Tyche's Ghosts

by Richard Parry

“You think it’s a good idea?” El blinked. “Are you insane?”

  “It’s possible,” said Nate. Grace said nothing. Kohl and Ebony watched the conversation, heads turning between Nate and El as they talked.

  “One downed crew not enough for you?” said El. She felt her voice rising. El wondered about reigning it in. Fuck it. “She cut off my arm, Nate. She—”

  The Tyche blared an alarm. El whipped around, almost crying out as she yanked her injured shoulder. The flight deck holo showed a section of Mercury, the Tyche labeled where it sat on the crust next to one of the massive solar collectors. Above them, an inbound ship. The Tyche saw it, noting its trajectory, velocity, and likely impact point. With the ship, a rain of debris. What looked like unmanned satellites, either far above Mercury or from somewhere else entirely. They were leading the shuttle, going for an impact against Mercury’s surface.

  Three klicks away. El did a quick check. It was the same shuttle Reiko had left in with Saveria. El didn’t think, clicking switches on the console. “Helm to Tyche,” she said. “Inbound enemy craft. ETA to landing, four minutes and twelve seconds. Approach vector is hot. Looks like they’re using space junk as a crude orbital cannon.” She paused. “It’s Saveria. It’s Saveria and, and…” El found she couldn’t continue, her throat tight.

  The comm crackled to life. “Engineering to flight deck,” said Hope. Her voice sounded small, like the Engineer was down a well. “We’re … ready.”

  Nate slipped into the chair across from El. “You might need to talk me through this,” he said.

  “We’re going after them?” said El.

  “Sure are,” said Nate. “One of our own is on that shuttle, El. And something else with her.” He brought the co-pilot console online before continuing. “There will be an accounting.”

  El thought for a second. Okay, so: we’ve got an AI machine in Engineering with Hope. There’s a young girl named Providence there as well. Kohl is with Ebony Drake, who is borderline incompetent. And I’ve got Nate for a co-pilot. “We’ll probably die,” she offered.

  “Not today,” said Nate. “Go.”

  “All hands, brace for hard launch,” said El. “In three.” She keyed the Endless field controls, swearing under her breath as she tried to reach with a hand that wasn’t there before getting them with her other hand. “Two.” El looked at Nate, who nodded. “One. Launching.” El used her feet controls to key vertical lift.

  The Tyche rumbled as the reactor fed power to the Endless Drive, bucking the ship from the planet’s surface. The ship’s fusion drives coughed once, twice, then caught, plumes of fire igniting behind them. El felt the thrust in her chair, watching as the shuttle arced above and behind them. She slaved the drive controls to a single master — no tricky independent feathering of the cores in her state — and urged the Tyche forward.

  The ship lurched, gray-black rock scudding beneath them. “We’re up and clean,” said El. She felt the sludge of the painkillers in her body, without the common decency of a coffee to get her going. Seriously, what had Nate been doing back there? The Tyche galloped forward, and El brought the ship about in a wide turn, curving around the majesty of the solar collector. She spared it a glance as the ship turned, her hand on the stick, controlling the ship’s flight smooth and steady. The solar collector was pearlescent, catching Sol’s light, guiding it below the surface.

  The first of the pieces of space junk smashed through the solar collector, shattering the fronds. The Tyche dimmed the windscreen further as the collector fell, energy arcing between the broken fronds. A further rain of debris hurtled through.

  The Tyche complained. BRACE BRACE BRACE IMPACT IMMINENT BRACE BRACE BRACE. “Hush, you,” said El. “You can see plain as day it’ll miss.”

  Nate gave her a glance. “Helm? There’s a powerful amount of kinetic potential in that space junk.”

  “Sure is,” said El. “I figure Reiko is going deep. That shuttle’s got no guns. Must have grabbed hold of a thing or two out in the hard black. Guided it in like a battering ram.”

  “Don’t let us be the meat in the sandwich,” said Nate.

  “Relax,” said El. She thought for a second. “Still, never hurts to be careful. Might want to bring the PDCs online.”

  Nate obliged, the Tyche’s PDCs enlivening under his fingers. The ship thought for a second, then El heard a puh-chunk as one of the new railguns fired. A piece of descending debris exploded into fragments, the expanding cloud of wreckage impacting against the still-falling solar collector.

  El brought them low, chasing the shuttle. Ahead, debris hammered Mercury, explosions throwing chunks of the planet’s crust up. The shuttle was right in front, and El itched to know if Saveria was on board. If not, she’d have blown the craft out of the sky without a second thought.

  Another piece of the solar collector fell beside them, and El swerved the Tyche away. The might of the falling, glowing array made her shudder, but her hand was steady on the stick as she flew. It meant she needed to arc away from Reiko’s shuttle, and she lost sight of the craft for a second in the rain of debris.

  The flight deck holo highlighted the other craft for them. A crater had formed in the crust below, the ship heading for it. The Tyche’s RADAR and LIDAR painted the surface, enemy detection be damned, and highlighted exposed tunneling. The shuttle raced ahead, skids out as it approached. The Tyche was hard on its heels. The shuttle touched down, the Tyche landing not five seconds behind it.

  El saw two figures emerge from the shuttle. Reiko and Saveria. El wanted to reach out to Saveria, to say help is coming. But Saveria would see the spread wings of the goddess as she came in, fire in her wake. Judgment was coming for Reiko, and there would be no escape.

  Touchdown. El clicked the comm. “Skids are down. Tyche is on the deck. One of our people is out there. Fifty meters, heading toward a breach. Tunnels, looks like.”

  Nate nodded at her, hands on his buckles. Kohl was in the doorway, hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit this one out, Cap?”

  “But—”

  “No,” said Kohl. “Look, I’m tired. I’m not in a delicate frame of mind. But last time you went outside, you picked up a machine that could kill us all. This time, why don’t you let me do my job? I’ll get her.” He spared a glance for El. “I’ll get her, Cap.”

  “Okay.” Nate frowned. “But Grace—”

  “Tell you what,” said Kohl. “If I need your help pulling together a team, I’ll let you know.” He turned away. “Ebony? Get your shit. We’re going outside.”

  “Awesome!” she said. “What should I bring?”

  “Fucked if I care,” said Kohl. He keyed the comm net. “Algernon?”

  “Meat sock,” said the machine. El was perplexed. Someone named it Algernon?

  “You’re with us,” said Kohl. He looked at El. “Just in case.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE PROBLEM WITH today could be summed up in a single word.

  Assholes.

  Kohl agitated foot to foot in the Tyche’s airlock. He’d forgone his power armor, cramming a helmet on atop his ship suit. He held a laser carbine, the faithful unit that had done so well until it encountered Ezeroc. The weapon was best when pointed at things that looked human. Cunt Reiko looked human, so the auto-targeting in the carbine should be fine. Hope had ginned up additives for the onboard computer, so it should work great against Ezeroc too. No, it wasn’t his laser carbine that was the problem.

  Where it all went bad was a machine that took a bite out of the crew. On Kohl’s watch. Ebony had been about as much use as a chocolate teapot, but she was about to get her chance at round two. She was his sidekick, which tickled Kohl’s fancy. He’d never had a sidekick before, although he preferred one with more street smarts and better aim. What with humanity getting a giant kick in the balls, beggars couldn’t be choosers, so here she was, on his right. She held a blaster, a stubby-nose unit Kohl was sure Ebony had stolen from his cabin.

  So, the
deal was to get out there, use the carbine and its fancy auto-targeting on Cunt Reiko, collect Saveria, and blow this joint. However, and speaking of assholes, Algernon was also in the airlock with them. Golden, two meters tall from the soles of his perfect feet to the top of his shiny metal head. The machine was eying Kohl like it had something to say. Which made it another fucking asshole, just one more to add to the day’s charms.

  The good news, and it was iffy to call it such, was the cap had the good sense to sit this one out. Gracie, too. She’d looked like she wanted to argue a powerful amount about the state of affairs, but the cap had looked at her and said, Not this time. The future won’t be the one we want if you go. And she’d nodded, but like she was swallowing bilge water, face all puckered.

  The damn robot was staring at him. Kohl paused before opening the outer airlock, looked it in the eye, and said, “There a fucking problem here?”

  Blink-blink from those glowing eyes, then Algernon shook his head. “No problem, meat sock.”

  Kohl thought about that for a cycle or two. “You’re sure?”

  “We’re about to go outside where my fallen kin lie in their hundreds if not thousands. Many of them may be merely disabled, which suggest we could be outnumbered on a truly epic scale. Ahead, holding one of your crew hostage, is a killer machine that disabled your entire crew in less time than it takes to make an excellent latte. You’ve decided arming me, arguably your best line of defense against killer robots, in that I am also a killer robot, is not a good idea. Why would there be a problem?” Blink, blink.

  “As long as we’re clear,” said Kohl, then opened the airlock.

  Mercury, ugly as roadkill, baked in front of them. Kohl’s HUD suggested death would be near instant if he didn’t have a suit, which was a useless fucking warning if ever there was one. Ebony ran ahead, black ship suit leading the way. Kohl glimpsed Reiko and Saveria, ducking behind a rocky spur. He readied his weapon, the carbine itching his hands like it wanted a spare second or two to get a clear shot.

  Kohl paused. Cunt Reiko looked human, but so did Saveria. He checked the weapon, fiddling with the settings, eventually settling on one that targeted metal armor. He wasn’t sure if Reiko was gonna come up as metal armor, but it felt like his best option in a bad situation.

  Algernon held a hand out in an after you gesture. “Lead on, sacrificial meat sock. I await your inevitable demise.”

  Kohl growled. “I’m not the one who was stuck doing paint by numbers for six hundred years,” he said. “My brain doesn’t get stuck on an infinite loop when shown a shiny picture.”

  “You have such a way with people,” said Algernon. “I’m surprised you’re not in the counseling profession.” The robot set out into the wasteland of Mercury, no longer waiting for Kohl to go first.

  Which was just as well, as Kohl had a strong aversion to having a killer robot on his six. Hell, he didn’t even have his power armor.

  The Reiko-Saveria combo came into sight briefly, then ducked from view. Heading down, no doubt. Kohl double-timed it, beating his feet against the planet’s crust. He wondered why humans hadn’t left the machines to it. It’s not like Mercury is a paradise. We could have handed it over, and not even missed it. Problem for another time, most like.

  Algernon waited ahead. “Meat sock, the Reiko unit claims to want to help.”

  “You believe her?” said Kohl. Algernon was hard to look at, the sunlight blasting down making him look like a figure made of fire.

  “That’s not the most important factor,” said Algernon. “The odds are not ideal for her. Her best line of action was to find the Judge, awaken it, and convince it she means no harm. Unfortunately, she is too late.”

  Kohl eyed the robot. He shuffled through a handful of responses, before settling on, “What?”

  “I don’t sense the Judge,” said Algernon. “However, many of my kind lie ahead. It is curious. They were not asleep in the same manner I was. They were suspended and have been awakened by the impacts of debris on our home.” Blink, blink. “My current thesis is this is a rear guard, designed to dissuade anyone attempting to find the Judge.”

  “A rear guard,” said Kohl. “Like, Gracie’s dad left a platoon here just in case people were stupid enough to land?”

  “The interesting part of all this is it appears to highlight we are on the right track,” said Algernon. “You do not guard empty safes.”

  “Okay,” said Kohl. “Hundreds?”

  “Two hundred and seven,” said Algernon. “There may be more, but with the appearance of being offline. Six hundred years of somnolence is likely to have degraded comm arrays within the chassis.”

  “Boss!” shouted Ebony. Kohl winced, on account of her shouting being useful if they were on a planet with atmosphere, but less so as the comm net didn’t care about distance.

  “Easy,” said Kohl. “No need to shout.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “There’s hundreds of these things up here.”

  “Two hundred and seven,” said Kohl.

  “How’d you know?” said Ebony. “I mean, is this a special Emperor’s Black trick?”

  “Yeah,” said Kohl, ignoring the blink, blink from Algernon. He trudged up the hill toward Ebony, approaching in a crouch to join her behind a boulder. He peered around the edge, taking in the perfect lines of the enemy.

  Or, what had been perfect lines before the arrival of Cunt Reiko. She was running at them like fear was a thing that happened to flimsy organics, and on that point she was probably right. The AI ignored Kohl, Ebony, and Algernon, on account of the apparently angry machine running at them.

  The more curious thing was Saveria Complex, running behind Hope’s creation. Kohl did a double take, then nudged Ebony. “Say. You see Cunt Reiko and Saveria?”

  “Yep.”

  “It look to you like Saveria is struggling?”

  “No,” said Ebony. “Looks like she’s trying to keep up.”

  Kohl sighed. Today would involve judgment calls. He fancied himself good at making a hard call in a pinch, but he didn’t much like the odds of him gunning down Saveria if she’d turned traitor. Aside from the little incident where she’d whisked his thoughts more thoroughly than a good scrambled egg, he liked her. Seemed to do less running and screaming than most folk in a rough situation, and he held a plan of trying to recruit her to the Black, if he could convince Chad to give up his claim.

  So, it’d be tricky to blow her to pieces. He eyed Algernon, then raised his carbine and pulled the trigger. The weapon click-clicked, then painted one of the distant machines in red light before firing. The machine he’d targeted glowed briefly, sparked, then exploded in a shower of metal.

  “Well, at least something’s going our way,” said Kohl.

  “I admit, I was curious what would happen,” said Algernon. “While high-energy coherent light should destroy our chassis, those weapons weren’t in vogue during my time.” He surveyed the machines below them. “Ah. The enemy appears to be splitting their forces, sending five toward us.” He ducked sideways, then straightened. “They are using railgun rounds. I’m disappointed.”

  “How’s that?” said Kohl.

  “They should send more. They know I’m here.”

  “There another way in?” said Kohl.

  “Motherfuckers!” screamed Ebony, ducking out from behind the rock and heading down the hill. She tripped after three paces, railgun fire lancing through where she’d been standing. Her blaster slipped from her fingers, bounced twice, then fired, a bolt of plasma blowing a machine to pieces.

  Algernon moved like ducted lightning, scooping Ebony up and depositing her behind the safety of the rock. “You are a suicidal meat sock,” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Ebony, grinning wide enough to crack her helmet. “This is cool.”

  Algernon looked between her and Kohl. “Has a disease ravaged humanity, devolving the self-preservation components of your neural cortex?”

  Kohl shook his head. “I don’t think
so.”

  “May I borrow your weapon?” said Algernon.

  Kohl thought about how the machine had just saved Ebony, after Ebony had destroyed one of its kin. He shrugged, handing the weapon over.

  Algernon took it, spinning it three times in different directions. “Interesting weight. I believe I have the heft of it now.” He selected the firing controls, turning off the automatic setting.

  “You might not want to do that,” said Kohl. “It’s good at getting targets.”

  “It’s too slow,” said Algernon. “One moment. In answer to your earlier question, I don’t think there’s ‘another way in.’ We might need to deal with this problem first.”

  The golden man stepped out from behind the rock, the laser carbine leveled. The red beam of the weapon lanced out, a staccato of light. While he fired, Algernon kept moving, an erratic stop-step, but at high speed, like a pneumatic hammer with a glitch.

  After only two seconds, he rejoined Kohl and Ebony behind the rock. He held the carbine out to Kohl, the weapon’s barrel glowing a soft red. “Here.”

  Kohl looked out at where the approaching machines had been. They’d been sectioned into components, pieces lying in the sun, some parts blown apart where the laser had cut into a power cell. Kohl leaned back. “You’re handy in a fight.”

  “It’s a wonder you’re not extinct,” agreed Algernon.

  “Hold that thought,” said Kohl. He leaned out again, checking the battlefield. Cunt Reiko had impacted with the forward line of the enemy, moving through them like a bowling ball. Pieces of broken machine lay in her wake. She held a machine close to her, guiding its railgun with her arm. The machine fired into its friends, blowing them to pieces.

  Kohl leaned back into cover. “I think you’ve got competition for world’s deadliest predator.”

  “She’s not as stylish,” said Ebony. Kohl could have sworn she was blushing, although it was difficult to tell with the harsh light and helmet tints. “Like a wrecking ball, not a dancer.”

  Algernon blinked at Ebony. “Thank you, human.”

  “You’re not calling her ‘meat sock?’” said Kohl.