“We could cut our way in?”
Any hull breach would instantly alert them to our presence.
“They’re going to know we’re here eventually. I could fire off a couple of Particle Beam from a central location, blow open a couple of holes, pick one at random and go through.”
We cannot see the interior. There could be people in the locations you shoot.
I hadn’t thought about that. However, I don’t think I can get through this without people dying. I won’t kill callously, but this has got to stop.
“I think it’s worth the chance. Let’s do it.”
Pushing off the station, I kick in the thrusters. We glide out a few hundred feet. I check the power levels. The ZPFM is undamaged and I have all the power I need for this.
Epic puts the crosshairs on the HUD and I wave them over the station looking for likely spots. There’s a hatch, what looks like two observation ports, and a sensor array of some kind.
“Full power, three-second burst. Crap… are we going to be okay heat wise? With no atmo to bleed off the heat…”
Running the numbers. If you fire no more than twenty seconds total we should be okay.
“Alright, let’s do this.”
I start with the sensor array, wiping out their ability to see might keep them occupied as well as blind.
I place the target over the dishes and antennas sprouting from the hull and bend my wrist down. The particle beam reaches out and touches the array. I let it flash twice before stopping. I can’t hear it, but the exhaust of gas and particles are impressive. The dish disintegrates as an entire section fifty feet square explodes outward into space.
“Nice!”
Well done.
The next spot is an observation port, or at least I think it is. I hope no one is in there. The beam lashes out. I draw an ‘X’ on the window. As the second beam touches the previous burn the entire port explodes outward. Gas, debris, and glass disappear into the black in a heartbeat.
Two thousand degrees on the particle beam emitters.
Crud, okay enough for one more shot. That’s okay. I find the hatch, identify the likely weak points… and fire. The beam slices through like butter. Before I’m done the hatch follows the other two sections into space.
“Okay, time to go.”
A fault light pops up on the HUD flashing red before burning a solid crimson.
I am sorry. I thought the emitter could handle the sustained heat.
“Me too. Maybe it suffered damage fighting Behemoth we didn’t detect?”
I fly up to the hatch, it’s the smallest opening of the three, therefore I’m hoping they’ll consider it the least likely entrance. The airlock looks like a maintenance hatch of some kind for drones or small cargo, not people. The ideal entry point as they won’t think a person will come through.
There is an internal fail secure airlock door.
I land in the remains of the ‘lock and let my boots clamp to the metal deck using my kinetic emitters to approximate gravity.
“That’s why I like to keep this handy,” I reach behind me and pull the sword from my back, “For close encounters.”
You are having fun with this are you not?
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say with a grin as I slash the square blade down on the control panel. It explodes in a shower of sparks. Next, I start hacking at the door’s centerline, I just need to open it enough to crawl through. The blade penetrates the steel and the entire door explodes outward, slamming me and flattening the suit against the far wall as air rushes out.
There is another door closing.
“I see it.” Ten feet past the one I just destroyed, a massive bulkhead door slides down. I leap forward, kicking in the jets and scream through the hatch just before it clamps shut behind me.
There is atmo in here. It is human, normal mix of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.
“Internal network?”
They do have a wireless network inside. The outer shell must be incredibly well shielded. Attempting access…
I glance around; this is a hallway of some kind. Gunmetal gray walls with LED lights every few feet to chase the shadows away. Control panels, caution signs, decompression warnings, this all looks pretty standard. I get my feet under me and pick a direction. The corridors are too small to fly down so I walk with my sword out in front of me.
Their network is incredibly sophisticated. As I attempt to crack it, algorithms shift to compensate. I cannot be certain, but I think they have an AI defending it.
“Take no chances, I don’t want someone overriding you and taking over the suit. I don’t care how much we think it isn’t possible.”
Understood.
If I were to design a station, I would put the command center in the exact center. It would be the most shielded from radiation and the most likely to survive any accidents. The way the station is set up I’m on one half, I’ll call it the bottom half. I need to go in and up.
The hallway doesn’t go far before I run into a closed door marked ‘Cargo One’. I put my palm on the panel next to it. Epic overrides it locally in a few seconds and the door hums as it lifts into the ceiling. A large open area stretches out but I don’t see any exits to the outside. It has to be the internal bay, like a warehouse distributing the cargo about.
There are several fuel lines running through here. Severing them would lead to the station's demise.
“I need him alive, Epic. It’s the only way to have my parents back. I’d love to just blow the place up and move on but we can’t do that. We need him and a shuttle of some kind or escape pod to return to Earth.”
Understood.
I sense more than see movement and turn just as a massive crate crashes down. The metal box slams me hard to the floor. If not for the sword’s kinetic emitters I wouldn’t have been able to hold onto it. I shove the box off with a growl as a giant, mechanical foot flattens me to the deck. The foot belongs to a giant mech. It has legs like a chicken and a cockpit with tinted glass. Where there should be wings, two armatures extend with grappling claws for cargo.
Amelia, it is exerting tremendous weight, the kinetic emitters are close to maximum.
I fire off the IP cannons in my left hand, hoping to overload the electronics. The blue bolts travel up and down the leg but dissipate before causing any real harm. Alarms flash to life on the HUD letting me know tolerances are approaching maximum.
“Full power to the Emdrive!”
There’s a great screeching of metal on metal as thrusters kick in. The mech wobbles as I shoot out from underneath it, leaving a furrow in the metal floor before crashing headlong into a stack of crates.
“IP cannons, narrow beam,” I regain my footing, holding my free hand out to fire. The narrow beam intensifies the point of impact. Generally, it makes a target hard to hit, but this thing is fifteen feet tall if it’s an inch. The sandpaper staccato rips through the air as I set it to continuous beam. Thankfully, the IP cannons generate next to no heat. They just aren’t that effective against shielded things.
Massive clawed arms swipe at me. The sword sparks as I swing it through the joint, severing the limb and sending the chicken-mech scrambling to regain footing.
“All my advanced tech and I’m sword fighting.”
There is some irony in this.
“Shut it.”
I charge forward, kick in the jets and leap up. The mech swipes at me but I dodge and bring the sword down just behind the cockpit where I think the batteries are. The thing slumps over with a whir of discharging energy and drained solenoids.
There is a panel to your right. Make contact.
The suit clatters against the floor as I run over and slide to a halt, slamming my hand against it.
This is a direct conduit. Shutting down all escape means. No lifepods, no shuttles. There are approximately three hundred individuals on this station, Amelia. We’re going to have to do something about them.
“I’ll le
t the government worry about that, our problem is Ericsson.”
Each crew member has a RFID tag that shows their clearance and position. I’ve located Ericsson. Take the third door on the north wall.
I don’t know why I thought his door would be more ornate. Instead, it’s just another plain, bulkhead door with the plethora of warnings about death and mangled limbs.
“Can you access it?”
As long as their defending AI cannot override direct access, yes I can. It may become aware of the flaw in security shortly.
“Never plug in an unknown computer on your network, right? Okay, do it.”
With my palm flat against the interface, Epic overrides the door. It slides up with the same dull hum of the other doors. Inside is a spacious room with a giant picture-window facing the Earth. Reflected sunlight streams in, illuminating the area. Sword out and IP cannons fully charged, I walk in. The other side of the room is living quarters with a bed, desk, and what I presume is the bathroom. This would all be perfectly normal if it weren’t for the three men, all in their twenties, sitting blank-eyed and still on the far side. Life signs pop up on the HUD and they all appear normal, except for the lack of brain activity.
“What’s wrong with them?”
I think they are in a vegetative state. I am cross-referencing their faces with… yes, they are in the recovered database. All three are or were students at the academy.
“Hello?” I say over the PA. No response. Sensors at full power along with ECM and everything else still working I enter the room, sweeping from side to side. “I thought you said—” The sound of a toilet flushing catches my attention as a man walks out of the bathroom. He smiles at me as he crosses the room to wash his hands.
“Are you Ericsson?”
He chuckles, “That is a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Yes, my dear Amelia, I am… or was… Harold Ericsson. You’ve come a long way to confirm who I am. Is that all you wanted? There are easier—”
“Shut up and stop pretending to be some effete jerk who still thinks he’s won. You’ve lost. It’s over. Your coup failed, your company is in tatters and as soon as the UN finds out about this place it will be destroyed too. Spare me your idiotic assumptions that you can somehow still defeat me. Got it?”
His smile vanishes and I can see anger in those blue eyes. A light on my HUD catches my attention, the ECM master alarm is flashing. Something is interacting with it. The metallic ink I sprayed over my suit lights up like a diamond under a spotlight. I close my eyes for just a second as fear spikes through me. I hope I did this right…
I open one eye.
“Epic, am I still me?”
I haven’t detected any change in your brain waves nor has any abnormal energy penetrated the suits shielding.
I let out a huge sigh.
“Impressive,” he growls, “You found a way to block telepathy?”
“Are you stupid? Of course I did. You mind-controlled my parents, you mind control telepaths and you think I’m going to walk up here and not be ready for it?” I’m sick of this. I march toward him. I can just stun him and take him back to Earth.
His eyes narrow as I come for him. In a flash he whips out a semi-auto pistol Epic identifies as a Colt 1911A1.
“You can’t hurt me with that.”
“I can hurt them.” He fires a shot. The gun bucks in his hand. My sound system protects my ears but it leaves me deaf for a heartbeat. The closest of the three men slump over, not even registering he’s been shot. Blood seeps out of his chest as his heart continues to beat.
“Bastard,” I spit.
“Come any closer and I’ll shoot another one.”
I freeze. Let him think he has me for a second while he talks.
“You didn’t come up here to put me in jail, Ms. Lockheart. What do you want?”
“I would think it was obvious. I want you to fix my parents.”
He smiles like a used car salesmen who is about to take some schmucks last dime.
“Of course, why didn’t you just ask? I’ll happily do this for you if in turn, you show my scientist how to make your armor… and of course, leave here without me.”
I shake my head, “That isn’t happening and you know it.”
“It’s your choice. You might be able to stun me before I kill another person, but know this—I will never. Ever. Undo what I did to your parents. You’ve cost me a hundred years of planning and probably doomed our planet in the process. You think you’re the hero with your righteous crusade to free your parents?” He laughs, waving the gun around.
I need to know what he knows and it is clear he is willing to talk about it.
“You’re the second person to tell me that. What do you know that I don’t?”
“Volumes.” I walked into that one. Idiot.
“You know what I mean. The Protector, before your lapdog killed him, told me the same thing. What is going on here?”
He cocks his head to the side I can see him thinking.
“I’ll make you a deal, Ms. Lockheart. I will tell you what I know about this. If you will listen and understand. I don’t think you can… but… if you truly can understand then maybe we can salvage this situation and save the human race. Deal?”
I hate this smug jerk more every second but the more info I have the better. “Deal.”
He lowers his pistol and I lower my sword. I try hard not to think about the dead man laying ten feet away. The man whose whole life was stolen by this jackass.
“Good. I know you’re smart, you must have realized by now what I’ve achieved is beyond human means?”
I nod. We suspected alien but to hear it’s confirmation at least
“I was born the moment Tesla threw the switch on his Wardenclyffe tower experiment. The first baby born when extra-dimensional energy poured through our world. I didn’t know it then, but I was also the first child born with a superpower. As time went on and I continued to… live… I noticed a pattern to things. War, hate, murder, all of it committed in mass scale by the very people we elected to lead us. Do you know the problem with all governments?”
“Usually they’re given too much power and allowed to run unchecked.”
“Close,” he says. He turns around and pulls out a small decanter, pouring himself a drink, he takes a sip before continuing. “Not too much power, not enough. But, if you give a man ultimate power he has such a short time to implement he scrambles and destroys everything. I am effectively immortal. I want what is best for mankind and I have the power to ensure those around me are loyal. I am the perfect tyrant, in the Greek sense of the word.”
“The Greeks elected Tyrants when their city-states were out of control. We’re hardly out of control.”
“You’re short-sighted then. I see a world divided by petty differences. Why is it you were ordered to stand down on the Mexican border? What moral right did they have to stop you from saving lives just because of an imaginary line on a map?
“I tell you, none! I want to craft a world with a unified purpose. And believe me, we need it. War is coming. A war like none other and if we aren’t unified as a people we will be destroyed. This is what you’ve upset. This is what you’ve ruined. Unless you help me rebuild, we’ll never be ready.”
“Epic, can we break the encryption on this jar of pickles and steal all his info?”
No. Even if I could defeat the AI it would likely delete everything in a last ditch effort to keep us from having it. I predict only a twenty-three percent chance of victory. I cannot recommend that course of action.
“Discussing it with your AI? I have to say, I’m incredibly impressed. It took your mom seven years of eighteen-hour days to develop the coding language and hardware specifications to make an AI.”
It took me seven years too, the only difference is I was six when I had the idea. Anger flares up in me and I want to smash this jerk to a pulp.
“Don’t talk about my parents. Did it ever occur to you that if you’d come out of th
e shadows, tried to help us instead of controlling us we might have all achieved together what you tried to take by force?”
“Why do you think I made Cat-7? I wanted to unite the superpowered people under one cause. But as soon as power was on the table, the government tried to take it. No, little girl, after a hundred years I can tell you what people will do before they even know themselves. Recruiting telepaths was my last ditch plan to rule from within the system. Now, all I have left is to make a new system, one that I rule utterly and completely, for our own safety and future.”
His points sound reasonable and valid, but so did Stalin’s. “Neither you or Pythia, are gods. You don’t get to say what’s best for anyone. We decide that. You’re done, Ericsson. Finished, you can live the rest of your so-called immortal life in prison. We will stand together and win, or we’ll lose, but we will do it as a free people. As old as you are I would think you would’ve studied more history… ‘They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ You know who said that?”
“A stupid, short-sighted fool who couldn’t imagine global extinction. Don’t quote Benjamin Franklin at me. You’ve made your choice then, have you? Think you’re simply going to frog march me to a shuttle and take me to Earth?”
“That is exactly the plan.” I leap forward with an assist from the Emdrive. I ignore his feeble attempt to bring his weapon up since he can’t hurt me and I’m between him and his pets. The gun explodes in fire. He staggers back from the wound, blood flowing from his mouth. I freeze. Shock or horror I’m not sure which. Why would he kill himself?
“What?”
The voice startles me and I spin around, half jumping. The middle man, covered in blood from the dead guy next to him, stands, looking down at his hands.
“How?”
“It’s okay you’ve been—”
“No you twit, how come I’m not you?”
Then it dawns on me why there are so many missing people. So many gaps and different names but the same signature… he isn’t immortal.
Amelia. I think he means to transfer himself into you. If not for the ECM it would have likely worked.
Unstoppable Arsenal Page 15
