by Alex White
But when she turned to Orna, the quartermaster still had her palms to the hull, her face hardened by concentration.
“I’m not going anywhere. This is adaptive logic,” she grunted. “Got to keep dismantling it or the skin will repair and it’ll detect us. Get to the airlock. You can make it without me.”
“Orna, don’t be stupid!”
“I’m not. Those spells are going to get loose sooner or later, and when they do, they’re taking me out. Get moving. Figured this might happen.”
“Hunter Two, this is Prince,” said Armin, his voice quiet in Nilah’s ears. “Do as she says.”
Orna gave her a weak smile, barely visible through the reflection of the sun on her visor. “I shouldn’t have survived Carré, but I didn’t expect my card to get punched this quickly.”
Nilah turned and ran to the airlock. She slapped her palm against the bulkhead and sliced through its security with little effort. “You could distract the spells with a ping across the ship, then run to me!”
“Nilah, I can’t!” Orna shouted through gritted teeth. “The ship’s code is already adapting to me.”
Nilah swallowed. “So this is it?”
The quartermaster’s icy eyes were barely visible behind her visor. “For what it’s worth, I would’ve given you that other kiss. Now get in the airlock.”
Nilah’s connection to the ship’s skin was stable; she could still hack the Harrow’s sensors. She ducked to the side of the door and began to emulate contacts with the hull—thousands of false boarders tromping across its surface with mag boots, all headed in a line, far across the ship. The defense grid wasn’t buying it though, already evolving to account for Nilah’s interference. It rejected all her false positives because they were too far away from her—the source of the spell.
If she wanted to get Orna out of this alive, she’d have to trick the Harrow with something more believable, something closer. She glanced at the spells circling them—lava-hot balls of flame searching for someone to incinerate. Nilah concentrated and began simulating a dozen boots marching into the open airlock door—a logical boarding scenario. The Harrow would feel great multitudes of people swarming into it and, hopefully, react.
Nilah nearly lost her grip on the ship’s code as Orna tried to push her out, but she triumphed. Like beads of water sliding across a pane of glass, the spells came rushing toward Nilah, only to fly into the airlock as they chased the thousand phantoms in their computer. Nilah patted the airlock controls, linking with them and shutting the doors on the fire spells, now stuck inside.
The door buckled outward as the spells ruptured inside the enclosed space. A heavy thump traveled up through Nilah’s legs, reflected across the hull, and the airlock door went spinning off into the starry blackness. Moisture condensed into icy jets as atmosphere vented into space. The Harrow sensed the explosive decompression and slammed down bulkheads inside to seal off the sections around the ruined airlock.
“Come on, Hunter One!” Nilah shouted, but Orna was already charging straight for the open airlock.
Both women tumbled inside to find a corridor large enough to fly a fighter through, sealed on both sides by heavy blast shields. Red lamps pulsed on the ceiling, and wavering magic signs in front of the doors proclaimed: EMERGENCY: SEEK AIR SUPPLY.
“What’s the best way to get out of here?” asked Nilah.
Before Orna could respond, gooey spells erupted from the broken airlock, transforming into red-hot metal. Strands of the glowing spells interwove, stretching over and over again until they became a molten web. The ship sealed the corridor and began to pressurize.
“Phase two, let’s go,” grunted Orna, knocking the cover off a security console and shoving her gloves into the circuits. “Got to take down internal security.”
Nilah bounded over to her, tracing her glyph and sinking her fingers into the circuitry of the ship, searching for an opening. She sensed a few hundred springflies closing on their position, and several dozen network crawlers looking to incinerate any hackers. On board the Capricious, this incursion had sounded like a good idea, but the reality that faced her was a solid wall of the finest security she’d ever seen.
“It’s okay,” said Orna, connecting. “We just have to take the network crawlers down one at a time.”
“The bulkheads will open up before we’ve scrambled even one of them.” Nilah reconnected, searching for any way out, any way to become an authorized user. “We need universal access now!”
“No one has that.”
The atmosphere was thick enough now that Nilah could hear the hiss of onrushing air. The oxygen, their salvation, was the timer for their doom, for when the blast doors opened, their chamber would flood with springflies
Her eyes darted to the base of the blast door, ever fearful that it would begin to rise.
“Wait a minute,” said Orna. “Kin. Give him to me.”
The quartermaster grinned and held it aloft to activate it, then ripped some wires loose from the circuits, pressing them against Kin’s contacts.
A chime echoed through the hallway, and the blast doors shot up with a violent bang, revealing a horde of shivering springflies. The women froze, knowing full well what those scything arms could do to a person in mere fractions of a second. Their spacesuits wouldn’t save them.
“Hunters, status,” barked Armin. “Hunters, come in.”
The swarm of metal death swayed like stalks of wheat. The nearest automaton approached on clicking feet and waved hello with a blade.
Orna began to laugh, slowly at first, before building to an outright cackle. Nilah’s eyes darted between the springflies and her disturbed companion, and she wondered if she should back away.
“I knew it!” Orna cried. “Kin has the access codes for the whole damned ship: the ones the mutineers used when they gassed everyone!”
Nilah shook the surprise out of her head. “But how?”
“Boots plugged him into the file system on Carré, and again on Alpha. Of course he downloaded everything. I doubt he even knew he had them.”
“That’s true,” said Kin, his voice now booming through the Harrow’s speaker systems. “I only had fragments of programs, but a quick meta-analysis of the ship’s open sockets showed how some of them fit. You can remove your helmets, by the way.”
“Hunters, status!” shouted Armin. “What the hell is going on over there?”
“Capricious, this is Kin. I’m in complete control of all Harrow security systems, and you are cleared to dock. Bay fourteen. I’ll guide you in.”
Nilah had never heard Armin stammer before.
“Well … uh … right, then. Roger that, Marshall.”
“Marshall?” asked Nilah.
“It means Kin is the approach authority,” said Orna. “Never known Armin to take orders from an AI.”
The pair of women slipped off their helmets and glanced anxiously at one another. Only then did it sink in that they were standing aboard the galaxy’s most legendary warship, completely alone. There could be a kilometer of serpentine corridors between them and their destination, and they couldn’t be certain the derelict was truly abandoned.
“Before I forget,” said Orna, wrapping her arms around Nilah’s waist, pulling her in close.
Their lips came together in an intimate brush, then a flick of the quartermaster’s tongue invited Nilah deeper into the passionate kiss. Even through the thick skin of her spacesuit, she could feel Orna’s strong hands roaming up and down her back.
“Excuse me, Hunter One and Hunter Two,” said Kin, breaking the moment in two.
Nilah pulled away. The quartermaster let out a goofy chuckle and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “What is it, Kin?”
“I’ve started hacking through some of the Harrow’s information systems, and I could use some help. Would you both be so kind as to proceed to the bridge?”
“Sure. Fine,” said Orna, never losing her grin.
“Also, I’ve located the crew
,” said Kin. “One thousand two hundred souls confirmed deceased on deck fifteen. The storage area has been vented to the vacuum to prevent decomposition.”
His words were like ice water on Nilah’s heart, the romance dying instantly.
“Cause of death?” asked Nilah.
“Initial scans: asphyxiation and collapsed lungs—neurotoxin,” said Kin. “It’s not pretty. However, they are dead and I require the assistance of two talented mechanists.”
“You want us to plug you in at the bridge or leave you here?” asked Nilah.
“The bridge, please, and hurry. I believe I’ve subdued the ship’s security for now, though I would advise we make haste.”
“Plug him into a capital ship and he gets all pushy,” muttered Orna. “Lead on, Kin.”
Rows of green lights illuminated the way forward, deep into the belly of the Harrow.
Chapter Twenty
Requiem
Boots swung around the Harrow’s hull, the Runner’s engines clanking uncomfortably. Docking took under an hour, and Kin’s guidance had been impeccable. She’d never used the AI to pilot anything, so maybe he had always been good. It was more likely that the Harrow’s guidance, navigation, and control systems were top of the line. As much as she liked having him connected to the ship, she worried about the experience altering him.
“Just follow my waypoints in, Boots. I’ll park you next to the Capricious in bay fourteen.”
“Copy that, Marshall. Boots inbound.”
Boots told herself she wouldn’t do this, but her heart thudded a little harder upon hearing his voice from the inside of a fighter. It reminded her too much of his final transmission. She tightened her grip around the Runner’s throttle.
Her fighter coasted into the Harrow’s massive docking bay alongside the Capricious, and she set him down so gently that she barely felt the contact of her skids. The bay doors closed behind her, and status bars filled her view as the enormous room began to repressurize. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the arcane atmospheric generators that supported such a beast.
“Lizzie,” said Kin, his voice softer than usual.
“Yeah?”
“As you know, your health is of primary concern to me. I’d like to ask you a question for your well-being.”
She glanced at the status bars. Fifty-six percent—another minute remaining. “Are you copying the others on this chatter?”
“Just us,” said Kin.
She bit her lip. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Studies have shown that a promise improves a person’s ability to execute difficult actions in stressful times. Six researchers from Hamilton University conducted an experiment—”
“Skip the preamble. What’s the deal?”
Kin deliberately took his time. “No matter what lies beyond this bay … no matter what you find out … can you promise to maintain combat readiness?”
Her pulse thumped in her neck. What was he talking about? Boots wondered if his code had been compromised, and took a dry swallow. She’d forever lost Kin the person. If something happened to Kin the computer …
“We’re always ready to fight,” she said. “The Harrow crew here is dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are, but you still have other enemies hunting you. Can you promise me that you’ll fight when the time comes?”
“What did you find?” she asked. Then, more quietly, “Are you trying to warn me about someone from the Capricious?”
“Heavens, no. You must protect them with everything short of your life. Combat statistics have shown that unit cohesion is the single biggest indicator of survival, and—”
“Enough with the stats, Kin. Tell me what you found.”
There was a series of chirps. Boots recognized that sound—she’d just asked the computer to do something it couldn’t do. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I believe it would impair your survival, and thus, I won’t tell you until you promise.”
A sigh hissed from between her teeth. “Fine. I promise to be ready to fight, no matter what.”
“Good. Please come to the bridge. Nilah and Orna are already there.”
The atmospheric status indicators on her glass flashed green, and the canopy opened. Boots yanked off her helmet and hefted herself onto the side step.
She held her helmet to her face and whispered into her microphone, “For a computer, you sure do care a lot.”
“I care about you in all the ways a human finds significant, Lizzie,” came his voice, tinny and small through her earpiece. “Remember your promise.”
They set off from the bay with slingers loaded and drawn. Although they had free run of the ship, Cordell opted to keep the group together. The Harrow was double the size of any ship Boots had ever boarded, and they could easily get lost.
They wound their way through the guts of the beast, its hallways dark save for the winking of auxiliary lights and the green running beams Kin laid to direct them. Halfway through the ship, Aisha stopped them.
“Kin, where did you say the crew’s bodies were?” asked the pilot. “Isn’t that bay near here?”
“Yes,” said Kin. “They are all dead, however, so investigation will not be warranted.”
Aisha shook her head. “I just want to know what they look like.”
“People of all races and origins,” said Kin, “clad in various Taitutian military uniforms.”
Boots kept her slinger in hand, but finger off the trigger. After all, Kin had told them there was no danger. “Normal military insignia, or the weird ones from Alpha?”
“Normal, Lizzie,” said Kin.
Boots chewed her lip. This whole treasure hunt had been one weird thing after another—gods and prophets, culture arks and secret bases, mutineers and secret branches of the Taitutian military. And, of course, there were the racetrack glyphs, too. The boarding party passed the corridor that led to the bay full of corpses, and Boots peered down the hallway, trying to get a better look.
She couldn’t stop turning over her promise to Kin in her mind. Why would he ask her to keep it together, no matter what? What psyche-shattering secrets did he think they were going to find?
The Harrow conspirators buried their tracks at every turn, killing off anyone who knew anything. That would’ve been normal for a ridiculous cult, but then they killed off their own members on Alpha, too. What kind of god kills off his own followers?
But what if Henrick Witts wasn’t a god?
It struck Boots like an electric shock. What if he was a thief, who’d stolen something important, and killed off all nonessentials to get a bigger share? That made more sense, but what was the treasure—the Harrow? No, he would’ve crewed it and continued sailing open space if that was his plan.
The vision of statues entered Boots’s mind, and she recalled the last line of the plaque, dedicated to sacrifices.
THOSE ON CLARKESFALL.
As they rose through the depths of the Harrow, Boots could only hope her instincts were wrong.
Boots had only seen the bridge of a capital ship twice before: once as a little girl on a tour, and once in the closing days of the Famine War. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the bridge of the Harrow.
Row after row of stations lined terraced landings, far more than should’ve been there. A window the size of a city block stretched high overhead, and Boots could see the eerie, crackling surface of the blue planet. A ship this size would’ve had thirty or forty people on the bridge, but there had to be closer to a hundred seats. Analysis stations rimmed each terrace, and in the center of each landing was a battle planning area. The designers had laid it out as though the Harrow was five or six smaller ships combined into one. The commander’s chair had ten seats to report status from all the other sections, and an amp system for the commander’s magic, whatever it might be. Fire control, near the front, was the largest, and clearly labeled.
This was a superweapon, all right.
The second she set foot onto the bridge, orange light washed
over her and an undulating sphere phased into being overhead. Boots and Aisha joined the others by the commander’s chair, just as Nilah and Orna took their palms from the consoles, disconnecting.
“Would you like to know what I’ve found?” Kin’s voice boomed over the speakers, bouncing across the wide, open space. “The databanks are redacted, but I think I have a few more clues.”
“Enlighten us,” Cordell called back to him.
Pictures of a hidden galactic shipyard filled their vision, and Boots squinted to make out the details.
“The Harrow, commissioned in 2860, took six years to build in Taitu’s most classified shipyards, located in what is now the Gamelan Cluster. He is the brainchild of designer Grand Admiral Henrick Witts and fifteen of Taitu’s most powerful banking families, who co-financed construction.”
A picture of Taitu’s elite, posed in front of a hotel, wafted through the air, flanked by the crests of those families.
“Nilah, tell me these aren’t friends of yours,” said Boots.
“Those are, um, some of the most important families in the galaxy,” said Nilah, “but I wouldn’t call them ‘friends.’”
“The ship is one of eight brothers, known collectively as the Winnower Fleet.”
Boots felt sick. There were nine chairs at Alpha—two for the flagship, one for each of the other commanders. “We already know the names of the fleet commanders, don’t we? From Alpha.”
“Yes, Lizzie. The other seven ships were scuttled after firing their spell discs and serving their purpose.”
Cordell flinched. “I’m sorry, what? There are more of these?”
“Were,” corrected Boots. “And each of their commanders got a share of something, didn’t they, Kinnard?”
“They did,” replied Kin, “in exchange for their worship.”
A video feed flickered to life above them depicting a tall, black-robed figure in a gas mask standing in the center of the bridge. The hems of his robes surged with arcane energies, light bleeding off of them in rainbow wisps. His helmet bore a long, inhuman crest of onyx spines across its top, like some terrible lizard from a primordial jungle.
