Maauro sealed the panels behind us, spot-welding them with her plasma torch. The deafening noise of the engines became a dull roar. We pulled our earplugs.
“Quickly. Our weapons were quiet but may have been heard. I have disrupted or looped the security systems,” Maauro said.
We ran over to a curious form of open elevator, more like a conveyer of platforms at an amusement park. They seemed to roll endlessly, one ten-meter-square platform rolling by every few seconds and disappearing into the ceiling. We jumped on the next one.
“Lie down,” Maauro commanded. She knelt in a firing position as Dusko and I lay on the unrailed platform.
The platform rose and took us to the floors above. The first three were full of machinery, sealed cases that hummed with electrical power. The next held banks of machines with Infestor drones seated before them, intent on their controls. I raised my laser but Maauro’s hand snapped down on my arm.
“No,” she said through conduction. “Drones are very single-minded. If they do not see us, they will not react.”
Twice more we passed floors with drones seated motionless before consoles. None were taking a coffee break, going for a leak, or otherwise slacking, a perfect labor force for management.
Two more levels up, our luck ran out. As we cleared the next ceiling opening, a car descending onto our level held two Infestor drones. Maauro shot them both and they dropped to lie still and twisted on the sinking platform.
“Damn,” Dusko said. “Someone is going to notice that as it circles around.”
Then we were at the top and in the control room. An Infestor was rising from its chair and stretching in a curiously human gesture. The expression on the crocodilian face was almost comical as it spotted us. Flechettes cut him down.
His companions at control stations rose. One hit an alarm that sounded a whooping call. The others rushed us with claw and teeth, getting only a few steps before we killed them. Maauro silenced the alarm but the damage was done. She dashed over to the main console and plugged herself in. I stood by the conveyor, dreading the sight of warriors coming. Abruptly the conveyer stopped blocking the hole. I looked over at Maauro and she gave me a thumbs-up and a wink. I hurried to her side. Maauro extended her filaments into another Infestor control panel.
***
I crack the elementary code protections. Evidently the designers never anticipated an enemy so far inside their ship’s interior. More proof this was not designed to be a warship. I drop a few more security doors not already triggered by the blast. Excellent though my skills are, I cannot know the architecture of the systems as well as my enemies do. They will recover control shortly. I access the drive controls and am dismayed. The system is very well engineered. I see no way to initiate self-destruct. If there is such a mechanism, it is wisely separated from the drive functions and I cannot access it. Nor can I see any way to engineer a mechanical failure that will accomplish my purpose, even if I remove our survival as a parameter.
I turn to Wrik in despair. “I have thrown our lives away. All the destruction I can wreak on their engine systems will not destroy the ship. I can only do minor damage to the engines with the controls I can access from here.”
Wrik stares back at me as I stand defeated before the huge control panel. I am surprised when he speaks.
“There’s more than one way to skin a cat. You said the drive was like the Murch propulsion system. Remember what happened to them? How they were tipped out of their space when the drive malfunctioned? Can you do something like that here?”
Now it is my turn to stare. For all my vaunted abilities, I lack the spontaneous creativity of Wrik, the capacity for non-linear thinking of his biological nature.
Instantly, I access every facility of my body and memory, a concentration so total that for ten full seconds I am shut down to all outside stimuli.
***
The wave of heat rolling off Maauro forces me backwards. Was she malfunctioning? But moments later she focused on me and smiled. “Brilliant, Wrik. Quite brilliant. I am very grateful to you. Yes, I am setting instructions in the ship’s drive computer duplicating the settings I found in the Murch drive. It is our only chance.”
“Will it give us time to escape?” Dusko said.
“We will have time to try,” she replied
“I’d like to live,” Wrik said. “So don’t get me wrong, but if they break in here, won’t they find what you did? Maauro, I’ve seen enough of the Infestors to realize you were right. They must be destroyed.”
She nodded. “I will set a time delay along with some false trails to divert them from seeing my sabotage. But I must also set a fail-safe. If they find my trap, it will execute before they can stop it.”
“Okay, better get started.”
“Oh, Friend Wrik, while I must give you pride of place in creativity, you must concede speed to me. While we were speaking I have done the necessary.” Maauro began withdrawing her finger probes from the console. She suddenly stiffened and a spark seemed to jump from the panel to her fingers. Maauro leapt backwards. A smell of scorched metal reached me.
“Just in time,” she said. “They sent a counter-program to destroy me, a very robust counterattack that would have gotten anything less than an M-7. We should flee now.”
“You’ve talked me into it,” I replied.
Maauro raced over to where she’d left the plasma weapon and did something to it, then leaned it on the hatch. She grabbed up the slugthrower and stuffed it into the shoulder sling for her lost armspac. “We must escape back to the surface, where I left Jaelle.”
“If she is still there and alive,” Dusko growled, nursing his wounded hand.
“I have not seen any sign in the Infestor systems that they are aware of Stardust. We put down before the Artifact wakened. Jaelle is protected by an ECM screen of my making and the three crab robots. So long as she did not move the ship, she should be undetected.
“The AI is concentrating on three forces: us, the Collector’s column and her ship. All of which it is aware of. This has split what of its forces have been quickened to life and most of those that attacked the Collector died.”
“Surely they are waiting for us at the base of this tower,” Dusko said
“Yes and they will attack immediately. Even if they do not believe I can destroy the ship from here, they will know I can do damage. Whatever forces are nearby are moving on us. We will have to fight our way out.”
“Great,” Dusko said. “You may make it, but a cripple and a human?”
“I will not leave without Wrik,” Maauro said. “Every second I operate I become more effective against the Artifact’s AI. While I speak to you here I am causing overloads, misroutings, backflows and false alarms through the AI. The battle is not as one-sided as it appears.”
I grinned. “You’re a regular factory for viruses.”
“Yes, and as I am designed for cyber war, I can operate more autistically than can the station AI, which must coordinate millions of functions every second to keep this massive complex going. It has allowed me to seize and maintain the initiative.
“Yet,” she said, hefting her weapons, “we will need to fight. Stay near me unless I tell you not to. It is time to leave.”
Behind us, the elevator platform started up.
“I’ve removed the block. Hop on.” Maauro moved two carts and a few Infestor bodies onto the platform with us, piling them into a rampart. “Lie down and do not get up until I indicate so. When I say run, follow me to the maintenance corridor, street level to the right. It will lead to the nearest place we can reenter the cargo tubeways.”
Our platform began to drop and I realized that dead Infestors smelled worse than live ones.
Chapter 29
Wrik and Dusko lie on the platform, which I wish provided better cover. We drop down. I circle continuously, also wishing that my cr
eators had actually installed eyes in the back of my head.
Ambush waits for us on the ground floor. I detect it .00078 seconds after the bottom of the platform emerges through the flooring. The gap to the floor below is only 10mm wide, but I detect the positions of a mixed crew of Infestors, some with heavy weapons.
At .00079 seconds I fire through my fingertips, a new munition I have manufactured in my body, through the 11mm gap, spinning for 360-degree projection. The plastic ampoules shatter, emitting a variety of nerve toxins and virulent germs tailored to Infestors. The first floor is turned into a charnel house of agonized and dying Infestors. Some fire their weapons wildly, inflicting further damage on each other.
.00199 seconds, I fire a second barrage through the 1cm gap, reaching out further. The ambush is totally disrupted. Surviving Infestors are trying to flee. Useful. They are spreading both viruses and neurotoxins though the effect is ameliorated by the more open area.
1.3887 seconds. I add weapon fire, having exhausted my chem/bio warfare ordnance. No immediate return fire. I have eliminated or incapacitated those closest.
The opening expands with agonizing slowness, but the instant it will accommodate my chassis, I plunge through. I drop among a hundred dying, twitching Infestors, then leap to the crew-served weapon that would have eliminated Wrik and Dusko and damaged me had it gotten the first shot in. I sling my personal weapon and seize the crew-gun, itself nearly as large as an Infestor, then lunge toward the entranceway. Behind me, Wrik and Dusko are beginning to react to my having leapt away.
“Follow me,” I shout over my shoulder
I am at the entranceway. Dead and dying Infestors litter the area, but more are racing in. I blaze away with the crew-gun. Its big bore howls out death, sweeping Infestors away. I empty the magazine, selectively eliminating other gun crews and some larger warriors that have appeared.
Knowing that I must keep the initiative, I plunge in among the attacking Infestor workers. Again I literally run through their bodies, slashing and tearing my way through flesh and bone with my palm blade and the plasma torch in my right arm.
A guard-warrior roars and charges. Unlike me, it’s concerned with not destroying the delicate machinery of the engineering section. It fires its projectile weapon and wields a shock baton. Despite a 53% hit ratio, the low-velocity projectiles do nothing to me. My armor deflects the slugs, aided by the curves of my structures. One slug, I am horrified to see, bounces off me and nearly strikes Wrik.
I move to the attack. The newly awakened warrior has no idea how to cope with me. His attack is predicated on my being the biological I resemble. Too late, he realizes what I must be and reaches for the power rifle strapped across his back. I roll forward, hooping my body into the correct shape. I cover the distance between us in .047 seconds and leap vertically into the three-meter long warrior. It rears back to strike with the shock baton but biological reflexes are no match for my speed. I even use the baton as a stepping stone in my upward leap. My plasma torch slices through armor as I flip myself in a circle around the warrior. He falls to pieces below me as I drop to the deck.
I seize both the warrior’s weapons. My multi-target function allows me to process targets faster then the weapon can fire. I prioritize targets and maximize casualties as we head for the corridor leading back the way we came. In seconds the area is floored with dying Infestors, but more warriors are racing into sight.
My enemies are reckless of their lives and will simply seek to drown my weapons with their numbers. I infiltrate my captured weapon’s combat computer. Fortunately the code protection is simple. I change mine then send a frequency-hopping command through the network to detonate the weapons of the onrushing warriors exploding about a third of them. This causes secondary blasts and the attackers disappear as fire doors snap down in an attempt to contain the fireball.
I race under a fire door before it can come down on me. I have bought time.
***
I ran, numbed by the mayhem and horror exploding behind us. It seemed that life had come down to this, an endless marathon with death snapping at us each foot. I didn’t know quite what horror my little android had released, but the smell of putrefaction greeted us the instant the elevator began to drop from the first-floor ceiling. Infestors were curled up all around, looking like a wasp nest hit with a pest bomb. I hoped whatever she used wouldn’t affect us. Maauro’s mastery of the mechanics of death seemed endless and I could have pitied the Infestors for a second.
She seized what looked like a huge rail gun and raced outside. The cacophony of the battle outside made me long for the earplugs but I could not spare even a moment to reinsert them. Then we were outside, running from cover to cover, even if it was merely an Infestor corpse.
If I had thought I had seen Maauro at her most dangerous before, I was introduced to a new level now. She was the Princess of Death—unstoppable—almost too fast to see. Only when she paused to point the way to flee did I get a clear look at her.
Dusko at my heels, we ran for the corridor, an octagonal opening under a pulsing blue light. I still held my laser, but nothing seemed less relevant than my handgun in the savagery erupting around us. We made the corridor, running some distance before turning to wait on Maauro.
There she was, racing toward us as swift as the wind. Behind her, a fireball erupted, outlining her slender form in orange and yellow. I jammed my palms over my ears as the sound rolled over us. A blast of heat followed, mercifully cut off as Maauro reached us and a blast-door snapped down behind her.
Her exterior was scorched and covered with soot. Grooves were cut into her skin and metal shone in places, but even as I watched, her body returned to normal. Maauro smiled at me, something so incongruous at that moment that it threatened what was left of my composure.
“This way,” she said, “quickly.” She sped ahead of us.
“One of these days I’ll get used to how she is never out of breath,” Dusko murmured.
Maauro wrenched a covering off the wall and we saw we were again in the tubeway, in what looked like a garage for the tube cars. She selected another passenger car, this one larger and more comfortably padded. Maauro hesitated for the barest moment, but there was no really no choice. We piled in as she plugged into the car’s system.
“Still clear,” she said in evident relief. “Hold on.”
The sled rocketed away, heading for the outer reaches of the Artifact. Again, I could only hold onto the metal bars and endure the flashing lights and g-forces of the onrushing car as we surged upward. Time quickly ceased to have meaning as we passed level after level.
We came to a sudden savage halt. Maauro seized me under one arm. “Get out,” she shouted at Dusko as she leapt away, slamming open a panel into the ship’s interior with her other arm. We tumbled onto the deck, with Dusko on our heels. Behind us a cacophony of sound exploded, followed by a shower of metal bits and a blast of flame.
Maauro looked back. “Our adversary is fighting smarter. The ship’s AI finally realized how we were moving so quickly through its interior and sent a volley of other cars down the tubeways. It has also changed weapon frequencies so I cannot explode their weapons again.”
“Great,” I said, staggering to my feet. “How far did we get?”
Maauro helped Dusko stand. “Spared of the need to sneak up on our destination, I opted for a direct route and speed. We are halfway to the outer area. Only speed will save us here.”
“Can they track us by sensors?” Dusko asked.
“Not while you are with me,” Maauro said, starting forward.
I trotted after her. “Jammer? Won’t that just create a big blind spot and give away our general position?”
Maauro looked miffed. “I would never use such a crude method. There is no blank spot on their sensors. I pass the signals through and delete the interference of our bodies. My camouflage is seamless”
“You’re a wonder,” I replied.
She smiled. “Glad you realize that.”
We marched for an hour, up spiraling ramps, occasionally riding one of the odd platform elevators when Maauro deemed it safe. Ever upward. Maauro gave us more of the pink wafers, this time laced with stimulants we would pay for if we lived. She broke into water tanks and got us drinking water. She even made us small canteens from the factories in her body. Despite this, the climb wore us down, and we again had to cope with the sheer scale of the Artifact.
“Hard to believe we have not had more company,” I said during a rest break.
Maauro shrugged. “The Artifact has only begun waking from its ancient sleep. I estimate that 99% of it is uninhabited and we have created severe depredations on the systems, the crew, and even the AI that runs it. Most of what it has quickened, we have killed.”
“You have killed,” Dusko said. “We’ve been as useful as tits on a brundersnatch.”
She cocked her head at him.
“Not very useful,” he elaborated.
“This is my primary function,” she said.
“Yeah, thank God you are on our side,” I added
“I am not sure, from what little I know of God, that he would approve of me,” Maauro said, a hint of wistfulness in her voice.
“I’ll vouch for you if we meet him, which remains likely,” I replied. “Dusko can serve as a character witness.”
The Dua-Denlenn gave a rueful laugh and Maauro smiled again.
“Are you rested enough to continue?” Maauro asked
I nodded and started for the ramp. “Our odds get worse the more time we spend here.”
But they were worse than I realized. We went up two more levels by ramps and lifter when we came upon a wide, open area, an Infestor assembly area. We popped our heads out long enough to see what looked like a horde of warriors forming up. These were the largest we had seen and like the one Maauro had disassembled in the Engineering level, they wore armor. Worse still, there were wheeled vehicles with turrets as well. We ran back down to the level below.
My Outcast State (The Maauro Chronicles Book 1) Page 32
