Shattered Dawn (The Eternal Frontier Book 3)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Tag didn’t let that dissuade him. He saw the desperation bleeding through Ezekiel’s face. The post-human fought like a cornered dog—one that already knew the battle was over but was going to fight it out anyway. He managed to gesture over his terminal, and the nanites that had pooled on the deck from earlier reformed into a squad of golems. They joined the fray in a flurry of slicing limbs and grasping claws.

  Everything became a haze of red and blue and black. Tag tried to keep up with the battle, tried to help. It was too much, and he lost track of the action as pain and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. But just when he thought the golems had pushed the battle into Ezekiel’s favor, when he thought Ezekiel was actually going to fulfill his promise of killing them all, the golems fell apart, spreading across the deck like a puddle of oil once again.

  Ezekiel stared in horror at what was left of his guards. Coren grabbed one of the post-human’s arms and dug deep into the muscle with his knife. Bull charged, attempting to tackle him, while Jaroon levied another powerful blow into Ezekiel’s stomach.

  Through it all the post-human still stood tall, seemingly invincible.

  Tag roared and leapt at Ezekiel, brandishing his blade at the post-human’s face. The others followed, desperate and disorganized. Even so outnumbered, Ezekiel should have won. He’d been engineered to be faster, stronger, smarter. He had every advantage, but one.

  They were angrier.

  Ezekiel didn’t even stand a chance.

  The constant bombardment and unrelenting attacks brought the post-human to his back. Lacerations wept with crimson blood, and even his fast-healing body couldn’t keep up with the others’ assault. Ezekiel went down, his head cracking against the deck. Tag mustered his remaining strength and leapt. He delivered a blow that sent shivers of pain through his fist. But none of that bothered him. The pleasure of seeing Ezekiel wince more than made up for it.

  Finally, Ezekiel’s limbs went still. His chest rose and fell in racking gasps.

  “How...how did you overcome the nanites?” he asked, a trickle of blood dribbling from his lips. “You were never supposed to be free. The nanites would’ve made you fight to the death. You could never turn on me like that. It makes...it makes no sense.”

  “Guess you aren’t as smart as you thought,” Tag said, willing a triumphant smile across his face despite the pain and exhaustion seeping through him. It was worth the pain to see the post-human look thoroughly bewildered at the turn of events. He would never give the post-human the satisfaction of knowing the truth, even in these last few desperate moments. “And humans, Mechanics, Melarrey, we are better than you.”

  Then with a look of humiliated disappointment, the post-human took his last breath.

  Tag’s chest heaved. He planted a boot on Ezekiel’s bleeding ribs and waited a moment to ensure the post-human had stopped moving. Everyone had seen what Ezekiel could do and had done; they weren’t going to give him a chance to regenerate himself, even if his pulse had stopped. One of the Mechanics took it upon himself to guarantee he stayed down by the expedient measure of removing his head. Tag forced himself to watch as the blade sawed through the post-human’s neck.

  The battle was over, but they were far from safe.

  “Alpha,” Tag gasped, “monitor Sumo’s suit. Make sure she’s stable.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Alpha said, bending over Sumo’s once-again limp form.

  “What did Ezekiel say about this ship, Skipper?” Sofia asked. “That he was the brains of it?” She wiped her bloodied blade across Ezekiel’s pant leg. “Looks like we’ve dumbed down the ship. Everything’s going haywire.”

  “I think someone else did that,” Tag said, looking to Alpha as she gently situated Sumo against a bulkhead.

  Sofia raised a brow. “So when you made your choice to start the whole gladiatorial combat thing, you did know the nanites weren’t working anymore, right?”

  “Thanks to Alpha’s wink,” Tag said. “I had never seen her do that before, so I knew something was up.”

  “Good,” Sofia said. She paused, standing next to Ezekiel’s headless body with her hand on her hip. “If you had to choose one half of us to live, which one were you going to pick?”

  Tag shook his head. “Thank the gods I didn’t have to make that decision.”

  “I mean, you would’ve wanted to keep me on your side. That’s basically a guarantee,” Sofia said.

  Tag smiled enigmatically. The truth was that he hadn’t had a chance to decide, and he would be eternally grateful for it. If he’d chosen, even in his mind, he wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt. He clapped a hand on Alpha’s shoulder. “I cannot thank you enough for hacking into the Dawn’s system. How did you do it?”

  “I did not do it,” Alpha said. “It was Raktor. The seedling fought for control of the nanites and won, using them to hold us in place until Ezekiel gave the signal. Instead of allowing the nanites to make us fight, Raktor simply disabled them completely. When Ezekiel tried to regain his control, Raktor superseded his command.”

  “Was Raktor not affected by the nanites?” Coren asked.

  “It was not,” Alpha confirmed.

  Bracken sauntered toward them. “And how is that? Are Raktors not susceptible?”

  “I believe they are,” Alpha said. She opened her chest cavity. Tag remembered how it had been lying open when he had first seen Alpha on the bridge. Apparently, she had done it to herself. “But Raktor isn’t here.”

  “What do you mean?” Bracken asked. “Where is it?”

  “Raktor is currently breaking through various firewalls within the Dawn’s intranet,” Alpha said. “Just as Ezekiel said, machines can be manipulated and defeated rather easily if you can find a weakness to exploit. Raktor are especially suited for exploiting such machines. When I couldn’t access the data line from the suspension chamber myself, I left Raktor behind just before the golems took us.”

  “Good thinking,” Tag said.

  “It was I believe what you would call a gamble, Captain. I estimated the success rate at less than ten percent. Because Raktor still has the transponder, we were able to maintain internal communications, and it realized it had to access the nanite controls in order to help us.”

  “I feel like I owe our Raktor much more than just the ship I promised it,” Tag said. “That thing saved all our lives.”

  “I believe it would say that it has done a kind thing,” Alpha said with a ghost of a smile on her lips.

  “A very, very kind thing indeed,” Sofia said.

  Bull looked less impressed. “Come on. Even Raktor isn’t that dumb. The little plant knows that without our help, it’d be stuck here. Ezekiel would’ve fried that viny bastard the moment he found it.”

  “Whatever its motivation, we’re alive,” Sofia said.

  A rumbling shook the Dawn from deep within the vessel’s belly.

  “It will count for a whole lot more if we can stay alive,” Bracken said.

  A single red light flashed from the terminal, and an alarm barked. Soon it was joined by the distant chorus of alarms echoing through the passages. The trembling of the ship continued, and the viewscreen showed the massive planet beginning to loom larger.

  “Looks like we’re drifting toward the damn thing,” Bull said.

  “Alpha, what’s going on?” Tag asked.

  “It appears that with Ezekiel’s death, the Dawn is undergoing an automatic shutdown process. All systems are being deactivated and the data aboard the ship is being summarily deleted as a safety precaution. At least that is what Raktor has been able to tell me.”

  Another rolling wave of tremors quaked through the bridge.

  “Can’t Raktor stop this?” Tag asked.

  “It’s trying,” Alpha said. “But the data port there isn’t giving it access to all the Dawn’s systems. Getting through the new firewalls and security measures from that limited port is proving to be a slow process due to the automated shutdowns. Raktor needs direct access
to the ship’s controls.”

  Tag looked at the sole terminal at Ezekiel’s crash couch. “We need to bring it up here.”

  “I can do that, Captain,” Alpha said. “I have a map of the ship now, thanks to Raktor.”

  Tag was ready to agree but then thought better of it. “Transfer the map to my wrist terminal. I need you here, along with Coren and Sofia. I want you guys working with Bracken’s crew to break into the terminal if you can. That’s Plan A. We’ll retrieve Raktor for Plan B.” Bracken nodded as she ordered two of her engineers to Coren’s side at the terminal. “Alpha, what’s the situation like with the Dawn’s defensive forces?”

  “They are presumably all shut down,” Alpha said. “But there are several errant golems that may yet be functional. Warnings indicate that the Dawn is attempting to reboot its security measures.”

  “Marines, on me,” Tag said. “Jaroon, want to go for a run?”

  Jaroon nodded, clicking his visor back down on his power armor. “Ready when you are.”

  A half-dozen Melarrey fell into ranks behind him. With Bull and Gorenado at his side, Tag took off into the depths of the post-human ship.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  They sprinted down a wide passage. Unlike the bare, sterile halls they had passed to get here, this one was filled with holopaintings and sculptures like an art museum floating through space. There were humanesque shapes Tag faintly recognized with multiple arms. One had an elephant’s head. He saw others that were amalgams of humans and hawks, cats, alligators, or other animals. Then there were paintings depicting humans looking down from lightning-filled clouds.

  “What’s with the awful artwork?” Bull asked the question on Tag’s mind. “I didn’t think post-humans would be so obsessed with us ‘Sapes.’”

  Tag could hear the air quotes in the way he pronounced Sapes.

  Gorenado, still keeping pace with the group, stared at the holopaintings as they passed. “These aren’t normal humans. They’re gods.”

  Tag looked at the huge marine. The question must’ve been clear in his expression.

  “I like studying ancient mythology and religion,” Gorenado said. “See, there’s Horus? And that one? Ganesh. Zeus. Odin.” He continued to name the gods they passed as they ran down the corridor. The scent of burning plastic hung heavy in the air as they passed a sculpture of a half-woman, half-cat.

  “Through there!” Tag said as an indicator on his HUD lit up. He twisted into another passage. At the end of it, he saw the bright greens of the agricultural sector.

  “We were so damn close before,” Bull said.

  The heavy footsteps of the Melarrey pounded after them, crashing through the narrow passages until they burst into the rows of crops. Many of the stalks were trampled, evidence of the golems’ assault here. A few trees still burned, their leaves blackening and curling, as smoke drifted toward the high ceilings. Embers blew on an artificial wind. Maintenance bots were attempting to put out the flames, while still other farming bots roved the fields, tending to their responsibilities as though nothing had changed.

  Another quake trembled through the Dawn of Glory, and Tag fell forward into the wet soil. He picked himself up, mud clinging to his suit, and saw that most of the farming bots had started to shut down. The overhead lights fizzled off, and the room went dark. Tag listened to the others fumble around in the darkness until they had turned on their helmet-mounted lights. A swathe of white light shone before Tag when he switched his on, and they continued forward, albeit a bit slower now.

  “Alpha, what just happened?” Tag asked over the comms.

  “The terminal is reporting that approximately eighty percent of the ship’s power systems are going into dormancy.”

  “What about engine systems? Are we still headed toward the planet?”

  “We are,” Alpha replied. “Raktor has been unsuccessful at accessing drive and impeller controls from its current position.”

  Tag’s legs pumped harder, his boots digging into the mangled crops and dirt at his feet. Beams of light bounced off a patch of trees ahead, and they entered what appeared to be a small forest. They wound between the tree trunks. A rotten smell akin to carrion slithered into Tag’s suit. He almost gagged as he tried to clear the copse of trees and their malodorous fruit.

  A dark shadow loomed to his right. At first, he thought it was just a bulky Melarrey, but the fist crashing through a tree next to him proved it wasn’t a friend. Tag dodged another leaden blow as the shadow morphed, falling away and reforming within seconds. It looked like someone trapped within a plastic bag. Spikes jutted from its nanoid flesh, then disappeared to be replaced by more conventional humanoid limbs. All around Tag and the squad he’d dragged down here, more shapes appeared.

  “Nano-golems,” Bull grunted.

  “They’re going insane!” one of the Melarrey shouted.

  “Alpha, can you find out what’s going on with the golems?” Tag asked. “I thought Raktor took care of them.”

  “Raktor is now attempting to manage multiple systems at once, including the defensive systems,” Alpha replied. “It is reporting minimal success.”

  “We can see that!” Bull said, firing at an encroaching figure as it morphed between a humanoid golem and a ball of spikes.

  A torrent of energy rounds spit from the human and Melarrey weapons. Orange and green bolts of pulsefire crashed through shadowy figures, and the attackers fell away in waves of molten metal.

  “Keep moving!” Tag said.

  At least, the automated golems were in disarray and attacked only in fits of aggression. The group soon cleared the trees. More golems appeared across the field, limping toward Tag and the others. The only thing keeping these things hindered right now was Raktor. As soon as they loosed the alien from its mount within the lab, all control over the golems would be lost.

  The alternative was leaving Raktor there and losing complete control of the Dawn as it continued its shutdown procedures. Neither one was particularly appealing.

  “Alpha, any chance anyone on the bridge has learned how to control the Dawn yet?” Tag asked.

  “No, I am afraid not, Captain,” Alpha replied. “We are capable of reading current ship activities but unable to influence them.”

  “Damn,” Tag said. He swung his pistol around on another swarm of golems surging toward him. The marines opened up on the mutating machines. Another hatch appeared in the bulkhead across from them over a field full of melted golems. It was the lab, the site of their last stand.

  “Straight ahead,” Jaroon bellowed. The Melarrey formed into a spearhead and charged into the golems. They hammered the creatures with their weapons and lanced out with flashes of green pulse rounds and blades. The dark spray of melted nanomachines flew from the golems like gore, singeing the crushed vegetation.

  Tag dashed along the path they cleared and ran through the hatch, straight toward a broken suspension chamber. Next to the human corpse was a tangle of wires. A small plant no bigger than a tumbleweed sat in the nest of wires, its vines leeching into the central data cable.

  “Raktor!” Tag said. “We’re getting you out of here.”

  The vines from Raktor’s central body whipped around as it began detaching itself from the cables.

  “Good, let’s go,” Raktor squeaked. “It is becoming far too difficult for us to deal with all the security systems from here and take control of the flight systems.”

  “Can you at least shut down the defensive systems?”

  “We can, temporarily,” Raktor said. “But the golems are beyond control from here. The automated shutdown procedures are triggering all the defensive systems to go live. Every time we shut them down, another signal is sent from the bridge to turn them back on.”

  “Understood,” Tag said. “I want you to put all your energy into shutting them down for as long as you can. We need to make a run for it.”

  “We will try,” Raktor said.

  The Melarrey and marines milled about the ent
rance to the lab. Their weapons lit up in bursts as they fired on the golems managing to hobble their way forward. Everything played out like a horrible case of déjà vu until the golems all suddenly disappeared, falling into black puddles in the furrows and craters of the field.

  “We will not have long,” Raktor said. “We should run now!”

  Its vines waved in the air above the seedling, like a toddler begging to be picked up. Tag scooped it up, carrying it under his left arm. Vines curled around his biceps, holding on tightly.

  Tag sprinted toward the others. “Move! Now!”

  They spilled into the fields, rushing back toward the bridge. The lights from their helmets provided dim cones of illumination over the quivering pools of nanomachines struggling to reassemble. Each time Tag jumped over one, he half-expected claws to shoot from the puddle and grab his ankle.

  Faraway red emergency lights sparked in his vision.

  “There’s the passage,” Tag said, pointing to the open hatch.

  In Tag’s periphery, the shadows shifted, just outside the reach of his helmet-mounted light. He turned enough to see the golems beginning to form. Like phoenixes rising from the ashes, they rose from the scattered nanomachine remnants. This time, without Raktor to interfere with their programming, they became whole again without the jittering they had exhibited before. Masses of the golems poured after the group as they reached the corridor back up toward the bridge.

  “Gorenado!” Bull yelled. “On me!”

  The two marines took rearguard, blasting fire into the closest golems with the Melarrey providing support. Tag continued on, not even pausing long enough to see how the marines fared against the machines. Raktor squeezed his arm tight enough he could feel it through his suit. The living plant was nervous, and somehow that made Tag even more determined to outrun their pursuers.

  Sounds of gunfire and stomping boots, weapons clanging against the bulkhead, and curses from the crew chased him. But he never looked back.

  He had to get to the bridge. Rounding a corner, he entered the art gallery depicting all the ancient gods, and he found himself praying to his own gods that they would survive this.