Della, Mirra, Nigel and Leland seemed to be settling into their roles in the turrets well, even though Leland's attention was split, and he'd only destroyed one landing pod compared to a total of thirteen between the other two. He was a fair shot when he paid attention. Frost wasn't about to give him grief over watching the status of Spin and her team, though, especially since Boro was on the station.
"Man, if this ship was based on the Clever Dream, I need to fly it someday. This thing manoeuvres like…" Hal was saying, but something interrupted him. "There's something serious coming out of a wormhole close to the planet, on the near side." He highlighted an energy bloom only nine kilometres away from the edge of the planetary shield. "Is that the Triton?"
"No," Frost said, looking at the profile of the ship. Everything in the area was scanning it, "It's reading as the Luminous. The same generation Zhan Class Combat Carrier, but…" Frost shook his head at what he was seeing. The only other time he'd seen a Citadel ship with its transponder showing its affiliation was when one attacked the Haven System. "It's a Citadel ship. Go evasive, I'm going to hit it with a focused scan. The Fleet needs to know what's on that ship."
"Going evasive, but it's going to be harder to blast those boarding pods," Hal warned.
"I know, our people might have to deal with a few more Dasians if we're unlucky, but we'll loop back around."
Hal guided the Sector Jumper into a group of large unmanned cargo vessels and drifting containers near the station. The field of goods and ghost ships was large enough for them to take cover for a long time, the microgravity of each drawing them together like jetsam. "We're good, if anything hits us, I'll be shocked."
"Scanning," Frost said as he watched the results. The scan only lasted a few seconds, but he knew it drew a line through space directly to the Sector Jumper for all to see. Dasian fighters turned in their direction as several high-speed rounds were fired ahead. Hal's manoeuvre spared them. As soon as the scan was finished and the cloaking systems were effective again, he guided the ship in a jagged turn that took them away from the gathering of darkened ships and drifting containers.
The Dasians were still focused on that by the time they were hundreds of kilometres away, thinking that they were hiding in the mess instead of back in clear space, on their way back to the Flesh Tech station. "If we can hold off on firing at the next wave of drop ships until the last second, those fighters will be too entangled in those old wrecks to start looking for us anytime soon."
"Aye," Frost said under his breath, watching the computer interpret the scan results for him. The Zhan Class Citadel ship looked exactly like the Triton on the outside. Shaped like a stingray, it had three large hangars on the underside, and a large gun deck on the dorsal side with dozens of turrets. They were retracted, and the ship's shields were turned up high, but the scanner knew how to see through them. He knew the ship design well enough to see the main differences in the vessel he was inspecting. There were two massive tanks filled with freshwater. One used most of the botanical gallery space, and he couldn't get much detail on what might be inside through the heavy shielding there.
The other tank used the space of two of the main internal hangars, and after a moment, the computer confirmed that they were occupied by a few Geist beings, creatures with telepathic abilities that assisted in orchestrating the crews of Citadel and Sol Defence ships. To his surprise, most of the crew were framework enhanced or framework soldiers. The first type had a similar medical system to his that could deploy armies of nanobots and generate medication from small implants in his femurs and breastbone. Everyone in Haven Fleet had that system. The latter were different. They were more mindless soldiers whose flesh was generated using a framework skeleton. They could be programmed, regenerate faster than any soldier he'd seen, and break down completely then absorb enough ambient energy to regenerate again on command. They were the type of cybernetic army he feared: machines that could live on for centuries with the same potential as any human if they survived long enough. Without performing a deep scan, you couldn't tell that they were frameworks, either.
A section of the planetary shield opened as the Luminous approached, and Frost couldn't believe the position he was in. On one hand, his blood was on the station, and they needed his help. On the other, the resolution to a mystery that bothered him and could be important to the fleet may be resolvable. "Why do they call this system Geist?" he asked under his breath.
"What's that, Sir?" Hal asked.
Frost thought for a moment. It was a choice. His blood, or the Fleet. "Catch up with the Luminous, get us through the opening in that shield," he told Hal.
"The Dasians will land on the station…" Hal started to object.
"That's an order," Frost growled, bringing up the more detailed scanning and tactical system interfaces around the command seat. The small bridge disappeared, leaving him in a bubble of data that showed him the planet, the little that they were able to see through the shield, the wreckage and ships around the station they were already moving away from at speed, and the Luminous. He performed another focused scan on the ship and glanced at the list of new technologies they detected.
After a moment, their cloaking system was fully active again, the Luminous' weapons weren't turning in their direction. The Sector Jumper rushed towards it, leaving the Flesh Tech Station out of weapons' range.
"What are you doing?" Nigel cried from his turret. "I can't hit anything from here! Take us back around!"
"We're investigating something, I'm sure Spin and her team can deal with a few of those bloody Dasians, they made short work of them before."
"That was one boarding pod! If we don't blast whatever that mothership sends, there will be ten of them dropping soldiers in a few minutes! Turn us around!"
Frost muted his nephew's communicator and sealed the bridge doors. They passed the Luminous, Hal giving the massive ship as wide a berth as he could, then slipped under the planetary shield through the opening. Frost shunted as much power to the shields as he could as the ship started atmospheric entry. To most scanners they'd be a fireball for just under a minute, detectable by everyone as much as any meteor entering the atmosphere, no cloaking system could compensate for that.
Their forward shields weathered the heat and friction of entry easily, but, as Frost expected, their aft side was raked by explosive rounds from the Luminous. "You rushed ahead without thinking," he said to Hal. "Next time, make sure you make atmospheric entry behind the ship we're following, not ahead of it."
"Sorry, you should have said something," Hal said over his shoulder as he did his best to evade the hail of rounds. He was mostly sensor-blind, the fire outside may as well have been a hangar door.
"Don't apologize, just learn, lad," Frost said, relieved that they were about to finish entering the atmosphere. "Take us down low as fast as you can, then start calculating a quad drive jump. We're not staying long."
The sensors cleared and Frost was alarmed to see three Uriel fighters just beneath them, each rapid firing missiles. He could reduce the energy level of the shields, leaving them vulnerable but gambling that their cloaking systems would trick the missiles in the few seconds that it took for them to make the distance between launch and their hull, or keep the shields up, hoping that they wouldn't take hull damage.
"Missile lock," the computer announced, showing six missiles accelerating towards them. Hal increased thrust and took the ship into a sharp turn, then straight down. Their automated defence systems fired white energy bursts at the pursuing missiles, destroying four before the remaining two struck them.
Five armoured panels lit up on their aft section, telling Frost that the two missiles struck the same section of shielding one after another in the same place, sending enough shrapnel through to damage their external atmospheric dampening system. Anything that could scan for disturbances in the atmosphere would be able to pick them up during the three hours those armour plates would take to self-repair. If they were in space, it wo
uldn't matter. "Those fighters damaged us just enough," Frost said. "Kill 'em," he marked them for his gunners and watched as they returned fire.
The three Uriel fighters scrambled to evade the streams of rounds that erupted from four of the Sector Jumper's turrets. One took severe shield damage right away, one of its rotary thrusters bursting as it was riddled with high speed explosive shots.
Hal levelled the ship off and fired the main thrusters, putting several kilometres between them and the fighters in seconds. Frost turned their scanners up all the way, making sure their transponder was off as it had been since they arrived in the Geist system. For hundreds of kilometres of ocean, he saw nothing but clouds of algae, microscopic life and plants in the freshwater. There were hundreds of millions of Issyrian remains, abandoned underwater vehicles, and buildings that seemed to grow from the sea bed to pierce the sky, but it was all empty. "What happened here?" he asked himself. Then the computer matched several chemicals found on planet Uumen that were used to aggressively prepare the Issyrian world for quick re-terraforming. They were all Regent Galactic and Order of Eden formulations, with a few new chemical compounds added in. Then, as they passed over the tip of the second largest continent, his sensors detected a cove with a sea gate. Within the cove were thousands of young Geist beings, most of them no longer than one metre. A wave of weapons' fire went up, striking their lower and forward shields, bringing them down to fifty six percent before Hal could react.
"Get us out of here!" Frost said as Hal dropped the ship into the water and forced it into a hairpin turn. Most of the weapons' fire couldn't aim at them, but they were slowing down, superheating the water behind them creating a storm of bubbles and steam in their wake.
"You don't have to tell me! Our exit is almost calculated, did you get what you needed?"
"I hope so, let's get out of here," Frost said. "Good, quick flying there," he added.
The Sector Jumper emerged, their forward shields almost gone thanks to their impact with the water after getting pummelled by energy weapons that the computer recognized as Issyrian defence cannons, and Frost was relieved when the air in front of them split and they accelerated into it. Less than a second later they were back above the planet, headed back to the Flesh Tech facility.
It was a flailing fight to get the shields back in balance, and their cloaking systems working properly again after they'd been submerged in water, entered an atmosphere, and then took a trans-dimensional trip back out.
"We have nineteen, wait, that's twenty-one Dasian fighters turning in our direction, Captain," Hal said, his voice tight. "Can we cloak again? Soon?"
"I'm working on it, lad. The system wasn't made to adjust to this many different conditions in under five minutes, I'm trying to fix our fields manually."
"What? Send me a copy of what you're seeing, maybe I can help from my station," Hal offered.
"Are you a high energy field expert? A cloaking device designer?" Frost said, struggling to balance the shield around the ship and synchronize them with their cloaking field.
"No, but neither are you," Hal replied.
"Concentrate on flying, I'll take care of this," Frost said as he saw the first few Dasian ships come in firing range. Their rotary guns were old, firing metal spikes with crude explosives packed inside, but they'd do damage if enough of them hit their mark.
"Aye, aye," Hal said. "Taking the long way back to the Flesh Tech Station."
A look at the tactical screen showed Frost what he meant. Hal would have to move between several drifting masses of wreckage if their cloaking systems were down, and that would lead him in a broad circle if they wanted to get back within range of the station.
"What the hell are you doing out there?" Boro asked through the communicators. "Shamus, I'm reading three landing parties. Did they get around you, or are you doing something else out there?"
"We're on our way back, hang on, brother," Frost replied, feeling as much urgency as guilt. He knew there would be a reckoning when his brother found out that he took a detour that left their backs undefended.
Forty-Nine
The rush to the main production centre was frenzied, quick and for the first time Spin knew exactly why exoskeletons were limited by their users. She knew the theory, but the synthetic muscles in her suit demonstrated the reality of what happened when they were moving your body and not the other way around. Even though the system was doing most of the work, your own muscles were still moving, you still had to keep up with it, and it allowed her team to move faster than ever, but it was exhausting.
"The trick is to relax, think your way through running instead of moving your legs to do it," Dori said, huffing.
"Easy enough to say, but I can imagine myself running faster than a hover car, but my legs are still moving and I'd probably fall flat on my face the instant I lose control," Boro struggled to explain as he kept up with the group.
"This is amazing, I feel like I could jump a hundred metres," added Spencer, who was in a simpler protective suit without heavy armour, but it still had a muscle layer that worked the same way even though it was thin enough so it wasn't noticeable. "I'm sending the code to open the security doors."
The main security doors leading into the production centre unlocked with a reverberating thud, probably the sound of heavy bars and locks decoupling, Spin thought, and started opening. They were through before the heavy armoured doors finished opening. "Closing them behind us."
"Hurry, those Dasians aren't far behind," Boro said.
Spin rushed up a set of stairs, seeing a sign that read; CONTROL AND MONITORING.
"Wait! Don't go up there," Sophia called after her.
It was too late, she was through the door, and her vision was filled with what she saw on a wall of displays. Some were behind the main control console running the length of a wall, the rest were in front of the console. Her gaze came to rest on a screen close to her marked as Aspen and Larken. They were the spitting image of her and her mate, facing each other as they lay close in bed. They were so well preserved that they could have been sleeping, but the statistics running along the bottom of the display made it clear: they were deceased.
"We wanted to explain what you'd see in the control centre," Sophia said as she and Spencer entered the compartment. "Technicians monitored everything from here, even the control models."
Spin's gaze moved across the displays, finding all but two of them expired, the term that was used for the dead. "Did they all reach end of life except for two?"
"Yes. When the virus infected this station, they were on the verge of fabricating a new line, starting the growth cycle for the new models, but they never got to do it. All the control samples they had were near their end of life because they were made with the first batches of your model, or previous models."
"What about these two? Ashley and Kline?" Spin asked, looking at two who had made a nest of sorts near the main access door to their controlled habitats. Ashley was sitting in a pile of cushions, a packed bag on one side, eating grapes and watching a holographic reality program Spin recognized where they forced twenty-one divorcees to live together in the same home. Kline was sleeping fitfully in a single bed that he'd dragged into the entryway, a holographic woman sitting on the edge of the bed singing soothingly.
"Those are unlimited dolls. They don't have an end of life, they weren't programmed to bond with a manufactured counterpart, and there are still models in service out there so they've kept their control models alive."
"Wait, this place still made dolls with no programmed end of life?" Spin asked, watching the dark-haired Ashley control doll laugh as a holographic couple shouted at each other. She shook her head and popped a grape into her mouth as the argument escalated.
"Yes, they're some of the most expensive because of their longevity, rarity, and most of them don't know they're dolls. They stopped making Ashley's model over twenty-five years ago now. These control models have been in isolation for about thirty-five years or so.
I know Ashley has an operating model with the Granger royal family, but I don't know anything about Kline, no one does. He must have an important operating model somewhere."
"So, they've been living alone, hoping their supplies don't run out since the virus struck?" Spin asked. "Can we let them out?"
"Yes, but their supplies won't run out because an automated garden feeds the station, and yes, we can let them out from here if the Iron Mind's data has their keys," Spencer said. "They're locked in to keep everyone else out, just in case the station gets raided. The control sections are the safest part of the station."
"Hey, Ash, Kline; we're back with a ship," Sophia said, pressing a button on the console.
Ashley turned her holographic program off as though she'd been caught doing something she didn't want people to see and stood up, smiling at the holo-receiver above the door. "I knew you'd be back! Kline kept saying we'd die of depression in here, but I knew it!"
"Is that you, Soph?" Kline asked groggily. "Am I dreaming? I can't believe you softies came back."
"Kline, grab your go bag and get out of there," Sophia replied.
Spin did a search of the data left behind by the Iron Mind using the numbers on the control dolls' containment areas and found the code she needed to unlock them. She entered them into the computer, opening both their doors.
Spin was alarmed at the rushed rescue. The surprise that two of the control models were alive was one thing, but she hadn't checked on how many dolls were still viable on the production floor. She had fifteen extra vacsuits with her bundled up in a bulge pack under her armour, and Boro had another set of fifteen, but that would cram the Sector Jumper to bulging. Besides, some of what Spencer and Sophia told her was already inaccurate, perhaps by omission, but Spin wanted to find out more about the situation before anything else happened.
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