The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  Brinley stood to her full height, which still left her far shorter than Markari. “I would never turn my back on someone I feared,” she said in a low and confident voice. “You remember what I said about Tennard.” She then turned around and slowly walked back toward the shuttle, never looking back at Markari or the four armed guards.

  Upon entering the shuttle, Brinley activated the switch and down came the small ship’s outer door, and then the interior pressure door slid crossways into place. “We will be leaving momentarily. Gravity will be released, so be prepared.” She then sat in the pilot’s seat.

  “Shuttle, this is the observation deck,” a woman’s voice said. Markari could be heard in a muffled tone in the background. “The bay will be decoupled from gravity manipulation in five seconds: four, three, two, one. Now.”

  Brinley was already belted into the pilot’s seat, but Gretchen and Paul scrambled to harness themselves down into the other available seats. Gretchen was closest to the co-pilot’s chair and sat there. The zero gravity was not too bad once they were strapped in.

  “You betray me too, Beth?” Brinley asked rhetorically as she manipulated controls, switches, and buttons. “Just open up the hanger bay’s exterior doors and we will be happy to leave.”

  “Hanger bay depressurization commencing. Good bye Brinley,” Beth said with a touch of sorrow in her voice.

  Brinley gave the ship’s inferior site thrusters a tiny nudge and the shuttle lifted off the deck of the hanger bay. She then gave a counter nudge with the superior site thrusters and that stopped the motion of the ship so it appeared to hover over the hanger bay. The tools, gear, and other equipment did not hover, however, and they continued to move upward until they struck the ceiling of the cabin and then bounced downward.

  “I will secure that stuff,” Paul said and unhooked himself from the seat. He floated over and began gathering the tools and loose equipment.

  “There should be a cargo net in the side panel. I should have thought of that, sorry, my mind is just not coping well with this right now,” Brinley said and pointed to the panel. Gretchen reached over and pulled out the expandable netting and handed it to Paul.

  The huge hanger bay exterior doors were retracting into themselves. There was flashing yellow lights all around the bay. The blackness of space was revealed section by section as the thick doors moved. When there was enough clearance, Brinley fired the posterior site thrusters.

  “Goodbye safe zone,” Brinley said as she lost communication by traveling past the exterior hull.

  The shuttle moved ever so gently out of the hanger bay toward the freedom and unknowns of space and out of the Colony Ship Vanguard.

  3 cutting through the roe

  The elevator repairs were completed. Constable Larissa had dismissed the human workers who then trudged through the mud back to the town of Orsk. The repair crew was more than happy to leave Larissa’s presence. She had never raised her voice, nor had she insulted anyone. She had calmly and coolly directed the repairs and overseen the entire operation. Nonetheless, the ever present reputation she had for summary judgments and executions made the people who lived in E Habitat very nervous. Second only to the habitat’s Governor, Larissa was the most powerful person in the habitat known as the Wilds. Additionally, the human repair crew consisted of people who had all been born in the Wilds, as evidenced by the tattoo each of them had on their forearms. Therefore, they were all rather anxious about being so close to an exit or entrance to the places outside. They knew the Roe lived there, and, while few had ever seen even an infected animal, they all knew the stories which were passed down from their parents: true stories which frightened even the bravest of the people who lived in the Wilds. So all in all, the men and women in the repair crew were eager to get back to their routine lives far away from the walls behind which lurked the Roe.

  Left behind were the automacubes.

  “M147, are you sure you can track the fugitives?” Larissa asked the white automacube.

  “I prefer the designation, Doctor 147, if you please,” the machine replied.

  “I do not please, M147. Are you willing to answer the question M147?” Larissa asked. She was well aware of the friction that came with working with the medical automacubes. She addressed the white automacube, “You should be more like the security automacubes and be an obedient servant.”

  “Actually, I cannot be more like the security units as we are programmed for different functions. Can a foot be more like an eye? Perhaps were I connected fully into the lattice, things would function more smoothly?” M147 replied.

  Larissa refused to play that tangential game regarding the lattice. Instead she again asked, “This is a direct command, M147, you will answer the question. Are you capable and willing to track the fugitives? If not I can summon another medical automacube.”

  “Yes, I am capable of tracking two of the people you deem as fugitives. There were others involved in the escape which I do not have samples from, and those people cannot be tracked using the DNA pneumatic-exhalation residue method. Yes, since it is a direct order, I am willing to do that same tracking,” M147 replied.

  “You shall commence that tracking immediately. Take this elevator to each floor and seek out the trail they took. You will need protection and assistance on this journey. Therefore, I am sending E11 as well as S76 and S101 along with you. They have their orders, which, by the way, they accepted without discussion. You are to seek out the fugitives and find them. Report to me no less frequently than twice daily. Upon your finding them, you will report immediately. Under no circumstance are you to fully connect into the lattice of the nonphysicality. You shall not alter the boundaries which have been established in your core systems,” Larissa commanded.

  “Affirmative,” M147 replied.

  The newly reconstructed elevator doors opened, and the four automacubes rolled into the car. The engineering automacube, E11, extended its blue multi-jointed arm and inserted a cable into the control panel. The two red automacubes rolled in on either side, their weapon muzzles intimidating even when not in active use, their armored sides thicker and heavier than the other automacubes. Lastly, the white M147 rolled in. At the end of its appendage, the sensor equipment was held in readiness.

  The doors slid closed and the elevator began its ascent. It was already at the lowest level of the channel it rode within, so going gravitationally upward was the only choice. The elevator channel was inside the gently arcing wall of the habitat. The channel not only ascended, but it also twisted on its axis to position the egress points at their proper locations. There were fourteen places along the path where the fugitives could have disembarked.

  The first stop that the elevator came to was magnetically sealed. E11 used override codes and the doors begrudgingly slid open. M147 extended its multi-jointed manipulation arm with the sensor equipment. Air was sampled and visual observation of the vestibule outside of the car was done. Readings were taken. Analysis was computed.

  No one had opened this door or entered this floor for an extended period of time. Overhead lighting was dim, but consistent. Dust was thick on the floor, residue of a fire some years before marred the walls and ceiling, and there was a pungent acid smell to the air. A human pursuer would have gagged at the toxicity of the fumes. The corridor only extended in one direction, and that ended in a sealed bulkhead door. The fugitives had not been there.

  E11 had the doors close. The elevator rose on its journey to the next level up.

  The elevator twisted slightly inside the channel to realign with the next deck. Here the doors opened easily, and without any override codes. Light spilled out into the room beyond. Again M147 took readings. As it extended the appendage with the senor equipment, dozens of large cockroaches rushed away from the unexpected movement.

  The air was very low on oxygen, and the temperature was cool. What had once been an organically based, thickly padded, soft and comfortable floor covering in a subtle, yet attractive pattern, was now
a mushy bog of stagnant water. The source of the water, a fractured pipe inside a public bathroom, was constantly leaking a tiny amount of acidic tainted water. That water dribbled down and seeped under the now rusted out bottom of the steel doorway which had at some distant point been painted a lovely lavender color. Now there were actual rusted out holes in the bottom of the door through which the water had oozed. The bog covered most of the hallway from bathroom to elevator and was ever so slowly extending away down both directions from the elevator. The bog’s crenulated edges were ever so slowly invading all available space. Tiny mushrooms and other fungi were sprouting up from a lump in the middle of the bog. That lump was a human corpse.

  M147’s sensing equipment assessed the autolysis and putrefaction of the mummified corpse, establishing time of death as sixty-one years, fourteen days ago. Cause of death: two gunshot wounds to the back. One .40 caliber synthetic slug was still embedded in the spinal column of the body; the other was not within sensor range. There was a growing colony of bacteria, insects, and other microorganisms in the bog. Tracks and scat showed occasional visitation to the bog by rats, but there was no evidence at all of the fugitives.

  E11 logged the evidence and prepared a request for assistance to be sent to Machine Maintenance, subsection Water Management, but stored that away until a time when E11 could interface with the lattice. There were forty-three additional messages stored in cue waiting for reconnection to the lattice and permission for them to be sent. E11 then had the doors close and the elevator continued onward.

  While the elevator moved away, M147 filed a similar request it is own cue to go to Mortuary Assistance reporting the dead body.

  When the doors opened on the next level up, it was pitch black. The light emanating from the elevator did not pierce far into that blackness. M147 extended its sensing equipment and took readings. The temperature was adequate, as was the air quality. Although the automacubes were designed to work in nearly any atmosphere, or even in vacuum as needed, atmospheric normal pressures and gases along with light in the human eye’s spectrum was the preferred venue. Evaluation of the readings revealed traces of the DNA which M147 was looking for. The white automacube rolled out into the darkness and switched on a Dermo-deprehension Anisotensic flood lamp on its front side. The exotic DDA light was used for medical applications which included evaluation of integument conditions, assessment of organs, and mapping of anatomical features. But M147 had repurposed the DDA light for this situation. It shined onto the area, and special perception filters revealed three sets of tracks in the dust which was covering the permalloy decking. The manipulation arm of M147 extended down and touched the duct where the light was shining. The prior presence of the fugitives was now confirmed by DNA traces and discernable tracks.

  S76 and S101 roared ahead following to the sides of the now observable footprints. E11 rolled out and then spun on its six wheels and had the elevator doors seal. E11 also locked the elevator in place. M147 sped up to keep the special light on the trail. The footprints led down various parts of the corridor, winding back and forth, but never doubling back.

  The corridor changed a bit as they passed from place to place. In some locales it was narrower, in others it was wide. As the automacubes traveled they took little notice of anything but the pursuit of the fugitives. If the sensors did not indicate a change, then the automacubes did not veer into the passageways which led off of the main corridor. They ignored the broken-in doors, the overturned equipment, burned out or vandalized apparatus, and the occasional piles of debris. Had a human been along, he or she would have been appalled at the conditions of this level.

  The machines came upon a closed bulkhead, and M147 assessed the tracks. They had not turned or altered, but led right up to the closed permalloy pressurized door. Apparently the fugitives had fled through the doorway. This was the first closed door the machines had encountered on the trail since leaving the elevator.

  E11 extended its appendage and jacked a cable into the wall. The bulkhead door was not powered like it once had been, and was now inert. There was a shadowy remnant of a power signature the automacube did not recognize. Its own lufi-amalgum battery pack, inside the automacube, was insufficient to re-power the bulkhead door. But E11 had other ways to complete the mission. Had it been allowed to connect into the ship’s AI lattice it could have had an artificial intelligence system from Power Utilization reconnect the ship’s power to the door, but since the automacubes had been expressly prevented from connecting to the lattice, E11 used a tertiary approach.

  Extending out two additional appendages from the bottom of its mechanical arm, E11 placed those spreader appendages onto the frame around the bulkhead door. Then a cutting torch was ignited and small holes were burned into the door at appropriate locations on each side of the door’s seal. The separate spreader sides then slid deep into the holes which had been made. Immense pressure was used and the bulkhead doors were prized apart by levering action. The bulkhead door groaned in protest, but since it was de-powered it only had its weight as a resistance. The seam between the parts of the door split with a load clanging sound. Then the sides of E11’s spreader appendage rotated so it could grasp even more of the door and apply even greater opening force. The labor needed to ratchet the doors apart took time, but to the machines, time was not a factor. They had their mission and continued relentlessly.

  When the doors were finally forced open to create an adequate sized passageway, E11 welded the door in place. The four automacubes then started to pass through the now permanently open doors.

  S76 passed through the bulkhead opening first and was immediately struck on its top by a long club.

  “The flour was bitter!” someone yelled while smacking the red automacube with a length of steel rod. “The flour was bitter!” The rod came down hard on the red automacube.

  S76 sped into the chamber beyond the bulkhead, while the attacker, running alongside, continued to bash at its multi-jointed arm. The permalloy parts were able to withstand the onslaught, but the steel, ceramic, and insulated wirings were not as durable.

  The attacker, had once been human, but now her eyes glowed a horrific orange. The Roe struck again and again at the automacube. This time one joint of the appendage joints on S76 was cracked and several cables ripped away. The appendage drooped into dysfunction. But S76 spun around in a tight circle and fired electric prods toward the attacker. The small prods flew outward, followed by the ultra-thin wires which connected them to the machine.

  She nimbly leaped out of the way of the prods, her ragged and dirty clothing flapping around her skinny and scared body. Her bare feet moved with surprising speed. “The flour was bitter!” she screamed as again she used the steel rod, this time in a thrusting jab at S76’s wheels, wrenching one of them out of alignment. The red automacube continued to spin and try to get away from the crazed attack by the Roe.

  Blam, blam, blam.

  Loud reports echoed through the corridor.

  S101, the other red security automacube, had passed through the bulkhead and fired its primary weapons at the Roe which was attacking S76.

  The projectiles struck with force into the Roe’s body. Her shoulder, buttocks, and leg were pulverized into a fountain of bloody pulp. The fragments of infected flesh, blood, and bone coated over S76’s broken appendage and dripped down its sides, covering most of the white lettered 76.

  The Roe slumped down, but was not dead. She tried to stand, but her legs were giving out. Her wounds were grave, but she continued to mutter, “The flour was bitter!” as her shattered body slid in its own blood down onto the deck. She still grasped the steel rod with her uninjured arm and wacked at S76 which rolled away from her continued attacks.

  M147 rushed over and assessed the injuries. “I am Doctor 147. May I assess and treat your injuries?”

  “The flour was bitter!” mumbled the dying Roe as she turned her attention to the white automacube. The steel rod fell from her quickly weakening hand.


  “I take that as a yes,” M147 replied. “Traumatic assessment initiated.”

  The white automacube’s appendage came down and sensors made readings on the woman. She had been infected with the Outbreak strain of mutant rabies for nearly fifteen years. M147 knew there was no treatment for that chronic infection. However, since encountering the fugitives when they had been captured by Constable Larissa, M147 had compiled as much information from the Epidemic Prevention and Habitat Purification Department as was allowed. The dying patient displayed the typical infected status. She showed the classic symptoms of chronic infection. Chronic infection only took place after humans had been altered by Vaccine 731.

  “Your injuries are too severe for any kind of restorative treatment. In addition, I have no cure for the infection you are suffering,” M147 said. “I will ease your suffering.”

  “The flour was bitter,” the Roe responded in a feeble and weak way. Blood was dribbling down her chin adding to the spreading pool of blood from her other injuries. Yet, her orange eyes were still vibrant and intense.

  “If I could interface with the lattice I could offer you individual death rituals according to your religious preference. However, I am unable to do that. Please forgive me,” M147 stated and injected the woman with high powered pain killer and anti-anxiety agents.