by Paul Lucas
A huge blast reverberated up the corridor. Soldiers fled backward, spilling out into our corridor for cover. We fell back as they took up positions, peppering the cephalopod defenders when they could to keep up the pressure. Amethyst, who had been in the midst of the fighting, homed in on Louis and me with her face blackened by plasma-charred soot.
“God’s forge!” she swore. “They must have some kind of computer targeting on those fucking walkers of theirs! They’re hitting way too many of us dead on, and they just laugh off peripheral hits!”
“Is there any way to flank them?”
“Not that I can see, but let’s check that map.” Louis reached into his belt and hastily unfurled a paper map, one of a number of hand-drawn copies Kalen’s people had supplied us with, drawing upon their best knowledge of the Underworld.
Louis scowled as he scanned it. “Dammit, no. There’s no way around them. The one cross-corridor behind them is just a nexus of airlocks.”
Amethyst nodded, her lips suddenly growing tight. Her finger stabbed at the corridor we just came from and backtracked. “Wait,” she said. “There’s an airlock here, about fifteen meters back along this side tunnel. It wouldn’t be too far to run from one lock to the other right behind those ‘Pod bastards.”
Louis started at her. “Through hard vacuum!”
She shrugged. “I’ve read that you can survive a minute or so of exposure to vacuum. It shouldn’t take more than ten seconds to run across from ‘lock to ‘lock.”
“Yeah, if the airlocks work right, if the cycle time isn’t that long, if the ‘Pods haven’t scrambled the access codes...”
“Shards, Louis, do you have any better ideas? We’re pinned here, and its only a matter of time before more ‘Pods show up, and then we’ll be surrounded. I’m going!” She shouldered her rifle and took a step back down the way we came.
Louis grabbed her. “Amethyst, don’t!”
“Dammit, don't...”
“Think! Even if you’re exposed for even ten seconds, it’ll still screw you up pretty badly. You’ll be hemorrhaging, your eyes and ears bleeding, your lungs may collapse—you’ll be a lot less pretty and in no condition to help anyone even if you make it to the airlock behind the ‘Pods.”
“We don’t have pressure suits, we don't have a choice!”
“I know, I know. Let me think...”
“Wait,” I said. “We have canteens, don’t we?” I pulled one from my belt, examining it. It was a Llexan-built, cylindrical affair made of metal with a wide, screw-on lid. “They’re made of metal, so they should work. And the opening isn’t too narrow, I hope.”
The human and the Orc looked at me like I had gone mad. Amethyst said, “Gossamyr, I don’t think that’s going to help me, even if it could hold air...”
I rolled my eyes. “Not you, Amethyst! D’Artagnan! Or at least his element bodies!”
Their eyes popped wide as they suddenly saw where my idea was flying to. They exchanged a hurried glance and scrambled to find D’Artagnan. I emptied several soldiers' canteens and hastily dried the insides with the long hem of my undershirt.
Once the Spider Swarm was assembled, a more complete plan formed: Amethyst and two volunteers would each carry three canteens, each containing a tarantula, and other equipment across the gap from airlock to airlock. Providing she could get through in time, the spiders would emerge on the other side (by themselves from the insides, if need be, but hopefully it would not come to that) and put together a nasty surprise for the Cephalopod defenders from behind.
Amethyst clamped the spider-carrying canteens to her belt. Two Myotan volunteers were busy double-checking their equipment when Amethyst announced she was ready.
“May the spirits guide you,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Louis. “Be careful.”
Amethyst regarded him with an unreadable expression. “Since when do you care about whether I’m careful or not?”
Louis rolled his eyes. “This is not the time or the place...”
“Yes it is. There is a good chance I will die in the next few minutes. So at least have the courage to tell me, this one time, if you have any feelings for me at all.”
Louis scowled. “Dammit, there’s Rumiko...”
“Your fiancée is half a million miles away and two years in the past. Was I really so horrible that you never even thought of sharing my bed?”
Louis crossed his arms and slid his eyes to the side. “Look, just come back, okay? Stupid Orc...”
Amethyst grabbed Louis’ flak jacket and yanked him to her so their noses almost touched. From the dark furrow on her brow I thought she was going to throw him into the wall. Instead, she mashed her lips to his.
He tried to fight it at first and grunt something snide around her forceful kiss. But the Orc woman just kept her mouth on his, doing something with her tongue we onlookers could only imagine, until Louis’ struggling transformed slowly from pushing away to a trembling caress of encouragement.
Amethyst broke contact, looking extremely smug, then grabbed up her AAR and joined the two Myotan volunteers on their way to the airlock. Louis just stood there, stunned, wiping moisture from his lips. He looked after the Orc woman until she disappeared around a corner, his expression unreadable. Finally, when she was gone, he returned to his former position beside me, still quiet. “Stupid Orc,” he whispered absently, but with no venom at all, this time.
We waited, the zip-zap-boom of exchanged plasma fire occasionally punctuating the sudden lull. We had no way to monitor Amethysts progress, so all we could do was hold our breath and hope for the best.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the tunnel and nearly deafened me, followed closely by a second one, then a third. An indefinable yell emerged from the assembled soldiers as the plasma rifle fire crescendoed all at once and then fell silent. Just when I thought I could hold my breath no longer our soldiers loosed a ragged cheer and told us it was safe to advance.
Louis and I quickly glanced around the corner just in time to wince through a thin, billowing cloud of smoke and steam. As it thinned, we could see, far down on the end of the corridor, hulks of the three Cephalopod walkers belching sparks and gouts of briny-smelling water. Two of them looked like they had blown up in mid-stride; one still stood, both legs intact, but its chassis was a smoking ruin, leaning against the UTSite-line corridor walls.
The third lay off to the side, completely destroyed, a charred black ruin. Obviously when the destruction of the other two had given the Myotan troops the opening they needed, they took advantage of it and opened up on it with everything they had.
The remnants of the troops advanced forward cautiously, still hugging cover wherever available. D’Artagnan’s element bodies scuttled forward to meet them. Almost immediately I was summoned to the front and led to Amethyst.
The Orc was propped up groggily against one wall. She and the other survivor of their mad rush through the spaceport’s vacuum looked to be in a bad way. I leaned close to Amethyst; she was half-conscious and delirious from the pain and ordeal. Her corneas were dark with burst blood vessels and she was wheezing shallowly, perhaps from a collapsed lung. I began to examine her.
Louis startled me by speaking directly behind me, almost directly into my ear. His voice was strained, all of its usual flippancy gone. “Is she...?”
“I don’t know. It looks bad. It looks like she really pushed the limits of how long she could take outside. Longer than what she should have been. I wonder what...”
“Look,” Louis said, pointing to a dark mass beside the other Myotan who had made it into the airlock with Amethyst. At first I thought, oddly, that it was just a pile of meat wrapped in rags. But then I saw the fur, and the remnants of a badge of rank on what was once a lapel. A trained butcher could not have destroyed a living body so thoroughly, so fast...
“Spirits,” I whispered, fighting down the acrid taste of rising bile.
“Looks like he was caught by the Cephalopod ship’s sandcaster. Poor bastard. Maybe they s
topped to drag him back into the lock. He did have some of D’Artagnan with him, after all. The canteens look intact enough. From the position it looks like he must have tried to shield them with his body...”
“Spirits. M-may he fly free,” was all I could think of to say. I felt so small, next to such courage.
An element body scuttled into view, hopping onto my shoulder. “We don’t have any time to waste!” D’Artagnan said. “The Myotans are hearing activity far up the corridors--Cephalopod reinforcements. The rest of me has already opened the access for the ship. We have to go!”
“But Amethyst and that Myotan soldier...”
“Carry them! But we have to move, now!”
Louis and I exchanged a panicky glance before we shouted for help and haltingly dragged our massive Orc friend into the Builder spacecraft between the two of us.
SIXTY-FIVE
No Cephalopods were in the ship itself. No doubt they never believed we would get this far.
The crystal lay in its nest of sensors and monitors off the ship's functioning bridge as it had for months. I had little trouble finding it, since the Cephalopods had brought me here over half a dozen times in the past several months to test using it.
I rolled the spheroid in my hands. To think that such a small thing could become so important that it meant so many lives had to be spent just for me to have it in my tool-fingers. But with it, the Llexans could seal off the Underworld forever and be rid of their Cephalopod oppressors once and for all. Without it, the Cephalopods can keep sending troops and even whole ships to the surface to grind Llexa and its provinces forever under heel.
To think that I could become so important to the conflict because of it. How could the fate of hundreds of thousands depend upon me? I was just a shaman’s apprentice of a small tribe. Why did the Sky Spirit contrive that everything must come down to this?
"Gossamyr Lerner," a voice called to me, both very familiar and alien at the same time.
I looked up, startled. I stared back at myself. Or rather, my Other-created replica stared back at me from the chamber's entrance. She was nude, young, and beautiful, so much so that my two Myotan escorts had to blink several times before leveling their weapons. Still, their professional training reasserted itself almost instantly. "Move and we incinerate you," the lead soldier growled.
Rats scrabbled up and down my spine looking at her, memories of Sunset's horrific transformation fresh in my mind. Perhaps the Cephalopods had not left the ship unguarded after all.
My other self ignored the soldiers. "Gossamyr Lerner, you endanger the crystal as well as yourself."
"What do you want?" I asked.
"We wish to move you to a place of safety, far from this conflict."
"'We?' You mean your creators, the Others."
"This biological construct is only a means of communication. We cannot allow you to jeopardize the interface device. Please allow us to move this vessel to a secure location, and the combatants can carry out their conflict as they will."
"Why? You've never told me, told even your supposed allies, the Cephalopods, why this crystal is so important."
"It is an over ride command device for Builder artifacts."
"Yes, but what..."
The entire vessel shook. “What was tha--?” I started to say until another, more violent vibration shook through the giant ship.
The soldiers around me looked perplexed. Louis began swearing as he had to re-start the healing enchantment he was using on Amethyst. “Godammit, what the hell is going on?”
My replica was the only one in the large chamber who was calm. She canted her head to the side, broad ears twitching. "Our allies the Cephalopods grow impatient. They will not heed our requests for restraint for much longer.”
A Myotan soldier rushed into the chamber, breathless. “They hit the access tunnel! Its blown to vacuum! We’re cut off!”
The Myotan Commander’s stricken expression was unmistakable. He had already lost half his men getting us here. “What? How?”
“The Cephalopod ship! It blasted the corridor with its sand-weapon, popped the seams it looked like! My squad only barely made it into the ship’s airlock!”
“Shit!” Louis swore and rushed over to me as we began hearing what sounded like far-away hail hitting metal.
"Our allies are now shooting at your vessel directly," the Other-built replica said. "They cannot damage the UTSite hull, but they seek to frighten you into surrendering by making it seem that they can. But they capable of greatly upgrading their firepower and using it to damage everyone in the interior. Again, let us take control of the vessel and remove the crystal and yourself from potential harm."
"I cannot!" I said. "Do you not understand that as soon as you do the 'Pods will take their ship to the surface and attack the Llexans?"
"The conflict of the Llexans and our allies is of consequence to us only in how it could potentially damage the crystal and its operator."
"I cannot!"
"Gossamyr Lerner, you are putting your family in danger."
The room, formerly filled with the shouts and swearings of soldiers, suddenly grew quiet at my replica's statement. By now it had become common knowledge what had been promised me in exchange for my cooperation. Only the tac-tac-tac of the Cephalopod sandcaster could be heard distantly thudding away at the hull.
"We are aware of the value you place on your mate and offspring," my double said coolly. "We may terminate our efforts to recreate them for you if you fail to cooperate."
"You cannot!"
"Abide by our wishes and we will proceed as we said we will."
"Just tell me it is your wish, Searcher," the lead soldier growled. "And I will incinerate this abomination where it stands."
"Gossamyr," Louis said quietly. "You know--you know--that they can't give you back Lerner and Sunset. Not the real ones. All you'll get is a hollow copy, like your double here."
"Untrue," my clone said. "We would replicate her mate and offspring to nearly exactly as she remembered them, using the memories in her own cerebral cortex as a guide."
"But what of their spirits?"
"We are unfamiliar with such concepts. We have never encountered any such metaphysical manifestations, and are dubious as to their existence."
The words sank into my gut like iron weights. They did not know of the spirits? Beings as advanced as these?
Was everything I believed in nothing but superstition after all?
But more importantly, I realized they would have no means of retrieving Lerner's or Sunset's spirits. Tears stung my eyes.
My family was never coming back to me. All these months of hoping, and nothing. It hit me like a wave, as I truly felt their deaths all over again.
"My answer is no, then," I blurted, trying to control a trembling weakness in my limbs. "Spirits, no. Our bargain is off. This ship stays."
My clone blinked. "We urge you to reconsider."
I could not control my tears now. A friendly pair of arms enfolded me. Louis'. He, too, realized what my refusal meant.
"Again, we urge you to reconsider. If you have concerns about your recreated family, we assure you they will be as you remember them. After they are decanted from the biogenetic augmentation chambers, we can fine-tune their neurochemical response pathways..."
"No!" I yelled. "They would be abominations, more so than what you did to my son. I will not be part of this any longer. The deal is off. You get no more crystal, no more anything, from me. That is final!"
My replica blinked twice, then launched herself at me with inhuman, murderous speed.
SIXTY-SIX
The KN is a small flame of light against an infinite ocean of darkness. I wonder how many times it will flicker before it finally goes out.
--noted author Gabriella Herbert, on the KN's role in restoring the Shards, Personality magazine, July 547.
* * *
She hit me like a shotgun blast, smashing the breath from my body and knocking Loui
s aside. Before I even realized what happened, she held me up against the far wall, pinning my arms at the biceps.
If I had a breath left in my body, I would have screamed in horror at what she did next.
The flesh of her hands where she held me began flowing and melting like water, merging with my fur and skin like we were metal statues and were being welded together. I realized with the crystal clarity of impending death that the nanites in her system were disassembling her flesh and using its raw materials to replicate at an astounding rate--and invading my body.
This must have been the Others' final desperate gambit, if all their negotiations and schemes failed. They needed me to control the crystal. So, they were sending their mutant nanites into my body to control me directly.
My replica's body shuddered hard, then again, and again. I barely perceived Louis shooting her repeatedly with his KN-made firearm, the Myotan soldiers running toward her from either side. They could not use their plasma weapons; they would incinerate us both. But Louis, with his more modest KN-made bullets, punched into my clone again and again. A few others carried gunpowder back-up weapons, and quickly followed his example.
The Myotan soldiers reached her, stabbing and cutting and clubbing her with all their strength. They induced great gashes and rents in her body, but her grip on me was as unbreakable as a mountain. Finally they began bashing and cutting at her arms with knives and machetes to remove her from me. Only when they were severed completely did I at last crumple to the ground.
From what I could perceive in my weakened state, it took over half a dozen of them, to drag her away from me, her silently kicking and bashing and squirming with her much greater-than-human strength. But with the damage already done to her and her arms missing, her flailing was only minimally effective.
Finally, with one concentrated heave, the mass of soldiers managed to throw her a few meters down the corridor adjoining the bridge as they immediately dived for cover. Finally clear of any other potential victims, the remaining soldiers immediately cut loose into her with their plasma rifles, incinerating her down to steam and carbonized bone between one breath and the next.
