by J. N. Chaney
Dash just smirked and carried on. The trouble was that Leira had a point.
They pushed back into the jungle, heading back to rejoin the salvage team. Dash paused, though, and looked back at the little waterfall splashing into the pond. Were there fish in there?
“Dash? There a problem?” Leira asked from up ahead of him.
He stared at the placid scene a moment longer, then sighed and shook his head.
“No, I’m right behind you,” he said, pulling himself away and following.
“How do you think those yellow eyeless things see to get around like that?” Leira asked.
Dash settled himself into the cradle, immersing himself back in the Meld. That now-familiar fusion of man and machine immersed him, once more turning him back into a towering construct of armor and restrained violence. “You mean those salamander things? The ones that roll around like balls?”
“Yeah.”
“No idea. Sonar, maybe?”
“A more correct term would be echolocation,” Sentinel put in. “Sonar is a specific, technological application of the phenomenon.”
“Well, look who’s got all their pedantic technicalities on,” Dash said.
“I mostly let things slide these days. But you have to let me have one every once in a while.”
Dash smiled as he swept his attention over the tactical display. The salvage team had finished their surveys of the Arkubator and were moving their ships into the locations they’d chosen to hook up. Since they weren’t affected by the gravitation of any nearby stellar masses, they didn’t face a long, ponderous climb out of a gravity well and could translate pretty much as soon—
Dash froze. He was about to switch to the operational display but stayed on tactical.
Sentinel caught his abrupt tension across the Meld. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“Yeah. Or, no. But yeah.”
“I’m glad you cleared that up for me.”
“It’s that second Arkubator.”
“What about it? It’s a derelict, perhaps of value as scrap, but there are closer sources to the Kingsport—”
“No, it’s not that.” Dash focused on the big ship, dark and silent. “It just struck me that we never checked it out.”
“Again, it’s a derelict. It is at ambient temperature, there are no EM or particulate emissions, it has suffered a catastrophic loss of hull integrity—”
“Yeah, I know all that. So we just kind of wrote it off and headed straight for this one. Leira wondered if it might be full of Deepers, but you said something like an exterior scan wouldn’t be able to tell.”
“That’s correct. Do you have some reason to believe the other Arkubator poses a threat?”
“Absolutely none. And that’s the problem.”
“Dash, Tybalt tells me you’re suddenly worried about that other Arkubator. Something you’d care to share?” Leira asked.
“No. But let’s go check it out, anyway. Sentinel, tell the salvage team what we’re doing.”
He did another scan of the tactical display, and then operational. Nothing but empty space for several light-years in all directions. Aside from dust and gas, the only solid matter was that second Arkubator, just a few hundred thousand klicks away. He applied thrust and started the Archetype toward it. Leira immediately fell into his six.
The big ship quickly loomed closer. Dash could see the glow of the galactic backdrop through the enormous hole punched in its flank by whatever ancient catastrophe had destroyed it.
At fifty thousand klicks, Dash slowed again. Nothing changed.
“Still nothing on any of the scans, huh?”
“Nothing,” Sentinel replied.
“Huh.”
Dash sighed. Maybe his infamous gut was starting to get overworked, throwing false positives. Still.
He selected a firing solution for the dark-lances. At this range, so close to such an enormous target, it was virtually one hundred percent. But it had the side effect of illuminating the Arkubator with the Archetype’s power fire-control scanners.
As soon as he did, two shapes leapt out of the gloomy interior of the huge derelict and raced toward them, slamming a tsunami of energy straight into Dash’s face.
“Two Deeper Bishops closing fast from twelve o’clock,” Sentinel said. “Although I suspect you already know that.”
“Kinda, yeah.”
X-ray laser blasts crashed into the mech. Or they would have crashed, but thanks to the new superconductive armor, it was more of a gentle thud diffused over the Archetype’s entire surface area. Sentinel snapped the shield up, intercepting the subsequent attacks.
Dash’s instinct was to accelerate and throw himself right into the head-on attack. But he held back, even decelerating a little more.
“Leira, we need to stay between these assholes and that second Arkubator,” he said.
“You think they’re going to try and infect it with that agent of theirs?”
“That, the salvage ships, probably both.” He let JETS take over fire control, coordinating his fire with the Swift’s. He actually jumped when the grasers fired. He wasn’t used to the new weapons, which were as powerful as the dark-lances and almost doubled the Archetype’s firepower. Leira did barrel rolls behind him, using the Archetype as her axis and letting both mechs keep up a withering fire.
The lead Bishop staggered under the impacts of massed dark-lance, nova-cannon, and graser fire. JETS rotated the shots in a rapid series of pulses intended to overload the Bishop’s shield while maintaining a steady barrage on the second Bishop. The first struggled mightily to return fire, but the instant its shield finally failed, the torrent of incoming energy began ripping it apart. In seconds, it had been reduced to fragments, shreds of organic debris and stringy blobs of viscous goo.
It had bought enough time for its fellow to maneuver and start bypassing Dash and Leira, though, then accelerate directly toward the second Arkubator.
Dash thought about the insidious Deeper agent infecting the big bio-ship, degrading its hull integrity, the atmosphere leaking away, the icy cold of space relentlessly closing its grip on the little waterfall, the crab-like creatures with their waving antennae, the eyeless yellow salamander-balls, the toothy mammalian with the beautiful fur, all choking, freezing, dying—
Dash cursed, drove the Archetype’s Blur drive to full power, and raced after the Bishop. Leira did her best to follow, but the Swift’s drive hadn’t yet gone through its second upgrade. JETS kept up a steady fire, but Dash deployed the power-sword and switched the rest of the weapons to standby mode.
“Uh, Dash, why have you stopped shooting at the Bishop?” Sentinel asked.
Dash watched with grim resolve as the Archetype rapidly overtook the Deeper Bishop. They were about two minutes away from the intact Arkubator.
“Because I want this one to know,” he said flatly.
“Know what?”
“That it’s going to die, and that I’m going to be the one who kills it.”
Dash flashed past the Bishop, taking an x-ray laser blast at point-blank range. He didn’t care. Instead, he somersaulted, braked hard, then drove directly at the Deeper, power-sword crackling in one mighty hand, the other outstretched.
The Bishop produced a maul enclosed in a greenish halo of energy and raised it as the distance closed.
Dash grinned a feral grin. “I was hoping you’d do that,” he hissed, then he lunged and grabbed the Deeper’s other arm, the one sporting a vicious, barbed probe—the injector for the sinister bio-agent. It swung the maul, slamming it into the Archetype, a solid hit. But Dash ignored it, switched to a broad-spectrum comm, and pushed his face into that of the Bishop’s.
“I hope every Deeper can hear this. This life, all the creatures and plants aboard that Arkubator? It’s under my protection. All life is under my protection. Except for yours. Yours, I’m going to exterminate. And if your Corruptor, who or whatever he is, can hear this, that’s a promise, from the goddamned Messenger.�
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Dash amped up the power-sword’s charge to the point of failure, then slammed it point-first through the Bishop’s torso, only stopping when its hilt struck glowing armor. He held it there for a moment, then withdrew the blade, wound up, and swung again, cutting the Deeper construct in half.
Leira drifted to a stop nearby. “Dash, are you okay?”
He turned, taking in the looming bulk of the intact Arkubator. Another ten or fifteen seconds, and the Bishop would have reached it.
“Yeah. I’m okay.” He gestured toward the huge bio-ship with the power-sword.
“So are they. And that’s what matters.”
21
“That’s a total of sixteen intact Arkubators,” Viktor said, tapping the shuttle’s controls and rolling it slightly to bring the last one into view. Dash nodded. This Arkubator had just been delivered to the Kingsport by an exhausted and obviously grumpy salvage crew. They’d had the longest flight of all, nearly five weeks each way, the middle three in cryo-sleep on the way out. Apparently, the recovery had been fraught with problems because of structural problems with the Arkubator, which hadn’t abated during the return trip. They’d had to forgo cryosleep and babysit the massive ship all the way back to the Kingsport. Benzel had already sent them for a spell of R & R, which, according to Ragsdale, had already landed two of them in the brig for drunk and disorderly.
All of this paled in comparison to the sheer horror of the engineers, though. Sixteen complete Arkubators had been retrieved and now had to be worked into the construction schematics for the Kingsport. Three more partials—Arkubators that had partly failed so some compartments were open to space, but others were still intact—had to be partly disassembled, their extraneous parts used for scrap.
And as for scrap, they’d actually managed to drag back another two dozen derelicts. Those all needed to be broken down as well, all of their massive components catalogued, prepared for processing through pre-production, then fed into the fabricators. In the meantime, new components had to be extracted, subjected to quality assurance testing, and moved into their final positions. And all of this had to happen according to a relentless and unforgiving schedule, in a volume of space that might seem huge but that was actually getting constantly smaller and more complex as the Kingsport grew.
Dash smirked as he recalled his last visit to Bercale, who’d assumed overall supervision of the massive construction project.
“Sorry, Dash, this is just a simulation of me,” he’d said, holding up a hand while scrutinizing just one of three terminals in his cramped office. “I actually died a couple dozen major problems ago—which, in real-time, means about ten minutes.”
Dash smiled even more as he contrasted that with Elois, spearheading the xeno-biological effort to investigate the multitude of biomes they’d suddenly inherited. She had an almost dreamy look to her as she stared at the fleet of Arkubators.
“We’ve just guaranteed research work for our children’s children’s children’s children, and we’ll still have questions we haven’t answered.” She turned to Dash with what Ragsdale would have called a shit-eating grin. “So much new life to study—isn’t it wonderful?”
“Ask Bercale that question and then tell me how it goes.”
Her grin had turned puzzled, but Dash had just waved it off.
“Yes, Elois, it’s wonderful.”
It actually was wonderful, though. The Kingsport had stopped being a mere station some time ago and had become a world. Now, it was a haven, an island of light and life in the endless darkness. Even if something cataclysmic happened back in the Milky Way, the Kingsport would go on.
Dash flung the Archetype at the gate—now one of three installed in the cavernous Atrium—and watched with satisfaction as the IFF system flicked to green. He’d resisted letting gates open right into the heart of the Kingsport until there was some way of ensuring only friendly vessels and not, say, a Deeper missile could come through. Between them, Conover, Viktor, the AIs, and a whole host of engineers had tackled the problem and learned volumes more about how the gates operated in the process. Still, IFF could be hacked or otherwise compromised, so a redundant form of security existed in the form of gate controllers. If a ship wanted to traverse a gate, it came under scrutiny from AIs effectively based on Custodian. If there was any doubt, the gate would be deactivated until the problem was addressed.
None of which impeded the Archetype in the slightest, which was good, because there was trouble—more trouble—at Backwater.
Dash scowled as he emerged from the Backwater Gate, and the threat board immediately lit up. The tactical display showed a ferocious battle raging only a few million klicks away. A convoy of ships, including one loaded with Dark Metal Two scavenged from wrecked Deeper ships across a dozen systems, was under attack. Because it carried DM2 destined for the Kingsport, the convoy had a stronger-than-usual escort. The Stalwart, under Wei-Ping, made up the core of it, with three heavy cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers in support. Even so, the Deeper attack, the first significant one in weeks, pressed them hard. Seven capital ships, including a battlecruiser, and fourteen escort-class were backed up by nine Battle Princes. Wei-Ping immediately signaled Dash.
“Good to see some of the cavalry show up. You are just some of the cavalry, though, right? We’re not getting just the Archetype coming to our rescue?”
“Just the Archetype? Just the Archetype? I don’t know about you, Sentinel, but I find that a little insulting,” Dash said.
“I have to admit, I’m certainly a little miffed.”
“Fine. The Archetype’s here! All is well! The day is saved!” Wei-Ping said, her voice ringing with exaggerated enthusiasm.
“Yeah, yeah. And no, it’s not just me. I just happened to already be mounted up to take the Archetype out for a systems-check flight. The rest of the gang should be through shortly,” Dash said.
By the time he’d finished talking, the first firing solutions had come up. Dash loosed a barrage of missiles, then began slamming long range dark-lance shots into the flank of the Deeper attack. Five of the capital ships, all heavy cruisers, immediately turned to close. A screen of seven destroyers and corvettes preceded them. The Battle Princes kept their focus on the convoy, which worried Dash.
“Wei-Ping, you can’t let those bastards get close enough to deploy that agent,” he said. The idea of the Stalwart being infected and compromised, in the midst of the convoy and its escorts, was a horrific one.
“Really? Gee, I’d have never thought of that.”
Dash curled his lip at Wei-Ping’s snarky reply, but he concentrated on the ships driving toward him. He intended to bust right through their line and close with the Battle Princes. The Archetype was essentially immune to their agent and more than capable of taking on several at one time.
He poured power, dark-lance, and graser fire at the approaching ships. When its firing solutions came up, he threw in the nova-cannon, and then the scattershot. Destructive energy streamed from the Archetype, turning it into a blazing maelstrom of power. His attacks savaged one heavy cruiser, knocking it out of action, sent a second staggering out of line, and pummeled two more. Closer still, he opened up with the rail gun and raked a Deeper destroyer with hyper-velocity slugs along its length. Deeper return fire poured in, saturating the shield and dissipating across the superconductive armor. The mech started to take actual damage, but so far it was just superficial.
He flashed through the Deeper line. As he did, he saw new icons appear at the gate—blue ones, so friendlies.
“Leave anything for us?” Leira asked.
She flew in close formation with Conover in the Pulsar and Jexin in the Polaris. A squadron of Orions followed, under Lori. The Deeper Battle Princes pressed harder, forming a tight formation that drove at the Stalwart and her consorts.
Dash switched his fire to interdict them. They immediately spread out again, four turning to face him, the other five once more compressing their formation and reorienting th
emselves for another run at the Stalwart.
“Interesting,” Sentinel said.
“What? What’s interesting?”
“Something I’ve observed. I’ll let you know if it amounts to anything.”
Dash frowned but didn’t want to get distracted. “You do that,” he replied, then lined up shots on the first two Battle Princes. He fired, skewering one with combined dark-lance and graser fire. The latter weapons were a tremendous boost to the Archetype’s damage output. He’d asked Custodian if there might be room to mount any more of them on the mech, but the AI wisely suggested they be installed on the other mechs, first.
Dash had agreed, even though the prospect of an Archetype bristling with grasers was really appealing to him.
“Dash, I’m going to drop the shield. As soon as I do, brake the Archetype and then change course, as though you’ve taken some serious damage and need to disengage.”
“Why?”
“I want to test a theory.”
“Uh, is this really a good time for theory testing?”
“It might give us a strategic advantage.”
That was good enough for Dash. The shield came down, and a trio of x-ray laser blasts struck the Archetype. Thanks to the superconductive armor, they did little damage, but Dash shook the mech from side to side, then decelerated and veered away, briefly opening the range again.
“Okay, Sentinel, now what?”
“One moment.”
The Battle Princes immediately closed up their formation again, then wheeled back toward the Stalwart.
“Sentinel, all we’re doing is making life harder for Wei-Ping—”
“Just a moment longer. Wei-Ping, Sentinel here. Could you direct several of your escorts to engage the Battle Princes, then turn the Stalwart away, as though you’re going to retreat? And then, as soon as you do, have the escorts withdraw as well?”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it, Wei-Ping. Sentinel’s onto something here.”
