Skrat tapped the corridor as they moved down its length. ‘Opens for you but not me. Jolly racist corridors. But then, Lento was with us, and it didn’t open for her either. It must mean something?’
‘It means I’ve learnt a valuable lesson from the chief,’ said Calder. ‘He’s right. Never get off the ship – never leave the drive room.’
‘I take it that ostriches never survived the onset of Hesperus’s ice age, then,’ said Skrat.
They reached the corridor’s end. They were at the start of a huge cavern dotted with dark mounds, pillars stretching to a distant ceiling. It was almost as if every surface was alive, slowly rearranging itself into new configurations. Calder’s dark musings about being stranded inside a living organism returned. The belly of the beast. Just looking at this place and its weird living machinery, he knew that the terrible knight that had assailed them in the colony vessel belonged to this landscape, had been born to it. That meant the chances of their attacker knowing how to ride the local transport system were all too good. Which way’s the damn surface? As he glanced behind, the corridor sealed itself. He tapped the wall. It didn’t seem minded to open for him again.
‘Blast, a one way trip,’ said Skrat. ‘Never my favourite kind.’
‘Did you create this?’ asked Momoko, wonder filling its artificial voice as its head rotated, taking in the sights.
‘Not even on a good day,’ said Calder.
‘We need to go home,’ said Lento.
Calder swivelled around. This was the first thing the base’s driver had said since he had met her that actually made sense. Her eyes were still deranged and wide, but there was something else twitching around the edges of her face; something new. Optimism? ‘You’ll be fine, Janet. That’s where we’re going.’ Hopefully.
They traversed the chamber for the best part of an hour, searching for an entrance similar to the one they had arrived by and a rapid rock-ride back to the surface. They passed more curiosities in that hour than Calder had been exposed to in his entire life… and he had seen some outlandish creatures out on the ice sheets and glaciers. None of the things in the cavern seemed as dangerous as the machine knight, however, even though the creatures appeared to be formed from the same pitch-dark living machinery. Most no bigger than dogs, scampering across the ground, reforming into ebony statues to startle the visitors from the surface, packs of them covering each mound, interacting with the oily dark layers as though feeding from the substance – as if the mounds were huge teats. Calder realised that something was desperately wrong when he saw flashes of light ahead, heard the hollow pulse of rail-gun fire. He and Skrat sprinted wordlessly towards the source of the disturbance, Lento and the robot trailing behind. They rounded one of the oddly pulsating pillars and found a mound ahead – Lana and Zeno and a handful of the base staff surrounded by advancing figures – a company of the damn alien knights. Two people, a large bearded man and an Asian woman he didn’t recognize, were shooting wildly into the attackers with little effect. Calder drew his machete. Someone slumped over a stand of human equipment swayed back to their feet. It appeared to be Professor Sebba, but she was slicked in the same black machine substrate that covered the cavern, her face hidden beneath the throbbing ooze. The mess congealed around her skull, shifting, forming a helmet-shaped layer. As Calder and his companions appeared haring towards the rise, Sebba began to issue a tinny otherworldly howl, as though her voice was distorted through a voice synthesizer, part human, part raw radio static. The knights halted, their advance paralyzed by the sound. Calder felt his own body tingle at the noise, shivering as though receiving a series of jolting electric shocks. The bearded man swivelled his pistol in their direction and Skrat yanked Calder to the side. ‘Careful, old man, that’s Steel-arm Bowen!’
Professor Sebba raised a hand towards the ceiling, pointing, and her strange new voice vibrated across the cavern. ‘Go!’
‘Lana!’ yelled Calder. ‘Over here.’
‘Keep your distance!’ called the skipper, gawking at the party’s unexpected arrival, a startled look crossing her face before quickly disappearing. ‘Sebba’s been taken over by that skegging gunk.’
‘See it all,’ vibrated Sebba’s voice. ‘Healing me. My world. My ship. My system. I will be preserved.’ Calder looked closer and saw the professor’s chest had been torn open, but the wound was rapidly sealing itself, dark lines crisscrossing across exposed flesh, an invisible hand stitching the bubbling wound shut.
‘And me, witch,’ said Steel-arm Bowen, holding up a palm-sized control unit. ‘Let’s try preserving me. You’re still wearing my fine suicide collar around your neck, and I’ll fry every human cell left in your body unless you clear a passage to take me back to the surface. But first, you can fill your data deck with blueprints of Heezy weaponry. I’ve got a carrier that needs replacing.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ spat Lana. ‘Whatever that thing is, it’s telling us to leave. The world’s energy shield’s down now!’
‘The bitch is right. Let’s just slide void away from this hole,’ begged the Asian woman behind Steel-arm.
‘I want the treasure I’m owed, Cho. The information stored here will make the Invisible Port a dozen times more powerful than the alliance. We’ll rule over an empire of thousands of worlds. Think of it… everything under our dominion!’
Calder and Skrat both disregarded Lana’s orders, edging forward. Steel-arm swung his pistol around at them. ‘Ah, Mister Skrat. And here was me thinking you were skulking away comfortable like, up on the Gravity Rose. Throw your guns down, or I’ll make your skipper dance the thousand volt jig.’
‘I’m all for generating an operating profit, Captain Bowen,’ called Skrat, indicating the ring of stalled machine knights. ‘But this is simply ridiculous.’
Steel-arm thrust the control towards the skipper. ‘Do it!’
Calder and Skrat tossed their rifles to the floor. The only thing they could use them for here was gunning down this pair of armed maniacs. Right now, that seemed like a step forward.
‘Toss your blade, too, boy.’
Calder threw the machete to the ground.
‘Over there, Skrat,’ the pirate commanded, gesturing with his pistol. ‘Stand by Lana, and park your three friends, too.’
Calder and his companions crossed to stand by the skipper. As they passed Professor Sebba’s faceless body, she stepped away from the command console and the ring of machine knights dipped down to one knee, as if in obedience to her body’s every motion.
‘You haven’t learnt to obey my orders any better while you were enjoying the jungle,’ hissed Lana.
Calder shrugged. ‘Maybe you should try stamping one of those suicide collars around my neck. I might jump quicker, then.’
‘That’s the best idea I’ve heard since we arrived here.’
‘Go!’ what was left of Sebba crackled again. There was an element of finality in the professor’s twisted voice that Calder really didn’t want to disregard.
‘I warned you, woman!’ roared Steel-arm at the professor, ‘I just wish there was enough of you left inside there to appreciate a good shot across the bows.’ He reached for the control and sparks flew. What remained of Sebba staggered back, the black helm formed around her head shuddering, spines spiking out as though it was trying to transform into one of the deadly machine knights. Steel-arm roared with cruel laughter. ‘That shock was set on two… unless you want to taste ten, witch, you’ll download the blueprints for the Heezy weaponry the alliance found on Pluto. Do it, or I’ll fry every synapse left in your skull!’
The professor leaned forward, her body rippling with programmable matter. Steel-arm’s cybernetic arm lurched up and over, his steel fist enclosing his flesh fingers, tightening around the collar control unit and crushing his natural hand in one smooth movement. Cho yelled and opened fire in the professor’s direction. The errant artificial arm swerved out from Steel-arm’s shoulder as he screamed in agony, seemingly oblivious to the pirate waving the mess of wh
at was left of his hand in the air. Steel-arm’s cybernetic limb closed around Cho’s neck and lifted her into the air, juddering, her feet scrambling desperately for purchase on ground that was no longer in reach. The sickening snapping sound of the female pirate’s neck crackled across the mound and her finger tightened in a death rictus around the rifle’s trigger. Steel-arm shuddered as his chest caught a chattering volley of pellets, almost shredded in half, and the corpses of both pirates tumbled to the floor. They lay there; Steel-arm’s cybernetic limb the only thing still alive, fingers drumming the cavern floor. Black ooze flowed off the mound, undulating across the two corpses like a swarm of feeding beetles. Calder nearly choked on the foul stench as both bodies dissolved beneath the alien carpet, flesh absorbed inch by inch until there was nothing left.
Sebba’s body stepped forward. Her hand reached out and felt Calder’s cheek in an oddly human gesture. A fizzing gargle came from the skull. ‘This must be preserved.’
The ex-prince didn’t give a damn for this alien world. It was the crew that mattered to him. Lana. ‘You’re still human?’ said Calder, half a question, half a plea.
‘No!’ It turned to the survivors and raised the flat of its palm out at them. The cavern air turned into a furnace and Calder stumbled back in agony, his vision clouding, trying to reach for Lana’s blurred outline, doubled up in agony. Even Zeno screaming as he staggered through the torture towards the professor’s corrupted body… Momoko moving to assist him. The ring of machine knights closed in, immune to the punishment, protecting Sebba’s possessed form from Zeno and the robot. Both machines were mere toys compared to the knights. Calder collapsed to the floor, half-blacking out, his retina flashing with a light display of pure torment that… was suddenly absent. The floor felt different. Hard and metallic. He glanced up. All the survivors lay sprawled across the bridge of the… Gravity Rose. No doubt about it, arched ribs across the ceiling and the illusion of an exposed view of deep space between each metal curve: the silver spatter of stars; distant wisps of green nebulae and the angry red ball of a dying star.
Polter’s chair twisted around, the navigator’s crab-like shell trembling in surprise at the sudden appearance of the ground party and surviving base personnel.
‘What’s the matter, Mister Polter?’ said Lana, gagging as though she was about to vomit. She picked herself up from the deck. ‘You never seen a millennia-old Heezy matter teleporter in action before?’
‘Revered captain!’
Calder tried to recover his composure as quickly as the skipper before he showed himself up. It appeared as if Sebba might have had more humanity left in her than she’d admitted. His body still tingled with an acid burning sensation, as if every molecule of him had been ripped apart and then glued back together again. Maybe it had. As far as transport mechanisms went, entanglement-assisted instantaneous transmission through N dimensional Hilbert space… aka teleportation… rivalled passing through solid rock for comfort. Frankly, it sucked.
‘Sit-rep, Mister Polter,’ demanded Lana, her command chair hovering down towards her before she took the seat. ‘Skrat, Zeno, positions. Calder, herd that cargo off my damn bridge, then mount up… engineering station.’
‘The Rose is currently breaking selenocentric orbit. There’s a pirate fleet inbound at high c.,’ warbled the navigator. ‘Two carrier-class vessels, six frigates and a missile ship. They have already launched fighters towards Abracadabra. The pirates are seeking to swarm us, interdict our jump points. Our clearest exit position would boost us close to the sun, which appears to be undergoing a runaway nuclear fusion event. I had feared that the creator has turned his eyes away from us... that we were to either to die in a supernova shockwave or at the hands of the Invisible Port’s minions. But your return here! Surely we must survive now?’
‘If we do, it won’t be because of God,’ said Lana. ‘Not unless you’ve got a temple for seat-of-the-pants piloting.’
Cargo off the bridge. Calder finally found an order he could obey, ushering the base’s startled survivors into the care of drones summoned by Zeno. He watched Momoko stomp away down the passage outside, holding tight onto Lento, as if their vessel really was the robot’s home. Momoko acted as if being inside a starship was commonplace, while Lento glanced nervously about as though she’d never seen one before. The robot wasn’t the only one bluffing it. He turned back. Bridge position, this is what you’ve being working for, Calder my lad. As far as initiations to the ship’s command centre went, he might have hoped for a gentler introduction.
Zeno was in one of the chairs, an array of hologram iconography swimming around him. ‘Missiles down and running hot towards us forward of their fighter wings. They must be pretty pissed about losing the Doubtful Quasar. They’re not even trying to take us intact.’
‘The Rose wouldn’t make a good prize vessel anyway,’ said Lana. She turned to Calder. ‘Raise the drive room and tell the chief to prep jump vanes for a barycentre jump.’
Calder gazed across at the skipper as if she had lost her mind. Planning to enter hyperspace this deep inside a system, midway between Abracadabra and its dying sun – otherwise known as the system’s barycentric gravity point? What the hell could go wrong with that? ‘You’re not even attempting to clear the sun’s gravity field?’
‘Read that battle group’s telemetry, your highness, and run the numbers. We’re going to be chased down long before we get close to a real exit point. We’re either jumping heavy or leaving the system as shot-up hull debris riding a supernova shockwave.’
‘Please, revered captain,’ protested Polter, ‘the chances of a stable hyperspace translation in this system’s barycentre point—’
‘—are better than shooting it out with a couple of millions tonnes of fleet-strength military surplus bearing down on us. Lay course for the barycentre and prep for a damn hyperspace transition.’
‘Jump or die,’ muttered Zeno.
Lana nodded. She really was made of steel. Out of the mess on the world below and into one up here with hardly a blink. A woman truly worthy of a prince. But how about an exiled one on his downers? Sadly, not so much, Calder suspected.
‘Damn straight, tin man,’ said Lana
Calder mounted his seat, its nanotech surface automatically flowing around him, the pressure of additional field protection against high acceleration squeezing his body. Projection stalks flowered in front of his head, almost too much information to process lasered directly onto his retina. Normally the engineering position would be vacant, relying on Chief Paopao and his robots – and more lately, Calder as well – to do what needed doing without additional fine-tuning from the bridge. It was a measure of their situation’s desperation that Calder was being drafted into action up here, rather than any promotion, he couldn’t fool himself on that score. There was a good reason you didn’t create a wormhole anywhere close to the gravity well of a system. It was hard enough to create a stable singularity to transit to hyperspace at the best of times. Producing a singularity with the added interference of a system’s worth of fluctuating gravitational mass and hoping to slide void out of said wormhole would be like trying to ski jump a glacier in the middle of an earthquake while a hostile artillery battery rained shells down on you. It was close to suicide, and by being granted the engineering position, Calder had been ordered to measure the dose of poison and make sure they only died a little.
‘Launching the singularity seed now,’ said Lana. ‘Patching its trajectory through to you, Mister Durk. Let’s kick that can down the road all the way to jump.’
‘It’ll be easier if we keep the seeding sphere stationery,’ said Calder. ‘You know, like we normally do.’
‘Sure,’ said Lana. ‘I’ll just establish comms with the pirate king and ask Barcellos if his battle group doesn’t mind giving us a sporting head start. And while we’re about it, maybe you could radio what’s left of the professor back on Abracadabra and get her to postpone re-booting the sun for a couple of days. Or,’ s
he shot him a withering glance, ‘you can deploy jump vanes and set singularity formation for a moving target with a completely predictable course.’
Calder fired up the vanes, tracking the little iron sphere launched ahead of them like a torpedo. He began gravity compression; the sphere’s mass exponentially increasing with every second. Calder ignored the torrent of abuse being e-mailed from the drive room at the back of the ship. Chief Paopao keeping a running commentary, stream-of-consciousness style, about how skegged-up attempting an in-system jump was, and their anaemically slim chances of survival from here on in. Calder hardly noticed. The interference from the system mass was making it close to impossible to create a stable singularity… like fighting to keep an umbrella upright in the middle of a tornado. He felt the buffeting ease slightly as Granny Rose, the ship’s A.I., took up the slack alongside him, working the celestial mechanics of the system mass into the singularity formation in real time – yet another moving target, thanks to the local star vomiting nuclear mass like a tantrum-prone baby swinging toys out of its cot.
‘Sub-munitions are splintering,’ called Skrat. ‘Multiple warheads tracking inbound.’
The steel deck trembled as the Gravity Rose’s point-defence guns laid down a steel wall of rail-gun pellets in front of the missiles, countermeasure decoys launching and arrowing towards the smart munitions, a slight jump from the display field on Calder’s retina as their ECM grid started broadcasting. He could hear the rattle of hydraulic driven-magazines being emptied at twenty thousand rounds a minute even from the field-swaddled protection of his chair.
Skrat winked at Calder from his chair. ‘No sense of tradition, eh? Whatever happened to a warning shot across the bows?’
Calder blinked as the view outside the ship momentarily blacked out, the glare of a prematurely detonating nuclear warhead dwindling away as the vast external field of deep space flickered back into life across the bridge ‘I think that was their warning shot.’
‘All bogeys down,’ called Zeno. ‘Their own nuke vaporized most of the first broadside.’
Red Sun Bleeding Page 15
