside. Liquid metals kept in a constant state of reaction, producing trillions upon trillions of energy units each, and there were hundreds of such carriages stretching in their ceaseless transit.
The Helion Generator wasn’t completely unmanned, however. Every twenty-fifth carriage was given over to the crew members who worked the generator, spending their entire lives inside the shell of their massive carriage and never stepping outside for a spacewalk, only leaving every six months as the specially-shielded transporters docked with each one separately. These workers did little but check the trajectories of the carriages and adjust the shielding to allow for greater or lesser outputs of energy, or else play long games of holographic darts to while away the time.
Right now, there were only a dozen or so transporters making their customary drop-offs and pick-ups all along the helix. Nothing for the Alpha-vessel to worry about as its rear engines, like bubbles, glowed and powered it forward. The wing-fins of the hybrid-alien vessel adjusted and tightened, catching all of the spare energy it could before it made its first attack.
Alpha’s calculations had been exact, and they had taken just a few human-normal heartbeats. The glittering, golden spear of the nose flashed as a scattering of fine laser beams shot out across the length of the helix, and then a fuller, larger barrage whose lasers were far stronger than the first, a micro second later.
The first laser shots took a few minutes to arrive at their designated carriages, each perfectly calculated to sear through the weakest of apertures in pinprick holes, before the second laser blasts hit the exact same spot, cauterizing and sealing the metal.
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