The Celaran Probe (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 7)

by Michael McCloskey

  “Five minutes,” Cilreth said.

  Telisa nodded. She paced the landing platform and waited.

  When the shuttle approached, Telisa and Cilreth backed up to wait in the passenger area. The shuttle looked just like the first. It landed on the other side of the open platform. Telisa thought perhaps four such shuttles could land here, but the way the shuttles had positioned themselves in the center of each side, they blocked any other possible landings.

  Telisa and Cilreth approached the new shuttle. Cilreth talked to the shuttle through her link. At first nothing happened. Then a short, stocky man walked out of the shuttle and headed toward them. He spoke aloud in another language but Telisa’s link fed her the speech so she could understand it.

  “I’m sorry, but there must be a mix-up,” he said.

  “No mix-up, we’re last minute passengers,” Telisa said.

  The man just shook his head. “I can’t take you.”

  “Your friend knows me,” Cilreth said. The man gave her a blank stare. Cilreth pointed at the shuttle.

  “Your friend,” she repeated. The man stood still, but he must have called to someone on his link. Another man walked around the side of the shuttle and approached them. He was also short, with a big mustache sprawling under his nose. Two attendants dropped from the sky and hovered over the men.

  “I don’t know you,” said the other man.

  “I’ve isolated their links,” Cilreth said. “As far as this shuttle is concerned, we’re them now.”

  Telisa casually drew her stunners, one in each hand, and dropped the men in one second. The attendants verified they were still breathing.

  “And the video feeds?”

  “I’ll put something together,” Cilreth said. “For now, I’ll just show it empty. We can go on inside.”

  They boarded the shuttle. Telisa saw two passengers in the back, busy off-retina. She shrugged and sat in the control compartment with Cilreth.

  “Are they dangerous?” Cilreth asked.

  “You worry about the shuttle and get us over there,” Telisa said. She listened to the breathing of the man and woman in the section behind them. Her enhanced senses even allowed her to smell each of them. She detected nothing threatening.

  “With them back there, there’s less chance the shuttle will be diverted or brought down,” she sent to Cilreth silently. “Are they really going to let their shuttle fly us over?”

  Cilreth’s blank expression hinted at off-retina activity. Telisa assumed she managed their route off-retina.

  “Well, it’s our shuttle now,” Cilreth said. “Er, uhm... now,” she corrected, flustered.

  “What was that?” Telisa asked.

  “Tricky dynamic security,” Cilreth said. “I took over all the processors and they almost all flipped back. Without the Vovokan support I don’t think I could have done it at all.”

  “How can they flip back if you already had them all?”

  “They’re still flipping, but I’m on top of it now. There’s a hidden set of nodes here that secure the public ones. I’m rooting them out. Small chance they’ve been alerted that something’s up. I control the main communications, but if there are hidden nodes they might have a backup comm line.”

  “What? Hurry it up, then,” Telisa urged.

  “Hrmph. No appreciation. Let’s go.”

  The shuttle lifted off the pad and flew off toward a break in the nearby mountains. Telisa continued to listen in on the passengers as the small craft hurled along.

  “Countermeasures are being deployed. They know,” Cilreth said.

  “How could they know? The hidden comm line?” Telisa asked.

  “Maybe. We’re also on some video and microphone feeds. I made us look like those guys in the feeds, but I couldn’t get every detail perfect. Those feeds were analyzed and something or someone could have come to the conclusion that we aren’t who we say we are,” Cilreth sent back. “The way everything was put together, there’s probably an AI involved.”

  Makes sense that someone like Marcant has an AI on security detail.

  “Can we get through?”

  “We will,” Cilreth said.

  Telisa saw objects approaching from far ahead. Her acute sight picked up details from the high resolution feeds. The devices looked like flying C-shaped metal pincers with heavy magnetic pads along the inside.

  “Interceptor clamps,” Telisa said.

  “Yes. On it.”

  As Cilreth spoke, a small squadron of attendants flew in and disabled them. The clamps fell from the sky, dead.

  The mountain complex grew as they zeroed in on the landing areas. Telisa caught sight of a handful of people walking or working around the buildings, but none of them seemed alarmed. Within another two minutes, Cilreth had set them down atop the fortress.

  The passengers in the back of the shuttle remained unaware of the situation. Telisa watched them walk out. She had no reason to view them as a threat. Once the passengers were clear, Telisa and Cilreth walked outside. The passengers were going through a checkpoint at the side of the landing area.

  The checkpoint had two large ovals for people and cargo to pass through, likely equipped with deep scanning capability. To either side of the loops sat an armored desk. Telisa saw a man or an android standing behind the desk on the right.

  “Well they’re not shooting at us,” Telisa said.

  “Yet,” Cilreth qualified. “They may have expected the clamps to work. I imagine more security is on its way.”

  Telisa remained calm and strode up to the entrance. The guard looked first surprised, then almost alarmed as he either recognized Telisa or received a warning in his link.

  Not an android.

  “We’re here to see Marcant,” Telisa said matter-of-factly.

  The man looked straight at Telisa with a frown on his face.

  “No such person here. A squad will escort you back out to the landing platform, miss.”

  “You’re not even going to contact Marcant and ask?”

  The man simply drew his weapon. Cilreth bristled. Telisa saw the weapon was a stunner. Two other men became visible from behind the armored desks, one on each side. They looked determined and ready for action, though they did not display weapons over the high desks.

  “It’s not worth risking any deaths just to see Marcant,” Cilreth sent her.

  “Not a risk taker?” Telisa teased. “Nonlethal weapons here, the risk of collateral damage is still low.”

  Telisa moved in a blur. She launched herself over the desk on the right, rolling in the air along her arc. All three of the men had been disarmed in two seconds. A black spot flowered on the ground where Telisa had started. The laser, though probably capable of aiming faster, had not been configured for superhuman speed. Telisa leaped four meters straight upwards and smashed the laser emitter dome with her fist. The dome took her hit squarely. It deformed a bit but remained intact. She dropped back to her feet.

  “Okay, I’m not that strong,” she told Cilreth through their link connection.

  Telisa rolled forward and sheltered under the armored desk. She accessed her breaker claw. It actuated on the laser just as the desktop above her started to change color from the intense heat. There was no explosion. Telisa figured that meant the emplacement’s storage ring had already been mostly emptied by the laser.

  Telisa stood and waved Cilreth forward.

  “I could have been killed by the laser,” Cilreth said, but her voice did not sound truly concerned.

  “It would never have engaged a non-combatant.”

  “We’re far from any city or any of Shiny’s forces. We don’t know if things are going to be nice and civil out here.”

  Telisa wondered if Cilreth had a point. Earth’s own government had collapsed. Would that mean that the veneer of civilization had cracked? Telisa had experienced entertainment VRs about what might happen if large groups of people were put into danger. The theory was, everyone would quickly become capable of m
onstrous acts in order to survive. Shiny had kept the peace in most places with the help of Earth’s own infrastructure, but as Cilreth said, they were off the beaten path.

  Telisa decided to shrug it off.

  “Then stay sharp and stay close. It’s a chance for a bit of incarnate training.”

  “We’re outed, so I’ll start cracking this place electronically,” Cilreth said. “Here’s a more trustworthy map than we had before. It’s what these guys use, so more likely to be accurate than what the public records had.”

  Telisa accessed the map. Cilreth had selected a route deeper into the complex, so Telisa overlayed it onto her retinal input and ran ahead.

  “You’re as fast as the shuttle we came in on,” Cilreth said, falling behind.

  “Hurry up. It’ll be good for you,” Telisa replied in good humor.

  Telisa came to a T-shaped intersection at the end of the entrance terminal. She took a superhumanly quick peek.

  “Security machines,” she warned Cilreth. Then she darted past the corner, charging a machine in the right corridor. The machine acquired her in a split second and opened fire. A self-guiding soft projectile, meant to stun, arced toward her with two grenades following it.

  Telisa leaped through the air at the security machine. An attendant, itself struggling to keep up, intercepted the soft round. Telisa batted aside the two grenades mid-flight with her bare hands, then landed next to the robot. She squatted to the floor, grasped its legs, and stood again, taking the heavy legs with her. The machine flipped over onto its back and landed with a crash.

  Cilreth turned the corner just in time to witness Telisa disable the machine by pulling off its sensor-encrusted head with her bare hands. The two grenades had flowered into large glue clusters that looked like ugly beige anemones.

  “Now what?” Telisa said.

  “I’ve wreaked havoc with these systems,” Cilreth said, stepping carefully around the glue clusters. “They may be able to track us anyway. With an AI, it’s hard to gauge what it can do.”

  They ran past the dead machine on a wide, glossy gray floor with veins like marble. They passed a series of personal studios on their right, many equipped with partial VR equipment. One of them was alive with wall displays broadcast through their links. Telisa did not stay long enough to see what was being shown.

  “Keep a lookout. There was probably someone in there,” Telisa said.

  As she spoke, she caught sight of movement. Some kind of robot moved through an intersection ahead of her. Telisa used her breaker claw just in case. The small robot stopped dead in the middle of the floor.

  “Righteous kill,” Cilreth said. “I think that was a repair machine.”

  “Better safe than sorry. Stay sharp.” Telisa ran ahead to the intersection, leaving Cilreth behind again. She could hear her companion panting behind her as they ran. To Telisa, their pace was sluggish. She felt like moving faster, working harder.

  It will suck if I have to go back to being my old self. But I would do it for him.

  Telisa sent one attendant down each of the three corridors, leaving only one behind for herself. Two of them did not find anything of interest. There were a few scientists or engineers about in the building, and a handful of harmless robots. The third attendant fed her a view of a larger machine. It patrolled a set of long, wide corridors with smooth, shiny floors.

  If there’s more security, there must be something to keep secure.

  “Another security machine,” Telisa warned. She headed for the guarded corridors and sent Cilreth an indication of her intended path. She recalled the other two attendants to join her.

  The machine was a small tank. Its bottom edges had an armored apron. It moved smoothly. Telisa figured it must have treads underneath, or perhaps it was a hovercraft, but it was too swift and too smooth to be on legs.

  Telisa burst around a corner, aimed her laser rifle, and fired at the machine, aiming for a bulge she assumed was a sensor bubble. It took the hit.

  Deception. Where are the sensors? I should aim for the center armor plate. Or the treads.

  Telisa did not have time to stand idle any longer. Soon Cilreth would be in the field of fire.

  “Old fashioned way, I guess,” she said. Telisa shot forward. Then she lost her footing in an instant. Something was wrong. Telisa slid by the machine on the shiny floor, spinning out of control.

  “By the Five!” Telisa exclaimed through the link.

  The machine spun on a dime and headed after her. Telisa heard a loud whine and felt a slight wind. She rebounded off a wall and went flying the other direction.

  “That machine uses a turbine for thrust,” Cilreth sent back. Telisa flopped around on the far side of the hall. Her limbs slipped over the surface, unable to gain any purchase.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Floor... no friction!” Telisa said. Telisa lined her feet against the wall and pushed. She burst away from the wall, sliding on her back. She went by the robot again. The machine shot at her twice, but each time an attendant intercepted the projectile. Telisa managed to catch the edge of the machine and grab onto it. She pulled herself up with raw strength.

  Okay even Trilisk Special Forces is feeling this one.

  The machine whipped her about. For a moment she worried if it was going to smash her against a wall.

  I can’t use the breaker claw. This thing might have a big storage ring. I would just blow myself up.

  Telisa forgot about a possible impact and focused on the machine. She wrapped one powerful hand around the projectile barrel in front of her and bent it. The laser rifle flopped about on her back. In fact, the strap was almost choking her as the machine continued a tight circle.

  “Telisa! There’s another one coming!”

  Telisa hung on with one incredibly strong arm and lugged the rifle around with her other. She had an attendant feed the rifle a target sig and told it to fire on opportunity. At first nothing happened. The world swung around crazily. Eventually, the other machine came into the rifle’s arc of fire. The rifle output a tenth of its energy in one invisible blast.

  “It was no good,” Cilreth said. Telisa’s partner showed up on the tactical just around the corner. Telisa supposed that Cilreth must be monitoring the battle via the attendant feeds.

  Telisa’s Veer suit sent an alert. It was heating up rapidly under incoming laser energy. Telisa yelled in frustration and released her hold on the machine. She slid off to one side along the ultra slick floor. Then she used the breaker claw. She heard a loud crack and saw smoke, but she could not tell if the machine had sent out any shrapnel. Her Veer suit told her the laser had stopped, but it was registering a rupture in the torso. Telisa only felt a little bruised so she ignored it.

  “I think the smoke is covering me,” Telisa said.

  “No, I got the attendants to push the other one off target,” Cilreth said. “It has no real traction either, only the air thrust.”

  Telisa spotted the machine Cilreth spoke of. Three attendants pushed it in random loops. Telisa hit a wall hard. She exhaled, but the Veer suit had spread the impact anyway, so there was no real pain. Before she could rebound away, she pushed with her legs, frog-style, and shot forward toward the other tank, in the air.

  Almost fun, once you know the game.

  She told the rifle to hit it again with three charges worth while she was in the air. The second machine started to smoke. The sound of its turbine ceased. Though parts of it might still be functioning, it could not use its weapon or move under its own power. This time Telisa landed on her feet and slid across to another wall, pushed off, and reached a normal floor on the far side.

  The attendants pushed the broken machines away and around a corner.

  “Well, it may not be destroyed, but I think it’s disabled,” Telisa reported. “Thanks for keeping it from frying me, by the way.”

  “I’m not looking forward to trying to get over there.”

  “Just push off slowly on your butt an
d you’ll make it... eventually,” Telisa encouraged.

  Cilreth got down on all fours and felt the floor where the surface change appearance. Her hand slipped across the floor so easily she almost fell forward comically just probing it. While Cilreth struggled to pass the frictionless zone, Telisa distracted her with chat.

  “It’s a clever system,” Telisa said. “Anyone like us who muscles our way in here wouldn’t be prepared for a zero-friction floor and a collection of turbine-powered guardians.”

  “What about flying attackers?”

  “Must be rare. Flying through these corridors? I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a trap somewhere for that, too.”

  Cilreth rebounded off one wall and then another, finally headed through the last corridor toward Telisa.

  “You’re bleeding!” Cilreth said out loud as she slid in. Telisa checked herself and saw dried blood on her left side where her suit had registered the hole. The suit had stopped the flow.

  “I guess you’re right. Something got through my attendants. It must have been pretty easy to plot my course while I was sliding around on the floor,” Telisa said. “The suit is helping. Though I think it’s confused by my physiology. I’m getting normal Terran doses of everything. I feel kind of weird.”

  “You have a bullet wound in your side! Of course you feel weird.”

  “Just be glad it was targeted to wound,” Telisa said over the link, going silent again. “If they wanted me dead, I might be.”

  “I think you’re underestimating the attendants.”

  Cilreth regained her feet carefully on the far side.

  “I’ll never trust the ground again,” Cilreth said.

  “I know what you mean.”

  They walked out into an atrium that connected several hallways on more than one level.

  “Look. There are floors above us,” Cilreth said. “Those floors are not on the schematic we snatched when we came in.”

  “How is that? I thought we came to a deeper level that went farther in this direction, but the building above did not.”

  “Well, there isn’t any rule that says an underground building has to be shaped like a box. Especially inside a mountain. Those floors must be separated from the ones we came in on. The complex goes down from the shuttle entrance, then expands into the mountain, and his part forms a niche in the rock above us.”