Lex shakily slid one arm farther down.
“That is sufficient. I will position us so that you can absorb the excess kinetic energy with your legs. Remember to bend your knees.”
The pack sputtered, they twisted, and the line came into contact with the edge of the ship. This turned their long, slow swing into a short, fast one, which nearly wrenched Ma from Lex’s grip, but he just barely managed to hold firm and got his feet beneath them in time to connect with the hull. The impact was enough to cause his suit to go rigid, sparing him what otherwise would have been a broken bone or three.
He rebounded slightly, drifting away from the surface, but she pushed them back until the attractive force of his EVA boots could clamp on.
“Well executed,” Ma said, disengaging her grappler and reeling it in.
“Back at ya,” Lex said. “And next time install one of those grapplers on my suit. So what comes next?”
“Lex, this is really hard,” Coal said. “I’m not good at dodging their shots.”
She whipped around into view. Six drones remained on her tail. They were spraying shots in her direction, and though she was attempting to dodge, about a third of the shots still hit their mark. Her shield flickered with the sickly glow of impending failure.
“Coal! I told you to retreat! This is the opposite of retreating!” Lex said.
“I tried, but they kept circling back toward you. We all have to survive to succeed.”
Coal looped away from the ship in time for another seven drones to combine with the first set. Rather than continuing their assault, though, one by one they reversed thrusters and came to a stop. When they were stationary, they rotated ominously until they faced Karter’s ship. It was a very deliberate, almost certainly manual maneuver. Karter was taking matters into his own hands.
“That’s not good,” Lex said. “Do I even need to ask if Karter is crazy enough to have the drones fire at his own ship?”
The first drone fired, striking the hull two meters to his right. Another fired, missing a meter and a half to his left.
“They aren’t made for biological targeting. They have to do a sweep,” Ma said. “Keep moving. In order to open the hatch, I need access to any part of the power system. A hull light will do.”
They rushed along the hull, Ma with her pack and Lex with the deliberate steps of someone who would drift helplessly into space if he let both feet leave the ground at the same time. The drones fired slowly and randomly, tracking him through some vague and inaccurate sensor designed for another task. They were never right on target, but never far off either. A red flashing light, just aft of a small crew hatch, was what they were after.
Lex reared back and kicked it, but a housing designed to survive micrometeoroids and atmospheric reentry was a bit too sturdy for a size 11 boot to fracture. He readied the kinetic capacitor and activated it, dumping some of his recently soaked up momentum into his heel. The blow cracked the housing, and a second one knocked it free.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lex noticed sudden coordinated motion. All the drones were shifting, and their angles were suddenly much less random.
“He knows where we are,” Lex said.
The ship rumbled beneath them.
“And the engines are almost active,” he added.
“He probably detected the hull damage,” Ma said.
She pivoted upside down and fired her grappler into the broken housing, latching on to it.
“Move us onto the hatch itself. It is the most likely point to produce a catastrophic breach. He will likely avoid targeting it directly,” Ma instructed. “I’m accessing the power system.”
Lex clomped onto the hatch and dragged her with him, reeling out a bit more tether. Sure enough, the glowing weapons of the drones fired, scattering their attacks around the damaged light, but the shots were all carefully aimed to strike around the hatch. Twice the blasts nearly struck and severed Ma’s tether, but luck was with them, as her access remained uninterrupted. After failing to strike either of their targets, and doing a fair amount of damage to the side of the ship, the group then repositioned, gathering in a tight cluster just past the edge of the ship. From that angle, their bolts would travel along the hull rather than directly at it.
“How much longer, Ma?” Lex asked, eyeing the drones.
“I have nearly completed the security bypass.”
“Lex? Where’s that cover?”
“I’m trying to mop up strays. Just eliminated three more. We’re down to thirteen, by my scanners.”
“They’re all aiming at me.”
“On my way.”
“My shields have begun to recharge, I’ll try to help,” Coal said.
The drone weapons were visibly charging.
“Somebody do something!” Lex cried.
It was too late. Lex dropped down and flattened against the hatch, yanking Ma down to hold her tight against the hull. A volley of bolts rushed over him. One came near enough to spike the internal temperature of his suit to dangerous levels. Another grazed the hull, flecking some molten polymer off to splatter against his helmet.
“This is it, Lex. Don’t screw it up,” cried Future Lex, tension in his voice.
Lex ventured a glance up at the drones and saw the form of Diamond emerge from behind the ship. It was drifting with its belly forward, offering the widest possible profile. He struck the clustered drones like a whale breaching, crushing them against his ship’s hull. Eight of them ruptured and failed, spraying plasma and coolant in a fluorescent cloud.
Future Lex’s voice crackled over the com. The impact had done nearly as much damage to his ship as it had to the drones. Four of the remaining drones repositioned to target him. A handful of his engines flared, and he accelerated away from Karter’s ship, leading the drones away. The remaining two attempted to target Lex again, but Coal arrived and bashed through them.
“Lex! Lex!” Lex called.
“Shields are down… engines are stalling,” Future Lex said. “Can’t take any more hits.”
“I’m coming,” Coal said, blasting her own engines and pursuing. Some of the drones turned and fired on her, dropping her barely recovered shields and landing some punishing hits, but she managed to crash through the last of them. It came at the cost of her own stability.
“Are you guys okay?” Lex called.
“The equipment’s seen better days, but I can limp along.”
“Me too. I have only navigational shields left,” Coal said. “And propulsion is somewhat impaired, but I am still FTL capable.”
“It’ll take me a minute to get FTL online again,” Lex said.
Any chance at further communication was wiped away as three events happened in the same instant. The shields flickered on, their raw energy just a few meters over his head, causing Lex’s helmet display to dance and distort. Karter’s hatch hissed open with a belch of escaping atmosphere. Most worrisome of all, one of the main engines roared to life. Lex crouched and leaned forward. He was able to hook the edge of the open hatch before the ship entirely slipped out from beneath his feet. Ma fell back to the limits of her tether and began to reel herself in.
The acceleration was incredible, and there were still plenty of additional engines waiting for their chance to shine. Lex knew if even one more activated, no amount of muscle would be enough to haul himself inside, and he would personally learn who would win in the fight between his suit and Karter’s shields.
He hooked one boot on to a second light housing. The combination of one leg and both arms was just barely enough for him to inch himself forward. It felt like he was dragging an elephant along with him, but just as the shudder of a second sputtering engine added to the bone-rattling rumble of the ship, Lex edged his chest past the rim of the hatch and toppled forward. Now inside a closet-sized airlock, he fell first against the wall, then to the floor as the inertial inhibitor of the ship’s interior and its artificial gravity took over.
Rather than take the time to re
gain his footing, Lex rolled to the side and pulled himself a few centimeters back out the door. Feeling intense acceleration from his shoulders up in one direction and normal gravity on the rest of his body in a perpendicular direction was a new sensation for him. It was something akin to being caught in a tug-of-war, and the team representing “pulling Lex back into space” had a hell of an anchor.
He turned his head to the broken housing. Ma had reeled herself up to it, and her feet were scrabbling against the hull, but no amount of effort was bringing her even a centimeter closer.
“Come on, Ma,” Lex grunted, dangling his arm out. “Time to come inside.”
His gloved hand wrapped around the end of her tether. A second engine chose that moment to activate, doubling the acceleration. His suit interpreted this as a threat and tensed the protective cloth of his neck, glove, and arm. This had the mixed blessing of locking the tether in a grip far stronger than he could have managed otherwise, as well as keeping his helmet from tumbling forward and smashing against the edge of the hatch, but made maneuvering himself much more difficult.
Ma disengaged the grappler, which slid a few centimeters within Lex’s grip until its head lodged in his rigid glove. He braced his other hand against the wall and heaved, lifting a house pet that suddenly felt as though it was a house. Ma reeled closer to his hand. Her suit had become entirely rigid as well, which gave her body the look of rigor mortis. Her eyes, however, had the clarity he’d come to expect from the AI as well as a very human level of urgency. A final heave backward pulled her inside, and Lex fell to the floor with her atop him.
It took a second or two before his glove and her suit finally went slack again. She sagged against him, panting desperately. The ship shook twice more, additional engines activating. Behind her the hatch itself hinged down from the floor of the airlock like a ramp, tore free, and tumbled along the side of the ship. In the vacuum it was a silent, oddly surreal sight.
“Your timing continues to be impeccable,” Ma said.
“I try.”
Outside the hatch, beyond the shield, Coal slid into view, her engines burning bright but sputtering. “Where are you going?” she asked across the com system.
“You and Lex get yourselves sorted out. Go to the near edge of the GenMech cluster and look for us there. We’re going to need you.”
“Affirma—”
The end of the confirmation trailed into an odd, deepening tone soon lost to static and silence. Outside the open hatch, the stars made the familiar shift from white to violet to invisibility. They’d shifted to faster-than-light. Lex eyed the sight, or rather the lack thereof, with awe.
“We’re moving faster than light, and we’re exposed to space… has that ever happened before?”
“Unknown.”
“Is this bad?”
“We are being exposed to higher than average radiation levels, but the suits are capable of protecting adequately for the seven to ten minutes it will take to reach our destination,” Ma said. “The clearer and more present danger now that we are on board Karter’s ship is the risk of command override. I should be able to prevent him from patching into my communication system, at least for the short term. He will probably crack yours rather quickly, but I’ve taken pains to upgrade my own com security since our last encounter with him. There is still the risk of audio or visual communication. I will make every attempt to avoid receiving commands in any way.”
“Fingers crossed you can pull it off,” Lex said. “Karter is kind of hard to ignore.”
He climbed to his feet and peered through the window on the inner airlock door. It opened into the large “laboratory” portion of the ship. The cargo door was directly opposite him, the full width of the ship away. On the floor in font of it, attached to a network of cables and wires, was the GMVD crate.
“There it is. We’ve got to get the inner door open.” He looked down at Ma. “What do I need to do, bust another light open so you can patch in?”
“Duck, Lex!” she replied, eyes wide and focused over Lex’s shoulder.
Lex didn’t bother looking to see the source of the threat. He just dropped to the floor away from the door. A moment later, a brief muted sound reached his ears and a rush of wind dragged him toward the open hatch. He caught hold of an exposed wire conduit to keep from being dragged free. Ma latched on to his leg for the same reason. Chunks of metal pelted his suit, activating its defense mode. The inner door ruptured, allowing the air in the ship to rush out. When it died down and the sound dropped away once more, Lex rolled to his back.
Karter was there, standing with one hand braced against the smoldering doorway. He held a chunky energy pistol in the other. A thick, sturdy helmet protected him from the complete lack of atmosphere. Rather than the look of burning fury that Lex would have expected, Karter looked, if anything, mildly irritated. That didn’t do much to calm his nerves, though. Mild irritation was more than sufficient justification for homicide in Karter’s book, and Lex knew it.
The inventor was talking, but for the moment Lex only heard low, scattered tones over his com system. Unheard though it was, the threat was delivered loud and clear when he lowered the pistol toward Lex. He kicked reflexively. The toe of his boot barely clipped the edge of the gun barrel, but it was enough to send the resulting shot lancing out the open hatch to scatter against the inside of the shields.
Ma lowered her head and fired her grappler at Karter. When it affixed to the iridescent surface of his suit, she activated the stun charge, sending massive electrical current coursing through him. It was not wholly without effect, but it was far from the incapacitation that she would have hoped for. Instead it caused him to twitch a few times and fire another shot that melted away a bit more of the airlock. This, though, gave Lex enough time to gather himself and spring forward, driving his shoulder into Karter’s midsection.
Not unlike the stun charge, the tackle didn’t quite have the effect Lex was after. Karter wasn’t a thin man by any means, but the sheer amount of machinery present in his mostly prosthetic body made it more like a block of lead than a hunk of meat. The full force of Lex’s attack was just barely enough to knock Karter free of the doorway. Lex scrambled to his feet and turned to face the inventor.
“-cking idiot,” crackled Karter’s voice as it broke into his com system midsentence. “You really want to screw the future don’t you?”
He reached down and pulled Ma’s grappler free, then yanked the cord hard enough to send Ma launching into the lab. He leveled the gun again. Lex dove behind a mechanical arm in time for it to absorb the blast. As he ran for better cover near the edge of the lab, he tried one of the only options available to him at the moment: reason.
“I’m not trying to screw the future, Karter. I’m trying to preserve it,” Lex said.
Karter stalked forward. “Ma, make yourself useful. Go drag him out for me.”
“She can’t hear you, Karter. This is between you and me. Why do you have to do this? Why can’t we just stick to the original plan? It was your plan.”
“That’s no reason to stick with it. You met the old me. For a good ten years I thought I had an associate named John, and that gamma-form superstring remnants formed a self-referential compound meta-net.”
“I don’t know what that means, Karter.” Lex wedged himself behind a rack of tools and scanned the wall for something useful. Most cabinets were locked down, but one held a gel-based fire extinguisher. He grabbed it.
“It’s complete nonsense. It means I was a stupid psycho. The plan you are trying to run was devised by a version of me who was decades younger and therefore decades stupider than I am. Think of yourself twenty years ago. Would you trust a plan that moron came up with?”
“I was a child twenty years ago.”
“Exactly.” Karter reached the rack and stepped behind it.
Lex dashed out and slid behind the one thing he figured Karter wouldn’t fire at, the GMVD crate.
“The plan can still work!” L
ex said.
“It could. But it’s got to work flawlessly for thirty years before you can actually do something to solve the problem. And even then, you’re stuck with sextillions of murderous robots to deal with. Sure, they’ll be easier to take down, but you’re just a flyboy and look how much of a nuisance you’re being. My plan’s better. A few months of replication and the suckers are dead. Problem solved.”
“And everything from that point forward changes. My future never happens.”
Karter stepped up to the crate and leaned over it. As he extended the gun to fire, a grappler attached to it and yanked it aside, causing the blast to instead splash against the cargo door, scarring but not breaching it.
The inventor looked to his AI with a grimace. She had braced herself against a bulkhead and was reeling hard at the tether. Karter held tight and pulled, but the little tether reel motor was one of his own design and held firm. Ma activated the stun charge again. While Karter was able to shrug it off, his gun was a shade more sensitive. It began to shake and glow threateningly by the time Ma detached the grappler.
He eyed the weapon, which with each passing moment seemed closer to a catastrophic failure.
“I don’t remember you being so willing to take risks, Ma,” Karter said.
He turned and threw the gun out the open airlock behind him. It exploded against the shield, sending a flash of intense heat in their direction but leaving none the worse for wear. When he turned back, Lex was on his feet and brandishing the extinguisher. He sprayed a healthy blob of gel onto Karter’s helmet, blinding him, then delivered a kinetic-capacitor-empowered punch to the chest that sent him sprawling.
“I’m not going to let you wipe away my history. The Karter from my era understood that,” Lex said.
Lex pulled the cables free of the GMVD crate and fished out his data module. He plugged it into the appropriate receptacle.
“When I get my hands on you, I’m going to squeeze what little brains you’ve got out the top of your head,” Karter growled.
He tried to wipe away the gel, but what he used for hands these days proved a bit too rigid to do a job better suited to cloth or flesh, so it wasn’t the most efficient motion.
Temporal Contingency Page 48
