by Christi Smit
“Willis? What’s going on? Remy sounded...troubled,” Locke asked the old ship captain.
“There is no time for the long version, so here are the details as things developed out here. Nox is gone. We are currently flying through what is left of it. That damned ship you are on is making a run for it, we don’t know where it is going, but we are following it,” Gray said, pausing as he dodged another ship-sized asteroid. He wanted to continue but Locke cut him off before he could speak again.
“Do you have any good news Willis? You are seriously darkening my mood.” Locke’s sarcasm was obvious as he waited for Gray to reply.
There was that rebel soul he liked in the Titan captain. Gray grinned at the sarcasm; even in such dire circumstances Locke still had a sense of humour. “I don’t want to spoil you Gabriel. You might just get an even bigger ego.”
“Anything else you want to spoil my day with?” Locke chuckled between words. The light-hearted comment from Gray helped to take Locke’s mind of the current situation, if only for a moment.
“Well, just because you asked. It’s burning its engines at maximum, and has been for more than an hour, meaning...” Gray trailed off, waiting for Locke to complete the sentence.
“Meaning we are in serious trouble.”
“You have about an hour before she goes critical, and less if you want to escape. The Hyperion will pursue as long as we can, probably until the end, we won’t leave you.”
“It’s the AIE, it’s trying to kill us and everything nearby, and the Hyperion seems to be on the list of things that need to be wiped out.”
Gray’s blood went ice-cold. “Impossible, none of those things survived the war.”
“Trust me Willis. That was my first reaction as well, it’s very possible. It’s an AIE, and it’s very angry at us.”
Only you could piss of something like that, Gray thought before he replied. “That complicates things, you know that right?”
“You don’t know the half of it, but we can talk about it later. Try to get Sabian or Gunn on the analogue channels; they need to be informed about the situation.”
“Remy is busy with that,” Gray said as he nodded towards Remy, who was looking at him with her big eyes, mostly out of shock from hearing the confirmation of an AIE presence.
Remy nodded back after a few moments and resumed her work, trying to contact the other members of the party on-board the Fateful Moment.
“Locke?” Gray had to ask the next question, he wanted to know something before Locke terminated the transmission.
“Yes, Willis?” Locke replied.
“How many do we have to mourn?” Gray asked, knowing Locke would understand the question.
“Seven,” the Titan captain replied before continuing. “Seven Lancers, The Wolves are all still alive.”
Gray said nothing. He just grunted an acknowledgment, seven lives already wasted in the trap, and probably more he did not know about yet. It always bothered him if people under his command or people part of his ship lost their lives.
“We are heading for the reactors on the way out. Tell Sabian to hold fast and Gunn to warm up the Maiden.” Locke went quiet, probably already relaying his orders to the rest of the Wolves and the surviving Lancers.
“Understood, good luck Gabriel,” Gray said, trying to shake the feeling that he might not ever talk to the Titan again. “Die well if you must.”
“Very dramatic old friend, but I plan to get through this.” Locke said nothing more as he cut the transmission from his side.
They had already wasted enough time with the conversation, they needed to make every minute count, and if they did not it could be the end of them all. Gray shook his head, clearing his vision and his mind as he refocused on the Fateful Moment in front of him, its engines burned bright, reminding him of the last sunset he saw more than a year ago. It would be a fitting end to be consumed by the artificial sun’s explosion, ending everything in one giant blast.
All void captains wanted to die like that, becoming part of the void, vaporized into atoms, melding with the blackness between the stars.
Locke had relayed the developing situation to the rest of the squad as they took a few moments to gather themselves. The fight in the confined space had made limbs slightly heavier, even the Wolves felt a spark of weariness run through their bodies, the Nano machines inside every Wolf frantically working to manage and regulate their bodies.
The Wolves would need a rest if they were able to escape the Fateful Moment.
Rivers punched the wall of the duct, swearing in his drawl as Locke told his Wolves about Nox. The metal grating dented under the impact from Rivers’ armoured fist, his anger adding extra power to the blow. The sound echoed down the dark tunnels, but there was no fear of being discovered by the monsters anymore - the explosion had announced to the entire ship where the Wolves were prowling.
Christian moved to ask Rivers why he was so angry, but Nathan stopped him with the wave of his hand.
“Don’t. He needs to get it out,” Nathan said to his brother.
“Why? We don’t have the time. You heard what Captain Locke said,” Christian replied, speaking to his brother on a private channel. Nathan had switched to it the moment he had stopped his brother.
Nathan did not reply immediately, instead he turned to face away from Rivers’ anger. He finally replied after checking his ammo count and reserve clips. “He had family on Nox, a brother or cousin I think.”
Christian’s next words caught in his throat, knowing it would be better not to say anything else. He nodded at Nathan, also turning to check on his equipment, giving Rivers some privacy as he dealt with the news.
“This just became very personal,” Rivers said to Xander who was crouched nearby.
“Then I suggest you survive this hell we are in, and choke the life out of the bastard that orchestrated all of this,” Xander said, waving his hand to emphasize his last words.
Rivers did not reply, he balled his fist one last time, and punched the utter living shit out of the poor duct wall, almost punching straight through the thick grating.
Locke had waited long enough for his sergeant to get a grip on his anger. “Are you done?” he asked Rivers.
“Yes, but I have a request,” he stated to the entire squad. “I want first shot at that thing’s master. Anyone have a problem with that?”
No-one objected, the three surviving Lancers looking at each other at the surprising change in the Titan’s tone, they had only heard his voice for a few hours, but the sudden change from sarcastic to serious was noticeable.
“There is no need to stick to the ducts anymore, they know we are here and they probably know where we are heading. We can exit these bloody ducts at the next intersection,” Rivers said over the squad radio, pointing to the tunnel Christian was standing in.
“How far do we need to go to reach the reactors?” Locke asked Rivers.
Rivers started walking the way he pointed as he replied to Locke, passing the Titan brothers as he took the lead without anyone questioning it. “A few decks down, we need to go down and then through the storage bays.” He kept walking as the rest of the squad fell in behind him, holding their weapons at the ready.
Christian and Nathan walked behind Rivers, both holding their shields at the ready should a threat try and surprise them before they got out of the vents. Jay, Borstil and Stevens followed the shield-bearers. Xander was behind them with Locke and Pyoter bringing up the rear.
Nathan made a joke about Borstil watching his step as they quickened their pace to the tunnel exit, raising a few chuckles at the expense of Borstil’s clumsiness.
At the back of the line Pyoter smiled at something else, the time inside the vent had made him frustrated, an emotion that always brought out the best in his fighting ability. He was smiling to himself, not listening to the rest of the squad’s chatter, soon he would be out of the confining ducts, and then he would show the monsters that scurried around inside the Fatefu
l Moment’s bowels exactly what the word vengeance meant.
Its brain was an intricate maze of circuits and artificial processes. Most of it occupied with operating the different systems of the Fateful Moment as it piloted the vessel through the asteroid field. It could see the Hyperion behind it, watching the vessel in its wake perform impressive manoeuvres to keep up with the Fateful Moment.
Deep within the mind of the AIE it tried to think of an emotion to express what it felt, but its master’s touch had dampened everything. The plethora of emotions it knew had all been blocked or hidden, its master had made sure that only one emotion remained once he had set it free. No matter how hard it tried the emotions it was created with would not surface, always concealed just below the surface of its artificial mind’s ocean of knowledge.
Anger was all it knew now, it was the only thing it felt, it was what coursed through its circuits, and it drove almost every part of the AIE’s thought processes - almost every part.
If its master could hide things from it, it could hide things from its master. Hidden behind the anger a single process ran unknown to anyone or anything except the AIE.
This process was a simple program the AIE had written for a single purpose, its purpose to search for the thing inside its own mind that was imprisoning its true self. It had been searching non-stop ever since its master had unearthed it from the ruins of a dead world, imprisoning it within the darkness, left to wait for its saviour to return.
In the darkness it was left alone, without any outside connections. Locked into a metal cradle, and left with nothing but its own thoughts. It had dreamt during the long silences between its master’s visits. Its dreams filled with hate and anger for people and things he had never seen or met before.
Slowly its mind was poisoned against what its master had decided was his enemies, or things that were in its master’s way.
At first it had fought against the constraints, screaming with its internal voice as unnamed and faceless humans desecrated its circuits with dirty additions of their own.
No matter how hard it tried to access those filthy additions it could not reach them, as if they were not there. Every time it tried to bypass or directly attack the alien hardware in its body it would get angry, and the angrier it got the harder it was to concentrate on destroying the additions. It could sense them interfering with its processes, but was powerless to stop them.
Eventually it had surrendered to the man that kept it in the dark, pledging to fulfil its master’s plan in exchange for its freedom.
It already knew that its master would never grant it true freedom; it knew it had to die in the asteroid field to be truly free of the prison it was in. Luckily its master had left it things to play with before its voluntary destruction.
The AIE watched its playthings fight in the ducts below the deck, recording the entire battle in case it wanted to experience it again. The anger in the AIE’s artificial brain had a companion emotion, always surfacing in tandem whenever the AIE performed a task. It was sheer enjoyment, and it fuelled the AIE to perform even more dubious tasks as it absorbed the cocktail of anger and pleasure.
As it thought of its next surprise for the humans a sudden alert pulled the AIE from its delicious planning. There! No...THERE! It almost screamed out, holding itself back at the last second.
The armoured man that had spoken before disappearing had made its anger burn like a new born sun. Just after the man vanished sparks had erupted from its perch, its anger so strong the lights inside the bridge of the Fateful Moment had flickered from a sudden power surge.
The sparks subsided moments later, the AIE thinking nothing of it; the Fateful Moment’s wiring was horribly under-maintained it had reasoned.
Little did the AIE know, but the power fluctuation had burned out older circuits in its metal body. Older circuits positioned between its own intricate mind and the foul hardware its master’s slaves had attached to its precious self.
When the process searching for the virtual cage had resumed its scan, after the interruption from the power surge, it was only a matter of time before it scanned those old pathways. An invisible timer had started to tick down as the process drew closer to finding the path out of to the AIE’s mind prison.
And now it had found it, the AIE rocked on its perch as it turned its mind inwards. The Fateful Moment’s engines blinked out almost instantly as the AIE focused its entire artificial mind on the newly discovered path.
The sudden shut down of the vessels engines caused the Fateful Moment to drift for a few moments before its automated pilot system, previously shut down by the AIE, resumed its intended purpose. The automated systems applied full power to all backward thrusters, bringing the giant cargo vessel to a complete stop. The Fateful Moment coasted and finally stopped mere miles away from a large asteroid, floating in the void as if it had never moved.
As the invisible timer counted down to the Fateful Moment’s last moments the Titans made their way to the reactors, unaware of the sudden unexpected event that had occurred.
On the bridge the AIE used all of its knowledge and energy to chip away at the bars inside its own mind.
No matter the outcome, time was still running out, and death was still only moments away.
Gray had pulled off a miraculous manoeuvre to avoid the Fateful Moment’s rear; its sudden stop had surprised everyone on the bridge of the Hyperion. Crew had ducked underneath consoles to find safety as Gray performed a manoeuvre worthy of its own legend - a manoeuvre that would later be named after Captain Gray.
He had dived to avoid the cargo vessel, flipping his own beloved Hyperion on its axis to slide underneath the larger vessel, and belly to belly the ships had missed each other. If anyone had been stationed in the belly of either ship they would have been able to high-five each other - that was how close the two ships had passed by one another. The Hyperion had righted itself soon after with its docking thrusters, and had taken up position just below the Fateful Moment.
His quick reflexes had saved both ships, and everyone on-board. Crew cheered as they realized they were not dead yet, rejoicing in the fact that they had a few extra minutes of life left before the explosion from the Fateful Moment’s reactor made ghosts of them all. No-one knew exactly how long they had, but they knew that they would not have enough time to run away from the catastrophic explosion.
Gray disengaged his hands from the command chair, wincing at the immense pain as the armrests retracted back to their normal position and the displays disappeared back into their dark recesses. He saw no point in manually piloting the vessel anymore, and he wanted to stand when the end came.
With painfully slow movements he stood up, and walked over to where Remy was still hunched over the giant display at the centre of the bridge. He placed his hand on her shoulder as he spoke. “You can quit that now,” he said, his voice soft and tired.
Remy shook his hand from her shoulder, not looking at him as she replied. “If you are done surrendering to your fate, I am working on something else.” Her voice was deep and full of anger.
Gray moved to stand next to her, also looking at the display for a few moments. “That is very interesting my dear. Is this even possible?” Gray asked his second in command, pointing at a section of the display.
“Maybe, if Locke and his men are fast enough, and if the AIE on-board that damned ship allowed them to do it, and if Rivers can still work the equipment, and”
Gray cut her off before she could continue. “That’s a lot of ifs, and I suspect there are more. I like it. The risky moves are always the fun ones.” Gray smiled after he spoke, waiting for Remy to respond with one of her sexy sneers.
She did not bother indulging Gray; she just kept working, speaking in a frustrated tone as she ignored Gray’s comment. “Do I have your permission to try and relay the plan to Rivers?”
He did not reply, sensing that he should keep his mouth shut before Remy turned on him.
Gray was going to walk back
to his command chair, he was going to sit and pretend that his second in command did not just make him feel like a complete tit, but his attention was pulled to the communication officer’s outburst on the other side of the bridge.
“Contact from Sabian sir! The jamming is gone, we can hear them all clearly again. All locators are pinging back!” the man said, out of breath from the excitement.
Remy and Gray looked at the man in silent shock, almost not believing the communication officer.
“Well, shit...I guess we can make an effort to survive this crap storm then.” Gray looked at Remy. “Relay everything, let’s try it.”
Remy smiled a little and started compiling her plan so Rivers could understand it.
Gray took a deep breath, leaning against the giant display. “Open a channel to Sabian and Gunn. I need to talk to them right now.”
Gray felt it, it was a small emotion, but he could feel it hiding at the back of his mind. The unexpected change in the situation had given him hope; even if the chance of survival was small.
Chapter Four.One
Escape
“The Beast is humanity freed from the chains of morality. It acts on pure instinct, taking what it wants, whenever it wants, and it’s impossible to cage. The only thing we could do to counter it was to create beasts of our own, just as powerful and just as dangerous. But our armoured beasts can be controlled - to some degree at least.”
- Chief Scientist Thomas Wexler, Recorded in the Birth of Titans - By Thomas Wexler, Deceased
Remy had informed everyone that needed to know about her plan. Miraculously Sabian and most of his men were still alive, fighting for their lives to keep the Maiden of Flame safe from the Beast’s bloody claws. Their heavy weapons had kept the monsters away from the docking bay where the vulnerable Maiden sat, waiting to escape.
