“The access is at the low-level starting zone,” Arbido replied. “The one in the European sector.”
I got angry. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“When was I supposed to tell you?” Arbido snapped again. “You’re constantly busy, either rescuing Liori or fucking off to Darg on the hybrid’s quests or whatever!”
I stood up. “I beg your pardon!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Arbido added appeasingly. “Until last night, this information was purely academic.”
“You mean until I overrode the logout ban?”
“You got it. But I can’t do much while my body’s stuck in the capsule. The Corporation must have blocked all communications. If only I could get into the Crystal Sphere! You understand, don’t you, that we have nothing left to lose. We have no other options. But I, I still have connections in the real world. They’ll get us out of here, trust me, and no one will ever bother us again.”
Frowning, Jurgen glared at Arbido. “But what if the Founders’ network does exist? What if what Zander saw was true?”
“Then we’ll find out what exactly happened back on Earth and try to recharge our in-modes,” Arbido replied.
“But why the Crystal Sphere?” Jurgen asked. Sarcasm had now left his voice.
“Because I know how to log in inconspicuously. We’ll check it and if we see that it’s functioning normally, I’ll be able to pull a few strings. And if things are indeed so bad, at least we can get to the service location. I have some very interesting software that I bought by chance from a Corporate worker.”
Jurgen frowned. “You want to say that you managed to memorize megabytes of code?”
“Of course I didn’t. You’re dead right there. I need to get to my in-mode first. But as far as I understand, it’s not a problem anymore, is it?”
Mechanically I touched the artifact hanging on a thin chain around my neck.
This was a truly mind-blowing development. Still, Arbido’s arguments made sense. We needed time: both to level up our skills and to build our own identity-digitization device. If we managed to replace our in-modes’ life support cartridges, we would have it.
“There’s never a dull moment with you!” Foggs exclaimed in excitement. “Count me in! Actually, I have two questions.”
“Spit them out.”
“If indeed shit has hit the fan back on Earth, wouldn’t that bring game worlds down too?”
“The Crystal Sphere would work no matter what,” Arbido replied confidently. “The Corporation has its equipment located in special bunkers. It has several disaster-proof backups which are powered by independent supply sources. You couldn’t have found a better way to access our planet’s cyberspace if you tried. That’s why we need to log in to it,” he repeated.
It looked like the old man was right. There was also another argument in favor of our using the Crystal Sphere. None of us seemed to question the fact that it had been the testing ground of the first neuroimplants. Which meant that the Crystal Sphere’s engine had been adapted to their use. For us, it was a huge advantage.
Oh, yes. A lot of things had finally revealed themselves to us in their true light. I could have sworn that the three Dargians I’d met in the Crystal Sphere as well as the Mechanic in a slave collar were nothing but NPCs: a well-calculated setup aiming to draw my attention to Phantom Server.
“Jurgen?” I turned to him. “What do you think?”
“It might work,” he answered without hesitation.
“But how about the technical side of it? You think we can pull it off?”
“We might if we managed to activate the Relic’s hyperspace module,” he said. “Do you remember me telling you about Argus’ central respawn point?”
“I think so. Didn’t you use the station’s locator tower to redirect the respawning pilots to Founders Square?”
“Exactly. You can call it the first case of mass identity transfer. So I have some experience in this field. We’ll have to fine-tune a thing or two, of course. I’m pretty sure the Founders used to travel in groups too. We’ll try and automate the entire process but it would be safer if each of you who goes to Earth has his or her own navigator. You think you can make a few more?”
“I can help,” Liori offered. “Together we can do it. But how do you want us to decrypt these icons?” she pointed at the symbols covering the outer ring of the device. “This seems to be an input panel but I’ve never seen most of the signs!”
“Danezerath knows!” Charon growled. “He’ll help you! The programs controlling our yrobs are written in the Founders’ language. I want to go with you too,” he added, curt as usual.
“Very well. We’ll start small,” I glanced at Arbido. “Are you ready?”
He turned pale. “Already? Just like that? Don’t you want to make any preparations first?”
“You’re the one who asked for it. No point dragging it out. The artifact has been tested. All you need to do is connect to your in-mode while Jurgen downloads the data.”
“Wait a sec,” Jurgen motioned me to stop. “I’d rather we wait till Danezerath comes back. That’ll also give me some time to get some equipment ready. I’d like to copy the navigator’s settings. That might help me work out the Relic’s communications module.”
“All right. It’s up to you. When will the Haash be back?”
“They still have about an hour’s journey back.”
“In that case, Liori and I will start making the artifacts. Foggs, I want you to billet your men in the meantime. Don’t meet Manticore representatives quite yet. Let them stew in their own juice.”
“And I? What do you want me to do?” Novitsky asked, apparently impressed with the proceedings. The decisions we’ve just made seemed to have left the young player in some awe.
A simultaneous hyper jump of several digitized identities was indeed a risky step born of our desperation. Still, the chance to service our in-modes and find out whatever had happened back on Earth was worth it.
“I have a special task for you,” I said. “Have you ever used street vending machines?”
I was already beginning to plan our future course of action in case of our success. Arbido shouldn’t hold his breath. I hadn’t dreamed up all those deserted cities and decomposing bodies.
“Sure. They’re everywhere, aren’t they?”
“Then you know, don’t you, that they use the principle of molecular replication?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I’d like you to write down the formulas of the most potent metabolites you know. Then check the Exo Clan’s databases and make a list of chemicals required to replicate them. Think you can do that?”
“I’ll try. Can I come with you?”
“I don’t think so. It’s a trip for those who have nothing to lose.”
“Yeah, right. How about Charon, then?”
“That’s his decision. Please don’t argue. At the moment, you’re the only exobiologist on board the Relic. We need you here. Understood?”
“All right,” he grudgingly agreed. “But what if you don’t come back?” he blurted out.
This question got me thinking.
Liori? Need to talk.
* * *
On board the Relic. Five hours later
Breaking the fragile ice from its edges, the hatch between decks clanked open.
We were in zero gravity. Stars twinkled through the breach holes. Strange objects floated around. My mind expander enveloped them in an emerald shimmer, highlighting them, while trying in vain to identify them against the Technologist Clan database.
No human had ever set foot here. At least I didn’t think so.
Liori materialized next to the nearest entrance and cast a studying glance around. “Power’s down,” she said. “I can’t locate the interstellar communications module.”
“It’s about a hundred feet further up the corridor,” Jurgen’s voice replied as he controlled our progress online. “Watch out. I’m powering ev
erything up.”
Stars distorted in the haze of the force field blocking the breach holes in the hull. Flailing cables began to spark. Invisible exhausts spewed out little jets of oxygen snow as the automatic life support system attempted to restore atmosphere.
Once again I heard the sound of the ancient machinery start up behind my back. This time it was Arbido. He clambered out onto the service deck and chuckled with satisfaction, noticing the abundance of artifacts. Without hesitation, he began collecting them, simultaneously taking stock of his finds and streaming their data into the group’s local network.
“Zander, everyone, wait for me!” Foggs had fallen behind us all. He'd used this opportunity to deactivate his gravitech and was traveling in zero gravity, practicing this new mode of movement. His floating cargonite-clad figure scrambled out of the hatch.
“You haven’t wasted your time, have you?” he teased Arbido who was busy stuffing his finds into three containers at once. “Why won’t you use the inventory?” miscalculating his movements, Foggs bashed his head against the ceiling and grabbed at a broken piece of pipework in the wall.
“Inventories are for personal possessions only,” Arbido grumbled. “Loot belongs to everyone. Waste not, want not. You’ll all be grateful. Did you see the size of those breach holes? You did. Good. Once Jurgen switches off the shields, half of these goodies will be ejected into open space.”
“Leave him,” I told Foggs. “And please switch your gravitech back on. This isn’t the right time to practice.”
My body tensed like a coiled spring. I couldn’t explain this sudden sense of foreboding. This part of the Relic had never been explored. The Dargians hadn’t attempted to restore it, either. The surrounding rooms had been at the mercy of both vacuum and cosmic cold for thousands of years.
My interface pinged. The tactics subsystem operative window revealed a handful of scarlet markers. A few of them blinked and then expired.
“They’re mobs!” Liori shouted a warning. “They’re not in the database!” her outline disintegrated, returning to me in a swarm of battle-ready nanites.
“Arbido, step back! Foggs, you cover him! Keep behind me, both of you! Charon, where the hell are you?”
“I’ll outflank them,” Charon replied. “There’re some breached bulkheads here.”
Foggs switched on his gravitech, preparing for battle. He pushed Arbido toward the wall, controlling the service hatches above his head, gutted by some ancient blast of decompression. There were plenty of them around and they might prove too inviting for serves. These local maintenance robots-turned-mobs were smart enough to use them, especially when attacking in a network-connected pack.
But why? There shouldn’t be any aggressive mobs here. Immediately my imagination offered me the gruesome shape of Avatroid. After everything we’d gone through on Darg, I knew only too well what a hostile AI was capable of.
A segment of the force shield flashed weakly, snapping me out of the haze of my confusion. I stepped forward, covering the others. Luckily, the corridor was quite narrow and the threat was still a long way away.
I read their signatures. Liori had been right. There was nothing like them in our databases. Were they some unknown type of on-board cyborg?
The number of scarlet dots continued to dwindle. There were only five of them left now. For mobs, their behavior was weird. They were supposed to attack us, fiercely and blindly. Instead, they kept retreating. I zoomed in on a scale model of the deck. They were retreating toward some unidentified structure, taking shortcuts through demolished rooms and breach holes.
“No idea where they came from!” Jurgen commented tensely.
“Check the logs. Could the power activation have triggered some of the deck’s machines?”
“I’ve done that! The only things that came on were the emergency shields and the life support!”
“It’s all right. We’ll see in a moment.”
My mind expander kept showing five targets. They’d now clustered about fifty feet away from us, next to a strange-looking disk-shaped structure that differed dramatically from all the others.
Slowly we advanced amid floating debris that consisted increasingly of more and more lumps of molten cargonite. Darkness lurked within the breach holes. Rooms to both sides of the corridor were completely ravaged. There must have been one hell of a battle here at some point in the past.
I should have got used to it, really. Wherever we turned, the echo of mysterious ancient developments followed us everywhere: on board spaceships and stations, in the asteroid belt, on Wearong’s satellites and even on the system’s only habitable planet.
Outlined in yellow, a large object appeared in our way. Unlike all the others, it wasn’t floating but lying on the floor. Its signature was easy to read: this was the typical aura produced by discharged power units.
“Foggs, cover me!”
The leader of the Daugoths clan, Foggs was an experienced player. He realized the ambiguity of our situation perfectly well — and still he wasn’t going to trade his gamer mentality in for questions without answers. Now too he acted without hesitation. In a few well-rehearsed moves, he shone laser beams into the nearest breach holes, pointed Arbido at a small niche formed by two bulges in some deformed bulkheads, then nodded back to me: Go to it!
* * *
The yellow aura enveloped a creature lying on the floor.
It wasn’t humanoid. It lay sprawled, extending its thick tentacle limbs like a starfish.
What a strange mob. I crouched next to it and ran my right hand over its body.
The Founder’s Glove switched to scanner mode. The creature’s body was covered with a rough hide, crackled and bulging. Within it lay power cells.
A cyborg!
Confirming my initial idea, more technogenic details began forming in my mind’s eye: the creature’s core, the servomotors, the cargonite tubing of its artificial skeleton entwined by dry mummified muscles.
You have studied a cyborg. Origin: unknown.
You’ve received +3 to your Alien Technologies skill.
Your Exobiologist skill isn’t active yet. You cannot level it up.
“Zander? What have you got there?” Foggs asked impatiently.
“It’s a cyborg. Judging by its state, its organic flesh has been dead ever since this deck was decompressed.”
“Has it been lying here for thousands of years?” Arbido asked in disbelief.
“They were in energy saving mode,” Jurgen explained with calm expertise while receiving the data in real time. “These mobs have been lying there until conditions have become favorable for their activation. Now I understand why most of their markers went out. Their internal power supplies are completely depleted. When I activated the deck’s power, they came out of their hibernation hoping to charge up.”
“It doesn’t look as if they succeeded. Their markers first faded, then expired completely. It didn’t even come to a fight.”
“I’ve found an alien ship!” Charon’s voice echoed in the earphones. “It’s small. It’s fused with the hull. I’ve never seen this kinds of creatures before.”
“Novitsky,” I called out. “I want you to sort it out. Get Danezerath and a few men to cover you. Liori will meet you there.”
“Got it!”
We continued on our way. We didn’t stay to investigate. Exploring an alien ship was an important and interesting thing indeed but at the moment, we had totally different objectives.
Charon scrambled out of a breach hole. “All clear,” he reported. “All the mobs have been deactivated, whatever they are.”
The Relic was bursting with mysteries. We were yet to learn the story of her space travels which she guarded so closely. I was pretty sure the Founders hadn’t been her only crew. The frigate must have engaged in battles and performed hyperspace jumps long after her original creators had exited this stage of history.
“Here’s the communications module!” one of the rooms on the deck floor plan
began to glow, highlighted. “It doesn’t look as if it has power though.”
“Little wonder,” I walked in and took a look around. “We might have to attach all the cables by hand. This is probably the work of cyborgs. Charon, can you help me?”
I grabbed at a bunch of cables hovering in a fancy loop in mid-air and studied the connectors. They seemed all right. No sign of fire damage.
“Please don’t rush it,” Jurgen told me. “I need to study the diagram, then I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”
We paused, waiting. Charon held the cables. Arbido looked around him, taking in the scene. Foggs took up position at the room’s entrance, controlling the corridor just in case.
Liori and I stepped aside.
Her cybermodule was surrounded by a thick cloud of nanites forming her image. She looked me in the eye, anxiety in her stare. “Zander, it’s probably better I come with you.”
This was a hard decision. Still, we had to part ways. Someone had to stay behind in case the ancient device malfunctioned and sent our identities to some God-forsaken part of its network. Or just tore our neurograms apart and scattered their fragments over hundreds of star systems. The device had been out of use for several millennia, after all.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
Charon began connecting the cables. The ancient control panels lit up with a complex pattern of indicator lights.
“All done,” Charon growled.
Liori and I stood there silent, looking into each other’s eyes.
A makeshift adapter fashioned by Jurgen clicked its jury-rigged clamps. The sound fell flat in the stale rarefied atmosphere. Five ports glowed on the adapter’s surface: the number of navigator artifacts about to be connected.
“Excellent,” Jurgen commented. “The communication module works. Now I want each of you to connect your navigator to an available slot.”
Nanites touched my lips. “I’ll be waiting,” Liori whispered.
Click.
My navigator was connected. Charon was the next to use the module, followed by Arbido and Foggs. We’d brought Jurgen’s navigator with us and activated the last slot.
Black Sun (Phantom Server: Book #3) Page 7
