Raddocks Horizon (Godyssey Legacy Book 1)

by Duran Cross

  “In this gunship we have an AWOL HolinMech, a dead CryoZaiyon, and combat-grade android that command wants killed and Doctor Caufmann who Commander Croft wants in custody.”

  “I heard that thing held the line at the stadium before we lost contact with everyone,” Verge says, glancing at Del.

  “That thing saved our lives too so you have a choice to make. Either you get dropped off at one of our positions, or you’re coming with us. We think Croft has lost it. Communication outside the city is jammed completely and he’s calling the shots on his own.”

  Verge’s pale eyes don’t blink. “I’ll get dropped off with my gunner if it’s all the same to you. You pulled me out of that mess so I won’t say anything to incriminate you but I’m not abandoning my troops.”

  “We’re not keeping this in here. He might reanimate,” interjects Mia, before pushing the body out a small hatch at the rear with an angry grunt.

  Verge is about to shout at Mia but is interrupted by Rennin calling back from the pilot’s seat. “You’re not getting dropped anywhere. I have a stopover to make in Currajong District.”

  ◆◆◆

  In Whitechapel, Commander Croft and First Officer Hannon are tracking Dead Star’s transponder. As Rennin banks towards Currajong, Croft’s face turns venomous. “Deserting…” he spits.

  “He has clearly veered off course,” she concedes.

  “Have our tech experts discovered what this program will do to Del once uploaded?”

  “It’ll adjust his targeting parameters to attack Thermosteel constructs and not to recognise command of any kind. Also it will force it to attack any viable threat on sight.”

  “Androids…” Croft smiles. “This is good news.”

  “What’s our course of action, sir?”

  “Dead Star has disobeyed a direct order to come straight here after pulling Verge out. Signal Desolator 1 to fire on them. Immediately.”

  “Desolator 1 is out of position, it will have to be realigned and fire on an angle.”

  “And?”

  “The particle beam of a Desolator satellite will cut a trench across its axis. The shockwave leaving the beam at forty-five degrees will cause a lot of collateral damage. It might even affect the Skyhook station. Corporal Verge is on that gunship.”

  “There’s more at stake here than a few soldiers and a gunship! I want them taken out. Now!” he bellows.

  Hannon takes a breath. “And the program?”

  “Imbed a signal when Desolator 1 targets them. When the array focuses, the signal will be received by Del’s sensors, automatically overwriting his existing operating parameters.”

  “Why bother?”

  “If that thing is half the fighting machine I’ve heard it is, it’ll probably live. If it survives, it’ll be ours.”

  14.

  AWOL

  Gunship Dead Star enters Currajong District as a fierce storm is setting in. Currajong is a residential suburb in Middle-city that isn’t riddled with apartment complexes in massive neo-gothic structures as they in Centre-city. It’s a throwback to times gone by, when houses were built on blocks of land instead of mega-buildings with miniature caskets with a television for homes as they were in the 22nd century. As such it’s easier to see contaminant activity, or the lack thereof as the case is now.

  Rennin makes a beeline for Wanker’s address, oblivious to the Desolator satellite's reorientation as it begins moving into position behind them. The hulking station is slow to target the one small shuttle. Desolator satellites are designed to fire directly downwards as precision blockbusters, not to target moving objects.

  The former watchman brings Dead Star down on the front lawn of the house. It has been rather aggressively overgrown by vines in an apt metaphor for how this city is being overrun. Then again, to most the city may have fallen long before anyone knew even knew the vines were present.

  Del is first out of the craft and absently blasts a contaminant off of the roof of Wanker’s house. The shot divides the target into pieces. Rennin is out of the pilot’s chair and out of the craft.

  “Wayne!” he calls, then turns to Del. “Try to keep it down.”

  Acknowledged, appears in Rennin’s artificial eye in minute text he can barely read.

  Rennin nods and is about to proceed up to the doorstep when he stops and narrows his eyes at Del, “Was that sarcasm?”

  Del doesn’t respond.

  “It was,” says Rennin inwardly swearing at himself for not realising he can open text channels locally by mere thought and timing his blinking.

  What else can this thing do?

  Del ignores him and pans the gun around, alert and clearly on guard.

  Jawa calls out of the craft. “Come on, man, hurry!”

  Rennin runs to the front door, bashing on it with both fists. “Wayne! It’s Rennin. Open up.”

  No answer.

  Rennin thumps again. “Goddamn it, Wanker, open this fucking door! I will kick it in and drag you onto this gunship.”

  Another moment of silence, before the door opens just a crack and a trembling voice can be heard. “Rennin? What-”

  The door is promptly kicked open before he can finish his query. Rennin steps in. “Ready?”

  Wayne Carr stumbles back against the opposite wall. “Ready? What for?”

  “I told you, we’re leaving.”

  Moments later Wayne is ushering two children and his wife out of the house towards the gunship. He face is haggard and he probably hasn’t slept since the fighting started. Thinking of the fighting, Rennin turns and glances towards Centre-city where detonations can be seen reflecting against the clouds in the sky.

  Rennin follows Wayne feeling an increasingly unsettling sensation of being watched. “Hey, I thought you had four kids…” Rennin starts as his eyes scan up the fascia of Wayne’s house. At the top there’s an attic window where the faces of two children are staring right at Rennin with white eyes. Rennin huffs a curse as a full body shudder stutters his step.

  Rennin turns back to the gunship with gritted teeth, wishing he hadn’t asked. The remainder of the family are making a concerted effort to look anywhere but at their house. Even the former watchman feels part of his mind pulling his glance back. He can’t stand those creatures.

  He fastens himself back into the pilot’s chair and lifts off. Rennin wonders how Wayne’s children became infected, and how long they’ve been locked in the attic. The thought nags at him. Would it have made any difference if he arrived earlier; could they have been saved?

  Rennin grinds his teeth together when he thinks of whoever released this disastrous affliction.

  Not too long ago he was happy enough to let the world burn. Mostly he still is, but now there are some people he wants to keep alive. He’s not entirely sure whether he actually wants them to live or if he just doesn’t want to feel a sense of defeat at having someone in his ‘care’ taken from him.

  The interior of the cockpit suddenly turns red. Rennin checks over the instrument panel reflexively looking for the system error, but all the boards are green. He looks out the cockpit and finds that the glow coming from outside.

  Caufmann snaps out a warning. “Rennin, Desolator 1 is locked on.”

  “What the hell is going on?” asks Corporal Verge.

  “Get us out of here,” yells Sabre.

  “It’s almost ready to fire, Rennin,” calls Caufmann as the gunship begins to shudder mid-air.

  Thinking fast Rennin begins a steep climb, taking Dead Star up towards the satellite, “I’m going to take us up high enough to shut the power down, it’ll lose us once we cut power.”

  Signal detected. Priority: Evade. Priority: Evade, texts Del on Rennin’s screen.

  “You’re going to do a freefall in a gunship, are you out of your mind?” calls Mia.

  “No other option,” Rennin says, pushing the throttle to maximum. Dead Star’s engines roar, then screech as they are pushed to their limit. The steep ascent is driving the ship
past tolerances.

  Climb, you bastard!

  “Hurry, Ren, I can’t hack into it!” yells Caufmann, typing frantically into his gauntlet.

  Evade. Evade!

  Rennin sees the updraft of wind pulled up by Desolator 1 as it stabilises the surrounding atmosphere for its blast. He swings around in his seat. “Del! Shoot the transponder!”

  Del obeys instantly, pointing his built in wrist-gun straight at Drake’s crotch across from him. Drake opens his legs just as Del’s wrist-shot tears straight through Dead Star’s hull, obliterating the transponder unit.

  Taking that as his cue, Rennin grabs both emergency shutdown levers above his head and pulls them down. Dead Star’s power cuts out instantly and begins a rolling descent—left wing first—as Desolator 1 opens fire. The red energy beam fires downwards at a forty-five degree angle, narrowly missing the falling gunship but viciously shaking it as it screams past.

  All eyes are riveted forwards despite the almost blinding light. Caufmann is still typing into his gauntlet. Rennin has his eyes shut tight, counting out the few seconds he can allow Dead Star to freefall.

  No one notices Del screaming. The gargantuan android is gripping the sides of his head, calling to Caufmann.

  Rennin slams the levers back up restoring power to the engines and begins wrestling with the axis controls. He bellows out the loudest curse he can manage, but even that is inaudible over the roaring engines and the Desolator’s particle beam. He regains enough control to crudely straighten their descent. He doesn’t veer far from the blast trajectory, he follows it down, hoping that the beam will conceal the gunship.

  The groundside impact of Desolator 1 is impossibly bright and Rennin averts his eyes banking Dead Star away from the site. With all the noise and desperation no one sees Del’s struggle at the rear of the gunship, they are all transfixed by the beam and it's destructive path, all eyes focused beyond the cockpit glass at what may be their last moments.

  Embedded signal … Assistance required!

  Help.

  Help me.

  HELP ME.

  Oblivious to Del’s messages, Rennin cuts across the blast radius at right angles, now barely a car height above street level. An alarm howls on the console indicating the rear hatch has been opened. A quick glance around confirms everyone is still in their seats.

  He wants to double check, but wills himself to focus on flying. He hears Caufmann calling out to Del frantically and he realises that the great android was the only one he didn’t see.

  I can’t think about that now.

  He’s just trying to keep Dead Star low and get them to a landing zone where they can assess their situation.

  The ground is shaking. Dead Star is too, and all he can hear is the discharge that sounds like a roaring demon behind him. His heart is pumping so loudly it feels like his ears are popping with each beat but finally they’re clear of the blast zone.

  ◆◆◆

  Sindaris Tessol is knocked out of his wondrous—though temporary— elation by a single vicious cracking blast topside that shakes the very foundations of the reservoir. It isn’t directly above, as the ceiling has not collapsed to crush the entire area and everything in it.

  Nonetheless it’s enough to scare the mass of contaminants, and in so doing it knocks Sindaris back to his senses. His identity and memories come flooding back in one fell swoop like a cup being filled. It almost feels like life returning to him or vision being restored after a long time in darkness. Sindaris remembers who he is and why he’s here once again.

  He looks at the entity controlling the contaminants but this time he’s ready for the face of his wife. This is not the person he loved for most of his life, it is merely a mockery coming from his own mind. Others would be seeing people important to them in their mortal life, people who have enough sway in their subconscious to make them pliable.

  The once simple construction worker seizes his chance, disregarding the risk to himself. He focuses on the entity and pulls the gun from his pocket. For a moment the image of his wife’s beautiful face fills his stomach with lead, but when he looks into her eyes he sees nothing he recognises of the woman he spent his life with.

  A single shot rings out, hitting the entity in the right lobe, destroying that part of the head. The body lurches back and falls but Sindaris doesn’t stay in place long enough to see it. He is gone, darting through the crowd, running for whatever life he leads now.

  He feels random and panicked contaminant thoughts coursing through his head. Some of the smarter ones know what he did and they clamber towards him, clawing at him as he passes but the weight of the confusion caused by the masses makes their movements slow and inaccurate. Even though they are sluggish and overwhelmed, there are so many of them. Too many.

  He feels a hand grab at his sleeve and slaps it aside. Another grabs at his ankle but it slips and fails to grasp. Fingers pass across his head and through his hair but he does not stop. He doesn’t look at them, he just runs.

  Finally he makes it out of the main reservoir area only to receive his first injury. A razor sharp wrist claw slashes across his back tearing his skin like paper. He looks up in shock at his assailant; one of the more advanced mutations, with black skin and an unrelenting hunger.

  Sindaris stumbles and falls forwards onto his face. The thing comes at him and slashes downwards. Sindaris can only roll onto his back, raising his arms to protect himself. He feels instant agony as his arms are carved down to the bone with enough force to push him into the ground. The creature backs off and screeches at him. Somewhere through his pain Sindaris realises that the blow cut his skin easily, but failed to pass through his bones. The creature slashes again but Sindaris rolls to the side and onto his feet. He rushes up a side passage away from the creature as fast as his shaking legs will carry him.

  He focuses all the mental power he can muster into a terrifying, all-consuming feeling of famine, picturing the jet-black skinned creature as the only food that will ease the pain of being so ravenous. He pushes the mood outwards like a cursed invisible wave. His own desperation reinforces the impulse, building in power as more of the contaminants around him turn their attentions toward his attacker. The urge to consume becomes so powerful that all the surrounding contaminants feel the starvation so strongly it eclipses all else.

  They come running from all directions. They rush past Sindaris as if he’s not even there. The torrent of contaminants charge maniacally for the congregations of those similar to his attacker, their numbers growing to satisfy their overwhelming hunger.

  Sindaris hears the creatures screeching as they are being devoured by their own kind. The screams are bad, though they are only audible; he can feel each bite as if it is happening to him.

  Suffering as his wounds throb and ooze, he realises blood loss is making him increasingly dizzy, but he forces himself to run as fast as his legs can carry him.

  He makes it back to the streets of Blackhaven and disappears into the night, leaving the horde to tear each other to pieces.

  ◆◆◆

  Rennin has Dead Star running in low power mode as he flies low over the Currajong district, maintaining thruster emissions at a minimum. Desolator 1 still looms overhead but since the transponder’s destruction, it hasn’t made a move. The satellite’s particle beam has cut a three-kilometre gouge across the district, creating a burned scar that gapes obscenely amongst the houses on either side.

  Rennin finds an overpass and brings Dead Star gently down under it. Lieutenant Sabre and Corporal Verge are first out of the craft, guns at the ready, efficiently securing the area.

  Caufmann is next out and his face says it all. He’s fuming. Rennin doesn’t like his expression at all, and follows closely behind.

  Out of the ship, Rennin is hit in the face with an icy cold wind and the sounds of rain. Raddocks Horizon rains a lot lately, he notes.

  “William!” he calls.

  Caufmann doesn't acknowledge the hail, his eyes are on t
he blast zone, heading towards Del’s last known location.

  Rennin sprints up and grabs his arm. “There’s no reading on Del’s location, he’s gone silent.”

  “He’s alive!” Caufmann twists his arm away, attempting to break away from Rennin’s grasp but his artificial hand remains firmly locked on the doctor’s forearm despite his shoulder nearly being torn from its socket.

  “I believe you, he’s alive, but during the Desolator strike there was a very sharp spike in secondary command channels. A signal calling itself ‘Harvest’ was picked up by Dead Star’s COM log.”

  “I have to find him,” Caufmann says looking distraught. “Look at these messages,” the doctor says showing Rennin his gauntlet screen, scrolling through pages of text. “Del was screaming for help.”

  Caufmann’s hands are shaking so badly that Rennin can’t read the messages clearly, but he gets the gist. Del has been reprogrammed. “He’s gone. We’ll have to come back for him.”

  “I’m not leaving him! I’m analysing the coding from the signal he received and it’s disturbing to say the least. They’ve turned him into a slave! Let go of me, Rennin.”

  “We need you, William, we can’t just fly out of here now. A military installation just fired on us!”

  “Keep your voices down!” calls Verge in a harsh whisper.

  Caufmann’s glare is fast becoming murderous. “Desolator satellites are not to be used on civilian or moving aerial targets. Someone exploited it for their own ends and will not have had Defence Force approval for such a strike. Therefore, the military don’t know about it and once you make it beyond the borders of the city you’ll be fine. I’ve uploaded an incredible amount of classified data on this infection for you to give to the first commander you find outside the city. It will ensure you’ll be welcomed, not arrested.”

  “You can’t stay here alone, and we are leaving. Today. You’ll die here.”

  “Del is the closest thing to a son I will ever have,” says Caufmann, so forlorn that Rennin forgets he’s talking to an android.