Renegades (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Two)

by Dan Worth

  ‘There were so many of them weren’t there?’ she said. ‘I wonder how many escaped in the end?’

  ‘Not very many,’ said Rekkid. ‘Watch this.’

  He panned the view out, clicked another icon, and a livid red dot appeared on the far northern edge of the galaxy. Some alien figures were displayed at the bottom left of the screen, apparently denoting the passage of time. Rekkid selected the dot. As he did so, a document opened on the screen, overlaying the galactic map.

  ‘This document,’ he said. ‘Is one of the ones I discreetly copied. I know, because I checked where the program had retrieved it from. I hadn’t had time to run it through the translation program yet, but it doesn’t matter to this program: it can read them in their native file formats. However I still had to translate the text by sight. It made for quite interesting reading.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It’s a report of an accident investigation. A disease control laboratory experienced a disastrous breach of viral security and a test specimen was released into the environmental systems where it proceeded to kill the entire staff. It also escaped into the atmosphere and killed the entire planet’s population in a very short space of time. By the time the Progenitors were able to respond it had escaped off world. Autopsies of those killed at the lab were undertaken, and they found this:’

  Rekkid scrolled down to reveal a gruesome image, a vile, grub-like, insectile thing covered in gore. Katherine had seen its like before, inside the head of a priest back on Maranos.

  ‘The Shapers,’ she said, as Rekkid rotated the three dimensional image to show the disgusting creature from all angles.

  ‘Got it in one,’ he said. ‘Apparently a dozen of them were discovered on the planet, both in the lab and in the spaceports, as well as in surrounding systems among the dead and at the centre of each outbreak. Now watch:’

  He closed the document and clicked on the icons again, a tide of red began to sweep outwards from that point, engulfing all in its path across the galaxy. The home-world of the Progenitors did not escape.

  ‘There are a very large number of links pointing to other files, but most of them are missing,’ said Rekkid. ‘I presume that the rest lies in the remainder of the collection and that this map is the key to making sense of it, a sort of interactive database and time lapse display if you will.’

  The tide of disease had been slowed as the Progenitors struggled to bring it under control, but it still crept inexorably onwards. By now, other icons were appearing on the map. Systems began changing from the green of the Progenitor empire to a raft of other hues, as the chaos caused by the disease led to rebellion and war. It all seemed to be very well co-ordinated.

  ‘We need to bring this to the attention of Mentith and Haines,’ said Rekkid. ‘I looked at some of these battles, and this program even contains details of the tactics and weaponry that were used against the Progenitors. There’s also details of Progenitor technology that I can’t make head nor tail of, but presumably somebody with the right knowledge can. Even if they try to take this off me, there’s still a copy in those data wafers, so it doesn’t matter if I delete it. But if this falls into the wrong hands…’

  Katherine nodded in agreement.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she said. ‘But first we need to get off this rock.’

  The rushing gases screamed outside the cockpit as Isaacs took the Profit Margin down through the thick, turbulent atmosphere of Rhyolite. The ship bucked and jolted in pockets of gas and sharp updrafts as her captain maintained a death grip on the controls, his expression locked in concentration on the view ahead and the cockpit HUD. Beside him, Anna sat tensely in the co-pilots chair, her hands gripping the armrests until her knuckles turned white, her mouth compressed to thin, grim line. The engines howled.

  ‘You sure about this?’ she asked with trepidation. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to let the computer handle the descent?’

  ‘Easier? Yeah. But it would also have made us easier to see. The computer’s too fucking predictable and we need to cut it much finer. Besides, we’re almost down.’

  As if to illustrate his point, the Profit Margin plunged out of the base of the cloud deck, revealing the hellish landscape of the moon’s surface before them. A system of steep sided hills rose out the land in front of them, their dark valleys filled with rising, yellow mists.

  ‘See?’ said Isaacs as he aimed the ship towards them. ‘Right on the money. Let’s just get a little lower.’

  ‘Head to the right of that peak with the two cinder cones,’ said Anna, pointing as the comm. crackled into life.

  ‘This is Able One,’ said the distorted voice of Maria over the atmospheric interference. ‘We are in position above the base and jamming it. Firing on defences now.’

  ‘Able One this is Charlie. We’re through the cloud deck and on course for the objective. The ride was a little rough but we’re okay. Any response from the Navy?’

  ‘Not yet. Will keep you posted. Able One out.’

  As the range of hills grew to fill the view from the cockpit, Isaacs gripped the controls and took the Profit Margin ever lower towards the rushing terrain below.

  Katherine and Rekkid could hear a siren warbling in the corridor outside. The series of loud bangs that had shaken the room had startled the pair of them. These had been followed by a series of more distant thumps and now amidst a rolling volley of closer, louder explosions the base had finally woken up to whatever was going on and someone had sounded the alarm. They heard running feet in the corridors outside and shouted commands.

  The lights went out suddenly and then came back on as a backup power source kicked in. Katherine looked frantically at Rekkid.

  ‘What the hell do you think is going on!?’ she said nervously. ‘It sounds like we’re being attacked.’

  ‘It would seem so,’ said the Arkari in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘The last time we heard sounds like this was back on Maranos, when the K’Soth flattened the city. Do you remember?’

  ‘How could I forget,’ she replied, wondering how the Arkari could be so calm and shuddered at the memory. ‘But who could be attacking the Navy here? Who even knows about this place?’

  ‘That,’ said Rekkid, ‘is a very good question indeed.’

  A series of rapid, staccato reports sounded from all around them as rail-gun and particle beam batteries began firing back into space, the sonic booms of the hyper-velocity projectiles accompanying the sudden crack of the beam weapons as they each ionised a column of Rhyolite’s sulphurous atmosphere each time they fired.

  Maria saw the return fire on her cockpit sensors and ordered Able squadron to disperse. This far up from the surface of the moon, gravity, the inverse square law and the scattering effect of the moon’s atmosphere were working heavily in her favour. She watched as a particle beam washed harmlessly off one of her wingmen’s shields with no more effect than to make the shell of energy glow slightly. She knew why the crews on the ground were still firing at them though: the energy signatures of the weapons would help to draw attention from any passing friendly ships and the beams themselves were essentially ‘painting’ her ships for all to see.

  The rail-gun rounds were a different matter however. Even though their velocity had been reduced to a few hundred kilometres an hour by the drag of the moon’s gravity they were still capable of damaging the hulls of the corvettes under her command. She tracked a stream of the near invisible slugs as they passed between the ships and drew satisfaction from the sight of another volley of her own kinetic missiles slamming home, silencing another of the gun positions.

  Chen was busy in her office when the call came through from Singh on the bridge. She put down the sheaf of engineering reports she had been perusing and activated her console. The Lieutenant Commander’s voice was accompanied by a real time shot of Rhyolite taken from one of the Churchill’s port side cameras. The winking lights from ships coming and going from Barstow could be seen in the foreground

  �
�Admiral,’ said Singh. ‘I believe I’ve located the site that we were looking for.’

  ‘Good work Mr Singh,’ replied Chen. ‘Show me what you’ve got.’

  ‘Okay. Over the past few hours I’ve monitored a number of Navy and local law enforcement registered vessels coming and going from the surface of the moon. When I tracked them to the surface, or extrapolated back the flight paths of those leaving the planet I discovered that the majority of them were coming or going from a single location.’ To illustrate the point he overlaid a series of trajectory paths onto the image, each appended with a time, ship designation and type. The vast majority radiated from a single point on the surface of the moon as it had rotated over the past few hours. The landing site was now out of view around the limb of the moon.

  ‘Our alien ship?’

  ‘No, it’s a small mining base near the moon’s equator belonging to the Acheson-Cheung Mining Conglomerate. Like most of the mining in this system it’s chiefly concerned with bulk minerals, precious metals and exotics. This puzzled me for a while, although I did wonder whether the ship might lie underground. In the end I used the Churchill’s telescopes to scrutinise the site and I noticed a series of heavy industrial crawlers leaving the mining base and heading eastwards across the volcanic deserts. This piqued my interest so I followed them using infrared and low level radar to pierce the clouds. Then I found this:’

  The real time image of the planet was replaced with a fuzzy view of a domed base, shot at an oblique angle from the Churchill through a gap in the yellowish clouds. A few air and space defence positions could be seen in the foreground against the orange-brown and yellow rocks.

  ‘It isn’t a registered settlement, and I’m pretty sure I saw marines in combat environmental suits patrolling the perimeter. There was no sign of an alien ship, but my guess is that it’s under that protective dome.’

  ‘That has to be it. We have to inform Admiral Haines.’

  ‘Yes Admiral. I’ve saved all the data I collected. Perhaps if I process it some more I can reveal a bit more about the site.’

  ‘That’s excellent work, Commander Singh. We’ll have to deliver this personally; we can’t risk a hypercom transmission.’

  ‘Thank you…. wait a second,’ Singh paused. ‘Ensign Andrews has just informed me that one of our patrols has reported in. Wing Epsilon have just seen a number of ships jump into position above the site.’

  ‘Navy?’

  ‘No… the wing leader reports a number of corvette class vessels of varying types. He reports that judging by their markings that they belong to these Hidden Hand pirates that we’ve been hearing about. They’re assuming an attack posture and there’s a lot of jamming coming from those ships.’ Singh paused again as if listening to another. ‘Admiral, we have confirmation that the pirate vessels are firing kinetic weapons at the site,’ he reported

  ‘Jesus, what the hell is going on down there? Alright Commander, I’m on my way to the bridge. Inform Commander Haldane that I’m ordering him to take the ship out of port and jump to intercept as soon as possible. I don’t care if Cox is running a shadowy operation down there; those are still our people on the surface. Chen out.’

  The door was roughly shoved open by a combat suited figure bearing the label ‘Dobbs’ on its chest. It clutched two other protective garments in its gauntleted fist. The bulbous helmets of the light emergency models hung slackly above their flimsier bodies. In the corridor outside, the figure of the marine guard lay at an angle against the wall. A stream of drool and vomit hung from the man’s mouth. Katherine and Rekkid stared at the apparition.

  The suited figure raised his visor.

  ‘Farouk!’ said Katherine, recognising the man inside the purloined suit. ‘What are you doing here? What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘You’re being rescued, that’s what,’ Farouk replied gruffly. ‘Now hurry: put on these environment suits. We need to get out of here.’ He held out the suits towards them.

  ‘Rescued?’ said Rekkid. ‘Is that what all this is about?’

  As if to illustrate his point, a thunderous explosion shook the room.

  ‘Yes,’ Farouk replied. ‘Assuming my friends don’t manage to kill us in their enthusiasm. Now come on, my brother Ibrahim is waiting for us outside the base. He has our crawler with its engine running. Hopefully we can slip away in the commotion, yes?’

  ‘What about that poor sod out there, did you kill him?’ said Rekkid in an accusatorial tone.

  ‘No, I just stunned him for a while,’ said Farouk and produced a stubby riot control pistol from about his person. ‘He’ll be alright in about ten minutes or so, assuming this place is still standing. My friends intend to destroy the ship you came to see. Rescuing you is a secondary objective, but a vital one nonetheless. You have to come now.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Katherine and grabbed the suits from his hands. Rekkid inspected his sceptically, then they both started to clamber into the slick garments. The form fitting material would provide only the barest protection from Rhyolite’s toxic atmosphere. Any rip in the fragile fabric would be fatal.

  ‘These friends of yours…’ said Rekkid as he wormed his way into the suit, which clung unevenly to his alien frame. ‘I don’t suppose you’d care to tell us who they are?’

  ‘The Hidden Hand.’

  ‘I see… the pirates in this system we’ve heard so much about. What interest are a couple of academics to a bunch of criminals? Not that we don’t appreciate the gesture of course,’ he added hastily.

  ‘We are not exactly pirates and besides, do you really trust the Navy now?’ said Farouk pointedly.

  ‘You have a point there,’ Rekkid replied and fitted the suit’s breathing mask over his face, neatly clipping the apparatus to the hood of the garment to form an airtight seal. Katherine had done likewise.

  ‘Alright,’ said her muffled voice. ‘Let’s go.’

  Outside, the sound of the kinetic rounds falling was much louder. Men and vehicles rushed hither and thither as the troops stationed at the base hurried to their positions. In the confusion, three suited, anonymous figures were able to slip out of the accommodation block unhindered and scurried across the interior of the covered compound. Two of the figures wore more flimsy suits, and hurried along with bags dangling from their gloved hands.

  Farouk led them towards the main entrance at an oblique angle and threaded his way between neat stacks of supply crates, placed in regular rows at the side of the main thoroughfare between the entrance and the point where the road disappeared over the edge of the giant pit containing the ship. Katherine caught a glimpse of the vessel’s dark form against the flashes of the rounds landing outside. It was still watching her, she could feel it. The death of Captain Blake had undoubtedly been a blow to the ship, but it was still alive nonetheless. Blake had merely been a temporary component of the vessel, his death had wounded it, but it would recover from the loss. Katherine could feel its tendrils at the edge of her thoughts.

  Farouk brought them to a halt behind a four metre high stack of crates filled with freeze dried rations.

  ‘Can you feel it?’ said Katherine over the local comm. system that the suits possessed. ‘Can you feel the ship watching us?’

  Farouk nodded then put his finger to the mouthpiece of his suit. Katherine felt foolish: doubtless the suits’ comm. systems would be audible to anyone else within range. He signalled for them to stay put, then walked nonchalantly around the nearest crate stack and disappeared. Katherine and Rekkid stood and looked at each other uneasily for a few moments before he returned and indicated for them to follow him.

  Leaving the cover of the crates they found themselves walking towards the heavy doors of the entrance to the compound. A sole marine private in full combat armour stood guard, his weapon held ready. As Farouk approached with the two archaeologists in tow the man saluted what he took to be Sergeant Dobbs and activated the gate controls. The doors began to slide apart and they stepped through into the ch
aos outside. The doors slid quickly shut behind them as the two guards outside the gate ignored them and watched the pyrotechnics. They were only interested in people coming into the base.

  Almost instantly the choking winds of the thick atmosphere threatened to sweep them off their feet. The three figures leant into the gale as Farouk led them along the road. Once they were out of sight of the gate guards he took them off the road and into the cover of a field of sulphur boulders. The noise was deafening now. The howling of the wind was nothing compared to the thunderous sound of the kinetic rounds landing all around and the constant firing of the base defences. Katherine looked at the nearest patch of ground and saw the yellow dust that adorned every surface jump and shake with every thunderclap of noise. More of the grit swirled in the gale and rattled against the surface of their suits. Farouk pressed them onwards into a small ravine that wound its way between two defence positions now left as smoking, molten craters by the pirate attack. Here the yellow dust lay thick underfoot like snow, whilst the jagged black lava beneath threatened to trip the three of them with every step. A round landed nearby, the impact showering them with grit that poured from the lip of the rocks above. Farouk gestured them onwards. After a few more minutes, as they climbed back up out of the ravine onto the slopes of a low hill, Farouk broke the silence.

  ‘We can talk now. We’re out of immediate range of the local net. My friends took out the main base transmitter whilst we were down in that ravine, so only the suit to suit systems work now.’

  ‘What now?’ said Rekkid. ‘Where’s your brother?’

  ‘Over this hill. Not far. I told him to wait well outside the target area in case one of our people shot at him by mistake.’