The smaller hatch made a slow glide sideways, and CabeX fired on the visible crew before they noticed the opening appearing so abruptly in the side of their ship. Soundless, they dropped like flies—an appropriate metaphor for a spider ship. He stepped off Golf Sierra Alpha and onto Arachnid X, firing several more shots at out-of-her sight targets.
The Mikes fanned out on either side of him, also moving out of her sight. She followed Valyr off the ship and then stopped to look around, aware of her vital signs updating on one side of her heads-up display. Somewhat absently she was aware a surge of adrenalin had given her an increased awareness of her surroundings, bringing all of it—including all the nasty—into sharp focus.
If she had to compare what she saw to something, it would have been the slave deck on a pirate ship. Rusted. Dirty everything but the engines. They’d need to be well cared for since all their lives depended on them, but otherwise, it was a cesspool of nasty. Perhaps the creepiest part of a lot of disturbing was the spider webs in the corners, casting webbed shadows in places there was light.
She pulled her attention off the cobwebs as the Mikes began securing the prisoners with plastic restraints and duct tape. CabeX stalked to the system control station. It appeared that the surprise was total, which was not a surprise when working with a robot. Besides, why would they expect an attack here and not on the bridge?
They’d discussed doing that, but the robots felt the prisoner had a better chance with a stealth approach. On an op with robots trained to attack and neutralize a target, it was a good idea to take their advice. It was a just pity they couldn’t have the full complement of robots on the ops. Such a huge, freaking pity.
Valyr joined CabeX at the control station, drawing Rachel after him as if she were on a string. As they’d seen in the grainy video, CabeX’s device emerged from his arm and plunged into the top of the panel. It was even more disturbing, oddly violent, to observe in real time.
Rachel pulled out her tablet—and her mobile link with Bangle. The AI had done something to soup it up because it went live as soon as CabeX found a connection for her. Just as it had with the virus, blue streams flowed up her arms and her face, pulling her inside the system. Through the streams, she saw Valyr there was well.
It was much more straightforward than CabeX’s internals had been, though it bore an unsettling resemblance to a spider’s web in the way the systems and sub-systems connected to each other. Like a web, it was built around a center, a core. She had a feeling it wasn’t a place she wanted to go, inside or outside the system. Even in here it was edged with black and red and filled with—
“Traps,” she murmured.
“And alarms,” Valyr agreed.
No one had to tell them to avoid triggering one of them. They moved very lightly through the system looking for the information they needed to know for their next move. Webs were highly sensitive, and she had a feeling these made real spider webs look like pikers.
Outside the blue stream, CabeX was doing his type of digging. “I can not isolate weapons control from this place.”
There wasn’t a single being she could see trussed on the floor that Rachel would have trusted with weapons control, so she was not surprised. She traced this function back to the center of the web, too.
“What’s that?” Rachel asked, directing Valyr to another area with even more traps and alarms. Unlike other parts of the systems, they could find no label for it, and its connections to outside systems was very limited in nature.
Through the blue stream, they stared at each other. Was this where he held his prisoner? Or was it a carefully constructed trap for CabeX?
“Look,” Rachel said. There was one thin black and red line that led back to the dark center of the web. “Only way in is through—”
“The spider’s lair,” Valyr agreed.
CabeX moved silently through the ship, his heads-up display warning him of the approaching crew. It had been a long time since he’d done what used to be a regular occurrence. Though he’d considered it a curse at times, it was optimal right now that he could not forget. With his systems at full camouflage setting, he moved like a purposeful metal ghost, fighting against the sense that he should be the one having a face-to-face meeting with Xaddek. It was a truth that he could not be in two places at one time, though he felt certain that the two humans, Alpha1 and Alpha2, would not survive their meeting with Xaddek.
It was a pity. He was aware of the debt he owed them for his life, but they had made their choice, too. He could respect that and hope they would serve as a diversion for long enough that he could free—or kill—Savlf.
If Xaddek had a kill switch on her cage? Well, he could offer her a swifter death than Xaddek would.
And if Savlf was another trap? He’d learned much from the virus. His self-destruct would activate at the first sign of a system breach. No one—including him—was fast enough to stop it this time.
One way or another he would end the contamination that was Xaddek.
Their big moose of a robot was good. City might be impressed. The crew in engineering dropped like dominos. The last one might have got a whimper or a gasp out, but that was it. Her guys moved forward and quickly secured them with duct tape and plastic restraints. Her weapon still ready, City did a sweep, looking for hiding places or out of sight entry points.
OxeroidR headed for the console, one of his arm weapons turning into something that looked like a claw. He plunged this into the console, at least, that’s what it looked like.
Her Mikes, securing of personnel completed, took up positions that covered the entry points. Kraye, the bird on his shoulder, joined OxeroidR.
A hologram seemed to shoot out of the robot’s chest, data first appearing as streams of blue and red, then slowly forming into a schematic of the ship, at least, that’s what it looked like to her. She moved up to his other side, weapon still pointed at the entry hatch but turned her head so she could study it. Was it her imagination that the bird looked as interested in the data stream is she was?
“Xaddek is not on this ship,” OxeroidR said. He couldn’t sound disappointed, but he managed to telegraph it.
Before City could ask how he knew this, Kraye said, “Xaddek has a central lair on his ship. This ship has a more conventional layout and lacks an identifiable lair.”
Of course, the spider would have a lair.
“There is not a comet drive on this ship,” the bird said.
City blinked. “Then how—”
“This ship’s engines were tied into the other ship’s for the transit,” the robot said.
City considered this, wondering if they could use it somehow. “I guess we can’t access either bridge’s controls from here using that link?”
“That is correct.” The robot red gaze seemed to study her through the data stream. “At least, not from here. Possibly on the bridge, it might be possible.”
“What about the prisoner? Where’s the brig?” Some things she recognized on the schematic, but other sections were generic appearing enough to be anything from crew quarters to storage bays.
Gold lines formed on the schematic, pulsing at both ends of the connecting line.
“Our current position is here.” OxeroidR used a metal digit to indicate one end of the pulse. “This is the brig.” He moved his finger to the end of the line.
“Any indication if our prisoner is being held there?” City asked, her brain beginning the process of memorizing the route and possible alternatives.
“Negative,” the robot said, then added, “Logic dictates it is not.”
“Logic?” City queried.
“The big bug likes to keep his toys close,” Kraye said. “But…”
“He knows we know this. On a venture outside his known space, he may have changed tactics,” the robot agreed.
“So we have to check it out.” It wasn’t a question.
Neither Kraye nor the robot answered her non-question.
“Bangle, can you g
ive us a life signs reading in and around the highlighted path?” City asked.
Bangle obligingly added life signs readings for the whole ship to OxeroidR’s schematic. Traffic patterns looked normal. No sign of agitation or awareness in any of the signatures that anyone knew they were there. Looked about what she’d expect before a major FUBAR. Oh well.
“Corporal, hold this position as long as you can. If you have to withdraw from contact to a defensive position, Bangle will activate the auto-pilot for you and work with you.”
If it weren’t for Bangle, she’d have had to stay here. She was grateful she was not required to send one of her people off with these two. She studied the schematic once more. There was enough crew to give them a decent fight, even with a robot in their corner.
There were days when she wished she didn’t have to excel quite as much.
“Let’s move out,” she ordered, even though the robot was already moving toward the hatch. He lifted his weapon, pointing it at the door. She jumped forward.
“Let’s try the hatch release first, big guy.” She paused and looked at the parrot. “Last chance to stay here.”
The bird ruffled his feathers and moved lower on Kraye’s back, hooking its claws into the body armor, its head barely visible over his shoulder.
Did parrot’s have balls? If they did, this one had some big brass ones.
“Let’s go.” She hit the release and OxeroidR, his weapons deployed in two directions, stepped out and cleared the first corridor like a Marine. She indicated Kraye follow him. “I’ll cover our six.”
She cast a quick look back at her people and got sober nods from all three.
“Oorah, ma’am.” Corporal Burns took a hand off his weapon long enough to give her an abbreviated salute.
Clearly, Rachel had seen too many science fiction movies. It was the only thing that could explain how she’d ended up as the red shirt on a real operation—and yes, she was still wearing the red shirt. It wasn’t like she’d had a wardrobe nearby to change into something not red or a shirt.
So here she was, following Valyr through dimly lit, creepy and disgusting corridor after creepy, cobweb-festooned and rancid corridor. At this point, the only reason she was following him was that she was too afraid to go back to engineering by herself.
It was a crappy time to find out that not only was she afraid of spiders, she was also freaked out by the cobwebs that cling in the upper shadows, lining the corridors and hugging dark corners. The robots had talked about “the spider,” but that was a lot of webbing for just one. Her skin began to crawl, and the feeling of being watched built the closer they got to the possible lair. Had she really thought she could be bad-A when she’d spent her life as sad-A?
Valyr went to move a strand of cobweb out of the way and she stopped him.
“Don’t touch them.” She couldn’t explain why.
Thankfully he didn’t ask. He withdrew his hand and ducked under the drifting strand. How had it found any current in the dank, still silence? Or was it their movement that created its current? She didn’t know that the cobwebs might be able to communicate with the spider, but she didn’t know they couldn’t. That worried her, but she had such a long list of worries, all this one did was make her eye twitch, and her stomach tighten as she eased past it. Weapons ready—she hoped—she turned in a slow circle before trotting to catch up with Valyr.
There was no sign anyone was aware of their presence, but all the parts of her that triggered her “danger, Will Robinson” were screaming warnings.
So far Bangle had been able to keep the data and comms flowing from engineering. According to the Mikes, all was quiet there. She might be coming to like the AI. If they got out of here alive, she’d get her some updated music to play. Rachel hadn’t realized how out of date she was until Bangle started playing it for the Mikes, making even these stoic guys exchange glances.
Rachel had her tablet with her, but Bangle was sending them the data directly to their headsets, so she’d tucked it in a sort of pocket in the upper torso of her suit. Bits of blue data bytes drifted past her eyes, but they didn’t bother her. She was too focused on the creepy stuff, anyway.
They followed a path that took them deeper and deeper toward the dark heart of the ship, but Bangle also steered them around any life signs that appeared along the way.
Rachel wished she’d asked Bangle if it was possible to filter out the smells. Was it the cobwebs that gave the ship the dirt smell? Not a good, freshly turned dirt smell, but dead dirt. Like a graveyard where someone had dug up a corpse. And evil. It smelled evil. Did evil have a smell? The sour-dirty-bodies smell of engineering was not as pungent here, but she had a sense that sweaty, unwashed humans had traversed these corridors fairly recently.
That there were so few of those life signs moving around this ship added to her uneasy, upping her mental castigations to “what the crap were you thinking, girl?” She was supposed to be smart. This was not smart. This was a complete delusion of competence, like when she’d watched HGTV and thought she could remodel her bathroom, but so much worse.
But you can shoot like Annie Oakley, she reminded herself. She started creating equations on how to take the strands of web. It helped.
So did the view of Valyr’s backside. It might be shallow, but right now shallow wasn’t a bad place to be. For a guy who’d been so recently defrosted, he moved well enough to take his place with the Spocks, the Kirks, and the Jedi. Her heart would have pitted and patted for him, except it was busy hammering from a near constant flow of adrenalin.
The smell, the stinky human part of it, faded some as they drew closer and closer to their target zone.
Finally, when it felt like they might be walking in circles, Valyr lifted a fist for her to stop. She angled so she could watch their backs. Didn’t want to assume Bangle could track everything on this ship. The AI couldn’t “see” inside the spider’s lair.
Valyr used the comm, and even then he whispered. “We are here.”
There was no indication in his tone about how he felt about that. He might have been talking about arriving at the grocery store. She would have liked to see his eyes, but it would be a distraction they couldn’t afford, even if the headgear had allowed for gaze sharing.
With her long ray weapon pointed back the way they’d come, and her right shoulder almost touching his left shoulder, she felt her insides steady. She’d been in this emotional place before, even if she’d never been here. She’d faced her first ER shift, the loss of her family, so many situations that were new, or just plain terrifying. If she rode the storm, then the eye would come. It always did.
“Let’s do this.” Her calm matched his. The fear wasn’t gone, but it was simmering on the back burner. She shifted so that her back was almost against the wall, which was not as comforting as it should have been with the cobwebs hanging down. Valyr matched her move as they eased up the hatch that they believed was the last barrier between them and the spider. Neither of them was sure what they’d have to do to get inside, but apparently, they hadn’t needed to worry about that.
It slid open releasing a new level of nasty into the air.
And in the darkness, she saw the eyes. Two lines of eyes. Eight of them glowing yellow from out of deep darkness.
“Please, come in…”
…said the spider to the flies…
“Has anyone else lost comms with the shuttles?” Carey asked. He tried a quick diagnostic while he waited for his question to travel to his flyboys and their answer to travel back to him. Before they could respond, he heard a robotic voice.
“We have also lost communication with Alpha2 and Zulu3.”
He thought the voice was RaptorZ’s, who had argued as forcefully as a walking computer could, that he needed to be on either of the Golf Sierra ships. Carey had a feeling he’d have argued to be on both if that had been possible. He’d lost, not because Carey wouldn’t have liked more badass backup for his people, but because he couldn’t get
to the shuttle without giving away the fact that CabeX wasn’t in fact, going to deliver the Najer into his…claws?
“Are the comms down or—” His diagnostic finished.
Signals are blocked.
Ice did a flow down his back. How could they block their comms if they didn’t know they were here?
It didn’t take a lightbulb to go off in his head. He’d seen Return of the Jedi. The spider could see them. But how—
“The comet drive,” he said. They should have seen that one coming. If the spider had gotten his legs on a Garradian comet drive, then why not a set of Garradian “eyes?” One of the Garradian scanners that could see through a Garradian cloak. But—they couldn’t see ships that were phased cloaked, could they? They’d disappeared off his added-on Garradian scanner when they initiated the phase cloak. Not all the Garradian ships could “see” through a phase cloak. According to the AI Bangle, she could see the phased ships. It might not be a total FUBAR. Just a ninety-five percent FUBAR.
He tried a secure comm to Bangle and got dead space. He’d liked to have deployed some of the swear words he saved up for FUBARs, but there wasn’t time.
He keyed his comms. “Heads up. Arachnids X and Y probably have eyes on us. I repeat, they probably have eyes on us.”
He got the right number of grim “Roger thats” from his squadron, and then RaptorZ broke in again.
“It would be advisable for your squadron to turn back.”
Carey blinked, not sure he’d heard the robot right. “Turn back?”
“Our analysis of Arachnid X is that it is outfitted with a Trozzerd Emitter 3DXZ and a Beugrimt Seeker 55THT.”
The robot couldn’t sound worried, but Carey assumed he was. “And these—what did you call them?”
Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7 Page 24
