Voidstalker

by John Graham

  The squad collectively blinked.

  “Do you believe that to be mere supposition?” the prophet asked.

  “No, we think it’s a bollocks conspiracy theory.” Bale retorted.

  “Of course you do.” The prophet sneered, “Why would slaves be curious about their masters’ plans? I certainly wasn’t, harvesting all the data that Dani could gather and sending it back to my false masters.”

  The squad blinked again.

  “Has it dawned on you at all?” the prophet continued, “how could the DNI possibly be so ignorant of the existence of such a vast and illegal research facility a few hours spaceflight journey away from a major hub world for so many years?”

  The squad blinked a third time as the pieces of the puzzle assembled in their minds.

  “Jupiter Engineering thought they had pulled the wool over the eyes of the DNI.” The prophet continued, “Hah! The DNI sees and hears everything that happens within Human space, and far beyond it too! They let it happen so long as they could steal for themselves whatever discoveries J.E. Co. made. That was my assignment.”

  There was a fourth collective blink of disbelief.

  “Lawrence Kane?” Gabriel asked incredulously.

  “The one and only!” The Prophet Lawrence Kane declared.

  “But you’re dead!”

  “Do I look dead to you?”

  “But we found the body in the medical bay!” Viker exclaimed.

  “You found a body,” Kane pointed out, “no doubt with the ID tag still attached to the corpse. If the DNI’s dogs are this easy to throw off the scent, perhaps I needn’t have worried.”

  The squad blinked again, but this time at their own sloppiness. It had never occurred to them to scan the corpse’s DNA and make sure it really was Lawrence Kane.

  Their motion trackers flashed red.

  “I would tell you more,” the prophet said with a grin, “but it seems you are out of time.”

  The prophet’s eyes and head rolled back as he entered some kind of trance, and the squad turned their guns around to face the threat.

  In fact, the threat was all around; they were pouring in from every entrance, and spreading across the walls of the enormous spherical chamber. Enthralled foot soldiers were joined by jumpers with their jetpacks and shotguns, and scattered amongst them were more black widows in their lithe, black body armour. All of the Faithful’s remaining manpower had converged on the central chamber for the final showdown.

  “One way or another,” Gabriel said to everyone, scanning the assembled horde for the Swarm-possessed Ogilvy, “this bomb will go off.”

  “Yeah, we don’t need to be Masterminds to remember that, colonel,” Viker replied sarcastically, tracking targets in his HUD, “We can all see the countdown.”

  “That's not what I mean,” Gabriel said grimly, “I mean that my death will kill us all.”

  * * *

  The penthouse never felt as homely as it did when coming back from doing one’s own dirty work. Madam Jezebel entered the palatial living room and settled into a couch, heaving a sigh of partial relief at being home. The two androids who had accompanied her stood to attention, waiting for further instructions.

  “Self-destruct.” Madam Jezebel ordered the two androids as she pulled the red chip out of her pocket, “No recovery of data or recycling of components.”

  “All logs and information stored on these units will be permanently lost.” The androids informed her in their digitised voices, “are you sure you wish to initiate self-destruct?”

  “Yes.” Jezebel replied, “Do it.”

  The two androids nodded and departed the room. In a side room of the penthouse, there was a special disposal chute for robotics and electronics leading down to an incineration unit far below. Nothing would be left of them to recover.

  Jezebel pulled out a tablet computer, wafer-thin and flexible with intricate nanocircuitry visible through the translucent body. Laying it on the small table in front of her, she made sure to disable the tablet’s wireless capabilities first. Even though her penthouse was equipped with counter-surveillance technology – ‘garblers’ as some people liked to call them – it was always possible that someone had found a countermeasure.

  She placed the data chip on the reading slot, micro-magnets holding the chip in place as the tablet established a connection. Once the connection had been established, Jezebel accessed the chip’s contents and furrowed her brow in confusion: there were no data files of any kind on the chip, at least none that she could see.

  She disabled protected file concealment. Nothing. She performed a deep probe of the data chip’s memory. Still nothing. She double-checked that the chip connection was actually functional. It was. That meant that either the data chip had been completely wiped…

  …Or there was nothing on the chip to begin with.

  Jezebel ground her teeth in fury. The simplest explanation had to be incompetence or sloppiness: a stressed and frightened Kessler might have just grabbed the first data chip he found and hoped it had something useful on it. But he’d always been a reliable source, it was hard to believe that he could slip up at this point.

  Had he double-crossed her? Possibly. Kessler had never been happy about working as a mole in the first place, maybe he’d been looking for a way out this whole time. But if that was the case, he wouldn’t dare do such a thing if he didn’t think he could get away with it. He would have needed outside help.

  Jezebel snatched the tablet off the table with the data chip still attached. If her hunch was correct and Kessler had betrayed her, the chip could very well contain spyware or some other means of tracking her location; a paranoid leap of logic, to be sure, but better to be paranoid and free than naive and in prison.

  With the tablet in hand, Jezebel rushed into one of the side rooms where the androids had obediently leapt to their destruction. The disposal chute was still open and Jezebel tossed the tablet in, sealing the chute after doing so. Now that all the evidence had been destroyed, she needed to skip town.

  The security alarm sounded, a harsh beeping klaxon alerting her to intruders. Whoever they were, they had somehow forced their way through the front door. Jezebel threw open a storage closet and rummaged around, pulling a handgun out of a hidden compartment. Then she returned to the living room to confront the intruders.

  As Jezebel aimed her gun in the direction of the main hallway, an entire squad of figures clad in night black body armour entered the living room with far more firepower at their disposal than she had. One member of the assault team, apparently the squad leader, lowered his weapon and stepped forward, activating his helmet speakers.

  “Madam Jezebel Thorn,” said the squad leader, “put the gun down.”

  “You’ve broken into my home and are pointing guns at me.” Jezebel pointed out, still pointing the gun squarely at him, “why should I put mine down?”

  “We have orders to bring you in,” the squad leader replied coolly, “whether we bring you in dead or alive makes no particular difference.”

  “So I’m guessing you’re not Civil Security?” Jezebel asked.

  “Of course not.” The squad leader replied, “Now are you going to surrender, or do we have to shock you or kneecap you first?”

  Jezebel was ruthless, but not reckless. She activated the safety and tossed the gun across the floor, placing her hands on top of her head. But she wouldn’t get down on her knees, not for them or anyone else, even as members of the armed squad approached to detain her.

  “Who did you say you were with again?” she asked as her wrists were bound.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.” Replied the squad leader as Jezebel was led away.

  * * *

  The squad opened fire and the Faithful fired back. Viker activated his wrist-shield, protecting the squad as best he could from the incoming fire. But they were exposed and the storm of bullets was raining down on them from all around; if they wanted to survive, they had to get out of the open
and right into the thick of it.

  Jumpers swooped down on them like mythical harpies, and Cato and Bale turned their guns skyward, shooting off concussive shots at their fast moving opponents. The jumpers were wearing cuirasses made from bulletproof nanotube plating in lieu of shielding, but the bullets struck with enough force to pulp their targets’ innards, causing some to tumble from the air.

  Those jumpers who evaded the incoming shots landed cleanly on their feet and opened fire with their shotguns. The squad’s shields were strong enough to slap the spray of pellets away, but at point blank range some made it through with reduced energy, clattering against their armour like a shower of tiny pebbles.

  Cato and Bale returned fire with more concussive shots. Again, the pellets failed to penetrate the jumpers’ armour, but struck with enough force to send them flying back across the floor. They switched to automatic mode and fired at the jumpers whilst they were down; this time the bullets penetrated their targets’ armour, punching clean holes through their organs.

  While Viker covered him with the wrist-shield, Gabriel provided sniper cover as best he could. The Enthralled foot soldiers stayed put behind barricades, taking turns to shoot. One of them fired a projectile from his weapon which bounced off the floor at an awkward angle, exploding at head height and splattering burning plasma in all directions.

  Dodging the explosion from the poorly aimed grenade, Gabriel picked off the enemy who had fired it with a high velocity shot. The bullet screamed through the air, punching straight through the target’s skull, and continuing out the other side.

  Another grenade detonated nearby. The squad’s shields absorbed the impact of the shrapnel, but it was enough of a distraction for another jumper to dive in with sword drawn. The blade missed Viker’s head as the jumper landed and took another swing at Gabriel, the tip of the blade narrowly missing his stomach. Viker deactivated his wrist-shield and fired a burst into the jumper’s chest, cracking the jumper’s ribcage with the force of the impact.

  An empty crate came sailing through the air, striking Cato and knocking him off his feet. A black widow appeared, using her gravity gloves to bounce from surface to surface and drawing an electric baton in mid-pounce. She landed on top of Cato, pinning him to the ground and bringing the deadly spike down on his head.

  The slanted angle of Cato’s faceplate deflected the spike to one side, saving his life; and Bale fired a burst of bullets at the black widow’s head to defend him. The material used to manufacture the black widow’s helmet was strong enough to stop the bullets, but they were fired at point blank range, too close for her shields to deflect them. The force knocked her head violently sideways, breaking her neck.

  As Cato got back on his feet, a sinister, buzzing cloud appeared in one of the doorways. The Swarm-possessed Ogilvy entered the chamber with a commanding saunter, looking around the chamber with an evil stare from eyes as black as smouldering coals. The Enthralled standing nearby backed away out of reverence and fear.

  “There’s our boss fight!” Gabriel shouted as he gunned down another target.

  The Swarm-possessed Ogilvy raised a fist and let out a piercing scream that no Human vocal chords could mimic, causing the remaining Enthralled to freeze up as if in a trance. The possessed Ogilvy pointed at the squad, and the Faithful charged, howling with fanatical fury as they rushed forward to tear the squad limb from limb.

  This was an altogether different enemy. The Faithful screamed hysterical oaths as they attacked, all sense of self-preservation erased by whatever the Swarm had done to their minds. Some of them kept their weapons in hand, firing madly in the general direction of the squad. Others dropped their weapons in a mad rush to bring their bare hands to bear.

  The squad sprayed bullets on full automatic, mowing down as many as they could. The front ranks of fanatics crumpled and fell, but the ranks behind simply charged on forwards, literally tripping over one another to get their hands on the squad and tackle them to the ground. Gabriel’s weapon was knocked out of his hands as a dozen enthralled fighters pounced on him, dragging him down to the floor and trying to beat him to death.

  Being assaulted by a fanatical swarm pounding away at nigh-invulnerable armour was a bizarre experience. Gabriel flailed ferociously, swinging his fists and kicking violently at his attackers. He felt his foot connect with someone’s gut, and the combat claws on his left gauntlet punctured someone else’s neck. But this was hardly standard combat; it was a frenzied brawl, with his assailants’ knuckles turning red as they beat their fists bloody against his armour.

  A rifle butt connected with Gabriel’s helmet and he swung his arm around in retaliation, swatting the weapon out of his attacker’s hands and upper cutting him with his armoured fist. His helmet protected him, but amidst the pounding and brawling the next weapon could be one of the jumpers’ xenotech swords, and he wouldn’t survive a wound from a weapon like that.

  “SHIELD, OVERPULSE, NOW!” Gabriel enunciated into his helmet’s mic.

  His armoured suit’s onboard computer registered the voice command and triggered the over-pulse mechanism. Instead of merely halting or redirecting incoming projectiles away from the armour, the shield emitters could also emit a one off repulsive field, forcibly pushing nearby matter away in all directions as a defensive last resort.

  The over-pulse violently threw the attacking mob skywards in a spectacular cloud of flying and flailing bodies. Because Gabriel was on his back, the over-pulse pushed against the floor beneath him, launching him straight up into the air along with his attackers as if he had been bounced into the sky by an enormous trampoline.

  A warning flashed in Gabriel’s HUD – the over-pulse had temporarily shorted out his shield emitters – but he was more concerned about falling back to the ground. As he ran out of momentum, he felt inertia tug his innards the other way as gravity pulled him back down again. Gabriel grabbed a flying body in mid-air and twisted around, hoping to break his fall with the body of the flailing foot soldier.

  It worked.

  The Enthralled’s body hit the hard floor of the platform, breaking Gabriel’s fall and the Enthralled’s back with a sickeningly audible crack. As Gabriel rolled away, he rose to his feet in the same motion and drew the xenotech sword from his back. He flicked the switch to activate the energy field, and looked around for the Swarm-possessed Ogilvy.

  Another black widow appeared to confront him, and Gabriel swung the blade at her. She ducked and swung her baton around to strike the back of his knee before jabbing the electrified tip into his shoulder. The million volt jolt shorted out the motors in Gabriel’s suit again, triggering more warnings in his HUD as his armour suddenly felt ten times heavier.

  Gabriel swung his sword around in a defensive arc as he crumpled to the floor, slicing clean through the black widow’s body in mid-pounce and instantly cauterising her flesh. Part of her chest and shoulder fell to the ground and her upper half twitched for a few seconds before the trauma of being bisected killed off her mind.

  Still holding the sword, Gabriel rose to his feet with great effort whilst the exoskeletal motors in his armour recovered. He was strong enough to move without assistance, but the entire suit weighed more than 50kg, making it difficult to move with speed or agility. That fact almost proved fatal as yet another jumper came at him with a sword of his own, aiming for his head. Gabriel raised his own sword to block the attack just in time.

  When the two energised blades connected, they rebounded from one another in a spectacular flash, releasing a metallic keening sound. Gabriel stumbled backwards from the clash just as the motors in his suit rebooted, whilst the preternaturally agile jumper performed a backward roll before righting himself again and charging at Gabriel a second time.

  Swordsmanship wasn’t taught in the military, but with his exoskeletal motors restored, Gabriel could make up for lack of technique by moving at least as fast as his opponent and swinging with much more force. Using the swords’ rebounding effect to his advantage, Gabr
iel deliberately swung at the jumper’s own sword, forcing him onto the defensive before closing in and driving the tip of his sword through the jumper’s faceplate.

  As his opponent keeled over dead, Gabriel looked around and saw that the over-pulse had scattered the Faithful all over the chamber, with many of them falling to their deaths. Their broken bodies lay scattered across the platform, some stirring with agonising effort, hardly able to move due to their injuries, but mostly immobile and lifeless.

  His squad members’ bio-readings were all still visible in his HUD and green, but they had been thrown clear by the over-pulse. Besides, with an antimatter bomb behind his waist and a possessed former squad member to kill, he couldn’t worry about them now.

  Gabriel turned around and saw one of the Enthralled who had survived the over-pulse pointing a gun at him. In fact, it was his gun: the LMG knocked out of his hands during the brawl, now being pointed at him by an enemy grinning triumphantly even as he strained to hold the enormous weapon aloft. Gabriel didn’t try to take cover or even move as the enthralled foot soldier took aim at him and pulled the trigger.

  Without Gabriel’s DNA, or the array of biometric transmitters in his gauntlet to relay that information, the gun wouldn’t fire. Instead, a set of microneedles, each as thin as a Human hair, punctured the target’s skin, injecting a cocktail of specially-designed nanobots into his hand which began rapidly killing off nearby cells, before retracting again.

  Gabriel deactivated his sword’s energy field, replacing it on its magnetic sheath before approaching his foolish enemy. The enthralled foot solider could do nothing but stand there with a look of horror and agony frozen on his face as his blood vessels slowly turned black from the nanotechnological venom flowing through them.

  Gabriel carefully detached the man’s rigid fingers from the handle of the gun and took back his service weapon. By that point, the deadly serum of nanobots had completely paralysed the man’s muscles, leaving him as still as a statue. Gabriel didn’t deign to put the man down, multiple organ failure would do that for him.