The Ancillary (Tales of a Dying Star Book 2)

by David Kristoph

He followed him to the computer screen, which was unscrewed and pulled away from the wall to reveal the wires behind. The screen showed a series of scrawled notes. Elliot tapped at it and it changed. Four cylinders were now visible, with various data below each.

  "What am I looking at?"

  "The Ancillary has four behemoth cores," Elliot explained. "They store the harvested power until it needs to be sent to the transfer laser, where it's fired to the reception station on Melis's moon."

  Soren nodded impatiently. The solar ring was the greatest structure ever built; children grew up knowing how it worked.

  "But one of the cores is acting... strange," Elliot said. "The cores have transfer programs to load-balance all the power. Cores two, three, and four are all functioning properly, transferring power back and forth just fine. But core one isn't. It's receiving power from the others and keeping it, instead of dispersing it around." He pointed. "And the core temperature is rising. Fast."

  He was right. One number was higher than the others and climbing steadily.

  "I believe Javin disabled the load-balancing tubes," Elliot said, "to cause the core to overload."

  He remembered Javin's words: I will destroy the Ancillary and everyone on it. The engineer had found a way to do just that, it seemed. Soren ran a hand through his hair. "Can you estimate how much time we have?"

  "I can tell you exactly how much time we have. The physics involved is precise." He touched the computer, displaying the notes he'd seen before. "We have two hours and ten minutes until core number one explodes, destroying the Ancillary and everyone in it."

  Chapter 15

  "Grab whatever you can," Soren said, "anything that can be used to cut through metal."

  Soren and Clint scrambled through the prep room on Javin's Carrion, opening drawers and throwing tools to the floor. Elliot sifted through the tools, tossing aside what was useless. When all the drawers were emptied there was only one cutting tool deemed worth keeping.

  "What about this?" Soren asked, hefting a laser glaive. It was similar to what Javin had threatened them with on the Carrion days ago.

  Elliot shook his head. "Won't do much against those blast doors. Need something stronger."

  "It's better than nothing." Soren looked around. "What about the electroids on board? Can we use those somehow?"

  "They would take too long to reprogram," Elliot said. He lowered his voice. "Sir, we need to abort the mission. We have to reach the maintenance room to fix the core, and we'll never make it in time. I think we should board the remaining Carrion and flee while we can."

  "The cockpit is destroyed," Soren said.

  "I can reprogram it," Elliot insisted. "With a little work it'll be flyable from any computer terminal on the ship. The engines don't look damaged, near as I can tell. But we don't have much time. I need to get started right away."

  "That's not an option."

  "But sir..."

  But Soren just walked away, carrying the laser glaive back to the Ancillary.

  Maurice and the two women watched him pass through the dock. The hostages no longer looked defeated; they could sense the frustration among the pirates. They stared at him with open defiance.

  Three blast doors were now removed, giving them access to a quarter of the ring. One more door and they would be able to reach the hallway to the communication room and the living quarters. He would need Darren to begin repairs on the comms before they reached the command room if they had any hope of contacting Kainoa in time.

  Lucas was bent over, squinting at the computer mounted to the laser. It was still cutting the first horizontal line at the top of the door, agonizingly slow. Garrett and Darren used hand-lasers at the bottom. They weren't making much progress.

  Soren began helping, using his laser glaive to cut the first vertical line. He closed his flesh eye to protect it from the sparks that flew in all directions as the laser touched metal. Lucas wore goggles, but the others had no protection, and Soren had not thought to retrieve some from the Carrion. The list of things he'd not considered was growing long indeed.

  It seemed to take hours for the surface under the glaive to turn red, then orange, then yellow. But slowly it began to melt, a trickle of molten metal that dripped down the face and pooled at the floor. The door was thick; by the time he'd cut through to the other side Lucas's laser was already beginning the second line. But they continued on, Soren and Garrett and Darren adding what meager assistance they could. At some point Elliot joined them, standing back to watch because there was no room for more hands.

  By the time the door was cut an hour had passed. At least three more still stood between them and the command room. Cutting through the living quarters, where there were no blast doors, would only be slightly faster. Elliot was right: they didn't have enough time.

  "Move aside," Lucas said, pushing the laser out of the way. Though the border was cut through, the rectangle of metal still stood in place. He examined the cut at the corners before nodding. "Cover your ears; this will be loud."

  He pressed his shoulder against the door and heaved. The rectangle scraped against the frame, inch by inch, before falling flat into the next section of the hallway with a boom.

  A high-pitched sound pierced his ears as red flashed in the hallway. Lasers whizzed through the air at them. With a cry Lucas fell backwards, clutching a singed hole in his gut.

  Soren pressed himself against the wall as laser beams pummeled the doorway. Garrett and Darren did the same on the other side, using the door frame for cover. The Ancillary workers screamed at them from beyond as they fired.

  Soren leaned forward to peer around the doorway with his red eye. He jumped back as more beams whizzed by, but the computer in his eye had seen enough. There were two of them, fifty feet away, shooting from cover on either side of the hall. Their aim was scattered, chaotic. Probably just engineers, Soren thought.

  Lucas writhed on the ground in pain.

  Soren unslung the rifle from his shoulder and waved at the others. When he got their attention he gave them hand signals. They nodded, readying their own weapons.

  Garrett leaned around the doorway, his rifle screeching return fire. The enemy beams ceased as they ducked for cover. Or so Soren hoped.

  He darted through the doorway with Darren right behind. They were exposed now that Garrett no longer gave covering fire. Soren raised the rifle to his flesh eye, pointing at the hallway just ahead as he ran. It was thirty feet away. Twenty. The workers had to know they were in the hall, surely heard their footsteps approaching.

  A shape leaned out from cover. Without slowing, Soren fired.

  He was aware of Darren shooting at the other cross-hallway, but he kept his eyes on his own target slumping to the floor. Then he was standing over him. He was older based on the grey hair still visible around the head-wound, and for an alarming moment he thought it was Javin. But then he saw the face was too round, and spotted the name on the shirt: Technician Falo. Soren relaxed.

  Darren was standing over the other enemy, a small man with yellow hair. He moaned until Darren silenced him with his rifle.

  They returned to the doorway where Garrett was leaned over Lucas. He squirmed on the ground and held his hands to his belly, but blood continued to gush.

  Darren knelt close to Lucas's ear and spoke words of comfort. Soon the squirming, and the blood, stopped.

  Immediately Darren got to his feet and strode away, back the way they'd come. Soren bent over Lucas's body, checking for a pulse, before he followed.

  Soren heard the cries before he reached the dock.

  One of the prisoners was on her back. Her hands were still bound, unable to stop Darren as he crouched over her. One hand was at her throat, the other down at her abdomen. Maurice stood to the side with the other prisoner, who thrashed and protested against him.

  Something flashed in Darren's hand. The woman screamed, a thin noise barely escaping her squeezed throat.

  Soren charged.

  He slam
med his shoulder into Darren, who fell backwards and skidded against the wall. It was a knife in his hand, a trickle of red at the tip. Beth's knife.

  "Put it down," Soren said, standing over Alissa. He could hear her gasping for breath.

  Darren snarled. "They killed another one of ours. We have to take one of theirs. That's how this works."

  "You will not touch her."

  Darren laughed as he rose. "We've lost half our men, we're doomed to die here on this rock, and you still can't bring yourself to harm a woman. Except that bitch you killed by accident." He spat on the ground. "That's what I think of your rules. I'm gunna cut this girl up, bit by bit, until the pieces are small enough to swallow whole. Maybe then Javin will open up." He took a step toward the prisoner.

  Soren raised his rifle and fired.

  Surprise flashed on Darren's face as he fell to the floor. Blood gushed from his chest. Within seconds he was still.

  Soren looked around the room. Maurice and the other prisoner gaped. Clint and Garrett were at the doorway, watching quietly. Elliot appeared from the hall and froze when he saw Darren's body. The camera recessed in the ceiling corner blinked dutifully. He felt Javin watching them.

  "We do not kill women," Soren finally announced. "It's my only rule, the one rule you all agreed to. You're free to join another pirate company and do what you please, but as long as you follow me you'll do as I say."

  Silence. Nobody looked in the direction of Beth's body, for which Soren was grateful. It was an accident. They have to know that.

  "Elliot, how much time do we have until the core goes?"

  He glanced at the computer screen. "Just over an hour."

  "Let's do what we can, then."

  They returned to the hallway, pushing aside Lucas's body so they could move the laser forward. They wheeled it away from the central ring, down a side corridor that led to the communication room and the living quarters. They stopped at the door to the latter and began cutting, Elliot maneuvering the larger laser while the rest began working with their smaller hand tools. It wasn't one of the thick blast doors, but it would still take time to breach.

  Soren took Clint aside while the others worked. "We need to get the long-range comms back online. Can you fix what Darren broke?"

  Clint scratched at his beard, a patchy scattering of brown and white across his wrinkled face. "I think so, sure. Is that more important than stopping the core from exploding?"

  Soren nodded. "Yes, it is."

  Clint looked like he wanted to ask more, but he only grunted. "I'll grab the piece off Darren and get to work."

  Soren watched his figure disappear down the corridor before turning back to the door. He ducked his head to avoid the laser's beam. Sparks flew again as he brought his own tool to bear on the metal.

  He knew it was useless. This door would give them access to the living quarters, but there were two more beyond that blocking their route to the command room. They would never get there in time. Maybe they could find something to use as leverage in the living quarters, someone to convince Javin to relent, but Soren doubted it. If Javin was willing to destroy the Ancillary and everyone on it then he wouldn't care if they captured more of its workers.

  But cutting the doors was calming. It was almost as soothing as meditating, and it felt good to do something, anything but sit and wait for their doom.

  He'd never failed a job. Three decades of piracy, always picking their targets carefully, never taking unnecessary risks. The toughest job they'd ever dared was stealing the Leviathan from the shipyards on Latea, but even that was easy compared to capturing the Ancillary. At least on Latea, the moon orbiting Melis, they'd had time to plan their trickery.

  He would do it differently if he had the chance, he decided. He received the original transmission from Kainoa while they were raiding inner-system convoys. Soren didn't know who the man was, but he'd swooped down to Beron and captured their base with hardly a fight. I should have flown back to Beron straight-away, he thought. Caving to Kainoa's demands seemed terribly foolish in retrospect. Kainoa would kill everyone on the pirate moon whether they captured the Ancillary or not. If Soren had told his men they would have convinced him of a better path. But by keeping it to himself he'd been blind, too hopeful.

  The glaive pulsed in his hands, cutting through the steel one miniscule bit at a time.

  He thought of Theresa, and thankfully her face appeared in his mind, not Beth's. She would have told him not to bother with the Ancillary, he knew. She was always pragmatic. Her first job with him was back on Melis, eleven years ago. Before they were lovers. They were hired to steal a relic from the archives in the center of Luccar, the planet's capital. The archives were like a museum, where citizens of the Empire--both steadfasts and civilians--could come and view ancient artifacts.

  Soren, Theresa, and three others holed up in a building across the street, surveilling the archives. Soren was cautious, keeping them there for days, sending scouts into the archives one at a time to gather information. An impatient pirate didn't last long; he knew the importance of taking your time and doing the job flawlessly.

  It proceeded like that, gathering information one day at a time, until Theresa returned from a scouting trip with a smile on her face and the relic in her hand.

  "What in the stars have you done?" he whispered.

  She shrugged. "The guard was taking a piss, so I smashed the glass and took it. Don't worry, I cut the alarm trigger first." She hefted the relic for them to see: it was some necklace worn by the ancient kings of Praetar, the yellow planet recently occupied by the Empire.

  "You smashed the glass and took it," Soren repeated. But she already wasn't listening; she'd fastened the necklace around her neck and was showing it off to the other pirates, sticking out her chest in mock fashion.

  He remembered being furious with her then; she'd disobeyed orders, carelessly risking the mission. She smashed the glass and took it, like some petty thief. But she was so beautiful in that moment, her pure black hair disheveled from running, her face flush with mischief and excitement and triumph. His anger melted away, and he'd loved her every moment since.

  She would laugh at him if she were here now, cutting away at a door with no hope to succeed. She would laugh at him and call him a fool and kiss him until the explosion turned their lips to ash. She would--

  He lowered the cutting tool and opened his flesh eye. She would smash the glass and take it.

  The computer screen next to the door showed the time: Twenty minutes until the core exploded. The hole was almost complete, three of the four sides already cut.

  He clasped Maurice on the shoulder. "Spread out once you're inside; they're out of rifles, so they should only have small arms left. Capture anybody you can find and use them as leverage against Javin."

  Maurice frowned. "We already have hostages, and that hasn't convinced Javin to surrender. Why do you think he will now?"

  Soren smiled. "He won't."

  He jogged back to the dock with Elliot, ducking through the holes in the blast doors along the way. He darted through airlock number two into the Carrion, returning with an extra space suit. Then they boarded the Needle, changing into the two space suits already on board.

  "Do you think it'll work?" Elliot asked. His eyes shone behind the glass of his helmet.

  "We'll know soon."

  Elliot stayed there, just inside the Needle's airlock, while Soren ducked into the cockpit. The ship shuddered as they undocked, floating backwards away from the Ancillary.

  He glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes.

  He steered the Needle around the asteroid. Saria's brilliance exploded into view, the windows of the ship tinting automatically to protect from her fury. Past the storage bay's huge doors he flew, where equipment and machinery was kept. Around another bend in the rock and the photovoltaic receptor appeared, the shield-shaped array of panels curving away from them, shimmering blue in the star's light.

  The Ancillary still orbite
d over a dismantled section of the solar ring, but Soren flew around the receptor anyways. They'd learned that lesson already.

  Maurice's voice crackled on the radio. "Sir, we've breached the blast door. Garrett and I are ready to enter the living quarters."

  "Good. Begin whenever you're ready." That should provide enough distraction, he hoped.

  He reached the end of the photovoltaic receptor and steered the Needle upward. An outcropping of rock blocked his view, but he knew the windows of the command room were there, just above them.

  "Ready yourself, Elliot."

  Soren fired the engine. The Needle shot vertically, grey rock zooming past his view in a blur. Immediately, he moved the joysticks again to slow their ascent. When the ship came to a stop the windows of the command room were directly in front of him.

  The room was brightly lit, giving a perfect view of its occupants. Six figures stood in the center of the room with their backs to the window, facing a large screen on the wall. Soren knew they were watching Maurice and Garrett storm the living quarters.

  Soren squinted into the room with his red eye, zooming-in, searching for him. It didn't take long. One figure turned around and faced the window where the Needle floated.

  Javin's mouth opened in a soundless scream as Soren fired.

  Chapter 16

  Glass exploded away from the space station as the command room depressurized. Soren's view was obscured by various other bits of debris, but when it cleared the room stood open to the void. Red light from alarms added to the white light of the computer screens inside. Soren imagined it must be very loud, if air pressure existed for the sound to function.

  Bodies thrashed as they floated, spinning in chaotic movements. The man directly in front of him was almost child-like in size, until Soren saw that he was bald and pudgy, and wearing a Melisao uniform. A few others were women, but Soren's eyes slid past them quickly. His shame could wait.

  There, on the right side of the command room.

  Gently, Soren nudged the controls forward with both hands. The Needle glided inside the command room, pushing aside the twitching body of the pudgy man. The ship scraped against computer terminals. Soren focused on Javin, struggling near the ceiling in front of him.