Tag gazed around the room, looking for a ship they might have some familiarity with. But there were no human, Mechanic, or Melarrey ships here.
“Maybe this one?” Tag indicated with his thumb a ship that looked like an old-fashioned aluminum can. At least with this ship, unlike some of the others, there was a clear hatch with a scoop-shaped handle that Tag presumed would let them in.
Sumo and Gorenado crept toward the vessel, their rifles scanning the zoo of spaceships, before announcing it was clear.
The rest of the group joined them, forming a perimeter around the vessel. Tag nodded at Sumo, and she reached to open the handle. As she did, there was a flash of light. Sumo pulled back, holding her hand like it had been burned. A spiderweb of blue lightning scattered from the point of impact, revealing an invisible cube around the ship. Sumo held her gloved hand in front of her, examining the damage. Black singe marks cut gouges into her armor.
“You all right?” Tag asked, immediately scanning her biometric signals via his HUD. Everything appeared normal.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sumo said. “Scared me more than anything.” She flexed her fingers. The joints crunched when she curled them, but at least the armor still worked. “Damn. What is that ship?”
Coren’s working eye narrowed, and he leaned into where the blue shield had momentarily revealed itself. “Look.” He kneeled and pointed to a centimeter-wide groove in the deck. It traced the perimeter of the ship, perfectly matching up to where the shield had appeared. Coren stood and then indicated the next closest craft. “It’s here, too.”
Gorenado took a full magazine from a pouch attached to his armor. He ejected a single Gauss slug and flicked the round at the second ship. The round cartwheeled through the air until it hit another blue shield, causing a violent burst of lightning, then shot off in another direction. Tag instinctively ducked as the slug bounced between shields, setting them off as it ricocheted until embedding itself into a bulkhead. The buzz of electricity in the air made the hairs on the back of Tag’s neck stand up.
“Looks like we won’t be accessing any of the ships,” Sofia said.
The shields unsettled Tag. He stood slowly, looking around at the bulkheads and decks.
“There’s something else wrong here,” Tag said.
“You mean the fact they haven’t sent a greeting party to meet us?” Sofia asked.
“Besides that.”
He squinted. Something about the alloy making up the interior of the bay was...off. He couldn’t quite describe it, but it felt like he was looking at a patient he knew was sick but couldn’t see why yet. It was the subconscious part of his brain noticing the subtle clues his conscious mind hadn’t quite picked up yet.
It didn’t take him long.
While the bulkhead and decks in the chamber were massive, dwarfing the ships, there wasn’t a single rivet anywhere. Not so much as a line or crease to show where two plates had been joined together. His eyes shot toward where Gorenado’s errant round had impaled the bulkhead. There was no hole, no defect, not even the slightest hint that a kinetic slug had torn through it moments ago.
“This alloy—or whatever it is,” Tag said. “It’s self-healing. I only know one technology that can do that.”
“Autonomous nanoparticle-based assembly materials,” Coren muttered. “By the machine, I never thought I’d see this type of nanomaterial technology in the flesh.”
Then, without any explanation, Coren sprinted back to the Argo.
“Hey!” Bull said, bounding after him to provide security.
Tag turned to follow them, but he stopped in his tracks. There was no need to go any closer. He could see what had alarmed the Mechanic from here.
Like every other vessel in the bay, a shallow groove now traced a square around the Argo. A weight pulled on Tag’s shoulders. He felt ready to drop through the deck as dread filled him. The rest of the crew saw it, too, not saying a word.
Bull did the honors of throwing a loose kinetic slug toward the Argo. Tag watched it spin through the air, hoping against hope that his suspicions were wrong. But the round pinged when it hit an invisible shield. The same blue lightning crackled in a cubic shield around the Argo.
There was no way to get back on their ship.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It didn’t take long for Tag to confirm with Jaroon and Bracken that their ships, too, had been imprisoned by the same strange energy shields. Jaroon’s entire squad had left their ship, just like Tag’s. Bracken, with the largest crew and ship, left a considerable number of engineers, scientists, and other personnel aboard the Stalwart. The shields had still enveloped their ship, and they were too nervous to try moving the vessel to see if the force field automatically deactivated lest the effort end with the Stalwart turning into a pile of melted slag.
“I suppose that leaves us no option but to move forward,” Bracken said over the comms.
“That’s our plan,” Tag said, “unless we happen to come across another terminal first.”
“If the bay you’re in is anything like ours,” Jaroon said, “I don’t believe you will. The walls here are completely bare.”
Tag’s group tentatively spread out, combing the bay while maintaining sight lines with each other, to explore the bay. Tag looked for terminals or maintenance equipment, but he didn’t spot a single repair bot. Not so much as a plasma welder.
“Don’t they need anything to maintain the upkeep on these ships?” Tag whispered to Coren.
“If they possess self-assembling technology, that is doubtful,” Coren said. “Theoretically, such technology could mean that any repair equipment or tools might come from the bulkheads or decks themselves.”
“You’re kidding,” Tag said.
“The one thousand and fourth issue of the Academic Proceedings of Nanotechnology, provided by the Mechanics to my databases, asserts that this theoretical technology is exactly as Coren describes,” Alpha said.
“Gods be damned,” Tag muttered. “No wonder there isn’t a terminal or computer access port in here. It’s probably somehow embedded in these self-assembling walls.”
“That’s my guess,” Coren said. “We’d need some kind of code or gesture or something to call the computers up.”
“Computers, appear!” Sofia’s voice echoed in the otherwise quiet bay. She shrugged when nothing happened. “Worth a shot.”
They continued their search for several more minutes, but they found nothing. Nothing other than the strangest and most diverse set of ships Tag had ever laid eyes on. The admirals and intelligence officers in the SRE navy would die for access to technology like this. They’d never come close to setting their fingers on warships from so many of the races from throughout the cosmos.
But as much as he would love to spend his time documenting these ships to send intel back, there were more pressing concerns at hand.
“Let’s catch up to the others,” Tag said to his group. “I’m beginning to think the sooner we get off this ship, the better.”
Careful to avoid the invisible shields, they made their way toward the back of the bay and the center of the massive mothership. At first, Tag feared they would run into yet another smooth wall with an entrance only accessible if they used some gods-damned magical password. He spotted a cone of white light flooding from a semicircle in the bulkhead.
“There,” Tag said, pointing.
Sumo and Gorenado led the group toward the opening. When they reached it, they paused. Sumo held out a kinetic slug, wincing slightly, clearly expecting it to go shooting out of her hand. No electric blue shield appeared. She waved her hand through, then passed into the corridor. Tag followed with the rest of the group, and they found themselves in a wide passageway. The glaring light in here was a stark contrast to the ship bay. The light banks were as bright as if they were standing in a field under the midday sun with not a cloud in sight.
Tag looked up and down the white passage. The sterility of the place gave him the creeping sensation that he was in a massi
vely oversized floating hospital drifting silently through space, with only the ghosts of its former patients roaming the halls. Once again, he found no computers. A multitude of hatches cut away from the main corridor. There weren’t even any signs to point them toward the bridge or a laboratory or a communications room. Right now, he would settle for a private crew quarters or a facilities maintenance closet. Did the Collectors even have computers?
The tapping of footsteps caused the group to drop low, leaning into the door wells along the passages, their only passable cover. Several humanoid forms raced toward them, sending Tag’s heart galloping in concert with their footfalls. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and braced for a battle. But he quickly recognized the black uniforms and orange visors of the Mechanics.
“Bracken,” Tag called. “Glad to see some sort of life aboard this thing.”
“Likewise,” she said, striding ahead of her pack to meet him. The rest of their troops took up positions around the corridor, securing a score of entrances.
“Jaroon?” Tag called. “Are you near?”
“Shouldn’t be far from your position,” Jaroon reported.
True to his word, he arrived a few minutes later with the rest of his soldiers. Their bulbous forms were encased in sapphire armor to match the alloy of their ship. Shadowy black visors shielded their eyes, and ornate tracings and patterns were carved into the plates covering their limbs and torsos. Each carried a short weapon that looked like something halfway between an axe and sword with a barrel poking out at the end. Normally, Tag thought their translucent, gelatinous bodies were a bit comical, but in their power armor, they appeared strangely elegant. Like knights of old charging into battle—albeit somewhat fat knights.
“Anyone see any signs in here?” Tag said.
“Nothing,” Bracken reported. “This place is like a labyrinth.”
“Like a labyrinth?” Jaroon said. “I’d say it absolutely is one.”
“It’s certainly huge,” Tag said. “Big enough that it’s going to take a while for this thing to jump into hyperspace, if it’s jumping at all. If exploring Hope station would take weeks, this place might take months.”
“Agreed,” Bracken said. “But if I understand where you’re going with this, I don’t like the idea of splitting up. We have no idea what we might face.”
“We will cover much more ground if we do split up,” Jaroon said. “It would be a far more efficient use of our time. Besides, I’d rather figure out how to release our ships sooner rather than later.”
“You both have good points,” Tag said. “And I think the best option is somewhere in the middle. I want to stick close enough we can lend fire support.” He held up a finger before Jaroon or Bracken could interrupt. “But I also don’t want to all end up in a single room and all of a sudden those blue shields trap us with no one left on the outside. I say we take parallel corridors directed toward the center. If this thing really is a ship, there’s got to be a bridge of some sort. If we don’t find a computer anywhere else, maybe we can force someone there to show us a terminal.”
Bracken sighed. “I hope you’re right. I don’t like the feeling of this place. It reminds me too much of being in the Forest of Light when we first encountered the Forinth.”
Coren nodded. “You could feel that they were watching you, but you couldn’t see them.”
“Gods, wouldn’t that be something if the Collectors were invisible?” Tag said.
“I do not detect any lifeforms in the vicinity across infrared spectrums,” Alpha said, scanning their surroundings. “Unless they have thermal shielding technologies, there is nothing to be concerned about in our current environment.”
“If they can do everything we’ve seen so far, I wouldn’t put complete thermal shielding past them,” Sofia said with a shrug. “But I like to believe you’re right. Maybe this whole ship is just one huge robotic hunk of junk.”
“You might be right,” Tag said. “I didn’t see anything living on the planet. Just droids and drones setting up a colony.”
“True,” Bracken said. “We made a similar assessment. But the logs we pulled from the Mechanic ship at the Hope station documented those peculiar blue aliens. Whether this thing is automated or crewed, I still suspect the Collectors are an organic species.”
“Only one way to know for sure,” Tag said. He pointed to three separate hatches leading toward the middle of the giant ship. “Pick one, and let’s find out.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bracken and Jaroon plunged into the right and left corridors with their forces, and Tag took the center. The footsteps of the other groups quickly faded away as the Argo’s crew rushed into yet another sterile hallway. Given the enormous ground they had to cover, Tag didn’t want to waste time investigating spaces that seemed to promise nothing of interest. Most of the open hatches they passed led to chambers filled with stacks of crates, drones, and vehicles similar to those they had seen on the planet they had just left.
“You think that’s all this thing does?” Sofia asked, jogging beside Tag down another long stretch of passage. “Just drops off autonomous colonization equipment?”
“Seeding Collector colonies all over the galaxy,” Coren said. “That is not reassuring.”
Onward they continued, the scenes repeating themselves until Tag wondered if they weren’t somehow running in circles. Constant checks to Bracken and Jaroon showed they were encountering the same sights. No terminals. No signs of life. Just colonization and terraforming equipment. Tag’s group began to run, caution and stealth giving way to urgency and speed. There had to be a terminal somewhere. Maybe even a staffer or tech worker they could hold hostage, someone they could coerce into telling them what they needed to know.
His mind whirred back to what all this had to do with Captain Weber and the nanites and the Hope. He felt like Alice after jumping down the rabbit hole, plunged into a world that didn’t make sense. A world of strange beings and technology so advanced it felt like magic.
Maybe he was going mad. He would wake up in a regen chamber, having recovered after some accident on the Argo.
Sumo slid to a stop, with Gorenado throwing himself to the ground beside her, his rifle whipping up to face some threat Tag couldn’t yet see in the next corridor.
No, this was no drug-induced dream. This kaleidoscopic nightmare was all too real.
“What is it?” Tag asked.
“Contacts,” Sumo muttered.
The others found cover behind crates or colonization vehicles. A low whine filled the corridor, growing louder as the source of the noise closed in. A layer of sweat formed between Tag’s palms and his gloves as he sighted up his rifle, ready for the enemy to appear at the hatch, ready to see the face of whoever was operating this enigmatic vessel.
A vehicle passed in front of the hatch, hovering centimeters above the ground. It had what looked like an operator’s cab, but there was no driver. About the size of an air car, the back of it had a mechanical arm, and a few crates were stacked in a cargo bed. Tag held his breath as the slow-moving autonomous vehicle trucked across the massive doorway. He waited for it to stop, to sound the alarm.
It simply trundled past as if it didn’t notice anything unusual, and Tag let out a sigh of relief. He signaled to the others to move forward into the next chamber. They emerged into a sudden wave of heat. It washed over them, and it took a good ten seconds for Tag’s suit to reduce the temperature slightly. Huge vats of molten metal were being poured into troughs leading to a series of furnaces. The splash of the liquid metal and whoosh of hot air bellowing through the chamber was accompanied by the drumbeat of mechanical arms and hammers.
“Must be some kind of foundry,” Coren said, eyeing the machinery as they passed it.
“Plenty of machines, but no computers,” Sofia said.
“Then we keep going,” Tag said.
They continued for what seemed an extraordinarily long time through the foundry. The walls were no longer the ste
rile white of shipboard med bays but instead a dirty gray with speckles of black, like soot had been embedded within the alloy bulkhead. The lights were different, too, having lost the glow of the white light banks, instead illuminated by lights that gave off a bluish glow.
Sumo held up her hand again, pointing her gun barrel toward another corridor. The whir of another hovering autonomous truck echoed their direction. Tag waited for it to pass as before. This time, the vehicle paused at the chamber’s entrance. He could almost feel the tension weaving between the crew, connecting each of them with electricity as they readied their weapons. The truck’s mechanical arm sprang to life, moving in starts and jerks. It grabbed a black crate from its cargo bed. It placed the crate on the deck. Then it lifted another and stacked the crates until there was a line of six at the end of the passage.
Its task apparently done, the truck hovered away. Even as the sound of its humming motor dissipated, Tag heard the sound of another truck approaching from the end of the passage they had just come from. It also placed six black crates at that end of the corridor.
“What is going on?” Sofia asked, her voice whispering over their comms.
“Bracken, Jaroon,” Tag said. “We just came in contact with some autonomous vehicles. They left cargo behind. Did you see anything similar?”
“That’s an affirmative,” Bracken said.
“Likewise,” Jaroon said.
For almost thirty seconds the group waited. There were no more whirring hover trucks, and the distant sounds of the thrumming foundry carried on unchanged.
Sumo looked back at Tag and Bull, waiting for some indication of what to do next. Bull flicked his hand forward, and she slowly got up from her position. Her rifle stock never strayed from its spot pressed against her shoulder as she inched toward the exit. The strange black boxes were a meter taller than Sumo and even wider than Gorenado.
Sumo’s shoulder brushed against one as she passed, and a reverberating, low roar shook the corridor. The box quivered, then burst into millions of tiny black particles.
Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3) Page 18
