by Scott Lucas
Orba looked right back at him. Her red-rimmed eyes filled with fury and definace. “I suppose you know we were lovers.”
Tem had not expected her to be straightforward about it, but he appreciated her candor and forged onward with more questions. “You had a... disagreement with him the night before we planted the mines.”
“He wanted to make love, and I didn’t.” Orba tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “That’s all.”
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t pry into your personal life, Madam DeWilda, but the night after this disagreement between you two, your lover tried to kill me.” Tem paused for a moment to let the information sink in. “Quite an overreaction, even considering what you denied him.”
“Tem!” Vosper warned.
“Did you know he was the traitor?” Tem asked.
“He wasn’t,” Orba said.
“How can you know that for sure?” Vosper asked.
“This project is all I have, and I would share a life with Milo. Why would he sabotage his own future?” She stared Tem down, breathing heavily after her outburst. “Has it occurred to you, Paladin, that this had nothing to do with the pirates?”
“What do you mean?” Tem surprised at being addressed as Paladin. Although he had asked for a clarification, his mind was already racing ahead to the conclusion Orba was suggesting.
“I bear no ill will toward your Order,” she said. “In fact, I believe that the theocratic government was guilty of sowing propaganda against the Paladins. We never discussed it, but I know that Milo leaned toward supporting the Star Chamber Tribunal. He may have been more of an extremist than I thought.”
Tem said after a pause, “We have yet to apprehend the traitor.”
Vosper sat up and placed a hand against the comm link inside his ear. “What?”
He stood up so quickly that his chair wobbled dangerously on its legs.
“I’ll be right there.”
“What is happening?” Tem asked.
“It’s Arno,” Vosper was already moving toward the doors. “He wants me in the observation tower. I can’t believe this…” He was muttering half to himself as the door slid open. Tem and Orba hurried out the door after him.
“Vosper, what is it?” Orba demanded.
Vosper turned, his hand still pressed to his ear. It drained his face of all color. “The androids have revolted. All five hundred of them.”
Chapter Thirteen: Siege on the Tower
Tem and Orba followed Vosper at a sprint toward the observation tower. They arrived panting at the top of the steps and burst in on the technicians at their computers. Each terminal housed a frantic technician typing furiously at the comm screens.
“None of the overrides are working!” Wurth screamed.
“We have to seal off the mines!”
Vosper hurried to the nearest terminal and almost shoved the technician there aside for a view of the screen. The red dots on the station and the adjoining mine shafts layouts represented the androids. He switched from camera feed to camera feed. In each, the androids moved en masse with dogged purpose.
Orba gasped. “We need to evacuate the colony before…”
“No, wait,” Tem interrupts. “What if that’s what the pirates want?”
An exasperated Orba asked, “You’re thinking about the pirates at a time like this?”
Tem nodded. “Their ships are still damaged and whoever is the mole must have told them about the traps we have set for them so they can’t get close to the colony.”
Garrow entered the room, taking his place next to Orba.
A technician across the room called to Vosper. “Sir, the drones have breached the perimeter.”
Vosper smashed a fist onto the nearest table and stalked away from the terminal, shouting commands into his comm link, “Call the company and tell them to send reinforcements immediately!”
“They jammed our communications,” Wurth said, appearing from behind one terminal. “No outside contact.”
Vosper whispers, “The Ler pirates are here.”
Tem asked the technician, “Can you keep the barrier narrow?”
“For a short period, yes.”
Tem pivoted to Vosper. “We need gunners. The best. Have them meet me at the gun turrets. We must destroy as many androids as possible.”
Wurth protested, “But those are company property!”
Garrow stepped away from the wall. “Nothing we can do about that now.” He nodded to Tem. “The turrets on the ridge overlooking the mines external entrance ready to fire. We’ll be firing from behind the onslaught. At least we’ll be able to destroy the androids that were out picking up the debris that rained down.”
Tem was already striding toward the door. “Can you have gunners at the landing bay? We’ll ship out to the guns.”
“Affirmative.” Garrow followed Tem out onto the stairwell. Garrow shouted orders into his comm link.
When Tem and Garrow arrived at the landing bay, twelve security men assembled in the hangar. Garrow made a brief hand signal, and the men hustled toward the nearest shuttle.
As they piled inside, Tem instinctively took the controls. Once they were in the air and heading toward the surface entrance on autopilot, Tem joined the rest of the men in the back of the shuttle. Tem donned the last suit that hung on a rack. He checked the seals of his neighbors’ suits and allowed them to check that his suit. As he tugged the straps of Garrow’s suit and made some final adjustments, he felt like part of a brotherhood again.
At maximum speed, the shuttle reached its destination in several minutes later. Tem piloted the shuttle directly on top of the ridge to the turret guns. The men spread out, a man to each gun. Tem took a seat in his gun and made a cursory examination of the controls. He had used this kind of weapon before, during a refugee run with Adeus. It had required him to fire upon attacking enemies from the city walls as the refugees were boarding.
Below, the androids packed the gully, each carving for a place at the surface entrance. Someone had sabotaged the doorway so that it could not close on command from the watchtower. Tem focused his fire on the androids nearest the doorway. For the next thirty seconds, the gully echoed with the staccato bursts of a dozen guns.
The gun on Tem’s left stopped firing. It was too far away for Tem to see exactly what the holdup was, but the man appeared to be struggling with his weapon. Tem continued to fire on the androids at the bottleneck. Through the sound of gunfire, he shouted to the east gunner. “Keep firing!”
There was still no response.
“Gunner! Fire on the bottleneck!”
A massive explosion rocked the ridge. Everything in that direction became completely obscured in a haze. Tem whirled to face it. Sabotage. Someone is taking out the guns.
He scanned the outcroppings for an approaching attacker. There was no sign of anyone in any direction. Tem’s mind surged with adrenaline. He dove from the gun turret and scrambled to reach cover behind a boulder as his gun turret exploded with a concussion that rattled the smaller stones at Tem’s feet. Thick black smoke cloaked the ridge, reducing visibility to nil.
Tem remained behind the boulder, but unable to see the edge of the ridge. More explosions rocked the ridge as the other guns blew up one after another.
“The androids are breaking through into the colony!” one tower technician cried.
Vosper’s voice came over the line. “Seal off the refinery!”
A confused cacophony of voices barked orders over the comm, accompanied by screams of terror in the background.
“The refinery doors won’t close, sir!”
Tem cursed under his breath. He had few options since the turret guns were disabled. He pulled up a readout of the colony’s functioning cameras. From his helmet, the feed was broadcasted from the tower, but Vosper switched to the feed Tem needed to see. The twitching bodies of a few androids jammed the plexi-carbon sliding doors that separated the refinery from the rest of the colony. Plexi-carbon smashing against plex
i-carbon. Those doors could have crushed almost anything else. Tem suspected the saboteurs had programmed these androids as jammers.
Tem hit the comm switch. “Seal off access to the living quarters. Get everyone behind those doors!” He switched channels. “Gun squad. Who’s still here? Sound off.”
Eight of the twelve returned with their call sign, including Garrow. “What the hell was that?” the security chief bellowed.
“This was all planned,” Tem said. “Whoever sabotaged the androids knew we would use the guns first.”
“We’ve got to get back to the colony.” Garrow’s voice turned to a harsh bark as he gave orders. “Let’s find the boys who didn’t sound off. Get them aboard. We’ve got to fight back the androids from inside the colony.”
Tem rushed through the still-hazy landscape and clambered back aboard the shuttle. He powered it up and switched back to the channel he shared with Vosper. “We need to evacuate the station.”
“Agreed,” Vosper said. “We’ve got the course plotted out.”
“Is it a pre-plotted evacuation route?”
“Yes.”
“We have to change it. The traitor sabotaged the guns. He knows everything. We have to assume he knows the evacuation route, too. It’s likely an ambush planned along the usual route.”
“You’re probably right.”
Tem glanced behind him. The gunners were clambering aboard, some supporting or dragging fallen comrades.
“Ready,” Garrow grunted. “Punch it.”
Tem hit the switch to shut the doors. The walkway was still rising into position as he blasted off and made for the colony. “Vosper, is there anybody on this station you trust completely?”
Vosper paused to consider. He did not make it to this position by being too trusting. “I would have to say Wurth.”
His response surprised Tem, because Arno Wurth was high on Tem’s suspect list. Tem cleared his throat and said, “Okay, here’s the plan, and tell only him.”
Chapter Fourteen: Evacuation
As soon as the shuttle landed, the gun squad disembarked for the elevator. Tem heard orders relayed over the comm link. “Get to the weapons bay. Stun batons. Work in pairs. Aim for the access panel.”
Tem stepped into the elevator with the rest of them, but when they reached the sub-level, he ran in the opposite direction toward the observation tower. As he ran, there was a shift in the colony lighting system. The lighting strips recessed into the upper edges of the corridors illuminated with a scrolling series of arrows that pointed out the exits that they meant everyone to take.
Tem encountered Vosper in the corridor and turned to fall into step beside the Baron Administrator. As Tem and Vosper walked side by side toward the landing bay, Tem pointed to the arrows. “Clever.”
“It ensures that no one gets lost. People panic and often forget where the elevator is.”
Vosper placed a hand against his ear as a communication came over his earpiece. Tem could hear the garbled sounds of someone shouting, but could make out no words.
Vosper wiped a bead of sweat off his temple, telling Tem, “The androids had already left the cybernetics corridors. Security wasn’t able to seal the doors in time.”
Tem and Vosper jogged toward the landing bay.
Tem glanced over at the Baron Administrator, who did a little running as part of his daily job. “Any humans in the cybernetics corridors?”
“Garrow says they were all able to flee. There’s only a handful of hands-on technicians left attempting to repair the androids down there. Most of them are holed up inside the observation tower.”
Once they arrived in the landing bay, Vosper joined Wurth, who was already directing the remaining colonists into various shuttles. It reminded Tem of the time he had spent piloting refugees away from their overrun planets.
Nearly fifty colonists waited outside the shuttles when the androids arrived in the landing bay. A technician slapped the button to shut the doors, but he was too late. An android trampled him and skidded into the room like an insect. Its feet made a shrieking scraping sound against the hangar floor. Colonists shrieked and raced toward the shuttles, all semblance of order was forgotten.
Tem placed himself between the android and the fleeing colonists. More androids forced their way through the closing doors. One android fell, still operative, and lay in the way of the doors so that others could clamber over it. The saboteurs had programmed the androids with the colony defenses in mind.
Tem primed his stun baton and squared up with the first android. It charged without hesitation, its pickaxe raised. Tem dodged the swing and took advantage of the android’s forward momentum to jab the stun baton into the access panel at the back of its neck. The android jittered and slumped onto the floor.
Tem raced toward the next android. He glanced back for a moment to see how the colonists were progressing. One shuttle was full, the doors closed on several frantic workers who clawed at the doors.
Tem took down another android, and yelled into his comm switch. “Vosper!”
“Vosper here!”
“Get the stragglers on board my ship. The entry code is CLEON.”
“Is your ship ready?”
“Um… yeah. Completely functional.”
“Honestly?”
“Are we really having this discussion now?”
Out the corner of his eye, Tem saw Vosper and several colonists run across the bay toward the Wyvern Star. Tem hoped the repairs he had made of the ship had been enough. The weapons systems were still down, but this was an evacuation. Unless pirates attacked them fleeing the colony, he should not need his weapons.
He feared that an attack during the evacuation was what the pirates had in mind. He had come under attack many times piloting innocents away from a similar situation.
As soon as the first wave of androids fell, Tem sprinted to the Wyvern Star. More androids had clawed their way through the gap in the hangar doors heading toward the shuttles.
“Wyv,” Tem ordered. “Prepare for immediate launch. We’ve got seconds.”
The rushed Paladin noticed three dead men on the ground. At first, he thought they were colonists trampled by their fellows, then noticed scorch marks on all the dead men. They wore the same uniforms as the assassin from the asteroid expedition.
“Were you attacked, Wyv?”
“Unauthorized entry attempted twenty minutes ago. I took the usual precautions.”
“Good job. Skip the diagnostics. Get us up there!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you ready to fly?” Tem asked his ship as he made his way to her.
“Yes, however, I have sustained some damage.”
“Critical?”
“I am running a diagnostic now.”
“No time.” The androids were now between Tem and the Wyvern Star. Tem wished he had his suit. “Do you have any more defensive charges left in you, Wyv?”
“I do, but it will call on reserve power.”
Several androids surrounded the Wyvern Star. One of them swung its pickaxe.
“Do it, Wyv!”
The Wyvern Star targeted the androids and fired. A few of the androids climbed on top of the Wyvern Star, whose powerful electrical shields repelled them. However, some androids could hold on and started pounding the ship. There were too many androids to fight hand to hand. They had Tem surrounded and had dragged him down to his knees.
“Wyv, can you send out a limited EMP away from you and inside this hangar only?”
“Yes, but I will need to lower the shields.”
“Do it.”
As the Wyvern Star’s shields deactivated, one android’s pickaxe dented the outer casing. A hum arose to a static-laced whine as the Wyvern Star primed the EMP. The shock wave burst from the ship and knocked the attackers to the floor.
“Wyv, get the colonists out of here!”
Once they were out of the hangar and hid in a post-orbit above the colony, Tem plugged himself into the navigati
onal system.
“Status, Wyv,” Tem commanded.
“Minor damage to navigation and subsystems.”
“Weapons and shields?”
“Shields at eighty percent. Weapons inoperative.”
Tem assumed that the fire she had sent toward the androids had been all she had in her partially damaged state. He would make repairs when they arrived at the refuge site, but he should be able to make the short journey.
Tem patted the console. “Well done.”
The refugees from Roschin Colony made a temporary stop at one of the older, abandoned colonies that the company had stripped its asteroid of ore and moved on. The life-support system was still operational, but the engineers sealed off only a single wing to house the refugees.
“I’m surprised there wasn’t an ambush planned once we were in the air,” Vosper said.
Tem had been thinking on it. “The ambush was the rogue androids,” he said. “I don’t think the Ler pirates want us dead. They want the colony and the ore it provides.”
Tem landed the ship in the outdated hangar bay of one of the abandoned mining sites in a neighboring asteroid. Colonists were filing out of their shuttles, directed by Dr. Wurth toward the living quarters. There were a handful of complaints, since the living quarters on this asteroid were smaller and more like barracks, with twelve people per bunkroom. The refugees were grateful not to be in danger from rogue androids anymore. A few rested against the wall at one end of the hangar discussed living situations.
Tem was about to head to the back of the ship to remove his armor when one of his passengers, a bespectacled man in a technician’s suit, stopped him. Most of the other passengers of the Wyvern Star had already followed Vosper out onto the lift shuttle bay floor.
“Thank you,” said the technician.
Tem blinked. It had been a long time since anyone who knew who he was and thanked him.
“My cousin owed his life to one of your Order,” continued the technician. “The Paladin’s name was Regis. Did you know him?”
Tem glanced toward the open hatchway of the Wyvern Star. Regis’ name was familiar. They had never fought together nor studied at Baldock’s Academy at the same time, but Tem knew that it was the name of someone in the Order.