Empire of Light s-3

by Gary Gibson

'First, a reminder of what we can expect. Mjollnir is currently undergoing last-minute checks before departing for the Sol system, a day from now, with a full complement of crew that's expected to arrive here in no more than another three hours. In the meantime there's a minimal presence on board – I reckon a skeleton crew of no more than a dozen.'

  'Why so few?' asked Lamoureaux.

  'Because the main security contingent charged with guarding the frigate headed back down to the surface just under an hour ago. That leaves us a fairly narrow window of opportunity to take control and break from orbit. Mr Driscoll,' he turned to Whitecloud, 'you're going to head straight to the labs. Leo, escort him there and keep your eyes peeled. Don't engage anyone you run into if you can avoid it. Make sure first of all that the artefact's where it should be and report back if there's any problems or likelihood of delays.'

  Corso watched the two men depart and felt his lips tighten in disapproval. He did not enjoy having to maintain this pretence regarding Whitecloud, or even having to act civilly towards him, and yet it was clear from his own research into Whitecloud's career that the man was quite brilliant. It was hard to believe someone with such a remarkable mind could have used it to perpetrate such terrible acts of inhumanity, but history was littered with just such men.

  The rest of them then moved out of the lounge, and floated in pairs down a long shaft. Dan Perez and Nancy Schiller took point, while Ray Willis came last, guarding their rear. The ship was running at low power, so they proceeded through a strange half-twilight, their shadows racing in front of them like black ghosts whenever they passed a dimly glowing light fixture.

  Corso swallowed and tried to ignore the fits of light-headedness that sometimes blurred his vision. He was still running on chemicals, and the last occasion he had actually slept seemed like part of another lifetime.

  So much of what they had planned hinged on various assumptions, particularly that the frigate's security overrides would have remained unaltered in the wake of Martinez's arrest. If they had been changed, however, the extra time taken up by burning or blowing their way through various sealed entrances might allow the security services enough time to muster a serious response.

  Before he could ponder any further, they arrived at a transport terminal and boarded a cylindrical windowless car that carried them swiftly along a tunnel running the entire length of the frigate, and headed towards the centrifuge's hub.

  They had managed to get this far. Surely, thought Corso, fate wouldn't be so cruel as to prevent them from reaching the bridge. The group disembarked shortly after, and found themselves in a cylindrical chamber six metres across and twice as much in length. It was situated at the axis of the centrifugal wheel that spun constantly to provide Mjollnir 's bridge and main crew quarters with artificial gravity.

  Four colour-coded doors were set into the central third of the chamber, which revolved independently of the rest. These doors opened on to shafts radiating outwards from the chamber, each one leading into the centrifuge's inner rim. No one was surprised to find the emergency locks on all four doors had been engaged.

  Corso watched as Nancy Schiller floated forward to grab a handhold next to one door, pulling herself in close as it dragged her around. She used her teeth to pull off a glove, then reached out to tap at a screen set into the door itself.

  'Fuck, it's not responding,' she announced. 'My codes are no good.'

  Icy fingers twirled inside Corso's belly.

  'I'll give it a try,' said Martinez.

  He grabbed a handhold next to another door, as it swept by, and tapped at this door's screen. After a few moments the outline of a hand appeared, against which Martinez pressed his palm, and the door hissed open in response.

  We're in, thought Corso, and realized he had been holding his breath the whole time. There were sighs of relief and whispered prayers from the others.

  He floated forward, grabbing another handhold next to the door Martinez had opened, and suddenly it was the station that was spinning while he remained stationary.

  'I thought there were supposed to be elevators,' he grumbled to Martinez. He could feel the tiniest pull of spin-g by now, and it would only get stronger the closer they came to the centrifuge's outer rim, seventy metres away.

  'Blame our friends on the bridge,' said Martinez. 'Looks like we're going to have to climb all the way down.'

  Martinez let go of his handhold and pushed over to the door Nancy had tried to open. Twenty seconds later this door also slid open, to reveal a second shaft.

  'Dan, take the other shaft,' instructed Martinez, turning and lowering his legs past the open door. 'Nancy, Ray, you're going with him. When you get to the ring, approach the bridge from the spin-ward direction, and we'll come at it from the other side. But wait for our signal before trying to enter it. Senator, you're with me and Ted.'

  Martinez took the lead, followed by Corso, with Lamoureaux coming last. The machine-head, Corso noted, now had a perpetually distracted look on his face, like someone who had forgotten something but couldn't quite remember what.

  'Ted.'

  Lamoureaux finally seemed to snap out of it. 'What?'

  'Something worrying you?'

  'No.' Lamoureaux shook his head, then shrugged. 'But I'm getting some weird distortion noise coming through my implants.'

  'Anything we need to be concerned about?'

  Lamoureaux thought for a moment. 'I don't know. Maybe not.'

  The inside of the shaft was studded with handholds, but Corso wasn't used to heights, and he had to fight off tendrils of panic that accompanied the slow increase of the wheel's spin-g as they approached the ring. He focused instead on the steady rhythm of his movements, while keeping his eyes fixed on the wall directly before him.

  By the time they arrived at the ring, the gravity was close on two-thirds standard. Their way was now blocked by the roof of the shaft's elevator car. Martinez used a single shot from his pulse-rifle to blow out an emergency hatch in the car's roof, before climbing down inside it.

  Corso dropped down on top of the car and peered inside to see Martinez studying a panel next to the closed elevator doors. The panel looked blackened and melted.

  Martinez looked up at him and shrugged. 'It's been shot to pieces, and we're going to have to go through the hard way. Got the explosives?'

  'Can't you just yank the doors open?'

  Martinez shook his head. 'These aren't your standard-issue elevator doors, Senator.'

  Corso nodded, reached into his suit's thigh pocket and withdrew the dark, slim oblong of a putty-like material before passing it down to Martinez. Corso next motioned to Lamoureaux to climb a little way back up the shaft, before following him a moment later. A minute passed before Martinez himself clambered back out of the car and crouched as close to the wall of the shaft as he could get.

  A dull crunch sounded, and a sharp, rattling vibration set Corso's teeth on edge.

  A trail of thick, oily smoke drifted up from inside the elevator car. Martinez dropped back down inside and braced his shoulder against the doors, which were now bent and twisted out of shape. He thumped against them several times before they suddenly slid half-open with a discordant screech.

  Light flashed from beyond the opening, sparkling on Martinez's shoulder and burning a dark circle into the fabric of his suit.

  Corso yelled and dropped down through the roof of the car, as Martinez staggered backwards. Corso squeezed into the tight space and managed to fire off a couple of blind shots through the half-open door.

  He heard a muffled thump, then silence.

  'That was stupid of me,' gasped Martinez, who had fallen back, one gloved hand pressed against his shoulder.

  Corso smelled burning flesh, and forced a surge of bile back down his throat. 'Shit, I think I might actually have got him,' he said, listening carefully.

  He moved forward cautiously, turning sideways to squeeze between the two buckled doors and peer through the rank, oily smoke.

 
The lights inside the centrifuge ring were much brighter than throughout the rest of the ship. Corso edged forward until he almost stumbled across the body of a young woman slumped forward on the gently curving deck. One side of her face was burned and blackened, and her weapon lay nearby. Headshots from a pulse-rifle such as his own were invariably fatal.

  He stood up and pulled his glove back on, but found to his surprise that his hands were shaking so hard it took a couple of attempts. He drew in a couple of deep breaths, and ignored the welter of regret and shame floating just under his thoughts. They still had to get to the bridge.

  Hearing a grunt from behind, he turned to see Lamoureaux helping Martinez out through the elevator doors. Martinez spared the dead girl only a brief glance, but Lamoureaux stared at her corpse in open-mouthed horror.

  'Let's get moving,' said Martinez, stepping on past the body.

  Corso put a hand on his chest. 'Wait a second, you're not going anywhere. You've just been shot-'

  Martinez met his gaze. 'Right now our priority is to get to the bridge. Soon as we're in control there, I can go to the med-bay. But not before.' The Mjollnir felt deserted without its full complement of crew. Like a ghost ship, Ty thought, as he and Olivarri moved along echoing passageways and down connecting shafts made eerie by silence and shadows.

  They passed storage bays filled with towering steel racks that had clearly been newly installed while he had still been held inside the Senate Residency. He saw new computer equipment, and observed that dozens of medboxes had been slotted into some of the racks. Many more were piled on giant pallets that filled up much of the remaining space within the bay.

  They moved on, soon reaching the laboratory complex, which was sealed off from the rest of the ship by its own airlock system. The labs were designed primarily for assessing planetary biospheres, and Ty was not surprised to find that they too had been overhauled and upgraded since he had last been there.

  'Why all the precautions?' asked Leo, casting a wary eye around him. There were new cryogenic facilities that could be used for storing biological specimens, as well as for incubation and dissection. There were also airtight isolation booths for storing live samples, their interiors visible in a bank of monitors set into one bulkhead directly above the main interface.

  Ty took a seat next to a console and pulled off his suit's gloves to log on. 'Remember the Mjollnir was primarily used as a colony ship,' he said without looking up. 'These labs were built so they could analyse alien flora and fauna. That means keeping them in strict isolation in case of any potential biohazards.' He nodded over his shoulder at the main airlock. 'You don't want to take the chance of the rest of the ship getting contaminated, if something nasty gets loose.'

  'But a lot of this looks brand new.'

  'Just like in those bays we passed,' Ty agreed. 'Hang on…'

  A screen took up most of the wall directly above the console. A grid of images now appeared on it, each showing identical views of metal-grey rooms. All but one of these was empty.

  'What are they?'

  'Those are the isolation booths for storing larger samples,' Ty explained. 'The body I brought back is held in one of them.'

  He looked around suddenly. 'What's that?'

  'What?' said Olivarri.

  'That noise.'

  'I don't hear anything.'

  'It sounds like… I don't know. Almost like singing.'

  Olivarri just looked dumbfounded. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

  Singing wasn't the right word for it, exactly. That would imply there was something pleasant about it, when in fact it was horribly abrasive. It was more like static, he decided, but barely at the edge of perception. After a moment it began to fade.

  'You really didn't hear that?' Ty said, after it had passed.

  Olivarri shrugged and shook his head. 'I really didn't hear anything. Maybe a problem with the comms?'

  'Maybe.' Ty tapped at the interface once more and the empty booths disappeared, all except for the one containing the Atn's remains, which now expanded to fill the screen.

  'That's it.' He turned to Olivarri. 'That's the reason we're here.'

  Leo let out an incredulous laugh. 'You're fucking kidding me. That's what we've been fighting for? It looks like a pile of junk.'

  'Appearances can be deceptive.'

  A pile of junk was a fair description, Ty realized. But inside it might just be found the one thing that could bring down an entire civilization. Corso and Lamoureaux supported the wounded Commander and helped him along the passage. As they walked, they passed archways leading aside into mess halls and recreational areas, all of them now deserted. Thick, lush vegetation grew from pots placed at every metre or so, all tended by small, delicate-looking machines that climbed in between branches or vines.

  They kept their weapons at the ready, but met no further resistance. Before very long they reached the door leading into the bridge itself and found that it was, of course, sealed.

  Martinez let go of them and slid down against one side of the passageway.

  'Lucas,' he instructed, his face pale and slick with sweat, 'radio the others now. Don't worry about breaking silence. We just need to know if they're in position yet.'

  Corso established contact with Nancy Schiller and she delivered a brief report. He then asked her to send Ray Willis to join them.

  'They had a clear run all the way around the far side of the wheel,' he told Martinez and Lamoureaux. 'The bridge is sealed around the other side as well.'

  'Why do we need Willis here?' asked a puzzled Lamoureaux.

  'In case you hadn't noticed, we're one man down,' Corso explained. 'Otherwise I'd be the only one on this side who's both armed and uninjured. There's three of them around the far side of the bridge, so they can easily spare Ray.'

  'For what it's worth,' said Martinez with effort, 'I'm beginning to think there's a lot fewer people on board than we thought.'

  'Maybe,' Lamoureaux suggested, 'they've got other people scattered throughout the rest of the ship. There's plenty of room to hide.'

  'No, I think everyone left is on the other side of that door,' Martinez grunted, pushing himself a little more upright. He looked increasingly pale and frail. 'I'm going to try and persuade them to let us in.'

  Martinez opened a command frequency to the bridge. As he spoke, his voice took on a deeper, solider timbre.

  'This is Commander Eduard Martinez hailing whoever is currently on the bridge of the Mjollnir. Please respond.'

  An unfamiliar voice burst out over their shared comms. 'I hear you, Mister Martinez. This is Luis Simenon, acting commander, addressing the boarders. You are committing an act of piracy and I demand you surrender your weapons.'

  'Luis, I need you to open up the door. You're outnumbered, and you're already one woman down.'

  'The last I heard, sir, you were under arrest for sedition. That means you don't have the authority any more to-'

  'Mr Simenon,' Martinez thundered, 'the Mjollnir is still my commission. It'd take a special plenary meeting of the Senate to change that fact, and I don't recall hearing anything about one taking place. That means I have every right to board my own command, and yet your people actually fired upon me and my men. Whatever explanation you have, I'm sure it's bound to be fascinating.'

  Simenon didn't respond for at least another thirty seconds, and when he came back he sounded cold but subdued, even apologetic. 'My orders come directly from the Senate security services, Commander, just as they did when I relieved you of command. There are fast-response teams on their way here, so I suggest you and your men surrender your weapons now, or suffer the consequences.'

  'He's cut comms,' Martinez said a moment later.

  'Is he telling the truth?' asked Corso.

  'About the reinforcements? Sure. There's a couple of orbital platforms that can launch police boats in a hurry, plus there are tactical teams on permanent standby on the ground.' He nodded towards a screen flush with the door's surfa
ce. 'Help me over there and let's see if I can get us through that entrance.'

  Corso got an arm under Martinez's shoulder and helped him over to the door just as Ray Willis arrived, his rifle slung over one shoulder. He was panting heavily, having just run the entire way around the centrifuge from the opposite side of the bridge.

  'I saw a body,' Willis gasped. 'Was there any…?' He stopped when he saw Martinez.

  'We ran into some trouble,' said Corso.

  Willis nodded, his chest still heaving. 'Door's locked round the other way as well,' he said, 'though we didn't run into anyone. Nancy's ready to blow it open on your signal.'

  Corso nodded and checked his pulse-rifle. Its battery was at half capacity. Weapons such as these were only good for about a dozen shots before their batteries were completely drained, but they were cheap and easy to manufacture.

  He nodded to Willis, who moved to one side of the bridge entrance, his back to the wall and his rifle held close to his chest.

  'Visors down, everyone,' said Corso, taking up position opposite Willis. 'Ted, get the Commander safe to one side as soon as he's done.'

  Martinez finished entering his code into the screen, but didn't activate the door. Corso warned Nancy to be ready, then waited until Martinez was out of harm's way before leaning over to touch a panel on the screen that read CONFIRM.

  The door slid open a moment later, to the sound of shouting from inside.

  'Now,' Corso barked into his comms.

  Willis twisted at the waist, aimed the barrel of his rifle through the open door and fired off several shots. Almost at the same moment there was an enormous thump from somewhere inside, followed by more yelling and scuffling.

  Willis ran inside, Corso following a moment later.

  The first thing Corso noticed was the buckled remains of the door on the far side of the bridge. One of the Mjollnir's crew lay facedown near the interface chair positioned at the bridge's centre, a pulse-rifle just beyond his outstretched hand.

  Willis was barking orders at a uniformed man and woman who had sheltered behind a comms console. They stood up uncertainly and dropped their weapons, clearly shaken.