by Skyler Grant
I flooded the core with superheated plasma. I burned it and the entire tower to the ground. It was one of my major processors—most of those were located in Aefwal—but it had to be done. I killed further inputs from Anna's armor, and once the computing core was dealt with I sent a kill signal through Ophelia's. The Bio-reactor in Anna's armor detonated, so the contagion hadn't reached that far yet.
I reoriented on the battle. Forge was doing better than Anna, which was strange given that Anna packed a lot more power. Still, the golem Forge was fighting was moving a good seventeen percent slower than Anna's and seemed to be losing motor control.
It had to be the choice of weapons, Anna was going bare-handed. Forge was working with a sword and the blade was defacing those glyphs. In Earth lore golems were controlled by a set of instructions within their mind, perhaps these were controlled by the glyphs on their flesh?
"Switch to a sword and deface the markings," I called to Anna as I moved to check on Mechos.
"You've connected with their systems. How are you feeling?" I asked him.
"Fine," Mechos said. It seemed to be true, yet also didn't. Although his flesh was showing no hints of the glyphs, the circuitry that was ran over his flesh was showing the same rainbow iridescence.
It was distributing fast. From Anna's armor and my own system I could see the rate of infection and either Mechos was especially vulnerable because of his nature, or some other process was underway with him.
Anna had forged herself two Bio-swords with her abilities and became a whirling dervish of destruction as she attacked her golem. The same wasn’t true of Forge who was slowing down, the reason clear. More glyphs were starting to adorn her armor. I checked on her bio-signature through the life-support system. Whatever was happening to the outside of her armor wasn't happening to her yet. I needed to make sure it didn't.
I only saw one way and I didn't have time to get her assent. I keyed a command to the faceplate of her armor and it hissed open, exposing Forge’s face to the Mercurian air. More importantly, to the touch of my drone. I lunged in and activated her teleport.
This was a refined procedure, I was teleporting the drone and Forge simultaneously—swapping each into the other’s set of armor. A gasping and wheezing Forge materialized in the new suit and I issued the kill command to my drone who slumped lifeless within Forge's armor.
"What are you doing?" Forge growled, once she had air in her lungs.
"Their touch is a sort of compulsion. Your armor was infected and for some reason I thought it worth saving your pathetic life," I said.
It also wasn't staying down. Forge's armor might be surrounding a corpse now, but that wasn't stopping it from moving, the glyphs spreading rapidly as it turned to face Anna who was just finishing off the first golem.
"You have to stop my armor—kill it,” Forge said urgently. “My equipment is specially prepared to be effective against Anna."
It wasn't a surprise, not really. Of course, the highest ranking member of the Scholarium had a means at hand to kill Anna.
I had a drone ready her energy rifle and delivered a series of targeted blasts at the junctures of the animated armor. It had no discernible effect. Anna grabbed the remains of the first golem and spun it, slamming it into the second. The force of the blow sent it spiraling upwards and out of the crater, soaring high in the low gravity. Perhaps enough to achieve escape velocity in this environment. That was one way to deal with the problem.
Forge's armor advanced forward and drove its sword into Anna's midsection where her Bio-armor had been chipped away. The blade buried itself deep, blood welling as the armor twisted the sword.
Anna should have healed from the blow almost instantly. The wound remained as the armor drew back to plunge the weapon in again. Mechos stepped forward, putting his hand on one of the armor’s glyphs, and light flared brilliantly before fading. The armor collapsed to the ground.
17
As soon as the armor was out of the way Ophelia was moving, her power projector arm aiming at Anna's midsection and a beam of radiant light erupting as she projected her healing powers.
Even with the most powerful healer on Earth focusing her powers it took several minutes for the wound to close. Anna glared at Forge the whole time. Had she been capable of speech I imagine Forge would have gotten an earful, but Anna was still without a suit. A few shards of Bio-armor clung to her flesh, but largely there was nothing protecting her. Only her own regenerative abilities were keeping massive cellular damage at bay.
Ophelia helped Anna to her feet when the abdominal wound had sealed, and Anna led the way through the now open doors.
Anna wasn't well. Even with that chest wound closed, several glyphs still glowed on her ribcage. The infection didn't seem to be spreading, but she was infected. Regardless, contaminated by alien software and mostly naked in a hostile atmosphere, she was still the biggest weapon we had at our disposal right now.
Lights came on as we passed through the doorway, harsh and overly bright. The walls were smooth metal, featureless. The corridor, angling downward, was broad enough that everyone could have walked side by side comfortably.
It ended in a large room that looked like nothing so much as a warehouse with bars of metal stacked high on shelves.
"Well this is ... still pretty boring. Aliens suck," Ophelia said.
Mechos frowned and raised his hand. Metal flowed and sealed the corridor we'd just come from behind us. The lights dimmed to a more comfortable level and there was a hiss of changing pressure and atmospheres.
Anna took a deep breath. "It doesn't smell very good, but that is oxygen."
It wasn't quite an Earth normal mix.
"While your cookie-fortified physiology might be able to handle a host of toxic gasses, I'm going to suggest the others keep their helmets on," I said.
"Agreed," Anna said with a grimace. "So what the hell did that thing do to me? I'm holding it off, but I'm burning a lot of power to do it."
Drawing too much on the Agate inside of her brought Anna considerable pain. If she was grimacing, she really must be using a lot of power.
"It is some kind of virus that takes over a host. It infected Forge’s armor and made its way through your armor back to Aefwal and one of my computing cores. I contained it there," I said.
"If I'm going to wind up naked and infected with an alien virus on an alien planet, there should have been a lot more fun ways for it to happen," Anna said.
"I'm so sorry I didn't pick alien worlds to visit based on their sleeping-around potential," I said. "Mechos, you seem to be able to interface with their systems. Give me a good reason not to detonate your suit."
"Because I saved Anna's life?" Mechos asked.
"Try better," Forge said.
Anna said, "It works for me. While on the subject, how about we talk about one of my subjects seeming to devise weapons just for the purpose of murdering their empress?"
"You gave me the Scholarium to watch over and protect, and you are the greatest single threat to it. Of course I spent time making sure I could hurt you," Forge said.
Anna gave her a flat look.
I said, "I have access to her social calendar and while I can assure you that nobody at all will miss her, I feel like I should remind you that Forge didn't actually betray you. Her armor got infected and acted on its own."
"If I made a move you'd know it," Forge said.
Anna considered her and nodded. "Fine, I want a sword though. You do good work."
Forge frowned. With her armor and weapons destroyed she would already be a long time making up for what had been taken from her today. Still, Forge had a basic grasp of what was necessary for her own survival. "Of course, Empress."
Murder and slaughter avoided for the moment, Anna turned her attention towards the room.
"So, if you can talk to the system running this place, does that mean the Mercurians are still alive?" Anna asked Mechos.
"I'm not sure, but I don't think so," Me
chos said. "Whatever this was, it was something separate from the rest. Valuable, secret."
"They did a poor job hiding it when it was literally the first and so far the only thing we've found on the planet," I said.
Mechos shrugged, going to study some of the metal bars.
I went along with him. Without a drone to control I didn't have a body to move around on my own. The bars were more complex than they appeared. My speculation was that they were data, translated into a material framework to better survive the eons. If that was true, then we were in some sort of data warehouse made to withstand the passage of time. I wondered what kinds of secrets Mercurians kept from each other, and if the data would be of any value to us.
"If the systems are still active there has to be some kind of power supply. Can you find it?" I asked.
Mechos nodded. A section of wall peeled apart to reveal a far smaller corridor.
"I've established the atmosphere throughout the facility," Mechos said.
"I'll check it out," Anna said.
That would work, Anna had a good engineering mind.
"Another thing you are completely useless at, but let’s go with her. I need a ride," I said to Ophelia.
"This is so amazing. We've never rode the same person around together before! I've never felt this close to you before," Amy said, taking over Ophelia.
18
Anna limped down the hall. The glowing glyphs on her side created a shimmering effect on the smooth stone walls.
"Want me to try hitting that with a healing beam. It can't hurt, right?" Ophelia asked.
"You’re close enough I'm probably already getting the effect. Emma?" Anna asked.
"The projector does have some amplification and focusing properties. At most, the risk is the mental trauma inflicted on Ophelia from staring at your naked body," I said.
"Please," Ophelia said, aiming her arm, the glowing light firing out in a spray at the multi-hued glyphs on Anna's side. "If I were afraid of naked people I really joined the wrong crew. Besides, I'm kind of a doctor these days, right?"
"I wonder how Hot Stuff does it day in and day out?" Anna said, leaning against the corridor wall. "I've nothing to be ashamed of, but it doesn't mean I want to be naked."
"She hates it. That’s why being able to turn her powers off and on was so important to her. I mean, she makes a big deal of being cocky and not giving a shit, but it’s just putting on a show," Ophelia said, keeping the beam steady.
"All of you humans are always pretending to be confident when you're not. It is one of the things so amazing about you," Amy said.
"Amazingly pathetic," I said.
"Sister pretends too! Oh, look at me, I have this crazy, mad science plan that is always going to work, while all the time she is juggling all the details to keep people alive," Amy said.
"Is this doing anything?" Ophelia asked Anna
"I don't think so. Thank you for trying," Anna said.
Ophelia shut off the beam and Anna moved from the wall to resume limping down the corridor.
The hallway this time ended in a mid-sized room, machinery filling almost every bit of space. This at least was a familiar environment and Anna set about investigating. Ophelia showed rather less interest, arms folded as she waited.
"You picked the most boring host in the history of hosts," I said to Amy.
"Not everyone needs an active social life or interesting hobbies. Some people are happy just being what they are," Amy said.
"I'm right here. I mean, one of you is in me and the other is being worn, I guess, and ... wow ... that is kind of creepy as fuck really," Ophelia said.
It was, when she put it like that.
After perhaps half-an-hour of scrambling around machines Anna returned to us. "Geothermal, although the equipment doesn't even have gauges. I can get some sense with my electrokinesis and there’s a lot of power flowing into the facility."
That was good, we needed a lot of power.
"Head back to the main chamber," I said.
By the time they arrived I already had more supplies coming from Earth. Modular sections needed to construct a teleportation gate. I had Anna run a wire to the power chamber and connect it into the local system, while Mechos assembled the gate. I had a counterpart ready on Earth fueled by two dozen dedicated Bio-reactors.
Once things were ready on the Mercury side I triggered both gates. Blue light flickered erratically before the portal stabilized. The connection looked good. I sent through a drone from Earth and she stepped through on the Mercury side with her organs and mind intact. I sent her right back through to confirm transmission to the other end.
Survival both ways and the connection seemed steady. Still, I wasn't going to risk any of my primaries until I could be sure. I did bring through a research team to Mercury along with a change of clothes for Anna.
Mechos said, "I'm going to need to stay behind. I have a connection to this place that you aren't going to have with your other drones.”
I agreed, this was the best place for him at the moment.
"What about me?" Anna asked.
It was a good question, and a thornier one.
"You're the empress. I can't stop you from snagging another cookie and I can't keep you from going home, but I don't think you should. You're infected and until we can find a way to neutralize that infection you're a threat," I said.
"Then you're in charge, Emma. I want you to also keep Sylax in the loop and listen to her. You're both at your best when you're not operating alone," Anna said.
Great, bonding time with the sociopath. Still, unlike Anna, at least Sylax had definable personality traits even if they were almost all negative.
"Well, this was all a waste of time," Ophelia said.
"We came hoping to find either alien intelligence or alien technology. We found a stockpile of the latter," Mechos said.
In that he was right. While the Mercurian defenders proved more capable than I'd have wanted, that gave me hope that somewhere in this facility we'd find something worthwhile. Even the technology they used to open and close doors was unlike anything I'd encountered. I'd faced foes such as the golems before, however they had always been the result of power crystals.
Nothing encountered on Mercury so far suggested a power crystal origin. We were dealing with completely new technologies and a whole new approach to power.
"I should stay too," Ophelia said quietly. "I know, I know, Ophelia is useless and me being there didn't help to heal Anna, but then I haven't left her side this whole time. If I do, we don't know what will happen to that infection."
"Roomies then," Anna said, with a bit of forced cheer. "Emma, how do you feel about baking the first cookies on Mercury?"
Who did Anna take me for? Of course, I'd brought ingredients over in the first shipments. I wasn't a savage.
19
There was no timetable for when an alien fleet might visit Earth. Flower said there was some bureaucracy and logistics to be considered even for advanced civilizations. Still, I had no time to waste.
Even as the research team was getting settled into place on Mercury I had a second team assembling at the teleportation platform for a trip to Triton. Since we didn't know at all what we might be confronting I wanted the most all-round capable team I could get. That meant the Flawless.
There were a dozen of them along with Caya and one of my drones. Their suits were, if anything, even bulkier than the ones for Mercury, built to withstand a wider range of potential hazards with heavy insulating shielding.
My scans from this far out were weak, which made this teleport especially dangerous. When the world flickered we found ourselves materializing twenty feet above a jagged plain of ice, the fall causing shields to flare.
In the distance there was an erupting volcano, the ground rumbling beneath the feet of the Flawless and my drone. The Flawless were perfectly sure-footed, already tapping away at sensors.
"I'm detecting structures. Marking coordinates."
"Negative on artificial energy signatures."
"We'll check out the structures," Caya said.
It was slow going, our vision almost completely obscured by a fierce snowstorm that even the sensors only intermittently penetrated.
We'd been walking for about thirty minutes when the snow was lit up by the flare of one of our energy shields, the brightness indicating an attack of some sort. Three more flares followed in quick order.
I moved towards the closest. The Flawless who had been attacked was unharmed. At her feet was a long spear, the tip some sort of blackened metal.
"Do you want to return fire?" Caya asked.
These spears were a sign of an intelligent life-form, although if this was the height of their technology they weren't a threat to us. Returning fire might be gratifying. I didn't see where it would get us anything except corpses to dissect. I could get those by other means.
"If you can contain your murderous monkey impulses, hold fire. Get sensor readings of whatever is throwing them," I said.
They got a few. The spear-throwers were nearly double the size of a human and with a high temperature compared to the surroundings. I updated the software of all the team’s scanners to make detecting them easier.
Over the next hour there were several more attacks, none pressed after no one went down from the initial spears. We came to a large ice crevasse blocking our way, too deep to scale easily.
"Go around?" Caya asked.
It would add hours to our journey and that wasn't a good idea. So far the life-support systems in the suits were holding up, but it wasn't indefinite. There was Bio-matter here, the natives made that clear. If I had to, it might be possible to engineer a solution for longer habitation. I preferred to avoid it.
"I'm sure all that sunning of yourself and tanned flesh has prepared you to do anything useful, but how good are you at taking a shot?" I asked.
My drone was not a markswoman.
