Jack Four

by Neal Asher

  ‘The docking moon,’ he supplied.

  19

  The prador seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see it. But it soon got over that and began spraying the tubeway with Gatling fire. I froze for a second as the air filled with hot metal slugs and metal splinters, then remembered my envirosuit only had impact layers and dived back into the side corridor. Marcus followed me a moment later and we got up and ran, shots smacking and zinging through the walls around us until we’d put the tubeway some yards behind us.

  ‘Best we keep to the smaller corridors,’ he opined.

  ‘Seems like a good idea.’

  We moved on. In retrospect it’d been a mistake to try and use one of the quickest routes to the rim since, of course, the prador were using those. I think Marcus realized that because he looked annoyed. A moment later, our surroundings seemed to jerk to one side and a deep rumbling vibration shook the station.

  ‘Debris probably,’ said Marcus. ‘Or a stray shot.’

  He quickly threw up his wrist hologram and made some adjustments. In response, my suit made a buzzing I recognized from the planet and I flicked up my control hologram to see a comlink request with two subsidiary links attached. If I accepted the first I accepted all three. I glanced at Marcus.

  ‘That’s me,’ he said.

  I accepted the first link from ‘Suit 0098G’ and the rest established. They were ‘Salander’ and ‘Hamilton’. A moment later, as Marcus worked his own suit hologram, the suit designation changed to ‘Marcus’.

  ‘If I get killed you’ll be able to talk to those others,’ he explained. ‘I made a mistake cutting you out before. I’ve made too many mistakes.’

  I didn’t think so, but then perhaps didn’t have his expectations. The fact he’d done this a moment after that hit on the station, whatever it might have been, didn’t reassure me. I felt our survival expectations had just plummeted. I pulled one earphone from the collar and plugged it into my ear.

  ‘You know they’re heading your way?’ he asked.

  I was about to ask what he meant when Salander answered him – he’d included me in the exchange.

  ‘I know. We’ve blocked the large tubeways and established mosquitoes and other autoguns in them,’ she replied.

  ‘That’ll only delay them.’

  ‘I know that too, but if we can hold them for maybe four hours we’ll all be out of here.’ She paused for a second. ‘Supposing some stray shot from out there doesn’t destroy the station.’

  ‘You won’t have four hours. Mosquitoes might inconvenience them but won’t get through their armour.’

  ‘Other autos have armour-piercers and I have four rail beaders in the main tubeways. I’ve also got units in the side tunnels with sticky mines and iron-burner missile launchers.’

  Marcus grunted an acknowledgement. Obviously Salander knew what she was doing.

  ‘Why are they attacking the rim?’ I asked. ‘The people are leaving and they have what they want. It doesn’t seem rational.’

  Marcus glanced at me, about to reply, but Salander got there before him. ‘I don’t think Vrasan is entirely rational and, anyway, why expect rationality from the prador? They’re pissed off because the ship out there just tried to wipe out the hooders, which it seems likely were their main reason for coming here. And right now, a Polity dreadnought and four reavers are knocking the shit out of each other.’

  ‘Okay, right,’ I said, feeling stupid.

  ‘We’re heading for the rim now,’ said Marcus. ‘Tell your people I want to take an escape pod – no passengers.’

  ‘That’s a waste,’ she replied tartly. ‘We’re overloading them now.’

  ‘Suzeal took her shuttle to the docking moon and I’m going after her.’

  After a long pause she replied, ‘Okay I’ve relayed that. Do you know where and when you’ll reach the rim?’

  ‘Sector Seven, unless we have problems – a couple of hours hence.’

  ‘Right, I’ve told Trecannon. Now I’ve got a bag of sticky mines I want to make use of. Confine contact to the necessary.’ She cut com, but the link remained.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be able to get everyone out?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably, but her problems won’t end then,’ Marcus replied. ‘They’ll be out there defenceless, and if Vrasan wants to start taking pot shots at them …’

  ‘There’s the black ops attack ship,’ I noted.

  ‘Which the captain of the Hamilton has neither confirmed nor denied.’

  ‘Does that matter now?’

  He shrugged. ‘I doubt the prador are trying to destroy the Hamilton. They just want to stop it wiping out the hooders. And there’ll be fast negotiations between Earth Central and the Kingdom. Neither side wants war.’

  I still didn’t feel reassured.

  ‘So surely, with everything else, the presence of a black ops ship is irrelevant to the prador now?’

  ‘It wasn’t in any agreement between Earth Central and the king. Its presence, if revealed, may be one push too far. They’ll keep it under wraps for now.’

  ‘I see,’ I said, not sure if I did. However, on that premise it occurred to me that the shots the black ops ship had taken earlier were deniable – they could have come from the Hamilton. But if it started hitting prador and their weapons on the station, to defend the escape pods, it would soon become obvious it wasn’t the Hamilton firing. It might be that it wouldn’t leap to their defence at all.

  Travelling via the smaller tunnels, we had no further encounters with the prador. We did, however, traverse a corridor with skylights in the ceiling, and it was like passing under working arc welders as the ships out there fired on each other. I put up my hood and visor and searched the suit’s system, eventually finding a map of the station which gave our position. Thankfully we were past the halfway mark between hub and rim, but that still left us about ten miles to travel. We could speed up through sections without grav, but would have to take diversions.

  ‘Another caller,’ said Marcus shortly after my map reading. ‘Take a look.’ In retrospect, I wondered if it was my use of the map, which might have been downloaded from station computing, that gave our location. I called up the comlink menu in my visor and eyed the name that had appeared there: Vrasan.

  ‘Probably not a good idea to answer,’ I suggested.

  Marcus shrugged. ‘Comlinks will give away your location if you open one you already have to someone. But for someone to send you a link, they must at least have a vague idea of where you are in the first place.’

  I knew that. Or rather, after he’d told me, I realized I knew that.

  ‘Should we reply to him?’ I asked, just as the station shuddered again from another impact.

  ‘You can, if you wish. He has nothing to say that interests me now.’

  We moved on through a narrow tube, then out of that into a chamber with a fusion reactor sitting at the centre, like a pinned bacterium. I thought back to my previous exchange with the white-armoured prador. He’d told me he would find me and do something nasty to me. It seemed like a good idea to talk, since maybe he’d give away something further about his intent, which we could act on. I opened the link.

  ‘Vrasan,’ I said.

  He appeared in my visor but I banished the image so I could see where I was going. I belatedly included Marcus in the exchange too.

  ‘Jack Four,’ said the prador.

  ‘Things are not looking good for your plans right now, but you can’t blame me for interfering this time,’ I said.

  ‘I can and do blame you. You are a clone from a Polity agent so represent that organization. I cannot reach the ship out there but I can reach you.’

  ‘So that’s all this call is about: another opportunity for you to threaten me?’

  ‘You survived the siluroyne, but mainly because you had the experiment there with you. He interests me. He was more resistant to control than he should have been and has returned to human form quicker than seems feasible.
’

  Marcus interjected, ‘If you had me up close you wouldn’t enjoy how interesting I can be.’

  ‘But I do want you up close to examine. There is a mental component involved in the transformations caused by the Spatterjay virus. The extent of your mutation should have wrecked your mind and a change in diet and sprine bullets shouldn’t have brought you back to your present state.’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Marcus.

  ‘I will capture and kill Jack as slowly as the feeding of a hooder can be made, but you I must study.’

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Marcus.

  ‘And now I see you better, I can make comparisons,’ said Vrasan.

  Marcus turned to me and drew his finger across his throat. I hesitated for just a second then cut the connection.

  ‘Hooders coming,’ he said. ‘We have to move fast and without distraction.’

  He accelerated into a run and I hurried to catch up. Much about that exchange bothered me. I too had suspected that Marcus’s recovery was unusual and now it had been confirmed. It would have to wait, however, because as he said, hooders were coming.

  We kept going at this fast pace for a few miles. I expected the exertion to hurt, but instead ran easily with my breathing only slightly heavier. The boosting effects, along with the increased muscle and strengthened bones, were greater lung capacity and oxygen transport. Then the station began to vibrate all around us and a distant crashing grew closer and closer. A few minutes later, one of the hooders tore through the wall a hundred yards behind us then turned to follow the corridor, tearing out the walls as it came so it could fit through. As we ran I glanced back repeatedly. The relentless thing almost kept pace with us despite the station infrastructure in the way.

  I threw up the map in my HUD, then the control hologram. Using these slowed me, but we could not keep up this pace right to the rim, and eventually our pursuer would catch up. A few alterations to the map gave me the station schematic and I started hunting for what we needed. There. I dismissed the hologram but kept the schematic in place, managing to study it and at the same time not fall on my face.

  ‘Second left,’ I said to Marcus.

  He glanced at me, and instead of asking what I planned, simply gave a brief nod. We passed the first left and swerved into the second. A short corridor took us to a walkway with a stair leading down into a small factory.

  ‘We don’t want open spaces,’ said Marcus, pausing at the sight.

  ‘Keep moving!’ I snapped, hardly seeming to touch the steps as I flew down the stairs. He followed because he had no choice and we sprinted across the factory floor. Behind us the crashing noise increased in volume, then with a final loud bang and sound of falling debris, the hooder flowed over the walkway towards the floor behind us.

  ‘There!’ I pointed at another stair going up to a similar walkway on the other side. Even as we reached it and began to climb, a pink meniscus hit the stair and walkway above us like a flying wall. It folded up, crushing and twisting the metal but then faded out. Still a way up, the wrecked stair remained and we scrambled up it. At the top, I ran along to a circular bulkhead door. I struggled with the wheel but Marcus stepped in and grabbed it, easily turning it, and yanked the door open. Once we were on the other side, he slammed it shut and spun the wheel.

  ‘Good idea,’ he acknowledged, briefly studying the bulkhead wall in which the door had been set. ‘But that won’t hold it for long and we don’t know where the others are.’

  The wall was part of the strengthening of the station: ceramal and I-beams, bearing metals and compression foams. A structure of this size, turning next to a gravity well, needed such things to hold it together. We ran on as behind us the hooder hammered against that wall. A glance back didn’t even show a dent and soon the wall fell out of sight.

  ‘We need to get to the rim.’ Marcus took us to the right and then after a couple of switches, back on course. On the schematic I studied his likely course and looked for bulkhead walls, rows of strengthening I-beams and other heavy tough structure we could put between ourselves and these things. By now, even though beginning to pant, I felt no urge to slow down. While I kept checking the schematic, Marcus got ahead of me, then he skidded to a halt and swore. Catching up with him I saw the problem.

  The corridor we’d been running along now ended at a gulf. A section of the station had been hollowed out – its materials compacted on a nominal floor – though when I waved my hand beyond the ending of the corridor floor, I felt no grav.

  ‘There.’ Marcus pointed.

  A hooder lay coiled at the far end and, even as we watched, it began to uncoil and quest outwards. Marcus turned to go back, but I caught his arm.

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘What is it?’

  I kept watching the creature, sure something here wasn’t right. The things didn’t normally coil up. In fact, I suddenly felt utterly sure this was something they did when injured. Also it wasn’t moving very fast – as hesitant as an arthritic old man. I flipped up the control hologram, found visor magnification and focused in on the thing. Its body looked generally as healthy as before, but something odd impinged about its thrall hardware. It looked battered, which one would have expected since the thing had been in battle and crashing about in the structure of the station. Then I saw it. The hardware wasn’t quite moving in consonance with the beast itself. Pieces of the chain of ceramal had ridden up and come partially detached.

  ‘He’s losing control of them,’ I said, running a few paces back then forwards again, hurling myself into the gulf.

  ‘This was something we should have discussed,’ said Marcus through the comlink.

  As I flew across the gulf, I looked back. He’d followed, of course.

  Directly ahead lay the continuation of the corridor, but it steadily began to drop away as my course diverged, either because of the initial leap or the surrounding grav effect. The hooder still moved hesitantly, but then it thrashed, lines of light passing down its length and the chain of thrall components on its back breaking. It dived down, straight into the wreckage, smashing and wriggling through it, then coming back up again. As it surfaced, I saw it had peeled away half of the device. But now it lay much closer and I had yet to reach the other side.

  ‘This was not a good idea,’ Marcus commented.

  The creature briefly oriented towards us, then it turned, releasing a fusillade of the white beam shots from down the length of its body. I closed my eyes, expecting to die, then opened them when I hadn’t. The shots were passing underneath us and burning through wreckage far to my left. The hooder slammed through the wall we’d departed, a hundred yards to one side, and flowed in. It wasn’t coming after us.

  ‘Lucky,’ said Marcus.

  I glanced back at him as, behind him, the wall of the gulf peeled open and another hooder flowed out. This one had a complete, though partially detached, thrall and I guessed it was the one that’d been following us originally. The next moment I slammed into a buckled wall section above the corridor, just managing to grab a skein of optics to stop bouncing away. I scrambled down, grabbing available holds, and swung into the corridor. A second later Marcus followed me in. Rather than run straight away, I used the selector on my weapon and chose minigrenades and opened fire. Avoiding the hooder’s head, I instead aimed along the length of its thrall hardware. Explosions ran in a line down its back. Most had little effect but one hit underneath one of the loose segments and lifted it, tearing free a couple more further along the chain. But the hooder kept coming.

  ‘Run!’ Marcus shouted.

  With grav out in the continuation of the corridor, no running would be possible. We propelled ourselves fast along it as a meniscus hit behind, then travelled down the corridor towards us. It would reach me first and Marcus just a second later. Would it crush us, burn us, or what? The thing faded out just a few yards behind me, shorting into the walls. This confirmed what I’d thought with the other hooder.

  ‘They’re fightin
g Vrasan’s thralls!’ I shouted.

  ‘They still might kill us if they catch us,’ he stated.

  That was true. Vrasan had returned the things to their prior iteration as war machines and they apparently didn’t like his control of them. But they were alien war machines who’d been vicious predators. In this case, the enemy of my enemy might not be my friend. The hooder continued its destructive progress towards us as we rounded a corner. Another bulkhead door lay ahead, but that was just luck since there’d been nowhere else to run. Marcus opened it and we paused at the threshold, for another big tubeway lay before us.

  ‘No prador,’ he stated.

  ‘Worth putting some distance between us and it?’ I suggested.

  ‘Not much choice,’ he said. Checking his map, he added, ‘Two hundred yards ahead.’ By this time we bounded along the low-grav central strip. We’d nearly reached the point to leave the way when the hooder came through the wall where we’d departed it. We turned in, Marcus working the console of an atmosphere-sealed door just as a meniscus sped past us, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. Dammit, the thing had deliberately missed us! I shrugged off my pack, a stupid and crazy idea occurring. I dragged out the two sticky mines. The things were designed as prador killers, their blast focused by planar explosive to a single point behind a tetrahedron of hyper-diamond.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Marcus said, as I dropped my rifle and bounded towards the hooder.

  As with my attack on the siluroyne, I’d not given myself any time to think about it. But while running, I began to, and understood the difference between this and a crazy attack on an animal. The hooder didn’t seem to know how to respond, its head weaving from side to side. It turned and emitted the white beam from behind its head, but not straight at me – it tracked along the central path towards me, burning through the floor like a thermic lance. As the beam drew close, I threw myself to one side. With grav only on the path, I shot straight towards the wall, flipping over as I approached it. The hooder came opposite me as I absorbed the impact in my legs and propelled myself away, flying towards the middle of its body. It began to turn towards me as my feet hit its side and I fell forwards across its back. My hands went down, bonding the two sticky mines to two thrall segments which seemed firmly attached still. I then spun over the top of the thing, tumbling towards the further wall of the tubeway, which I slammed into, back first. From there I got a good view of the two mines detonating. Two blinding flashes blanked my visor for a second, and the two segments of thrall shattered and exploded away. The hooder bucked at that point, then thrashed, its spoon head knifing into the wall just twenty feet along from me. It carved back towards me, raking up a mass of debris. By now I had my feet underneath me and launched again, tumbling over the thing and falling down towards the walkway. The moment my feet touched, I set out at a run without looking back.