Fire Storm

by Chris Ward

  He walked to a line of Luminosi bodies and squatted down beside Solwig. Filled with rage, the Luminosi leader had died in the front line, battling to free his people. Solwig had died like a true hero, and long after his own coming had become myth, Caladan hoped the Luminosi leader’s bravery would be remembered alongside him.

  Caladan reached down and took Solwig’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. Then he lifted it, and laid it over Lorena’s, the Luminosi’s fallen daughter’s body lying beside him.

  ‘I won’t forget you,’ Caladan muttered, running a finger across her cheek, before wiping away an uncomfortable tear. ‘You did good. Both … all of you.’

  He stood up, giving himself a shake as though to clear out a host of unfamiliar emotions. Then, trying to remember who he really was, he turned and headed for the line of warships.

  By the time Caladan had sent the transports filled with captured slavers roaring off into the sky, the Luminosi were almost done loading their people, both the freed slaves and the survivors of the battle, as well as the surviving harpies and their riders. Mines and factories had been searched, and not a single Luminosi left behind. They now all waited in the completed warship’s hold. Caladan had suggested they loot the Rue-Tik-Tan guards’ supplies, but those stepping up to replace Solwig had shaken their heads. While many could understand it, only Solwig and Lorena could speak the common language, but Caladan had got the gist of their response.

  They wanted nothing of the slavers left in their lives.

  The ship—a Phevian Navy Class-A Battleship—was a kilometre-long weapon of destruction. Absolutely state of the art and fully automated, it could be operated on a basic level by a single person. As he stood alone on a vast bridge, looking out through visuals at the battleground, he felt an uncanny pining for the Matilda. Almost as a ritual, he activated the transmissions, and sent out a pulsed signal, one only his former ship’s crew would recognise: Matilda, Matilda, Matilda.

  If she was out there somewhere, perhaps she would hear, and draw him home.

  Until then, at least he had his wheels back. He activated the launch sequence, and the massive spacecraft rose into the sky with barely an acknowledgement of motion.

  With a rare sense of having achieved something worthwhile, Caladan set a course for Cloven-2.

  The celebrations went on for Earth-days, and Caladan allowed himself to be a part of them, despite his longing to return to the skies. He had set the freed Luminosi down group by group in a planetary shuttle while the battleship remained in orbit. After an outpouring of happiness for those reunited, yet grief for the fallen, which left him with a tingling sensation all over, he let them pull him into the parties. They built a great bonfire, launced crude fireworks into the sky, and dined on all manner of unusual food Caladan had never encountered before. He let them pull him into dances that went on for hours until his shoulder ached from spinning Luminosi women and children, or clinking glasses of strange but welcome alcohol with the men.

  And when the party was over, and the time had come for them to rebuild their communities and their lives, he bid them farewell, but not before bestowing them with a small gift.

  The metal box had a single button built into its casing. ‘If the slavers ever return,’ he said, ‘press this button, and I will come.’

  It felt like the entire population had assembled to see him off. He had landed the shuttle in a forest clearing, and the trees were alive with pulsing colour. A group of elders came forward to kneel before him, foreheads touching the ground as they hummed into the earth in a gesture of appreciation.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, so he lifted a hand and waved, then retreated into the shuttle.

  As he piloted the shining new shuttle up into the sky, he switched off the visual monitors and allowed himself a moment of quiet, perhaps the first few seconds of genuine peace he had felt since crash-landing on Cloven-2 many Earth-weeks before. With his hand behind his head, he turned the visuals back on and watched as the shuttle drifted neatly into the bosom of the orbiting Phevian battleship.

  Back on the bridge, he felt it only right to test out the battleship’s firepower, so he cruised over to Cloven-1 and turned the guns on the slavers’ base, bombarding it until only a crater remained. Then, he began to consider what he might do now.

  It felt strange to be alone aboard a brand new ship, so new it had likely never flown before. It didn’t feel right without piles of litter and junk everywhere, or the stench of unwashed bodies and spilt booze.

  The Luminosi had provided him with as much of their homebrewed alcohol as the shuttle could carry, and despite the savage hangovers, it didn’t taste too bad. It would serve well to while away the Earth-hours of deep space while Caladan decided how best to find Lia and the droid.

  Before heading off to the hold to reassess his estimation of the Luminosi’s homebrew, he opened up the transmissions lines to see if anything interesting was floating about.

  As the state-of-the-art computer terminal began translating transmissions into a language he could understand, he frowned.

  Matilda, Matilda, Matilda.

  Had the Luminosi left the box in the hands of some kid who had pressed the button already?

  He brought up the source code. No, the transmission was coming from outside Frail System, through a wormhole, most likely the one he had entered via stasis-ultraspace on the stolen GMP Interceptor.

  Lia. It had to be.

  ‘No rest when you’re a god,’ he muttered with a grimace that hid a smile, as he leaned over the controls and began to turn the massive battleship around.

  24

  Harlan5

  ‘Droid?’

  The Karpali engineer was peering around the cargo bay’s door. Harlan5, who had been passing the time in quarantine by playing a series of primitive games he had found hidden away on the Boswell’s memory banks, looked up.

  ‘What is it? Has it been decided that quarantine is unnecessary after all? My programming would like to point out—’

  ‘The captain’s drunk.’

  ‘So? The captain and our previous pilot spent the vast majority of time in deep space in a state of intoxication. My programming always reasoned it as a lack of much else to do.’

  ‘Does the name Raylan Climlee mean anything to you?’

  ‘Wait a moment. I’ll access my recent memory. Raylan Climlee … oh. Him. That explains a few things.’

  ‘He’s behind the transmissions to the Barelaon Helix. He’s working with them, planning some sort of union.’

  ‘He’s the man responsible for the death of the captain’s family.’

  The engineer looked down. ‘I wasn’t aware of that.’

  ‘She’s made it a personal mission to remove him from existence, but after one failed attempt which resulted in a lot of damage and hurt to his pride, he made it a personal mission to reciprocate, and he has a lot more firepower.’

  ‘I need to take control of the ship.’

  ‘On whose authorization? My programming would like to remind you that you are an engineer hired to make repairs. In terms of authoritative hierarchy, I am next in line.’

  ‘Officially you’re quarantined. As your ship was originally registered to Trill System, it means you are governed by Trill System galactic law, which states that any crew member quarantined or imprisoned for an act or situation that may jeopardise their loyalty to the remainder of the crew or their ability to perform their set duty, is removed from the order of rank. Unfortunately, as the sole sober and able member of the current crew, I have no choice.’

  Harlan wished he could scowl. ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘The code for the reserve fuel tanks. We have only enough frontline fuel for a single stasis jump, which would take us right back to where we came from. We need to double jump back into Feint’s orbit, in order that we can inform the Trill System Government of the approaching Helix. I need to access the reserve fuel to do it.’

  ‘I don’t have it in front memory. You�
�ll have to attach me to the ship.’

  ‘There’s too great a risk.’

  ‘My programming says the likelihood of infection is minimal.’

  ‘Minimal is still too high.’

  ‘Well, I guess you’ll have to go through the system files and find it for yourself.’

  Stomlard shrugged. ‘If that’s the only way.’

  He closed the door, and Harlan heard the automatic lock engage from the outside. His programming told him a human would sigh at this point, but the passage of time meant nothing to him as it did to humans. He accessed the Boswell’s memory banks and continued with his game, frustrated that in his excitement to see the engineer he had forgotten to save his progress, and was required to begin all over again.

  It was a couple of Earth-hours later when Stomlard reappeared. ‘Okay, come on out,’ the engineer said. ‘But the captain hears nothing of this.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m required to log all events.’

  ‘Well, it would be helpful if you could log this one under restricted files, and conveniently forget the access key.’

  ‘My programming says that could be arranged.’ Harlan5 inwardly grinned, enjoying the chance to act almost human. ‘Sometimes files get deleted by accident. This Boswell GT isn’t exactly high-tech.’

  ‘Good. This way, let’s go.’

  Harlan5 followed Stomlard back up to the bridge. A distant speck on the visual screens indicated the Barelaon Helix engulfing the unknown moon, but it was far larger than before. Harlan5 estimated they had drifted one point two billion Earth-miles in its direction during the period of his quarantine. The stillness of the ship meant the engines were off, conserving power. The captain would be worried about thruster flare alerting the enemy, but without a plan there was little they could do but watch and wait.

  ‘Quick, let’s get this over with,’ Stomlard said, plugging a cable into the Boswell’s front access port. ‘Load up that code.’

  ‘Accessing,’ Harlan5 said. ‘This thing’s as slow as a block of wood.’

  ‘Are you done yet?’

  ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve not been checking the system files properly. We’ve picked up movement from the Helix.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s coming this way.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s picked up a signal sent out from ship, requesting a docking clearance.’

  Stomlard shook his head. ‘No, that’s not right. Why would it do that?’

  Harlan5 turned to face the tall Karpali. The engineer was no longer looking at him, but staring out of the visual screen at the distant Helix with a glazed look in his eyes.

  ‘What did you touch back in that lighthouse?’ Harlan5 asked, the Boswell’s primitive computer systems whirring, trying to calculate the probability that it was the engineer, not him, who had picked up a virus.

  Stomlard shook his head. ‘Nothing … I … found some supplies in the maintenance bay, but that was it.’

  ‘What kind of supplies?’

  ‘Some foodstuffs … you’re not exactly overburdened.’

  ‘The captain and our old pilot used the machines,’ Harlan5 said. ‘I gather from my recent memory banks that their general assumption was that the food was filth, but it could be washed down with a dram or two of something stronger.’

  ‘I found a fresh supply,’ Stomlard said. ‘I didn’t think anything of it.’

  Harlan5 turned. ‘Where’s the captain?’

  ‘What? Lia? She’s drunk, I told you.’

  ‘But where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know, in the hold somewhere?’

  ‘Because according to the computer systems, a launch activation sequence has been placed for one of the pods, and its indicators are showing that the pod is occupied. Tell me again where the captain is.’

  ‘You’re a trash compactor. You’re not supposed to have access to the systems.’

  ‘The Matilda isn’t as advanced as it looks. According to the log, there are more than thirty thousand manufacturer upgrades available that the captain has so far failed to activate.’

  Stomlard shivered, the exposed parts of his body suddenly turning shiny, soaked in an immediate layer of sweat as though he had stepped out of a shower. Harlan5 took a step back as the engineer’s uppermost arm rose, pointing a blaster at Harlan’s face.

  ‘There’s no need for that.’

  ‘I need the reserve fuel tank code.’

  Harlan5, whose programming told him a human would feel fear of its impending death, but thankfully, being a droid, felt nothing, shook his head.

  ‘According to Trill System galactic law, having been released from quarantine, I now command this ship in the captain’s absence. Put down your blaster.’

  Stomlard frowned as though considering this, then shook his head. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘You can’t operate all the Matilda’s systems alone. Ideally it’s built for a crew of five, but we’ve always got by with three.’

  ‘I fixed the autopilot while you were in quarantine. How did you people let such a fine machine get so banged up?’

  ‘My programming suggests it’s a question of lifestyle. Put down your blaster.’

  Stomlard fired. Harlan5, whose programming had given a high probability that such an event would occur, anticipated the action and moved just enough to avoid losing the entirety of the Boswell’s head. One side was blown right off, but the damage was superficial. As Stomlard fired again, Harlan5 moved forward, the close proximity allowing him to get hold of one of the engineer’s arms.

  He felt sensation in the Boswell’s leg as he twisted Stomlard’s arm. The blaster was still firing, and Harlan5 knew he was taking damage, but it didn’t matter. The survival of the captain and the Matilda were more important. With smoke obstructing his visuals, he threw himself forward with all the Boswell’s power, hoping he was close enough to make a difference.

  The blaster fired one last time, then the smoke began to clear. The engineer hung by the neck from the Boswell’s crushing hand, his legs no longer supporting a body that had fallen still. Harlan looked down, aware only one eye-visual was still working, the other blown away.

  A jagged, smoking stump remained where a powerful leg had been.

  He tossed Stomlard’s body aside, then realised it had been keeping him balanced a moment before he crashed to the ground.

  His programming suggested he might have preferred to stay in quarantine.

  Crawling back to the main pilot’s terminal, he connected himself to the mainframe computer and then accessed the Matilda’s systems as best as the Boswell was allowed. During his time in quarantine, he had created a number of passwords designed to allow him entry into more important levels of the computer systems, and now he opened the recent log to find out what the engineer had been doing.

  With an internal frown that would have suited most humans, Harlan5 read over transmissions sent both forward into the Barelaon Helix and back through the wormhole to the source in Trill System.

  The captain had been offered as a sacrifice to the Barelaon at the request of the sender of the welcome transmission. In return, the engineer had been offered full anonymity and safety from prosecution, provided he were able to return to Feint in Trill System before the main invasion.

  Using his huge, scoop-like hands, Harlan5 dragged what was left of his body down into the hold where the entrance to the escape pod was found.

  ‘Captain?’

  She was bound and gagged, tied into the pilot’s chair of the tiny, three-man pod. Her eyes widened at the sight of Harlan5 leaning through the airlock. He reached inside and clumsily dragged her back into the ship, closing the pod door behind them. Then, with rough hands, he tore her bonds free.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘My programming suggests I ask you the same thing. A little trouble with the engineer you hired. It seems he had become infected by the Barelao
n presence on the lighthouse—some stray foodstuffs, which could perhaps have been avoided by a servicing of the dispenser machines once in a while. Your presence on the bridge might have been able to ward off a conflict earlier too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harlan. I couldn’t help it. When I heard his name … I went crazy. I don’t even remember what happened. I tried to blank them out.’

  ‘Your family?’

  ‘Yes.’ The captain rubbed her head. ‘My whole life has been about blanking them out, Harlan. I’ll have to face up to what happened sometime, but not yet.’

  Harlan5 patted her on the shoulder. ‘Even the Boswell’s computer systems are complex enough to understand,’ he said. ‘My programming considers your actions reasonable, in response to the trauma you suffered.’

  ‘That evil little dwarf … one day I’ll gut him for what he did.’

  ‘In the meantime, we have problems to deal with.’

  Harlan explained what had happened on the bridge as they headed back up through the ship, the captain patiently waiting as Harlan dragged what remained of his body along with his huge scoop-like hands.

  ‘You’re lucky to have survived,’ she said.

  Harlan lifted his hands in a gesture of casualness. ‘A few superficial scratches,’ he said. ‘Nothing that can’t be fixed.’

  ‘With a new body.’

  ‘I’m getting used to it.’

  Stomlard’s body still lay where it had fallen. The captain looked disappointed as she knelt beside him, then reached up and closed his eyes. She looked about to say something profound, then gave a barely perceptible shake of her head.

  ‘Did he connect you to the ship?’

  ‘Yes, but I ran some tests,’ Harlan5 said. ‘The Boswell is too primitive to be infected by Barelaon technology.’ He picked up the cable to link him to the ship and plugged it back in to the port on his chest. ‘I’m virus-free—oh, small problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Incoming ships. The Helix has processed the engineer’s transmission. They’re coming to get you.’