by T E Olivant
Kepler heard the door seal shut behind him and he removed his helmet. It was strange to think that just a few hours ago he had been jittery with excitement at the prospect of entering this place. Now the dimly lit corridors had taken on an ominous feel. He was walking to his death, he knew that now. And in a waste management plant, surrounded by the smell of rot and damp. What an ill-fated ending. Just another disappointment in a life that had turned out to be full of them.
And yet… he shook off the self-pity just as it threatened to control him. And yet if he could use his final act to bring down the creatures that had caused him this dreadful suffering, then it might just be a chance at redemption.
“What are you doing here?” A voice called from the shadows.
It wasn’t Augustus, just one of the other Augments. Kepler barely paused as he fired the stungun into the creature’s chest. His step didn’t falter as he walked past the twitching body and into one of the hibernation rooms.
There had to be fifty Augments inside, all just awoken from their long sleep. Augustus’s team were dragging them out of their pods where they stood huddling their arms around themselves. They looked small and vulnerable, but Kepler knew that they would not remain so for long.
“Where is Augustus?” he called to one of the Augments that he recognized from earlier.
“In the next room,” the female Augment with white, opalescent skin called back, not pausing from her work with the newly awoken ones. “The pods there have been more difficult to open. Some problem with additional locks on the valves.”
“Right,” Kepler said, already turning to go.
“Shouldn’t you be –” the woman’s words died away as he hurried along the corridor.
Kepler found Augustus standing before one of the control panels in a room full of pods.
“Can’t we just blast the things open?” He was yelling to a cowering Bela.
“Not without killing the Gods inside,” she answered, looking at Augustus with the sort of loathing Kepler had thought only he was capable of.
“What are you doing here?” The tall man shouted when he spotted Kepler in the doorway.
“I heard you were having trouble with the pod release valves. I came to help.” Kepler hoped that he seemed as relaxed as his words. He shrugged. “All is stable on the detective ship, I felt I was needed here.”
Augustus narrowed his eyes, then gave the tiniest of nods. “It is your poor planning that has failed us at any rate. You did not provide the code for these locks.”
Kepler’s fingers twitched as he forced his hands to stop forming fists. “Perhaps you could let me examine the control panel.” He walked over to the console in the center of the room. It was new tech, updated in the last few years, which was no doubt why it had confused the Augments. He fought the urge to giggle. It didn’t matter how powerful your artificial brains were when you were obsolete by nearly a century.
“I should be able to do something here,” Kepler said to the others. “Stand back.”
Augustus took a small step backwards and so did Bela. Two other Augments came to watch him. Ha! They thought they were so powerful, but really they were in the palm of his hand.
Kepler hit a few buttons. “Done.”
Augustus hurried over to the nearest pod and peered inside. “It hasn’t done anything.”
“Not that you can see, no. But you will notice the readouts have turned red.” Just as Kepler spoke these words an alarm started to sound.
“What is that?” Bela hissed, ducking from the sound as if it could hurt her.
“These readouts?” One of the other Augments was staring at a pod with a horrified expression. “I don’t understand? The God in here is dying!”
“What?” Augustus turned to Kepler in rage. “What did you do?”
“I stopped their oxygen. Easy to do if you understand the technology. In about seven minutes every Augment still in their pod will die.”
Kepler grinned so hugely he thought his head might split in two. The look on Augustus’s face, bewilderment crossed with rage, would feed his soul for a lifetime.
“Traitor!” Augustus bellowed when he finally managed to make a sound. “You have doomed your own people. Someone get me a gun!”
Before any of the head Augment’s minions could accede to this request, Kepler raised his own weapon.
“Yes, it’s just a stungun,” he said evenly, watching the others to make sure no one dared move. “But it will still put you down on your ass faster than you can run.”
“Why?” Bela asked. Kepler noticed that she had folded her arms and didn’t seem in any rush to help out Augustus. Interesting.
“Why have I threatened to pull the plug on our sleeping friends? Well, there’s something I want.”
“The portal drive,” Augustus said through gritted teeth.
Kepler grinned again. In fact, the way his mind was fizzing behind his eyes, he wasn’t sure he would be able to stop.
“That’ll do for starters,” he replied.
Chapter 49
“You really are just as stupid as the Clan thought,” Macleod hissed at Biddy before collapsing into a coughing fit.
Biddy took a threatening step towards the woman, but paused when Francesca shook her head.
“She’s still recovering. She shouldn’t be awake at all. So please don’t punch her.”
“Thanks,” Macleod said to the Navigator.
Francesca bristled. “Don’t thank me. If it weren’t for the medic’s oath I’d be thumping you myself.”
“Let’s make this quick,” Biddy said as she massaged her temple. A crushing headache had set up residence and didn’t seem to be going anywhere soon. “I need you tell me all about what you did to the guy who’s not Kepler.”
Macleod raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, not Kepler. That’s who your precious Lu Tang is, or haven’t you worked that out yet?”
For a moment Biddy was lost for words. Then she started to laugh. “I can’t believe it. The great Macleod was fooled just like the rest of us. That guy that beat you up wasn’t an Augment at all. He was some poor soul created to look like Kepler then stuck in your prison for a decade.”
The detective thought Macleod couldn’t get any paler, but the blood had drained from her face.
“What do you mean? He must be Kepler? That old bastard killed my men!”
Mackay checked her datapad. No word on the Augments yet. She didn’t have time for this and her headache was getting worse. She had thought that Macleod would be the best source of information to work out what the hell was going on. But she was as much of a pawn as Lu Tang.
“Okay, I’ll explain it for you really quick.” Biddy Mackay sat down next to the old woman and told her all about the so-called-Kepler and the Augment army that was being awakened just below them. Then she mentioned the portal drive.
“That’s it!” Macleod groaned, trying to get up from her medibed. “I can’t believe that the Clan would do this over a weapon. Well, actually, I can. They’ve been looking for something like this for years. Something that would give them the edge over the Knights. Either they use the portal drive as an engine, and they have the best ships in the galaxy, putting the Knights out of business, or they use it as a weapon and threaten the Knights with being blown to hell. It’s perfect. But I can’t believe they would stick me in the middle of it.”
“Only problem with the Clan’s plan is that the Augments have the portal drive, and they don’t want to give it up,” Biddy said.
“Well, that’s always been Scotclan’s weakness. They’ve always believed in their Gods.” Macleod stopped once more to cough wretchedly into her elbow.
“Biddy, she needs rest,” Francesca said, her arms folded.
“Don’t we all?” Biddy held up her hands. “All right, not much longer, I promise.” She waited for Macleod to get her breath back. The woman looked elderly and frail in a way that she hadn’t when she had turned up on the Black Maria.
�
��All right, Macleod. So you didn’t know about Kepler. But you knew something. Why the hell did you shoot Tibo?”
“That cretin, did he die?”
“No,” Francesca answered. “He’s being treated in the miner’s hospital.”
“Shame.” Macleod said, her eyes flashing with some of her old defiance.
“Why did you shoot him,” Biddy repeated.
“Petrichor. He was part of the trade team involved in the negotiations. He sold us out to the Knights for his own little profit margin.”
Biddy shrugged. “Okay, but that’s ancient history, right?”
“For you, maybe, not for me.”
Biddy’s datapad started buzzing, but she ignored it. She knew Francesca would only give her a few more minutes.
“Tell me about the portal drive,” Biddy said. There was no point pushing Macleod on the attempted murder of Tibo when the woman was clearly deranged enough to believe she had been in the right.
“Well, I had heard rumors, of course. And I knew that Campbell had to have a reason for all of this. None of us actually believed that Kepler had brought down the Westward Ho!.”
Biddy leaned forward, ignoring Francesca’s intake of breath.
“What happened to the Westward Ho!?”
“Oh, it was just a simple screw up. Scotclan were chasing after Kepler, probably because they thought he already had the portal drive. They didn’t realize that he hadn’t collected it yet. Campbell sent a team onto the ship to take it over. Only they messed up, tried to be clever and change the navigational route and smash brought the whole ship right into an asteroid belt. Killed themselves and everyone on board.”
“God’s above us,” Francesca whispered. Biddy couldn’t make a sound.
“What?” Macleod glared at them. “You don’t think stuff like that happens when you’re waging a war? If Scotclan don’t manage to keep the Knights away from the portal drive it’ll be a lot worse than one little ship going down.”
Biddy leaned forward. “Children died on that spaceship, Macleod. Innocent people all of them, just to keep waging a war that no one else care’s about.”
Macleod shrugged. “Not my mission. Not my problem.”
It was only when Francesca grabbed her shoulders that Biddy realized she had lunged at the old woman. The medic threw her out of the room and the door slammed shut.
Biddy panted. She had never really considered herself to be an angry person, but now she felt an almost primal rage. If she had had another second in the room she would have torn the old Scotclan woman apart limb from limb. Probably a good thing that Francesca had been there.
The datapad buzzed once more. She answered it.
“You better get up here,” Hastings said. “Something is happening with the Augments.”
“Good or bad?”
“What do you think?”
Chapter 50
“I will kill you, Kepler,” Augustus said. There was no doubt that the huge man was serious. His whole body throbbed with rage.
“That would be nice,” Kepler replied, not looking up from the portal device. Since the other Augment had handed it over, he had nestled it gently in his lap. He was close enough to the control panel for the hibernation pods that he could turn them off with one swipe. And the others knew it.
“I mean it,” the head God said, his lips speckled with saliva. “And I won’t do it slowly. I will cut you into tiny pieces and I will make sure you feel every second of it.”
“A biological impossibility, I’m afraid.” Kepler let out a small gasp as a spasm shook its way up his spine. He almost dropped the portal drive on the floor, but managed to pull it into himself until the shaking stopped. He felt cold, even though he knew it was uncomfortably warm in the chamber. Apart from the heat generated by the hibernation pods, the newly awakened Augments had turned on one of the waste incinerators and were huddled around it like Neanderthals at a fire. They hadn’t even moved when he’d taken the portal drive. Idiots.
“What the hell was that?” Augustus asked, staring in horror at Kepler’s shaking body.
“Looks like you won’t have to kill me,” Kepler said, blinking away the flashing lights behind his eyes. “If you give it a few hours the job will be done for you.”
“But you are… how can this be?” The tall man shuddered and Kepler repressed a chuckle. There was nothing Augments liked less than reminders of their own mortality.
“Now might be the time to tell you that I’m not really a God.” Kepler was aware of more alarms sounding at the back of the room. Some of the Augments were running seriously low on oxygen. “Of course, neither are you, but that is rather beside the point.”
The look of confusion on Augustus’s face was quite delightful, but Kepler was distracted by his datapad buzzing.
Do you have the drive?
Ah, Kepler had almost forgotten about the Voice. To think he had once found its involvement a comfort…
I have it. He replied.
“Kepler, whoever or whatever you are, you need to release the others.” Bela’s face was pinched with worry. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but they’ve only got minutes left.”
Give it to Augustus.
Kepler smiled, ignoring Bela’s frantic pleas. He typed into the datapad: I know who you are. You can come and get it.
Then he turned to Augustus and the other Augments who were milling around, not daring to step too close in case he turned the sleeping ones off altogether.
“I am sorry for what was done to you.” Kepler was surprised to realize he actually meant it. “No one should have been frozen for decades like you were. But you brought it on yourselves, with your disdain and your cruelty. What else did you expect the mortals to do?”
“Serve!” A thin woman with tattoos on her wrists had come to stand next to Augustus. “We were their Gods, their duty was to serve us, nothing more, nothing less.”
“That’s correct,” Augustus said. “And when we have our revenge…”
“Stop it,” Kepler said, half to the Augment, half to the banging sensation in his head. “There will be no revenge. Those you would have avenged yourselves on are long dead. The world has moved on. You have gone from a menace to an irrelevance.”
“Not if you give us the portal drive,” Bela said, her voice almost pleading.
Kepler rolled his eyes. “Call all the others on the radio and get them into the room next door. I want every Augment in there in three minutes. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on me.”
“And if I don’t do that?” Augustus asked.
A white-hot pain seared across the back of Kepler’s neck so that he had to bite down on a howl. He reached to his side and brought up the stungun. He fired, and the woman with the tattoos couldn’t even gasp out a scream before she hit the ground.
“If you don’t it’ll be a race to see if I can shoot you all before the ones in the pods die,” Kepler yelled.
“All right, all right,” Bela said, her hands up as if she was already warding off the shot. “I’ll get on the radio.”
She placed the call and Kepler felt a tiny bit of his tension ease.
A beep came from the control panel in front of him. Kepler looked down at the security screens.
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Gods, prepare to meet your makers.”
“What the hell –” Augustus’s words were cut off as the doors opened.
A group of a dozen men and woman ran into the room, heavily armed and clearly agitated. They had tartan scarves around their necks and expressions that ranged from angry to terrified.
Kepler sighed and waved them forward. “Scotclan, I presume?”
The group parted to reveal an old man in the middle. Old, yet wiry and – as Kepler reminded himself – probably in much better physical condition than he was.
“Blessed be,” the man said and put a hand to his chest. “I am Chief Campbell and I am here to serve.”
Kepler had watched this with some interest
. To his surprise Bela had sidled towards him and she now turned her head and spoke softly.
“What happens now?”
Kepler smiled. “Now we wait for the excrement to hit the propulsion drive, as it were.”
Chapter 51
Biddy pulled on her spacesuit for the second – or was it the third? – time that day. Enough times for her to be sick of the smell of rubber and plastic before she even clicked on the helmet.
“You all right, ‘tec?” Francesca called over the radio.
“Just peachy,” she replied, before she could stop herself. “Sorry. Shitty day. Yes, all systems are go. I’ll be at the maintenance building in five minutes.”
“All right. The Geek is tapped into the cloud. Looks like we’re still getting the warning signal that some of the hibernation pods are failing. I don’t understand why they’re not doing anything about it.”
“Kepler. Or Lu Tang, or whoever he is at the moment. It’s got to be him. I just hope he knows what he’s doing,” Biddy said. And I hope he doesn’t decide to murder a bunch of people, she thought. Especially as I sent him on his way.
“Any news on the Scotclan ship?” Biddy asked. She was almost at the rear entrance to the maintenance compound already. She looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anyone guarding the place. The Augments probably had bigger things to worry about.
“Not since Campbell and the others left on the shuttle. They should have got to the Augments by now.”
“Better get inside and see what’s going on then,” Biddy said, making her way to the metal hatch. “You got the entrance code for me?”
“Geek here,” a younger voice said, “Try 528523. It’s the emergency override number.”
“Sure.” Biddy didn’t bother to ask how the Geek had found it out. She punched the numbers into the pad and smiled as the door began to open.
“All right guys, I’m going in. Don’t contact me unless it’s urgent. The Gods know what the hell is going on in here so I need to be totally focused.”
“Be careful ‘tec,” the Geek said just before she switched her radio to mute.