Escape Velocity

by Jason M. Hough

  The result was like two energy-based mini-guns. The very air vibrated with the constant pulse. Shoot, stop, shoot, stop. The flashes of light were infinitesimal in duration, but no less effective. Any Scipio caught in their path was just as dead. Pulverized as if hit by machine-gun fire rather than the smooth slice of a heat blade, but death was death.

  “Now for the fun part,” Prumble said. Then he roared, like a rabid bear, shouting “Everybody die!” as he plowed forward. Not running, Sam realized, but propelling himself on the thrusters in his boots. Prumble lowered a shoulder and slammed into the barricade at 80 klicks an hour or more. The whole thing exploded. Chunks of shattered wall flew off in all directions, along with the cartwheeling bodies of their enemy. Prumble, at the far end of the hall now, landed in a tucked ball, rolling several times until he came to a stop. At which point he stood, turned, dusted off his suit, and started back. No thrusters this time. Just his heavy steps and enraged posture. To the Scipios, who stood barely more than a meter tall, he must look a giant. Prumble stepped up to the first one and swung one fist up and over in a high arc, then straight down onto the top of the poor alien’s head. Sam winced as the thing’s skull caved and the creature went down.

  But Prumble wasn’t done. He kept his swing going, opening his hand. He picked up the Scipio by the scruff of its neck and swung it like a bat—which, considering their batlike appearance, Sam found distantly amusing. This did little physical damage to their ranks, but the psychological effect was, it turned out, not unique to human foot soldiers.

  Sam finally snapped out of her initial shock. As the Scipios began to break formation and stumbled over one another to get out of this enraged giant’s murderous path, they backed up toward Sam and Vaughn. She had no idea how he’d changed the way their wrist-cannons fired, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t need to use hers now, their enemy’s numbers thinned so and their mindset fully switched over to “Get the fuck out of here.” Sam pounced, landing a flying kick into the back of the nearest Scipio. It flew forward, arms flailing, right into a well-timed punch by Prumble.

  A bloodbath ensued.

  Sam would feel a little guilty about it later, but in that moment, the chance to unleash pent-up aggression made any such concerns just distant noise. She punched, kicked, clobbered, swung. She twisted necks and heaved limp corpses into the faces of a fresh second wave, breaking their resolve before they’d even had a chance to fire. The Scipios went into full retreat then, as the battle spilled out into the station proper. This station, being at the outermost end of a space elevator, meant the sensation of gravity was all from centrifugal force, the spin of Carthage throwing them ever outward. Being at the level farthest from the planet, effectively the bottom of this station, meant the Scipios could not simply glide away on their wing flaps. Nowhere to go but up.

  They stumbled over one another, running to the railing, climbing it, leaping off to grab the nearest handhold. Up they went and with shocking speed, nimble as monkeys.

  By the time Sam, Vaughn, and Prumble reached the rail, their prey was vanishing into the hazy darkness far above. Sam felt a sudden wave of exhaustion, like a fist of its own. She slumped against the rail and stared up at the disappearing bodies. They leapt, hands and feet nimbly grabbing the nearly invisible divots in the walls, until darkness had almost swallowed them.

  She watched them go, deciding pursuit was not required. They’d gotten the message. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Sam said to the last of the vanishing bodies.

  Vaughn and Prumble took it upon themselves to make a circuit of this bottommost level of the station, each moving off in a different direction and passing each other on the opposite side. Sam watched them, feeling numb. Tania joined her at the railing. The scientist gazed up into the darkness and said mildly, “I’m afraid.”

  Sam looked at her. “You’re afraid? Why? They’re the ones who just got their asses handed to them. You should be…okay, maybe not happy, but emboldened.”

  “I’m afraid,” Tania repeated, “we may have just let them know what they’re truly up against.”

  “If you’re saying we should have held back, well, fuck that—”

  “No,” Tania said, shaking her head. “You all did, well, what you’re good at. I can’t fault you. I just have a feeling we’ve been an unknown up until this point. They might not have even truly realized we were here until this confrontation.”

  “Their welcoming committee were a bunch of hacks. I noticed that,” Prumble said, returning from his search of the level. “This place is a ghost town now, by the way.”

  “A bunch of hacks,” Tania repeated. “Yes. That’s what I mean. But this time they were waiting, at least. They’re beginning to recognize what’s happened, I think. They know they have intruders in their midst. And now they know their virus ‘spray’ is ineffective against us.”

  “That may be the only weapon they’re trained to use,” Vaughn mused.

  “Exactly,” Tania said. “We have to assume that they’re now considering other tactics. We know they have them. Compare this response with the efficiency and competence of the swarmers that bored into the Chameleon and fought us there.”

  “Night and day,” Sam said. “Are you saying they had all their best soldiers out there, on the front lines, so to speak?” She gestured vaguely at the space beyond this station, where the distant Swarm Blockade had converged on Eve thanks to the unfortunate arrival of the ship from Earth.

  “It’s a theory,” Tania said. “Best I’ve got. The point is, we know they’re more capable than this, and sooner or later they’ll come at us with something more”—she nodded toward Sam’s wrists—“appropriate to our defenses.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Vaughn said.

  Tania gave a wan smile. “Let’s hope so. Honestly, I’m worried they’ll just disconnect this whole station and let it, and us, drift off into space.”

  That gave the man pause.

  “Prumble,” Sam asked, “can you show us how you turned your fists into Gatling guns?”

  “Is the interface not intuitive?” he asked, only half-serious.

  Sam rolled her eyes and then listened closely as he ran the group through the menu options within their visor displays. He and Eve had actually included four firing modes: beam, rapid-fire, single shot, and shotgun. This last made Sam want to simultaneously hug the big man as well as punch him in the face. “Shotgun?! You didn’t think to tell me about this?”

  “I thought you’d just elected not to use it!”

  “Goddammit, Prumble.”

  “Hey. A little gratitude would be appreciated.”

  Sam narrowed her eyes at him, then let out the grin she’d been trying to hide. “Thanks, you magnificent bastard.”

  “De nada. But listen, the shotgun firing rate is not so good. It has to cool down for a few seconds between shots.”

  She picked the option, anyway. Disadvantage or not, it was too tempting. She’d scored thousands of subhuman kills with her old sawed-off back on Earth. Selecting the shotgun mode now made all this somehow feel right. “Let’s go find something to practice on.”

  —

  Sam took point. She heeded Tania’s sobering advice, forcing herself to take their opponent just as seriously despite what had happened back at the docking tube.

  As a group, they agreed not to pursue the enemies into the dark levels farther up the station’s central spine. It smelled a little too much like a trap. Instead Sam led them on a winding path around the circular access hall, staying near the railing so that she could see anything coming down at them. Prumble matched her, but at the outer wall, in case any Scipios came out of one of the many doors along its length.

  “Tim, do you read?” she asked, when they’d already ascended two levels.

  “It’s cutting in and out, but I’ve been listening.”

  “Status down there?”

  A pause. “I’m trying to figure out how to enable a radar or something like that. Their interfac
e is, well, alien, and I suspect this map view is only going to inform me about—”

  Sam let him prattle on. The gist was clear. He was bored, he was ready to leave and looking for any reason to do so. She suspected if Tania had remained behind with him, he might have spent all this time talking her into an early departure. He might even go as far as forcefully leaving, given his behavior of late. But with Tania here, she thought he’d wait. In fact, she counted on it.

  Sam realized he’d stopped talking. “Sounds good. We’re going silent for a bit.”

  “Understood. Um. Godspeed.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  She left her link open, setting it to receive only after instructing her companions to do the same. Their transmissions were hopefully indecipherable to the Scipios, but giving away location via their emissions was still very much possible. She wanted the element of surprise.

  Four levels up and still no contacts.

  That was when the power was cut.

  Absolute darkness consumed them. Sam saw nothing save the red lights inside the helmets of her friends. She flipped her lamp on immediately, as did Vaughn. It took Prumble and Tania a few seconds to get over the shock of their new circumstances and do the same.

  “Something’s happening,” Tim said, voice garbled now by distance and other interference.

  “What is it?” Sam asked, enabling her transmitter.

  “Incoming ships. Lots…them. Converg…level.”

  “Say again?”

  “Converging on the planetside,” he said, and then it was all static.

  “They’re jamming his signal,” Sam said to the others. “I think. Could just be distance. Interference.”

  “We should get back there,” Tania said, enabling her own transmitter. “He might need us.”

  “Negative,” she replied. “He said they were converging on the planetside level. Covering the evacuation of the others, I’ll bet.”

  Tania’s face pinched in concentration. “But without a way to contact him, we won’t know if he has to leave. We’d lose our way out of here.”

  “A risk we’ll have to take,” Vaughn put in. “Besides, I think we all knew coming in here that the likelihood of making it back out again was slim. We’ve got a chance to do something here, so let’s do it. Tim’s a big boy, if he needs to leave, fine.”

  Sam looked to Prumble. He nodded once, agreeing. Tania did, too, though not before some serious weighing of her options. A mental debate Samantha could only imagine. It was, ultimately, a decision to die. She wondered if Tania would have made that decision if here alone, or if it was enabled only by the peer pressure of those around her, but in the end, what difference did it make? She’d nodded, and that was good enough.

  “Let’s keep going, then,” Sam said, “and see what they’ve got waiting for us up there.”

  “Direct approach?” Vaughn asked, a hint of pleading in his voice.

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “That sounds good to me.”

  Before Tania or Prumble could object, Sam jumped up onto the nearest railing and ignited the thrusters in her boots. She rocketed into the central tube of the station and powered upward at maximum speed. As she flew, she cranked the lamp built into her helmet to maximum brightness. She hoped the red hue, viewed from above, would look intimidating. A demon rising from the depths of hell, if they were bothered by that kind of thing.

  Sam saw the ceiling and veered to one side, powering over the railing of the last level and turning in a fluid motion to avoid collision with the wall. She flew a circuit of the ring hallway at speed, shotgun-augmented fists held out before her.

  No takers to the invitation, though. Disappointment hit her as she reached her starting position. Vaughn and Tania waited. Prumble crested the rail and joined them as Sam arrived. “Now what?” the big man asked.

  “Pick a door, I guess,” Sam said. She moved to one. Unsurprisingly, it did not open at her approach. Sam raised an arm, happy for the opportunity to try out her shotgun mode.

  “Hold on,” Tania said. “Look here.”

  Sam turned. The scientist had walked several meters down the hall toward another door. “What is it?” Sam asked, moving that way.

  Tania gestured at the ground. “Footprints,” she said.

  Oldest mistake in the book, Sam thought as she studied the floor. Sure enough, the Scipios had all piled into the same chamber, and their constant dust storm of virus gunk had betrayed them mightily this time. Little markings from their oddly shaped feet were everywhere, all converging on this one place.

  “Adjustments,” Tania whispered.

  “Huh?”

  She pointed. Signage on the wall. Sam’s visor translated it into the same word. ADJUSTMENTS. “Interesting. Let’s see what they’ve—”

  A yellow flash lit the level from behind, throwing Sam’s shadow across the wide door that led into Adjustments. She dove to one side, rolling, and came up to a knee with one fist raised. Two more blasts joined the first, leaving three gaping holes through the walls at roughly equal positions around the circular level. One to Sam’s left, one right, and the last directly ahead.

  She saw the first object push through and recognized it instantly. “Swarmers,” she growled. Armored deep-space vessels, each encasing a Scipio pilot. So, they’d finally caught up. Or maybe the Scipios had some here, in-system, and had finally decided the situation warranted dispatching them.

  The spherical bulk wormed through the hole, clawing its way inside, spreading segmented tentacle limbs like some kind of robotic octopus. Two of its pincerlike hands gripped the railing before it and it heaved itself toward the intruders.

  “Spread out!” Sam yelled, darting to her left. She let loose a blast from her reconfigured arm and winced. The energy release whited out her vision. Her arm recoiled backward as if she’d fired a .44 Magnum with a novice’s stance. A shower-spray cone of white glow tore through the air and the enemy alike. The swarmer’s momentum did not change, but all across its surface a series of little black punctures were left as the blast ripped through it. Eruptions of sparks and debris exited its opposite side, smashing into the floor and walls with a rhythmic pummeling noise.

  The swarmer pitched forward, lifeless, skidding to a stop as its bulk slammed into the low wall that ringed the interior of the space.

  Another barreled in behind it, undaunted by the carnage that befell its comrade. Sam took aim only to have her arm knocked aside by a tentacle that slapped with blinding speed. Pain lanced up her arm. Before she could recover another tentacle punched inward, striking her full in the chest and sending her flying backward. Her spine erupted in agony as she slammed into the wall behind. Her suit’s armor couldn’t help her when it was her own body sloshing about inside it that brought the pain. Stars exploded before her eyes. She fell to her knees, gasping. “I guess playtime’s over,” she muttered at the floor.

  Sam glanced up. She fixed her eyes on the one who’d just knocked her backward. She had a vague awareness of Prumble, Vaughn, and Tania all embroiled in combat around her, but Sam’s gaze locked on the enemy in front of her. It vaulted the low wall easily and came at her, tentacles whipping about like enraged snakes. She raised one arm and let loose a shotgun blast. Black pockmarks. Slag ejecta. Another fallen foe. Now two more took the place of the dead, one to either side. They both spread out, placing her between them.

  Sam tried to fire at one only to have her suit bleat at her about cooldown requirements. Okay, fine. She used her other arm. The spit of energy tore at the very air and eviscerated the encased foe. But that left its friend on the opposite side. Sam whirled. Mortar? No, the damn thing was right on top of her. She powered her boots to lift her away, over the enemy she’d just slain. Behind, it was only smoke and chaos, but she wasn’t looking, anyway. She moved backward, keeping her eyes on the nearest foe.

  The swarmer climbed atop its fallen comrade and coiled, preparing to pounce. Sam’s suit pinged: cooldown complete. She lifted her right arm and let a blindi
ng storm of energy out. But the alien had adapted. It jumped sideways, digging clawed mechanical hands into the wall and heaving itself closer, going higher, leaping away finally to come in at a downward arc toward Sam’s head. She grimaced, raising an arm in useless defense.

  A beam caught the thing in mid-flight. Melting a hole right through the center of it and continuing to slice until only burning remains landed in little splats and clangs around Sam’s feet.

  She glanced in the direction of the beam and saw Tania perched on the railing, smoke trailing from the weapon on one wrist. “Down!” the woman said.

  Sam needed no more prompting than that. She flattened herself to the floor as Tania unleashed another beam past the space where Sam’s head had just been. Sam turned to see the target, and was surprised to find Tania cutting a hole in the center of a door. “In!” the woman shouted as a human-sized opening fell away. “Prumble, Vaughn, here!”

  Sam gathered her wits and rushed into the opening. Into darkness. She swept the twin cones of her headlamp across a room of indecipherable machinery. No enemies, that was all that mattered. Sam positioned herself behind the opening Tania had made and provided two blasts of covering fire as her three companions found their way to the temporary stronghold. “Anyone see what the signage read?” Prumble asked, the last to join them.

  “ ‘Imprint,’ ” Tania replied. At Prumble’s confused reaction, she shrugged. “Beats me, we just needed to get out of that death trap.”

  “Not arguing!” Prumble shot back, clapping her on the shoulder as he ducked inside and turned to join in their barrage aimed at the few visible Swarm ships. Smoke and licking flames had dropped visibility to nearly nothing out there.

  Sam left them to it and examined the room called Imprint.

  It looked to her like a factory upon entering, but on closer inspection a sense of medical purpose wormed its way into her perception.