And they’re tied into movement, Irie thought, trying to breathe through her skin without moving her mouth or chest. She wasn’t sure how well she was doing.
“Drekker. Another one, on our left…” Val whispered from his own frozen stance. There was a subtle bleep and another red light rose in front of him.
“We could never escape both. One, maybe…” Irie said through clenched teeth. The hunter drones were programmed with a variety of settings and a variety of weapons, of course, but these ones seemed to be activated as soon as they registered movement. If they were very, very still, Irie knew, then there was a very slight possibility that they might return to their slumber. But even then, she and Val would have to find a way to dive back out of the room, which would activate them all over again.
“Oh, frack. Oh, frack. Oh frack,” she whispered, wondering what she was doing here. Oh yeah, my captain is a greedy idiot.
“Do not despair, Irie,” Val hissed. “If Armcore guarded this hall, it must mean that there is something beyond it which is valuable. If only we can…” He shifted his massive claws on the Judge, and instantly both hunter drones flinched toward him, quivering slightly in the air.
“Don’t move!” Irie whispered. There had to be a way out of this, she told herself. Think. You’re the engineer. How do you disable two of the most dangerous security drones without moving?
“I have an idea,” the Duergar whispered. “I could move, draw their fire, while you attack them.”
“That’s a terrible idea!” Irie hissed. “No. I absolutely forbid you to do it.”
“You are not my superior officer, Irie,” Val growled.
“What? Yes, I am! An engineer trumps a mere gunner, every time!” Irie was annoyed enough to spit. The hunter drone nearest to her jumped forward by a foot, twitching at where it had detected movement.
“In whose navy?” the Duergar protest-muttered. “On Duergar, the gunner and arms’ sergeant and the warrior are the next in line after the captain. The engineers are one up from the ship doctor.”
“Well, this is a human boat, and in the Coalition, the chief engineer outranks the gunner, got it?!” Irie argued. None of this is helping either of us survive! What are we going to do?
The engineer tried to remember precisely what it was that she had in her pockets. Did she bring the scrambler with her? A device that would block local radio and quantum signals? If she had, then it would be in one of the pouches on her utility belt. If she had, then she might be able to use it to scramble these hunter drone’s sensors.
But she would have to move to get it.
“You want a hand in there?” said an unexpected voice from the corridor. Irie tried to turn her head, but as soon as she moved an inch, the hunter drone twitched and surged forward another half-meter. It was now only her arm’s reach away. UGH! Irie could have cried.
She couldn’t see who it was had spoken, but she could hear their footsteps moving.
“Hey, I wouldn’t if I were you…” Irie hissed through gritted teeth. “These things will track to movement. One more step, and…”
There was another soft sound as the speaker walked carefully into their hallway, and the hunter drones didn’t even twitch.
What?
“No, they won’t target me,” Irie heard the voice say—a female voice, she realized—before the figure suddenly appeared in her field of view. She was taller than Irie—not that that was saying much, as Irie knew she wasn’t the tallest woman in the world—and behind her own visor helmet, she had hair that was just slightly too warm to be considered a classic platinum blonde, cut into a bob. She wore dark blue and sandy-colored work clothes, and clearly appeared to be comfortable in challenging situations, as on her belt was a heavy blaster pistol and several more arcane tools.
“Who are you?” Irie hissed.
The woman shot her a look that was full of warning as she calmly walked past her, straight to the side of the motionless hunter drone, which still hadn’t reacted at all to her presence. She raised one of the tools from her belt—something that looked vaguely like a screwdriver—and proceeded to press a series of buttons and turn dials on its body, emitting a hum.
Thunk! With loud and surprising bangs, both drones fell out of the air and rolled on the marble floor below, deactivated.
“You saved us,” Irie said, as wary of this new woman as she was of the drones.
“Why?” growled Val beside her.
“Because maybe I need you to save me,” the woman said calmly as she looked straight into Irie’s eyes.
“Why haven’t you got your arms up?” barked the voice behind El, who was still standing in the corridor, blaster in his hands.
“Because you told me to freeze?” the captain suggested.
“Cut your lip and turn around, idiot,” barked the voice.
“Okay then.” El did so, but as he turned, he let one knee drop and lunged forward into a roll. He caught a flash of the person in front of him—a human wearing the black, grey, and blue exo-suit of an Armcore guard, face caught in an alarmed shout—and the fizzle of the guard’s blaster fire as it burned the air where El had been.
El came up out of the roll, raising his blaster pistol in one smooth movement and pulling the trigger. There was a crack and a flash as the guard was thrown backwards against the wall.
“Now who’s the idiot?” El said, quickly seizing the guard and dragging him into the nearest of the small alcove-rooms before ransacking his pockets and belt pouches. An Armcore security card, a heavy blaster and some ammunition, and not much else.
“Tzzt! Phillips? Phillips! Report back!” the man’s helmet crackled and El swore under his breath. It wouldn’t be long before someone was sent out to find out what had happened to him.
“And that means that I have to get out of here, now.” El turned and ran down the corridor as quickly and as quietly as he could.
He had gone too far into the alien complex, it seemed. As he skidded past an arched opening, he heard voices from around a distant corner. There were others here. Guards or archaeologists? The captain didn’t wait to find out, but kept on moving, hiding at the next corner as a troop of three Armcore guards jogged past.
This place is crawling with them! But what are they doing? El thought, moving down the only tunnel that didn’t seem to be full of angry soldiers.
These walls were narrower than the others, and the tunnel sloped upwards until it ended in a low-ceilinged gallery, open to the cavern outside. He must be somewhere near the top of the ziggurat, he thought. Well, the top that was still underground, anyway. He kept low as he walked toward the openings that looked out into the cavern below, to see that something strange was happening.
The windows were near the ceiling of the cavern, and from this height, El could see down the broad stone terraces of the ziggurat. On the bottom few terraces were a gathering of people, sheltered by large, bright floodlights standing around them like sentinels, and around that was a double line of heavily-armored Armcore sentries, all holding their heavy blasters at the ready. Whatever they were doing down there, the captain could see that they didn’t want to be disturbed.
There was a whine of electricity, and El saw that, underneath the floodlights, there were also large machine-units, with a fan of consoles stacked upon them. Figures in grey and red robes moved frantically from one to the other.
“Preliminary checks complete,” came a louder voice over some sort of speaker system.
“Guards, stand by.” There was a ripple of attention from the ranks of Armcore soldiers as they brought their blasters up and pointed them out, toward the darkness of the pit at the feet of the ziggurat.
“Beginning procedure in three, two, one, and…”
There was a surge of power that El could see from up in his viewing gallery. Thick pipes of composite wires and cables suddenly pulsed with a white-blue light, and the captain watched as the power ran through the lines of pipework, to the base of the pyramid, and then disappeared
over the edge of the pit and down into the dark. The light illuminated the inner sides of the pit for a moment, and El thought he saw veins of rock that flared with brilliance as if cut through with crystal seams, but then the light faded.
El held his breath and waited.
Nothing.
What was I expecting? he thought, shaking his head. “You’re just getting creeped out by this place,” he told himself, and was about to return to his searching for lost Valyien tech, when the loud speakers broke into voice once again.
“First attempt failure. Second procedure in 3, 2, and…”
Another flash of power surged into the pit. What were they trying to do? The air of expectancy was so high, however, that it was hard for the captain to tear his eyes away from scene below. El felt uneasy…which was right about the time that he did find a piece of Valyien tech, as it rose out of the pit, trailing the pulsing power cables from underneath it like the tentacles of some strange deep-sea creature.
“What the…?” El gasped.
It was roughly ovoid, and made of a deep blue and green metal, nearly black, but shone oddly in the floodlights. El could see different swirls, plates, and segmenting patterns that went into its makeup. But it was still unlike any technology that he had witnessed firsthand anywhere else. Is this what Valyien tech looks like?
It was almost as tall as a human, and it propelled itself into the air of its own accord, seemingly without boosters, rockets, or even any field generators.
What is powering it? he thought, before he saw another pulse of power from the Armcore cables. Armcore have brought that thing up from the depths. They found it and are bringing it to life.
There was a groan of protesting metal, and El could see the plates and swirls on the thing’s surface start to move, rearrange themselves. The ovoid was opening, unfolding like the petals of a lotus, revealing something that shone like a crystal inside.
“What have they found?” El whispered, unable to look away or move even if he had wanted to.
“Second procedure success! Begin protocol transmission…” the speakers blared, and the civilians or scientists in the robes were now frantic at their consoles. Another pulse of power, but this time, it seemed to be coming from the glowing metal flower. The power surged down the cables and back into the console.
Are they downloading something from it? El wondered. Or stealing something from it? It wasn’t, of course, the ethics that bothered. He was a man who was used to taking what he could find—just as long as there wasn’t another person holding the other end of it in one hand and a blaster in the other.
But El was, like most deep-space captains, a very suspicious man. He knew that his fortunes could turn on the spin of an electron. The next port he landed at could mean his death or his riches. He also knew that there were many strange things to be found out there in the dark between the nebulas. There were astro-phenomenon that did not obey any law or reason. There were stories of wormholes that could transport you to the other side of the universe or could take you back in time. There were curious ‘clouds’ that could make your crew mad or sleep for a year and a day, with no biological reason at all. Space was weird, and he for one didn’t want to start poking the strange if he didn’t know what it would do in response.
But that’s what all of this Valyien stuff is about in the first place, isn’t it? he realized. No human had ever met one. No one had ever even seen one. We were the race that had inherited their technology, and we still didn’t even know what it did!
“Error. Download incomplete,” the speakers said, causing a flurry of activity from the scientists at the consoles.
“What is it? What’s wrong!” someone was shouting, and El saw that one of the figures in the center of the floodlights was waving his hands at his robed scientists. He was a big man with blonde hair and was wearing a suit that was so grey, it almost made the man disappear entirely. He had a singular flash of a badge on his lapel, some kind of pin, but from this distance, El couldn’t make out just what it was.
“Get that thing working!” the man was shouting, as another pulse flashed from the Valyien ovoid to the machines. This time, there was a spark and a bang as one of the screens blew.
“…inadequate housing!” El heard, and that was enough for him to realize that something very wrong was probably going to happen. “We can’t find it!” another scientist shouted.
“What do you mean you can’t find it? It’s right there!” the man who was clearly the leader of their group was shouting.
THABOOOM! The scientists didn’t have time to rectify their mistakes. With the next pulse of light, there was a deafening explosion from the consoles as the floodlights blew, the machine units blew, and a line of blue-white energy rolled up the sides of the ziggurat.
“Whoa!” El hit the deck, sheltering against the low stone wall at the lip of the window as the gallery room flared with the brightness of the energy wave then dissipated. It was silent for a moment, and then he heard wails of pain and shouts of alarm. The captain wondered if he dared look over the edge at what horror was occurring down there—but he did, if only to appease his sense of morbid curiosity.
It looked as though a bomb had gone off—which, El thought, it probably just had. There was a circle of burnt-black rock and twisted metal, and both the Armcore guards and the scientists had been thrown far and wide from their strange setup. What about the orb? El looked out over the pit to see that it was gone, and that it had torn or exploded the cables that had been attached to it. Whether it had done this deliberately, or it was an accident or a security measure, he didn’t know, but as distant klaxons and alarms started to sound from deeper in the pyramid, he was sure that he didn’t have time to find out.
“Great. Just great,” he swore as he ran back out of the gallery room to retrace his steps into the corridors beyond. “Val? Irie? Report back. Full evacuation. It’s gone crazy in here!” he shouted into the guard on his arm, only for it to relay a few fragments of words back at him, and then silence.
“Aw, frack!” he shouted as he pushed himself to run even faster.
“Captain? Captain! Where are you?” Irie was shouting into her own arm-guard, but its lights were blinking erratically. Stupid thing, she thought.
“The interference down here is problematic,” said the woman ahead of them, pausing beside a corridor and turning for a troop of worried-looking Armcore guards to rush past, then moving in the opposite direction. “And that was before…” she breathed.
“Before what?” Irie hissed as she followed her. The engineer wasn’t even particularly sure why she was following her, only that she was. This woman had saved her life, so it seemed a good idea to work out why.
“That explosion. The flicker of the lights? The tremors?” their savior was saying. “I’m Cassandra, by the way.” Another pause at the next junction.
“Why didn’t those hunter drones attack you?” Val growled at her.
“Because I’ve got one of these.” She tapped the small rectangle of an ident card on her belt.
“Wait. You work here?” Irie slowed.
“I did, if that is what you mean. I was an archaeologist. Before they brought Armcore in.” Cassandra checked the turn, found it clear, then urged them to be quiet as she crossed to an open archway on the far side. It was almost entirely dark in there, as the explosion must have blown most of the systems Armcore was using, but there was the glow of blinking red from consoles stacked into a workspace.
“What is this?” Irie said, venturing in slowly. Ahead of her, Cassandra was at one of the consoles, hurriedly unplugging wires from a small obsidian-metal object, as well as flicking switches and turning down dials. “What is that?” the engineer added suspiciously. This was a sort of equipment that she recognized, but not their individual types and functions.
“These are power capacitors,” Irie breathed, running a hand over a bank of machines. “Like vast adapters, they split and magnify currents of energy, allow you to monitor or
break apart the different quantum fields…”
“Bingo, sister,” Cassandra nodded, shoving the device into her pocket. “And now we can go! Can I get a ride?”
“Wait, what?” Irie frowned.
“We got company!” Val said from the door, raising the Judge and sighting it back down the corridor. “Back up if you want to live!” he roared down at the oncoming footsteps, then suddenly ducked back as a scatter of blaster fire scorched the walls.
“Good, I was hoping they would say that.” Val grinned, flicking the controls of the massive ion rifle, leaning out in one smooth motion and letting rip.
Dap! Dap! Dap! The ion cannon fired energized particles at a machine gun rate, creating a lightshow that burned Irie’s vision even as she joined Val at the doorway and added a few shots of her own back into the Armcore guards. The soldiers fell to the floor or scattered for the nearest corners as the ion cannon filled the air with deadly plasma.
“You got another way out of here, lady?” Irie shouted over her shoulder.
“Yep. Best thing about this creepy place—the Valyien really knew about architecture.” Cassandra was already at an archway on the other side of the room, which had been hidden behind a stack of consoles. “Come on!”
“Okay, big guy, on three?” Irie said, before whispering. “One!” She fired a couple of shots down the corridor and turned to run to their escape door.
“Two!” Val did the same, releasing a barrage of ion shots into the air behind him before he joined Irie.
“Three!” They both shot into the room, blowing up machines and consoles before turning and running after the mysterious archaeologist.
“Frack, frack, and double-frack! Where are you guys?” El had emerged at the original fork in the tunnel, keeping a wary look in both directions. There were a lot of shouts now, and an awful lot of guards running back and forth under the ring of alarm bells.
Valyien Boxed Set 1 Page 4