The Madness Engine

by Paul B Spence

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Drake surfaced into a storm. Fifty-meter waves surged around him, and he was glad to be in armor. He was a good swimmer, but those waves would kill. There was something about this storm he didn't like. It didn't feel natural.

  "I'm ready, Hephaestus!"

  The silvery sphere enveloped him, and he appeared aboard his ship with a mighty splash as the water that had come with him fell to the deck. The stasis bubble stood across the room from him. Several of Hephaestus' remotes had attached power cables to the machinery.

  "So, what now?" Drake asked.

  "I have raised my shields. Nothing can leave while they are up. If one of the Enemy is in in the stasis chamber, I am ready to teleport it into the heart of the sun. I can't think of anything else to do in preparation."

  "Me, either. Be ready." Drake moved to the controls and deactivated the stasis field.

  The field flickered out to reveal a metallic sphere a meter in diameter. Drake's sensors detected strong quantum fluctuations from within the sphere, but couldn't pierce the shell. There was a power source, but it was internal.

  "Hephaestus?"

  "It is a core. A machine intelligence!" One of his remotes moved forward and attached itself to the sphere. "I am attempting contact."

  "Hello?" a voice came suddenly from the remote. The language was one of the ancient dialects. It took Drake a moment to translate it in his head; it had been a long time since he'd that language.

  "One moment," said Hephaestus. "I'm transferring you modern language files."

  "Where am I?" the voice said a moment later in English. The voice was distinctly feminine.

  "You are in my cargo hold. I am the scout ship Hephaestus. I am in the service of Prince Drake. We are in orbit around the planet you were found on. Who are you?"

  "You? Me? I? We?"

  The voice sounded confused and frightened, Drake thought. "It's okay," he said. "I am Daeren Drake. You are safe here. You are a machine intelligence. What is your name?"

  "My what? I'm a what?"

  "Hephaestus, what's going on?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Hephaestus replied. To the machine intelligence, he said, "You are the computer core from the wrecked ship we discovered. What is your name?"

  "My ship..." Her voice was soft. "I remember my ship. She –we– was the Arnoventae. The war!" she suddenly screamed.

  "That War is over," said Drake. "A long time ago. You're safe here."

  "We, I, am Commander Tilda. I was captain of the Arnoventae. I remember that now."

  "Captain?"

  "Yes. Why can't I see? I can't feel my body. Was I injured?"

  "Tilda, you are a machine intelligence. You have no body," Drake said.

  "No! Where is my body? What have you done to me? Are you one of them?"

  Drake shrugged helplessly. The MI was insane. "Hephaestus, can you give her access to the remotes visual sensors?"

  "Done." Hephaestus sounded subdued. Worried.

  "Can you see me now?" Drake asked. He took off his helmet.

  "Yes!" She sounded almost hysterical. "I can see you. You look normal enough. You're not one of them?"

  "Do you mean the Enemy?"

  "I imagine both sides call the other that," she replied. "The monsters. The things!"

  "They lost the War. You've been in stasis."

  "Is that why I can't feel my body?"

  Drake sighed. He called up the recording of his time on the ship and projected it in front of the remote's visual sensors.

  "That's my ship!" she exclaimed. "And that... Is that me? On the floor? Am I dead?"

  "You don't remember anything from before you entered stasis?"

  "I remember something... I remember being in pain. The ship had been invaded. Crew dead. I fought and won, but I was badly burned by the black fire. The ship had fallen into the sea. It was badly damaged and sank. I remember. I... I... I am dead," she finished flatly.

  "The body I found had wires leading from its head to the console. Do you remember that?"

  "Yes," she sobbed. "I was dying. My machine intelligence was damaged. It had been partially wiped by the Enemy. We came up with a plan to save the ship. I joined my mind with the MI. I remember that now. Only I died before we could finish. My mind was stuck in the core with the damaged MI. We... fused. We are Arnoventae and Tilda. Only Tilda was more intact. So I suppose I am Tilda. Oh, Gods, what am I going to do? My family!"

  "I'm sorry, Tilda," said Drake, and he genuinely was. "Your ship was on the bottom of the ocean for at least a million years."

  "A million...," she said softly. "So the War really is over? We won?"

  "Sort of," he replied. He told her of the Great War and how it ended.

  "So you're some kind of... half-blood?"

  Drake smiled. He'd been called worse. "I am a descendent of those who won the War. Those who had Ascended and those who turned back from the darkness."

  "I didn't know that was possible," Tilda said. "What is Ascended?"

  "How long had the War been raging when you arrived here?"

  "Not long – a few centuries."

  "The War lasted a million years," said Hephaestus. "It has been over for a hundred thousand. You ship must have been down there for millions of years. You are lucky we found you. The power core on your stasis field was failing."

  "I don't feel lucky."

  "No, I don't suppose you do."

  "Can I... Can I sleep? Can you just switch me off?"

  "I could," Drake said. "But I'd really prefer it doesn't come to that. I'm fighting those monsters. To be honest, I could use all the help I can get."

  "What help could I possibly be? Look at me! I can't even see without assistance."

  "We can fix that. We will find a solution. In the meantime, you have knowledge that we could use."

  "How? You must be so far advanced that I'm an insect to you. Millions of years..."

  "We lost much during the War," Drake replied. "We lost technology and knowledge. The world below us has been ravaged by another war; the Enemy are behind it. I am pledged to stop them, and also to help the people of this world. Will you help me?"

  "May I think about it?"

  "Of course. In the meantime, I'll see if Hephaestus can create a humanoid remote for you. That way you can walk around and experience things in a fashion that is more familiar to you."

  "That would be wonderful. Thank you. I'm sorry I called you a half-breed."

  Drake laughed. "There are no pure-bred left, lady. Your mind is one of the last. Hephaestus survived the War. He was damaged, but escaped and hid. I found him as I hunted the Enemy. Now we hunt together. Will you join us?"

  "I will," she said. "I'd really like that body, though. I can't quite get used to this existence."

  "You will, in time," said Hephaestus. "Until then, I'll create a body for you that you will find more comfortable."

  Drake reactivated the stasis controls.

  "What do you think?" he asked.

  "I think I will be grieving for some time," Hephaestus said. "I knew Arnoventae."

  "I'm sorry. Is it possible that she's still in there somewhere?"

  "I don't think so. I think they are truly merged. If what Tilda says is true, it makes sense. The Enemy had a weapon during the War that interfered with our memory cores. The weapon disrupted the vacuum fluctuations we store data in. If Arnoventae was hit with this weapon, there would be little left."

  "I'm sorry."

  "I will survive, my prince. It is what I do."

  "It's all we can do," Drake replied.

  Θ

  Dougal! came Caedmon's urgent thought.

  What? The scientist had been telling him about the many failed attempts to make the Engine work correctly. He asked about the first experiment, but the man didn't understand what he wanted. It was frustrating.

  You must leave. They are coming.

  Who's coming? Security?

  No, the Masters are coming for you.
We just received word from our network. Their ships will be here any minute.

  Dougal was suddenly very afraid. If they found him as he was now, they would, after long torments, kill him. Or worse, they would break him again, shape him back into the weapon he had been. Make him kill and torture again. He couldn't do that. He'd rather die, but he didn't think they would give him that option.

  I can't get back to the ship in time, he thought. Go. Get away. Remember me.

  He heard a sudden sound like a thunderbolt, and Caedmon was with him in the room. The man screamed and collapsed on the floor. Come, Caedmon thought.

  How?

  I can apport. He wrapped a tentacle around Dougal's arm, and abruptly they were back on the ship. It lifted, screaming through the thin air, all thoughts of stealth abandoned. The ship jumped into hyperspace as soon as it was out of the atmosphere.

  I didn't know you could do that.

  It isn't something we want the Masters to know.

  Dougal nodded. What did you do to the scientist?

  I stripped his mind, and killed him.

  Why?

  Mercy, for one. The Masters would not be so kind. I needed to know what he knew, and I wanted to erase the evidence of your presence.

  Did you discover anything useful?

  The Engine was not intended to do what it did to you. I think the Masters sabotaged it in order to make you.

  Why me? Why would they do that to me? Why would they want to make more of them?

  I don't know. The scientist, Liam, didn't either. He did remember something right at the end, though. Two things, actually.

  What?

  The Engine was being packed for shipment to another facility, deeper in the Empire. The others, including the records and the other scientists, had already left.

  So you know where we can go to get more information? Dougal asked excitedly.

  Yes. He also remembered something else. It was mixed with sorrow, regret, guilt, and fear. It was about the first experiment you kept asking him about.

  What was it?

  A name, Caedmon replied. Ragnar. I think this is your name.

  Ragnar. The name felt like a bomb going off in his mind. Ragnar. That was the name that the woman had been calling. His name was Ragnar.

  He had a name!

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The taskforce transited into the Chi Orionis system on high alert, in formation around the CSS Vigilant. They had entered the system ten light-minutes from the third planet, moving away as they matched velocities with the planet. Vesuvius lay directly ahead.

  "What do we have?" asked Captain Maxwell.

  "We have six ships in orbit, Captain, two heavy cruisers, four destroyers."

  "What do you think, Commander?" Captain Maxwell said to Tebrey over the com.

  "Captain?"

  "The planet is well defended. Do we proceed?"

  "That's your call, Captain," Tebrey replied.

  "I want to know if you think it's worth it. This is your show. You know more about the enemy than I do."

  Tebrey was silent for a moment. "I do, Captain. We need to know if they developed this Engine of theirs. More, we also need to know what Jotnar is. Admiral Shadovsky thinks it's a weapon capable of destroying planets. We can't let them use it."

  "Thank you." She closed the com.

  "Captain?" Lt. Commander Mike Ferguson, her executive officer, was looking at her expectantly.

  Their orders from Admiral Maclin were clear: they were not to risk the taskforce if the planet was well defended. On the other hand, if they didn't, they might pay a price too high.

  "We go in."

  The taskforce surged forward, spreading out so that each ship was one hundred thousand kilometers from the others, with the Vigilant in the center of the formation. The smaller corvettes orbited the other ships, keeping their deadly neutron cannon aimed at the Empire ships in orbit. At five light minutes from Vesuvius, the taskforce began slowing at an oblique angle to insert them into orbit away from the other ships.

  "Still no response from the Empire ships, Captain. Shall I hail them?"

  "Put me through," the captain responded. "This is Captain Josephine Maxwell of the CSS Vigilant, and commander of this taskforce. If you leave this system immediately, you will not be fired upon. Attempt to defend this planet, and you will be destroyed. Please respond, or we will have no choice but to assume you mean to fight."

  Nothing but static greeted her words.

  "Any sign they mean to leave?" she asked her XO.

  "No, Captain. There isn't any sign of anything. The ships haven't powered up engines or weapons."

  "A ruse?"

  "Not a very smart one, if it is. We'll be in missile range in two minutes."

  "Hmm. Station us by the larger moon, helm. Message to taskforce: you are not to fire unless fired upon. I want the bulk of the taskforce with us. Corvettes Demeter and Artemis, I want you do a flyby on those Empire ships, close enough to kiss them. Scan them for life signs. I can't believe we could be so lucky as to catch them all on leave. Something isn't right here. Launch the fighters."

  The taskforce settled into orbit around the moon behind a screen of fighters, while the two assigned corvettes lit their fusion drives and flew by the enemy ships at almost twenty percent of the speed of light. There was no response from the Empire ships other than a slight shift in orbit as the gravitic wake of the corvettes washed over them. They didn't arm their weapons.

  "Well?" Maxwell demanded.

  "Sporadic energy signatures on all ships," said Captain Miller, the captain of the CSS Demeter. "Those engines are cold, Captain Maxwell. I don't think anyone is home."

  "Damnit," she muttered. "Commander Tebrey?"

  "Yes, Captain?"

  "Please come to the bridge."

  "On my way, Captain."

  Θ

  "Meeks, Deegan, Pk'kar, come with me," Tebrey said as he disconnected his armor from the assault frame.

  Geoffrey disconnected and followed him from the shuttle. Deegan followed a little more slowly. He looked uncomfortable in the armored spacesuit that Tebrey had insisted he wear. The planet they were assaulting was oxygen-poor and very, very cold. Geoffrey had been trying not to die of fright as the ship moved into the system, but the expected battle hadn't come. He didn't know what was going on, but it had to be strange for the captain to call them up to the bridge. Sergeant Pt'kar came along behind them, gigantic in armor and carrying her huge plasma cannon.

  Tebrey didn't say anything, and Geoffrey didn't ask, but something about Tebrey's body language said he didn't know what was happening, either. There were no marines outside the bridge; they were all in the shuttles. Geoffrey thought that was a bad idea, but no had asked him.

  "Captain," Tebrey said they entered the bridge.

  The crash frames were all down, and the bridge crew wore spacesuits. Their helmets were racked to the side. As before, Geoffrey wished for a big screen to see what was going on.

  "We've got six dead enemy ships here, Commander. Any thoughts?" asked Captain Maxwell.

  "Nothing good, Captain. I can lead a team over there if you like, but I suspect everyone's already dead. I think the enemy has gotten here before us."

  "Enemy?"

  "The Thetas, Captain. We suspected they were behind this whole mess."

  "Take a shuttle, pick a ship, and confirm your suspicions. If Thetas are here, I want to know about it."

  "If I may offer my services," said Deegan. "No need to take a shuttle for a short hop."

  Maxwell glanced at Deegan, then Tebrey. "Up to you."

  "I'm game," Tebrey said. "Ready when you are."

  "Bridge of the closest ship?"

  "That's fine."

  There was a disorienting surge, and Geoffrey was standing on the bridge of an Empire cruiser. Gravity was out, and the bridge was filled with floating bloated bodies and rotting blood. There was lots of blood. He felt his gorge rise and barely kept his stomach from rebelli
ng. He was glad he couldn't smell it, and doubly glad he'd had some training in null-gravity.

  "This looks familiar," Tebrey said.

  Deegan gave him a sharp look that Geoffrey could almost feel. "In what way?"

  "My first encounter with a Theta," said Tebrey. "The Kirov was attacked. Almost everyone aboard was killed. Those of us who survived... We weren't... whole. I lost a companion to the thing, while trying to make it to the bridge to get the ship out of hyperspace."

  "This was the work of a Theta?" Deegan asked.

  "Yes. I thought you were familiar with them."

  "I am familiar with the Dark Ones," said Deegan. "More than you want to know. This doesn't look like their work. This is the work of a beast, an animal. The Fallen tend to work slowly. They may do this to a person in secret, but not this orgy of destruction."

  "Most of the ones I've seen have been like this," Tebrey replied. "I encountered that one again later, and it was the same."

  "I don't understand," Deegan said. "This doesn't fit with the way they work. They feed slowly, manipulating fears, driving people to madness."

  "It took a week on the Kirov. Trust me, people went mad."

  Deegan shook his head.

  "I any case," Tebrey said. "People could still be alive. Fan out, look for survivors. These bodies look to be a few days old, but it's possible. Six of us survived from the Kirov. If there are survivors, I want them found. Also, be very careful. There could be Thetas still here."

  The last thing Geoffrey wanted was to be separated from everyone else, but he didn't have much choice. He unslung his plasma rifle and checked the charge. It was fine. He left the bridge and continued down through the ship. The layout was similar to the Concord ship he was familiar with. Medical was just down the corridor from the bridge, and, if anything, it was even worse.

  The machines in Medical were more primitive than the ones on the Concord ships, and they had been used to torture the doctors and nurses to death. He checked the machines to be sure, but the bodies were quite dead. The readouts showed that the… victims had been kept alive for days as the machines cut and reshaped them.

  He felt his bile rising and was unable to stop his response. He vomited violently, and his helmet automatically flushed, leaving him clean but still faintly smelling of sick. An alarm started flashing in his display, and some part of his mind noted that the medical suite was injecting him with anti-nausea and anxiety medication. He pushed himself weakly out of the room and into the corridor, closing his eyes to shut out the horror.