The Spider roared as it vented more hot gas. Kodiak rolled onto his side as he was hit by the exhaust reflected from the water below, drying him and the gallery almost instantly. Then he clambered to his feet and hunched back against the wall. He turned and fired again. Where his staser bolts hit, white arcs of energy crackled over the black metal of the Spider’s side. The machine kept its firm grip on Braben, but it shuddered under the impacts. It seemed stasers were bad for Spiders.
Kodiak fired again, flicking the pistol’s controls to rapid fire as he squeezed the trigger so tight his finger hurt. Bolt after bolt slammed into the machine, energy arcing across it. It shook, Braben flopping in its pincer, crying out as he was squeezed by the convulsing machine, but still it didn’t let him go.
Then it dived back into the water, taking Braben with it. Kodiak rolled to the edge of the platform, holding the staser out over the water to loose off more shots, but it was too late. The machine was nothing more than a black shadow descending below the churning water while its drones clung to the stasis pods.
Kodiak pulled himself up, keeping the weapon raised. He looked around, at the floor, ceiling, up and down the gallery, but none of the drones had made it out of the water. The smaller Spiders seemed content to sit on the pods, minding them like they were eggs waiting to hatch.
Something caught his eye on the slick gallery decking. Braben’s remote control. Kodiak picked it up and turned it over. There was a crack running across the surface from one corner to the next, but when he depressed the inset button on the top edge, the screen lit up. It was still working.
A movement, at the end of the gallery. Tyler Smith was lying against the wall, his body jerking as Kodiak activated the control. Kodiak pressed the button again and the screen went dark. Then he slipped the control into his pocket and ran over to the psi-marine.
Tyler looked uninjured; Kodiak got his helmet off and pulled the collar of his combat suit down to check his pulse, which was slow and steady, as was his breathing. Tyler’s skin was cold and clammy.
The marine’s eyes were closed.
Kodiak pulled the control out and activated it. Tyler jerked again, but that was all. Kodiak frowned at the device—the screen was on, but it was blank. He wasn’t sure if it was broken or whether he was supposed to input some sequence to take control of Tyler. What he really wanted to do was wake the psi-marine up.
There was a splash from the pool. Kodiak pocketed the device and lifted Tyler across his shoulders. In full combat armor, the psi-marine was extremely heavy. Kodiak, hissing with the effort, his body bent under the load, moved as quickly as he could back along the gallery to the corridor that led to the elevator lobby.
He had to get Tyler somewhere safe. He owed it to Cait. And then he could worry about the Spiders.
42
Caviezel stood with his hands behind his back as his servitors fought to regain control of the JMC refinery.
“Drift stabilizing, north-northwest, five degrees, fifty-two meters per second,” one machine reported.
Caviezel acknowledged. From farther along the sweeping curve of the console, another servitor gave its report. “Repulsor ignition on starboard engines aborted. Power cores four through ten still offline. Running diagnostics. Controller reboot in … five seconds.”
Caviezel looked up at the Jupiter projection, where the position of the repowered but drifting refinery was picked up by a dozen vector lines, a rotating yellow icon tracking its slow movement across the planet toward the circle of red that represented Caviezel’s Spider.
Caviezel strode across the control room to where Flood lay face down on the floor in a growing pool of blood. He reached down and rolled her over. Her eyes flickered and half-opened. She looked at Caviezel, her mouth twitching at the corners as she smiled.
“I cannot do it,” she whispered. “I am not a Pilot. The Fallen One’s light shines too bright for me. I do not understand his words. I cannot show him the way.…”
Caviezel smiled and, taking a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, began wiping away the blood from Flood’s face.
“You still think your precious god has awoken, do you? I hate to disappoint you, my dear, but that machine is a weapon, based on alien technology that I brought here. And believe me when I say that you are my Pilot. You might have left your old life behind, you may have let your abilities wither on the vine, but there is still a psi-marine somewhere inside you.”
He cast his eyes over the control panel next to the open computer alcove. “But maybe we can speed things up a little. Give you a bit of a boost.”
He stood and flicked a switch. Flood shook on the floor, her entire body in spasm as the power surged through the interface.
Caviezel bent down and, using the handkerchief to keep himself clean, rolled her face toward him. Flood’s teeth were clamped together, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
“Listen to me, Your Holiness,” he said. “I need control of that machine. And you will give it to me, even if it kills you.”
Flood managed another weak grin. “If … if I die … then … then … you have nothing. The Fallen One will … will welcome me to his cold … embrace. There will be no control. Not … not for you. Not ever.”
Caviezel smiled. “Even as we speak, your neural connections are being mapped and the signature of your psi-field copied into another system. If you cooperate and hand control to me, I will ease your passing and speed your journey to your ‘god.’ But if you do not, I will wrest control from you and switch in our own system.” Caviezel tapped his forehead. “And then the machine will be under my direct control. And that, my dear, will mean a painful end for you. Your mind will be ripped apart by the strain.”
Flood’s eyes narrowed. She coughed up a mouthful of blood. “If I cannot … show the Fallen One the path … then … then you will not either. You blaspheme … His glory. He will destroy you.”
Caviezel folded his arms. “You are wrong, Your Holiness. You underestimate my expertise. I might think I’m Resta Caviezel, but I know that he died many, many years ago—I am merely an iteration of his psychic template. Through me, he lives on in his machines.” He smiled. “All I need is your template once you have linked minds with the machine, and then I can take control from you.”
“Lucifer will save me. The Fallen One will save me.”
Caviezel chuckled. “No, Samantha, I think not.”
The refinery shook. Caviezel stood and steadied himself against the wall, turning to watch as the Jupiter projection shimmered like it was made out of water. The refinery icon spun and flashed.
Then the refinery shook again and the projection snapped off.
Caviezel clicked his fingers and pointed at the nearest servitor seated at the main consoles. “Report.”
“Portside repulsor failure,” said the android. “Power drain now at fifty gigawatts per second. Power cores entering safe mode.”
Other servitors began calling out status reports from their stations.
“Drift now northwest ten degrees.”
“Altitude fifty thousand kilometers and falling.”
“Hull integrity eighty-two percent.”
From the floor, Samantha Flood laughed. It was weak, and wet, and after a moment turned into a choking cough. Caviezel knelt beside her and, ignoring the blood, squeezed her face in his hand.
“How long until we have complete control?”
Flood closed her eyes, smiling. Caviezel let go of her, letting her head smack against the floor. Then he slapped her, hard.
“How long?”
Flood’s eyes opened a little. “Lucifer will save me,” she whispered. “Lucifer wakes … Lucifer wakes and is ready to receive his blessed children.”
Caviezel bent down until he was nose-to-nose with Flood. “Get me control of the weapon. Now!”
Flood smiled and raised her head. She craned her neck as far around as possible, wincing with the effort.
“Listen to the song of Lucifer,” sh
e said. Then the comms snapped on and the control room was filled with the Spider’s staccato chatter, so loud it was deafening.
Caviezel stood and strode back to the console. He glanced over readings while his servitors calmly continued their work. He looked up, but without the planetary projection, they were blind.
He moved over to the far side of the control room. There, the wall was a blank curve, fifty meters high, twice that across. There was a freestanding console nearby; the executive activated the controls, then stood back.
Light flooded into the control room as a gap appeared in the wall, perpendicular to the floor. The gap grew, and the light brightened, transforming from a sharp whiteness to a bright, angry red, mixed with orange, mixed with yellow. The burning light of hell itself.
The two halves of the wall slid back into their recesses, revealing a huge observation window. It had no purpose but to impress high-ranking visitors from the Fleet, a demonstration of how the JMC—how the Caviezel Corporation—could tame one of the wildest, most dangerous environments in the solar system. With the refinery held stationary in Jupiter’s stratosphere, the view from the control room was breathtakingly beautiful—a living painting, the bands of color swirling like impossible liquid, lit from the sun nearly eight hundred million kilometers away and the eerie glow from deeper in the planet itself, where pressure and temperature excited atoms in the thick atmosphere enough to provide light and heat.
But now a storm raged outside. The sky was dark blood red as the refinery was dragged through lower levels of Jupiter’s soupy atmosphere. Lightning flashed and forked. It was hailing too, tiny diamond beads pummeling the window. Caviezel took a step toward it, knowing that the window, made of transparent herculanium—another JMC development—provided as much protection as the armored side of a Fleet U-Star.
And then it appeared. As Caviezel watched, the machine emerged through the clouds. A dark shadow at first, growing darker and darker. As large as a moon, and growing, until it nearly filled the window, its black surface was studded with lights, just like the refinery.
Just like the Sigma mining platforms—each larger than the refinery itself—from which the machine had been built.
At the very edges of the observation window, where the giant sphere of the machine curved away, Caviezel saw tall, angular structures rising, rotating. The Spider was unfolding its legs.
Behind Caviezel, the servitors continued to report on the failure of the refinery systems, their voices drowned out by the call of the Spider, their updates on drift and power loss now joined by proximity warnings as the facility was pulled ever closer to the machine Flood thought was her god.
The floor shook, and this time the refinery didn’t stabilize. In just a few moments, the last of the repulsor engines that kept the facility afloat would fail, and the refinery would begin its long fall toward Jupiter’s core.
He needed control of the machine now, or it would be too late.
Caviezel marched back to Flood. She opened her eyes at his footsteps and looked up at the executive standing over her.
“Lucifer rises,” she whispered.
Caviezel pointed to the window. “Give me control.”
Flood laughed. She spoke quickly, breathlessly. “Lucifer saves his children. We followed the Morning Star and found his blessed aspect. The Fallen One’s cold embrace shall save us all.”
Caviezel turned back to the window. The Spider now filled the entire view. Then he knelt down, pushed Flood onto her side, and ripped the cable from the back of her neck.
Flood screamed.
Caviezel looked up.
The Spider plunged a scythe-like arm through the observation window, ripping the herculanium like it was paper, and dragged the refinery toward its gaping, furnace-like maw, swallowing the city-sized complex in a single bite.
43
The shuttle shuddered as it punctured a hole in the perihelion of Jupiter’s magnetosphere, the energetic forces of the planet sending the shuttle’s engine stabilizers off-balance for just a second.
Cait winced as she bounced in the co-pilot’s seat. She was feeling comfortably numb, thanks to the drugs Glass had administered, but they were short-acting and already a collection of pains, some sharp and some dull, had begun to make themselves known.
Glass glanced at her as he wrestled with the controls. “Sorry about that, Ms. Smith. We should be clear now.”
Cait nodded. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Open the lightspeed link to Fleet Command. We need to get that arrowhead here, fast.” She only hoped they could reach them in time. With Caviezel’s machine now apparently fully active, it would be able to move out past the planet’s shielding and begin transmitting its alien AI to Earth. The Fleet arrowhead had to be fast.
Glass acknowledged, releasing the yoke as he set the shuttle to automatic, and operating the comm. Cait eased herself back into the soft leather seat as she watched the servitor work, willing with all her might for the connection to be made. In a moment, the comm indicator flashed into life and the lights on the panel went green. Contact established. Cait felt a wave of relief wash over her.
Even before Cait drew breath to speak, the link clicked into life.
“Von, what the hell has been happening?” Commander Avalon’s voice came from the comm, the Bureau Chief not even bothering with the usual identification formalities, the desperation and impatience evident in her voice. Just hearing the chief made Cait feel much better.
Perhaps now they stood a chance.
“Commander Avalon? This is Caitlin Smith. Agent Kodiak isn’t with me. I’m on my own here.”
Glass raised an eyebrow.
“Well, almost on my own,” said Cait.
“Smith! What’s Kodiak’s status? Are you okay? Full report, please.”
Cait leaned forward onto the control deck, the comms mic on the panel in front of her, between her forearms. Cait felt stiff all over, but this position was comfortable at least. She tried to piece together a logical chain of events in her mind, realized she couldn’t, not yet, and shook her head. There were more important things to think about right now.
“The report will have to wait, Commander. We have a situation on Jupiter and require immediate Fleet assistance.”
“I have all agencies and departments listening to this communication,” said Avalon. “What’s the nature of—”
“It’s a damn Spider, Commander. Hurry up and send everything you’ve got. We’re going to need them all.”
There was a pause. “Confirmed. A full assault arrowhead is en route and will be with you in … twenty-seven minutes.”
“Acknowledged,” said Cait. Twenty-seven minutes? Wow, that was fast. The shuttle journey from Earth to Jupiter had taken three hours.
But inside, Cait felt a tightness, a nagging worry that threatened to grow and grow. Twenty-seven minutes. Just twenty-seven minutes.
Would that be fast enough?
Avalon’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Are you safe at the moment?”
Cait leaned back with a sigh and wince. “For the moment,” she said, “but I’m in need of medical assist.”
“We’ll be there soon. Is there anything you can tell us?”
Cait frowned.
Twenty-five minutes.
“I can tell you what I know,” she said, and she began explaining what she and Kodiak had found on the refinery—but as she spoke, Cait realized just how little she actually knew. She’d been out for a lot of it, or been plugged into the computer. But there was enough data there, she reasoned, for Avalon to get at least a rough idea—if not of the specifics, but of the scale of the problem. She told the chief all she knew about Caviezel’s secret facility, the “Freezer,” and the creation of the Spider machine from the JMC’s own robot mines.
She told the chief about Braben.
When she had finished, she closed her eyes. She was tired, so tired—not just from the drugs and her injuries, but as the events of the last several hours began to c
atch up with her. She’d been through so much, physically and mentally.
But it had been worth it, she knew it had. Not only had they uncovered the horrors of Caviezel’s operation, but right now, even as their shuttle floated millions of kilometers out in space, Kodiak was down there to get her brother back.
Tyler was alive.
There was a pause as Avalon took the abbreviated report in, then she swore. “Dammit. Have you heard from Kodiak yet?”
“Negative,” said Cait. “It’s possible the Freezer is within Jupiter’s magnetosphere. We’ll need to go in after him.”
“We don’t even know where he is, exactly.”
Shit. Avalon was right. Kodiak’s shuttle had followed Braben down. The coordinates were still a mystery, and Glass, isolated from the rest of the JMC, wasn’t able to decode them or to tell them what the secret Caviezel facility was, or where. All they knew was that it was somewhere in the Jovian system.
Cait leaned back in the co-pilot’s chair.
Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes and help would be here. Cait screwed her eyes tight, watching the shapes dance on the backs of her eyelids, willing her talent to come back, to reach out and propel the Fleet arrowhead across the arc of quickspace that lay between the Earth and Jupiter. All she got for her efforts was a slight thump of pain across her temples and a tingling sensation down her arms.
Well, that was something, at least. She opened her eyes and looked at her arms, stretching her fingers out, as though that would amplify the effect.
Then she looked up, distracted by—
“What’s that?” she asked.
It was a clicking sound. Cait and Glass looked at each other. Then Cait looked behind her, a sudden feeling that they weren’t alone in the shuttle sending a pang of fear coursing through her.
“Do you read me?” asked Avalon. The chief’s voice crackled along with the clicking, which was growing stronger and stronger. Cait turned back to the console. The sound was coming from the comm itself. Glancing at the controls, she saw the signal indicator flicker between green and orange, in time with the interference.
The Machine Awakes Page 31
