She and Perrin had been standing in the doorway gaping in horror for almost thirty seconds when intense gamma wave pulses unexpectedly burst out of the floating orbs.
The natives in the cages melted. In the blink of an eye, all that remained of them were soupy puddles of blood, tissue and bone fragments.
“Ah!” Perrin slapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Every orb spun toward the doorway.
Nika grabbed Perrin’s hand, and they took off running.
She instinctively continued down the hallway rather than retreating the way they’d come. She’d internalized the simex’s mission, and they had a ship to disable.
The kamero filters obscured their movements, but their footfalls weren’t silent. Infrared waves sent by their pursuers washed over them, and she couldn’t say whether or to what extent the cloaking device blocked the scans.
Two Segmenters rushed out of an opening ahead and pivoted their way.
In here!
She veered to the left, still intuitively heading toward the center of the ship, and they ducked inside yet another of the storage rooms-turned labs-turned dissection chambers.
But if they stayed here, a trap would close in around them, much as it had on the natives outside. They needed to move. Luckily, much like in all the rooms they’d seen so far, this one had a matching opening at the far end. Doors didn’t seem to be a concept the Segmenters bothered with.
Slow down and walk quietly.
Another hallway, more rooms. They turned right, then left.
The rooms got even bigger. No longer acting as storage or prisons, they now held equipment. The designs were utterly foreign, and she had no idea what their purposes might be. No Segmenters monitored or used the equipment, yet electrical illumination suggested most of it was operational.
Curiosity got the better of her, and she paused to examine one of the modules. The exterior looked exactly like the hull and walls of the ship. Exactly like each form the Segmenters had taken on. Were they—?
Perrin tugged on her arm before she could chase the thought to its conclusion.
More are coming!
She peeked over her shoulder to see a cadre of orbs and four bipedal Segmenters sweeping the hallway behind them.
This way.
They tiptoed through the next opening.
The next hallway opened up into a circular room at least a hundred meters wide and forty tall. Along the perimeter, stacks of unattended but active equipment filled every available space. In the center of the room, the floor fell away.
From the cavern below, a circular vortex rose up to grasp for an aperture in the ceiling high above it like an inverted tornado. But it never reached its destination, and though Nika’s skin prickled from the electrical charge saturating the air, the vortex appeared to be stable.
What is it?
A power source, I think. For the engine, or possibly the weapon.
She sidled closer to the rim of the cavern and peered down into it.
Be careful!
Bright plasma churned in violent agitation. A thrashing pool of hellfire giving birth to the vortex.
Or was it the other way around? Twenty meters below, electricity leapt from the thrashing plasma to charge an enormous cluster of crystals in the depths of the cavern. The weapon.
Did it run this way all the time, or was it powering up to be used again?
She stepped back and hunted around for anything that looked like a power switch. Okay, obviously not a literal power switch, but something that served the function of a power switch. Some cable she could slice in two or disconnect from a socket; some signal throughput she could disrupt.
A panel nearby caught her attention. Glowing strips running across it pulsed in time with the rhythm of the vortex. She moved in front of it, extended her blade and tried to cut into the frame surrounding one of the strips.
The edge of the blade slid along the metal like a washcloth, and in its wake the metal remained smooth and unmarred. This model of blade could cut through the toughest of metals, but it couldn’t so much as scratch the alien surface.
The room—the whole ship—lurched, and she stumbled backward, toward the cavern. Perrin grabbed her hand and flung her in the opposite direction. They both crashed into a wall packed with equipment, and shrill noises rang through the air.
Are we taking off? Crap, we’ve got to get off the ship!
All the reasons why it was already far too late for escape sprung to mind and were immediately shoved aside as the vortex drastically increased in brilliance. Power bled off it to set her skin afire, and her veins vibrated in resonance with the crystals beneath them.
Cover your eyes!
She squeezed her own eyes shut and flung her arm over her face as she spun away. Even so, searing light flared across the back of her eyelids.
Then everything stilled.
She cautiously lowered her arm. The vortex was gone. Within the confines of the cavern, the plasma evaporated into a mist and faded away. In the absence of the vortex, the room darkened toward the inky blackness that shrouded the rest of the ship.
What had the weapon done to the planet below? They hadn’t passed a single viewport, so there was no way to see, but her imagination helpfully provided a visual of frenzied conflagration consuming everything in its path.
Nika? I tried to cover my eyes with my right arm. It was just instinct. But I couldn’t because of the sling and….
What’s wrong?
I can’t see. At all. I’m blind.
She found herself thankful for the lack of light. Yet she grasped Perrin by the shoulders and looked anyway. Carbon scorch marks ran in jagged rivulets out from Perrin’s eyes, which were now empty cavities.
She swallowed a gasp of horror as sound returned in the form of hurried, heavy footsteps from the hallways behind them.
She took Perrin’s good hand in hers and clasped their fingertips together.
See through me. We have to run.
She took care to glance away, so Perrin’s first sight would not be of her own destroyed eyes.
I’m ready.
They sprinted around the cavern toward the opposite side of the room. She had no destination in mind beyond the briefest safe haven that might be found by way of a hallway beyond.
When they were a meter away from an archway, the wall around it melted and closed off their exit.
She spun around, searching for another way out. Spotted an opening to the left and took off toward it.
Multiple Segmenters entered the room from every entrance. But since there weren’t so many entrances, it was entirely possible they’d materialized out of the walls.
Despite being unfathomable, the true nature of the aliens was now starkly clear to her: no Segmenters tended the plethora of equipment because the equipment tended itself. The ship was the crew.
Dread settled into Nika’s gut. She recognized their situation for what it was. The mobile Segmenters had swept the whole ship, tightening the net room by room. There was no escape.
Twenty or so of the orb Segmenters swept in to circle the perimeter of the room and complete the trap.
With her free hand, Nika retrieved her Glaser from her hip, set it to full strength and fired on the closest orb.
The only sign the energy made contact with the alien was a brief, slight shimmer along its exterior.
She fired on one of the bipedal Segmenters standing watch outside the circle. Same result. The Glaser was of no use against them. Blades were of no use against them. The aliens must have a weakness, but it was not on display here.
The outer shells of the orbs dissolved, stretched out through the air and merged with one another to form a seamless ring around her and Perrin. Along the walls, the various equipment similarly liquefied at the edges, which stretched out to form thin protective layers over themselves. The floor surrounding the cavern and its crystals did the same, a fluid metal expanding across the opening until the cavern was sealed away.
<
br /> I don’t understand what’s happening.
Sorry, Perrin. I think we’re about to lose the challenge.
Nika took a deep breath and picked an orb to stare down in defiance. The small opening at its center burned a dazzling violet—
Nika blinked until the walls of the simex room came into focus. Her heart throbbed against her sternum in time to her pulse hammering against her temples. The panicked memory of a nanosecond of agony slinked off into the shadows, and she gladly let it go.
Not real. A sensory fabrication. Here was real. The cushioned chaise beneath her, the muffled cadence of music leaking through the walls from the dance floor, the gaudy nightclub lighting that cast the room in a pinkish hue.
She disengaged from the interface and sat up.
Beside her, Perrin grumbled as she did the same, then manipulated her right arm around while scowling at it. “It’s not broken any longer, but I swear it still hurts.” She eased off the chaise and retrieved the weave from the small module between them. “Well, that blew. Let’s go try to get our credits refunded.”
“A worthy mission I can get behind.” Nika rubbed at her face, ran her hands through her hair and tweaked various muscles in further efforts to reorient herself to reality. Perrin seemed to be bouncing back with no trouble. Then again, Perrin was a simex aficionado.
Nika had always found them unsettling, bordering on creepy, even the ones far more mundane than terrifying shapeshifting alien invasions. Probably something to do with the gaping emptiness in her mind where her past should be.
Pounding music and strobing lights assaulted them as they made their way out of the simex wing and into the main area. Gods, did she have a headache.
Perrin strode up to the man working the simex kiosk in a huff. “We were given a broken simex. We want a refund.”
The man smiled politely. “What was broken about it?”
“The exit command didn’t work. We couldn’t get out until the aliens killed us.”
“Aliens? Can I see the weave?”
Perrin glared at him suspiciously as she handed it over.
He studied the identifying markings on the front, then checked the other side as well. “Nice try. This isn’t one of our weaves. Also, we don’t currently offer any simexes involving aliens killing people.”
Nika stepped up beside Perrin. “We’re not trying to scam you. One of your employees approached us to push the simex. He took us into the simex suites, loaded it into one of your interface feeds and activated it.”
“What was his name?”
“Um…Darien something.”
“Nobody by that name works here. If you’re not scamming me, you got scammed yourselves.”
“Fucking fuck….” Perrin groaned melodramatically. “Why would anybody go to all that trouble for a few lousy credits? Oh, never mind!” She spun around and pushed Nika toward the bar. “Come on. I need so many drinks right now.”
Nika paused long enough to wave an acknowledgement of the man’s perfunctory apology then followed Perrin—
Remember this. When the time comes, you must remember what you have seen.
She pulled up sharply and looked around. Everyone in the vicinity was paying her no mind. No one watched her meaningfully or scurried away into the crowd. She checked her comm system, but no message had come in through the nex web from any external source. There was no record of any message at all.
On discovering she was alone, Perrin reversed course and came back for her. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Someone said, or transmitted, that I needed to remember what I’d seen. When the time came.”
Perrin snorted. “Remember it? Hells, no. I’m erasing the memory of it forever the instant we get back to The Chalet.”
34
* * *
WAYFARER
Gennisi Galaxy, Northwest Quadrant
DASHIEL STUDIED HER SILENTLY, but it wasn’t a stare of incredulity or disbelief. Instead, she could almost see the investigative algorithms churning away behind his analytical eyes.
“Someone targeted you three years ago. They knew you had once been Nika Kirumase, and they wanted you to comprehend the nature and extent of the threat the Rasu represented.”
“Why do they need to have known who I used to be?”
“Because five years ago, you were on the verge of discovering what the Guides were hiding about the Rasu, and you got psyche-wiped for it. The fact that you were already hunting the Rasu—even if you didn’t yet understand that was what you were doing—is the only logical reason for a stranger to choose you for receipt of this information.”
Was it? It qualified as the height of egotism for her to presume there was any more consequential reason. “Wouldn’t this mean someone in the government—an agent for the Guides—was tracking me all along? Ever since the psyche-wipe? Because that doesn’t make any sense. If they knew who and where I was, they’d have known what I was doing. They would’ve crushed NOIR out of existence the instant we began to cause trouble.”
“You would think. But maybe it wasn’t someone working for the Guides.”
“Who else could it be?”
He eyed her speculatively; he really seemed to be enjoying trying to unravel the mystery, though it mostly frustrated her. “Evidently, someone in possession of a great deal more information about the Rasu than we have. Enough to be able to track them and capture details of their invasions then craft a virtual scenario modeled after one of those invasions.”
“In the absence of the Guides’ technology and resources, I don’t see how that can be any Asterion. A Taiyok? They can field the stealth tech needed to track a ship unseen, but I don’t think they have engines powerful enough to keep up with a Rasu vessel. And while they aren’t the friendliest of species, they are our allies. If they possessed this kind of information on the enemy, they wouldn’t share it with me. They’d share it with the Guides.”
“Don’t be so sure. You were our ambassador. You had their trust, which is far more important to most Taiyoks than governmental hierarchies.”
The memory of her meeting with the Elder, so impossibly long ago, rushed back into her mind in full living color. “Maybe. But they’d never deliver this intel via a simex. They don’t use them, they don’t understand how to create them. They’d just show me whatever footage they’d captured and take their leave.”
She sighed wearily. Retelling the story had in some ways been nearly as exhausting as experiencing it. “But who, then? We’re running out of available suspects.”
“The voice you heard…you said it didn’t originate from any nex address?”
“Not only that—it didn’t originate from within the nex framework at all. It was, quite literally, a disembodied voice in my head. And do not ask me if I was freaked out by the simex and imagined it. I was absolutely freaked out by the simex, but I know the difference.”
“I take you at your word. But then what you’re describing sounds like a telepathic communication.”
She spread her arms in an exaggerated shrug by way of non-answer.
Dashiel stood and went to get a glass of water. Halfway back to the couch, he stopped. “The Sogain?”
“The Sogain aren’t our friends. They might as well be our enemies. We have zero ongoing relations with them and no way to start a dialog. Two hundred thousand years ago, they threatened to disintegrate us into space dust if we so much as approached their stellar system ever again, and proved they could make good on the threat.”
“Which means they arguably have the technology to explain your experience.”
“But not why they would care enough to arrange it. Or why they would know who the fuck I was or am. Your theory requires that they are watching us, and not from afar. Intimately.”
“Granted. And we have no reason to believe they’re doing so. Of course, how would we recognize it if they were? We don’t even know what they look like. We don
’t know anything at all about them, beyond evidence of their technology being highly advanced and their claim of wanting to be left alone.”
Her brow wrinkled up at him. “So even if it was the Sogain, this doesn’t give us an actionable path forward. And if it wasn’t them, then it must have been a player we’ve never seen and never met, and thus can’t possibly guess the identity of. Again, square one with no moves.”
She buried her face in her hands. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who targeted me with the nightmare of a simulation, only that they did. Because of it, I’d be willing to bet I know more about our enemy than any other Asterion.
“And what I know is this: if the Guides think they’ve escaped the Rasu’s wrath by making some manner of deal with them, they’re hopelessly naive. They’re deluding themselves, and I have to make them recognize their mistake. The ship Perrin and I infiltrated? It was less than one tenth the size of the amalgamated leviathan that went through that vortex in space. And from the looks of their stronghold, they can create hundreds of thousands of those leviathans on a whim.”
“Time to go home?”
She nodded grimly. “Time to go home.”
A cool breeze stirred the grasses beneath my feet, sending the blade tips to tickle my ankles. I wore sandals, shorts and a thin, gauzy top, because in the summer on Synra one could hardly wear anything more.
But this wasn’t Synra. This was—or would soon be—Mirai.
A hand grabbed mine and tugged at it with emphatic urgency. “Nika, come. You must see the simply divine harbor just over the ridge. If the capital city is not erected on this precise spot, I shall pitch a fit the likes of which the Gennisi galaxy has never seen.”
I grumbled, but merely for effect, and followed along behind Maris as she bounded toward the twinkling cerulean waters that teased the horizon.
Behind us, an army of mecha unloaded thousands of crates from the three cargo vessels sitting in the expansive meadow. Building a functioning colony here would take weeks; a self-sufficient one, years; a living, vibrant world, decades, perhaps centuries. But the work of doing so began today.
Asterion Noir: The Complete Collection (Amaranthe Collections Book 4) Page 50