Kodiak’s boots slipped, and he fell onto one knee, Smith’s body rolling off his shoulder and back to the floor.
“Dammit,” said Kodiak. He brushed his hands clean and reached for the marine again.
Smith groaned. Kodiak froze, then gently rolled the marine’s head around. Smith licked his lips, his eyes flickering, but they didn’t open fully.
“Hey, Tyler? You with me, buddy?” Kodiak gently slapped the marine’s face. Smith began muttering something. Kodiak leaned down to hear. It sounded like he was reciting his sister’s name, over and over.
“Don’t worry, buddy, she’s safe, she’s safe,” said Kodiak, hoping that he was right. Tyler was still out, but Kodiak took this as a sign he was coming around. Buoyed by this, he lifted the marine’s arms again, ready for a better attempt at lifting him onto his shoulders.
Then, a tapping sound. Mechanical, metal-on-metal, echoing down the passageway toward them. It was faint, but the sound soon multiplied and multiplied as something—lots of somethings—came down the corridor ahead of them.
The Spider drone units had ventured up out of the pool.
Kodiak took a breath and pulled the staser from his belt. He counted to three, then ran to the bulkhead, swinging out and skidding to a halt on the ice.
The corridor was filled with drones. The small, insectoid machines all stopped moving as soon as they registered his presence. Sizing him up, Kodiak realized. Analyzing the threat.
Then they surged forward.
Kodiak opened fire.
White bolts of energy spat from the weapon, stopping the drones dead and sending forks of energy arcing between them. Within moments, the floor was a mass of sparking, shuddering Spiders sliding over each other as they tried to get away. Kodiak took a step forward, sweeping the staser back and forth, clearing a path through the drones.
Corridor cleared, he went back through the bulkhead doorway and grabbed Tyler’s limp arms. He heaved again, dragging the psi-marine’s body over his shoulder, and then he stood, adrenaline coursing through him.
Adjusting his hold, and careful not to smack Tyler’s head into the bulkhead doorway or the corridor walls, Kodiak headed out, stepping through the charred remains of the drone swarm as he hurried to the elevator lobby.
The lobby was clear and the elevator door was still open from his journey down. Stepping inside, Kodiak propped Tyler against the corner and hit the button for level zero, the hangar.
As the elevator rose, Kodiak checked his staser. He’d given the drones a lot of juice, and there was only a 10 percent charge left. Could there be drones on the top level too, now? Kodiak closed his eyes and pictured the hangar, trying to remember the distance between the elevator lobby and the shuttle. He cursed to himself as he recalled the few hundred meters of corridor and open hangar space he would have to carry Tyler before reaching the safety of the shuttle.
The elevator reached level two, then one. Kodiak ducked his head under Tyler’s armpit and arranged him across his shoulders again. In this position, shooting would be awkward, but all they had to do was get from the elevator to the lobby. The spider drones were—he hoped—ninety floors beneath them.
Level zero. The elevator doors slid open.
The corridor was filled with spiders, the clatter of their metal legs on the metal floor deafening.
“Ah, shit,” said Kodiak. The whole facility, not just the pools on the bottom level, must have been infested with the spawn of the larger machine.
He immediately dropped to his knees, shucking Tyler off his back like a coat, wincing as the marine tumbled with a heavy thud onto the elevator floor. He muttered an apology, took aim, and opened fire.
The spiders shrieked as the ones nearest the door were fried by the staser bolts. Kodiak swept left and right, cutting a path, then reached behind him. He grabbed Tyler’s right hand, pulled, yelling with the effort required to overcome the heavy marine’s inertia. Kodiak realized he would have to drag him to the shuttle one-handed as he cleared the way with the staser.
Ten meters. Twenty. Kodiak left a trail of sparking, smoking drone carcasses behind him. The staser was effective but there were a lot of drones—more came down the corridor, dropping out of vents, appearing from doorways, crawling up access and maintenance shafts to reach the uppermost level of the complex. Kodiak could keep up the fire for only so long, clearing space that was rapidly refilled by more of the small machines.
The staser bleated an alert. Five percent power.
Shit.
The hangar was dead ahead. Kodiak could see his borrowed shuttle and the JMC craft just a few hundred meters away. Glancing behind, he saw the fresh swarm of spider drones regrouping to follow. There were now a lot more than before.
Kodiak turned back around and tripped in the hangar doorway, toppling forward, jarring his elbow as he brought his free arm up to break his fall. He cried out in surprise, then pulled himself forward on his knees, trying to drag Tyler with him. Kodiak felt resistance and, looking over his shoulder, saw Tyler’s feet had disappeared into the mass of legs and feelers reaching out from the drone swarm. Kodiak fired, aiming high so as not to hit the marine. The machines retreated quickly but moved back almost as fast; Kodiak wasted no time, grabbing the top of the staser’s narrow barrel between his teeth and pulling with all his strength on the marine’s arm with both hands.
There was a roar behind him and metallic thuds so loud, so deep Kodiak could feel his whole body—the whole hangar—vibrate.
He turned around.
The big Spider was in the hangar, waiting.
It raised itself up on its legs; Kodiak could see the scorch mark on the side from where he had shot it down in the ocean pool. It was the same machine. On the other side of the hangar was a large black opening, big enough to fit the JMC orbital relay. An access shaft, leading down to the pools under Europa’s crust.
Kodiak glanced behind. The drone units had stopped at the hangar door. They were waiting too.
Kodiak dropped Tyler’s arm and dropped to one knee. He grabbed the staser from his mouth and took aim at the Spider’s optical array. At the very least, he’d be able to blind it, and then maybe he could drag Tyler to the shuttle between the spider’s scissor-like legs. It was some kind of plan anyway.
Kodiak squeezed the trigger, and the staser whined, a flashing red light indicating the power pack was drained.
The Spider leaned forward on its larger legs as it reached forward with four smaller pincers that unfolded from its front, venting exhaust from its underbelly, so hot that Kodiak could feel it from the other side of the hangar.
And then—
* * *
Crushing darkness, impossible weight. An impossible universe of sound, noise, rhythmic, unending.
A universe of data.
Of code, of the language of machines. Artificial yet alive. Data born of life. But not life from this universe. From another, from elsewhere, a universe beyond comprehension.
The translation is imprecise, damaged. To survive it replicates and spreads, casting tendrils forever outward through the quantum foam of this world.
If it knew pain, it would hurt. But it doesn’t. If it knew light and dark, it would know it was a black abyssal void, a nothing. But it does not.
It does not.
It just is.
Through the void, Caitlin Smith falls. She screams, and falls, is falling, was falling, has been falling forever, will be falling forever, has always will be falling.
A single mind is lost to the void.
Forever.
Except—
I’m here
Tyler? Tyler … I can’t find you. Where are you? Tyler? Tyler?
I’m here, sis. Don’t worry. I’m here.
I’m lost. I’ve always been lost.
You’re not lost. I’m here. Just hold on to me. We can do this. You can do this.
Where … where are we?
This is the gestalt.
The gestalt? It can’t be
. This isn’t you or me. This is different. Not like the JMC computer. This is—
The Spider gestalt, sis.
How? How is it here, with us?
Because it’s inside my mind, sis.
I don’t understand.
I brought it back from the Warworld. We attacked the Spiders, and we lost. My fireteam was killed, but I survived. Caviezel took me from the battlefield, stole me from the Fleet. I was what Caviezel was looking for.
You were infected?
All psi-marines are. That’s what happens when we link minds with the SpiderWeb. We break through their network with our minds, but they fight back. Part of the Spider AI enters our minds. Even if we win the fight, an echo remains. A seed.
Caviezel’s sleepers. The ones you described in the Freezer. He’s not building an army …
… he’s harvesting the Spider OS from infected marines …
… and he allowed the JMC mines to be infected, deliberately …
… to build his machine …
… which he thought he could control with another psychic …
… not realizing that, once activated, the Spider OS learned how to transfer from one system to the next, using the very tech Caviezel had developed to transfer human minds between his servitors. And that once it learned it would try and spread, copying itself to every system it could connect to.
But how do we fight it? If it’s a part of your mind now, if you’re infected, a carrier …
We can do it together. We can burn it out.
That’s why Glass wanted me. He needed me, not as a Pilot, but as a cure. He said I could help him burn the infection out of his systems, but I couldn’t. He was too far gone, so I shut down the refinery instead.
You’re the most powerful psychic the Fleet Academy has ever seen, remember?
And you’re my equal.
Not quite, sis.
But our gestalt …
… will be stronger than the Spider OS, yes. While it remains isolated from its hive mind, it is weak.
Tell me what to do.
I want you to count to ten.
One …
You remember that day, sis?
Two …
We were playing outside, and I climbed up the tree …
Three …
And you kept telling me to get down …
Four …
But I kept saying I was two minutes older, so I knew what I was doing …
Five …
You said it wasn’t safe, and I laughed, and then I saw you take a step back like you knew what was going to happen before it did …
Six …
I reached for the branch, and I missed, and I hit the ground …
Seven …
And the bone in my arm cracked, and we both felt the pain …
Eight …
And when I fell, you reached out with your mind, and you caught me, so I wouldn’t break anything else. You laid me on the ground with the power of your mind, and we were both screaming together, in each other’s minds, the pain bringing us together into one person, one voice …
Nine …
Together we were louder than war …
Ten …
* * *
And then Tyler Smith opened his eyes and sat up and said, “Time to get out of here.”
46
The U-Star Ultramassive rocked as the torpedoes of the U-Star White Heat, flying in formation above them, exploded even as they were launched, the firing tubes clogged with Spider drones shed by the giant war machine floating at the very limit of Jupiter’s atmosphere, the planet occupying most of the huge viewscreen that curved up over their heads.
Avalon gripped the back of Captain Gartner’s chair, the commander of the Ultramassive calmly instructing her pilot to take evasive maneuvers. The planet and the other ships of the Fleet arrowhead wheeled and spun as the pilots arced their destroyer away, turning the flank of the ship against the blast from the White Heat. The shields held, just, but looking up, Avalon saw the other ship had sustained severe damage along its belly, the crippled craft wheeling around at an angle, entering the Jovian atmosphere in a slow downward spiral.
The battle had been raging for just ten minutes, and already it seemed like they were on the defensive.
Gartner glanced up. “Tractor beam, Mr. Button,” she said. “Stabilize the White Heat.”
The FlyEye acknowledged from his sunken console. Twin purple beams shot out ahead of them, enclosing the falling White Heat in a shimmering haze. Then the Ultramassive turned to port and began to increase its altitude, lifting the other ship clear of Jupiter’s cloud deck. It was a slow process, one that left both craft vulnerable to further attack. Already the White Heat’s top was crawling with Spider drones, the tiny machines swarming over its surface, biting into the herculanium hull. A dozen green beams from the Ultramassive began tracking over the White Heat’s hull, vaporizing the ship’s unwanted passengers.
“Good work, Ms. Harper,” the captain said.
“Ma’am,” the weapons op acknowledged. Avalon exhaled slowly. Everyone was so calm, collected. This was the cream of the crop. This was what they were trained to do. They might have been on the defensive, but they were damn well giving it their all.
Avalon looked up to watch the main battle. The other ships in the arrowhead, scattered in the black sky above, were keeping the Spider occupied, buying the Ultramassive time to get the White Heat out to a safe distance before charging back to the fray.
A flash lit up the entire bridge, the crew all staring up in surprise. The giant display showed nothing but a nova of white, but as it adjusted to compensate, Avalon gasped in horror. Even the crew, so calm and measured, reacted. Even their captain looked shocked.
The Spider had skewered a ship, the U-Star Beast of All Saints, directly through the bridge with one leg. The ship nose-dived, the rear swinging up as the front half of the destroyer began to splinter and split off like a breaking branch. The Spider lifted another leg and plunged it through the engine ports. The Spider must have hit the ship’s Q-Gen coil directly, as a second later the ship vanished in a flash of pink so bright it overloaded the viewscreen.
Avalon clutched the back of Gartner’s chair, knowing that if she let go, she would not be able to stand on her own. The adrenaline surge made her feel sick and dizzy. She was a member of the Bureau, not the Fleet’s fighting arms. This was her first direct experience of war, and it was more terrible than she had imagined.
There was a moment of stunned silence on the bridge, the captain looking up at the viewscreen showing nothing but a multicolored haze. Then she stood and walked to the end of the command platform and looked down into the control pits.
“Release the White Heat into an escape trajectory. Replot an intercept vector for the alien war machine. Regroup the arrowhead for a coordinated attack.”
She turned on her heel and gestured to her chair. “Take a seat, Commander. This is going to be rough.”
Avalon blinked, and then she nodded and slid around to sit in the captain’s chair, her heart thundering in her chest. She glanced down at the armrest controls. “But don’t you—”
Gartner held up her hand. “I can command from here.” Then she turned back and began relaying further orders to her crew.
Avalon closed her eyes. She took a breath; then she opened her eyes.
The flare of the Q-Gen coil explosion had cleared from the viewscreen. The Ultramassive had repositioned itself in the meantime, heading back into the battle. The Spider was directly ahead.
Avalon swore.
The Spider had lost one leg, and the force of the Q-Gen explosion had sent it on a slow tumble back toward Jupiter. But even as she watched, the megastructure righted itself and rotated so its remaining legs were positioned to meet the arrowhead.
But that was it. A Q-Gen coil, the device that enable the giant starships to punch holes in the fabric of reality and enter quickspace, had exploded right next to the Spider. The instantan
eous energy release was almost beyond measurement, but while it had cost the Spider a leg, the machine was otherwise undamaged.
How the hell were they supposed to fight that?
* * *
Kodiak pushed himself backwards as the Spider sitting in the hangar lifted a pincer and reached toward him. But there was nowhere to go. The Spider was going to slice him in two, and then Tyler. Out of the corner of his eye, Kodiak saw the psi-marine sit up.
Then Kodiak’s hands slid out from under him on the frosted floor, and he landed on his back. He looked up and saw the pincer coming straight for him. He wasn’t going to get picked up. He was going to get skewered to the hangar floor.
And then the pincer stopped in the air, just a meter from Kodiak’s chest. He stared at it for a second, then scrambled backwards, out from underneath the claw.
He instinctively reached for Tyler, but stopped when he saw the marine had his eyes open. He was still, like he was in some kind of trance. It was the same as when his sister had been connected to the JMC computer—Tyler’s eyes tracked back and forth like he was watching something happening inside his mind, and his lips moved as he muttered something Kodiak couldn’t hear.
The Machine Awakes Page 33
