“Great work, anything else we might want to know?” demanded an angry Spartan.
Tigris was already hitting buttons on the computer systems and answered but didn’t turn away from the displays.
“I doubt it, once I have access you’ll have your answers. Now watch the corridor!”
Spartan turned his head in annoyance. There was nothing he disliked more than when people used him and right now that is exactly how it felt. He waved over to Marcus.
“Back to the corridor, apparently we might be expecting company. Misaki, watch him,” he added as he tilted his head in the direction of Tigris.
The two moved back and Spartan tossed her a magazine. At the doorway they came to the bodies of the two Zealot guards and the Biomech who was still moving. Spartan knelt down with a great effort managed to turn it over.
“Spartan!” the creature roared, the pain in its voice evident.
“Hey, easy now, you’re badly hurt.”
The creature started to make a strange noise and it took a few seconds before Spartan realised it was laughing. The roar was more like a battle cry or howl than anything he had ever heard before. As the creature slowed down its breathing altered slightly.
“Hurt! I will die. Spartan, you must promise!”
Spartan didn’t quite hear the last word and leaned in to hear more clearly. As he moved the creature reached out and grabbed him with its muscular arms.
“Promise to release my people!”
Spartan could barely breathe and had to use all his strength to pry its arms from him.
“What do you mean your people? You mean Biomechs like you?”
The creature nodded slowly, blood now dripping from its mouth.
“Release them, give us our revenge!” he snarled and then started to cough blood.
“He’s dying,” said Marcus.
“Really?” answered Spartan sarcastically.
“Here!” said the Biomech as it lifted its weapon arm to show Spartan his Gatling gun. It was easily as wide as Spartan’s head and presumably very heavy. He reached to hold it and as he took some of the weight the Biomech let out a final sigh before becoming still.
“That, I didn’t expect,” said Marcus as he helped Spartan lower the Biomech’s arm.
“Why was he showing you that thing?” he asked as he pointed to the gun.
“He wanted me to have it, to use to free his people. I had no idea they could think or reason for themselves.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me now, you remember what they did on Prime!”
“True, this one is different though. Look at it, the face is less pronounced and the torso is slightly bigger. Maybe they have been breeding or creating different types.”
“What? Like little ones and bigger, tougher ones. Why?”
“I don’t know, maybe they haven’t perfected the system yet. The first ones I saw when we boarded the ship near Kronus were smaller and faster. They didn’t seem particularly intelligent though. This guy could be a new type of heavier, smarter Biomech for a different kind of battlefield use.”
As the two looked down at the broken body of the fallen creature the second Biomech arrived.
“Where have you been?” asked Spartan.
The creature looked at him and then down at the body. It could see that Spartan was in the process of removing the gun from the fallen Biomech.
“He was angry, I told him he would die this way,” said the creature as it bent down and helped lift the weapon, passing it to Spartan.
Though it was heavy Spartan was strong, well built and used to wielding weapons from his time as a pit fighter. With effort he grabbed the middle section in his left hand and placed his right on the concealed trigger assembly.
“Good. You are like us, you like big guns!” said the creature with what looked like a crooked smile.
Spartan looked back to Marcus who simply shrugged his shoulders. It was a bizarre scene with the three enemies stood in the same place discussing weapons. Spartan noticed a lever on the side of the weapon and tapped it. The barrels started to rotate at high speeds and he had to be careful not to catch his hand in the moving parts.
“They are coming!” said the Biomech as it stepped back and faced one of the blast doors. As it took a few steps back it lifted its arm and the gun on its right arm started to rotate.
“What about the guys back there?” Spartan asked him.
“All dead,” came the calm response.
“Marcus, come on, get back!” he shouted and the two men moved taking cover near the doorway that led into the command room. As they took up good positions Spartan glanced back inside to see Tigris still working on the computers.
“Tigris, they’re coming. How long?”
“Not long, about another two minutes, you need to hold them back!”
The blast door started to glow along the sides and warmth radiated from the glowing sections. In just seconds large parts of metal were already starting to drip or fall away, then, with a white flash the blast door fell apart to the ground. For a moment nothing happened, smoke and dust scattered from the doorway and then a number of Biomechs, they were the man-sized creatures Spartan had faced on the surface of Prime months earlier. As the first of them leapt inside the entire doorway disappeared in flames from the allied Biomech’s Gatling gun. One long burst shredded at least ten of the enemy and cleared the doorway.
“Bloody hell!” Marcus shouted over the din of the weapon.
“It’s not like he needs much help from us right now is it?” laughed Spartan.
As the smoke cleared another mixed group of Biomechs and Zealots appeared and started moving around the doorway but they were obviously unwilling to jump through. One popped his head out and Spartan instinctively hit the fire button on the gun. The recoil was substantial but somewhat mitigated by the weapon’s substantial bulk. In less than three seconds he expended hundred of rounds, though whether he managed to hit anything was unknown. He pulled his finger from the trigger and the gun barrel started to slow down.
“Yeah,” said the Biomech as it stepped into the doorway and looked out for any sign of the enemy. A few must have caught his eye as he fired two more bursts before stepping back.
“Clear...for now.”
The area went quiet, the only sounds the hissing of superheated metal and the groans of several of the dying Zealots. As they stood waiting a low pitched tone echoed through the open space followed by a chorus of clicking.
“What was that?” Spartan called out.
“I’ve got it, command access to the compound!” replied Tigris excitedly.
Spartan placed his hand on the Biomech’s arm.
“Stay here, I’ll be back.” He rushed back inside the room. Tigris was already moving scores of video screens about on the displays.
“What do you have?”
“What don’t I have?”
Spartan looked unimpressed and moved his hand to touch one of the displays.
“Hey, uh, don’t touch that. Look, I’ve released the locks on the cells, every single cell in the place. That’s your block plus the other fourteen of them.”
“Fourteen? There must be thousands of prisoners here?” Misaki said in surprise.
“At least. The security system is offline and I’ve triggered a system reboot which will take up to an hour before everything else comes back. After that the doors, locks and guns will come back under the control of the supervisor of the system.”
“Who is that?”
“That’s the problem, the default system supervisor is the Governor.”
“So what are our options?”
“It’s quite simple, Spartan, either we use the time we have to get out of this place or we try and take over the entire compound.”
“How could we get away? By ship?”
“Good question, Misaki.”
With a few deft hand movements he brought up two video feeds that showed massive caverns full of people working and vast struct
ures surrounded by scaffolding and machines.
“What is that?”
“The shipyards. I told you, Spartan. These guys have been working here for sometime. They’ve been launching one every month since I’ve been here.”
“That doesn’t help us though, what about operational vessels, is there anything we can use to escape?”
“I’ll check,” he said as he looked through different feeds.
Spartan looked at the feeds before looking down at the gun he was still carrying. He thought back to the dead Biomech and what it had said.
“The Biomechs, why did they help you?”
“I managed to alter the programming on a dozen of the capsules in the new chamber that was being constructed during the last breakout attempt. It might have failed but it gave me the cover I needed to make the changes. I disabled the indoctrination program they’ve been running so when the Biomechs were released three weeks ago they were screwed up. They must have thought they were faulty because they were used as cannon fodder in the arena or for training the other Biomechs. Shame I couldn’t do any more, but when the revolt failed I had to get back and help round them up or they’d know something was up.”
A red light started flashing on the panel and on one of the screens an incoming message alert appeared. Some of the camera feeds started to shut down and Tigris tapped furiously on the virtual keyboard as he managed to lock out parts of the system before control was removed.
“What is that?” asked Marcus.
“It looks like several ships have just taken up positions over the compound. One of them is trying to obtain remote access to the security system. They managed to get part of it, including access to the outer door and the shipyards, but I’ve managed to lock down the rest.”
“Good work.”
“Yeah, I take it this scuppers our escape plan though? No point trying to escape in a transport when they have ships waiting for us.”
“God, Spartan!” Misaki called as she gazed at one of the screens.
“What is it?”
“No way, look,” said Marcus as he leaned closer to one of the displays.
“Here, let me,” said Tigris as he moved the video feeds to a series of larger displays that were mounted in the freestanding wall in the middle of the room. The first screen showed a long hall easily up to a kilometre long. It was packed full of cylinders just like the ones on the ship that brought Spartan and his comrades to Prometheus. That wasn’t the image that had caught Misaki’s eye though. It was another area, much smaller, where bodies were being loaded onto conveyer belts by large numbers of people. As Spartan watched he followed the body of a man as it worked its way along the belt before reaching a large metal box where it subsequently disappeared.
“God, what is this place?” demanded Spartan.
“I told you, this is the Harvesting Centre. It’s where they take the strongest prisoners. The machines harvest bodies, tissue and organs to make and repair their new toys.”
“Toys, you mean the Biomechs?”
“Yeah, exactly. This is where they make them. From what we’ve worked out they modify the strongest prisoners, like your red group, with equipment in the factory rooms. Tissue, organs and other stuff like that goes to the same place. All I know is that people and body parts go in one end and at the other we get creatures like him.” He pointed to the doorway where the Biomech stood, waiting patiently with its gun.
“But how many are they making?”
“Marcus, thousands from what I can see.”
Spartan was deep in thought, busy scratching his chin before interrupting them.
“Hang on, how long does the indoctrination program take to change them?”
“A few days I guess, why?” asked a confused looking Tigris.
“Because if we can free them we’ll have thousands of Biomechs who I’m sure would very much like to know what has been going on.”
“Spartan, are you serious? These things have killed thousands already,” exclaimed an angry Marcus.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. They are intelligent creatures, just like us. The ones we’ve fought were tortured, mind altered and savage. We can turn them into an army, maybe even allies! We certainly have a shared enemy.”
They all went quiet for a moment as they tried to absorb the revelations and possibilities they had discovered. The light on the console kept flashing red, reminding them of the circling enemy vessels.
“Spartan, I like it, what’s your plan?” asked a pleased looking Misaki.
CHAPTER NINE
Private spaceflight is now a common occurrence with both private enterprise and even some wealthy individuals now being able to take part in space travel and commercial ventures away from their home worlds. The first of these ventures occurred in the late 20th century where wealthy donors could hitch rides on national space programmes for a fee. This expanded rapidly into the 21st century with the rise of space tourism. The following decades moved quickly to commercial exploitation of the resources around Old Earth. Once the first interplanetary colonies were formed it would never be the same again.
Origins of Private Space Travel
Bishop took his rifle apart for the second time in the last hour. Working on equipment in a zero g environment was certainly different to when he practiced on the base, but there were benefits. Providing the vessel was coasting, as it was right now, there was no gravity and the parts stayed roughly where he left them. One game he and Kowalski played was the thirty-seconds weapon strip. If they were fast enough the parts would stay close enough to the starting positions and the job could be done without placing them on any magnetised surfaces. Right now though he was taking just one part off at a time, cleaning and checking for any imperfection or dirt that might impact on its effectiveness. It wasn’t really necessary, the weapons were all in a state of excellent condition but it gave him something, anything, to do while they waited for the last six hours of their trip to come to an end.
They had left the outer reaches of the storm areas over an hour earlier but travelling any faster in this region would draw attention to them in a very busy shipping area. Not that Bishop was complaining, the journey through the storms had been horrendous and the ship had sustained damaged to one if its engines on the tail end of the trip. He was just thankful they managed to make it without losing any major systems or taking damage to the habitation sections.
As he placed the barrel back into its housing he checked one of the monitors that watched the exterior of the ship. From this position he counted at least ten large vessels, cargo ships and transports each the size of a Confed battleship. Scores of flickering lights indicated the myriad of smaller craft as they moved about their business carrying people and supplies throughout the stations, bases and planetary compounds. It was much busier than he had ever expected.
“Bishop, double-check the weapon housings. It is imperative that nothing can be detected from our containers. If they pick up the firepower in this ship we’ll be intercepted by customs and checked, then we’ll be screwed.”
Bishop snapped the separate parts of his rifle mechanism back together with a satisfying clunk and then placed it on one of the many clip mounts on the walls of the room. He then reached out to the intercom on the wall near to where he was working.
“Roger, checking now, Sir.”
He pulled himself out towards the access door to the spinal corridor that ran the length of the ship, stopping at the engineering panel. With a few deft taps he switched to the weapon maintenance panel that was retrofitted when the ship had been rebuilt and heavily modified.
In the main habitation section of the ship Kowalski and Commander Anderson made their own final checks as they moved ever closer to the Prometheus Trading Post. Most of the computer displays showed columns of details and figures on the state of the fuel and their flight trajectories. Anderson leaned back, so far it all looked good. That was something that always worried him.
“Sir,
we’re picking up a coded message from the station, are we expected?” asked Kowalski as he rechecked the signal for authenticity.
Anderson moved up to the communications unit to check the details himself.
“It looks okay, the watermark and sig file are all current. Audio or video?”
Kowalski split the incoming data streams up so that he could remove the content from the secure packets. It took only a few seconds as the computer checked the data for errors or security problems before it could be viewed.
“It’s a live video stream, Commander, shall I connect and respond?”
“Negative, put the stream on the board, let’s see who we are dealing with first.”
As Kowalski moved the live stream to the larger display, with surprising speed an image appeared of a small room, though the subject in the middle was just a shadow. Kowalski turned up the brightness and adjusted other colour levels until they could see it was a man in a dark room speaking directly into a microphone. No matter what he changed he couldn’t get any more definition other than a basic outline of the man.
“Tamarisk. Good to see you arrived safe and sound from your hazardous trip. I trust all went well. My name is Angelo, I’m part of a recruitment agency on Prometheus Seven, I specialise in assembling problem solvers with specific skills in a very short time. I’ve been contacted by our mutual friend Ganymede concerning your personnel requirements and have been informed of your operational needs and tight deadline. Please respond.”
“What the hell is that all about?”
“Sounds like code to me,” said Teresa as she arrived in the cramped room, gently pulling herself along with the grab rails and placing a hand onto Kowalski’s shoulder. He jumped at the unexpected contact.
“You’re right,” replied Commander Anderson. “I’ve not heard of Angelo before, but single name units are almost black ops of some kind. Ganymede is the codename for command officers of Admiral or higher.”
“Man, I hate it when you sneak up like that!” said a shaken Kowalski.
“You need to chill out, Kowalski, it’s only me!” she replied with a grin.
Fires of Prometheus Page 16