by M. D. Cooper
“Fran said the Forward Kindness is going to blow up.”
“That’s right. The reactors are in an overload sequence, so we grabbed the armor we came for and now we’re on our way to get Tim.”
“Are you worried about what’s going to happen on the station? Won’t the man who threw Tim out the airlock be there?”
“I expect he will be.”
Cara seemed about to ask something else but paused. “Is Mom there?” she asked.
“You can talk to her if you want to, you know.”
“I know.” Cara made an angry sound. “Dad, Fugia Wong is trying to get Fran to plot courses for the Cho. She says we need to plan on you not coming back.”
“What’s Fran saying about that?” Andy asked.
“Fran told her to pound sand. What does that mean?”
“Think about it,” Andy said.
Cara laughed. After a few minutes, she asked, “Now Fugia wants me to take her to the safe room to see her crate. Is that all right? I don’t trust her.”
“It’s hers, Cara. You can take her there. Don’t let her do anything with the Seeds your mother brought. Tell Kylan he needs to watch those.”
“Should I ask Mom about it?”
“If you want to. What’s Kylan doing?”
“Standing by the wall staring at nothing. It creeps me out. I hate him for what he did to Petral.”
“We’re going to save Petral,” Andy said.
Cara’s voice broke. “Can we? I don’t want to think that we can if we can’t.”
“We’re going to get through this, Cara. You keep Fugia busy and pay attention to what she says. Once we get Tim back, we’ve still got a long way to go, remember? I don’t think these people mean us harm but we aren’t their priority, either. Remember that.”
“I know,” Cara said.
“I’ll keep you updated. I need to go now.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to focus on what’s happening around you and I need to do the same thing here. Understand?”
Cara’s voice trembled again, wavering between a little girl and a teenager. “I understand.”
“I love you, Cara.”
“I love you. You’re going to get Tim?”
“Yes, I am.”
Andy let Cara close the channel. In the few seconds it remained open, the sound of Fran arguing with Fugia Wong filled the audio.
Lyssa checked the remaining systems on the Forward Kindness. The engine containment system had reached its maximum failure ceiling. Gamma rays spewed out, irradiating the ship as they collided with atoms and broke down. Lyssa noted the instant the physical structures broke, studying each subsequent nanosecond as the Forward Kindness melted in some places, compressing like a crushed can, and bursting in others as trapped atmosphere popped into vacuum. Debris didn’t travel far but the radiation exploded outward.
Andy answered.
Lyssa wasn’t certain if Andy meant that to be reassuring or not.
Lyssa said.
Lyssa made a rather unusual mental sound to signify her frustration.
Lyssa paused for a moment before replying.
Lyssa was beginning to tire of Andy responding to everything she said with questions.
Lyssa didn’t reply, and Andy gave the mental equivalent of a snort.
Now she was certain he was messing with her.
He sighed.
Andy nodded to himself inside his helmet.
Andy’s adrenaline spiked but he took several deep breaths that fogged his faceshield.
Lyssa waited as Andy worked his jaw for a second.
Lyssa spent the next several seconds trying to reach Sandra, the AI that she had spoken to on the Heartbridge shuttle. Receiving no answer, Lyssa focused on the station control system. She seemed to know exactly how to breach its external protections through lightly secured protocols.
From there, Lyssa quickly accessed the internal communications network and moved to the environmental monitoring system. Each section of the station monitored everyone aboard, adjusting for temperature and atmospheric mix based on body composition. Tim’s smaller form became immediately recognizable among a group of adults in a central part of the hollowed asteroid.
she told Andy.
Lyssa waited as Andy studied the information she passed, then placed a mission marker on Tim, and went on to mark other parts of the station with concentrations of bio-markers.
Lyssa answered, reading through the drone control logs
. She only found maintenance checks performed by humans. Everything else had been a Weapon Born AI.
Lyssa paused, considering the question. Of course, she could control one of them as long as she had a consistent signal connection with the drone. Could she control more? In the space of a thought, she reached through the fleet control sections of the station, her mind branching out to each of the drones hanging like bats in the hangars. A rush of diagnostic information flooded through her, nearly overwhelming her with engine status, battery loads, weapon information and hundreds of other control schema. The sensation was both exhilarating and stifling.
Her first impulse was to pull away even as the drone systems tried to draw her deeper. Then she pushed forward, expanding to meet the void.
It was Sandra, the shuttle AI.
Lyssa said.
The voice that had been so calm, considering the question of Tim’s life as if it were a cold equation was now stretched and frantic, warping with stress.
The sound of Sandra’s fear and pain filled Lyssa with the same feeling as when she had watched Tim tumble away from the Sunny Skies. She immediately wanted to lash out. The hundred drones at her command flared alive, weapons on-line, ordering themselves for a combat launch from the hangar.
Half of Lyssa’s mind rippled with the power of the combat drones as she also stared in disbelief.
Sandra’s voice spiraled away, babbling words and images that grew more insane. Lyssa watched helplessly. She didn’t know what to say or do in the face of Sandra’s agony.
Had she caused this? By pushing Sandra to save Tim, going against her command network, had Lyssa broken her? The question hadn’t seemed that difficult. It had seemed so simple at the time.
Brit’s voice surprised her.
Andy said.
the Anderson Collective soldier answered.
Lyssa said. In the Clinic 46 Fleet hangar, two combat drones leapt from their berths and targeted the external doors, blowing them outward with timed concussive blasts. The drones then shot out into space with the remaining squadron rising from their cradles and streaming out behind them.
Lyssa could have overridden the lock sequence on the hangar doors, but she assumed this would have a disorienting effect on the station administration.
She smiled with pleasure as her assumption proved correct.
CHAPTER TEN
STELLAR DATE: 09.23.2981 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Clinic 46
REGION: Jovian L1 Hildas Asteroids, Jovian Combine, OuterSol
The surface of Clinic 46 seemed to accelerate toward Brit in the final seconds before she hit. The armor maneuvered into a smooth crouch, absorbing the force of her impact with an automatic defensive posture. Two electron beams mounted on her shoulders trained on the maintenance airlock as she raised the heavy chain gun she held in one armored glove. Andy and Harl landed behind her, assuming similar stances. Andy was armed with another chain gun and shoulder mounted high-velocity kinetic rifles, while Harl carried a corridor-clearing kinetic pellet gun and a portable repulse-shield emplacement.
If they had expected heavy fire, it would have made more sense to pair Harl’s suit with hers or Andy’s, but they hadn’t realized the capabilities of each suit until they’d had them on, and at this point neither she nor Andy were willing to let the other rescue Tim alone.
Brit engaged her magboots and crossed the distance to the airlock, checking for defensive systems. She hadn’t found anything the first time she’d entered the station, but she had been a much smaller target then.
The surface of the station around them was covered in tightly wound coils of support conduit, alloy boxes that most likely held environmental controls and dome-shaped long-range sensors. The airlock stood in a depression with dim lights along its upper border. When Brit was within twenty meters of the opening, her HUD flashed red as a turret spun to life from the top of the airlock. The weapon system had been hidden in a shadow and now flared orange on her infrared sensors as molten plasma filled the space between her and the entrance.
Some of the plasma splashed onto her face shield, but the armor ionized to deflect the star-stuff. Brit felt a moment of panic as her HUD turned white.
Brit fell to her side, taking scant cover behind a square junction box with conduit running into it. Bits of rock and alloy cracked and sprayed around her as the turret walked its target line toward her. As her faceshield fully cleared, her HUD came back into focus, showing two glowing icons indicating Andy and Harl flanking her right and left.
Brit caught the edge of a gray blast of steam as Harl thrust off the surface of the clinic. He came down on top of the turret as it fired on Andy, hammering its sensor array with an armored fist. The gun went into an automatic firing pattern, forcing Harl to grab its quad-barrel in both hands and squeeze. He leaped off the turret as it exploded, sending burning debris in every direction.
Brit’s HUD showed decreased range of motion in her right shoulder but each of her weapons systems came back operational. She rolled to her stomach and pushed herself upright.
&nb
sp; Harl reported.
As the hanging debris cleared, Brit realized the depression that had been the maintenance entrance was now a pile of rubble.
Holstering her heavy gun, Brit walked to what was left of the airlock. She kicked several scorched alloy panels off the airlock entrance and into space until she had reached the doors. She punctured the nearest door and let a blast of atmosphere bleed into space.
Once the pressure on the other side of the airlock had diminished, she continued cutting a series of gashes in the doors. Brit judged the door’s structure to be sufficiently compromised, and put away the cutting torch, then threw a hard punch at the door.
The doors held over the course of three blows. On the fourth strike, the exterior airlock assembly crumpled out of its mount, and she grabbed the edge of the frame and pulled whole thing aside. Beyond lay the inner airlock door, and Brit slid in, punching the emergency open command.
The door refused to open—she’d expected as much, but it had been worth a shot. Brit drove her plasma cutter into the door once more, letting the air from the corridor beyond stream into space before making a hole large enough for the trio to enter.
Once she pulled the sections of door aside, the corridor beyond was revealed, lit in the pulsing glow of flashing emergency strobes.
Brit nodded, pulling up the maps Lyssa had shared. She oriented on the potato-shaped station and found their location in a quadrant near the mid-point, an outer maintenance storage area. Tim was still highlighted twenty floors below their current position.
Emergency gates had dropped on either end of the corridor, locking them into a hundred-meter section.
Harl nodded as he walked up beside Brit.
