The Messenger

by J. N. Chaney

  You are taxing the Archetype to the edge of its available power. I therefore strongly recommend—

  “What part of no aren’t you getting?” Dash oriented himself on the distant Slipwing and prepared to launch himself after it. “Again, shut down everything you don’t need to move fast or keep me alive.”

  Understood.

  Dash should have marveled over the fact he’d just browbeaten an ancient and super-sophisticated alien AI into conforming to his wishes. But he simply didn’t have time for that. Despite possessing almost god-like powers, he suddenly craved the company of humans, and that meant Leira, Viktor, and even Conover, annoying little shit that he was.

  Dash flung himself into unSpace, his course firmly set on the Slipwing.

  “Hang on a little longer, guys,” he said, “I’m on my way.”

  19

  Once more, Dash plunged out of unSpace to find Clan Shirna waiting for him. This flotilla was much larger, at least a dozen ships—including Nathis’s flagship. Dash considered what the Archetype had available. It had again regenerated much, but not all of its available power. He had several shots each from the dark-lance and distortion cannon, and about a dozen missile, that was it. However, the shield had fully recuperated, so he had that. And the Archetype had managed to repair away most of the damage it had suffered in that last battle—most, but not all.

  So despite the advantage of hyper-advanced alien tech, Nathis and Clan Shirna definitely had the edge here.

  Whatever. Dash had never let improbable odds get in the way before. Why start now?

  Still, the Clan Shirna ships hadn’t reacted to his arrival. Had they not detected him?

  “Aw, shit!”

  No. They had detected the Slipwing, which had been caught in the gravity well of a huge planet, a gas giant, and was now falling toward the banded cloud-layers of its upper atmosphere.

  “Oh, for…transmit the same code you did before, same channel!”

  Dash watched as the silent Slipwing continued its plunge toward the vast planet, then her emissions spiked as she came back to life. He waited for Leira to light the fusion drive and burn away from the gas giant. Instead, though, she turned and powered toward it, apparently deliberately diving for the roiling clouds.

  For a moment, Dash just gaped. “Leira, what the hell are you…?”

  But he got it. The Clan Shirna ships had opened fire, a salvo of missiles that left the Slipwing, stuck between them and the planet, with nowhere to go. Dropping into the gas giant’s upper atmosphere was her least terrible option. If she could keep the ship under control in the chaotic, wind-whipped atmosphere, the missiles would almost certainly lose their lock, and she’d be able to pick and choose where and when she reemerged from the turbulent shell of gas.

  If gas giants were truly hostile environments. Winds howled at a thousand kilometers per hour or more, the gases themselves were toxic, corrosive, and ensured she’d be flying blind…and if she didn’t keep control, and dropped too far into the thing, the increasing pressure would eventually crush the Slipwing to flattened scrap.

  “You’re only borrowing my ship, Leira,” Dash said, “so don’t you break it. Or you’re paying for it.” Orienting himself, he sped off in the direction of the Clan Shirna flotilla, his gaze fixed firmly on Nathis’s ship.

  Dash swerved hard, pulling up from the looming moon at the last instant and now racing only a few hundred meters above the cracked, icy surface. Blasts of vapor and shattered ice erupted around him, near-hits from the particle cannons stabbing out from the Shirna corvette chasing him. He knew that another pair of ships had swept around the other side of the moon, determined to cut him off before he could break back into open space.

  He glanced up. The gas giant was a vast wall of striped, swirling bands of cloud filling half the sky. Down was the surface of the moon. Sandwiched between was a strip of space, all of Dash’s maneuvering room.

  The other pair of ships were about to rise over the onrushing horizon. Dash abruptly swerved again, then jackknifed himself, wrenching through almost a hundred and eighty degrees. As he did, he fired the distortion cannon at a point above and behind the corvette on his tail. The sudden surge of gravity yanked both him and the ship up, away from the moon. Dash knew it was coming and just went with it, but the corvette burned hard, trying to resist its sudden fall into a gravity well that hadn’t existed an instant before.

  Wrong move. The distortion vanished as quickly as it had appeared and the corvette, now thrusting hard toward the moon, rocketed downward, slammed into the surface, and vanished into a spray of debris. Dash flew hard away and up, straight toward the gas giant, just as the corvette’s fusion core finally breached. He cringed as the blast of radiation and incandescent heat swept over him.

  Another Clan Shirna ship, a frigate, hung overhead. He’d discharged the dark-lance twice now, taking out two more ships in the process, and it had only partly regenerated. He fired it anyway, the beam slashing through the frigate’s bow. He punched out at it as he sped by, driving a massive fist into its flank and ripping open a huge hole.

  The two ships that had been trying to cut him off rose over the limb of the moon behind him and immediately opened fire.

  “Shit!”

  A direct particle beam hit brought the shield down again, leaving the Archetype exposed to enemy fire until it once more recuperated. Damage was piling up faster than the Archetype could repair it, a fact the AI hadn’t hesitated to point out to him.

  Again, I must recommend disengaging and withdrawing. You are risking—

  “Getting my ass kicked. Yeah, I know.” Just as the Lens prevented Nathis from simply destroying the Slipwing, he knew he wouldn’t want to destroy the Archetype, either, if he could avoid it. But as Dash smashed up more and more of his ships, he’d probably give up on that idea and focus everything on blasting the Archetype out of space. And Dash was running out of options to prevent that.

  Another moon lay ahead, one of at least three dozen orbiting the huge planet. This one trailed a long tail of vapor from volcanoes erupting across its surface. It was close enough to the gas giant that the tug of its gravity flexed the moon as it rotated, heating it up with tidal forces. Dash zoomed into the gaseous trail, then closed in toward the surface, a fog of sulfur, water vapor, and a host of other chemicals enveloping him. For a moment, at least, he had a respite; the thick cloud of noxious vapor would obscure him on the Shira scanners. Of course, that would only last a few minutes, until they just decided to pummel this whole side of the moon with missiles.

  He couldn’t just hang around here, waiting for the Archetype to regenerate, anyway. Every second that passed was another the Slipwing had to endure conditions in the gas giant’s hostile atmosphere. Leira was probably trying to work her around the titanic planet, using the swirling cloud-tops as cover before making a break for it, but the planet was so big there was no way she could have made it far enough from where she entered that, if she broke free now, he wouldn’t just see her. And he hadn’t seen her, so he had to assume the Slipwing was still in there.

  He had to end this, now.

  And that meant taking on Nathis.

  Three Clan Shirna vessels are closing on this position. They will likely launch a saturation pattern of missiles.

  “Yeah, of course they will.” Dash took a deep breath. The Archetype’s shield had flickered back to life, but would probably drop again after a single hit. The dark-lance was partly repowered. He had only a few missiles left. The only bright spot was the distortion cannon, which seemed to regenerate much faster than the other systems.

  It was what he had.

  Dash launched himself out of the plume of volcanic dust and gas trailing the moon along its orbit. He stayed low to the moon’s surface, weaving among towering piles of erupted sulfur compounds, bright with swirls of orange, yellow, red, and brown. Particle beam shots started to pummel the surface around him. He dodged and wove desperately.

  “Hey, how much…la
va, or whatever it is, is there under this moon?”

  Tidal heating has probably rendered much of the moon’s interior molten.

  “Perfect.”

  Dash slowed, allowing a pair of Shina corvettes to gain on him. The Archetype’s shield took a trio of particle beam hits in rapid succession and died. Another beam slammed into the Archetype’s right leg. It was a serious hit, rendering the limb essentially inoperative. Dash groaned at the sudden wash of pain-that-wasn’t but gritted his teeth and let the two corvettes close even more.

  One of the trailing ships apparently decided something was up and started to fall back. The other raced in, determined to reduce the range to the point where its particle cannons, whose beams attenuate with distance, would almost certainly be lethal. Dash decided it was time.

  He flipped over and fired the distortion cannon at a point above the surface of the moon behind him. It exploded in a shower of pulverized rock, releasing a searing fountain of sulfurous magma that enveloped the two corvettes. The spalling fragments and gouts of glowing liquid instantly shredded the closer of the two; the more distant crashed through the rapidly-growing column of erupting magma, wobbling into a spin. Dash yelped as the gravitational distortion pulled the Archetype toward the impromptu volcano. He slammed a hand into the brittle rock of the moon, yelping again as it plowed a furrow across the surface, slowing, but not stopping him. Just before he was pulled into the eruption plume, the distortion faded and he flung himself away from it, rising from the volcanic moon like an ascending rocket.

  He looked around. The damaged corvette spun away from the volcanic moon, thrusting frantically, trying to regain control. No other Clan Shirna ships remained in threat distance.

  Dash powered through space, looking for—and finally finding—the rest of the Clan Shirna flotilla. Nathis had deployed it in a defensive screen between Dash and the gas giant. He obviously expected Dash to try to rescue the Slipwing, and dared him to try. It would expose him to the massed fire of all of the remaining Shirna ships as he tried to close.

  In its current condition and power state, the Archetype is unlikely to survive such a concentrated barrage.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Dash let out a frustrated growl. He had to get to Nathis, which meant getting at his big cruiser that was sitting in the center of the Clan Shirna formation. He might be able to do it if the Archetype’s shield was fully regenerated, but it wasn’t, and he just didn’t have the time to wait for it.

  But what if he could create another shield for the Archetype?

  He looked around and saw exactly what he was looking for just a short distance away.

  The massive slab of rock spun through space, a sparkling trail of yellow sulfur spreading behind it. Maybe half the size of a frigate, it had been blasted out of the moon’s crust by Dash’s distortion cannon, achieving escape velocity on a course that would eventually send it plunging into the gas giant. Dash was going to change that.

  He fired the distortion cannon at a particular point in space. The slab wobbled, then slewed that way. He fired again. Again. Each shot deflected the slab more, changing its trajectory until it swept majestically toward the Clan Shirna fleet. It left the distortion cannon mostly discharged, but it didn’t matter. This was only going to end one way.

  Dash moved to put himself behind the slab with respect to Nathis’s ships, planted his hands against it, and pushed.

  “You know,” he said, “this would have been a lot easier if your Creators had just powered this thing up in the first place.”

  Shall we have this conversation again?

  “I…ah…no.” Dash frowned for a moment, then couldn’t resist a smirk. “You know, that was kind of a smart-assed answer. I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

  There was no answer. Dash’s smirk widened.

  But it faded as the first particle beam blasts started hammering the slab of rock.

  “Okay…shit. Here we go.” He pushed harder, the Archetype driving the sulfurous asteroid ahead of it.

  More impacts followed. Glowing sulfur mist wafted around the bulk of the slab, cooling into fine, yellowing dust. As more and more particle beams converged on it, the side opposite Dash began to boil. He couldn’t see it, of course, being pressed into the shadow of its back side as close as he could, but he could feel it, a faint crackling, bubbling sensation echoing through the slab.

  “Any idea how long this thing will last?”

  The calculation is approximate, as there are many variables whose range of possible values is—

  “Just how long?”

  Perhaps another ten minutes, and then the slab will likely deconsolidate.

  “Fall apart, you mean.”

  Yes.

  Dash pushed harder still. “You could have just said that,” he muttered. “I mean, why say marmalade, when you can say jam?”

  Based on your understanding of those two substances, they are not interchangeable.

  “It just means to keep your words simple!” Dash shook his head. “Oh, never mind.” He did a quick calculation of his own. Ten minutes…might not be enough.

  “Can you put anything else into propulsion for this thing?”

  By diverting power from the distortion cannon and slowing regeneration of other systems to a minimum, yes. The risk, however—

  “Is another one of those things I don’t want to hear. Just do it, okay?”

  The Archetype surged forward, its hands crushing the substance of the slab and starting to sink in.

  Hopefully, this would be enough. Because if it wasn’t, Dash would find himself fully exposed to all the firepower the Clan Shirna ships could muster, and at point-blank range.

  And that, he thought, would probably, truly suck.

  Sulfur coated the Archetype in ragged, dusty yellow. Most of the slab was gone, vaporized into space. Dash was surprised that what remained was still holding together. But he drove on regardless. Some of the Clan Shirna ships had started to maneuver, but he loosed his remaining missiles and kept them at bay, destroying a corvette and damaging a frigate. That convinced the other ships that had broken from the line ahead to back off, degrading the effect of their fire. They had no way of knowing he only had three missiles left.

  A huge chunk separated from the slab and whirled off, driven by the force of vaporizing sulfur. There was barely enough left to cover the Archetype.

  “Any idea how much longer?”

  Until you reach the capital ship?

  “No, until I can retire. What do you think I mean?”

  You will collide with it in approximately one minute.

  “One…holy shit. Did it not occur to you tell me that?”

  I just did.

  Dash blew out a hard sigh. As he did, the remainder of the slab crumbled into fragments that spun away.

  Nathis’s flagship loomed ahead, backdropped by the swirling cloud-tops of the gas giant.

  Particle beam fire converged on the Archetype. The abused shield, which had once more managed to flicker to life, quickly died. But the fire wasn’t as intense as Dash had expected. It took him a moment to realize why. He was now so close to Nathis’s ship that the remainder of the flotilla couldn’t fire without hitting the cruiser. It still left Dash exposed to the big ship’s own weapons, and they pummeled the Archetype, searing away its substance.

  Many systems are approaching failure tolerance.

  “Yeah, I know.” Dash strained to say it. He felt every hit like a blow against his own body. “Just a few…more seconds…”

  Dash used what power remained in the Archetype to adjust his course a fraction. A massive wall of metal rose before him, filling space.

  Then the Archetype, mighty fists raised, slammed into it.

  Dash felt the impact like a body-blow. Metal crumpled and tore, structural components bent, strained, and snapped, hull plating buckled inward. Massive deceleration drove Dash forward, testing the limits of the cradle’s ability to protect him. For a moment, the wo
rld turned grey and faded away.

  Then it cleared again. Dash shook his head. The Archetype had come to rest, half-buried in Nathis’s cruiser, just sternward of the bridge.

  Dash clambered out of the cradle, making to exit the Archetype. As he did, he snatched up the plasma pistols he’d retrieved from the crashed Clan Shirna ship on his foray outside the galaxy. For an awful moment, he thought the big mech might not be able to open, because it was jammed into the side of a cruiser, after all. But the hatch slid smoothly open, letting Dash step out and onto the deck of Nathis’s ship.

  A Shirna appeared, looking stunned, his neck patches a lurid green. He met Dash’s gaze, his eyes widened, and he reached for a pistol hanging on his belt.

  Dash shot him.

  As the man fell, it struck Dash that he hadn’t been wearing a vac suit. Glancing back, he saw that a repulsor field enveloped the Archetype and the huge gap it had punched into the cruiser’s hull, maintaining atmospheric integrity. It made sense a big ship like this would have such a last-ditch defense. It also meant Dash didn’t need to be vac-suited either, as long as, that is, the repulsor field held.

  He decided to keep his helmet on. He also maintained a firm grip on pieces of debris and tangled structural components, because if the field did die, all this atmosphere would rush out fast.

  Weaving around a broken conduit that was spitting blue sparks and a searing flame like a cutting torch, Dash entered a corridor. To the right it went…somewhere, didn’t matter. To the left, though, it had to go to the bridge. And if Nathis was anywhere, he’d be there.

  Dash walked up to the door. The artificial gravity still worked, too. Also not surprising, on a ship this large. The damage from the Archetype’s impact was extensive, but also localized.

  The door slid open, and Dash found himself face-to-face with two Shirna. Both were armed, but neither were ready. One of them shouted something and raised his pistol, but Dash was ready. Wielding a plasma pistol in each hand, he fired both at once, killing both Shirna.