The Departure

by Neal Asher

  First he successfully penetrated Langstrom’s military com, which involved working through some tangled coding, then—already in the com network Messina’s troops were using—he broadcast a message to both sides.

  “Those of you that can hear me,” he said, “should be aware that I am now in control of the spiderguns. You will first abandon all your weapons, then, as acceleration cuts, as it will do in three minutes, Messina’s remaining troops must withdraw towards the station ring, whilst Smith’s force will head back to their barracks. Failure to obey these instructions means I will be forced to use the spiderguns. That is all for now.”

  He immediately picked up on numerous minor communications: soldiers trying to find their commanders, others pleading for medics, many others complaining that they were in no state to go anywhere. Then arrived com traffic from Messina’s space plane, as some general instructed the troops to “maintain their positions” and “retain their weapons.” At which point Saul decided it was time to butt in.

  “So you are actually instructing all your men to commit suicide,” he said, making sure that his words—and any replies—would be heard by all the troops outside.

  “Who is this?” demanded the general.

  “I think I have been here before,” snapped Saul, “and I’ve no patience with it any more. Here is the position: Argus Station is presently set on a course away from Earth, and while it is under acceleration, all your space planes will remain locked down. I have destroyed the majority of your force and I now control your spiderguns. If your troops do not withdraw immediately as instructed, I will send the robots to kill them all. After that, I’m coming for you personally. I can detect that some of the nerve gas is still available, and a little bit of that released inside your plane should conclude this matter.”

  “This is Alessandro Messina speaking.” The Chairman’s voice was instantly recognizable from so many broadcasts back on Earth. “And you, I take it, are Alan Saul?”

  “I certainly am,” said Saul, rather distractedly.

  The two robots Saul had sent off to Tech Central still had half a kilometre to go. When some of Langstrom’s men opened fire on them, their reply was brief and wholly destructive: five human beings converted into flying chunks of flesh interspersed with shreds of VC suits, all raining down on the asteroid beneath. This fusillade had also turned their gun to unrecognizable scrap, but now Smith was moving hundreds of station robots in between the pair of spiderguns and their destination.

  “We have much to discuss,” continued Messina. “I can understand your anger towards Director Smith, since it seems he has subjected you to the most—”

  “Yes, do let’s have a discussion,” Saul interrupted him. “Relay my order to your troops, or I come over and kill you. Meanwhile you remain aboard your plane. End of discussion.”

  Saul cut the link and left them to it.

  He now reviewed the progress of the construction robots he’d previously sent into Dock Two. They’d already secured Messina’s plane and three others, and were proceeding towards the last one on that docking pillar. He checked on timings and saw everything running to plan: less than two minutes left till shutdown, and by then the construction robots would have finished their job. His three spiderguns were in position within the same dock, so he sent them instructions to kill anyone who tried to step out of the space planes. All neatly tied off there, time now to deal with Smith.

  There was only one life that Saul felt ready to save, and unfortunately it now seemed Smith had realized that. Once again intercepting the image feed from Tech Central, Saul discovered that Smith had untied Hannah from the chair and forced her, at gunpoint, out into the corridor behind. They were now both standing on what might once have been considered the wall, as Smith held out to her a lightweight survival suit—which she accepted with reluctance and began to put on.

  So, once the acceleration cut and movement about the station again became easier, Smith obviously intended to take her somewhere outside Tech Central. Saul paused to think, after ordering the two spiderguns to hold still where they were. If he allowed them to continue towards Smith’s robots, the battle around Tech Central would be in progress just as Hannah left it, which risked her getting hit by a stray round. The robots controlled by Smith also came to a stop once they had positioned themselves. Even if Saul tried to seize control of them, it would take up time he did not now have.

  There had to be a neater, and more satisfying solution—and his adversary gave it to him:

  “Retain your weapons and retreat to the Political Office once acceleration cuts,” was Smith’s brief instruction to his men. Saul could have made threats, but this scenario was perfect: lots of troops heading for what he assumed would be Smith’s destination.

  Malden’s original target had been the EM shield, and once that was down he had tried penetrating the station network. But Smith had been waiting for him within the same network, and had promptly killed him. Smith had also used the shield to cut out Saul, but then shut it down once it became a tactical disadvantage. At no stage after that point had he tried to shut Saul out of the network in the same way, instead leading Saul into a trap. Saul now understood Smith’s reluctance to start up the shield: when linked into the station network he was powerful, he could see so much, control so much, but cut off by the shield from all that, he reverted to just a normal human being. Saul now probed the network till he found the virtual controls for operating the shield, and its “on” button.

  The minutes ticked by as Saul watched Smith laboriously herding Hannah as far as the airlock accessing the tubeway leading out of the lower levels of Tech Central. Then the fusion drive cut out, the harsh brightness of it fading, till the station dropped back into shadow and practically zero gravity. Saul now breathed easier, his seat straps loosening. He unclipped them and pushed himself away, donning his suit helmet as he headed for the airlock, while instructing the robot posted there to open it ahead of him. In a moment he was through, the schematic of the station fully clear in his mind. Smith was definitely heading for the Political Office, which he had a greater chance of fortifying, for it was still staffed and had heavy machine guns still in place. Time now to engage the EM shield.

  Nothing stood in the way of him accessing those virtual controls. Smith had not even thought to defend them, perhaps not comprehending why anyone with the capability of reaching them would want to turn the shield on, and thus sacrifice access to the station network. As he turned the device on, an explosion of static began fragmenting neat structures in his mind. He at once felt blind and powerless—almost like a normal human again. But Smith would be feeling the same, and almost certainly would head straight for the Political Office control room, for access to the shield’s manual controls there.

  Quickest route?

  Saul propelled himself across the dock, shouldering into the side of the monorail train to halt himself, then propelling himself down through the rim to the airlock through which Messina’s troops had delivered their package to Arcoplex One. Though Smith had directly controlled the readerguns in here, with the EM shield operating he could no longer access them. There was some risk that they might fire on him automatically, though Saul doubted Smith had taken the time to program them. Manually opening the outer airlock door, he glanced down at the remains of the backpack, with its ruptured chrome cylinders still protruding. He closed the door behind him and after the airlock had pressurized, opened the one ahead, stepping into a massive cylindrical mausoleum. Buildings were lensed around him; a chunk of city rolled into a tube at ground level. The corpse of a woman clad in a long silky dress revolved through the smoky air directly ahead. To his right, fire belched from various windows, and fragments of metal went shoaling about like small fish. There were surprisingly few other corpses in sight.

  Saul launched himself towards the central spindle, which seemed the quickest way to the other end. Using the handholds, he propelled himself feet-first towards the base of the cylinder, his speed gaug
ed precisely such that he wouldn’t break any bones as he reached it. As his destination came in sight, he realized why so few corpses had been visible where he had entered the cylinder, for the same acceleration that killed Messina’s troops had propelled all their victims in the same direction. The base cap of the arcoplex now resembled a medieval depiction of some level of hell. A mass of corpses lay tangled together, limbs jutting out at odd angles and sodden with blood. In zero gravity, Saul had to literally dig his way through them to reach the further airlock. As he exited into vacuum, their blood rapidly freeze-dried on his VC suit, flaking away like black leaves.

  ***

  Had he been a normal person Smith might have been terrified, but as far as Hannah could see, he seemed to be showing only an intellectual curiosity in the sequence of events. It seemed he had stepped off the far side of weird some time ago.

  “That was an excellent tactic, well thought out and precisely applied,” he had remarked, his voice crackling through the button speakers set into the fabric of Hannah’s survival suit. “I might have used it myself, but the Traveller engine has always resided outside of my calculation structure.”

  Meaning he hadn’t thought of it.

  Once the half-gravity of acceleration had cut out, Hannah had tried throwing herself away from him, but his hand had closed instantly on her shoulder as he jammed the automatic into her side. Now he kept her close, digging the gun in deeper every time she tried to slow down. So what, she wondered, was the situation now?

  Saul had killed most of both the attacking and defending forces. It seemed he also had control of the spiderguns out there but, judging by the robot host gathered between her and these weapons, he did not have full control of the station. It looked like a stand-off to her, and one that none of them could survive. If Smith and Saul continued fighting for control here, much of the equipment would get wrecked, and as they drew further and further away from Earth, they would increasingly need that equipment to survive. But did Saul even care about that? He’d successfully cut the head off Earth’s government, taken away one of its biggest technological toys; he’d struck a blow, had his vengeance, and now Messina and his corrupt crew would have no chance of taking up the reins of power again. Saul had then chosen to fling the Argus Station out into space, rather than down towards Earth, so perhaps he was not entirely suicidal, but what would he do now?

  Corpses were draped over nearby beams, others had broken free and were floating about between the lattice walls, as now the Political Office loomed ahead. Where are you Saul? What are you doing now? Part of the answer reached her almost at once, as Smith lurched abruptly to a halt, his gun hand rising up alongside his head. Hannah tried to pull away again, but his other hand still tightly gripped her shoulder. She could see him saying something but, over com, nothing but static. Roughly, he shoved her forward again, their pace now even faster. Nearby, the robots hovered inert, whilst moving through the station structure ahead she could see soldiers entering the Political Office.

  After another half a kilometre, she and Smith entered an enclosed tubeway, passed a machine gun tipped over on its side, and finally came to a double-door airlock. When these doors did not open on their approach, she realized what that burst of static meant. The EM shield was turned back on, preventing Smith from delivering mental instructions, but it also meant Saul was out of that realm too. Both were now as blind and powerless as anyone else in this place.

  Smith shoved her up to the doors, tapped a code into the console immediately beside them, then pushed her inside as soon as the doors opened. He gripped her shoulder as the airlock cycled, then after dragging her through finally released his hold on her. Stepping back, he gestured at her suit, then flicked his hand to one side, obviously wanting her to remove it. She considered pretending to misunderstand him, but this garment did not offer her the same protection as a VC suit, so there seemed little point. She laboriously stripped her way out of it, as other people began to appear—most of them looking like the kind of desk jockeys that ran the Committee’s bureaucracy, though they included a few of Langstrom’s soldiers, whose battered appearance suggested they had just come in from outside.

  Smith removed his helmet. “You,” he pointed at one of the soldiers, “clear the lower three floors, but bring up whatever weapons you can find there.”

  “Sir?” the soldier glanced dubiously at the anxious-looking staff standing all around them.

  Smith nodded. “Organize teams to guard all the entrances. See that no one gets in unless you can confirm their identity. Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Smith waved the man aside, then caught hold of Hannah’s shoulder and hauled her along after him.

  “Saul’s turned the EM shield on,” she remarked. “That means you’re blind.”

  “I can turn it off directly from my control room,” he replied.

  “If you two keep fighting, there won’t be anything left here,” she said.

  “Once I have dealt with Saul, though unfortunately at a distance, I should be able to gain mental access to the steering thrusters and the Traveller engine.” He glanced at her, and continued, “He is aiming to set on course towards Mars. I, however, will bring us back. I can then dispose of Messina—probably dump him into one of the station’s digesters. You see,” he gave a strange twisted smile, “Saul has made my victory complete.”

  “But you’ll have to deal with Saul first.”

  He turned suddenly and slammed her back against the wall, his face thrust forward till it was almost touching hers. “Even with the shield turned off, he controls only a few robots and some unimportant systems inside this station.” He stepped back, gesturing to his chest with the weapon. “I will take them all away from him, and then hunt him down with his own machines. He simply does not possess the moral strength to defeat me.”

  Moral strength?

  He pulled her from the wall and pushed her ahead. They entered a cageway rising to another floor, made their way along another corridor, then through double sliding doors into a large control centre. It looked more like a slaughterhouse.

  Two corpses lay on the floor, a third drifted through the air whilst another lay draped over a console. Bullet holes riddled the equipment and a stratum of smoke hovered in the air just above head height. The place stank of burnt plastic and something was sizzling behind one of the screens.

  “What?” exclaimed Smith, looking round, his grip slackening momentarily.

  Seizing her chance, Hannah threw herself sideways, turning to hit the wall hard with her back, the breath knocked out of her. She scrabbled to get away from Smith, even as he swung towards her. Across the room, Saul rose from behind a console, a carbine up and braced against his shoulder. Two shots slammed into Smith’s chest, hurling him back into the closed doors. He bounced away, brought his feet back down onto the floor, struggling to raise his weapon. Saul rounded the console and headed over, caught Smith’s hand and shook the weapon from it, sending it tumbling away through the air.

  “The shield will shut down in a moment,” explained Saul. “I estimate it will then take me only half an hour to crack all your codes. Then this station…” Saul paused contemplatively. “No, this spaceship, will be mine.”

  Smith started to say something, but only blood issued from his mouth. Hannah pushed herself upright, keeping well back. She now just felt exhausted.

  “There’s nothing more I need to say to you, really,” Saul finished.

  He raised his carbine to Smith’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Smith was slammed back again, the rear of his skull exploding outwards, hints of metal glinting inside. He hit one of the double doors again and bounced away, slowly tilting forward like some kind of ancient monolith. Hannah just stared at the blood beading the air, at a piece of scalp gyrating away from him, then, abruptly and violently, she threw up.

  “This feels somehow disappointing,” remarked Saul, still staring at Smith.

  “The EM shield?” Hannah fina
lly managed.

  “With the EM field up, he could not get into my head and I could not get into his,” said Saul. “But most important he was blind, and that’s what enabled me to sneak in here.”

  Both dried and fresh blood covered his VC suit, she noticed, the fresh blood looking the same colour as his eyes. A fuzz of white hair now covered his scalp, concealing most of the scars, but to Hannah as he turned to face her, he just didn’t look human.

  “How did you get in here, then?” she managed.

  “I just walked in along with some of Langstrom’s men,” Saul shrugged. “I knew Smith would come here directly to shut down the EM shield.”

  “What now?”

  He raised his head slightly as if listening to something. “That’s the shield down again. Now I’m running code crackers on everything he controlled.” A humourless smile. “Since I’m no longer fighting him or need to perpetually look to my defences, I can use station computing…there, I have the readerguns. The robots next.”

  “But again, what now?”

  He looked momentarily pensive. “Presently I have this station set on a spiral course outwards from Earth. At the end of that course, it will swing itself around the Moon. By then, all necessary decisions will have been made.”

  “Decisions?”

  “Yes, Hannah, decisions.”

  ***

  Saul revelled in the new feeling of freedom and safety as he cracked the last of Smith’s codes, whereupon the last of the functioning readerguns and station robots came under his control. Human feeling like this he now allowed himself to indulge in, since it seemed to give him a reason to continue existing—after all, what was the use of victory if it could not be enjoyed? However, despite this sudden extension of his power, and with areas he had previously been almost blind to now opening up to him, he remained merely a fragile human being in a space station filled with those who, given the chance, would kill him.