Rash's patience must have run out. The respawned Dargians were pressing on him from behind. Slowly he raised his heavy gun: most likely a hand-held plasma generator. No amount of cover could save you from a round of one of those. You could forget respawning.
Danny — go!
The door flew aside into the bulkhead. Rash's attention was distracted by a lanky Haash shape. I charged at him, knocking him down before he could use his plasma generator.
Danezerath reached for it and jerked it out of the slave driver's hands, breaking its mountings and firing it on the swing.
Wow.
The nearest Dargians were burned to ashes — all I noticed were a few blinding flashes followed by thin clouds of murky discharge.
Rash had survived and was struggling back to his feet. I punched him in the visor, investing all my fury into the blow.
The visor split. I'd learned the Outlaw's lesson well: those muscle enhancers were a force to be reckoned with.
Without saying a word, Danezerath tore the power units off the slave driver's belt.
I picked up my gun and we ran for the mobile respawn point.
* * *
About a hundred feet further on, the corridor widened into a hemispheric hall.
At its center, the Founders' artifact lay on a small pedestal, shaped as a rather plain-looking glowing octahedron.
It was surrounded by the silent evidence of a battle that must have raged here earlier. The floor was littered with dead bodies of both the Haash and the Dargians. Broken defense turrets and gutted drones were strewn everywhere.
"Danny, hold the entrance!"
Silently Danezerath began heaping up Dargian bodies to barricade the passage. I hurried to check the dead for Charon's body.
The Haash were a horrible sight. Most of them were still alive, their gear molten and decompressed, gaping holes filled with a mixture of sealing foam and blood. The cost-conscious Dargians hadn't finished them off knowing that the prison block respawn point had been destroyed.
I had a small stock of metabolites on me. I injected one of the survivors with some. "Where's Charon?"
He pointed weakly at the heaped Dargian bodies. I threw them this way and that and leaned helplessly over my friend.
Charon was still alive, the two emitters attached behind his back. He hadn't yet installed them.
"Zander," a hand touched my shoulder.
I swung round.
"Metabolites?" croaked the Haash I'd just saved, his eyes overflowing with agony, his body moving on willpower alone.
"There," I unstrapped the bags from Charon's belt. They held whatever meager supply of metabolites we'd managed to come by in the exo sector. "Make sure you inject only those who can still fight."
I was forced to make hard decisions. Still, Marogeron — that was the Haash's name — seemed to understand. He used the first dose to inject Charon, then staggered toward the others, overturning bodies in the ravaged suits and peering into faces, deciding who of them would live.
Time pressed.
I opened the bags on Charon's back and yanked out Jurgen's new improved power field generators, hurrying to set them up.
The room lit up with a respawn's emerald glow. Dammit.
The way the artifact worked was rather unusual. A few clots of emerald light clustered together next to the room's wall, letting out five Dargians. They hadn't yet realized that their respawn point had been captured.
"Come here, slave!" one of them hissed, noticing Danezerath.
I let go of the generator and whipped out my gun. My intervention wasn't necessary, though. One by one, the already-injected Haash rose from the bloodied floor — awesome and merciless in their fury.
* * *
We closed the perimeter and powered up the generators. I sent a remote command, activating the modified force shield. Charges of iridescent light sparked about, morphing and acquiring the shape of a flattened dome.
My heart knocked against my chest, counting down the seconds. In the depths of my visor's screen, the fine line of the shield's graph surged with five peaks: five respawn requests.
Respawn denied. Request redirected.
It didn't say where they'd been redirected to. There wasn't a single respawn point left available to the Dargians within the scanners' effective range.
Charon was sitting on the floor, still coming to. He'd had it tough. Not a limb was untouched; his whole suit was covered with a layer of sealing foam pink with his blood.
"Zander!"
I offered him my hand, helping him to his feet. We didn't have a chance to say anything as a plasma charge flared up, casting long ragged shadows all around.
Those of the Haash who'd already armed themselves rushed toward the barricades.
"Jurgen!" I hurried toward the hall's second exit, also barricaded.
"Zander! What have you got there?" Jurgen's voice reached me through the interference.
"We've blocked the artifact!"
"The Dargians are building up on the other side of the ship! We can't reach them from here!"
"I suppose we'll just have to hold the fort." What else could I say?
"We'll try to attack them from the rear!"
Then his voice died away, swallowed by white noise.
Charon and I took up our positions at the barricade. Three more Haash joined us. Just in time. The squat figures of the Dargians flitted within the corridor's depths. They had nothing left to lose. Five of them were dragging a stationary laser gun. It had to be at least two hundred megs.
Its very first blast made a large smoking hole in the barricade. The slavers charged.
We didn't budge. We met them with intense fire, mowing down the more eager and stupid of them and thwarting their attack. The others shrank back to the walls, seeking cover. The laser struck again, raising a swirling blizzard of ash in the vacuum. One of the Haash collapsed, sliced in two. He could forget respawning.
There was no way we'd last more than a minute under this kind of fire.
I still had the two plasma grenades in my bag, those I'd picked up in Serge's looted shop. "Charon and the others, cover me!"
I switched on the movement coordinator, simultaneously deactivating my individual gravity generator and marking my future route with a swipe of my eyes: up the walls to the ceiling to reach the wretched laser gun.
Me, I had a lot to lose. I was scared. My reflex enhancer, mind expander and metabolic corrector were all in overdrive.
The Haash opened fire, forcing the Dargians' heads down.
Go!
* * *
Respawn
A toxic haze clouded my view. I was still convulsing, struggling to breathe, as sealing foam filled the holes in my suit.
Ten minutes.
I struggled in my dead suit, trying to get to my feet. Anything could have happened in those ten minutes. Several messages hung on my visor's screen,
You've destroyed the enemy's laser device!
You've received a new level!
You have new Talent and Characteristic points available!
Ability expired: Friend of the Haash.
Why was I alone? The thought jarred me to my senses. "Everybody... report!"
Silence. The angular bodies of the two cargo modules towered at a distance. The door of one of them stood ajar. Overhead, the ceiling was lit up by the Emgles' fiery aura.
I broke out in a cold sweat. Struggling with the suit, I tried to sit up. The Emgles were soaring overhead under the hangar's ceiling.
"Uncle Zander, it's all right!" a child's brittle voice broke into my mind.
"Inge? Where's... everyone? What's going on?"
"It's Emgles, they've come to see us! Everything's so beautiful! They're so nice! And all the adults are gone," the girl's voice betrayed no fear, filled only with curiosity.
"Where are they gone?"
"Over there," the girl pointed at the darkness enveloping the deck. I struggled to make out a Condor's dying glow.
"Uncle Arbi
do, has he been gone long?" I managed.
"He fell down and he won't get back up," the girl complained.
I forced myself to my feet. Mangled beyond repair, my suit was crippling me. I hurried to change into my old gear.
"Inge," I crouched next to the girl, "where's Uncle Arbido? Show me."
Fear filled her eyes. Immediately both Emgles began to descend. I could feel that if Inge started crying now they would simply torch me, end of story. How on earth had she managed to establish mental contact with alien creatures was yet to be determined. The fact remained, they were trying to protect her.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll go look at him myself. You'd better go and join the other kids, okay?"
She pouted her lips. "It's boring. May I stay here, please?"
Well, I suppose, with guards like these she had nothing to fear. I'd just have to accept what Frieda had told me. The Emgles must have connected to the girl. If they hadn't attacked her yet, she must be safe then.
At least I hoped so.
"Very well, princess. You stay here. Just promise me not to leave this place, okay? I'll be back."
She smiled. My mind was still in combat mode, my anxiety growing. I couldn't contact the others and I had no idea why.
Every moment was precious. I gave the girl an encouraging smile even though she looked perfectly comfortable.
I checked the open module. The other kids were fast asleep.
I walked out. The floor was spotted with green blood. I followed its trail to the landing site.
Arbido lay there on the icy floor, clutching the pulse gun.
At a short distance lay the bodies of three mercs peppered with pulse rounds. I checked their markers, then bent over Arbido and carefully turned him onto his back. The gun's magazine blinked with a red light: empty. His Dargian suit was all dented. I could see at least two breach holes.
Arbido had bled to death, fighting to the last.
Why would these traitors have attempted to take control of the reserve respawn point? It had been available to them all along!
The answer was soberingly evident.
They had wanted to take the children hostage to blackmail me into surrendering the Founders' starship.
Bunch of lowlifes.
But I could only see three bodies there. Whatever had happened to the rest?
I carried Arbido's body to the other cargo module, hoping against all hope that he'd respawn, desperately praying that the agony of dying hadn't scorched his mind.
One of the Emgles glided over me anxiously, listening in to my thoughts, but I didn't sense any emotional reaction coming from it.
I looked around.
The second Emgle had descended, levitating about seven feet off the floor. It then took the shape of a dome, two of its deadly bioenergetic tentacles hanging down like two thick luminous cables clutching a scrap of metal plate. What was that supposed to mean?
I stood there in bewilderment while Inge shrieked with delight on seeing the weird shape. She ran toward it and climbed onto the makeshift seat, grabbing the radiant cables, then started swinging, dangling her legs in the air.
I broke out in a cold sweat. This was a swing! A child's swing!
"Uncle Zander, look! This is so nice!"
I stopped shaking. Could the Emgle dip into the girl's mind? Apparently so, otherwise how else would have it been able to create something as alien to it as a swing?
I felt completely lost. Still, time was an issue. The children were safe now, that little was clear. The mind-reading Emgles wouldn't let any scheming bastard anywhere near the kids, be he human or Dargian. It was a good job I hadn't shown any express fear or aggression.
I just couldn't stay there in suspended animation without contact with anyone. I had to put my trust in these creatures from Wearong. Somehow I didn't think there were any Dargians left in the vicinity capable of controlling them, but even if there were, the intuitive Emgles would just ignore them. Could it be that their mental vibes were already affecting my thoughts?
Go, a silent alien whisper nudged me toward the downed Condor.
* * *
The reserve respawn point dissolved in the toxic haze as I ran toward the Condor's dying signature.
A few xenomorphs shrank out of my way. Whatever had attracted them to the ship?
I stopped, catching my breath.
The icy floor was littered with mercs' bodies, each and every one of them awaiting respawning. Killed by a player.
Further away I made out the ship's outline — and four motionless figures next to it, clad in combat gear. Liori and the three guards. The girl sat leaning against her Condor's broken undercarriage. The long trail of an emergency landing stretched across the deck.
I rushed toward her.
She sat in a pool of molten slush and blood littered with empty pulse clips. The three guards I'd left to control the reserve respawn point had fought to the last.
Liori was unconscious but still alive. She'd lost a lot of blood. Her face was ashen.
"Hold on," I injected her with the emergency metabolite supply.
She flinched weakly but didn't regain consciousness. My suit's diagnostic system scanned her biorhythms. Her pulse was weak and uneven, her breathing labored. Her injuries were fatal.
Would she respawn?
No one knew that.
My communication system repeatedly scanned the empty frequencies. Their crackling was doing me in. Where were all the rest?
Liori's eyelids quivered. "Zander," her whisper burned through my mind.
"I'm here," I supported her head, helping her to shift into a more comfortable position.
"The children..."
"They're fine. They're safe. Don't speak. The injection will work in a minute."
"Zander, you must... erase... their respawn marks," she pointed at the mercs' bodies. "They're traitors..." she drifted off.
I still had the reserve device that Jurgen had issued me. I darted back and pulled the gear off the mercs' bodies, destroying their respawn marks. This was the least I could do to these sharks who had tried to use the children as bargaining chips for the ship. If any of them respawned now, they'd share the same fate as the Dargians. I put their nicknames on my personal KOS list. Sooner or later, I was going to find them wherever they respawned.
I hurried back to Liori.
She had momentarily come to. She clenched my hand, her eyes awash with pain and frustration. "Zander. There was so much... I wanted to tell you..."
I sensed that she was trying to send me a mnemonic PM. Why? That would absolutely drain her!
"So much I wanted to... sorry... I was afraid..."
Our mind expanders connected.
Don't speak! Just don't! You need to spare yourself!
She didn't answer. An agonizing haze shifted before my eyes, revealing strange, unknown shapes. I focused. The mental image grew clearer. I recognized the outlines of some machines that looked rather like the in-mode devices. Thousands of them. A low ceiling hung overhead, strewn with cables and pipes that ran to each and every one of the devices.
A bunker? Was it my imagination or had I seen a Haash patrolling the machines?
The image faded, distorting. I didn't have time to take in the details.
"Phantom Server..." I could barely hear her whisper. "You still don't know anything... do you..."
"You can tell me later! Later, when you respawn! Everything is going to be fi-"
"Zander... it does exist..."
Our thoughts were entwined.
"What does?" the question came out before I could stop myself.
"The Server..."
Her fingers clenched in a spasm. "There's no respawn... for me... sorry..."
I stared at her wrist in disbelief. A gun burst had ripped her suit open, destroying the silver mark.
"Wait!" I whipped out the tube I'd received from Jurgen. Too late. Her avatar began to fade.
"Liori!"
"Sorry," her fingers
clutched my hand, the unfulfilled life within her eyes.
She was fading, slipping away from me. The yellowed skin of her arm began to glow, outlining the web of veins beneath. I knew this glow. Her skin glistened with a silvery substance that seeped through it, trying to take the shape of a ring and failing. It reached for my fingers and bled onto them, flashing and seeping under my skin.
The back of my head went numb. Liori's shape began to dematerialize.
Then it disappeared, dissolved by the toxic haze.
* * *
I couldn't breathe.
My heart was exploding.
"I'll find you! I'll come and get you wherever you respawn!"
The same toxic gaze swallowed my outcry.
Both my hands were aglow. I gnashed my teeth, choking on my own tears. The mercs' bodies were fading too now. Two artifacts — two of the Founders' ancient neuronet modules — reached inside me, reshaping me irreversibly. I could see green flashes coming from the respawn point; I could hear the radio spring to life with Arbido's and Frieda's voices and the growling of the respawned Haash. I couldn't speak back. I was paralyzed, my mind plunging into some new dimension.
"Zander," Liori's soft voice reached my mind through the gelatinous silence.
Where was I now?
The pain was gone.
I turned slowly but saw nothing. Gray mist enveloped me, spongy and tangible. It was everywhere, denying direction, harboring something scaringly alien.
"Zander."
I could hear her voice, trying to work out where it was coming from. The gray mist began to seep away, gaining substance, forming objects and facts. My mind kept expanding until I stood on a hard curved surface staring at the close horizon of an artificial celestial body.
A Founders' station?
The hull was dominated by a group of tall structures, their spire-like silhouettes reaching out into space. An unusual design. I'd never seen anything like it. Together they formed a graceful group stretching out to the stars.
"Zander."
I studied the area around me in search of Liori. The station looked undamaged. The surface was of familiar bluish steel, its cargonite blurred and rippled.
Edge of Reality Page 27
