“Can you punch through with a message for them?”
“If I did, they would know we know, and where we are.”
City nodded, and her shoulders seemed to straighten. “They’ve probably got all systems control locked out except for the bridge.” She feared that someone on this ship would deploy some kind of lethal gas—but that might have already happened. All they could do is press forward with the plan.
“Affirmative.”
She frowned. “There will be life support ducts that lead to the bridge, but as soon as they realize we already used one, they’ll lock them down.”
“They will not expect a direct approach,” Sir Rupert suddenly joined the conversation. “They do not have the resources to cover all approaches. And they do not believe you can threaten the bridge without OxeroidR. They will focus on him first. He is the most difficult target to bring down.”
OxeroidR nodded. “I could draw them off.”
“But you are the only with the skills to get us onto the bridge,” Kraye pointed out, though reluctantly, or so it seemed to City. “We should stick together.”
“You will slow me down.” A hatch in OxeroidR’s side slid open. He extracted a narrow black box. “Place your hand here,” he directed City
City looked at Kraye, who nodded, so she did, though a bit dubiously.
“It is now keyed to your palm print. You can use it to access the bridge controls.” OxeroidR activated a hatch, revealing a small storage closet. “Wait here for four of your minutes, then make your way to the bridge by the most direct route possible. I will join you when I am able.”
“Oorah,” City said, holding out her fist. OxeroidR curled his digits in and bumped his hand against her.
“Oorah, Sergeant.”
Valyr wanted to look anywhere but at his clone. He knew it was “empty,” but still capable of feeling pain. That thing, the spider, had exposed it to shock them, but it did not know how effective it had been.
It did not know.
He tried to think. It watched Rachel right now. It almost purred its pleasure at her distress.
Because it did not know.
It must not know—and yet. Could the tables be turned? Could the biter be bit?
Did it seem her retching had slowed? Her shoulders heaved as she continued to gag. He dragged his gaze from her to the table with its gory eviscerated meal. At the blood dripping from the spider’s mouth. It seemed as if all its eyes watched Rachel. Her hands supported her—or did they? In the shadows of this section of its lair, it was possible she was slightly off balance. Trying to reach the concealed weapon? Were they still in the compartments? The webbing had searched, and he was not certain but—he had to help her. It was their only chance.
There could not be much time left. The trap was closing, faster than the spider realized. It wasn’t just the incoming ships. If CabeX felt threatened—
He lifted his arms slowly so that the strands would not react against him and started to unlatch his headgear. At first, he did not think he’d caught the spider’s attention, but then he saw the eyes begin to turn his direction…
As if he’d stirred the creature’s curiosity, the lights came up, pushing back the shadows around his head, but not quite reaching Rachel…
Still moving slowly so as not to provoke the wrong reaction from the webs, he lifted his headgear up and off, then tossed it to the side. Only then did he shift so that spider could see his face.
It appeared to rear back. Then it leaned forward. A claw came up and stroked the face of Valyr’s clone. Did the eyes beg him to end it? Horror almost took him to his knees beside Rachel. Indeed, he did not know how he stayed on his feet. Perhaps the webs served a purpose after all…
“Well, well. Good things come to those that wait, it seems. And here I was thinking no further than breakfast.” His gaze went briefly to Rachel, but it seemed unable to keep its attention off Valyr.
So, it knew.
The compact of secrecy tried to tie his tongue, but this creature already knew something. The question was, how much did he know?
“You seek the Urclock.” How far did he dare go? If their fail-safe—or this last bid—backfired, the creature’s deadly game would be disastrous for the universe. His mind rejected the notion that this thing could ever force the formation of the tangram, but—the image of Savlf came to him.
How strong was he? What if the spider offered Rachel’s life for compliance? Or forced him to watch her be tortured—
He swayed but stayed on his feet, digging deep inside to do it. Had he feared the cold sleep? It was nothing compared to this. When the moment came, he must take it. He could not afford to hesitate.
“I seek anything that gives me the power to do what I want, to eat what I want, to use who I need to get more power.” A different claw moved. “My Trozzerd Emitter 3DXZ is almost at full charge. It will destroy the Najer and those puny little ships around it. I’ll take the outpost on this planet, and then this galaxy will be mine as well. And yes I will form the tangram and take it all.”
He snapped the pinchers of his claws together.
“As you have learned, I see everything. I know everything.”
“Not everything,” Rachel said, rising to her feet and dragging an arm across her mouth. Her face was a white moon in the shadow cast by the pool of light over the spider.
“And what don’t I know?” He sounded amused as if he humored a child.
“My firing range score.” She lifted her arm and fired her weapon. Firing first at the strands of web reaching toward her, cutting through them like an avenging scythe. The strands dropped but more reached for her. She focused on priorities first. In a rolling dive, she avoided the strands and aimed at the spider.
Eyes first.
The spider screamed as the rays from her two weapons burned into his opticals.
Valyr struggled with the web, saw Rachel swivel briefly and cut through the strands above him, then she turned back to the spider.
He dropped, fumbling to reach both weapons, and saw new strands reaching for Rachel. He fired through them, where they connected to the ceiling, then turned to the spider, too. Rachel was slicing off legs, so he helped with that.
As he fired at twitching legs, he saw the eyes of his clone. He lifted one weapon to his forehead in a mute salute, then fired at it once, twice more, until life faded from the eyes.
The spider’s mouth still snarled and together they fired over and over and over into that maw, even when it had quit moving.
He stopped, but Rachel didn’t.
“Rachel. Rachel.” He shoved one weapon in an empty holster and grabbed her shoulder.
She ceased, lowering one weapon, then the other to her sides. Her shoulders slumped as her chest heaved. The room was filled with the smell of burned…creature. Singed cobweb, he supposed, and the acrid smell of the contents from her stomach. It was, he decided, the smell he preferred, even though it made his stomach lurch.
He lifted an arm and swiped at the sweat on his forehead. Rachel began to pull cobwebs off her arms and legs, using her ray gun when it didn’t want to go.
“How—” He did not know how to ask.
“Physics,” she said, wearily. “I said I could shoot, but no one ever believes me.”
And then a red light began to pulse near the dead spider’s body.
“Oh, crap.”
“Spider fail-safe,” he said.
City turned off her heads-up display. It was distracting. And wrong. She did not want to react to the wrong data. Motion and heat detectors were still on, but mostly she trusted her senses and her instincts as she followed Kraye through dark and silent passageways. The only thing that could have been worse, she decided, was doing this on the ship with the spider.
The crew were either confident of their ability to deal with OxeroidR, or they were all heading into a trap. It was not a cheerful thought, but opportunities to excel didn’t tend to revolve around cheerful.
They paused at the last corner, the last corridor to the bridge, their backs somewhat pressed against the wall, so she didn’t smash the parrots, while they regrouped and—at least her case—strained to hear any echoing fire from OxeroidR’s distraction.
After emerging from their hiding place, they’d heard the echo of exchanged fire for a couple of decks, but now the silence was intense. Ominous. If the crew had overcome the robot, this was probably the most futile thing they could do. But it was their only option.
The parrot eased up. “Let me see.”
See. What did he see when he looked? She eased forward, her weapon first and got a look for both of them.
Only the red glow of the emergency lighting as far as she could tell. No movement.
“Proceed now,” the parrot said, the first hint of urgency in his voice.
City ran forward, with Kraye watching their backs. She pulled out the black box OxeroidR had given her. She pushed it against the control panel next to the door, putting her hand in the same place she had before. Cables snaked out of it, driving into the control panel. Lights flashed. The box fell back in her hand. Smoke flowed from the holes in the control panel. She stuffed the box back in a compartment in her suit and readied her weapon.
“You take that side,” she ordered Kraye. “When the hatch opens, start firing in the center, then you move right, and I’ll move left. Shoot anything that moves.”
They had no clue how many were on the bridge, or if they could take control without OxeroidR. But she was a Marine. She’d try or die. Oorah.
CabeX lifted his arm to punch his device into the controls when lights began to pulse in the corridor. A harsh voice blared a warning.
Self Destruct.
Either Xaddek was dead, or he’d activated it as a last way to pressure the humans into surrender. If he had to choose, he would say that Xaddek had been neutralized and the self-destruct had activated upon his death. He had more ways than a self-destruct to impose his will. He felt pulled to help them, but…
In chaos, there might be opportunity. He punched into the control, felt the jolt as the virus tried to make entry. But the protections the two humans had added to his kept it at bay.
For now.
If there was hope, it would be more optimal not to explode.
20
Of course, the spider had a dead bug’s switch. The stink had been bad before they shot everything up, but now…well, her vomit was the best smelling thing in there. Which just showed how bad her red shirt day had gotten.
Rachel tried her comms. “Comms are still down,” she said tersely, trying to make her legs take her toward the flashing red. By the dead spider. And his supper.
Valyr touched the wall. “Something about this room blocks signal.”
But they’d had signal until—she looked up, saw the strands still holding her ray rifle and trimmed the stands away with her smaller gun. It tumbled free, falling at her feet. She picked it up, spun around, and fired at the doorway.
“Wait—” Valyr started to say.
But the third shot punched through.
She looked at him, possibly a little startled by herself. “I suppose we can’t do that to his controls?”
He shook his head, and to her surprise chuckled. It was a weak sauce one, but still a real chuckle. He went over and picked up his headgear, fitting it back on. He lifted the visor’s light shield, so she could see his face. It was a good precaution. The self-destruct could be poison gas, not a boom.
Rachel looked for and found her headgear. She pulled it on and heard him trying to contact Bangle.
“Bangle?”
I am here.
She sounded surprised.
Your Marines have retreated to the ships and locked down access, but there is no sign of activity in engineering yet. The Beugrimt Seeker 55THT has already fired, and the Trozzerd Emitter 3DXZ will fire soon. It—
“I know. The spider explained it before we shot him,” Rachel said, exchanging a glance with Valyr.
“We need to access the spider’s systems.” After a brief hesitation, Valyr approached the bodies. She saw his shoulders tense, and then he lifted his hand gun, flipping the setting higher. He fired at it until the body vaporized.
If Rachel had had anything left to hurl, she would have. She did gag again. Then she stalked to the side opposite Valyr. If she was going to gag anyway, she might as well help. Together, they heaved the spider carcass up on the table, then over to the other side and out of their way. There was no chair to sit on, so he crouched in front of the controls, studying them.
They were like nothing she’d ever seen. She extracted her tablet. “Bangle, can you see a way in?”
For a minute, she thought they’d lost her again, but then the blue stream started to move out from the tablet and across her hands. Like a stream of bugs, it overran her hands and went down into the control console.
The hatch slid open. Kraye leaned out from the protection of the wall, firing at anything that moved in the center of the bridge. And possibly some things that did not move. The sergeant moved, too, in synch with him as if something connected them. As they shifted fire to cover the rest of the room, their energy beams crossed, flaring brightly for several seconds.
Then they both leaned back, shoulders propped against the wall. She met his gaze briefly, then dove into the room, her sitting roll protecting the parrot, but also setting her so she could provide covering fire for him. He jumped in, opting for the high fire position. When he could find no more targets, he ceased firing, the sergeant’s weapon going quiet just after his.
Some smoke drifted in their air from their hits on “other” than moving targets. Alerts pulsed on all sides. Bodies lay slumped across consoles and were sprawled on the floor. He started to step forward.
“Careful,” Sergeant City cautioned, rising to her feet with a fluidity that was remarkable while wearing the body armor and a parrot. She walked forward, moving her weapon from side to side as she applied more stun fire to each of the slumped bodies. He saw something move to the right and fired, the not so stunned crewman dropping to the floor.
He might be in love, he decided, as she made her way to the most promising console. A pity they were probably still going to die. She extracted the black box once more and applied it to this console. Cabling snaked out and plunged into the console, not unlike a spider, he thought, not altogether happy with that thought.
He continued his survey of the room, firing a shot at one more crewman faking unconsciousness.
“Can you read this?” she asked, with a frustrated look in his direction. The parrot peeked over her shoulder. Before he could reach her side, it spoke.
“The other ship is charging a nova cannon. The Najer and the squadron will be destroyed if it can not be disabled or destroyed before reaching a full charge.” He hopped out onto the sergeant’s shoulder. “If it is destroyed the blast radius will destroy this ship, too.”
“What’s the bad news?” she muttered, looking at the controls. She got an arrested expression.
Kraye got it at the same time she did. They spoke almost on top of each other.
“The comet drive!”
“Is this ship’s engine still tied into the other ship’s engine?”
He bent over the controls. For a moment he felt the hope reflected in her eyes, then it faded.
“We need OxeroidR.”
The parrot moved down until he was on her arm, studying the console. “You must press exactly where I tell you. And you must hurry. Time is short.”
Savlf heard the self-destruct alarms blaring as the door of her prison burst open. She’d never seen the robots that Xaddek lusted to control, but she knew this was one.
Massive, dull metal black except for the red glow of eyes in the plated face, his arms bristled with weapons where hands should be. She’d chosen the correct champion.
It was pleased her to know he’d come, even if it were too late for both of them.
Though she
could not see the poison tracing through the web toward what was left of her human body, she felt it.
“Thank you,” she said, not sure if her connection to the computer still existed until her voice sounded in the room.
He lifted an arm, red energy a steady stream that sliced through the surrounding web with careful precision. She fell forward into a metal embrace. Felt the ice in the air driving into her body.
Shock.
It had been too swift, but it was better this way.
“Thank you,” she said with her own voice this time. Her head fell back as the dark, and the cold closed in over her free head.
Free…
“Do we know how long we have before it goes boom?” Rachel asked.
Valyr heard her, saw her through the cleansing blue streams flowing from Bangle via her tablet. They needed the buffer. The spider’s systems were as evil as the spider. Inside, even with Bangle’s help, he felt it sting and burn his mind. In the same way, they’d made their way to this place, they must find their way to a central control through webs of traps and snares.
“I do not know this timing,” he admitted, even as hands and brains fought digital monsters.
“Maybe that’s just as well,” she muttered. “I’m trying to get to the weapons control if you can work on the self-destruct?”
“You will need to use all speed,” he muttered as a digital monster lashed out. He felt the blow as if it were physical. “It is almost charged.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blue line fighting for entry.
“What is that?” he asked, as much to himself as to Rachel. Neither needed the distraction.
“Can you tell what it is, Bangle?” Rachel asked. She sounded breathless, too.
As if their thoughts created the battle, he saw her “firing” a “weapon.”
“It’s like a flipping video game,” she panted.
A game? He shifted his thinking and what he saw changed. Even though the blows felt real, it was an illusion.
Lost Valyr: Project Enterprise 7 Page 27
