“That’s the place,” he said. “We better hurry…”
“Hostiles,” said Win, who was looking at a handheld tactical sensor. “The two we missed.”
The two that Pyke had killed both had six long jointed legs, which strongly suggested that they were ground dwellers. The next pair launched themselves from atop crumbling sections of wall, gliding to the attack on stretched-out membranes. Kref and Win were quick enough to burn them down in mid-flight, and at Dervla’s request Win went up close with her headcam, revealing that they had four limbs and shorter necks.
They fought more of the lizard things on their way uphill, and almost every encounter introduced another variety. Some had four legs and a long, lashing tail; others had two small grabbing forelimbs and muscular rear legs that allowed them to make huge leaps (a sub-variant had longer, more powerful legs on which it could run with unnerving swiftness). Other types had two front legs and a serpent-like body, or bony horns jutting from shoulders or spine, or…
Teratogeny had clearly run riot through the lizards’ gene pool, whether via radioactivity or some vile bio-vector engineered to weaken and distort the bonds of DNA. Dervla had seen the effects of something similar on some Gomedra nomads who unsuccessfully tried to hire Pyke and the Scarabus during a job-stop at Blacknest a couple of years ago. Their forebears had been victims of a mutagen attack, the consequences of which had been terrible, as was their hunger for vengeance.
These mutated lizards, while fast and savage, were also stupid enough to be shot or burnt down before they got too close. The anxiety shared by Dervla, Mojag, Ancil and Punzho eased as their shipmates saw off all attacks and drew close to the hillside refuge where the distress signal was coming from. All three cam-feeds swung in watchful arcs to left and right, although Pyke’s was the first to show just who they had come to rescue. In the shadows below the curved canopy a barrier of stone slabs, corroded metal poles and battered containers had been built across a wide entrance. Dead lizards lay in heaps before it and their blood spattered the stones.
Forms moved in the gloom beyond. Dervla watched with rapt attention, both eager and wary at what might await Pyke and the others. Suddenly a dark humanoid hand gripping a slender-barrelled pistol jabbed out through a gap in the barricade, pointing at Pyke. The hand’s dark hue, Dervla saw, was due to some kind of tight-fitting glove, while the weapon was levelled unwaveringly at the captain’s head.
A voice spoke a brief string of harsh syllables, impatient and commanding. Pyke holstered his own sidearms and raised one hand.
“My name is Captain Pyke, we come in peace to rescue you, blah blah blah–Scar, please tell me that you’ve cracked this language, otherwise this might turn ugly, I’m thinking.”
“I have incorporated those new words, Bran, but I am no closer to certainty—”
“Well, if we don’t come up with some way to communicate I might as well sing all ten verses of ‘A Donegal Lass There Was’ and see if that gets us any further forward. Y’know, that or just turn round and go back to the fracking shuttle!”
On the bridge, Mojag uttered a low whistle. Dervla grinned and shook her head. “I’ve heard worse, trust me.”
Then she leaned forward, attention caught by some exchange of raised voices taking place behind the barricade. The argument swiftly abated, however, and was followed by the sound of a throat being cleared.
“Spik yau nim!”
Over the feed Win said, “What was that? What did he say?”
Another quarrelsome babble came from the hidden shadows, then the voice spoke again.
“Speyk yar nerm!”
“That was Anglic,” Pyke said over the feed. “Did that sound like Anglic?”
“Sounded like he was asking you to speak your name,” said Dervla. “That might be preferable to ten verses of ‘A Donegal Lass There Was’, eh?”
“Thank you for that,” Pyke said, ignoring the sound of Win stifling her laughter as he turned back to the barricade. “Greetings–my name is Captain Brannan Pyke, and we followed your distress beacon with the aim of helping you off this wreck of a world.”
There was no response and on Win’s cam Pyke turned and shrugged. Before he could say a word the voice spoke again.
“Moar.”
“Eh? You want me to keep gabbing…”
“Moar!”
“Okay, keep the head–right. so, as I said I am captain of the good ship Scarabus whose expert and courteous crew ensure the smooth and efficient operation of all shipboard activities…”
On the bridge, Ancil and Mojag were standing to attention and making mock salutes to the holoscreen and each other. Dervla had to struggle to keep from laughing out loud.
“… and as you see we’re all quite well armed; in fact, certainly well enough to take care of your local vermin problem–and to tell you the truth I don’t know how much longer I can keep up this bloody jabbering…”
Someone behind the barricade shouted. Other voices answered, some in querying tones. The weapon aimed at Pyke was withdrawn and a moment later a section of the barricade was dragged aside, metal edges dragging on concrete. A figure came out, a very human-looking sentient wearing battered body armour seemingly collected from several differing sources. He was brawnily built and slightly shorter than Pyke, had a thick head of black hair and a neatly clipped black beard. One hand held the pistol from before, steadily couched at waist level, covering Pyke and the others. A second and a third humanoid stepped out of the shadows, both of a similar physique and likewise attired, with pistols similarly deployed. Overall they reminded Dervla of Khorr and his men, with their brute, low-tech air.
Then something like a wheelchair emerged from the gap, only it was more like a large inclined cradle in which a strange figure lay. Dervla adjusted the holodisplay, sharpening the picture quality as the reclining figure was steered over towards Pyke by a fourth bearded humanoid. Unlike the first three, this one’s hair and beard were decorated with bright red streaks.
Although the cradled figure was bundled up in grey and dark green robes Dervla could tell that this was a much shorter creature than the others, a metre and a half tall at most. Its face was narrow and shrivelled and the skin appeared sallow and unwell. Drooping eyelids made it–possibly he–seem only partially awake but as the wheeled cradle stopped before Pyke they opened fully and sharp eyes stared up. Dervla frowned–not only was the stretcher case a different species from its bearded companions, it had also been subject to radical augmentation. Arms stirred beneath the crumpled robes and folds slipped aside to reveal its hands, resting atop its midriff. But instead of hands they were clusters of finely engineered rods and intricate instruments, some clad in glass or sections of a black material, others etched with circuitry or bearing slender, parallel branchings, or wound with tiny wires that trailed back up into voluminous sleeves. Gently restless motions gave an impression of fingers, adding to the unsettling sight.
“English is… the language,” said the small, reclining figure in a deep voice marred by laboured wheezing. “Your language, Captain. Am I correct?”
“It is, after a fashion.”
The wheelchair’s passenger turned his head and muttered a few words to the man who had pushed him out from the redoubt. The man with the red-streaked beard listened and gave only a nod while giving the three Humans a dark assessing gaze.
“This is G’Brozen Mav,” the small figure said. “He leads us. I am Toolbearer Hechec, Captain. May I ask how you come to be here on this ravaged world?”
Watching from the bridge, Dervla said, “Who calls it English any more? Bit old-fashioned, eh?”
Pyke, though, ignored her comments.
“We were following the trail of a scumbag who killed one of my crew and cheated us out of our property, and the trail led us to more closely examine this planet…” He gave a dry laugh. “Which is an odd place, to put it mildly.”
“Who was this murderer, if I might ask?”
“He called himself Kho
rr, a big muscly bastard…”
At the mention of the name, G’Brozen Mav straightened, his expression suddenly alert and grim. He spoke briefly to Toolbearer Hechec who gave a wordless nod then addressed Pyke again.
“Khorr is known to us,” Hechec said. “We have much cause to hate him. His purposes and loyalties have been revealed to us and we would be able to lead you to him. In return we would humbly ask for transport to a suitable world in this locale, and perhaps some medical attention for one of our number.”
Dervla nodded, muttering, “Yes, we must.”
Pyke also nodded. “We would be more than happy to get you off this mudball,” he said. “And is it yourself that needs the doctoring?”
Hechec smiled. “In the course of our adversities I acquired a wound to my leg.” He tapped the cradling frame with one of those bizarre instrument fingers. “We were forced to improvise.”
“He must be valuable to Gibrozy whatshisname, then,” said Dervla.
“We have a few handy devices aboard the Scarabus,” Pyke said. “I’m sure we can do something for you.”
“We are grateful. Is your vessel nearby?”
“The Scarabus is in orbit,” Pyke said. “Our shuttle is waiting further down that road. By the time we return to the ship the rest of my crew will have quarters ready for you.”
“We are in your hands, Captain, and in your debt.”
The combined groups moved out from under the canopy’s shadow with weapons ready and eyes scanning the shattered buildings to either side. Back on the bridge, Dervla turned to Mojag and Ancil.
“Well, now, looks like we’ve got new passengers coming aboard. And I don’t think they’re the paying kind.”
CHAPTER THREE
With an upgraded Tesla pistol in one hand and a frost grenade in the other, Sam Brock barrelled through the rusty hatch and caught the four Drakomandos by surprise. The grenade caught the furthest-away pair perfectly, slowing their charge to a slow, crunching, fume-wreathed trudge. The nearer pair she nailed with a volley-spread from the Tesla pistol. Webs of deadly electrical discharge crackled and lit up the anteroom’s corroded bulkheads with actinic flickers.
The slo-mo Drakomandos were thawing out and getting closer so Sam switched to the haarpoon, a long-barrelled weapon that launched barbed spines of ice. She fired, caught one in its shoulder with a force that threw it backwards and impaled it to the bulkhead, dangling and dead. But the Tesla-stunned pair were coming round so she hit them with a second frost nade, haarpooned the fourth Drak as it bellow-charged, and delegged a pair of Hieroknights as they entered from the other hatch. The razor-lariat zipped back into its wrist-pod as she stepped smartly past the prone armoured bodies and exited the anteroom. Weapons reloaded she turned to see a short, low-roofed passage leading to a platform at the edge of an immense cavernous area lit by floating clusters of polychromatic globes. From the edge of the platform an opulent antique staircase sloped down out of sight while a string of letters hung in the air before her:
DEFEAT THE HEKATON AND HIS HUNDRED GENERALS
This was it. This was the climax of Death Colossus, the senses-shattering grand finale in which all of the solo player’s victories and patiently gathered alliances would be brought to bear. The Hekaton was the controlling intelligence, a huge biomechanical planetoid leading a fleet of heavily armed battle-goliaths straight towards Earth. The deranged core-mind of the Hekaton lay at the centre of the Sanctum Chamber, guarded by his hundred generals who were grouped into five-hand squads, each deploying different combinations of weapons and abilities. As she strode to the head of the staircase Sam could see her allies poised and waiting in similar openings spaced around the heights of the chamber’s sloped, ribbed walls. There were the reptiloid scavengers, the freed prisoners, the rebellious cyberthralls, the warrior-bands of the Sensect Hivemind, and others, all awaiting her tactical plan, her deployment orders that would set the opening conditions for the final glorious battle.
And she felt… well, not bored, exactly, more like blunted by the certainty that the narrative would resolve itself with an all-too-neat tying-up of all the loose ends. This was the thirty-fourth headspace game she had research-played according to the parameters of the Historical VR Combat project, to which she was the only assigned operative. It had not taken her long to notice patterns in gameplay, in cultural assumptions, and in narrative flow, which increasingly made for predictable outcomes. Not a little of that, she knew, was the result of commercial pressure to create entertainments for a wide audience.
But, depressingly, the very fact that she was here on Asuphel-Korporiata, stuck away in the dreariest corner of Knossos Base, was also part of a pattern.
Yeah, Sam thought sourly. I’m getting good at pissing off my COs; practically got it down to a science…
But it was these Earther senior officers–they were supposed to be highly trained professionals, dedicated, knowledgeable and meticulous, yet almost from the moment she graduated from Melbourne Bastion she had seen sloppy, careless behaviour aplenty. Even as adjutant to a high-level ES colonel at the Banners HQ on Phandrek, she had come up against lazy planning, imprecisely worded orders, procurement and supply errors, most of which she had been able to catch and fix, thereby avoiding damaging repercussions. Except when her secret diligence had corrected a mistake in a delivery order (which hadn’t been a mistake) and exposed her CO to the glare of a probity enquiry.
Sam was officially commended but shortly thereafter found herself transferred to the 11th Armour-Guard and assigned to a high-assault company. Before long the 11th was in action against Gomedran marauders who were raiding agri-worlds near the Fensahr border. They were tracked to the edge of the Qarqol deepzone, to a rubble system that was little more than a brown dwarf orbited by clouds of asteroids and minor planetoids. It was there that her attention to detail and strategic intuition prevented the ambush and capture of the Indra, the taskforce flagship. Once more she was praised and commended, yet somehow she wound up here at Knossos Base, playing antiquated games and going nowhere.
The deadest of dead ends, she thought. Not exactly what Papa had in mind when we left Tygra ten years ago.
Refocusing her attention on the finale of Death Colossus, she sighed, thought for a moment, then switched into the game’s control menu and activated the heuristic autoplay mode. Now disembodied from the player-character, Sam floated over the Hekaton’s huge chamber as battle was joined. Employing her playing style, it took the game more than ten minutes to reach the climax point, where the player-character fought past the generals to the Hekaton’s metamind cores and destroyed the one containing the cognitive persona, thus ending the battle. Sam made numerous voice-notes throughout and as soon as the Hekaton was reduced to an ex-evil biomechanical menace, she froze and quit out of the game. Automatically the neural interrupt ceased and she was dumped back in her own body, senses seesawing for a long moment before she adjusted to reality. The headspace tiarette had relaxed its grip around her temples and the contact stalks had retracted into the neckbrace. Removing the tiarette she hung it on a slender chrome stand nearby.
The room was small, square and spare, blues and greys that extended to the data console and the low recliner. Feeling aches in her neck and back Sam stood up and put herself through a series of stretching exercises. She drew water from a recessed dispenser, took a nutri-stick from a drawer in the console and sat back to review a transcript of her notes on the display. It was still the early afternoon so she could if she wanted make a start on Combat Archive 35. Or not, if she wanted.
She fingered a few lightkeys, calling up the next game. It was blessed with the title Draconis Excelsior and appeared to have a pseudo-medieval setting.
And an involved system of character creation, with added detail-tweaking of abilities and appearance which, over the last few weeks, she had found herself becoming increasingly engrossed by. She was about to reach for the headspace tiarette when a short tinkly sound came from the console, heralding an a
nnouncement from one of the base’s sub-AIs.
“Lt Commander Brock,” it said in that no-nonsense, formal masculine voice. “Priority communication from Colonel Pulaski–please stand by.”
Sam sat up. The base commander? What had she done? What might she have done?
The console’s sizeable display lit up with a head-and-shoulders view of the colonel. Grey-haired and gaunt-featured, he stared out of the screen with flinty eyes. Sam gave a quick, snappy salute.
“At ease, Lt Commander,” said Pulaski. “I have in the last half-hour received new orders regarding your assignment, your new assignment, that is.” The colonel frowned. “The abruptness of this is highly irregular but I have had veeline confirmation from Admiral Manning himself so it is official and immediately actionable.
“Lt Commander Brock, you are being seconded to work with an operative sent by one of Earthsphere’s more exotic allies, the Construct. This agent is, I understand, a sentient combat drone which has previous experience with Humans, mainly during the Darien War.”
The Darien War? Her parents had had only the most peripheral involvement in the events that led to the ouster of the Becker faction on Tygra, while the Gideon cadre were fighting to the death in defence of Darien.
“Sir, may I ask–why me?”
“I put that very question to Admiral Manning,” said Pulaski. “All he could tell me was that you were their choice–the Construct intermediaries asked for you by name. As for the assignment itself, well, I was not made privy to any details so it is safe to assume that it deals with matters both sensitive and crucial.”
Sam sat back a little, the hollow anxiety in her stomach warring with a sense of anticipation.
“When do I ship out, sir? Where will I rendezvous with the Construct machine?”
“The answer to your questions is on its way to sub-level two now and should be with you very shortly. The drone arrived not long after the new orders. Barring the formal courtesies and some small talk about the Gomedran scavenger problem, I learned very little apart from its insistence that you be ready to leave at short notice.” Then, like a crack in a weathered cliff face, the colonel smiled faintly. “I believe your visitor has just arrived, Lt Commander–he will have a copy of the orders for you. We shall speak again before you depart.”
Ancestral Machines Page 5
