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The Wrong Stars

Page 22

by Tim Pratt


  No reply but static. Callie kept her eyes locked on the place where she’d seen the flash of heat a moment before. The heat didn’t reappear, but after a moment a voice crackled in her earpiece: “Who the hell are you?”

  “A friend of Elena’s,” Callie said. “She came back to get you. Do you know where the doorknob is in this place?”

  * * *

  “I should try to cut my way in,” Shall said.

  “It would be a waste of time, and might trigger countermeasures, if perceived as an attack,” Lantern said. “The interior of this station is immense. The captain is doubtless still looking for the switch.”

  “Or she got eaten by a giant bug,” Ashok said. “How long do we wait?”

  “That is up to you, Ashok,” Shall said. “You are the ranking member of this team now that Callie is out of range.”

  “What? I’m in charge? I’m pretty sure the captain wouldn’t have let that happen.”

  “And yet,” Shall said.

  “Lantern’s right,” Elena said. “It’s big in there, and confusing, and dark. Callie is careful, she’s methodical, she’s tough, and I’m sure she’ll–”

  “Wait,” Shall said. “I see something.”

  Elena turned to the viewport, and saw a ragged opening beginning to form on the side of the station, just like last time.

  Shall said, “To me, that looks like an asymmetrical gash appearing in empty space. I assume for those of you with biological eyes it looks more like an opening in the side of the station?”

  “Affirmative,” Ashok said.

  The opening widened, and Elena moved to the front of the canoe to look out the window. “It’s Callie – and one of my crew!” She was so elated she pounded the arm of the pilot’s chair and whooped. She’d hoped to see her people again, but hadn’t really expected to, not deep down.

  “…read me?” Callie said.

  “We do!” Elena said.

  “Elena, is that you?” Robin’s voice was underlaid by heavy overtones of exhaustion, but there was elation there, too.

  “Robin!” Elena turned. “Are you all right?”

  “Uninjured, but exhausted and hungry,” she said. “Haven’t eaten anything but protein mush since I got here, and it’s not exactly restful, so I haven’t slept much.”

  “Are the others OK?”

  “I really don’t know,” Robin said. “I pretty thoroughly explored this hangar – there aren’t a lot of hiding places, it’s just struts and cables and platforms – and they aren’t in here. They must have gone elsewhere in the station, but I can’t even find any doors.”

  “Shall, let’s get Robin onto the canoe and back to the Raven for medical care, all right? And be careful. There’s gravity in here, a smidge heavier than Earth’s, I think. Atmosphere, too. It didn’t flood out when the door opened, which means they have some kind of selective force field holding the air in. Bizarre. I was expecting an airlock.”

  “Nnngh. Anti-gravity? Force fields? I want to take this place apart bolt by bolt,” Ashok said. “And put pieces of it in my body. I’m sorry. That sounded dirty. I didn’t mean it that way. Mostly.”

  Shall’s drone-body launched itself from the top of the canoe toward the opening, and Robin shrank back, hiding behind Callie. “It’s OK!” Elena called. “He’s a friend.”

  “That thing is too big to grab onto my skull and fill it with mind control anyway, I guess,” Robin said. “I can’t believe you found help, Elena.”

  “Thank Sebastien. He got me off the station.”

  The hull repair drone passed through the ragged hangar door and then tucked into a ball and rolled, having prepared for the sudden onset of gravity. Shall sprang up on six legs, scuttled to Robin, and crouched down. “Climb on,” Shall said. “I’ll secure you, don’t worry.”

  “Remote controlled, huh?” Robin said.

  “Something like that,” Shall said.

  Callie helped Robin clamber on top of the drone, and then Shall wrapped her up in smaller manipulator arms. “Are you comfortable?” he asked.

  “No. You’re a very spiky robot.”

  “I’ll make this quick.” Shall ran toward the opening and leapt out, then used small maneuvering thrusters to reach the canoe and clamp onto the roof. A hatch slid open on top, and Elena listened to the thumps as Robin tumbled into the airlock. The inner hatch opened, and she lowered herself down the ladder. Elena grabbed her and hugged her tight, then eased her down into one of the chairs, securing straps across her chest. “I can’t believe you’re all right.”

  “Neither can I. I’m pretty sure this is a near-death hallucination, actually.” Robin looked around. “You’d think in, what, five hundred years, spaceship technology would have improved a little. This thing makes the Anjou look like a luxury yacht.”

  “This is just their lander. The actual ship is nicer than most apartments I’ve lived in. And the ship’s doctor, Stephen, he’ll take care of you. He’s the one who thawed me out after Sebastien put me back into cryosleep.”

  “I can’t wait to hear how you got from here to wherever you went and back again,” Robin said.

  “We’ll catch up on everything,” Elena said. “After I save everyone else.”

  Robin shook her head. “They could be anywhere. The station is vast.”

  “We have a local guide.” Elena gestured, and Robin turned her head and caught her first glimpse of Lantern in her starfish-shaped environment suit.

  Robin jolted back against the chair. “What the fuck is that?”

  “Her name is Lantern. She’s an alien. It’s a thing now. She’s helping us.”

  “Is it… Does this station belong to her, whatever, her race, species?”

  “No, but they used to work here. It’s complicated. Stephen can explain more when you’re back on the White Raven.”

  Robin clutched at her. “You’re coming back with me, aren’t you?”

  “I…” Elena trailed off. Robin’s eyes were wide, her expression stricken, nothing at all like the easygoing “I’m-just-a-simple-redneck-from-Wisconsin” confidence she’d always exhibited.

  “It’s up to you,” Callie said. “But decide quick. We need to start searching. I don’t want to be in this place any longer than necessary.”

  Elena put her gloved hand on Robin’s shoulder. “I have to save the rest of the crew.”

  “I should be in there too.” Robin’s voice dripped misery.

  “You need to get some food and fluids and rest, is what you need. You survived, captain. You did your part already.”

  “Drake can bring the canoe back remotely,” Ashok said. “Shall, can you carry all three of us across to the station?”

  “Easily.”

  “Don’t die in there,” Robin said. “Bring everyone back if you can, but if you can’t, don’t join them.”

  Elena squeezed Robin’s hand, glove through glove, and followed Ashok and Lantern up into the airlock.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Callie watched as Shall pushed off from the canoe and began maneuvering through open space toward her. Lantern clung to his underside, and Elena and Ashok rode on his back. She thought of a nature immersive she’d once seen of a mother sloth on Earth plodding along with babies clinging to her back.

  Elena had been so happy to find Robin, and the joy in her voice upon their reunion made Callie feel better about this whole mission. Even if they did nothing else, they’d saved one member of the Anjou’s crew. It was a good start. There was a shard of darkness hidden in that joy, though, because their reunion made Callie think about the friends she’d lost on Meditreme, and how there would be no miraculous salvation for them. There could only be justice, and she intended to see they received it.

  When Shall was just three meters from the opening, Lantern flung herself outward at an oblique angle and came spinning into the gravity of the station. Callie had her sidearm out and pointed at the Liar before she even got her tentacles under her. “Please don’t aim a weapon at me.
” Lantern oriented herself toward Callie, all those eyes gazing out from behind her faceplate. “I find it very distracting. It is also possible that firing a weapon here might trigger security protocols.”

  “That’s convenient,” Callie said.

  “You wouldn’t think so if you triggered them.”

  “You know we brought a whole lot of guns in here, right?”

  “I do. They should be considered a last resort. At the very least, we should not point them at each other.”

  Shall hit the deck and crouched down. Ashok leapt nimbly to the deck and turned in a slow circle, taking in the hangar, then went to peer at the control panel with Lantern. Elena was more wobbly, her cheeks flushed with color behind her faceplate when she clutched at Callie. “I did an EVA! It was horrible! I never want to do that again!”

  “It was only fourteen seconds.”

  “Abject terror does strange things to your sense of time.” Elena looked around, and shivered. “It’s awful, being back in here. I don’t know how Robin stayed sane these past few days. And the others…”

  “Let’s find them, and we can leave all this behind,” Callie said.

  “Want me to close this up, cap?” Ashok said from the panel.

  “Are you worried a bird is going to fly inside and crap everywhere? I’m happy to leave our exit unobstructed. Just because the switch worked once doesn’t mean it will again. Besides, when the door’s shut, we lose radio contact. The walls of this place block every transmission.” She toggled her comms to loop in the White Raven. “Stephen, are you there?”

  His voice in her helmet was clear and crisp. “Where else would I be?”

  “We’re sending over a patient.”

  “Shall told me. We’re ready. Good work. At this rate you’ll be done in twenty minutes.”

  “We’ll keep in contact as long as we can,” Callie said. “I’m not sure if our connection will hold once we start moving around in here, though. Stick to the plan.”

  “Understood.”

  Callie turned to the repair drone. “Shall? Our guns?”

  A cargo hatch opened on Shall’s underside, and a tray slid out with a complicated ratcheting motion. The drawer was full of curved bits of complicated machinery. “Anti-personnel weapons on the left, lethal on the right,” Shall said. “Chief Warwick thought we might have to fight hand-to-hand in the tunnels of Glauketas, and outfitted us accordingly.”

  Ashok broke off looking at the door to come peer at the weapons. He picked up a blunt-looking black shotgun on a strap and slung it over his back. “I have terrible aim,” he said. “Better for me to have a weapon that doesn’t care if I miss.”

  “You have a targeting computer stuck on your face,” Callie said.

  “Which is great for my integrated defenses, but when it comes to pointing a weapon actually held in my hand, like some kind of old-timey gunslinger? It’s better if I get something idiot-proof.”

  “Everyone make sure to stand behind Ashok.” Callie slipped on a wrist-mounted, multi-barreled device with various non-lethal options on her left arm, then a more deadly version of the gauntlet on her right. She strapped a second sidearm to her hip, and took a black serrated blade and found a spot for it on her belt.

  “What should I use?” Elena said.

  “You ever shoot a gun before?” Callie said.

  “A few times, as part of my training, but not extensively.”

  “Hmm. I’ll teach you how to shoot sometime, but for now it’s better if you aren’t armed with anything deadly. Here.” She removed a rectangular jewelry box that held three oversized rings, seemingly made of plain brushed titanium. “Slip these on over your glove, on three adjacent fingers. If anything gets too close to you, and you don’t like it, give them a punch. A hard impact will make the rings produce a powerful electric shock, which isn’t pleasant for enemies biological or mechanical.”

  Callie strapped a belt around Elena’s waist, which gave her flashes to other experiences involving Elena and straps, though now was not the time for such memories, pleasant as they were. “These are flashbangs. Pull the pin, toss the canister, and after a few seconds they make a lot of noise and light and smoke and can be useful to cover an escape or disorient a target. Use them when I tell you, or when I’m not around to tell you, and you need something big and loud and bright to happen.”

  She looked around, surveying her troops. “Ashok goes first, then me, then Elena, and Shall will bring up the rear. Watch her back, OK?”

  “Of course, Callie,” the drone said.

  “Are your sensors telling us anything more now that we’re inside?” Callie said.

  “I’m not picking up any suit transponders,” Shall said.

  “If the station is under security protocols, each section may be isolated,” Lantern said. “In times of rebellion, the Axiom could cut us off from one another. We couldn’t coordinate with communication disabled.”

  “You’re the local expert, Lantern. How do we find the rest of Elena’s crew?”

  The Liar was quiet for a moment. “You said two of them were taken by a bio-drone?”

  “That’s what she calls the big bug mini-kaiju,” Ashok said.

  Elena nodded. “Yes, Hans and Ibn were… eaten.”

  “Not eaten,” Lantern said. “The bio-drones don’t feed that way. They do cleanup, and security, and mass transport. If any of my people died while working here, for instance, they would be scooped up by a bio-drone and sent to the rendering plant. If my people were… disobedient, they would be taken elsewhere, for reconditioning.”

  “I’d guess opening fire on the local bus would count as disobedience,” Callie said. “Wherever reconditioning happens, that’s a good place to start looking for them.”

  “What about the others?” Elena said. “Sebastien and Uzoma? The ones with the…” She gestured at her head. “The implants?”

  “They could be anywhere, if the station considers them functional now,” Lantern said. “Since this station is not active, they may simply be waiting dormant somewhere, in the servitor barracks.”

  “Do you know where those places are?” Callie said. “The barracks, or the reconditioning area?”

  “If I can access the station system, I can try to find a map,” Lantern said.

  Callie gestured to the panel by the door. “Go to it.”

  “That’s just a console for opening doors and guiding in ships. We’ll need to go higher to find an overseer station.” Lantern gestured toward the endless lightless space above. “It is probably quite far. Shall should take me up, since he can climb easily even in this gravity. We will notify you when we find a system access point.”

  Callie gritted her teeth. “If you try to betray us, Liar…”

  “I am in the house of my race’s most ancient and feared enemy,” Lantern said. “Betrayal is the last thing on my mind.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Lantern climbed on Shall’s back, and the drone hurried to a gantry and began to scurry up the cables and lattices, spiderlike. There were friction pads and magnetic clamps and retractable hooks in the drone’s legs, so Shall could navigate just about any terrain. Soon the drone and the alien disappeared into the gloom above.

  They waited a minute. Then two. “Anything?” Callie said.

  “There is a sort of glassed-in pod here, attached to one of the cranes,” Shall said. “What a fantastic array of machinery. What I wouldn’t give to have a few of these saws and drills and torches attached to my body.”

  “Jealous,” Ashok said. “Want.”

  “I am attempting to enter the overseer pod.” Lantern’s voice was followed by a scrabbling sound, and then a click. “I’m in.”

  “Shall, show me what’s happening up there.” Callie was seized by a vision of Lantern pushing a button and dropping the force field over the hangar door, venting the station and laughing an alien laugh as Callie and Elena and Ashok were sucked out into deep space.

  A quadrant of her helmet went
opaque and became a viewscreen, displaying a slightly distorted image streamed from one of Shall’s onboard cameras. The drone and the Liar were on a platform that bristled with robotic manipulator arms, topped by a bulging goldfish-bowl-shaped assemblage of metal and glass (or something transparent, anyway; probably the same stuff the Liars sold as starship windows). The Liar was inside the fishbowl, fiddling with levers.

  “The interface is designed for overseers, with neural implants,” Lantern said. “It is not an intuitive system. But there are manual overrides, and bringing up a map is relatively simple, there. The ingress portal to the rest of the station is located near the top of this chamber.”

  Ashok whistled. “That’s a hell of a climb. Can we do something about this gravity? Otherwise Shall’s going to have to carry us up there like a mama koala taking her babies up a tree.”

  “I am attempting to access artificial gravity controls. I think… yes, here it is. Let me know when you’re ready for weightlessness.”

  They all moved toward the gantry Shall had clambered up and grabbed onto the struts. “We can use this to guide ourselves up when the gravity goes,” Callie said. “This place is too big and full of sharp spiky things to go free-flying. I’m talking to you, Ashok. We’re ready, Lantern.”

  The shift was not gradual but immediate, and it wasn’t weightlessness. There was still gravity; just different gravity. They experienced a radical reorientation of the concept of down, like they were all standing in a box that was suddenly flipped over on its side. The floor slid out from under them and became a wall, and the gantry strut Callie was hanging onto got wrenched out of her hand by the sudden rotation of the room. She flailed wildly and grabbed on to another strut, lower down, and dangled. Then she looked up.

  Elena was tucked up against Ashok, her back to his front, his human arm wrapped around her upper chest, and his legs wrapped around her lower body. They both hung from his prosthetic arm, which still held firmly to the strut. There was something to be said for mechanical augmentation.

 

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