That was the moment when real-world Pyke gave in to his rage, balled his hands into fists and started to make his way round the suspension table. He only managed a couple of steps before one of the guards struck him between the shoulders with a rifle butt. He staggered forward, straight into the Legacy’s oncoming fist. A moment later he was dragged off to the side, hands bound with cuff-strips.
The Legacy squatted down next to him, all smiles and malice. “It’s almost time, Captain—are you ready for the trip of your life?”
Back in the simulation, the drone Rensik turned from the observation ambit and spoke.
“I’ve deduced their intent from the few scraps of information I’ve gathered,” he said suddenly. “The Damaugra is the creature which began pursuing the Mighty Defender two days after it fled the fall of the Arraveyne Imperium. It is capable of long-range space travel and can pass into hyperspace with ease—some references claim that it is native to hyperspace. The Legacy’s plan has always been to reassemble the crystals into the Essavyr Key and then, by unlocking it, unleash the nano-matter plague. But if it were to carry out this procedure in hyperspace, the nano-plague would easily be able to spread to many different parts of the galaxy and crush resistance on a number of fronts, thereby gaining total dominance very quickly. This is why they need to gain complete control over the Damaugra.”
Pyke was stunned and aghast—stated so baldly, the Legacy’s plan was obvious and monstrous in its scope and deadly ambition.
“So, they don’t fully control it yet?” he said. “What do those hack-wires do?”
“Low-level functions, environment, gravity, going by visual indicators,” said Rensik. “The Legacy needs full control, which is why it’s about to upload Raven’s persona into the creature’s neural web.”
“You’re saying that Raven’s going to become that giant beast?”
“Yes, that is the Legacy’s intention.”
“Finally! A face to match her ugly personality.”
“I had hoped that my residual, RK1, would have found a way to reach us here in the sublayer so that I could send him after her, but he has failed. There is now only you, and I am reluctant to ask …”
“Send me,” said Pyke. “No dithering. Just do it, before I get a chance to think about what I’m doing.”
“Very well. I will send another of my residuals with you—it won’t have RK1’s upgrades as it’s only a basic subcognition, but it will provide sufficient virtual analogues so that you can adapt to an unfamiliar synaptic web.”
Out in the world, the Legacy was standing up again, holding the crystal to the light, peering into it with grotesque desire in its stolen eyes. Then it turned to the bright control recess and opened the grey cylinder that was wired into the glowing nodes.
“Ready yourself,” said Rensik. “I will attempt to synchronise your upload with that of Raven Kaligari.”
“Ready for launch,” Pyke said, standing now before the semi-opaque images in the observation ambit, trying to imagine himself wearing a hero-style jetpack firing on all rockets as he hurtled into a storm. And in the ambit the Legacy slotted the crystal into place. “Next time you see Dervla, tell her …”
But words, sentences, feelings and needs and all the intent and love behind them disintegrated into a flow of being-motes, a vertical rain of essence pouring up after one who had to be stopped.
Certain that the upload of both residual and persona node had been successful, the Construct drone Rensik withdrew its control lines from the data-feed channels, masking any evidence of its presence. Then it returned to the exterior observation flow, watching as the Legacy carefully retrieved the crystal shard from the upload receptacle.
It was a source of regret for Rensik that it would not have one last meeting or communication with its residual RK1. By all accounts it had surpassed both its own assigned tasks and Rensik’s expectations—the survival of its cognition alone would have been a valuable addition to the Construct’s tactical libraries. That said, it was probably wise not to write it off completely, just yet.
But now, at last, the long-awaited moment had arrived. In the observation flow, the Legacy leaned over the suspension field table and with unhurried precision set the crystal shard down next to the other two fragments. This final addition seemed to trigger a preset function as the field then began to draw the three crystals together. All of Rensik’s monitor grids told him that the uneven sheared sector of the dimensional lattice was altering its properties in preparation. Likewise, Rensik’s supervision of the integrity enabler system was full and total—as soon as the lattices were rewoven as one, the system would again be active and Rensik’s task would be clear.
The three pieces made simultaneous contact. The vigorous process of dissolving the now superfluous dimensional lattices reverberated throughout the para-dimensional substructures of the vast containment. The fractured surfaces began to slowly fade, in segments and patches, as the lattice repair reiterated itself into finer and finer detail. And, at last, the cargo itself, the trapped and caged volume of space-time-space and all it contained, coalesced …
And what had been frozen began to move.
And what had been a cold, immobile image of energy became furious torrents of power.
And what had been half-made resumed its construction.
And what had been suspended for unbroken millennia between one thought of pure dominance and the next became aware.
And when that awareness surveyed the boundaries of its prison it noticed many things, including the drone AI, Rensik.
DERVLA—THE CRYSTAL SIMULATION, OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF GRANAH
When she felt the tremors come up through the floor and felt the shack rattle and creak about her, Dervla knew something important was happening. A cold knot of dread unfurled in the pit of her stomach as the words of the Legacy came back to her. She got up from the bed where she’d been not quite napping and went outside. The tremors were still occurring, erratically, and the air was full of a curious sound like a bell-chime, stretched out and continuous.
The slums were still deserted but it was later than before, something like mid-afternoon. She leaned on a rickety fence post and contemplated the sky of scattered clouds and blue patches, the mass of trees further along the wall, past the closed gates, and the view over the wide, rushing river … the Worroth, that was it. And just then, in the middle of that unexpected moment of restful peace, a figure appeared along the main path, past the nearest huts. She called out, the figure turned and she saw that it was Ancil. He whooped and clenched his fist—then vanished.
“What the frack …” Dervla said, coming to a halt after taking a few steps in Ancil’s direction. She looked around in all directions, and as she turned away from staring at the grassy cliff edge there was a sudden large presence where none had been before.
“Derv!” boomed out a familiar bass voice. She barely had time to turn around before she was enveloped in Kref’s bearlike embrace.
“Kref! … big guy … can’t breathe …”
Laughing, he released her.
“So great to see you again, Derv,” said the big Henkayan. “I mean, I thought you were dead, and Ans and Moleg, and … and me, but I woke up here instead … ah, here he is!”
It was Ancil again, then Moleg arrived from round the back of Dervla’s shack, and also Pyke’s companions from the Isle of Candles, Vrass the Gomedran, T’Moy the Bargalil, and Klane the Shyntanil. Dervla felt almost overwhelmed to see them all and in between the hugs and handshakes she asked how they had got here.
“Arky,” said Ancil. “Rensik’s residual drone … where is he? Yeah, it was him that set up our great escape. Sent me through first on a quick test flight!”
“This is not, strictly speaking, an escape,” came a voice in the air as RK1’s mechanical bird alighted on the fence post in front of Dervla’s dwelling. “I had hoped that all of us could decamp to Rensik’s secure refuge up in the lattice sublayer but now there is too much commotion
and disorder to risk such an operation, now that the crystals are about to be unified.”
Chatter tailed off at this announcement.
“What will that mean for the simulation around us?” asked Ancil. “And for us?”
“All is uncertainty,” said RK1. “I have insufficient data even to extrapolate.”
“I know what the Legacy has planned for us,” said Dervla, and she related the main points of her encounter with the malign intelligence. There were thunderstruck looks on all sides.
“This crystal is a … a prison?” said Ancil. “You’re not serious!”
Dervla nodded. “From the start, this whole mad cavalcade has been a prison break!”
“It’s beginning,” said the Bargalil T’Moy, his face drawn and fearful as he pointed.
Up in the sky, patches were dissolving to reveal shadowy darkness. Everywhere dark holes appeared, grew and spread, joining up with others, like a kind of disease or rot eating away at the simulated clouds and blue sky. Then the sun went out and a dim gloom settled over their surrounds. At the same time, details began to emerge from the shadowy murk, blurred curves which resolved into an entire planet, looming close, but it was covered, almost encrusted, with structures laid out in radial patterns. Miles-high towers rose from among forests of glittering spires. Clusters of segmented cables converged on huge platforms miles across then straight up from the planet’s surface to link up with huge conglomerations of polyhedral structures in orbit, as well as an entire moon. Crenelated, obsidian walls encircled the moon with deep trenches branching and rebranching all the way around it, and some trenches ending in pitch-black circular pits.
In the hazy background, armoured worldlets hung in chains while a large asteroid bristling with incomprehensible spines drifted past. Just visible in the distance was a carapaced sun sprouting energy conduits—only splinters of its thermonuclear brightness showed through the seams of its sepulchre. And everywhere, ships were in motion, freighters great and huge, as well as those with unknowable functions.
So this is it, she thought. The empire of the nano-plague. If this gets loose, civilisation is done.
“What’s that?” said Moleg, pointing at a line of objects that had just sprung up from the semi-excavated moon, each with a faint trail. A second line, perhaps thirty in number, launched, followed by a third and a fourth.
“Ships,” said Dervla, noticing the far-off tiny blue flames of their plasma drives. Then she saw how the waves of vessels fanned out, all on courses carrying them straight out, heading for the inner surface of their prison, the dimensional lattice. There was an ominous deliberation about these launches.
Then Klane the Shyntanil uttered a sardonic laugh and raised his hand—it seemed to be his turn to point.
“And how long before those ones get here?”
PYKE, THE BRIDGE OF THE MIGHTY DEFENDER, IN THE SYNAPTIC CORE OF THE DAMAUGRA
Defeated, exhausted, and bound hand and foot, all Pyke wanted to do was continue to sit on the floor while the Legacy crowed and gloated over its prizes and its triumphs. But it seemed that wasn’t permitted—Pyke had to be dragged to his feet to bear witness as the Legacy retrieved the crystal from that glowing recess and slipped it into place on the suspension field table.
“What birth pangs this new empire has had!” said the Legacy with such corrosive smugness that Pyke wished his hands were free, just so he could cram the skagging crystal down that skagging throat!
“Behold!—the end of that chaotic mess of galactic uncivilisations, and the beginning of eternal splendour!”
In the suspension field, the crystal fragments converged, their fracture points fitting together perfectly, hot, bright lines glowing where the joins were. Right then, unexpectedly, Rensik’s voice spoke in his head.
“I can see that you’re experiencing some difficulty, Captain. However, the crystal key will soon be fully whole, which paves the way for me to engage the integrity enabler and reconfigure the key for its irreversible destruction. At that point, you must find a way to break it!”
Pyke had to throttle back the furious and profane retort that sprang to his mouth and almost made it to his lips. Instead he tried to speak in a kind of strangled whisper as far back in his throat as he could manage.
“Not a chance—they got me trussed like a chicken.”
“An unwelcome response—if you cannot find some kind of advantage and exploit it, we are lost.”
Pyke breathed out through gritted teeth. So it’s down to this, do or die, all or nothing, or, rather, trying to do it all with nothing!
He started to laugh out loud, interspersing it with coughs and whoops, deliberately making as raucous and mocking a sound as possible. It worked—the Legacy’s gaze came round to regard him with a malefic hauteur, and that was when he went for it.
“Hoo, yeah! Wow, really? You’re planning to be the all-powerful master of the universe? Master of Assclowns, more like—or even Assclown of the Universe! Man, I just can’t decide which one I like the best …”
Having broken off from admiring the reunified crystal key, the Legacy came round the table in three strides. It brought its hand up in one smooth motion and grabbed Pyke’s lower jaw, silencing his stream of insults.
“In the time that Raven and I have worked together,” it said, “I’ve grown accustomed to possessing her, and made a few modifications …”
“Uh, sorry, that sounds more than just a little creepy,” said Pyke through constricted lips. “Pervy assclown is not a good look for you, trust me.”
The Legacy’s grin was a horrific thing, teeth apart, tongue stroking the roof of the mouth. “She fantasises about all the different ways these modifications could subject you to pain, and I can see the attraction.”
“Raven and me have an understanding,” Pyke said. “So I wouldn’t damage the goods, get me? Where is she, by the way—I’d really like to say goodbye.”
“Not possible. At the moment she has taken up residence in the neural networks of the Damaugra and is preparing to fly it into hyperspace. There, we shall unlock the Essavyr Key and the Empire of Living Matter will be reborn. Haven’t you figured all this out yet?”
“Raven’s inside a giant razor-coil monster. Right. A few pieces of the puzzle had escaped me, I have to admit.”
“Indeed, along with the skills of courtesy and respect …” The Legacy slapped him gently twice in time with those words, “… and keeping a civil tongue in your head!” And the sentence ended with a punch in the face.
It was like being hit by a Henkayan. There was pain down the side of his face and in his jaw, and the kind of ringing normally brought on by being too close to one of Ancil’s test firings. Through the dizziness he fancied he could hear Rensik babbling on about how the other Pyke had been uploaded after Raven to stop her controlling the Damaugra, how the nano-plague was becoming aware of its surroundings and might present a threat, and how he, Captain Brannan Pyke, needed to space-marine-up and smash the damn crystal key, and that made him laugh with bloody lips …
The Legacy bent down and brought its face, Raven’s beautiful, perfectly featured face, up close, smiling mischievously, and said, “Modifications, Bran. Felt like a sledgehammer, didn’t it? And I wasn’t even trying.”
Unbidden, formless hate surged in him and he lunged with his head, aiming at the nose in that exquisite face. But the Legacy shifted just enough to dodge it and danced back a step.
“Oh, really? You and you, hold him up straight—I’m going to put some effort into it this time!”
At exactly that moment, there was an eruption of gunfire. The Legacy turned to look towards the chamber entrance and a salvo of assorted energy bolts, blast-beams and rifled slugs struck. From a few feet away, Pyke saw blood spray from impacts to the chest and lower torso; a half-second burst of particle beam hit the side of the Legacy’s face, causing more blood to spout; at the same time a combination of energy bolts and high-velocity rounds punched and sheared through the Legacy’s s
houlder, entirely severing the arm. All this horrific violence took place in seconds amid a deafening uproar. As Pyke’s guards let him fall so they could try and defend themselves, he could see that the monstrous volley had thrown the Legacy over to the other side of the platform, just past where the suspension table still stood with the undamaged crystal key set upon it. He kept staring at the still, blood-spattered form, lying not far from its severed arm, while the shattering din of weaponsfire roared on.
“Captain, quickly, find a way to destroy the crystal key! Your simulation counterpart is winning the struggle for control of the Damaugra, but with the integrity enabler I have reconfigured the whole of the key—one sharp, heavy blow will shatter it and obliterate the nano-plague!”
But before Pyke could point out that he was still bound hand and foot, one of the remaining guards spun back from the parapet, black ichor spurting from a torn neck. A moment later the other guard was dragged bodily over the low wall, down to the chamber floor. Suddenly the firing ceased and thudding footsteps approached. Someone crouched down nearby and hauled him into a sitting position. It was Ustril. He groaned and cursed.
“Back to finish the job?” he said.
The Sendrukan scientist said nothing, simply gave him an unreadable stare as she took out a knife and cut the bonds around his wrist and ankles. Pyke looked back at her warily.
“Nice ambush,” he said. “The Legacy’s goons weren’t prepared, clearly.”
“Not for a determined squad of heavily armed Sendrukan women certainly,” Ustril said.
“So just what is your angle?” Pyke said. “You got some tasty deal in mind now?”
Splintered Suns Page 46
