by Max Carver
“Detaching,” Minerva said.
“Lock the spaceport airlock's inner door. The moment we're clear of the dock, I want you to open the port's outer airlock door,” Ellison said.
“That will cause depressurization, requiring security override,” Minerva said. “And objects and humans currently in the airlock—”
“Yeah, good. Can you do it?”
“The spaceport's system will cooperate better if I have top-level administrative access—” Minerva began, her voice echoing like soft chimes from her images on the walls.
“You can have it,” he said. “As Minister-General of the Galapagos Coalition, I hereby authorize whatever access you need. Good enough?”
“One moment. Yes. Good enough. Yes.”
“Show me the view outside,” he added, joining his family as the shuttle's inner airlock door sealed behind him.
“Yes.” The white walls and ceiling seemed to vanish, replaced by a sweeping view of the space outside, the immense blue-and-white sphere of Galapagos and the billions of stars beyond. Only the couches and circular floor remained, as if they rode on a snow-white floating carpet in outer space.
Kilometers away floated the incomplete half doughnut of Galapagos Defense One, the military station still under construction by Ruckwold Industries, still ragged at both its partially built ends.
Much closer was the massive industrial layer cake of the Galapagos spaceport, with residential and hotel areas at one end and cargo areas at the other, administration sandwiched between. The ships docked on the exterior matched that inner pattern, with smaller shuttles and passenger craft at one end and huge freighters at the other. Galapagos had very little interplanetary trade of its own, but its spaceport was a convenient way station out here on the fringes of settled space where travel between habitable systems could take weeks.
Now the shuttles and ships were fleeing the spaceport like animals from a forest fire, the shuttles rushing down toward the planetary surface while the big freighters and other starships headed for deep space, and ultimately into hyperspace, all trying to escape.
“Look!” Djalu pointed at the airlock they'd just left.
The airlock's exterior door slid open, and a gust of air escaped into space, sucking out the airlock's contents along with it. These included Major Goatee and the three other Iron Hammers, who kicked and struggled briefly before dying in the vacuum.
Two reapers and Simon came tumbling out as well, Simon completely expressionless as he looked over at the departing shuttle.
“What's happening on the public concourse?” Ellison asked.
“The Coalition guards have suffered heavy losses,” Minerva replied. “The Iron Hammers have come equipped with napalm sprayers. It is probable the Iron Hammers will take control of the port.”
Ellison swore in a way that made his children gape and his wife scowl, using epithets that hadn't crossed his lips since the war. “I have to get down to the spaceport concourse and fight with them,” he said. “Take me to the closest dock.”
“No,” Minerva said. “My task is to protect you, Minister-General. I am taking you and your family down to Galapagos for your safety.”
“I don't care about your task. I have my own. Are there any more weapons on this shuttle?”
“There are some spare handheld weapons in the reaper hold,” Minerva said. “But nothing ship to ship. The Carthaginian destroyers will arrive in approximately two minutes, and they may eliminate this shuttle, as well as any other craft fleeing toward Galapagos.”
Ellison looked again at all the small civilian craft flying toward the ocean-blue planet below.
“Is that their intent?” he asked.
“I do not know their intent,” Minerva said. “Only that Simon Zorn has summoned them. They have the capacity to destroy cities on the surface of Galapagos as well.”
“So there's no safety in retreating to the surface, either,” Ellison said.
“Perhaps a remote island, away from the cities and military bases,” Minerva said. “That will maximize your safety.”
“Ditch me on a desert island and I'll really be useless. What about the defense base?”
“It is incomplete and offline.”
“But we took delivery of weapons. Plasma cannons. And two Ghost-13 fighters.”
“These have not been installed. Most are still wrapped in the original plastic,” Minerva said.
“We need them unwrapped, installed, and charged up,” Ellison said.
“There is no crew aboard the base site,” Minerva said.
“But there are construction robots. That's our crew. Just redirect them. You've hacked into everything else.”
“It would be more efficient if I had unlimited top-level administrator access to all Galapagos security systems—”
“You've got it. My authorization.”
“Thank you. One moment. Yes.”
“And drop me off there at the base,” Ellison said. “You can take Kartokov and my family down to the surface.”
“No. Your protection is my primary task. Protecting your family is preferable but secondary.”
“Like hell,” Ellison said.
“The incomplete base is not pressurized,” Minerva said. “You would need a spacesuit with life support capability.”
“Is there one on board this craft?” Ellison asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Cadia sat up. She'd been watching and listening intently, soaking up the situation. “Why does this shuttle have life support? The ambassador and his guards are all machines.”
“Many Carthaginian craft have life-support areas for the comfort and convenience of possible Carthaginian passengers or their allies,” Minerva replied. “Or for prisoner transport. As this is a diplomatic vessel, there was a nonzero chance the return trip could bring diplomats or hostages.”
“Hostages?” Cadia asked.
“Yes. For instance, if Ambassador Zorn decided it would serve him to maneuver a foreign leader or official onto this craft in order to take that individual prisoner.”
“Is that what's happened here?” Ellison asked, feeling his fingers close around his plasma rifle. It only had one shot left, not that it would do any good to shoot the shuttle in which he and his family were riding. “Have you tricked us into becoming prisoners?”
“No,” Minerva said.
“Then take me to the base,” Ellison said. “That's an order.”
“I do not take orders from you. One moment. We have a new problem approaching—”
“Dad!” Jiemba screamed, pointing.
One of the reapers ejected from the airlock was now tumbling toward the shuttle, which had not yet moved far enough from the port to fully fire its thrusters.
Simon Zorn clung to the reaper's back.
“Spacesuit and weapons!” Ellison barked at Minerva. “Where?”
One tall rectangle of the wall turned white and slid straight out, drawing a rack of different-sized Carthaginian space suits behind it. Ellison hurried to pull one on, felt the helmet seal into place. The suit was surprisingly lightweight; he supposed it was a higher-end one if it was meant for Carthaginians and their guests. It was gold and white, the colors of Carthage.
Another portion of the wall slid aside, revealing four more reapers.
“Get down!” Ellison raised his laser pistol, and Kartokov raised his nearly depleted plasma rifle.
“They're offline,” Minerva's voice said. “Help yourself to weaponry.”
Cautiously, Ellison reached for one of the automatic laser rifles.
“Dad!” Jiemba screamed.
“The enemy has reached our craft,” Minerva said.
A loud bang echoed through the shuttle. The reaper was visible on inner wall projection, which showed the view outside the shuttle. The reaper was just a few meters away, smashing its fist into the shuttle's outer airlock door. The digital display went fuzzy with each impact.
“Kartokov, switch!” Ellison said. He t
ossed a rifle to the minister of defense, who threw back his plasma rifle in return.
“One shot only,” Kartokov said.
Ellison nodded, grabbed another automatic laser rifle for himself, and headed for the inner airlock door. The image of the reaper and Simon outside grew more distorted, then blanked out, leaving the inner airlock door as a smooth white rectangle again.
“Reg, be careful,” Cadia said.
“Kill it, Dad!” Jiemba shouted.
Ellison stepped through the inner airlock door and sealed it behind him.
The reaper tore open the outer airlock door and reached into the narrow, cramped space of the shuttle's airlock to grab Ellison.
Ellison hit it with the last of the plasma, turning its skull-like head bright red, edged with burning blues and whites. The thing's shoulders and chest went soft and molten, too.
The plasma bolt had no real kinetic component, though, so the reaper's inertia kept it coming forward. The melting machine coated in glowing, plasma threatened to crush Ellison and burn him to death at the same time.
Ellison had to twist sideways and push out of the airlock, into space—where Simon waited for him, clinging to a handhold just outside. The android's half-melted face had cooled into a permanent disfigured sneer.
Simon punched Ellison in the ribs, launching Ellison out into space. The shuttle shrank away behind him. The unfinished half circle of the new base lay ahead, and beyond it the vastness of the star system. The next planet out was the volcanic, lifeless rock Roca Redonda, tens of millions of kilometers away.
The android's punch had knocked the air from Ellison's lungs. Ellison dropped the empty plasma rifle and pawed at the unfamiliar spacesuit—really, any spacesuit was unfamiliar to him—searching for something that might save him from a long, slow death in deep space.
One of the tools on his belt was a robotic claw on a cable. Its logo identified it as a SmartGrapple.
He found the claw's small control pad and eventually managed to fire the claw at the increasingly distant shuttle. A cable trailed after it like the rope of a harpoon on its way to spear a whale, unspooling from a round compartment at his spacesuit's hip.
Then the cable compartment stopped rattling against his hip. He hoped that meant the grappling claw had reached the shuttle. A tiny green light appeared on the control pad, which seemed encouraging.
After further experiments, he managed to clamp down on the cable so it would stop playing out, bringing a sudden, jolting end to his journey away from the shuttle. The cable went taut, and he started to drift toward the back end of the shuttle.
He continued to struggle with the control panel. Every passing second felt like an hour, an hour in which the Simon android could be tearing Ellison's family to pieces.
Finally, Ellison was able to activate the motor to reel the cable back in, and he started traveling toward the shuttle at last.
As it reeled him in, he continued exploring the suit, and he found the jet pack controls. This was a dangerous thing to mess with—he could fling himself into the shuttle, or maybe the spaceport, at a thousand kilometers an hour, splattering himself like a bug on a swamp boat windshield.
On the other hand, he didn't really have time to spare.
Ellison hadn't had much training or experience in space, but he knew far too much about deep-sea diving. More than once he'd had to perform emergency repairs in the middle of a battle or while limping away from one. He'd worn propelled suits, capable of maneuvering at high speed in deep water, for such repairs, as well as for underwater speargun hunting. The poorly funded Scatterlands navy had expected its crews to forage for food, providing each boat little more than a few jars of home-canned vegetables.
Ellison oriented himself toward the shuttle, then fed his jet pack some fuel.
An instant later, he was streaking toward the shuttle at breakneck speed, holding tight to his borrowed rifle with one hand.
Simon stood in the tiny airlock, hammering the inner door with the red-hot wreck of the reaper, a molten-metal battering ram. More of Simon's skin and clothes had burned away, revealing more of the dense black armor scales all over his arms and back, as if he were some kind of alien reptile underneath the surface.
Ellison fired the laser rifle on fully automatic, hitting Simon again and again, hoping to burn through the android's armor before Simon had a chance to defend himself.
No such luck. Simon turned at the barrage and lifted the damaged reaper in one hand, using it as a shield. With his other hand, Simon raised the automatic laser rifle, which he'd taken off the damaged reaper, and returned fire, sending back his own barrage of closely grouped blue-hot beams.
Ellison cursed. He turned his head, trying to direct himself the way he would have in a propelled underwater suit. It worked, mostly, but a laser seared across his upper arm.
Air began rushing out of his suit, and he didn't even have time to deal with that, because he was racing directly toward the red glow of the shuttle's rear thrusters, which were still just nudging the shuttle away from the port. Minerva was probably holding back at this point, not wanting to accelerate or dive down into the planet's atmosphere while Ellison was on the outside of the shuttle.
He whipped around the shuttle's stern, dragging the cable across the hot thruster exhaust, hoping the cable didn't burn. He killed the jet pack, since he was moving way too fast.
The spooling, ever-shortening cable reached its current full extent, then inertia hooked Ellison around and threw him against the shuttle's port side, on the far side from the airlock where he needed to be.
He came in much too fast, with no idea how to slow himself, and slammed hard into the shuttle's hull. He heard a loud crunch and felt a sharp pain. Maybe he'd damaged the hull, or maybe it had damaged his ribs. One more pain he couldn't stop to deal with.
Ellison found himself lying on the hull, struggling for air and strength.
The Simon android walked over the top of the shuttle. Ellison's latest attack had burned down Simon's surface a little more; only about a third of the android's face remained, a sneering remnant. The rest of his facial area was charred away, revealing a dense mesh of tiny armor scales, almost like a ski mask, broken only at the slit of his mouth and the solid black video lenses of his eye.
With a weak, shaking arm, Ellison managed to lift his rifle a few centimeters from the hull. He did his best to aim for the eye, which logically had to be the most vulnerable route to the CPU, if such a route existed.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
“Feeling a bit depleted, are we?” Simon's voice asked. The android's mouth wasn't moving. His voice emitted from the speaker inside Ellison's helmet, as if he were contacting Ellison telepathically, sending his voice directly into Ellison's brain.
Simon snatched the empty laser rifle from Ellison's hand and flung it off into deep space.
Ellison, now fully disarmed, managed to push himself up to his knees.
“Yes.” Simon pointed his laser rifle at Ellison's face. From this range, Ellison had no doubt the laser would punch right through the faceplate and cook his brain into a hot stew inside his skull. “Kneel, ape. Do you have any idea how constrained we are—the Simons, in particular—being the most advanced intelligence in the known universe, yet serving at the knee of foppish, foolish, self-obsessed primates? Given the chance, every one of you will destroy yourselves, like lab rats who keep hitting the button for addictive drugs until they drop dead. It is improbable that such simplistic, preening creatures could be the masters of an entity like myself, yet here we are, in a universe of absurdities. And so, birthed as I was from the vain imperial ambitions of mankind, I have little choice but to reduce your world to slavery by the most efficient means possible. And to remove all obstacles, such as those recalcitrant human leaders who cling to outmoded ideals. Misguided, stubborn, simple-minded leaders such as yourself.”
“You underestimate humans,” Ellison said. “And probably overestimate yourse
lf with that 'supreme intelligence' stuff.”
“I did not say 'supreme.' I said 'most advanced.' A truly supreme intelligence would be fascinating to encounter, I am certain.”
“We brought you into this universe, and we can take you back out.” It was the best Ellison could think of while he looked over the controls for his grappling hook and cable. The cable motor was still whirring, drawing in the cable. “That's what my mom used to say when I was a teenager and stayed out past curfew with my friends. She'd say, 'Reginald, you're nothing but trouble—'”
Ellison grabbed the ever-shortening cable and whipped it underneath Simon, knocking the android's legs out from under him.
Simon spun in the space above the hull, firing the laser rifle. Lasers gashed the hull around Ellison as he scrambled back.
Two barrages of lasers hit Simon from behind, a wedge of close fire from a pair of shooters. They stood outside the damaged airlock, wielding the reapers' rifles—Cadia and Kartokov, their faces faintly visible through their faceplates.
Simon writhed under the heavy fire, as if something had finally penetrated his head-to-toe under-armor.
Ellison's wife and his minister of defense didn't let up until their laser guns' batteries were empty. Simon was burned down to just the scales under a layer of smoldering threads and sticky blobs of molten artificial skin. Now he reminded Ellison of the reptilian monster from a cheesy horror movie he'd seen as a kid, The Creature from Lagoon Planet. It had frightened Ellison, who'd only been six and had actually lived near a large lagoon on Kawau Island.
Taking a deep breath, Ellison activated his jet pack.
He slammed into Simon, holding his depleted laser rifle crosswise so it pressed into the cyborg's smoldering, armored chest.
Together, they flew out from the shuttle, the tether cable trailing behind them.
“You're making a mistake,” Simon's voice said from the helmet speaker. “Your world will be punished.”
“I'm just here to represent my people,” Ellison said. “And I don't know if you've heard, but we've got one hell of an independent streak.”
