The Glory of the Empress

by Sean Danker

  The seal broke, and the hatch opened. Men in bright orange tech suits emerged from the airlock; most were carrying tools, but a few had rifles.

  Bjorn and Woodhouse instinctively put their hands on their sidearms, but the workmen didn’t mean any harm. Weapons were perfectly natural for them to have in an unfamiliar, potentially hostile place.

  “Bjorn,” Woodhouse said.

  Bjorn took a decontamination unit from his pouch and twisted it to activate it. The nanomachines being released couldn’t be seen, but Bjorn had no doubt they were there. People could argue with Evagardian culture and politics. They couldn’t argue with Evagardian technology.

  Bjorn tossed the device to the lead workman.

  “You’re covered,” Woodhouse told them. “Keep that with you so you know where you stand for time, but those should last you longer than you need. Do you have questions for me?”

  “I don’t see anything,” the workman replied, hefting the rod.

  “Trust us.”

  The man in orange just shook his head and signaled for his men to follow.

  Bjorn watched them troop off toward the maintenance airlock.

  “Too easy.” Woodhouse turned back to Bjorn and Rada. “Ready for some cardio?”

  Rada cocked her head, her faceplate catching the shine from the Sunbath’s running lights.

  “There are some clinics here in the slums, but we want a real infirmary. We’ll get better information from better doctors. We’re going to the highest atrium. Keep up.”

  As they left the lower harbor, Bjorn patched back into the Lydia’s main channel.

  Sergeant Golding and General Dayal were boarding Oasis to make for the command center to see what data they could pull there.

  “There’s no exterior damage to the station,” Major Morel said over the com. “Everything we’re seeing came from the inside. There’s a major coolant leak. It’s through the shielding down here. It looks like a problem with the pressure coils in the gravity drive—they’re pushing it out.”

  “Is it a problem?” Mao asked distractedly.

  “Not for us. For Doyle, maybe. The coolant’s pretty unstable when it first enters a vacuum, and it’s lensing around the side of the station. Doyle’s shields won’t stop it if the wind changes.”

  “Wind?”

  “The station’s axis is tilting, and we’re all moving with it. If it keeps doing this, that coolant’s going to splash all over the Sunbath,” Sergeant Golding reported.

  “Can’t hurt it, surely,” Mao said.

  “Not the ship. But the men working on the hull are a different story,” Morel said. “They’ll be melted.”

  “Melted by coolant,” General Dayal remarked lightly. “I love modern nomenclature.”

  “What are they doing on the hull anyway? Doyle’s jump drive’s in the aft enclosure. Why’s he got men out there?” Mao sounded annoyed.

  “They’re cutting free the last of the cargo pods they were using to augment their passenger capacity,” Morel said. “A lot of them are damaged. If they jump and those pods come free, they could take the hull with them. Potentially spacing a lot of people,” he added.

  Mao groaned. “We’ll use our repulsors to protect him. We can’t just leave Doyle’s men to die. But I want it on record that I’m not happy about this.”

  “Noted, Commander.”

  “What’s she so salty about?” Rada asked on the private channel.

  “This area is already interfering with our sensors. Shrouding ourselves in coolant with the repulsors on will blind us,” Bjorn replied.

  “It’ll only be for a little while,” Rada said, and Bjorn could imagine her scowl. “We have to help Doyle’s guys. No sense getting upset about it. There’s no choice.”

  “It’s her job to worry,” Woodhouse said. He pointed his light up the deactivated escalator. Heavy security shutters had been pulled down. He started to turn away, but Bjorn stopped him.

  “Hang on,” he said, pointing with his light. “This shutter’s taken a beating.”

  “Rough place to live,” Woodhouse said.

  “Not this rough. There was fighting here. Up on that deck we just came from too.”

  “I know. I’m guessing there weren’t enough seats for everyone, and things got a little Darwinian.” Woodhouse steered Bjorn away from the stairs. “We need to hurry.”

  “Why? It’s not like they can pick us up if they’re busy shielding Doyle’s guys,” Rada said.

  “Because I don’t like this place,” Woodhouse replied.

  Bjorn turned to walk backward, letting his light play over the battered and neglected station. There were sleeping alcoves no larger than an Evagardian service closet, and vending machines selling chemicals that were highly illegal in most systems, even galactic systems.

  But not much was illegal on Oasis. The owners had a small, brutal peacekeeping force that had little interest in anything but making sure no one put projectiles through the domes.

  They moved at a jog through the deserted atriums. Lydia had to be leading them in the right direction, because the conditions were becoming steadily less squalid. Moving on foot wasn’t terribly efficient, but emergency power didn’t feed the station’s transportation trams.

  Woodhouse halted abruptly, throwing out an arm. Bjorn and Rada froze.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  They held their breath. The audio piped in through their suits was just as clear as what their own ears could give them. Instinct made Bjorn want to deactivate his helmet to listen, but that wasn’t an option with a possible biohazard in play.

  “I swear to the Empress I heard something up there,” Woodhouse said, pointing up into the dark.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Rada said.

  “Still no bodies,” Bjorn noted.

  “I know things were crazy here,” Rada said, highlighting the objects strewn across the deck with her light, “and things got dropped and everything, but why are there so many clothes?”

  Looking up, Woodhouse touched a hand to the side of his helmet. “I just lost Lydia.”

  Bjorn instinctively opened his own channel, but was greeted by white noise. The audio shifted again, and he switched to local audio. They were no longer speaking securely to one another—their suits were projecting their voices, and picking up audio from outside. Now anyone nearby could hear what they were saying.

  “The com’s out,” Rada confirmed. “What could cause that?”

  “A lot of things.” Woodhouse halted, looking back. “We’re aborting. Back to the ship.”

  “Can we get back without Lydia to navigate?” Rada asked.

  “We’ll have to.” Woodhouse pointed, and they both looked. The Lydia was visible through the atrium dome: a slender, shapely burst of white against the black of space.

  “Something’s wrong,” Rada said, gazing up at the ship. “The repulsors are dark. We aren’t protecting Doyle’s men from that coolant.”

  Woodhouse took off; Bjorn and Rada followed at a run.

  The station’s districts were gathered around lift and tube hubs, but not every passage or alleyway led to them. There were dead ends and paths that led to maintenance access and industrial complexes.

  Woodhouse was navigating by nothing more than his gut, but it was working. They were making their way upward, toward a dome with a view of the Lydia. Bjorn tripped on a pile of clothes in the middle of a passage, but Rada caught his arm and hustled him forward.

  Woodhouse was running so fast that he nearly overbalanced and fell when he stopped. The captain was some ten meters ahead, and Bjorn felt like he and Rada were falling farther behind every second.

  Woodhouse staggered to a halt.

  Something wasn’t right. Bjorn stopped and jerked Rada back.

  Woodhouse had run out onto a catwalk that
spanned a wide ventilation shaft. Beyond were stairs that would take them to the dome.

  He was standing in the middle of the walkway, looking up. The cylindrical housing hid the shaft itself from view, but there had to be something above that had Woodhouse’s attention.

  Slowly he raised his hands over his head in a universal sign of surrender.

  Bjorn’s stomach dropped.

  Woodhouse deactivated his helmet.

  “Run!” he shouted to Bjorn, and was abruptly shot through the head.

  22

  THE shot itself was so loud that it briefly overloaded Bjorn’s suit’s audio feed. He flinched as though he had been the one hit.

  He watched as Woodhouse’s body thudded to the deck.

  Armored figures were already dropping to the catwalk, raising weapons. Bjorn and Rada fled the junction as the figures opened fire.

  Rada lunged for a maintenance hatch, but Bjorn pulled her away and kept on down the alleyway. If they fled into those crawl spaces beneath the atrium, they’d never find their way out.

  These had to be Tenbrook’s people. Bjorn hadn’t gotten a good look at them, but their lack of hesitation in killing Woodhouse in cold blood told him everything he needed to know. They looked a little organized for pirates; they were private military contractors.

  Rada angled off again, and this time Bjorn didn’t stop her. She sprinted up a metal staircase that led to the roof of a low kiosk. They were making themselves targets, but they couldn’t flee aimlessly—they had to get their bearings.

  They emerged onto the flimsy metal roof, out of the shadows of the taller structures of the atrium. Above, the skylight was still visible, but Bjorn could no longer see the Lydia. Golden light was splashing across the carbon shielding.

  The coolant leak really had come around to this part of the station. With only emergency power, the station had no repulsor shielding. The coolant was going to eat through the carbon and depressurize the atrium.

  Bjorn didn’t stop. He leapt the gap to the next roof. The contractors were a good distance back, but they were armed. They also had wires and jumpers, so there was no hope of outrunning them.

  A figure on a high rooftop was taking aim. Bjorn saw a green tracker locking onto Rada’s back as she struggled to keep her balance. He pulled her down as a burst of fire sailed past, gouging out great chunks from the next building over. Metal wailed, and the structure began to lean. Each floor was a separate dwelling, held together by nothing more than gravity and some cursory welding.

  The access ladder split and fell in one direction, and the building in the other. Bjorn and Rada scrambled out of the way, but the impact shook the entire roof.

  Rada nearly went off the edge, but Bjorn grabbed her. He rolled over, jerking his sidearm out of its holster with his free hand and leveling it at the approaching contractors.

  It was pure reflex. They weren’t going to beat these people in a gunfight. He didn’t even bother to fire. Bjorn let go of Rada and pushed her off the edge, ignoring her dismayed squawk and rolling after her. His landing in the alleyway below was only slightly more graceful than hers.

  “Where are we going?” Rada demanded, pulling her own pistol as Bjorn dragged her to her feet.

  He didn’t have an answer for her.

  There was a flicker of movement, and they drew into the shadows.

  “There,” Rada said, pointing. There was a distant shape clinging to the dome, far overhead. There was no getting away from these people.

  Bjorn’s back was to a plastic door. He shouldered through it, and they spilled into a dark, cramped data room. They reactivated their lights, taking stock of their surroundings. Behind the caged desk was a forest of physical data towers. They didn’t appear to be laid out with any particular pattern in mind. It was a mess. There were wires everywhere, and more debris. Refuse from food products, outdated hardware, and mold.

  Bjorn truly felt like this place had been neglected for decades, but that wasn’t possible. The mold needed moisture, and the moisture must have come from a leak in a liquid cooling system.

  He vaulted over the grimy counter, beckoning for Rada to follow.

  “Can we hide in here?” she asked, joining him on the other side.

  Bjorn began to thread his way between the pylons.

  “Maybe,” he replied, turning to look back at the door. The pylons were hot, probably hot enough to make it difficult to pick up two humans on a tactical scanner—and looking for anything more sophisticated than raw heat probably wouldn’t work, considering what this place did to sensors.

  But Bjorn didn’t know what kind of gear these contractors were working with.

  Everything had been a blur since Captain Woodhouse had been shot. Bjorn hadn’t been thinking, or even paying attention to what was around him. This archive was massive. The ceiling opened up just a few meters in, and it was high enough that his light couldn’t reach. Likewise, there were no walls in sight. Only wires and pillars of data storage, flickering red and blue points of light, and heat readouts on tiny screens in every pylon. It wasn’t enough light to navigate by, just enough to be distracting.

  “But we can get lost in here,” he said, feeling hot. He was sweating, but the sweat felt cold. His EV was trying to cool him off, but it could do only so much.

  He paused as his light played over a patch of corrosion on one of the pylons. It looked familiar, but Rada was speaking, and getting farther away. Bjorn hurried after her.

  “How can we get back? The ship’s probably moved,” she said, glancing back at him.

  “We have to try. At the very least we have to get into a different dome. That carbon won’t hold if the coolant leak doesn’t divert, and this whole section will decompress. We’ll be all right in EVs, but the debris will be dangerous.”

  “Does this place even have an autoseal?”

  “What’s your heart tell you?”

  Rada went ahead of him, squeezing between two ancient stacks of data drives. Bjorn followed her, hoping his EV wouldn’t tear in the process.

  Rada paused, peering through the gap, back the way they’d come.

  “Are they backing off?”

  “No,” Bjorn said. “That they’re not in here already just means they’re giving us more credit than we deserve.”

  “How’d they get here so fast? How did they know?”

  “Worry about that later. Keep going straight.”

  “How do you know it’s straight?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oen, wait.”

  “What?” He looked back.

  Rada had her light on one of the pylons. The beam played over a massive tangle of wires. “It moved,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I said it moved.”

  Slowly she raised a gloved finger to prod the bundle. She let out a cry and stepped back. Bjorn saw it too. Something scuttled out from underneath the cords, clearly trying to climb onto her wrist. Bjorn saw thin, oddly jointed legs. A body that was gray or black, lumpy and asymmetrical.

  Rada pulled back in time, and just as quickly they lost track of the creature. It wasn’t very large, perhaps the size of a large man’s hand. On an actual planet, organisms like this might not be uncommon. On a space station, animal life was a different story. It was rare, expensive, and tightly controlled. Not something Bjorn expected to find in a place like this.

  But mold wasn’t something he expected to find in a data archive either. The normal rules didn’t seem to apply on Oasis.

  “It’s someone’s pet,” Bjorn said, reaching for her hand.

  “No,” Rada said, taking another step back. “It isn’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just trust me.” She was still backing up. She bumped into another pylon, and she flinched, moving quickly away. “I’m from Earth,” she added. “I do
n’t know what it is, but I know what it’s not. I want to get out of here,” she said firmly, pushing him. “Let’s go.”

  “You want to take your chances out there?”

  “I want to get out of here.” She meant it.

  Bjorn wasn’t going to argue. “We have to hope the commander can shut down whatever’s jamming us. Once we’re back online we can look for an extraction.”

  “What about escape craft?”

  “Are there any left?” Bjorn asked, shoving his way through the rows of pylons. “Would you trust an Oasis EC?”

  “We have to. They didn’t even try to take Captain Woodhouse alive.”

  There was a wall ahead. That was a good sign. Bjorn turned right and recoiled.

  Something was clinging to a spindle of data crystals hanging from the ceiling. It was well over half a meter in leg span, and obviously from the same family of organisms as the thing they’d spotted just a moment ago.

  It wasn’t large like a building or a spacecraft, but it was large enough to make Bjorn’s heart stop for a moment. He stumbled back. The thing didn’t move. Rada went rigid, and Bjorn heard her choke.

  “Don’t move,” he said. It was instinct. He didn’t know what he was looking at or what to do about it, but he knew he didn’t want to be on its bad side. The thing probably weighed ten kilograms at least. It shifted slightly, and the unnatural, alien way it moved made him shudder. Bjorn felt sick.

  “I see another one,” Rada whispered.

  “Let’s just go.”

  He found her arm and grasped it, backing down the row. Rada was pointing her sidearm at the thing.

  “Don’t shoot.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she hissed.

  “Let’s go in peace.” Bjorn turned around, coming face-to-face with a woman in full armor. Her helmet had two protruding eye plates, and her carbine was trained on Bjorn’s head.

  “Disarm,” the contractor said, her voice made deep and sibilant by her broadcaster.

  Bjorn didn’t hesitate. He let go of his sidearm and raised his hands, remembering exactly how much good this had done Captain Woodhouse a few minutes ago.