Elora shook her head. “If you say so.” There was a note of disbelief in her voice. “I’ll do what you asked.”
Solomon gave her a long look. “Thank you,” he said slowly, before he turned and exited the small room.
Hepzibah was waiting for him when he entered the sterile white confines of sick bay. The front room was simply a reception area and office, while examination rooms radiated off the office like spokes on a wheel. Each white examination room had a large clear window into the office and a single heavy secure door. Solomon looked at the door sourly, thinking of the Beast. Hepzibah was obviously taking no chances.
The woman, equipped with a white medical jacket and rubber gloves, pointed to the door of an exam room. “Are you still of a mind to do this crazy thing?”
Solomon gave her a sober look. “I absorbed a Construct as a child, and then when I was in the Martian desert, I absorbed another. How, I don’t know; and why, I don’t know. I wasn’t in a safe sick bay then, and still, I survived. You know that Elora received one of my two. Now I’m going to try it again.”
Hepzibah’s look was as cold and hard as agate. “To what end, Solomon?”
“To give each of Giuseppe’s children their own Kiniseri Construct. To give them each the best chance of survival I can.” His voice was as hard as hers.
“Do you plan to do this all yourself?”
He took a breath. “If necessary. At this time I’m the only person aboard who has survived hosting two of the Constructs, and only a person with that knowledge stands a chance of… rehabilitating a new and potentially unstable Construct from the batch stored aboard the starship. Then I will use that same Construct to rehabilitate the Constructs aboard the Lost Horizon. Let’s get on with it.”
Hepzibah shook her head and followed him into the room. “Take off your shirt and lie down on the examination table.”
Solomon did as she requested, handing her his uniform shirt.
She studied his lean muscles. “Lie down, please. I’m going to have to restrain you, for your own safety, you understand.”
Solomon snorted. “I’m surprised you chose to do it inside the ship at all. Both Elora and I can breathe vacuum for up to half an hour, you know.”
Hepzibah paled. “No, I didn’t know.” She swallowed. “Can you be killed?”
He gave her a level look. “I almost died from lack of air when I repaired the Lost Horizon’s attitude jets to get us here. Yes, I can be killed. If necessary, evacuate the air in this room, and I will die… eventually.” A chill ran up his spine at the thought. “The root of the problem is that the Constructs aboard the Lost Horizon have been isolated for more time than I can imagine. The shock of suddenly having a host might make them… irrational. I’m hoping that between my own Construct and myself, we can restore sanity to the new Construct, and then use it to restore sanity to the others that are still in storage.”
Her green eyes locked on his. “I understand. Do you still wish to proceed?”
“Yes.” He lay back and put his arms at his sides.
Using a heavy nylon strap, Hepzibah secured his head, wrists, ankles, and chest to the steel examination table. She left the room and returned a moment later, holding a single clear container with a stainless-steel lid. In the container, something black moved like a thin cloud of smoke. She set the container on a table by the wall and came to Solomon. “Last chance to say no, brother. Personally, I think you’re crazy.”
“Thanks, sis. Let’s get on with this.”
She shook her head. “Okay. I’m going to make an incision in your arm and then leave the room and seal the door. Using manipulator arms, I’ll pick up the container and open the cap. Then we see what we shall see.” She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. “Survive this, brother. The family needs you.”
Solomon said nothing.
The small incision on his arm burned, then the door thudded closed with a terrible finality. He thought about changing his mind for a moment, then the manipulator arms unfolded from the wall and began to move. The first arm picked up the clear container from the metal table. The second arm clamped metal fingers on the lid and began to twist. Solomon heard the hiss of escaping air, and the manipulator dropped the lid to the deck with a clink. From the corner of his eye, Solomon watched a curl of dark shadow rise from the container and pause for a moment in the air, as if sniffing. It struck with the speed of a leaping cobra, and Solomon felt the burning pain radiate up his arm into his torso. His world went red…
He blinked his eyes open, and the room swam before him for a moment. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, staring at the closed door. He turned his head, only to discover that his skull was pounding and his neck felt as if he’d been strangled. His wrists were raw and bleeding, as were his ankles and a raw band across his chest. He swung his eyes to the wreckage of what had once been an examination table welded to the steel deck. Now it was twisted and lying on its side, bloody frayed straps hanging from it like strips of flayed skin. His eyes moved on. The clear observation window was starred from several impacts, and Solomon could see where, in one place, claws had actually penetrated the impenetrable surface. The splatters of blood on the window indicated that it had been struck with flesh, rather than with metal. He shut his eyes as he remembered why he’d been put in the room in the first place.
Deep within him, he could feel the two Constructs. Their attention, it seemed, was focused for the moment on repairing his broken ribs and hands. Putting his back against the wall and using his feet for leverage, he pushed himself into a standing position. Dressed in a full decontamination suit on the other side of the observation window, Hepzibah looked back with concern, Elora at her side.
“I’ve safely absorbed the second Construct.” His voice came out as a hoarse croak. “What the hell happened?”
Hepzibah swallowed. “You came close to escaping an inescapable room. Your struggle is going to give me nightmares for a month.” Her voice was trembling, and he shut his eyes. “How are you feeling?”
Solomon snorted a laugh then groaned in pain. “Like I’ve been hit by a train. The Constructs are concentrating on repairing my internal damage at the moment, like broken ribs, a punctured lung, and broken fingers. I should be mobile in a couple of hours, set to go in a week, or so.” He opened his eyes again. “I know how we can avoid going through this again.”
“Oh?” Elora muttered in an angry voice.
He sighed. “The Construct I received from those in storage has been alone for hundreds of thousands of years. Suddenly it found itself in a strange host battling with what it perceived as a hostile Construct. It noted that I was restrained, and it fought at those restraints too. Eventually it became rational enough to realize that neither I nor my current Construct were hostile. After that things went better. All I have to do is to remove one of my Constructs and put it back in the holding tank with the others. These things are semisentient and share memories. Word will get around about what the Constructs can expect. When I’m healed, I’ll try it once more just to be sure the reprogramming has taken, and then we can start passing Constructs around to the family first, and then to the crew.” With his toe, he nudged a manipulator arm that had been torn off the wall. “Can you see anyone messing with the Fontaine family ever again once they get Constructs?”
Hepzibah came closer to the broken window. “I have a little bad news for you, Solomon.”
He rolled his eyes, expecting the worst. “Go ahead.”
“It seems that you bent the security door in its casing, Solomon. Gibbs is going to have to cut you out.”
He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks, and the more he laughed, the more it hurt. The more it hurt, the more he laughed. He was still lying on the floor chuckling thirty minutes later when the bent security door dissolved in a cloud of gray nanites.
Chapter 9
SHANGRI-LA
Solomon looked at the bridge crew in their Adaari midnight-blue uniforms and f
elt a sense of pride in the way both the Fontaine family and the military colonists had pulled together to learn the idiosyncrasies of the new Lost Horizon. Unsurprisingly, the military colonists to the man had chosen to stay with the Lost Horizon as members of the crew, even before they knew of the benefits the Kiniseri Constructs would give them. Eight weeks of practice and drills while the ship repaired itself had made the bridge crew a smooth, well-polished team. The rest of the crewmembers would take a while yet, especially since the ship was still almost nine hundred fifty crewmembers short.
Solomon took a deep breath. “Gibbs, please set course for Shangri-La. Take us out of the debris field at dead slow, shields at nominal. Avoid the larger chunks wherever possible.” The stars began to swing in the forward view screen, and he felt a lump in his throat. After a delay of better than two months, an unrecognizable Lost Horizon was back underway once again.
“Now underway at dead slow, Captain.”
Several members of the bridge crew shot him glances and grins. In another two months, the cruiser Diadem would be ready to depart her temporary tomb.
“When we’ve cleared the debris field, bring us up to minimum in-system speed while we make sure that everything is working as it should.”
“I agree, Captain; however, at that speed, ETA at Shangri-La will be one hundred ninety-two hours.”
“Better safe than sorry. Thank you, Gibbs. Do we have the com frequency for the Shangri-La camp?”
“Yes, Captain. We will be in range shortly after we clear the debris field.”
Elora looked over her shoulder. “Aren’t they ever going to be surprised?”
“I certainly hope so.” Solomon gave her a wide grin, while around him, the Lost Horizon purred.
He stood in the hangar, looking at the 172 cold-sleep caskets stacked neatly, waiting to be loaded onto the single combat drop shuttle they had managed to rehabilitate from the Diadem. As it was and due to their size and weight, it would still take nearly ten trips to transfer all the caskets to the surface. The family and newer crewmembers had talked it over and decided that if the sleepers were awakened aboard the Lost Horizon, the chances were that they would want to stay on the ship, rather than hazard an uncertain life on a wilderness planet. The colonists were desperately needed on Shangri-La, and the consensus was that what they didn’t know in another week of travel wouldn’t hurt—or tempt—them. He studied the squat delta-winged combat drop shuttle, its wings folded into the storage position, and wished he’d had something like that back in his day. Reactive hull coating absorbed radar and lidar, and tended to blend with its surroundings. Muzzles of energy weapons poked from the wings, and lumpy structures beneath the body spoke of internal missile launchers. Unfortunately, the missile launchers had no missiles, and the energy weapons had only a twenty-five percent charge.
“I’m sorry to intrude, Captain, but you’re needed on the bridge,” Gibbs said politely. Gibbs would be polite, Solomon was sure, if he were announcing the end of the world.
He turned to the door. “What’s up?”
“I believe that I’m picking up the energy signature from a Bleeth ship, Captain. It appears to be orbiting Shangri-La.”
Solomon cursed and began to run.
He could feel the tension on the bridge. “Status?” he snapped, sliding into his seat.
“Several things, Captain,” Gibbs said. “The first is that I’ve detected the energy traces of a single Bleeth warship orbiting Shangri-La. Energy signature matches a Bleeth assault ship, which makes no sense. Assault ships carry up to one thousand ground assault forces, but the ships have no cold-sleep facilities. Troops could not have survived this length of time.”
Hepzibah glanced his way. “Could they be nonbiological troops?”
“Cyborgs?” Mila asked in a small scared voice.
“Probably not, miss,” Gibbs replied. “The organic part of a cybernetically enhanced organism would still fail after this period of time.”
“Robots?” Elora whispered.
Gibbs mused. “Perhaps.”
“Whatever the hell they are,” Solomon injected, “we need to take out that Bleeth assault ship. Set an intercept course, Gibbs, charge all weapon banks and ready the missiles. Set shields to maximum.” He looked around the bridge and thanked the gods for all the drills they’d done. “Sound battle stations—this is not a drill.”
Somewhere, an alarm began to shrill. It took them no more than five minutes before Elora turned to him.
“All stations report at battle stations, Captain.”
He never turned his head from the screen. “Thank you, number one. Gibbs please put me through to Shangri-La.”
“Ready, Solomon,” the AI murmured.
Solomon took a breath. “Shangri-La Station, this is the Lost Horizon. Did you miss us?” Static replied for a long while, and then…
“Lost Horizon?” The voice sounded stunned. “When you went overdue and never called, we assumed the worst. What happened?”
“It’s a long story that can wait.” Solomon could hear the despair in the man’s voice. “What’s your status?”
“Oh, God, we’ve been under attack for months now by… things. Some things are shaped like men, roughly, some like vehicles, and some like animals. They are mechanical, like robots, but much more advanced. We’re down to thirty-two men and women here now, Lost Horizon.” Solomon heard the man swallow. “Take your colonists, turn around, and go home. There is only death here.”
Solomon knew what it had cost the other man to say those words, and he grinned. “Ohhh, we’ve come a long way. I think we’ll stay and help you with your little problem.” He made a motion for Gibbs to cut the connection. “Gibbs, scan the surface for alien outposts and mark them for pest control.”
“Yes, Captain. Sensors indicate that the Bleeth ship is in a wide elliptical orbit and is just returning to Shangri-La.”
Solomon grinned. “Have they seen us yet?”
“No, Captain.”
“Good. Cut the drives and all emissions, and park us in their path. When they get close enough, raise our shields, and our tactical officer will fire.” He glanced at Brigit. “I don’t want to have to do a reattack.”
She gave him a nod and a grim little smile.
“I understand, Solomon, but it’s not very sporting,” Gibbs said.
“Goddamn it, Gibbs—this is about our survival. It’s not a game. You take every advantage you can to eliminate your opponent… permanently.”
“Yes, Captain.” The voice of the AI was… sulky, and Solomon suddenly couldn’t wait to transfer to the Diadem. “Range to target forty thousand kilometers and closing.” The ship in the screen was the color of a gray garden slug and approximately the same shape. At two kilometers long, the hull looked spotted and patched, and a large hole in the port side had been crudely plugged at one time. No ports were lit, and the ship had no running lights.
“Arming weapons,” the tactical officer said from her position, and Solomon watched targeting carets center on the approaching ship. “Raising shields… fire,” Brigit announced in a calm voice.
The shields on the assault ship flicked on instantly, the result of totally automated defense systems, and were torn to ribbons by the heavy energy weapons of the battlecruiser. Seconds later, the missiles struck, and the Bleeth assault ship vanished in a brilliant ball of expanding fire.
“Very good, ladies and gentlemen,” Solomon congratulated his staff. “Gibbs, let’s go get those surface installations.”
“Yes, Captain,” the AI replied as the big ship turned back to Shangri-La.
“Please inform our ground forces to prepare for a possible hot insertion. Prep the assault shuttle.” Solomon’s eyes were shining, and for the umpteenth time, he wished that he weren’t going into battle with only twenty-nine crewmen instead of one thousand.
Solomon looked at his calm tactical officer. “Will you be using missiles again, Brigit?”
She shook her head. “No, Capt
ain. I didn’t think that the people on Shangri-La would appreciate the nuclear fallout from megaton-range missiles. This ship has mass drivers for planetary assaults, but unfortunately, they are still inoperative. That leaves the energy weapons.” She shrugged. “The smaller ones are still charging, but the larger ones will do, although they may burn down to the bedrock in places.”
Solomon smiled. “Do whatever it takes to clean out the vermin, Brigit.”
She grinned. “Clean out the vermin, aye, aye.”
Mila leaned over to Brigit’s position to point out locations of the Bleeth outposts to the tactical officer, while around him, the Lost Horizon hummed into battle.
“Put me through to Shangri-La, please,” Solomon said.
“You’re on, sir.”
“Shangri-La, this is Lost Horizon. The flash you probably saw in the sky was the Bleeth assault ship that has been dropping unwanted visitors on Shangri-La recently.”
“What the hell is a Bleeth?” the voice from Shangri-La muttered angrily. “And who the hell are you anyway?”
Solomon sighed. “Bleeth are the bad guys. I’m going to be landing a combat drop ship near your position with a few marines to support you until we’ve had a chance to do a little pest control on Shangri-La. When that is done, we’ll offload a bunch of colonists for you.”
“But…”
“Lost Horizon out.” Solomon cut the connection and glanced at Elora. “The conversation was getting boring anyway.”
His second-in-command turned away, trying to hide her laughter.
From the view screen, a patch of mountainside suddenly glowed sun-bright. When the brightness faded, Solomon could see a boiling cauldron of melted rock glowing in the sunlight, ringed by burning trees.
“Scratch target one,” Brigit growled. “Moving to target two.” Following her targeting coordinates, the Lost Horizon drifted over the surface of Shangri-La, pausing only once to release the combat drop shuttle before it continued on its way. Eventually, the tactical officer turned to Solomon. “All the targets Gibbs and I could see have been eliminated, Captain, but I can’t be certain that one or two concealed outposts might have escaped detection.” The young woman looked as though it physically hurt her to admit it.
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