Revengers

by Alex Kings

  Not just the floor. The walls and ceiling too. The entire corridor opened up, as a huge canyon opened up in the facility. The screech was deafening. Eloise saw the far face of the canyon, a diagrammatic pattern of bisected decks.

  And she saw Mero, who was in the middle of a leap when the corridor separated beneath him, drop out of sight.

  High-pressure air from outside came racing in. It carried with it water as thick as if there were a heavy rainstorm outside, but this water was boiling and cloaked in foggy vapour.

  The blow of it almost knocked her back. She looked to her side to see that Mr. Soul had managed to find the wherewithal to activate a helmet and protect himself was being boiled alive. For a brief moment, she was immensely thankful she'd had her own helmet on.

  The facility had torn open, but hadn't yet spit apart. There was still time – maybe – to get to the shuttle.

  “Come on,” she told the Glaber.

  They ran to the new end of the corridor, where it overlooked the chasm. The far side, where the corridor resumed, was two or three metres away, half-hidden by boiling rain and vapour being whipped about by high winds. It was widening as she watched, as the crack slowly went deeper into the facility. The squealing of metal and the roaring of wind had become a baritone in the thick atmosphere.

  She peered off the edge of the crack, looking for Mero, but couldn't see anything. There was no time to mourn and no time to worry.

  “Can you jump that?” she asked the Glaber.

  He shrugged.

  “Good enough for me,” she said. “Step back, and on three, okay?” She checked to see him nodding. “One. Two. Three!”

  They ran forward together, holding Mr. Soul between them and leapt as they reached the end of the corridor. Winds buffeted them throwing them to the side.

  Before they were half way, Eloise could see they weren't going to make it. The corridor rose out of reach as they fell. Eloise let go of the Petaur, reached out, and managed to grab a ledge – the floor of a bisected room just below the corridor.

  Her Glaber companion managed to do the same. And by some miracle, Mr. Soul managed to hold on too, using his uninjured arm and his tail. He was the first to react, scrambling upwards to get away from them.

  Holding on with one hand, Eloise grabbed his leg and tried to pull him down. He kicked viciously at her helmet, threatening to push her off her ledge. Then he grabbed at it – his foot, gloved in a thin coating, was dextrous enough to pull at the rim of her helmet, trying to open it an expose her to the deadly boiling atmosphere.

  She decided she didn't have time for this. Taking a firm hold of his ankle, she twisted sharply. She felt rather than heard something crack. Mr. Soul yelped in pain and stopped struggling.

  Eloise regained her grip on the torn floor. The fight was pointless, she realised as she looked up. There was no way to get up there.

  Then a Petaur bounded past. For a moment, she thought it was Mr. Soul – be no, he was on the other side, and in no position to be moving like that. It was Mero!

  “Missed me?” said brightly.

  “There's a time for rescuing us, and a time for showing off,” Eloise told him.

  Mero gripped the ledge directly above Eloise – the floor of the corridor – and dangled down. His feet and tail were just about in reach. “When you're as good as me, they're the same thing,” he said. “Come on, then.”

  Eloise grabbed his feet.

  “Damn, humans are heavy,” snarled Mero as he hauled her up.

  As soon as the floor of the corridor was in reach, Eloise grabbed it and pulled herself onto the floor.

  Next came Mr. Soul, who let himself be pulled up and didn't even try fighting. Then, at last, came the Glaber.

  As Eloise looked back, there was a final massive shriek, and the part of the facility they had just come from broke away entirely. Eloise watched it tumble towards the ground, breaking apart as it went.

  “Eloise? Eloise?” Rurthk said through the comms.

  “I'm here,” said Eloise. She grabbed Mr. Soul and started sprinting.

  They passed through an emergency airlock and back into normal atmosphere, and finally reached the shuttle.

  “At last!” said Rurthk. “Come on!”

  The base was shaking itself apart. Tearing metal sounded from a dozen places at once. Eloise saw the floor unzipping.

  Rurthk hurried them into the shuttle. Mero bounded up first, and avoided the crowd of scientists by crawling along the ceiling. Eloise, Rurthk and the Glaber followed.

  Eloise slammed the floor hatch the moment they were all inside. “Now!” she shouted.

  Mero was already at the control. He detached the shuttle from the facility and pulled away.

  Chapter 54: Now They're All Going To Die

  Mr. Hand lay back, listening to the rising cacophony of collapsing girders and howling winds. His little pod seemed to move back and forth gently. He must be falling now, he surmised.

  The pod had walls almost two feet thick, composed of ultra-hard layers of carbide and sapphiroid, further strengthened with internal effector fields. It had its own gravity neutraliser that worked up to a respectable fifteen gees. When he'd had it made, he run simulations himself to prove that the occupant could survive the facility collapsing around it.

  Which, considering the circumstances, had been an admirable bit of foresight, he thought.

  There was a sharp crash. Inside, it felt like the pod had landed very gently onto a giant, soft cushion. Which meant it must have just slammed into the ground, he surmised.

  He listening to the crashing around him and thought.

  Today had been something of a blow, all things considered. Vihan Yvredi had lost the scientists. They had lost Mr. Soul. They had lost their only facility (most of the stuff Vihan Yvredi used was temporary, most of their services were contracted – this base had been the sole exception). On top of that, if the scientists had survived, there was the loss of intel to the enemy.

  And, worst of all, he hadn't seen it coming.

  Something was very wrong.

  Vihan Yvredi was now more powerful than it had ever been. But then something like this had happened.

  Mr. Hand knew he had to find out what was happening, and stop it.

  And he had a very good idea about where to begin.

  He lay there for some time, planning a list of things he needed to check and people he needed to talk to. At last, he checked the passive sensor input from the pod. Everything outside had quietened down. Nothing seemed to be moving.

  It was possible someone might come back and check the wreckage, though, so he couldn't stay here. This was the best time to move. He sent out a signal, then went back to planning.

  Soon, one of the atmosphere miners began to approach. It had short, stubby wings. Between them was a giant oval mouth, an intake which compressed the atmosphere, picked out the most valuable matter, and fired the rest through a jet out the back.

  The pod extended a ribbon of effector fields and caught the lip of the atmosphere miner's intake. The pod was pulled off the ground. It reeled itself in until it was clinging to the miner.

  The atmosphere miner, running off a hacked flight trajectory, ascended sharply, and flew towards the space station.

  *

  The crowd of tightly-packed scientists meant Rurthk couldn't get to the front of the shuttle. But he was tall enough to see over their heads. He looked out the front window as the thick atmosphere of Blindness finally retreated to give way to stars. Mero was hunched over the console, piloting and grumbling about the smell.

  The Glaber hunters in orbit were too far away to be seen without a telescope. But Rurthk could imagine them there, in orbit.

  “At least one of those ships is allied with Vihan Yvredi,” he said.

  Eloise, who stood beside him holding the captured Petaur, looked over at the window. “Probably,” she said. “I hope you don't intend to try and find out which one.”

  Rurthk shook his head. P
icking a battle at this stage wouldn't do them any good. “I was just thinking, it might see us and shoot us down. That would be a fun end to the day, wouldn't it?”

  “It won't shoot us down,” Mero said loudly. He'd had no trouble hearing them from across the shuttle. “This is top-level stealth. Nothing but Tethyan tech can see us.”

  “And if they've got their hands on Tethyan sensors?”

  Mero shrugged. “Yeah. Then we're screwed. Or, come to think of it, if your prisoner has activated a homing beacon somehow, then they'd see us.”

  The Petaur prisoner glared at them. His expression gave nothing away, and Rurthk knew better than to try and ask him.

  “Yeah, never mind. We might die,” said Mero.

  “Wonderful,” growled Mero. “That's really put my fears to rest. Thank you.” He looked around, thinking.

  They had the scientists. They had Hive Life as allies. By any standard, this was a huge victory. But it didn't feel like one. Why was that?

  Rurthk looked over at Laodicean, floating silently above them. He grimaced. He'd been right – but he'd also ignored orders and put the whole team at risk. How could Rurthk trust him with another mission?

  And then he turned to look at Mero again. Someone on your team has betrayed you. Can you guess who?

  In all the excitement, he'd almost forgotten about the data file Mr. Hand had left with him. As soon as they were free, he had to listen to it. He recognised it for what it was, of course – a psychological weapon designed to tear the team apart. But now he had it, he couldn't just ignore it.

  The queen's hunter was visible through the window.

  The shuttle approached the hunter, slowing at the last moment to settle in one of the bays amid jagged Glaber troop carriers. As soon as they were inside, the hunter ship left orbit and began to ramp up its jump engines.

  *

  “That's them,” growled a Glaber over the comms. “The enemy.”

  The hunter in question was visible through a telescope feed that was coming through to a tablet on the wall. It had just broken orbit around Blindness and was preparing to jump.

  “It has to be,” the Glaber said. “We can engage them while they're escaping.”

  “No,” said Mr, Hand, stretching. He glanced briefly at the open pod behind him. “A physical confrontation wouldn't accomplish anything,”

  The Glaber muttered something, but didn't fire.

  Mr. Hand ignored him. He walked over to the tablet and put his hand on the image. “The renegade queen,” he said. “So, Rurthk, you've been making friends. That's unfortunate.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Now they're all going to die.”

  The hunter jumped away.

  Chapter 55: Scientists

  The hunter met the Outsider and the Fire Strider on its first jump, collected them into indentations in its hull, then began jump calculations.

  The scientists came crowding out of the shuttle, looking around apprehensively at the Glaber architecture. They'd already spent a lot of time effectively imprisoned among the Glaber, so this had to feel like less an escape than just another change of prison.

  They muttered to themselves. Singer moved through the crowd to meet Rurthk. “What now?” he said.

  “Now,” said a booming voice from across the bay, “I think it's time for a less-than-happy reunion.” Dr. Wolff strode around a troop carrier and headed towards them.

  As he approached, Eloise turned to two Glaber who stood either side of Mr. Soul, one with a hand on his shoulder and the other with a hand on the back of his neck. “Can you take him to your medical people she asked? And then lock up him up and keep him watched.

  The Glaber looked to Rurthk for confirmation, and he nodded. They half dragged, half carried Mr. Soul out of the bay.

  As they passed Wolff, he turned to look at them. “A successful mission, then?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Rurthk grunted.

  Wolff looked his former colleague up and down. “Jerome Singer,” he said. “It's been a while.” He offered his hand.

  Singer paused for a moment before taking it. “It's good to see you again,” he said.

  “Likewise,” said Wolff, releasing his hand. “Though not for any personal reasons. Tell me, how does it feel to have participated in one of the greatest atrocities since the War of the Ancients?”

  Singer inhaled slowly through his nose and said nothing.

  “We can discuss this guilt stuff later,” said Rurthk. “First of all, I want to know about this means of tracking Vihan Yvredi you told us about. Are you close to finishing it?”

  “Well … not as such, no,” said Singer. “I've studied the sorts of messages they send out. I've been studying how they move their equipment. You know they move around to avoid detection?”

  “Yes,” said Rurthk.

  “Ah, well …” Singer seemed slightly deflated by the realisation he wasn't providing much. “Well, uh, they need to move their computers too, obviously. So we were hoping to use trawlers in the local planetary net to look for where their signals are coming from, when they unplug, and when they set up a new outpost. Then it could extract patterns to see if we could predict their new movements. But their security is too good.”

  “Perhaps you could share what you've learned with Yilva,” said Dr. Wolff. “She might be able to make something of it.”

  “Yilva?” said Singer. “As in, the first leader of the Free Petaurs?”

  “Yeah,” said Rurthk. “She's another ally of ours.”

  “Without her, we would never have found you,” Rurthk said.

  “Well, I'll be sure to pass along my gratitude along with my work,” said Singer. “If someone could help me …?”

  Rurthk nodded. “Olivia!” he called. “Over here.”

  Olivia came over.

  “Good job holding that shuttle in place, by the way,” said Rurthk. “Now could you introduce Dr. Singer here to Yilva?” He sighed and looked over the scattered crowd of scientists. “Now, I need to find out what to do with this lot.”

  *

  “There are too many of them for the Outsider,” said Rurthk. He was sitting alone with the queen. “We could fit them all on board, but aside from not having enough sleeping space, they'd put too much of a strain on the air recycling.”

  The queen laughed. “Need me again? Don't worry.” She gestured around her. “We have plenty of free space here. I can even give them a room each. If they're confined to the deck, they won't get in the way too much.”

  “From one prison to another” said Rurthk. “They must be thrilled.” He shrugged. “Yeah, that's be best.”

  The queen gave orders through her comms.

  Something occurred to Rurthk. “Be gentle with them,” he said. “I don't want them to think we're new captors.”

  “Of course,” said the queen, and relayed the request through her comms. “The Petaur you caught …”

  “I think he calls himself Mr. Soul,” said Rurthk. “Those were the two on board, and we're missing Mr. Hand.”

  “Ah, the other one,” said the queen. “What happened to him?”

  “If I have any good luck at all, he got trapped on the facility and died when it crashed,| said Rurthk. He gave a bark of laughter. “Which means he's probably alive out there somewhere.” He sighed, then slumped back and lay with his hands on his face. “Ugh,” there's one more thing to worry about.”

  “What are the others?”

  Rurthk told her about Laodicean, ending with, “Now, I have no idea what to do. It doesn't seem like I can trust him to come on missions.”

  “You could kill him,” the queen offered sincerely.

  Rurthk laughed as he sat up. “Thank you for the suggestion, but no. I don't do things that way.” He hesitated. “He's also too useful to get rid of.”

  “So, what are you going to do now?” said the queen.

  Rurthk sat up. “Let's see. We need to go round all the scientists and see what they know. And then …. interrogate Mr. Soul, I sup
pose.”

  Chapter 56: Interrogation

  They cell was dimly lit. A few dirty fungus chips were scattered over the polymer floor. The furniture consisted of a hole in the corner and an armed Glaber watching him and nothing else. A few insects floated around a tangle of vines in the ceiling.

  And it stank. Mr. Soul could barely avoid retching. He didn't, only because it would interrupt his baleful stare at the guard.

  They'd patched up his shoulder and his fractured leg. He could walk, but only tentatively.

  He ran through possibilities in his mind. He could attack the Glaber guarding him. It might kill him quickly. That would be the easiest way out. On the other hand, there was the very slim possibility of a rescue. Or, slightly more likely, he could just wait until Vihan Yvredi destroyed this band of pipsqueaks. After all, his current captors were honourable, idealistic types, it seemed. The interrogations wouldn't be too unpleasant.

  The door clanged. There was the squeak of a bolt being opened on the other side. It was a low-tech system, convenient only because it was invulnerable to power loss or hacking.

  The guard didn't take his eyes off Mr. Soul.

  The door opened and another Glaber stepped in. He conversed briefly with the guard.

  Mr. Soul knew enough Glaber language to pick up the gist of it. “One of Rurthk's lot,” he heard. “They're allowed access.”

  The Glaber stepped out, and a moment later the Tethyan glided through the doors. The former GEA Investigator, Mr. Soul remembered. Laodicean.

  Laodicean turned to the guard as the door closed. “Thank you,” he said in Glaber. His synthesised voice spoke in the calm, reasonable tone that all Tethyans used – a tone completely unsuited to the Glaber language, which was meant to be snarled and grunted.

  Then he turned to Mr. Soul. “Hello,” he said. “I'd like to ask you about Vihan Yvredi.”

  Mr Soul glared back at him.

  Tethyans had no facial expressions. They had no faces. Their crystalline blue compound eyes just sat there – you couldn't even tell what they were looking at. Their voices, entirely synthesised, offered no clue. But you could read them, if you knew enough about how they moved their tentacles. Mr Soul did, and he saw Laodicean was full of hidden tension.