by Chris Ward
‘Switch on a light!’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not fine, you idiot. Switch on a light so I can see where you are.’
‘Flint, your species might be inclined to hide under rocks,’ he gasped, ‘but mine stand out in the air, ready to fight like men.’ He gritted his teeth, then attempted another climb, making it only a couple of metres this time. Even more worrying was a little tear in the armpit of his spacesuit. He could feel the cold creeping in like a dead man’s fingers.
‘Paul! The light!’
‘I’m nearly there,’ Paul shouted, even though with the transmitter linking to Flint’s helmet, it was unnecessary.
‘Just switch on a light so I can see where you are. Then I can watch you climb out and I can tell Beth all about it. You know, in great detail, about what a hero you were.’
Paul lifted an eyebrow. The spider had a good point. ‘Give me a moment,’ he said.
Making sure he wouldn’t slide off, he adjusted a setting on his suit’s wrist control, turning on a light inside his helmet. Less than a minute later, something hard encircled his right leg, pulling tight.
‘I’m caught!’ he shouted. ‘Some kind of damn snake! Wait while I cut it loose!’
‘It’s not a snake. Hold on!’
Paul tried to reach for his blaster, but as he let go, the thing on his leg jerked him upwards. He lost his grip and slipped off the tree, a moment before its roots broke free and it dropped away into the chasm. For a few terrifying seconds he was hanging upside-down above a pool of magma far below, watching the tree bounce against the rock walls, catching fire as it went. He felt an intense wave of heat on the shield of his helmet, and he winced at the brightness of the sudden fire before the helmet’s settings began to adjust. He had just managed to open his eyes and stare the hellhole down when he began to rise. As he bumped against the chasm’s rocky wall, he was able to get a handhold and scrambled the rest of the way up, dropping down by the chasm’s edge in an exhausted heap.
‘Welcome back,’ Teer Flint said, voice hoarse.
Paul looked up. The spider-like creature lay nearby, surrounded by a tangled coil of silver rope. One end was entangled around Paul’s right leg, but as he watched, it slowly began to retract … back into Teer Flint’s abdomen.
‘That … came out of you?’
Teer Flint gave an exhausted nod. ‘I’m part-spider after all.’
‘Do you … live on a web?’
Teer Flint coughed as he laughed. ‘We’ve evolved a bit since our fly-catching days, boy. It works as a rope, but that’s about it. It takes a bit of effort too.’
Paul was holding the part that had encircled his leg in his hands, peering at it. It was thick like rope, but appeared to have no braiding, as though it was a continuous substance. ‘What’s it made of?’
Teer Flint grinned. ‘It’s a type of feces, mixed with semen.’
Paul dropped the rope on the ground. ‘Oh.’
‘I’m playing with you, flyboy.’ Teer Flint gave a choking laugh. ‘It’s something else entirely. I don’t know. I’m a mechanic, not a biochemist.’
Paul looked behind him at the edge of the chasm, then back at the rope. He gave Teer Flint a respectful nod. ‘You did me … a good turn.’
Teer Flint gave another exhausted laugh. ‘And now it’s time to pay it forward, boy. I’m done. This gravity has taken its toll, and I’m ready to crawl under the nearest rock. According to the transmission, your friends are right behind that ridge, or at least they were when the transmission was sent. It’s up to you, now. Go and save them. Go and be a hero.’
Paul looked up at the dark line of earth rising into the sky, barely more than a silhouette.
‘If they’re there, I’ll find them.’
‘Take this.’
Teer Flint reached into his spacesuit and pulled something out. With a grin he said, ‘It’s a blaster. Unlike you, I had time to charge mine. Now go. Don’t make me sorry I saved you.’
Paul took the blaster and stood up. He looked down at Teer Flint, who had slumped to the ground and closed his eyes, then looked up at the ridge.
‘Time to open up a fat drum of payback,’ he said, twirling the blaster on his finger as the storm raged around him.
15
Harlan5
Aside from a few of the primitive burrowing species found on outer-system worlds and one or two docile lizard species which preferred to reside subsurface, being buried alive would cause a ridiculous amount of problems for most races and subspecies. The loss of the ability to move, a lack of oxygen, not to mention the untold panic of being underneath who-knew-how-many tons of shifting, crushing rock and ice.
Thankfully, his programming continuously reminded him, as it cycled through an internal selection of ancient Earth songs in order to give him motivation, Harlan5 was a robot. And robots had certain advantages.
The landslip had caused some considerable hardship. Several of his external systems were damaged. One arm had been almost torn off, one leg partially crushed, and one eye light smashed by a particularly sharp piece of rock. As he slowly moved his working arm back and forth, creating a space in front of him from which to begin a gradual unearthing like some classic-Earth horror movie monster, his programming could only remind him what a mess such a situation might have made of Beth or Caladan.
Luckily, from their last communication before he had shut off his transmitters and then cut the guide wires in order stay hidden from detection, they were at least alive. He had sent off one last mayday to the Matilda, so that Teer Flint and Paul might be able to come to their aid, but buried under half a hillside of rock, he was of no use to anyone. It was better to be undetectable to any enemies.
Working on low power while using his functional arm to continue creating a space from which he could begin to escape, he ran a systems check. He was pretty gnarled up, but, as the humans might have said, he would live. His programming reminded him that he had found himself in worse fixes and survived.
The surrounding rock was loose, which worked both to his advantage and disadvantage. He was able to dig through it with relative ease, but each time his programming began to recognise progress, the mud pile would slip and fill the space. Had he been a human or subspecies, he might have found it frustrating.
After several hours of pointless scrabbling, he decided to shut his systems down for a while. With only thirty percent of battery life remaining, he risked being lost forever. It was perhaps better to wait and see what Dynis Moon had in store for him.
He didn’t have to wait long. His sensors detected the rumbling in the earth below him, and then he was on the move again, the earth pile shifting and sliding as the moon’s surface continued to groan and heave beneath its atmospheric instability.
After a few minutes, the latest geological disturbance came to a stop. Harlan5’s sensors had good and bad news: the weight pressing down on him now was far less, meaning he was closer to the surface, but the temperature had racked up by a hundred degrees, meaning he was now closer to one of the great magma-filled fissures.
‘If it’s a river of blood, then so be it,’ Harlan5 muttered, shifting one leg in the direction of the least pressure. The scree gave out below him, and he found himself sliding forward. For the first time in hours he felt real light on his sensors as he burst out of the scree pile into a glowing cavern.
He had slid into the molten rock before his sensors knew it was there. He quickly assessed the heat against the temperatures his plating could withstand, and as Paul might have said, it was a close goddamn thing. It wouldn’t melt him down into a copper-tainted liquid, but it would make a pretty solid mess.
With only one functioning arm, he had little choice but to wade across the cavern, part climbing, part swimming, as the molten rock bit and chewed at his plating, gas bubbles spitting and popping, scarring his face and chest. By the time he climbed out on to a ledge and began the arduous ascent up a crumbling cavern wall, he was barely more
than a lump of scrap metal with a synthetic brain.
As he paused on a ledge halfway up to assess the situation, his programming considered that he ought to feel heroic, that “taking one for the team” was something a sociable human would be proud of.
It was some time later when what was left of Harlan5 climbed up over the edge of the chasm he had found himself in, and, unlike a human who might have felt the need to rest, immediately climbed up onto the melted, twisted remnants of his legs and limped off in the direction the humans had likely gone. A short distance farther on, he found the remains of one of the wires that had held them together prior to the earthquake, but there was no way of knowing if either or both was still alive.
Having needed to use much of his auxiliary power to keep his systems functioning despite the damage done to his body, he was running low. Nine percent left. Soon he would be of no use to anyone. He considered trying to return to the Matilda, but his recharging port was damaged, meaning it would need to be fixed before he could attach to the ship. Looking up at the storm raging around him, however, his programming reminded him that there might indeed be another less conventional way.
He forced open one of the compartments in his chest that had suffered only moderate damage, his programming pleased to see that its contents were still intact. Attaching the required wires to the conductor system, he then struggled through the storm, limping towards the nearest high ground, a ridgeline to the north. Beneath his feet the ground here was rockier and more stable than what he had traversed with the two humans, but out in the open he was harried relentlessly by the wind and struck by flying debris, as he climbed, Prometheus-like, over jagged spikes of rock to the highest peak.
Lightning crashed around him as Harlan5 stood aloft the very highest rocky outcrop, one knee bent, one arm above his head. The world below lit up with each bolt, and in those moments he caught sight of something that both terrified his programming and left it in awe: beyond the ridge was the downed remains of a massive space battleship. It lay in a marshy area, listing in what had perhaps once been water, dusted with ice and snow, part of its thin central core twisted into a near-right angle. Around its wider head were the remains of buildings, as though it had crash-landed right into the middle of a settlement.
It was immediately obvious that he would find Beth and Caladan there. The downside: the battleship belonged to the Shadowmen.
Lightning flashed again, closer this time. Harlan5, aware time could be short for his human companions—if it wasn’t already too late—had to hurry. He lifted his arm again, then, as an afterthought, took up his broken arm and held it aloft like a trophy claimed in some violent, decades-long war.
It felt wrong not to make some ancient Earth-like gothic statement, so as the next lightning bolt crashed earthward, he took aspects from the best quotes from his memory vault in order to find something appropriate, and roared, ‘Thine tempest might strike my body, devil, but my heart will ride on!’
His body shuddered as the lightning bolt struck the tip of his broken arm. It fizzled and cracked, but it absorbed a proportion of the power which might otherwise have shorted his systems. The conductor, attached to his fingers, managed to contain the rest, and with a sudden jolt, he felt systems turned dormant powering up.
‘I am alive!’ he roared, aware he might not get another chance to make such a bold statement. Then, pulling the frazzled remains of his arm down and tucking it under the one which was still good, he headed down from the ridge, just as blaster fire flashed through the air where he had been standing.
Someone from down below was shooting at him.
16
Beth
Her arms hurt, but at least she hadn’t taken the beating Caladan had before they’d dragged him away to another cell. Tied behind her, her wrists were sore from the plastic bonds, and her shoulders felt numb. It had been several hours since they had dumped her here in this gloomy cell and no one had been back since. Her feet had been tied too, but the Lork guard who had done it had left them too loose and it had been easy to shake them off once she was alone. She had wandered around her cell, looking for some way to free her hands or get out, but there was nothing.
They were in some kind of fallen ship. Its auxiliary power still worked, because she had a semblance of light from a strip above her, but the door controls had failed. As a result, the door had been secured by a chain lock which, without any kind of weapon, was perhaps more secure than an auto-lock would have been.
She was wondering if it was worth trying to sleep when she heard footsteps outside. The chain rattled and the door was roughly dragged open. Two Lork stood there, both wearing brown jumpsuits flecked with white and grey, as though they were attempting to blend in with the environment outside. From the blasters on their hips she supposed they were guards, but otherwise they didn’t look like guards. Their faces were too soft, the way they moved too casual. She could imagine that before the space war and the destruction of the orbiter, they had been local people, perhaps farmers or shop owners, turned by circumstance into revolutionaries.
‘The General will see you now.’
‘How nice of him,’ Beth said. ‘Any chance you could take these bonds off my hands? You know, since we came to rescue him?’
The nearest Lork brushed hair out of his eyes and shook his head. ‘No.’
‘I’m not a spy.’
Neither answered. One stood by the door while the other helped Beth up. She saw no point in struggling as she was led down a gloomy corridor, lights flickering around her and the sound of water dripping coming from nearby. The temperature was strange too, the air cold, but the floor underfoot was warm, as though the ground beneath the ship was slowly heating up.
They took her into a control room. The whole ship was listing to one side, making movement awkward, and the walls of the control room showed signs of a firefight. Panels had been broken, there were scorch marks everywhere, and several computer terminals were little more than wrecked remains, some with wires or transmitters fitted, leading out to portable devices set up nearby.
Two huge warrior droids stood on either side of the door, their guns moving to follow her as she entered. She noticed how panels on their backs had been broken off and refitted. Several off-worlders worked at computer terminals, while others appeared to be fixing things, or breaking in. Everything had an air of construction and adaption. She was dragged into the center of the control room and dumped down on a chair. To her relief, she saw Caladan sitting in the chair next to her, his one arm secured to his body by a roll of tape. His head lolled as though he had been drugged; his face showed the signs of a savage beating.
‘Caladan … thank the heavens you’re all right.’
‘Uh? I’m not … all right.’
His eyes opened briefly then closed again. Beth twisted around, looking for whomever was in charge. The two Lorks now stood by the door. Most of the others ignored her.
‘Where’s this majestic general?’ she shouted. ‘Come on, show yourself. We dragged ourselves all the way here to save your sorry ass, and this is how we get treated? Where are you?’
A few off-worlders looked at each other with awkward expressions, then a small catlike Ween shuffled forwards. It cocked its head at Beth as though sizing her up as prey, then pressed a button on a wall terminal, meowing at her as it did so.
A sheet door slid down, and a shelf slid out. On the shelf stood a complex metal box, a tangle of wires protruding into its upper surface, lights blinking on a display. It had a glass window in the front side, and as Beth watched, the view slowly cleared to reveal a severed human head inside, attached by wires to the box, and seemingly floating inside a greenish-blue solution.
‘Your rescue came a little late,’ came a voice through a speaker in the top of the box. The head’s lips moved at the same time, but it took Beth a few seconds to associate the mouth with the voice.
‘General Grogood?’
‘The very one and the same,’ the head said.
‘As you can see, I’ve already been rescued. My crew is currently preparing the ship for departure. Soon I will be back with my fleet.’
Beth glanced at Caladan, wishing he were awake enough to make some kind of comment, taking the pressure of her.
‘Can I ask what happened?’ she said at last.
‘My ship was broadsided,’ said General Grogood’s head. ‘The bastards boarded us, used stun weapons to take us alive. They kept me for interrogation, and boy, did they go hard. I barely escaped with my life.’
Beth grimaced, wondering just how much the general was aware of his current situation. ‘I’m happy to know you survived.’
‘Barely. No doubt the bastards would have kept me for years, squeezing out what information they could, had it not been for a little luck.’
Beth was unsure what counted as luck when you were reduced to a head inside a life-support system, but she nodded anyway. ‘Is that so?’
‘Indeed. Their plan to take out the moon’s atmospheric support systems backfired, didn’t it? This cruiser was too low in the atmosphere when it picked me up, and it got into electrical difficulties. After it crash-landed, Captain Adams and his crew did a fine cleanup job.’
‘Captain Adams?’
‘Here,’ came a growl from across the control room. Beth turned. A large, powerful Jeeeb turned away from a computer terminal. She had seen their like before, but not often, their homeworld from far outside the Seven Systems, the few that could be found a result of some ancient refugee ship which had arrived and crash-landed. At least, so went the story she had heard back in university. Doglike in basic structure, they had subliminally human features within their canine eyes and snout, but their most standout feature was the two powerful human arms which protruded from overlarge front shoulders. They could function either as arms if the Jeeeb was sitting on its hind legs, or assist in forward motion. The heaviest of a Jeeeb’s limbs, when the Jeeeb was standing at least one had to rest on the ground, otherwise the creature would overbalance. A disputed subspecies, many human scientists claimed the Jeeeb were originally lab-developed, but no records of such an event existed, and the Jeeeb claimed full species status. In any case, with a notoriously volatile nature, it was best not to bring the subject up in conversation.