by William Cray
Finding a data port, he ripped it open with a flesh tearing jerk, flinging the panel onto the floor with a loud crash. Pulling a silver vial from his vest, he smashed it open against the lip of the panel, shearing it open and dumping its contents of nano-probes into the system’s hardware. The infiltration nanites erupted into the opening, darting into the nodes optical network, splicing into its relays on the molecular level, searching for data to access.
Green lights started to show up on his infoboard as the infiltration bots dumped a
virus directly into the system. The infoboard's code breaker software emasculated the hardwired firewalls and started giving him control. Defense systems, would take to long to access, but some systems started to blink on immediately.
Filtration systems and motion detectors came on first. Nothing that could help him. Duran watched as the Dauntless bore down on Swift again. The turret swiveled back onto her.
The Stratospire’s automated maintenance and repair systems turned green.
With a quick dial on the controls, Maintenance Ring A’s command net came on-line. Error messages flashed on its crane system, as well as about twenty structural alerts. Duran selected the level controls… and ordered the maintenance ring to rocket skyward.
Anne Braisselle looked into the eyes of the ship as the Dauntless’s pilot swung towards her, nose forward, still angling the gun in her direction. The pilot operated the vessel effortlessly as it traversed towards her. Her enhanced systems let Anne see into the eyes of her attacker, a woman like herself, driving her machine with brutal efficiency.
Anne hurled rounds at her, screaming inside her suit, but her own energy weapon was out of effective range and the fuel cells were almost empty. She couldn’t bring her plasma gun online long enough to bring it down.
The woman pilot backed the ship away from her as it held its nose on her. Warning systems blared in her helmet as tracking systems burned through her jammers and locked on. Low on power, ammo and without the proper countermeasures loaded, she was dead.
With a start, the suit absorbed the rapid change in gravity as the maintenance ring shot skyward and her attacker dipped below its horizon, its nose forward, facing her, still backing away.
The opening was enough. Rushing forward like a sprinter along the antenna, she barreled towards the ledge, leaping into the open sky with all the fury and strength her suit had left.
Major Sari, looked up in wonder as the form descended, arms outstretched like wings, guiding down onto the back of her Dauntless. At the last instant, she pulled back, attempting to climb away from the descending form. She throttled forward, gaining altitude and closing on the tower stalk, hoping the diving terrorist would overshoot and sail into the Martian abyss. The Dauntless was steady as her nose came up. Sari looked back over her shoulder to try to spot the beast through the dorsal window. Had it overshot?
With a thud through her manual controls, the ship began to vibrate and buck in her hands. She fought for control of the vessel as it cleared the maintenance ring by just a few feet. Winging over, the ship started to tumble. She fought with the lifeless controls, trying to slow her dive. She looked back into the crew compartment as the beast ripped open the spine of her ship like a can.
Chief Fisk screamed in her helmet. She glanced back to see his burned and riddled body slumping behind her in the cockpit, holes torn in his body that passed all the way through the skin of her ship. The ripping sound continued behind her as the marauder sheared off vital parts of the Dauntless. The Martian cold and thin atmosphere infiltrated her cockpit through the perforated gashes in her canopy. She fought the controls as the cold infiltrated her body, bleeding out the precious warmth she needed to keep up the fight for her ship. She was shot through.
As the Dauntless winged over for the last time, she looked back at the maintenance ring edge, as an iron cased form stared back from its surface. She could swear the woman inside was grinning back in a malicious snarl of her lips.
Major Sari could have ejected, but she was paralyzed for her failure to stop the terrorist. With a final glance at the iron golem, she gave up the fight as her ship surrendered to its damage, and plunged into the night sky.
Anne Braisselle watched the Dauntless execute its terminal death roll as one final tip of its gray wing come over the lip of the maintenance ring, then tumbled from the sky. Immediately she began trying to reactive her com system. Duran was alive and someone had sent the ring racing skyward.
The maintenance ring had stopped its climb as soon she landed onto the back of the Dauntless, so someone was monitoring the situation and intervening to her advantage. She yelled again inside her suit.
“Major, this is Swift… Renegade this is Swift on emergency channel Alpha…. Major if you can hear me… get clear of the city. Get clear.”
She put the message on repeat while she assessed what she had left.
The com system was dead, as was her sat-link and all exterior antennas. With just two percent power remaining in her fuel cells, she shut off all systems in her suit except life support, actuators and power to her plasma gun.
Four Intruder antennas still ringed the cupola. She primed the gun, walking to the nearest antenna, navigating the ring with the tower’s red anti-collision strobes lighting the way. It might not be enough, but even if it is, it’ll still be a long walk down, she thought.
Blue fury shot from her, lighting the sky far above Mars, the flare blinding her naked eyes, but she continued to pour it on, thinking about Duran through the brilliance in the dark as she killed the Intruder’s precious tower.
Is this all you’ve got? I’m coming for you next, she thought, hoping the Intruder was still listening.
The voices in her head changed. She paused. This was different. Something had happened. She staggered as the pulse came over her and she went down to her knees. She reached out at the last second, grabbing the edge of the antenna before she slipped off and fell into the black.
Mars Orbital Tower
Security Control Room
A powerful blaze of reflected energy slashed across Swift, leaving her suit in a momentary halo of incinerating white glow. She pirouetted away from the Dauntless as it started to pull back. Duran helplessly watched the battle, struggling to keep the Stratospire's lower maintenance ring positioned near the undulating vessel, being ridden and gashed by a counter-attacking Anne Braisselle.
As the mortally wounded Dauntless healed over, beginning it’s spiral, Swift retreated back to the ring with a powerful leap. She had scored the fatal blow, lancing the ships brain with a harpoon of focused energy against its unarmored and exposed topside, like a great whaler of human seas, climbing on the back of the thrashing beast and driving a spear into its skull.
The Dauntless impacted near the base of the tower and warning systems sounded in the control room. Even before the Dauntless was turned into a twisted metal crater far below her, Braiselle resumed pruning the Mind Control antennas with bursts of hot energy, ripping with vice-like torques of powerful arms or bursts of fire from her mounted Assault Talon. She disassembled the array with whatever tools she could conceive, adding to the pile of burnt and fused metal littering the surface around the Stratospire. People were starting to gather around the tower entrance. A second wave. He didn’t have much time.
Duran watched for a moment as Swift sheared away another tentacle. She was fully in control and would finish her task soon. He turned is attention back to the search for the Intruder and Celeste. The mosaic of snapshots and readings clicked by on the security room’s many displays. Each new image jolted him, expecting to see Celeste on the camera. The disused ruins of the Stratospire ran by in succession, each view halting momentarily until the next monitor cycled through in the unending chain of security eyes spying on the massive structure. Duran programmed a search pattern to locate and display areas wher
e access doors and elevators had recently been used. The sequence of views traced the day’s mayhem, catching glimpses of the paths both he and Anne Braiselle had blazed through the Stratospire, finding the remains of the Intruder’s stricken victims.
Duran continued to mend the damage he had sustained as he searched. He could feel the hot and cold contrast of flowing and dried blood. His burned skin mended with an odd numbness, localized for each wound. Floss’s knife had gouged a hole at the base of his neck, slicing through in his external relays, leaving much of his equipment synchronization blanked and useless. The infoboard’s data stream directly to his IP was severed, leaving him unable to synch with most of his advanced sensors, navigation and communications. Each step forward had degraded him, and each moment brought Duran closer to the human weaknesses that the Emperor’s surgeons had tried to cut out.
The machine inside seemed to mock him now. In all of his struggles since his enhancement, the machine had been dominant. He had fed his flesh to the machine to keep going, but his combat systems were shutting down as his body tried to regenerate. His stores of reserves were depleted.
The architecture now seemed a stain on him. His normal life cycle had been interrupted as he accepted the changes. Now he couldn’t access most them. The machine was failing him. He had what the Intruder had given him and he didn’t understand it, couldn’t access it.
I will finish this.
Duran felt the change. Celeste was gone. Something had replaced her. It was like a low guttural sound, a rumbling that vibrated through him, a mechanical alien sound reverberating in his head. He had never felt anything like it. He grabbed onto the console, trying to regain his bearings. A wave of nausea flushed across him. Then it was gone.
That was it. Duran thought. Whatever that feeling was…whatever the Intruder just did… that was why all this is happening. It wasn’t about Celeste. It was something else. Something alien.
With a start, a wry smile below black bloodshot eyes leered up at him through the electronic lens. The Intruder engrossed the monitor. He stopped the sequence, focusing on the image looking back at him across the gulf of the Stratospire’s spy eyes.
Swift had cut away his last antenna. Duran was below him, and Anne held the high ground above them. The Intruder had no choice now. He had to accept a direct confrontation.
Behind the Intruder, Celeste withdrew from the Thought Control Device, leaving its neutralized mechanisms. The malevolent symphony of voices rescinded were gone now as Celeste left the minds of the thousands she held in her grasp just moments before. It was like Earth.
They were in the Large Capacity Elevator. Duran locked the main elevator controls. The Intruder was trapped.
Duran starred into the monitor a long moment as if the Intruder could look back at him through a glazed window. The ease at which the Intruder gazed at Duran showed he was still confident in his victory. The message that passed to Duran's subconscious no longer carried the sting of previous encounters. The Intruder spoke to him directly with the gift. He used the tone of an instructor to a pupil who finally began to understand the fundamentals of the mystery that would unlock wondrous things. The message was personal.
“I have known you for a long time Rory.” A feeling more than a voice resonating in his mind. “I will no longer impede your progress. I know you have many questions.”
The Intruder made a sweeping gesture with his hand indicating the way was clear. The wry smile never left his gaze. “It’s time we are formally introduced. I await your arrival.”
Duran spun on his heels turning towards the crumpled body of James Floss. Duran paused for a moment, looking down at his fallen friend. The shattered doors rattled as Duran stepped around Floss’s body and he left the security center.
“Renegade, this is Swift … do you copy … Major Duran this is Swift on emergency frequency Alpha … do you copy … “
Duran emerged from the shattered security office. Every attempt to kill him left a trail of maimed innocents, victims of the Intruder design. He threw people away, lives that had meant something to someone, maybe to no one but themselves, but lives they wanted nonetheless. The Intruder had stripped their will, their innocence and then sent them into the meat grinder to face the machine, unaware of the utter futility of their attempts on his life. Now, after the Intruder’s resources were gone, he would end this.
Duran arrived at the main shaft, making his way through the wide corridors. The kiosks flashed the altitude of each elevator car along the thirteen thousand mile long monument. One of the three external passenger elevators blinked ready at his level and he headed towards it. The central shaft, the heavy lift elevator, was still several kilometers above him.
As Duran approached the passenger elevator, he caught the gleam of a tiny sparkle in the dark corridor. He reached for the Talon, but stopped as Kari appeared.
She waited for him at the elevator entrance.
As Duran approached, he looked into her eyes, and saw a blank hollow pain behind those sad green eyes. Her face was pallor and slack. So young and full of energy, now she was a ghoul and inside her was a bomb, carved out of her flesh.
Kari stared back, looking up at him with the resigned sadness in her eyes. Duran placed his hands around her, pulling her close for a moment, and stroked her dirty and tangled blonde hair.
Why did he do this? Duran mourned.
He wanted to sweep her up and rush out to find help, but he knew he couldn’t help her. There was nothing he could do. She was just another innocent flung against him.
Kari showed no response to Duran’s embrace until he released her. When he looked back down at her, a single damp tear of pain or sadness trickled down her face, streaking the mask of dirt and smudge along her soft features. Duran tried to smile, tried to show her some human connection, perhaps the last before she detonated herself in service to her master, but he turned away, walking into the elevator. She followed silently.
35
Phobos Commonwealth Military Depot
Sensor Fusion Station
Flight Captain Peligrew leaned over the H-band readouts, watching the display for any glint of activity. The Alpha wave sensor, adjacent to the H-band on the display, still flared, undulating against the invisible spectrum and fueling the violence below with surging waves of Intruder sign, but the mobile H-band sets were silent.
Almost half a Martian day had passed since the last sign of the lurking fast attack had appeared on their scopes. But it was still there Peligrew knew, because there had been no indication that it was gone.
Fast attacks operated on an extremely low energy flow, even to the point that the crew existed for weeks enduring freezing temperatures in zero-G inside their cramped and spartan hulls. Any improvement in their comfort level was an expenditure of energy and stray heat signatures. Magnetic emissions might betray their existence to sensitive eyes searching the empty voids of space for any minutia that revealed their presence. They existed as both prey and predator in equal measure, tracing their roots and mythology to submariners of old. They drifted in the silence of space, allowing the flowing void of the universe to pass over and round them, as if they didn’t exist at all.
If this had been war, Peligrew thought, then this would be a moot exercise. He and the men and women on the depot would already be dead. But the rules the mysterious fast attack was operating under didn’t seem to focus on the depot, instead traversing Mars in a very low orbit, passing over New Meridian City and the chaos reigning below. If this was an Imperial ship and an Intruder event was occurring on the planet below, then the Emperor wouldn’t allow the spread of their influence so close to his power base. The Emperor would strike. The fast attack was in perfect position to do so, covertly and with impunity.
The Depot wasn’t an operational combat outpost and it wasn’t equipped for a shoot out. Its defenses were outdated and mostly non functional. Besides, no one, especially not Admiral Holteski, would authorize hostilities without word from Fleet, an
d Fleet had been silent for almost two days on this issue. Oh, they responded with the proper codes and protocols, but something or someone was holding Fleet’s chain, and jerking it tight. At a minimum, Fleet would have dispatched Fury on an emergency burn, but the Admirals out on Typhon had done nothing but acknowledge, Message Received. Send updates.
They had been hung out to dry. Denied traditional countermeasures, Cochrane had been determined to make life miserable for the lurking ghost ship, and that was fine with Peligrew. Anything that forced it to break off, or even better, reveal it’s presence, was a victory. But that was the hard part. The depot may not have the arrays or the weapons to counter the threat conventionally, but it did have a crater full of junk, so junk would have to do. Turns out, in a previous life, Colonel Cochrane was a junk master.
Peligrew watched the screen as Cochrane and his heap moved into position, preparing to begin his part of the plan, when Martes called out from his tracking station.
“Aspect change…India Five-Two. New heading…high-ball trajectory to low orbit over Meridian CZ. Speed Two-Niner and falling. Will enter exclusion zone in four zero minutes.”
“Kaf,” Peligrew said, looking at the changing display and watching the contact tagged India five-two alter its heading, diving for the surface. “What do we know about India Five-Two?”
Martes continued his track. “It’s an outbound from Earth CZ. Squawking a Commonwealth government code, listed as a Class 3-local, type undetermined. Destination is Meridian CZ.”
“Did they get the warning?”
“Yes sir. Operations waved them off and gave them their hold vector about six hours ago.”
“Well, they’re coming in hot… Better let the Colonel know.”
Cochrane checked the positioning of the fleet of assault landers surrounding him, forming a broad vertical disk above Mars. With a command on his console, he ordered the flotilla to change formation, shifting the automated vessels, firing maneuvering units and dropping down into a holding pattern in low orbit and opening up their formation.
