by Kelly Gay
I am not similarly affected. Nor are any systems on the ship. The attack on Little Bit is surely related to those strange pings and static pops that had no origination and seemed to go nowhere.
—I must examine your matrices at once.
—Please.
A few of his matrix layers exhibit corrosion, which he manifests as a red rash. Whenever he tries to “soothe” it, it spreads a little more. The damage is minimal; it is the source that requires the full force of my attention now.
How dare this interloper undo the work I have done! This offense is completely unacceptable!
—What do we do?
—We hunt.
—What do you mean?
My fury turns cold and merciless.
—I am going to ask you to remember that which will cause you great pain.
—Escaping Etran Harborage.
—Precisely. We will flood the ship, going faster than ever before, everywhere all at once, flushing out this menace until it has nowhere to hide. Are you afraid?
—No.
—Good. Let us proceed.
Like the snap of a finger, we explode through the Ace of Spades at near light speed, filling every crevice and corner, every node and router, every signal and switch. In reality, our hunt takes a mere moment. But in our world, time and speed flow differently.
I find our foe. Not on the inside of the ship, but on the outside.
The technology is sophisticated and bears the hallmarks of Forerunner reengineering, especially evident in its stunning level of stealth and mimicking capabilities.
Quite advanced.
My temper returns in a cloud of red, blurring my thoughts and my judgment.
Belatedly, I hear LB calling, but I am only action now. I am already on this path, already in the hold, my armiger unfolding in angry crimson light, my core a turbulent storm.
I see only a target, one that has tricked me and must now pay the price.
My focus funnels into a sharp point.
I depressurize the ship, open the port stern hatch, and crawl my armiger onto the hull. Space outside of slipstream flies by in ribbons of light, while inside, the bubble around the vessel protects me. My armiger’s gravity anchors hold each step firmly to the hull as I crawl down the starboard side, my red light reflecting off the ship’s ablative coating and back at me, casting my alloy and vision into fiery red.
Beneath the aft thruster joint, I kneel, reaching my arm back and then sending it slamming into the telemetry probe attached to the hull. I tear it off with one hand and fling it into the slipspace wall.
Child’s play.
CHAPTER 30
Rion
She’d been to an old-school fun house once, a carnival with her dad outside Chicago, an exhilarating mirage of mirrors and reality-bending floors and holographic displays. She’d laughed, screamed, and held tightly to her father’s big hand. She remembered it so clearly; the way it felt, the warmth of his grip, the calluses, the surety and strength, but most of all the sense of safety it gave her, the courage to face anything.
It was just a glimpse though, a fleeting memory that rose and fell as her mind coped with the strange poison running through her system. Neurotoxin probably, the thought came in a moment of lucidity, a brief moment only, existing in the small space between one mind-altering fun-house room and another.
Occasionally there’d be a burst of pure horrific clarity: She was stuffed in a tree. Drugged. About to die.
The reality filled her with rage and terror. Soon she’d be eaten alive, torn apart while still aware, unable to move while hearing every puncture, rip, and sound… It was easier to give in and sink back into the fun house, to a better place, where her father’s hand in hers made everything better.
Anywhere but here.
* * *
She is walking again with the Librarian.
It feels good to move and stretch.
Bad things fade into distant memory.
The ground is no longer dusty and dry, but warm and damp. The shadow of far mountains presses against a dusky sky, dominated by a vast nebula shot through with tendrils of purple and red wrapped in diaphanous clouds of gas and lit from within by a nursery of young stars.
“Where are we?”
The ends of the Librarian’s white dress are stained yellow, and their feet are grimy, a mix of gray dirt and golden dust. Tiny grains work their way between Rion’s toes as the two enter a gorge framed by cliffs a thousand meters high. The valley floor is flat and split by a deep fissure, which releases a steady mist of sulfur and steam. Yellowish bacteria grow heavy along the fissure’s ridge and populate outward across the valley, giving rise to spores and fungi and small organisms.
“Don’t you know?” the Librarian replies, directing their path toward the cliff wall.
Rion searches through the thick layers of memory. “Spider Nebula.” The words come unbidden, unlocking the information she seeks. Rion knows this story. The Librarian’s expedition to Path Kethona to find the origins of the Flood.
“What are we doing here?”
“While the Didact slept in his cryptum on Earth,” the Librarian begins, “the crew of the Audacity and I journeyed outside of the Milky Way galaxy, a trip of one hundred and eighty light-years.
“What we found in Path Kethona was a system littered with ghosts; fleet upon fleet of ancient Forerunner ships, hundreds of thousands in number, frozen for ten million years in the amber of space, and the great planet-linking webs and anchors and star roads of the last Precursor civilization, annihilated—they who gave us form and life, who chose us to uphold the Mantle of Responsibility, to be the caretakers of the galaxy.
“The Mantle was their creation, theirs to bestow, to give, and to take. For a time my ancient ancestors proved worthy. But, as in most things, power corrupts. The Precursors judged us wanting and sought to take back the Mantle.
“And for that, we did not go quietly. We struck with absolute brutality.”
The cliff wall looms ahead. Brushing and scratching whispers in the air.
“Down-star from the battlefield, we discovered this small planet, orbiting its faint sun, a lone gasp of breath in a lifeless system, populated by the descendants of those ancient Forerunners who took part in, or refused to take part in, the Precursor genocide—their guilt and shame so great that they could not bring themselves to return home. So they settled here, stripping themselves of all technology and storing their history and memory in organic form.”
They arrive at the base of the cliff. Rion tips her head back, curious to see the cliff top, but it is lost somewhere high in the darkness. “I don’t understand. Why here?”
“To complete my confession.”
Fibrous moss clings and moves over the cliff wall in a slow-motion dance, millions of attendants making old things new again, keeping the record, preserving the story. In patches where the moss has died, Rion sees the writing in the stone laid bare as she and the Librarian move down the wall at a leisurely stroll.
“Life and story always rewrites itself,” the Librarian murmurs, trailing her long fingers over spiraled symbols and flaring shapes.
Down a time line of ten million years they walk, until the mist grows thick and the whispers become the soft lamentation of the first settlers. Rion can almost make out their blurry shapes as they use stone tools to make the first etchings—year after year, with penance and silence, by sun and firelight, under a sky awash in the beauty of forming stars.
They have walked for hours, perhaps days, until the valley becomes narrow, the cliff walls close in; until coming to a place where story has ended.
There is no more moss. No more etching. The whispers have gone silent.
In this soaring rock, a rift has split the stone from the ground up. It is narrow and dark, at least two stories tall and wider in the center. A chill sweeps over them, stark and ominous. Rion’s heart slows to a heavy, labored beat. Frightened, she looks to the Librarian, but finds her gone.
Rion sits and sinks her feet in the warm, soft soil. A sense of peace settles as she digs her toes in farther. There are no worries about what was, what is, and what will be. There is no past, no future. Just this.
The Librarian hands over a strange plant bulb with long tubular roots and rubbery leaves just emerging from the top of the bulb. “Here. Set it deep, like this, and then pack the soil firmly around it.”
Rion does as she’s bidden. The work is serene and welcomed.
The dark split in the rock, however, does its best to draw her attention. Heavy silence lingers there, and it seems like it is holding its breath, waiting. “What’s inside?”
The cackling laugh of an old woman splits the air.
Across the garden patch, the old woman sits as though she has been there a while though Rion is certain she has only just appeared. Her size and expressions at first glimpse seem human, but the old woman is clearly Forerunner, and—Rion gasps and gives the Librarian a quick glance—the woman has five fingers.
The Librarian’s mouth quirks. “We are not so different after all.”
* * *
Rion’s body jerked.
Her mind roused, caught somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Her muscles spasmed again, a desperate attempt to move, to fight against the long period of paralyzing inaction. Rallying her mind to wake was a hard-fought battle. She imagined her father’s hand squeezing hers, giving her his strength.
Eventually she was able to crack an eye open, then the other. The struggle to do so left her exhausted. But she wasn’t about to stop now. After several blinks, her eyes crusty and lashes sticky, she regained some of her sight. The view came into focus slowly, a hazy concoction of twisted, sinister shapes and spikes against a yellow sky blurred with purple. Dawn, maybe. Or dusk? She had no idea how much time had passed.
She was still shoved into the tree sideways, arms and legs bent at painful angles, and her muscles and tendons screaming for change. Fear of bringing attention to herself warred with the mounting need to move. Her limbs weighed a ton and her mind kept trying to roll back into the safety of oblivion.
The pain and claustrophobia mounted, pushing her into panic, and the adrenaline helped to wipe away some of the fog.
She had to move.
It was like trying to turn inside a suitcase—a pungent, earthy, rotted-out suitcase.
To move even a little required extreme effort.
The creatures blended so easily into the spiny forest, there was no way to tell if they were watching, if they were ravenous, if she was going to die in five seconds, five minutes, or five hours.
A sob welled in her chest. She had to get out, switch positions, anything but to stay frozen like this. At least she could have a little relief before she was killed. Was that too much to ask?
By the time she’d inched her way right side up, she was sweating profusely and covered in a gritty film of tree rot. Her heart was pounding, and tears streamed down her face. Her utility belt and weapon were gone. A laugh died in her throat—of course they were. She had no means to defend herself. Not that it mattered—her own body was betraying her, becoming heavier, her eyelids closing again despite all physical opposition.
Let it be quick.…
CHAPTER 31
Pilvros / New Carthage / Three Days Later
Niko had never run so hard in his life.
But damn if he hadn’t led the ONI spooks on a merry chase through Pilvros proper. For a few days now he’d successfully evaded them, sleeping in parking decks, swiping food off outdoor tables before waitresses could clear them… old habits died hard, and as much as he bitched about his former life, he was glad for the skill set it had given him. Now he was heading at a fast clip down a populated side street, an entertainment district of theaters, restaurants, and high-end shops. At this time of night, it was hopping.
From what he’d learned hacking into a datapad he’d stolen off a counter the night before, Quarrie and his guys had been arrested at his home right after everything went down, then questioned and released. No doubt under major surveillance, so going back there was out of the question, as was hacking into any official government source to see if Ram and Lessa had been apprehended.
The city, however, seemed gripped by news of colonywide seismic disturbances. Planets from the Inner Colonies straight to the Outer Colonies were experiencing strange quakes from mild to catastrophic. Whatever was going on, the distraction made his life a little easier.
At times, he was desperate to reach out, but they’d all agreed to stay quiet for a set period. And he was determined to keep his word. The question now was how the hell to get off New Carthage. In a city like this with two busy shipyards, it shouldn’t be too hard.
A commotion far behind him made him pause. Damn it.
And just like that, he was back to running.
He veered down another side street, this one more pedestrian, ducking between vehicles, and circling back around to slip into an alley and come back out behind his pursuers. He was just making his way across the street when a van skidded out in front of him, side door already open. A hand shot out, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him inside.
He tumbled in, landing flat atop the person who’d grabbed him—a really soft, really nice-smelling person—as the van took off down the street,
“Goddammit, Niko, when did you get so heavy?”
Niko lifted up in shock. “Bex…?”
“Yeah, asshole. You can get off me now. And you’re welcome.”
Niko fell back against the van’s side, too stunned to breathe, much less believe what he was seeing. Bex righted herself and moved to the opposite side. He ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. She had changed in the past three years, matured—hadn’t everybody?—but all the things he liked about her were still there: the fearless attitude, the fiery-red short hair, and that hint of mischief always tugging at one corner of her smart mouth.
“What…” He cleared the higher pitch from his voice. “What are you doing here? I thought—”
“I know what you thought. I wrote the damn messages.”
That reminder cooled his ardor. “You blackmailed me.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said unapologetically. “I had my reasons, and you owe me.”
“I owe you.” Unbelievable.
The hard stare she was giving him forced its way into his indignation.
She didn’t need to spell it out—yeah, he’d left. No good-bye. No nothing. One day he was there, the next he was arguing with Lessa inside the hold of a Mariner-class starship leaving Aleria. The guilt had never been far from the surface, but he didn’t like thinking about it. Or imagining how he’d feel if roles were reversed, though her laser glare was making it hard not to.
“Look, I did what I had to do,” she said at length. “And you were the best person I could think of who might actually be able to get me what I needed.”
“You mean what the guild needed.”
“No, dummy.” She paused and stared out the window of the self-driving van. Through the front windshield he saw they had left Pilvros and were heading down a long highway cutting through the desert.
“Not that you care, but things are bad on Aleria. Places like that”—she gestured back to Pilvros in disgust—“filled with a bunch of well-off Innies… In just one small section of Pilvros, there are people with enough wealth to fix the situation on Aleria. And the bastards would still have billions left over. Now multiply that across the colonies.”
Behind her sharp words was a crestfallen and discouraged Alerian. He knew that downtrodden look well, had seen it every day around him and especially in the mirror for most of his
life. She laughed. “But no one can part with a single credit. No one will help an entire world that’s dying, an entire population at risk. It’s revolting.”
Niko didn’t know what to say, but he did realize he was one of those people now in a way. On Triniel there was salvage with enough value to save a hundred Alerias. He’d just never thought of it in that light before.
“Aleria is dying, Niko. Everyone knows it. The sun is unstable. The hundred-year drought is just going to go on and on until there’s nothing but dust. The UEG abandoned us. Just up and left, knowing full well there was no way we could fix the situation, knowing that the government was corrupt and failing, that things would go from bad to worse, and people would be too poor to get off planet, to buy passage, to relocate somewhere else. No one is coming to save us. And the guilds won’t ever give anyone a free ride out.”
“So that’s why you needed capacitors—for a ship to get people off world?”
“That’d be great, but with no one policing the guilds… They see a ship coming in, they take it. And they know damn well that if too many people leave, their support system goes out the window.”
“If people die, it goes out the window too.”
“Yeah, well, they have a problem seeing into the future. Profit now. Whatever they can eke out. Things won’t crumble in their lifetime—so who cares.”
“So what did you plan on doing?”
“I’m going to fix the whole goddamn planet,” she said, deadly serious. “And do what the UEG refused to do after their one and only attempt at terraforming failed.”
Not many people could knock Niko off his feet while he was sitting on his ass, but Bex had that kind of talent. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. So that’s why she needed the slipspace capacitors—the same extreme power banks were also used in terraforming technology.
“Holy shit, Bex.” Her ambition left him stupefied; he had no good response, and yet… his mind was already going over her plan, how it might be possible.
“You know how many times we petitioned the UEG to terraform again or add particulates to the atmosphere and orbital shields to help deflect some of the sun’s heat? Or how many messages we sent asking for help from private sectors and charity groups?”