His gaze moved from the walls and equipment to the technicians operating the ship. His mechanical eye zoomed in on Condor tightly, studying his uniform, his movements, even his face.
No, no, no, he thought. This whole thing is wrong.
Still, he thought an instant later, that doesn’t mean it can’t all be useful…!
Falcon joined the other two on the central dais and stood just behind them, listening. Condor was saying something about the auspicious portents of their meeting at this juncture—or some such nonsense. Falcon tuned it out. Hawk seemed instinctually good enough at going through the motions of formalities and rituals to cover for both of them. Meanwhile, Falcon intended to get to the bottom of what was really happening.
But then something Condor said caught his ear.
“The artifact we have discovered at the far fringes of the galaxy is entirely uninhabited. But it offers almost limitless possibilities.”
“What artifact is this?” Falcon asked, leaning in.
Condor eyed the man with a touch of disdain.
“As I was telling our brother here, it is a structure. A vast structure. I have come to believe that it was built by one of the last great civilizations of our galaxy, before or during the Shattering.”
Hawk looked like he was about to ask a question—and probably a very stupid question for a Hawk to be asking, if said Hawk were in complete command of his memories and faculties. But before Falcon could say or do anything to stop him, Hawk closed his mouth and continued to listen.
Maybe the kid is learning…!
“It is utterly uninhabited now,” Condor continued. “The alien race that built it is entirely gone—in all likelihood wiped out by a biological weapon of the Adversary, during the Shattering… or else by some sort of plague—perhaps an entirely natural one.”
“And just what is it?” Falcon pressed.
“You will see soon enough,” Condor stated. And by way of reply to their questioning looks, “As a Condor, I am invoking my rank and recruiting you both into my operation. Deputizing you, as it were, for the duration of this mission.”
Hawk looked puzzled and glanced at Falcon, who gave him a half-shrug and a nod, as if to say, Yes, a Condor can do that.
Hearing no objections or other comments in response to his declaration, Condor continued. “I believe the artifact was intended as a refuge for the race who built it—a place for them to hide from the Adversary, or from some other massive threat, while having all the living space they could ever need.”
“It’s that big?” Hawk asked.
“Oh yes,” Condor said. Then he continued, “Or else it may have been designed as a sort of ultimate weapon against that enemy. Or perhaps it was to serve as both.” He smiled. “In any event, it is to be mine now. Ours, that is,” he quickly corrected. Then he frowned and looked at the other two. “And the Machine’s, of course—if we ever hear from it again.” His frown deepened. “I don’t suppose either of you has heard anything from the Machine…?”
Falcon shook his head once.
“No,” Hawk answered, leaving it at that, afraid to say anything more.
Condor’s frown softened and vanished. His tight smile returned.
“No—of course you haven’t. Neither have I. Not in many years.” He laughed softly then, even as he turned about to gaze out the viewports at the panoply of space that surrounded them. “You must forgive my exuberance,” he added. “I have been operating on my own, more or less, for some time now, what with the Machine silent. All of my efforts have gone into preparing this operation. I’ve come to think of it as my own. I mean no disrespect towards our master.”
“We understand perfectly,” Falcon said, not meeting the blond man’s eyes.
Condor gave him an inscrutable look.
“Yes, of course,” he said.
Falcon added this odd conversation to his list of things that puzzled him about Condor. None of this sat well with him. It was true that it had been many, many years—centuries, in fact—since he had last encountered a Condor. It was also true that those years had done much to change Falcon from the gung-ho demolitions expert and loyal Hand of the Machine he had once been, happily serving alongside Eagle and the original Hawk aboard the Talon, to…to whatever he had become now. Even so, this Condor rankled somehow. Things were not quite as they seemed here—of that, more than anything else, Falcon was now certain.
“So you say the artifact you’ve found is a kind of ultimate weapon?” Hawk was asking. “What are its capabilities, then?”
Condor’s smile widened. His blue eyes flashed.
“You will see,” he said. “Soon enough.”
He led the two off the command deck and back toward the lift, giving them directions to the guest quarters and asking that, after some rest, they rejoin him for dinner—at which time he would lay out his plans in full.
“For untold millennia this artifact has floated at the edge of the galaxy,” Condor said as the other two Hands stepped into the lift. “It has waited for someone to find it—someone who knew how best to harness its great power and its vast potential.” He gestured broadly again. “That day has come. Soon I will represent the major force in this galaxy.”
“We will, you mean,” Hawk said. “We Hands of the Machine.”
The doors closed before Condor could offer a reply—if any at all had been forthcoming.
5: Raven
I’m dead, Raven thought, and knew it to be true. I’m dead, but they’re bringing me back to life.
“She’s awakening now, sir,” the hollow voice said, barely penetrating and echoing within Raven’s half-dozing brain. “She’s almost back. This new body appears to be in perfect condition. We are about to download the various skill sets that—”
“I don’t care,” another voice snapped. “Deactivate her.”
“What? Put her back to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“But—that’s highly irregular, sir. I don’t believe we have ever terminated the waking procedure of a reconstituted Hand right at the point of wakefulness.”
“I didn’t ask you what was regular. I ordered you to shut her down. Now.”
“I—but—” A pause, then, “Yes, sir. Whatever you say.”
She was alive again. Her eyes were just starting to flicker open. Then the cold descended over her. Sleep welled up, embracing her, dragging her down…
No, she tried to say, tried to shout, but her voice was even more sluggish than her thoughts. No. I don’t want to die again. I don’t—
She awoke with a scream.
Leaping off the flight seat, she landed on the cabin floor in a ready crouch, prepared to use her bare hands to kill anyone near her.
There was no one near her. She was entirely alone.
She blinked. Her eyes were crusty and raw. Gradually reality reasserted itself.
She was inside her ship. Her own ship. And she was awake. Alive and awake.
Memories returned. Some of them, anyway.
She was aboard her own ship, and the incident she had just remembered had happened many, many years ago. More than a thousand years ago.
Had it been only a dream?
No. No, she was certain of that. It had definitely happened.
She had died, presumably in the line of duty, and a new body had been awakened for her—standard procedure for all of the Hands of the Machine. But then, someone had ordered the technicians to stop the process and to shut her down—to put her back to sleep, indefinitely.
Who had done that? And why?
She stood there in the ship’s central cabin for several long moments, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if to drive a residual chill away. Then she swallowed hard, forcibly put such matters aside, and called out to her ship.
“Status report.”
The ship laid out the situation for her in succinct terms: It seemed that the tractor beam that had grappled onto them when they had emerged from hyperspace had pulled them across the gulf
of space until the ship lay just alongside the dull gray ring. From a distance, the ring had appeared to be rotating about the sun very slowly; up close, that was shown to be an optical illusion, or rather an artifact of the thing’s tremendous, gargantuan size. It was actually spinning at blinding speed.
“Just how fast is it moving?”
“Sensors show the ring to be rotating about its sun at a speed of seven hundred and seventy miles per second,” the ship reported.
Raven whistled aloud.
“How does it not fly apart?”
“We must assume the ring is made of an exceptionally strong substance.”
“No kidding.” She continued to stare out at it. “Why rotate the thing that fast?”
“Such a speed would impart angular momentum sufficient to generate artificial gravity quite similar to human standard.”
Raven considered this.
“They’re spinning it for gravity. Centrifugal force. Okay. So there could be someone living on it. Walking around on the inner surface.”
“Unable to scan through to the inner surface of the ring. The outer shell is composed of an unknown substance, with a density sufficient to block all sensors.”
“Okay…”
She pointed at a tiny band of blue, very narrow but long, that glowed far out across the distance. It was invisible near the sun, due to the glare, but farther out the two blue lines could faintly be made out. They appeared to be moving downward as the ship was drawn closer toward the ring.
“That’s the inner side, on the other side of the sun from us, right?”
“Precisely.”
“There’s nothing blocking it from us. So—what do you detect there?”
“Insufficient data,” the ship answered crisply, almost defensively. “The distance is too great, and there is too much interference from solar radiation between here and there. And, unfortunately, now—”
Even as the ship said the words, Raven watched the thin strands of blue continuing downward relative to her view, until they disappeared entirely behind the blank gray wall that now filled her viewport.
“—now we have drawn level with the ring’s plane, blocking the rest of the structure from view and from sensors.”
Raven sighed and continued to stare out the viewport at the great gray bulk as it silently whizzed past. All of this inaction was wearing on her; she felt a strong desire to attack…something. Idly she wondered if her sword could cut through the super-dense gray matter that comprised the ring. She found herself entertaining the fanciful notion that she could open the hatch of her ship, lean out, and give it a try.
After a short time, she frowned and spoke up again.
“Is the ring slowing?” It certainly seemed to be, as she watched one segment after another of the gray wall move past in an unending procession.
“Actually, the tractor beam has increased our speed relative to the ring’s rotation.”
“Matching velocities,” Raven concluded. “Taking us up to the same speed as the ring. They’re bringing us in for a landing, I think.”
The ship said nothing in response to this, so Raven busied herself with checking over her weapons and suit functions. Then satisfied that she was as ready as she could be, she sat on the deck near the hatch, lotus-fashion, with her katana laid across her legs, and she waited.
She did not have to wait long.
The ship resounded with a deep clanging sound as it was forcibly docked to the underside of the mighty ring.
Raven inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. The fingers of her right hand gripped the leather handle of her sword while she drew her pistol from its holster with her left.
“Uniformed men are approaching the hatch,” the ship reported.
“Show me.”
A holographic display appeared in the center of the cabin. On it, Raven could see a dozen men in dark green uniforms with silver helmets marching in two columns toward the hatch.
“Only twelve?” Raven scoffed, contempt filling her voice. “Who do they think they’ve captured?”
She waited to see what manner of weapons they would use to try to open the hatch. What she saw instead puzzled her.
The men waited unmoving just outside the hatch, standing at attention, six on either side, facing inward.
“What are they doing?” she wondered aloud, knowing her ship had no more idea than she did. Indeed, it did not attempt to answer.
After nearly a minute of waiting, she saw another figure stride boldly up to her ship, passing between the ranks.
“A woman,” she noted, puzzled.
Indeed it was a woman who now stood just on the other side of the hatch from her. A tall, slender woman clad in a form-fitting green uniform of a design very similar to Raven’s own, with blue gloves and boots. She wore her long, blonde hair pulled back severely from her face and tied in back. A pistol like Raven’s hung from her belt on either side, both resting against her hips.
“No, no,” Raven whispered. “It can’t be. They’re all dead.”
The ship recognized the woman’s look, as well, and filled in the details.
“You are correct. This woman is dressed as a Shrike—but that unit was—”
“I know,” Raven snapped, cutting the ship off.
The woman had high, regal cheekbones and piercing dark eyes that moved from the assembled soldiers to the ship. She gazed directly up at where the holographic imaging was originating from; the effect was that she appeared to be staring directly at Raven.
She spoke: “Attention occupant of this vessel. I know that you can see and hear me. I will ask but once: Are you a loyal Hand of the Machine?”
Raven’s eyes widened.
“We’ve been captured by our own people?” she whispered. “This makes no sense at all.”
“If you are,” the woman outside continued, her voice strong and commanding, “then open your hatch and present yourself. You will find you are among friends—friends who have a need of your particular abilities. In the name of the Machine.”
Raven waited, holding her breathing steady. Her fingers tightened on her sword’s hilt.
“If you are not—if you have somehow stolen this vessel—then surrender now, or your punishment will be severe. Most severe indeed. Also in the name of the Machine,” she added.
Raven considered the situation carefully. There was what appeared to be happening: another, higher-ranking Hand, coming to her rescue. And then there was what Raven somehow felt was more likely: a trick.
But if she didn’t open the door, they’d surely blast their way through, she was certain. And a damaged ship was not something she wanted, assuming she was able to get away.
“Ship,” she called out. “Evaluation.”
Instantly, the ship replied, “As the ship of a Raven, my programming shades toward the suspicious by nature—I am designed to look beyond surface appearances, even as you do. That is your role as a covert operations and internal affairs agent of the Machine’s forces. From that perspective, I agree that there appears to be more at work here than this alleged Shrike is letting on.”
“So—?”
“Given our current logistical situation, I agree that you have no choice but to open the hatch and hear this person out.”
Raven took this in and nodded.
“You have ten seconds to open the hatch,” the woman in green called out.
Raven stood and holstered her pistol. Reluctantly she slid her katana back into its sheath on her back. Then she gestured at the door. It slid open. She stepped out, directly in front of the woman in green.
“A Raven,” the woman said, her eyes widening slightly as she realized who she was seeing. “Well, well.” Then a slight smile played about her dark red lips. “I am glad to have you aboard,” she added quickly.
Raven nodded once. She saw that she was several inches shorter than this alleged Shrike, but she met her eyes firmly. “Thank you,” she said. “Not that I had much choice in the matter.”
&n
bsp; The woman nodded.
“Yes. I’m afraid our automatic systems scan adjacent quadrants constantly for Machine-created ships. As you can imagine, they are always being piloted by unauthorized individuals. Criminals who have stolen them from our remaining bases. We re-acquire the ships and equipment and…punish… the guilty.”
“I see,” Raven replied. “That’s a practice I heartily approve of.” Her eyes flicked from the blond woman to the soldiers all around. “What is this place?”
“We will discuss that shortly,” Shrike said. She started to move in the direction of the ranks of soldiers and Raven walked alongside her.
“I have to ask you,” the blonde woman said after a moment, “where did you acquire this uniform and the ship? You look very authentic, very impressive.”
Raven frowned at her. “Excuse me?”
Shrike halted and gazed down at the dark-haired woman. “Let’s not cling to the pretense,” she said. “We both know that there hasn’t been a Raven in a thousand years. That model was discontinued with extreme prejudice, during the Shattering.”
Raven tensed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she growled, her hand brushing the grip of her pistol. “Or who you really are.”
The blonde woman turned to her, frowning.
“My primary function is to police the other Hands,” Raven continued. “I can spot a phony a light-year away. So the question is not who I am, but who you think you’re kidding.”
Shrike glared at her, started to say something sharp and then apparently changed her mind. She whirled about, gesturing toward the rows of soldiers, about to issue some sort of order—
Raven had already leapt into the air, her gleaming sword drawn and swinging around in a broad, killing arc.
Shrike saw this out of the corner of her eye and just managed to lunge out of the way; the blade sliced neatly through the neck of the soldier who had stepped up behind her. His head tumbled to the ground just ahead of the rest of him.
Raven landed on the other side of the dead soldier and her pistol was already drawn, gripped in her left hand and firing.
Two more soldiers went down. Shrike danced away again, managing to keep at least one soldier between herself and Raven at every moment.
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