But where are they?
Lights flicker on and an alarm sounds in the distance. There is a rumbling vibration through the floor. I sweep my weapon around, but no target presents itself. I check my internal chronometer. The Collector could have landed two hours ago. I suspect that she has been down for some time and has now forced an entrance. She has awakened something in the Artifact.
I move through yet another great chamber, closing in on the source of vibrations and energy disturbances that are likely caused by the Collector’s forces. Suddenly I detect infantry. Soldiers are flitting from cover to cover. As they are bipeds, I assume them to be Guild. They bring light. A questionable choice but biologicals prefer their own senses to mechanical ones, even when those are the better choice. The area is one of broad-ramps for moving large numbers of troops. I race up one ramp and secure myself in some overhead piping, bending my limbs out of humanoid shape. Biological eyes normally need patterns to recognize objects.
Enemy infantry pass below me, followed seconds later by an armored car with a heavy gun turret, followed by another odd, long vehicle. It is not an AFV but some sort of cargo/personnel carrier for all that it has a clearplast-turret with a medium gun. Two more follow. In the second and third I pick up the clear bio-psionic signal of living Infestors. My enemy is below. I overcome my immediate impulse to attack. Their psionic signatures are basic, almost imbecilic, and they do not detect me. The fifth vehicle is another AFV like the first, with some additional troops bringing up the rear. Sound tactics, but I am M-7 and even Infestor tech is hard-pressed to locate me.
I realize that the image the Maauro program prefers for our body is inadvisable. The dark orange and gray are replaced by black, including my face and limbs. I pull off the ridiculous yellow hair ribbon as I retract the impractical long hair, wondering why it has taken me so long to realize the need. I have in some fashion deteriorated, allowing combat-readiness to be affected by concerns of image and appearance. I ball the yellow silk up to fling it away and something stops me. I debate for a microsecond then open a chamber in my body and place the yellow ribbon safely within. I tell myself that someone might identify me by it but know that this is not the case. The Maauro program continues to assert itself in troubling and unpredictable ways.
Satisfied, I nullify their motion detector sensors then follow the column, a shadow within shadows, freezing every time visible light falls on me. I am well above the guards and unless I am unlucky, they are not likely to spot me.
***
We rolled on, marveling at the vast size of the Artifact.
“I’ve never seen such huge interior spaces,” Ferlan murmured, her eyes drinking in every detail of the walls and halls. “They seem impractical.”
I gazed at the monsters on Flinss’ screens. “Perhaps not so much; those are large creatures and you said they were juveniles. They’re already nearly twenty feet long. They don’t seem like the sort of critter that likes close company.”
“Yes, very likely,” she said absently.
“You should have left them back on your ship under guns,” I added.
Ferlan didn’t even glance at me, though Marcel did and I thought I saw agreement in the big man’s eyes. I remembered the tale of the first captain to own the probe. Ferlan believed he fell prey to it through close contact, but I wondered if there weren’t subtler perils. Given how much she wanted the Artifact and its secrets, could it be that hard to influence her? Still she said the things were nearly moronic, and at least the probe itself had been left behind.
“Makes for big ships,” Marcel said.
Ferlan looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.
“The vessels must be so much larger per being carried, more mass for life support and crew quarters, n’est pas?” he said.
“Oui, it would give us an advantage fighting them ship to ship,” she nodded then turned back to me. “Where in this vast mass do you think we may find Maauro?”
I shrugged. “Knowing her, she is deep inside, looking to blow this thing up.”
“Let us hope not,” she replied.
The sounds of footsteps made me turn. I was surprised to see Dusko, like myself without a helmet, coming up to the driver’s deck, accompanied by a woman who looked way too pretty to be a guard, but for the ugly, short-barreled gun she carried. For a second I was happy to see even his face.
“Dusko,” Ferlan said, a chill in her voice.
He made a bowing gesture with a sweeping hand. “Madame Ferlan.”
“I trust you are interested in demonstrating some small use to me.”
“Absolutely.”
“Wrik will doubtless lie whenever I ask him anything about Maauro. You will tell me when he does.”
“Certainly.”
“Wrik believes she is racing to the core of the machine to destroy it. I believe she is stalking us in the hope of rescuing him.”
Dusko gave me a long look; I stared back, expressionless.
“In this I believe he tells you the truth, Maauro is prisoner of her original programs. She will proceed directly to attack and destroy what she sees as an infestation. Friendships, or networks, as she thinks of them, will not count against her primary objective.”
Ferlan bit her lip, and looked at Marcel. “Redouble the pace. We do not have the time to be this cautious. We must get to the lower levels. We must either find these control spaces ourselves or establish contact with any AI or Infestors aboard this ship.”
I exchanged stares with Dusko as the others turned back to the screens. Gradually I edged closer as Ferlan and Marcel rapped out orders and received reports from evidently dismayed Guilders, who did not like the thought of racing headlong into the unknown. The vehicle’s engine growled louder.
“Maauro can be quite predictable,” Dusko whispered.
“Guess we’ll find out when this place goes nova around us.”
“Oh, she doubtless plans to destroy the Artifact, but she is not reckless, our Maauro. There is a force moving through the Artifact that she can use to test her enemy and not reveal herself. Now that force is moving very quickly and noisily. It will please her no doubt. I imagine she is close by, waiting for something to kill us all, and save her the trouble.”
I grunted a response.
“Aren’t you going to assure me that she’s going to save us?” Dusko asked.
“No.”
“Well, you, anyway. I merely hope to be collateral salvage.”
“Don’t bet on it. She’d expend herself to take this place out. Why think we would measure so much in such an equation?”
Whatever Dusko was going to say was lost when the universe in my head exploded.
***
I stalk the Collector’s forces as they roll forward. They are following a main “roadway” into the heart of the Artifact. Eventually, they should hit a major control center. This suits my purpose well. If there is an ambush, it will strike them, not me, and I still entertain the hope of recovering my biological companion intact.
As I crawl through the piping above the force, a sense of unease builds in me second by second. I sense a higher-order Infestor intellect. The Artifact is not dead. The enemy is here; his telempathic impulses strike my shield, alerting me. Fortunately my shield does not return a signal to give my presence away, yet I feel as if the intelligence is questing for me. The quality of the thought is what confuses me. The mind or minds seem rigid, mechanical. Infestor AI’s partook of their master’s telempathic power but on a drastically less powerful wavelength. This feels more and more like a warrior or scientist.
I extend my sensor net as far as I dare in passive mode, hoping to detect more. Is it an AI in the station or a living enemy? Where?
Realization strikes. My enemy has a new trick. The AI of the Artifact has been responding, waking in response to stimuli like my Infestor arm and the three juveniles bro
ught by the Collector. But it is doing far more. The juveniles ahead in the Collector’s convoy are juveniles no longer. Somehow personalities have been downloaded into them. They radiate malice, power and deadly intent. I sense them gather their power.
I accelerate, but it is too late. A wave of power rolls out of the Infestors from inside the armored cars. At the same instant, hordes of Infestor work drones pour out of the side corridors and into the Guild troops who are staggering, clawing at the helmets on their heads as the raw force of the empowered juveniles overwhelms the pathetic beta dampeners protecting them.
Irony. I open fire from my armspac as I drop to the floor, blasting waves of freshly-hatched work drones into fragments, buying the Guild time to recover. The work drones are so fresh that they are not yet dry from hatching. They are small, little larger than a tall human; their minds are so unformed I did not even detect them, masked by the power of the Collector’s Infestors. Still, they carry powerful claws and teeth and race forward with no concern for their survival.
Some Guilders have recovered enough to open fire. One of the armored cars blazes out with its heavier weapons. But the rush of drones crests like a wave over the Guild troops and vehicles. The air and frequencies are cacophonous with screams, curses and the deafening sound of weapons in a confined space.
I must destroy the Collector’s Infestors before they get away. The surviving Guilders, battling desperately, are too busy to impede me, but the drones turn in their hundreds and swarm me. More pour into the confined space every second. I empty my armspac into the charging horde until they crash onto me. In seconds I am submerged under thousands of pounds of slashing, biting drones. My armspac is crushed by jaws and claws.
I am made of sterner stuff. I extend the palm blade in my Infestor arm, trigger the plasma torch in my original arm, and advance. I am literally wading through the destroyed and dying bodies of my enemies; the teeth and claws slide impotently off my body.
I cut my way to the top of the living mass on me then leap into the air. A ghastly image presents itself. Only three of the vehicles are in sight, though the flash of heavy weapons around the curve ahead tells me the others are still in the fight. Two of the transports near me are burning. Their hatches are ripped open, with dead and dying Guilders hanging out of them. The floor of the roadway cannot be seen for the drones fighting and dying on them.
I am rewarded by the sight of at least two of the Collector’s Infestors, many times the size of the drones and brilliantly colored. They have been liberated from the burning cars and are being escorted by echelons of drones. They see me at the same instant and dive for the floor under a cover of drone bodies. My flechettes fire down on them, but most are stopped by drones that splay their bodies out for maximum cover.
I crash down into the drones, which bite, claw and beat at me. The blows do minor shock damage. My plasma torch is a close-range weapon and I turn it to full, carbonizing a circle around myself.
A Guilder is at the bottom of the pile. His face is mindless with fear and panic. He takes advantage of my blazing attack to run but is torn to pieces by a fresh wave of drones. I seize his particle weapon and again fling myself toward the ceiling thirty meters away.
I see only one warrior now and he is thinking the same thing I am. The Guild weapon looks ridiculously tiny in his giant claw hands, but he manages to trigger the laser and the beam waves across my midsection. I return fire with flechettes and the Guild particle weapon. He ducks behind his ramparts of drones, which explode into bloody fragments. We hit each other again and his head explodes.
I fall among the seething mass of drones and know defeat. I have killed one, but only because it stayed behind to direct the drones, battle me, and ensure the escape of his comrades. My heat sinks are full. Between the plasma torch, laser hits and the nonstop shock of masses of drones, I am perilously near shutdown. The sheer weight of meat and bone on me is slowing me further. I must retreat.
I shut down my plasma torch and simply tear my way to the top of the carpet of drones. The terrific heat I am radiating is as much a weapon as anything I carry. Again I leap to the ceiling, grasp the pipes, and begin to scuttle away.
A high-explosive shell slams the piping behind me and freezing gas deluges from it. The Guild are firing at me. A direct hit from an armored car could severely damage me. But my luck holds. The deluge of liquid oxygen blocks visual and infrared tracking, cools my overheated body and eliminates hundreds of drones near me. Refreshed, I flee.
I listen to the enemy intel as I move. The Guild encryption is poor; they rely too much on their secret language, which I know. I infiltrate their communications undetected.
“Madam, they are retreating. Mon Dieu, we have them on the run.”
“Not so,” returns a voice I recognize as Ferlan. “They have accomplished their objective, freeing the ones we brought. How many of our people are left?”
“About half but with many wounded. I am putting them in the two functioning cars.”
“Any sign of Wrik or Dusko?”
“Pah, no sighting of the pigs. I cannot believe that boy could fling men around like that, even me. I will kill both of them when I find them.”
“You will not. They were under Infestor control. It gave them the strength of the insane, something I did not anticipate. They are likely both dead, but if not, we must recover them. They may be on their way to talk to the powers here.”
“Madam, we must flee—”
The sound of weapons fire overloads the tac net for a few seconds.
“—we must get back to the ship.”
“There are too many behind us,” Ferlan says. “We are cut off. No, the way ahead is no less perilous than the road behind. We must somehow establish communication with the Infestors or find Maauro.”
I know a moment of sorrow, then my resolve firms. Trigardt was contaminated by Infestor control as was Dusko. The latter does not interest me. I simply change his IFF to enemy. But Wrik bears the stain of Infestor contamination as well. My imperative is operating in full force. It changes Wrik’s status to unreliable.
Chapter 27
I staggered up in an unrecognizable world, wondering where I was, then, for a few terrifying seconds, who I was. The dissonance in my mind, perhaps even in my soul, relented second by second. I remembered myself as Wrik Trigardt, little enough to be proud of until I remembered the person before Wrik.
Smoke bit at my nose and I flinched from heat. The world around me gradually resolved into recognizable shapes. I was beside a wrecked armored transport. Hatches lay open and the bodies of Guilders and things I recognized as Infestors lay all around. The Infestors were small and pallid, nothing like the monsters we brought.
That brought my head around. I looked backwards in the cargo compartment. The cage that held the one we carried was ripped open, its metal bent and scorched. Images flooded back to me of myself, berserk with a power and speed I’d never possessed before, crashing into shocked Guilders, even flinging Marcel out of the way, firing a seized weapon wildly at anything near me.
I looked about, but there was no sign of Ferlan or Marcel. The only Guild I could see were dead. Something dripped on me. I glanced up at the Guilder who’d manned the top turret. She was dead, torn nearly in half and hanging out of the turret. I was so numb that I didn’t even fight nausea as I climbed up and liberated the sidearm still belted on the lower half of her partially severed body.
I groaned after reaching up, every muscle and bone I had aching from the insane fury the Infestors had plunged into my mind. I opened my med kit and pressed a trauma tab from it against my chest. It hissed analgesics, anti-inflammatories and tailored virus that would rebuild and stitch muscle and ligament.
I spotted a pair of legs under the vehicle, twitching and kicking. I ducked to get away from the smoke and the sparking of shattered electronic panels and crab-walked to the back, stepping over an
d around bodies and bits of bodies. I leaned under and saw Dusko staring upwards, his eyes blank, his mouth hanging open. The pupilless eyes turned toward me and intelligence returned to them.
“What…what happened?” he asked. “Gods, I feel like I’ve been hit by an aircar.”
“The Collector forgot the old adage, ‘Watch out. You may get what you’re after.’”
“Enough riddles, Human.”
I tossed him a trauma tab. He pressed it against his chest. The tab bleeped then decided it could treat his physiology and triggered.
“Those damn Infestors we brought were laying low. Somehow they acquired a lot more power than Ferlan expected. They were able to stun most of the Guild and take you and me over. We must have released the one in here. They coordinated an attack with these… I don’t know what they are, newly hatched bugs, dwarfs. Whatever. They’re deadly enough en masse.”
“Is anyone alive?”, Dusko asked.
“I hear firing down the hallway ahead of us, but I haven’t found anyone in here. You and I probably only survived because we were under Infestor control. I didn’t see Ferlan or Marcel’s bodies inside. They must have gotten away. We’d better do the same.”
He stared at me. “And go where?”
“First things first. We stay alive and free. Remember, Maauro is out there somewhere.”
“Forgive me if that prospect does not fill me with the same optimism that it does you.”
“You got a better plan?”
“No, both sides here will probably kill us, so we are better off running.”
I headed for the back of the transport, stepping around the back ramp, which was partly down and jammed with Infestor corpses.
Both of us froze at the sheer horror of the tableau in front of us. The massive roadway lay filled with smoke and floored as far as the eye could see in all directions with Infestor corpses with the occasional dead and dismembered Guilder thrown in. Behind us, the transport that had carried the other two Infestors was burning. Ahead I could see an armored car had slammed into a wall, but it was too far to determine if anyone was alive in it.
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 29
