by Dan Abnett
Kys threw Zael down onto the deck and dived flat herself. Two las-rounds whined over them. The drone had also zoomed over them, and was turning back tightly to make another pass. Running forward, the hunter adjusted his aim.
Kys didn't have time to get a decent shot at him. She seized the returning drone with her telekinesis and applied all the force she could. Already rushing back in the direction of the hunter, the drone accelerated and smashed straight into its master's astonished face. The impact knocked him over onto his back.
As soon as she was sure he wasn't going to be getting up again, Kys rose and started hurrying Zael on towards the enginarium.
"Run," said Mathuin.
"I don't care for running!" Preest protested.
"You said you didn't care for guns," Mathuin said, dragging her after him.
"I don't care for either!"
There had been one, maybe two, of Skoh's hunting cadre in the outer enginarium bay, and Mathuin knew they'd been seen. He forced Preest to run across the large maintenance shop that separated the outer bay from their destination, the much larger vault of enginarium basic. The shop was a dirty, stained workspace, cluttered with portable machinery and tool-benches. Cogitators lined one wall, racks of machine parts and cartons of spares the other. There was a split level gallery above them with a lifting hoist.
No way were they going to get all the way to the hatch at the far end before trouble caught up with them. Certainly not if that was what Preest thought "running" meant. Mathuin skidded to a halt and pushed her down behind a stack of bulk-format battery cells and turned back to face the door they'd entered by.
"Stay down!" he hissed.
Almost at once, a figure appeared in the doorway. Mathuin raised his laspistol and fired off a trio of shots that impacted around the hatch frame and discouraged the man from coming through.
In response, a salvo of rounds from a lasrifle came cracking in from outside the hatch. Mathuin ducked. Most of the shots impacted against tool benches before they reached him. Dislodged tools clattered onto the deck. A couple of shots went right over him and made it clear to the far end of the shop where they branded scorch marks on the wall.
Mathuin swung up and fired again. Again, the hunter in the doorway ducked back. A cyber drone came swooping into the room. Mathuin blew it to pieces in the air.
But the slight distraction had given the hunter time to get a better position in the doorway. And he wasn't alone. His lasrifle licked out a fierce, prolonged blurt of fire that forced Mathuin back into cover and allowed a second hunter to roll in through the hatch.
The las onslaught halted. Mathuin began to lift himself up for a return shot when the second hunter opened up on him from the cover he'd found inside the hatch. This man had an autocannon. He hosed the shop with a furious rapid fire of hard slugs. Mathuin ducked again.
The bullets smashed benches over, dented locker doors, shattered the screen of a portable codifier and struck a power-pod trolley with enough force to make it roll sideways.
Hands over her ears, eyes shut, Preest shrieked in terror. Shots were hitting the weighty battery cells they were sheltering behind, rocking them. One cell fell off the top of the stack with a resounding slam.
The huntsman with the lasrifle had taken advantage of the suppressing fire his colleague was providing, and had got into the shop too. Las-fire now joined in support of the cannon. More wholesale destruction. Chips of metal were being blown out of the floor. More glass exploded. Despite their serious weight, another battery cell was knocked off the stack. Their cover was being taken away.
"Can't stay here!" Mathuin yelled above the gunfire.
She nodded and followed him. They started crawling on their hands and knees back from the battery stack, keeping it between them and the shooters for as long as possible. Preest flinched at every close shot. They reached the power-pod trolley that the bullets had pushed along. Mathuin grabbed it and wheeled it around. It was heavy on its greased castors, but he could manage it. Through brute effort, he rolled it until it was completely between them and their assailants.
The pod began to shake and buck as shots smacked into its far side. Mathuin had to keep a tight grip to stop it being wrenched away. Still on their hands and knees, they began moving back down the shop towards the open hatchway to basic, Mathuin dragging the pod after them as mobile cover.
They reached the hatchway and Preest scurried through. Mathuin followed her. They were inside the gigantic vault of enginarium basic, the vast, flask-shaped forms of the principal drive chambers towering over them.
"Can you get the hatch shut?" Mathuin yelled. Shots were zipping through the hatchway over the pod.
Preest shook her head. "I told you... everything's locked out."
Mathuin put his entire, formidable strength behind the pod and gave it a colossal shove. It trundled back into the shop, knocking into benches.
The hunter with the cannon rose up, firing freely at the pod, assuming Mathuin was still behind it.
From the upright cover of the hatch frame, Mathuin blasted the hunter with his laspistol. He convulsed and fell, his still-firing cannon raking the shop roof.
Mathuin swung back into cover as the lasrifle opened up on him again. He grabbed Preest by the hand.
"Come on, mistress. More of that running you dislike so much."
They ran across the open floorspace of the vault towards the giant drive chambers. The train of Preest's gown billowed out behind her. A few sporadic las-shots flew out of the open hatchway. Another twenty seconds, Mathuin estimated, and the remaining hunter would realise they had left the hatch area and come down through the shop after them.
Enginarium basic was cool and echoing. The principal drive chambers were cold and inactive. They were what powered the Hinterlight through translation point and into the immaterium. At the moment, the ship was cruising on the power of its real-space engines, which were housed in a separate section of the enginarium two decks above them.
Preest led him in under the massive frames that supported the drive chambers. The architecture of basic was of a cyclopean scale: massive bulkheads, support fairings and cross-members. This part of the ship had to endure particularly extreme pressures and stresses, and was also thickly shielded.
Mathuin glanced back, but the hatch to the machine shop was no longer in sight. If the hunter was in basic with them, then that was just bad luck. He'd probably called in support too.
They went down a short flight of open metal steps onto the chamber's sub-floor, and Preest brought him over to a circular console station growing out of the deck near the drive vault's rear wall. "This it?" he asked.
She nodded and began sliding the armoured hoods back from the station's panels. Mathuin kept watch. They were dreadfully exposed. Apart from the bulky console itself, there was no cover. Hostiles could approach across the main floor above them. Then there were the gantries and walkways higher up around the drive chambers. "Hurry up," he said.
She inserted her master keys, turned them and woke the console up. It came to power, the screens of the codifiers flickering into life. Data scrolled across the screens. Mathuin heard the cooling fans in the consoles base begin to whir as the powerful cogitation stack, a duplicate of the vessel's main data processing device, began to get warm. Preest's hands clattered over the keypad. She adjusted several brass dials. "Here goes," she said.
She entered a series of complex numerical sequences. Nothing happened for a moment. Then the cold auxiliary lighting across the vault dimmed and the main lighting blinked back into life. Getting used to the sudden glare, Mathuin realised he could hear the main air scrubbers working again too.
"Well?" he said.
Preest peered at the screen. "Hmmm," she said. "Interesting..."
Madsen saw the lighting on the bridge flicker and change. She got up and looked at Skoh.
"That's not good," she said. "Kinsky?"
Halstrom's fingers were repeatedly pressing the same keys. "We're lo
cked out. Bridge stations are dead."
"God-Emperor, no..." Madsen said.
"See for yourself," Halstrom said. "The ship just reverted to primary systems. But the helm's down... engines have just shut down too. We're drifting. I can't get her back."
Madsen sat at the helm position, twisted the main display round so it was facing her, and began to work the instruments in a determined way.
"What's going on, Mamzel?" Skoh asked.
"Shut up and let me think," she said.
The hailing chime sounded. Skoh opened the vox. "Hinterlight."
"Oktober Country. Skoh, what are you playing at? That hulk of yours just went dead in the vac. Your drives have shut down. You're not even holding a stabilised course."
"Stand by, Oktober Country. Temporary glitch. We'll have it sorted soon. Out."
Skoh walked over to Madsen. "Well?"
"Preest. It's got to be that damn shipmistress. We know she's loose."
"What's she done?"
"She must have a... let me see... my guess would be a back-up data stack somewhere. Something not on the specs, something I couldn't find. That bitch. She's brought it online and countermanded my countermand."
"Beaten you at your own game?" Skoh said.
"No." Madsen insisted. "She may have shut us out of the master control system temporarily, but she hasn't got control back herself. I'm not that stupid, Skoh. Operators like Preest customise their ships in all sorts of non-standard ways. Redundant back-ups, hidden cogitation caches, sub-written code systems, encrypted high-functions..."
"Get to the point," Skoh said.
"I knew she'd have something, that's the point. I didn't know what, but it was a fair bet. She's the type. So I wrote reactive clauses into my countermand. The idea being if she tried to undermine my codes in any way, they'd lock everything up. Yes, we don't have control. But neither does she. Both primary and default secondary systems have closed down and locked."
"Well," said Skoh, "that's frigging great. We'll just sit here then..."
"No, we won't," said Madsen, rising to her feet. "All we have to do is find Preest and her back-up stack, shut it down, and my codes will revert control back to us."
"So where is she? This is a big ship. Lots of area to cover. It could take hours for my men to find her."
"Yes, I've noticed their efficiency already." Madsen sneered. She looked at Halstrom. "You do this the quick way. Kinsky?"
Halstrom's body shuddered. He went limp and slumped back in the command throne. A bead of blood began to trickle from his left nostril as his head lolled.
"Find her," said Madsen. "Get inside her frigging mind, force her to disable her stack, and then kill the old bitch."
Sprawled in his seat, Kinsley's body twitched and shivered like a dreaming dog.
Free. Alert. Alive. Kinsley's mind rushed out from the bridge, surging down hallways, sliding like a wraith between decks. He left a wake of hoar-frost behind him. He was angry now, aching and drawn from the effort of over-mastering Halstrom's mind.
But this... now this is what he did. Searching, tracking, killing. This is what he liked.
As he sped on, he extended his awareness. He could taste the entire bulk of the Hinterlight, its hollowed metal form, every sub-duct, every cross-spar, every rivet. It was like a three dimensional schematic to him. And inside it, tiny pinpricks of life heat, the feeble mind-fires of the other humans aboard. Puny little dots. A handful on the bridge, a heavier cluster down in the light cargo holds. Others, spread singly or in small groups through the remainder of the big ship... Skoh's hunters, no doubt.
And two, far down at the stern, in enginarium basic.
Kinsky's mind began to accelerate. Corridors and downshafts flashed past, hallways blurred by.
He was hungry to kill.
"Did you feel that?" Zael asked, his voice tiny.
Kys nodded. They'd reached the entry bay into the real-space drive section of the enginarium. A short way ahead of them, the deep, split-level drive chambers had just suddenly stopped throbbing with power. The real-space assemblies had inexplicably shut down.
But the abrupt silence hadn't been what Zael was referring too.
"Yes, I felt it." Kys replied. "Something's moving." She shuddered and rested a hand on the wall. "Really powerful, really raw..."
With total confidence he was correct, Zael said, "It's Kinsky."
"Listen!" Nayl whispered. Kara stopped and cocked her head. She was still getting used to the resumed lighting levels and the elevated noise of the air processors. For a moment, she couldn't detect anything else.
"There!" said Nayl, raising a hand. A sound. A steady, metallic beat, like a hammer on an anvil. It reverberated down the ominously empty corridors.
"It's coming from down there," Nayl said, and raised his bolt pistol to lead the way. They crossed a junction and entered the bare metal deck space of the light cargo holds. The pair had already dismissed the light cargo area, and agreed to press on towards the bridge. But now the hammering drew them back.
It was getting louder. On either side of the wide hallway, broad hatches stood open, leading into empty sub holds. The hammering was coming from a sub-hold ahead of them on the right. And now they could hear mumbling too. Kara drew both her autos and thumbed off the safeties.
"Little bastard! Little freak!" Duboe grunted, chopping the axe down. Sweat was pouring off him, staining his filthy clothes. Parts of the axe head had broken off. He swung it again. The front casing of Ravenor's chair was pitted and dented, like the hull of a ship after a meteor storm. "Little frigging bastard!" Duboe raged and struck yet again.
At last, the axe head punched a hole in the chair's casing. Duboe had to wrench at it to pull it free. He gazed in sick wonder at the small, raw-edged perforation. He bent down and put his mouth to the hole.
"Gonna have you out of there soon, bastard. Gonna drag you out and mash you up. You hear me? You hear me?"
Weapons raised, Kara and Nayl crept closer to the hold door. The metal-on-metal slamming had stopped for a moment, but now it began again.
"Cover me." Kara started to say.
Nayl cried out a warning. Two of Skoh's hunter pack had suddenly appeared in the doorway of another hold forty metres away down the hallway. They began to open fire. Shots sang past the two of them. Nayl raised the bolter and fired back, running into the cover of a hold doorway to his left. Kara was too far over to the right hand side of the hallway to make it too.
"Get in there!" Nayl yelled. "Before they hit you!"
Duboe heard the sudden exchange of gunfire right outside the hold door. His heart began to race. Axe in hand, he lurched back into the shadows to hide.
Kara fired a couple of shots in the direction of the hunters, and then dived into the sub-hold. Rounds exploded against the deck and wall where she had just been standing.
She got up and looked round, guns raised.
"Oh my Emperor!" she exclaimed. In the far corner of the hold, Ravenor's chair was wedged against the wall. It looked like someone had attacked it with a pneumatic hammer.
"Ravenor?"
She only realised Duboe was there at the very last moment. He came out of me shadows with a bestial roar, hefting his axe. She tried to evade, almost made it, but the haft of Duboe's axe cracked across her forearms.
Kara went down, diving, wondering if her arms were broken.
They weren't. Bruised, most certainly. And the impact had smashed both guns out of her hands.
Still on the floor, she rolled violently to her left as Duboe's axe hacked down at her. It scored the deck plating. Bellowing, he struck again, and she lunged into a forward roll under the scything blade. The roll took her up against the hold wall, and she pushed off from it like a swimmer on the turn, backflipped high in the air onto her feet as Duboe's murmuring axe kissed empty air. Now she was upright, hunched low, facing him.
"Duboe. You ninker. Who let you out?"
He sliced the weapon at her again. She danced
back. They circled. Another stroke, another sidestep. Round and round. She had to disarm him, put him down hard. He was gone, she realised. He was virtually frothing at the mouth.
He lunged again, with a speed and ferocity that astonished Kara. She tried to duck, but he caught her a resounding blow with his left elbow and she staggered backwards, her feet slipping out. She virtually fell across Ravenor's chair.
Duboe came at her, howling, axe raised.
She looked round frantically for a weapon, something to throw, anything.
There was a hefty-looking metal unit clamped to the front of Ravenor's chair. She twisted the dial, wrenched it free and hurled it at Duboe's face. Instinctively, he chopped with his axe, connecting with the missile in mid air, and sent it banging away across the hold floor. He raised the axe again.
+Kara? Get out of the way.+
She dropped. Blunt as she was, she felt the awesome surge of psi-power unleashing from the battered chair.
The walls of the hold were suddenly fuming with ice particles.
Duboe left the ground and flew back ten metres into the far wall. The chipped axe clattered from his hands. He remained pinned there by invisible power, like a specimen insect, two metres off the floor. His mouth opened and closed. His eyes bulged. He gasped.
+Duboe. Who's the bastard now?+
Duboe screamed. Ravenor's mind crushed him. Every single bone in Duboe's body shattered as it flattened into the wall.
Zael grabbed Kys by the arm. "God-Emperor!" he cried out, his voice echoing around the eerily quiet real-space drive chamber.
She'd felt it too. It was so violent, so awful, worse even than the rushing horror of Kinsley's unleashed psychic power. She crouched down and hugged the boy to her protectively.
"It's all right," he whispered.
"Yeah?"
Zael nodded. "I think someone's about to have a really bad chair day."