The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  “Ears are ringing something fierce, but yeah.”

  Dash turned to Amy.

  Leira had already rushed forward and was kneeling beside her, helping her sit up. Blood oozed from a deep gash that started just below her neck, transected across her collarbone, and continued up to the top of her shoulder. Her face had gone pale with shock, but she was forcing herself to grin.

  “Well, that was…” Amy stopped, wincing. “Dumb. Guess I zigged when…when I should have zagged, eh, cuz?”

  Leira nodded, smiling through the terrified look tightening her face. “Yeah. Way to go.”

  Viktor, who’d been rummaging quickly through his backpack, pulled out a metallic cylinder and immediately sprayed its contents along the track of Amy’s wound. “This is clean-clot,” he said. “Afraid this cut of yours is a little too nasty for first aid gel. It’s probably going to—”

  “Ow, shit!”

  “—sting a little.”

  “Will that be enough?” Conover asked. Dash saw the same look on his face that Leira had on hers; if anything, his concern came through as even more frantic and intense. But he hung back to give her some space. Conover’s frantic presence was enough for a healthy person, let alone someone suffering combat wounds.

  “For now, it should stop the worst of the bleeding and keep the pain down to a dull roar.” Viktor looked up at Dash. “But we do need to get her some proper medical aid as soon as it's convenient.”

  He kept his tone casual, almost flippant, but Dash could read the hard look in Viktor’s eyes as though he held up a placard.

  She needs medical attention as soon as possible. Without it, she’s probably going to die.

  Dash gave a confident nod, his gaze level. “Sure. Let’s get out of here for some proper care, but for the moment, we’ve got you. Okay, Amy?”

  She controlled her breathing with an effort, teeth held close as the pain threatened to get away from her. “Sure. Yeah. I got worse than this—” She stopped, groaned and snapped out a curse under her breath. “—from some tools…I’ve had to use.”

  “Maybe I can help.”

  We all turned to see Freya.

  “You’re not a doctor, are you?” Ragsdale said.

  “No, I’m not. But I do have a few more cylinders of clean-clot. Oh, and I grew up on an ag-planet. Cuts and the like aren’t uncommon when you’re working with farming tech.”

  She knelt beside Amy and examined the wound. “This is serious,” she said, looking back up at Dash and Ragsdale. Dash allowed himself a terse nod and nothing more.

  Amy nodded. “I know it is.” Her eyes flicked to Dash. “I’m sorry. I know this…doesn’t make things any easier.” She winced as Freya squeezed a gaping part of her wound gently closed and applied more clean-clot. Freya causally flicked away a ribbon of blood as she worked.

  Dash gave Amy a look, pointing at her wound. “Never apologize when you’re bleeding. New rule on the Forge.”

  “Got it, boss,” Amy hissed, but she valiantly tried to grin. She made it halfway.

  “Okay, since no one else is going to ask this, I will,” Leira said, looking from Amy to Freya—though not for long. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Freya looked up from Amy’s wound, opened her mouth, but closed it again and sighed. “I followed you.”

  “You followed us?” Ragsdale said. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because this isn’t my first time here,” Freya replied. “Far from it, in fact. I’ve been here, in this ship, many times before.”

  The silence around Freya had a weight as the enormity of her statement sank in.

  “You’ve what?” Ragsdale said, eyes wide. “You’ve known about all of this? For how long?”

  “Some months now.”

  “The plants,” Conover said.

  Dash gave him a questioning look. “What specifically about them? Their makeup, or purpose?”

  “The ones we saw her working with when we arrived seemed well beyond healthy,” Conover said.

  “And glowed,” Viktor said. “Don’t forget, some of them were glowing.”

  “They came from here, didn’t they?” Conover said to Freya.

  She nodded. “They did. Most of them, anyway. A few came from the edge of the jungle, which starts only a few klicks west of here. They weren’t as robust as the ones from this ship, though. I guess the ship’s influence just happens to extend that far.”

  Ragsdale held up a hand. “So, wait. You’re telling me you found this wrecked and obviously alien ship and, instead of telling anyone about it, you decided to make it your own personal project. You’ve been coming inside here, taking things out, and bringing them back to Port Hannah? Alien things. Living alien things. And you never thought it might be a good idea to mention that?”

  Freya gave a sheepish shrug. “I was concerned about losing access to the ship. I mean, every other time I’ve been here, it’s just been dead.” She nodded toward the wrecked bots. “None of these things were around, nothing was moving, nothing was doing anything. When I found out you were coming here, I thought I’d follow you in for one last try at recovering some more plants. After that, I figured this would all be off-limits.”

  “Damned right it would be!” Ragsdale snapped.

  “Okay, hang on a second,” Dash said. “This is all important stuff to be thrashed out, but right now, I have what I think is a far more urgent question.” He turned to pin Freya with a look that could freeze water. “I’ll ask this once, because we’re a bit pressed. How the hell did you get in here?”

  “A damned good question,” Leira said. “You had to have started behind us—but now you’re somehow ahead of us. So you either know a faster way of getting from the back of this ship to here, or—”

  “Or you know another way in,” Viktor finished.

  “Three other ways, actually,” Freya said.

  Dash blinked at her. “Three other ways in. I’d say we’ve found our expert.”

  “Maybe not an expert, but—"

  “That means you know three other ways out,” Dash said.

  Freya nodded.

  “Then I’ll save any surprise for later, and appoint you the assistant pathfinder for our venture. We’ve got a wounded crew member, Golden bots on our ass, and not many options. Let’s focus on survival first, and disciplinary actions later, understood?” Dash said, taking Freya and Ragsdale in with a sweeping look.

  Ragsdale rubbed the back of his neck. “Fair enough.” He swung a hard scowl onto Freya. “When we are out, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  Freya gave a downcast nod. “I know.”

  “You told us you collected those plants from the jungle,” Ragsdale snapped, as they started gathering themselves to resume moving. “That you’d vetted them thoroughly for any possible health risks to the colony.”

  “Which is true!” Freya said. “At least, mostly true. Some of the plants did come from the jungle, like I said. But I’m sure they pose no health risks to anyone. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  “That’s not reassuring,” Ragsdale shot back, but his frown faded when he looked at Amy again. There would be time for petty grievances later.

  They put Freya to work helping Conover carry the Golden corpse, while Leira assisted Amy. That left only Dash, Ragsdale, and Conover immediately ready to fight.

  “Pool ammo for me, Ragsdale, and Conover,” Dash said. We’ll take point for the rest of you.”

  Freya jerked her head back at her own backpack. “I’ve got at least two hundred rounds with me. Take as much as you want.”

  Dash immediately moved to open her pack and dig out the ammo. A bit of good news, for a change. “Thought you figured this ship was dead because you’d never run into any trouble in here. Why bring this much ammo with you, then?”

  “Well, it might have seemed dead,” Freya replied, “but it’s still obviously a big alien ship. Wouldn’t you bring a whole bunch of ammo with you, just in case?”

 
; Dash closed her backpack and sealed it. “Yeah, I definitely would. Which means you at least suspected this place might be trouble.”

  Ragsdale leaned in. “Which, I assure you, Freya, we will be talking about—at length.”

  As they started toward an exit to a corridor Freya had indicated was the way to go, Dash reflected on the iron edge in Ragsdale’s voice. He knew a proven commander when he heard one and marked Ragsdale as more than just a capable fighter.

  Dash knew he had an ally.

  The path Freya described led them not just forward, but also to the right. She’d told them it should only take about half an hour to reach the exit back to the surface. Dash had her describe it to him, then he passed the description on to Sentinel.

  “Yes, I can discern what appears to be that exit. There is a narrow canyon in the nearby ridge, with a cave in its left-hand wall. I can scan a passage that leads into the canyon wall and downward, but only for about fifty meters. Interference from the Golden ship prevents my scanning any further or deeper, and even interrupts the accuracy of my scans at the surface level to some extent. This is a function of the presence of so much Dark Metal,” Sentinel said.

  Dash held out his arms. “Which way?”

  Without hesitation, Freya pointed. “That way. It’s the quickest way out of here, though the climb up through the cave is a little steep.” She frowned. “Who was that you were just talking to, anyway? I only saw Alec up on the surface.”

  “No, no,” Ragsdale snapped. “Your questions come after ours. For now, you just accept everything we say or do, got it?”

  Freya gave a glum nod, and they trudged on. Finally, they rounded a corner, started up yet another corridor—and stopped. The way ahead was blocked by a closed set of doors.

  “Those were open,” Freya said. “They’ve always been open.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re closed now,” Dash replied. They approached the doors cautiously, stopping just short.

  Dash looked around, seeking evidence of an access panel, then realized that kind of access was superfluous. All he likely had to do was touch the wall.

  He looked at his gloved hand, then back up at the others.

  “The last time I did this, the Golden keyed into my presence almost immediately, and started hammering away at the firewalls and barriers Sentinel has put in place,” Dash said.

  “Trying to, what, hack your brain?” Viktor asked.

  “In a sense. More like piracy. The Golden want control over all aspects of my mind, not just the ability to access their tech.”

  Dash wondered if it was even possible to survive a successful mental assault by the Golden, as they weren’t the kind of race that seemed concerned with things like pain thresholds or nerve receptors.

  “We have to get through this door,” Freya said.

  Ragsdale shot her a hard look. “I thought you said there were three other ways out, besides the way we came in.”

  “There are. Two of them, including the quickest one, are past this door. The third isn’t a very good route. It goes through a part of the ship that’s badly damaged, even unstable. There are parts that look like they might just collapse at any time. And, anyway, it’s slow, awkward, and roundabout.”

  “How much of this damned wreck have you explored?’

  She shrugged. “A lot of it.”

  “All on your own. And without telling anyone you were here.”

  Freya managed another sheepish nod.

  Ragsdale opened his mouth, as though he was going to say something more, but just closed it again, shaking his head.

  “Stow that for later,” Dash said. “If I have to touch this wall, I’m exposed—and that means you’re all vulnerable as well.”

  Leira looked up from Amy, who sat against the bulkhead, pale and clammy with a sheen of sweat. “We need to get out of here as fast as we can, Dash. Really.”

  More blood oozed from Amy’s wound, despite the liberal application of clean-clot and even some first aid gel. Without those treatments, she would no doubt have bled out by now. But all they were doing was keeping her alive—for the moment, anyway.

  Dash pulled off his glove. “Sentinel, can you augment the firewalls without cooking off my nervous system?”

  “I will do what I can.”

  “I don’t mind pain, but I need my cognitive capacities. Please be gentle.”

  “Of course.”

  Dash looked at his companions. “If something goes wrong—if it looks like things are getting out of control and I might become a danger to you guys, somehow—”

  “We’ll yank you away from that wall,” Viktor said.

  Dash started to say, no, you do whatever you need to…you shoot me, if you have to. But he saw the look in Viktor’s eyes, and in Leira’s, and those of the rest, and knew they were only too aware of the choices they might have to make in the next moment or two.

  “Okay,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”

  Dash touched the bulkhead, and the stars came to him like a river of whispers.

  The rush of data was no longer a sedate flow around him, it was rising like a hard tide. It was a torrent, and it crashed against him, a thundering wave that sought to crush him, then wash him away, lost in some sort of cyber-oblivion. Dash knew Sentinel couldn’t protect him against this and made to withdraw.

  It didn’t matter. He gritted his teeth and ignored it, focusing on the task at hand. He had to get those doors open.

  And—there. He was able to tease out the miniscule trickle of data that was the door control. I’m getting pretty good at this, he thought, and sent a command, along with power, to open the doors.

  Nothing happened.

  He saw another trickle of information merging with the door’s flow. And another merging with that. He followed them back upstream, working out how myriad rivulets of data were being brought together and either combined or, in a few instances, directed into a parallel flow. It all combined into a single, coherent picture—a plan, originating somewhere in the looming background intelligence that was the totality of the Golden ship.

  As soon as Dash realized what was happening, the raging torrent shifted, realigning its terrible focus from whatever had drawn it, directly onto him.

  Sentinel’s firewalls immediately bent, like flimsy barriers trying to hold back a flood. In another instant, they’d buckle and collapse.

  Something flung Dash out of the flow, out of the river’s fury, as though he’d been scooped up and deposited—gasping, blinking, and entirely disoriented—in some other place.

  “Dash?”

  He turned to the voice. A face. Older man, kind of grizzled. Had a writing stylus tucked behind one ear.

  “Viktor?”

  The engineer frowned. “Are you alright? What happened?”

  Dash took a moment to get himself reoriented. He was back in the real world. But he almost hadn’t been able to make it. He’d almost been swept away and lost.

  “How long was I…well, in there?” he asked Viktor.

  “No time at all, really. You touched the wall, then yanked your hand away and here you are.”

  “Sentinel, what happened?” Dash asked.

  “I extracted you from your connection with the Golden systems. You were at very high risk from the ship’s intrusion countermeasures once they locked on your location.”

  Dash took a long, slow breath. “Yeah. They seemed to have trouble finding me at first.”

  “I created an artificial intrusion to deflect their attention from you by using your Meld with the Creators’ technology. Essentially, I created another, much more obvious version of you, while putting all available defensive measures to work concealing the actual you.”

  “Oh. Okay, that was damned clever.”

  “Unfortunately, it only worked until you actually began to interact with the ship’s systems. Moreover, it is unlikely to work a second time.”

  “Dash?” Leira said, looking past him. “What about the door? It isn’t open.”
/>
  “Yeah. I know. I commanded it to open, but it can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” he said, looking at it, “it’s being held shut from the other side.”

  Desperation tightened Leira’s face. Or tightened it more, actually. “Being held shut? What do you mean?”

  They all looked at the still-sealed door now with alarm. Ragsdale raised his carbine closer to his shoulder.

  “I mean being held shut. There are two robots, just on the other side. They’re holding the door closed. And they’re way too strong for the door mechanism to overcome them.”

  “How do you know that?” Freya asked, and Dash just shrugged.

  “It’s a long story. Suffice it to say, I can communicate with this ship because of who I am and what I am.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’m also the catalyst for this—awakening, if you can call it that. I rang the bell, and the Golden came to the door.”

  “It’s because of you,” Conover said, nodding his understanding. “It was dormant until the Golden answered.”

  “So the signal it was sending,” Viktor said, “that Custodian detected—that must have been an automated response to whatever signal the Harbinger sent right before it attacked the Forge.”

  Dash nodded. “Yeah. Probably a distress beacon or something even more simplistic, like an interruption code—a tripwire, like they’re so fond of using. So that’s how I know those robots are right on the other side.”

  “It’s hard to imagine two of those little bots being strong enough to actually hold it closed,” Ragsdale said, but Dash shook his head at that.

  “It’s not the same small bots we’ve been running into. Those are just utility bots. They can repurpose what are meant to be tools into weapons, but they’re still really just maintenance machines. No, what’s on the other side of that door is much bigger, much nastier.”

  “Dreadfoot,” Conover said.

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Now Ragsdale did raise his carbine at the door. “So we’d better get ready. They might come through any second.”