Tarkos slammed into the front of his suit. He coughed from a violent compression against his chest, watching a jumble of walls and corners tumble through his view. For a second he could not tell where he moved, but only that he moved. Then his thoughts caught up with his body, and he found that he bounced down the hall. He smacked hard into the back of his suit when he hit the wall. He fell to the floor and rolled. His visor went black, the safety protocols protecting his eyes. A camera visual booted up. Dust and debris moved in sharp trajectories all around him. He’d seen many explosions in vacuum, but the sight remained eerie: matter flew in sharp arcs, and flames flared and died quickly. Often in vacuum you couldn’t place the center of the explosion, and its effects seemed to flicker erratically.
A robot leg bounced past him, followed by a second, unrecognizable limb.
“Bria,” he coughed. He climbed to his knees, but his head reeled and he fell again. A mild concussion, he realized. His suit whined with damage warnings.
“Report,” Bria growled.
“Some kind—” he coughed and tasted blood. He’d bit his lip when his head snapped back. The hall spun, and for a moment he could not tell what direction was up.
“Some explosion.”
He managed to reach down to his thigh and send the command to his armor to extrude a pistol. He pulled the weapon free and tossed it into the debris. It sprouted thin wire legs as it fell, and landed already running. He interfaced with its view and he watched as it ran to the lip of the interior chamber of the weapon.
Limbs and torsos of robots rained past, falling down the length of the barrel. His gun looked up. A black figure clung to the pale glowing spire of the particle generator. It looked to Tarkos like an Ulltrian—and he thought for a moment that it was an Ulltrian, dressed in a black and gray suit of vacuum armor. But then he realized the limbs were too far too thin, like blades of sharp metal. And though this thing had the shape of a huge scorpion, it lacked an Ulltrian’s scorpion tail.
“A drone,” he radioed to Bria. “A warrior robot. Clearly Ulltrian design. It’s on—damn, its on the particle generator. I can’t shoot it without harming the weapon, and probably killing us all in the process.”
“Share tactical information,” Bria commanded.
Tarkos cursed himself for not following protocol. He linked his gun’s view with Bria’s data stream.
Tarkos got to his feet and moved as quickly as he dared to the end of the hall. He stopped just out of view of the Ulltrian drone.
“Destroy drone,” Bria said. She cut the communication.
Tarkos rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he grumbled.
“We have entered the orbital trajectory,” Tiklik transmitted. “We must fire the weapon in twenty minutes.”
“Great,” Tarkos shouted in English. “Everything at once.”
A black figure bounced into the doorway. It was about to fall over the edge but Tarkos reached forward out of reflex and grabbed a limb. He pulled.
A Neelee design robot. It looked like a Neelee. More than that, it looked familiar.
Tarkos set it on its feet in the hall, out of the line of fire. A sparking wound down the side of one leg seemed to be the only damage it had sustained.
“No chance you are Neelee-bot, are you?” Tarkos asked.
“The probability that I am the made mind you named ‘Neelee-bot’ is 1.”
“Small world,” Tarkos said in English.
He pulled the robot farther from the opening. “Do you know if there are more than one of those attack drones?”
“We have identified only one unknown design military made mind. It was attempting to take direct control of the weapon’s central targeting systems.”
Tarkos looked through the camera views of his gun. The Ulltrian robot just sat there, patiently picking off robots that worked on the interior of the weapon. “Shooting robots in a barrel,” he hissed. “Listen, Neelee-bot, we have to get that thing through the fracture in the hull, and outside, where I can fight it without destroying the particle generator or its power source. I’m going to go out there and try to seize it. Can you make sure there’s a clear path through the hull? I mean, make sure there are no bots in the fracture, or any equipment in there that would block my way.”
“That is suboptimal,” the bot said, tilting its narrow black head.
“Why?”
“Only you can fight the unknown made mind weapon. Any of the robots can move it. If you wait outside, the probability of success is greatly increased.”
“How the hell are you going to move that thing? It’ll cut you to pieces.”
“We are many,” the robot said. “I will call for the assistance of the others.”
As it said this, Tarkos saw through his gun great hurrying crowds of black robots begin to climb out of the ports along the sides of the weapon’s barrel. The robots swarmed upward, climbing toward the Ulltrian drone. While they came, a handful of engineering robots rushed out of the access ports for the particle generator. The drone began to cut into them, its lasers invisible but for the sparking damage they did to the approaching robots. It was a massacre, but it kept the Ulltrian robot busy, not giving it time to attack the Neelee weapon.
Tarkos holstered his pistol and climbed out onto the interior of the weapon. He ran along the access ring. Neelee-bot leapt out behind him and ran in the opposite direction.
Tarkos looked up. The surge of robots had surrounded the Ulltrian drone. Only two limbs of the Ulltrian drone could be seen under the black chaotic tangle of robots that now leapt onto it. Limbs and parts of the robots rained down, spitting flames and gas as they fell. But as robots died, other robots kept coming. And they moved the drone, slowly, inexorably, toward the end of the spike.
A group of robots that looked like Neelee-bot climbed past Tarkos, scaling the wall in a furious rush toward the particle generator.
Sparks tore at the metal behind Tarkos, as laser beams cut into the hull. The Ulltrian drone had aimed either at him or the crowd of robots climbing beside him. But the onslaught of robots ruined the drone’s targeting and it hit nothing.
Tarkos stopped when the beams ceased. He looked up toward the particle generator. For a moment he thought the robots—now a huge black mass, all seething limbs and violent churning that completely surrounded the drone—were succeeding in moving the drone quickly toward the end of the spire. But then he realized that the mass of robots fell. They had lost their hold—maybe the drone had cut it out from under them. And the mass, with the drone at its center, now dropped free. Tarkos had thought they could drag it outside, but this could be a better solution: if the robots could keep it from getting loose, and from firing upwards at the generator, then they would drop it down the barrel of the weapon.
If Tarkos followed, there would be no way to get back to the weapon, but protecting the weapon was the priority here.
Tarkos pressed back against the wall, crouched, and leapt.
_____
“Commander?” Tarkos called, between gasps. He had lost his breath, as he struggled to get a grapple line attached to the falling heap of robots. He fell directly behind them, his leap had been good, but the gap between them remained stubbornly too large.
Parts of robots were methodically being flung away, but other robots seemed always to move in closer to take the place of their dismembered comrades. Soon, however, the drone would be free. The mass of robots was being, literally, cut away a piece at a time. Tarkos had to ensure that the drone, once free, could do no harm to the weapon. He had to be ready for this fight.
He fell only about ten meters above the mass, but the gap slowly grew. They had gained a lot of speed, relative to the weapon. But they were still in the barrel of the weapon: he needed to ensure the fight went outside.
“Commander?” he radioed again.
“The commander is out of range, over.”
Tarkos recognized the voice. “Captain. Why?”
“The Savannah Runner ha
s fired on us. The commander is attempting to intercept the missiles. Your commander left a while ago. On your ship. We tried radioing the Savannah Runner, but its AI seems confused, even damaged at this point. It keeps putting us into a comm que.”
“Damn,” Tarkos said, switching to English. “Could things get worse?”
“Yes. The ripple—the violent wave in space time caused by whatever is in those rings—it’s growing in power.”
“Please tell me captain that you are going to burn the rings. Please tell me we’re sticking with the plan.”
A long silence followed. A robot tumbled away from the twirling mass below. Then two others. Tarkos could see several of the limbs of the Ulltrian drone now. Only a few robots remained to harry it.
“It seems we have no choice,” the captain said quietly. “But there is the matter that you are in the barrel of the weapon.”
“Fire when you have to. I’m one person. There are billions on Neelee-ornor. Don’t hesitate.”
“Well,” the Captain said, “don’t try to be heroic just yet. We have a few minutes till we are in firing position.”
“Alright, Captain, I have an idea. Can you get me a tight beam hyper-radio transmission to the Savannah Runner? I have a back channel worth trying.”
The face of the drone emerged from the tumbling mass. A laser lanced out and cut a burning trail in the interior hull by Tarkos’s side. But a robot seized the limb with the laser, and bent it back toward the drone’s head. The drone cut the beam.
A comm icon appeared in Tarkos’s data space. “This is a personal message to Pietro Danielle,” he recorded. “Highest personal priority. Pietro, we’re trying to use the big gun to stop the symbionts in the rings. You have to stop the Savanah Runner’s attacks on us.”
Tarkos was surprised when a message came back in a few seconds. “Amir?”
“Pietro! I hoped that AI would shunt a personal message to you. Less overhead than putting it in queue.”
“You’re on the moving weapon platform?”
“Yes. We have control. We’re going to clean the rings. Savannah Runner has fired on us. You have to decommission those missiles.”
Danielle’s voice came back over a scream of static. “Things are bad here, Amir. We… near hits. The AI is confused… inoperable. I’ll have to….”
“Pietro,” Tarkos shouted. “I missed that last bit in a hiss of static.”
“I said I’ll have to go personally down to the war coordination center.”
“Please, Pietro. We’re trying to save Neelee-ornor.”
“All—”
His voice was interrupted when a big mass slammed into Tarkos: one of the robots flung away by the drone. Tarkos spun as it bounced off him and careened away.
The drone was free, completely unhampered below. From above, it looked like a silverfish, an evil arthropod with laser-tipped razors for limbs.
Tarkos pointed his head at the drone and fired all the jets in his suit. They added a small bit of thrust to his fall.
The drone pointed one limb at the wall and fired a grappling line. The hook bit in, slowing its fall, and then Tarkos slammed into the back of the drone.
They swung down and collided with the hull, just a few meters from the end of the weapon. The white of the rings filled the view below. Tarkos coughed because the wind was knocked out of him, and then the drone somehow flipped—no, its head and weapons pivoted on an independent axis, turning 180 degrees while the rest of it clung to the wall. It aimed a laser at Tarkos’s head and fired.
CHAPTER 10
Bria drove the cruiser at three Sussurat gees on a direct intercept course for the incoming missiles. Her vision collapsed to a narrow cone as the blood struggled to make it to her brain. She eased the engine power up as the inertial dampers slowly, slowly began to take effect. She settled at an apparent two Sussurat gees, her vision clearing even if her movements were slowed.
The missiles were fast, and coming directly for the weapon. The Savannah Runner had launched them while the flagship remained still half way between Neelee-ornor’s moon and the planet, so they had a long distance to cross. That meant the Zoroastrian had some lead, but since Bria headed straight for the missiles, her firing options were limited. She set a ramming course for the missile farthest in the back. She would have to try to take out the other three with lasers. The prospects were not good, given that many of the cruiser’s systems remained damaged, and the firing controls and navigation were not fully functional. The ship’s ability to repair itself was limited, and it had not had sufficient time.
“Commander,” a voice came. A human woman. The captain, perhaps.
“Yes,” Bria croaked.
“We must fire the weapon in ten seconds.”
“Execute plan.”
“Harmonizer Tarkos is still in the barrel.”
Bria hesitated. What could she say? That she and Tarkos had nearly died a hundred times, and now it had finally come? She had long suspected she would die in battle, fighting alongside the small, uncouth, smelly human. Did this count: being kilomeasures apart, but fighting in the same struggle?
Yes. It counted. She showed her teeth and held her eyes open wide, to honor him.
The cruiser had come into nominal firing range of the first missile. Bria reached forward and touched the firing command, targeting the ship’s lasers and particle weapons at the missile.
“Execute plan,” she repeated to the Captain. Then she cut the line.
_____
Tarkos jerked his head aside, recoiling reflexively from the barrel aimed at his face by the Ulltrian kill drone. His suit screamed in protest, and half of his view went black as a laser beam cooked all the sensors on the right side of his helmet.
He brought his fist down on the laser in an atavistic impulse, using all the force of his power-assisted armor. He felt a satisfying crack through the haptics in his gloves. The fist continued on, hit the drone’s body, and skittered across its frame. Through the haptics in the gloves he felt that small spikes, no doubt sharpened to nano-scale points, covered the drone’s skin. Touched by real flesh, this surface would tear skin away. Tarkos wondered if other drones like this one hunted Neelee on the surface below, murdering children, tearing citizens apart.
Tarkos had extruded all his suits weapons as he had fallen down the barrel. He did not have time to target. With both arms pressed against the drone, he fired everything down and forward.
Sparks filled his partial view. The drone jerked violently, throwing him off. He fell backwards.
“Damn!” he cursed, clawing at the air, certain that the drone had managed to fling him away. But his gloves found and seized onto hard ceramic metal. Both he and the drone were falling.
His beams, he realized, had cut the drone’s grappling line, dropping them both.
The drone fired another grapple. It hit the side of the barrel just as they fell out of the weapon. The line snapped taut and swung them tightly around. But they swung through empty black space. They had fallen free, past the end of the barrel. The grappling line swung them out and up, toward the outside hull of the weapon.
In the long arc through space, Tarkos prepared himself, twisting to put his feet forward. He landed on his feet on the outside of the weapon. His boots clung, forming a solid grip. He cleared his visor, using real light visuals. The suit protested the action as dangerous but Tarkos angrily repeated the command.
He wobbled uneasily. He stood on the outside of the hull, and given their acceleration this meant he stood horizontally. The grips and magnets in his boots just managed to get a hold of the strange hull material. But he felt slippage as he moved one foot to have a better stance.
The drone clung to the hull before him, the white rings of Neelee-ornor behind it. It slowly rose, stretching and extending. Tarkos swallowed. The drone had looked small before, crowded over with other robots. Now it stood nearly three meters tall. Its thin body flexed. It aimed two, then four limbs at his head.
So quickly that Tarkos could only flinch, it scurried forward. In a blur it slammed into him. His boots still clung to the hull, so that the force squeezed him into a crouch. He reached out and grabbed the two legs that turned towards him, aiming narrow glass-tipped lasers at his torso. He grunted with the effort to push them away. But the drone’s strength exceeded that of his suit or the drone had better leverage. Slowly, the arms bent forward, moving into position to cut him slowly, methodically in half.
A crackle sounded in his helmet. Incoming communication.
“Amir? Amir, we… I….”
It was Danielle’s voice. “Listen!” Tarkos shouted. He began to plan his speech: tell my mother that I love her, tell Bria it has been an honor; this has been a great life, to go from oppressed Palestinian kid to Harmonizer of the star-spanning Galactic Alliance, and—
But Danille kept talking. “Amir, I hope you get this. I made it to weapons control. I’ve convinced them to stop firing on you. But Amir, things are—”
His voice cut out in a hiss of static, then came back loud. “Things are bad here. Incoming Ulltrian fire is focussed on this section of Savannah Runner. We can’t stop the missiles that we already launched at you. We can’t even—”
Silence. Tarkos growled. The drone had him in its aim now. But it did not fire. Instead, it took a moment to press forward. It wanted to push the weapons up against him, to ensure the beams hit him maximum power.
Alarms sounded in Tarkos’s helmet. A wave of radiation approached and grew in strength all around them. His suit ramped up an emergency strength Farraday field to protect him, diverting all energy to generating a magnetic bubble.
His Farraday field washed over the Ulltrian drone. The drone reared back, its limbs shaking wildly, as if it were having a seizure.
My suit’s Farraday field is like an EM pulse, Tarkos realized. This close, my shields are interfering with all the drone’s electronics.
Tarkos overrode the energy diversion to shields, to give his suit power for weapons. He aimed his arms at the two legs that held the drone to the hull. He fired a laser at each. Both of the black limbs sparked and shattered.
Ice Sky Storm Page 11
