Warrior Drones, she faintly remembered them as being called. Larger than most nanotech devices, military grade. Programmed to attack, to consume, to swarm and to terrify. The size of large insects, they were equipped with razor sharp pincers, fangs and legs and shielded by glossy black shells of gleaming metal.
The bots also stayed clear of the nearest ceiling light to Evelyn, but all of the others were smothered after she passed through, plunging the passageway behind her into darkness and keeping the corridor ahead likewise inky black.
She wondered what had happened to the crew. She saw occasional scorch marks scarring the walls of the passageway, revealing that they too had fought each other as the infection had spread, mind after mind lost to the Word and its unstoppable mission of conquest. But she had seen no bodies, no blood, no other evidence of the aftermath of the carnage of battle.
The passageway ended and opened out onto the bridge deck, where two large doors awaited her. There, standing either side of the doors, were two marines. Evelyn paused on the opposite side of the bridge doors from them, watching. The bots around her scuttled back into the passageway and she realised that she had been allowed to pass through only so that she could be trapped here. With a plunging sense of dread, she knew that she would never be allowed to leave this place.
The soldiers did not look at her and she realised that beneath their visors their faces rippled with the countless bots crawling beneath their pale skin. The lights in the bridge deck illuminated them well but she could still detect the glow in their eyes and sense the heat radiating from their bodies, more machines now than men.
Without a word one of them stepped aside from the bridge door, his rifle held at port arms and his unblinking gaze staring at her expectantly. Evelyn took another deep breath and strode toward the door, which hissed open and revealed the interior of the bridge as she walked in.
Back before the catastrophe that had consumed the colonies, the bridge of a battleship would have been an almost sacred place that no civilian would ever have been allowed to see. Classified instruments of all kinds, carefully concealed data on range, speed, weapons and tactics were on display, and behind each station was a motionless human, or what was left of them, their arms now writing masses of bots spreading out across the control panels as though their bodies were now welded to their stations.
In the centre of the bridge and sitting in what had once been the captain’s seat, was the figure of a man, but a kind that Evelyn had never seen before.
‘Welcome, Eve,’ the man said.
His voice was deep, like Qayin’s but rippling as though heard underwater. The figure stood and she got her first clear look at what was left of Captain Tyraeus Forge.
His skin was a rippling mass of bots that darkened his pale skin, as though little of his flesh and bone remained. The bold leader’s features were thus recognisable but somehow deformed, a complex but unfaithful and ever–changing replication of a once famed and powerful battleship commander.
Evelyn stood her ground before him and noticed movement up on the bridge ceiling. Thousands of bots scuttled back and forth, following trails like insects as they scurried.
‘They will not harm you, Eve,’ Tyraeus said.
‘I’m supposed to believe that?’ Evelyn asked, finally finding her voice. ‘You wanted me dead.’
‘No,’ Tyraeus replied, ‘I have never wanted you dead, Eve. Hevel went beyond his remit. Too much of his human weakness remained and he feared you Evelyn, he feared you very greatly indeed.’
Evelyn realised that Hevel must have managed to contact the Avenger before his demise, but she could not know how much information Hevel had imparted. She said nothing for a moment, staring instead at this monstrous deformation of a man. The commander’s uniform was gone, what remained of his naked body seething with bots both above and beneath the surface. His teeth when he smiled gleamed metallic silver that flashed as they reflected the lights of the bridge around them.
‘Why did he fear me?’ she asked.
Tyraeus’s mouth blossomed like a metallic flower and revealed its gruesome interior swarming with bots as he spoke.
‘He knew who you were,’ the commander explained. ‘He understood what you were.’
Evelyn frowned. ‘I can’t remember anything.’
‘I know,’ Tyraeus nodded, his scalp glistening like a giant black fruit gone to the bad. ‘I can help you with that, but to do so you will have to trust me.’
Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, but before she could do so two solid hands gripped her by the arms. She looked to her sides and saw two marines holding her, their skin undulating beneath their uniforms as the bots controlled their muscles. She tried to shake their grip loose but they were as immovable as iron.
Tyraeus moved toward her, his legs swarming with bots that rippled and pulsed as they flexed their tiny bodies in unison to drive the commander forward. Evelyn recoiled from him, saw his glowing eyes boring into hers and his mouth opening as he spoke, tiny bots darting in and out.
‘You must trust me, Evelyn,’ he said. ‘You must believe me.’
‘How can I?’ she gasped, keeping her mouth tightly closed for fear of one of the bots leaping from Tyraeus and infiltrating her body. ‘You’ve murdered millions, hijacked their bodies for your own ends until nothing of them remains.’
Tyraeus shook his head.
‘Every human being we have encountered has fought us,’ he said, ‘but once infected, every one of them has welcomed us. We are the future, Evelyn. This is what we are now, this is who we are now and we embrace it willingly.’
Evelyn shook her head as her face screwed up in disgust at the sight of him.
‘I’ll never embrace that,’ she spat, and glanced down at his artificial body.
Tyraeus laughed, loudly, bots swarming across his face.
‘I don’t suppose that you would,’ he replied, and then he looked deep into her eyes. ‘But not because you wouldn’t want to, once infected. It is because you cannot.’
Evelyn frowned. ‘Cannot what?’
Tyraeus looked at her for a long beat and then suddenly Evelyn understood. With a terrific wave of realisation she realised why she had been incarcerated, why she had been buried away for so long, why she could not remember who she was or even why she would have committed such a heinous crime in the first place.
‘I’m innocent,’ she said. ‘I didn’t kill my family.’
Tyraeus nodded.
‘And I can show you why,’ he replied.
Tyraeus stood back and nodded to his soldiers. Evelyn screamed as she was lifted bodily into the air and plunged onto her back across a tactical display in the centre of the bridge. The two soldiers pinned her down with an iron grip as Tyraeus moved over her, and in his hand he held something that she never thought that she would see again.
‘No, please,’ she begged as tears spilled from her eyes.
Tyraeus lifted the object in his hands and spoke with something that almost sounded like regret.
‘I’m sorry, Evelyn,’ he replied, ‘but if I show you what you know, you can never share it with anybody. The Word is the law, and this mask is its judgement upon you.’
The dull, grey face of a metal mask stared back at Evelyn, its throat–probes long and gleaming.
Tyraeus lifted the metal mask over her face and Evelyn thrashed and writhed to escape, but the commander’s hand stilled her head as though it were caught in a vice. Another trooper appeared, and one black–veined hand forced her jaw open.
Evelyn saw the probes briefly and then she gagged and her screams were choked off as the probes plunged deep into her throat and silenced her. The taste of metal filled her mouth and she fought the urge to vomit as the mask closed over her face and the thin slits of light appeared before her eyes as though she were imprisoned.
She wept, openly and without shame as she heard the mask being fixed into place. Tyraeus held up the mask key to show her, and then he slipped it between his blackene
d lips as countless bots swarmed upon it and it was consumed.
‘Now,’ Tyraeus said, ‘you must learn the truth and understand why you must join us.’
Evelyn, shivering in the grip of the guards, saw Tyraeus lift his index finger before her. Upon the tip swarmed a small bundle of bots, a glistening, writhing ball of nanotechs too small to spot individually with the naked eye, like black smoke entrapped in a glass sphere. Evelyn tried to scream but no sound came forth. She tried to escape but she could not move. Tyraeus lowered his finger to her lips, the probes once again preventing her from closing her mouth, and she felt the tiny bots scuttle across her lips and into her mouth, pouring like water into her throat.
‘Now you shall learn the truth, Evelyn,’ Tyraeus said.
Evelyn felt sick to her stomach as the bots vanished but she could feel them, somehow, a tiny patch of warmth inside her neck as they swarmed upward through her sinuses, climbing toward her skull. She felt them swarm like an itch behind her eyes and toward her brain, and then her vision turned red and she felt her fear fall away like an old skin.
‘There,’ Tyraeus said as she felt the soldiers release her. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
Evelyn, unable to respond, simply lay on her back as Tyraeus’s voice lulled her into a bizarre sleep, one where she dreamed and yet could see the bridge around her at the same time. She felt warm, safe, cossetted, and some small part of her made her realise why the Word has been so rapid and successful in consuming its victims. It stimulated the pleasure sensors of the brain first: it eradicated fear, stifled pain, silenced doubt.
Evelyn willingly remained on her back as the bots infiltrated her brain and showed her the past.
***
XXXIX
‘This way.’
Andaim guided Qayin’s convicts through the Avenger’s hull, moving quickly but quietly as they headed toward the fighter wing and kept their eyes open for any sign of marauding bots.
The decks around them were deserted, cold and mostly dark. Andaim could only guess at why, but he assumed that with the crew overwhelmed and much of the ship’s accommodation and crew support sections unrequired by the Word, they had simply been shut down to conserve power or redirect it toward weapons systems.
They had passed kitchens, ward rooms and canteens and found them all empty, often with drinks and trays left where they had fallen. There were few traces of evidence of battle down here, which made it likely that the entire crew had rushed to defend the ship against its infected members. The entire hull had an abandoned feel to it, eerie and cold.
‘How much further?’ Qayin asked. ‘Damned cold down here.’
‘Environmental controls have been deactivated,’ Andaim replied. ‘No need when there’s no humans left to support.’
Their breath condensed in clouds in the darkness, and crystals of ice twinkled on the walls of the corridors.
‘We’re damned lucky it didn’t expel the air too,’ Qayin observed.
‘Let’s not tempt fate,’ Cutler uttered behind them as they hurried along.
All of the men carried emergency oxygen supplies and visors, but they had little protection against the bitter cold as they moved.
‘The cold might help us,’ Andaim realised as he walked.
‘How you figure that?’ Qayin uttered.
‘Temperature extremes,’ Andaim replied. ‘The bots don’t like extreme cold or heat. That’s maybe why they’re taking so long to colonise the entire vessel. They’d have started at the control centre, the bridge, and moved slowly aft. If they’ve shut down the environmental controls and the rest of the ship is abandoned, they might not have had any reason to come back here for months.’
Qayin looked about him in the darkness.
‘That ain’t gonna stop them comin’ back here if we get ourselves noticed,’ he pointed out. ‘Sooner we can get those fighter’s up and runnin’, the sooner we can get the hell out of here and attack.’
Andaim nodded as he guided the men down a flight of steps toward the fighter decks below. His flashlight illuminated the frozen walls of the corridor ahead, filled with clouds of water vapour that whorled in the light.
‘Get down!’ he yelled.
It was the movement of the mist that alerted him, of something that had just passed through at speed. Andaim fired twice into the mist and saw his plasma round illuminate a human form as it ploughed into them and sent them sprawling to the deck.
Andaim hurled himself into the cover of a bulkhead as he saw several pairs of glowing red eyes through the clouds of vapour and a salvo of plasma rounds flash past. Two convicts howled in agony as they were seared with rounds and they tumbled down the steps onto the deck, writhing as their flesh burned.
The reason for the circulating air and the lack of crew remains finally explained, Andaim shouted to the convicts behind him.
‘Fire at will!’ he yelled. ‘Go for the eyes!’
Andaim returned fire, aiming for the glowing red orbs and hitting one of the Avenger’s infected crew straight in the face, his smouldering torso plunging to the deck. Qayin and the convicts laid down a thunderous hail of fire that flashed through the passageway ahead, smashing infected crewmen aside until their bodies lay sprawled like a grotesque carpet down the corridor.
The firefight ended rapidly as Andaim peered through the smoke. The heat of the plasma rounds had evaporated the mist, and he could see several bodies glowing as uniforms burned and spilled embers around gaping wounds.
‘They knew we were coming!’ Cutler said.
‘Masks on,’ Andaim ordered. ‘I don’t want anybody getting infected, understood?’
The convicts donned their full–face respirator masks as Andaim called back among their ranks.
‘Torches, now!’
Two men hurried forward, lugging heavier weapons. Standing side by side, they activated the torches and a searing blue flame erupted from the barrel of each weapon. They advanced slowly, blasting the bodies of the dead crewmen with fearsome tongues of flame.
Andaim and Qayin followed behind them, saw clouds of tiny metallic bots gusted in glowing embers before the flames as they tried to escape their fallen hosts, pouring from chest and stomach wounds. The choking, commingled vapours of burning flesh and molten metal were held back by the face masks as Andaim followed the torch–men until they cleared the corpses and shut off their weapons.
‘All right,’ he said into his microphone, ‘they know we’re here, so no more foreplay. Let’s move, as fast as we can!’
‘About time,’ Qayin snapped.
Andaim turned and led the men at a jog with his rifle held at his hip before him, ready to fire at the smallest hint of opposition. They plunged down the corridor to a second flight of steps that led down to the hangar decks. Andaim pulled a plasma charge from his belt and activated it as they reached the top of the stairs, then tossed it as hard as he could out of sight down the corridor below.
A bright flash of light and a deafening crash shook the corridor as Andaim plunged down the flight of steps and fired into the swirling plasma haze filling the corridor, Qayin and the convicts rushing down behind him and firing a salvo of blasts into the darkness.
Two bodies spun aside as they were hit, red eyes glowing as they tumbled to the deck. Andaim fired at their heads, smashing them into smoking masses of scorched flesh and metal. He waved the torch–men ahead, their bright blue flames searing the corpses and cleansing them by fire.
Ahead, a massive bulkhead blocked their way to the hangar decks, likely sealed by the Word. Andaim hurried up to the doors and waved the men forward
‘This is where we’ll face the biggest opposition,’ he said. ‘They’re not likely to have left the fighters unguarded, even if they haven’t needed them so far. We go in fast, but cover each other like I told you and try not to damage the ships, okay?’
The convicts nodded as one, and then Andaim hesitated.
‘Where’s Cutler?’
The convicts looked
back into their midst but the old man was nowhere to be seen.
‘He didn’t get hit,’ Qayin growled suspiciously, ‘and I ain’t seen him since we burned up that first group of crewmen. He must have lost his stones and fled.’
Andaim cursed but he knew there was little he could do.
‘Let’s just hope the damned fool doesn’t do something we’ll all regret.’
Andaim placed plasma charges at the doors’ hinges and locking mechanism before waving the men back and sprinting back up the corridor. As soon as he was sure everybody was in cover, he lifted a detonator in his hand and squeezed the trigger.
The blast hurled the doors clean off their hinges, severing the metal braces and sending a gust of searing hot air past where Andaim crouched. A cloud of acrid smoke spilled into the corridor as Andaim charged toward the doors, a gaping hole torn in the hangar wall as though some immense beast had bitten through it, tongues of bright metal glinting in the light from the hangar bay.
Andaim hopped through the gaping hole and instantly saw ranks of crewmen advancing across the bay toward him, their rifles held at their hips as they marched robotically and opened fire.
Andaim threw himself down flat onto the deck and opened fire as a salvo of plasma rounds zipped over his head to hammer the hangar wall behind him. Cries of pain rang out through the hanger as plasma rounds scorched the walls and the air around him as he picked off target after target, dropping the crewmen as they lumbered forward. The convicts pouring into the hangar charged toward them.
‘Don’t get too close to them!’ he yelled. ‘You’ll be infected! Advance by sections!’
Most of the convicts obeyed, but one fired from just a few feet away from an infected crewman. Andaim glimpsed the blast hit the crewman and spew molten metal across the convict, along with a cloud of bots. The convict screamed and swiped his hand across his body, trying to wipe off the bots that swarmed up his clothes and across his visor, flooding in through the holes burned in the plastic by the shrapnel.
Atlantia Series 1: Survivor Page 27
