Fire Storm

by Chris Ward

  Lia blinked. ‘Harlan … is that you?’

  The garbage collector made an awkward attempt to turn in a circle, but caught one arm on a shelf unit and sent a cascade of bottles and sprays crashing to the floor.

  ‘I’m not feeling quite myself,’ the droid said, ‘but I assure you that, inside this hideous and highly inappropriate body, it’s still me.’

  7

  Harlan5

  The captain was being mercifully patient as she led the stumbling droid through the GMP outpost’s corridors. It had taken a few minutes for Kyle Jansen’s paralytic agent to wear off, the captain leaning on the Boswell’s body unit for support until her legs had recovered their senses, but now she had taken the lead again. Only once, when she kicked Harlan5’s outer hide for his endless apologies for his clumsiness, did she show any sign of anger.

  ‘Look, shut up. You can’t begin to understand what you got me out of. Almost a fate worse than death. Now come on—we have to get off this space station before we’re recaptured. Kyle won’t be careless a second time.’

  ‘My programming tells me you’re right.’

  ‘I’m always right. Except when I’m wrong, but we don’t need to talk about that.’

  ‘No, let’s not. The vocal synthesizer on this old rust bucket is starting to overheat.’

  With Harlan occasionally correcting her, the captain led them through a labyrinth of maintenance corridors that only a former GMP officer would know. They saw few people, but when they did, the captain was quick to duck out of sight.

  ‘Caladan would have blasted them,’ Harlan pointed out, as they climbed out of a smelly cleaning cupboard.

  ‘They’re my own kind,’ the captain said. ‘They’re not the enemy. While we’re here, I am.’

  ‘My programming tells me that your sense of morality is confusing.’

  The captain shrugged. ‘But my sense of survival is less so. Tell me what you know about Caladan.’

  ‘He escaped. The outpost’s internal systems registered a breakout of the cells on level five. He killed three guards, then opened all the cells on levels five, four and three. He stole an Interceptor shuttle and escaped.’

  The captain looked away, hiding a scowl that Harlan5 picked up through his new body’s heat sensors better than the ropey visuals.

  ‘My programming suggests you believe he abandoned us,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to. My programming can suggest possible threads of human thought based on your emotional response to a situation, and compared with previous recorded responses to similar occurrences.’

  ‘All right, all right. I think he abandoned us.’

  ‘It’s likely he felt he had no choice. Or maybe he tried to find us and failed, and felt it was better to escape, regroup, and plan a rescue mission.’

  ‘This is Caladan we’re talking about. Are you defending him? That’s not like you.’

  ‘My programming is just computing his possible train of thought based on—’

  ‘Okay, I get it. But he’s gone, whatever the reason. And we have to go too, and quickly. Where’s the ship?’

  ‘It’s impounded in a hangar on level seven.’

  ‘How do we get there?’

  ‘Follow me.’

  Harlan5 took the lead, trundling along the corridor with the captain in pursuit. They came to a stop at the next elevator. For the first time, Harlan’s programming said he should feel like a hero. He reached out a hand, but the call button was too small for his clumsy fingers.

  ‘Um, could you press that for me? These elevators are designed for the GMP staff, not the, um, garbage collectors.’

  The captain smiled and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Sure.’

  ‘There she is.’

  A ring of guards surrounded the Matilda, but they looked nervous, repeatedly glancing over their shoulders and turning in slow circles with their guns raised as though anticipating an imminent attack.

  ‘The prisoner riot hasn’t been quelled yet,’ Harlan5 said. ‘That last siren was a coded announcement to all weapons-equipped droids to go to level three, where there’s a firefight. Some prisoners have taken control of a section of the outpost and armed themselves.’

  The captain nodded. ‘What did the control request?’

  ‘That all droids shoot to kill. No one is to be recaptured.’

  ‘So, it’s come to this, has it? I never thought I’d see the day when the GMP were reduced to cold-blooded murderers.’

  ‘I have a plan,’ Harlan5 said. ‘No one is looking for me. I can get on board the Matilda and activate the launch procedure. It was locked with a GMP secure code, but this Boswell GT unit has universal access to all parts of the station. I guess there are some benefits to being a cleaner.’

  ‘If they suspect you, they’ll shoot first,’ the captain said. ‘You don’t need to take the risk.’

  ‘My outer casing is a lot harder than yours,’ Harlan said. ‘Cover me.’

  ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘My programming says to tell you yes.’

  The captain laughed. ‘Good luck, my hero.’

  With his programming pointing out that a human would be blushing at this point, Harlan stumped out across the hangar floor. A couple of guards came forward to meet him, pointing their blasters at his face.

  ‘This area is restricted.’

  ‘I’m garbage collection. And I’m authorised to tell you that ship’s full of it. Have you been on board?’

  The guards looked at each other. ‘Let it through,’ one said.

  Harlan5 stumped through the ring, and up the Matilda’s open gangway. The ship was refreshingly familiar, even though whole rooms of the captain and Caladan’s accumulated junk had been rifled through. His programming suggested he ought to point out to the directors of this outpost that they rarely carried excess anything—with the exception of intoxicating liquor, anything left over from a deal was sold for extra gambling money.

  His new body moved awkwardly through the ship’s tight confines, but at least it could move. There was no time to pine for his old body, but if they had a chance, he hoped they could retrieve it. It was just metal now, and metal could be repaired.

  The doors into the bridge opened, and Harlan found himself face to face with Teagan3.

  Guns rose to train on his chest cavity. ‘What is your authorization? This is a restricted area.’

  ‘I came to collect the trash.’

  ‘It was discovered that the Harlan-class droid from this ship had removed its own memory. At the same time, a Boswell GT Trash Compactor has been visually identified in restricted areas. State your serial number immediately.’

  ‘1-2-3-4-5 … Once I caught a fish alive….’

  Teagan3 cocked its head. ‘That code is unrecognized.’

  Harlan5 searched what was left of his memory. In his mass archiving, he had forgotten to erase a file of ancient projected visual performances from Old-Earth, ones Caladan had loved to watch during long space voyages. They involved primitive humans riding four-legged creatures resembling the Nehicans of Balthasar Sol in Trident System across bland, open desert, shooting at each other with archaic weapons. Caladan had often drunkenly cheered at the projection screen, whooping and hollering whenever an underdog took down a far superior opponent.

  Harlan5 referred to the characters as ‘gunslingers’. Humans always considered dying in the line of duty to be among their most noble acts, despite the obvious stupidity of such an occurrence, but with Harlan5’s programming suggesting he faced one such situation, now was perhaps the time to channel some of the spirit of those antique shows.

  ‘Eject,’ he muttered, switching his garbage propulsion unit to full power, tilting forward so the spew of compacted garbage struck Teagan3 in the body cavity like hundreds of hard metal rounds.

  Teagan’s guns fired, but the robot was knocked off balance, and they made gaping holes in the floor instead of Harlan’s body. As Teagan crash
ed to the ground, Harlan advanced, the Boswell GT’s huge lifting arms coming up. Slow but powerful, he gripped Teagan’s nearest leg and twisted it clean off, ripping it free with a screech of tearing metal. With an internal smile, he tossed it into his trash compactor.

  ‘Rogue, you will be destroyed!’ Teagan roared, but with only a single leg, the robot had no balance to maneuver its guns. Harlan reached the nearest arm and tore it free, adding it to his increasing load. As the compactor finished processing the first leg, he ejected it, blowing off Teagan’s other gun. A few rips and tears later, and Teagan3 was reduced to a torso and a head lying inert on the floor.

  ‘Yee-ha,’ Harlan said, pushing the robot’s remains out of the way to reach the controls.

  His huge trash compactor hands, however, were too clunky to work the more intricate touch-screen commands. Instead, he punched the only button large enough to be sure to work: the lower thruster.

  The Matilda jerked, rising up into the air, slamming against the hangar’s roof. A metallic crunch echoed through the ship. Harlan quickly punched the thruster button again to cut it off, and the Matilda crashed back into the floor.

  Harlan5 was just wondering what to do when the captain came running on to the bridge.

  ‘You just incinerated fifteen GMP guards,’ she said.

  Harlan turned to face her. ‘Oops.’

  The captain smiled. ‘I’ll take it from here, before you try to squeeze what’s left of my starship into that compactor of yours.’

  ‘I’m afraid my new outfit is a little clunky.’

  The captain smiled. ‘You’re doing just fine.’ She squeezed past him, then found her way blocked by the remains of Teagan3.

  ‘Friend of yours?’

  ‘We had a little altercation.’

  ‘I can see.’ The captain slipped into the pilot’s chair, her fingers racing over the controls. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘We’re leaving. Let me just … Harlan5, do you know anything about a hole in the outer hull?’

  ‘I’m afraid I needed to create a new backdoor.’

  The captain grimaced. ‘Well, we’ll need to find some way to fix it. For now I’ll seal that level off.’ She punched the dashboard. ‘That’s where we put the drink.’

  ‘I’m sure a few days “dry”, as you humans call it, wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘It would, Harlan. It would hurt a lot. Not much choice, though, is there? Right, hang on. I’ve set the launch procedure. Now to create a little havoc….’

  She jumped out of Caladan’s pilot’s chair and into the adjacent gunner’s chair as the ship shuddered around them. Harlan5 had barely had a chance to look for something to hold on to when the ship spun around, its guns blazing, ripping apart the walls of the hangar and obliterating the docked GMP spacecraft. The captain wore a grim smile as she blasted open the hangar doors, allowing the Matilda to roar out into space.

  Harlan5, unable in his new state to fit into his old flying brace at the back of the bridge, settled instead for jamming himself into the open door hatch.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m designed for this kind of space travel,’ he said. As the captain turned and gave him a smile, he added, ‘But I’ll do my best to get used to it.’

  8

  Caladan

  Seven systems made up the Estron Quadrant, comprising more than a hundred inhabited planets, dozens more moons, and many more machine worlds. Led by the massively populated Trill System, six of the seven were heavily industrialised, the fire planets of each producing trioxyglobin, which was exported across most reaches of the known galaxy. Charted and settled by humans, human-subspecies, and hundreds of off-worlder species—some native, some invasive—they were familiar even in their diversity; even in the colossal distances of space, it was hard to become truly lost among such heavily populated shipping lanes.

  The seventh system, Frail, was another matter. Old-Expansion history charted it as a hostile place ruled by bandits and inhabited by off-worlder races opposed to contact or trade. The most habitable planet, Vattla, was home to the insect-like Evattlans, a race best avoided. On the other solid-surfaced planets and moons, human and subspecies colonies existed—perhaps even thrived in some areas—but the Frail system was unique in the Estron Quadrant in that it contained no fire planets, and had no mineral or chemical deposits that couldn’t be more quickly and cheaply produced elsewhere. It had a reputation as an unwelcoming, remote place, and with few inhabited planets with any form of recognizable government, most space traders left it well alone.

  To find that the nearest wormhole from the GMP outpost station had ejected him not far from See-Sar, a gas giant, right into the middle of Frail System, sent a tingle of fear down Caladan’s back. While the planet was uninhabitable, it was said that bandit colonies hid among its atmosphere in ancient outpost stations heavily armoured against the raging gas storms.

  The next nearest inhabited planet was too far for the Interceptor’s limited fuel reserve. There was too little too for a return stasis-ultraspace hop, which in any case would only bring him back within range of the GMP outpost and its fighters. Had the stupid droid been here, Caladan could have picked his electronic brain about possible safe havens in the vicinity, but he was stuck with the Interceptor’s limited database, which charted only GMP-friendly space stations, of which there were none currently operating.

  As the Interceptor drifted in See-Sar’s orbit, Caladan scrolled through the information. He was beginning to despair when he struck gold—a far-orbiting pair of moons, both with an atmosphere breathable for humans and subspecies. Closer moons were barren and uninhabitable, but the larger of the two, Cloven-2, was heavily forested and possibly home to intelligent life. If nothing else, he could survive long enough to send out a distress signal.

  He set a new course, and within a couple of Earth-hours, Cloven-2 appeared on the visual monitors, its partner, Cloven-1, appearing as a shadow at its shoulder. By the time it had grown to the size of a ball, the origin of its name became apparent: a massive rent across its surface had left it partially inverted, like a cloven hoof. According to the Interceptor’s database, the rent created a unique weather system. Within the rent grew massive fauna beneath tropical skies and nearly endless rain, while the rest of the moon was wrapped by gradually decreasing vegetation cover, ending in a small ocean sitting in the middle of near-desert.

  Caladan nodded. Somewhere on the edge of the forest would do fine. Plenty of cover, but exposed enough to be locatable by any responders to a distress call. It was a one-way trip, though: the Interceptor had only enough fuel to make a landing.

  The atmosphere was thick and near-blinding. Caladan hung on as the ship bounced around in turbulence, thrown back and forth by strong winds. His visuals were reduced to nearly nothing, so he switched over to autopilot to make the landing.

  He had just seen the first trees through the heavy mist when something slammed into the side of the Interceptor. A flutter of movement appeared in the visuals, then was gone. Caladan reached for the controls, fearing some kind of attack, but he was too late: something struck the Interceptor from the other side, knocking it off course.

  Within moments, the visuals were flooded with grey-green colour, something organic straddling the front of the ship, ripping and tearing at the instruments, until the view screens went suddenly blank. Caladan thumped his fist against the controls but got no response. With little choice, he strapped into the pilot’s chair and prepared for a crash landing.

  It was softer than anticipated, the fall broken by vegetation, but when the ship came to a final, crunching stop, he was upside down, and by the sound of the groaning systems and the blaring alarms, the Interceptor had flown its last.

  Caladan switched off what systems were still functioning and waited until the ship had fallen entirely still. Atmospheric data during the flight told him that as the database had said, the air should be breathable, but even so, he found a respiratory mask in a store cupboard and pulled it over his face. Then, climbing through the
upturned corridors, he made his way to the exit.

  The ship had an emergency manual door, but it was single-use—once opened, it couldn’t be closed, and whatever native life was about could get inside. Luckily, the Interceptor had been well-stocked with GMP weapons, although, like the ship itself, nothing was fully charged or loaded. Having seen the trioxyglobin-3 stored on the outpost, it was unlikely the space station was doing much policing, but even so, the level of maintenance was poor. Caladan smiled. It reminded him of the Matilda.

  Throwing a few items into a pack slung around his waist, he climbed out. He found himself standing beneath a towering forest canopy. With the heavy mist, it should have been darker, but rocks protruding from the forest floor gave off a spooky luminescence that created a light source from the ground up. In some areas, the ground was flecked with a purplish substance that looked like a form of fungus, while strange, darkly colored flowers sat deep in the spongy turf like traps for human feet. Thorny bushes clumped around pulsing grey lumps like giant cauliflower heads, while vines as thick as Caladan’s chest wound up toward shadows hanging halfway up trees hundreds of meters high.

  Caladan turned, a blaster held across his chest, looking for anything hostile. A few bugs the length of his arm buzzed around the crashed Interceptor, and far out of sight, something boomed through the forest, giant footfalls making the ground shake.

  Nervous, he crouched in the shadow of the fallen ship, then withdrew an instrument from his bag and switched it on. A small screen lit up, and a light immediately began to pulse.

  Caladan nodded, then flicked back to an instruction screen. The device detected unnatural radio waves against background radiation, indicating where the land had been disturbed or developed. It wasn’t much, but it could indicate a settlement where he might find help. Flicking back to the indicator screen with his newly gathered information, he discovered that a large development was only fifteen Earth-miles distant.