Prime Deceptions

by Valerie Valdes

  “Sí, pero my leg is broken, and I’d be close enough to sit on that cabrón dreadnought.” Mari sighed. “I don’t suppose my colleagues were working on a way to close the Gate?”

  “They were,” Eva replied. “It was me. So, uh, we’re all pretty much resingado unless they have a plan B.”

  “Oh.” Mari quieted again. Just as Eva was about to break the uncomfortable silence, Mari did. “What can you see from there?”

  The planet, mostly, since it was so big. The surface was less regular than it had seemed initially, the huge metallic plates comprising it staggered at different heights to create a kind of topography. Where tectonic activity might create canyons or mountains, this was more like platforms and gaps, some as dark as a pit while others glowed dimly. She was still too far away to see much more detail, but that she could see anything at all was a testament to how huge everything was.

  A chunk of debris zoomed past Eva, too fast for her to try to snag it with her gravboot. It occurred to her that, at this rate, she was more likely to get killed by space flotsam than planetary impact. Hell, she might even die of dehydration first; it was hard to tell what angle she was falling at, so she might end up traveling in more of a slow arc downward than a straight line. It could take weeks, even months, to hit bottom.

  “Sorry about Mom,” Eva said suddenly. “I didn’t get to give her your message, obviously.”

  Mari sniffled. “She’ll really be alone now.”

  “She still has our abuelos, and her cousins, and Tía Serafina.”

  “She hates Tía Serafina.”

  Eva chuckled. “Yeah, it keeps them both going. She’ll be okay, eventually. She raised us, didn’t she?”

  “She did.” There was enough unspoken weight behind that statement to create its own gravity well, but Eva wasn’t in the mood to fall in.

  Before she could change the subject, an approaching form caught her eye. A ship? She wished she could stop rotating enough to get a good look at it. Hard enough to see anything out here in the black, without even stars to guide her. Coño, she’d been avoiding that thought. What had happened to all the stars? How far away was this galaxy that there weren’t even other galaxies visible as the faintest points of light in the sky?

  Mierda, it was definitely a ship, and it was under attack. Plasma fire, but whether it was a drone or weapons platform or another ship, she couldn’t tell. She twisted her body to try to get a better look, but something exploded, the brightness leaving black spots in her vision that she couldn’t immediately blink away. After that, she couldn’t see anything again except the planet and the dreadnought above.

  It was about to go through the Gate. Madre de dios, the thing was enormous. It was almost as long as the Gate was wide, and given that a Gate was the size of a small city, that was saying an awful lot. She hadn’t seen it fire a single weapon yet, but her skin prickled at the thought, because she had a bad feeling it would get really ugly, really fast.

  Not that she’d have to watch, at least. She’d be too busy falling. It already felt like she’d been falling forever, and she still had a long way to go.

  Until she didn’t, because instead of falling, she was now pressed to the underside of a spaceship carefully matching her speed and slowing it to a halt.

  Eva had just enough time to mutter “Qué rayo” to herself, and then a hatch irised open and a pair of strong and very familiar arms were dragging her inside.

  Vakar held her so tightly she hardly noticed they were sitting on the ceiling of his ship. He was here. He had come for her. She wasn’t going to die alone. Yet.

  “You came back for me,” Eva murmured.

  “I always will,” Vakar replied. “Always.”

  The relief that flooded Eva’s body threatened to overwhelm her, so she pushed it away before it could sap her strength. This wasn’t over. If she could get back to the Gate, cut the other power sources, they might have a chance.

  “We can’t stay here,” Eva said. “We have to move.”

  “Yes,” Vakar replied, releasing her reluctantly. “Would you care to pilot, or should I?”

  “You,” Eva said. “I have a job to finish.” She smiled as another thought occurred to her. “But let’s make one more pit stop before we go.”

  Vakar’s Javelin-class ship wasn’t built for one passenger, much less two, so Eva and Mari had to cram themselves into the small corridor behind the cockpit and try not to get banged up too badly. They zoomed through the Gate above the dreadnought while evading enemy fire—definitely drones, good ones—but the larger ship itself didn’t seem to care enough about them to do anything.

  What it did care about was the battle still under way between The Fridge and The Forge. As Eva climbed out of the ship onto the surface of the Gate once again, the mystery vessel was beginning to emerge from its own galaxy. Once a few hundred meters had come through, a stream of plasma shot into the distance, blazing as bright as a star. Moments later, an explosion lit the black, too large to be anything but either the Fridge battlecruiser or the Forge space station.

  Yeah, everyone was definitely fucked if she didn’t get the Gate turned off in a hurry. Eva scrambled into the access tunnel and pushed herself forward as quickly as she could manage.

  Her wire cutters were gone, so Eva slid her vibroblade off her belt and went to work. It was marginally more difficult, but it got the job done, and less than a minute later she was climbing back outside. One more power source to go.

  Except Vakar’s ship was nowhere to be seen, and a giant robot was standing a few meters away from her.

  Mierda, mojón y porquería. Eva slid back down into the tunnel, her breath quickening. She only had one working gravboot, so the odds of her sneaking past it were low, and she was wary of spacing herself again. How had the damn thing found her? Did it even know she was there, or was this bad luck?

  Eva poked her head out again. The robot seemed to be scanning the area. It was smaller than the one she’d encountered at the Fridge base, maybe three meters tall instead of closer to nine, but still bipedal in a way that was eerily humanoid. Its body was dark in some places and pale in others, the colors difficult to determine in the dim light emitted by the Gate, and its joints had sharp-looking points sticking out at angles that suggested they’d be useful during violent close combat. Winglike blades protruded from its upper back, and its face was framed on either side by what looked like palps made of metal, and its glowing blue eyes were staring directly at Eva oh shit.

  All at once, Eva’s translators went berserk, like they were being hacked. Images raced through her mind, too fast for her to understand, accompanied by smells that were entirely unrelated. There was a burst of static, and then a sound like a hundred different songs playing at the same time. Then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, silence and darkness returning as the scent of licorice receded.

  Before Eva could unclench her fingers and drop back into the tunnel, the robot was directly in front of her, kneeling down and holding something out. It didn’t move, as if it knew Eva was on the verge of peeing herself or running away; it waited, and watched her with its eerie mechanical eyes.

  Eva blinked at the thing it was holding. Her missing gravboot.

  “Em,” Eva said. “Gracias?” She didn’t know if the robot could hear her, what with all the empty space and no atmo, but maybe it could read lips or something. Assuming it had any ability to comprehend her language in the first place. And was it sapient, or just highly advanced?

  It continued to hold out the boot until Eva emerged and took it. She was hesitant to put it back on, but it was one less thing to replace later. If there was a later.

  Mierda, I still need to get to the last power source, Eva thought. She opened comms as the robot continued to crouch there, staring at her.

  “Vakar, where are you?” she asked.

  “I am evading a Fridge vessel,” he replied. “Apologies for the delay.”

  Eva groaned and tried another call. “Pink,
you there?”

  No reply for a few moments, then finally, “Eva, God almighty, what happened to you?”

  “Long story, but I’m back at the Gate,” Eva said. “Can you get me to the last access tunnel?”

  “No way,” Pink replied. “We made a run for it as soon as you disappeared. This mess is ten kilos of nasty in a five-kilo bag. I’m glad you’re alive, though.”

  “That makes two of us.” Eva closed her eyes with a frown. She’d learned her lesson about walking before, so she wasn’t going to try that again. All she could do was wait for Vakar and Mari to come back for her. Her stomach roiled with frustration.

  The robot made a gesture with its hand that looked questioning. It hadn’t attacked her yet, certainly, but that didn’t mean Eva trusted it. And her translators weren’t remotely equipped for a situation like this, so she couldn’t know whether something that looked like a question to her wasn’t something else entirely.

  “I’m waiting for my ride,” Eva said. That seemed innocuous enough, and it was true.

  It angled its head sideways as if thinking, then raised a hand and stepped backward. Eva furrowed her brow, watching it warily.

  The robot lowered its hand and began to change.

  Like with the Pod Pals, it happened too quickly to follow the motions of all the parts that shifted and slid and remolded themselves into the new form. Within moments, instead of a giant robot, a small vehicle waited in front of her. It looked like a skybike with wheels, and it popped a wheelie like it was being ridden by a stunt driver.

  “Huh,” Eva said. That sure was a ride. And it would be faster than walking, especially with only one gravboot.

  The bike angled to one side, almost like it was looking at her quizzically.

  Eva hesitated. Vakar should be back soon, assuming he was able to shake his tail, but every moment she waited was another big hunk of the dreadnought gliding into this galaxy.

  As if reading her thoughts, the massive ship fired another plasma blast toward the Forge station, and another huge explosion bloomed bright in the distance. A pair of shots streamed back toward the ship, fizzling to nothing against its shields. Was that the station defending itself, or the Fridge battlecruiser, or both?

  Not her problem. She turned back to the robot waiting in front of her. Maybe she should take the chance. But why would this robot help her? What did it want? What did any of them want?

  A flash of laser fire lit her peripheral vision, and she had to leap forward to avoid being hit, stumbling to right herself and stick her one gravboot to the Gate. Overhead, a fighter zoomed past, barely visible except for some reddish lights running along the bottom of the craft. It wasn’t Fridge; her commlink still had the friend-or-foe codes, and this ship wasn’t broadcasting anything that remotely resembled known chatter.

  Alabao, Eva thought. If a robot can turn into a bike, can it turn into a spaceship?

  She shook her head. It didn’t matter. She had to focus on what she was doing, or everyone was fucked regardless.

  “Bueno,” she muttered, climbing onto the fidgeting bot in front of her. “I need to go that way.” She pointed toward where the next tunnel should be, hoping her ride would understand.

  With a twitch of acknowledgment, the vehicle took off, racing along the surface of the Gate fast enough that Eva clung to the handlebars, legs clenched around the eerily familiar shape. How did a robot know what a skybike looked like? Was it psychic? Had it pulled the image from her head?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by more laser fire, this time coming toward them, twin blasts from the same robot fighter. Eva cursed and the bike-bot wove and dodged, angling closer to the outside edge of the Gate. The void loomed to Eva’s left, and she resisted the urge to guide the bot away; it knew what it was doing, presumably, the same way Min knew her own body best. Still, it was hard to just hang on and let it zip forward, especially when the fighter came around for another pass. Somehow, the robot managed to slow down and execute a sliding twist that avoided the lasers, but shot them over the edge and onto the rim of the Gate, where it continued speeding along as if this were a joyride on a random planet.

  “Mierda, we passed it!” Eva shouted as the access tunnel receded behind them. The bike skidded to a halt and turned around, managing to backtrack a few meters and get onto the Gate surface again before it suddenly rose on its back wheel and shook like it was trying to dislodge its rider.

  Eva took the hint and let go, activating her working gravboot so she didn’t bounce away into space. Up ahead, the fighter that had been chasing them hovered, then landed and changed its form.

  Unlike the bot she’d been riding, this one was easily the size of the last one Eva had encountered, and similarly bipedal. Large fins like wings rose from its back, making it half as wide as it was tall, and its design was stockier than the bike-bot’s other form had been. In the dim light of the Gate’s surface, its legs were pale, its eyes glowing an eerie red that matched its torso, and it looked down at Eva and her companion as if they were bugs about to be squashed.

  It was also standing right on top of the access tunnel, because of course it was.

  The bike-bot changed back into its original form, though it seemed taller than it had before, unless Eva was imagining things. A pair of wicked-looking blades emerged from its forearms, each easily a meter long, and it slid into an aggressive stance. Eva switched to a backwards grip on her own vibroblade and bent her knees, trying to project more bravado than she felt, given that she only had one working gravboot and was a tiny meat sack by comparison.

  “Jódete, cabrón,” Eva said. “I didn’t get this far to lose to a glorified Ball Buddy.”

  With a leap that would have made a dancer sigh, the bike-bot attacked the fighter. It deflected the blades with its own arms, pushing back and then throwing a punch like a pile driver. The bike-bot ducked and weaved out of the way, striking at the fighter’s back, but it pivoted and once again used its forearms to parry the blows. The two traded hits and circled each other like this was a pit fight back in The Sump, but faster than any bot she’d ever seen, and much more fluidly.

  They have to be sapient, Eva thought. Even the rogue AI on Henope wasn’t this advanced. Sure, you could program skills and tactics and so on, but this was a whole other level.

  And Eva had no chance of helping here whatsoever. She glanced at the dreadnought, which was at least a quarter of the way through the Gate. How many more shots could the Fridge and Forge forces take from it before they were utterly demolished? And what would it do when it was completely through?

  All she could do now was what she’d been sent to do: cut the cable to the last power source to deactivate the Gate. At least that way, nothing else could come through until the Gate was repaired.

  The fight in front of her proceeded as a dark blur of motion, glowing blue and red eyes flashing back and forth as the combatants slashed and leaped and dodged and punched. The smaller one was faster, vicious, but the larger one kept shrugging off its blows like nothing. They continued to be more or less on top of the access tunnel entrance, so Eva would have to maneuver through their legs to get inside.

  Is this what Mala feels like when she’s trying to trip me? Eva thought. Qué mierda.

  Moving slowly in the hope of not attracting attention, Eva skirted the fight in awkward bounces and boot-stomps, every step a careful negotiation between the laws of physics, her body, and the Gate. She managed to get closer, but she didn’t have a clear path to the damn entrance, not with the bots still going at it. Maybe if she could break the ship-bot’s concentration somehow . . .

  An idea came to her in a flash. Eva smiled grimly, hefting her malfunctioning gravboot with her right hand. It wasn’t the same as throwing a chair, certainly, but since the fight was already in progress, this was probably good enough.

  Squinting in concentration, Eva watched the bots move, back and forth and around. With a grunt, she threw the gravboot toward the taller one, watching it spin lazily a
s it moved. She fell backward as it went forward, her right gravboot still stuck to the Gate’s surface, bending her knees and once again landing on her right hand, then bouncing back up.

  Both bots glanced up at the incoming boot, hesitating momentarily as they attempted to analyze the threat. As soon as it was in the right position, Eva activated it, and it shot toward the ship-bot. The bot tried to dodge, but the boot followed its motion and attached itself solidly to the bot’s head, with what would have been a satisfying clunk if there were any noises in a vacuum.

  The smaller bot used this opportunity to push harder, faster, and this time managed to land several hits that seemed to bother the larger one, mostly at various joints. It stepped backward, giving ground until the access tunnel was open for business.

  Eva deactivated her remaining gravboot and took a bounding leap toward the hole. She flew without resistance in a straight line, praying to all the angels and saints that she’d have a clear shot. As soon as she was close enough, she activated her boot again and shot toward the entrance.

  A swipe from the larger bot went right over her head as she flew into the hole, missing her isohelmet by centimeters.

  She hit the bottom of the tunnel like an arrow, the impact sending her flailing wildly with one foot planted until she could grab something to stabilize herself. Laser fire rained on her for a moment, and she deactivated her boot and pushed away to get out of range. Once she did, it was a mad scramble to reach the final power source, tucked into its relatively peaceful alcove like all the others.

  Incredible that something so small could mean the difference between life and death to so many people. Maybe the entire universe. And all she had to do was make one cut.

  Hopefully, it would work as Emle and the other scientists expected. The notion that after all this, she was destined to be disintegrated by a massive explosion that she herself caused was—well, it was kind of poetic, really, given her history.

  But they hadn’t sent a poet, they’d sent Captain Eva Innocente, legendary smuggler. And as Nara Sumas would almost certainly agree, you got what you paid for.