The Orphaned Worlds

by Michael Cobley

  ‘Gravitational inversion,’ said Reski Emantes as the enlarged section dissolved, showing again the vista of drifting planetoids. ‘All those worldlets repel one another.’

  It’s like a gigantic game of murmlespiel, Robert thought.

  ‘Ship, are we near the rendezvous?’ said Rosa. ‘Any sign of anyone else?’

  ‘Destination coordinates are over four thousand kilometres dead ahead,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘Sensor readings are confused – I seem to be detecting between three and twenty-five vessel contacts.’

  ‘What he means is that his systems are incapable of distinguishing between real-image data and echoes reflected by the antigravity planetoids,’ said Reski Emantes as the droid came into view on the exterior monitor.

  ‘What,’ Rosa said, ‘are you doing out there?’

  ‘The delirious excitement on board was more than I could bear,’ the droid replied. ‘Now, if you’ll follow me to our destination, I’ll relay sensory data to my underequipped colleague.’

  With that, the machine set off in the direction of the rendezvous coordinates.

  ‘Ship, would you …’

  ‘Keep the pipsqueak in range? Certainly.’

  Minutes passed and a cluster of planetoids, some as large as Earth’s moon, others no wider than a sports stadium, drew steadily nearer.

  ‘I can’t see anything …’ Robert said.

  ‘There is something,’ Rosa murmured, adjusting onscreen sensor variables.

  ‘Long-range detects say that there is a ship somewhere in close visual range,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘And two more 1,953 kilometres away in the port hi-quarter, but their apparent image loci are flickering on and off, as well as changing position … ah, it seems that our intrepid pathfinder has altered course.’

  True enough, on the widescreen the droid was veering off to the right, towards a middle-sized planetoid about a thousand kilometres in diameter.

  ‘Reski, where are you going?’ Rosa said.

  ‘I’ve detected some odd energy readings on that moonlet,’ came the reply. ‘Like the residue of a drive. Turbulent yet it’s highly localised.’

  ‘That planetoid does appear to be the source of some of the anomalous detection signatures,’ said the Plausible Response.

  ‘Okay, we’ll follow the droid,’ Rose said. ‘But keep the sensors on full alert.’

  Robert sat back as the tiership swooped down after Reski Emantes. The small, barren world loomed before them and an inky darkness fell like a curtain as they crossed into its shadow, cut off from the star’s meagre radiance. The Construct droid was sending back a continuous feed of scan data as it came nearer to the moon. And the nearer it got the stronger the effects of that strange gravitic repulsion.

  ‘A very odd experience,’ said Reski Emantes. ‘A constant, gentle push … but do all these planetoids stay in the vicinity of that star?’

  ‘Reski, there’s something on the move down there …’

  Robert heard the urgency in her voice and sat up.

  ‘Yes, I am picking up … my exosensors say the object is small and rising … not powered, rising on the antigravity, but I’m unable to narrow down its location. It’s somewhere within the 64 cubic-kilometers below me …’

  ‘Rosa,’ Robert said slowly. ‘This is …’

  ‘I know – I’m triangulating both sensor arrays and getting a partial …’ Suddenly she stared up at the screen. ‘Reski, get out – it’s a missile!’

  ‘Too late …’

  On the screen, against the moonlet’s dark backdrop, a thruster flared abruptly and a moment later there was a bright, harsh flash. Instantly, all of Reski’s datafeeds went dead while an enlarged visual showed the Construct droid tumbling slowly, wrapped in an aura of jagged energy.

  ‘What was that?’ Robert said. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘That,’ Rosa said, pointing.

  Another section of the widescreen had enlarged to show a portion of the planetoid’s rocky surface, a sports-pitch-sized area seemingly melting away to reveal a deep recess out of which a ship began to rise. To Robert’s eyes, at first glance, it resembled an immense crablike machine, then when he looked closer he saw the additional armoured effector limbs, the pincers, the broaches, the rotary blades, the serrated tines, and the profusion of hooked symbols that decorated the upper and lower carapaces. It looked vicious and brutal, and viscerally epitomised the words ‘war machine’.

  ‘Can we fight that thing?’ he said. ‘Can we stand our ground?’

  ‘My projectors could do it some serious damage,’ said the Plausible Response. ‘But it’s twice my mass as well as being heavily armoured and shielded – by the time I got through its outer hull it would have me in a close-quarters grapple and would be literally tearing me apart.’

  Robert regarded one of the secondary screens where the droid Reski Emantes drifted, seemingly lifeless, then he looked at Rosa.

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Daddy, we run! Ship?’

  ‘Evasive manoeuvres engaged, course set for far side of the planetoid after the next, heavy thrust initiated.’

  He stared at the hostile vessel, imagining its claws ripping their way into their ship.

  ‘What is that craft?’ he said. ‘Are there any records identifying it?’

  ‘Indeed there are,’ said the Ship. ‘It is a hunt-invigilator of the Steel81 Claw, I believe.’

  Frowning, he glanced at Rosa.

  ‘That’s its rank, Daddy – all you need to know is that it is a Knight of the Legion of Avatars, and it’s coming after us!’

  LEGION

  The last of the Bargalil base crew had barricaded the access corridors to the hemicylindrical dorm section, then welded the doors shut. They were heavily armoured pressure doors, easily capable of resisting the laser lances on some of the subverted maintenance drones. There was a heavy-grade cutter in the large workshop but it was integrated into a motorised ceiling assembly and the Legion Knight wanted to spend as little time on sterilisation as possible – there was no telling how soon a ship would arrive from the other moon or the planet and he had a great deal of essential materials to locate and salvage.

  Fortunately, a rapid analysis of the command centre’s crude schemator units revealed that a secondary fuel line passed through the foundations. It was a simple task to choke off the outlet and send a small remote along the pipe to bore holes and ignite when enough fuel had escaped.

  The explosion ripped open the dormitory with an angry yellow flare of burning gases that quickly faded while debris and bodies flew in all directions. Watching from the oval roof of the main complex, the Legion Knight was puzzled, having expected a contained incineration from the amount of fuel that had been released. But when one of the ejected pieces of debris altered its trajectory towards him and opened fire with an energy weapon, the mystery was solved. Gas tanks for vacsuits would have intensified that explosion yet somehow one wearer had survived the eruption.

  The suited, six-limbed Bargalil seemed undaunted by the Legion Knight’s size as it flew straight down, firing off beam bursts that did little more than heat a few spots of the carapace to a dull red. The Knight felt a twinge of admiration for such a daringly suicidal assault – along with the Sendrukans, the Bargalil were an impressive species and would be likely candidates for convergence, once the Legion of Avatars established unopposed dominion.

  He let the survivor get to within fifty metres before directing a nearby patrolling drone to swoop down, latch onto the Bargalil and steer him sideways towards one of the surface airlocks which was just starting to cycle open. Seconds after diving inside, both machine and captive were engulfed by an explosion, preceded, the Knight noticed, by a small bright flash, a sign that the Bargalil had triggered a grenade.

  As metal and organic remnants sprayed out of the twisted airlock, the Legion Knight received an unexpected alert, from the recently reactivated exospatial comm-signal sensors. It was, to his surprise, a dyadic
realtime communication from his two remaining Scions, those who chose paths to Darien different from the third, whose failure remained a source of grief. In their last communication they had offered up reassurances but no specifics as to their plans; perhaps this time more would be revealed. So as the reprogrammed drones of the depopulated base went about their scavenging, he opened the waiting channel.

 

  >We greet you, Illustrious Progenitor, and enquire after the state of your well-being. Your subspace beacon has been silent for an entire quarter-cycle<

 

  >This concerns us, Illustrious One. The journey to Darien is long and we well recall the state of your great and venerable workings and their enclosing body-shell. We urge you to reconsider undertaking such a long and onerous passage, especially since our own plans are now well advanced<

  The Legion Knight was impressed and amused at this ploy.

 

  >Illustrious Progenitor, understand that we counsel caution out of duty to you and the principles of convergence. Be advised that in the event that you reach Darien without further mishap, you will see that formidable obstacles await you – an Earthsphere cruiser and a Brolturan battleship, the latter of which maintains around the planet a sensor shell of some sophistication. We are uncertain as to how you might overcome this<

 

  >We are reluctant to reveal such data over an unsecure subspace channel, with all due respect and admiration, Illustrious One<

 

  With that he broke off contact, satisfied that he had persuaded them that he was going to attempt some kind of rash, hasty assault. However, he decided that it would be wise to take their warnings at face value, not least because they sounded plausible. He would therefore need some kind of tactic that would get him down onto the planet without arousing suspicion about his true nature, and when he examined an inventory of the Bargalil base one item in particular caught his attention. Next to the packaging vault was the main dock, in which was berthed a short-range container barge whose main hold was easily large enough to accommodate the Legion Knight. Modified in various ways, it could pass as a viable hyperdrive vessel but it could only get close enough to Darien if …

  If the Earthsphere ship believed it to be a friendly craft carrying some valuable cargo.

  He activated every last drone and mechanical on the base and stepped up the scavenging efforts while diverting some machines to carry out alterations to the barge. Control systems needed rerouting to the hold, the main drive had to be boosted and additional stores installed. But as well as the technical tasks, there was another crucial problem that had to be addressed:

  How was he going to fake the human crew of an interstellar vessel?

  KAO CHIH

  More than a day after leaving Belskirnir, they reached Doyle’s Landing, a crossing point over the Chyorny River, right where it spilled out from a cliff-sided ravine at the south-east edge of the Forest of Arawn. With a late afternoon sky darkening overhead, they were on a rope-guided log barge and halfway across the river when the Brolturans attacked. Kao Chih had been talking with the Earthsphere agent, Silveira, when they heard the whine of engines and saw three sleek assault flyers come in over the treetops half a klick downstream then turn in their direction.

  ‘Everybody into the water!’ bellowed Silveira. ‘They’re making an attack run!’

  Kao Chih saw fear and panic in every face yet felt oddly unruf-fled. Greg and the Firmanov brothers were already leaping into the river, followed by a couple of bearded trappers, determinedly dragging fur bales with them. Everyone had dived off the upstream side so Kao Chih went the other way, thinking to take advantage of the current. He just caught Silveira shouting something to him … then he was in the water, gasping with the cold. He was coming up for his second breath when a missile hit the barge.

  The explosion was deafening and bright, and a wave of heat rolled over him. Moments later he realised why the others had gone off the other side as blazing pieces of the barge came floating downstream. Slowed by wet clothing, he had to duck under the waters when burning logs swept towards him, after which it was a struggle to surface. And still the attack went on, a nonstop cacophony of explosions and automatic fire, screams, shouts and the occasional answering fusillade of shots.

  By the time he reached the opposite bank and stumbled wetly up onto the grassy slope, the flyers were gone. Doyle’s Landing, however, was destroyed, its ramshackle tavern and attendant huts and shanties blown apart. The wreckage blazed ferociously. Exhausted and soaked to the skin, Kao Chih staggered on a few steps before slipping on mud to land on his backside where he sat and stared, dazed for a moment. He and Greg had stopped at the tavern on their outward journey and enjoyed a mug of the local grain brew while swapping news with the barkeep …

  One of the Firmanov brothers, Alexei, came hurrying up. His garments were likewise sodden, his hands were almost black with dirt and ash, and blood from a wound on his scalp was seeping down one temple.

  ‘Kao Chih, my friend, are you okay?’ he said. ‘You are not looking so well. Are you injured?’

  ‘No, I … thank you, I am not wounded.’

  ‘Good, very good, then Greg needs you to come and put out some fires, pazhalsta?’

  Kao Chih nodded and was helped to his feet, then stumbled after Alexei towards the burning settlement. For the next hour he carried water buckets, moved the wounded over to a makeshift lean-to by the tree line, and salvaged still-edible provisions from the charred and smoking ruins. Greg and Silveira and the Firmanovs put in the same if not greater effort, which included scavenging logs and any canvas or sheeting to build rough shelters. Night had fallen and campfires were alight by the time Greg called a halt. Everyone’s clothing had dried out in the smoky, smouldering air but now everyone was smeared with ash and sweat, especially the few uninjured menfolk of the settlement who had insisted on seeing to the dead themselves.

  The tavern-owner, Megan Doyle, had died in the attack but her son, Tavish, a lean youth with haunted eyes, came over to thank them.

  ‘I’m greatly obliged to you all,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how we’d have coped if you’d run off like that pair of shabs …’

  The two trappers who had also been on the barge had scrambled ashore with their furs and dashed off into the forest without a backward glance.

  ‘We couldn’t have left you to fend for yourselves,’ Greg said. ‘But I’m afraid that we will be heading off in less than an hour, after we’ve rested and cleaned up a little. And I recommend that you and your people do the same as soon as you’re able, either head to another camp or follow us to Tayowal. Staying here is too risky.’

  ‘I’ve heard good things about ye, Mr Cameron, and I appreciate yer advice but I’ll no’ be chased out of my family’s home, even as burnt as it is.’

  ‘Tavish, understand that this was not a warning on their part – they used incendiaries because they meant to wipe you out.’

  But the youth was stubborn. ‘Aye, I know but I’ll no’ be chased out.’

  Greg nodded and sat back. ‘If it were me, I’d probably feel the same.’

  Tavish Doyle was silent for a moment as he stared at the campfire. Kao Chih watched the exchange, remembering some of the eyewitness ac
counts in the Retributor archives that told of how colonists on Pyre, his grandparents’ generation, had felt when they came under attack by the Hegemony monoclan.

  ‘I can put together some provisions for when you leave,’ Tavish said.

  ‘Your need is the greater,’ said Greg. ‘Besides, Tayowal is only a few hours away and I mean to be there by midnight.’

  ‘Well, we have it if you want it.’

  Once Doyle had left and was out of earshot, Nikolai, the older Firmanov, turned to Greg.

  ‘You want to leave this fine town so soon?’

  Greg smiled bleakly. ‘Did you see the direction those flyers took after they were done? – they were heading east.’

  ‘There’s a big lumber camp called Freyja’s Repose twenty miles that way,’ said Alexei.

  ‘Out in the open?’

  ‘It has a mill by a fast-running river and cargo zeplins always going back and forth, until recently …’

  ‘Right, so it’s an easy target,’ Greg said. ‘And I’ll bet there’s other camps on the receiving end tonight. Mr Silveira?’

  The Earthsphere agent looked up. ‘Yes, Mr Cameron.’

  ‘Would ye be so kind as to refresh my memory about the ETA of this factory machine?’

  Silveira leaned forward, voice low as he spoke. ‘Various surveillance sources put the Hegemony freighter’s arrival within a forty-eight-hour window ending roughly five a.m. tomorrow, local time.’

  ‘And would ye say that it makes sense to bring it in by night, after stirring up a wee bit of chaos as a diversion?’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’

  Greg looked around at the rest. ‘The Brolts are monitoring all frequencies so we can’t contact Tayowal to see if they were hit by those bastard raiders. Therefore we have to reach Tayowal tonight, in case they need our help. Okay?’ Heads nodded sombrely. ‘Good. Grab a bite, clean up if you want, and be ready to hit the trail in forty minutes.’