Tyche's Demons_A Space Opera Military Science Fiction Epic

by Richard Parry

  Speaking of noise. El shifted on her acceleration couch and found she couldn’t move. Of course. You’re still strapped in. She released the straps holding her, the buckles coming free with neat clinks. After that herculean task was accomplished, El twisted around and saw yep, there’s a speaker there.

  She slumped back into the couch, then reached a hand up to the emergency door release. El’s hand froze as she touched it.

  Osaka. You’re in Osaka. If you blow the pod seals, nanometer-sized robots will get in here and mill you out from the inside. It will hurt a great deal, but not for long.

  So. Don’t blow the door seals.

  El twisted the other way, finding the emergency crash kit. Inside were the usual things you’d expect. A signaling device. No thanks. A small blaster, good enough for scaring kids if you were a good enough shot, but not the kind of thing that suited the Captain of the Skyguard, because the Captain of the Skyguard was a lousy shot. El patted her hip, feeling the comforting bulk of her kinetic sidearm. Also in the kit were a few Empire coins in various denominations, enough to get her a ride out of a border world or room and board for a few weeks. None of that was as useful as the final piece of equipment: a helmet, complete with self-contained oxygen supply and rebreather. It’d filter smoke and other fuckery out of the air, giving you something sweet and clean, or if you found yourself in the hard black, enough air for a spell of bobbing like a cork while a ship came to get you.

  It assumed you were in a pod with a ship suit so the cold wouldn’t get you. Here on Osaka, all El wanted was the air supply. She pulled the helmet out, banging her elbow on the pod’s hatch. El swore, then stopped as she watched the crack on the glass fork out, another chink in her armor. She pulled the helmet on, feeling the seals adjust to her ship suit’s neck coupling. The helmet’s HUD lit, welcoming CPT. E. ROUSSEL and letting her know she had four hours of air. SWITCH TO EXTERNAL ATM?

  Hell no. El shut that option down. She didn’t know if the rebreather tech was good enough to filter out nanites but based on how many people had died at Osaka, she was betting on probably not. El clicked her ship suit’s console, the helmet’s HUD giving her access to the pod’s information. It said the time since impact and her waking was a mere ten minutes, so El hadn’t been out long. She downloaded Hope’s frequented destination, then a satellite’s view of Osaka, giving her a passable map to chart these hostile waters. El then cleared the pod’s computer before grabbing the emergency release handle and yanking it. There was a pause, then the thud-dud-dud-dud as the four explosive bolts fired, sending the canopy spinning away. El clambered out of the pod, swaying a little. Take it easy, El. Don’t want to fall over and crack your shiny new visor.

  Outside of the pod, Osaka was an empty city. There were no people, not a soul, just the broken buildings they used to live in. No power, not even a few joules left anywhere, holos empty, stores and apartments dark, empty eyes to stare at her, and open mouths to scream. El shook her head. Must have knocked yourself silly in the crash. Or landing. Is it a crash? Anything you walk away from is a landing, Roussel, and you landed that pod like a pro. Buildings that still stood were washed gray by the elements, no bills posted, no street art on the walls.

  Her visor chirped, reminding her that her destination was a mere five klicks away, and asking SHORTEST ROUTE? LEAST TRAFFIC? FASTEST TIME?

  Stupid machines. El selected shortest route, willing to risk downtown Osaka’s traffic at being an all-time low and set off from her crashed pod. There was no time to waste, what with starships on her heels. Whoever sent that star fighter after her would be unlikely to leave her alone, and El would bet good coin on them regrouping for support. Put enough boots on the ground, even in the damned city of Osaka, and you’d be able to get El, no problem.

  • • •

  Five klicks were easy enough to walk if you were used to walking. Most of El’s recent history involved starships, and even hulls more than a klick long like the Troy didn’t provide as many daily steps as a crust-hugger might get. She’d factored in an hour to get to her destination, but after about twenty minutes she developed a twinge in her hip. Her suit was kind enough to suggest CRASH INJURY rather than wear and tear, which she felt was a kindness not often afforded by machines. El adjusted her ETA to seventy-five minutes, a best guess based on available data like you’ve got a concussion and you’ve got a crash injury, and tried not to throw up in her helmet.

  A half hour’s walk saw her at the corner of what might once have been a busy intersection. A few rust stains and undefinable metal suggested where ground cars might have stopped before the war arrived, killing everyone. She heard a noise from her right, spun around, and dropped into a crouch. Her sidearm, the beautiful pistol-sized shotgun a kind man had made for a scared Helm, was in her hand with no conscious recollection of drawing it. Her visor clicked at her, zooming in on a flash of movement. Something small and quick scurried from view. A rat? A cat?

  She racked her memory, trying to remember whether the nanobot swarm that descended on Osaka was particular. Did it eat humans, or anything with lungs? The dead nature of Osaka, the lack of plant regrowth, suggested that whatever it had been before, it had adapted and evolved to eat everything made of carbon. Her sidearm shook in her outstretched hand. You shouldn’t be here, El. You should have picked a nice splashdown off Tahiti. She slid her sidearm back into its holster, then set off again. Whether the nanites had worked out how to mill all life into slurry or not, she still needed to find what Hope had been here so many times for.

  • • •

  Wind had stirred up what an opportunist might have called a dust storm. The air was heavy with particulate, sand — sure, let’s call it sand, it’s the remains of people mixed with ceramicrete — scraping against her ship suit. It gave the Empire’s black a muted, gray look, like she was fading into the surrounding city, swallowed without a trace.

  No way for a Captain of the Skyguard to go. Forgotten, eaten by robots you can’t even see. Like hell. She squared her shoulders, hand dropping to her sidearm, although she knew the weapon was useless against the swarm. Didn’t matter. It made her feel better to have something reliable at her hip.

  The slump of a bunker was visible in the gloom, dust devils eddying and dancing around the entrance maw. El could imagine in her mind’s eye that the place might have once promised safety, and holos would have said to bring in nothing other than your loved ones. People would have run in here, or maybe they hadn’t even made it this far. Cam footage from the war suggested the nanobots the AIs had dropped here were fast.

  Hope had gone into this bunker more than a hundred times. Had she been looking for relics? Evidence of survivors? El shook her head, flicked on her ship suit’s lights, and walked inside.

  Once in the bunker, the remnants of human manufacture were visible. A ceramicrete rectangle resting among crumbled metal might have been a table. A broken pile of glass next to a wall might have been a massive 2D display. Dust and debris clumped together in corners, as if trying to find friends in a place where everyone was gone.

  That was it. A big empty room full of broken shit. No Hope. No complicated Guild machinery.

  Her suit’s lights reflected against something in the gloom, a dull glint of glass or plastic against a wall. El went to it, bending over. At the base of a wall was a stim pack, far newer than the other things in here. If anything screamed HOPE WAS HERE! it was evidence of stim use. Not only had Hope been here, but she’d been working, and working hard. Long nights, or long days, or likely both, nothing but the nanobots and stims for company.

  In an empty room. Didn’t make sense.

  El sighed, then kicked the wall in frustration. There was a click, then a rumble as the wall slid sideways, revealing a passage. Well, shit. That’s something you don’t see every day. El examined the doorway. The machinery that controlled the panel — gears and wheels — looked bright and new. The cuts in the ceramicrete were sharp, not softened by time. Hope had come in here, cut a
secret door, and put something on the other side of it.

  Wasn’t much like Hope to hide things. Although being on the run from the fallen Republic’s justice might lend a certain air of caution to her future endeavors.

  The something on the other side was a short passage, an airlock set at the end of it. El stepped forward, examining the airlock. Standard ship seal, like Hope had recycled it from somewhere. There was an old spaceport in Osaka, so the Engineer might have stripped a hull to get the parts she needed. El flipped the control panel up, then clicked OPEN.

  “Welcome, human!” said a booming voice. It sounded like Hope’s voice, if Hope had tried to deepen it, pretending to be someone else. “Bow before the machines!”

  El jerked back in surprise. “What the fuck?”

  “Sorry!” said the not-quite-Hope voice. “A little AI joke. Ha! Hah. You shouldn’t be here. Humans are for killing!”

  “Hope?” said El. “Is that you? Let me in!”

  “Sorry!” said not-quite-Hope. “Does not compute! Warning! Danger. Warning.”

  “You’re a recording, aren’t you?” said El. Hope had come in here, mined a shaft, and put in a recorded warning. She must have been high or drunk or without sleep for weeks when she did it, because history said the machines didn’t talk to you. They killed you. “Can you open the door?”

  “What’s the passphrase, human?”

  “Fuck,” said El.

  “No! Good try, though.”

  “Open sesame,” said El.

  “No! Another excellent try. I warn you. On the third try, I will render your body to base atoms.”

  El squinted at the door. “Hope wouldn’t do that,” she said. “Hope wouldn’t put weapons here to kill people.”

  “Is that your passphrase? It seems needlessly complex.” The door didn’t open, but neither did it kill her.

  El thought about what Hope might have used for a passphrase. A simple term that would mean something to her. And, maybe, to the people she’d shared time with on a small ex-war heavy lifter, out in the hard black, all while she tried to get home. “Reiko,” she said. “Fucking Reiko.”

  The airlock hissed, seals decoupling, the door yawning wide. El stepped inside, the airlock sealing behind her. Green light lazed out, the room scanning for decontaminants, then was joined by red bursts that rained on El. There was a click, then the interior airlock opened. “Welcome, human,” said not-quite-Hope. “Nanobot disinfection complete. Safety protocols are green.”

  El blinked. “You scrubbed me of nanites?” The door-slash-room didn’t respond. El sighed. She wasn’t ready to remove her helmet just yet. Plenty of time for that when she worked out whether this was a joke, a trap, or a little of both.

  She stepped through the airlock to an interior chamber. It had been milled out of the foundations of the city, cross sections of bedrock and ceramicrete making up the walls. It was clean and dry, as near as El could tell from inside her suit. The chamber had two doors, the airlock she’d entered through and an interior door. The interior door was simple, a sliding affair with an entry panel. A small cot sat against a wall, an unused look about it, the bedding still folded. There was a small kitchen, MREs stacked in a pile, a field recycler against a wall. There was what looked like a coffee machine, a stim dispensary, and a couple of bottles of liquor. The whiskey was near empty, the vodka near full.

  El didn’t want a coffee. She didn’t need vodka. Not yet. Press on. She walked to the interior door, pressing the panel. The door clicked, opening into a larger chamber, the walls still cross sections of Osaka’s underbelly. There was a massive fabricator, Guild design, lights glowing across the front. A console sat next to it, a holo bright with a featureless model of a human, arms and legs outstretched. The 3D model turned in space. There were tools laid on workbenches, most of them unfamiliar to El, but she picked out the shapes of three Engineer’s rigs, all lying dormant. In the middle of the room was a slab, surrounded by tables laden with parts. On the slab, a naked woman lay, eyes closed, face serene.

  “Fuck me,” said El. “Fucking fuck. What have you done, Hope?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOPE’S DRONE WAS floating around the room, scanning everything with lasers and cams, recording the scene for later examination. Her rig chimed, an alarm coming up. Someone was in her lab. That’s not very good. She pulled up a feed from the cams outside the lab and saw El squinting up at the airlock door. “Uh,” said Hope. “I’ve got to go.”

  Ottavia turned to her. “You what? We’re kind of in the middle of something here. Insects, Hope. The roaches are here.”

  “Yeah, so,” said Hope. “Not an Engineering problem?”

  “You’re right,” said Ottavia. “They’re an everything problem.” She narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” said Hope. “Oh. Probably nothing.” She hadn’t even known El was in system, let alone on Earth. She pulled up their comm drop logs. Oh. El’s crash landed after arriving here in an escape pod. That’s bad. “Well. It’s something. See, my friend—”

  “This isn’t the time for dealing with whoever stole your lunch from the Guild refrigerator, Hope. We’ve got to get a team here.” Ottavia pointed at the hole in the wall. “The bugs are in Osaka.”

  “My friend is Captain of the Skyguard,” said Hope. “She’s crashed in Osaka, too.”

  “Roussel is here?” Ottavia blinked. “Why is she here?”

  “That’s why I’ve got to go,” said Hope. “Because, um.” She scuffed a boot through the debris. “I don’t think she meant to come here.”

  “Bugs and a crashed captain, got it,” said Ottavia. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence either. Sorry. I figured, you haven’t had a lot of sleep, and are probably high, so your decision-making is impaired.”

  “It might still be,” said Hope. “I’m not sure. Everything seems so…” She trailed off, trying to find the word. “Hard. Everything seems hard, since I got back to Earth.”

  Holly cleared her throat. “I know this is all important super-secret ‘for the Empire’ stuff, but we also have the teensy issue of what happened to our Guild Lab,” she said.

  “Guys,” said Owain, over the comm. “Guys? We might have a problem.”

  “Add it to the list,” snapped Holly.

  “It’s—” started Owain, before his comm cut out.

  The three of them looked at each other. “Owain?” said Hope. “You there?” Nothing came back. Hope checked the comm fabric between their suits. Holly, Ottavia, and Hope, all still there. Owain’s rig? Gone from the network, like it had been snipped off. “Uh,” said Hope. “I think we should go.”

  “Good idea,” said Holly, walking towards the doorway.

  “Not that way,” said Hope. “That’s the way Owain went.”

  “We’ve got to help him,” said Holly.

  Ottavia shook her head, a lock of hair freeing itself inside her visor. “If it’s downed comms, he’s an Engineer. He can fix it himself. If his suit’s breached, he’s past helping. And if it’s Ezeroc…” She shrugged. “Similar outcome to a breached suit.”

  “Through here,” suggested Hope, pointing at the hole in the wall where the Ezeroc Queen must have left through.

  “No way,” said Holly, turning and running back the way they’d come.

  “Okay,” said Hope. She turned to Ottavia. “Which way are you going?”

  “No way I’m going back that way,” said Ottavia. “I can’t hear any of the roaches, but there’s … something. No, wait. Roaches. They’re coming.” She drew her sidearm, a vicious-looking repeater, and hefted her blade. “You good with a gun?”

  “No,” said Hope. “I’m an Engineer.”

  “Stay back,” said Ottavia. “Chad’ll have my head if you die.” She ducked low, heading towards the breached wall. Ottavia looked outside, then looked back at Hope. “Looks clear.”

  A scream came over the comm, cut off. Hope looked back the way they’d come, then shuddered. “Run,�
� she suggested.

  Ottavia ducked out, Hope on her heels. Outside, a dust storm swirled, like a god had started up their very own leaf blower. Hope’s drone flitted out behind her.

  The side of the Lab deposited them into an alley, wide and open, the opposite wall a moldering building. Ottavia moved ahead, her stance low, the white of her suit somehow still gleaming despite the dust. Hope’s rig clacked as she followed, the four arms reconfiguring at her command. Two shears, two claws. Pulling or cutting. Hope didn’t want it to come to that, because if one of the bugs got close enough for those to be effective, she was dead anyway. She remembered what a partially-formed one, living inside the husk of a turned Navy admiral, had done on the Tyche. Hope had been knocked out and stuck to a wall before she could even get out a hi how are you.

  Ottavia paused up front, two Ezeroc drones chittering into view. They were as Hope remembered, insect-like centaurs, six legs holding their main body, with an upright torso, armed with two stabbing limbs. They hissed at Ottavia. The Empire’s Bulwark officer didn’t appear to think, her repeater hammering the air with bright blue-white bolts of plasma. One of the Ezeroc dissolved in a rain of burning chitin. The other came for Ottavia, and she turned on it, firing. Her repeater spat bright bolts of plasma faster than Hope could count, bits of Ezeroc falling back, the wall behind it fracturing as pieces of ceramicrete shattered.

  Silence. The glow of Ottavia’s blaster muzzle, cooling from white-hot down to orange. Ottavia cleared her throat. “They die easier than you’d expect.”

  “No,” said Hope. “They know how we work. This keeps us off balance. We’re supposed to be scared.” She squinted at her drone. “I don’t think it helps knowing that. I’m still scared.”

  “Me too,” said Ottavia. “Me too, Hope. Let’s make a move for the shuttle.”

  They jogged, side by side, towards the mouth of the alley. Rubble slid down to Hope’s right, and she looked, but saw nothing. Her drone soared higher, green light reaching out, then with a zzzzzsh of thrust it darted forward, angry red light finding a target. Something hissed before whatever the drone was firing at pop-crunched. Hope pulled up the drone’s primary camera into a corner of her HUD. The drone was circling the remains of an Ezeroc it had sliced into pieces. It looked like some of the fluids in the carapace had superheated and exploded. Good enough.