by Neal Asher
My stomach rumbled and I felt a surge of hunger and thirst. This confirmed that my earlier starvation was due to boosting – my body was rebuilding itself whether I wanted it to or not – but I’d have to ignore that need for now. Okay, I had to find a way through above and, I hoped, one that didn’t involve explosive decompression. The rail now ran round the mass of pipes and clambering along it only brought me back to where I’d started. I headed out again to a gap between two pipes and pushed through. Here a hatchway made for maintenance robots gave access inside a shaft. Flicking to light enhancement in my visor revealed rails running in parallel all the way up. Beetlebots ran on some of them, with wheeled feet against the walls, stopping occasionally to stab their probosces into readout ports. There would be detectors here, I knew, so kept my chameleonware running while I climbed.
And I kept on climbing. A slow transition ensued, grav waning until I only had to catch the rails to propel me on or stop me. Grav then began to impinge again from the side and soon I was walking along a shaft transformed into tunnel. When it became apparent I’d travelled further than needed, I stopped to check the HUD map and focus on my position. Suspiciously, the map didn’t show this maintenance shaft and I wondered then about other concealed access ways. The suit had probably downloaded this map from station computing, perhaps after Suzeal or some other paranoiac had altered it.
The map showed the pipes extending into the hub, taking a right-angled turn over the geodesic roof of the transit area, then taking another turn to run along the back of the dock that extended into the hub. It had my position just after that first turn, so the grav holding me in place must have issued from the transit area plates. The next turn revealed itself more by the slow reorientation of grav rather than by any physical indicators. Soon I was climbing a shaft again, but the grav grew weaker, so I could do it without suit assist. I kept going, marking the various hatches in my mind. Eventually the end of it came in sight with a hatch there, so I carried on until I’d reached it.
Circular and quite small, the hatch had a manual latch on the side. Being a pressure hatch, it might open into vacuum on the other side. Still, it hinged towards me, so the air pressure in the shaft would make it impossible to open without assist. I decided to give it a try, first sealing my suit. The latch clonked open easily, but thereafter seemed stuck solid. I braced my feet either side of it, initiated assist and tried again. It began to lift on a simple seal then air started hissing through. Vacuum on the other side, I thought. If I opened this all the way, the air pressure would blow me out and clear with no way to get back to any solid surface. Then abruptly the hissing increased to a sucking whoomph and the thing flew open with me dangling from it. Air pressure had equalized with a small compartment behind, and in there sat a maintenance robot, all folded up. I could only see the back end but it looked just like the one Marcus had pulled out of its hole on the planet.
I scrambled up, reached inside and tugged at the thing. It felt solid for a moment, but it seemed my action had woken it because it extended rear limbs out, around the hatch, and heaved itself out. As it slid clear, it released all but one of its limbs and flipped over onto the surface around the hatch, coming down and gecko sticking. It gazed at me with a collection of sensors, shifted mandible manipulators, then shuffled round and opened a hatch in its side towards me. I stared, puzzled for a moment, then realized that even maintenance bots needed their own maintenance and this was sometimes conducted by humans. It waited for me to repair or reprogram it.
Ignoring the thing, I pulled myself into the space it had occupied. Another hatch lay at the far end and this one doubtless opened onto empty vacuum in the hub. Reaching down, I closed the other one behind and, in the cramped space, worked the hatch above, ensuring a firm grip on the lever because of what would happen next. It opened with a bang, tugging me out, and the air pressure behind finished the job, so I ended up seemingly hanging over some vast abyss. Grav was even lower here, almost undetectable. I swung my feet down and engaged gecko function, released the hatch and stood upright to look around.
I was standing at the far end of the dock. The thing was just a square bar a few hundred yards across leading back to the inner surface of the hub. Over on the far side of where it attached, the geodesic glass ceiling extended over the transit area. On this side of the dock ran the mass of supply pipes I’d climbed, branching off at intervals to enter the dock until few remained at the end. I walked over one of these pipes onto the dock proper, up the side, then out along the top. Now I could see spaceships and shuttles latched on down its length, like aphids on a stalk. Turning, I surveyed the inner ring of the hub – its acres of geodesic, its various protrusions and other docks, engine nacelles for station correction, and then, of course, the railgun.
The massive structure extended up from a ball coupling a hundred yards across in the hub. I could see no rails because a cooling jacket with pipes and power feeds cloaked the weapon, making it look like a tree overgrown with vines. I needed to get to the thing but, checking my suit, I found it didn’t have the kind of steering thrusters of a proper spacesuit. I damned myself for coming this far out without checking earlier, and looked back down the length of the dock. The walk back to the hub inner rim of over half a mile didn’t look tempting, nor the walk round to the railgun, which would make it a further three miles. Could I do that in an hour, the limit of my air supply? On a planetary surface wearing normal clothes, no problem, but walking on gecko function was another matter entirely. Also, who knew what detectors or watchers might be there? I turned back and looked towards the railgun. It stood a mile and a half away. I walked along to the far end of the dock, stepped round and walked out on that, the railgun now above my head. I considered the possibilities of variable grav from the station diverting my course, then dismissed the idea because the hub rim was very wide and I’d aim for the centre of it. I squatted, disengaged gecko function, and leapt.
I sailed through vacuum towards the area of station behind the ball socket of the railgun. I seemed to be travelling fast but knew, any grav effects aside, I should land with the same force imparted by jumping. Swivelling over had me apparently falling feet first towards the thing. I turned gecko function back on, then took it up to its highest since I didn’t want to bounce away again. With that done, I’d reached halfway across and now began to feel as if I was falling from a great height. Suddenly I felt a surge of panic. I’d not accounted for the spin of the rim – my departure point was travelling in one direction but my destination would be travelling in the opposite direction. My landing might be very hard and some distance off target. I let the panic rest there in my mind and circumvented it. It was a bit too late to worry about that now.
I sailed on down, legs straight and ready to absorb the impact. I ramped up suit assist to maximum since it also operated a dampening system. Around the ball socket spread acres of armour, scattered here and there with inset sensor dishes and mobile ones on pylons. I found myself coming down at an angle towards one of these, hundreds of yards off target, and as it seemed to stab up at me, I slapped my hands against the edge of its dish, slightly diverting my course and slowing my descent. Landing at its base, I bent my knees to absorb the impact, the shock juddering through my legs. I bounced up again, my boots tearing free to send me tumbling. Hull sped beneath, then another pylon zipped towards me and I slammed into it, bending metal, but I managed to reach out and grab hold. I lay there gasping, apparent motion seeming to disappear. If this pylon hadn’t intercepted me I would’ve ended up floating out into vacuum again (and probably trying to figure out how to make a hole in my suit to use its air pressure as a jet to bring me back down to the surface). I had arrived.
With a mental shift of perspective, I untangled myself from wreckage and walked across a plain of armour towards the protruding dome of the cooling jacket which enclosed the railgun ball socket. It took half an hour and as I drew closer, gaps in the jacket revealed the teeth of racks on the socket surface, no doubt dri
ven by cogwheels in the hub to position it. The gun itself stood on the other side of this, pointing out into clear vacuum. The arc of the planet I’d fought to survive on was visible just to the left of it and slowly moving right with the station’s spin, while the dock moon lay clearly in its sights and remained there, the gun moving slowly to track it. Estimating the movement of these objects, I realized that the gun could keep the moon in its sights with only slight adjustments because the station and moon orbits were matched.
Where to put the CTD? Anywhere here should wreck the weapon, but I walked round until the gun itself sat poised overhead, then I continued into the cooling jacket, and there unshouldered the pack and multigun. Even as I did this, I realized that floating in vacuum wouldn’t have been a problem, for I could’ve used the recoil of the rail beader to send me where I wanted to go. I took out the CTD, sorted through its program, then paused to plan what I’d do after I’d set it. I couldn’t go back through open vacuum, since the blast wave might send me away from the station. I needed to get to cover a good distance away from the detonation. I gave myself twenty minutes, wifi linked the timer to my HUD, then gecko stuck the thing below the railgun. I then put my pack on and set out at a clumsy lope across the armour and around the hub rim. A hundred yards away, I damned myself for not similarly connecting the thing to my HUD so I could just remotely detonate it. I wasn’t quite as precise and efficient as a real Polity agent.
Two hundred yards away, the armour ended at a geodesic chain-glass roof. Down below, people were scattered through a maze of buildings, and soldiers and robots arrayed in what looked like a central square. Ten minutes passed as I circumvented half of the roof and had yet to see any airlocks inside. A right turn took me towards the face of the station disc. When I reached this and peered down from my perspective across the face, I realized that progress there would be difficult, as the further I went in that direction, the more centrifugal force would throw me outwards. One mistake with gecko stick and I’d fall across that face. So I continued around the hub rim. Eventually another protruding weapon came into sight. This particle cannon pointed into the space at the centre of the hub – obviously used for security there. Pausing, I studied the rim and saw a number of such weapons dotted all around it. The prador would find entry here a bit more difficult than I supposed.
Fifteen minutes passed as I loped around the thing, looking for the maintenance robot hatch, as it seemed likely there’d be one here. Instead I found an airlock for humans. The thing had a manual purge and lever but it occurred to me that somewhere in the station someone would be alerted if I opened it. Only five minutes remained, though. I hesitated, looking towards the particle cannon and its surrounding structure. That thing could give me cover from the blast. The need to see the imminent destruction of the railgun informed my decision. I moved away from the airlock and crouched behind the cannon, finding a couple of struts to grip when necessary. Next I checked functions in my HUD. The visor would react to glare but could be set to react faster – in fact it had a setting to cover nukes and CTDs, and I selected that. I gripped the struts and watched the railgun, the timer ticking down in the corner of my HUD.
It hit twenty minutes. The flash blacked my visor for a couple of seconds then it slowly returned visibility in time to reveal the expanding fireball and the rapidly approaching particulate blast front. I ducked back as the latter swept past. My HUD alerted me to radioactivity, but within the parameters of my suit’s shielding. I felt the vibration through my hands and the station shuddering underneath me. Another look revealed a debris cloud and the business end of the gun tumbling across the hub gap. It clipped one of the docked ships on its way past, hit the edge of the chain-glass roof of the transit area and tumbled on over the face of the station and away. I focused on the roof, but couldn’t see any explosive decompression. Chain-glass was all but impact-resistant and the frame holding the sheets no doubt consisted of a complex interweaving of meta-materials which allowed deformation and retention of seal. A smoking line cut across past my helmet, sending me ducking back. All around, debris was blowing small hot craters in the inner rim. Larger objects slammed home as well, sending shudders through my feet, and a chunk of jagged ceramal stabbed into the composite just over to one side of the airlock. All of this, of course, occurred in absolute silence.
I watched and waited, seeing the flash of debris impacts all around the rim. Here and there the blasts of brief explosive decompressions bloomed, and I hoped at least that these hadn’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve to die. Eventually, when it felt safe to do so, I came out of cover and headed over to the airlock. Any watchers would now be dealing with numerous faults. They might not notice the lock being used, and they might even put it down to damage here. I opened it, taking one last look towards the docking moon. Was it my imagination or had I seen a swarm of brassy bees departing it already? I climbed into the lock and closed the outer hatch.
Incredible noise filled the station and the whole structure was shaking. Crashes and booms echoed through the corridors and distantly the clamour of people shouting. I located myself on my map and began heading back around the station, back to where Marcus had been incarcerated. What I would do beyond finding and freeing him I didn’t know.
The journey back passed without incident. I kept encountering troops and robots in a big hurry, but they had rather larger concerns and ignored me. I also looked like one of them – either responding to Suzeal’s orders or, like many others, running for cover. A dropshaft finally took me up a couple of floors into the transit area, and no one guarded the shaft. Even as I exited, one of Suzeal’s troopers shouldered me aside and stepped into the shaft, with a long line of others crowding in behind. Above, ships were on the move and others undocking. Understandably, those who could depart were doing so. Still many people occupied the area, both soldiers and thralled citizens, and they were running for the exits. Here and there bulkhead doors were closing on the corridors and larger tunnels extending from this place. I broke into a run, sure that after they closed, the shafts would be sealed next. It might be that the chain-glass geodesic roof was tough, but it was still weaker than the rest of the station and would be a likely entry point.
‘They’re coming!’ someone shouted.
I paused to look up. Now all the remaining ships on the dock parted company from it, in some cases tearing away supply tubes and airlocks. Explosions bloomed out there, and decompressions flung suited figures out into vacuum. Two ships collided, one tearing a chunk out of another, which then slid out of sight. A moment later the floor bucked and a firestorm tangled with debris spread overhead. I ran again, now only glancing up occasionally. Particle beam defence guns began opening up and further blasts shuddered the station. One glimpse revealed a weapon firing from the other side of the hub, then erupting in a big blast, putting out its beam. Other shapes then became visible – the prador had certainly arrived.
A crowd crammed into the dropshafts, entering them in packed streams I realized I wouldn’t be able to get through and it was probably too late to try. Swinging to the right, initiating atmosphere seal on my suit, I headed towards a side wall where people crammed through a steadily closing bulkhead door. Even as I reached this, someone fell away screaming, his arm off at the elbow. A low roof jutted over the entry to a parking area for cargo drays further on. I ran in and towards the back, but found the single bulkhead door there closed too. Then grav went off. I had no time to engage gecko and found myself flailing through the air. I grabbed for a dray to alter my course, and ended up catching hold of a support I-beam. Wrapping my arms around it, I looked out with my hands locked together and full suit assist engaged. A blast on the far side of the geodesic blanked my visor for a second. As it cleared, a hollow roaring filled the world. The effect took a moment to reach me, but then the massive decompression took hold and my legs flailed towards the hole the prador had just blasted in the roof.
People and masses of debris swirled upwards. The screaming became
a one-voiced beast, behind the noise of things breaking, clashing and the hungry sucking of the wind. Many were thralled and I could no longer comfort myself that my actions hadn’t killed innocents. The wind roared on and on and I half expected to see the drays sliding out below me. One did, in fact, but safety clamps rooted the rest to the floor. Then, gradually, the pull waned and the noise diminished. People no doubt still screamed, but were issuing their last breaths into vacuum. Then the prador entered, swarming down through the hole. Lasers and particle beams stabbed up at them and missiles too. They juddered in flight, shedding shattered slugs from their armour. One, struck by a missile, spiralled into the far wall then bounced away, gutted by fire. But the defence, consisting as it did of a few robots and those who wore suits or armour that could retain atmosphere, dissolved when the prador opened fire in return.
Lines of Gatling slugs chewed up the floor, particle beams lanced out to nail suited figures. Prador and humans swirled in an incendiary dance. Two soldiers ran as fast as they could on gecko towards my hideaway, then simply fragmented into clouds of shattered flesh, blood and pieces of armour. The visible firing lasted perhaps ten minutes, though it seemed longer. I supposed other firing wasn’t audible or visible in vacuum, but at the end of that time it seemed only prador and the broken remains of Suzeal’s soldiers remained. Belatedly I remembered to turn on my chameleonware.
