Archangel

by Scott Harrison

  ‘Great. The one time someone listens to me and it’s probably going to get us all killed,’ Vila murmured, returning to the seating area. ‘I wish I’d have kept my mouth shut now.’

  ‘For once we agree on something.’ Avon sounded pleasantly surprised.

  Blake held his hands up, as though surrendering. ‘We have to find out what Archangel is, Avon. We must know who or what we’re up against, otherwise we’ll just be stumbling blindly in the dark.’

  ‘Isn’t that our usual strategy?’ said Avon.

  Blake had to suppress the urge to laugh. He just couldn’t win with Avon. Whatever course of action he took, whatever decision he made, in Avon’s eyes it was always the wrong one.

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong but you brought this to my attention,’ Blake said. ‘What were you expecting me to do, just ignore it?’

  ‘I was expecting you to listen to what the rest of us had to say for once,’ said Avon. ‘Or have you learned nothing from Gan’s death?’

  Avon turned away, not waiting to see the rebel leader’s reaction.

  ‘OK, I’ll make you a deal,’ Blake said, addressing his reply to the entire crew. ‘Let me get in touch with Tobin first, on Dionysus. See how the land lies. Find out if he knows anything else about Archangel.’

  ‘I don’t know why we’re even trusting him,’ Vila said. ‘He’s a Federation officer.’

  ‘An ex-Federation officer,’ Blake reminded him. ‘And a good man, who turned his back on the Federation several years ago. More importantly he’s the co-ordinator for the Freedom Party on Dionysus. Which means he has access to a number of information channels outside of Orac’s reach. And if he has any information for us, we’ll sit down and decide together what the next step should be. We can even take a vote on what to do, if you like.’ He spread his hands to show that he was sincere. ‘If we decide that we don’t want to take the risk, then we’ll simply walk away and never talk of it again.’

  Vila nodded his approval. ‘Actually, I’ve always wanted to have a go in one of their hologram suites. We can make a sort of mini-break of it while we’re there.’

  ‘We’ll be there for all of 30 minutes,’ Blake said, smiling at Vila’s disappointment. He turned to Jenna. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed, I suppose,’ Jenna said. ‘So long as everyone else is in agreement, then it gets my vote.’

  ‘Cally?’ Blake glanced up at the communications module where the Auron sat, arms folded, watching her companions carefully.

  ‘I think it makes sense to obtain as much information as we can before making a decision,’ she said carefully. ‘I am happy to go along with it.’

  All Blake needed now was Avon’s approval. Not that he really needed it; he had the rest of the crew’s backing and was intending to go no matter what Avon said, but he’d rather have his colleague inside the tent spitting out, than outside the tent spitting in, as the old Amagon saying went.

  Blake was sure that Avon knew everyone was waiting for him, that’s why he remained silent. He wanted to make them sweat for a while, particularly Blake.

  ‘Of course I’m in. I’m rather hurt that you should think differently,’ Avon told him, with a smile. ‘Besides, as you’ve already pointed out, it was me that brought this to your attention.’

  He snatched up the operating key and the lights deep within Orac fell dark, the final whirr of power from his vacuum-sealed processors fading into gradual silence. ‘Call Tobin and have him meet you on the platform,’ Avon said. ‘And if he has anything solid on what Archangel is, then we’ll talk!’

  artefact [1]

  The girl ran as fast as she could.

  She had no idea who she was or where she was going. She only knew that if she didn’t get away from this place she was dead.

  The corridor was slowly leading her upwards, towards the surface, of that much she was certain. If she could find a door, get outside, she might be able to hide from them, perhaps even find transport and get off this planet. It was doubtful, but it was the only shred of hope she had.

  Above her, the ceiling lights spluttered alarmingly, the sporadic bursts of florescent light flashing through the darkness like summer lightning. She reached out until the tips of her fingers brushed the wall at her left side, then slowed her pace a little, feeling her way inch by inch along the corridor, waiting for the red emergency lighting to kick in.

  In the near darkness she could hear them getting closer. The pounding of feet echoing towards her from somewhere further back in the direction of that cold, dark room she had left.

  They were coming for her.

  She’d hoped she would have more time before they discovered she was gone. Perhaps enough time to get clear, put some distance between herself and that room.

  It had taken her a while to finally pluck up the courage. She’d even managed to stifle her screams as she’d unhooked herself from the instruments that were buried deep within her own body, pulling the wires and electrodes from out of her arms and legs and stomach…The one inside her head had been the worst; it had taken her nearly half an hour to pull that one free. The pain had been so bad she’d been unable to stop herself from crying out. Thankfully the room had been empty. Cold and dark and empty.

  Except for the other six like her. Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Phanuel and Zarachiel…

  The lights stopped flickering, plunging the corridor into total darkness, causing her to stop dead. She blinked her eyes, trying to dislodge the pale blobs that seemed to be burnt onto her retinas from the bright flashes of light, but it didn’t help.

  The girl staggered forward, beginning to panic now, both palms brushing against the cool metal surface of the wall as she tried desperately to put some distance between herself and the advancing footfalls.

  There was something on the floor, something raised and solid. Her foot connected sharply with it and she fell headlong, fingernails clawing at the smooth wall, trying to find a handhold, anything to keep herself on her feet and moving away from her pursuers.

  Disorientated, she began to drag herself along the floor on her hands and knees, one hand flailing in the air in front of her, terrified that at any moment her head might connect with something solid.

  Desperately she tried to conjure a mental picture of the corridor, how it had been before the lights went out. There had been what looked like a maintenance shaft leading off to the right several metres ahead, and beyond that an opaque screen with a sensorpad entry system—probably a communications booth. And to her left there’d been…

  Her heart began to pound as the image flashed into her head.

  There had been a door, hadn’t there?

  She dragged herself to her feet, palms flat against the wall again, each foot now shuffling carefully in front of the other, warily testing the floor ahead for further obstacles. It had to be here somewhere. She was so sure that she’d seen it. She couldn’t have been mistaken, could she?

  Oh god, she hoped she was right.

  Her fingertips found the outline of the door and she nearly cried out with joy, her eyes filling with grateful tears as she followed the groove that ran along the edge of the doorway. She stopped as her fingers brushed against the raised disc of the sensorpad, their tips dancing lightly over the eight tiny square keys at its centre.

  She smiled to herself. She may not remember who she was or where she was being held, but she definitely knew the combination. She’d seen the man in white tap it into the dark room’s sensorpad many times.

  She reached out, carefully positioning her fingers over the appropriate keys.

  Before she could press the final digit, the door rumbled open, catching the girl off-guard. She stumbled backwards, hands thrown up in front of her face, shielding her eyes from the glare. Someone was hovering on the threshold, a human-shaped hole cut into the light that shone from the room behind them. The figure stood there unmoving for a moment or two, before quickly swinging the barrel of a laser rifle around to cover her
. It took aim.

  ‘No. Not that way.’ The voice came from further along the corridor, out of the darkness. ‘I need her unharmed. Shoot her and the whole experiment becomes useless.’

  The lights sprang on again, flooding the corridor in blinding white light, just as the trooper stepped forward. He spun the rifle around in his hands before the girl had time to react, smashing the shoulder-rest into her stomach, knocking the wind from her body. Then he reached down and grabbed her roughly by the arm, dragging her back along the corridor. Back to the dark room.

  *

  Sounds broke the darkness. Unrecognisable at first, then slowly they began to arrange themselves into familiar patterns.

  ‘…rrnh..eernn..ing of test subject number six. After the first incision is made the neuron receptors will begin to fire. For this we will need the subject to be conscious.’

  ‘But won’t that be painful for the subject?’

  ‘Yes, but not for long. 10 or 15 minutes, perhaps. Can’t be helped, unfortunately.’ The voice moved closer. ‘If you can hear me I need you to open your eyes and look into the light beam.’

  Her eyelids fluttered open. Light and shape and colour and memory bleeding slowly into the darkness, swallowing it up until everything became shades of grey.

  ‘Good. That’s it. You’re doing very well. Now I need you to tell me your name. Not the name you had before, but the one now. Your new name. I need you to tell me your new name. Can you do that?’

  She struggled to form the sounds, to eject them from between numb lips. She pushed hard but the sound was stuck somewhere at the back of her throat.

  ‘Tala.’

  It took her a few seconds to realise that she had spoken, that the voice she had heard was her own.

  ‘No. Try again. Tala was your name before. What is your name now? Think.’

  And suddenly the girl remembered it. ‘Simiel. My name is Simiel, and I am the sixth of seven.’

  ‘Good. Now we can begin.’

  The girl who had once been known as Tala screamed as the fire tore through her body, flowing through her veins like molten lava, burning down her memories and turning them into thick, grey piles of ash.

  Then slowly the darkness swallowed her up again, until there was nothing left but the cold and the dark and the unbearable pain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Vila jabbed his second glass of adrenalin and soma in the direction of the main viewscreen. ‘Is that it?’ he asked, voice tinged with disappointment.

  It had often been said that the Dionysus leisure platform was a thing of rare and magnificent beauty, a sight unmatched in the whole of the Caesari system. Granted, the people Vila had actually heard say it were members of the Terran Construction Cartel and, seeing as it was their company that built the thing, weren’t exactly the most objective of sources. But even so, now that he was actually seeing the complex up close, he had to admit that he was far from impressed.

  ‘Of course that’s not it,’ Orac snapped, its tone that of a weary schoolteacher talking to one of his less enlightened pupils. ‘What you are seeing is merely the outer polyherculanium shell built to the Mark IV Bueller-Teshak civil administration platform specifications. I assume that what you are, in fact, interested in are the 1,950 fully-immersible hologram relaxation suites that are housed within and are said to be the most advanced and realistic of their kind.’

  The news was like music to Vila’s ears. Refilling his glass with a little more Soma he raised it in salute to Orac before taking a good, healthy gulp, then wiping his lips on the back of his hand. ‘Well, that’s more like it,’ he said with a contented slur. ‘I was beginning to think that we’d had a wasted journey for a minute.’

  ‘It hardly matters one way or the other, seeing as you won’t be going down there anyway.’ Avon had appeared suddenly beside Vila’s flight station, turning a data-cube thoughtfully over and over in his hands as he studied the giant structure on the screen.

  ‘Actually no one will be going down, except me. ‘ Blake had his back to the rest of the flight deck, slowly strapping a gun-belt and power pack across his waist, before selecting a gun from the rack on the wall. He turned to face a row of silent, accusatory stares. ‘We can’t afford to take the risk. I’ve not made direct contact with Tobin for over a year, so I can’t be completely sure where his loyalties lie at the moment. Until we’re absolutely certain then I have to go down alone. It’s imperative that Liberator remains safe at all times.’

  ‘Another noble decision by our brave, self-sacrificing leader,’ Avon noted, sardonically. ‘So much for democracy.’

  Blake said nothing for a moment, regarding his crewmate intently, then he shook his head. ‘You would prefer a repeat of what happened at Central Control back on Earth?’ he asked. ‘Another one of us dead, like Gan? Perhaps a woman this time, just for balance?’

  ‘That is hardly what I meant.’ Avon turned slowly on the spot until he was looking Blake directly in the eyes. ‘I don’t understand why it has to be one extreme or the other with you. There are other choices besides going alone or getting us killed.’

  Blake shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But we’ve taken enough risks as it is lately.’

  ‘No,’ Avon interrupted. ‘All the risks have been yours, Blake, not ours. Risks taken with our lives and with this ship. It’s been the same ever since we stepped onboard. I’m only surprised that more of us haven’t been killed.’

  In response Blake flashed him a tight, humourless smile. ‘All the more reason for me to go down there alone.’ He clipped the gun firmly into its holster and checked the straps one last time. ‘And if there are Federation troopers waiting for me, then you can always say you told me so. Although you’ll have to say it very quickly and very loudly as I probably won’t hear it over the sound of gunfire.’

  *

  It took a second or two for Blake’s eyes to adjust to the subdued lighting of the main concourse, throwing him momentarily off balance. He staggered backwards a couple of paces, his shoulders connecting painfully with the main bulkhead.

  There was a narrow corridor a few metres away from where he was standing, nothing more than a maintenance shaft really, that bisected the forward-most section of the Dionysus. There was barely enough room for one man to duck inside, let alone two, but it would have to do. Blake wandered casually along the far side of the concourse, his eyes on the flowing crowd of people that were unloading themselves noisily from the rank of civil transporter ships that sat in rows along the platform’s expansive docking cradle. Choosing his moment carefully, he backed into the shadowy interior of the narrow shaft, and waited, one hand hovering over the butt of his gun.

  Before long a tall man in sandy-coloured robes stepped out of the bustling throng of human traffic and shuffled quickly across the concourse towards Blake. He paused briefly at the mouth of the intersection, glancing back over his shoulder at the constant swirl and eddy of pleasure-seekers and freeloaders that filtered in through the main docking terminals, as though checking one last time that he had not been followed. Apparently satisfied, he covered the remaining distance in a brisk half-trot, the folds of his robes kicking up around his ankles like brown smoke.

  The man squeezed himself into the cramped space beside Blake, lowering his hood to reveal a bald, glistening scalp. His large, dark eyes shone in the thick shadows of the maintenance shaft.

  ‘Fleet Officer Tobin.’ Blake relaxed a little at the sight of his old friend, a smile fluttering across his lips. ‘I was starting to think you weren’t coming.’ He offered one hand to Tobin, who grasped it eagerly with both of his.

  ‘Roj, good to see you again. It’s been far too long, my friend, far too long,’ Tobin told him, a fleck of sadness in his voice. ‘I don’t use that title any more. I tend not to dwell too long on my time in Space Command. It only serves to remind me that I have more years behind me than I have ahead.’ And he ran the palm of one hand wistfully over the smooth, hairless dome of his head.

  A cloud of e
xotic chatter swirled towards them from across the main concourse like a rising wind, dragging Blake back to the matter in hand. As much as the Caesari system liked to boast that it was neutral territory, the truth was there was very little they could do to stop Federation pursuit ships from patrolling through the area once every few days.

  ‘I don’t mean to seem rude, Tobin,’ Blake said. ‘But I need a little bit more information from you and I really can’t afford to be here for long.’

  ‘Of course. You must forgive me, my friend,’ replied Tobin. ‘Time is of the essence, I know.’

  Tobin leant across and tapped an elaborate sequence of numbers and symbols into the tiny entrypad on the wall beside them. There was a sharp hiss of escaping air followed by a squeal of rusting hydraulics, and a small circular service hatch levered outwards, away from the wall. The freezing air hit Blake like a blow across the face. He’d forgotten just how cold it could get in the crawl-gantries that ran between the insulated interior spaces and the reinforced exterior skin of a space vessel.

  From beneath his robe, Tobin produced a small, portable palmlight, which he kept switched off until he’d squeezed himself through the service hatch and was standing on the narrow, wire-mesh floor of the gantry beyond. He waited for Blake to climb through after him, then resealed the hatch and deactivated the entrypad.

  They descended slowly through a series of inspection panels that led them deeper into the bowels of the leisure platform, the tunnels becoming narrower and narrower until, by the end, they were passing through crawl gantries designed to be used by the automated service robots. As they drew nearer to the section that housed the platform’s orbital thruster array, the air began to prickle with an odd, semi-organic sort of drumming. To Blake, the accompanying electrical charge felt rather uncomfortably like an army of soldier ants swarming across his face and scalp.

  A little further ahead, where the gantry was at its narrowest, Blake could just about make out the dark, oval smudge of an open doorway set into a shallow recess in the wall. Tobin ducked through first, quickly followed by Blake. Once they were inside, Tobin pulled a thin metallic data-key from the folds of his robes, and slotted it into a wall-mounted panel to one side of the door. He turned it smartly clockwise and the door snapped down into place, locking itself automatically.