Discovery

by Craig Martelle

  “Dokken was taped to your face to create a seal.”

  “That bastard licked my mouth,” Terry replied. “I won’t do it again.”

  “You know you would.”

  Terry reached for the box, wondering if touching it might bring up a holographic interface. An angry red aura appeared around his hand, yanking and pulling before throwing him into the wall. He bounced and staggered but stayed upright.

  “Shielded,” Char said unnecessarily. “Usually, the shield just blocks you. What was going on with that first part before you got tossed?”

  Terry blinked and grunted as he worked his muscles to make sure nothing was discombobulated. “Seemed like it was trying to pull me in, but it hurt like my hand was in lava.”

  “I’d say let it pull you in, but if it’s going to punish you during the process, that probably isn’t an option.”

  “Getting trapped inside a force field surrounding a nondescript box? No, that wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  “We might need to try it at some point,” Char suggested, wincing at the desperation that would lead them to such a drastic action.

  “But not yet,” Terry confirmed. When they stepped back into the hall, the lights blinked into existence, bathing the corridors in soft light. “It’s what we wanted, but now I’m not sure I want it.”

  The skin crawled on Char’s neck. She kept a firm grip on the laser pistol as her senses discovered something that hadn’t been there before. “What’s that sound?”

  The War Axe, Keeg Station, Dren Cluster

  “Preparing to Gate. All hands, we are leaving Keeg Station. Say goodbye, and if everything goes according to plan, we’ll be back in less than a week,” Captain Micky San Marino announced over the ship-wide broadcast.

  “Why’d he have to jinx it?” Christina asked. Kimber looked down and shook her head.

  When the major looked up, the warriors were shuffling and wiggling. Her patience instantly evaporated, and she stormed into their ranks. “You are practicing standing still, which clearly means you need more practice!” she bellowed. “Lock your nasty bodies up, and I better not see anyone move. Exercise some self-discipline, people!”

  She trolled the ranks, back and forth, daring someone to move. The warriors remained statue still.

  Kimber returned to where Christina was standing in front of the formation. They all wore their dress uniforms. Some of those who had been on liberty were starting to sweat. Too much alcohol, not enough water, and no sleep. Their bodies were starting to rebel.

  “You might want to think about lightening up,” Christina suggested. “You seem a bit high-strung.”

  Kimber turned to the taller woman. “Maybe, but we have six days left to pull this off. I have no idea if we’ll make it. Dad will be pissed if we dick up a parade in uniforms that he used to wear.”

  “Fair enough. How long are you going to keep them like that?”

  “This go? An hour. A fifteen-minute break, and then two hours. If they don’t screw that up too badly, we’ll call it a day and start tomorrow at five in the morning.”

  “That sounds like the cost of screwing it up, not the reward for success.”

  “Six?”

  “That’s more like it.” Christina kept her hands behind her. She was as miserable as those in formation, but she could move around when she had to. “Poor sops. But a cool half a mil. Bonuses for everyone.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kimber demanded of one of the warriors and hurried away.

  Abandoned Kurtherian Outpost, Okkoto, the Fourth Moon Orbiting Cygnus VI

  “Something’s coming,” Terry said, looking desperately for cover. He motioned back the way they’d come. Char turned and ran about thirty meters, and Terry sprinted past her as they turned the corner of the first T intersection. She stopped and threw her back against the wall, then crouched to aim down the corridor with her laser pistol.

  Terry leaned over her and peeked down the now well-lit corridor. He turned off his flashlight and tucked it into a coat pocket without taking his eyes away from the direction the sound was coming from.

  Their superlative hearing, thanks to the nanos, gave them warning when a normal person would have been caught unaware. A nearly silent flying bot appeared, but it used a physical propulsion system. Char could feel that it was powered by the Etheric, but Terry didn’t know or care. He suspected its purpose was offensive in nature, as in, it was a security device. His hand still stung from the angry red forcefield.

  The device skipped past the room they’d gone into and headed straight for them.

  “Fire!” Terry shouted as it approached. Char had the same thought, and she drilled the device as the call to action left his lips.

  The laser was stymied by an energy shield, so the beam stopped cold well before it reached the floating bot. The security device counter-fired, hitting the pistol in Char’s hand and exploding the device. Char was thrown back, and she clutched her face as she rolled.

  Terry had been leaning over Char and took the majority of the blast in his exposed abdomen. He popped straight up, coming off his feet to land on his face. He grunted as he hit and immediately rolled away as a second beam scorched the spot where his head had just been. Terry launched himself at the opposite wall, hitting it with his feet and pushing off as he threw himself at the bot. He drove his knife down toward it. It caught in the forcefield, but like he was pushing it through soft wood, he was able to keep the blade moving.

  But so slowly. The muscles in his arm bulged with the effort, and his abs screamed for relief. Terry grabbed the hilt with his other hand and screamed his fury at the device. With the knife stuck in the forcefield, the bot couldn’t turn to aim at him. Terry thought that was weird, but appreciated that it couldn’t kill him while he was killing it.

  He drove the bot downward. It tried to fly away, but it wasn’t strong enough to fly while the big human was attached to it, so Terry rammed it into the wall. The energy shield acted as a damper, protecting it from being pinned. When the Ka-bar’s point reached the metal, Terry slid it until it caught one of the many seams, then he ripped with barbaric vigor, driving the point deeper into the metal construct.

  When he hit something important, the end came quickly. The shield disappeared, and the propulsion ceased; it dropped like a bowling ball. Terry followed it to the floor. He wasn’t sure it was dead, but pulled his knife free and stabbed it into the orifice from which its laser had fired. With a cracked crystal, if it came back to life, it wouldn’t be shooting at them.

  Terry hurried back to Char. Her face was a mess; the flesh was torn and shredded, and one eye was swollen shut. He cradled her to his chest, but the raw hamburger that was his stomach added his blood to hers.

  He rocked her, feeling her pulse beneath his fingers and trusting the nanocytes to do their job and repair their injuries. Terry listened, hoping that another bot wasn’t on its way, but he could hear nothing besides his own blood pounding in his ears. The skin on his arms was bright red and had started to bubble.

  “Gott Verdammt, TH!” Bethany Anne bitched. She stood wearing her glossy black armor and a look of concern. “I can’t leave you two for a minute.”

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t leave us at all,” Terry replied.

  “I don’t seem to have any control over that,” BA admitted. “I’m here now, though. What do you need me to do?”

  “Find a control room where we can summon the elevator, or I’d settle for a stairway if such a thing wasn’t too backward for the Kurtherians.”

  The Queen turned and strode down the hallway, her mid-calf boots with extended heels not making a sound. She stopped at a four-way intersection about seventy-five meters down the corridor, where she looked in each direction before taking a left and disappearing from sight around the corner.

  “Always turn left and you won’t get lost,” he said after her.

  Terry felt exhausted. He’d been seriously injured three times in the cou
rse of thirty minutes. Char’s features were coming back together, but she was still dead to the world. Terry closed his eyes for just a moment, and that was all he remembered.

  When Terry woke, the lights were off. Char was in his arms, breathing slowly and deeply as she always did when she slept.

  “Bethany Anne?” he called, but she didn’t answer.

  Char stirred and mumbled, “I feel like shit.”

  “We’ve covered no ground and almost been killed twice by relics from a zillion years ago. This isn’t cutting-edge Kurtherian tech. These are the long-forgotten castoffs, and they are as deadly now as they were back then.”

  Char sat up and carefully stroked the new skin of her face. “Got your flashlight handy?”

  He pulled it out and turned it on. He smiled. “Beautiful as ever.” He touched her face and changed the angle of the light. “All healed. How long were we out?”

  “At least an hour?” Char guessed. Together they stood, then Char found her flashlight and added its light to Terry’s. “Anything new?”

  “I think we’re fine, but we need to start making progress.”

  “It’s a puzzle box,” Char suggested. “We get lights, security bots, forcefields, and elevators, and it’s all interconnected. We get one thing to do what we want, and something else happens.”

  “Lights don’t mean security. It’s the opposite. And the weapons made us a target.” Terry started to pace. “How about we try opening a door but not going in?”

  “I’m good with anything that doesn’t blow up in my face.” She turned off her flashlight to save power.

  Terry walked past the room with shielded boxes. This time, it didn’t open when he waved his hand in front of the activation pad. “What the fuck?” he grumbled and stopped. The wreckage of the security bot remained on the floor. “Visual or wireless?”

  “As in, does this thing open doors and turn on lights because of how it looks, or from the data it exchanges with the mothership?”

  “My guess would be the latter, but let’s take it with us.” Terry’s coat was shredded and covered in dried blood. Before he picked up the robot, he checked his pockets. One of his water containers had been punctured, and the circuit board from the other bot had been shattered. “Shit.”

  “I’m sorry, Terry.” Char gripped his arm to stop him from continuing down the corridor.

  “Don’t be, lover. I know. I’m the hardest guy ever to buy a present for.” He kissed her. “Thank you for trying to make this special for me. I owe you a pair of Louboutin boots. Thinking about things that are needed, maybe the universe could use a Westworld-type amusement park. Escape from the Kurtherians.”

  “All we need to do is escape first,” Char suggested.

  “Puzzle box. This is an escape room, but it’s real,” Terry declared.

  “An escape room has an exit and isn’t trying to kill you.”

  “Details, details!” Terry laughed lightly as the situation gelled within his mind to something that made sense. A problem to figure out instead of something he had to fight his way through, even though he needed to do that, too. He killed a security bot with his Ka-bar.

  “The devil’s in the details,” Bethany Anne’s voice came from the darkness.

  “Welcome back, BA. Did you find anything?” Terry asked.

  “I found a couple of Etheric power sources that are lighting up the universe. Everyone should be able to see us down here now.”

  “A door slammed shut as the elevator came down the shaft. I think it’s shielded again. All that power is being used to hide all that power.”

  BA walked to the wall and turned toward them. “This is a bunch of shit. Can’t you two party like normal people?”

  Char shook her head. “We’re not normal people. None of us.”

  BA didn’t reply, just leaned casually against the wall and waited.

  “This is more like how we party. Let’s rip the fabric of the universe so we can make stuffed animals to give out to children!” Terry quipped, shining his flashlight down the corridor to make sure nothing was trying to sneak up on them. “Can we get to the power supplies? Do you know what would happen if we shut them down?”

  “How the hell would I know? That’s TOM and ADAM’s job. They have to earn their fucking keep somehow, and at the moment, those two miscreants are AWOL. Not exactly going to get glowing marks on their next HR reports.”

  It made sense. “She’s right.”

  “Which means that none of us know. How can we find out without killing ourselves?”

  “There’s the million-credit question,” Bethany Anne remarked. “Follow me, and let’s take a look. We sure as hell can’t find out what it will do from here.”

  BA started to walk but fast, more like a trot. Terry and Char had to run to keep up. The Queen turned left at a four-way intersection, the same way she had gone last time they saw her.

  Terry didn’t want to lose her. Every other time she had disappeared, the Kurtherians had taken out their vengeance on Terry and Char, tripping the traps set untold ages ago.

  They hurried past numerous doorways and a few connecting passages. The space between doors grew until they took another left, branching off the main corridor that widened as it disappeared into the distance.

  “Looks like a survival shelter. Why didn’t they come down here when the city above was getting attacked?” Terry asked.

  “Looks like something out of Stargate. I expect to see the gate room through one of these doors.”

  “Fuck!” Terry waved the beam of his flashlight across the corridor ahead. He hugged the remainder of the bot with his other arm and shook his head, his flashlight turned behind them and then forward once more. “She’s gone again.”

  Char stiffened.

  Before they could move, the lights came on.

  Chapter Six

  Efluyez Homeworld, Alganor Sector

  The War Axe settled into orbit and waited for clearance to land. Micky watched the screen, counting the number and types of ships.

  “Freighters, container ships, bulk liquid carriers,” he intoned. “Four warships that are nothing more than police vessels.”

  He sighed heavily and rested his head on his hand, trying not to look bored.

  “Flayse Control to the War Axe. Welcome! It is a great day for all Flayse, seeing your magnificence in orbit!”

  Micky choked back a snort before opening the channel. “Thank you for the warm welcome, Flayse Control. Please give us clearance and coordinates, and we’ll begin our descent to your lovely planet.”

  There was a long delay. Micky pursed his lips. “Smedley?”

  Before the AI could answer, the planet replied.

  “That won’t be possible. There is simply nowhere for such a great ship to rest at ease. If you could send your people down in shuttles, we’ll be ready to receive them.”

  Christina held up a finger to Micky, then drew it across her throat.

  “Channel closed,” the skipper announced.

  “Fuck that,” Christina stated. “This is starting to stink like a massive setup. Open the channel.”

  Smedley acknowledged, and the captain waited with bated breath for Christina to deliver a dose of reality to the Flayse.

  “This Colonel Christina Lowell. I’m in charge of the Bad Company, and if we can’t bring the War Axe with us, we’re not going to come. Our Pods create an unacceptable vulnerability as we divide our force among non-combatant vessels.”

  The Pods were shielded and built to withstand ground fire, but she didn’t need to tell them that.

  “We cannot change the fact that there is nowhere for your ship to land,” Flayse Control insisted. “That is a mighty big ship you have. Please send your shuttles. We are waiting.”

  “We’re going back home now. Good luck with your parade.” Christina had Smedley close the channel. “Take us out of orbit and prepare to Gate us the fuck out of here.”

  The War Axe turned and slowly accelerated away fr
om Efluyez.

  Smedley interrupted the exodus, as Christina and Micky had expected.

  “Flayse Control is demonstrating a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in their wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

  “Have they rent their clothing?” Christina asked, demonstrating her classical and broad education.

  “Torn their clothing? I have no idea,” the AI replied evenly.

  “Open the channel.”

  “...please come back!” Flayse Control pleaded.

  “Listen here, you mealy-mouthed piece of shit. Stop jacking me around. You know we don’t have to land, so we can put the War Axe anywhere. How about you go fuck yourself!” Christina’s knuckles were white on the fist she was shaking at the image of the planet. “I want to speak with the head of the conglomerate. The one we signed the contract with, not you, you fucking lackey.”

  Smedley cut the connection.

  “A little harsh, don’t you think?” Micky asked.

  “I guess if you’re the lackey following orders, then maybe it was. Sorry, lackey,” she told the screen even though communication with Flayse Control had been terminated.

  “I have the office of the Magnate requesting to speak with Colonel Lowell.”

  “How long did that take, Smedley?”

  “From closed channel to open channel, it was exactly twenty-eight seconds.”

  “Lackey has some chops to get that kind of response.”

  “Shall I turn the ship back toward the planet?”

  Christina turned to Micky and he gestured back, deferring the decision. “Activate the Gate drive, but don’t take us through. First, open a channel to Flayse Control.”

  The engine spooled up and the Gate appeared, the event horizon beckoning.

  “Channel open.”

  “Flayse Control, this is Colonel Lowell. Please accept my apologies. Name-calling was wholly unacceptable. Thank you for notifying the office of the Magnate.”

  “No need to apologize for my rudeness, Colonel. Does that mean you’re going to start sending your shuttles down?”